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“I’m sorry for staying away. I know I invited you here, and we were to spend time together, but it couldn’t be helped.”

“Doesn’t matter. I want to finish her dress, and then I’m leaving. And fucking me senseless won’t change it.”

He blinked, shocked by her abrupt manner, and then his eyes narrowed on her, tinged with rage. She didn’t dare break his stare; he had to know he couldn’t treat her like his whores. Her visit was his privilege not his right, dammit. She had a life that she’d repeatedly ignored since the day he discovered her bracelet and put it into her hands.

“Am I that bad you would speak to me like this?”

“I can’t help it. I told you in Bellagio that I didn’t like being ignored. If you had to go then would it have killed you to say goodbye? Instead of leaving me waiting for you night after night in the bed alone?”

“I said goodnight to you every night.” He grunted.

She blinked confused. “You did not…” her voice trailed off. She thought one night she felt him in the room, felt his strong fingers brush her jaw. But when she woke she thought it was a dream. “I agreed to this arrangement without thinking it through.”

“Because my every motive must be dissected.” He scoffed.

“No. Because of me. My needs. I didn’t agree to how empty I feel when you and I are apart. The way I feel about us is changing me, clouding my judgment. I missed you.”

He let go of her arms and stepped back, his gaze softening. Unable to stand it any longer, she turned and walked away.

Lorenzo reached for his phone. Fabiana’s arm dropped from him, but her sweet warm body curled up close. “What is it?”

“Your car, Boss,” Carmine said in the receiver. “We got a repair truck to take it in and have it tuned. Did you request it?”

“Yea. Yea. Let them take it. Tell them to have it back after the wedding.”

He dropped the phone and fell back on the pillows. He spent the past three insufferable days kept away from family business. His only salvation had been Fabiana. He turned his head and looked at her. She slept like an angel. Lorenzo drew her close to him. After the wedding, he’d leaveMelanzana. If Giovanni didn’t want him around, why stay? He had a condo in Sorrento where she and he could spend every morning and night under the covers.

The idea of it made his loins hard with lust. He rolled his beautiful Fabiana to her back and her long lashes fluttered open. She touched his face.

“Thank you Cara, for being here, for not turning from me when I told you… my truth.”

He kissed her and her legs parted allowing him the pleasure to sink between her warm silky thighs. A single thrust drew his cock into such unbelievable warm tightness he shuddered. Everywhere she was soft, and curvy, and he buried his face in her scarlet red hair thrusting his devotion and love into her. She was his. The only good thing he had left. He would hold on tighter to her to keep his sanity.

****

Mira opened her eyes. Giovanni lay wrapped around her with the sheets tangled around his waist. He joined her in bed and though things remained tense between them they made love again. Nothing, not even her confused heart, could stop her body from responding when he touched her. And the man would not be denied.

“Still mad at me?” his hoarse voice croaked.

“I need to get up. It’s morning, and today is your sister’s big day.”

“The day doesn’t start until I say so,” he said lifting and turning to his side. She looked away, and he drew her face back by her chin. “I am sorry that I wasted three days of our time together. Sorry I disappointed you. Coming home to you, it’s how I want it. Don’t go.”

“I have to Giovanni.”

“Then promise me you’ll come back?”

She glanced at him. His request wasn’t about her leaving his bed, but her leaving him. Despite her determined will not to, she smiled and he smiled. “I promise.”

“Vabene,”he kissed her again. “So the dress is done? And my sister gets married today.”

“She does. How do you feel about it?”

He put his arm behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Proud.”

Mira hated the secret she carried. After three days with Catalina and no evidence of her straying toward her surrogate step-brother, she was convinced the young girl had intended to marry and fulfill her role as wife to her new husband. Whatever past she shared with Dominic was done. So she kept her mouth shut.

“I have to shower. I need to be upstairs for her fitting.”