Compromising Positions

her wrist, pulling her hard against him as an ancient Citroen made the turn and rattled past them. Her yelp of surprise melted into a groan as he held her in his arms, the position a perfect storm of emotional triggers. Just having his hand on her set her nerves buzzing. She could feel his heartbeat and smell the coffee on his breath-it was absolutely intoxicating.

The muscle at the corner of his jaw clenched and relaxed, and she watched mesmerized as he fought his temper for control. He shifted his grip on her arm, and his eyes fell on red marks that his grip had left under his fingers. He stood there for a long moment staring at them, and then his mouth twisted. He pulled her closer making sure not to hurt her again, and placed a breath of a kiss against the injured skin. Mina sucked in a breath as his lips touched her, sighing as Marco released her arm, leaving it to rest on his shoulder.

“I am not trying to manipulate you.” He sounded exhausted. Mina couldn’t imagine he’d slept much more than she had, although for different reasons. He’d been traveling almost non-stop for seventy-two hours, with two trans-Atlantic flights and God knows how many miles traveled. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Mina curled her hand along the back of his neck. She felt his hair tickle her and she couldn’t help but thread it through her fingers. Marco wrapped his free arm firmly around her waist and held her there, almost as if he were afraid she’d run away. Again.

“You could have called.” She knew she sounded flippant, but she was too hurt to tread carefully.

“Called where?” The frustration was back. “You weren’t in our rooms, you weren’t at the office. Mamma said that Gio had put you on a plane, so I flew to Miami, but when I got there you weren’t there either.” Marco glared at her, accusation clear in his eyes. “You disappeared. No word. No warning-just gone.”

Mina put a little space between them so she could look at him.

“Hang on a second-you’re not putting this on me,” she said, trying to pull away, but Marco refused to give an inch, and she refused to give him the pleasure of struggling. “I didn’t disappear. I left. With good reason, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Marco loosened his grip and Mina pushed until she was as far away from him as possible.

It wasn’t far enough.

He was standing there, less than a foot away, and yet she felt like they were still worlds apart. How could he blame her for not calling, not explaining? He was the one who needed to explain, but no, that would never occur to him. He’d never admit that he was just as bad as Ethan, just as guilty as his father, stringing women along. Making promises and then breaking them, leaving a string of bleeding hearts in his wake.

Hurt flashed through her, and she grabbed it, slashing out at him with its razor edge.

“How is Serafina, anyway?” Mina showed her teeth in the semblance of a smile. “You didn’t lose her, too, did you?” She made a tsking sound. “You really should be more careful with your toys. Someday you’re going to break one and not be able to get a replacement.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed in the sunlight, dark hair falling over a frowning brow, and Mina shivered as she watched the emotion fade from his face. The stony expression was more unnerving than his temper ever could be.

“Serafina can go to the Devil for all I care,” His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you’d stayed and let me explain instead of running off with Giovanni, you’d know that.”

Again with the blaming. Really?

“Of course! It’s my fault because I ran off with Giovanni. Did you forget the part where you punched Giovanni in the face trying to get to me?” She threw the words at him. “You’ll forgive me if I didn’t see that as an invitation to a civilized conversation.”

“I’ll tell you what I remember: I remember a conversation where you promised- promised-not to run away again. You promised to stay and deal with things instead of throwing everything away because it was the easy way out.” He sneered down at her, and her temper flared again.

“Easy? You think this has been easy?” Her voice was so shrill she was surprised the neighbors hadn’t called the cops on them for disturbing the peace. “I haven’t slept for three days. I couldn’t eat. I spent four hours Friday night crying until Gio thought he was going to have to take me to the hospital for dehydration.” Her eyes burned with tears. “This wasn’t about easy, Marco-it was about survival. It was about getting out with my skin intact, because it was clear that was the best I was going to get.”

The hands holding her let go so suddenly that she lost her balance, grabbing for the car for support.

“I told her this wouldn’t work.” Marco ran one hand through his hair as he threw the other up in the air. “I told her you wouldn’t listen. Fam!” He turned away from her, slamming both hands on the roof of the car. His breath was coming like he’d just run a race. Mina had never seen him so agitated.

“Told who I wouldn’t listen?” She latched on to what he said.“Serafina? I’m sure she was really happy to hear that.” Marco looked at her and shook his head. “Again you’re not listening. Ivy. I told Ivy you wouldn’t listen.”

That was unexpected. And offensive.

“Why would you tell her that? I listen.” Mina stuck her chin out. “I always listen.”

Marco let out a stream of Italian and raised his eyes to heaven.

“English, please,” she snapped. Damn she hated not understanding what was going on. Marco looked at her over his shoulder. “You didn’t care what I was saying Friday.”

Mina stopped for a moment, but it still didn’t compute.

“What do you mean, what you were saying Friday? You didn’t say anything Friday.” Every minute of that night was burned into her brain; she was pretty certain he never spoke Italian to her.

“In the office,” Marco turned to face her, his expression carefully blank again and Mina watched him, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “When I was with Serafina I was speaking Italian. You didn’t want to know what I was saying then.”

She thought about it for a minute-the scene crystal clear in her mind-and nodded slowly. They had been speaking Italian, but that didn’t explain why that woman was pressed up against him, or why they were kissing. They’d known she was there. Serafina certainly knew, she thought sourly.

“I don’t see what understanding Italian has to do with it. Kissing is pretty universal.” Even saying the words left a bad taste in her mouth. “You don’t normally need subtitles with that.”

Marco leaned toward her, casting a shadow across her face.

“Really? Because my understanding of what happened seems to be very different than yours.” He sounded too calm. It made her nervous.

“I may be inexperienced,” she said wryly, aware that she could chalk almost all of her experience up to what she’d learned from him, “but it was pretty obvious to those of us in the audience what was going on.”

A light glimmered in Marco’s eyes, and he looked hopeful for a split second, before his expression shuttered again.

“It’s odd that you used that word. Audience.”

“Odd? Why? You two were certainly putting on a show.” She couldn’t help the bitterness in her voice. She drew a circle on the roof of the car with her fingertip, around and around and around. Just like this conversation.

“Actually, only one of us was putting on a show.”

Mina looked at him and her finger stopped moving. Dark eyes bore into hers and she shivered at the intensity she saw there.

“Wha-at do you mean?” She felt like Demosthenes with his pebbles, trying not to stutter. “What show?”

“What does it matter?” Marco took a deep breath and gave her a twisted little smile that hurt. “It won’t change anything. You’ll just find another excuse, another sin, and you’ll run again. Maybe you should just go now.”

“What show?” She demanded.

He stared at her for a long moment and she feared he wasn’t going to answer, and she needed that answer.

“Please.” Her voice was quiet in the busy street, her throat sore from crying and yelling, but she knew he heard. A second passed, and then another until something fell into place and he nodded in answer to some internal