by BWWM Club
Marco looked as if she had slapped him. Janet wanted to bite her tongue. She hadn’t really meant to say all of that. She sounded so pathetic. She didn’t want to sound pathetic.
She had been pathetic, she knew it. She had also learned from it.
“Janet…”
The whisper had sympathy dripping all over it, and that gave Janet all the strength she needed.
Straightening, she looked him right in the eye.
“Whatever your reasons might have been, Marco, you behaved like a cad. I did nothing to deserve that. If you didn’t want to be with me, that’s fair enough. I would’ve been hurt, but I wouldn’t have been so lost. I would’ve known, at least. But you behaved horribly to me. Now you want to leverage your power and make me spend time with you. For what? To see how I turned out?”
Marco decided to answer honesty with honesty.
“Yes.”
Janet waited to see if he would explain, but he seemed to have said all there was to it. He really did need to have that smug look slapped off his face. Janet could feel her hand itching to do it.
She really looked like she was going to spit fire at him, thought Marco, not without admiration. She had grown up to be absolutely magnificent. He had known, somewhere deep inside, that she would.
It made him want her even more, when she looked so furious.
Janet made a concerted effort to calm down. She made every part of her relax, focusing on her fingers, her toes, the rest of her. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes. Leaning back, she took a sip of wine and schooled her face into an expression of boredom.
Opening her eyes, she aimed her most lethal look at Marco.
“As you can see, I turned out far too good for you.”
Marco threw his head back and laughed. Janet tried to keep up that façade, but his laugh had always been infectious. She couldn’t help it. She smiled, and she laughed along with him.
“Janet, you are magnificent. It’s just dinner. We’ll have this one dinner together. If you don’t like spending time with me after that, you don’t have to. That’s it, one dinner,” coaxed Marco.
But Janet didn’t want to give up so easily.
“You can have your dinner, Marco, if you give me that explanation that you surely see you owe me.”
Marco sighed. That was fair. He didn’t very often care about that, but it mattered now.
“I’d known that I would have to go to Florence for about a week. The last evening we spent together, you remember, I’d been in a pretty bad mood. I’d just had a fight with my father. I didn’t want to go back to Florence. Sure, we had family there, and it was a good business decision, but I was seventeen. What did I care about business? I was determined not to go, really. I was determined to stay behind, so I didn’t tell you about it. Why bring it up when I’d decided not to go? But when you’re seventeen…”
Marco sighed, and Janet noticed that he had tired lines on his face that hadn’t been there eleven years ago, too. She had to look hard to notice them, but they were there. No matter what had transpired between them, she still had enough of that dream alive in her to want to smooth them away and tell him that everything would always be all right.
“When you’re seventeen, you think you have all the choices in the world, but you don’t. I refused to accept it till the last minute, Janet. They had to almost drag me onto the plane. I think my mother even had to explain what was going on to security. Anyway… I called you, finally, when I realized that I really had no choice. And then I was gone.”
Janet was silent for a moment. He had got the last part right, at least.
She could still remember, so clearly, the shock she had felt when he broke the news to her. They had only been together for a couple of months, but it had been so intense. It had been so real. She had felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. She had thought she’d misunderstood something and asked him, over and over again, to explain what he was trying to say.
She could still remember the garbled announcements at the airport. He had said goodbye, and he had been gone, leaving her stunned. When the shock had worn off, she had cried as if her heart had been broken and ground to dust. That’s how it had felt.
“I understand that you had no choice but to leave, Marco. You made a few wrong decisions there, too, but I can understand why. You should have told me about it. Of course you should’ve told me as soon as you knew. But you didn’t call me again, except for that one time. I waited for you to call. I hoped you’d write, call, something. Anything. I didn’t think you’d just walk out of my life like that, as if none of it had ever mattered.”
Marco knew that Janet had let her guard down because that wounded look was back in her eyes. He wished he knew what he could do to wipe it away. But he had hurt her, far more than he’d thought he had. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do to make that better. He couldn’t erase the past. Even if he could, he didn’t think he would. Everything that had happened had led him to where he was – sitting across the table from Janet. No, he wouldn’t do anything to change that.
“And then I grew up. And I moved on. So what do you want now, Marco?” asked Janet, her voice hard now. He had brought up memories she had no interest in reliving. He had brought back feelings she wanted to leave behind.
“Time,” said Marco, simply, and Janet wanted to slap him yet again. He really seemed to think that monosyllables were actual explanations.
Marco noticed her eyes glittering again and grinned. He did enjoy winding Janet up. Janet the woman was far more intriguing than Janet the girl he had known. No, he wouldn’t change anything.
“Alright, I know, I owe you more. Fine. When we got to Florence, I intended to keep in touch with you. But everything was a mess. The family had been uprooted, business needed to be set up, my Italian, apparently, was horrible. I was working day and night. We all were. I had school, and the work in the business. We had an investor, but we couldn’t afford to hire people. We did everything ourselves, Janet, and it was hard. It was too hard to do everything and still hold on to you. I couldn’t. I didn’t have the energy to do it. I was young. I didn’t have the strength to do it.”
Janet was simmering. She heard the sense in what he said, of course. It was common sense. At seventeen, he'd had to shoulder a far heavier burden that she had imagined. At seventeen, you do a lot of stupid things. But still…
“I didn’t want to break up with you. But I didn’t know how to keep you, either. We were so far away. With every day, the States seemed so far away. So I slowly tried to let you go. I convinced myself that I could let you go.”
The implication that he hadn’t been able to let her go was clear in his words, but she refused to acknowledge it. He had hurt her. Being seventeen was no excuse.
“Besides… There was a practical reason, too.”
He looked sheepish now.
“What?”
Janet looked and sounded suspicious.
“Well, my father and I had a fight over everything once and I ended up smashing my phone. Into pieces. You remember how phones were back then. My cell phone was my prized possession. Well, I wrecked it. I had been so proud of it, I hadn’t even thought to memorize numbers, or write them down anywhere else. I lost your number.”
Janet raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“You do realize just how lame that sounds, don’t you?”
Marco grinned.
“Why do you think I saved that one for last? It is lame.”
His frank agreement threw her off a bit.
“You could have found my number somehow. You could have… I don’t know, got a directory and called my home. Called information.”
Marco looked skeptical.
“I was in a village in Florence for a good part of the first two years there, Janet. I really didn’t have access to too many options.”
Janet thought about it for a little while as they were served more wine and more cheese.
“You were still a com
plete jerk.”
Marco nodded solemnly.
“I know. I agree that I was a complete jerk.”
Janet smiled slowly.
“Fine. As long as we both agree that you’re a complete jerk, we could spend some time together. As long as we discuss business.”
Marco started to object, but decided to cut his losses.
“Fine. We discuss business for one hour. In exchange, you have dinner with me tomorrow, too. This time, it won’t be under any pretext.”
Janet wanted to say yes. She wanted to get to know the man Marco had become. But she couldn’t let go of how much the boy had hurt her. She couldn’t forget how when the boy had become a man, he hadn’t reached out to her. He hadn’t tried to fix it.
And yet, he was here now, wasn’t he? So was she. She couldn’t deny that she wanted to spend time with him. No matter how stupid it was, she wanted to be with him. She wanted to understand him.
To be completely honest, she admitted, she wanted him. Sitting across the table from him was enough to get her edgy with desire.
So she looked at him, and admitted what they both knew was the truth.
“All right. We will have dinner tomorrow.”
Marco grinned, and knew that he had won the first round. He had no intention of losing this. At the end of the second round, he wanted to get his hands on her. He would have her. He would have her, as he had always meant to.
With every minute, Marco got more and more certain that she was meant for him, after all. There was a reason why he had never been able to find that special connection with anybody else. Janet was his woman. Now he had a window to convince her of it.
Chapter 4
Janet drove back home completely conflicted. It was nine. She hadn’t meant to stay with Marco for four hours. They had talked business for an hour, as promised. But she had found herself unwilling to leave, even when she could have. They had talked, and they had laughed. It was amazing how it all came back, even when she willed it not to.
But she had looked into his eyes and she had been swept away all over again. She really had to get a hold of herself, she thought as she checked her rearview mirror. She did a double take and almost braked hard.
Marco was following her.
Why the hell was Marco following her? Sure, she’d had wine and really shouldn’t be driving, but so had he. She hadn’t wanted to call a cab because she hadn’t wanted to leave her car there overnight. She had put her foot down on that. She had only ended up having two glasses of wine over the entire evening, so she was pretty sure she was still under the legal limit, anyway. Probably only just, but still.
He hadn’t been happy about her insistence, but he had given in. Now she could see why he had.
Grimly, she drove on. She was going to give him a piece of her mind once she got home. By the time she parked, she had worked herself up into a righteous rage. She strode out to meet him.
Marco was standing there, leaning against his far-too-expensive car as if he had done absolutely nothing wrong.
“You look beautiful when you’re angry, bella,” said Marco.
He knew it would make her even angrier, but he couldn’t help it. She just looked so much like a goddess about to curse him into oblivion. He wondered, fleetingly, what perverse bend made him like that, and want to goad her on.
“Oh, I’ll give you beautiful,” said Janet.
She barely finished the sentence when Marco yanked her to him, flush against his body, and covered her lips with his.
Janet could feel her brain frying. That was her last thought before everything vanished. The traffic, the lights, the sky – everything disappeared and there was only Marco. It was a familiar taste. So achingly familiar. She had missed him. She had missed him so desperately.
Janet tried to stand still, refuse to respond to him. But it was more than she could do. She hadn’t known it, but for every moment, in the last eleven years, she had hoped for this. She had dreamed of this.
With a whimper, her hands rested on his chest, and felt his heart. Surrendering, she gave.
Marco could only hear one word thundering through his whole being as his blood roared – mine. His tongue traced the familiar line of her lips. Her taste was still the same, he thought, until her lips parted and her tongue found his, stroked along his, making him shudder.
This wasn’t the girl he knew. She was all grown up. She was a woman, and she wanted him.
Her mouth slanted over his, greedy for more. Her teeth nipped and tugged at his lip before soothing it with her tongue, then nipping again. Her lips were soft, and they were heady in their sweetness. He could only smell her. He could only feel her.
Janet’s hands clenched on his shirt, pulling him to her as she pressed her body to his. She rubbed herself against him, letting him feel her body. When she felt his hands slide under her jacket, slip under the silk of her blouse, she felt the touch of his fingers sear her skin with delicious heat.
She would take as much as she gave.
Her hands slipped under her shirt. Her nails scratched along his skin. His hands were cupping her full breasts, his fingers brushing her nipples. They were so hard. Her back arched as she urged him to take more of her breasts, to feel her, to give her more pleasure. She could feel his hard manhood pressing against her and pressed her body closer, needing to feel him.
She wanted him. She wanted him inside her.
With Herculean effort, Janet pulled away from him and looked at him with wide eyes. His hands were still under her blouse, cupping her breasts. He looked into her eyes as he gently rubbed circles over her large nipples.
“Marco…”
She moaned his name, and saw that fire grow stronger in his eyes. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.
She would have given him everything, in another moment. But he pulled his hand away from her body and bent his head to kiss her lips firmly.
“Go inside, Janet. Go inside before it goes farther than it should.”
“Marco…” Her eyes were wounded now. Did he not want her?
With a groan, he pulled her to him and kissed her again, until she could feel her very bones melting. But this time, his hands didn’t wander.
“I want you. I’ll have you, as you’ll have me. But not tonight. Not when we’re both reeling from it all. It’ll be our time, soon.”
The words were a promise.
“Go, Janet,” said Marco, and his voice was gentle.
With wobbly legs, Janet walked up the stairs. Marco waited till her apartment lights turned on. With a heartfelt sigh, he walked to his car and got in.
He was going to need a very long, very cold shower, and he didn’t think that was even going to help all that much.
*****
Janet woke up expecting a headache. She didn’t have one. So she tried to tell herself to get out of bed and go to work. She couldn’t do that. She was completely overwhelmed. She had nearly thrown herself at Marco the night before.
No, there was no ‘nearly’ about it. She definitely had thrown herself at Marco the night before. He had pulled back before they could do anything irrevocable that they would both regret. But no matter how hard Janet tried to convince herself that it would’ve been a mistake, she couldn’t make herself believe it.
She had relived those moments, over and over again, as she tried to get some sleep. She'd had a long, cold shower, and hoped, viciously, that Marco was suffering as badly as she was. No, worse. She wanted him to suffer worse.
There was no escaping it, though. She might have convinced herself that her heart knew better, but her body definitely didn’t. Her head knew all of this was a bad idea, but her heart was a soft touch and her body was a writhing mess of hormones that drooled the moment she saw Marco.
Hormones couldn’t drool.
Marco was messing up her metaphors. Yet another thing she could blame him for, decided Janet.
Sighing, she made herself get out of bed and make a cup of coffee. She considered goi
ng to the Pilates class she had paid for. But really, why would she want to go and suffer under the scornful eyes of a bunch of skinny white women? She would much rather have a muffin for breakfast and try to forget that the night before had happened at all.
Of course, there was one tiny little problem with that. She was meeting Marco tonight. With a whimper, she buried her face in her hands and wondered what on earth was wrong with her. After all of that, she had agreed to meet Marco for dinner, yet again. She had even promised not to talk shop at all. She really needed to have her head examined, thought Janet as she sipped her coffee.
She really needed to sort all of this mess out. She didn’t even know if Marco had a girlfriend. He was handsome, and she had checked him out the day before.
All right, that was a lie. She had Googled him multiple times over the last eleven years and she knew that Marco Graziani was now a big name. He hadn’t flaunted his wealth so far, but as far as she could see, he was worth over a billion dollars. His investments and ventures were varied and invariably excellent promised excellent returns.
So her ex-boyfriend had come back into her life. He was still handsome as sin. He was a billionaire. He was pursuing her. And….
And she didn’t know just what the hell she was supposed to do about any of it, damn it! Her life had been going fine. She had been happy. She had good friends, a job she liked and was good at, a good chunk of savings that she was building up to buy a house. Now here was Marco Graziani, screwing everything up. What right did he have!
Janet kept herself on a steady simmer until she was in the shower, and admitted that she was just mad at her own reaction to him. Clearly, she could no longer pretend to be over him. So she had to deal with it.