Chapter Nine #2
Mia lingered in his office until the lawyer left.
‘What were you thinking?’ she muttered the second the main door banged shut.
‘How much I want you.’ The embarrassing thing was that was all he was thinking almost all the time.
‘Well, stop.’
‘You think I haven’t tried?’
‘Not hard enough.’
He walked around his desk. ‘Let’s understand what’s hard, shall we?’
‘Sante…’ Shaking her head she backed away.
But she was smiling and he wanted to make her hum.
‘Surely, everyone has left now,’ he muttered. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
He drove her home. She set the table—it was a little ritual now.
Twenty minutes later dinner arrived. They were working through the best restaurants in Rome but Sante was increasingly tempted to take her to one—he wanted to sit opposite her, take time over five or so courses—not being able to touch her as intimately as he wanted would be a delightful torture, seeing her savour the fine food another pleasure. Sì, he was a masochist.
Hours later she stirred. ‘It’s late.’
‘It is.’ Right now he didn’t think he could move. Didn’t want to. And he really didn’t like her leaving his bed in the middle of the night.
‘I don’t have your stamina. I can’t stay awake all night. The shifts on the boat are too long as it is.’
It was good she’d not had to work twenty-four or more; it wasn’t healthy.
He’d done it out of necessity—coding his first app through the night, working on the docks during the day.
It had become habit. In truth, working all hours had been a salve.
It helped him avoid the midnight demons that haunted him.
Because he remembered nights in his life when he’d been utterly alone and unbearably afraid.
He closed his mind to those memories and focused on Mia.
She was a far better salve than work. He kissed her gently, slowly building her up until she shuddered in his arms and sighed—wanting to make her sleepy and lax and unable to move.
But when he pulled her close after her release, he felt her summon resistance with a deep breath.
‘I really better go,’ she sighed.
‘I don’t want you to.’ He felt a lurch in his chest as he muttered it. He wanted to walk it back right away. But it didn’t matter; she was shaking her head.
‘You’ll be sick of me sooner if we don’t have some time separately.’
‘What?’
She laughed. ‘I’m a lot. You know I can be a lot.’
‘A lot in a good way.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Trust me, you’ll have had enough, soon enough.’
He remembered what she’d said about not fitting her father’s mould. ‘You don’t seriously think people get sick of you?’
‘My mother, father and brother all did at various points and it’s been a continuing theme. Which is truly pitiful, so it’s really better if I—’
‘You know you’re perfect,’ he muttered.
‘No one is perfect, Sante. Especially not me.’ She slid out of his bed and pulled on her top. ‘You don’t need to flatter me. I’m just tired.’
Then she should stop getting dressed and just lie down with him again. He frowned. ‘I know your father was a jerk, but your mother? I thought—’
‘I loved her,’ Mia interrupted, instantly defensive and fully regretting her casual admission of what was actually a deeply vulnerable truth. ‘Absolutely loved her.’
And she’d loved this last week with Sante, too. But she didn’t want to stay the night. She didn’t want anything in their arrangement to change because she didn’t want it to end too soon. She avoided his frowning gaze and talked. Her mother was a good diversion while she dressed.
‘She was full of vitality,’ she rambled. ‘Lovely to everyone and everyone loved her. Vivacious and larger than life with a laugh that was infectious—’
‘She sounds like you.’
Mia smiled sadly. That wasn’t quite the compliment he’d maybe meant it to be. ‘I’m the spitting image of her. Not good in my father’s view. He took one look at me and the lectures began. Don’t eat so much, you don’t want to get fat like your mother.’
Sante’s jaw dropped. ‘Mia, you’re—’
‘I know, it’s okay.’ She smiled.
She’d worked hard to overcome the shame and guilt instilled by her father.
The belief that she was too greedy, too big.
He’d constantly berated her for not being slim—that she wouldn’t make a desirable match if she was overweight.
Because a desirable match was all she was good for.
Yet ironically, the bigger she’d grown—at least those particular parts of her, the breasts, the hips, the butt—the more desirable she’d seemingly become.
But that attention hadn’t been the ‘desirable match’ kind. It had been lascivious and basic.
Yes, this affair with Sante was purely a physical thing but she revelled in his appreciation of her—it was different.
Where other men had expressed attraction it was often by leering, voicing unwanted requests for photos and crude comments—seeing her only as a body.
And aside from Oliver she’d kept every one of them at a distance.
But Sante savoured her in a way that was so tender it was utterly shattering.
Aside from the time he’d totally lost control in the office store cupboard, he was slow and careful and such a tease.
And while that cupboard moment never should have happened, it was the hottest experience of her life, and again he’d been all about pleasing her.
‘Apparently, I took up too much space and I made too much noise.’ Mia cleared her throat.
‘He said my mother was an addict—to food. Alcohol. Drugs. Sex. And that I was going to be the same what with my addictive personality. I needed to tone down. I was too loud, too raucous, too curvy, to be taken seriously. Don’t overindulge like your mother.
Don’t be a slut like your mother.’ She paused.
Then conceded. ‘I mean, my mother did like a party. She would host all the time at our place in Capri. It was beautiful and sunny and possibly hedonistic.’ She remembered the house being full of people—of men.
Lots of laughter and doors closing on more laughter.
‘Looking back I realise now she was masking unhappiness. But she needed her time out from me, too. She would get Dario to take me away to the gardens.’
She’d probably had headaches, jaded from partying all night. But as a little girl, Mia had only seen the sparkling gowns and smiles and she’d wanted to stay. It had hurt to be denied.
‘And then she overdosed.’
Right. He knew. Dario would have told him.
‘You moved to England.’
‘To cold rules and impossible expectations and boarding school.’ She nodded. ‘I got in trouble at school, too. So then to another more strict one. Basically boot camp. And I was still too loud. I’ve been told to be quiet or go away too many times in my life to count.
‘He tried to starve the love of life out of me but I can’t compress myself into something I’m not.’ She sighed. ‘The irony was I did listen to some of his rubbish. I kept my virginity for years until…’
She trailed off. She’d not wanted to have her worth determined by her ability to secure a man. She’d not wanted to be ‘too much’ and rejected again.
Sante’s eyes widened comically. ‘Until?’
She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I was a naive fool. You have my permission to laugh.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘As soon as I left school I got a job as a nanny. I figured it was a good match—use my “too much” energy to entertain small children. Plus, it was live-in, which meant I could leave home. There were loads of staff—maids, gardeners, drivers, secretary—the works. Two children. The parents were nice. The father had a brother who would visit sometimes.’
‘And he wanted you,’ Sante guessed.
‘He pursued. It was very flattering. I liked the attention. I thought it was true love. As I said, I was very naive.’
‘Because it wasn’t true love?’
Mia bit her lip. ‘I fell hard. I wasn’t discreet—blurring boundaries between my work and personal life.
I was unprofessional and distracted and young.
All the staff knew we were sleeping together.
What I didn’t know was that all of them also knew he had a girlfriend.
And all of them watched while I found that out in a public setting when he brought her to a family dinner and I had to sit there and take instruction and—’
It had been the most humiliating, shameful moment of her life. Worse than anything before. But she saw the anger in Sante’s eyes and spoke before he could. ‘I was a fool, Sante. It was my fault.’
‘How? For thinking he cared for you?’ Sante looked tense. ‘He lied to you. And your colleagues were awful for setting you up. They were bullies.’
She’d thought so. But she’d also realised that she wasn’t someone anyone wanted forever.
Her father had said she was just like her mother—‘fun for now,’ not forever.
Her father certainly hadn’t wanted her. And sure enough, Oliver had only wanted her for fun.
She was a good-time girl who actually hadn’t had that many good times and who’d been more naive than people would have believed.
Because she’d also realised that it was her pride that was hurt more than her heart.
‘I fell for the attention he gave me,’ she said. ‘For the fairy tale he spun. I thought I’d found a family I could fit into. Instead, I wrecked a job I’d actually enjoyed before getting so giddy I failed to perform. I can’t let that happen again.’