Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) (21 page)

They looked at each other. The silence became palpable. Franco Savo gave a discreet cough.

“Um, Maria and I will be at the bar, having a nightcap. Let us know your decision, Cheyenne, yes?”

“Yes,” Cheyenne said, but she never took her eyes from Luca.

“
Bellissima
,” he said softly, as soon as the Salvos had walked away, “this is a holiday. Why should you work?”

“You’ll be working, too. “

“Yes, but that’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Well—well, I run a business.”

“And I have a career.”

Hell. He’d said the wrong thing. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate her career, but—but he’d envisioned himself at work, with her waiting for him to return to her at home. Well, not at home. At the hotel.

“I like working, Luca. It’s what I do. Who I am.”

“And if I were to say no?”

She sat back. There was a sudden coolness in her eyes.

“I would tell you I make my own decisions.”

Yes. He knew that. And as much as he admired her for it, he wanted her to be… What? A little more dependent?

A little more needful of him, not just in bed but out of it?

Dio!
Even having such thoughts was crazy. The last thing he would ever want of a woman was that she’d organize her life around him—and what was with that image of her waiting for him at home? This relationship, if you could call something that was only a few days old a ‘relationship,’ was about passion and fun, not about domesticity.

He took a drink of his chianti.

“Of course you do,” he said pleasantly. “I only meant that I hoped you working tomorrow would not interfere with the plans I’ve made.”

“What plans?”

What plans, indeed?

“Well, my meeting will take most of the morning. I thought we’d drive south afterward. To Tuscany. Where I keep my horses.”

That did it. Her face lit.

“Oh, I’d love that! And the timing should be fine. I know how these shoots go. I’ll be done by early afternoon.”

“Good.
Va bene
. That’s it, then.”

“Luca.” She sat forward and reached for his hand. “This could be the chance I’ve been waiting for. If I can show the people who count that I’m easy to work with…” She laughed at the way his eyebrows rose. “Okay. If I can show them that I’m not impossible to work with, I’ll be back in the game.”

“And that’s important to you.”

“Yes. It’s terribly important.”

He nodded, smiled, brought her hand to his lips. “Good,” he said except, what he really wanted to say was,
What about me? Am I not important to you, too? Am I not, perhaps, even more important?

But only a fool would say such a thing. Only a fool would want such a thing. Only a fool would build his life on emotion.

And if there was one thing Luca Bellini was never going to be, it was a fool.

CHAPTER TWELVE

B
y two the
following afternoon, they were on the road, heading for the village in the Tuscan hills where Luca bred and raised Arabians.

“How did your meeting go?” Cheyenne asked.

“It went well.” He flashed her a quick smile. “Actually, it went very well. I’m going to design and build a new skyscraper in Manhattan. Fifty stories, all glass. I’m excited to start work. And you? How did things go with the
Vogue
shoot?”

“Oh, it was fine! I’d worked with the photographer before, which made things easier, and I managed not to tell him what angle to shoot from.” She made a face. “I didn’t even tell the makeup guy that I look better with red lip color than peach.”

Luca chuckled. “Of course you told him.”

“Well, maybe I hinted…”

He laughed, and she joined in.

“I’m impressed,” he said.

“Me, too. Seriously, the agency rep was there and he said he’d give me a call.”

“But not too soon.” Luca reached for her hand. “We’re not going to do anything but enjoy ourselves for the next few days.”

Cheyenne smiled at him. “I’m already doing that.”

He’d rented a car, a bright red Ferrari. He had the same model at his ranch, he said, and he loved driving it. The car flew like the wind, eating up the miles, hugging the tight corners of the impossibly narrow, twisting roads that led south.

He’d scoffed at the idea of taking the
Autostrada del Sol.

“The
autostrada
is fine for speed, but it’s an insult to a car like this one to put it on a straight road and give it nothing more important to do than get its driver and passengers from Point A to Point B. Besides,” he said, with that sexy grin Cheyenne adored, “there’s nothing to keep us from testing the car’s speed on the
autostrada
another day.”

The further they drove into Tuscany, the more beautiful the rolling hills, meadows and small, ancient towns became.

Cheyenne was entranced by the scenery and by the car, too. She said it reminded her of an ad she’d done for Ferrari, posing beside a vintage Testa Rossa.

“Do you know what year it was?” Luca asked.

“Yes. A ’58. Perfectly restored, of course.”

“Ah. The most beautiful car ever made.”

“When they told me what it was worth, I was afraid to touch it.”

Luca grinned. “Matteo would be proud of you.”

“Does he own a Testa Rossa?”

“Only God and Matteo’s accountants know what he owns,” he said, laughing. “My brother loves fast cars. Ferraris. Lamborghinis. He’s even American enough to own a vintage Corvette.”

“Did your family spend a lot of time in America when you were growing up?”

“We never went to the States at all.” He double clutched and downshifted as they approached a tight curve. “We used to ask our father to bring us there on vacations, but he always had an excuse. Now, of course, we know the reason. We were a secret more easily maintained in Sicily.”

“But all of you chose American universities. Was it hard? Coming to a new country, I mean.”

“Not really. We spoke English, of course, because of our father.” His jaw tightened. “That was one good thing he did for us.”

Cheyenne put her hand over his on the wheel.

“Is he still alive? Your father? I mean, maybe he can explain why he did what he did.”

“He’s very much alive, and he spent the July fourth holiday trying to explain it.” A muscle flickered in Luca’s jaw. “It was an explanation that left much to be desired.”

“But at least he tried to explain. My mother—some parents never do.”

Luca caught her hand in his.

“You were not close with her,” he said softly.

She wanted to laugh, or maybe to cry, but either might give too much away. Instead, she gave the safest answer.

“No.”

There was a brief silence. Then Luca said, “Did she mistreat you,
bellissima
?”

“Why would you ask me that?” She pulled her hand from his.

“I only meant—”

“I know. And I’m sorry I jumped on you. I just…I don’t like to talk about her.”

“Then we’ll talk about something else. For instance, do you see that road leading into the hills?”

“The one lined with those beautiful tall trees?”

“
Si
. Italian Cypress.” He shot her a quick smile. “They’re like you. Tall, slender and elegant.”

She laughed, and he reached for her hand again.

“They sigh when the wind goes through them. I always thought that was a wonderful sound, but the sound of your laughter is what is truly perfect.”

She laughed again, but the laughter caught in her throat. Luca looked at her with alarm.

“What is it? Have I said something to upset you?”

“No. Oh, no. It’s just that—that—” She took a deep breath. “I’m glad you asked me to come to Milan with you,” she said softly, “and I’m very, very glad I said yes.”

He wanted to stop the car, take her in his arms and tell her that it was the same for him, that he’d asked her to come with him because he’d thought it would be fun, that it would be an interlude they’d both enjoy, but that it was becoming more than that, that she was somehow changing him…

But it was more than he’d ever imagined saying to any woman.

And far more than his mind was willing to process.

* * *

She fell in love with his ranch.

Rolling green hills. Stately cypresses. Towering oaks. There was even a grove of olive trees, some gnarled and ancient, yet still bearing fruit.

Cheyenne had always loved animals; one of the things that pleased her about her place in upstate New York was that the woods and meadows were home to deer and foxes. There were deer and foxes here, too, and one evening, at dusk, a badger ran across the trail ahead of them.

And then, of course, there were Luca’s horses.

She fell in love with them at first sight, especially with a white stallion.

“He’s an old man,” Luca said as the horse came across the paddock to them, tossed his head, then accepted a carrot from Cheyenne’s outstretched hand. “And he was the very first Arabian I bought. I didn’t know much about them back then.” He smiled as the horse pushed his nose into the curve of Cheyenne’s shoulder. “He likes you.”

“Such a sweet boy,” she crooned. “What’s his name?”

No answer. She looked at Luca.

“Luca? What’s his name?”

Her lover was blushing! It was a charming sight and it made her smile.

“His name is Baby. Don’t look at me that way,
cara
. I didn’t name him. It was the name he came with and since he knew it and responded to it, I didn’t want to… What?”

“I had—I knew a horse named Baby a long time ago. Well, that wasn’t really his name. He didn’t have a name at all, so I took to calling him Baby.” She looped her arm around the stallion’s neck, but she seemed to staring into the past. “He was old, too. Very old.”

Why did he have the feeling this was another story that wasn’t going to have a happy ending?

“The people who owned him lived down the road. They kept him tethered behind an outbuilding. His mane, his tail were all matted. Sometimes, they forgot to feed him and to refill the big old copper bucket that was supposed to hold his drinking water.”

“There are some evil people in this world,” Luca said cautiously.

“I began to visit him every day. I combed him. I brought him water. And I fed him—they had lots of feed and hay in their barn for their other horses, but they—they forgot about Baby.”

“Cheyenne.
Cara
. If this upsets you—”

“My mother didn’t like me doing things for Baby. She said—she said it made me mess up my clothes, and that I always smelled of horses, and that none of her—her friends would like me that way.”

Dio!
Could a man go from despising a woman he’d never met to abhorring her?

“But you took care of Baby anyway,” he said softly.

“Yes. And then, one day…”

Her voice cracked. Luca cursed. He reached for her, but she stepped back. The stallion snorted, lowered his head and nibbled the grass.

“One day, he when I got to him, he was down. Not lying down—I knew horses did that. This was different. He was down, and breathing hard.”

“Sweetheart. Don’t.”

“I couldn’t get him up. I tried and tried, but I just couldn’t.”

Luca waited. He felt sorrow for the horse and greater sorrow for a skinny child, because surely she had been skinny, struggling to bring the dying animal to its feet.

“I called the police. At first, they wouldn’t listen. They said it was a private matter. We had a local TV station. KLUS. They ran a program they called
Us Helping You
. They advertised it all the time. ‘Phone us when the authorities won’t help you,’ they’d say.”

The stallion whinnied and stepped away from her, lowered his head and nibbled at the grass. Cheyenne watched him, her posture rigid, her eyes dark.

“And you were how old,
cara
?”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen,” he said, wishing he could have been beside her then to protect her from whatever was coming.

“A reporter showed up. The people who owned Baby sent for my mother. She tried to make me go with her, but I wouldn’t. And then the police came. And when they saw what things were like…” A sob burst from her throat, and she buried her face in her hands. “If only I’d done something sooner,” she whispered. “If I’d reported his owners right away—”

“Sweetheart, no, you did all that you could.” Gently, Luca took her hands from her face. “Think of the months of kindness you’d shown him.” Were horses aware of such things? He had to believe they were, and he told her that. “He must have loved you for all you’d done for him.”

“What I know for sure,” she said softly, “is that I loved him with all my heart.”

“So,” he said, trying desperately for a positive ending if not a happy one, “the owners were fined, yes?”

She nodded. “That’s what the police said would happen.”

“And your mother understood you had done the right thing…”

Cheyenne looked at him and he knew that for the rest of his life, he would remember what he saw in her eyes.

“My mother took me home,” she said in a toneless voice, “and beat the crap out of me.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, because the softness of the various Italian words for God no longer seemed to be enough.

“It wasn’t the first time. The difference was… That day, I hit her back.”

Luca could feel the rage swelling inside him. The savagery. He wanted to kick in a fence post. To punch his fist through a wall. Most of all, he wanted to take Cheyenne in his arms and tell her he would never let anything or anyone hurt her again, but he knew how fragile this moment was.

Everything in him warned that he and his beautiful lover were standing at the edge of a precipice.

She stared at him. Then she laughed. It was the laugh of a brave, tough, heartbroken thirteen-year-old kid.

“I gave her a black eye.”

“Good girl.” He cleared his throat. “And what happened next? Did you have anyone you could go to for help?”

She hesitated. He could almost see her withdrawing.

“Things worked out.”

It was an answer that raised more questions than it answered.

“How?”

She shrugged. “They just did.”

“Yes, but surely—”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Okay?”

He nodded. And wondered what in hell to do or say next.

She had opened herself to him. He knew enough about her now to realize that it was not something she did easily. The question was what to do about it.

He wanted to soothe her. To gather her close and hold her. He wanted to tell her that if her goddamned mother were still alive, he’d—he’d—

“Hell,” he said, and he gave up logic and reached for her.

She came to him stiffly, arms at her sides, and he suspected she was already regretting that she’d told him all she had. He knew that a wiser man might know the right things to say to ease her pain, but he wasn’t a wise man.

He was a man whose life was spiraling out of control.

Terrifyingly, magnificently out of control.

So he held her and rocked her and, after a while, she sighed, looped her arms around his neck and leaned into his embrace.

He shut his eyes and rested his chin on the top of her head.

“And,” he said softly, “Baby is the reason you wanted to buy Sweetwater Ranch. To donate it to
Horse Sense
so that abused horses could be assured of… What?”

“
Horse Sense
is for kids,” she said, looking up at him smiling. “It runs something called equine therapy. Kids—abused kids, disabled kids, kids with problems—are taught to ride and care for horses. There’s something about bonding with a gentle animal that can change a child’s life.”