Chapter 29
“Girlfriend?” my mother asks, looking from one of us to the other.
I stare at my impertinent Romni. If she thinks she’ll embarrass me by labeling our relationship, she needs to know me better.
“Yes, Mamma. In fact, I was thinking of taking Elodie to meet you.”
The smile on the beautiful woman’s face dies as she looks at me, stunned. She clearly wasn’t expecting me to claim her in front of my mother.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I was just teasing. We really are friends, like you thought at first. Nice to meet you again.”
“We don’t have a label yet, actually,” I say, without letting go of her waist.
“It doesn’t matter,” my mother says, extending her hand to Elodie. “I’m Greta Andresano. I’m the mother of this handsome boy.”
Jesus!
“Weren’t you hosting lunch today?” I ask.
She steps back and, with her trademark flair, throws both hands toward the sky.
“Everyone abandoned me. Gaetano, as you know, has a race this week. Tommaso is traveling for work. And the girls. . .what can I say? Children grow up and build their own lives.”
“Oh, right, so that’s what made you show up at my villa without warning, Miss Greta?”
“Am I not welcome?”
“You’re always welcome, Mamma.”
I study her, trying to understand what’s going on. Whether or not my siblings make Sunday lunch, she never leaves the house because she’s waiting for our father.
“I brought lunch for the three of us,” she says. “If you could help me grab it from the car. . .”
“I can go get it,” Elodie offers, and my mother hands her the keys.
Normally I’d take that on myself, but a kind of warning bell goes off in my head.
Not just because she decided not to stay home waiting for that bastard, but also because my mother is one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. Despite growing up privileged, surrounded by wealth, she’s always been the type to literally roll up her sleeves, never waiting on the staff.
Her not coming in with the lunch basket is not like her.
“Are you all right?” I ask, taking her face in my hands and looking into her eyes.
She looks away, also unlike her. “I am. I just didn’t want to spend the day alone at home.”
I pull her into a hug, now with no doubt there’s something going on that I don’t know about.
There are rumors all over Italy that Dino is separating from his “legitimate” wife, Carina, the mother of my half siblings.
But like my mother, the woman seems to be under that asshole’s spell, because neither of them has ever told him to go to hell, so I find it hard to believe they’d do it now, after more than thirty years of putting up with this depressing situation.
“Is it just one basket, Miss Greta?” Elodie asks, coming back in.
“Sweetheart, I’m Italian. I like abundance. There’s more food in the trunk,” she says with a smile.
An hour and a half later, I’m watching the two of them.
Elodie talks with my mother, and it’s fascinating to see the way she sidesteps what she doesn’t want to answer. It seems like a learned talent.
As far as I can tell, she hasn’t lied once, but she’s left a lot unsaid.
There are no staff in the house today. I gave them the day off because I didn’t plan on spending the day here, so we had to set up lunch ourselves.
When Elodie offers to go to the kitchen to fetch dessert, my mother says, “I take back what I said earlier about Elodie being American. I like her.”
“Thanks for the approval, ma’am,” I say dryly.
She taps the back of my hand. “Don’t be sarcastic. Now, answer me: when do you plan to introduce her to your brothers?”
“Mamma, slow down. My relationship with Elodie is complicated.”
“In what sense?”
“I really won’t discuss that, Miss Greta. The only thing I can tell you is to let time do its work. We’ve only just met.”
“All right, my son, you can keep telling yourself that. I’d just like to remind you that I didn’t ‘just meet’ you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You didn’t take your eyes off her the entire meal.”
“And what’s so unusual about that? Elodie is beautiful.”
“Yes, she is, but beauty isn’t everything. Capria is a beautiful woman, but empty. I don’t know what your story is with this young lady, but I know she gets to you in a way I’ve never seen anyone do.”
I can’t deny it, so I decide to keep quiet. I don’t like giving out details about my personal life, and when my mother fixates on something, she’s worse than a detective.
Days later
She’s standing with her back to me on the balcony off my bedroom, watching the moon begin to rise on the horizon. She’s wearing only a silk robe.
I approach in silence, but even so, she seems to sense me, because she looks back over her shoulder.
Maybe someday I’ll get used to her beauty, I tell myself, knowing full well it will be impossible. On the contrary, the longer we live together, the more fascinated I am by Elodie.
Without saying a word, I rest my chin on her head, wrap her from behind, and let my hands slide to the belt of the robe, undoing it and letting it fall at her feet.
“They’ll see us,” she moans when I cup a breast and tease the nipple.
“We can’t be seen from here. Maybe only our silhouette, if someone’s passing on the road, but I kind of like the idea of everyone knowing who you belong to.”
She turns in my arms, and the sight she offers is at once wanton—with one strap of her slip fallen, baring a naked breast—and sacred, an angel in a sinner’s body.
“I should hate you when you say things like that, even if I know you’re teasing.”
“But you don’t?”
“No. I like it, because you’re mine, too.”
I pull her in for a light kiss, then let my lips travel down her neck before taking a breast into my mouth.
She melts in my arms, and I lift the silk, my hand moving straight to the juncture of her thighs.
She clutches my shoulders and rises, riding my hand.
“Do you want to come?” A nod is my answer. “Here?”
“Anywhere, if it’s with you.”
My fingers work her soaked sex while my tongue plays with the tight little nipple.
It’s not enough for her; she drags my face up for a lush kiss and doesn’t resist when I hook one of her thighs around my waist.
Her hand massages my cock through my pants in an unbearably slow tease.
“Open them. Take it out.”
She does what I tell her, and I groan into her mouth when I feel those delicate fingers wrap around me.
In a split second, my need to take her surges sky-high, and I lift her, her legs locking around my waist.
I slide into her tight heat, looking into her eyes, capturing the expression of pleasure that always drives me insane.
The scent of her arousal, her delicious mouth open in a small “o” of surprise as I bury myself completely inside her, her eyes bright with passion—everything combines perfectly to make me plunge into her with no memory of the world around us.
A sliver of lucidity makes me carry her into the bedroom. I don’t want witnesses to the pleasure I give her.
I take her standing, against the wall, driving deeper and deeper.
It’s a rough fuck. Our moans, the smack of our bodies, creating a sensual, lust-drenched atmosphere we can’t—and don’t want to—escape.
I move like an animal. She answers with the same hunger, squeezing me so tightly she makes me dizzy with need.
Elodie’s hips roll, letting me take her at a sinful angle, and when I pull out and push back in, she comes.
There’s nothing beyond this moment. No universe, no doubts, no promises.
“Look at me,” I demand.
When she obeys, gifting me those golden gems, I feel my body shudder with the oncoming orgasm. I thrust a few more times and only then spill into her.
The feeling of being slick with her pleasure, of our releases mingling, is intoxicating, and only seconds later do I understand why.
I close my eyes and press my forehead to hers.
“We didn’t use protection.”
She jolts in my arms.
“Put me down.”
I withdraw slowly but don’t let her step away. “I’m sorry. Whatever comes of this, I’ll be by your side.”
“Comes of this?”
“If you’re pregnant, I’ll take responsibility.”
I watch her face go pale, and then she runs to the bathroom.