Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

U P UNTIL SHE ARRIVED, HE had felt zero confidence that he'd see her again. He'd gambled everything on last night and it had backfired. No matter what he'd said, it had gone wrong. He didn't know what else he could do, beyond the impossible…he didn't want to talk to her about his life in Italy. Even when he did.

He needed for Skye to exist in a bubble that was completely distinct from the mess that was his family life. He needed her to look at him and see Leandro, not someone she pitied, not someone who had become divorced from everything he'd once known.

Somewhere along the way, he'd lost sight of the fact this was supposed to be fun though.

Was that inevitable? What had the turning point been?

When he'd learned about her ex?

When she'd been in danger and had needed his help?

Or when she'd tried to end it and he'd known he wasn't ready for that?

When would he be ready?

And could he really be sure not to hurt her ?

These thoughts tumbled through his mind over and over again, so when Alec buzzed up to advise him that she was on her way to his penthouse apartment, he thought he might know a way to fix this.

She'd come directly from work and was dressed in her uniform. She looked sexier than ever. He wanted to drag her into his arms and make love to her, to make up for the last two weeks of longing for her in a way that almost cracked him apart. But sex was easy with them. The rest of it was harder.

"We need a new deal," he said, as she stepped off the elevator.

Her eyes widened, evidently surprised by him launching right into the subject.

"I'm listening."

Her tone told him he had one chance to get this right.

He focused more than he'd ever focused on anything in his life.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I can't promise you that I won't. I can promise you I will do everything I can not to. That's important to me. I don't want to be someone you regret, Skye. I want to be someone you're always grateful for having met. As I think I'll feel about you."

Her throat shifted visibly as she swallowed.

"So here is what I suggest."

He could feel her tension, her bated breath. This was it. Don't mess it up.

"Let's have fun together."

Her eyes blinked quickly.

"That's what we wanted, isn't it? Fun? Distraction? You said you didn't want anything serious, but somewhere along the way, it got serious. So, let's not allow that to happen. "

"Fun," she repeated, frowning, as though the idea hadn't occurred to her.

"Casual, easy, no-stress, no-strings fun."

"But I have strings," she reminded him. "I have a job and a toddler and an ex I'm about to be in a bitter fight with."

"Then you need fun more than anyone."

She shook her head and his confidence frayed. She was going to tell him to get out of her life. That he had no idea what it was like being her. She was going to walk away from him. His gut tightened in preparation for that. How would he cope? He had no idea.

"Fun," she repeated, as though she was spinning the word around in her mind and seeing if it could fit. "Break it down for me," she said, and to his relief, she walked deeper into the apartment, removed her handbag and shoes and strolled into his lounge room, so effortlessly graceful and sensually perfect that his whole body went immediately on alert.

But he wouldn't mess this up by rushing things. Now was the time to talk, to get a new deal in place. Then they could both relax.

He moved with assumed nonchalance towards the fridge and removed a bottle of champagne. It might have been premature, but he popped it anyway and poured two glasses.

"I'll come to New York at least every two weeks. I'll give you notice, work in with your schedule. When I'm here, you can come stay with me. If you'd like to. Harper is welcome. In fact, I would like to see her, but I do understand your reservations there. I know you're a single mom and I don't want to stand on your toes."

She bit into her lip. He crossed the tiled floor and handed her the champagne. She took it, eyes glancing up at him. His stomach dropped to his toes.

"When I'm here, we'll keep it light."

"Fun," she repeated.

"We'll eat out, use the spa, watch movies, walk around, go to bed. Did I say go to bed?"

A half-smile flickered on her lips, but her eyes were melancholy. "And then what?"

He had a vague idea what she meant but he asked the question anyway. "What do you mean?"

"When does it end, Leandro?"

"When we're both ready for it."

"When will that be?"

That was of course the flaw in his plan. He knelt down. "I don't know, but I can tell you, I'm not ready now, and I don't think you are either."

"I'm not," she admitted, and those two words felt as weighted and important as any wedding vow ever could. She felt as though she'd just admitted something huge and terrifying. But then again, he clearly already knew how she felt. At least he was admitting the same back to her.

Should she push for more? For him to open up to her? Or did she just need to accept that he would always be a closed book, and be grateful for what he was willing to share?

In the end, it wasn't really a choice. She didn't want to end this yet. She appreciated his honesty, how much he was leaving the choice up to her. She appreciated the gift of more time with him. Whatever came next, he was right. She'd always be grateful for having met him. He wasn't going to be in her life forever, but he would always be the man who'd helped her heal after Jay. She still wasn't ready to be in a relationship. To trust a man with her heart and life, but she was ready to open herself up to at least this form of happiness, to someone like Leandro, who was so different to any man she'd ever known. Who was worthy of trust, even if she wasn't ready to give it.

She stood on legs that were a little shaky, and he did too, so they were close, their bodies only an inch or so apart.

"Okay," she agreed.

His relief was palpable. His hand caught her cheek and she angled hers into it. He stroked her flesh with his thumb. Everything trembled inside Skye. Heaven. Fear. Need. Want. Longing. Lust. Everything.

"Okay?"

She nodded.

"Thank Cristo. " He sounded as though she'd just saved his life. "How long can you stay tonight?"

Her cheeks flushed pink. "I can stay all night. My mom knows I'm out. She's in charge of Harps."

He groaned then, dropping his head forward and kissing her with all the hunger of a man who'd finally found his way to a buffet after years of starvation. She laughed into the kiss, but even her laugh was one of desperation—something they shared. It carried them to the bedroom, and they stayed there for hours. Kissing, touching, exploring, worshipping, remembering, pleasuring and being pleasured, until it was the small hours of the morning and they lay as a tangle of limbs and cotton sheets in the silver light cast by the moon through the expansive windows.

"Are you tired?" He asked, propping up onto one elbow.

She leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, just because she could. She shook her head. "I should be, but I'm not." If anything, she felt completely and utterly alive—more alive than she'd felt in forever.

"Then let's go out."

"Out?"

"I'm hungry. We can get some pizza."

"Of course you're hungry," she said with an eye roll, but then her own tummy gave a little groan, and she clamped a hand to it. "I guess that makes two of us." She kissed his lips then. "Give me five minutes to get ready."

Manhattan in the middle of the night was a mystical place. Devoid of the crowds that usually flooded the streets, there was an eerie, almost apocalyptic feeling on the sidewalks. It was cool and she huddled into Leandro's side as they walked, his arm around her protectively, keeping her cocooned. She breathed him in, that woody, citrussy scent of his, and acknowledged, just for a moment, how right this felt. How much she liked being there with him.

How glad she was that she'd decided to just go along with this.

It scared her to think of losing any hint of her independence and in offering her a ‘fun', causal relationship, he'd possibly built a bridge between what she wanted and what she knew she couldn't have. This could work.

She didn't want to think about when it stopped working, and they were no longer in each other's lives. The fact they openly acknowledged that time would come should surely take the sting out of it.

They ordered a couple of slices from a place with glowing fluorescent lights and ate as they continued to walk, talking, looking at the cityscape. It was one of those picture-perfect moments that etched itself deep in Skye's memory almost without her consent, so that without realizing it, their late night walk through the streets of Manhattan would become something she could never forget. Not for any particularly significant reason, or perhaps there was significance in this. The ordinary magic of it all—a contradiction in terms that just seemed to perfectly sum up their relationship.

Skye didn't overthink it. She was happy, and she was relaxed, and she just wanted to soak up those feelings. She wasn't stupid enough to think it could last forever.

"This has to stop." Max strode into the office Leandro was working out of, his dark eyes boring into Leandro's.

Leandro fixed him with a steady gaze in return and didn't move from where he sat.

"Our mother is distraught. What's going on?"

Leandro startled. His family had been tiptoeing around his absence, taking his excuses with the appearance of acceptance. After that first confrontation with Emme in the hotel, no one had called him on this, and that was just what he wanted.

But now, a month on from the wedding, he supposed his disappearance was wearing thin. They were a close-knit family; it was not usual for one of them to simply fade into the background.

"Ask her," Leandro snapped, then wished he'd said nothing because Max's eyes narrowed in that assessing way he had.

"I have. And our father. Niente. But clearly you have argued with them, and I presume over something significant. So what is it?"

Leandro's jaw worked overtime. "Leave it be."

"Not when you're acting like such a shit. Our parents deserve better than this."

Leandro flinched, jerking to his feet, unable to bear this conversation. Not with Max, whom he'd always shared things with. His brother, no longer a brother. The loss was immense. Leandro had lost so much, but so had Max and Emme. They would have to grapple with this too. Their parents had betrayed all of them. He wasn't ready to throw that grenade into their lives. Was that why he'd stayed away? Because it wasn't like him to hide out. It wasn't like him to bury himself in a fantasy, like his life here with Skye, rather than face the music. He was someone who'd always tackled problems head on, yet here he was, ignoring his family, as though time might make it all go away.

"Just leave it," he snapped.

But Max wouldn't leave it. Of course he wouldn't. He stalked towards Leandro, until he was right up in his face. "What the hell has happened?"

Leandro flinched. "I need space."

"From us?" Max looked appalled, as though the idea had never occurred to him. Which was spectacularly unfair, all things considered. After Max's best friend had died, Max had taken himself off to lick his wounds, had pushed all of them away, and the family had respected that. For the most part. Okay, Leandro had gone to check on him a few times, and Max had told him to get the hell away, and Leandro hadn't always listened.

Because his brother had been suffering, and Leandro had been worried.

"I have never known you to act like this," Max said, his voice deep with emotions. Worry. Surprise. Anger.

"Perhaps you just don't know me at all."

"Hey," now anger came to the fore, and Max pressed his fingers into Leo's chest. "What the hell does that mean?" But there was concern etched in the lines around his eyes.

"It means you should go. Leave me alone."

"Umm, guys?" A female voice cut through their argument. Andie, Max's wife, stood in the doorway, a frown on her face. "You might want to keep it down a bit."

Max glanced at her and offered an apologetic grimace, but Leandro's temper had flared to life. He pushed Max in the chest, hard. "I told you, leave this alone."

It was like they were boys again. Boys who, once upon a time, had played until their wrestling grew heated and then they'd fought, and fought hard. It wasn't born from enmity, it was just how they'd been. And how they still were, apparently, because the next minute, Max's arms were wrapped around Leandro's waist and they were locked in a wrestling grip, each pushing and shoving the other with all their might, neither conscious of the way Andie gasped in shock. Leandro wasn't sure afterwards if he punched first or if Max did, but suddenly fists were flying and it felt good in that moment, because Leandro was so angry. He was angry even with Max, when none of this was his fault. Angry and sad and hurt, and deep down, though he wasn't ready to admit it, afraid. Afraid of what he would be to them when they learned the truth. Afraid of what he wasn't: a brother.

"Stop this," Andie, for all her slight frame, was suddenly between them, pushing her hands at their chests and it was enough for Max to step back immediately, rather than risk Andie being collateral damage.

Leandro too .

Both men dropped their hands to their sides, their breathing rough.

"What on earth has gotten into you guys?"

She looked from one to the other, appalled, but it was Max she moved to comfort, naturally, lifting a hand and touching a dark red bruise on his cheek. Max winced, and so did Leandro. He had no doubt sustained similar injuries but it brought him absolutely no pleasure to see that on his brother's face.

"I told you to leave it," Leandro said, ignoring Andie. He strode to his desk, picked up his cell phone and keys and then walked out of the office, aware of the way the remaining few staff members craned to catch sight of him.

"Oh my God." Skye pressed a hand to her mouth. He should have cancelled tonight. He should have told her he was busy, working, made up an excuse. He didn't want to have to explain the cut on his cheek from his brother's wedding ring, nor the bruise beneath his eye.

"I'm fine."

"Were you mugged?"

She thought he might smile at that, but instead, he kept staring straight ahead, then took another sip of scotch. "No."

Frustration zipped through her, and sympathy too. His pain was palpable. Not physical pain, but wounds that he'd been carrying since she'd first met him. Instead of peppering him with questions she knew he wouldn't answer, she moved to the fridge and pressed the button for ice, filling a cup with it before tipping it into a clean tea towel. She formed a makeshift icepack and carried it around to Leandro, standing between his legs as she applied it gently to his cheek .

His jaw tightened. "I'm fine."

"You said that already."

"And it's true."

Her eyes blinked to his. "You're not fine."

"I'm not going to die from a punch to the face."

"That's not what I mean." She pressed her flat palm to the middle of his chest. "You're not fine in here," she murmured, then lifted her hand to the side of his face. "Or in here. You've been carrying around the weight of the whole world since the night we met."

A muscle throbbed at the base of his jaw. His eyes met hers. The world stopped spinning. Her lungs stopped working. She stared at him, silently telling him she was here, that she would listen if he wanted to talk.

He must have heard her, because a moment later, he spoke, and his voice was a deep, soulful husk, and his eyes couldn't break their lock to hers.

"About a week before I met you, I found out I was adopted."

Skye was very, very still. He was opening up to her, and whatever reaction she had to this, she knew that by being overt, she might silence him again. She didn't want him to clam up, so she waited, just keeping the ice pack pressed to his cheek.

"It was an accident. I needed some family documents from our lawyers—to do with Max's wedding, and some trusts we were restructuring for him and Andie." His voice was robotic now, and his eyes had a faraway look in them, as though he was seeing the events replay in his mind's eye. "They sent over the files but something else was included. My adoption certificate." He said the last three words so softly she almost didn't hear, but then his eyes cleared, and he was looking right at her, burning her with the intensity in his gaze. "I was raised a Valentino. It's who I have been taught to be. My whole identity is bound up in this family, in my siblings, my work. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't be a part of our family businesses, that this legacy wasn't entirely mine. But it's not. None of my life is real, it's all a lie. My parents lied to me, Skye."

Her heart was shattering now. She placed the ice pack on the bench behind her and moved deeper into the triangle of his legs, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him tight, keeping her head in the crook of his shoulder and neck.

"They are not my parents, my brother is not my brother, my sister is not my sister. And they don't know," he groaned. "I have to tell them, but I can't yet. I can't. I can't even face my parents. I am so angry with them for keeping this from me…"

"I suppose they consider you to be their child."

"Yes, but they should have been honest with me. I was not born to them. I'm not biologically related."

Skye sighed, stroking his back, wishing she could take away this hurt.

"And if I hadn't been sent those papers, I doubt they would ever have told me the truth."

Skye's eyes shuttered. "Oh, Leo," she murmured, then pulled back just enough to place a kiss on his lips, gentle, soft, reassuring.

"I have no idea who I am," he said with a shake of his head.

"You're the same person you've always been."

"No, I'm not. So much of my identity came from being a Valentino?—,"

"You are a Valentino."

"I am not. It's all a lie. "

"But they raised you. They chose to love you."

"I'm not saying that's not true. But they should have been honest with me. This did not need to be a secret. I feel as though every touchstone I considered stable has been shifted away from me. I don't know who I am anymore," he repeated, and she heard it this time. She really heard it. The desperation that a man like Leandro must feel. His pride, his sense of identity. She hugged him hard, trying to find words that might help him.

"I know who you are," she said, simply, after several moments of silence. "You are good and kind, decent and moralistic. You are all the things you always were, and when the shock of this has worn off, you'll see that."

"But they are not my family. I have no family."

"Of course they're your family," she contradicted. "That's never going to change."

"It already has changed."

"You're in shock," she reminded him. "You're still trying to make sense of all this. You're hurting and angry. In time, you will be able to see that the choice your parents made to love you almost makes them more your parents than anything else. They chose you, Leo. You didn't know that, but they did, and they loved you every single day, in a way that never once made you wonder if you were somehow different. They never treated you as less of their child than your siblings. They never made you feel like you didn't belong. What greater proof of their genuine love for you is there than that?"

She felt his Adam's apple shift as he swallowed, and she lifted up onto the tips of her toes so she could place a kiss on top of his head.

"They still should have told me. People have a right to know their own past. "

"I don't disagree," she said gently. "But it sounds to me like you have two parents who love you more than anything. I'm sorry for the pain you're going through right now, but I can't pity you that situation. You are loved, Leo. You are part of a family, whether you were born to them or not."

He glanced away, his features taut, but he didn't reject her words and he didn't disagree with her.

Skye cupped his cheeks with her palms and brought his face back to hers. "You are loved, and you will always belong with the people who love you," she repeated, and as she said the words, she felt something lock into place in the centre of her chest, something that spread warmth through her body and made her pulse tremble. Because he was loved—by his family but, she was starting to realise, also by her.