Читать книгу Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 91

THERE was a rumbling in Faith’s ear. Someone was mowing grass and the sound of the mower was filtering into her consciousness, waking her slowly. But, no, the sound was warmer than a mower. And then a cold, wet nose tickled her ear and Faith’s eyes snapped open.

Lola lay curled on the pillow next to her, purring happily. Faith turned her head. Renzo was standing near the window, naked except for the towel wrapped around his waist, coffee cup in one hand, other hand propped against the window frame above his head.

He turned when she stirred. And then he moved toward the bed and her heart squeezed so tight she couldn’t get her next breath out. Lola lifted her head and mewed, then bounded toward Renzo as he perched on the side of the bed. He laughed and scooped her up, nuzzling his cheek against her fur before putting her down again.

Faith’s heart thumped hard. The thin ice beneath her cracked just a little more, threatening her with a headlong plunge into emotions she wasn’t prepared to deal with just yet.

Renzo looked up at her, his eyes clouding over. “What is wrong, Faith? Did I hurt you last night?”

Yes. Because it was beautiful and magical—and it wouldn’t last. He wasn’t hers, and she was just another in a long line of women who’d fallen into his bed and under his spell. Even though she’d known better.

“No, of course not,” she said, shifting herself higher in the bed until she was sitting back against the pillows.

He didn’t look convinced. “I’m sorry if I was … rough,” he said. “I should not have taken you like that when this is still so new to you.”

Her ears were hot. She couldn’t meet his gaze. Lola wandered over and stretched her little paws against Faith’s leg. Faith stroked the silky head, her heart so full of feeling for man and beast that she thought she would burst with it.

“There is nothing you did to me that I did not want,” she admitted, her gaze firmly fixed on the gray-striped kitten. She was afraid to look at him, not because she was embarrassed, but because she was afraid he would see what was in her heart.

But he wouldn’t allow her that kind of evasion. He tilted her chin up with a finger, forced her to look at him. Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Her blood rushed through her veins, swirled in her head and heart until she felt dizzy.

“How do you feel this morning?” he asked.

Like I’m in deep, deep trouble. “Fabulous,” she said. “Slightly sore, but not unpleasantly so.”

“Regrets?”

“No.”

His expression was doubtful, but he didn’t say anything. She could tell him that she had no regrets now, but she knew she would eventually—when he left her for someone else and her heart shattered into a million pieces.

She tickled Lola’s chin. The kitten swatted at her and she laughed. “I’m glad you went and got her.” She pictured him crossing over to her room and scooping Lola from her nest in the bathroom. That he even remembered the tiny kitten made her heart swell.

“She needs you as well as I.”

Needs. She told herself not to read anything into that word, but she couldn’t help it if it made her feel as though she’d swallowed sunshine.

There was something else she’d been thinking about, too. “Thank you for believing me last night, Renzo. It means a lot.”

His blue eyes seemed to see inside to her soul as he sat and watched her. “You don’t trust people, do you?”

Lola curled against her leg and Faith rested a hand on the tiny purring body. “I—I’m just cautious.”

“Why? Who hurt you, Faith?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was evasion, pure and simple. And it wasn’t working, because he was looking at her like he knew better. He did know better, she realized. Something about that knowledge pricked her to her core. He could see right through her, and she still knew nothing about him. Other than he had a big heart and a stubborn streak a mile wide.

And that his reputation as a lover wasn’t in the least bit exaggerated, she thought with a twinge of heat.

“I think you do,” he said softly. “Something happened to you. Something that made you leave home and never want to go back. Something that made you unwilling to trust.”

Faith’s shoulders sagged beneath the weight of his words. She was tired of being cautious, of carrying her burdens alone. It wasn’t tragic, what had happened—though she’d certainly thought so at the time.

No, with the perspective of years and distance, it was simply humiliating. Once she’d left Cottonwood behind, she’d never told anyone. She’d been terrified to tell anyone, as if it would bring the whole ugly business up again.

“Yes,” she said softly. “You’re right. But it’s not what you think. It’s just, um, embarrassing.”

“As embarrassing as my first sexual experience?” he said, one corner of his mouth turning up in a grin.

Faith smiled. “Worse, actually.” She toyed with the edge of the coverlet. “I had a boyfriend I thought I was terribly in love with in high school. It was assumed we would get married once school was over.”

“But you did not.”

“No.” She sighed as she let herself remember the ugly events of her senior year. “His name was Jason, and my parents adored him. He wanted to, uh, go all the way—and I didn’t. It almost happened, on my parents couch when they were out one night. But it didn’t, and Jason was angry with me.

“He texted me later, telling me it was over between us. Unless I proved I loved him.” Faith sucked in a breath, remembering how naive she’d been. How trusting and gullible and downright stupid. “I sent him a picture I took with my phone.”

“A picture?”

Faith closed her eyes. Even now, the humiliation was intense. “A naked picture, Renzo. I wasn’t smart enough to cut my head out of the picture when I took it. It was clearly me—and Jason sent it to a friend. Who sent it to another friend, and on and on. You get the idea. My parents were furious. I made my father look bad, you see, since he was a minister.”

Renzo reached over and squeezed her hand. “This is why you haven’t spoken to them in eight years?”

The lump in her throat ached. Her family hadn’t stood beside her at all. They’d thrown her to the wolves, and all because of her father’s self-righteousness. “Yes. It was hell, absolute hell, going to that school for the rest of the year. Everyone laughed at me. Everyone pointed and talked about me. I lost all my friends. I was mortified.”

She took a deep breath, determined to hold her angry tears at bay. It was cathartic to tell someone, and so very hard at the same time. “But my parents wouldn’t take me out of school or let me go to another school. They made me keep going until I graduated—which I barely did since I stopped studying and getting good grades. My dad thought it was a fitting punishment for my sins. When I graduated, I left town and I’ve never looked back. I even changed my last name so I could feel like someone new.”

She’d had to change her name because the thought of being Faith Winston made her physically ill. It was so much easier to become someone else, another Faith who had never done something as stupid as send a naked photo to a boy. Reinventing herself had been the only way to survive.

Renzo looked furious, but he leaned back against the headboard and pulled her into the curve of his arm. “You were young,” he said fiercely. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I was stupid,” she said. “And because I was eighteen, the authorities did nothing about it. I imagine you could still find the picture if you typed Faith Winston into a search engine.”

Renzo swore softly. “I’m sure you were absolutely beautiful, but I have no desire to see this photo when I have the real Faith warm and naked in my bed. And you were not stupid, cara mia. You were young. And in love with someone who did not deserve you.”

He handed her his cup of coffee. She took it silently, sipped. It was such an intimate gesture, but she was determined not to think it meant more than it did. No doubt he was always this solicitous with his lovers. And, right now, he felt sorry for her.

“Why don’t we get dressed and go into Florence?” he said a few moments later. “We’ll have lunch there, and I’ll take you to see the David.”

“I’d love that,” she said wistfully. “But you have a meeting this afternoon. I remember because I went over your calendar when we returned from the factory.”

And as much as she wanted to go to Florence with him, to pretend they were a normal couple on a date, she couldn’t let him down when it was her duty to manage his appointments. They might have spent one night together, but she was still his PA. The job came first.

He took the coffee from her and placed it on the bedside table. And then he tilted her head back, kissing her until she squirmed with the sizzling tension coiling inside her body.

“Cancel it,” he murmured a few minutes later. “In fact, cancel getting dressed, too. At least for another hour …”

Renzo was on edge in a way he couldn’t recall ever feeling before.

He trailed after Faith, who walked through the Accademia Gallery and oohed and ahhed at everything like a child at her first carnival. She was so lovely and sweet that he couldn’t imagine the sort of family who would be cruel to her. How could anyone want to hurt Faith?

She strolled along, oblivious to his dark thoughts. She’d temporarily forgotten him, and it made him oddly jealous. He wanted her to look at him the way she was looking at the art, wanted her to turn and slip her arm around his waist and stroll beside him, her warmth pressing into him.

He’d loved the expression on her face when they’d first entered the long Galleria del David where Michelangelo’s Prisoners lined the walls. Her soft pink mouth had dropped open, her eyes growing wide. She’d studied each of the Prisoners before making her way to the David, who stood on his pedestal beneath the dome at one end of the long gallery.

Voices echoed throughout the chamber, but it was also solemn, thanks to the guards stationed nearby who refused to allow shouting or running—or camera flashes. Faith stopped and stood with her head tilted back and her jaw loose as she let her gaze skim the perfect form of the sculpture.

Faith studied the statue, but Renzo studied her. He’d often heard about a woman glowing—when she’d had fabulous sex, when she was in love, when she was pregnant—but he’d never noticed that glow until today.

There was something about her that drew his eye and wouldn’t let him look away. She moved with a grace that was far more sensual than he’d realized before. He didn’t usually pay attention to women’s fashion, other than to note how a woman looked in her clothes, but he’d found himself analyzing Faith’s clothing and wishing he could remove it. Not because she looked dowdy or boxy or unattractive, but because she looked chic and put together and it annoyed him when men turned to look at her.

And plenty of them had turned to look at her.

She’d worn a casual dress with sandals. The dress accented her waist, her breasts, and flared over her hips into a swingy skirt that fluttered and swirled when she moved. Her legs were bare, and he found himself thinking of how they’d felt wrapped around his waist as he’d taken her body into sweet oblivion.

She’d been so innocent, and so carnal at the same time. He thought back to the moment he’d unwrapped her like a present, and his body grew as hard as the Carrara marble on the pedestal.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, turning to him and reaching for his hand, her eyes shining with unshed tears that caused his chest to ache.

“Si, it is quite magnificent.”

“Thank you for bringing me.”

He tugged her into the circle of his arms, uncaring that others moved around them like water flowing around a rock in the stream. “I can think of a few ways you can show your appreciation later,” he told her.

Her eyes widened as she felt the strength of his desire for her. “How can you possibly be …?”

He grinned at the word she did not say. Aroused. Ready? “Aren’t you?”

The heat of a blush spread over her cheeks. “Yes, I have to confess that I am.” She put her forehead against his chest. “I can’t believe you’ve managed to turn me into the kind of woman who would rather spend the day in bed with you than do just about anything else.”

He threaded his fingers into the silk of her hair. “I would have been happy to oblige had I known.”

She looked up at him again. “If I weren’t starving, I’d suggest we leave right now and go back to the villa.”

Possessiveness, hot and sharp, flared inside him. “Ah, but there is no need, cara. I have an apartment nearby. But first, lunch.”

He took her hand and led her from the gallery. They emerged onto the street and walked a few blocks to one of his favorite Florentine restaurants. They were greeted like old friends and shown to a table on the terrace with a lovely view of the Duomo. Usually, Renzo liked a bit more privacy, but since it was Faith’s first time in Italy, he wanted to indulge her appetite for adventure.

They started with a beef Carpaccio that was so thin and tender it melted in the mouth, a mozzarella di bufala and tomato salad, and then moved on to a luscious spaghetti carbonara before finishing with panna cotta and espresso. Faith ate everything with gusto, her eyes closing from time to time while she sighed and licked her lips.

It was refreshing to see a woman eat something other than a salad for a change. American women—especially the ones like Katie Palmer and Lissa Stein—seemed to subsist on nothing but lettuce and water for the most part.

But then he had to acknowledge that it was more the sort of woman he’d dated rather than a cultural trait. The Faith Blacks of the world seemed to have no trouble enjoying a good meal. Faith was so refreshing, so different—so real. Why had he avoided real women in his life? Why had he always chosen the ones who, deep down, repelled him?

In spite of his desire to get Faith alone again, he was also enjoying her company. They lingered over their coffee, talking about things like how he got started building motorcycles, what had made him want to race and how she’d ended up in New York. For the first time ever, he found himself wanting to share more about himself with her than he had with anyone else.

Faith knew what it was like to be ostracized from her family. Knew how it felt to have a father care more for himself and his reputation than he did for you. She would understand—and yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell her. He wasn’t golden like Niccolo Gavretti, who came from a supremely wealthy family with pedigree and influence, and who’d grown up with every privilege.

He was a mongrel in comparison, a cur slipping into back alleys and stealing food and clothing. He couldn’t tell Faith that, couldn’t bear the pity or the disgust in her eyes if he did.

So he said nothing.

The sun dipped lower in the sky and golden light bathed the square, turning everything he’d always taken for granted into something magical. Or perhaps that was because he was seeing it through her eyes.

Nothing that good could last, however. Soon, he began to notice camera flashes. At first, he thought it was tourists—but then the flashes became more numerous, and directed toward them. Renzo swore, and Faith turned to look, her expression falling after the picture snapped.

He knew what she was afraid of, and he wanted to leap over the railing and rip the cameras away from the paparazzi. He wanted to smash them into a million pieces and protect her from any fear of her old photo coming to light again.

But an action like that would only inflame their curiosity, so instead he took her hand and tugged her toward the back of the restaurant. He laid a handful of bills on the counter for the owner, who apologized profusely, and then they exited the restaurant into the alley behind it and hurried toward another alley.

Renzo took her on a crisscross trip through the city, but the photographers never caught up to them. Soon, he slowed their pace until they were strolling pleasantly along as if everything was normal.

“I’m sorry, Faith. I had hoped that wouldn’t happen.”

“You’re a public person. It was inevitable.” She seemed troubled and he stopped, turned to face her. She didn’t look at him at first, but when she did, he could see the worry in her eyes.

His heart squeezed at the look on her face. He knew how much that impulsive nude photo had affected her, how much it had shaped her life. It would have been hell to endure what she’d endured. “You are concerned that if you appear in the paper with me, someone will find that old picture of you, aren’t you?”

She shrugged, and he knew she was trying to put a brave face on it. “It’s silly. I’m no one. Who’s going to care about an old nude photo that isn’t even all that good? It would take an extraordinary effort to find it, and then to connect it to the woman I am today.”

Yet with the press, anything was possible. Especially where it concerned his life. They’d dug up just about everything he’d ever done. The only thing they didn’t know was who his father was. He didn’t protect the conte’s identity for the man’s family—or even for his own, since the conte no longer had the power to harm them—but because he didn’t want the old man to have any credit for who Renzo had become.

“I wish I could tell you it won’t happen, but the truth is that I don’t know.” He put his hands on her shoulders and bent until he was looking her in the eye. “I promise you that I will do everything in my power to find and destroy that photo before it can happen.”

She shook her head. “It’s out there, Renzo. I don’t think even you can make it go away for good.” She sighed. “I knew if I were seen with you, there was a good chance I’d end up in the papers. And I was willing to take the risk. So whatever happens next, I’ll deal with it.”

She looked determined, strong, even though he knew she was afraid. But that was Faith: practical and brave, and convinced she had to look after herself because no one else would. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “We will deal with it, cara, should it come to pass.”

“It’s sure to thrill Cottonwood if it gets that far,” she grumbled. “I think I was the most excitement they’d had since Sherman marched to the sea and burned the town down around their ears.”

Renzo blinked. Her voice was syrupy and sweet with that slow drawl he loved, but he didn’t understand the reference. “What is Sherman?”

She laughed softly. “A Civil war general typically reviled in the South. It happened over one hundred years ago. It was very exciting, according to Miss Minnie Blaine, who’s nearly one hundred herself and remembers her grandmama talking about it when she was a child.”

“I should like to visit this South someday,” he said truthfully. “It sounds fascinating.”

She pushed back and arched an eyebrow. “I can see you there, Renzo. Eating barbecued ribs and drinking sweet tea. You’d be the third most exciting thing to happen to Cottonwood.”

“Only the third?” he teased. “Perhaps I should do something a bit more scandalous first.”

She laughed. “Perhaps you’d care to text a nude photo of yourself to the town elders? That would surely get some blood pumping.”

“Happily, cara, if it meant they would forget about your photo.”

She looked wistful, and he reached out to push a strand of hair from her face. “They will never forget it. I am persona non grata in Cottonwood.”

“I doubt that,” he said. “But I understand why you think so. It was a long time ago, and you are a very successful career woman now. Would they truly not welcome you back if you wanted to go?”

She frowned. “I don’t want to go. Ever.”

He understood her conviction. They were more alike than she knew, but instead of telling her so he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Then they continued down the street, threading their way back toward the apartment and talking about the differences between Georgia and Italy. He was so lost in the conversation that he didn’t realize where they were until it was too late. They emerged from a narrow alley between buildings, out onto a wider thoroughfare, and he realized his mistake. He’d come here as if on autopilot, and he stiffened even as Faith gasped at the magnificent villa before them.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” she exclaimed. “Does someone actually live there, or is it open to tourists?”

The wrought iron fence surrounding the Villa de Lucano was imposing, but the house that sat back from the street was ornate, part of its facade carved from Carrara marble and carefully timeworn in that way that only houses in the Old World could be.

The gardens were vast, lush, manicured. A fountain gurgled somewhere out of sight. Renzo imagined children playing there, imagined a father coming outside to greet them after time away, bending to hug them all as they flew into his open arms. It was an old fantasy, and not a particularly welcome one.

“No, it is a private residence,” he said, unable to hide the bitterness in his voice.

She turned to him, her soft eyes questioning. And, in spite of everything she’d shared with him, he still couldn’t seem tell her the shameful truth of his life before he’d become Lorenzo D’Angeli, tycoon, Grand Prix bad boy, superstar.

He wasn’t ready for that. Didn’t know if he would ever be ready for it. He would never, ever allow his life to sink to that level again. Anger surged through him.

He had to win the championship. Had to.

Success was everything. Renzo wanted his father to choke on his success, to regret every single day that he had not found a way to be a part of his son’s life. The conte was proud, and Renzo was the richest, the most successful of his children. And no one knew.

“Is everything okay, Renzo? Does your leg hurt?”

“A bit,” he said, seizing on the excuse. His leg did hurt, but it was a mild discomfort more than anything.

She looked contrite, and for that he felt a pinprick of guilt. He knew she blamed herself, as if the walking was her fault.

“It’s not far now,” he said, guiding her away from the Villa de Lucano. “Just a few minutes more.”

Once they reached the apartment, Renzo laid his keys on a table and went to look out the huge plate window fronting the living area. He’d picked this apartment because of the city view, and because it was the best money could buy. He could see the rooftop of the Villa de Lucano, but that didn’t usually bother him.

Now, however, it irritated him.

He stood with his hands in his pockets and stared at nothing in particular. Faith came to his side and quietly studied the view with him.

“What is it, Renzo?” she finally said when he didn’t move or speak. “I know something is bothering you, and I know it’s not your leg.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. Of course she knew. She was attuned to him somehow. He didn’t understand the connection between them, but he knew there was one. It was odd, and yet somehow necessary, too.

The words he didn’t want to say burned at the back of his throat until he had to let them out or choke on them. “It’s that place. The Villa de Lucano.”

She pulled him around to face her, her green eyes wide and full of concern. “What is it about that place that bothers you so much?”

He studied her for the longest time—the sheen of moisture in her eyes, the determined set to her jaw, the high color in her cheeks. She’d endured much humiliation, and she’d survived it. She’d reinvented herself, the same as he had. She understood what it took to do so.

“The Conte de Lucano is my father,” he found himself saying. And once he’d said that much, he told her the rest. What did it matter? “He does not want to know me. He never has.”

He watched the emotions play over her face: confusion, anger, sadness and worry.

“Oh Renzo, I’m sorry,” she finally said, her voice barely more than a whisper. A moment later, a single tear spilled down her cheek. It stunned him that she would cry for him. He caught the droplet with his thumb, smoothed it away.

“Tears, cara?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, as if shaking the tears away. “I’m just emotional. It’s part of being a girl.”

He laughed in spite of himself. In spite of the vise squeezing his chest. She made him laugh, even when he did not want to. He pulled her closer and dipped to nuzzle her hair. He ached inside, but for once it was almost bearable.

“I like very much that you’re a girl.”

And then, because he didn’t want to talk anymore—because he didn’t think he could talk anymore—he swept her off her feet and carried her into the bedroom.