VITTORIO'S LOVER (Vittorio Series) (27 page)

Raffaele tipped his head in acquiescence, although it was evident by his brooding expression he wasn’t happy about it. “If that is what you wish, then you have my word.”

Jenesa held out her hand and was relieved when he promptly handed her purse over. Digging out her cell phone, she purposely strolled to the same dark corner he’d tucked himself into earlier and turned her back so he wouldn’t overhear. She dialed Grady’s number, but when he answered, Jenesa just couldn’t bring herself to lie to him.

“Grady, I’m so sorry for standing you up. I promise it wasn’t intentional. You see…well…when the driver arrived to pick me up, I just assumed
you had sent him and…and…I don’t quite know how to tell you…”

“
It’s okay, sweetheart, you don’t have to explain.”

“But I do! You don’t understand, Grady.”

“I understand a lot more than you think. I’ve watched the two of you walk around like zombies for six months and finally decided enough was enough.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach.

“I had a little…chat with Raffaele earlier today and I may have insinuated that I was going to ask you to marry me tonight at dinner.”

“You did what?”
Jenesa glanced over her shoulder and saw Raffaele watching her intently. Was it her imagination or had he moved a little closer? Turning back to her conversation, she hissed into the phone. “Why would you do something like that?”

“To make him realize how easily he could lose
you if he didn’t chuck his mule-headed pride and do something. Personally, I thought sending a car around for you early was a stroke of genius.”

“Oh, Grady, how could you!
”

“I care for both
of you, that’s how. And it worked; Raffaele is fighting for you, Jenesa. I know he hurt you deeply, but you still love him so maybe you could give the guy a chance to make it up to you?”

Jenesa’s stomach twisted into a painful knot. “You’re wrong, Grady. He doesn’t love me, he despises me.”

“Listen to me first and then you can decide what you want to do,” Grady said patiently. “If Raffaele despised you, he sure as hell wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of kidnapping you, now would he? And if you didn’t love him, you would have stomped out of there the second you saw him and realized it was his house. Talk it out, honey. It’s the only way either of you will find happiness.”

“I…I don’t think this is a very good idea.”

“Of course it’s a good idea,” he chuckled. “I masterminded it, didn’t I? Now, it’s decision time. A lifetime of love or a lifetime of misery? And before you launch into a denial, you and I both know Raffaele is in your blood. You can stay there with the man you love and try to work it out, or you can walk out the door, get in my car, and I’ll take you home.”

“
Grady Thorpe! You mean to tell me you’ve been outside Raffaele’s house the whole time?”

“Not the entire time. I followed the Rolls from house and then parked out front once I was sure you had gone inside the house
.”

“You’re a good friend, Grady. The best.”

“Does that mean you’re going to stay?”

Jenesa drew in a deep breath.  If there was any chance of being with Raffaele, she had to take it. “
Goodnight, Grady. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

                                                  TWELVE

Raffaele couldn’t help himself. The second Jenesa’s back was turned, he gradually migrated in her direction until he was close enough to hear what she was saying. Jealousy
gnawed at him with mounting fury when he recalled how concerned she looked about Grady waiting for her at the restaurant. But what really gutted him was the realization that she must have told Grady the truth about where she was. He wanted to rip the phone from her hands and tell his
friend
exactly what he thought of him.

And then he’d overheard Jenesa
say she didn’t think it was a good idea, and it suddenly hit him that Grady was actually trying to talk her into staying. Comprehension was slow to sink in. Why would Grady do that if he’d been planning to ask Jenesa to marry him? Raffaele moved closer, so preoccupied by the disturbing sight of Jenesa’s emaciated body, he almost missed what she said about Grady being outside his house the entire time. So Grady had orchestrated this after all; deliberately setting Raffaele up by making him believe he was about to lose Jenesa forever.

He should have been angry at Grady for manipulating him, but as his eyes grazed on Jenesa, all he could think of was that the man deserved an enormous raise.
  Not only had Grady succeeded in making Raffaele see how wrong he’d been about Jenesa, but also how deeply his feelings ran for her. And he’d persuaded Jenesa to stay without the safety net of having Grady waiting outside for her. Now it was up to Raffaele to convince her they had a future together.

Jenesa was startled when she turned around to find Raffaele standing
so close.  Her beautiful gray eyes widened and she swayed unsteadily as her slender body was assaulted by a violent tremor. Instinctively, he reached out and gripped Jenesa’s shoulders to prevent her from falling backwards. A sharp stab of pain corkscrewed through his chest when she jerked away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” Jenesa rasped as she slipped past him
and moved to the center of the room. “I agreed to t-talk, nothing else.”

One thing was certain;
Raffaele had his work cut out for him. He hadn’t expected it to be easy, but when Jenesa agreed to stay he’d hoped it was because she was willing to give him a second chance. Now he wondered if she had only given in because she saw it as a way to extract a promise from him to leave her alone once they parted.  It might have been easier to shake off his pessimistic musings if Jenesa wasn’t behaving as if it was pure torture being in the same room with him.

“I refuse to talk to your back,
cara
,” Raffaele said when it became obvious she had no intention of turning around.

His sense of self preservation was the only thing that kept
him from laughing when her spine stiffened as she shoved her phone into her purse. There was little doubt in his mind that in Jenesa’s present mood, she was inclined to hurl something at his head at the slightest hint of humor. She wasn’t to blame, of course. Raffaele had practically blackmailed her into staying, and if her frosty demeanor was anything to judge by, she was probably waiting for him to sandblast her with more derogatory verbiage.

Guilt and remorse were not emotions he was familiar with, but both
were weighing pretty heavily on his shoulders at the moment. He’d hurt her, cut her to the bone with the deplorable way he’d treated her and the appalling things he’d said. Somehow, he had to drive those unpleasant thoughts from her mind and revive the memories of what they’d meant to each other before his injured pride had blinded him with rage and turned him into a cruel, heartless ogre.  

“Come sit with me by the fire,” he finally said, adding a soft, “please.”

Squaring her shoulders, as Raffaele often did before going into battle at an important meeting, Jenesa marched to the seating area in front of the fireplace. He quickly followed and saw her hesitate before angling towards one of the chairs, but he wasn’t about to afford her the opportunity to place more distance between them. With one long-legged step Raffaele blocked her off, giving her no choice except to sit on the loveseat or make it obvious she was taking the coward’s way out by circling the coffee table to reach the other chair.

Jenesa’s eyes shot up to meet his. The silent challenge he issued was assimilated and promptly answered with a defiant lift of her chin
. Squeezing past him cost her though; Raffaele heard the sharp intake of air and noted the way her trembling fingers curled around the clutch purse when her body came within inches of his. He tried not to let it bother him. Jenesa had every right to be wary of him and his motives for bringing her here. It was only natural that she would balk at leaving herself emotionally vulnerable again. Erecting a wall of ice around her heart was a protective measure, he understood that, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept.

He
didn’t move until Jenesa placed her purse on the coffee table and settled back against the plush cushions. She was pressed as close to the end of the loveseat as possible, presumably to maximize the space between them, but Raffaele had his own agenda and it did
not
include maintaining a physical
or
emotional barrier. Deliberately sitting so close she had to clamp her knees together to prevent their thighs from touching, Raffaele was pleased to see a furious blush staining her cheeks. It was encouraging to know Jenesa was not as immune to him as she pretended to be.

“I apologize for the unconventional method used in getting you here,” he started.  “At the time I…formulate
d the plan to see you, I was under the impression that if I didn’t act quickly, you would be spending the evening having a cozy dinner with Grady. It seems my good friend knows me better than I know myself. He counted on me reacting strongly to the suggestion there was a romantic interest on his part and probably knew what I would do even before I did.”

Jenesa
continued to stare into the fireplace, unmoved by anything he had to say.  It was difficult to reconcile this beautiful stone statue with no spark of life left in her to the woman who had writhed beneath him in wild abandon as they made love. He didn’t like the emotionless façade. He didn’t like it that her body had lost the gently rounded softness that featured in so many of his erotic dreams either. The fact that he’d played a major role in creating the ice queen sitting beside him only made it worse.

His eyes skated over
the meager flesh of her exposed shoulders. “Maybe we should talk over dinner. I didn’t have time to prepare anything elaborate but I know you haven’t eaten.” Raffaele chuckled when her stomach grumbled right on cue. “A little bread and pasta with a glass of wine would do us both a world of good,” he said, rising to his feet and holding out a hand.

A deliciously warm sense of satisfaction
meandered through him when Jenesa slipped her fingers into his palm after a slight hesitation. Progress, however small and seemingly insignificant, was still a milestone and he was going to use every weapon in his arsenal to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

                                                     ***

Jenesa shot a sidelong glance at Raffaele as he led her down the hall to a small but impressively furnished informal dining room. Let him think he’d scored this round by coaxing her into eating with him. It hadn’t taken more than a nano-second to determine anything was better than being trapped between the arm of the loveseat and the scorching heat of his body. So what if this was the first time in months she actually had an appetite? It didn’t have anything to do with Raffaele. She would have been just as ravenous sitting down to dinner with Grady at this late hour.

“It smells wonderful,” she said earnestly, inhaling the enticing aroma wafting its way from the adjoining kitchen. 

“Would you like to eat here or in the kitchen? It’s much warmer in there but it will be faster and easier to serve if we don’t have to carry everything into the dining room.”

“The kitchen is fine
,” she shrugged.

A small piece of her heart thawed when he smiled and gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
She didn’t let it show though. No smile in return, no lifting the impassive curtain she was hiding behind, not even the tiniest slackening in her rigid posture. No tell-tale signs that might cue him into the fact she was melting faster than an ice cube under a heat lamp. She merely let him pull her along to the kitchen, neither resisting nor displaying an eagerness to dine alone with him.

Once he’d directed her to an alcove with a cozy breakfast nook and let go of her hand, Jenesa seated herself at the small table. Brief as the physical contact had been, it left her fingers tingling, and various other parts of her body as well. Still, she refused to let
him see how much he affected her. There would be time enough for that after she’d extracted sufficient penance for the misery he’d caused her. Yes, it was true Raffaele was in her blood just as Grady said, but it wasn’t enough to know she would never love another man the way she loved him. Jenesa needed to know he loved her in the same desperate manner.

She watched him as he drained the pasta and placed generous portions on two plates, topping them both with large, juicy shrimp and asparagus
in a thick Alfredo sauce. Her mouth was watering and her stomach being very vocal by the time he carried the plates to the table. It was sheer agony to politely wait until he retrieved the wine and bread along with balsamic vinegar laced with Italian herbs and spices for dipping. This must be how a bear feels coming out of hibernation, Jenesa thought as she popped a plump shrimp into her mouth.