Chapter Eight #5
‘Shhh, it’s okay, Tallulah.’ Mia reached out and took Tali’s hand, squeezing her fingers. Until that moment, she hadn’t realised she was shaking. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong…’
Except she had. She’d lied to Mia, to Sante, to all the staff at Westwick. She’d even tried to lie to her mother…
Gripping Tali’s hand, Mia pulled her to the fountain and encouraged her to sit on the low wall that surrounded it. Tali dropped onto the warm stone, stupidly grateful, because her legs were shaky now, too.
Mia sat down beside her, still holding her hand.
The chirps of birds, the buzz of bees, the tinkle of the fountain, the distant rumble of cars as the guests arrived and the hum of activity from the staff nearby faded, until all Tali could hear was the hard thuds of her own heartbeat—telling her what an idiot she’d been.
‘Tallulah, is my brother sleeping with you?’ Mia asked gently.
‘No,’ Tali replied. ‘God, no!’ Because that would make this situation even more sordid. But the rush of heat quickening Tali’s heartbeat and flame-grilling her cheeks had Mia’s gaze sharpening.
‘But he wants to? Am I right? That much is obvious from the way he looks at you, the way he touches you,’ Mia said with such confidence, the burning in Tali’s cheeks got worse.
‘That’s all for show,’ Tali managed, dying a little more inside. Because she knew it wasn’t for show as far as she was concerned. And she had one devastating kiss that she couldn’t forget, a whole lot of sleepless nights—not to mention the wettest wet dreams known to woman—to prove it.
‘I hate to break it to you, Tallulah,’ Mia muttered, ‘but my brother is not that good an actor. If he was, he would not have fallen foul of our father so often—and been punished so harshly.’
Harshly how? Tali wanted to ask but stifled the urge—after all, her curiosity about Dario had only made this conversation more difficult.
‘And we also have that gushing article in Ragazza as exhibit B,’ Mia continued. ‘Gianna Lombardi is a very shrewd journalist. She would not have been fooled that yours was a love match if some of what she saw wasn’t real.’
‘Well, he definitely doesn’t love me,’ Tali said, feeling oddly deflated. ‘We hardly know each other. And he’s made it quite clear he doesn’t want to get to know me better.’
‘But he does want to sleep with you. Tallulah,’ Mia reiterated. It wasn’t a question.
‘Please call me Tali,’ she replied. Because really, if she was going to have the most excruciating conversation of her entire life with this woman, it seemed only fitting Mia should address her by the name everyone knew her by, except Dario.
‘And in the interests of full disclosure, I want to sleep with him, too,’ she blurted out, because it seemed unfair to let Dario take all the blame.
After all, she had kissed him back two days ago.
And if he’d put any real moves on her since, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to resist him.
Her cheeks became radioactive. ‘He’s, well…
He’s very charismatic…’ And beyond hot. But no way was she about to mention that to his sister.
‘And, sometimes, I feel what he really needs is a friend. Which is silly, I know. But I always had a bad habit as a kid of taking in wounded creatures. And Dario seems…well, wounded too, I guess.’
Mia blinked, her expression changing, until a pensive smile brightened her features. ‘You have feelings for my brother…’
Again, it wasn’t a question, but Tali found herself nodding. What was it about this woman that made it so hard to lie to her?
‘I guess I do. Which is nuts… I’ve known him for precisely two weeks, and he hasn’t exactly been easy to deal with.
But he fascinates me. He wants to appear cold and in control all the time, but I really don’t think that’s who he is…
But how could I possibly know that? I’m sure it’s just a delusion brought about by the sexual tension incinerating my brain cells. ’ It was Tali’s turn to start babbling.
‘Except it is not your brain which makes these decisions, Tali,’ Mia said softly. ‘It is your heart. And you are right about my brother…’ she added.
‘I—I am?’ Tali asked.
‘Yes,’ Mia said, with complete certainty.
And for the first time since Tali had offered to stay with Dario, and he had shut her out, she felt less vulnerable, less insecure.
‘How am I right?’ Tali pressed, needing to know now if there was really more to the connection she had begun to sense with Dario, or if it had all been in her own head.
‘You are right that he is not as cold or controlled as he wants to pretend,’ Mia said gently.
‘When we were children in Capri, he always protected me. Our mother was beautiful and wild. She loved us, but she did not know how to look after us. When we came to England, our father tried to force all the wildness out of Dario. But to do that, he had to also force out all the joy. And he succeeded, when he turned Dario against Sante. The accident, and the way it crushed Dario’s spirit, even more than his body, did the rest. But you are the first person I know who has seen the boy he once was, beneath the surface of that unhappy man.
And only in a few weeks. Perhaps…’ Mia paused.
‘Perhaps if you give in to the desire you both feel, you might discover more of that boy?’
Tali’s heart lifted, and the fierce desire surged… But she wasn’t sure anymore if it was the hunger which had tormented her for weeks demanding to be satisfied, or the yearning to make that lonely, bedridden boy smile which was driving her desire to know Dario better now.
The only thing she did know was that she wasn’t convinced she could resist it any longer.
‘Signora Lorenti…’ A young woman shouted across the courtyard, then rushed towards them, looking flustered. ‘You must come. Signora Chiara is concerned there will not be enough time to get your hair styled.’
Mia jumped up and replied in Italian, looking flustered, too, but also incandescently happy, her excitement giving her face a golden glow in the dying sunlight. But before she could follow the young assistant to prepare for her wedding, she turned back to Tali.
‘Do not give up on my brother, Tali. He has always needed someone who won’t put up with his bullshit… And, although I do not like to think about my brother this way, if nothing else, good sex can be its own reward.’
Before Tali could reply, her unruly heart bobbing into her throat, Mia had disappeared into the palazzo.
But as Tali walked back, through the outdoor kitchen, past trays of delicious hors d’oeuvres being laid out on silver platters, her mind kept snagging on all the things Mia had told her about Dario and his past…
Surely, Mia’s input proved one thing at least—that there was a fascinatingly complex man lurking behind the facade of the ruthlessly controlled autocrat.
Would it really be so wrong to try to find that man? Especially now she had finally admitted to herself, as well as Mia, she was tired of fighting the hunger which had tormented them both ever since that damn kiss.