CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The entire flight crew greeted them at the bottom of the plane's airstairs as the SUV drove up. Frank got out from the front passenger seat and opened the back door. Giorgio stepped out with Vivian, placed his hand around her waist, and greeted his crew as they walked up the stairs. Frank, along with Howard Zorn, followed them. It had been months since any of them had been on Giorgio's plane, but it still felt like business as usual for them.

But for Vivian, it was surreal.

She'd never been on a private plane for one thing, and to be on one with the owner of that plane was a whole other thing for her.

As Giorgio sat her down beside the window and he sat down beside her, his pilot came out of the cockpit to extend his hand. "Good to see you again, sir."

"You as well." They shook hand. "This is Miss Vivian Ellis, a young lady you will be seeing a lot of. Viv, this is our pilot, Marshall."

Marshall extended his hand. "Nice to meet you, ma 'am."

"Nice to meet you too." Vivian felt like a million bucks as the pilot made his way back to the cockpit to begin preparing for takeoff. "This is so nice," Vivian said.

I've never been in first class, let alone on a private plane. This is like first class plus plus."

Giorgio smiled. But Vivian could tell, like he could tell with her, that something more was on his mind. His son perhaps? That ex-wife? "We'll find him," Vivian said to him.

Although Giorgio smiled a weak smile and squeezed her arm, she could tell he was still worried. "What is it, Jonni? You can tell me."

Giorgio looked at her. Then he turned to her and held both of her hands. But he still looked distressed.

"Jonni, what's wrong? Maybe I can help."

"Back at the office, you asked what being with me meant."

Vivian nodded. "I want you to explain it to me, yes."

"I want to see where we can take this."

Still too ambiguous for Vivian. "This?"

"I want you to be my lady. That's what it means," he said plainly.

For a second, Vivian had to digest what he said to her. And her heart wanted to soar. Was it even possible? Could this mean, grumpy, kind, wonderful, caring man be the one? There was nothing safe about him, but she felt so safe with him. Her heart was ready to soar.

But her head was telling her there was more to it than what he was saying. His face was telling her too.

"What are you not telling me?" she asked him.

Giorgio waited. She had already questioned his morality for cheating on Pen despite their open arrangement. Would this take her even further away from him when they were just coming together?

But she had to know the truth. "I didn't tell you the full story."

"About what?"

"About my ex-wife."

Vivian's heart began to pound. "What about her?"

"She was a nutcase, Viv. Just insane with all kinds of conspiracy theories that made no sense to any rational person. She was beautiful and crazy all at the same time. And extremely slick. She could manipulate the hell out of you. But the crazy always won out. Of course she hid the crazy part from me until after I said I do and began living with her. It was a shock to my system to see just how looney she was. But I stuck with her."

"But why would you get her pregnant if you knew she was like that?"

"That wasn't supposed to happen. She was on birth control. I watched her take the pill every single time we slept together because I didn't trust her ass. But she was slick about that too. I later found out she was taking aspirin every single time. When I found that out, I was pretty much done with her ass. We didn't sleep together or do anything together after that. She was the one who filed for divorce."

Vivian had expected it to be the other way around. " She filed?"

Giorgio nodded."Yes."

"On what grounds?"

Giorgio hesitated. "She said I cheated on her."

"She said it, but was it true?"

Giorgio looked distressed. "Yes. It was true."

But Vivian didn't understand. "But how could you . . . Was it . . . It was because you guys had an open marriage like you were going to have with Penelope?"

Giorgio shook his head. "No. It wasn't an open marriage."

"Then why did you cheat on her?" Vivian had a distressed look on her face too. "I didn't agree with it when you told me about how you treated your fiancée, but I believed you when you said it was an open relationship. But if this wasn't open, why would you cheat? You didn't love her?"

"Yes. I loved her."

It was obvious to him that Vivian needed more. "I cheated because that's what I did back then," he said to her. "That's who I was."

Vivian's heart, that had wanted to soar, dropped. And she stood up. She had to get away from him. She was falling for a cheater again, something she said she'd never do again for as long as she lived. She couldn't believe it! "I want to get off."

Giorgio, panicking, jumped up too. "Vivian, wait," he said as he tried to grab her arm.

But she snatched it away. "Let me off of this plane! I got to get off!" She was heading toward the airstairs. The pilot was still preparing for takeoff and wasn't privy to what was going on. But the rest of the crew, and Frank and Howard, were.

But Vivian didn't care who saw her. She wanted out!

Giorgio didn't care who saw them, either. He knew he would never see her again if she got off of that plane. And he couldn't bear that. He grabbed her by both arms and turned her around violently. And with his flight crew, Frank, and Howard all looking on, he pulled her closer and looked into her eyes. "I would never do that to you," he said to her as heartfelt as he knew how.

But Vivian continued to try to get out of his grasp because she knew, from painful experience after painful experience, that that was what they all said.

But Giorgio wasn't giving up on their relationship the way he did nearly a decade ago. With her cries to let her go echoing throughout his large plane, and her every attempt to get away from him, he lifted her into his arms and carried her, kicking and screaming, into his bedroom. He slammed the door behind them.

Howard, who didn't know the backstory, looked at Frank mystified. "Did I just see what I just saw?"

"Yep," Frank said.

"Did I just see Gio Janardi doing what I just saw he did?"

Frank nodded again. "I'm as amazed as you are. What can I say? He loves her."

But Howard, Giorgio's longtime security chief, looked at Frank. "I didn't think he knew what love is."

"He's been searching for his son for a decade. A son that may not even exist. That's love," Frank said.

"Is it?" asked Howard.

"Yeah, it's love," Frank said, offended. "What else could it be?"

"Unable to accept defeat?" Howard looked at Frank. "You know how he is."

" Damn ," Frank said, because he did know how self-centered Giorgio could be. "I sure hope you're wrong."