Chapter Ten
MASSIMO STARED AT the photo on page ten of this week’s edition of Gente magazine.
Someone had taken the picture on the tarmac of the airport where they’d landed, and it showed Massimo escorting Catarina into his Ferrari.
He hadn’t even thought to scan the area for paparazzi.
He had been too focused on Catarina, and the look on his face in the photo was undeniable proof of the level of his distraction.
It was obscene. Never had Massimo looked as much like his father usually did, fawning after his mother.
The conversation on that plane ride had dragged up emotions that should have stayed buried.
And yet, he had found himself reopening old wounds for her, leaving him raw enough to let himself look at her like that.
He needed to secure this marriage and then stay far away from Catarina.
This was no longer simply strategy; it was the only way he could hold himself together.
Clearly. And the baby? He had nine months to figure out how to handle that.
For now, he needed to focus on the present.
For the past three days since their return, his assistant had combed the press, searching for any leaks of their broken engagement dinner.
There had been mild speculations, of course, but this was different.
This was much worse. The magazine arrived at the conclusion that there were clandestine motives at work, and he didn’t bother reading further.
To quiet whatever rumors circulated, he and Catarina needed to appear publicly as soon as possible.
She had tentatively agreed to their engagement dinner, and following through on it would solve this current problem.
Except Catarina had not responded to the seven messages he had left on her phone this morning.
Massimo tossed the magazine onto his desk and paced back and forth in his office.
He glanced at the phone on his desk, tempted to call her once more.
Instead, he stormed out the door and into Alessandro’s office.
He found his brother holding a different magazine, folded back to a page with the same photo. Massimo scowled.
Alessandro looked up from the magazine and studied him long enough to make Massimo squirm. He did not like to be studied, and certainly not by his brother, who seemed to be able to read his thoughts too well for comfort.
“She won’t answer her phone,” he thundered.
“You said she would contact you when she knew more.” His brother’s voice was maddeningly calm. “I agree your powers in this world are vast, but as far as I know they do not extend to speeding up the natural revelation of a pregnancy.”
“Nor do I expect that,” Massimo bit out. “But at least she could…”
His voice trailed off as he tried to capture the frustration that plagued him. Though Catarina had been correct in pointing out that waiting another week would not cause any more or less scandal, neither of them had foreseen this new development.
“It’s quite a romantic candid shot of you,” said Alessandro, his voice filled with irony. “You do, in fact, look…what’s the word they used?” He glanced down at the magazine. “Ahh, here it is. Devoted.”
Massimo could hear the censure in his brother’s comments.
The proposed marriage was supposed to quell speculations about the brothers’ personal lives, not stoke them.
Clandestine getaways with reclusive heiresses hardly presented a stable front.
And if the paparazzi heard whispers of a pregnancy out of wedlock? They were doomed.
“Fix this, Massimo.” His brother’s voice was insistent. “There are other ways of getting in contact. You could go to her.” Alessandro must have seen the way he stiffened because his brother added, “Or you could call her father.”
Massimo had the urge to snap that of course he could do these things, but the truth was that he hadn’t even considered them as real options.
He hadn’t considered much of anything that was rational, truth be told.
So he gave his brother a grunt of acknowledgment that made his brother’s lips quirk up into an ironic smile.
But thankfully, Alessandro kept his mouth shut.
Massimo charged out of his brother’s office and returned to his, slamming the door behind him.
He came to a stop at a long window and looked out on the rooftops of Milan, the city spreading out in front of him.
How could all his money and prestige and power count for nothing right now?
What was the point of all this if he was still stuck here in agony?
Because he ached for Catarina. He told himself he just wanted her in his bed, but even the thought of talking to her was enough to ease some of this relentless need.
Just like his father. Massimo scowled, but he still picked up his phone.
Giuseppe d’Avalos answered on the first ring.
“Is Catarina at home?” Massimo’s question was rough and abrupt, but it was the only way that he could stop himself from asking the question that pressed in his mind: Why hadn’t Catarina returned his calls?
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Everything seemed to collapse inside him, and he didn’t bother keeping the dread from his voice. “What do you mean?”
“She left for our flat in the city,” d’Avalos said slowly. “I believe her words were something about dealing with this on her own.”
Massimo heard the man’s pointed emphasis on the words on her own, so he clung to the last thread of politeness and ended the call, then asked his assistant to find the address of the d’Avalos home in Milan.
Suspicions lurked in the back of his mind. Had she indeed left for their Milan flat, or was this story just a cover for yet another disappearance, this time more remote and difficult to track? The thought stirred a familiar frustration mixed with something far more dangerous, far more desperate.
Massimo left immediately, stalking through the streets of Milan, trying to shake off some of the ominous thoughts that raced through his mind.
He glared through the crowds of people on the sidewalk, all lost in their own worlds, so blissfully unaware of the torment that reverberated through him.
His plans, his family’s name, his sanity—Catarina was jeopardizing it all.
Massimo arrived in front of the tall building where she was supposedly staying, and the scent of roses blew by him in wisps, taunting him.
The building was older and newly renovated, with gargoyles, stone flourishes and ostentatious columns as if to mark the legacy that the residents held in the city.
He frowned as he walked through the marble corridor, muttering a few words about his fiancée to the doorman, who had his magazine open to the same article Alessandro had been reading.
He looked at the photo of Massimo in the paper, then back up to the man in front of him.
With a nod, he walked to the elevator and keyed it to the top floor.
The elevator groaned and creaked as it slowly made its way upward, trying his patience. The walk hadn’t helped with his growing unease. Instead, a steely determination had grown as he’d stormed through the streets of Milan. He would demand that she answer his calls.
You might want to think back to what happened the last time when you demanded the terms of what I will or will not do.
Her words echoed inside him, laced with the soft temptation of her voice, and he felt the last shreds of his control fraying. He had spent his entire life making sure he would not be ruled by his emotions, and yet this appalling raw ache inside him was driving his every thought.
The elevator rattled to a stop and the doors slid open.
Massimo barely registered the polished marble floors or the plaster flourishes that decorated the hall as he stalked to her door, raised his hand and knocked.
He listened impatiently for her footsteps.
Was she in the flat, as she’d said? Or had she fled yet again?
Fleeing was exactly what his mother would do, he thought bitterly.
How often had his mother left at a critical moment, giving only clues about her destination, expecting Massimo’s father to chase her?
He had to tame these brushfires of emotions and shake this feeling that was too much like despair.
Because if Catarina had left, he knew he would scour the earth to find her.
Which meant he was living out his worst nightmare. He was, indeed, his father’s son.
Massimo was shaken out of these disturbing thoughts by the sound of soft steps behind the door, then the turn of the lock.
The door opened, and she was in front of him, so breathtakingly beautiful his chest hurt.
She was barefoot and wore a sundress in a pale shade of green that came down in a V, showing off her deliciously full breasts and cinching at her narrow waist. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, and there were no traces of makeup on her lovely face.
Catarina did not look like the proper society woman he had contracted to marry.
Instead, she was a version of the woman he had seen in the Norwegian house, the one who wasn’t keeping herself under careful control.
He wanted this woman, he realized. He stared at the creamy skin that her dress revealed, thinking of the opportunities he had missed to taste every inch of it.
Before he called the helicopter, he should have taken her to his room and let the fire between them burn one more time. He had squandered his chance.