VITTORIO'S RUNAWAY BRIDE

by Kimberley Reeves

  He didn’t need to ask what she was up to; that was pretty evident from the plunging neckline of her slinky scarlet dress down to the matching stiletto heels. Her unnaturally blonde hair was swept back into a French twist, her make-up done to perfection, and she made quite a production of swinging her curvaceous hips provocatively as she made her way towards his desk. Logan rose to his feet, thoroughly shaken by the alarming certainty that Alicia intended to plop her fanny down onto his lap if he remained sitting.

  “Where is Richard?” He demanded in a voice that was as cold and rigid as the expression on his face.

  Alicia stopped short, poising her lips into a sultry pout. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “My meeting was with Richard, where is he?”

  “He got called out of town unexpectedly and asked me to convey his apologies.”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed. “He asked you dress up like a call girl and come to my office in person to tell me he would not be able to make it?”

  Alicia visibly bristled. “This is a designer original,” she said icily, “and I assure you no one would mistake me for a high priced call girl!”

  “I do not believe I said anything about being high priced,” Logan replied.

  A slow smile spread across her face. “What’s the matter, Logan, are you afraid you won’t be able to handle a night with me?”

  “I think the point here is that I have no desire to spend the night with you, Mrs. Delatorre.”

  Alicia ran her hands slowly up her body and cupped her own breasts. “You honestly expect me to believe you don’t want to touch me right now?” She licked her lips and moved one hand down between her thighs. “I ache for you, Logan. I want to feel you deep inside my hot, wet…”

  A low growl rumbled in his chest as he gripped her arm and propelled her towards the door. “I am a married man, and unlike you I take my vows very seriously.” He flipped the lock and yanked the door open then shoved Alicia out of his office. “I love my wife and I respect Richard; that alone would keep me from taking you to bed. But just for the record, I do not find you sexually attractive and would not sleep with you even if both of us were single.” He nodded towards the elevators. “I am sure you can find your way out.”

  He didn’t wait for her outraged reply, though he heard enough of the very unladylike sputtering through the door after slamming it in her face. He’d waited until he was sure she was gone before leaving his office and then driven around for a good half hour before heading home. He’d needed the time to calm himself and to figure out how in hell he was going to avoid being alone with Alicia again without throwing up any red flags that might raise suspicion with Richard.

  He remembered how agitated he’d been on the drive home even after stalling for time but the minute he stepped inside, Shelby was in his arms, the heat of her kisses melting the tension of the day and making him forget everything except how very fortunate he was to have her as his wife. Shelby was the balance in his life. What other people took from him, she replenished with nothing more than a smile or a touch, and only Shelby could make him laugh when he felt weighted down by all of his responsibilities. Her love was pure and unconditional, and she’d brought him more happiness than any one man had a right to.

  Logan set his glass down when he heard the soft padding of bare feet and turned around just as Shelby stepped outside. She stood there for a moment looking uncertain and incredibly vulnerable but the instant he held his arms out she came to him, a radiant smile lighting her face. She pressed herself close, resting her cheek against his chest while Logan gently stroked her hair.

  “I don’t understand why you’re not furious with me,” she said in a wobbly voice.

  “I am angry with myself, cara mia, not with you.”

  She tipped her head back. “But you did nothing wrong! I was the one who let my insecurities come between us and then left without even giving you a chance to explain.”

  Logan cupped her face in his hands. “And if I had not left you alone so much or at least made sure you knew how very much I love you, then you would not have had any insecurities to begin with.”

  Shelby's heart did a wild flip. “You…you’ve never said that before.”

  “I should have,” he said remorsefully. “I should have told you a hundred times a day how I felt. I love you, Shelby.” Logan lowered his head and kissed her, softly at first and then with such fierce intensity he could feel her quivering against his own trembling body. “I love you,” he whispered, repeating the words over and over as he carried her back to the bedroom.

  ***

  If it was possible to die of happiness, Shelby wouldn’t have survived the night. As it was, she felt like she was soaring above the clouds because Logan was taking her home today. While he and Grady loaded up her car with the things she’d packed so far, Shelby hurried into the room she’d converted into a studio and shuffled all the paintings into the closet. She hadn’t given them a thought the whole time Logan was here but she didn’t want him checking the rooms to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything and run across them.

  It was a shame to hide them away really because she thought they represented some of her best work, but they were also a sad reminder of how closely she’d come to destroying her marriage with petty, unfounded jealousy. She stopped for a moment to study the last painting before tucking it away with the others and decided the next time she put Logan on canvas she’d paint herself right there beside him where she belonged! Shelby closed the closet door and turned around, letting out a startled yelp when she found herself pressed up against Logan’s broad chest.

  “You scared the life out of me,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  Logan’s eyes shifted past her to the closet door. “You are leaving your paintings and art supplies here?”

  “The paintings were more for myself really, and I thought it would be more convenient to leave the supplies behind rather than packing them up again when I come back here. Besides, it’s not as if I don’t have plenty of supplies at home and…” Shelby’s voice trailed off when Logan’s expression suddenly hardened. “Oh, I see now,” she attempted a smile, “you didn’t keep my things. Not that I blame you,” Shelby rushed to assure him, though in truth she was terribly hurt by it.

  “Shelby, I did not get rid of your things,” he replied irritably. “It is what you said about coming back here. I will not have you running off every time we have a difference of opinion or you get some silly notion in your head that I have a lover stashed somewhere.”

  Shelby couldn’t help laughing in spite of the dark scowl on his face. “I’m sorry,” she slipped her arms around his waist. “I should have told you I decided to keep the cottage for us.”

  “For us,” Logan repeated skeptically.

  “Yes, I think it would be nice to have a place we can sneak off to for a few days. No family or friends dropping by unannounced or business calls interrupting at the most inopportune times. It would be just you and me, doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

  But Logan didn’t look as if he thought it was wonderful. The corners of his mouth tilted down slightly as if she’d just told him something terribly disappointing and he was trying not to let it show. Her spirits plummeted to the ground. He didn’t want to spend time alone with her, at least not in an isolated beach cottage that offered no escape route when he got tired of her company. An old, familiar ache began to settle in the pit of her stomach, one she’d almost forgotten during the endless months they’d been apart.

  “Cara mia,” he said with an indulgent smile, “you know how difficult it is for me to get away, just as you know my management team has to be able to reach me when they need to.”

  “You have four brothers, Logan. Surely one of them could cover for you every now and then so we could have time alone.”

  “Simon has relinquished the helm to me and it is my responsibility to keep the company running smoothly. It requires a lot of time and dedication, and it is not something I can shuf
fle off to someone else whenever I feel like it. You have known this from the beginning so I do not understand why you suddenly feel the need to hide away where no one can find us.”

  “You found time for me when were dating,” she argued.

  Logan drew in a long breath, desperately trying not to lose patience with her. “Shelby, it is different now that we are married. I work longer hours so I can spend my evenings and nights with you. When we were dating I used to go home and put in at least two or three more hours of work after I left your place."

  Shelby pulled away from him. “But that’s just it, don’t you see? Even when you are at home, our evenings still get disrupted by business calls and inevitably there's family around so we never really get any quality time together.”

  His brows furrowed. “Are you saying my family is not welcome in our home?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s just that you’re away all day and most of the time our evenings are spent in the company of others. I miss being alone with you, Logan.”

  “We were alone every night in our bed, carissima.”

  The husky tone of his voice brought back vivid memories of those incredible nights; bodies entwined beneath a tangle of sheets, the heat, the passion, the…

  “Stop trying to distract me,” Shelby chided, even as her heart leapt when Logan pulled her back into his arms. “We…we need to talk about this,” she said faintly.

  “Later,” he murmured against her lips.

  Shelby tried to resist him, she really did, and for all of two or three seconds she was a pillar of strength. But when Logan slanted his head and deepened the kiss, his arms crushing her to his magnificent chest, that pillar crumbled like sawdust and was swept away in a whirlwind of ravaging desire. All those cruel months when her senses had been deprived of anything but pain and sorrow melted into oblivion as he continued to plunder her mouth, and if it hadn’t been for Grady’s untimely intrusion she probably would have blindly followed Logan to his car without finishing their conversation.

  Grady bounded into the room. “I think that’s everything so if…oops, sorry about the interruption,” he grinned sheepishly.

  Logan lifted his head but kept Shelby imprisoned in his arms. “There are two more suitcases in the bedroom but we will put them in my car. Go ahead and take off, we will not be far behind you.”

  “Grady wait,” Shelby managed to squeak out just as he turned to go. The look of displeasure from Logan made her stomach churn but there was too much at stake to let him whisk her away before she was ready.

  Grady cast an uncertain glance at Logan before asking, “Was there something else you needed me to take?”

  The tension in Logan’s body would have been obvious even if she hadn’t still been locked in his arms. Pressed as close as she was, Shelby could feel every taut muscle from shoulder to thigh but it was the glacial expression on his face more than anything that revealed the emotions he was so staunchly trying to hide. It hit her hard because until this moment, she’d never even considered that Logan might be feeling just as vulnerable and scared as she was. Shelby smiled up at him before answering Grady.

  “No, I just wanted to thank you for all your help. Logan and I have a few things to discuss before we leave but like he said, we won’t be far behind you.”

  Logan didn’t say anything for several minutes after Grady left. He stared into those fathomless green eyes trying to discern what was going on in that pretty head of hers. His stomach was still in knots, though the pain wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been when she’d told Grady to wait. Somehow he’d known what she was about to say; that she wasn’t going with him after all. He’d been floored. No, worse than that, it was if he’d been hurled back in time to that God awful moment when he’d first realized Shelby had left him and wasn’t coming back.

  “Please don’t look at me like that,” Shelby finally broke the silence. “I didn’t mean it to sound so ominous and if I hurt you, I’m sorry. It’s just that…I think there are some issues we need to resolve first.”

  “I was under the impression we had already done that.”

  “You know we haven’t, Logan. We set the record straight about Alicia but it made me wonder. Would I have handled the situation differently if things had been right between us?”

  Logan’s scowl deepened. “I was not aware there was anything wrong between us. Did I not give you everything your heart desired, cara?”

  Shelby framed his face in her hands. “You gave me all the material things a woman could want and then some, my darling, but you didn’t give me my heart’s desire. It’s you, Logan. All I ever needed was you.”

  “You talk as if I was never around, as if I only placated you with jewelry and clothes you apparently never even wanted just to make up for it.”

  He looked so much like a petulant little boy at that moment Shelby couldn’t help but smile. “I didn’t mean to infer the gifts you gave me weren’t appreciated because they were. I know it was a way of expressing your affection for me and I adored you for taking the time to pick out something you thought I would like. But what I really wanted, what I needed was to hear you say you loved me and to prove it by spending time alone with me.”

  “You think I do not regret the time I have to be away from you? Mio Dio, I would like nothing better than to shirk my duty and leave work whenever I wished or shoo my family off without regard to their feelings but I cannot.”

  Shelby’s smile faded. “You make me sound selfish for wanting to be with my husband.” She tried to pull away from him, but Logan would have none of it.

  “No, mio bello,” he kissed her lightly on the lips, “you do not have it in you to be selfish, but you are perhaps a little naïve when it comes to marriage and all it entails. There are certain sacrifices that must be made…”

  “No,” she said with a stubborn lift of her chin, “I don’t believe that for a minute. Compromise is inevitable but sacrificing means giving up something that’s important to one or both of us. I won’t do it, Logan, so I suggest you come up with a compromise we can both live with.”

  “Compromise,” he said as if he’d never heard of the word before.

  “Negotiate, give and take, find the middle ground…”

  “I know what it means,” he cut her off, “but I am at a loss as to how I can negotiate time I do not have to spare.”

  Shelby’s eyes misted with tears. “If it was important enough, you’d find a way.”

  Logan crushed her to his chest. “Make no mistake, mia moglie,” he said fiercely, “nothing is more important to me than you are. I will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

  “Promise me,” she pleaded.

  His head dipped so they were cheek to cheek. “I promise, mio amore, I promise.”

  ****

  Logan glanced at his wife before turning his attention back to the road. Her cheeks were flushed with color, her eyes sparkling with excitement as she tossed out one idea after another in a tone that relayed with vivid clarity just how happy she was. He couldn’t help getting caught up in her enthusiasm and in truth, he was thrilled to death at the prospect of stealing even a few extra minutes a day with her.

  “I am sorry I did not think of it myself,” he told her when she stopped to catch her breath.

  Shelby stretched her hand out and slipped it into his. “I’m just happy you’re listening and agreeing with some of my suggestions. You really like the idea of me setting up a studio in the Penthouse suites?”

  The Penthouse was on the top floor of Vittorio Enterprises and Logan used it whenever he needed a place to change clothes for a dinner appointment or just wanted to get away from the office for awhile. He visualized taking a few leisurely lunch hours during the week with Shelby, although sharing a meal with her wasn’t the only thing he had in mind. What better way to relieve the tension of the day than to bury himself in his wife’s delectable body? A slow smile spread across his face as he pictured her lying naked and wait
ing for him in the king size bed.