Revelations of the Night Before (10 page)

He raised his head, as if he sensed the turmoil in her heart. “You’re thinking too much,” he said gruffly. “Stop thinking.”

And then he made it impossible for her to think as he thrust into her again and again, harder and harder, until she caught fire, until her body shattered in a million bright shards of color and her breath tore from her in a long, broken cry.

She was still gasping and reeling when he followed her into oblivion, holding her tightly to him, his hips grinding into her one last time as a deep shudder racked him.

Her heart throbbed in the silence, filling her ears with the sound of her blood rushing through her sensitized body. Tina put her hand in his hair, held him to her as he buried his face against her neck. His hair was damp, hot, and his breath ghosted over her heated skin, cooling her.

She gazed up at the ceiling, dazed by what had just happened between them. She was still in her wedding gown—her very crumpled wedding gown—and lying on a long table. A console table, she realized. They hadn’t even made it out of the living room.

She’d married someone her family hated and now she was having wild sex with him on a table. She ought to be ashamed—and yet she wasn’t. She was thrilled at the illicitness of their encounter.

He wasn’t a bad man, she told herself. He wanted what was best for the baby, the same as she did, and he’d flown wedding dresses in for her so she wouldn’t have to get married in something that she’d worn to lunch
or shopping with Mama and Lucia. He’d tried to make sure she had something special. That didn’t make him good by a long shot, but it made him human at least.

She was still breathing hard when he pushed off her and turned to tuck himself away. A frisson of alarm crept through her then. They’d had sex and he was done. He would leave her while he went to work on his laptop, or maybe he’d leave the apartment and go into the city and not come back until she’d fallen asleep waiting for him to return.

He caught her gaze then and quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not leaving, Tina.”

She hated that he knew what she was thinking simply from looking at her—and yet she was relieved, too.

“I hope not,” she told him, pushing herself up on her elbows. “I was quite enjoying that.”

Nico’s gaze was sharp and hot as he smoothed her gown down before he helped her to stand. Her legs were wobbly and she swayed into him. He caught her close, his fingers burning into the exposed skin of her back.

His smile scorched her. “We definitely aren’t finished yet,” he told her, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “That was merely a prelude.”

Tina’s heart was still racing. “Some prelude.”

He kissed her. In spite of everything that had just happened, in spite of the fact she was spent, excitement blossomed in her belly, kindling like a flash fire.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he promised.

Nico lay in the dark and listened to the breathing of the woman beside him. She’d fallen into an exhausted sleep hours ago, but his mind wouldn’t quiet enough to let him do the same. His body was replete, drunk on sex and high on the endorphins a good release could
bring—and yet, if she turned to him now and ran a soft hand over his thigh, he’d harden in an instant.

And that was what he didn’t quite understand. What was this nearly insatiable need for her?

Oh, he loved sex and women, and he’d been known to spend long nights making love to whichever woman had caught his fancy. That was not unusual in the least. Nor was the fact she was beside him in the bed. He didn’t mistake sex and sleeping for love, and he made sure the women he was with knew that.

He knew that some men left in the middle of the night, or made the woman leave, but what was the sense in that? If he woke up aroused, he wanted a soft female body in which to spend himself.

No, he didn’t leave in the middle of the night like a vampire, and he didn’t kick a woman out of bed until he tired of her. How quickly that happened depended entirely upon her.

The instant the games began—the jealousy, the pouting, the efforts to make him say that he was beginning to feel something more—she was gone.

But now he had a wife, and that wife intrigued him more than he could remember being intrigued in quite a while. His life, while full of beautiful women and all the finer things money could buy, had left him empty of late. More lonely than content, more restless than happy.

Tina, however, excited him again. He’d been so hot for her that he’d taken her on a table in the living room with the lights of Rome stretched out below. He should have made it more special for her, but he’d been unable to wait. She’d asked him not to ruin her dress—he hadn’t, but he’d damn sure creased it. After that first frantic coupling, he’d carried her to the bedroom and
taken the time he should have taken initially. He’d explored her, aroused her, and satisfied her over and over.

He loved the sounds she made when she came, the way she said his name, her soft voice breaking at the end as if he were the one thing she needed in this world to survive. It was a plea, each and every time—and yet it wasn’t. He sensed there was something about her he could not touch, and it drove him crazy wondering what that was.

Did she purposely hold a part of herself back? Or was he imagining things?

He turned in the bed and slid a hand along her hip before pulling her into the curve of his body. She felt good there, and he lay beside her and just listened to her breathing.

Valentina D’Angeli.
Valentina Gavretti
, he corrected fiercely.

How was it that he lay here with Renzo’s little sister and the only thing he felt was protective? He should feel triumphant, as if he’d finally found the way to get beneath Renzo’s skin—but he didn’t.

She turned in his arms then, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. It made him feel fierce inside. If Renzo tried to take her away …

“Nico,” she sighed.

“Yes,
cara
?”

He could see her smile in the dark. “Nothing.”

His body was already reacting though he tried to think of something other than sex. But his penis was throbbing to life regardless. Sometimes it definitely had a will of its own. He did not doubt that women were right when they accused men of thinking with their genitalia.

He pushed a lock of curly hair out of her face. “Tell me something, Tina.”

“What’s that,” she asked sleepily, burrowing into him even more.

“I don’t understand how you were still a virgin.” He’d been thinking about it since she’d blasted back into his life. She was so passionate, so honest and open in her sexuality, that it didn’t make sense. She burned him up with her heat, and he craved more of the same—had since the first night he’d been with her.

She shrugged. “I never found anyone I wanted to be with.”

He’d never claimed to understand women’s minds, so he didn’t argue the point. To her, it made perfect sense. “Then why did you choose me?”

“Actually, I chose someone else,” she said, and he couldn’t stop the slice of jealousy that slammed through him. “But he smelled like garlic. You didn’t.”

Nico blinked. “You mean it came down to garlic?”

She nodded. “Yep. Garlic. One really shouldn’t eat garlic if one expects to seduce a woman.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Then I suppose I should be grateful I skipped the garlic.”

She tilted her head back on the pillow to look at him. He could feel the intensity of her gaze, even if he couldn’t actually see what was in her eyes in the dark. “Do you really mean that?”

Everything inside him grew still. He didn’t know what he meant, but he wanted to tell her not to read too much into it, though he knew that she already had. She was young and naive, at least as far as relationships went, and he couldn’t tell her the truth right now. He couldn’t tell her that he didn’t believe in love between a man and a woman. He only believed in sexual chemistry
—which they had an abundance of—and that usually fizzled after a while.

Except nothing was fizzling at the moment.

“I don’t regret being your first lover, Tina.” That was most definitely true. He shifted his pelvis so she could feel the evidence of his continuing need for her.

“Oh,” she said, her voice husky. And yet he sensed she was somehow disappointed in his answer. Was it because of the baby? Or because she hoped there could be something more between them than simple lust?

He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to talk about expectations, or about what he thought might happen when they tired of each other. It was too soon, and he was still growing accustomed to the idea of a wife.

He wouldn’t allow this to disintegrate to the point it harmed their child, but he knew they would have to address it one day. What happened when they were ready to go their separate ways?

“Go to sleep, Tina,” he told her somewhat gruffly. He was aroused, but he’d get over it. “You need your rest.”

She made a disapproving sound. “And if I don’t want to sleep?”

He didn’t think he could grow any harder than he was in that moment. “What do you want,
tesoro
?”

“I think you know.”

He gathered her closer, nuzzled the hair at her temple. “Can I possibly be so lucky?”

She slid a hand over his hip. “Enjoy it while you can. I imagine things will change once this baby really starts to grow.”

She pressed her mouth to his chest, her tongue swirling against his skin as she wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed.

“Tell me what you want,” he said—groaned, really. He didn’t expect her to push him onto his back and straddle him, but he was damned happy she did. He groaned again as she sank down on top of him. Her movements were slow at first, inexpert, but they increased in tempo until he didn’t care about anything but what she did to him. He gripped her hips and thrust up into her while she gasped and moaned. When she stiffened and choked out his name, he came in a hot rush that left him gasping and spent.

“That was lovely,” she said huskily. Then she leaned down and kissed him slowly, clearly pleased with herself. His heart tapped an insane rhythm in his chest as he lay beneath her and concentrated on breathing evenly. “Really lovely.

“And, Nico,” she added when he was still trying to catch his breath and couldn’t manage to say a word. “I’m glad you were my first, too.”

A stab of unexpected emotion pierced him as he keyed in on one word.
First
.

First implied there would be a second. It twisted his gut into knots.

Chemistry
, he told himself, as he closed his eyes and hugged her to him. It was only chemistry that made him want to punch something at the thought of her with another man.

T
HEY
spent the next few days in Rome while Nico attended to business. During the day, he went to meetings, worked on his computer at home or had long conference calls in his home office.

But at night, he was hers. Tina shivered to think about what happened at night. And sometimes during the day, when he came home early or ended a call and came back inside to find her on her computer or reading.

She’d thought that sex couldn’t get any more exciting or amazing than it already was.

She’d been wrong. When he turned to her in the night and slid a palm along her hip, she shuddered, her body coming alive with sensation. And then she melted into him, fusing herself to him, taking him deep inside her and losing herself in the rightness of it.

He owned her body, and he knew it. Whether she straddled him and rode him frantically or whether he made love to her with his mouth before filling her with that part of him she craved, it didn’t matter. He owned her as surely as if he’d taken a brand and seared his name into her skin.

It was … shocking. And frightening. How could she need him so much in such a short space of time?

“Hello, earth to Tina. Yoo-hoo.”

Tina focused on Lucia, who sat across from her in the restaurant and waved her hand back and forth in front of Tina’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Tina said, smiling at her friend as she picked up her water glass and took a sip. “Just thinking.”

Lucia made a face. “I can guess what about. That man is simply gorgeous, and you are one lucky girl.”

“There’s more to a marriage than having a gorgeous man,” Tina said wryly. She’d told Lucia everything, even the part about their hasty marriage in Gibraltar. Rather than being horrified, Lucia was giddy, as if they were still sixteen and sneaking cigarettes in the janitor’s closet. Tina shook her head. She’d hated cigarettes, and hated the sick feeling she got whenever she sneaked around.

She had that feeling today, in the pit of her stomach, as she thought about Renzo and Mama. Soon, she would have to tell them what she’d done.

“Oh, I’m sure.” Lucia lifted her glass. “But it doesn’t hurt a bit, I’ll bet.” She took a sip before putting the glass down again and leaning forward. “So tell me if his nickname is well earned. Is he Naughty Niccolo in the bedroom as well as on the track?”

Tina colored. “Lucia, I don’t think—”

Lucia sat back again and blinked. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with him. Tina, he’s not the sort of man you love.”

“No, of course not.” She would be crazy to love him. She knew that.

And she
didn’t
. How could she? They’d been together a week, and sex was not enough to base such a strong emotion on. Of course she’d thought she’d loved him once long ago, but she’d been a kid. She knew better now. Desperately wanting someone because they
seemed out of reach, because they were gorgeous and kind to you and took your breath away with a smile was not love. It was infatuation.

She’d definitely been infatuated with him.

Tina waved a hand as if it were the silliest thing ever. “I’m pregnant, not stupid.”

Lucia stabbed her salad. “I still don’t know why you married him. You don’t have to marry a man just because you get pregnant anymore. You also don’t have to have the baby,” she added.

Tina told herself not to get angry. Lucia was only speaking the truth, and she was the best friend Tina had ever had. She was not saying that Tina should get rid of her baby, just that it had been an option
if she’d wanted it
. Which she did not.

“I know that. But I want this baby. And Nico was rather insistent once I told him.”

“I suppose he would be with the title and all.” She dropped her fork, her eyes widening. “My God, I’ve just realized this means you are a marchesa now. Wouldn’t the girls back at St. Katherine’s be surprised!”

Tina laughed. “Disbelieving is more like it.”

“Thank God those days are over.” Lucia sighed.

“Definitely,” Tina agreed, and put a hand over her belly beneath the table. Her stomach was still relatively flat, but it wouldn’t be for much longer. “And you can rest assured I won’t be sending this little one away to that awful place. Or any boarding school.”

Lucia grinned again. “I just can’t believe you’re going to be a mother! I’m happy for you—but, Tina, what an amazing thing. The odds of that happening on your first time must be one in a zillion.”

“Or more.”

“Are you scared?” Lucia looked very serious then, and Tina reached over and clasped her hand, squeezing.

“No, actually. I’m learning a lot about being pregnant.” The morning after she and Nico had arrived in Rome, she’d awakened to find him on his laptop in bed. When she’d stirred, he’d turned the computer to where she could see it.

“Look,
cara
, this is the site I was telling you about. You can join and track your pregnancy. There are articles, discussion groups and a bulletin board.” He’d tapped a key, his eyes rapt on the screen. “So much to learn.”

It still caused a pinch in her heart when she thought of the look on his face. How could she think he didn’t care about her when he did things like that? It was true they never talked about feelings—but he
must
feel something. Mustn’t he?

“When are you going to tell your mother and Renzo? They have a right to know, Tina.”

Tina leaned back in her chair and sighed. “I know.” It was the thorn in her happiness, the idea that she’d betrayed her family by marrying Nico. If they hadn’t been half a world away, what would have happened?

She expected the news to hit the tabloids any day now, but she hoped that Renzo and Faith were so busy in the Caribbean that they weren’t paying attention to gossip. She
would
tell them, but when she was ready.

After lunch, she and Lucia did a bit of shopping, and then Tina said goodbye and climbed into the chauffeured car that Nico insisted take her everywhere. She even had bodyguards, which she found slightly ridiculous, but two men in dark suits and headsets shadowed her every move now, though they traveled separately and never intruded.

Except for that one time when the crowds and hawkers around the Spanish Steps had been a bit boisterous. The man who’d shoved a rose in her face and wouldn’t leave, even when she said no, had been jerked away and thrust in another direction.

Lucia hadn’t even noticed, and their afternoon had continued pleasantly enough. But now Tina was tired and happy to return to the apartment. She almost wished they were back at Castello di Casari, with the sun and the water and the lovely garden, where she could lie underneath the pergola and dream.

And check her stock portfolio. She loved the thrill she got whenever she made a successful trade, when she watched the balance on her portfolio climb yet again because she’d taken a risk no one else had seen and it paid off.

Dammit, she was good at numbers and calculations. Very good. And Renzo didn’t know it. Wouldn’t have acknowledged it if he had, she thought sourly. It was a matter of pride for him that the women in his family didn’t work after a lifetime of struggling to make ends meet—though Faith had certainly challenged that assumption quite successfully.

What would Nico think? He’d said he would consider letting her work for him, but she didn’t imagine he would do so anytime soon. More likely, he’d said it to appease her because he’d made no mention of it since the plane ride back from Gibraltar.

When she let herself into the apartment, she could hear Nico’s voice coming from the open door to his home office. He did not sound happy and she stopped, unsure whether to turn around and leave again until he was finished or to let him know she was home.

But the cold tone of his voice with its underlying hint
of despair had her moving forward until she stopped in the living area, her heart pounding in her throat. Her progress ceased when she heard a woman’s voice.

The woman sounded haughty. She had the cultured tones of an aristocrat, and she seemed very angry. It took Tina a moment to realize that her voice was coming from the speakerphone.

“You are an ungrateful son, Niccolo,” she snapped. “I sacrificed everything I had for you.”

“What did you sacrifice, mother? As I recall, it was very little.”

She sniffed. “You’re just like your father. You don’t care about me at all. You took his side against me. You always did.”

“I did not,” Nico growled. “I was a child. I had no idea who was right or who was wrong. But I knew one thing, and that was that neither of you seemed to want me around.”

“It was difficult,” his mother said after a long silence. “We pretended for your sake until you went to school. There was little point in it afterward.”

“Yes, and when I begged to be allowed to come home, you were always unavailable for some reason or other. Traveling abroad or checking into a spa. How difficult life was for you, Mother.”

Tina’s heart ached to hear him sound so bitter. And she ached for the little boy he must have been, so lonely and unwanted. How cruel this woman was! And how Tina wanted to wrap her hands around his mother’s neck and squeeze. What kind of mother did that to her child?

“It is difficult now,” she said. “I put up with your father’s philandering for years. The humiliation. But I always knew I would be taken care of in my old age.
And now you have inherited and I’m begging for alms at your feet.”

“You are not a beggar,” Nico said, his voice a harsh growl full of emotion that stunned her with its intensity. “You have a very generous allowance, and you will live within your means from now on. I will not allow the Gavretti holdings to be siphoned off and sold piecemeal in order to gratify your urges.”

“That is ridiculous,” she said. “There is no danger of that. You are simply a cruel and ungrateful son who would see his mother suffer rather than take care of her needs.”

“It’s time this conversation was over,” Nico said.

“But I’m not finished—”

“I am.”

His mother didn’t speak again, and Tina knew he must have hung up on her. She walked to the entrance of the office, a lump in her throat. How awful it must have been to grow up with a woman like that, a woman who’d had no warmth for her child. Tina may not have known her father, but her mother was the most effusive and lovely person on the planet.

Mama had done everything possible to keep her and Renzo fed and clothed and happy. The only harsh words in their home came when someone was upset or angry over something—but they were gone quickly, and everyone was happy again. Tina had never felt like a burden to her mother, even when she probably had been at times.

Nico sat with his head in his hands and her heart squeezed hard at the sight of him like that. He looked defeated, the weight of his worries pressing down hard on those strong shoulders.

Something twisted inside her then, something
that stole her breath and made her stomach sink into her toes. She stood there as a maelstrom of emotion whipped her in its currents. Everything she had within her wanted to go to him and put her arms around him. To hold him tight and tell him that someone loved him even if his mother did not.

Tina pressed her hand to her mouth. She’d just told herself all the reasons why she did not love him. And yet none of them made sense any longer. Not in light of the feeling swelling in her heart.

But it couldn’t be love.
Sympathy
. Yes, it had to be sympathy. She couldn’t bear to see him hurting like this, and it made her want to hold him close and soothe him.

She must have made a sound, a sniffle as she tried to keep from letting any of the tears welling in her eyes fall, because he looked up, his dark gaze clashing with hers.

“I didn’t know you were home,” she said lamely, her body trembling with the force of the feelings whipping through her. She felt as though she’d tumbled over the edge of a cliff and there was no going back. She couldn’t seem to find her equilibrium.

He pushed to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. He looked uncomfortable, restless. “I finished my meetings early.”

She wanted to reach out to him, take him in her arms. But she didn’t think he would welcome it. She tried to smile as if everything were normal. As if her heart weren’t breaking for him.

“I went to lunch with my friend Lucia. It was nice to get out for a while.”

The look on his face told her that she probably shouldn’t have added that last bit. It was an innocuous
enough statement, and yet it sounded as if she’d been feeling trapped.

“Do I make too many demands on your time?” His tone was dangerously cool. She knew he was only lashing out because he was still angry over the conversation with his mother.

“That’s not what I meant. You’ve had so many meetings lately and it was nice to see my friend. That’s all.”

He shoved a hand through his hair and turned away. “I have work to do, Tina.”

She walked over and stood behind him. She started to put a hand on his arm, but thought better of it. “Do you want to talk, Nico?”

He spun on her. “About what?” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the phone. “About my mother? There is nothing you can say,
cara
, that will change the situation.”

Tina took a deep breath. “No, I didn’t think I could. But you’re obviously upset about it. Sometimes it helps to talk.”

His laugh was harsh and bitter. “You know nothing of my life, Tina. Nothing. You can’t just come in here and ask me to talk and think it will make everything better.”

“I didn’t say it would make it better. I said that sometimes it helps.”

“You are a child,” he spat at her. “A naive woman who knows nothing of relationships. You grew up sheltered by your family and loved no matter what. What would you know about a life like mine? My only value to my parents was that I was a boy and an heir.”

His words stung her to the core, and yet she refused to walk away. She didn’t know what it was like to be shuffled between parents, but she did understand what
it was like to feel lonely. Though how could she compare her loneliness to his? She couldn’t and she knew it.

“If it makes you feel better to heap scorn on me, then fine. Do it.”