Resisting the Bossy Billionaire

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

C HANGED INTO A T-shirt and pair of pyjama bottoms gifted by his brother as a joke birthday present, and which he’d never worn before as he always slept nude, Marcello quietly padded into his room carrying a bundle of bedding taken from a guest bed. Outside, the storm continued to wage its war on the East Coast. The news was reporting half of New York being without power. Guessing it was only a matter of time before his apartment was similarly affected, he’d dug out the scented candles his mother gifted him each year under the delusion they would add a feminine touch to the apartment he’d determined before he’d even bought it would remain a bachelor pad for the rest of his existence.

For the first time in a long time, Marcello thought back to the home he and Livia had created together and the room they’d turned into a nursery. They’d spent hours searching for the best furniture to fill it with, and the best wallpaper and curtains to cover its walls and window. Giraffes. That had been the theme they’d chosen. Cute, cartoon-like giraffes that bore no resemblance to the real-life versions but were close enough that he still couldn’t bear to see a giraffe in any shape or form. After moving to Manhattan, he’d deliberately avoided Central Park Zoo until discovering by chance that they didn’t house them.

Pushing the memories away, he gave his attention back to the person who needed it most.

The insulation in his bachelor pad was so good that no sound of the raging storm penetrated. In his bed, though, lay Victoria, fighting her own personal storm. He had no thermometer and the concierge service had been unable to assist, so he had only his hands to judge that her temperature was worsening. Had only his eyes to see her struggle to keep warm one moment then to cool down the next.

Once he’d made a bed for himself on the sofa, he braced himself and went back to her with more painkillers. If he could have given them to her an hour ago he would have but Dr Internet—his own doctor wasn’t answering his calls—had been firm that this brand and dose of painkillers could only be taken every six hours. This would be the third lot he’d fed her. She’d been a dead weight in his arms for the second batch, unable to support her own head. He supposed it was some inherent survival instinct that had enabled her to take the water into her mouth to wash the tablets down, and it was the one thing that kept the coldness of fear in his heart at bay and enabled him to leave her for a few minutes at a time.

Gently lifting her upright, his heart stuttered to find her hair wet and plastered to her skull and her sweater drenched. The sheet beneath her was soaked with her perspiration. Fever almost crackled on her skin.

The cold fear broke free and grabbed at his throat.

He took a long breath. Parked the fear. Forced himself to think logically. Panicking did not help anyone. He’d learned that the hard way.

First things first. Painkillers and water.

As docile as a newborn lamb, she let him feed them to her.

Clenching his jaw, he breathed in deeply then said, ‘Victoria, you need to take your sweater off.’ And everything else. He didn’t need Dr Internet to tell him she was overheating.

There was the slightest movement of her head against the crook of his neck.

‘Can you lift your arms for me?’

She could barely raise her hands to her elbows.

There was nothing else for it. He would have to do it himself.

‘We need to cool you down,’ he said in what he hoped was a conversational tone as he manipulated her arms out of the sweater’s sleeves whilst keeping her secure against him. ‘Lift your head for me.’ Her feeble attempt at this fortified him. Somewhere in Victoria’s delirious mind she knew he was helping her and was trying to express her consent.

Refusing to let his mind return to the last time he’d held another helpless, overheating human being, he kept a tight hold of her burning body and used his left hand to pull the sweater over her head.

Although he knew to expect it, it still made his chest sharpen to find her fevered skin drenched with perspiration. Her soaked vest top clung to her.

Don’t debate it, just do it, he told himself firmly. A minute later, the vest was off and discarded with the sweater. A quick pinch of the fastenings and a skim down her arms and her wet bra was removed too. He didn’t even look at it as he threw it on the pile.

Manoeuvring her to the other, dry side, of the bed, resolutely refusing to acknowledge the weighty bare breast pressed against his biceps, he laid her back down, then quickly pulled off his T-shirt and covered her torso with it to protect both her modesty and his eyes.

‘Nearly there,’ he said. ‘Just your jeans now.’

She mumbled something. A hand fluttered to the button and groped ineffectually at it before flopping back to her side.

‘It is okay, I’ve got this,’ he assured her.

Mindset fixed on the job in hand, Marcello unbuttoned the jeans, pulled the zip down then tugged at them. He couldn’t get them or the tights—tights? Was wearing tights beneath jeans even a thing?—past her hips. ‘See, now you know why I work out,’ he told her as he slid a hand under her bottom and lifted it so he could ease the jeans and tights down to her thighs. ‘It is in case a member of my staff is incapacitated by a virus and needs my superhero strength to undress them.’

He needed to keep talking, for both their sakes, and as he pulled the damp jeans and wet tights down her legs, using every ounce of his resolve not to look at the scrap of black cotton covering her pubis, the one item of clothing he would not under any circumstances touch, he kept the chatter going. He hoped like hell that she could hear him and was comforted and reassured by it.

Her jeans became stuck at the ankles, preventing him pulling them or the tights over her feet. Damn it, she was wearing socks over the tights! No wonder she was burning like a furnace.

A minute of intense concentration later and the jeans, tights and socks were all removed.

‘I am going to get you...’

His intention of telling her he was going to get a cold cloth to wipe her face died on his tongue.

While he’d been removing the last of Victoria’s clothing, she’d pulled the T-shirt off her chest. Unprepared, he had nothing to stop his gaze filling with her semi-naked form. Nothing to stop the curvaceous body he’d spent eighteen months pretending was as ordinary as any other body from soaking straight into his retinas.

Victoria opened her eyes. Sharp pain filled them. Her room was in darkness.

Not her room, she remembered through the pneumatic drill pounding in her head. One of Marcello’s guest rooms.

She’d dreamed she was in Dante’s Inferno .

She needed to use the bathroom. She reached through her befuddled brain for where it was. All the rooms in the apartment had an en suite, all situated on the opposite side of the room to the bed. She tried to sit up. A pain lanced her head, so sharp she cried out and flumped back onto her pillow.

‘Victoria?’

Marcello?

She heard sheets rustling and then a shape emerged before her. Fingers pressed against her forehead.

She could hardly move her mouth to weakly ask, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Checking your temperature,’ he answered quietly. ‘I think your fever has broken.’

‘What?’

‘That is what Dr Internet calls it. It means the worst is over.’

‘My head hurts.’ Hurt so much. Everything hurt.

‘I am sorry. You need to wait another hour before you can take more painkillers.’

A tear rolled down her cheek. She needed the bathroom but didn’t think she had the strength to make it there.

‘I need...’ Her mouth was too parched to get any more words out.

‘The bathroom?’ he guessed.

She gave the weakest nod she could physically endure.

A dim light came on, as if he knew brightness would hurt her eyes.

The strange fog she’d been caught in for so long she didn’t know if hours or days or weeks had passed reclaimed her. In an almost dreamlike state, she let Marcello lift her into his arms.

A strong sense of comfort in the sureness of his steps and the protective way he cradled her allowed Victoria to close her eyes and relax into him.

Faint light pouring in from the opened blind of the window drenched the dark bathroom in a faint glow.

‘Can you take it from here?’ he asked as he gently put her on her feet but kept hold of her so she had his strength as support.

Even through the heavy fog and dim memory of Marcello saving her from Dante’s Inferno by stripping her clothes off her...she had no recollection of him putting the T-shirt she was wearing on her...there was a recoiling of horror at the thought of him watching her use the bathroom. ‘Yes.’

He nodded. ‘I will be right on the other side of the door.’

She wanted to tell him not to listen but the words wouldn’t form.

He smiled, reading her thoughts again. ‘I promise to close my ears. Now put your hand on the sink for support.’

Outside the closed bathroom door, Marcello rolled his neck, closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. It wasn’t enough to stop images of Victoria from dancing behind his lids.

It had taken more strength than he’d known he possessed to cool her face with a wet cloth and pat her dry with a towel, superhuman strength to remain dispassionate whilst manipulating her unresponsive body into the T-shirt. Of all the things he’d done for her, that had been the hardest, only the knowledge that she would be deeply embarrassed to wake virtually naked with him in the room spurring him on. When she came back to herself, she would be embarrassed enough to remember what he’d had to do for her.

The faint sound of fingers tapping the bathroom door had his eyes snap open and his chest swell. Opening the door a fraction, he spoke through the crack. ‘Are you done?’

Fingers appeared through the crack in answer and gripped the frame surrounding the door.

He opened the door slowly, afraid of knocking it into her too-weak body...had it really been less than a day since she’d taken delight in slamming doors on him?

She was pressed against the wall to the side of the door, her cheek resting against the cool tile. He didn’t know if it was a trick of the snow-white light seeping into the room but she was deathly pale.

Dio , even looking as wretched as it was possible for a human to look, she was beautiful.

‘Let’s get you back to bed,’ he said as he cloaked himself with more much needed dispassion and hooked an arm around her. Carefully manoeuvring her so she leaned into him, he added, ‘Can you walk?’

Her head rubbed against his shoulder in a nod.

‘Hold onto me.’

Fingers slid slowly across the back of his waist then curved to a rest around his hip. Her temperature had dropped considerably since those frightening witching hours yet the burn of her touch cut through the cotton of his pyjama bottoms and seeped into his skin.

Breathing heavily, doing everything he could to block the sensations alive in him, Marcello steered Victoria to the bed and helped her into it, lifting her legs when she didn’t have the strength to lift them herself.

‘Duvet on?’

The tiniest of nods.

He covered her in it. ‘Go back to sleep. I will wake you when it is time for more painkillers.’

When he was about to step away, her eyes fluttered open and locked onto his. A hand poked out of the duvet and stretched to him. He took hold of it. She gave his fingers the lightest of squeezes before giving the deepest sigh and falling back into sleep.

The first thing Victoria registered was that the pneumatic drill in her head had dimmed to a dull ache. Opening her eyes, she registered that she wasn’t in a guest room but in Marcello’s bedroom. The guest rooms, though spacious, were smaller, and decorated luxuriously but neutrally. Marcello’s room by contrast was huge, and had deep grey panelled walls with splashes of deep, rich colour in the artwork and plentiful soft furnishings. She’d always imagined he’d hired an interior decorator and told them to create the most masculine bedroom possible so as to repel any woman from thinking she could stay more than a night in it.

How many nights had she slept in here? One? Two? Time had slipped away from her. The curtains were open on the floor-to-ceiling window her eyes had opened to, the light diffusing through the thick snow still falling telling her daytime was slipping away.

Bracing herself for pain, she lifted her head. The pain was enough to make her wince but nothing as bad as what she’d suffered before.

The worst really was over. Or had she imagined Marcello saying that?

And there he was, sprawled out on the leather sofa at the far wall opposite the bed, phone in hand, an arm hooked behind his head, hooked-together ankles and bare feet dangling off the end. A heap of bedding had been dumped on the floor beside him.

Blurry memories played like snapshots before her eyes and a swelling like she’d never experienced before released in her chest, gratitude and something indefinable filling her and rising up her throat with force enough to stop her calling out to him.

To see him lying there in...pyjama bottoms? Marcello was wearing pyjama bottoms? She would never have imagined that...and plain black T-shirt, ungroomed thick black hair mussed and sticking out in all directions, strong jaw covered in thick black stubble...

He must have sensed her stare for he turned his face.

Their eyes locked. After a long beat, the smile that had caused a thousand women’s hearts to break lit his face. Laughter lines crinkled the corners of his eyes and for the very first time Victoria was unable to stop herself from seeing exactly what it was that other women saw when they looked at Marcello Guardiola.

The swelling in her chest crushed against her ribs.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, swinging his long legs to the floor.

It took a long time before she was able to answer. ‘Better.’

‘You look better,’ he said approvingly. ‘I have been worried about you.’

She couldn’t take her eyes from him. All the things about him that she’d steadfastly refused to see on anything but a superficial level were right there before her, and she was helpless to stop herself drinking in every inch of the ruggedly handsome face and the hard, lean body he’d used as a pillar and shield to stop her falling.

‘Hungry?’

She shook her head, unable to speak through the pulses suddenly raging in her throat.

‘Not even for soup?’

Why couldn’t she drag her gaze from him?

‘I will make you chicken soup,’ he decided at her non-answer. ‘Dr Internet and my mother—she sends you her best wishes—say it is the best thing for you. If you can’t manage it, I will eat it.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You can have more pain relief soon too.’ He rose to his feet and stretched. His T-shirt rose, exposing the flat of his abdomen and the swirls of dark hair around his navel. ‘There is water on your bedside table. Do you need my help to drink or need me for anything else before I go downstairs?’

The beats of her heart were racing like a drum in her ears. She gave another shake of her head.

He leaned over to the round table at the head of the sofa, picked up her phone and placed it on the bedside table. ‘If you are feeling up to it, you should call your family.’

She stared at him blankly.

‘They called to see you were keeping safe from the storm,’ he explained.

Did they? she wondered dimly as her gaze remained glued to Marcello’s ruggedly handsome face.

‘I had to tell them you were ill,’ he continued. ‘I do not think they are convinced I have been looking after you well, so if you do speak to them, make sure to tell them my skills as a nurse are as exceptional as my skills in business. And please, assure your grandmother that I have not locked you in a basement.’ His left eyebrow rose then wriggled. ‘Does she breathe fire?’

Not waiting for an answer, he strode out of the room leaving Victoria staring at his retreating figure with the terrifying sensation that she’d caught a secondary virus.

It took more effort to use her hands than she’d have believed possible but somehow Victoria managed to post on the Cusack family messaging group, assuring them she was over the worst of her illness. Marcello must have laid her illness on thick to get them worried. She’d once woken with the most horrendous period cramps, so bad she’d been unable to haul herself out of bed for school, and no one had noticed her failure to make it down to breakfast. The first her parents knew she was still in bed had been via an alert from the school telling them she’d failed to arrive there. Her mum had called the house to see why Victoria hadn’t gone to school, then told her to take some painkillers. She hadn’t deemed period cramps worthy of popping home in her lunch break to check on her fourth youngest daughter.

Looking back, Victoria understood her mother’s blasé attitude—she’d been through it already with the three older girls—but for Victoria, frightened and in pain, her indifference had hurt.

Grandma Brigit immediately responded to her message, and demanded proof it was Victoria who’d written it and not ‘that man’, which brought the kernel of a smile to her face. Knowing she would otherwise be bombarded with demands of proof in perpetuity, she took a selfie of her face on the pillow and winced at the image taken. Not having the energy to retake it, she pressed send and then used the last of her reserves to delete the image from her files.

She didn’t even have the energy to stop herself from thinking about Marcello.

As sleep wound its tentacles back around her, she soothed herself that the swell of feelings for him had been simple gratitude for the simple fact that he’d been her saviour. He’d stepped up when she’d needed him—the first time she’d ever needed him—and got her through the worst illness of her life. That it had felt more than heartfelt gratitude was a mirage caused by her defences being low and her frazzled mind playing tricks on her.

She was sinking back into sleep when the man whose face was lodged behind her closed eyes returned to the room.

Her heart kicked before her eyes opened.

‘I bring soup,’ he said proudly. He placed a tray on the table by the armchair at the side of the bed, then sat on the edge of the bed beside her. ‘You are going to try and eat?’

The look in his eyes...had they always been such a clear shade of blue?...told her that this was a question with only one possible answer. Marcello was determined she should have some sustenance.

See, she assured herself. This was why her heart was racing: a manifestation of her gratitude.

She remembered how her heart had skipped all those many months ago. She hadn’t recognised the number flashing on her ringing phone and had braced herself for a scam call. When Marcello had announced himself and then announced why he was calling, her heart had skipped and then raced so hard she’d taken an age to respond. So long had her silence gone on that he’d assumed she wasn’t interested and increased the salary offer he’d just made by fifty thousand dollars. He didn’t know she’d been too gobsmacked to answer.

She’d remembered him—of course she’d remembered him—but it had never occurred to her that he’d remembered her too. That this business titan had remembered her, remembered because he’d seen something in her, and gone out of his way to track down her personal number and offer her a job...

For the woman who’d grown up lost in the midst of siblings who all shone brighter than her...

She still didn’t know which had meant the most to her, the remembering or the job offer, but, as demanding a boss as Marcello could be, she’d never forgotten how that one call had made her feel. Seen. Special. Things she’d never felt before.

And now, on top of all the care he’d given her, he’d made her soup.

She’d never gone so long without eating before and though she wasn’t hungry, she knew she should at least try.

For the first time since she’d fallen ill, she was entirely aware of the muscular strength of Marcello’s arm when he slid it beneath her, and wholly aware of the warmth of his hard body when he helped her sit up by resting her against him. Still holding her securely, he leaned over to grab some pillows. In an instant, her senses filled with the scent of faded cologne and warm skin.

She didn’t know relief could feel like dejection when, finally satisfied that she was suitably propped up and unlikely to flop back down, he moved away from her. She didn’t know, either, if she was imagining how quickly he released his hold on her and got off the bed, or if she was imagining that he spent a long time at the tray before carrying a large steaming mug to her. She didn’t know, either, if it was the heat of the mug or the heat of his fingers making sure her hands were wrapped securely around the mug that sent warm sensation through her hands and into her bloodstream.

‘You must eat all of it—I made it myself,’ he said lightly.

She cleared her throat and tried to convince herself that her racing pulses were due to the virus. ‘Really?’

‘ Sì. I have put it in a mug for you so you will find it easier to manage than with a bowl and spoon.’ The smile that contained equal dollops of mischief and sexiness flashed at her. ‘It would have been ready sooner but I could not find a tin opener.’

Marcello could hardly credit the strength of his relief to see a real smile form on Victoria’s pale face at this, and see amusement spark in her eyes.

For the first time he allowed himself to admit that there had been moments during the long night when he’d feared he would never see her smile again. It had been the longest, most frightening night he’d experienced in eleven years.

Moving the armchair to within a foot of the bed so he was close to hand if she needed him, he parked himself on it and was filled with even more relief when she sipped her way through all the soup. By the time he took the empty mug from her, a hint of her old colour had returned to her cheeks. He didn’t kid himself that she was magically better but these little things meant she’d taken the first steps on her road to recovery. They meant that, tonight, he could sleep with his eyes and ears closed.

‘You have called your family?’ he asked.

She shook her head tiredly. ‘I messaged the family group.’

‘Good. Put their minds at rest.’ He’d only answered her phone because Mam had flashed on the screen when it rang. His own mother kept calling too, as he’d stupidly let slip that he’d gained a house guest who’d fallen ill. She seemed as unconvinced as the Cusacks that he was taking proper care of Victoria. ‘They have been calling every hour—they are worried about you.’

Her smile was as tired as her head shake. ‘You must have told them I was dying.’

That took him aback. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘They’re not ones for making a fuss.’

Seeing she was in no state to argue, he held off from commenting that if that was the Cusacks’ definition of not making a fuss, he would hate to see what a real fuss consisted of. ‘I told them only that you had a flu-like virus, but you are very far from them. It is natural they would worry more than if you were with them in Ireland and could see you for themselves.’ He didn’t add that if they had seen Victoria at her worst, worry would easily have turned into the same cold panic that had engulfed him all those years ago, and had come perilously close to engulfing him again.

Doubt clouded her eyes but then she gave another tired smile. ‘You think?’

‘Trust me. It is the same for me with my family.’

She held his gaze a moment longer then nodded as if reassured, which he found odd but didn’t comment on. It would be a while before Victoria was fully herself again.

‘Shall I put the television on?’

Her face contorted in a suppressed yawn. ‘Only if you want to watch something.’

‘You want to lie back down?’

The next yawn refused to be suppressed. She caught it with her hand and gave an apologetic smile that tugged at his heart.

Fortifying himself with the mental blocks needed to get on the bed with her, he put his arm around her and held her steady while removing the pillows he’d propped behind her.

‘What’s happening with the storm?’ she asked sleepily as she lay back down.

Making a heroic effort not to pay any attention to the movement of her breasts as she made herself comfortable, he pulled the duvet up to her shoulders. ‘Still doing storm things. They are saying we should expect another two or three days of it.’

‘That long?’ Her eyes looked troubled. ‘I should move to a guest room and let you have your bed back.’

He gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘We can think about that tomorrow. For now, rest and build your strength. The sofa is perfectly adequate for me to sleep on.’

‘Don’t do that,’ she pleaded. ‘Take one of the guest beds.’

‘If I sleep in a guest room, how will I know if you need me in the night?’ He forced a preen into his voice. ‘I know I am a superhero but I cannot see through walls.’

He anticipated eyes dancing with amusement at this, hoped too for a quip that would release some of the tension he’d been unable to stop building at the feel of her soft warmth pressed against him. Neither occurred.

The eyes glued to his...for the first time he couldn’t prevent his brain recognising what a beautiful hazel colour they were...simply stared. The lips he’d never allowed himself to register as being wide and plump until his finger had brushed against the bottom one pulled in, her cheeks...such high cheekbones she had...sucking in with them.

Her hand slipped out of the duvet and, as it had done all those hours ago, reached for him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

It was the soft sincerity of her gratitude that made his chest swell all over again and made him swallow before he captured the opened hand in his own. ‘Prego.’

The sensation that seeped through his skin as her fingers wrapped around his...

There was a slight tremor in her lips before she pulled a smile to her face and said, ‘Don’t think this means I’ve changed my mind about quitting.’

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers before he even knew he was going to do it.