by T Stedman
He put his mouth and nose into the soft crook of her neck and breathed in deeply, resolving to enjoy the blessings of the right here and now and not over-analyse everything.
“What made you decide?” she asked, pulling away grinning at him.
“I’m having some new deep baths put in to the top floor of The Bluebell.”
Her breath hitched then her eyes narrowed. “How long have you been planning that?”
“He whispered next to her ear. “Since the first time I had you in my shower.”
***
Tia left with Jay the next day, accompanied by her guards, which were now to be permanently assigned to her. Days moved into weeks, and weeks moved into months, which Tia referred to as their golden time. She went everywhere with Jay. London, New York, Paris. You name it, wherever Bonaci business was, Jay would have to go and she was always on his jet, at his hotel and in his bed. They were the happiest times of her life – except those brief days of honeymoon with Dante, which she refused to revisit in her memory banks.
Jay was proving to be a huge asset to the Bonaci Corporation; pushing them to new heights and prosperity. He had become a formidable businessman.
She knew he always sought news of his oldest friend, often getting updates from Alfonzo. They found out that Dante had begun to put his house in order. He’d kicked out all his wives and concentrated on the Dubonnetti family business, which was coming up alongside Jay’s on the map.
Jay was pleased, she could tell, but they never discussed him. It was so typical of him to be so generous in his goodwill towards Dante, that she loved him all the more for it.
But despite spending all her time with him, he’d never once said he loved her. They had a strong physical relationship. She had no complaints there. But emotionally he remained distant and aloof. She warred with herself, craving emotional intimacy with him on one hand, but also welcoming the space Jay instinctively gave her as well. Shit, she didn’t know what the answer was. She reasoned that no-one would want to spend as much time with someone and for so long, if they didn’t have feelings. And perhaps he didn’t like to visit them any more than she did hers for Dante. And so she pushed her feelings of isolation aside.
After several weeks away and six months after leaving Dante, they came back to Jay’s hotel in London. It was to be no holiday though, as he had some big takeover he was working on which was going to take up all his time over the next few days.
When they arrived back at The Bluebell Tia felt restless and longed to get some downtime with Jay, but knew better than to hassle him for it.
Feeling like a spare part and a tag-a-long was becoming a habit these days. “Do you mind if I nip down to Kent to my place while you’re so busy?” she pitched to Jay. She hadn’t been out of his, or the Guards’ sight for months.
Jay looked at her while he thought about it from behind his laptop. “I don’t see why not,” he said, eventually, “How long are you thinking?”
“Oh not long … couple of days? I just want to check on it. I haven’t been there for months.”
“Okay babe, when are you going?”
“I might go now. I can get the train down and get my bike so I’ve got it up here.”
“What about the Guard?”
“Oh Jay, I would like to be in my space alone. Please Jay.”
He beckoned her over, curling a finger. She obediently walked over. He put his laptop aside and pulled her onto his lap. He looked into her eyes for what seemed like an age as if searching them for something. She held her breath. He’s going to say it. He’s going to say it.
Then he just pecked her on the lips. “Go,” he said, “before I get you all hot and messy.”
She smiled and felt a small disappointment pain hit the bottom of her stomach, but swallowed it down. “Okay then … I’ll be off.”
He didn’t look up any more.
She closed the door of the suite with a lump in her throat, sniffed and stomped to the lift. You’ve got to stop kidding yourself girl.
***
The Kent countryside whizzed past as she stared out of the window of the train. She’d forgotten how beautiful and green it was. There was something so permanent and honest about the land. Although most of her DJ’ing work was in cities, the countryside held her heart.
Cash had always joked with her that if neither of them married they would grow old together on his ranch. She sighed at the warm fuzzy feeling that thought gave her – so calm, serene and uncomplicated. It still wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
Before long she’d jumped out of the train and into a cab, which she directed down the old windy lanes to a dirt track and onto the gravel in front of her barn. Her heart lifted the minute she saw it.
She paid the cabbie and ran across the yard. Her ladder was down, which was strange. Maybe she left it down when she was last here?
She bounded up the steps, flung her bag down and went to walk into the living room area of her loft and stopped dead. There, sitting as bold as brass, was Dante, in all his terrifying, sexy glory.
“Fucking hell!” escaped her lips.
He was sitting forward on the sofa with his elbows on his knees. “Hello babe.”
He wasn’t the cocky, immature, charmer she had left all those months ago. He seemed to have filled out. He was unsure and serious and devastatingly good-looking. Stop! she had to say to her own line of thinking, and shook her head to regain her senses.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“I spoke to Jay today.”
“Oh.” She felt uneasy, then disloyal – weird.
Then a thought suddenly struck her. “Jay doesn’t know this place, no-one does … except?”
Dante nodded. “Yes, the delightful Marco took great pleasure in rubbing my nose in the fact he’d been here.”
“What an arsehole. I knew straight away it was a mistake giving him my address.”
“Ah, no bother, I enjoyed rubbing his nose in the floor to get the information out of him. So thanks for that.” He smiled at her. The old glint in his eye was still there.
“You haven’t changed that much then?” she said, playfully accusing him.
“I’m sober, single and sensible now,” he said, in his wonderful Irish accent, still with a grin on his face.
Not willing to succumb to the charm, she asked, “What happened to the old ball and chains?” emphasising the ‘s’.
He laughed at that. “Gone. All of them. I should have taken notice of you.” He got serious for a second. “They weren’t Sirens, any of them. You kept saying you had a funny feeling about them, but I wouldn’t listen,” he said shaking his head. Then he looked back straight into her eyes. “They jumped me in the pool that day.”
Tia rolled her eyes and exhaled.
He was trying to keep the laughter out of his voice at the absurdity of what he was saying. “It’s true, they were Sea Witches.”
“Sea Witches?” she scoffed, with very little belief in what he was saying to her. “More like Sea Bitches.”
Dante laughed, “I know. I think they thought you were muscling in on their gig. The fucking annoying thing was that they could breathe the water but no power passed to me that day, nor any other day. But by the time I knew something was up, you’d already gone.”
She tried not to be affected by him and eyed him suspiciously, “Why would they do that?”
I still haven’t got to the bottom of who sent them, but they were just lower-class Atlanteans trying to make a bit of fame and fortune for their family. I don’t think they expected to keep up the pretence for long. Whoever was behind it used them to buy some time to find your real sisters. I was too stupid to see it.” He shook his head and looked down at his hands, annoyed with himself. “Then he looked up at her earnestly. “ I lost you because of it, most of my brothers won’t speak to me and Stephan wants to kill me.”
She looked a bit confused at a
ll that.
He must have read it on her face. “Joselle is blind. My fault. Stephan now hates my guts.”
She softened a bit and came and sat nearer to him. “What happened?” she said, in concern.
“Although she wasn’t a Siren and couldn’t breathe for me or give me power or anything, she had what Witches call the second sight.”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“Well …” He looked a bit shifty. “When I wanted to find out what you were doing, when our mental bond was growing weaker, if I gave her a small sample of my blood and she drank it, she could see you and tell me about you. Whether you were happy and whether you had …” he stumbled his words and swallowed as if the thought were very painful to him, “bonded with anyone else.”
She thought about it. “Breathing you mean?”
He nodded.
“How does that blind someone?”
“The more you use the second sight, the more normal sight dims.” Then he didn’t look her in the eye. “I did it a lot.”
She was quiet. Her mind was racing. Eventually she looked at him. He was just looking at his hands – still wearing the ring. “What do you want, Dante?”
He stood up and started to walk around the room as if it was difficult to say what he wanted to say. In the end he just stopped and turned towards her and took his hands out of his pockets. “I just want to hang out. I want to take some time out from being a king – being an Atlantean. I dunno being an arsehole. I just want to do what normal people do, if only for a little while?” The fact he was in pain was written all over his face.
“Why me?” she found herself saying, lamely.
“You have only ever known me as a king and an Atlantean, but I was normal before that, Tia; before I knew you.”
Then he thought about what he’d said for a moment and added, “Well I was still an arsehole, and a drunk, and took gratuitous drugs. But that was normal in my circles, honest.” He couldn’t help himself from laughing as he finished what he was saying.
She found herself being charmed by his honesty and hopeless sense of humour. “Oh fucking hell, Dante!” she said, trying not to laugh. “I did not see this coming, not in a month of Sundays.”
“Oh, what d’ya say? Let’s go mad. We can just go off on holiday; clubbing in Ibiza, or I dunno, boating in Venice, whatever you fancy.” He was kneeling at her feet and gently shaking her by the tops of her arms.
She was grinning back at him almost getting caught up in his whirlwind when the laughter drained out of her face. “What about Jay?” she said, utterly deflated.
Dante stood up and walked away from her, then half-turned back with a calculating look in his eye. “If he knows you’ve bumped into me, he will be expecting it.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, he will be expecting it?” she said, standing up as well.
“We have an understanding.” Dante said, quietly.
“What understanding?” A deep feeling of unease crept over her.
“That whoever you want to be with, we have to accept it. And not, you know, influence the outcome.”
“What? When did you arrange this?”
“When we were alone in the room at your father’s. The night of the wedding celebration.”
She went quiet trying to compute the information. “God, you two are priceless, you know that?”
She stormed past him to go to her bathroom.
“Where are you going?”
“For a bath … alone!”
“What shall I do?” he said, at a loss.
“You can ring the shithead and tell him what you just told me … and then you can make arrangements to go to Timbuktu for all I care … I can’t believe the two of you have it all sussed. And I … I can’t fucking believe it.” She built in anger and volume. “I can’t believe that I’ve carried around all this guilt when the pair of you are still fucking mates.” She banged and crashed her things and ran herself a deep bath. She lit candles around it and put Grover Washington Junior’s Limelight on loud to drown everything out. She undressed and submerged, opened her lungs and let her gill bubbles sooth her to the beautiful lulling tones of the saxophone.
***
That went well. Dante grinned to himself.
He didn’t get through to Jay. He just sent a text message:
Bumped into Tia. Gone to Italy for a few days. D.
He clicked his phone off. His jet was already primed to go. He’d decided on Italy as he had a nice little villa down there – with a huge pool.
He smiled. He wanted her back with every fibre of his being. He was going to love her so well she wouldn’t want to ever leave him.
Chapter 23
After keeping Dante at arm’s length all night, threatening to stab him if he came near her, they boarded the Dubonnetti plane late morning.
No longer impressed by the jet set lifestyle, Tia was quiet and moody all the way to Italy.
Dante smirked to himself, confident he’d wear her down, and sooner rather than later. Now he had her away from Jay, and on her own, he could employ his whole arsenal of charm.
They landed at about 4.30 p.m. at Milan Malpensa airport, and a driver took them the forty-five minute drive to Lake Como where his family’s villa was situated.
As soon as they arrived Tia snapped out of her mood. “Dante, wow!” She ran from veranda to veranda looking at the lake and the gardens, cooing and ‘aahing’ as she went.
Dante just stood and watched her run around. “Do you want to go for a walk? It’s starting to cool down at this time of day, and then we can go for something to eat?”
“Yes!” she said, running up the stairs before realising she didn’t know where she was going. “Which room?’ she stopped and asked.
Dante had followed her up. “Any one you want,” as long as it is with me.
She ran into all six bedrooms and settled on the one with a beautiful balcony and view of the lake. She threw open the doors and went out. “This one,” she whispered.
“Come, let’s go out,” he said quietly, next to her.
She flung all the stuff out of her bag with no care for her belongings at all, much to his amusement, as he was meticulous with his own clothes. It struck him that he knew so little about her. He watched her settle for a loose halterneck maxi dress and gladiator sandals, which strapped up her leg.
Dante tore his eyes away to choose some cooler clothes for himself. Baggy navy trousers, Italian sandals, of course, and a loose cotton white shirt left untucked. With his long curly hair and Ray-Bans® on his head holding it back, he could easily pass as a local. In fact he spoke fluent Italian.
The evening was balmy and the air was fragrant as they followed the footpath that meandered through shady trees and shrubs next to the lake.
They could hear a party with chatting people and indiscernible music at a distance. Dante tried to hold her hand a few times but she pulled it back with a firm, “No … it’s a slippery slope Dante.”
That made him really laugh. “You think you can keep that up?” his eyes twinkling.
“Stop that!”
“Stop what?” his face all innocence
“Sending out your pheromones or whatever it is you do.”
That made him double over. “No-one makes me laugh like you; accept maybe Jay.” Which sobered them both.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, changing the subject.
“There is a lovely little alfresco place up here that has music and dancing.”
“Really?”
“I thought as we have never been out together …”
“Oh, I suppose not … I wouldn’t have pegged you as a dancer.”
“No? We were in nightclubs from the age of fourteen.”
He didn’t use Jay’s name this time but it was very hard as all his memories included him. Instead he tried to get her to talk. “Tell me something about your life?”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, like …
how did you start DJ’ing?
“Okay … I got a job just washing dishes first of all in a night club in Shoreditch when I was sixteen. The guy who owned it used to let me play on the decks during the day when no-one was about.”
“Was that Dannyl’s place?”
“Yes. How did you?”
“Jay!” They both said in unison.
“Look,” Dante said. “Shall we just make a pact that it is okay to talk about him?” He was a major part of both their lives so there was no point in pussy footing around.
“Okay.” She smiled shyly. “Tell me something about you?”
“Okay … Me and Jay had a DNA test as soon as we were old enough to see if we were brothers.”
“Really?” she said, touched. “Nothing?”
“No … we had some crazy notion that there had to have been a reason why me dad brought him round to us from an early age, so we assumed he was his dad.”
“How did you both take the news when he wasn’t?”
“I told Jay I still reckoned me dad was shagging his mum.”
Tia put her hand over her mouth in shock and stifled a giggle. “Dante … what did he say?”
“Nothing. He just beat seven bells out of me.”
They both laughed. The tension between them was gradually dissipating as they neared the restaurant.
When they arrived it was quaint and small with little circular tables with candles on each one. There was a trellis with plants growing all around and over their heads, and coloured bulbs strung across the latticed beams. It was just beautiful.
The music was chilled and soulful.
Dante spouted impeccable Italian as they were shown to the best table. “What do you want to drink, wine or whiskey?”
“Why wine or whiskey?” she asked, creasing her brow.
“Well, wine goes with the food. I know you like whiskey, and it would help lower our body temperatures,” he said, with heavy-lidded eyes. “Or we could go for getting shitfaced and have both?” he added, lightly. “I’m easy.”
This made her laugh. “Whiskey.” She said, shaking her head.
He ordered the drinks and food in Italian and then explained to her that he had ordered a selection of seafood for them to pick at.