CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
C HARLOTTE SAT CROSS - LEGGED on an armchair, wrapped in a sheet, gazing out the window at one of the most breathtaking views she had ever seen.
It had been days since their arrival. Days since Enzo had made some painful discoveries. Since he had sent what he had uncovered to the lawyers, his sole focus had been on her. They hadn’t left the house at all. The only times they ventured outside was for a swim in the pool, and even then it would end with them tangled in each other with frantic kisses and an urgency that never seemed to abate.
Enzo had cooked every single day while she watched. And when she had commented that she had never seen anything sexier, he had taken her right there on the counter. After that he’d taught her to cook, but his methods of teaching were incredibly distracting. With his body against her back and his arms around her, guiding her hands through every process, all Charlotte remembered was the near-painful need for him he had aroused in her.
This felt like paradise. Happiness. Just the two of them trapped in their own little bubble with the world shut away. Here there weren’t any money-hungry fathers, or jealous siblings or people they couldn’t trust. All that lay beyond the doors, but Charlotte was happy pretending they didn’t exist for just a little while. She just wished with all her heart that this life with Enzo could be hers permanently.
Ridiculous, of course.
Nothing had changed. Enzo was keeping her safe, but she had no idea what that could mean once they were back in Sydney.
‘You’re thinking too hard again.’ Enzo’s voice made her jump, and she cursed softly, which he still heard.
‘Really, a bell,’ she said.
He placed an espresso cup beside Charlotte and kneeled before her, placing her hands on his bare neck. ‘I told you, this space is reserved.’
He kissed her sweetly but was already retreating when she wanted more. His darkening eyes told her that he knew. He was already shirtless—a state she was happy to note that he was frequently in these days. It would be so easy to slip her hand under the band of his pants and...
‘Stop.’
‘What?’ she asked, confused.
‘The way you’re looking at me, tesoro . You’re making me want to take you back to bed and keep you there when I have planned a surprise.’
‘What kind of surprise?’ Charlotte reached for the coffee, taking a small sip. She had never been much of a coffee drinker, preferring the same ginseng tea her mother had favoured before she had passed. Charlotte didn’t have many memories of her, but that one had stuck. But maybe Enzo was some sort of magician, because the espresso he made was one of the most delicious things she had ever tasted. Charlotte had even told him that he should be the one making the coffees at work instead of her. All he had done was laugh in response, but it had fed her unease about returning to Sydney.
‘The good kind,’ he replied cryptically.
‘Any surprise you think of would seem good to you because it was your idea. It’s my unbiased opinion that determines whether it is in fact a good surprise. So you should just tell me now and find out.’ She lifted the cup to her mouth, hiding her smug smile.
‘Were you on the debate team?’
‘Maybe. Also, if you know about it, it’s not even a surprise to you, so you definitely don’t get to judge if it’s good.’
He shook his head at her. After spending so many years tense and scared, it was wonderful to experience this lightness between them.
‘You wanted to see Italy, so I am going to show it to you.’
‘How?’ Charlotte’s heart fluttered. She didn’t want to be too hopeful just in case there was an element of her safety that Enzo might have overlooked, but even she had to admit that was a ridiculous thought. As it had been her habit, she was looking for reasons to deprive herself.
‘You’ll see. Get dressed,’ Enzo instructed.
A short drive later, they were at the marina in Amalfi. Boats and yachts gleamed in their berths.
‘What are we doing here?’
‘We are going sailing,’ Enzo replied, pointing at one of the boats. ‘In that.’
Charlotte looked in the direction he was pointing where a sixty-five-foot sailing yacht waited, the gentle waves lapping at its large sides. Despite Charlotte’s privileged upbringing and how much she enjoyed the water, she had never been on a yacht of any type.
‘Is it yours?’
‘Si, tesoro.’
He led her towards it, and for once, Charlotte could think of nothing clever to say.
‘Are you going to sail it?’
‘No. I have a two-man crew that I trust to be discreet.’
Enzo helped her aboard, then instructed one of the crew to fetch their luggage while he took Charlotte below deck. The living and kitchen areas were modern and furnished in creams and light wood with soft cove lighting. But they didn’t stop there. They moved through the cabins, and in the farthest one, she found the master suite.
The bed was huge. The wood-panelled walls enclosed them like a hug and the en suite was like something straight out of the world’s best hotels.
‘What do you think of your surprise?’
Charlotte was blown away. How did Enzo continuously surprise her like this? How was he able to give her exactly what she wanted without compromising her safety?
And in that moment, she realised that her heart was softening to Enzo far more quickly than she would ever have thought. All the things she had noticed about him in the last two years were only a small part of the man he truly was, and her admiration for that man just kept growing.
Enzo was fire and passion and consideration and intelligence and kindness in one being, and she kissed him then. She kissed him hard and with abandon. He responded instantly, and before she knew it, he had her on the bed, and she was calling out his name.
She was so consumed with him, she didn’t even really notice when the yacht left Amalfi.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked against his lips in the shower that followed.
‘Everywhere,’ he replied.
And he meant it.
They sailed first to Ischia and took the dinghy to the island to enjoy the hot springs, and from there they went to Sorrento, Capri, Positano. They spent days out on the water as they sailed along the Amalfi Coast, slowly making their way towards Perlano.
Enzo had made it possible for Charlotte to have something she thought she never could again. He showed her a life worth living. A life with safety and travel. He took her to numerous small towns where she enjoyed being anonymous. Never once did she feel the need to look over her shoulder.
Moored out on the water somewhere off the coast of Calabria, Charlotte stood at the rail on the aft deck looking at the twinkling lights of the distant towns with Enzo’s arms around her and his lips on her neck. The sky was inky black, stars bright overhead in a spray of silver.
They were utterly alone. Enzo had instructed the crew to return to land for the night. Charlotte hadn’t seen all that much of them anyway with Enzo keeping her so occupied, but she was grateful. They both knew that their time in Italy was coming to an end. They had lives in Sydney. Enzo had a company to return to, and Charlotte—well, she didn’t know what awaited her.
So before real life could barge its way back in, she would enjoy what freedom she had left.
‘It’s funny. I was so scared to go to the ball, but now I’m glad I did. Without it, we wouldn’t be here.’
She knew Enzo was listening, even though he said nothing and his kisses hadn’t even stuttered a moment. But she wanted a reaction from the man. Unable to resist poking the bear just a little, she said, ‘I guess I have Charles Moreau to thank.’
Enzo’s low growl had her laughing.
She turned in his embrace and hooked her arms around his neck. ‘Why, Enzo, I think you might be jealous,’ she teased.
‘I don’t get jealous. If I need to be jealous over something, it means it was never really mine, and you, tesoro , are mine.’
She didn’t want to point out that she was her own. After all, Enzo had given her freedom. Right now, being his didn’t seem like a bad thing, even if the whole debacle with the vineyards had shown her just how possessive he was. She was also certain that he was denying the truth. Of course he had been jealous. She had seen it then. Seen it in the way he guarded what belonged to him.
But that wasn’t a path she wanted to travel down now. In this moment, she wanted another memory to cherish.
‘Kiss me,’ she demanded. Her lips parted, ready. Enzo’s green eyes glowed in the pale moonlight. His hands cupping her face steadied her and made her heart race at the same time. A moment passed between them, and then his lips were on hers in a ferocious kiss. Breathing her in. Charlotte plunged her tongue into his mouth, and he pressed his body to hers, backing her against the rail. The slide of his lips, the taste of him, was making her frantic with need, but she wasn’t alone. She could feel his hardness pressed against her. His breath as harsh as her own. The kiss morphing into a punishing, bruising force that couldn’t contain what they felt for each other. She knew they were only this explosive because he reflected the same intoxicating attraction, the same passion that he ignited in her. The same insatiable need she felt for him. Mirroring their desire to infinity.
And just as her hands had gone to his shirt, tugging it apart and pushing it off his shoulders, he was pulling her dress over her head and tossing it onto the deck. She ripped her lips from his, kissing and nipping at his throat, down to his chest. Tasting the skin there.
Overwhelmed and on fire, she needed him now. Needed an outlet for these feelings, emotions that were so big it felt like her heart was bursting with them.
And then Enzo surprised her again. Stepping away from her, he shed his linen trousers and stood before her bare.
She drank in every inch of moon-kissed skin, even more golden from their days at sea.
‘Show me what you want,’ he said. His voice was like gravel.
He was giving up control to her. Knowing exactly what she needed. Knowing she hadn’t ever truly had it in her life. Enzo, the man who controlled so much, could control the world if he had half a mind to, with all the power he was born to and had amassed on his own, was handing it to Charlotte. In that moment, when he had given her everything, Charlotte knew. Without any doubt at all, she knew in her soul that she loved Enzo. That there had never been another, never would be another person who she could love as much as she loved him.
Power coursed through her veins, Enzo’s pleasure the ultimate drug. Charlotte stepped up to him and with her finger on his chest, pushed him down onto the large, plush cushions that had been converted to a deck bed. He sat, watching her. She noticed his hand curling and uncurling into a fist to stop himself reaching for her. And holding his green flame gaze, she removed her bikini top and then bottoms—part of the sailing wardrobe that he had procured for her—slowly, letting them fall from her fingers.
A string of curses fell from his lips, and Charlotte smiled knowing that the moment his hands touched her, all this control would be lost. She would be drowning in him. She wanted to stretch this moment out, the anticipation building exponentially. The hunger in Enzo’s eyes growing. She craved the moment he lost control, pushed to the edge of sanity. Deliberately, with sure, slow steps, she walked to him. Knees sinking into the plush cushion, she straddled him.
‘You will be the death of me,’ he said in a strained whisper.
‘You are the life of me,’ she replied and kissed him hard and full. His arms snapped around her. His fingers travelling over her skin. Raising goose bumps and sucking the air from her lungs. And just as she knew would happen, all thought left her mind. Especially when Enzo’s hardness pressed against her core, and she ground her hips against him, making him swear loudly.
‘I need you. I can’t wait.’
She hovered above him, but just as he teased her entrance, he pulled away.
‘We don’t have protection. We need to go to the bedroom.’
‘No, I need you. I’ve only been with you,’ she said and felt his fingers press into her skin at the words. ‘And I’m on birth control.’ For once, Charlotte was thankful for the bane of hormone headaches. But even though she wanted him so badly she could weep with it, this choice was just as much Enzo’s as it was hers.
‘I’m clean too,’ he said. Charlotte already knew that since she dealt with his physicals, but being his PA was the last thing on her mind now.
Enzo had never wanted to be with someone like this so badly before. The trust Charlotte placed in him was beyond heady. As the head of one of the largest and oldest companies in the world, he was trusted by thousands of people, but that paled in comparison to the utter trust Charlotte put in him now. And when he slipped into her warm, wet core, he stopped breathing.
He wanted to pull her down on him, to slide into her over and over again. But she was in control. She needed it, and if she faltered, he would be there to make sure she only felt pleasure. So he threw his head back, muscles in his neck straining, as she slowly sunk onto the length of him.
‘Please look at me.’
His eyes snapped open before the command had even taken hold, so strong was the effect she had on him. When he was fully inside her, they moved together.
‘Heaven,’ he breathed against her shoulder, his teeth marking her. Just when he thought he would lose his mind, he felt her shudder. She needed him to take the reins so he moved her hands around his neck and held her tightly as he thrust into her, forcefully pulling cry after cry of pleasure from her until he could no longer tell his name from a moan, and a tingling took hold in the base of his spine. His body became a guitar string pulled too taut, the feeling of Charlotte pushing, shoving, rushing him to the edge, but he would not fall alone. Sliding his hand between their bodies, he teased her where she needed it most, and then she was right there with him.
‘Enzo, I’m going t—’ She couldn’t finish her sentence, but he understood because he was just as far gone.
‘Now, tesoro ,’ he commanded, and they both plummeted over the edge in the most intense climax he had ever felt.
He couldn’t let go of Charlotte. He couldn’t pull out of her either. He wanted to stay in this moment for ever. A moment that had changed his world even though the world beyond them remained stubbornly the same. Nothing would ever be the same for him.
Charlotte placed her sweaty brow on his. He breathed her air. Held on to her slick skin. ‘Enzo, I—’
He didn’t let her finish that sentence, silencing her with a kiss into which he poured everything he felt. The gratitude for having her in his life. For seeing him, the man he was in private.
He pressed her back into the cushions. Lying over her, kissing her under a sky that was a tapestry of stars, floating alone at sea, he filled the embrace with all his lust and admiration and need to protect, knowing he wasn’t even close to the same man who had left Sydney.