Chapter Eight
Mario
The shower turns on upstairs.
For a moment, I stand in Victoria Murray’s living room and do not move.
The sound of water runs through the old pipes, faint at first, then louder. It fills the silence of her apartment and makes it feel domestic, intimate. Too intimate for a man who should not be here.
I am in her home.
Not an office. Not a conference room. Not a place where glass walls, assistants, security, and legal pretense can draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not.
Her home.
A narrow brownstone apartment with warm wood floors, books stacked in uneven piles, a soft gray throw over the arm of the sofa, a candle on the coffee table burned halfway down.
There are shoes by the sofa, a mug in the sink, and a jacket tossed over the back of a chair.
A framed print on the wall I do not recognize but like because she chose it.
It is small but hers.
And I am standing in it with the taste of her still in my mouth.
I close my eyes, which is a mistake.
The second I do, I feel her again.
Her mouth opening under mine. Her body trembling against the wall. The briefcase hitting the floor because she could not hold it and kiss me at the same time. Her hands on my coat, then on the wall, as if she needed something solid to keep her upright.
I have kissed women before.
Many women.
I have had women beautiful enough to turn heads in any room, eager enough to make a man careless, experienced enough to know exactly what they were offering and what they wanted in return.
None of them ever shook apart under my hands like Victoria.
None of them ever looked at me the way she did.
Like she was angry at herself for wanting me, but wanting me anyway.
My body tightens at the memory.
I open my eyes.
No.
She is upstairs. Exhausted, hungry. Barely steady on her feet. And I promised myself I would not have her like that.
But I did not promise I would leave.
I take out my phone and call Armando.
He answers on the first ring. “Sì?”
“Food,” I say.
“What would you like?”
I look toward the kitchen. “Pasta if it can come quickly. Soup. Bread. Something sweet.”
“From Regio?”
“No. Too far.”
“There is a place nearby. Good Italian. Not yours,” he adds carefully.
Not preferred, but… “I will survive.”
“Capito.”
I end the call.
The shower is still running.
I look up toward the ceiling.
She is undressed above me.
Water sliding over skin I have not yet touched.
Skin I nearly did touch. Skin I imagined under my hands from the moment I saw her standing across my conference table, chin lifted. Professional persona in place.
My jaw tightens.
I take off my coat and lay it over the back of a chair. Then I remove my suit jacket because keeping it on feels absurdly formal in this room.
I roll my sleeves to my forearms and force myself to look around again, but not upstairs. Not toward the sound of water and wet flesh.
The living room is neat, but lived in. Not decorated to impress anyone or staged, but for comfort.
A soft rug beneath the coffee table. A narrow bookshelf full enough that some of the books lie sideways across the top of the others.
Legal texts on the lower shelf. Novels mixed in with them.
A vase on the windowsill with flowers past their best but not yet thrown away.
Even her disorder has order.
I step into the kitchen.
Small but clean with wooden cabinets and light counters. A dish towel is folded over the oven handle and a bowl on the counter has three apples and one lemon. The coffee machine that looks overused.
I open the refrigerator.
Not to intrude, of course.
Simply to confirm what I already know.
A container of Greek yogurt, eggs, half a bottle of white wine, salad greens that are not so fresh anymore, cheese, and sparkling water. There are a couple of takeout containers, but nothing that suggests she had anything to feed herself tonight.
I close the refrigerator with a little more force than I mean to.
This woman.
This brilliant, stubborn, exhausted woman.
She would build an entire security protocol for my company and forget to fuel herself.
I hear movement upstairs.
The shower is still on, but something shifts. A bottle knocked against tile, maybe. A drawer opening. Small sounds that put images in my head I should not allow.
Her wet hair sliding over bare shoulders.
Her hands moving over her own skin.
My cock hardens so suddenly, so brutally, that I grip the edge of the counter and blow out a breath.
“Cristo.”
This is going to be difficult. Impossible.
I want to go upstairs.
I want to open the bathroom door, step into the steam, and find her flushed and wet and furious with need. I want to press her against the tile and put my mouth on every part of her. I want to hear what she sounds like when she loses control.
I want to make her lose the ability to speak.
I want to force-feed her.
I want to take everything.
I want to care.
Both needs war within me.
My phone vibrates.
Armando.
Twenty minutes.
Good. Enough time for her to finish showering. Enough time for me to regain enough sense not to drag her to the floor and take her right there.
I walk back into the living room and notice her briefcase where it ended up near the entry.
I pick it up.
The weight surprises me. Documents, laptop, chargers, probably more work than one person should be carrying after a week like this. I set it beside the sofa, then pick up the papers that slipped partway out and see the notes in her handwriting. Neat and clear, even when written quickly.
She has made more progress in a week than most people would in a month.
I knew she was good. I did not know she would be relentless.
That should please me only professionally.
It does not.
It makes me want to reward her.
It makes me want to strip her out of that armor she wears, lay her down, and show her exactly how pleased I am.
The water stops upstairs.
Every muscle in my body goes still.
Silence follows.
Then light footsteps above my head.
She must be moving through her bedroom.
I picture her with a towel wrapped around herself. Bending to pick up clothes. Standing in front of a mirror with that wet chestnut hair loose around her shoulders, looking at herself with those cool gray-green eyes and trying to decide what to wear.
I hear a drawer close.
I stay where I am.
I will not go upstairs.
Waiting has never been difficult for me. I learned patience young. I learned to observe, to let another man reveal weakness first, to hold anger unless it’s useful. I have waited years for opportunities, weeks for answers, hours for men to understand they had made their last mistake.
Waiting for Victoria Murray to come down a narrow staircase in her own home is harder than any of that.
When she appears at the top of the stairs, I understand why.
Her hair is loose and damp, darker now, falling over her shoulders in waves that make my hands curl at my sides.
She is wearing soft black pants and a thin gray sweater that slips slightly off one shoulder. No shoes or makeup. Her face is clean from the shower, still tired, still pale, but softer now. More herself. Less lawyer. Less professional armor.
More dangerous.
She stops halfway down the stairs when she sees me standing in the living room.
Her hand closes around the railing.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
The air shifts again.
It has been shifting all night.
In the garage. In the car. At her door. Against the wall. And now here, with her damp hair and bare feet and the knowledge between us that I have already had my mouth on hers and intend to do it again before the night is over.
Her gaze drops to my rolled sleeves.
Then to my mouth.
Then quickly away.
Too late.
I saw it.
“Food will be here soon,” I say.
Her eyes return to mine. “You ordered food?”
“Yes.”
“I could have thrown something together or ordered it.”
“You did not.”
“I was in the shower.”
“So I did it instead,” I say simply.
Must she push every single time.
It stirs me up.
Her mouth tightens. “You are very invested in my meal schedule.”
“The sooner…” I don’t finish, but from the flush working its way up her face, she knows.
She descends the last few steps slowly, as if she does not entirely trust her legs. Or herself.
“You didn’t have to stay,” she says.
“I know.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Here I am.”
A small exhale leaves her. A small huff of a laugh.
She is still nervous.
I like it. A little too much.
What I don’t like is that I’m nervous too.
That is new.
She reaches the bottom of the stairs and stops a few feet away.
A safe but useless distance.
Her apartment is too small for that. The heat between us crosses the space easily.
A knock comes at the door downstairs.
She startles.
“Food,” I say before turning and going to the door.
Armando stands outside with two paper bags and the carefully blank expression of a man who sees everything and knows better than to acknowledge it.
“Grazie,” I say, taking them.
“Buona sera.”
He does not look past me. He does not look at Victoria. He simply steps back and returns to the SUV.
Good man.
I close the door.
When I turn, Victoria is still near the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed loosely over herself.
I carry the bags into the kitchen. “Plates?”
“In the cabinet to your left.”
She follows me slowly.
I open the cabinet and take out two plates. Simple white. One has a tiny chip along the rim. I notice because I notice everything. I also notice the way she watches me move through her kitchen, as if the sight unsettles her as much as it fascinates her.
Good. Let her be unsettled.
I have spent two weeks being unsettled by her.
I unpack the food. Pasta in a light tomato sauce. Chicken with lemon and herbs. Bread. Soup. A small container of tiramisu.
Victoria sees it and blinks. “That is a lot of food.”
“You have not eaten properly.”
“I’m one person.”
“I am another.”
I place the containers on the counter, and for a moment, there is an easy domesticity to it that is more intimate than any kiss.
It is the illusion of a shared life that doesn't belong to us.
I open a drawer and find forks.