Chapter Seventeen
Victoria
By Friday afternoon, I am going a little mad.
Quietly.
The kind of madness that lets me sit at a desk, answer emails, revise access recommendations, and calmly explain to a senior manager why “I’ve always had that permission” is not a business justification, while some entirely separate part of my brain is lying on my bedroom floor in front of an open white box.
Deep blue lace.
That is where my mind keeps going.
To the note.
To replace what I destroyed.
I had slipped it into my briefcase and smuggled it home Monday night like it was contraband.
Which, frankly, it felt like.
I told myself I was going to put it away. That was all. Put it in a drawer, stop thinking about it, move on with my life like a rational adult woman who had not been ruined by one night with one man.
Then I put it on.
It fit. Perfectly.
The bra cupped me like it had been made for me. The straps sat just right. The panties rested low on my hips, soft and delicate and obscenely expensive, the lace somehow both barely there and impossible to ignore.
I stood in front of my mirror for a full minute and stared at myself.
Not because of the lingerie exactly. Because of how I looked in it.
Like a woman waiting to be looked at.
By him.
Which is a huge problem because now it is Friday, and the lingerie is sitting in the box in my bedroom, and I have spent the entire week inside the same building as Mario Conti while barely seeing him at all.
Working on the same floor. Hell, breathing the same air.
And nothing.
Well, almost nothing. Might as well be nothing.
I saw him Tuesday morning in the conference room when I presented the revised access matrix to him, Lorenzo, Ricardo, and two department heads.
Mario had been calm and focused. Completely professional, while I wanted to rip his clothes off and jump him.
He asked questions, approved two recommendations and pushed back on one timeline. He did not look at me like a man who was feeling the way I was inside.
Except once.
Once, when everyone else was looking at the screen, his eyes found mine across the table.
Just for a second.
Long enough for my stomach to drop.
Then he looked away.
I saw him again Wednesday near the elevators, surrounded by three men in suits, one of them speaking quickly in Italian. He nodded to me as he passed.
Nodded as if I were anyone.
As if he had not had his mouth between my thighs.
As if he had not told me I was his.
Thursday, I heard his voice through Lorenzo’s open office door and nearly walked into a wall.
Today, I have not seen him at all.
And it is driving me insane.
I should be grateful. The distance is sensible and mature. Necessary. There are conflicts and ethics and professionalism and basic self-preservation to consider. One night was already reckless enough. One night was already more than enough trouble.
It should stay one night.
It absolutely should.
One devastating, ill-advised, private lapse in judgment.
Something we don’t repeat.
Except I do not want it to stay one night.
That is the awful, inconvenient, impossible truth sitting under my skin, making me itchy, restless, distracted in a way I despise.
I want him again.
I want his hands on me again. His mouth. His voice in my ear. The weight of him over me. The look in his eyes when his control starts to slip.
I want him to see me in the lingerie.
I lean back in my chair and stare at the spreadsheet on my screen without reading a single line of it.
How would I even make that happen?
Do I walk into his office and say, by the way, thank you for the outrageously expensive underwear, would you like to see it on?
No.
Absolutely not.
I could wait until he says something first.
But he has not said anything, and it’s been a week.
The ugly thought I’ve been pushing away rears its ugly head.
Maybe he does not want to say anything.
Maybe Friday was what it was. One night after two weeks of unbearable tension. Maybe the lingerie really was only a replacement. Expensive, yes, but Mario lives in a world where expensive means something different. Maybe to him, it was the equivalent of replacing a coffee mug.
A lace one with more zeroes than is sensible for a scrap of fabric.
Still.
Maybe he gave it to me because he destroyed something and considers replacement basic manners.
Maybe I am the one making it into something else.
And I could accept all of that if it weren’t for one simple fact. He knew my exact size.
Are there really men who remember things like that if it doesn’t mean anything? Do they exist?
Is that all it was?
Or does he want to see me in it?
I drop my head to my desk with a sound of frustration.
This is ridiculous.
I am ridiculous.
I am sitting in a corporate office on a Friday afternoon trying to interpret lingerie like case law.
I need help. Like, professional help.
I lift my head and click into the access summary and force myself to focus on normal things. Work things.
Things that do not involve deep blue lace or Mario Conti’s tongue.
I make it twelve minutes before my email chimes.
A new message appears at the top of my inbox.
From: Mario Conti
My pulse jumps so hard it hurts for a second, and I actually stop breathing.
Quickly, I click.
Ms. Murray,
Come see me before you leave.
M.C.
I wait until 4:47.
Not because I am avoiding him.
Obviously.
I have work to finish. Real work. Important work. There are files to close for the week, notes to send to Benjamin, and one deeply irritating clarification request from payroll that makes me consider whether law school was a mistake.
So, no, I am not stalling.
I am being responsible.
With absolutely nothing left to do, I close my laptop and sit there for a full minute with both hands flat on the desk, staring at the closed door of my office.
Come see me before you leave.
That is all the email said.
It did not say anything about the lingerie.
Of course not. Why would it?
I stand.
I smooth my skirt. Then my blazer. Then the collar of my blouse, though it does not need smoothing. I check my reflection in the darkened window.
Unlike last week, I am still put together. My hair is loose but neatly swept back from my face. My makeup is intact. My mouth is neutral. My eyes are not.
My eyes are a problem.
I look away.
This is strictly business.
He asked me to come see him before I leave. There are plenty of business reasons for that. The access audit is moving into the next phase. The temporary access protocol needs sign-off. Several department heads are unhappy.
Apparently, the man in Ricardo's department that I mentioned to Lorenzo on Monday was more of a problem than anticipated.
No, this is about business.
I pick up my tablet and walk out of my office before I can overthink it.
Anymore than I already have.
The floor is quieter now. Not completely empty, but thinning.
Doors closed. Assistants packing up to go.
The usual polished hum of Conti Headquarters has softened into something darker, more private.
The lights feel warmer this late in the day with the darkness of winter falling earlier than usual outside the windows.
I pass Lorenzo’s empty office.
Diego’s door is closed.
Ricardo’s office is dark.
Mario’s office is at the end of the corridor, corner windows throwing the last of the city light behind the frosted glass.
My pulse picks up with every step.
This is ridiculous.
I have had sex with the man.
Extraordinary sex.
Life-altering sex.
Sex that required hydration and soup afterward.
But still. Sex.
I should not be this nervous walking into his office.
I stop outside his door and lift my hand.
For one second, I think about the blue lace sitting in the box in my bedroom.
I should have worn it, a small voice whispers in my head.
No, that would have been insane.
Wildly unprofessional.
Also, if I had worn it, I would have accomplished absolutely nothing today except sitting at my desk fully aware of what was beneath my clothes and spiraling into a catastrophic breakdown by lunch.
So no.
It is safely at home.
I knock.
“Avanti.”
That sexy voice slides through the door and sneaks into the gaps in my clothes, caressing my skin.
I open the door and step inside.
Mario is behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He is reading something on his monitor, his face lit by the screen and the soft gray-blue light from the windows.
The city behind him is nearly in darkness, the faint silhouette of the buildings still visible against the evening sky.
He looks up.
That’s all it takes, apparently. Just lifting his eyes to mine.
I remember his hands pinning mine to my bed. His mouth on my throat. His body heavy over mine. His voice telling me to look at him. His fingers in my hair. His lips at my ear.
Mine.
I close the door behind me.
“Ms. Murray,” he says.
My stomach flips.
After everything, that should sound ridiculous.
It does not.
It sounds like a hand tightening in my hair.
“Mr. Conti,” I say.
My voice is steady.
Thank God.
He gestures to the chair across from him. “Sit.”
I sit, place my tablet on my lap, and fold my hands over it.
Composed and professional.
Absolutely not thinking about the fact that this is the first time we’ve been alone since he left my apartment last week.
“What can I do for you?” I ask.
His gaze stays on mine for one beat too long.
Then he leans back slightly. “You had a productive week?”
Business. Good. Safe.
“Yes,” I say, perhaps too quickly. “Very productive. We finished the initial access audit and moved into preliminary remediation. I sent Lorenzo the department-level permission exceptions this afternoon. Most of them are defensible, but three still need written business justification before I recommend keeping them active.”
His eyes do not move from my face.