Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Gabriella woke alone. Although all the drapes were closed, the light filtering through the room told her morning was close to being over.
After downing the glass of water on the bedside table and taking the two painkillers left with it, she tentatively got out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom.
She was still wearing the clothes she’d gone out in.
Fumbling with the knot holding her dress together at her neck, she carefully stripped and staggered into the shower.
Now she knew where the saying about feeling like death warmed up came from.
It took what felt like forever to wash her hair and body. Her limbs could have been made of jelly.
Clean and dry, she brushed her teeth with all the vigour she could muster, which was minimal. She’d brushed her teeth with more finesse as a toddler, but at least she rid her mouth of that horrible taste.
The bedroom still empty after she’d managed to drag a hoodie and lounging trousers on, she dragged her sorry backside down the stairs in search of coffee.
There was no one in the kitchen, but the aroma of roasting lamb filled the air. It made her delicate stomach turn over.
She sensed movement behind her. Her stomach turned again, but in a different way to how it had reacted to the scent of food. Scattered memories danced at the edges of the fog that was her brain. Dancing. Laughing. Shots. Lots of shots. Tommaso carrying her to the car.
Turning her head only confirmed what her body had already told her.
“Hi,” she whispered, not because it was all her throat could manage but because her banging head recoiled at the thought of noise above a hush.
Jaw clenched, he nodded his greeting. “You look awful.”
“I know.” Whereas Tommaso looked divine in old, faded jeans and a white t-shirt. She swallowed. “You’re angry with me.” She didn’t feel well enough to cope with an angry Tommaso.
His lips pulled in as if he were restraining himself from speaking.
“Is it because I got drunk? Did I make a fool of myself?”
“No more than anyone else.”
“We had a good time, didn’t we?”
Now his lips curved with cynicism. “We?”
Fearing her jelly legs were going to collapse beneath her, she leaned against the kitchen island. “Wasn’t that what last night was about? Stopping any rumours in their tracks and showing how besotted we are?”
But not besotted enough to kiss, she suddenly remembered. Her memories of the night might be scattergun, but of that she was certain. If Tommaso had kissed her, she would still be able to feel it.
“You performed your part well.”
She expelled a small breath of relief. But only a small breath. There was something in Tommaso’s expression that frightened her, though not on a physical level. His eyes weren’t so much wild as cold, and they were searching her as if he were seeking to penetrate her thoughts.
“I really need a coffee.”
He stretched his neck slowly before jerking a nod and stepping over to the barista machine. In no time at all, he was working it like a pro.
“Where are all the staff?” she asked into the silence.
“I only have a skeleton staff on Sundays, and they’re at church.” He turned his stare to her. “Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sit down. I’ll make you some midnight spaghetti.”
“I don’t think I can get on the stool,” she confessed. “I feel too wobbly.”
A moment later, his hands were at her waist and he was lifting her onto one of the high stools around the island.
As soon as she was safely seated, he let go and walked away without a word, which unsettled her more than his contained coldness until she reminded herself that he’d only been all over her in the nightclub because of the charade they’d been performing.
And she’d only been all over him due to the same charade.
Normal private service had resumed, which meant physical contact was strictly limited to sex.
“I don’t know if I can manage pasta,” she whispered when he filled a large pan with boiling water and a liberal amount of salt.
“Trust me, nothing will help your hangover more than a double espresso and a bowl of midnight spaghetti.”
Gabriella didn’t have the energy to point out that she would never trust him.
Also, saying it would make her sound churlish, and while she was still unsettled about such contained coldness from a man usually brimming with heat, there was something comforting about the way he was taking charge and feeding her.
She’d have expected him to take joy in watching her suffer, not help her feel better.
Folding herself over the island and resting her cheek on her arms, she watched him add spaghetti to the boiling water and wondered if she’d drunk all her loathing for him out of her system, because right then, she couldn’t find it.
“How come you can cook?” she asked as he chopped garlic like a professional. She’d never seen an Esposito do anything more domestic than pour themselves wine or whisky.
“I can’t. I’ve just watched Luigi make it for me enough times in the middle of the night to have an idea of how he does it.
” He added a liberal amount of olive oil to a sauté pan and grated pecorino and chopped parsley while it heated.
Moments later, the chopped garlic was sizzling in the oil, followed by flakes of red chilli pepper, and then he was using long tongs to lift the spaghetti out of the water and into the pan, stirring as he added the pecorino and parsley.
Barely ten minutes after he asked if she was hungry, she’d finished her espresso and was presented with a bowl of midnight spaghetti that made her mouth water.
It tasted every bit as good as it smelled and, even better, her poor, abused stomach didn’t reject it. “This is really nice,” she said gratefully.
Having taken the stool next to her, he shrugged as if her compliment meant nothing to him.
It probably didn’t. To Tommaso, she was a treacherous rat whose opinions on anything were held in less esteem than the views of an actual rodent.
Why he’d taken pity on her hangover was beyond her.
There was nothing friendly or welcoming about his demeanour, which she supposed was proof that he was as good at acting as she was.
She just hoped the disappointment gnawing at her was another hangover symptom.
“Do you remember what you told me last night?” he said, when she’d eaten most of the pasta.
Aware that he was watching her closely, she twirled another load of spaghetti around her fork. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“On the drive home.”
She felt the flush of heat scald her face and neck like the light of a switch being turned on, and hesitated before saying, “That I wanted to have sex with you?”
“You didn’t say that.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed to look at him, she put the spaghetti in her mouth and gazed down at the bowl.
She might not have explicitly told him she wanted to have sex, but she’d shown it with her body language, even in the car when it had been just the two of them.
All that alcohol had loosened Gabriella’s inhibitions as she’d always feared it would.
It’s what had stopped her from getting properly drunk before; terror she would do or say something that would give away her secret loathing of the Espositos.
The closest she’d come had been that night at the casino when she and Niccolo had confided in each other, but even then she’d been in control of herself.
If Niccolo had responded differently to her question about liking the Espositos, she’d had enough wits left to change the subject and keep her loathing of them a secret contained tightly in her heart.
Now that her treachery was out in the open, there was nothing left for her to hide anymore.
It was ironic that the alcohol had softened her to the only Esposito she’d never been afraid to show her loathing of. But then, her loathing of Tommaso had taken a very different form to her loathing of the rest of them, had always felt intensely personal.
“I’m talking about what you said about our fathers.”
Confused, she lifted her stare back to him.
“You told me my father killed yours.”
“And?”
“And?” he repeated tautly. “You remember saying that?”
“No.” She remembered him removing her hand from his… Fresh colour burned through her skin. Dear heaven, she really had been wanton. His for the taking…
He’d refused to take advantage of her in her drunken state. Oh, God, did this mean that somewhere deep down in his black heart lived a speck of conscience? Or did he just prefer her to be unwilling, but even thinking that brought more heat careering through her. Her body had never been unwilling.
His eyes were watching her with an intensity she felt all the way to her core. “You don’t really believe it, do you?”
Her bowl now empty, she put her fork in it and pushed it away, glad to feel a little more human. “It’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of fact.”
His features darkened. “Bullshit.”
Disbelief washed through her. “How can you not know? There were no secrets between you three boys and your father.” It was something Siena had often complained about, how her brothers were raised to be Lorenzo’s generals while Siena had to fight tooth and claw to be taken seriously and allowed into the shadows.
She’d got her way and stepped fully into the Espositos underworld, but Gabriella had long been certain that Lorenzo had kept Siena in ignorance of the truth about her father’s death.
For his sons, though, Fabio Romano’s death was a lesson he would have wanted them to learn from…
Or so she’d spent the last nine years believing.
Black eyes glittering with danger, Tommaso’s words were delivered as tightly as his jawline. “Your father was killed in a hit by a rival gang targeting my father’s closest associates in a turf war.”
She didn’t break the hold of their stares. “It was cold-blooded murder. My father had a baby on the way and wanted out of the life – he wanted to go straight.”