Confessions of an Italian Marriage Read online

  She belatedly straightened while he continued to hold her dumbfounded stare, absently offering the tray to the group as he did.

  Someone tittered about him missing his calling.

  Freja was only dimly aware of the world beyond their sustained eye contact. Her heart was racing as though she’d run up ten flights of stairs. A flush of something like shyness or embarrassment was washing through her along with strange tugs and a tremendous sensual awareness throughout her entire body.

  She tried to dismiss it as the silly vestiges of an infatuation that was so far in the past, it shouldn’t affect her now. It hadn’t even been him she’d had a pre-pubescent crush on!

  That wasn’t what this was, though. This was far more intense. Physical.

  Was it lust? How mortifying.

  He swiveled the empty tray back to her and cocked one eyebrow. “Do I know you?”

  “No!” She nearly choked on her tongue. “I mean, I met y—I thought you were someone else.” Not true, but her very brief history with his brother wasn’t something she wanted to blurt out in front of strangers. Far too many questions followed when she spoke about her childhood.

  “We’ve never met,” she hurried to affirm in a sputter, but her discomfiture made him narrow his eyes. Butterflies invaded her stomach. “Have a nice evening.”

  She took the tray and walked away with a dizzy stagger. It took everything in her not to look back over her shoulder as she fetched more canapés and continued serving.

  Nearly a full hour passed in which she tracked back and forth, waiting for everyone to filter into the ballroom and find their seats. She forced a smile and concentrated on not becoming clumsy when her limbs didn’t feel as if they were her own.

  Giovanni Catalano stayed on her radar the entire time.

  Was it her imagination or was she on his? She didn’t catch him looking at her, but she experienced the sensation of being observed.

  She lost track of him once everyone had finally entered the ballroom, though. Still disconcerted, she busied herself with gathering abandoned napkins and dishes from the reception hall. The sense of being watched returned and she spun around.

  His wheels had made his approach nearly silent, but there he was. An intense zing of electrical awareness went through her, so sharp it hurt.

  “Come.” He neatly pivoted and rolled down the hall.

  Her heart lurched and she glanced to see the people in the ballroom were watching screens flashing to life with a presentation. Her colleagues would be looking for her to help serve shortly, but she could slip away unnoticed for a few minutes. Pulse racing unevenly, she followed.

  Giovanni ducked down a corridor, turned the handle on a door, and led her into the empty cloakroom. A handful of light wraps and jackets hung on the racks, but the shutters were closed and the attendant absent.

  He swiveled to confront her and nodded for her to close the door.

  She did, still astonished to be in his presence.

  “Have we met?” he demanded.

  “No. I mean, I know who you are.” Freja wished she’d kept her tray, needing a shield of some type. Not that she felt unsafe, but nor did she feel completely safe, either. Something about him struck her as dangerous in ways she couldn’t articulate. Not that he wanted to hurt her, but she suspected he could. He was so muscled and had that air of power.

  She was breathless in his presence for no explicable reason, completely beyond her depth—which was odd for her. She rolled with punches and was almost always ten steps ahead of most people around her.

  Nevertheless, she found herself sinking into the single wooden chair tucked beneath an empty section of a rack, weakened simply by the force of his personality.

  A brief flicker of surprise went across his expression as she came down to his eye level.

  “Why did you give those people the impression we’ve had sex?” he asked bluntly.

  “I didn’t. Did I?” She pressed into the hard rungs of the chair back. “No one thought that! Why would they?”

  “They not only thought it, they judged me a cradle robber.” His turbulent gaze took her in from crown to toes. “You’re what? Twenty-two?”

  “Twenty-three.” Not a young twenty-three, either. At least, she knew a lot of people her age who were far less capable of looking after themselves. He made her feel positively juvenile, though. Like those perfectly sensible students who spouted feminist doctrines, then grew flushed and got all high-voiced around the football quarterback. “I’m really embarrassed for reacting like that.” She fought to keep her voice steady and clear. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Why did you?” His demeanor was both compelling and faintly ominous. “Who did you think I was?”

  “No one. Well... It was a prevarication. I knew right away that you’re...” Oh, God, she was touching her hair. Playing with the fine hairs beneath her ponytail, where the hollow at the back of her neck was prickly with heightened awareness. Exactly like a flirty cheerleader. She clasped her hands in her lap. “I met your brother once. When I was a child.”

  His head went back and his whole body bunched as though preparing for a fight. His hands closed into fists and his jaw hardened.

  She understood that reaction. It happened to her sometimes when people mentioned her father. Years of carrying grief didn’t mean it no longer had the power to knock the wind out of you, especially when it arrived out of the blue.

  “He made an impression,” she continued gently, understanding, too, that there could be a gift hidden behind the sucker punch. A new memory could bring that person to life again, if only for a brief, intangible moment. “It was a fencing class for children.”

  “In Sicily?” Another raking glance filled with skepticism.

  “I was there with my father. He often enrolled me in local activities while he worked. Stefano was teaching with a girl named Paloma.”

  Giovanni’s head jerked slightly at the sound of his brother’s name. He offered her a three-quarter profile under the unforgiving fluorescent light. “You would have been very young. Seven?” he calculated.

  “He said I had potential.” She smiled with nostalgia for the little girl who had developed instant hero worship from being noticed by such a dynamic young man. “I thought I would go on to become an Olympian like him.”

  His cheek ticked. “Did you?”

  “No.” Laughably, she wasn’t much of anything, not even a proper US citizen. One day she might become a schoolteacher. At best she could call herself an author, but she wasn’t even published yet and was riding on her father’s coattails. “No, that swashbuckling fantasy went the way of my equally delusional dream that I would grow up and marry him.”

  His choked-off laugh could have been actual humor or a measure of outrage that she would dare to aspire to marry such a man.

  “He was always flirting with Paloma during class,” she explained. “He was so dashing and full of compliments, he became the ideal against which I judged all other boys when I grew old enough to have an interest in them. None had much chance after that.” She sighed wistfully, laughing at herself before she sobered. “I was devastated when I heard he’d been killed. It was the first time I understood that people could die before their time.”

  He was staring holes through her, leaving hollow spaces, but she said what was in her because she knew she would regret it if she didn’t take this chance to express her sincere condolences when she had this chance.

  “He talked about you with fondness. I was worried about you after the accident. Sad for you losing your brother and your parents. I always wanted a sibling myself.” She shrugged self-consciously at having such depth of compassion for a complete stranger. “I’ve looked you up over the years—which makes me sound like a stalker, I suppose, but I only viewed public things like your events at the games and read up on the apps you developed. That’s why
I recognized you and acted so strangely. I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable.”

  * * *

  Uncomfortable? Giovanni snorted. He had thought his cover was blown.

  Maybe it was. Freja—why had she only given him her first name?—was setting off all sorts of alarms on his internal gauges, from self-preservation to the sexual ones he did his best to ignore.

  She was too beautiful to disregard out of hand, though, even in a cheap, ill-fitting catering uniform. Her black vest hugged her slender waist, emphasizing the thrust of her hips and breasts. She wasn’t tall, but he’d watched her for an hour and she moved like a dancer, graceful and light. There wasn’t a speck of makeup on her face, but her translucent skin looked soft and luminous as baby powder. Her lashes and brows were nearly invisible, glinting pale gold, same as the hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. Her blue eyes bloomed like cornflowers and her pale pink lips looked smooth as rose petals.

  That impression of absolute innocence was an illusion, though. She possessed an underlying maturity that allowed her to hold his gaze with disconcerting confidence—and imbue their stare with a pulse of male-female awareness.

  Proceed with caution, he warned himself, even as he rationalized that he had no choice but to proceed.

  “Have dinner with me tomorrow.”

  She blinked, appearing startled by the invitation, which didn’t line up with his apprehension that she had approached him for the sole purpose of nurturing a better acquaintance.

  Her hesitation could also be an illusion, he reminded himself, but it caused a surprisingly brutal clench of disappointment in him. “No?”

  “If I can switch my shift, yes,” she said with a shy smile. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She was looking at him much the way he was studying her. Who is this person? I must find out.

  He couldn’t allow her to see beneath his surface, of course, but oh, did he want to dig beneath hers. He took her number.

  “I should get back,” she said with a glance to the closed door, but she didn’t rise. She studied him with an expectancy, as though she was waiting for something more.

  To hell with it. The manufactured shell of a persona he wore was necessary, but he was all man beneath. A nudge of his wheels and he was close enough to touch her. He didn’t. Not yet. He managed to maintain some shred of self-control, but he wanted to. Unless...

  “I’m not my brother.”

  “I know.” Her brow quirked, dismissing the very idea. “That was a childish crush, not—”

  He lifted his brows, confounded by her and fighting not to show it.

  “Whatever this is.” Her gaze searched his.

  Yes, what was it? He wanted to know, too. He absently braked his wheels and dropped his hand on the edge of her chair. He felt the small jolt in her thigh against his inner wrist as he leaned in, waited a half second for her to decide if she wanted to reject him, then set his mouth against hers.

  He’d been so focused on the job at hand for so long, he’d forgotten how satisfying it was to let himself feel. To taste. To experience the surprised tremble of a woman’s lips. Hers were as smooth and soft as they looked, parting with welcome and moving in tentative response.

  Hooks of desire snagged into him while a wind seemed to buffet them, making them sway. He lifted his free hand to her neck, drew her forward a fraction more so he could deepen their kiss, suddenly ravenous for all things sexual. For her. His blood became fire and she was the rain.

  She made a noise that was pleasure and surrender, gorgeous and evocative. She leaned into him. One of her hands found his arm, the other touched his shoulder.

  Without breaking their kiss, he gathered her and dragged her into his lap.

  She gasped, eyes blinking open with surprise before her arms went around his shoulders. She set her mouth against his and made another of those blissful humming noises as her breasts mashed against his chest.

  She was making this too easy. He knew that objectively, and he wasn’t so desperate for female company that he took it where he found it. He shouldn’t allow this seemingly unfettered response of hers to fuel his, but he was racing past normal checkpoints. In another instinctive move, he dug his fingers into her hip and pressed her deeper into the cradle of his thighs, wanting the weight and pressure of her in the places he could feel it.

  Her hands went into his hair as if she knew how sensitive his scalp was. The tingle of pleasure was so acute, he had to bite back a ragged groan. He buried the sound in her throat as he ran his mouth down to her collar, suddenly starving, wanting all of her, right here, right now.

  A pair of women walked past the far side of the vented panel that was the only thing hiding them from view. Their gossipy voices yanked him back to an awareness that he and Freja were essentially in public.

  She stared at him the way a stranger might who had blindly stepped in front of his car, her whole life flashing in her eyes while her shiny lips quivered in astonishment that she was still intact.

  He felt the same, which was sobering enough to steady his galloping heart.

  “Tomorrow,” he promised, forcing himself to remember that she might be a plant. He helped her to her feet, determined to use the time between now and then to find out.

  And even though he would need every minute of that time to assess whether he could trust her, he was already urging that time to pass quickly.

  * * *

  Freja walked briskly to the Manhattan restaurant from the gallery where she’d been working a few blocks away.

  Her catering uniform was in a bag over her shoulder. She had already changed into a tweed skirt over knee-high boots with red leggings and a red turtleneck. She’d topped it with a brown motorcycle jacket mined from a thrift store. When she had combed out her hair, it had immediately lost the waves she’d hoped to retain by keeping it in a plait all day. No such luck. As always, it was fine as spider silk and arrow-straight. She had plopped a newsboy cap over it and called it “good enough.”

  The busy street was carpeted in cherry blossom petals from the trees that lined it. It made a snowy carpet for Giovanni where he had parked his chair beside the wrought iron rail that surrounded a massive oak. He was reading something on his phone. The collar of his white shirt poked from his gray pullover, and the end of a pale blue scarf flicked in the breeze like the tip of a cat’s tail. He was casual and stunningly elegant, definitely not wearing anything that had been purchased secondhand.

  Both road and foot traffic were heavy and noisy, but he lifted his head and looked straight at her as she approached, as though he’d been aware of her from the moment she turned the corner at the end of the block. His black hair was charmingly ruffled by the breeze, his tanned face naturally stern, yet lit with probing curiosity.

  “You’ve written a book,” was his cryptic greeting. “It’s very compelling.”

  “How—”

  She cut herself off as he lifted a hand, leaving her in the awkward position of rebuffing his invitation to embrace and kiss in greeting or bend to accept it. She’d been reliving last night’s kiss nonstop, so she set her hand on his shoulder and leaned in.

  Something flashed in his gray eyes—humor, surprise—then an inferno of heat before he steadied her with one hard arm and captured her mouth with startling greed. Her heart leaped and her feet seemed to leave the ground. All of her felt suspended and floating as she abandoned herself to the wonder that was his mouth playing over hers.

  She could have kissed him forever, here in the street, while strangers brushed by them. He was a stranger, she reminded herself distantly, but he didn’t feel like one. She felt as though he’d been calling to her for her entire life and she had finally caught up to him.

  He let their kiss dwindle to a series of briefer tastes while a rumble of deprivation sounded in his throat. He kept her hand in his own as she straightened. She locked her soggy knees, trying to
remain upright.

  “I was offering to take your bag, but thank you.” His mouth curved with amusement, while his heavy eyelids transmitted a smoldering beam of sensual appreciation. “I’ve been thinking about you and wanted to do that again.”

  “Oh, my God.” She ducked her brow behind her free hand, flustered at having read the situation so wrongly.

  He released a soft chuckle across her knuckles and kissed the back of her hand. “Give me your bag and we’ll get out of this wind.”

  She slid her bag from her shoulder and set it in his lap, then obeyed his wave that invited her to walk down the ramp ahead of him. Inside, he passed her bag to the maître d’ and she gave up her jacket before they were shown through the intimate dining lounge.

  From the outside, with its small street-level windows, she had presumed this was a midrange Italian restaurant. It was far more impressive and exclusive. Subtle lighting lent intimacy to the sumptuous furniture arranged in private pockets and alcoves. A harpist in the middle of the room plucked a soothing mood into the air. A woman in a corner wore an epoch’s worth of diamonds, while the man sampling wine was a famous American with a full complement of EGOT awards. His companion was a well-known human rights lawyer.

  “Am I dressed all right?” Freja asked in a whisper.

  “You’re perfect,” he assured her.

  Moments later they were settled at a discreet table. His chair was armless and streamlined, but still too bulky for the space on the opposite side of the table. He slid into the spot on the side, close enough that only the corner of the table separated them.

  She self-consciously set aside her cap and dropped her phone into it, then flicked her hair behind her shoulders, aware of him watching her as he ordered a bottle of wine.

  When they were alone, she cleared her throat and said, “I was going to ask how you learned about my book.” She’d only given him her first name yesterday, partly because it tended to prompt the conversation she could feel building right now. “I’m even more interested in how you have a copy? It doesn’t come out until the fall.”