Chapter Two
Simone leaned against the rich wooden wall of the lift taking them both to the suite Leo had booked for their wedding night, to save on getting stuck in traffic.
Really, it had seemed unnecessary when they could have simply returned to his townhouse.
Her stomach swooped uncomfortably. This unsettling feeling didn’t have anything to do with spending their first night living together. That couldn’t be it at all.
As Leo’s executive assistant, she’d spent two years in his proximity.
They’d travelled together in his jet. She’d worked long nights and stayed in his brownstone, though admittedly in a suite designed exclusively for guests.
She even kept spare clothes there, just in case.
Being this close to him had never affected her before.
It had to be due to the speed with which the lift moved towards the top floor of the hotel. Nothing else.
Simone shook off the strange sensation, glancing at Leo’s imposing profile as he stared ahead of him, seemingly lost in thought.
A few bits of coloured confetti clung to his coal-dark hair and were sprinkled on the shoulders of his impeccable tuxedo made specially for their wedding.
She knew he owned four other tuxedos already, so he could simply have taken one from his closet and been done. Why bother with the cost of another?
But that wasn’t Leo Zanetti and never would be.
He liked the excess of it. The admiring comments when he was seen in something new, even if it was a suit.
No doubt the magazine that would write the article about their ‘whirlwind romance’ and show pictures of their wedding to the world, had already been given details of their wedding attire.
Especially when Leo could make or break a tailor with a raised eyebrow when someone asked him about the fit of a suit.
Or create a whole design trend just by saying he liked something.
It was so…frivolous. Like her own life had been before she’d smashed the mould made for her by her parents.
Still, even with all of that, the night had caught her by surprise.
Setting aside the breathless members of society gushing over the wedding, something about it had seemed unusually weighty.
Their vows, all traditional. Promises made to one another, even if they were meaningless and only made to be broken.
It all sat heavily on her chest, pressing down on her. Making it hard to breathe…
Probably just a hangover from the realisation that the moment represented a final nail in the coffin of her childhood dreams. Of finding her prince, falling in love and marrying.
Some things were clearly ingrained in her, even though life had taught Simone years ago that love wasn’t to be trusted.
She’d decided then to rely on herself and no one else.
The lift eased to a stop and Leo turned to her, their gazes clashing. His eyes a shade of blue so vibrant and shocking it always caught her by surprise. Like a jump-scare, except with a frisson not entirely unpleasant, the way those eyes of his pierced her very soul.
You look beautiful.
Her breath caught. The memory of those words still slipping seductively through her.
Simone knew she wasn’t beautiful in any traditional sense.
Her mother had told her that, often enough.
That she had an interesting face. Eyes a touch too narrow, mouth a little too wide.
Blessed with good hair, though, to her mother’s relief.
She’d spent her teens and early twenties trying to live up to the impossible expectations set for her by her family in her comportment and the way she’d dressed.
Wearing couture and designer brands like others wore off the rack.
It had all been so meaningless. Her true thoughts on anything had been irrelevant.
All that was important was meeting her parents’ exacting standards.
Saving herself for marriage and marrying well, which meant marrying someone her parents chose for her.
Simone hadn’t sought out praise for her appearance in years.
Didn’t need to. She’d become tired of people trying to turn her into something they wanted her to be and so she’d left that life behind.
She was who she was, now. So why did Leo’s comment twine its way round her like gift-wrapping ribbon?
Silver and sparkly. It must have been the champagne at the wedding reception, making her a little fuzzy, even though she hadn’t drunk that much…
‘Would you like a nightcap?’ Leo asked as the doors slid open to their suite, all warm neutrals and impeccable styling. The lights of her adopted home city like a kaleidoscope beyond the floor to ceiling windows. Central Park a dark, velvety patch, hemmed by the twinkling cityscape surrounding it.
Simone wanted to take the jewelled combs from her hair, wash off her makeup and process the day.
Remove her wedding dress, the bias-cut moulding to her, draping her body like liquid embodied in fabric.
She hadn’t worn anything like it for years, her life more about practicality now than being a hated mannequin on display for her family.
The heavy satin slipped seductively across her skin, so smooth and silky it almost felt like a negligee rather than a wedding dress.
A mix of feelings swirled in her belly at the memories of the evening they’d just left.
How Leo had held her on the dance floor as if she was in some way precious to him.
How he’d looked at her as if he’d seen her for the first time.
‘Sure,’ she said. Perhaps against her better judgement, but a final drink would be a reasonable full stop to what had otherwise been a long day.
She hadn’t really had one like it, with all the plucking, primping and pampering, since her Debutante Ball nine years earlier, when she’d been another woman altogether. ‘But before we do, you have…’
She reached out and brushed his suit, scattering some of the coloured paper onto the carpet.
His shoulders were broad and strong under the fine wool, as she’d known intellectually but discovered for real, when they’d danced for the first time.
The strength in those shoulders might carry the weight of the world if you allowed them to.
Leo’s eyebrows rose and she pulled back as if burned. What was she doing? She just knew Leo would hate to know that he still had confetti sprinkled on him. The man was impeccable in all things. Nothing out of place unless he’d styled it that way, or it had been styled for him.
‘Any more?’ he asked. His voice deep and a little rougher than usual.
There was some in his hair. For a fleeting moment she imagined brushing her hand through the strands to scatter the confetti to the floor. Simone’s fingers prickled as she wondered what all that dark hair would feel like. Thick, no doubt, but soft? Wiry? No… Impossible.
Simone waved her hand about the general direction of his head, and his eyes widened.
‘In your hair.’
He raked his fingers through his hair and the confetti fluttered to the floor, just as she imagined it would. His hair was now perfectly dishevelled in a way Leo was an expert at mastering. ‘Grazie. You’re similarly afflicted.’
He didn’t try to touch her and she didn’t know why it stung.
Simone moved to a mirror, barely recognising the woman who looked back at her like a ghost. A reflection of who she’d once been, not who she’d become.
With soft, smoky eyes. Blushing pink lips.
Hair gleaming and curled, tumbling over her shoulders.
The hours it had taken to achieve this look.
In the reflection stood Leo, a little off to the side.
His gaze on her in the mirror was intent.
Though it always tended to be, his focus taking some getting used to, until you realised that it infiltrated every part of his life.
From how he dressed, to how he worked, to how he exercised.
Perhaps even to how he loved, if the string of women who’d constantly graced his arm on any given month was anything to go by.
She wondered how it was possible for him to maintain that level of intensity.
Their eyes met in the mirror. His gaze held hers with a hint of awareness.
He thought she was beautiful.
High praise, coming from a person often voted the most beautiful man on the planet.
She dismissed the moment, focusing instead on the confetti that adorned her as well.
She couldn’t brush her hands through her hair because that was likely impossible.
A wedding hairstyle like hers wasn’t held together by hope and good wishes, but by hairspray.
She picked out some errant coloured paper that had clung tenaciously to her, dropping it on the sideboard.
‘I’m surprised that you opted for confetti,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘It’s messy.’
‘I don’t mind messy, in its place. Life’s messy.’
There seemed to be weight to his words, but what was your wedding day if not a momentous occasion?
Even though theirs was strictly business, it still carried a certain gravitas.
That sensation pressed down upon her again, but she wouldn’t dwell on it.
Instead, Simone thought about the money in her bank account.
Seven figures settled on her the moment she said I do.
That amount would allow her to protect her sister Holly, who’d been abandoned by her parents because, like Simone, she hadn’t fitted into the mould they’d tried to create for her.
Today ensured that the medical bills for Holly’s increasingly complicated pregnancy, that she’d hidden till she couldn’t any longer, were paid. That was all that mattered.