Chapter 9
9
T HE SECOND SHE SAID it, he felt the danger wrapping around him, like a boa constrictor, making it hard to breathe. Because she was wrong about him, and in realising that, he realised the very real danger of what they were doing here.
He’d been so confident, even an hour earlier, that their agreed upon rules made this easy to contain. That they could sleep together for four weeks and then walk away, no harm, no foul. But the problem was, what Emilia had just described was exactly how Salvatore felt. And despite what she might think, that wasn’t normal for him. He couldn’t remember ever having craved a woman to the point of desperation. He couldn’t remember ever having been with a woman in the staircase of a six star hotel simply because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go without knowing her again.
But he just sat there, silent, because in admitting how she felt to him, how different this was to what she’d expected, she’d already pushed them out onto a ledge. If he admitted the same thing to her, it would be like dragging them over, into free- fall, with no parachute and no promise. Their rules would only protect them so far.
And so he took the coward’s way out, and half-way hated himself for it when he saw the self-conscious expression that crossed her face.
“Why is it that you have been with so few men?”
She glanced down at the bubbles, shielding her eyes from him, in an attempt to hide how she felt. But he saw it anyway, and he hated having been the cause.
“I guess I’ve been holding out for something special.”
He felt as though a hole had just formed in his chest, expansive and dark, protective and jealous, because that could never be him. “What does that look like?” He reached for the champagne bottle and topped up their glasses, simply because he felt like he needed to act as if everything was normal and fine, even when it wasn’t.
“Like my parents’ marriage,” she said, and the hole seemed to twist. His own parents’ marriage was pretty special, too. He knew what it looked like to have met your perfect other half, even though he’d never sought that for himself. “Even as a little girl, I just always knew I wanted that for myself.” She sighed softly. “And then, when I was eighteen, I met Jesse, and I thought I loved him. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with him.” As if to forestall whatever comment he might be going to make, she added, “I was eighteen, remember, and allowed to be unrealistic.”
He ignored the temptation to reassure her that it wasn’t necessarily unrealistic to meet the love of your life at eighteen. It just wasn’t for him.
“What happened?”
He generally loved the way she blushed. It was so sweet and innocent. But seeing her blush now, knowing it was a sense of shame because of something that happened in her relationship with this guy she’d thought she loved had the opposite effect. His gut seemed to be tightening and something fired inside his chest.
“He was just using me.”
“Using you?”
“For money. Connections. Exposure. At first I thought it was that he was ambitious and wanted us to open doors for him, but now I think he was kind of lazy and just saw my trust fund as an easy way to have a good life. It wasn’t ever about me, though.”
“How do you know?”
Her blush darkened.
“Emilia?” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so sharp, to hold such a warning, but she flinched a little, so he cursed softly and reached for her foot, squeezing it in lieu of an apology.
“I heard him talking to his best friend about me.” Her voice was almost unrecognisable, it was so bitter. “About how boring I was, and how even given the amount of money I had access to, it was hard work spending time with me, let alone making love to me.” Her voice wobbled a little, as though she were about to cry.
“You must have been devastated.”
“Furious,” she corrected. “And then, once I’d had time to process it all, yes, devastated. I’d grown up with money all my life. I know it sounds stupid but I never really thought about how appealing that would be to someone who didn’t have any. But to hear your boyfriend—the first guy I ever slept with—talk like that…it broke something inside me. Not my heart…but my confidence, I guess. Or maybe it was that he broke everything I’d ever believed in. Love, marriage, happily ever after. Suddenly it all seemed so stupid to put your hopes of happiness, and all your trust, in someone else. How can you ever really know a person, anyway? I mean, I thought I knew Jesse. We were going out for months before we had sex. And not once did I ever think he was faking it.”
Salvatore swore. “He sounds like an idiot.”
She laughed, but it was a hollow sound, as if this jerk of a guy still had the power to hurt her. Damn it if that didn’t make Salvatore want to find him and teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“And then after Jesse?”
“I was single for a long time,” she admitted. “I threw myself into my friendships, my family, the charity. I cultivated an image as a carefree socialite, when the truth is, I care a lot. About everything. Especially protecting myself.”
Her vulnerability was so real and raw that he ached to pull her towards him and hold her until she was all fixed up, but he wasn’t the man to do that. Salvatore was a temporary fixture, not a fixer. He was the man who seduced and pleased, took pleasure and gave it without hesitation, without reserve, and then walked away. Nothing mattered to him. At least, not when it came to the women he dated. So he stayed where he was, allowing the foot rub he was giving her to be the only outward sign of the compassion that was running thick and fast through his veins.
“So what happened in Moricosia?”
Her eyes widened as she looked at him, and that tightness in his gut intensified. “What do you mean?”
“By your own admission, this isn’t something you just do. So why sleep with me?”
She sipped her drink, her throat shifting delicately as she swallowed. “I thought about that, afterwards, and I think there are two reasons I found it easy to sleep with you.”
“Go on.”
“Well, firstly, there’s a spark. Isn’t there?”
That question at the end hurt him almost physically. Her insecurity and uncertainty, the sense that maybe she was wrong about Salvatore, as she’d been about Jesse.
“Yes, there’s a spark,” he agreed, having no issues reassuring her on that score.
Relief was palpable on her features. “But there’s no hope here.”
He waited for her to continue with the appearance of patience.
“I mean, I was never going to have sex with you and decide that maybe you were going to be The One, you know? You could never be The One.”
He nodded slowly.
“Your family, my family, it makes it impossible. So there’s no way I can be hurt by anything that happens between us, because no matter how good things are,” and now it was Emilia who reached for him, lacing their fingers together and squeezing them, to physically underscore her words. “We both know it can never, ever be more than this.”
Her smile was slow, and somehow kind of sad, even when her expression didn’t mirror that. He resented how well he could interpret her features, how easily he could read her and spot when she was masking the complexity of her feelings.
“Then it’s a good thing ‘this’ is enough.”
“More than enough,” she agreed, and now her smile was more relaxed. He ignored the gaping hole in his chest, the tightening in his gut, and focused instead on the fact he was spending the afternoon with a woman he couldn’t get enough of. She was right, anyway. They both knew there was no future for them, but they could make the most of the here and now. With that very much in the forefront of his mind, Salvatore placed his champagne flute on the trolley first, and then hers, before leaning forward so he could kiss Emilia, his naked body pressed to hers, so the sensations running through him were almost overwhelming.
And utterly, incomprehensibly perfect.
One week later
Global Hunger Eradication Initiative Gala, New York.
Emilia’s eyes scanned the room even before she realised she was doing it. Despite the fact she and Salvatore had spent the past week making the most of the privacy their suite afforded, and seeing him was no longer a luxury, there was something about seeing him here, in this environment, that made her insides tremble with anticipation.
At least her brothers weren’t here. For this event, Emilia was the sole Valentino in attendance, which took the pressure off her, to some extent. There was no need to spend the entire time disguising the way she was looking for Salvatore. Nor to be afraid one of her sisters in law would notice the way she couldn’t stop looking at him.
The event was being hosted in the foyer of what had once been an enormous, private home—long ago converted to a library by the owners, for the benefit of the city. Emilia had been here before, for a different event, and had been just as awed then by the stunning architecture as she was now. Enormous marble pillars created a classical effect that was only enhanced by the soft mood lighting and dramatic floral arrangements. At the top of the central, sweeping staircase, a string quartet had been set up, and the gentle strains of their music added an elegance to the hum of the room. Finely dressed guests milled—a mix of wealthy philanthropists, politicians and celebrities, talking and laughing.
Emilia was in one such group, nodding and half-listening to the conversation, all the while allowing her gaze to flit across the crowd every few minutes, waiting, anticipating, knowing he was somewhere and almost giddy with the excitement of seeing him again.
Which was ridiculous.
They were seeing each other often enough that it shouldn’t have been a source of such excitement to contemplate this, and yet… she sucked in a sharp breath of air as finally her eyes landed on him. Well, on the back of his head, at least. Strange how easily she picked him out of the crowd, despite it only being a glimpse of him, but she instantly recognised the set of his broad shoulders, the bearing, so much so she could practically see his face even when it was angled away.
She tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help it. Excitement fizzed in her belly as she imagined how she could extricate herself from this conversation and get closer to him. Closer than this, at least. Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of red caught her attention, and she shifted her attention to a striking woman with light blonde hair and a stunning figure, as she cut through the crowd.
Emilia couldn’t say how she knew Salvatore was her destination. But if Emilia’s eyes were locked on Salvatore, then the same could be said for this woman, who seemed to have the precision of a homing pigeon. As Emilia watched, the woman tapped Salvatore on the shoulder, so he glanced at her first, and Emilia caught enough of his expression to see that he was, at first, reserved. Then, however, he turned more fully, and his entire demeanor changed, his expression breaking out into a look of pure, unadulterated pleasure, as he wrapped his arms around the woman and pulled her tight to his body, holding her there as though seeing her was the highlight of his night.
Holding her there as though he couldn’t let go.
Emilia stared, the air leaving her lungs in a rush, so her eyes filled with stars and she felt lightheaded. She dug her fingernails into the palm of one hand, knowing she needed to look away, but not quite able to.
Salvatore lifted his head, still smiling, and the woman’s hands gripped his upper arms, her bright red nails, matching the dress, digging into the material of his tuxedo jacket. Emilia’s stomach twisted into knots, and her throat felt all thick and dry.
The woman said something, and Salvatore nodded. Something else, another nod, and then they were turning, Salvatore’s hand in the small of her back, just above the swell of her bottom, as they moved away from his group, and disappeared completely from view.
The anticipation Emilia had been feeling – so pleasant a moment ago – was now like ice in her veins. She no longer saw the dramatic beauty of the foyer, nor heard the perfection of the music. All she could hear, and feel, was the throbbing of her heart, as it fast-pumped blood through her body, so it washed through her ears with a frantic, nauseating regularity.
“Are you aware of the innovations, Emilia?”
She’d completely missed the conversation, and made an effort to focus, even when her brain was still trying to process what she’d just witnessed.
She’d never seen the other woman before, so she wasn’t a regular at these things. But that didn’t mean anything. She was clearly familiar to Salvatore, and it didn’t take the mental acuity of a brain surgeon to put two and two together and get ‘ex girlfriend’.
Why should that surprise her? She knew about Salvatore’s past. She’d known that going into this. It was probably inevitable that she should come face to face with some figment of his life before Emilia. How foolish of her not to have contemplated that. Nor to have thought about what the future looked like, beyond this relationship. This would be over, soon enough, and then they’d have to go back to pretending each other didn’t exist, ignoring one another at these events. Seeing one another talk to other people. Go home with them.
Her heart rate kicked up a notch.
“Emilia? Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, pressing her fingertips to her temple. “I just need a moment.”
“Do you need company?” One of the women in the group asked. Emilia couldn’t remember her name, but the woman’s concern was obvious.
Emilia shook her head. Company was the last thing she wanted. “I’m fine. Thank you. Excuse me,” she added, as she took a few steps away and then turned, looking around for the quickest route to reprieve—she needed time. Just a little time, to process this.
Even when ‘this’ was nothing.
Nothing unexpected, anyway.
More fool her for thinking that what they were doing was somehow different to anything he’d done before. Salvatore Santoro was, and always would be, an out and out bachelor. Someone who lived and breathed to seduce, pleasure and enjoy. There was nothing about what they were doing that was unique or special. Nothing about her that was either of those things.
In some ways, this situation was no different to Jesse. Yet again, she’d let herself want something she couldn’t have. Even when she’d been telling herself, all along, that there were boundaries and rules in place around what they were doing, it hadn’t stopped her from starting to enjoy—more than she should have—the time they spent together. Maybe even to hope for more.
How stupid.
How dangerous.
Even when she’d told herself she’d never be reckless with her feelings again, she had been. She’d let Salvatore dig into her, and seeing him with the other woman had underscored for her what a liability that was. Because this man would always play the field. He’d never commit, he’d never really care for a woman. It just wasn’t his way.
Frustration zipped through her, right alongside confusion. Instead of making her way to the ladies’ room, she kept her head down and weaved through the guests, towards the door, needing fresh air, and some time to think.
It felt different coming back to her apartment, having spent so much time at their shared hotel room in recent times. She went from room to room, flicking on the lights, looking at the luxurious space with a sense of disconnect.
This was her home. Here, she was surrounded with her trinkets and things, the physical manifestations of her life. Photographs of her friends, her family, artwork that was both beautiful and meaningful. This was her safe space, and yet tonight, it just felt void. Empty.
As though something was missing.
She groaned as she made her way to the kitchen, flicking on the coffee machine and making a short black. Her eyes stayed trained on the view beyond – a sparkling Manhattan – and she tried not to pick out the general direction of the party she’d just left.
Run away from.
Because the sight of Salvatore with that beautiful other woman had turned her into some kind of wildling, driven by sheer impulse. And those impulses weren’t good.
Jealousy had flooded her veins to the point she’d wanted to scratch the other woman’s eyes out. What the hell was happening to her? A week ago, she’d reckoned with this, when they shared a bath. He’d accused her of jealousy and she’d acted like it was impossible. But he’d been right. She was jealous. Not just of the women he’d been with in the past, but of the certainty that he would move on from her quickly and easily. That before she’d had time to adjust to life post-Salvatore, he’d already have someone else in his life, and bed.
But why did that flood her with vile envy?
Salvatore was her enemy. Or, if not her enemy, someone she’d been sworn to hate, her whole life. He was the last person on earth she should be jealous of. Using him for sex was one thing—letting him use her another. But actually caring that he was flirting with other women? Possibly even sleeping with them?
How could she let herself be that stupid?
She threw back her coffee then paced into the living room, sitting on the sofa for a moment before becoming restless, and reaching for a book. She flicked through the first chapter then let out a long breath, before tossing it onto the sofa cushions. She was about to turn on the television and surf Netflix until a show grabbed her attention when her phone buzzed from the coffee table to her right.
She reached for it on autopilot, and was aware of the second her heart shunted to her throat. Salvatore’s name flashed onto the screen. She clicked into the text message, pulse firing wildly.
You’re not here.
Not a question, just a statement of fact, and she didn’t have to be a genius to work out where ‘here’ was. Suddenly, the emptiness of her apartment was taunting her. Laughing at her for running here, instead of going to the room he’d hired at the Plaza. With him. To hell with her jealousy. To hell with the fact she’d just had a very visible reminder of her place in his life – temporary and meaningless.
None of that seemed to matter now, when she was here, alone, wanting him, needing him, and he was there – where she could have gone and taken exactly what she craved.
She hovered her finger over the reply button, wondering what she could say to that?
Because she had two clear choices. Go to the hotel and spend the night with him – and pretend she hadn’t seen what she’d seen, and that she didn’t know what it meant. Or stay here and lick her wounds – which meant admitting she had wounds.
As tempted as she was to throw caution to the wind and lose herself in the pleasures Salvatore could offer, pride, and common sense, won out. She flicked off her phone and resolutely focused on Netflix, choosing a series to devour rather than letting herself think about what she could have been doing instead, if she’d been willing to admit to herself that she would put up with just about anything to be with Salvatore.
And how much that scared her.