thought was clear in her head, catching at her consciousness. Making her lean into him even more, wrap her arm around his strong, lean waist. He turned to her, gazing down at her, and in his dark, long-lashed eyes Eloise saw desire, felt her own body respond as his mouth swooped to graze her tender lips, parting to his.
It did not take them long to make their way indoors again and take full advantage of the privacy and luxury of the penthouse’s master bedroom.
‘Welcome to Rome, my sweetest Eloise,’ was Vito’s soft murmur as he swept her away.
And all thoughts as to why Vito had brought her to yet another hotel instead of his own apartment, even though he was in his home city, fled from her utterly in the heady passion of his lovemaking.
* * *
Vito frowned, setting down the phone abruptly and swinging restlessly and with displeasure in the leather chair at his desk in his office. Accidenti, this was not what he wanted! Yet his mother had been adamant.
‘You absolutely have to be there tonight,’ she’d said, her tones strained.
But attending the function as his mother was insisting was the last thing he wanted to do—let alone on his first evening back in Rome after so long an absence. What he wanted to do—the way he wanted to spend the evening—was quite different!
To show Eloise Rome by night...
His expression softened. Eloise! Just thinking about her cheered his mood—a mood that had been tightening all day as he’d caught up on corporate affairs here at his head office. He’d wanted the evening off, to spend with Eloise, but now he’d be on show as the head of the Viscari family, no longer only the heir apparent while his uncle and father ran the business between them. Now everything rested only on him—the whole future of Viscari Hotels.
A bleak, painful look showed in Vito’s eyes. He leant back in his chair. His father’s chair. Four generations had preceded him. And they had created and held on to the legacy that now rested upon his shoulders and his alone.
Except... His eyes darkened now. That legacy was not his alone...
Vito’s hands gripped the arms of his chair. What had possessed his uncle Guido to leave his half of the Viscari shares not to his nephew—as had been the long-held understanding in the family, given Guido’s lack of children of his own—but to his widow? That disastrous decision had, Vito knew, contributed to his father’s heart condition, hastening his premature end fifteen months ago, when he’d been frustrated in his attempts to buy back Guido’s shares from his widow Marlene.
Vito knew his parents had always considered her a social-climbing interloper into the Viscari family, hungry for power and influence. And that was why, Vito surmised, Marlene was adamantly refusing to sell her inherited shares, despite the handsome premium offered to her.
His eyes hardened to pinpoints. It was the same reason that lay behind Marlene’s most persistent and ludicrous fixation.
When she had married Guido, ten years ago, she had arrived from England with her teenage daughter Carla in tow, and ever since Guido’s death one obsession had dominated her. One way for her to cement her position in the Viscari family permanently.
Dream on, thought Vito, his mouth thinning. Marlene could have all the dreams she liked, but she would never achieve her ambition—her ludicrous, fantasy-driven ambition.
Vito was adamant. She was never, however much she wanted it, going to get him to marry her daughter.
* * *
As Vito walked into their suite at the Viscari Roma Eloise’s eyes lit up. She got off the sofa and hurried to him to kiss him.
‘Miss me?’ asked Vito, smiling, throwing himself down on the sofa, loosening his tie and slipping open his top button with relief.
Dio, it was good to see Eloise again, even after the space of only a few hours, and he felt his spirits lift, shifting the pressure that had settled over him after his mother’s phone call.
‘Beer?’ Eloise asked, crossing to the built-in bar.
‘Definitely,’ Vito said gratefully. ‘What would I do without you?’ he asked appreciatively, taking a first cold, reviving mouthful.
‘Fetch your own beer!’ She laughed, nestling into him as he lifted his free arm to draw her against him more closely.
He laughed in return, a carefree sound, stretching out his long legs in front of him. At his side Eloise relaxed into him and his arm around her tightened. The soft expression in her beautiful blue eyes was a balm to his troubled thoughts of the evening’s ordeal ahead and what lay beyond.
I have to settle the business of Guido’s shareholding. I have to get Marlene to agree to a price and get those shares into my ownership.
Into his head came an image, a memory that haunted him—would always haunt him. A voice imploring him, pleading with him. ‘Pay whatever it costs you!’
Emotion clutched at him like a knife thrust into his side. His eyes shadowed painfully.
He took another mouthful of beer, wanting a distraction from his anguished memories.
‘Is everything all right?’
Eloise’s soft voice had a note of concern in it, and she was gazing at him questioningly.
I wish I could take her with me tonight!
The function was to be at Guido’s opulent villa, to mark the presentation of some of the Viscari artworks to a gallery—an occasion that, as Vito knew only too well, would see Marlene queening it over his mother with relish. His mother would be seething silently, and would make waspish comments about her despised sister-in-law.
Having Eloise at his side would make it more endurable. Vito’s eyes glinted sharply. And it would also make it obvious to Marlene that there was no chance he would have the slightest romantic interest in her daughter!
Oh, he and Carla got on well enough—despite the friction between their mothers—and she was highly attractive in her own dramatically brunette way, but she had her own romances and his taste was for blondes. Beautiful, long-legged blondes, with golden hair and blue, blue eyes.
His gaze washed over Eloise’s face now. He felt a strange emotion go through him. One he had never felt before and could give no name to. For a moment he wished he had not brought her here to the Viscari Roma, but taken her straight to his own apartment. But would that have been wise? Would it have given her a message he was not yet sure about?
Or am I sure—but not yet admitting it?
That was what caused him to hesitate. And there was another reason, too, for not having taken Eloise directly to his own apartment. His mother would leap to conclusions—conclusions he was not yet ready to draw.
We need time, Eloise and I—time to discover what we truly mean to each other.
Besides, tonight’s function would be riven with tensions, and the last thing he wanted was to expose Eloise to the discord twisting through the Viscari family over the matter of Guido’s shareholding.
Let me get Guido’s shares back
