Valentino's Love-Child

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“Because I’m not Sicilian.”

“Because our relationship is not a love affair.” But was that true?

How could it be anything else when he could not love her? He had promised Maura that he would love her always. Her sudden death had not negated that pledge.

“I thought we were friends, too.”

“We are friends.” Friendship he could do—was necessary even.

“But not sweethearts.”

His heart twinged, making his tone come out more cynical than he meant it to. “What an old-fashioned term.”

She shrugged. “It’s one Tay used to use.” She said the dead man’s name with a wistfulness that he did not like.

“I gather he was an unusual man.”

“Yes. He was. One of the best, maybe even the best man I ever knew.”

“But he is gone.”

“Yes, just as Gio’s mother is gone.”

“Maura will never be gone from my heart.”

“No, she won’t, but are you so sure your heart has no room for anyone else?”

“That is not a discussion you and I should be having.” It was one he frankly could not handle.

A Sicilian man should be able to handle anything. Even the death of his wife and raising his child without a mother. But most definitely any conversation with his current mistress. The fact that he could not shamed him.

“Because we agreed that sex and friendship was enough?” she asked in a voice husky with emotion.

“Yes.”

“And if it isn’t any longer…for either of us?”

That could not be true. He would not allow it to be. “Do not presume to speak for me.”

“Fine. What if I am only speaking for myself?”

“Then we would need to talk about whether what we have is still working.” It was not a discussion he wanted to have. He was far from ready to let her go.

She nodded and turned from him. “I think it’s time I was going.” She was hurting, for all that she tried to hide it.

“No.” He hated the melancholy in her voice.

He hated the sense that somehow it was his fault. He hated thinking of going to bed alone after spending the whole evening in her company. Even worse, he hated feeling as if he might lose her and really hated how much that bothered him.

Perhaps he could erase her sorrow while easing his own fears. He was a big proponent of the win-win business proposition. It was even better when applied to personal relationships.

Before she could take more than a couple of steps, he reached out and caught her shoulder.

“Tino, don’t.”

“You do not mean that, carina.” He drew her back toward his body. He could not imagine doing the opposite—pushing her away.

Yet he knew he could not hold on to her forever. One day she would tire of life in Sicily—so different from her home—and would return to America. Isn’t that what all American women did eventually?

Faith was currently the only single American woman he knew who was making a go of actually living permanently in Sicily. For all its charm, Marsala was a far cry from New York or London.

That only meant they should not waste the time they did have. “We are good together. Do not allow tonight to change that.”

“I need more, Tino.”

“Then I will give you more.” He was very good at that.

“I’m not talking about sex.”

He turned her to face him and lowered his head so his lips hovered above hers. “Let’s not talk at all.”

Then he kissed her. He would show her that they were too right together to dismiss their relationship because it wasn’t packaged in orange blossoms and meters of white tulle.

She fought her own response. He could feel the tension in her, knew she wanted to resist, but though she might want to, she was as much a slave to their mutual attraction as he. Her body knew where it belonged. In his arms.

But her brain was too active and she tore her lips from his. “No, Tino.”

“Do not say no. Say rather, ‘Make love to me, Tino.’ This is what I wish to hear.”

“We’re supposed to be exclusive.”

“We are.”

“You were willing to have a blind date with another woman, Tino.” She wrenched herself from his arms. “I cannot be okay with that.”

“It was not a date.”

She glared at him, but it was the light of betrayal in her eyes that cut him to the quick. “As good as.”

“I did not consider it a date.”

“But you knew your son and mother were matchmaking.”

“I had no intention of being matched.”

“But that’s changed. You said so. You said you would do anything for Gio, even give him a second mother—if she’s Sicilian.” The tone Faith spoke the last words with said how little she thought of his stance on the matter.

“I said I was considering it, not that I had decided to date other women. You are all the woman I want right now.”

“And tomorrow?”

“And tomorrow.”

“So, when does my sell-by date come into effect? Next week? Next month? Next year.”

He wanted to grab her and hold on tight, but he laid gentle hands on her shoulders instead. “You do not have a sell-by date. Our relationship is not cut-and-dried like that.”

“I won’t be with you if you’re going to date other women,” she repeated stubbornly.

“I would not ask you to.”

“What does that mean, Tino?”

“It means you can trust me to be faithful while we are together. Just as I trust you.”

Her eyes glistened suspiciously, sending shards of pain spiking through his gut. He did not want to see her cry. He kissed her, just once, oh so carefully, trying to put the tenderness and commitment—as limited as it might be—that he felt into the caress.

“Let me make love to you.” He was pleading and he did not care.

They needed each other tonight, not empty beds where regrets and memories would haunt the hours that should be for sleep. Or making love.

“No more blind dates.”

“It wasn’t—”

But she shushed him with a finger to his lips. “It was. Or would have been. Don’t do it again.”

“You have my word.” Then, because he could not help himself; because he needed it more than breathing or thinking or anything else, he once again kissed her.

He poured his passion and his fear out in that kiss, molding their lips together in a primordial dance.

At first she did not respond. She did not try to push him away, but she did not pull him closer, either. It was the only time in their relationship she had not fallen headfirst into passion with him.

She was still thinking.

He would fix that. Increasing the intensity of their kiss, he stormed her mouth, refusing to allow their mutual desire to remain a prisoner to circumstances that would not…could not…change. Bit by bit her instincts took over.