Chapter Thirteen
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
S ERENA AWOKE IN a strange bed, in a strange room dimly lit by the faint glow of daylight coming through a corner of the window.
Alone. In a room that smelled like Luciano’s expensive cologne.
She took a slow, careful inhale, trying not to catalogue the way her body felt. If she could be still in her mind, feelings wouldn’t start infiltrating her decision making.
And boy did she have some decisions to make.
It was good to be alone. It gave her a moment to come to terms with all that had changed. Because as much as she’d like to be cosmopolitan enough to pretend as though this had just been a fun one-off, all that lingered in their future was not fun .
And she had to know how to proceed before she faced him.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to face him at all. Maybe he was so embarrassed he’d left fully. She half wanted it to be true, half felt bereft at the thought.
Surely if he was that embarrassed, he wouldn’t have turned to her in the night. He wouldn’t have gruffly told her she wasn’t going anywhere when she had suggested she return home, late into the evening.
Surely.
But maybe it was the heat of the moment talking. And now that the heat had cooled into the morning after, he felt… Oh, she didn’t know.
She squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on breathing. She was not and had never been a catastrophizer. She dealt with problems coolly, rationally. She wasn’t going to sit here and panic over uncertainty. Over what a man might feel or not feel here in the aftermath of what they’d done to each other.
Because it didn’t matter what he felt. It mattered what she did. And here in this moment alone, she needed to decide what that was and how to go forward. Only once she was sure of herself would it matter what was on his mind.
Sex had been revelatory. She didn’t relish that realization, but it was true so there was no use denying it. Would it feel that way with anyone else? She had concerns it would not. There was something too…elemental about Luciano. About who he was and how he saw her.
It did not fully make sense, but in so many ways, the past week of working together had begun to show how much they were alike. There were still many differences, but there was so much core similarity, it was almost as if they complemented each other when they wanted to, rather than opposed each other.
Of course, that was neither here nor there either. The question was, how would this move forward with Luciano? He was the crux of her business plan moving forward. Which also involved him becoming her husband. So perhaps sex was simply…part of that. Perhaps, no matter how it had felt, it didn’t need to be a big deal. It could be something they indulged in when they felt like it. Like an overly rich dessert.
She considered that for a few moments. Was it sensible? Or did she just want to feel him inside her again and that was clouding her judgement? She wasn’t sure, because her judgement had never truly been clouded before.
She really wished she had one of her notebooks. She could create a pro and con list. She could remind herself of her goals, center herself on the mission statement she’d created for this little plot.
Never lose sight of what’s best for Serena Valli.
Before she could make any decisions about what last night meant for that, the door to the bedroom opened. Serena tucked the sheet under her chin and watched as Luciano appeared carrying a tray full of food. She hadn’t realized until this moment just how hungry she was. Hadn’t thought to concern herself with how late in the morning it might be.
“You’re awake. Wonderful. Here is breakfast,” he offered, keeping his gaze on the tray as he settled it into the middle of the large bed. It was full of breakfast pastries, a selection of fruits, yogurt and a carafe of coffee.
“Help yourself to whatever suits,” he said with a sweeping gesture, standing there at the side of the bed.
She studied the offerings and selected a decadent bomboloni . Not her usual choice for breakfast, but today seemed to call for decadent and sweet. Maybe come Monday she would reset herself. Get back to reason and good choices.
“Coffee?” Luciano asked.
“Please,” she agreed, then watched him as he poured two mugs of coffee and handed her one.
He didn’t sit on the bed, or any of the other seating in the room. Instead he stood and sipped. He was acting…a little odd. Awkward wasn’t the right word. She wasn’t sure Luciano could ever be awkward. But there was a strange stiffness to him, as though this was as new a territory for him as it was for her.
She might not have thought that possible, and she did not know about his romantic history, but she knew he hadn’t been fake-engaged to any of his previous lovers. So there were strange, new and complicated elements this morning that they both found themselves in.
She mulled this over as she ate and drank her coffee. Last night, she had felt powerful. Equal to whatever Luciano gave. She had not expected that to be the case, but it was. And now, it was the same. Because, no matter how many mornings after he’d encountered, this was something else.
She did not smile at the thought, but she wanted to. Still, she doubted he saw this in the exact same way.
So, she needed to approach this as she approached anything else. With a carefully thought out plan. If nothing else, they did work well together—in and out of the bedroom—no matter what a surprise that was.
“I suppose we must discuss the events of last night,” she ventured, wondering how he would take that since he wasn’t the one introducing the topic.
“I suppose we must,” he agreed neutrally.
She wanted to frown at him, but she focused on the pastry and tried to decide where to start. But perhaps start was the key, because for as much as she’d enjoyed it, she wasn’t sure she understood it. “Why did it happen?”
“Well, if you recall, I gave you many outs and you did not take them.”
She sighed heavily. He was being purposefully obtuse, and she did not care for it. Except she thought it meant that it must matter to him in some way, or he would be more…dismissive or superficial. He would be leading this discussion. He would be blustering and telling her what’s what.
But it was her leading the charge, which meant he was just as much in the dark about how to move forward as she was. It was comforting and allowed her to settle back into the pillows and enjoy finishing off her pastry as she tried to consider the facts of the matter over the feelings from last night and this morning.
“You did not have to kiss me,” she said carefully. “While I don’t care to cry in front of others and avoid it as much as possible, I have never been kissed in response to tears.”
His grunt was irritable, and it always—even now—felt like a bit of a personal victory when she could be the one irritating him.
He offered no response to her, so she kept talking. “Perhaps this all makes sense to you, but it makes none to me, and I am trying to…understand it so we can decide where to go from here. But you will have to be more forthcoming.”
“It is not complex, Serena. You are a beautiful woman.” He smiled at her, and she knew she was meant to see that arrogant charm, but there was something darker underneath it, the edges of that deep frown still flickering in his expression. Even as he delivered the rest. “And I am a handsome man.”
She could leave it at that. Perhaps she would be smart to. But he was here. He could walk out of this room, end this conversation. Maybe he wanted to be difficult, but he didn’t seem eager to end it.
“It’s more than simple attraction.”
His expression was grim. His entire body rigid. “I did not expect you of all people to romanticize things, Serena. No one said you have to like a person to have good sex, cara . Surely even you know this.”
That was the trouble. She was starting to like him. Or respect him. Or something more than the easy disdain she’d once had for him. That was when he’d been nothing more than a caricature to her. Now he was a man. Not perfect by any means, but far more complicated than she’d ever have given him credit for without spending time with him.
For instance, she could see he was trying to be insulting. Which was simply a distancing mechanism, not an actual belief he had. Because he was so far off base, she couldn’t find offense. Romanticize? Romanticizing the situation would be dreaming about real I do s and happily-ever-after s.
She was simply trying to figure out how to ensure that sex—or this like and respect for him that was creeping up on her against her will—didn’t affect their bottom line.
“Perhaps this is true,” she said carefully. Arguing with him wouldn’t change what he thought. “But I think we recognize something in each other. That is not romantic. It is a reasonable observation based on the events of the past week. And I think it’s imperative we understand it, lest we…make mistakes moving forward. Mistakes that hurt what’s most important.”
He stared at her then. His gaze hard. Not even a flicker of warmth or kindness in their dark depths.
“And to you, what’s most important is a business.” He said this with some disdain, which was rich, coming from him.
“A legacy, Luciano,” she corrected. “Mine. And yours. The whole reason we spent more than five minutes in a room together, in fact.”
“I see. So you want to analyze it. Perhaps make some data points in one of your little notebooks. How did it come to be that you were swept away by a cad like Luciano Ascione?”
She considered the snap in his tone. The way he called himself a cad, when she hadn’t been thinking that at all. He gave himself away when he let his temper rule, so she could not deny that she continued to poke at that temper in a way she knew would annoy him the most.
Remain calm and controlled and focused on the facts alone. “I would not call you a cad in this instance.”
He snorted with disgust. “In this instance,” he said, in a mocking tone. “I would think you a robot if not for last night,” he muttered.
“I truly don’t understand why you’re angry, Luciano. We had a pleasurable evening. It is a complication, but one I think we can reasonably maneuver if we discuss it like adults.”
She thought she was being the most reasonable and adult, but clearly he did not agree. He looked like he was about to throw a temper tantrum.
So she settled into the pillows even deeper and tried not to smile.
* * *
She was infuriating. He’d woken up, tied in knots he didn’t understand. He could not untangle them, even in the time he’d taken away from her sleeping soundly in his bed, his room, his life.
And she was sitting there eating a pastry in his bed trying to understand . Wanting to have a calm discussion. Smiling at him, like she was the queen of the world in control of everything, and he was a foolish serf, stomping his foot in defiance.
What was calm about what had occurred? What was reasonable about anything? He could not make sense of the way she’d tangled inside of him like a poisonous vine.
She wanted to discuss sex like adults. She wanted reasons. She wanted truths.
Well, fine. He’d give them to her. All the hard truths she wouldn’t want to hear. All the truths that, if she were as smart as she allegedly was, would send her running.
“Do you know, last night as I watched your mother play her little games, I had the most startling realization that I’d seen it all before?”
She studied him silently, clearly not following but not willing to say that. Her smile had dimmed though. She definitely hadn’t expected him to bring up her mother.
“You see, I recognized something in the way your mother treated you,” he continued. “Because she was wrong, and I could not fathom what would be the reason for a mother to lie about their child.”
She blinked, gathered that sheet a little closer to her chest, all traces of that smile gone.
“It reminded me of my own childhood dinners. At the time, I was not old enough to realize that every night, my father was playing his favorite game. He would insist my mother dine with us, then treat her terribly until she ran off in tears, then insist we do the same thing the next night. He enjoyed that—something I understood even as a small child, even if I did not understand why.”
He had begged his mother to refuse to show. He had tried to chase after her, only to be rejected by her. He had tried, as he’d gotten older, to convince her to leave. He had tried so many things, but his father had been the center of everything in that house.
And Gianluca Ascione had known it.
“Once he’d finally gotten her to break, he would turn to me. Just as your mother turned to you last night. Different insults, naturally, but the same tactic. He thought me stupid, or claimed he did. He characterized me as the character I would then become. I knew he was wrong. For a while, I thought it was a mistake. I would simply prove it to him. Then I realized I could not. But I never understood why, when I knew I was not what he claimed I was, most days. Until I saw your mother. Doing the same thing. And it was wrong, but I have no doubts about you, so I knew it was wrong on a deeper level.”
Serena’s expression was growing icy. He told himself that’s what he wanted, even as it settled in him like pain.
“She was not fully wrong,” she said in that careful, horrible way.
“That’s rubbish,” he spat. “She wants you to be those things—dull and foolish—because admitting you are all the things you actually are—beautiful and certainly quirky, but not foolish—would be intimidating to her. She wants all the attention, all the good for herself. You are a…threat, I suppose.”
She wasn’t so icy now. She was breathing a little heavily, color in her cheeks, the sheet clutched so tight in one hand her knuckles were white. “My mother is far more beautiful and worldly than I am. Which is fine, because I do not need to be those things.”
“Even if I agreed, it doesn’t matter. At the heart of her, what I witnessed last night was blatant insecurity. And instead of looking at you as your own person, or someone to be proud of, she sees you as a symbol of what she isn’t. Young and brilliant and successful.”
She looked completely and fully arrested by this very true description of herself, and he wanted to crawl into that bed and cover her body with his and think of nothing but the pleasure they could give each other.
That would be easy and, by God, that was what he wanted. What he’d always wanted. So why he stood here and kept talking, he’d never fully understand.
“And in the middle of that dinner, I realized that my entire childhood was simply that. Enduring the insults of an insecure man who was afraid I might be better, or more interesting, or more worthy of the attention he might someday get. Trying to save a woman who would rather be the victim of that than stand up for herself.”
Stand up for me .
And he had not saved his mother. He had never gotten through to her, never protected her, never turned himself into something more powerful than his father. “She did not wish to be saved by the likes of me, and perhaps that was her right. It is your right.”
She looked up at him then, and something there in her hazel eyes sent a bolt of fear through him. That everything would change now that she knew him. Saw him.
Now that she had showed him this softer side of herself. Not just the heat behind the ice, but the warmth, the soft spots he’d once been so sure he’d expose and use…
Now she had some twisting power over him instead. He had been drunk on actually saving her and now he was drunk on that look in her eyes. Soft. Vulnerable. Mine.
“No one has ever stood up for me before. Not like that.”
He did not want to hear that. It was a power that was too big. Too much. She would come to realize, as everyone did, that he was no one’s savior. And then where would they be?
But he had stepped in and saved Serena last night from some small piece of hurt. Clearly, it had caused him to lose his damn head. Because she now knew more about his inner workings than anyone else in his entire life. It left him feeling exposed and vulnerable and disgusted with himself.
Perhaps his father hadn’t been jealous, but right. Because if Luciano was smart , he would have unveiled none of that to her. His enemy. His rival. The woman who he would someday certainly betray.
She sighed and finally looked away. At the windows, even though the drapes hid any view out of them. He could not begin to imagine what she was thinking about, but he found himself bracing for it all the same. Because somehow he knew… He knew it would be too close to a truth he did not wish to acknowledge.
“We are alike, it seems,” she said quietly, her gaze still on the drapes. “More alike than different when all is said and done.”
He refused to respond, but it didn’t seem to matter. She kept talking.
“I knew… I do not think my mother is fully wrong about me, per se. In her world, I am dull and not as beautiful. This is not an…insult to me. It is simply a fact. I… I like what I like. I am who I am. It is hard sometimes to harden myself against the way she wants to belittle me in front of others, but I might be able to weather it better with your interpretation of her behavior, because I think you are right. She is insecure.” She gave a little nod, as if it would solidify the truth of the statement.
But he could see the tears starting to collect in her eyes. Particularly as she continued to speak.
“It seems… That we both did the same thing in response to these people in our lives. We created characters.” Her gaze moved back to him, shiny but direct. “But we did not fully believe them to be true because we knew ourselves well enough not to.”
A revelation he did not want thundered through him. He certainly didn’t want to share it with her , when everything about her was already too damn confronting. So he did not touch that truth with a ten-foot pole.
“For the love of all that is holy, you will not cry again.”
She lifted her chin. “I shall cry whenever I like.”
But she didn’t. She blinked the tears away, sitting in the middle of his bed, looking like a queen—royal and in charge.
“Perhaps there are more similarities than we first conceived of, but that changes nothing.” He said this firmly, wishing he believed it.
She nodded, which felt like a dagger to the heart. A heart he didn’t want. Wouldn’t accept. A heart got a man nowhere.
“I suppose we should avoid complications then.”
He agreed, wholeheartedly, but couldn’t get his mouth to work. She moved her hazel gaze back to him again, studied him in that way of hers. It spoke of that brilliance she had, but there was warmth under it.
An understanding that he didn’t want under it.
She moved to the side of the bed, the sheet moving off of her. He should not watch the smooth silk of her skin come into view, but he could not help himself. She walked toward him, completely naked, her hair a compelling mass of waves around her shoulders. There was nothing but confidence in her stride, and she never once let her gaze dip from his.
A challenge. Not just to him. But to his words. Even though she’d agreed.
He refused to clear his throat, so his words were rasped. “My thoughts exactly. This is complicated enough, after all.”
She gestured behind him, to a chair where he’d settled her discarded dress from last night. “I believe that’s my dress. If you’ll move or hand it to me.”
She was only inches away from him. Naked and perfect. Not an inch of embarrassment or carefulness in her gaze.
She was doing it on purpose. Testing him. Teasing him. Something . When he’d seen plenty of naked women in his life. He had had amazing sex. He had been there and done that and she wasn’t special.
He didn’t want her to be special. He didn’t want her to tempt him. Why should she tempt him? He should be stronger than that.
But he wasn’t.