Page 13 of The Virgin's Dance with the Devil
As soon as Rico’s baby sister had been born and his parents had the girl they’d wanted, his mother had turned two of the adjoining guest rooms into an opulent bedroom and ensuite for herself. As far as he knew, his father had never been invited to spend the night in it. Considering his father always had at least two permanent mistresses on the go at any one time and God knew how many transient lovers, he didn’t imagine this bothered him much. His parents sat down together for dinner most evenings and put on a united front when needed, but other than that, they lived separate lives, a state of affairs that suited them both.
A woman like Marisa would never put up with a marriage like that. A woman like Marisa wanted love and fidelity forever, and why he was even thinking about what Marisa wanted in a husband was a mystery. He should be planning his next move with her, not imagining her walking up an aisle towards him wearing a white dress.
“Who was that?” she asked with a soft wariness.
“Business.”
Her lips pulled into a small grimace.
By unspoken agreement, they didn’t discuss his work. Marisa was the only woman he’d met whose eyes didn’t start flashing dollar signs at the mention of the Esposito casino chain he ran. Marisa didn’t think his life was glamorous. She thought it was dangerous and unconscionable. She had strong morals, but he had strong morals too. It was just that his morals were different to hers. As far as Rico was concerned, people had personal autonomy and could make their own choices in life. Sure, his father had built the family fortune off theback of a successful drugs and arms dealing trade, but those sides to the business had been eclipsed by the media empire they’d built legitimately… well, as legitimately as could be built with dirty money… and all their other mostly-legitimate businesses. Rico believed in family first. You took care of your own, and you protected your own, and that included those who worked for you in whatever capacity that work took. That’s where his morals lay, unlike those snobby bastards the Martinellis who’d chucked Marisa’s family out of their social circle like they were squatting bugs and dumped Pietro as their lawyer when his Parkinson’s disease started incapacitating him.
If Pietro Rossellini had been Rico’s lawyer, Rico would have got him first-class medical help and set him up with a nice lump sum as a mark of respect for decades of dedicated service and friendship, not allowed him to come within a breath of bankruptcy.
Marisa didn’t know Rico knew her sister’s marriage to Gennaro Martinelli was fake; built on an agreement where Gennaro paid off the Rossellini’s debts because he’d needed a wife to do business in a Middle Eastern country that forbade unmarried foreigners trading there. Gennaro Martinelli was a multi-millionaire in his own right. He hadn’t needed the deal, could have paid the Rossellinis’ debts off without breaking a sweat, but no, he’d done it to enrich himself.
And everyone in Italian society thought Rico and his family were the bad guys? Screw them all. Come Saturday, the Espositos and Martinelli families would unite in marriage, and the Martinellis and all their snobby friends would have no choice but to accept them in their snobby little world. Ha.
“I need to go back,” he told Marisa softly, not adding that there was every chance the call he needed to return might well confirm the endangerment of the wedding.
He would cross that bridge if and when he came to it.
She lifted her chin and nodded.
“Walk back with me?”
Her eyes clouded with uncertainty.
“Only to the top of the path. You walked here with me on it,” he reminded her.
Finally, she gave him a small smile. “Okay.”
He waited until they were on the path and away from any prying eyes before reaching for her hand. There was only a moment of resistance before she relaxed and threaded her fingers through his.
Rico wasn’t a man who usually held a woman’s hand, but this felt nice. Not as nice as how kissing her had felt – althoughnicedidn’t do what had to be the most intense and yet sweetest kiss he’d ever experienced the slightest bit of justice – but in its own way just as intimate. Probably because it was forbidden. Forbidden fruit always tasted the sweetest, something else he wouldn’t mention to Marisa. No doubt she’d think of Adam and Eve and remind herself that Rico was akin to the snake in that story.
It didn’t matter what she thought of him. That she wanted him was all he cared about. He was a step closer to his brother’s Swiss chalet and a step further away from giving up his most prized possession and having to spend the rest of his life listening to his arsehole brothers laugh at his failure.
They reached the sign forbidding under-eighteens to pass. He stopped walking. She stopped too with a barely audible sigh.
Facing her, he cupped her cheeks and gazed into what he thought might be the most beautiful eyes in the world. “Can I see you later?”
“I don’t know…” Her shoulders lifted in a helpless gesture. “I don’t know where we could meet.”
Knowing better than to suggest either of their suites, he said, “The seating area at the front of the spa. Thespa will be closed by the time everyone’s finished dinner. If anyone’s there, it’ll be because they don’t want anyone else to see them.”
She fisted his t-shirt. “I don’t know… I’ll try.”
“Please come.” He brought his face closer to hers. “I don’t know how I can stand spending hours apart from you knowing you’re right here but too far away to touch.” And then he placed a cynically designed, sweet, lingering kiss on her plump lips.
The same glaze he’d seen in her eyes when he’d kissed her on the Bali bed had returned. He rubbed his thumb over her mouth and then kissed her again. “You walk away first,” he whispered over her lips. “I’ll give you a minute and then follow you out.”
She walked away on legs that his critical eye was thrilled to see were decidedly unsteady.
His legs felt a little unsteady too. Strange.
Wincing at the ache that had reformed in his loins, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He took a few more steps to make sure she was out of earshot and then made the call.
Minutes later, he ended it with a vicious curse.
