by Christa Wick
Fuck, he really did want me to change into the dress while he was here with me!
I shook my head. "That's not ... I mean, you just don't throw these items on..."
His brows lifted and the mouth narrowed even more. A little jiggle of his hand and he managed to flip the skirt of the short dress up to reveal the inside stitching. "Not sure what you mean, bella. Looks solid to me."
Bella?
The tension running through me ratcheted up another notch. He wasn't the first man to call me beautiful, not even the first Italian male. Franco and Benito had both liberally sprinkled the word throughout the trip from the airport to the island. Heck, Franco had slid it into his first sentence when all he was trying to do was ascertain that I was Nadine Hopkins.
But no matter how favorable my impression of the Bassani brothers' good looks, Silvio Parisi was his own level of hotness.
"The construction isn't the problem," I stammered, trying to figure out how to communicate my dilemma without referencing the fact that I was wearing an industrial strength bra and granny panties.
His brows inched up, there arch taking an amused cast and giving me the impression that he was having a little too much fun misunderstanding me.
"It's about the lines of everything else," I growled softly.
"Ah, I see." He thrust the dress and sandals into my hands. "Un attimo, bella."
His fingers snatched up the lacy bra and panties. This time he did make a thorough inspection of my handiwork, his mouth curling up in a grin as he tested the seam of the gusset then ran the pad of his thumb over the front panel.
"Lines are crucial," he agreed, handing me the undergarments. "Straight lines, curvy lines. Hard lines and soft."
Lines you can cross and lines you shouldn't!
I stared at him, dumb struck and my fingers tingling with a numbness that loosened my grip on the two wisps of fabric.
"Careful, bella," Parisi teased as I dropped the material. He bent quickly and scooped them up. Instead of returning them directly to me, he softly blew against the fabric as if his staff didn't keep the rooms immaculately clean and there was dust he needed to remove.
"A tad too soon for these to be on the floor, don't you think?"
I nodded, my brain suddenly absent from my skull, and let Parisi put the underwear in my hand and fold my fingers around them.
His chin tilted once at the direction of the folding screen. "Show me what I'm buying, Nadine."
********************
Behind the screen, I closed the gap in the heavy drapes. I had needed the incoming light while putting the makeup on, but I wasn't about to risk even my silhouette being visible to Parisi as I changed.
I tried a few calming breaths that did nothing to lower my anxiety level. If anything, the slow breathing gave me time to grow more anxious. I mean, what the hell was happening? Was I hysterically exaggerating cultural and language differences or was Silvio Parisi trying to seduce me? And if that was his plan, was it nothing more than a ruthless business tactic?
Turning my back to the screen and the man beyond it, I took off my bra and top, every movement carefully orchestrated so that Parisi wouldn't get to see so much as the shadow of a side boob. Then I put on the lacy gold-beige bra and the swing dress before just as carefully removing my shoes, pants and underwear and slipping on the matching panties and the strappy little sandals I had handcrafted.
By the time I was changed into the outfit, there wasn't a muscle in my body that wasn't shaking. I forced a few more slow breaths and tried to come up with a plan of action -- not an easy thing with competing goals of saving my company versus saving my ass if the nature of Parisi's intent was darker than I had already imagined.
"It's okay, bella," Parisi called. "It's safe for you to come out. I'm not in a mood to bite."
Yeah, like that was what I needed to put me at ease!
I was all the way out from behind the screen when a second thought popped into my head. He had known I was done changing. Maybe that was only because he had freaky good hearing. More likely, he could at least see my silhouette while I changed and then became still.
Parisi had moved from standing next to the side table to sitting on a couch positioned dead center of the screen I had changed behind. His posture strongly suggested that he had been watching, as he sat there. His legs were spread wide, his hands dangling between them so that his balls likely cushioned his wrists. The heavily hooded eyes signaled a drowsy satisfaction.
Sliding to the far side of the couch, Parisi gestured for me to sit at the opposite end. "Your lease option on the factory is about to end, is it not?"
"I have two weeks to sign the lease," I agreed, relieved that he didn't seem to want to crowd me and that the conversation was headed in the right direction. "After that, it will be available for new offers. I'm not really concerned about the factory -- the market favors me right now."
He plucked at the pressed seams on his dress pants. "There have been rumors that a major Italian fashion house intends to launch a similar line."
"Not a rumor," I answered, knowing he was subtly pointing out that between competitors and real estate, among other factors, I had only a small window of time to finish finding an investor. "I was offered a six-figure kill fee to abandon my plans and just short of seven figures if I also turned over my existing intellectual property."
His brows lifted then his head slowly wagged side to side. "I'm surprised you didn't accept."
My face felt like it was going to cave in. Did he find everything I'd done to date so shitty that a million dollars would more than cover its value?
Forcing a hard smile in his direction, I shook my head. "I know my value, Mr. Parisi. A million is nowhere close."
"Silvio," he murmured, reiterating his insistence from our phone call that I address him by his first name. "I didn't mean it as an insult, Nadine. Your talent is..."
His tongue stalled as his gaze slide over my body, slow crawling from my face down to the hint of cleavage at the dress's neckline to the bottom hem a little above my knees then over the curve of my calves.
"Amply evident," he finished. "But most start-up entrepreneurs would have bailed before now, especially with a solid money offer on the table."
He slid a little bit closer to my end of the couch but didn't cross over the invisible line dividing it in half. "This venture of yours is about far more than money, sì?"
"Yes," I whispered then repeated the word loud enough so that I didn't sound like I was about to break down in tears. "This all started when my mother was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer. She didn't want to wear a wig, thought it was too artificial, especially with the loss of her eyebrows. She despised the caps and scarves even more, thought them too pedestrian no matter how bright or expensive the fabric. Her skin wouldn't tolerate even the gentlest cosmetics commercially available because of the chemicals. The depression got so bad..."
I couldn't finish. I hadn't even known my mother had cancer until she was admitted to the hospital after what the doctors thought was a suicide attempt masked as an unintentional overdose.
"I understand," he said, sliding toward me until he was close enough he could reach out and pat my knee. "The therapies work better if the patient maintains a sense of optimism."
I nodded my agreement even though the cancer therapy had ultimately failed.
"So you turned to what you learned in college and working at the museum for a solution?"
"Yes. I've worked at the museum almost as long as I've been walking," I started. Seeing the puzzled look on his face, I explained. "My father was a professor at the school and was a curator for the museum's Egyptology department until he retired a few years ago. I grew up around the exhibits and the restoration rooms."
Parisi's mouth twitched once then twisted before he said anything more. "So, which parent is which, bella?"
I didn't need him to elaborate on what he meant. Almost thirty, I had grown up biracial before it was something t
hat made other kids at school think I was inherently cool, before there were adorable little girls in Cheerios commercials whose televised existence sparked a national dialogue. Most people I met growing up were curious, but most of them also waited for the information to come out organically.
Of course, few people were anything like Silvio Parisi.
"My dad is the quintessential northeast Ivy League college professor," I answered, smoothing the hem of my dress. "He is officially whiter than milk."
Almost giving me whiplash, the conversation swung back to the topic of my mother.
"To have come up with all that," he said, gesturing at the steamer trunk of samples I had wheeled into the room for him to look at. "You must have been very close with her."
"In the end," I agreed and immediately wanted to punch my own mouth for how I had framed the response. There were parts of the story I was fine with telling, especially if it moved me a little closer to securing the financing. But other parts I had so far kept to myself beyond one investor. And that jerk's reaction had renewed my determination to keep the story private as best I could
"My dad raised me as a single parent," I said, pushing on and hoping I could satisfy Parisi's curiosity without revealing much more. "They were only together a few years -- their lives didn't mesh."
His mouth pursed and I realized my mistake. He was like a shark who could detect a single drop of blood miles away from him in the ocean.
"It was my impression that the American courts favored the mother in custody battles."
"There was no battle," I admitted, a hurt I had thought long buried rising up again. "She was a model -- a supermodel, actually. She traveled a lot and I didn't fit in."
I tried to stop my hand before it gestured at my body, but I couldn't. Not once had my glamorous mother ever criticized my body -- out loud at least. She had just surrounded herself with people who constantly did and never said a word to silence them.
"It just wasn't an environment you raise a kid in," I finished. "So we became estranged, just perfunctory interactions...until the cancer."
"You're breaking my heart, Nadine."
He spoke the words all soft and tender, but I couldn't consider them as anything other than sarcastic. I wrapped one hand around the armrest and placed the other palm flat against the cushion, my gaze on the open steam trunk.
Before I could push up and begin gathering my things for an awkward return to the guest room, Parisi captured my wrist.
"I wasn't mocking you, Nadine," he assured me, his thumb stroking at the inside bend of my wrist. "It is heartbreaking when any child is estranged from a parent."
He tilted his head in my direction, his brows lifting and his mouth twisting into a grimace. "Of course, I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge your history is also great public relations material."
"Yeah," I growled. "That's what Roland Stump said."
His grimace magnified and traveled through his body with a deep shudder. "Was The Stump supposed to be one of your angel investors?"
He was and everything had almost ground to a halt after that particular meeting.
"He made an offer I couldn't accept," I said.
"Tell me, Nadine," Parisi asked, his hand smoothing up as he shifted his grip from my wrist to my elbow. "I don't want to make the same mistake."
My tongue crawled inside my mouth with the same squirmy disgust as if I'd just bit into a big juicy burger and found it loaded with maggots.
"He loved it," I started before I choked on the sensation and the memory that produced it. "Loved the clothes, the make up, the story about me and my mom, her ties to the fashion world and my dad's career as an Egyptologist."
Sucking in a hard breath, I recounted the sucker punch Stump had delivered to me. "He just wanted a white chick to sell it, said the market would marginalize the products if the line was perceived as being for women of color."
He released my arm to slap at his own leg, his response issuing in a vehement torrent.
"Cazzo di merda!"
"Uhm...that might have matched my reply," I politely laughed although I had no idea what he had just said. "What was that?"
His cheeks colored for a second until a contrite grin erased the pink. "I plan on teaching you a lot of Italian, bella, but not those words."
Clearing his throat, he stood, pulled one of the side chairs in front of me and sat down. We faced one another without our bodies touching. His hands wrapped around his knees and he leaned forward. "We are going to take your line global. Three quarters of the earth's women are women of color. And unlike whatever anorexic stick The Stump was going to use as a mouthpiece, you're far more representative of our average customer in ways that go beyond skin tone."
I tried to smile, but his saying that I was average popped my enthusiasm bubble. I was pitching old world beauty with a modern twist. Mystique and elegance -- not won't eat her cauliflower and hates the gym. And I had tried to look the part, as best as I could, both before and after the costume change he had demanded.
His fingers slid from his knees to lightly brush against mine. Leaning in even closer, his voice dropped low. "I would very much like to invest in your company Nadine - if you'll agree to my terms."
"Your terms?" I barely got the question out. My voice wavered, my knees would have knocked together if he wasn't touching them. None of the discussions with the other investors had gone anything like this. Some of them couldn't be bothered to look up from their computers, some of them, like Roland Stump, tried to bully me if they were the least bit interested. Not one of them had touched me beyond a handshake at most. Each exchange this evening with Parisi seemed dipped in intimacy with an undercurrent of more to come.
"I'll invest three million--"
I shook my head and pushed his hands away. I knew where this was going, he wanted a controlling share. I wasn't going to give it. Delaying my dream was the lesser evil compared to handing it over for someone else to achieve.
"If you think I'm going to agree to slicing off a bigger split--"
He placed a finger lightly against my lips. "Same split, cara."
I turned my head. I didn't understand and I told him so. "I don't have more money to put in...my sixty percent is based--"
I stopped with a growl. This didn't make sense! All the other investors had talked down the value of my contributions if they even made a tentative offer to buy. Parisi's number inflated them!
What was I missing? I looked at him for clues but quickly had to look away. He was too intense, too close. He was no longer touching me, but he hadn't retreated from my personal space. He had one hand placed on the cushion next to my leg and the other on the armrest so that I was caged in.
"Where are you assigning the extra equity?" I asked. The question was the closest I could get without making an accusation that there was something very indecent about his proposal. The phrasing also kept me from embarrassing myself by suggesting the impossible -- he wanted something very personal from me.
"Until you arrived here today," Parisi began. "You've tried to keep you out of the equation -- emails, files, numbers, projections. But this is fashion, Nadine. You're selling yourself as well. You can't play at this level as a designer and not attract public attention. You can't show up in sensible shoes and department store pants. You're going to have to be out front. You shouldn't have arrived at the island in anything other than your own designs."
Couldn't he understand, especially after what I told him about Stump, that I had tried that? I had tried it all the way up to Stump and, after that jerk, I'd gone home, had a pint of Rocky Road and a tub of Cool Whip and minimized the in-person pitches to the other investors. I would have done the same with Parisi but he insisted on my coming to meet him, at his expense.
"Fine," I relented, my body wiggling with the sensation of thousands of ants crawling over my skin because Parisi hadn't retreated to his own personal space. "But this amount..."
His mouth pursed, twisted, a smile playing arou
nd the edges as he mulled over the bombshell he was about to drop between us.
"I intend to see if you can live the role you want to sell other women. The three million is the value you've already demonstrated, plus the value you're promising to deliver by stepping up your roll, and then hazard pay for running a gauntlet of tests before I fund anything."
"What -- what role do you think I'm selling?" I didn't like where this was headed, didn't like how close we were. I didn't think it was possible for a woman my age -- any age -- with so much as a whisper of a libido to be mere inches from Parisi in a darkened room, his voice like a panther's purr, and not think about fucking.
"You're going to give yourself over tonight, completely. You're going to open every hole. You're going to sense and feel and experience without analysis."
"Sex?" I asked, my brain shocked but not so shocked I couldn't speak. "That's the role?"
His gaze dropped, the eyelids almost shut. A soft smile pushed the corners of his mouth outward. "Outside of academia, even within it, you cannot separate the great queens from their sexuality. As Akhenaten's Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti was Isis on earth and Isis is Venus, Inanna, Astarte. And Cleopatra, well--"
He shook his head, the soft smile sharpening toward lecherous approval in a way that made all the weight of my body center hard atop the juncture of my thighs.
"No, this ... I won't..." My hands came up, waving away the possibility that what he wanted had the remotest chance of occurring. "I'm not even going to get into whether I want to sleep with you. No one in business would ever take me seriously if I secured funding that way!"
"Your reputation will be safe. No cameras, no gossip."
"Stop!" I ordered, my hands repeating the command as I held them palms forward and ready to push him away if necessary. "I don't care how tight a lid you think you can keep on people like Anders--"
He touched my knees again and then his fingers surfed under the hem of my dress to tie my tongue in knots.
"Anders and the rest of the staff are gone for the night. The men who touch you--"