Chapter 3
3
S ALVATORE SPENT THE REST OF THE night pretending he had no idea Emilia existed. Even when he wanted to sit there and stare at her, marveling at the way she looked so completely put together again, just like she had when she’d strolled into this thing ten minutes after it started, and his whole body had zinged with the force of a thousand electric shocks.
When he’d gone to get his jacket back, he’d found a ‘nice’ little surprise—she’d left a perfect lipstick kiss mark on the front lapel, so he’d had to spend a little time himself in the men’s room, seeing to that. But the whole time he’d wiped the lipstick off, he’d been laughing on the inside at her retaliatory mood.
He’d spent his whole life in a fight with the Valentinos, but actively fighting with Emilia Valentino was the most fun he’d had in a long time. Especially with the added advantage of getting to sleep with her.
Not that it would necessarily happen again. They both knew it shouldn’t. It was stupid—and had the potential to be hugely harmful to both of their families if they were caught. Maybe that was part of the appeal, though? Perhaps for a man like Salvatore, who’d never had any trouble getting women—from when he was eighteen and shared a wild weekend with his first lover—the challenge just wasn’t there. And that sometimes meant the fun, too. While he liked being free to be with and go wherever he wanted, he realised now that he was looking for something more.
Something that sparked and zinged. And if that just happened to be the animosity between him and Emilia, so be it.
“I hate them so much.” Beside him, Salvatore’s cousin Raf’s voice was little more than a dark grumble. It was the first time he’d been out with the family since his marriage breakdown—Salvatore couldn’t say he blamed him. “Though in other circumstances, I wouldn’t mind getting to know her better.”
Salvatore sat up a little straighter as he followed Raf’s gaze, over to Emilia—and his pledge of not looking at her went right out the window. She was in conversation with the woman two seats over, talking a mile a minute, her hands moving animatedly as she explained something then laughed. Not only was he failing to pretend she didn’t exist, he was finding it almost impossible to look away.
“Maybe she’d help me get over Marcia,” Raf said, so a prickle of distaste ran the length of Salvatore’s spine.
Raf wasn’t a one-night stand kind of guy. In fact, he was Salvatore’s direct opposite. Where Salvatore had made a habit out of short, casual flings, Raf had been dating Marcia for years before they finally married. While their relationship had ended disastrously, thanks to her lying about being pregnant, then lying about miscarrying, all so Raf would propose, Salvatore had no doubt that deep down, Raf was still the ‘happily ever after’ kind of guy. Despite his messed up upbringing and all the issues that had undoubtedly left him with.
“You’re not over Marcia?” Salvatore asked, unconsciously reaching into his pocket and twisting his fingers around Emilia’s delicate lace thong, reminding himself that if she was going home with anyone that night, it would be him.
“You know what I mean,” Raf said. “Get her out of my mind. She’d hate the thought of me hooking up with her.”
“Because she’s a Valentino?”
“Because she’s a knockout. Marcia always had a wildly jealous streak—it didn’t matter that I never looked at another woman while we were together.”
At first it had been a throwaway remark, but something in Raf’s tone was grinding Salvatore’s gears. “Need I remind you they’re our sworn enemy?” He tried to keep his voice light, casual, like it was no big deal, but the whole conversation was flooding him with distaste.
He might hate the Valentino family but he wasn’t comfortable with Emilia being discussed like this. Not after what they’d just done. That protective instinct surprised him, and mostly, he wished he didn’t feel it, because it brought with it the hint of complications he didn’t want to navigate.
“So? Maybe I could kill two birds with one stone. Make her want me, break her heart, and hurt Marcia in the process.”
Salvatore looked sharply at Raf, appalled by the dark threat in his cousin’s tone. “Raf, come on, bro. That’s not like you.”
“No?” he turned to face Salvatore, a look in his eyes that was sheer anger. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think. Maybe no one does. Or maybe I’ve finally grown up.”
Salvatore frowned. Dante had convinced Raf to come to this thing, but it had quite possibly been a mistake. “Let’s go get a drink,” Salvatore suggested, only to break up the ease with which Raf could stare across the room at Emilia. He loved his cousin, but in that moment, he felt like shaking him just to loosen his interest.
“There’s wine on the table.”
“Something other than wine,” Salvatore suggested.
“Fine by me,” Raf conceded, standing in a way that was not quite steady, so Salvatore realised belatedly another drink was the last thing Raf needed. It might have been wishful thinking, but as they made their way to the bar, Salvatore was sure he felt the heat of Emilia’s gaze following him.
Salvatore and a man—she was pretty sure it was his brother or cousin, going by their shared features—left a short while after going to the bar. She tried not to track Salvatore’s progress, but her eyes seemed to have developed a mind of their own, and followed him even when she was desperately trying not to.
And even though she hadn’t known he was going to be at this thing, once he’d left, she lost interest in being there altogether. Never mind that it was a cause close to her heart. Never mind that she’d been looking forward to it, and had flown back to the States specifically for this fundraiser.
It was only when she herself left that Emilia checked her phone once more and saw the text from him. It was straight to the point: his address.
She read and re-read the message several times, before deleting it and putting her phone away. Randomly hooking up at some event was one thing, but going to his house, by pre-arrangement, quite another. That’s not what they were—and they never could be. There was way too much water under the bridge between their families, and she wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.
Two weeks later
The Fulham County Pediatric Hospital Fundraiser, New York.
“For you, ma’am,” a waiter said, as he buzzed close to Emilia. Midway through a conversation with a high school friend, Emilia paused, to study the cocktail held on a tray, a small frown tweaking her bright red lips.
“Is that—a French martini?”
“As the gentleman requested,” the waiter said. Emilia’s heart shifted up a notch, as she kept her focus on the cocktail for a beat, before saying, “I’m sorry, who ordered this for me?”
The waiter looked around, then turned back to Emilia. “He’s not there anymore,” he said, apologetically. “Tall guy, dark hair, wearing a grey suit.”
“That narrows it down,” she drawled, scanning the room and seeing at least ten men who fit that description, trying not to let her hopes get ahead of reality. Trying not to have any hopes at all. After all, hadn’t she agreed that whatever she’d been doing with Salvatore had to stop? The fact they’d slept together twice was bad enough, but she could put that down to stupidity and unpreparedness. Looking for him now was a bridge too far.
But as she took her first sip, that’s exactly what she did, and only drew her focus back to her friend when she’d convinced herself he wasn’t here, after all. Meaning the drink had been sent by someone else. And that could be any number of people. She almost always had the same drink at this sort of thing, so any of the people she’d socialized with in this setting would know her preference. Yet she couldn’t shift the feeling that Salvatore must be behind this.
Time passed, though, with no sight of him, and an hour later, well after she’d finished her drink, Emilia had given up even looking for him. So when her eyes happened to shift sideways and land square on his face, it was impossible not to react. Not to let out a small gush of air, a sound of surprise, so the group she was in conversation with paused to regard her, to wait for her to explain.
“Sorry, I just remembered something I was meant to do today,” she fumbled out a fib, scrunching her nose.
“Nothing important, I hope?”
“No. What were you saying?”
But Emilia was almost incapable of listening now. There was a strange buzzing sound in her ears, like a persistent white noise, that crowded out almost everything else. And that was it. For the rest of the night, where he moved, she looked. Without intending to, she was aware of him in a way that drove her crazy.
This was a cocktail party format, so there was a lot of shifting around, groups moving and changing, and it was loud. So loud she might have made her escape before this, had it not been for the fact she was finding it hard to look away from Salvatore. Even when the sight of him made her blood boil from anger and rage, even when she knew she hated him, she still found herself looking after him as though he were her dying breath. As though he were the sum total of what she wanted. Not in life, just for tonight.
The last text message he’d sent her was burned into her retinas—his address. So even now, two weeks later and after she’d deleted it, she remembered it. But she suspected the invitation had held an expiry date. Hell, for all she knew, he’d taken someone else home that very night. Maybe she hadn’t been the only one to receive a text.
She knew enough of Salvatore to know he had about as many notches on his bedpost as he did dollars in the bank—somewhere in the billions. Way more notches on the bedpost than her, that was for sure. Despite the fact she seemed to have a dangerous habit of tumbling into bed—or stairways—with him, that was far from the norm for Emilia, who’d led a pretty sheltered and protected life, and always harbored hopes of the fairytale happy ending, just like both her brothers had found.
Funny, she’d long thought she’d be first. True, she was the youngest, but she’d always been the most romantic—craving and wanting that sort of Hollywood happy ending. But for all she’d dated, she’d never really been with anyone she clicked with. Not on a soul deep level. Maybe that was a protective mechanism after her first disastrous relationship had proven such a flop. The first guy she’d been with, who’d pretty clearly been using her because of her money and connections, had made her understandably wary.
After that, she’d sworn that only the Right Guy (capital R, capital G) would get beyond a few dates with her. A few dates was fine. Fun. Easy. And in a few dates, she could work out if they were right, and worth spending any more time with. So far, she hadn’t had any luck.
Once upon a time, she might have thought she was living in a fantasy world to expect that level of connectivity, but then she’d seen Max and Andie together, and Leandro and Skye, and she’d known she was right to hold out for ‘the one’.
But Andie and Skye were tough acts to follow. She couldn’t imagine introducing someone into her family who would be as beloved as they both were. And she couldn’t bear to get involved with anyone her parents and brothers wouldn’t like. There was so much to take into account, and so the months had turned into years and Emilia stayed resolutely single, save for a few casual dates, here and there.
“Babe? You listening?”
She blinked quickly, as her friend Esther Campion gripped her forearm. “Sorry, no. What’s up?”
“We’re heading out. You want to come?”
Before she could stop herself, Emilia’s gaze drifted across the room. Salvatore was locked in conversation with three men she’d never seen before. His expression was intent. As though he didn’t even know she was there.
Pride piqued, she flashed her friends a bright smile, and nodded. “Yeah. I’ll just get my coat.”
“We’ll wait out the front. I’m dying for one of these.” Esther lifted her vintage Tiffany cigar holder aloft.
Emilia pulled a face—she wasn’t a fan of smoking—but nodded once. “Okay, see you soon.”
She put it down to the excellent quality of the food and wine that the cocktail party continued to be thronging with well-heeled guests. Quite often, people came to these things for the bare minimum time, simply to make an appearance, before getting on with their plans for the night. This was an event people were happily staying at.
But for Emilia, knowing he was here, and that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—speak to or see him at close range was doing something funny to her insides. She began to cut through the crowd, careful to avoid making eye contact with anyone, lest she be pulled into a long, boring conversation.
The cloak room was attended by two staff members. She handed over her ticket and waited for them to retrieve the leather jacket she’d worn. It was impossible to fight a sense of disappointment, though, when her jacket was returned and she’d shrugged it on, and still hadn’t seen up close, nor spoken to, Salvatore.
A sense of pride prevented her from scanning the crowd on her way out. She kept her gaze focused squarely on the doors that led from the hotel ballroom into the elegant corridor beyond. As she approached, the doors were opened for her by another pair of staff, and she stepped outside into the relative silence with a small breath of what she told herself was relief.
Beyond the corridor, on the wide boulevard street, she knew her friends would be smoking, waiting for her, but Emilia needed a minute to calm her fluttering nerves. Without speaking to Salvatore, he still had the ability to make her pulse rush.
She ground her teeth, annoyed at him, herself, and just about everyone, in that moment.
Assuming a mask of carefree contentment, she began to walk down the corridor, the soft fabric of her black cocktail dress running against her hips as she went. She was halfway down the hallway when she became aware of someone following her. Hardly unusual—she wouldn’t be the only guest leaving the party. She didn’t bother turning around. But a moment later, her hand was gripped, and then, it all happened so quickly, she didn’t have time to think. Salvatore was pulling her sideways, away from the main corridor, down a separate access point, and then, around another corner. It was the work of a moment, and she was there, back pressed against the wall as he dropped his head and kissed her, claiming her mouth like he had every right, like he somehow knew that’s what she’d been hoping he’d do all damned night.
And now that he was kissing her, she could finally admit that to herself. Yes, she’d been wanting this. Waiting for it. Aching for it, and the longing had driven her quite wild, in the end.
His tongue lashed hers, as though he felt the same anger she did—anger at the fact they’d just spent two and a half hours milling around in a huge, grand ballroom, without so much as making eye contact. One big, strong knee wedged between her legs and she moaned as, without even being aware of it, her hips rolled and her sex pressed to this thick, muscular thigh, craving everything he could possible give her.
Voices, loud and laughing, drifted towards them, but his hands were moving to the hem of her dress now, lifting it, sliding into her thong, massaging the flesh of her butt cheek until she was almost coming, then and there. Another voice, this one masculine, loud, closer.
“Salvatore,” she cried, hungry for him, wild with desperation, bunching her hands in his shirt. “Someone will see us.” She hoped it wasn’t the case. She didn’t want to stop kissing, touching, feeling, but at the same time, being seen with him would be an absolute disaster. Sanity was just enough within reach to make her listen. But when she dragged her lower lip between her teeth and his eyes flared, and she felt his cock jerk in his pants, she had a sinking feeling that she would throw caution to the wind and keep kissing him anyway, keep doing anything with him, because of how much she wanted this.
“Stay here,” he muttered, pressing a finger to her lips, eyes holding hers, before he pulled away. “Do you promise?”
She massaged her lower lip then, knowing she should demur. That she should leave. “My friends are waiting…”
“Then let them wait. I’m going to get us a room. Okay?”
She stood on a tightrope—an immense fall in both directions. Walking away from him would just prolong the state of agony she’d been in since the last time they were together. Agreeing to stay was somehow worse. Or at least, a lot more complicated.
“I—,”
“Wait here,” he repeated again. And for good measure, he kissed her with all the pent up passion and need that was firing through them. “I will make it worth your while, cara. ”
She shivered at that promise, and stayed where she was, back pressed to the wall, watching him disappear around the corner with the stride of a man who was intent on a mission. It only took a minute to text her friends, explaining she was going to stay a while longer and that they should go on without her. And a few minutes later, he had returned, this time, brandishing a plastic key card.
“Room seventy four. The elevators are in the foyer. You go first, I’ll follow.”
She still had time to back out of this. To tell him they were playing with fire and that sleeping together again was not a smart choice. But then, his lip lifted in a hint of a smirk and she felt as though he was daring her.
And if there was one thing Emilia knew for certain, it was that she’d never walk away from a Santoro dare.
“Fine,” she said, snatching the spare key card. “But I still hate you.”
His smirk turned into a full blown grin. “Until you don’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “Wishful thinking.”
“Perhaps.”
With the sense that they were locked in a verbal fight she wasn’t sure she could win, Emilia stalked away from him, questioning her decision the entire way to the bank of lifts and then up to the seventh floor of the elegant hotel—even when she knew she had no intention of backing out.