A strange detachment overcomes me, as if my soul has left my body. It’s peaceful. Alarming, but peaceful. I sit there and look at him as if he were a stranger until my curiosity rears its head.
“How could you have sex with me? Did you have to imagine I had a dick so you could get it up?”
He winces. “No, I just . . .” When he swallows, hesitating, I’m not sure I want to hear. But then he blows out a breath and goes on, his voice soft. Embarrassed. “It wasn’t hard to be with you. You’re pretty. And you always smell good. And you’re a really good kisser . . .”
He’s starting to look scared. I have no idea what my face is doing, and I don’t care.
Something terrible has occurred to me.
I grab his arm. “Please tell me you used protection. All these other people you were having sex with—”
“I was always safe, I swear.”
I examine his face for any hint of deception, but he seems sincere. On the other hand, he’s so skilled at hiding the truth I’d be stupid all over again to believe him now.
I’m not sure who I’m angrier with, myself or him. I wanted the fairy tale so badly I let myself believe this frog I was kissing was really a prince.
I knew it when I read all those horrible articles about his side chicks, but I got distracted by my grief about my father. Now the reality floods back with sickening urgency: I need to get checked for STDs.
Brad might have given me something far worse than a broken heart.
I leap to my feet. Brad scrambles to his, staring at me with big horrified eyes, like a deer on the business end of a shotgun. When I point my finger at him, he shrinks back.
“Stay away from me. I don’t ever want to see your face again, do you understand?”
“Please, Kimber, listen to me—”
“I don’t ever want to hear your voice. I don’t care what you have to say. Nothing can make it better. Nothing can undo what you’ve done. Stay the hell away from me, Bradley, or so help me God I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
I swing around and stride away, my chest so tight it burns. My eyes burn, too. I think I might vomit.
Brad calls after me, “I still want to marry you!”
I stop dead in my tracks. My chest heaving with ragged breaths, I whirl around and stare at him in disbelief.
He walks closer, one careful step at a time. “You can have the life you always wanted. I’ll give you anything you want, babe, anything.”
“Are you insane?” I shout. “What the hell are you talking about? You just told me you’re gay!”
The words begin to tumble out of him in a rush. “You’re the only person I’ve told. No one else has to know! We could have it all—think about it! The house, the lifestyle, all the money!”
I know my mouth is hanging open. I can feel the breeze playing around my teeth. “You’re suggesting we pretend to be a real couple?”
He lifts his hands in a helpless gesture. “We’d be rich. And you could do whatever you wanted. You could expand your shop, travel, whatever. Think of the life we’d have. Think of the possibilities.”
He moves closer. His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “I never told you this, but the trust my father set up for me when I was born stipulates I get a lump sum of five million when I marry. You can have it all to do whatever you want with. Think of it, babe—five million dollars. Think how that could change your life.”
He’s serious. He’s actually serious. The man doesn’t know me at all.
My voice shaking with anger, I say, “I see you’ve thought this through.”
He nods, swallowing, his face registering the first signs of hope. “We’d still be best friends. We’d still live together. We’d do everything together, except . . .”
“Except the one thing married people are supposed to do together. Namely, fuck.”
He looks slightly offended at my flat, hostile tone. “I mean, you could have as many boyfriends as you wanted.”
It happens before I’m conscious of making the decision. One minute I’m listening to his outrageous proposition that I give up any possibility of an authentic life with a man who actually loves me, the next my open hand is making hard contact with the side of his face.
Crack.
He staggers back, shocked, holding his face, his eyes as round as his open mouth.
“I took it easy on you this time because it looks like that nose of yours is still healing,” I say, struggling for air. “But so help me God, one more word out of you and I’ll knock all your teeth out. And by the way, I’m not a prostitute!”
“I never said you were!”
“You already left me at the altar! You think I’m crazy enough to sign up for that twice?”
“I panicked! I swear it wouldn’t happen again! Now that you know, everything could be different!”
My laugh is bitter, just this side of hysterical. “You know, you almost had me. I felt sorry for you there for a minute. But now I just feel like ripping your intestines out through your nose.”
He stops talking. Smart of him, because my fingers are itching to do some irreparable damage to his GI tract.
I turn around and run all the way back to the house.
EIGHTEEN
MATTEO
She bursts into the kitchen like an explosion of dynamite.
“Get me a drink,” she orders, her voice rough. She sits down at the kitchen table and pounds her fist on it, once. Hard.
Her color is high. Her lips are thinned to a white line. She’s so furious she’s trembling.
Alarmed, Lorenzo looks at me. He leaves without a word.
He has no experience dealing with a woman’s anger. My mother is far too skilled at keeping everything bottled up.
I force myself not to grill Kimber about what happened in the driveway. Not to ask all the questions crowding my throat. Instead I obey her wish and pour a stiff measure of whiskey into a glass. I set it in front of her silently, sit across from her, and wait.
It’s one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done.
From the moment I set eyes on that preppy blond bastard, I wanted to commit murder.
I know what that means, unfortunately. It means I’m fucked.
But I knew that already. From the moment I saw her sitting on the sofa in the living room and realized who she was, I’ve been fucked.
No. That’s not it, either. I was fucked from the first time I saw her at the airport.
She shoots the whiskey in one gulp. When she sets the glass down on the table, her hand shakes. She stares at that shaking hand as if she’d like to cut if off. “Another.”
When I hesitate, she looks at me. Entire planets are burning in her eyes.
I pour her another drink.
She shoots that one, too. Then we sit in silence as the clock ticks on the wall and I fight myself from knocking the table aside and taking her in my arms.
Finally she says, “He wants me to go back to San Francisco and marry him. He still wants me to be his wife.”
She laughs, a small anguished laugh that flames the rage crawling up my throat.
“What did you tell him?”
She moistens her lips, shakes her head, and closes her eyes. She’s in so much pain it leaks out of her pores. She’s breathing it out like flames.
“I’ll hurt him if you want me to.”
“Yes, I want you to.”
I’m up on my feet before the next beat of my heart, but she grabs my wrist and tugs. I stop, breathing hard, waiting.
“You really would, wouldn’t you?” she says softly, gazing up at me with those lucid cat eyes.
Slowly, my voice hard and full of violence, I say, “With pleasure.”
We stare at each other for a beat. I’m aware of her hand wrapped around my wrist, that small shaking hand. I want to kiss her so badly I almost groan.
“Sit.” She tugs on my wrist again but doesn’t release it.
I blow out a hard breath and take my seat
across from her.
She’s still holding my wrist. I think she’s measuring my heartbeat in the pulse beating wildly under her thumb. After a moment, she sighs and releases me. She tucks her hands under her armpits and looks at the tabletop.
She whispers, “I have to get out of here.”
When she looks up at me, her eyes beseeching, my heart skips a beat.
When she adds, “Please,” it takes off in a gallop. Blood surges through my body. My nerves start to sing.
“Where do you want to go?” I ask gruffly.
“Anywhere. Just . . . anywhere else.”
Her voice is small. She sounds so lost. Lost and in pain. It’s like a punch in my stomach.
I stand, pulling her gently along with me. When she wobbles, I steady her with my hand on her shoulder. “You’re going to be all right,” I say. “Look at me.”
She looks up at me, those cat eyes so green and wide. It becomes impossible to breathe. I whisper, “I promise.”
It’s a vow. An oath. There’s nothing on this earth or outside of it that could make me break it. I’ll do anything in my power to protect her from harm.
She blinks slowly, as if clearing her eyes. Then she says with cold, quiet vehemence, “You men and your promises. By the way, how’s that new collection of yours coming along?”
She sears me with her gaze, then shrugs off my hand and walks out.
Like I said.
Fucked.
NINETEEN
KIMBER
In my room, I carefully remove the Dior dress and hang it up in the closet, brushing the dust off the back. I change into jeans and a T-shirt and slip on my leather jacket, then head back out.
Arrested by a strange sound, I stop in the hallway and cock my ear.
What’s that?
It’s a soft noise. Intermittent. It’s only after a few moments of listening to it that I realize the sound is muffled crying.
I stare at the door at the end of the hall, shocked to my core.
The marchesa’s room is behind that door. The marchesa is crying.
I put a hand over my throbbing heart and shake my head, pressing my lips together so I don’t sob. I can’t take anything else today. I don’t think I’ll survive one more surprise. My poor heart will burst into a million tiny bloody pieces, and I’ll drop dead where I stand.
Might be a blessing, now that I think of it.
My eyes stinging, I run through the house, throw open the front door, and immediately come to a skidding stop.
Across the driveway, Matteo leans against a black Maserati. His arms are folded over his chest. He’s staring at me from under lowered brows.
The passenger door is open.
Screw it.
I stride angrily across the distance, throw myself into the passenger seat, and slam the door shut. I sit slumped down with my arms crossed over my chest, not bothering to fasten the seat belt, breathing so hard it sounds as if I’ve been running.
Gravel crunches, then Matteo opens the driver’s door and gets in. Without a word, he leans over me and fastens my seat belt. Then he starts the car, closes his door, puts the car into gear, and pulls away.
We drive. I have no idea where. We simply drive in silence as the landscape slips by in a colorful blur, and I try so hard not to cry I dig bloody little crescents into my palms with my fingernails.
The whole time, Matteo’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel.
To the window and the passing view, I say faintly, “I always wanted to be married. When I was a little girl, I dreamed of how it would be. The flowers. The music. My wedding gown. I had this fantasy built up in my head of this perfect, beautiful day . . . and the perfect, beautiful man I’d marry. He’d be so in love with me, he’d die just for a kiss . . .”
Like my father was with my mother. That’s all I ever wanted—a man to love me so much he couldn’t see anything else. Instead it was me who couldn’t see. I’d like to kick my own ass for being so blind.
As the first of the tears crest my lower lids, I suck in a hitching breath. I whisper, “I’m so ashamed.”
“Don’t be stupid,” comes the hard response. “You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
I close my eyes, letting the tears flow because I know there’s no stopping them now. “Stupid to trust. Stupid to dream. Stupid to believe in the fairy tale.”
“I could kill him just for this,” Matteo mutters, taking a corner too fast. “Just for making you cry.”
He growls something in Italian. It sounds super murdery and makes me feel a little better.
“I heard your mother crying. Behind her closed bedroom door.”
His gaze on my face is burning. “Did you think she wouldn’t?”
I thought she didn’t know how, but keep my mouth shut. As I’m beginning to realize, I don’t know much of anything.
We drive for another ten minutes in silence until we pull up to a tall ancient stone wall covered in ivy. The wall breaks, revealing a massive iron gate flanked by a pair of enormous stone lions. Beside the gate is a small metal box on a stand that Matteo punches a code into. The gates swing open slowly, and we pull into a cobbled driveway. On my right is a sunken cloister with formal Italian gardens. On my left are lighted fountains and a rolling green lawn.
Directly ahead is a massive neo-Gothic castle, complete with crenellated tower.
Squinting out the windshield, I ask, “What is this place?”
“Castello di Moretti.”
I turn to him slowly as shock spreads throughout my body.
He smiles at the look on my face. “Home sweet home.”
He makes it sound like a double-wide trailer. “You live here?”
“I grew up here. This has been the seat of the Moretti family for more than eight hundred years.”
“Uh-huh.” I stare at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
I point at the monster castle. “This explains a lot.”
Shaking his head, he maneuvers the car into a courtyard and kills the engine. He gets out of the car and comes around and opens my door, something Brad never managed to do the entire time we were together.
I blink hard to clear the water suddenly pooling in my eyes. Don’t start crying again. Don’t you dare.
“Come,” Matteo says softly. “There are many old, priceless objects inside you’ll no doubt enjoy breaking.” He extends his hand.
I shouldn’t do this, but I’m feeling reckless. So I take his hand and let him help me out of the car. He closes the door behind me but doesn’t let go of my hand.
He leads me through a stone archway into another smaller courtyard. I don’t know all the technical terms for what I’m seeing, but suffice it to say that it’s all very castlelike. Fortified stone walls, towers, those little slits in the walls medieval archers could shoot through, all that.
When we enter through a small wooden side door into the main part of the building, a laugh unexpectedly bursts out of me and echoes up into the rafters.
Matteo glances back at me.
“Total shithole,” I say with a straight face.
He turns away, but not before I see his smile.
We walk, and walk, and walk. The place is a maze of marble and stone and hanging tapestries, heavily carved wood furniture and gilt mirrors, flowers spilling from porcelain urns. We pass what I decide to call the Wall of Death, which features a variety of medieval axes, swords, spears, and other items designed to deprive a person of life in the most painful of ways in a giant glass cabinet lit from underneath just to make it all the more creepy.
“You grew up here?” I mutter under my breath, unable to imagine a young child wandering around this place. It’s a miracle he didn’t accidentally kill himself running into one of the thousand sharp edges everywhere or falling down and cracking open his skull on the slippery and unforgivingly hard marble floor.
“When I wasn’t away at boarding school.”
There’s a dark undertone
in his voice that suggests boarding school wasn’t all fun and games. I want to ask him about it but am distracted by the smell of baking bread. It seems we’re headed toward a kitchen. I hear women laughing and the sound of clanging pans. Then we pass through an open arched doorway into an enormous room that makes the word kitchen seem insufficient.
There are bread ovens and two wood-burning fireplaces and a long sink built right into the thick stone walls. Three large oak tables command the center space on the floor. There’s a hearth so large it could fit several cauldrons, and a long row of shelves filled with pantry goods.
The two women I heard laughing fall silent when we walk in. Plump and grandmotherly with identical uniforms of black with starched white aprons, they could be sisters.
In unison, they curtsey.
“Mio signore.”
I barely know any Italian, but I do know they just called Matteo “My lord.”
When I snort, he slants me an irritated look. He says something to the ladies, gesturing toward the stainless-steel refrigerator on the other side of the room. Then he nods at them in farewell and leads me away as they gape after us in surprise.
As soon as we’re out of earshot, I snicker. “Where are you taking me, my lord?”
He’s still holding my hand, which he uses to pull me around a corner. Then he whirls on me and presses me against the wall.
Shocked, I stare up at him. His eyes are dark, and that muscle in his jaw is jumping.
I’m in trouble.
He says roughly, “If it were up to me, I’d be taking you to bed and putting that mouth of yours to good use. Now I can see why your attitude is so bad—there’s no way in hell that boy you were going to marry could ever satisfy a woman like you.”
His blistering gaze drops to my mouth.
Surely he must be able to hear the scream of sheer joy my uterus is making. It’s so loud I’m deafened for a moment.
My body erupts into flames. I can’t catch my breath. My armpits go damp, and so do my panties. The wall is cool and hard against my back, but Matteo is all heat against my front. Heat and muscle and palpable desire.
My hands are somehow flattened against his stomach. His hands are flattened on the wall on either side of my head. Neither of us moves, except for our chests, which are both heaving.
Ache for You (Slow Burn Book 3) Page 14