by Olivia Gates
She glided up the walkway’s curve to the table he’d had set for them, overlooking the dance floor on one side and the blazing Manhattan skyline on the other.
He reached the table the same moment she did, placed his hands palms down on the wine-red silk tablecloth, leaned toward her. “What have I done now to deserve a demotion from simply worthless to seriously wasteful and wretchedly unprofessional?”
She placed a tiny tasseled bag on the table, titled her face at him. “What haven’t you done? First that fifteen-grand-a-night suite, and now this, an exclusive New York night spot where becoming a member carries a hundred-grand price tag and a single visit costs a few grand per person. I won’t even guess what you had to pay for an exclusive night for two. It would probably amount to a developing country’s monthly budget, and I might get sick.”
He cocked his head at her, exhilaration thrumming through his nerve endings. “I’m impressed. Your knowledge of the particulars and costs of high-end living around here is pretty comprehensive.”
“Glad you’re impressed. I’m not. Depressed is more like it.”
He could believe that. In the past, her thorough disinterest in material things had been another quality he’d admired about her. And she’d walked out on him when he’d been almost a billionaire.
But then, it could have been easy to seem disinterested when she already had material excess through her sister. And she could have been holding out for a billionaire with royal status.
There was probably no way to know what the truth was.
He huffed. “Don’t be so eager to feel sick and depressed. And I believe the suite comes with a twenty-grand-a-night tag.”
Her eyes widened, reflecting the indirect lights that made her look otherworldly. “It’s more expensive, and that’s supposed to slow my plunge into depression? I feel I should be arrested for criminal waste. After you are, of course.”
He came around the table, holding his breath until he brushed against her. Air rushed out at the contact, at the tremor passing from her body to his where his thigh seemed to stick to the side of her hip, his hand to the small of her back.
She broke the circuit, descended—to his satisfaction—very unsteadily into the chair his other hand had pulled back for her.
He waited until he’d taken his seat then drawled, “Strange to hear you talking of waste and extravagance. You live in a palace where most articles cost thousands or are literally priceless.”
Her eyes held his as her fingers sought a silver fork, ran up and down its length. He imagined them doing the same to his length.
“You talk as if I furnished the place when I’m just a long-term guest. Even Julia has no say in being surrounded by stuff that belongs in a museum. And you won’t see either of us spending thousands on anything that isn’t needed or at least useful.”
“Very commendable. Of both of you. But since you seem to know such a lot, you must have an idea about the size of my fortune?”
“Sure. A few hundred grand is pocket change to you. But a few here and a few there, and soon we’re talking real money, even by your standards. And then it’s the principle I’m talking about. Do you usually indulge this kind of extravagance, or are you out to make a statement? I hope that wasn’t your goal as it sure backfired. Unless the statement is that you’re an obnoxious show-off.”
His chuckle overpowered him. If she’d always harbored this confrontational vixen inside her and had been able to project the restful and acquiescent angel he’d known on demand, she was an actress of a scope he couldn’t imagine. “I’m so relieved I wasn’t trying to impress you, then. My intentions were along the lines of…pampering you. I failed to do that, too?”
Her head inclined, sending his heart tripping as her hair cascaded to the same side. “I wonder what gave you the impression that I’d appreciate this.”
“Everyone appreciates luxury.”
“Luxury beyond reason is…”
“Criminal. You’ve already informed me. I can do no right in your eyes, can I? Strange. I remember when you once gave me the impression I could do no wrong.” He gave a sigh of mock regret. “Oh well. I can now shower you with excesses knowing in advance I’ll be reviled for it.” Before she whacked him with another comeback, he went on, “But to settle your mind about my wasting the equivalent of a struggling nation’s income, let me solve the riddle you hurled at me as you came in. I didn’t become who I am by spending money, but by making it. And I make it everywhere you can imagine, and in places you can’t. And no, there is nothing criminal in my pursuits. Everything you’ve seen since you set foot in New York makes me money. From the building I own to the hotel where you’re staying to a dozen others, to this place. Having Presidential suites to offer my guests and exclusive entertainment with no notice are among the many perks of being the major shareholder.”
She glared at him. He managed not to lunge across the table and drag her into his arms. He grinned mockingly at her. “Disappointed I didn’t fork out an obscene amount of money to impress or misguidedly pamper you?”
Her lips twisted. “I was disappointed to think you had.”
“So no perverse disappointment now that you know I didn’t?”
“Now you’re not a spendthrift, but a chauvinist? Harping on the age-old implication that a woman says no when she really means yes?”
“I don’t think it’s female, but human for your logic and morals to clash with your need to feel valued. Criminally extravagant gestures might be abhorrent to one’s ethics, but they sure tickle one’s ego.”
And she smiled. Maledizione, she smiled.
As he tried to deal with a bout of arrhythmia, a giggle escaped her flushed lips. “You became who you are by being an expert on human nature, too, it seems. Okay, I apologize.”
He pressed a hand to his chest. This woman was out to do him some serious damage.
“I jumped to conclusions, ignored obvious explanations because I resented the hell out of you and wanted to believe the worst. And all you did was offer me the benefit of the perks you worked so hard to obtain, when you didn’t have to. When I gave you every reason not to care if I spent the night in a flea-infested motel. Your brand of hospitality may be hard to enjoy without severe pangs of conscience, but I appreciate the thought.”
He pretended to melt back in his chair in relief. He did need the support of something solid with his senses swimming as they were. “Phew. So that’s the obnoxious show-off charge taken care of. What about the unprofessional-wretch accusation?”
Her solitary dimple winked at him. “Yes, what about it?”
He guffawed at her volley, shook his head. The words came to him now, what she felt like; like the sum total of his desires.
And those were indeed fierce. More. They were all-consuming.
Which brought him back to his plan.
He would claim the crown that had once been ripped from him. If he could be convinced once more it was his destiny to wear it.
There were no ifs when it came to her. He would claim her.
If he claimed the crown, it would be on his terms. No negotiations. But in her case…this was were his plot thickened.
He’d pursued her the first time around, always coming back to her as if starved. This time, he would make her do the running. Then he’d claim her.
And when he judged the time right, he would walk away.
He signaled the staff to begin the night’s service, leaned across the table and captured the hand that kept frying his imagination with its restless movements.
“Va bene, Phoebe. Let’s get the myth of my un-professionalism debunked, too. Let’s get down to business. You have the whole night to work…on me.”
Four
The moment Leandro took her hand, Phoebe felt as if he’d taken her will away, infused his own inside her. She wrestled with his hypnotic gaze before snatching her hand away as if from a hot grill, pretended interest in her surroundings.
They sure warranted it, and the
n some. As he’d said, damn his insight, all this was one colossal ego tickle. He might have easy access to it, but that he’d put this much thought and planning into setting the scene was at once disconcerting and exciting as hell. And there was no doubt what kind of scene it was.
A seduction scene.
Oh, she’d tried to rationalize that this was the done thing, that businessmen flaunted their status and power by conducting negotiations over extravagant meals among backdrops of affluence and exclusivity, that as a businessman in a class of his own, he’d naturally gone beyond what others would.
Those rationalizations lasted for the three seconds it took her to get a load of the place.
With the eyes of experience, she could see this place as it might be on a normal business night, when its three-level interior would provide space to those who craved it, and privacy to those who preferred it. There would be partitions separating the top-level dining area from the mid-level bar and the lower-level lounge. Each would be bustling with its own clientele, feature its own menu, table and bottle service and resident DJ. Tonight the place seemed to have been designed to provide a single couple with expansive, atmospheric surroundings for an unforgettable encounter.
The décor was at once dignified and decadent, bridging borders with a dip into Latin heat in its daring, in the originality of bold yet harmonizing colors and designs. All in all this place had the ambiance of a dimension a few realities removed from the one she belonged to, one that swirled with ultra-modernism, Machiavellian suggestions and a touch of the arcane. The realm of a fallen angel where mortals suffered sensual enslavement and carnal excess. Very appropriate.
And she’d walked willingly into the Prince of Dark Temptation’s web. She’d stood at its threshold, caught in a spotlight, feeling like the subject of an experiment in human response conducted by some higher being.
Said being was sitting there, watching her, overshadowing their surroundings in a suit and shirt, sans tie, that had been sculpted around his magnificence, their darkness and textures deepening the spell that hung around him.
And he’d just invited her to get to work. On him.
The moment the parade of beautiful people dressed in red and black satin finished spreading their table with ingeniously prepared and arranged appetizers and filled their crystal glasses before leaving the bottle of Moët & Chandon in ice, Leandro leaned back in his chair, making his appraisal even more invasive.
“So, have you decided yet what you’ll do with your second shot at convincing me, Phoebe?”
She took a sip from her glass. And inhaled most of it.
After she redirected the fluid down her throat, she managed a strangled, “I’ll start with holding my tongue. How’s that?”
He mirrored her actions, bypassing the coughing-his-lungs-out bit, lids heavy as he licked the taste from his lips, making her feel as if he’d tasted hers. “Is that within your range of abilities?”
She took another sip, bent on proving that she could still manage basic stuff like swallowing. “It used to be. I was renowned for it.”
“Quella è la verità—isn’t that the truth. You had such rare reticence. Only when it came to talking, grazie a Dio. It was a trait I valued beyond measure.”
“Yeah, a woman who’s unrestrained in bed and keeps her mouth shut out of it must be every man’s dream.”
His eyes flickered. Surprised? That she’d put his innuendo into plain English? “I’m not every man, Phoebe. It wasn’t because I was interested only in bedding you that I valued your quietness.”
She plopped one of the hollandaise-covered, crab-stuffed mushrooms on her plate, cut into it. “No? Could’ve fooled me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re implying you were quiet because my attitude discouraged you from talking?”
She took a bite. Tasted nothing. “Not really. There was nothing to say. But with all you had going on then, I did get the feeling that you wouldn’t have appreciated it if there was.”
“Nothing to say, eh? Strange how there can be two entirely different perspectives on the same situation. I thought you didn’t talk much because you had this innate…understanding of me and of our situation that transcended the need for verbal expression. I thought we didn’t use words because we were on the same wavelength without them. Seems that’s another thing I was wrong about.”
She concentrated. Hard. Swallowing now could end in a real emergency. The implication of what he was saying…
Could be anything really. From the poignant and profound to the meaningless and superficial.
She’d take something toward the end of the spectrum of the second interpretation. This was the man who’d let her walk out of his life and hadn’t even tried to call her again in eight years. She doubted he’d had one poignant or profound thought where she was concerned.
It seemed he was waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he sighed. “So you can still call on your tongue-holding talents. I really hope you won’t hold out for long. I find myself valuing your new intensity and contentiousness far more than I ever did your tranquility and acquiescence.”
“That must be maturity. The ‘me against the world until I take it over and no one better oppose-me’ young man has become a ‘the world is mine and I’m dying for a new challenge’ man.”
He threw his head back and let out another of those intoxicating peals of unadulterated maleness. “Ah, Phoebe, siete una sincera, genuina, autentica shaitana rajeema and I sperare ardentemente that you don’t hold your tongue ever again.”
Resigned that she’d live with constant arrhythmia with him around, she picked up what turned out to be a maple-bourbon-glazed chicken wing and nibbled on it. “So although you’ve outgrown some traits, you still make a salad of Italian, English and Moorish.”
His chuckles intensified as he watched her, and she imagined him nibbling on her lips, her neck, lower…“Only when one language doesn’t provide accurate enough words.”
“You couldn’t say I’m an honest-to-goodness wicked devil in English?”
“You understood!” His eyes sparked with wonder and approval. She felt like a child fluttering at her hero’s praise. Stupid. “And no, I couldn’t. The English words—and your translation is as perfect as can be—don’t have the exact nuances I wanted. Sperare ardentmente is more accurate than ‘I pray to God,’ too. Your idiomatic Italian is impressive. Most people who learn it as adults never learn its subtleties. But what made you learn Moorish? Almost no one in the Castaldinian cities uses it anymore.”
Phoebe reached for her glass. The lump in her throat suddenly felt much larger.
Should she tell him she’d wanted to understand what he’d crooned to her at the heights of ecstasy? What, in her reluctance to make any demands of him, she’d let go unexplained?
After she’d resumed breathing again, she decided to tell him part of the truth. “I was intrigued every time you used it. It sounded so…primal and passionate, so different from Italian and any other language I’ve ever heard. And though it’s not prevalent anymore, it—and the people who still speak it—is an integral part of the cultures that weave Castaldini. I felt I should know as much as I can of it. I’m not good by a long shot, but I get the general picture. My pronunciation stinks, though.”
He seemed to weigh her answer. Then he picked up her hand, encased its sweaty coldness in the warmth and torment of his long, beautiful fingers. “Say something…”
“Shai’,” she blurted out.
Another boom of virile amusement rocked her. “And I was going to say don’t take me literally and say shai’.”
“How about I say nothing? La shai’?”
He laughed again as he gave her hand a squeeze that could have left burn marks on her flesh before rocking back in his chair and throwing his hands in the air. “I take it back. Say anything.”
“Ai shai’.”
He leaned across the table, two fingers sealing her lips, his eyes radiating amusement…and arousal. “
Ai shai’ out of those lips should be banned as a lethal weapon. But in Moorish it becomes one of mass destruction. Your accent doesn’t stink, it scorches.”
“I basically said one word,” she mumbled against his fingers, wondering what it would do to the course of the evening—and of her life—if she sucked them into her watering mouth.
Good thing he saved her from finding out. He brushed her lips with the backs of his fingers for one heart-bursting moment before withdrawing the temptation. “It was enough to tell me that I need some serious preparation before I hear a full sentence.”
She plopped back in her chair, hopefully out of reach of more will-destroying touches. “So now we know why I speak Moorish. Why do you? None of the younger generation D’Agostinos I know do.”
“Alas, I’m no longer one of the ‘younger generation.’ Everyone from my generation was required to learn it at school.”
“But no one speaks it, apart from smatterings that have made their way into mainstream Castaldinian Italian.”
“There is a section of the population who cling to it as Castaldini’s original language. To the rest it rusted from misuse like any second language learned in school. I had more incentive to learn it. My maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Moor.”
“So that’s where the overriding raider in you comes from!”
He put his glass down, stood, took two steps to her side, and without warning, bent and pulled her up and against him, breast to chest. “This seating arrangement was my worst idea yet.”
Before she could blink, he urged her over to an ensconced corner of the upper level. He half carried her down onto a red leather couch, missing coming on top of her by an inch.
She almost reached out and made him obliterate that inch. This train was hitting her. Why not get it over with?
The knowledge that the impact wouldn’t be the end of the devastation made her freeze as the staff zoomed around them, spreading the square quartz table in front of the couch with hot plates simmering over gentle flames.