Innocent in the Italian's Possession (13 page)

He fumbled with the fastening of her clothes, something that he usually dealt with, with ease. But this task was made more challenging because he could not bear to take his mouth from hers. He didn’t want to be parted from her for a second.

She tasted of champagne and sizzling desire. Her body writhed against his in silent demand and he was eager to comply.

She responded so genuinely to each stroke, each kiss, that his own head pulsed with the promise of intense pleasure. Yet
the clothes that still clung to her deprived him of exploring her at his leisure.

He set her away and began to strip her to the skin, hating the restriction of his clothes as well, hating to forestall the inevitable. “You drive me wild with desire.”

She smiled a siren’s smile and flicked the clasp at her shoulder, releasing the slinky dress without effort. It glided down her body to pool at her feet.

His breath caught as golden light kissed the upper swells of her breasts, caressed her rounded hips and skimmed the dusky hair between her thighs.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

“So are you,” she said and his ego swelled along with his obvious desire for her.

And why wouldn’t he when she stared at him with blatant appreciation? His skin felt too tight and his blood too hot to draw a decent breath, for she didn’t posture and preen. She did nothing but stand before him beautifully naked while her gaze boldly caressed every inch of him.

It was another first for him, for the majority of his lovers had been intent on showing off their charms. Not so for Gemma.

She was as perfectly sculpted as the goddess of love. There was no artifice or trickery in her. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

Because his mamma had believed her husband was being unfaithful and he’d not looked beyond that. He’d accepted her word that her marriage was failing.

Her demand for vengeance had nearly cost him the only woman he’d ever loved.
Loved
?

It couldn’t be love, yet what else explained his obsession with her? The blinding jealousy when he thought of her lying in another man’s arms. The sense of wholeness that encompassed him when he sank into her welcoming heat.

She was his lover—only his!—and she’d be his for as long as he wished. She’d been loyal to a fault with his father, holding the secrets he’d begged her to keep.

Stefano wanted that loyalty himself. He wanted Gemma to be his assistant, his confident, his lover.

Marriage
?

He pushed that thought aside. He was not ready to commit to that yet. No, he needed to be sure that her affections were genuine. That she’d come to him because she couldn’t bear to be apart from him, either.

That her claim to want him for himself and not his money wasn’t a lie.

“
Mio amante
,” he said, savoring the silken glide of her skin beneath his lips as he trailed kisses down the slender column of her throat. “
Mio amore
.”

The seductive sigh that whispered from her swelled his ego and his groin. “I love you.”

His body jolted, his heart skipping a beat at her avowal of love. He’d had lovers say them before. But he’d never
heard
the truth in them until now. He’d never believed there was such power in three words until they tumbled from Gemma’s lush lips.

Of course she’d expect the same from him.

He loved her body. Loved her courage. Loved her loyalty. But as for this profession of his heart?

Stefano couldn’t voice the lie. He wouldn’t deceive her in this. He’d learned the hard way to guard his heart.

“This is just the beginning,” he breathed before he sank into her and made them one.

She responded with sweet passion, her fingernails marking his back as her muscles clutched at him. There was no greed or artifice in her lovemaking, either.

She gave fully and he returned the passion with more tenderness than he’d known himself capable of.

Completion.

That was how it felt being with her.

It was a sensation that he looked forward to enjoying often. But he didn’t delude himself into thinking it would last.

That would be a rarity.

That would mean he’d finally found the woman for him.

That would mean he could trust her fully and forever.

If he couldn’t do that, then this passionate interlude with Gemma was just that. A stolen moment in time.

G
EMMA
lay snuggled against Stefano’s side, sated by his passion for now and lulled by the steady beat of his heart. She’d never thought to experience this deep emotional attachment to a man, especially so soon after meeting him.

To think that a short week ago she’d thought the very worst of him. She had thought him cold and calculating and callous. She’d thought him incapable of any tender emotions.

Now she was certain that he hid those softer traits from the world. Just the stroke of his finger brought her to extreme pleasure or tears of joy.

She wasn’t one to cry—she’d cried out her tears long ago when her mother had been dying and she had blamed herself for not coming forward sooner. She’d vowed she’d give of herself again if she was fortunate to have the opportunity to save a life.

When that moment came, she hadn’t hesitated going through the tests and the procedure for a stranger. She’d do it again if she could.

But though her heart had gone out to those in need, she’d never given so emotionally until she found herself in Stefano’s arms.

She’d never known love until now.

He shifted, and just that slight brush of skin on skin was a
seductive caress that stroked her desire awake again. It seemed unreal that she wanted more of what they’d shared not once but four times tonight.

It stunned her that she’d totally lost her heart to Stefano Marinetti. They were worlds apart, yet they’d found a common ground. Or was it just passion that bound them together?

She didn’t like hearing that voice of doubt in her head. No man could make love to her with such tenderness and compassion if his heart wasn’t involved.

And what about the job he had created just for her?

Hadn’t he done that so they could spend the bulk of their time together? Wasn’t that a clear sign that he wanted her to be a big part of his life?

As his mistress, not as his wife
.

She grimaced at that, for she feared it hit too closely to the truth she didn’t want to face.

Personal assistant had a far more respectable ring to it than paid consort.

Besides, if Stefano only wanted her as his mistress, he’d have said so. He wouldn’t have created a mock position for her within his company.

No, the job was as real as the man. This was a sign he trusted her to manage his personal affairs. That had to include his family. And if it didn’t? If she was just seeing what she wanted to see?

“What brought this troubled frown to your face?” he asked, placing a kiss on one eye and then another in a gesture so tender it brought tears to her eyes.

“I was thinking about family.”

“There is not room for family in our bed,
caro
,” he said, the nip he gave her chin releasing a deeper need in her.

She lifted her face to protest this sensual assault that was muddling her thoughts. Their lips clung in one long, delicious
kiss that blotted everything from her mind but him. It was so easy to fall into his arms and forget the world.

But she fought against the drugging effects of his desire and pulled from him. “We need to talk, Stefano.”

He grumbled and rolled onto his back, tossing one arm across his eyes. “Talk is the last thing I wish to do now.”

Yes, one glance at his beautifully aroused body told her what he wanted—what he needed from her. “I hope that you will realize Rachel should live with you.”

His muscular body tensed. Even the air seemed more charged than before as unease pinged over her bare skin to mock her nakedness. She’d bared all to him, even her soul. Yet he’d still held a part back from her.

“We have been over this before,
bella
,” he said. “If my father had wanted the world to know about Rachel he would have exposed her long ago. Instead he kept her tucked away in Milan where she is safe from a world she is ill-equipped to cope with.”

She pulled the sheet around her, chilled by his refusal to consider a change of plans. “At first, yes, when her condition was so fragile. But Cesare did have a change of heart!”

She knew the moment the words popped out that there was no going back. The tension she’d sensed in him throbbed between them.

He sat up in one fluid motion. Though he looked semirelaxed, she knew that he could pounce on her in the blink of an eye.

“When?” he asked in that low, dangerous tone that skimmed along her nerves to leave her chilled.

For all the deep intimacies they’d just shared, she felt as if her soul was exposed. The fear of revealing everything only to incur his fury tempted her to lie, but there had been too many lies and half-truths between them already.

“The last Saturday we visited Rachel, Cesare told me that he wanted to bring her home,” she said, beginning slowly so she could emotionally feel her way thorough this confession.

“To Viareggio.”

If it were that simple… “To his house.”

“Mamma would never have allowed that to happen!”

“Few women would welcome their husband’s love child,” she said. “But he was determined to make her see reason.”

She dreaded to imagine the bitter words that had been volleyed between Cesare and his wife when he’d confessed his infidelity and then declared that he’d fathered a daughter that he wished to ensconce in their home. No wonder he’d suffered a heart attack!

“It is beyond the scope of reason why he would ask such a thing of my mother.”

“Family,” she said, stating the obvious. “He wanted his children united. He wanted his family whole.”

“A wasted effort,” Stefano said. “Mamma wasn’t the forgiving sort.”

“Like you?”

“Yes, like me.”

“Then why are you insisting on managing Rachel’s care when Cesare entrusted her to me?”

He whirled on her then, eyes snapping anger and something that bordered on vulnerability. “She is a Marinetti.”

She threw her hands in the air, having come full circle in this argument with him. “You assert that she’s family yet you don’t want her in your life. That isn’t fair to her, Stefano, and it isn’t what Cesare wants.”

He snorted and sat up, his long legs dangling over the edge of the bed and his broad, muscular back racked with tension.
Every tender touch, each kiss, seemed as if it happened a lifetime ago instead of mere minutes.

“It is clear that my father spared no expense to hire a
bambinaia
and provide a safe home for my sister,” he said. “So why the change of heart? When did he come to this decision to insert Rachel into his home?”

“He spoke of it often after Rachel’s last visit to the doctor.” In fact Cesare had been obsessed with the idea of having his daughter near him.

Stefano crossed to the window and peered out, and the setting sun poured through the window to dust his muscular frame in rose-gold. Her heart seized at the sight, for not one statue of a god in all of Italy could compare to his potent masculinity and rugged male beauty.

“Every time you and Papa went to Milan, my mamma would call me and complain bitterly of his infidelity.”

“Why didn’t she confront him?” she asked.

One bronzed shoulder lifted in a shrug. “An affair or two is expected in a marriage.”

“I wouldn’t be tolerant of infidelity,” she said, needled by the sudden sting of jealousy at the thought of sharing Stefano with another woman.

“Nor would I,” he admitted, surprising her. “I am faithful to my lover and demand the same.”

She slipped from the bed and crossed to him, refusing to think that this synergy she shared with him would come to an end. “I’d never betray you.”

“
Bella
.” He brushed a finger over her lips that still trembled from his possession, lips that quivered from holding back the last truth that seemed too large and ugly to reveal. “It was for the best that Mamma never knew about Rachel.”

She sucked in a ragged breath and met his slumberous
eyes, knowing that what she had to say would turn his eyes black with disapproval again. But she couldn’t continue to keep secrets between them, not now.

“She did know.” She expected an immediate reaction and she got it.

He grabbed her arms then pulled her so close that she breathed the same charged air as he. “I don’t believe you. Mamma would have told me if she’d known about Rachel.”

“I’m sure she would have if she’d had time,” she said, and rested a hand over his heart. “Cesare told her everything.”

He shook off her gesture of comfort and prowled the room with long, angry strides. “When?”

“He unburdened his soul to her in the car on the way to their favorite restaurant in Tuscany.” She crossed her arms over herself when he simply stared holes in her naked body. “He said they fought bitterly, that she flew into a rage the likes of which he’d never seen before.”

He slammed the flat of his hand against the wall. “How could he think she would not react violently to such news?”

She shook her head, certain that Cesare hadn’t thought his confession through. But then he hadn’t known that his health would suddenly fail him, either.

“That’s when the blinding pain hit him and he lost control of the car.” She met his furious gaze and hoped he’d one day understand this. “When he woke, he learned he’d suffered a heart attack.”

“He phoned you,” Stefano said, his voice flat and hard.

She nodded. “From the hospital. He told me everything and begged me to protect Rachel.”

“As well as guard his secrets?”

“Yes. He was afraid you would react worse than his wife if you knew.”

“It’s no wonder he is not improving,” Stefano said. “He is mired in deep guilt over her death.”

She wrung her hands together, wanting to reach out to him, wanting to offer him comfort, but she knew he’d not take it. Not now when his emotions were scraped raw again.

“He’ll never forgive himself for what happened,” she said. “So you will have to.”

“And I would do this because?”

“Because he’s your father. Because only a selfish bastard could be that indifferent toward his family.”

He frowned, a fierce drawing of his brows that signaled he was far from accepting the truth. “What if I am,
bella
?”

It was a question Stefano had asked himself many times the past ten years. There had been many occasions when his mamma had phoned him, begging him to return to Marinetti.

He’d ignored her pleas just as he had avoided her repeated attempts to get him married.

Stefano had no desire for a wife or children at this point in his life. Perhaps one day when this inner drive for success abated.

Women were like water in his hands. His affairs never lasted long, for they all wanted more from him than he was willing to give.

Which made this tête-à-tête with Gemma short-lived at best.

Already they were clashing over how he should live his life! But he was also looking forward to the explosion of passion when they made peace.

But how could he think of that now? Gemma was tied neatly up in his father’s lies. Yes, she’d done so out of loyalty to Cesare and his sister. But they were still lies!

“I don’t believe you are as self-centered as you imagine yourself to be,” she said at last.

He merely offered a wan smile. “Think what you will. I always put business first.”

She shook her head. “You returned to tend to your father’s business while he is recovering.”

“
Bella
, my father will never manage Marinetti again,” he said.

“Yes, I realize that now, but when you first agreed to lend him a hand—”

He placed a finger over her mouth to shush her. “I am not the prodigal son welcomed back into the family fold. My father suffered a heart attack and knew the situation was dire. He knew he couldn’t continue and perhaps didn’t have the heart to try after Mamma’s death. That’s why he called me, for he knew if I ever returned I’d assume control of Marinetti Shipyard.”

Her face leached of color, but there was a glint in her eyes that hinted of lofty hopes. “You still have the obligation of family. Your father. Your sister.”

“Do not imbue me with your character traits,” he said. “I would see that both are well cared for to the best of my ability, and if that means bringing my sister and her
bambinaia
into my father’s house, then so be it. But I won’t sacrifice my life to do so.”

“I haven’t sacrificed to see that my family was cared for,” she said.

“Haven’t you?”

The question hung between them like an icy sheet. “If I did make some concessions, it was expected of me to care for my nonna and my younger brother.”

He glared at her, angry she wasn’t seeing herself in the same martyr’s light as he. “What will you give the next time your family needs you? An arm? Perhaps an eye or kidney?”

“Stop it! I didn’t sell my bone marrow,” she said.

“No, but the end result was the same.”

She let out a weary sigh. “Please, don’t just move Rachel into your house and feel you’ve done the right thing. Make her part of your life. You won’t regret it.”

He wasn’t so sure. How the hell would a sister and a young one at that fit into his hectic life? She wouldn’t.

In fact his bachelor life was ill-suited for an impressionable young lady. But Gemma didn’t see that part of the problem.

She likely saw herself still having a hand in his sister’s life, carrying on as his papa had bade her to do. It was a pattern she fell into too easily. She took other peoples’ lives to heart at the expense of her own.

“When did you give up on yourself?” he asked her, and before she could reply, added, “Was it when you blamed herself for your mamma’s death?”

“I’ve not given up,” she said. “I have dreams and aspirations.”

“Tell me.”

“I want to see the inn prosper again.”

He made a cutting motion with his hand. “That’s business. I’m talking about your personal life. What do you want to have two years from now?”

Their eyes met, and he read the love in hers before she looked away. “My own family.”

Just as he’d thought.

Stefano couldn’t expect her to remain his mistress forever.

She deserved marriage. Family.

She could be the one.