Chapter 19
Vincenzo
The entire penthouse is filled with the delicious smell when I get home. A red sauce slowly simmers on the stove in a large stock pot. There’s no sign of Anna until the sound of the shower turning on tells me exactly where she’s at.
I take a bottle of wine from the wine refrigerator and open it before getting two glasses from the cupboard and pouring us each a glass. The towel on the counter is covered with freshly washed pieces of my pasta maker.
A smile plays on my lips, thinking of surprising Anna in the shower, but she’s gone to so much trouble to make a nice meal, and once I get Anna beneath me, we’re not going to be done for hours. Instead, I put a pot of water on the stove to boil.
The shower turns off and I use the spoon sitting on the spoon rest on the stove to test the aromatic sauce and it is as delicious as it smells.
This woman, except for the minor detail of her not having learned to trust me yet, she is absolute perfection.
The fact that our father didn’t question me more about her and her family actually surprises me.
I hadn’t planned on the conversation going that well but then again, he probably remembered me telling him about her a couple days after carrying her out of that building and what I told him when I heard the news that she had died.
A rumor Massimo spread that still cuts deep. Six fucking months of thinking she was dead. I didn’t even know her but even then there was a connection that seemed to transcend it all.
I don’t need to look up to know she’s watching me.
I feel the heat of her gaze on my skin. My eyes meet hers, and lower, taking in the pale mint colored dress I had purchased for her that she hasn’t worn before.
It skims her curves deliciously making me eager for dinner to be over and dessert to begin.
Her gold kitten heels click lightly over the tiles as she makes her way to me.
“Hi,” she says, taking my breath away with her long flowing hair, curled in soft waves, and a seductive color of lipstick painting her lips.
Keeping my hands off her and focusing on the meal she’s made special for me is going to be an effort because if I had my way… ”
“Did you hear me?” Anna asks softly.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
Her eyes meet mine, and there’s something serious in her mannerism. Immediately I sense something is off. “What’s wrong?”
She opens the refrigerator and pulls a nest of homemade pasta wrapped in plastic and lays it on the counter before pulling out a casserole dish that doesn’t look like one of mine. “Where did that come from?”
Her eyebrow arches. “Observant. The dessert is a gift for you; hand delivered today by your little sister Lanah.”
Shit… I sigh. “So, she stopped by and used her key. Let me guess, gave you the third degree and now that’s all I’m going to hear about.”
I hand Anna a glass of wine, and we walk into the dining room. I hold out a chair for her, adjusting it as she takes a seat before I settle into the one next to her.
Anna takes a sip and it’s with difficulty that I try to focus on what she’s saying and not the shape of those pretty pink lips that I plan to have wrapped around my dick in less than an hour.
Anna’s gaze drifts to me. “She was delightful and amusing. Apparently, the dessert is her peace offering after giving you a hard time, but she’s not so over whatever you did that she’s going to keep your dirty little secret.
I’m looking forward to meeting your mamma, who she mentioned will probably be over to meet me next. ”
I run a hand through my hair. Fuckin A… I can only imagine how the conversation in Lanah and Mamma’s penthouse is going right now.
Anna smiles. “Your sister was delightful.”
“Yeah, what did you tell her?”
Anna’s eyes twinkle. I’m enjoying this playful side of Anna very much. She traces a fingernail around the rim of the glass and all I can think of is her doing that to my dick. One track fucking mind when it comes to my princessa.
“She didn’t ask. I just introduced myself as Anna. That’s it.” She takes another drink of her wine and then stands, noticing the pot on the stove. “You already started the water? I should get the pasta ready. There’s a salad prepped in the fridge.”
“And what do I owe this special delicious smelling meal to?”
She shrugs, giving me a slight smile. “I wasn’t sure what time you were returning or if you would be hungry. A little thank you for letting me out. It was fun. I rooted around the house, found one of your T-shirts, got a little workout in…”
Anna notices the look on my face. I know it the minute she does.
She smiles. “Relax. I left the gun where I found it. I’m not stupid, nor am I an idiot.
If I wanted to hurt you when you came home there are more ways than using your own gun.
I could”—she shrugs—“make you a delicious pot of red sauce and poison it, so when you passed out, I could take your gun and leave.”
This fucking woman…
I stand, a hand snaking beneath her hair, cradling her to me, just inhaling her scent before capturing her sassy lips with mine, and devouring the sweetness of her lips in a way so new to me that it feels like fucking heaven.
She responds with all the passion I’ve come to expect from Anna but getting her into my bed has never been the problem. It’s her heart and soul that I want. And she guards that like Fort Fucking Knox.
I slowly break our kiss, but it is with effort. My mouth caresses the soft shell of her ear. “We need to eat first. I want to taste this meal you’ve gone to so much trouble to make us, princessa.”
That smile as she looks up at me, it causes something in my chest to tighten with emotion. She stretches on tiptoes and kisses my lips lightly. “Let me slip the pasta into the water. Everything else is ready,” she says softly, leaving my side to go to the stove.
Anna looks so natural at my stove that it’s hard to imagine she hasn’t been here every fucking day of my life. Nicolo is right. This woman, somehow, I have managed to let her get to me in ways I never thought imaginable.
And the fact that she’s a Cassone, or that she’s Massimo Roselli’s to protect, or even that she may have been promised by a dying man to a bastard that will kill me for taking what’s his, not one of those things matter a bit.
She’s mine.
Perhaps giving her more leeway, letting her know I trust her with the important things in my life will help her open up and trust me more too.
Just the fact that she could have used that gun, knows quite well how to use that gun, could have pulled it on Lanah and gotten away does not bypass me at all.
She could have been long gone by the time I got home and if she had meant harm to any of my family, Lanah could have been gone too.
Anna pulls plates from the cupboard while I get the salad she has in the refrigerator out and then set the table as she takes care of the pasta. I take a sip of my wine, watching her plate our dishes as I try to decide just exactly how to handle my sexy little captive.