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God knew she was tired enough to fall asleep standing up. The past week of dealing with doctors and attorneys and worried shareholders had drained her of her last reserves.
But total rest was still denied her.
Perhaps she could have dozed off if Marco’s voice hadn’t drifted to her. If her body hadn’t come awake at the deep timbre that left her shaking.
He spoke in clipped Italian delivered so fast and fluently that with her meager knowledge she couldn’t begin to translate. Was he really so much like her father, always engaged in some deal? Or was he delivering the news to Italy that he’d succeeded, that he’d brought Tate Unlimited to its knees?
That he had the millionaire’s heiress in tow with the contract that she’d agreed to do his bidding safely in hand?
All of the above, she thought as a small degree of hysteria rippled through her. Could she have dreamt up a more intense working relationship? No!
Marco was the billionaire who had trumped her tyrannical father’s millionaire status. He was the antithesis of power. He was her boss for the next two weeks.
He was the only man she’d fallen in love with. The only man she had ever loved physically and emotionally.
A hysterical laugh stuck in her throat as the plane sped through the clouds, carrying her into the unknown with a man who was more stranger to her than ever before. A man she’d hoped to cling to in the dead of night, who would be there for her until the day she drew her last breath. The man she’d spun dreams on.
Her only lover. Her hero.
Unwanted tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back. How very wrong she’d been.
Hopefully, once they arrived in Italy he would take himself off so she could breathe again. So she could think. So she could do her job and then escape back to London with sole ownership of her business in hand.
Only then could she focus on her career. On her future. On living in peace. That’s all she wanted.
All she had to do to have that was endure two weeks in the company of the man who still left her weak-kneed. Who tormented her dreams in the dead of night.
She could do it. She had to. Failure wasn’t an option.
CHAPTER THREE
TWO hours into the flight, Marco ended the conference call and rubbed his gritty eyes. Sleep had been sporadic all week, a fact that could be blamed on the alluring beauty seated primly in the front of his plane.
His gaze zeroed in on her with unerring accuracy. She hadn’t moved much since boarding the plane. Had she dozed off? Was she simply enjoying the flight, content knowing that she would get exactly what she’d wanted all along?
He shifted and damned his restlessness. It shouldn’t matter to him if Delanie Tate was pleased or not. He’d never set out to spite her and he damned sure hadn’t attempted to placate her.
In fact, before his sister’s interference, he’d hoped to avoid her entirely during this shift in power. Delanie was a page from his past and he intended to keep her there.
Page? A wry smile tugged at his lips. No, she was a chapter at least. Perhaps even a book of pure trouble.
Still he hadn’t wished to reread that episode anytime soon. But Bella’s stubborn insistence on having Delanie as her wedding planner forced him to chose between pleasing himself or his sister.
He snorted. That had been no contest.
His sister’s happiness came first.
That had put Delanie right back into his life.
While he’d been prepared to deal with her on a business level, he hadn’t anticipated he would still find her unbelievably attractive. He’d never anticipated his body would react so at her nearness.
It was frustrating. Annoying. Unacceptable.
Dammit, he was a man in charge of his emotions. In control of his sex drive.
So why the hell was he shifting restlessly on the leather chair?
He swiped a hand down his face. This unwanted reaction to her was unacceptable on far too many levels.
If he had taken Delanie at her word, which he did not, he would have ordered the plane back to London and have her escorted off. He would have gladly let her plan his sister’s wedding from there, thus freeing himself of her alluring company.
But he couldn’t trust her. She’d betrayed him before when she’d sworn she loved him. There was nothing between them now but animosity on her part, and wariness on his own.
Since Elite Affair had turned down his sister once and then him a second time when he had upped the offer of money, he was left with one choice—force Delanie’s hand. His takedown of Tate Unlimited was the perfect opportunity.
There was no other recourse, he reasoned, refusing to take pleasure from watching the dim light play over her hair. She worked for him now. More so than other contractors he was in league with, she needed to be watched and made accountable.
The only way he could achieve that was by maintaining total control of the situation. That was best done by having her under his thumb.
Easy enough to accomplish. Or it should have been.
Being physically close to Delanie was a totally different matter that he still didn’t feel comfortable dealing with. But he would.
She aroused him on a deeper level than he liked and no amount of avoidance would change that. Even distancing himself from her on the plane hadn’t worked because she’d been on his mind the entire time.
He swore and scanned the contract she’d pressed on him earlier. Since it was straightforward and clear, he signed it without ceremony and left his chair.
“Your contract is precise yet fair,” he said, breaking the silence as he came to a stop behind her.
She started in her chair and looked back at him. The dark of her eyes nearly swallowed the clear blue.
“Thank you,” she said. “I see no reason to make a straightforward business arrangement complex.”
Her voice held that breathy quality that lapped around his control like warm waves, threatening to erode his defenses. It was so tempting to relax and be taken out to that sea of passion they’d frolicked in long ago. Too tempting.
“I’m of a like mind,” he said, planting his feet firmly in the here and now as he dropped onto the seat across from her.
The most charming flush stole across her cheekbones and he paused. Except for the unnatural stiffness in her narrow shoulders and the tilt of her head, she looked very much as she had when they’d met.
The years should have hardened her. Should have shown on her face. But all he saw was a reluctant surrender and a proud bearing that he admired.
“Tell me about her,” Delanie said, her gaze fixed on his again.
He looked away so she wouldn’t see he was softening to her again, that his control over remaining impassive was slipping through his fingers like warm grains of sand.
“My sister?” he asked, then smiled when she nodded. “Bella is beautiful and willful and far too seductive for her own good.”
“Yet you love her.”
He sobered at that assessment. Love. He had loved his grandparents. Had loved his mother and tried to love his cold father—a wasted effort. He’d been consumed with Delanie but had he loved her?
No, it couldn’t have been love. Infatuation. Lust. When the truth came out he’d had no difficulty walking away from her.
So why did she cross his mind in the dead of night? Why did he catch himself comparing every woman he met with her?
His chest heaved as the answer skirted his mind—an answer that he always ignored, just as he always ignored that old gnawing sense of emptiness when it threatened to yawn away in his soul. Or the skitter that streaked up his spine.
Like now.
“Bella is my responsibility,” he said. “I care for her.”
“That’s cold.”
“That’s reality. Bella resents me.”
She blinked, her clear eyes fixed on his as if she could read his soul. “Why?”
He shifted on the seat, uncomfortable delving into this. Yet what was the use in holding his silence? She would find out soon enough from someone in the village or at the villa. He might as well be the first to break the news.
“Bella thought she was Antonio Cabriotini’s only bastard,” he said simply.
“Antonio Cabriotini?” she parroted.
“Our biological father,” he said, glancing her way to gauge her reaction.
She shook her head and frowned. “I thought your parents were married.”
Such naiveté. “The man who raised me, who gave me his name, was married to my mother but I wasn’t his son. When he found out, he withdrew the closeness I’d always had with him.”
For a moment Delanie couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t wrap her brain around what he was telling her. And then finally she got it with a breathless wham to her midsection.
She finally understood the reason behind those broad tense shoulders attempting a careless shrug, the motion as abrupt as a salute. His illegitimacy was the reason for the pain she caught lurking behind those dark fathomless eyes, pain at having the father he’d loved ripped from him. That was the change in him she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“How long have you known this?” she asked.
“Eight years.”
The words were shot out without feeling, his gaze boring into hers now. Hard. Cold. Defiant.
But she heard the underlying pain in his voice as well. Caught the tiny tick of hurt that snapped like a sail along his taut bronzed cheek.
Her heart gave an odd thud and her hand shifted, a blink away from reaching out to him. She caught herself with a trembling clasp of her own hands.
How wrongly would he take it if she offered compassion? Considering their past, she doubted he would take it well. Yet hadn’t they moved beyond the past pain? Weren’t they old enough and wise enough to understand nothing untoward was meant by it? Now wasn’t the time to dissect it to find out.
“I see,” she said, nerves stretched so tight they hummed.
“Do you?” he asked. “Because I don’t understand how my mama who claimed to have loved my papa could be unfaithful to him. I do not understand why nobody saw fit to tell me the truth until after my parents’ deaths.”
Hearing the anger in his voice, that telling drawl when he told her this, made her insides cramp in an oh-too-familiar pang of understanding. No wonder he had no faith in love. He would never open himself to an emotion he believed caused only pain. And wasn’t she just as guilty of holding back from him? He was right. That was in the past. There was nothing she could say when Marco had never believed her anyway.
“You would likely be surprised by how many families hold dark secrets,” she said, cheeks burning and stomach knotting at the troubled memories of her own childhood.
He snorted. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
How sad that he had become more jaded. But then, so had she. Wasn’t she afraid to trust? To surrender her heart and soul?
She shifted on the chair while her mind shoved away from that train of thought. “I gather your sister knew of her paternity before you did.”
“By a month or so.” He drove his fingers through his hair, sending the thick waves in disarray.
She caught a breath as an old memory ribboned through her of doing the same to his wealth of dark hair. Of holding him close to her on a sun-kissed beach, laughing with him, kissing him in a slow, deep burn until the world blurred to only them.
Ten years ago she’d been a hopeless dreamer, desperately wanting a hero. Her innocence had convinced her that when she looked deeply into his warm brown eyes she believed her world was complete with him in it.
She shook off those idyllic yesterdays like a cool rain on chilled skin and chanced a glance at him, hoping he wasn’t looking at her in some sort of horror. But he stared off, brow furrowed, clearly troubled by something else.
“Did you know her?” she asked, grasping the thread of their conversation by its tail.
“No. We were strangers coming from vastly different backgrounds which complicated matters more. Since the start Bella has resented that I was named her guardian until she reached twenty-five,” he said, clearly not of the same mind.
Delanie felt a commiserating pang with his sister, knowing how badly she’d ached to break free of her domineering father, hating that she’d waited and waited for her own dawn of independence. “How old is she now?”
“Twenty,” he said, sliding her a knowing look.
The same age she had been when she’d met Marco. Willful. Emotional. And tangled in a wretched triangle with her parents, dreaming of freedom yet unwilling to put her frail mother at risk to grab what she wanted.
“Tell me more about Bella,” she blurted out.
He shrugged, this time the movement less tense. “As I said she’s young. Spoilt. Resentful.”
“Of you?” Delanie guessed.
He laughed, but she caught the pained treble, the hint of worry that had her wanting to leave her seat and go to him. Hug him, comfort him. Sanity prevailed and she didn’t, but it wasn’t easy knowing his elite world wasn’t perfect. And hadn’t she hoped that would be the case? She was suddenly glad for the subdued light on board that hid the heat scorching her cheeks.
“Bella resents me, resents the world,” he said, dark eyes on her again. “She needs a strong hand.”
Of course he would think that! But hearing him admit he was controlling his sister proved her fears long ago were right. Or did they? Was she still using that as an excuse to hold back from giving her all again? From trusting?
She stared at the floor, admitting she’d lost herself in his arms that first time. Basking in the afterglow of love was new. Terrifying.
Still she’d loved Marco. She’d hoped that she was simply mistaken. But the second time they made love was more consuming, more earthshattering to her heart. Her soul.
My dear, I love your father, and he loves me in his own way, her mother had told her as she recuperated from a volatile night spent suffering her father’s anger.
Delanie never forgot that night. Never forgot that love could hurt. That love could strip a woman of her independence. Perhaps even her sanity.
No love was worth that, Delanie had decided.
