“It’s lovely.” I lowered my voice and leaned closer to him. “It is also molto costoso.”
“If that is your only concern, I would love to have you join me for dinner.”
“I would like that very much. Thank you.”
The maggiordomo led us to the outside dining area and seated us on the edge of the terrace overlooking the gardens. With our backs to the other diners, it seemed as though we were alone. It was beyond romantic.
Ben rested his arm on the back of my chair and leaned in close to me. “Your smile is beguiling.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but I’d never tire of hearing it. The sexiness of his voice made my toes curl. “Thank you,” I murmured.
We had a team of servers for our meal along with a sommelier, who not only recommended the perfect pairing for the tasting menu we’d both decided to order but also came to the table with each new wine and shared why he’d chosen it.
I couldn’t help but think what a wonderful job that must be. Tasting wine and pairing it with food prepared by a chef like the one at Il Palagio.
From the amuse-bouche of red mullet with winter vegetables to the crab timbale with cucumber carpaccio topped with a substantial spoonful of Kaluga Amur caviar, to the chef’s signature dish of cavatelli pasta “cacio e pepe” with marinated red prawns and baby squid, everything was sublime.
“You must meet people from around the world,” I said when he poured the wine that accompanied our fourth course, Chateaubriand.
“It is one of my favorite things about working for Il Palagio.”
By the time we finished our dessert, I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I hadn’t slept well the night before, after having to abruptly leave the farmhouse and Brand’s visit.
“Shall we?” Ben asked when I yawned for the third time.
“Forgive me. I’m more tired than I realized.”
He shook his head and stood to help with my chair. “Don’t apologize.”
I followed him out of the restaurant, baffled when he led me over to the bank of elevators.
“I thought it might be easier if we stayed here tonight.”
He withdrew a key card from his pocket. “I’ve booked a two-bedroom suite.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, wondering if he expected I’d share his bed or if he truly intended for us to stay in two separate rooms.
Unlike before, when it seemed neither of us could keep our hands off the other, Ben was acting more the polite gentleman.
“I had our bags brought to the room,” he said, motioning me to a doorway. When he turned on the light, I saw mine but no others.
He cupped my cheek with his palm and kissed my forehead. “I know you’re tired. Get some rest.”
I put my hand on the door. “Good night, then.”
“Good night, Catarina.”
17
Halo
The first thing I did when I entered the second bedroom was put in my earphones. The dual tracking and listening device I’d put in Tara’s bag was powerful enough that I’d hear her side of any conversation, unless she put it on speaker, in which case I’d hear both.
So far, she hadn’t made any calls, but I expected that once she believed I was out of earshot, there was a good chance she’d contact the man she was supposed to meet.
The time we spent together today had almost made me forget what I’d seen the night before. Tara was engaging, bright, funny, and fascinating. She was also sexy as fuck.
Our day was as close to perfect as I could imagine, if only I could keep seeing her with another man out of my head.
It was hard for me to marry the two sides of her in my mind. How could she be so flirtatious with me if she was involved with someone else? It wasn’t just that she flirted, the heat I saw in her eyes sometimes, left me breathless. For hours, I fought against having my hands on her every minute, until I stopped trying and gave into my desire to touch her.
I heard her moving about, followed by a door closing, which I assumed was the bathroom. I checked my phone to see if there’d been activity on hers, but saw none. When I heard what sounded like Tara filling the bath, I took off my clothes and turned on the shower. Moments later, I heard a faint sound in my ear. Was she crying? I shut off the water and turned the volume up on the earphones.
I rested on the bed and turned off the light, focusing only on the noises I heard coming from the other room. When the sound of the tub filling stopped, I could tell she wasn’t crying; Tara was whimpering. More—she was groaning.
My cock sprung to life when I also heard the rustle of water. Evidently, I’d left Miss Emsworth sexually frustrated. I pushed the idea that it wasn’t me, but her mystery man, out of my head as I stroked myself in rhythm to her mewls.
She let out a sound similar to the one she made when her eyes rolled back into her head, followed by the one word that brought me to my own quick release. “Ben,” she moaned.
I lay still, catching my breath, listening to the water as it moved with what I pictured was her hand between her legs, maybe the fingers of the other pinching her nipples. She said my name again, and I closed my eyes. I saw her on the kitchen island in the farmhouse, writhing against my mouth and fingers. When there was no question she was coming, I stroked myself to my second release.
There was no sound coming from the bathroom or bedroom for quite a while; I’d almost drifted to sleep when I heard her door open and close. I waited, holding my breath to see if she’d come to my room. I could no longer hear her footfalls as I willed the knob of my door to turn. Instead, there was nothing, not even the sound of her walking about.
I pulled on my boxer briefs and went out to the common area. There, by the light of the moon, I could see Tara standing near the window that looked out over the park.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
She spun around; I’d startled her. “I couldn’t sleep,” she answered.
After the intimacy she’d unknowingly shared, I had to touch her. I walked over to where she stood and put my arms around her waist. She rested her hands on mine, leaned back into me, and I kissed her neck. Not being able to resist, I moved one hand up to her breast, tucking it inside the hotel’s terry-cloth robe, and swirled her nipple with my index finger.
“Catarina,” I murmured the name I’d begun thinking of as a term of affection for her.
She turned in my arms, put her arms around my neck, reached up, and kissed me. I pushed my tongue between her lips and began the assault on her mouth I’d imagined while I listened as she pleasured herself.
I grabbed her ass with both hands and pulled her against me. It would be so easy for me to lift her in my arms, press my hardness into her heat, and take her in the moonlight, but I couldn’t. Not until I knew who the other man was and what he meant to her.
When I released her, she whimpered, but not like before. This was disappointment. I pulled her over to sit beside me on the sofa. “This thing between us…is moving quite fast, Catarina. While I’d like nothing more than to know what it feels like to hold your naked body next to mine, I think we should get to know each other better first, don’t you?”
She turned her head away from me and tried to stand, but I wouldn’t let her. “Please don’t,” she whispered when I attempted to get her to look at me.
“If I let you go, it would be the antithesis of our knowing each other better, sweetheart. Talk to me.”
When she turned and her eyes met mine, the heat I saw wasn’t desire, it was anger. This time when she tried to stand, I let her.
“Get to know each other better? You came in my mouth, Ben, and vice versa. As far as being intimate, I’d say that ranks at the top.”
She stumbled when she walked away; I stood to catch her.
“Don’t touch me.”
I held both her arms. “Why are you angry?”
“Angry? There are several words to describe how I’m feeling, but that isn’t one of them. I’m embarrassed, Ben. Humiliated. Please allow me t
he smallest amount of dignity and let me go.”
I released her arms, and she fled into the bedroom, closing rather than slamming the door behind her.
Telling her the truth about why I wasn’t ready to have sex with her, not that I could do that, wouldn’t have made any difference, except she’d know I was just as humiliated thinking I wasn’t the only man in her life.
I stayed awake most of the night, wondering if I’d handled things wrong. I just couldn’t imagine looking into her eyes as I sunk deep into her body and not think of what I’d witnessed at the casina at Valentini.
When the sun rose, I ordered coffee for her and tea for me. Not long after it arrived, Tara came out of the bedroom.
“Good morning,” she murmured without meeting my eyes.
“Good morning, Catarina.”
“When did you want to head back?”
I poured her a cup of coffee, added the amount of cream I knew she liked, and brought it to her.
“I could’ve gotten it, but thank you.”
“To answer your question, I thought we’d spend another day in Florence.”
Tara looked up at me. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“You might change your mind when I tell you what I have planned for us today.”
“Ben, I—”
I put my finger on her lips. “Last night, I told you I want us to get to know each other better. At least hear me out.”
She nodded, and I removed my finger.
“I made reservations for us to visit a place I’m sure you’ve been countless times, but I haven’t been once.”
I watched as she sipped her coffee, hoping she’d make the mewling sound she did whenever she tasted something she loved. She didn’t disappoint me. The downside: it made my cock rock hard.
“Where?”
“The Accademia Gallery.”
She smiled. “I’ve only been once.”
“Someone determined to make you as happy as I am suggested the best time to go is later in the afternoon when there are fewer people.”
Tara’s cheeks flushed. “Sometimes I think Pia is my fairy godmother embodied.”
“She cares about you.”
“It hasn’t been a week since I arrived at Valentini.”
I shrugged. Some may find an immediate connection surprising. I didn’t. “Kismet.”
She walked over to the door that led to a balcony and went outside; I joined her. Looking in one direction, there was a perfect view of the Giardino della Gherardesca. In the other, Brunelleschi’s Dome. Something occurred to me.
“Do you carry a sketchbook with you?”
“I don’t, but I should.” She waved her arm. “Isn’t it magnificent?”
“Do you think it’s too late to catch the views from Ponte Vecchio?”
“Not if we leave now.” Tara took another sip of her coffee and set it down on the tray. “Ready?”
After watching the sunrise from Florence’s most famous bridge, we had breakfast at an outdoor café with views of the Arno and then walked the side streets of the city.
“Look,” I said, pointing across the cobbled road at a shop that looked as though it sold art supplies. “Do you want to go in?”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“I don’t mind anything that brings a smile to your face.”
It was obvious to me that while Tara had been brought up in what most would consider a charmed life, having someone pay attention to the things she liked or was interested in, surprised her.
While she took her time perusing the paints, brushes, and canvases, I pretended to be doing the same. Instead, I watched her. “Nothing?” I asked when I saw her walk toward the shop’s door.
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I’ll have time to paint.”
“What if I commissioned you?”
Tara laughed out loud. “To do what?”
“Paint Valentini.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m not. In fact, maybe I’ll be inspired to write a story about it.”
“I suppose I could paint when I’m not working in the tasting room, not that I’m taking your joke about a commission seriously. I’m just re-thinking the time I might have.”
We left the shop several minutes later, my arms laden with all sorts of painting supplies. While she was gathering them, I sneaked a purchase of a leather-bound sketchbook that I dropped into one of her bags when she wasn’t looking.
We took the bags to the hotel and then found a place near the Accademia Gallery, where we could have an espresso while we waited for our reservation time. We’d been seated a few minutes when Tara pulled out the book I’d intended to be a surprise along with a pencil.
“Thank you for this,” she said, opening it to the first page.
I watched in fascination as she drew the front facade of the museum, complete with the tourists without reservations waiting in the standby line.
She turned her chair and turned the page, sketching another view from where we sat. Soon, she had five pages filled.
“May I see?”
“They’re just sketches,” she said but handed me the book anyway.
“What is this?” I asked, pointing to something I’d noticed she put at the top of each page. It looked like a gradient.
“It’s the balance of light to dark values.”
I nodded as though I understood what that meant and studied her drawings. “These alone are good, I can’t imagine how it will look when you paint it.”
“I’m not that good, Ben. You might want to lower your expectations.”
She took the book from my hands and filled several more pages. I almost didn’t want to tell her it was time for us to go into the museum.
18
Tara
I put the sketchbook back in my bag and stood to follow Ben to the entrance of the Accademia. I’d walked a few steps when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I looked across the street, expecting to see Brand. I didn’t, but the person I saw instead was definitely watching me. Even when my eyes met his, he didn’t look away. Nor did he smile.
Like Ben, the man was very muscular, so much so that his clothes strained against his bulk. I reached for Ben’s arm and tucked mine through it.
Instead of looking at me, he looked across the cobbled road, perhaps sensing someone watching us like I had. He put his hand on my waist and moved me so I was walking on the other side of him, farther from the man whose gaze still had not wavered. Not only that, he began walking too, in the same direction we were.
Ben ducked me into the next shop door we came to. I peeked around him and saw that the man kept walking. He moved me to his side, and I watched him rest his hand on something.
“Is that a gun?” I whispered.
“Shh.” He looked over his shoulder, and I did the same. No one appeared to be paying any attention to us.
After a couple of minutes, we went back out and continued our walk toward the museum, only this time, he had me tucked against his side.
“Why do you have a gun?” I asked.
His eyes scanned our surroundings. “I told you the work I do is investigative.”
Not long after I’d been kidnapped, I thought about getting a permit to carry a gun, but had never followed through with it. Right now, I wished I had.
Yesterday, when we entered the Museo di San Marco, I hadn’t been paying attention to Ben when he stopped and talked with one of the security guards. Today I did.
“What did you show him?” I asked when he walked over to where I stood waiting.
“My carry permit.”
He led me over to the elevator and down to the first floor where the Giovanni da Milano and the late fourteenth century rooms were located. It wasn’t a place most visitors of the museum ever went. The focus here was on the techniques employed by artists like da Milano, Michaelangelo, and Cennino.
We spent almost three hours in the Accademia, both of us—or at least me—trying to fo
rget about the man we saw before we came in. There was something so sinister about him that I couldn’t shake the feeling that overcame me when my eyes met his.
While Ben had said the work he did was investigative, it wasn’t an explanation nor did it assuage my fear.
“How much of an inconvenience would it be if we returned to Valentini tonight?” I asked when we were nearing the museum’s exit. “I’d be more than willing to cover the cost of the room.”
Ben stopped walking and led me away from the walkway. “Of course we can return to Valentini if you’d be more comfortable, and no, you cannot cover the cost of the hotel room.”
“But—”
He grasped the back of my neck and brought his face close to mine. “We’re going to talk when we get back to Val d’Orcia, but know this, I don’t intend for you to spend another night in your casina alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll stay with me in the farmhouse.”
With scrunched eyes, I studied him. “Who are you?”
What he said next was the last thing I expected. “Maybe I’ll answer that when you tell me who you are.”
Neither of us spoke during the two-hour drive back to Valentini. After a while, I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes, trying not to let my paranoia over what Ben had said spin out of control.
Did he know who I really was? There was so much about him that reminded me not just of Ava’s husband, Razor, but of all the men he worked with. Was that who Ben really was? Was he here in Tuscany to find me? Or, like Razor had with Ava, was he here to protect me?
No. That couldn’t be. What reason would anyone have to protect me? Which meant if his cryptic comment implied what I feared it did, he was either here to find me or use me to find my father.
I couldn’t stay in the farmhouse with him, though; I had to talk to Brand. After Ben had insinuated himself into my plans to visit Florence, I’d sent him a message explaining why I’d be unable to meet him. Although, my plan hadn’t been to do as he asked. I’m sure he assumed I’d be traveling back to New York as he demanded; however, I wasn’t going anywhere until I found my father.
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