She’d fled the building so fast—only taking time to peel off her silver Stuart Weitzman stiletto sandals so she didn’t break an ankle—she hadn’t even had a chance to look back. Now she was pacing in the garden near the pool. She could hear the faint sounds of music and the din of hundreds of conversations drifting toward her in the night air. It was a lovely party, but no way could she have remained there under the circumstances. She felt bad; Sandro’s mother and sister seemed so sweet. They’d think her terribly rude when they learned she’d left without even saying good-bye or thanking them. But what else could she do?
The garden at least was soothing to her: so full of color, including one of her favorite flowers, lantana shrubs, which edged the garden with their multicolored buds alongside fat purple allium. The scent of thyme, rosemary, and sage wafted skyward with the light breeze. The smells of Tuscany were intoxicating and oddly soothing despite her feeling off-the-charts stressed. She felt so connected to this place; it was a shame that she would be forever removed from it in just a few short hours.
Taylor strolled toward a large marble fountain that expelled water through the mouths of three large carp. She stood by the fountain staring at them, thinking she, too, was really just a fish out of water here. She didn’t belong here; it was Sandro’s home. Perhaps his hospitality was such that she felt she somehow belonged. But that was all a false construct, just like the personality attributes she had given him. He might have seemed like a nice man, but a nice man doesn’t leave a woman at the altar.
Lost in thought, she didn’t even hear Larkin calling her name until she came staggering toward her.
“Christ, woman,” she said. “You’ve got me all sweaty and hot and gasping for air trying to get ahold of you before you do something crazy.”
Taylor looked at her and squinted her eyes. “What are you talking about, doing something crazy?”
“I don’t know,” Larkin said. “All I know is Luca and I were having a fine time, enjoying the evening, dancing on the terrace, when Sandro rushed over to us, pointed to you running at warp speed away from the place, and said he needed you. Which, by the way, is so romantic.”
Taylor turned and walked away from her friend. “Are you kidding me? Romantic? Sandro? About as romantic as a slap in the face.”
Larkin stared at her. “Okay, then...,” she said, biting her lip. “Would you mind catching me up to speed on what the hell’s been going on since you have apparently completely lost your shit?”
“I have lost no such thing!”
“Well, what is going on with you?” she said. “We get here, you and Sandro clearly do not hit it off. Then you do hit it off, then you don’t, then you do. This afternoon you seemed so fine, then you get back from your errand and you’ve morphed into ‘hormone woman’ or something. I thought you and I were friends, Taylor. The least you could do is explain to me what is going on.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Taylor took a seat on the wide marble steps that were flanked by two large urns that were overflowing with cascading flowers. She rested her elbows on her knees, leaned forward, and proceeded to tell her friend everything: the snake, the early morning sex, the Uber ride with Liliana, the hedge fund guy she kicked in the balls, the whole spiel.
“Wow,” Larkin said. “You sure do lead an interesting life, I’ll tell you.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Interesting at times maybe. But right now I’d say more like disappointing.”
“Okay, so I don’t know all the details about Sandro, but I have to believe he’s a good man. Why would Luca have spent his life as his best friend if he weren’t?”
“Uh, because they’re related to each other?”
“Just because you’ve got a blood connection doesn’t mean you have to care about someone, let alone take them into your heart.”
Taylor leaned back, resting her palms on the marble steps on either side of her.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just don’t know.” She kept shaking her head.
“Don’t you think you at least owe Sandro the chance to explain his side of things? Rather than relying on rumors and innuendo, and instead running away and leaving everyone confused and hurt?”
“Look, Larkin, I appreciate your concern, but really, I don’t need your assistance. I left the party because I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to get away from Sandro. It was too hard for me to wrestle with these different sides to that man. But I know he’s bad, and he’s certainly bad for me.”
“Bad?” she heard a man’s voice approaching. Luca.
Oh, great. Here comes the cavalry.
“Yeah,” Taylor said. “I know everything about the pregnant woman he left at the altar. And I don’t know how anyone could be so cavalier. What a jerk.”
Luca scratched his head, and Larkin looked like she was listening to someone speaking Portuguese.
“Pregnant woman? Altar?” Luca said. “I’m not sure I have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Uh, his fiancée? Gia? The one he dumped, and then he called the police on her even though he was the one who was wrong.”
“Seriously, Taylor, I don’t know who’s been talking to you, but you are talking out of your ass,” he said. “Sandro was never engaged to anybody, let alone Gia Sandretti. And she certainly wasn’t pregnant with his child. Gia was a crazy, hot-tempered stalker who basically ruined the past year of Sandro’s life.”
Taylor knit her brows. “What are you talking about? I heard the whole story just today, from someone who knows Gia well.”
“And who would you choose to believe, Taylor? A complete stranger who claims to know the true story? Or the man who’s been victimized by Gia and her cohorts for months and months now?”
“Victimized?”
“Uh, yeah,” Luca said. “Gia was a jealous freak who convinced herself that Sandro—the man who is loyal as an old dog, I might add—was cheating on him. She spied on his e-mails, his text messages, she called numbers in his cell phone to check up on him. She became so enraged with him about a supposed affair he wasn’t even having that she threw her shoe at him, causing him to have to get stitches when the heel sliced his arm.
“Sandro tried to ease away from her gently, but she dug in and made things worse for him. He got to the point he was afraid to leave the house because he thought she might try to run him off the road. And then finally she drove up here in broad daylight, poured gasoline all over his Lamborghini, and lit it on fire.”
Taylor could feel the rush of heat to her face with the sense of shame she felt, having never even questioned what she’d learned.
“And the thing is, Taylor, I thought you of all people would at least ask me before judging me like that,” said a voice behind her.
She turned to see Sandro standing there. She shook her head, confused, embarrassed, overwhelmed, exhausted. “I don’t know what to think about any of this. I just need to leave here.”
With that she picked up her sandals and raced up the steps to the terrace and into the house.
~*~
Taylor was normally so cautious with her clothes. She of all people knew what a precious commodity they could be, and she was careful to handle hers so that they would last. But now, instead, she tossed things into her suitcase as quickly as she could find her belongings, scattered as they were throughout the room. Funny how she no longer even thought about lurking snakes; instead, she knew she just wanted to get away from that one snake who had gotten under her skin.
She heard a soft knock on the door and chose to ignore it, hoping whoever it was would go away.
Of course the knock got louder, dammit.
She found her toiletry bag and began tossing her things in there. She pulled her shampoo and other toiletries out of the shower and threw them in as well. Normally she’d bag everything so it wouldn’t leak in transit, but there was no time for that now. She just wanted to get out of there as quickly as humanly possible.
She came out of the bath
room to find Sandro sitting on the bed, his back up against the headboard. Which was fine by her because she was no longer going to be sleeping there anyhow, so he could sit there all night as far as she was concerned. It was his bed anyway, when it came down to it. She remembered when she slept in here that first night, she’d been so tempted to draw the blue velvet canopy closed around the bed just to feel secure, not to mention a little regal. But now she was just going to keep throwing things into her suitcase and avoid further discussions with Sandro.
“We’ve got nothing to say to each other,” she said to him, throwing her yoga pants and shirt into her bag. She wished she’d changed out of this damned silver gown, but now she was stuck in it as long as he loomed before her.
“Denial can afford a lot of protection from the truth.”
“I’m not denying anything,” she said, which in itself was a denial. Damn, he had her there.
“I understand you had a little talk with Liliana this afternoon.” He crossed his arms. “You might not realize this, but Liliana is Gia’s best friend.”
Taylor shrugged. It wasn’t her business who any of those women were. She tossed her panties into the bag one by one, maybe just to make Sandro see what he’d be missing out on. It was stupid of her, of course. But she might even admit she wasn’t behaving particularly rationally.
“After I finally got rid of Gia once and for all—or so I thought until I realized she has her emissaries still trying to do her bidding—I struggled with trusting women again. I mean this woman not only hurt me physically, but she destroyed my five-hundred-thousand-euro car. Because she was jealous! Of nothing and no one!” he said. “Deep down, I knew she was a crazy woman and really needed mental health treatment. But I knew, too, that there was nothing I could do to help her, and the best I could do was get the woman out of my life with as little fallout as possible.”
Taylor remained tight-lipped as she closed her suitcase and clamped the locks shut.
“When you showed up, I was in no frame of mind to deal with a woman,” he said. “It’s why I made sure to keep you at arm’s length. When you arrived that night, absolutely luminous and effervescent, I just didn’t know what to make of the feelings you triggered in me. Instantly I felt drawn to you, but of course I was worried I was a moth being drawn to the flame again. And I vowed never to put myself in that situation again. Not only could my mind and heart not handle it, but also I couldn’t subject my family to the potential repercussions of being linked with someone as dangerous as Gia. Not that you were dangerous, but I no longer trusted myself to make good decisions when it came to women.”
“So you assumed I was a crazy person then?” she said, leaning against the bedpost and crossing her arms and legs, sending a message to him through her body language: closed for business.
“No,” he said. “I just couldn’t trust. I couldn’t trust myself or anyone else for that matter. Which was why it was so inconvenient that you kept insinuating your way into my heart. That first night you were so wounded... I wanted badly to be that man who could protect you. It brought out all the caveman feelings I’d suppressed after Gia. But you seemed so fragile and vulnerable, and I knew I could help you.”
She allowed herself to smile, thinking about the unexpected turn of events that night.
“And then, well, things happened fast,” he said. “And suddenly they stopped just as quickly as they’d heated up. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t upset about that. I mean, I’m a man. You can’t leave a man hanging on the edge like that without instilling at least some sense of resentment.
“At first I managed to successfully keep my distance, but dammit, you kept sneaking back into my psyche. All those stories of your generosity and kindness of heart. It was more than I could bear. And then the damned snake.”
She stepped away from the bedpost, looking over her shoulder, suddenly remembering the potential for snakes. She rubbed her hands against her arms, reminding herself there was no snake lurking in here.
“When I came back and found you in my bed, I didn’t know whether that was the greatest gift ever or just the worst tease imaginable,” he said. “I wanted nothing more than to pick up where we’d left off, but I didn’t dare for fear of repercussions. I couldn’t just help myself even if you were sleeping in my bed.”
She smiled. “I mean, I sort of had to. No way could I have slept in here with snakes roaming freely and all.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, our home is a veritable herpetarium. Admit it: you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, I did have some regrets about how things ended that first night. It probably wasn’t very fair of me to leave you high and dry like I did.”
He nodded. “I agree. Left me to my own devices. Which I suppose was where I already was anyhow, having sworn off women for a while.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Seriously? You took care of yourself after you left here?”
He frowned. “What else was I going to do? Contrary to Gia’s beliefs, I don’t harbor a harem of women to service me at my every whim.”
Tired of standing, Taylor came over and sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping a safe enough distance from Sandro, mostly because she didn’t trust herself around him. He was doing a good job of chipping away at her anger.
“But by then I’d grown unfortunately rather fond of my little ice princess,” he said. “And when I got the chance to fall asleep at least in the same bed as you, well, how could I say no?”
“At some point you decided I was fair game, because I woke up with you draped over my body.”
“I’m afraid I can’t take responsibility for things I do in my sleep,” he said, grinning. “But imagine my delight to wake up with my hand strategically placed on your breast. It was like winning the World Cup and the Olympics without having even trained for them.”
She let out a laugh. “That’s quite a prize then.”
He reached for her hand and pulled her toward him. “The most amazing prize I’ve ever been awarded.”
“Which is saying something, considering your many wine-making prizes.”
“You know it,” he said, laughing. “Do you know, Taylor, that I gave you the keys to my car because it was a part of me letting go of my anger and mistrust? I know it was an invisible gesture to you, but to me, it let me know I could trust again.”
She opened her eyes wide. “I wish you’d have clued me in to that. Because when I went out there and saw you’d given me the keys to a veritable Lear jet... Well, there was no way I was going to be responsible for taking that thing out onto actual roads. With hazards, and cars, and wild boar that could run out in front of the car.”
He laughed. “Wild boar? Since when have you encountered wild boar anywhere but on your dinner plate?”
“Since when have you encountered venomous snakes in your guests’ bedrooms?”
He aimed a finger at her. “You’ve got a good point.” Still holding one hand, he pulled Taylor even closer in with the other so they were pressed up against each other. “Please tell me you believe me when I say I never did anything to hurt Gia. And more importantly that I would never do anything to hurt you.”
She nodded. “It’s been weird. All these conflicting feelings and emotions, and then I was socked with this story that made you out to be such an ogre. Maybe I thought all along you were too good to be true, and then Liliana’s words reinforced my fears. I don’t know. But I’m really sorry, Sandro. And to make matters worse, all this on your big day. You’ve got five hundred of your closest friends waiting for you to rejoin them at your party.”
“Make that four hundred and ninety-eight.”
“Ninety-eight?”
He nodded. “Of course. We’re now missing that creep Edgar Whittington, which takes it to four ninety-nine. And of course your absence, the most important of them all, brings it down to four hundred and ninety-eight.”
“Please don’t miss out on the party on my account.”
“You know this was all your fault,” she said. “If you hadn’t presumed I wanted to drive that awful, scary car of yours, this huge misunderstanding wouldn’t have happened.”
“I thought you’d be excited to drive it,” he said. “The pulse of the engine, the grip on the road, the thrill of the chase.”
“Trust me, the chase doesn’t do it for me. Besides, you should know I have issues with cars,” she said, smiling against his mouth. “In fact, from here on out, I will gladly let you do all the driving. But the most important thing you need to drive are the snakes, out of this house!”
“Are you crazy?” he said, glad that she was not even remotely so. “I owe that snake a debt of gratitude. I might just have to assign him his own room.”
She playfully smacked him as she reached to draw the velvet curtains around the bed closed. “Shut up and kiss me, Alessandro Romeo. We’ve got a party to return to. As soon as we finish up our little party for two.”
And they did return to the party, a bit disheveled but happy. Taylor, of course, had never felt happier, finally feeling she’d found a place where her roots could grow deep.
Thank you so much for reading Red-Hot Romeo! I hope you enjoyed it! If so, please help others find this book:
Help other people find this book by writing a review.
Red Hot Romeo (The Royal Romeos, #1) Page 12