The brown of her eyes seemed strangely feverish, and intent. Far too present to be truly drunk. The flimsy silk dress looked like it had been made for her. With her hair falling away from its knot and the dress a rumpled mess around her, she still managed to look delicately feminine. Fiercely sexy.
She licked her lower lip and held his gaze. “And if I want things I shouldn’t want?”
His body hardened instantly. “Then we will indulge in that too.”
When she leaned sideways suddenly, her breasts rubbed against his bicep. He felt electrocuted. Singed by the press of her soft flesh. Softly whispered words blew warm air over his neck. “And if the wine doesn’t do its thing, will you help, V? Will you come inside me and—”
“Tell me about this room,” he said loudly, cutting her off.
“Now who’s running scared?” she taunted.
“I’ll give you anything you want, Alessandra. Even if that is me pounding away inside you so that you can forget the grief I see in your eyes. I will let you use me any way you want, bella. But when that’s done, when you wake up tomorrow with your body sore in the most delicious way, that grief will still be there. Waiting for you.”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I hate it when you get all sensible.”
He let out a long groan. “I hate it when I have to be sensible when you’re offering sex.”
He saw her lips twitch at that. And it felt like a victory. A small one but one nonetheless. “This is my design studio. Leo had it built for me. He didn’t want me to feel left out.”
“Left out?” The mention of Leo’s name cooled his ardor considerably.
“He had the old wine cellar transformed into a state-of-the-art tech lab for Massimo. Renovated the skeleton of an old greenhouse for himself. When he found out I was cramming yards of fabric in my bedroom, he had this conservatory remodeled into a design room for me.” She ran a hand tenderly over the chaise longue, her voice catching. “I had only been here a year by then and I didn’t trust him at all. When I asked him why, he simply said this was my home too and it should feel like that.
“He was maybe twenty. But then he’s always been a protector at heart.”
Vincenzo swallowed the bitter retort that sprang to his lips. “What do you design here?”
Her shoulders straightened with the deep breath she took, sending one silky strap falling off her shoulder. His fingers itched to trace the smooth expanse of that exposed skin, and follow it up with his mouth. “Evening dresses, mostly. I use vintage clothing and repurpose them to give them a new edge.”
“Are you any good at it?”
“I’m brilliant at it,” she answered, and he smiled. The few pieces he’d seen on the rack looked astoundingly beautiful even to his untrained eye. “But I…I have a love-hate relationship with it. For a long time, I pursued everything but design. Actually, I mostly hated it.”
“Still do?”
A lone tear fell down her cheek. “No. Design is where my heart is. I just… I hated it because it was associated with her. Alyssa. It was the one thing she gave me.”
“Your mother?”
“She was a very talented seamstress. An artist with a glorious vision, to be honest. Designing clothes was the one thing we had in common. She taught me when I was a little girl. All these boxes…they are hers. I wanted to donate the whole lot to charity and wash my hands of it. But…I couldn’t help myself.”
“She made this dress?” he asked, rubbing the silk between his fingers at the hem.
“I think so. It fits me almost perfectly. The lawyer overseeing their estate handed me the jewelry. I… Apparently, it was supposed to be her wedding gift to me.”
“Alessandra—”
“But I didn’t even tell her that I got married. I sent a postcard to Charlie from Bali, telling him, which she must have read. After I left you…she got in touch with me through Javier, wrote me a letter that he sent on. She wanted to meet you but I called her and told her we were too busy. I…told her she’d never been a part of my life and that it wasn’t suddenly going to change. I was absolutely cruel. And a week later, she was gone. Poof. Just like that.”
He took her hand in his and was again struck by how cold she was. Pulling it to his mouth, he blew warmth into it. “You had no way of knowing she’d be in an accident, Princess. Life is…”
“Unfair sometimes, yeah. She cheated on my stepfather. Did you know that? With my real father. Greta’s second husband. She took off on holiday after they’d had a fight, met Carlos in Milan, had an affair and then returned to her husband, pregnant with me.
“And somehow, Steve forgave her. Except for the fact that there I was, the symbol of everything she’d done wrong, growing up in front of his eyes. Forever reminding him of his wife’s infidelity.”
“Was he cruel to you?”
“No.” More tears drawing tracks on her cheeks. “Oh no, Steve was an honorable man, in his own way. It was her, you see. My mother never forgave herself for her mistake. I was the punishment for her sin.”
He pressed his mouth to the back of her hand, feeling helpless against her pain. “You were only a child.”
“There was always a coldness to her when I was growing up. A distance I could never cross. And finally, when I was thirteen, it all came out. The truth about my parentage. And I realized why she could never love me. So I reached out to Carlos and moved to Italy to live with him.
“I refused to live in a situation where I was considered a weakness. A shameful secret. A weapon to be used in any argument.”
“I’m sorry, Alex,” Vincenzo whispered, the full scope
