Chapter 8
8
H E WASN’T SURPRISED WHEN, twenty minutes later, Emilia stepped out of bed and began to gather up her clothes, preparing to leave. If anything, he was relieved. There had been a part of him that wondered if she’d actually be able to stick to the rules they’d established. Not because she was a woman and he had some patriarchal idea about women always wanting more from men, or whatever. This was specifically about them.
Salvatore and Emilia.
Where Salvatore had spent his entire adult life having short-term, casual affairs that could easily be walked away from, Emilia was clearly less experienced in every way. And that lack of experience had the potential to cause…issues. If they let it.
So he’d been prepared to be the one to enforce the rules. To leave first. To shut down conversations. To remind her of what they were.
Instead, he’d been drawn out by her persistent questions, had asked his own in return, so if Emilia hadn’t stood up and removed her shirt, practically begging him to make love to her again, he wondered if he might have been happy to sit at the dining table of this suite, just simply talking.
It was something he hadn’t done a lot of in his relationships. Harmless flirtation, sure. A bit of back and forth, either side of sex, but nothing meaningful. Nothing deep or real, nothing about his life, his family, his work. Then again, he’d never had such clearly delineated relationship expectations before. They were incredibly freeing. Knowing that no matter what, they’d each set their end point, their objective, what they were willing to give in order to be able to take without concern.
“Here,” she placed the keycard on the foot of the bed, now fully dressed and looking, once again, immaculate. So immaculate and untouched that he ached, as he had last night, to draw her back to bed and make her scream for him again.
“Keep it,” he pushed to standing, reaching for his boxer shorts and dragging them on. He didn’t miss the way her eyes fell to his chest and rested there.
“As a souvenir? I’m good.”
He laughed at that. He loved how quickly she had a retort lined up. How much pleasure she seemed to take from sparing with him.
“As a key,” he corrected. “I booked the room for the month.”
Her eyes widened when they met his. “You did?”
“I thought it made sense.”
“I—guess it does.” She frowned. “So we can come here…whenever…”
“Yes, cara. We can come here whenever.” He prowled towards her, pressing a finger beneath her chin so her eyes met his. “Shall we say, soon?”
Her smile was slow, but addictive. “I like the sound of soon.”
“Me too.” It was flexible, but promised they wouldn’t be waiting long for more of this. And he really liked this.
His gut was telling him to kiss her. To drop his head and mesh their lips as he pulled her into his arms and held her against his body, but he didn’t. Because it felt too personal? Or because it would lead to something else?
“Well, Emilia Valentino, I can’t say I’m sorry I met you.”
She grinned. “Me neither.” And she turned and walked away from him, her hips swinging in a way he just knew wasn’t intentional, but nonetheless turned his pulse into a raging torrent of need and lust. At the door, she spun and blew a kiss in his direction, but Salvatore didn’t see: he was already making for the bathroom and an ice-cold shower.
They’d promised to see one another ‘soon’ but it was pretty clear by the middle of the next day that ‘soon’ would have to wait. The situation in Moricosia was devolving before Emilia’s eyes; there was nothing for it but to fly over and sort it out herself.
This was the first project of quite this magnitude that she’d spearheaded of her own. And even though she knew her brothers valued her and her contributions, there was a part of Emilia that knew how important it was to her to prove—not just to her family, but to the entire world—that she was every bit as capable of achieving this as they were.
Unfortunately, sexism was alive and well in the corporate world. It didn’t matter that Emilia was every bit a Valentino, as much as her brothers, or that she had the same skillset, and was every bit as smart and determined. She’d come up against the assumption, time and time again, that it was Leandro and Max who made the decisions in their family. That she wasn’t empowered to have a final say in negotiations.
It was the main reason Emilia had taken over their family’s charitable initiatives. Her brothers weren’t overly interested, meaning she wasn’t in competition with them. She didn’t have to prove that she was as good, if not better, than them. But just as Salvatore had leveraged his network of well-heeled contacts, she’d done the same thing, convincing her altruistic friends to streamline their philanthropy by making a single donation to her foundation. From there, Emilia oversaw the dispersal of funds. But giving money wasn’t enough for Emilia. She had grand plans to join the two branches of her family together, taking their foundation and working hand in hand with their business projects to practically improve the world. Though she hadn’t spoken to her brothers about it yet, there was an urban construction project they were working on, on the outskirts of London, and Emilia had already earmarked a section that would be perfect for low-income housing. She could use the charity to fund tenants into the properties, and partner with local initiatives to create employment or employment training opportunities nearby, thus creating a closed-loop system of support.
When Emilia thought of the good she could do, the sky really was the limit. But for now, her focus had to be on Moricosia, and in the short-term, that meant trying to contain the damage before the parliament lost all faith in them to be able to deliver what they’d promised.
It was hard.
Trying to keep the government onside and convince them the project would still be delivered as planned and on schedule, when she had no idea how she was going to make that happen, meant using every negotiating tactic at her disposal, but after five days in the capital having high level meetings, she left Moricosia with a feeling of hope. So long as she kept a close eye on the development, she could do this. And she would. There was no way she’d lose this job having worked so hard to win the tender.
When her text message came through, Salvatore was surprised by the strength of his reaction. If not a little alarmed by it. Because it had been almost a week since he’d seen Emilia and to say he was craving her would be an understatement. She’d been on a work trip. That was all he knew. He’d texted to try to see her again, two nights after they’d parted ways, and she’d texted back that she’d had to leave the country. Impatience had burned through him ever since.
So the fact she texted him a photo of her lying on her side, smiling at the camera, with the hotel suite he’d booked clearly visible in the background, stirred his pulse enough to have Salvatore standing and stalking towards the door of his office and offering a hasty explanation to his assistant before calling the elevator and getting the hell out of there.
It was a short cab ride to The Plaza, yet it felt like an interminable wait as the elevator ascended to their room. An even longer wait as he strode down the corridor, then swiped his key in the door. She was standing when he entered, her back to the door, but she turned at the sound of his arrival, a smile spreading over those full, luscious lips. “That was fast.”
“Not fast enough,” he growled, stalking through the carpeted room until she was within reach, and pulling her towards him. “Not fast enough,” he said, again, staring down at her before he kissed her, as he’d been longing to do for almost a week.
She tasted so sweet, like raspberries and chocolate, or maybe it was just her? He held her tight against his body but it still wasn’t enough. The feeling of her softness crushed to him, the fact there were so many clothes between them. Salvatore had always considered himself to be a patient man but he had an overwhelming sense that being with her now was basically a life or death consideration. Like he might stop breathing altogether if he couldn’t strip her naked and take her here.
“I want you,” he said, as his hands pushed at her clothes, and she groaned, arching her back, nodding. The sun outside was bright, slanting through the tinted windows, and as he dispensed with her clothes with superman strength, her skin almost seemed to glow like gold.
His own clothes followed even faster, even as he kissed her, his mouth unwilling to part with hers, until they were naked and he could touch her all over, his hands roaming without hesitation, reacquainting themselves with a body he somehow knew better almost than he did his own.
He had become an expert in Emilia, an expert in her pleasure, her taste, her sweet smell, her everything, and it didn’t occur to him to worry about that, nor to care, because it was only a temporary form of insanity, a short-term giving away of himself, to a woman he should have known better than to get tied up with.
The table behind her somehow edged closer, or maybe that was him, pushing her backwards, until her butt connected with it, and he was standing between her legs, kissing her, touching her, so close to her sex, that all he had to do was lift her a little, and wrap her legs around him. And he did, driving into her in the same movement, so they both cried out at the sheer euphoric fulfillment of their shared needs, at the ecstasy delivered in that moment, and the promise of what was to come, as he held her hard to his body and drove into her again and again, until they were exploding together, voices mingled, breaths hewn from their bodies, brows covered in perspiration.
“Well, fuck,” he groaned, when he could trust himself to speak again, looking at Emilia as if through a smattering of stars. “You are exquisite.”
Her smile was slow to spread and possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I’m really not. Right now I’m jet lagged and covered in airplane.”
He eased her back to the ground, hating the feeling of leaving her body, wanting to stay buried inside of her for so much longer. “You just got back?”
She nodded.
“Where from?”
She hesitated and for the briefest moment, something like suspicion curdled in his gut. An unwelcome emotion that seemed strangely adjacent to jealousy. He kept his expression neutral, wondering at the cogs that were turning in her brain, because she seemed unwilling to answer his simple question.
And then, after a beat too long, she said, “Moricosia.”
Ah. That explained it. “I know you got the job,” he pointed out. “You can talk about it in front of me.”
Heat flushed her cheeks pink, so he couldn’t resist lifting his hand and cupping one.
“Thanks, but I don’t feel like talking about it with anyone, let alone you.”
He grinned at that. “Your choice.” His eyes roamed her face and he realised, belatedly, that she did look tired. Exhausted, in fact. “Stay here.”
He walked through the apartment to the palatial en-suite, and placed the plug in the bath then began running the water, checking the temperature before adding a generous amount of body wash so bubbles instantly began to form on the water’s surface.
“What are you doing?” He glanced back towards the door to find her standing there, still gloriously naked, so his veins thrummed with all the things he wanted to do with her.
“You didn’t stay.”
“I’m not a puppy.”
His lips quirked. He liked how quick she was. He liked how sassy she was. In some ways, it felt like he’d known her longer than this. It felt like he’d known her all his life. They were so comfortable together, even when they were sparking off each other. He never felt as though she were trying to impress him, as though she was preening for his attention. Maybe that was a virtue of their agreement, too? The fact that neither of them was looking at ways to convert this to a real relationship, or hoping for it to turn into something longer term or more serious, meant they could just be completely real together.
It was probably something he needed to consider rolling out into any future relationship. Limits. Rules. The promise of no mess.
“Hop in,” he nodded towards the bath. “Are you hungry?”
She looked beyond him to the tub, as she jabbed her big toe against the grout of a tile, like she was lost in thought. “I’m—my stomach is still on Moricosian time, so yes. Starving.”
“I’ll get food brought up.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again, nodding. Then, slowly, as she walked towards him, “This is actually really sweet.”
“You sound like you don’t think I’m capable of sweet.”
Her eyes laughed even when her face was deadpan. “Well, you are a Santoro…”
He pulled her against him then and kissed her hard. “What do you feel like?”
She expelled a soft breath. “Surprise me.”
“I intend to.” And he kissed her one more time, for good measure, before leaving the steam-filled bathroom with a very sexy Emilia Valentino in the centre of it.
Emilia hadn’t known how good a bath could feel until she sunk into the one Salvatore had drawn for her, staring at the tiled walls, letting her mind go as blank as possible. The water was the perfect temperature and she left it running until it covered her whole body. The bubbles smelled like rose-water and he’d slipped a phone into the room a few minutes after she’d hopped into the tub, with soft jazz music playing.
It was the most relaxed she’d felt in days. Weeks?
But maybe that had something to do with the way they’d come together out there. Frantically. Desperately. As though they were each completely starving for one another. She’d spent the last few days—scratch that, the whole time she was in Moricosia—feeling as though a spring inside of her was being wound tighter and tighter. It was the stress of the job, but also, it was wanting this. Him. To be right here, in this suite he’d rented, making love to a man who, despite being someone she was supposed to hate, was someone she really, really loved sleeping with.
It was a duality she couldn’t quite face. The certainty that if anyone in her family ever found out she was doing this, she’d cause some kind of permanent damage. And right now, they’d been through enough drama to have earned a break. Learning that Leandro was adopted had put a fissure between them for the first time in Emilia’s life, as Leandro pulled away from the family, disappearing to lick his wounds, and hurting their parents like hell in the process. Though he’d come around, and accepted that whether he was adopted or not it made no difference to how much they all loved him, her parents had aged years in the past twelve months.
Emilia getting tangled up with a Santoro would be so much worse.
And just like that, the lovely, buzzy sense of relaxation evaporated as a tightness formed in her belly, like sawdust had been funnelled down her throat and filled her right up. She sat up a little, at the same moment Salvatore knocked at the door.
“Room for one more?”
Despite the sawdust situation, she found herself smiling at the thought of that. “It is a mighty big bath. But what about lunch?”
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,” he pointed out.
“What’s the afternoon equivalent of brunch?”
“Drunch? Linner?”
“Either or,” she nodded approvingly.
“Drunch is served,” he said with a flourish, as he turned away then returned a second later, wheeling a room service trolley through the en-suite doors. He pushed it right to the edge of the bath, where she could easily reach whatever was inside, and began to remove the stainless steel lids.
He’d clearly noticed her predilection for hot chips, because he’d made sure to include a generous bowl, but there was also sushi, some delicate sandwiches, and a bottle of champagne.
“Are we celebrating?”
“You tell me. How was your trip?”
Her eyes lifted to his and for the second time that afternoon, she forced herself not to say the first thing that came to her mind. Not to tell him the truth. Because this was a Santoro and the whole situation with the Moricosian tender had the potential to be a bone of contention between them. It was probably a subject they had to consider ‘off limits’. And yet, she didn’t feel the same about him as she had when they were in Moricosia. Or afterwards, at the charity events.
She massaged her lip with her teeth, wondering when and how that had happened? Was it just familiarity? Wasn’t that supposed to breed contempt, rather than compatibility?
“Hello, earth to Emilia? It’s not a hard question to answer.” The water shifted as he moved into the bath, discarding the towel he’d had slung low on his hips, so he was right at her eye height. She tore her gaze upwards.
“No, I know.” She reached for a chip, distractedly. “It was…” she searched for the right word. “Stressful.”
More water shifted as he sat at the foot of the large bath. She moved her feet slightly to give him more room, but to her surprise, he reached for them, dragging them back to his lap, so he could work his fingers over the balls of her feet. It felt so good, she couldn’t hold back a small groan.
“Why stressful?”
She reached for another chip. “Are you asking me as a Santoro, or as the man I’m sleeping with?”
He flexed his brows. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we’re one and the same.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, flicking a little water at his chest. “One of you is out to destroy me and everyone I hold dear. The other one is apparently intent on giving me a thousand orgasms in the space of a month.”
“Now that’s a goal I could get on board with.”
She laughed softly. “Seriously, though…”
“Right now? What do you think?” He gestured towards her feet, and she understood. He was her lover. The whole family feud thing was outside of this bubble they’d created.
“Then what I’m about to tell you stays between us. You have to promise not to use this against me.”
His brows narrowed. “Don’t tell me anything you’re not comfortable sharing.”
“Is that your way of saying I can’t trust you?”
Now it was Salvatore’s turn to consider that. “You can trust me.” His voice gruff, raw. Like he was betraying a part of himself to admit that.
How strange, though, that his answer didn’t come as a surprise to her. Even without his reassurance, she felt that she could trust him. And him, a Santoro! “It’s falling apart.” And suddenly, with that one admission, she felt the floodgates open, as she poured the entire debacle out to him, from the very beginning of the problems to the latest batch. “It’s like it’s cursed,” she said, finally. “I can’t get to my desk without there being a stack of messages for me about one problem or another, and it’s all so random. I’ve never had so many things go wrong on anything.”
The whole time she spoke, he sat there, face impassive but eyes intelligent and assessing, as though he was listening with every single part of himself. “None of that sounds insurmountable,” he said, finally.
“Easy for you to say.” She sighed heavily. “We’re hamstrung by having to hire at least eighty percent of the staff for the project from within Moricosia. It’s not a huge country, there aren’t that many companies with the skills and staff numbers to do what we need within the time frame.”
“Then talk to Ares. Explain.”
“I’ve been in meetings with his government all week.”
“Not his government. Him.”
She shook her head. “He’s taking a hands-off approach.”
Salvatore’s jaw tightened.
“I guess because of you guys,” she said, a little awkwardly, reminding him of something he no doubt had front and centre of his mind: that King Ares of Moricosia was a long-term family friend of the Santoros, and was in fact now married to Sofia—a Santoro in all but name.
“He’s a reasonable man. If you can get a meeting with him, explain your hold up, he’ll get approval for you to hire externally. The main thing is finishing on time and on budget.”
“I just wanted it to be perfect.”
“Nothing is ever perfect.”
She sighed again.
“I presume you’ve spoken to your family about this.”
She nodded once. “To Leandro.”
“What does he advise?”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t need him to clean up my mess.”
“It is not your mess,” Salvatore reminded her. “And you work in a family business. The whole point of that is to lean on each other. At least, that’s how it is for us.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not a competition. We all love each other too.”
He flicked her a quick glance. “Drink?”
She eyed the bottle of expensive French champagne, and nodded slowly. “Sure. I mean, I really should get back to work…”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You can work here.”
That was true. She’d come straight from the airport and so had her laptop with her, and suddenly, the temptation to stay in their little bubble was strong.
“Yeah, I guess so. Okay, thanks.”
He let her feet go and she retracted them to give him more space, so he could lean forward and remove the bottle, opening it with a pop before pouring her a flute and handing it over, then doing the same for himself.
“Why are you helping me?”
“What do you mean?”
“With the Moricosia thing.”
“Did I help you?”
She felt heat bloom in her face.
“I mean, your suggestion to insist on a meeting with King Ares himself isn’t totally awful…”
He grinned. “I’m flattered.”
“And I’m serious. Why would you give me advice?”
“Because you’re stuck.”
She pulled her lips to the side. “But surely in this, we’re enemies? I mean, don’t tell me a part of you wouldn’t love me to fail.”
“I don’t want you to fail,” he contradicted, but so quickly she knew it was sincere. “Though I can’t say the same for anyone else in my family.”
There it was again. The sawdust. The reminder that what they were doing would make everyone in their respective families furious. The certainty that this had to remain absolutely and utterly their secret. That for all he might not hate her, his family did, and they were the most important people in his life. As her family was to Emilia.
“You don’t think…”
He sipped his drink, eyes locked to hers. “What?”
“That they could have anything to do with this?” She forced herself to finish the sentence, even when it was unpalatable.
“No, cara. They might dance on your grave if you fail, but they wouldn’t dig it.”
She nodded, feeling no sense of relief. Feeling nothing but confusion.
“What’s wrong?”
She smiled at that. “Am I that easy to read?”
“I’ve learned to read you.”
A shiver ran down her spine, because she didn’t doubt that to be true. She felt the same way about him.
“I don’t like what we’re doing.”
“Oh?” He placed his glass down and reached for her feet. “I haven’t heard you complaining.”
She shook her head. “I don’t mean that. That…I like very much.”
His grin showed that had never been in doubt.
“I mean to our families.”
“Are our families involved in this?”
“Peripherally, yes.”
“No, not even peripherally.”
“So you really think we can separate this from them?”
“Yes, thank Christ. I don’t make a habit of consulting my family when it comes to the women I sleep with.”
That left a strange taste in her mouth. “And you make a habit of sleeping with a lot of women.”
“We’ve already dealt with that.”
“It’s not something we have to deal with,” she said with a lift of her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So why bring it up?”
“Forget I did.”
Silence stretched between them. “It bothers you.”
She finished her champagne, letting the liquid fizz and pop in her mouth before swallowing. “Why would it bother me?”
“It’s normal to be jealous when you’re in a relationship.”
“But we’re not in a relationship.”
“Two people regularly having sex is a relationship, even when there’s no expectation of it becoming more.”
She’d gone from feeling sublimely relaxed to something else—a tightening in her chest and tummy that she didn’t like at all. “We’re talking about women you’ve slept with in the past. You’re not still sleeping with anyone else, right?”
He shook his head once.
“So why would I be jealous?”
“I don’t know, but you sound it.”
“Well, I’m not.” Except, they both knew she was lying, and she hated that. She hated that the thought of his past, littered with beautiful, sophisticated, stunning women, a procession of women who’d graced his bed before her, marveled at his beauty and skills, hated imagining him being driven as wild by anyone else as he was by her. Hated the thought of him wanting in a way that lessened what they were doing.
“It’s just…I don’t have the same experience as you. For me, this is new.”
“How so?”
“I’ve never been with someone that’s made me feel…” she clamped her lips together, aware of what she was confessing, and that it was somehow contrary to the rules they’d agreed to. And yet, she’d come this far. Besides, it was the truth. So she barrelled on, uncaring of the consequences of her admission. “I’ve never been with someone who’s made me feel as though my whole body has been flooded with light. When you touch me, I feel like I’m glowing from the inside out, and when I’m not with you, I crave you in a way that is, honestly, kind of frightening. I’ve never felt this before, but I know for you, this is just what you do. It’s just who you are. I don’t…love that, if I’m honest.”