Chapter 13
COSIMO
The plan had worked. We’d reached an agreement.
I didn’t relish the fact that I’d had to all but fucking beg for it, but it had gotten the job done, hadn’t it? Humbling myself in front of Fabiana for a minute was worth it if it meant I’d have her cooperation for the next six months.
And I did need her cooperation.
The marriage wouldn’t work otherwise. Everyone would be watching us more closely now that Dad was gone. For my family, our wedding had become a symbol—a statement of confidence in the Ferraro family’s ability to survive.
A wife who fought me every step of the way wasn’t going to cut it.
The idea of offering to annul the marriage after six months came to me just after my conversation with Les. I knew it would help convince Fabiana, and it had also put a boundary around the arrangement.
Which was good.
I didn’t fully trust myself as far as that woman was concerned. Knowing this thing between us had an end date would help me keep a lid on the attraction I felt for her. The attraction I had no plans to indulge in.
It’d been three days since we’d shaken hands, and I was in my downtown office, reviewing some contracts for a warehouse I planned to buy. I glanced at the clock. Fabiana would be here any minute. We’d agreed to meet to discuss what was going to happen next.
My number one priority was to make her Mrs. Ferraro as soon as possible. As in weeks, not months, from now.
“Mr. Ferraro, your fiancée is here,” the secretary announced, poking her head in.
My pen paused over the paper. “Send her in.”
I finished signing the contract in front of me, capped the pen, and set it down. My gaze lifted just in time to see Fabiana walk in. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and her hair was a little tousled. She looked young and breathtakingly beautiful.
She placed a takeout cup on my desk and started shrugging off her coat. There was some red lipstick on the edge of the lid, and a sweet smell reached my nose.
“What’s that?”
She hung her coat on the back of the chair. “Dirty chai latte.”
“Dirty?”
“Has espresso in it.” She took a seat across from me.
Before I could question what I was doing, I reached over the desk and wrapped my palm around the drink. She stilled as she watched me pick it up and bring it to my lips. “May I?”
A beat. Then she nodded.
I took a sip, my lips covering the red mark.
It was sweet, but also bitter and spicy. Surprisingly good. “Not bad,” I said, handing the drink back.
Her fingers brushed against mine as she took it from me. A faint trickle of static electricity passed between us. Just as she’d watched me, I watched her bring the cup up to her lips, her mouth touching the exact spot where mine had just been.
Heat rushed to my cock. Fuck me. Who would’ve thought sharing a fucking latte could be this erotic?
I shifted in my seat. “Is this what you usually get?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“Yeah.”
“Every morning?”
Slowly, she arched one perfect brow. “Why are you so interested in my drink order?”
I shrugged, trying to play off the weird curiosity that had seized me the moment she’d walked through the door. “If we’re going to do this right, we need to know a little about each other.”
Bitterness slipped into her expression. “You mean like I’ve been trying to convince you to do since day one?”
I twirled my pen. “I told you it’ll be different.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?”
I wanted to know a lot of things. What she looked like when she woke up in the morning. The sounds she made when she came. The flavor of her mouth.
But I settled on, “You got any hobbies?”
She leaned back and crossed her legs. “Pottery classes. I was just at one this morning.”
“You any good?”
She glanced down at something on the floor. “I can show you what I made. You can decide for yourself.” She lifted her purse off the ground, produced a small cardboard box from inside of it, and slid it across the desk toward me. “It’s a mug.”
I took it out. The inside was the color of clay, but the outside was painted. Some plants. A butterfly. Near the bottom, Fabiana had signed her initials.
“What’s this plant?” I asked as I turned the mug in front of me.
“A stinging nettle.”
My eyes snapped to hers. You’re kidding. What were the odds?
“What do you think?” she asked.
I placed the mug down, then inched it with one finger toward the corner of my desk. “I like how it looks right there.”
“You want to keep it?” she asked, sounding slightly confused.
I did. I liked the thought of having something of hers in my office, and I wasn’t going to examine the reasons for that too deeply. “It’s a good conversation starter. Gives me a reason to bring you up and flaunt the alliance.”
She nodded like that made sense. “Okay. And you? Hobbies?”
“None really. Besides the gym.”
“What do you do to relax?”
“Sauna. I have one at my house. I use it a few times a week.”
Slight color appeared in her cheeks. “Huh. Didn’t expect that. You seem more of an ice-bath kind of guy.”
I cocked a brow. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You strike me as someone who’d glorify discomfort and call his ability to withstand it a virtue.”
I hid my surprise. She…was correct. Comfort meant complacency, and in my world, complacency got you killed.
I also did, in fact, have an ice bath next to the sauna, but I wasn’t about to volunteer that information.
“Let me guess,” I said, “you relax with candlelit massages and love to read by the fireplace.”
“I do like to read,” she admitted. “But I'm not a big fan of massages. I’m too ticklish.”
An image of her lying topless on a massage table flashed in my head, sending a jolt to my cock. I cleared my throat. “I think that’s enough personal trivia for one day. Let’s talk about the wedding. I want to move it up to three weeks from now.”
Fabiana’s eyes all but fell out of her head. “That’s impossible. We won’t be ready.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
“I mean the venue—”
“If the venue is the problem, give me their number, and I’ll make sure they stop being a problem.”
“The band—”
“Cut the band. Cut whatever you need to. The celebration can’t be what we planned before my father died. We’ll be getting married during the mourning period.”
Fabiana looked flustered. “Okay. I’ll have to talk to your mom about the changes.”
I shook my head. “No. This is between you and the planner. My mother isn’t contributing to the planning anymore. She’s grieving, and this is the last thing she needs to be doing right now.”
Fabiana didn’t know Mother was competing with me for the succession.
She couldn’t know. Vita hadn’t informed anyone of her ambitions besides me and my brothers.
I had a feeling she was waiting to reveal them at a moment that would best serve her, but I gained nothing from exposing her early.
The longer I could operate as Dad’s assumed successor and rally the capos around me, the better off I’d be.
After that dinner, after I’d learned that Nettle was genuine, I trusted her…to an extent. But a piece of information this sensitive? There was no need for her to know it.
Fabiana frowned. “But she’s been the final decision maker on everything up until now.”
“You’re an event planner, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’ve never planned a wedding.”
“I have complete faith in your ability to handle this.”
She seemed startled. “You do?”
“Sure. The event you threw for Messero was well done, despite the questionable art. Talk to the planner and come to me if you need any help. But it needs to happen three weeks from now.”
She swiped her palms back and forth over her thighs. “Okay. Right.” She blew out a breath and sat up straighter, as if rallying herself. The anxious look in her eyes gave way to determination. “Could we maybe look at the agenda together now? Just so that we can agree on what we’re keeping.”
“Fine.”
“Can you pull it up on your computer? I think you’re on the email chain.”
While I clicked through my inbox, she came around my desk to look at the screen. She stood beside me, and the scents of lemon and lavender hovered at the edge of my attention.
“Here,” I said, opening the attached file.
She leaned over and grabbed the mouse from me. She was close enough for me to make out the light-brown freckles across the tops of her cheeks. Heat slipped beneath my skin, the way it always seemed to in her presence.
“We can cut the dancing at the end…” she began.
I tried to focus on what she was saying, but my gaze kept drifting to those damn freckles.
It quickly became apparent she didn’t actually need any of my input, and that was a good thing considering how distracted she made me.
Nettle was completely capable of handling this.
She just lacked the confidence to make the decisions on her own.
“I think this is doable,” she concluded, closing the file with the agenda.
“We should also probably talk about where we’re staying that night.
” She straightened up and looked down at me.
“We have the honeymoon suite booked at the hotel for the original date, but I suggest we cancel. We should be able to get half of the cost refunded.”
I turned my chair to face her and linked my hands in my lap. “Why would we cancel it? Why not just move the date up.”
She tucked a strand behind her ear. “Well, since the reception won’t go too late, we could just fly back home that same night. It’s only a fifty-minute flight from the venue back to New York. Then we could each have our own room. I assume you have a guest bedroom in your house.”
I did. And of course that was where I’d planned on putting her while we lived together. So why was I annoyed by the fact that she was bringing it up proactively?
“We could cancel it, but sharing a suite for one night isn’t a big deal,” I said, keeping my tone nonchalant. “I’m sure there’s a couch.”
What the fuck are you doing? a voice in my head demanded. You know that’s a bad idea.
I ignored the voice.
She shifted her weight between her feet. “I’d prefer not to. I think it would be best if we maintain clear boundaries during the next six months. It goes without saying,” she continued, “that since this isn’t a real engagement or a real marriage, we’re not going to…you know.”
I arched a brow. “What?”
Her cheeks reddened. “Be intimate.”
Amusement tugged on my lips. That was the most virginal way anyone could possibly have phrased it.
“We should probably talk about what’s acceptable and what’s not,” she continued. “Holding hands and hugging is fine. I assume we’ll have to kiss at the altar, and maybe on a few other very, very rare occasions. But I don’t see any reason why we’d need to take it any further than that. Right?”
It was the second very that got to me. “I don’t know, Fabiana. My secretary might get suspicious if she doesn’t hear you moaning my name through the office wall at least once a week.”
The flush spread from her cheeks to the rest of her face. She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Even if we were hooking up in your office, I’m pretty sure I could restrain myself from moaning your name.”
My gaze dragged down her body. She had no fucking idea the things I could do to her. The pleasure I could make her feel. “I wouldn’t bet on that.”
“You’re pretty confident, huh?”
“Believe me, the confidence is well-earned.”
Her throat bobbed. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Guess so.”
We held each other’s gazes for a drawn-out moment, the air between us simmering with tension. She glanced away first.
At last, I returned to my senses. “You’re right. Cancel the suite. We’ll fly home.” The less time I spent in a bedroom alone with her, the better. I don’t know what the fuck possessed me to argue otherwise.
“Great,” she said in a tight voice, coming around the desk to grab her purse. “And the rest? Do you agree?”
“Yes. We’ll stick to first base.”
It was exactly what I’d wanted.
So why the hell couldn’t I shake my agitation?