Chapter 23
Vanessa
“Where’s Leo?” I ask as I take a bite of my cake that was brought out while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me.
“He’s at Dani’s with her nanny for the night,” Lorenzo says. “I knew if he was here, you’d want to check on him, and tonight is about you enjoying yourself.”
My heart melts at his thoughtfulness, but he’s wrong about one thing.
“Spending time with Leo is enjoyable,” I correct him. “But I appreciate the gesture.” I lean in and kiss the corner of his mouth. “And tonight, when everyone’s gone, I’ll properly thank you.”
I waggle my brows suggestively, and he groans.
“All right, night’s over,” he announces, standing. “The birthday girl is tired.”
“What?” I cough out a laugh.
“In other words, Russo is about to get some birthday sex,” Matteo says.
“I’m pretty sure birthday sex is on your birthday,” Dani notes.
“Nah, remember last week, on your birthday?” Matteo grins like a Cheshire cat. “I definitely got birthday sex.”
“And on that note …” Dominick stands. “It’s been real.” He helps his wife up and gives Lorenzo a hug. Then he turns to me. “Happy birthday, Vanessa.”
“Thank you.”
After saying good night to everyone, I go to start cleaning up when Lorenzo stops me.
“A cleaning team will be here in the morning. It’s still your birthday, and I have one more present for you.”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure that’s a gift for both of us,” I say, reaching over and palming his cock.
“Funny, but I wasn’t referring to that.”
He takes my hand and guides me down the hall and to the stairs that I didn’t know existed until recently. We pass the door to the terrace, the state-of-the-art gym, and the entertainment room he showed me the other day, and we stop at the last door.
“This room was supposed to be my office,” he says. “But I ended up using the guest room downstairs since it was more convenient than going upstairs. I thought about doing this in the other guest room downstairs, but the natural light in this room is better.”
“What are you going on about?” I ask, confused by where he’s going with this.
“I hope you like it,” he says, opening the door. “And if you don’t, we can change anything … or everything.”
We step inside, and he flicks on the light switch, illuminating the room, and I gasp in shock and awe.
Because in front of me is the most amazing sewing room I’ve ever seen.
Everything that was all over my bedroom has been moved in here and organized.
But it’s not only my stuff that’s in here.
There are bolts of fabric, spools of thread.
There’s a beautiful wood table, where my sewing machine is sitting, and several mannequins for measuring.
There are shelves and cabinets filled with sewing items.
“Lorenzo,” I whisper, “when did you do this?”
“It’s been in the works for a couple of weeks, but I made sure it was finished today.”
I whip my head around to look at him. “How?”
I never once saw anyone enter this condo.
“There’s an elevator that takes you up here.” He smirks. “I told them it was a surprise, so they wouldn’t let their presence be known.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” I whisper, stepping farther into the room.
“I believe in you,” he says, turning me to face him. “This is your passion, your career. And it should be done properly, not on the floor of your bedroom.”
His words cause me to choke up.
He believes in me …
When I told my mom my major, she laughed and said I’d better find a rich man if I wanted to make fashion my hobby because I’d never make a living from designing clothes.
But Lorenzo believes in me. So much so that he created an entire sewing room for me. This is literally my dream, and he made it come true.
Suddenly, words aren’t enough, and without thought, I lift onto my tiptoes and wrap my arms around his neck.
My mouth connects with his in a desperate attempt to show him how thankful I am.
With every curve of my lips and swipe of my tongue, I try to convey how much this means to me.
He could’ve walked away after I conned him into marrying me.
He could’ve thrown me out of the car when I begged him to take me home with him.
But he didn’t. He let me into his home and his life and his heart. He gave me access to his son and trusted me to take care of him. He’s become so much more than my fake husband. He’s become my friend and my lover.
And I’ve been lying to him.
“Wait, stop,” I say when he lifts me into his arms, no doubt to carry me to the closest surface so he can devour me. “The night we got married, I lied.”
He jerks his head back in confusion. “What do you mean, you lied? I saw the marriage certificate. We’re legally married.”
“No,” I choke out, trying to get down.
Only he tightens his hold on me, refusing to let me go.
“Not the marriage. We’re married. I …” I swallow thickly. “Can you put me down, please?”
It’s not that I want space from him, but once I tell him the whole truth, I imagine he’ll want space from me.
“No, baby,” he says, setting me on the measuring table. “Whatever you need to say, say it.”
Shit, okay.
“The night of Bri’s wedding … the reason why you don’t remember anything that happened is because I’d drugged you with my anxiety pills.”
“I figured as much,” he says. “But we’ve gotten past that.
” He runs his fingers through my hair and tips my face, giving me a soft kiss.
“You did what you had to do, Vanessa. I’d like to think if you’d told me what was going on, I would’ve gone along with it.
But I didn’t know you back then, and after Hillary conned me, there’s a chance I would’ve hung you out to dry. ”
I don’t for a second believe Lorenzo would’ve let a woman get taken, but I understand the point he’s making. However, that doesn’t change the fact that I lied.
“Nicole said that anyone linked to you would be protected, so when you refused to hook up with me so I could get rid of my virginity, I came up with the plan to marry you. But I was scared that if anyone knew I was still a virgin, Eric would come after me. So, I lied about us having sex.”
It takes Lorenzo a moment to wrap his brain around what I just admitted, but once he does, his brows kiss his forehead.
“Wild Card …” He chuckles. “Are you saying that you’re still a virgin?”
“Drugging and conning you into marrying me were fucked up enough,” I say with a mirthless laugh. “I would never rape you. And to be honest, I preferred the idea of faking it to actually having sex.”
Lorenzo chuckles. “The thought of having sex with me was that appalling?”
“No!” I scrub my hands down my face. “That didn’t come out right. My mom has always used her body to get male attention, and I never wanted to be like that, so I was waiting for marriage to have sex. I wanted to be in love with the man I gave myself to.”
I frame Lorenzo’s face with my hands and look into his bright blue eyes.
“I wanted it to mean something and be special. At the time, I didn’t know you the way I do now.
So, I pretended we had sex to save my life.
And I’m glad I did because had we had sex that night, it wouldn’t have meant anything to either of us.
Not that it would’ve happened once I spiked your drink …
I had to pay a guy to help me get you up to your room. ”
Lorenzo huffs a laugh.
“And now?” he asks, his features turning serious.
“And now I know that being with you would be meaningful. Maybe we won’t be together forever, and once I’m no longer in danger, we’ll divorce. I’ll move back to Seattle to finish my degree, and you’ll stay here with your adorable son, ruling the real estate world …”
I smirk playfully, but he doesn’t crack a smile.
“Maybe I should wait for whoever it is that I’ll one day marry for real, but right now, being with you feels right.”
Lorenzo nods and lifts me into his arms.
Wordlessly, he carries me downstairs and into his bedroom, laying me in the center of his king-size bed.
“There’s so much I want to say”—he reaches down and yanks his shirt over his head—“and I’m going to say it all, but right now, the only thing I want to do is make love to my wife.”
He crawls up the bed and between my legs and captures my mouth with his. And as his lips caress mine, our tongues tangle in an erotic dance that I never want to end.
“Fuck, baby,” he murmurs against my lips. “The way you taste …” He trails kisses along my jaw and then inhales deeply. “The way you smell … I can’t get enough.”
He sucks on my earlobe, and I moan, wanting more.
“I’m addicted to everything about you,” he says, placing open-mouthed kisses along my heated flesh. “And once I’m inside of you, it’s only going to get worse.”
He peppers kisses across the tops of my breasts while I grab the zipper holding my dress together and yank it down. The material opens from the side, and Lorenzo stops kissing me so he can pull the dress the rest of the way down.
Then he sits on his haunches and rakes his gaze down my body.
Because the dress had a built-in bra, my breasts are on full display, my nipples hard from being turned on, and I’m wearing a plain black cotton thong.
There’s nothing special about me, but you wouldn’t know it by the way Lorenzo admires me, like I’m a priceless treasure.
He leans over and gives each of my nipples a soft kiss and then moves down to my pussy. He slowly lowers my panties down my legs and then brings them to his nose, inhaling the scent.
Watching a man sniff my underwear shouldn’t be such a turn-on, yet it totally is. Because he’s not doing it for show. He’s doing it because he genuinely craves everything about me. And I know how he feels because when I’m with him, I feel the same way.
“You waxed,” he says when he tosses the panties to the side and glances at my pussy.
“Well, since you were paying”—I smirk playfully—“I figured a Brazilian couldn’t hurt.”
“I like this.” He tugs on the thin strip of hair between my legs and then slides down the bed until he’s on his stomach with my pussy in his face.