by Sofia Tate
Chapter Two
Allegra
At precisely eleven o’clock on Monday morning, I knock on the door of Signora Pavoni’s office.
“Enter,” her voice commands behind the polished wood.
When I walk into her office, Signora Ginevra Ventura, La Diva, is sitting opposite my professor. Both women are holding dainty espresso cups in their hands.
“Good morning,” I greet them with a slight bow of nervousness. They’re not titled royals, but for me, both women hold just as much prestige.
“Buongiorno, Allegra. Please have a seat,” Signora Pavoni says, directing me to the other guest chair. “You remember my friend Ginevra.”
I take La Diva’s hand in mine to greet her. “Certo. Buongiorno, Signora.”
“Signorina Orsini, a pleasure to see you. Thank you for meeting us this morning,” she replies in a lush, polished accent.
I settle into the chair as both women place their cups on the desk. Signora Pavoni leans forward to address me.
“Allegra, I would like to speak with you about your career goals, specifically what you envision yourself doing after graduation.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose what every aspiring opera singer would do,” I stammer. “Audition for roles, try to get accepted into a festival or postgrad program for young singers with a prominent opera house.”
La Diva clears her throat. “Signorina Orsini, do you know that I apprentice two young opera singers every summer at my villa outside Milano?”
“Of course. Some of the greatest talents have studied under your tutorship.”
“Yes, this is true,” she replies in a somewhat modest tone. “I have already chosen one singer to teach in June, and now I need to fill the month of July.”
Is she going to…
“When I choose a singer, I not only listen for the potential in the voice, but also in the personality, if the singer is able to convey the role with the body and the mind. What I heard at your recital moved me greatly. I saw great potential in you, Allegra, and I would be honored to have you serve as my apprentice in July.”
Oh my God.
I start to shake, my eyes instantly filling with tears.
“I…I’m so honored, Signora Ventura. Grazie mille! But I don’t have the money—”
“All of your expenses are covered,” she informs me, waving her hand dismissively. “I pay for everything. Tutto. Your flights, transportation from the airport, and your stay in my home.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘sì,’ Allegra,” my professor interjects, rather insistently.
I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. “Before I give you my answer, Signora Ventura, I need to tell you something. A few months ago, something happened to me, and I would never want what happened to me to affect you in any way.”
The two women glance at each other knowingly.
“Allegra, I told Ginevra about everything you’ve been through,” Signora Pavoni tells me. “And I think I speak for both of us when I say that your honesty and selflessness only reassures us that we made the right choice.”
A warm hand takes my right one. I turn to La Diva, who nods at me and looks at me with caring eyes.
“Cara Allegra, do you know how many incidents I have been involved in, both voluntarily and involuntarily?”
I shake my head.
“More than I can count with both hands. Among many things, I’ve supposedly ruined marriages, had an opera director fired, and seduced a young prince under the roof of his father’s castle. I find you to be a strong, caring woman who has a great future ahead of her. And more important, I can teach you how to use that pain to your advantage in your performance.”
I smile at her reassurance, and tighten my grip on her hand. “Then I…I…Sì! I don’t know how to thank you. I am so honored.”
“Eccellente, Allegra. I am thrilled that you will be joining me. I will get your information from Signora Pavoni, and I shall contact you shortly to discuss the arrangements.”
The three of us stand as I shake both women’s hands, telling them “Thank you” and “Grazie” again and again.
Before I step through the door, La Diva calls out my name.
“Sì, Signora?”
“You recall those three situations I mentioned to you?”
I nod.
“One of them is true,” she confesses with a wicked glint in her eyes.
I smile in return before I walk out.
As I make my way to the subway, a thought stops me in my tracks.
Davison.
We’re going to be apart for a month. An entire month.
Will he support my decision?
Why do I suddenly feel as if this might be a huge mistake?
* * *
Davison
“It’s on the left, Charles,” she commands.
I smile, listening to Allegra directing my chauffeur to pull over where her therapist’s brownstone stands in Chelsea. She’s so at ease with him, which makes me happy since he’ll be in her life as long as we’re together, which I plan on making permanent soon.
But my smile hides my nervousness. I hold Allegra’s hand tightly in mine. This is going to be our first session together. I’d never thought much of therapy. In my family, you just keep everything inside and soothe the pain with three fingers of Glenlivet. But she’s reassured me again and again that Dr. Ophelia Turner is a qualified therapist, how she helped her all those years after the trauma of seeing her mother murdered when she was five. So I need to keep an open mind. This is for Allegra, my love.
I open the door of the Maybach for Allegra. Still holding hands, we take the three steps down into the small courtyard of her basement apartment. Allegra rings the doorbell, and we’re buzzed in.
Dr. Turner is standing in the foyer.
Oh, for the love of God.
She’s dressed in some kind of white gauzy blouse with a black peasant skirt, her silver hair done in a braid of some kind that runs down her back, a pair of taupe Birkenstocks on her feet. I’m tempted to ask her what Woodstock was really like, Kumbaya and all that crap.
Open mind, remember? This is for Allegra, you dick.
Dr. Turner steps forward and hugs my girlfriend. “Allegra, lovely to see you, as always.” She turns to me, hand outstretched. “Mr. Berkeley, I’m pleased to finally meet you. I’m Dr. Ophelia Turner.”
I nod, shaking her hand in return. “Davison Berkeley. Pleasure.”
“Let’s get started, shall we?”
I follow the women into a small room that’s covered in bookshelves and thick velvet drapes, with a Persian rug on the floor, and a Tiffany lamp on a side table. I begin to understand why Allegra feels comfortable here. I have to admit it’s very cozy. Sinking into a couch upholstered in fabric that matches the drapes, I settle in and immediately take Allegra’s hand, admittedly more for my reassurance than hers.
Once we’re all settled in, Dr. Turner speaks.
“Where would you like to start today?”
Allegra opens her mouth, but I beat her to it. “Allegra asked me to join her for a session.”
“Why did you feel that was necessary?” Dr. Turner asks, turning to her.
I quickly glance over at Allegra, watching as she clears her throat.
“A lot of feelings came out after I was rescued…well, he admitted to certain things that I wasn’t expecting him to say.”
“Like what?”
Allegra bends her head in embarrassment, while I shake mine in frustration.
“I told her I was angry with her because I wish she would’ve told me about the man who was following her before she was taken.”
“It was the accomplice, yes?” Dr. Turner confirms.
Allegra and I both nod in reply.
“So you thought she was to blame for being taken?” she asks me pointedly.
“Of course not!” I roar.
This is going to go nowhere.
&n
bsp; My face begins to warm from my frustration. “Why are we even rehashing this?”
“Good,” Dr. Turner says, writing something down in her notebook.
I stare at the good doctor like she has two heads. “Excuse me?”
“Davison, you must have been incredibly frustrated and upset when Allegra was kidnapped.”
“Well, that’s stating the obvious.”
“Davison, be nice,” Allegra admonishes me.
“No, it’s all right, Allegra,” Dr. Turner counters before she turns back to me. “Davison, you needed an outlet, someone to place blame on for what happened.”
Is she fucking kidding me?
“For crying out loud, I don’t blame Allegra!”
“Of course you don’t. But you felt helpless, and you wish that you could’ve stopped it from happening. You probably even blamed yourself.”
I nod, unable to answer verbally. I don’t even notice Allegra had unclasped my left hand which had formed a fist, her hand now firmly gripping in mine.
“Allegra, what happened after he told you?”
I look back at her, now tightening my grip on hers.
“The thing is…” she begins with a whisper, “he also told me that he knew about Carlo’s plans to make me his sex slave when he took me back to Italy. He overheard me when he was in the bathroom in my hospital room and I was telling Detective Leary about it.”
I take a few deep breaths, shuddering as I exhale.
“What happened then?”
“I threw a fucking vase at the wall, okay?” I snap at Dr. Turner.
“Davison, please.”
When I look again at Allegra, her eyes are moist, begging me to stop. I release my hand, trailing my fingertips over the soft skin of her face. “I’m sorry, baby.”
She leans her head into my palm, closing her eyes.
“Davison, Allegra, please listen to what I’m going to tell you.”
We both shift back to Dr. Turner, my left hand now holding her right one.
“Neither one of you is to blame for what happened. The only persons to blame are the perpetrators who committed the crime. I can tell how much you care for each other—”
“I love her,” I blurt out, interrupting her, not giving a shit. “Just so we’re clear.”
The doctor smiles patiently at me. “Yes, Davison, I can see that. Despite the time that’s passed, you’re still healing from the incident. And you will overcome this because of the love and trust I can sense you have established with each other. As long as you keep communicating and are honest with one another, I don’t see why you won’t be able to build a strong, healthy relationship.”
I squeeze Allegra’s hand, who’s nodding her head, her eyes shut, a large smile across her lips.
Maybe this therapy thing isn’t so bad after all if it makes my Venus smile like that.
* * *
“Thank you for coming with me.”
We’re now sitting in the Maybach in front of Allegra’s building.
“Anything for you, you know that by now, don’t you?” I reassure her, running my index finger along her chin.
She nods. “I do.”
“Are you okay, baby? You’re being very quiet.”
“Therapy sessions take a lot out of me,” she whispers.
“Is that all?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She’s totally lying. But I don’t push.
“Well, okay, if you’re sure. I need to get back to the office. Dinner tomorrow at my place?”
“It’s a date, Harvard.”
I lean in and kiss her soft lips. She opens her mouth wider, taking my tongue into her mouth, her hands gripping my hair in a tight hold. She starts to moan, and my cock hardens instantly at that sound, growing larger under the fabric of my trousers. As much as I want to tell Charles to take us around the block a few more times, I know having sex with her in front of her father’s shop is not the best place to do it, despite the car’s tinted windows.
I reluctantly pull away from her mouth. “Baby, you’re killing me. Not here,” I plead.
She looks at me sheepishly, and nods after a few seconds. “Okay.”
“Hey, listen to me,” I command, lifting up her chin with my hands to make sure she’s listening to me. “Believe me, I want you so fucking much right now, but I’m too afraid that your father has X-ray vision and would be able to see through the window.”
She laughs.
The sweetest sound in the world.
“We’ll pick this up later,” I tell her.
“Promise?”
“What do you think?”
She smiles at me wickedly.
* * *
As the Maybach heads down the FDR to my office in the Financial District, what was unspoken between us bothers me. I know there was something she wasn’t telling me. After what she’s been through, she needs to know that I would never leave her, no matter what.
We finally reach the Berkeley Holdings building.
“The usual time this evening, sir?” Charles asks me when I step out of the car.
“Yes. But before you go, I need you to do me a favor.”
Davison and Allegra’s Story Continues In…
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
About the Author
A Preview of Devoted to Him
Davison and Allegra’s Story Continues In…
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Ulyana Dejneka
Excerpt from Devoted to Him copyright © 2014 by Ulyana Dejneka
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Forever Yours
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First published as an ebook and as a print on demand: July 2014
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ISBN: 978-1-4555-5736-3 (ebook edition)
ISBN: 978-1-4555-5741-7 (print on demand edition)
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