The Truth About De Campo

by Jennifer Hayward

She blinked. “Julian?”

  “I want to know.”

  Her emerald eyes clouded, her gaze falling away from his. “There isn’t much to say. Our marriage was a disaster on all fronts. Julian married me because I was Warren’s daughter. Because I was the ultimate networking opportunity. He didn’t love me and he couldn’t cope with the wife he got in return.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘couldn’t cope’?”

  “He wanted a wife who’d rather host dinner parties than work. Someone who was content to stroke his ego 24/7.”

  “Did the man not know you at all? That isn’t you, Quinn.”

  “He thought I’d want to give it all up at some point. That he should be enough.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She hugged her knees to her chest. “I was infatuated with him. He was good-looking, successful, everything I should have wanted in a husband. The catch of the century if the prebilling was to be believed. But then I learned who he really was.”

  A man who had hurt her so badly she didn’t want to go near a bedroom... He ground his teeth together. “So what happened? I know he hurt you and I know the fact that you took up Krav Maga isn’t an accident.”

  She looked out over the sparkling water. “I was inexperienced sexually when I married him. I’d had a couple of relationships, none of them great. Julian didn’t like that. The more I disappointed him as a wife, the more I disappointed him out of bed, the more frustrated he was with me in it. The more he wanted to punish me.” She pushed her hair out of her face in a movement he now recognized as a nervous tick. “The more angry he got, the more I retreated. I couldn’t seem to please him. In the end, I was afraid of him. It became Julian asserting his dominance over me in the only way he could.”

  His body went tight. “He assaulted you?”

  She shook her head. “I never refused him. I thought that would just make things worse.”

  Flames licked at his skin. “So what would you call it then?”

  She chewed on the corner of her lip. “Like I said, he was rough.”

  He closed his eyes. “Quinn, why didn’t you leave him?”

  “Because he was Warren’s choice. Because I knew the dissolution of my marriage would be my father’s biggest disappointment.” Her mouth turned down. “And it was. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for it.”

  His face darkened. “Please tell me your father didn’t know.”

  She turned a scathing glance on him. “How would I tell my father that? Daddy, the man you wanted me to marry has verbally abused me every day of our marriage...has been borderline abusive. Cheated on me with other women...”

  The heat flaming through Matteo threatened to fry his brain alive. “He was unfaithful to you?”

  She nodded. “At the end. But honestly by then I would have begged him to use someone other than me.”

  He pressed his fists against the concrete, the desire to use them on Julian Edwards immense. “You should have left. You should never have been with him, your father’s choice or not. Warren would have lost his mind had he known what was going on.”

  “But you see that’s not what we do.” A haunted smile curved her lips. “We Davises specialize in making things work. No matter what. A merger, a marriage. You do not give up. You make it a success.”

  “That’s an insane statement. What if he had escalated things? Started hitting you?”

  She paled. “He wouldn’t have done that. Control was his power. If he had that he was satisfied.”

  “You think that. That’s how it starts, Quinn. It doesn’t usually end that way.”

  She was silent for a moment. Lifted her gaze to the horizon. “He’s gone now. That’s all that matters.”

  He studied her defiant profile, her upturned delicate chin. “Didn’t you ever think you deserved more?”

  She shook her head. “I saw my marriage as my failure. I didn’t want to admit I was incapable of a relationship.”

  “That marriage was not any kind of an assessment of you,” he scowled. “Your husband was a monster. He should have been stopped.”

  She looked at him, the vulnerability shining in her beautiful eyes making his heart hurt. “I was hopeless at letting him in. I know in the beginning it was equally as much my fault as it was Julian’s. I can be a supreme bitch when I want to be. I shut people out.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “But you can also be an insightful, compassionate, sexy, warm woman if you dig deep enough to find out.” He ran a finger down her cheek. “And you aren’t pushing me away right now.”

  Her gaze softened. “You,” she said wryly, “are another matter entirely.”

  “Si,” he agreed, reaching for her. “Story of my life, bella. But I know you like it, in fact, I know you love it.”

  Quinn was attempting to choke out a reply when he sank his hands into her waist, deposited her in his lap and pulled her wet limbs around him. “Sometimes the penny doesn’t drop,” he murmured, tipping her heart-shaped face up to his. “Sometimes things are exactly as you see them.”

  He watched that overactive mind of hers try and process that. Then she reached up and ran her finger over his bottom lip, a sultry glitter in her eyes. “What am I supposed to be seeing right now then?”

  Matteo captured her finger in his mouth. Ran his tongue over the soft underside of it. Watched her pupils dilate. “You. On top of me. Now.”

  A dull rosy glow stained her cheeks. He released her finger. Bent his mouth to her ear, a raspy edge to his voice. “Up on your knees, cara.”

  She did it. Set her knees down on the concrete on either side of him. And he knew from the sparks in her eyes she was just as turned on as him. Needed more as much as he did.

  He ran his hand down her trembling stomach, inside her briefs and explored her soft, yielding flesh with teasing strokes that made her body moisten and ready for him. He hardened so quickly he had to bite back a groan. Then she pressed her lips to his stubble-covered jaw, her breathing jagged, uneven, and he did it anyway. She was so sexy when she let herself go.

  “Condom,” he croaked, stumbling inside in an Olympic-worthy performance. When he returned, she straddled him, released him and slid the condom on. He reached down and pulled her bathing suit aside. “Portami dentro di te tesoro,” he murmured. “Take me inside of you, sweetheart.”

  She reached down and grasped the thick, highly aroused length of him. This time his groan split the air in a fractured moan. Quinn brushed him against her core. Teased him. When he thought he might die, she took him inside her. Slowly, torturously, her gasp filling his ears. It made him feel proud, intensely male that he could do that to her and he swelled even larger inside her. Forced himself to stay completely still as she sank down on him. More, more, until he was buried completely in her.

  She trembled in his arms. Dug her nails into his shoulders. He pushed her back, held her hair away from her face so he could see her. “You are the most beautiful, responsive woman I have ever had,” he said huskily. “Never ever doubt your ability to feel, Quinn.”

  Her chin quivered, her fingers curling around his shoulders in a fierce grip that telegraphed her struggle. Then she brought her mouth to his and kissed him blindly. Soulfully. Until their union was taken to another level completely.

  He dug his hands into her hips and lifted her. Brought her back down on him in a rhythm so slow and deliriously good he closed his eyes and savored it. The sound of them filled the air, the raw push and pull of their bodies heart-stoppingly erotic. Quinn buried her head in his shoulder and whispered encouragement. Faster. Harder.

  Her body tightened around him. Brought him torturously close to the boiling point. She begged him to make her come, needed his guidance. And he did, pulling her hips hard against him, placing a hand against her bottom and grinding them together. “Like that
,” he told her. “Use me.”

  She leaned forward and rubbed her flesh against him with every stroke. His body tightened, ready to explode, and he cursed and told himself to hang on. Hold on for ten more seconds so that she could get there. Be with him.

  Her soft cry shattered the air. She shook wildly beneath his hands as the orgasm tore through her and caused his. He arched his hips and let loose a guttural, primal grunt of satisfaction that might have traveled to Pluto it rocked him so furiously. They stayed like that, aftershocks ricocheting through their bodies, until he picked her up and carried her to the shower. Sensuously, reverently, he washed her beautiful body all over until he couldn’t help but want her again and took her against the wall.

  It occurred to him he might never stop wanting her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ON THE LAST LEG of what seemed like an impossible journey to reopen Le Belle Bleu, things were finally falling into place. The night before the reopening, Quinn could almost see the light, although she wouldn’t dare say it aloud for fear some other disastrous calamity might occur. But she was smiling for the first time in a week.

  Optimistic enough that she had agreed to a stir-crazy Matteo’s plan to take an hour’s break to go for roti at the shack on the beach, legendary with the locals for its version of the piquant Caribbean specialty.

  They both needed a break. Needed to let off some steam. A walk on the beach might do it. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt in the bedroom she and Matteo were sharing in the suite at Le Belle Bleu in the hectic lead up to the relaunch, his clothes left in the other bedroom for optics, and pulled her hair into a ponytail as he showered. She hummed to herself while she slicked on some lip gloss, the glimmer of Matteo’s sleek gold watch catching her eye on the dresser. She picked it up and tested the weight in her palm. It was an exquisite timepiece with diamonds marking the hours and an understatedly elegant black pearlescent background. A collector’s edition, likely.

  She turned it over to examine the back. Saw there was a finely drawn inscription laced across the matte gold surface. It was in Italian. And although she knew she shouldn’t do it, that it was private to Matteo, she sat down and typed it into her computer to translate.

  You meant everything to my son. Take him with you always. Affonso.

  Her heart stuttered in her chest. The watch was Giancarlo’s.

  She replaced it on the dresser. Stood looking at it. Matteo’s darkness had receded since that night at Paradis, but it still had him in its grip. She saw it in those unguarded moments, when his mask slipped and the haunted look returned. As if it never really went away.

  She frowned. He called her a closed book. If she was a closed book, then he was a buried story. Pretending to be open to the world when he was anything but.

  The sun was setting as they walked along the beach to the restaurant, if you could call the ten-foot-by-ten-foot brightly painted slatted wooden structure that. She kept the conversation light while they shared their rotis on the sand in front of the rolling waves, a cold beer beside each of them.

  Matteo lifted his beer to his mouth and took a long swallow. “Have you heard from Warren yet?”

  She shook her head. “I rarely hear from him while he’s in Asia with the time difference. He may not get back to me until he returns to Chicago.”

  “He needs to know,” Matteo said sharply.

  “And he will.” She slid him a sideways look. She didn’t understand why he seemed so anxious about her telling Warren and the board about them. It was she who should be stressed. It was she that was severely curtailing her career with this decision. Her father and the board would ultimately make the right choice. The fair choice.

  “He’s back tomorrow regardless.”

  He nodded. Looked out at the ocean. “Have you talked to Thea today? How’s the foot?”

  Quinn grimaced. A fifteen-hundred-pound stallion had stepped on her sister’s left foot yesterday while she was conducting an examination, shattering the bones in multiple places. “She’s at home twiddling her thumbs, cursing that damn horse. You see,” she pointed out, “I was right all along.”

  That won her a smile. “That was just bad luck.”

  Quinn pushed her roti aside and decided the only way to get him to talk might be to start talking herself. “I’m thinking while I’m making all these radical decisions I might like to get to know my sister in Mississippi.”

  “Have you had any contact with your birth family?”

  “No.” The hollow feeling that invaded her every time she thought about the parents who had given her away made her chest ache. “I don’t really have anything to say to them. They chose not to keep me. They had another girl. End of story. But my sister—it wasn’t her fault. I just feel like I should know her at some point. Even if we aren’t ever close.”

  He lifted a brow. “You don’t think there might be more to your parents’ decision than that?”

  She brought her beer to her lips and took a deliberate sip. “They gave me away and had my sister a couple of years later, Matteo. How else can you interpret it?”

  He swiveled to face her. “Like maybe they weren’t ready when they had you. Like maybe there are complexities involved you know nothing about. Life isn’t black and white, Quinn, as much as you’d like to think it is. There are a lot of gray areas.”

  Gray areas. That’s what you called giving your child up, never to see them again? Marking her defective in the process? “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “Why don’t you try?” he challenged. “There are no prizes for being an island, Quinn.”

  She turned to face him, latching on to the opening. “I don’t know about that, Matteo, you are. You pretend to be everyone’s man, but you’re no one’s man really.”

  His mouth flattened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. You talk, but you don’t really talk.”

  He sliced her an even look. “How about we finish with you before we move on to me? How is it you think I cannot understand what you’re going through?”

  “Because you have a family who loves you. Who are yours. Your flesh and blood. How could you possibly understand what it’s like to not be wanted? To have Warren and Sile so desperate for a child they adopt me, then months later get everything they ever wanted in Thea? To not be good enough for my old family, and not be needed by my new one?” She blinked against the fire burning the back of her eyes. “It was heartbreaking, Matteo. Heartbreaking to grow up knowing that.”

  “And finally we get somewhere...” He pushed his dinner aside, sat back and wrapped his arms around his knees. “You know what I know, Quinn? I saw how much Thea adores you that night at the cocktail party. I heard how much your father respects you when he talked about you. Do you have any idea what I would do to have that same level of acceptance from my father? My family? I have spent my life fighting for it.”

  She pushed her beer into the sand, thrown again by another of Matteo’s perspectives that upended her own. Was her frame of reference really so totally off when it came to her family? Was she so colored by the past it distorted all else?

  “You live in a family of gladiators,” she finally offered when the silence had stretched taut between them. “Isn’t that what you do? Fight to be the best?”

  He gave her a long, gray-eyed stare. “Perhaps.”

  She clasped her hands between her legs and looked over at him. “Giancarlo’s father gave you his watch. Why?”

  His shoulders stiffened. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, “I was admiring how beautiful it was and I saw the inscription.”

  A shutter came down over his eyes. “There is nothing to be gained by talking about Giancarlo. He’s gone. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” She waved a hand at him. “You accuse me
of being an island. You’re so far out there you aren’t even a speck in the ocean.”

  His eyes flashed with that lightning-storm intensity that signaled a clash of the elements was on its way. “I was responsible for his death, Quinn. I caused it. Is that what you want to hear me say? Giancarlo’s father gave me that watch so I wouldn’t feel guilty about what I did. Because he knew I would every day for the rest of my life.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “I’m sure that can’t be true.”

  Matteo stared out at the horizon, his back ramrod straight. He was silent for so long she thought she’d pushed him too far. Then he dropped his hands between his knees. “Giancarlo was everything to me. My brothers, we’re close, but I’ve never had the bond with them Giancarlo and I had. We grew up in Montalcino together, both of us groomed to be powerful men with the accompanying responsibility. Giancarlo became the CEO of one of Europe’s largest car companies, a star of the corporate world, and I was running De Campo’s European operations. We had power, money and youth. We were on top of the world. Drunk on our success...”

  “Power can be an intoxicating thing.”

  He turned to look at her. “Giancarlo didn’t handle it well. He drank too much, drove too fast, partied too hard. Maybe it was in his blood, I don’t know. He had an alcoholic father with a high-flying job who managed to bury his issue under his success for years. It was not a good example. G told himself he could handle it, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t recognize his limits like the rest of us.”

  A chill settled over her. “Was he drinking the night of the accident?”

  “Si.” His hands curled into fists between his knees, a dark glitter entering his eyes. “I was annoyed with Riccardo for always handcuffing me, for holding me back from the things I wanted to do with the company. He didn’t think I was ready and I knew that I was. So to spite him, to blow off some steam, I went on a tear with Giancarlo in Monte Carlo. We partied hard, won a lot of money, had more than a few women hanging off us willing to divest us of it. But at some point, my rational brain kicked in and I suggested we leave. G insisted we have one more drink to finish the night off...”