Italian Millionaire, Runaway Principessa
Page 14
“Don’t want to.”
“To think straight,” he said.
“I am think—”
“Could’ve fooled me—”
“I don’t think I can cook … too tired.”
“You cooked last night.” He hesitated a fraction. “A first-class meal.”
“You missed it.”
Grim silence. “Yeah.”
“Why, Peter?” She glanced up at him, and although her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, she could barely make out his features.
He tightened his arms around her, communicating his need for her to understand. Understand him. “Because I saved a life, Ellie.”
She jerked in his embrace.
“I chose to save a life, instead of making it home on time to have dinner with you.”
“I-I see.”
“Do you?” he said, tone leaden.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” She stroked his breast, rain-damp wool tickling her fingers, the scent permeating through to her. “Absolutely. No question, Peter”.
He covered her hand with his. “Glad you finally understand.”
Ellie always understood that part of his life. And she’d never ask him to do differently. Never. Guilt and confusion nicked her. Then why did you leave again? Because it appeared he didn’t include their lives in his heroic crusades.
These three weeks had made it clear. There didn’t seem to be a way to balance his unquenchable ambition for success with her desire for a regular home life, and pursuit of her unconventional career. Regret ripped across her heart. Was she asking too much?
“Thank you, Ellie.” He shuffled from under her and cupped her cheek, his hand warm and comforting. “Got a candle?”
“In the drawer by the stove,” she said, hearing him walk away.
Cold air smacked her where his body heat had kept her warm only moments ago. She curled her legs beneath her coat and rubbed her arms.
A match flared and he set the candle on the counter. “Sorry, I dropped the grocery bags to catch you.” He smiled and stooped down to collect the food off the floor. “Fruit and vegetables are sprouting everywhere.”
“I’ll help you.” She made to get up, but he waved her back down.
“I got ’em.” He scooped a couple of tomatoes and a celery stalk from the linoleum.
She realized they were items she’d bought for their romantic dinner last night. “I see you found everything all right.” She chuckled, a half-hearted sound.
“I did,” he said. “Now get ready for an adventure your taste buds won’t forget.”
She shifted to a more comfortable position on the couch. “Who’s cooking?”
“Leave that to me, principessa.”
A quiet moment slipped by, then she made to get up again. “You don’t know—”
“That I do.” Gently, he pushed her back against the cushions. “Goes to show how little you know about the man you married.”
“You can boil water, I know.” She raised a shapely brow, a half-smile tugging at her mouth. “But cook?”
“We Italians are known for our culinary skills.” He winked. “Among other things.”
“I bet.”
He pinned her with a hard look. “Speaking of bets.” He set lettuce on the counter, next to the tomatoes and celery. “You owe me two more days.”
“You can’t be serious, Peter.”
“That I am.” He opened a cupboard, removed two paper plates, then opened a drawer and took out a knife.
She remained silent for so long, he shot her an accusing gaze.
“Welching on the deal?”
“No.”
“You’ll pay up?” he asked.
She decided to play along. “Depends on how good a cook you are.”
“Blackmail?”
She cast him an innocent look and curved her mouth in a saucy smile, but her heart was breaking.
“Get ready.” He tossed a tomato in the air and caught it in the palm of his hand, even in the dim light. “Your taste buds are gonna be rockin’.”
He rocked her world so much, she felt like a toy boat in a hurricane, emotional tidal waves buffeting her. Her grin turned wistful. “Huh!”
“Hey, remember my Italiano pasta-nasta sauce—”
“Yeah.” She grinned. “But I have yet to sample it.”
He chuckled and rinsed vegetables under the tap, tore off a paper towel from the wall dispenser, and dried them. “I used to make enough for the whole famiglia, then got roped into doing the dishes.”
“So you said,” she murmured.
“Yeah.” He chuckled, but it was a strained sound.
Just a few weeks ago at Christmas, he’d come for her here, wooed her back to the ‘castle’, and Ellie believed they’d resolved their differences— A sigh whipped from her and she slammed a padlock on those thoughts. She didn’t want to go there.
“Christmas every day,” she whispered, her tone flippant.
“It could be, Ellie.” He turned and ensnared her gaze with his.
She averted her eyes, breaking the connection, and remained silent.
Wind rattled the windowpane.
“So, you can do more than boil water?” She feigned a cough and detoured from the bittersweet memory.
He shuttered his eyes and then tossed the ripe tomato on the counter. “Sure.”
“You’re kidding.” She attempted a grin to lighten the mood, but it faded on her mouth.
“Nope,” he murmured.
“But when we visited your family in Rome on the way to our weekend—” She broke off, not wanting to remember the sizzling summer nights on the Mediterranean beach … the scent of orange blossom mingling with salt tang in the air … his kisses beneath a full moon.
“Honeymoon,” he finished for her.
“Yes,” she murmured, pushing up on one elbow, her weight denting the cushion. “Servants bustled in and out of the palazzo.”
“Hardly that.”
“Estate, then—”
“We hadn’t always lived like that, Ellie,” he said. “In fact, after I was accepted to med school, my folks returned to Italy.”
“You stayed.”
“And met you.” He slanted her an amused glance.
“Yes.” She lay back down on the couch and nestled her cheek on her palm. “Why didn’t you tell me? I assumed—”
“I wanted to impress you.”
“You did.”
“I did?”
“Mmm.”
He smiled, then sobered. “How do you think I put myself through medical school?”
She sized him up from head to toe. “Modeling? Calendar pin-up?” She crinkled her brow, then her eyes lit up. “A bouncer at the neighborhood pub.”
He laughed. “Ellie Ross Medeci, you are so wrong.”
She raised her brows.
“With my Italian culinary skills,” he said. “Waiting tables, getting ti—”
“Tips.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled.
She snickered. “Among other things.”
“On my honor—”
The lights flickered back on, and she blinked, adjusting her focus to the brightness. “Good timing.” She glanced from the single bulb on the ceiling to the knife in his hand, poised to slice through the plump tomato. “You were saying?”
“On my honor, they were reserved for a brown-eyed songbird.”
“Really, Peter?”
“The woman doubts me, even after all these years.”
“Do not.”
He sent her a look that spoke volumes, making her heart flutter. Bittersweet memories raced between them. Silence grew thick with emotion, vibrating and sucking them into its vortex.
Then, he made an incision through the tomato with the blade and blood-red juice spurted out.
She sat up and licked her lips. “Why are you here again, Peter?”
He focused on the tip of her tongue. Abruptly he turned, opened the refrigerator, and dumped the remaining gr
oceries inside. He closed it with a tad more force than necessary. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Oh, really.” Trust him to say something like that and throw her pulse into a scramble. She drank him in with her gaze. Raindrops glistened on his hair, dampness on his shoulders, and strain on his features. She frowned.
“Yeah.” He scrunched the brown-paper bag into a ball and hurled it in the sink in such a careless manner she thought she must’ve imagined tension on his face. Picking up the shakers, he sprinkled salt and pepper on the tomatoes and slapped on the second bread slice.
“You’re wet.”
He shrugged. “You must be cold.” He glanced around and spotted the gas heater on the wall. “That thing still not working?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes never left his face.
He turned away and fiddled with a knob. “That should do it.”
“You’re doing it again.” She grabbed a cushion, hugging it to herself.
“Taking care of you?”
She sighed. Taking over was what she’d meant to say, but he was taking care of her. Since the day she met him, he’d done that. He even used his overseas contacts to help her father land the professorship in Sussex. Even at the beginning of his career, he always made sure she had all the material comforts money could buy. He’d given her everything except the one thing she wanted most.
“Why did you come here, Peter?” she grilled him.
“Italians are noted for their staying power and family tradition, remember.” The heater flared at that moment and nearly drowned out his words.
“Are they?”
“No.” He hoisted himself up from his haunches and faced her, his tone glib. “I made it up.”
He grabbed the sandwich platter and soda can off the counter and plopped them on the table beside her. Then, he hauled her into his arms and smothered her with kisses.
She gripped his shoulders, her insides in turmoil. His magnetism was so potent, she fisted her hands to gain strength and maintain her ground. When she came up for air, she said, “They are also noted for taking their women for granted.”
“Not true.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose.
“We like being good providers and sometimes we can’t be as attentive as women want.”
“Like me?”
“You wanted me attentive, Ellie?”
She wanted to clobber him. “No. I just wanted you for sex.”
He lifted a black brow and amusement glinted in his eyes. “I trudge home after seventeen hours on the clock, you entice me to bed, and fool around with me.”
Her mouth twitched at the corners. Oh, he was very good at turning the tables on her. “A wife’s right,” she tossed back.
“And a husband’s.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Now, eat your sandwich.” He propelled her onto the couch, picked up the platter from the counter and placed it in her hands.
She screwed up her face. “I thought you said you could cook.”
“This is the appetizer.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t miss the double entendre in his words.
He shed his coat and plunked down beside her. Eating his own sandwich, he glanced her way to make sure she was munching hers.
She picked at the cheese from between the bread slices, popped a piece in her mouth and forced it down. Their conversation felt like the lull before the storm.
“Why did you marry me?” he fired at her.
She took a sip of soda, then set it on the floor, desperately trying to ignore emotion tossing inside her. “What a thing to ask.”
“Answer the question.”
She quirked an eyebrow and set the half-eaten sandwich on the plate teetering on the arm of the couch.
He took the last swig of his drink, plunked the can beside hers on the floor and turned, his gaze searching.
“Don’t you know?” she asked.
“You said for money.”
“That was to bug you.”
“You did,” he said.
He waited.
She made him wait.
He mocked a cough.
“You swept me off my feet.”
“And you left again.” He reached over and set his plate on the counter, and then rubbed his palms over his denim-clad thighs. “Why?”
“I had to think,” she murmured. “I thought it would shake you from your complacency.”
“Think?” He lifted himself from the sofa and loomed over her. “I work like a dog to keep you in style, give you what you want, and you think me complacent?”
“You give me everything I want Peter, except the one thing I want most.”
“What’s that?” he bit out.
“We went through this at Christmas,” she murmured. “But apparently you missed it.”
“Tell me again,” he commanded.
“You,” she said, the word a thread of sound, but he caught it.
He shook his head, baffled. “I married you. You’ve got me. Period.”
“I have your name and your status, Peter.” She bolted up straight. “You, I catch between flights and medical events.”
“And saving lives,” he added, his tone dry. “We’ve gone through this before, Ellie.”
“Yes.” She folded her hands in her lap, not wanting him to witness her trembling. Her reaction wasn’t so much from the storm raging outside, but from the one about to explode between them. Already on precarious ground, they were inching toward the precipice. “What about the casualty in our lives?”
“What do you mean?”
“Practice what you preach.”
He squinted.
“You, me, our marriage,” she explained.
He shoved a hand through his hair. He thought she understood a neurosurgeon’s rigorous schedule—his goals, his determination to succeed beyond the norm. He thought she’d stand by him all the way. Perspiration glazed his brow, a stone in his gut. He wanted to give her everything. Everything he hadn’t had as a child. Make her happy. A sigh worked its way out from deep in his throat. Obviously, it hadn’t worked. “You want a stay-at-home husband, Ellie?
“Of course not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
She hooked a stray hair behind her ear. “You wanting a stay-at-home wife is what’s the problem.”
“Why’s that a problem?”
“Because I want to do more than schmooze my time away, use my talents—”
“Ahh. Singing the blues is what you’re after.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“We had an agreement.”
“It’s over tomorrow.”
“So it is.” His jaw went rigid.
“You understand why I left?” she asked, tilting her chin.
“No.”
“I became so enmeshed in the demands of being the dottore’s wife that I lost myself. My identity.”
“You thought you’d find it in The Blue Room?”
She swooped up her cap from the sofa and threw it at him. “What if I did?”
It sailed over his head. He caught it, his laser-sharp gaze never leaving her face. “Did you?”
“You made sure I didn’t,” she muttered, her words tinged with resentment.
“A necessary political maneuver.”
“And tomorrow? And the day after? Next month? Next year? What?” she blurted, words tumbling from her mouth. “There’s always going to be another political challenge in the medical field for you to vault over.”
“For good cause.”
“Yes, I know,” she hurled back, her heart sinking. “But at whose expense?”
“Have I missed something here?”
She sighed. “Maybe I have.”
Must he forfeit all and give in to her conditions? How could he survive this marriage when his relentless drive propelled him forward to succeed for her, for them … and she was smothering him with her domestic demands?
“No.” He shook his head. “Possibly we both have.”
“You want me to dance to your tune in The Blue Room?”
“Yes … no. I mean …” She collapsed back on the sofa and drew her coat closely about her. She had sacrificed her dreams for her parents. After five years, must she still continue to forfeit her dreams, now for her husband? How could she survive this marriage, when he was stifling her with his professional commands, except when she was in his arms?
“I want to be more than a recurring one-night stand.”
“What?” He shot her an incredulous look.
She trailed her fingers down the row of buttons on her coat. “Slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am nights when you can squeeze me into your tight schedule, does not a marriage make.”
He glared at her.
She glared right back.
“You thought that?”
“Yes.”
“All the time?”
“Most of it.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I tried,” she murmured. “But soon as your head hit the pillow, you were out for the count.”
He placed his hands over hers, stopping the bumpy ride of her fingers over the buttons. “I’m listening now.”
Moisture pressed against her eyelids. He was doing it again. Turning her insides to mush. She swallowed, took a deep breath and exhaled. “I … uh—”
His cell phone beeped.
A knowing gaze passed between them, seeming to seal the fate of their marriage.
He pulled the mobile from his coat pocket and flipped it open. “Medeci.” A scowl, then he paled. “On my way.”
Chapter 15
Ellie climbed out of the cab, tipped the cabbie, and long after he drove off, she stood staring at the mansion. In the background, King barked, but it didn’t faze her. Her emotions seemed to have fled, leaving a big hole inside her.
After Peter had hurled himself from her apartment, she decided to return and collect the remainder of her things from the ‘castle’. But first, she’d make good on her end of the deal by spending the last night in her own room. Peter would be at the hospital for the rest of the day, night, and a good part of the next morning, so no danger of bumping into him. By then, the tug-o-war between them would be over.
And the winner?
She laughed, a raw sound. Nobody won in a marriage breakup.
Her shoulders sagged. A deep sigh, and she trudged up the stairs to the front door. Just as she was fitting the key in the lock, the door flew open.