Chapter Seven
Renzo returned to a dark, silent penthouse barely an hour later.
He did have out-of-town investors to wine and dine, people he had fobbed on his two assistants in the past week because he hadn’t wanted to leave Luca or Mimi at the hospital.
Even if he had stolen away for an evening, he wouldn’t have been good company.
Tonight’s dinner was important.
And yet he had known he’d made the wrong choice the moment he’d stepped foot into their Hotel DiCarlo Palazzo, overlooking the Grand Canal.
His wife needed him but was too stubborn to admit it or ask him for anything. And he…was just as stubborn, wanting her to come to him, wanting her to seek something, anything, from him. Cristo, the woman could twist him up, inside out, without even trying.
Events of the last few months had been the most intense and draining experiences of his life. He couldn’t begin to imagine how much more it must have cost her. Losing her sister, deciding to keep the baby, taking care of herself and then standing up to him even as she married him.
There was no doubt that his wife was an exceptional woman. And strong-willed to the core.
But she was also young and fragile, despite her every effort to act the opposite of the latter.
He glared at the large empty bed in the master bedroom, then proceeded to the two guest bedrooms. Only darkness greeted him in both. Frowning, he pushed the heavy doors of his study open.
His chest gave a painful twinge as his eyes found her small form tucked deep into his heavy armchair, fast asleep. He switched on the desk lamp, his breath coming in rough exhales as he recognized the gray sweatshirt she’d draped over herself.
It was his.
With her hair in a braid and wisps framing her face, she looked small and innocent.
The sight of her sleeping form, her nose and chin tucked against the fabric, did things to him he didn’t understand. He roughly thrust a hand through his hair, a wave of tenderness shaking him from the inside.
Feeling things for her wasn’t in his equation for this marriage. And yet he didn’t know how to stop.
Bending, he gently scooped her into his arms and lifted her.
Instantly, she nuzzled her face into his neck as if they had taken part in this very same ritual a thousand nights before. Her trust in him, in such a vulnerable state, when she was such a prickly little thing usually, pacified some age-old instinct in him that only she called forth.
The lush rose scent, deepened by her skin, filled his lungs by the time he brought her to the bed in his bedroom.
He had barely tucked her under the duvet, one knee by her side, when those beautiful brown eyes flickered open.
In the moonlight filtering through the French windows, her lashes cast shadows against her cheeks, her skin smooth and gleaming.
Her fingers fisted his shirt, lush lips puffing out air. Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings. “Renzo?”
“Sleep, Mimi,” he said, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. Dio mio, he couldn’t control the simplest urge around this woman. “The armchair in my study is hardly convenient for a night’s sleep.”
A soft, maybe even dreamy, smile curved her lips. “You can’t help chastising me, can you?”
“You can’t help fighting me, can you?”
“Not fighting in this case, Renzo,” she said, her smile touching her eyes now. “It’s the only room in the penthouse that smells like you. Citrus and bergamot.” She blinked as if realizing what she had said. Then sighed.
Her warm, minty breath coated his chin. And if he could just nudge her chin up, he could taste her again. The last time they had kissed had been when Luca had been born, and her kiss had tasted of salt and tears and sweat.
Renzo had loved it.
But he wanted to kiss her again, when she was soft and dreamy like this. When she was fuming and mouthy with him. When she fought him at every inch.
He wanted to know how his wife tasted in every mood, like the shades of a rainbow. Dio mio, he was a gone case.
“I…didn’t want to be alone,” she whispered, and yet there was a new clarity to her tone that he hadn’t seen since that day he had found her.
He tugged his gaze upward. “Understandable, bella.”
“All the beds, including this one, were cold and sterile. One of the guest bedrooms smelled like perfume.” She scrunched her brow.
“Is this where you bring your lovers, Renzo?” She stiffened, looking around her, as if she could find a lover of his lurking under the bed.
Ire flashed in her eyes, but when she spoke, her voice was steady.
“I understand you have a life, but bringing me to your stud pad is hardly appropriate.”
He smiled. “My bed is cold and sterile probably because I haven’t slept here in a month.
A laundering service comes in and changes everything once a week.
And no, I’ve never brought a lover here.
This is my sanctuary.” He waited for his answer to sink in.
“As for the guest bedroom, my sister was here a few days ago. It’s possible she slept in there. ”
“Chiara was here? In Venice?” She tried to hide it, but an instant wariness clouded her eyes. “I thought she and her husband lived in Milan.”
“She came up to see Luca and you. Without informing me of her decision.”
His wife’s swallow was audible.
Renzo cursed himself and his whole family inwardly. Every single one of them, including his usually kind mother, had taken their cue from his distaste and dislike of Pia and her entire family.
Only now it dawned on him that both Santo and Pia were responsible for their volatile marriage, not just the latter.
He wouldn’t be surprised if Chiara had snubbed Mimi a hundred times during holiday and family gatherings in the last six years. And his own arrogant judgment was responsible for it.
“I didn’t see her at the hospital,” Mimi said in a small voice.
“She never came to the hospital. I sent her away.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Neither you nor Luca is ready for anyone’s visits or scrutiny, bella. Not even my family. I told your mother the same.”
She threw herself at him like a child, her arms going around his waist. The scent of her hair, the press of her body turned him rock-hard. Merda, but he was a selfish, needy bastard.
She had given birth a month ago, and here he was, lusting after her body. The thought was so jarring that he frowned.
His lust for her was more than just for her body. It was for her mind, her soul even. He wanted to own this woman like he’d never owned anything else. He wanted her to belong to him without doubt, and he wanted her to want to belong to him.
He wanted her every waking thought to be consumed by him. He wanted her loyalty, her strength, her desires to belong to him.
“Thank you. That might be the best present you’ve ever given me.”
“I haven’t given you anything,” he said, clamping his fingers gently around her nape.
Her curves were soft and warm against him, notching the tension in his muscles tighter.
“Not even a wedding present.” He’d heard one of the nurses tease her about what gifts he had given her on the occasion of their son’s birth and seen the sudden dismay before she made up a lie about a necklace.
A wedding present hadn’t been necessary, he reminded himself.
Nor had he had the time for it. And knowing her, she would have hated the pretense of one.
And yet…some foolish, apparently sentimental part of him wished he had given her something.
Anything. A small token that was meant just for her and not the fact that she was carrying his child.
She shrugged, cheek resting against his chest. “Don’t need anything more than this right now. More than the three of us.”
He stroked her back lightly, swallowing at the heat of her body sending tingles up his hand. He cleared his throat, hoping to dislodge the need coiling inside him. At some point, real life would intrude on their bubble, and he had to prepare her for it.
“At some point, we’ll have to do a press release about him.
Maybe a photo shoot. And my family will insist on visiting.
My mother especially…” He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.
Still, his words came out scratchy. “She is eager to see her grandson. Please…” he nearly choked on the word, but he couldn’t forget that he had a duty to others too “…consider the fact that she’s just lost her firstborn. ”
Of late though, he was beginning to resent the emotional cost of managing his mother’s grief, his sister’s disappointment in her marriage, and his father’s spurious guilt, which would undoubtedly launch him into impulsive behavior and another scandal.
This cocoon he had been in for the last few weeks, with only Luca and Mimi and some work as his focus, had been a luxury he hadn’t known he needed.
Her breath warm against his neck, Mimi looked up. The smile was gone from her face, replaced by that shadow of a grief he knew too well. “Of course. I…like your mother. Maybe in another week? Hopefully I’ll be less of a wreck then.”
“You like my mother?” Renzo blurted out before he could stop himself. “In a week is more than I hoped for.” He ran his knuckles down her soft cheek. “I was ready to give you another month.”
“She was always kind to me. And with Pia, she never added fuel to the arguments or the drama. I understood her perspective that she wanted Santo to be happy and thought he was being trod over.”
“How are you so wise at such a young age?”
She laughed, and Renzo thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
“Practice, my pupil.” And then she giggled at her own joke.
“You’re forgetting that I’m also very strategic.
Your mother had four children. She might be a fount of important advice about babies.
And I want Luca to know his family, to be surrounded by so much love that he never doubts it. ”