by Ella Brooke
Her brain raced through all the compromises they could make, but then it ran flat into the brick wall that was Tucker's bland resolve. This was what he wanted. If he had wanted something different, she was sure he would have said so.
Luna had to quash the childish urge to ask if she could stay and cuddle for a little while, but surely that was not something that a sophisticated woman said to her lover. Anyway, she might risk falling asleep cuddled up next to him, and then he would have to wake her up to send her on her way. That would be frankly humiliating.
"Luna?"
With a hot blush of embarrassment, she realized that she had simply been staring at him. Luna covered it up with a bright smile that felt about as brittle as glass and nodded.
"Oh, I totally understand! That's fine," she said.
She fumbled for a little, looking to see where her clothes had gone, but Tucker was kind enough to offer her a robe. It was obviously his, dark blue and velvety, and she wrapped it around herself as if it was a protection of some kind.
"Good night," she said, and when she glanced back, she could see that he was already getting ready for bed.
"Good night, little one," he said, and Luna knew that his mind was already on other things.
His indifference left a hot coal in her throat, one that only seemed to get brighter and hotter the farther she got away from him. There was a small voice inside her telling her to run back and demand more, a better explanation at least, or some kind of compromise, but she pushed it down again. She was not going to do that. She was not going to act like some idiot who couldn't live without the attention of the man she was with.
Besides, she thought, I am not even with him, am I? We're not dating at all. We're just... that is, he's just using me to get the child he wants. As soon as he has that, he's going to send me away. Don't forget, this is a limited time engagement.
She got back to her room. She had been using it as a dressing room for the last few days, but now she was faced with the reality of actually sleeping in it for the first time. It was large and quite beautiful, but in that moment, it felt ridiculously cavernous to her, too big, too many echoes. Reluctantly, she stripped off the robe and hung it up before reaching for one of the ivory silk nightgowns he had purchased for her. The bed was perfectly comfortable, but it felt lonely, so ridiculously lonely that Luna couldn't stay in it for more than a few minutes. She tossed and turned, and every moment, she expected to reach out and to be able to touch a man who wasn't there.
I can't sleep like this, she thought, and she rose up from the bed.
He had bought her a robe as well, but she ignored where it hung in her closet. Instead, Luna fetched his robe instead, even if it nearly touched the floor when she shrugged it on. She knotted the belt firmly around her waist, and wrapped about with what felt like a vestige of his scent and his warmth, she sighed. It was better. It was not the real thing, but it was better than nothing.
Luna padded her way down the hall to her studio. There were strong lights in there that made it as bright as day, and she spent a few hours going over her designs, trying to find the perfect combination of features that would make the ring that she wanted to make for Tucker truly sing. She wasn't there yet, but she was getting close. She realized that it might be one of the most ambitious pieces she had tried yet.
I am not sure he deserves something this nice, Luna thought mutinously, but with a shrug, she knew that there was no one else she wanted to make it for. Tucker was wrapped up in the ring's design, and by the time she finished it, he would be the only one who could wear it, who she would feel right about wearing it.
She worked until her eyes started to water and her hands started to shake. Luna knew that if she pushed it much longer than that, she was going to find herself making stupid mistakes, and there was no reason for that. She dreaded the thought of going back to her large and empty bedroom, but there was a long chaise lounge pushed against her studio's wall. It was too short for Tucker to stretch out on, but it should be perfect for her. There was even a folded throw tossed over the end that she could spread over herself for a blanket.
In the end, it was far from the most uncomfortable bed she had made, and no worse than some of the better ones. In the dim light, she finally felt herself drifting off, her eyes closing almost reluctantly. Despite the comfort of the chaise and throw, she found that her dreams were thin things and ugly. In the morning when she woke up, she had memories of people she liked mocking her viciously and leaving her behind, though afterward she could not make a great deal of sense of any of it.
Chapter Eleven
Over the next few weeks, Luna found herself thinking wistfully back to the first days she had spent in Florence with Tucker. Those days had acquired a strange glow all their own, and though she sometimes wondered if she was idealizing them, they were certainly different from what they did now.
She awakened in the morning and she made her way down to the café he had introduced her to that first day. She ordered food to go, and most of the time, when she made it back to the flat, she could hear Tucker showering. She left two pastries for him, and she took her own food to the studio to eat it.
Then Luna worked. She usually liked to work on several projects at once, and she tried that now. However, no matter what she designed or how clever her designs were, she kept going back to the ring she plotted for Tucker. There was something obsessive about that design. It haunted her the way that no other design had, and at some point, she realized that she would have to finish it before she could truly work on anything else.
As Luna worked, she could hear Tucker coming and going. He had his own office in the flat, but more often than not, he would go work at the branch of his empire that was contained in Florence. There was something strangely soothing about listening to him converse with his contacts in casual Italian, and more than once, she found her feet slowing by his door, not to eavesdrop, but simply to feel his speech cascade over her. Luna knew very well that she was acting like a lovesick little girl, but it was hard to prevent it.
She would go down to a small nearby bistro for lunch, or she would order something. She might nap from time to time. The days seemed very long, even when she filled them with work that she loved. Near evening, Tucker would finally appear, looking tired or triumphant, irritated or bored, but he would always smile at her.
“All right, little one, ready for some dinner?”
She had heard once that the best way to keep a man interested was to deny him frequently, but she hated that advice. Why would she deny him something that for once, they both wanted? She would nod, and then he would sweep her away.
For the next few hours, it would feel as if someone had turned on the light in a dark room. She and Tucker would talk about whether they wanted to eat out, or stay in, they would talk about how their days had been, they would smile and touch, and things felt... so good that she could have cried.
When they were together in the evening, eating, smiling, and sharing, she felt complete. She felt safe, and she felt happy. Luna had never really considered before what that might truly feel like. She had always balanced on the edge of poverty, too close to the edge to truly feel safe and secure anywhere. Because of the constant hustle and bustle, she had not had the time to make the connections that might have cushioned her from some of the worst life had to offer.
She knew that it wasn't the money, no matter what Tucker might cynically assume. Her mother had always said that you might as well marry a rich man as a poor man, but it would not have mattered if Tucker had cash or not. There was something about sitting with him, talking with him, that made her feel as if someone had her back. Perhaps that was the most important thing, the thing that made her smile.
The transition to Tucker's enormous bedroom might be swift and hungry, or it might be slow and nearly seductive, but every night, she found herself in his arms. If the hours she spent laughing with him were heaven, she had no idea how to even define what he made her feel in bed.
Luna had never thought of herself as a particularly passionate woman.
After feeling a complete lack of response to the boys and men who had tried kissing her or touching before, she even suspected that she was frigid. Well, if she were frigid, Tucker had what it took to thaw her out. In his arms, she felt as if she was made of liquid fire, melting and open, pliable and needy in his arms.
One night, she saw deep claw marks in his shoulders, and she gasped out loud.
"What is it?" Tucker asked, instantly alarmed. Sometimes, she thought he had never quite gotten over taking her virginity. There was always an element of concern when they were in bed together, but perhaps that was the way he was with all of his lovers. She pushed the thought away, because the idea of him with other lovers was terrible.
She pointed wordlessly, and he rose to inspect the scratches in the mirror. When he came back, Tucker was chuckling.
“I suppose I'll be wearing those for a few days," he said, sprawling back in bed with her. "Don't worry, you didn't break skin at all."
"But I hurt you," Luna said hesitantly, biting her lip. "I... I never wanted to hurt you."
"Like you could," he said with a soft kiss, and it wasn't until later that she thought of how indifferent his words had been.
"Still..."
"Don't fret," Tucker said, kissing her again. This time, the kiss had less to do with comfort and far more to do with the heat that was rising up between them. "If I decide that your adorable little claws are too dangerous, I'll simply tie you up before I pleasure you."
The mix of sensuality and practicality in his words brought a surge of heat up in her body, and he chuckled when she whimpered.
They made love again, but then came the point in the evening that Luna was growing to hate above all others. Eventually, sooner or later, and sometimes much later, there would come the point where Tucker would sigh and say something about needing to be up all too soon, or not wanting to wear her out. It was never direct. It was never, ever cruel, but she knew it for what it was.
She was being dismissed, and every night, Luna had to bite back tears before calmly leaving. She thought at first that this was simply the way things worked in Tucker's circle, but eventually, Luna decided that no woman would put up with this, not any woman that Tucker truly loved. No one would consent to this humiliating display, and she shivered a little.
Luna found that she couldn't go back to her own room, no matter how many days went by or how used to the new days she became. Instead, she would find her way to her studio again and the small chaise there. Sometimes she would work long into the night, but more often, she would tuck herself into her tiny bed and stare blankly into the darkness, hoping that sleep would take her. It felt like something was breaking inside her, but she refused to name it, and she refused to give in to it.
She looked up from her work one morning, aware that she was menstruating, that there was no child this month. When Luna brought it up to him, nervously, worried about an explosion of temper, Tucker had only shrugged it off.
"I'm not enough of an optimist to think that this could all be handled in one day in a month," he said. "I am painfully aware that we are not looking at something that I can control like a boardroom or a ship. Relax. It only gets more difficult if you tense up."
He had been nothing but solicitous, and somehow, that had made her feel even worse. She didn't know how long this could go on before something broke inside her, but all she knew was that when they resumed their attempts to have Tucker's child five days later, she was almost so desperate to touch him that she forgot about anything else.
Then at the end of it, she went back to her place in the studio, and she remembered all too well.
***
Tucker thought things were going fairly well, all things considered. He was a little disappointed when Luna shyly told him that things hadn't come to fruition the first month, but he hadn't expected it.
He had finally created a balance with the girl herself, he thought. Thinking about the first days they had spent together, there was still a part of him that wanted that, that wanted beautiful walks along the boulevards, explorations and laughter. That was the part of him that wanted to make Florence truly theirs together, and that wanted to spoil her utterly.
Sometimes, that voice was incredibly seductive. It always seemed like it was the most seductive when she silently rose from his bed and went to her own. The wrench that he felt when she got up to leave never seemed to get any gentler, and more than once, he had almost caved into the weakness to ask her to stay. Sleeping with her had been something exceptional, a kind of peace he had never dreamed about, let alone thought could be a nightly occurrence.
However young and inexperienced Luna was, however, Tucker knew that it would not be very smart to let her know that she had that kind of power over him. It would be too much, especially when there was the prospect of a child on the way.
A child...
Tucker had entered this venture as he had entered many things in his life. He figured out what he wanted, and he tore after it, putting in the work and preparation to make sure that it would be his. He knew that the child that was produced would be his alone, but there was the sheer physical reality that it would be half Luna as well.
The billionaire knew that they were meant to be trying for a boy, so why couldn't he get the idea of a little girl out of his head? Would a girl that they made together be headstrong or dreamy? Would she have her mother's fire? Would she choose business or the arts? Tucker knew that there was something going on when he thought about teaching a little girl with Luna's vivid deep red hair to ride a bike instead of concentrating on the meeting he was in.
"Yes, could you repeat that? Thank you..."
That night, however, he noticed for the first time that Luna looked a little wan at dinner. There was a pallor to her face that he didn't like, but when he asked about it, she only smiled, waving him off.
"Doctor Schmitt simply says that I need to eat a few more dark green veggies," she said with a smile. She had been going to the doctor every two weeks to monitor things and to keep track of any progress that was being made. "A little more exercise and a little more attention to my diet, and I'll be right as rain."
Tucker bit back the demand that she get another opinion. He had had his staff choose Dr. Schmitt themselves, and they would never give him someone who was anything less than the best. Why was he getting so very particular now? It didn't make any sense.
"It probably isn't all that good for you to spend all of your days bent over that work bench," he started, and a bit of lightning flashed through her green eyes. It occurred to him idly that she would look good in emeralds, between her vivid green eyes and that shocking fall of red hair.
"If you think for a second that I am going step back from my work..."
Tucker held up his hands, laughing a little bit.
"I wouldn't dare," he promised her. "All I'm asking is that perhaps you take it back a little. It's not good for anyone to work ten hours a day every day of the week, and I have an idea that that's what you would do if I allowed it."
"If you allowed it?"
"Simply a figure of speech. But really, why don't you go out and see the city a little? The number for the driver should be programmed into your phone by now. Go see a little bit of the city, it truly is beautiful. There's an exhibit on Murano glass somewhere downtown. Perhaps you can make a day of it."
"Will you come with me?" Luna asked, and there was something so wistful about her voice that it made something in him sting.
"I'm sorry, I can't," he said with a slightly regretful smile. "I took a lunch today that lasted nearly four hours, and I'll need to work tomorrow to make up for it." Someday, he would learn that Europeans loved to linger over lunch and drag it out. Until then, he would simply have to deal with being impatient and late on nearly everything the next day.
"Oh," she said, and then she nodded. "I think I will go see that Murano exhibit."<
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She paused, biting her lip, and when she spoke next, her words were measured and careful.
"If I asked you, if tonight we could... perhaps, postpone things?"
"Of course," Tucker said gallantly. "You want to be rested for your excursion tomorrow. I understand. Get some sleep tonight. I hope you have a good time."
The smile she gave him was remarkably faint, but it was real. Tucker watched as Luna rose from the table and went to her own room. He was struck again by the urge to follow her, to tell her that he had changed his mind and that he would like nothing better than to go with her to the museum tomorrow. There was nothing truly vital that he could not push off, and the idea of spending the day wandering Florence together, their Florence, soothed something inside him.
Then he remembered that this was only going to work if he maintained those strong boundaries between them, and with a feeling that was startlingly desolate, Tucker pulled up his work again.
***
Luna's face felt hot, and when she touched it, her cheeks were fire against her icy fingers.
Four hours? Who the hell took four hours at lunch?
The truth was that she knew, and the answer made her feel hollow inside.
She supposed that it had been naïve of her to think that Tucker was working all the time that they spent apart. After all, they were together for a mere handful of hours per day. There was plenty of time for him to work and then to do as he liked, and apparently, what he liked was four hour lunches.
Luna's fevered brain conjured up image after image of who Tucker might have been having lunch was. She imagined a lean and athletic brunette or a tall and dignified blonde, worldly women, sophisticated women who didn't come to the table with bits of solder in their clothing. She imagined those women laughing with Tucker, and Tucker, handsome, brilliant, and charming, enchanting them in turn.
I suppose it's a mercy that he never brings them back here, she thought, a red-hot coal in the base of her stomach. Though as much as I stay in my studio, would I ever know?