CHAPTER NINE

W HEN V ITO RETURNED that evening he felt wrung out, but also couldn’t deny the frisson of anticipation that had been growing ever since he’d made his excuses from the most boring dinner on the planet to come back to the apartment. And now that frisson was getting stronger.

He entered the apartment, pulling open his tie and the top button of his shirt. Clothes had never made him feel as restricted as they had since he’d been with Flora Gavia. A unique experience, as if he just wanted to be naked all the time. He smiled a little grimly at that notion.

He made his way through the softly lit apartment looking for her. He noticed things. Some dog toys on the ground. A pair of her trainers. A top on the back of a chair. More flowers than he would usually have in the apartment. He stopped and looked around. It looked...lived in. A novel concept for Vito when he was used to moving through spaces he inhabited without leaving much of a ripple.

Disconcertingly, it appealed to him. It made him feel somehow—He heard a sound and he looked to the doorway leading to the bedrooms and every coherent thought went out of his head.

Flora was standing there, lit with a golden glow, in a simple but devastatingly provocative silk negligée with thin straps. With one flick of his finger it would fall away from her body.

He was hard in an instant.

She looked a little dishevelled. She’d been sleeping. She said, ‘I thought I heard something.’

Vito regretted not bringing her to dinner. She would have made it so much more interesting. But she would have distracted everyone. Him. He walked towards her. ‘What if I’d been an intruder?’

‘I’m sure Benji would have barked the block down and alerted me.’

The dog in question looked up sleepily from his bed and put his head back down. The most ineffectual guard dog ever.

Vito was just a foot away from Flora now. Her hair was spilling over her shoulders, wild and making his fingers itch. But then he remembered something and put his hand in his inside jacket pocket. He pulled out a long slim box and handed it to Flora. ‘For you. Carrie Black was right. You do deserve a grovelling gift.’

Flora looked shocked. And reluctant. ‘You don’t have to give me anything.’

‘Will you take it if I tell you I went in and chose it myself?’

Now she looked curious. She saw the name on the box and sucked in a breath at the iconic jewellers. ‘Vito, this is too much.’

‘You haven’t even looked at it yet.’

She eventually took it and opened it and sucked in another breath. Vito had actually gone into the shop on a whim earlier, when they’d been stuck in traffic and he’d spotted it.

He’d noticed this necklace almost immediately and he’d known she would love it. It was a simple gold flower, with delicate petals and a lustrous pearl in the centre, on a gold chain.

For a second he regretted choosing something so...personal. Why hadn’t he just chosen a diamond bracelet or something more bland? Too late now.

Flora stroked it with a finger. ‘Vito, it’s lovely.’ She looked up at him. ‘How did you know?’

Now he felt a little exposed. He shrugged. ‘I saw it and thought of you, your name. Flora, flower.’

He took the box from her and took out the necklace, holding it up. ‘May I?’

Flora nodded and turned around, lifting her hair up and off her neck. Vito reached around in front of her and placed the necklace around her neck, closing the clasp.

When it was closed he brought her hands down and her hair fell back down. She turned around. The necklace sat just below the hollow of her throat on her pale golden skin. She touched it. ‘Thank you, you really didn’t have to do that, but I love it.’

Without even asking her, Vito already knew that her uncle and aunt had most likely been very negligent in giving her anything or marking occasions like birthdays. They’d been too busy fleecing her of her inheritance.

Vito put the empty box down and took Flora’s hand, leading her back towards the bedroom. He’d given up trying to put a boundary between them by using two bedrooms. Easier just to give into the inevitable.

In the bedroom, he stripped off with efficient speed and then he looked at Flora. The gold glinted against her skin. Vito found that, in spite of the sense of exposure, he liked seeing it there.

His gaze travelled down. The top of the slip rested just over her breasts. He could see the hard nubs of her nipples pressing against the fabric. He controlled himself though. It was important. To make him feel as though he weren’t fraying at the edges and losing sight of what was important to him. Making an indelible success of the Vitale name so no one would ever question his father’s integrity again. He couldn’t think of that now. He’d worry about that later.

He looked down and could see the darker shadow of where the honey-golden curls covered her sex. He imagined her already hot there. Damp. Ready.

‘Vito...’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘You’re killing me here.’

He looked at her and moved closer. ‘Good, because you’re killing me too.’

He cupped one breast covered in that slippy silk and bent his head to target and suck the hard flesh of her nipple into his mouth. She gasped and speared her hands in his hair.

He caught her against him and she wrapped a hand around his straining flesh. Vito almost lost it there and then but somehow he managed to get them onto the bed, roll protection onto his length and finally sink into her slick tight embrace. It was fast and he couldn’t control it. Vito felt Flora’s body contract around his and he gave in, letting the pleasure take him where it wanted—to oblivion. Their bodies were so entwined that he couldn’t have said where he ended and she began and, right then, he didn’t care.

The following afternoon Vito was aware of the meeting continuing behind him. But he was brooding as he looked out of a window that commanded breathtaking views of downtown Manhattan. This should be a moment for him to really appreciate just how far he’d come and how successful he’d been in restoring the Vitale name.

But instead of feeling a sense of triumph he was distracted. Thinking of Flora’s expression earlier at breakfast when he’d shot down her request to do something for him, to make herself useful.

She’d said, ‘I had a nice time yesterday, it’s not that I don’t mind my own company, I’m used to it. But I just feel a bit...redundant. Maybe I could help? I’m good at office stuff, photocopying... I wouldn’t mind getting teas and coffees. I’m not too proud.’

Vito had leaned over to her and pressed a swift kiss on her mouth before saying, ‘You might not be, but I am. I’m not having my lover fetching tea and coffee for my staff.’

He’d stood up to leave. ‘I’ll be back in time for dinner this evening.’

Flora had perked up. ‘I could cook.’

He’d reminded her that they had a chef to cook. She’d tried to hide it but Vito had been aware of her disappointment.

Didn’t she get it? That it was enough for him that she be with him when he needed and in his bed when he wanted? That was all he asked of any woman he chose.

But she’s not like the other women.

Ha! As if he needed that reminder. He’d bought her that necklace. He still felt exposed just thinking about it.

She’d said to him that morning before he’d left, ‘I’m sure someone will have a use for me.’

Vito had been sorely tempted to remind her of exactly how useful she was, in his bed, but he’d resisted the urge. Partly because it had unnerved him, how strong it was to just...give into their mind-blowing desire.

He looked out over the city skyline. She was somewhere out there, in this vast city, on her own, doing... something . Making herself useful! And he was curious. Because he was sure that whatever she was doing would surprise him. Curious, and also a little envious if he was completely honest. For the first time since he could remember, work and his relentless ambition felt a little...hollow. The lure of being with Flora as she discovered the city was appealing. More than appealing.

He was so tempted to text her and check what she was doing that he deliberately didn’t. Had he forgotten that she was a Gavia? And even though he was fairly certain now that she hadn’t been involved in any of her uncle’s nefarious activities, by allowing her to distract him like this, it was almost as if he were still allowing them to sabotage his business.

He turned away from the view and back to the meeting and said, ‘Where were we?’ and put all thoughts of Flora out of his head.

Three days later.

Vito was ready to admit defeat. He’d spent the last few days throwing himself into his work schedule in a bid to pretend that Flora wasn’t taking up as much of his mental energy as she was.

But he was losing it. Not even slaking his lust with her in bed at night made up for the fact that, during the days, he’d more or less left her to her own devices and had then painted himself into such a corner with work that when they’d returned to the apartment last night after an event, he’d had to take an important work call.

When he’d finally managed to terminate it, blood humming with anticipation, he’d come to the bedroom to find Flora on the bed, in that silky negligée, but fast asleep. She’d looked like Sleeping Beauty, and as innocent.

Something had made him hold back from waking her. A sense of exposure that was becoming all too familiar. And the desperation that had clawed at him to have her. It was growing stronger. Not weaker.

But now he found that his need to know where she was and what she was doing was superseding everything else. Even work.

He rang his housekeeper and was informed that Flora was out. ‘Doing what?’ Vito asked as civilly as he could.

‘Um... I believe she’s walking dogs.’

‘You mean the dog. Benji.’

‘No,’ his housekeeper responded, ‘I mean dogs . She got talking to one of the neighbours the other day who was telling her she couldn’t get out because she had a sprained ankle, so Flora offered to take her two dogs on her walk. By the time she came back from that walk, a couple more neighbours were asking her if she could walk their dogs too.’

Vito absorbed this. He terminated the call, feeling more distracted than ever. He turned to his manager. ‘You have everything in hand for the rest of the day?’

‘Of course, I’ll call if anything comes up.’

Vito left, not even sure where he was going or what he was doing. He instructed his driver to take him back to his apartment. It was late afternoon anyway, so not entirely inconceivable that he’d be stopping for the day, but for him, a man whose single-minded focus had been on work since he was a teenager, it was a novel sensation.

The car pulled up outside the apartment building and Vito saw her. She was waiting to cross the road. His blood and pulse leapt. She looked...like a wild-haired nymph. She was wearing rolled-up jeans, a worn T-shirt—none of the sleek clothes the stylist had packed for her. Trainers.

And she was holding leads attached to at least six dogs. She crossed the road in front of the car and disappeared into the building. Vito got out and went up to the apartment.

When she returned with just Benji, presumably after dropping off the other dogs to their respective owners, Vito was waiting in the reception room. She saw him and stopped. She smiled. ‘Hi. I didn’t expect to see you back so early.’

Vito ignored the prick of his conscience at her obvious happiness to see him. ‘Clearly. Were you going to tell me about your little entrepreneurial side hustle?’

Flora frowned. ‘You mean the dogs? You saw me?’

Vito nodded. Her face flushed. He forced himself to focus and not think of making the rest of her body flush with desire.

Now Flora looked wary. ‘What’s wrong? Am I not allowed to help people?’

Of course she is.

‘You’re not charging them to walk their dogs?’

Now she looked disgusted. ‘Of course not. They’re your neighbours. And they’re very nice. Mrs Weinberg sprained her ankle—’

Vito held up a hand. She stopped talking. He said, ‘I’m sure they’re lovely people. But you’re not a dog-walker.’

Flora pushed some hair over her shoulder, agitated. ‘I can be whatever I want to be.’

‘I thought you wanted to be a graphic designer.’

Flora folded her arms across her chest. ‘You don’t want your... lover to be seen doing menial work. Is that it?’

Vito forced himself to sound unconcerned when the need to know everything she did suddenly seemed more compelling than anything else. ‘I’m not a snob. I’m just curious. Indulge me.’

She threw her hands up. ‘Because I was bored and I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing and I don’t want to go shopping or to a spa. I want to be of use.’

Vito’s hands itched to show her exactly how she could be of use.

She said, ‘I did try to tell you, yesterday evening, but all those people wanted to talk to you at the event, and then you were on the phone when we got back and then... I fell asleep...and you didn’t wake me.’ Now she avoided his eye.

Vito didn’t like the reminder of how he’d been overcome with duelling desires, to wake her and to walk away. She was fast becoming an obsession, if she wasn’t already.

‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ he said now. A little voice mocked him. Liar.

Suddenly Flora looked shy and she said, ‘I got something for you. Wait here.’

Vito watched her leave the room. Benji came over and sniffed around his feet but before he could cock his leg and mark his territory on Vito, he lifted him up and went to put him outside. The dog licked his face and Vito felt a little glow in his chest. He put him down on the terrace and pretended that the dog wasn’t getting to him.

Vito went back inside and Flora was there, holding out a small black box. For some reason Vito had an almost superstitious reluctance to take it. No woman had ever bought him anything. Not since his mother had died.

But he couldn’t ignore it. He took it and opened it to see silver cufflinks in the shape of eagles’ heads, beautifully engraved.

Flora was saying, ‘I saw them in the window of an antiques shop. They made me think of you, like an eagle, soaring above everything and biding your time until you could swoop down and take your vengeance for your father, and mother.’

It was uncanny but Vito had always had a fascination with birds of prey since he was a small child. He’d watched endless nature documentaries, much to his parents’ bemusement because they lived in a city. But Vito had known that birds of prey stalked cities as much as out in the wild. He’d seen birds of prey high in the sky over Manhattan. The line between civilisation and nature was very thin.

The fact that Flora had picked these out made him feel acutely exposed, a sensation that was becoming far too familiar. He snapped the box shut. ‘Thank you, but you really shouldn’t have gone to the trouble.’

‘It was no trouble.’ Flora looked a little dejected but Vito was too full of conflicting emotions. Then she said quickly, ‘I paid for them out of my own money,’ and the emotions in Vito’s chest and gut intensified.

He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to pay me back for anything, Flora.’

He was realising the full extent of just how far over and beyond the boundaries this situation had gone. Flora was like no other woman he’d ever been with. She was breaking all the rules and making up new ones. And through it all his blood was hotter for her than ever. The thought of this ending made him feel desperate. She wasn’t out of his system yet. Surely it wasn’t too late to restore some of those boundaries...

He handed back the box, even as bile rose from his gullet at what he was doing. ‘You should return them and get your money back. I don’t need anything.’

Flora’s face became expressionless. Vito felt a cold finger trace down his spine. He had an urge to say, No, wait, stop, I’m overreacting, but Flora was already taking the box and putting it in her pocket. ‘They were meant as a gift, not payment, but I should have realised that you’d be used to something a little more...sophisticated.’

She was turning away and Vito reached out and caught her arm. She turned back but avoided his eye. He tipped up her chin with his finger. Her eyes were guarded. He said, ‘I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It was a really thoughtful thing to do. Thank you.’

That sense of desperation was back but now it was because he wanted her to stop looking like a stranger. Unreadable. He took his hand down and said, ‘How would you like to go to a show this evening? I don’t have any engagements lined up.’

Flora shrugged minutely. ‘Sure, that sounds nice.’

‘Any show in particular?’

She smiled but Vito could see it was forced. The bile was almost choking him now. Flora said, ‘Surprise me.’

So Vito did what he would normally do in a situation with a woman he was sleeping with—he went for the show that was the most in demand and the hardest to get tickets for. And even though that put him on ground that felt a little firmer, he knew that Flora was the one woman he couldn’t impress so easily.

Flora was finding it hard to get swept away by the exuberant show on the stage, just feet from where they were sitting in a VIP box. She was still incredibly hurt after Vito handed back the present she’d got for him. She’d seen him look at the cufflinks with an arrested expression. But then his face had shuttered and he’d handed them back, and she’d felt like the biggest fool.

He’d proven that you really couldn’t buy anything for the man who had everything. And he’d handed them back because he had obviously wanted to send her a message—don’t cross the line. He’d managed to put her back in her place and remind her that her finances were paltry.

She should have taken the hint from the fact that she’d barely seen him for the last few days, clearly demonstrating his focus was on work and not on her.

And she shouldn’t be hurt because if he had the ability to hurt her, it meant that he’d got a lot closer than she’d realised.

Who are you fooling? jeered a voice.

She knew it was already too late. He’d sneaked in under her skin and she was falling for him. And it was so humiliating because he’d stood her up at the altar in front of all of society, and the only reason he was still indulging her was because for some crazy reason he fancied her, but underneath that was the very obvious guilt he felt that he’d punished her along with her uncle. And she was still a Gavia. Vito would never commit to anything permanent with someone from his sworn enemy’s family.

The minute he stopped fancying her, she’d be an unwelcome guest. There couldn’t be less holding them together. Lust and guilt. And yet, as hurt as she was by his very obvious wish for her not to push the boundaries, he was the first person who had come into her life and seen her for herself, uniquely. Fatally, she knew she couldn’t walk away. Not yet. His desire for her was calling to the deepest part of her where she’d locked herself away to avoid being hurt for so many years.

She was blooming to life under his gaze and even as she knew it was futile, all she could do was pray that he wasn’t the only person who would ever make her feel like this. Desired. Seen. Because of one thing she was certain—Vittorio Vitale did not share the same depth of feelings.

That night when they returned to the apartment after the show, there was a silent intensity to their lovemaking, as if today had been a marker on the ground signifying that the end was nigh.

Flora shuddered against Vito as the powerful waves of her orgasm ripped through her body with Vito not far behind, his powerful body jerking in the throes of his own climax.

He lay over her, in her, for a long moment. Flora’s legs and arms were wrapped around him and she knew she should move but she couldn’t seem to. She knew that she was selfishly storing up these little moments so that she could take them out at a later date when this was all a distant memory.

Eventually, though, Vito pulled free of Flora’s embrace but, to her surprise, he lifted her up and out of the bed with him, bringing her into the bathroom. He put her down gently and turned on the shower, the space filling with steam as the hot water ran.

He pulled her in with him and she protested weakly, ‘My hair!’

Vito said, ‘It’s fine.’

Flora turned her face up to the spray, giving into Vito’s ministrations as he washed her and her hair. His big hands running over every inch of her body, breasts, belly, hips, between her legs, until she was hot and slippery all over again.

When he was done, she lathered up her hands and explored his body, revelling in the freedom she had to trace her hands and fingers over hard muscles and powerful buttocks. And the muscle between his legs, standing stiff and proud. She wrapped a hand around him as his mouth found hers, and he put a hand between her legs, fingers seeking and finding where she ached, and together, with their breathing getting faster and faster, they came to climax again under the hot spray.

Afterwards, Vito’s head was resting on the wall, over Flora’s. He said with a half-chuckle, ‘I didn’t actually intend for anything but washing ourselves.’ He moved back and tipped up her chin. Water was running in rivulets down his face and neck, onto his chest. Even though she was sated beyond anything imaginable, Flora already wanted to put her tongue there and follow them down his body.

‘But,’ he said, ‘you’re impossible not to touch, to want. What are you doing to me, woman?’

‘I could say the same of you.’ Flora felt prickly and vulnerable and still a little hurt after what had happened earlier.

Vito looked at her for a long moment but then broke the contact, turning off the water and moving out of the shower, taking a towel and wrapping it around Flora’s body then taking another towel and rubbing her hair, before wrapping it up turban style.

Then Vito roughly dried himself, and, naked, led her back to the bed. She stopped in her tracks. ‘I should probably go to my own room. My hair is damp.’

Vito looked at her. Flora’s heart thumped. Since she’d been with him she’d shared his bed, his room. But now, maybe it was time to start putting some distance between them.

Vito’s hand tightened on hers. She had a sense that he was going to agree with her, but then he said, ‘You’re not going anywhere, unless you want to.’

Putting it up to her. Flora knew she should break the contact, put some space between them, but fatally she heard herself saying, ‘No, it’s okay. I’ll stay.’

They got back into the bed. A taut silence stretched between them. Flora was simultaneously deliciously tired but also energised. She also felt, after what had happened, and the way Vito had so brutally rejected her gift, a certain recklessness.

She turned on her side and put her head on her hand, studying him. But as she did, something inside her melted. His eyes were closed and his lashes were long on his cheeks. Face softened but no less stunningly handsome in rest. A hint of stubble lined his jaw. His nose was aquiline, and she wanted to trace its noble shape.

She thought of a small, dark-haired version of Vito, with his impenetrable eyes and intense nature, and to her surprise a yearning rose up inside her and it terrified her, because she’d never gone so far as to imagine having a family of her own. And what that would be like. The thought of it now felt akin to standing on the edge of a large canyon and taking a step out into thin air. Free-falling into space. With nothing to hold onto.

Vito made a small move and Flora tensed, imagining him waking and finding her like this—daydreaming of a future that could never be. But then he snored gently, indicating that he was already asleep, and Flora made a decision. She got out of the bed again, and silently made her way to the bedroom she’d never slept in. It was time to face up to the inevitable.