don’t want to know.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘All good.’ He yawned. ‘The hotel is almost complete and I’ve been commissioned to design a new art gallery just outside Tokyo.’
‘But you’re tired?’ she observed.
His voice was mocking. ‘Sì, cara. I’m tired.’
She wriggled her back against him. ‘Ever thought of easing off for a while? Taking a back seat and just enjoying your success?’
‘Not really.’ He yawned again.
‘Why not?’ she said, some rogue inside her making her persist, even though she could sense his growing impatience with her questions.
His voice grew hard. ‘Because men in my position don’t ease off. There are a hundred hot new architects who would love to be where I am. Take your eye off the ball and you’re toast.’ He stroked her nipple. ‘Why don’t you tell me about your week instead?’
‘Oh, mine was nothing to speak about. I just serve the toast,’ she said lightly.
She closed her eyes because she thought that they might sleep but she was wrong because Renzo was cupping her breasts, rubbing his growing erection up against her bottom until she gave an urgent sound of assent and he entered her from behind, where she was slick and ready.
His lips were in her hair and his hands were playing with her nipples as he moved inside her again. Her shuddered capitulation was swift and two orgasms in less than an hour meant she could no longer fight off her fatigue. She fell into a deep sleep and sometime later she felt the bed dip as Renzo got up and when she dragged her eyelids open it was to see that the spring evening was still light. The leaves in the treetops outside the window were golden-green in the fading sunlight and she could hear a distant bird singing.
It felt surreal lying here. The prestigious square on which he lived sometimes seemed like a mirage. All the lush greenery gave the impression of being in the middle of the country—something made possible only by the fact that this was the most expensive real estate in London. But beyond the treetops near his exclusive home lay the London which was her city. Discount stores and tower blocks and garbage fluttering on the pavements. Snarled roads and angry drivers. And somewhere not a million miles from here, but which felt as if it might as well be in a different universe, was the tiny bedsit she called home. Sometimes it seemed like something out of some corny old novel—the billionaire boss and his waitress lover. Because things like this didn’t usually happen to girls like her.
But Renzo hadn’t taken advantage of her, had he? He’d never demanded anything she hadn’t wanted to give. She’d accepted his ride home—even though some part of her had cried out that it was unwise. Yet for once in her life she’d quashed the voice of common sense which was as much a part of her as her bright red hair. For years she had simply kept her head down and toed the line in order to survive. But not this time. Instead of doing what she knew she should do, she’d succumbed to something she’d really wanted and that something was Renzo. Because she’d never wanted anyone the way she’d wanted him.
What she was certain he’d intended to be just one night had become another and then another as their unconventional relationship had developed. It was a relationship which existed only within the walls of his apartment because, as if by some unspoken agreement, they never went out on dates. Renzo’s friends were wealthy and well connected, just like him. Fast-living powerbrokers with influential jobs and nothing in common with someone like her. And anyway, it would be bizarre if they started appearing together in public because they weren’t really a couple, were they?
She knew their relationship could most accurately be described as ‘friends with benefits,’ though the benefits heavily outweighed the friendship side and the arrogant Italian had once told her that he didn’t really have any female friends. Women were for the bedroom and kitchen—he’d actually said that, when he’d been feeling especially uninhibited after one of their marathon sex sessions, which had ended up in the bath. He’d claimed afterwards that he’d been joking but Darcy had recognised a grain of truth behind his words. Even worse was the way his masterful arrogance had thrilled her, even though she’d done her best to wear a disapproving expression.
Because when it boiled down to it, Darcy knew the score. She was sensible enough to know that Renzo Sabatini was like an ice cream cone you ate on a sunny day. It tasted amazing—possibly the most amazing thing you’d ever tasted—but you certainly didn’t expect it to last.
She glanced up as he walked back into the bedroom carrying a tray, a task she performed many times a day—the only difference being that he was completely naked.
‘You’re spoiling me,’ she said.
‘I’m just returning the favour. I’d like to ask where you learned that delicious method of licking your tongue over my thighs but I realise that—’
‘I learned it from you?’
‘Esattamente.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Hungry?’
‘Thirsty.’
‘I expect you are,’ he said, bending over to brush his lips over hers.
She took the tea he gave her and watched as he tugged on a pair of jeans and took his glass of red wine over to his desk, sitting down and putting on dark-framed spectacles before waking his computer from sleep mode and beginning to scroll down. After a couple of minutes he was completely engrossed in something on the screen and suddenly Darcy felt completely excluded. With his back on her, she felt like an insignificant cog in the giant wheel which was his life. They’d just had sex—twice—and now he was burying himself in work, presumably until his body had recovered enough to do it to her all over again. And she would just lie back and let him, or climb on top of him if the mood took her—because that was her role. Up until now it had always been enough but suddenly it didn’t seem like nearly enough.
Did she signal her irritation? Was that why he rattled out a question spoken like someone who was expecting an apologetic denial as an answer?
‘Is something wrong?’
This was her cue to say no, nothing was wrong. To pat the edge of the bed and slant him a compliant smile because that was what she would normally have done. But Darcy wasn’t in a compliant mood today. She’d heard a song on the radio just before leaving work. A song which had taken her back to a place she hadn’t wanted to go to and the mother she’d spent her life trying to forget.
Yet it was funny how a few random chords could pluck at your heartstrings and make you want to screw up your face and cry. Funny how you could still love someone even though they’d let you down, time after time. That had been the real reason she’d sent Renzo’s driver away. She’d wanted to walk to the Tube so that her unexpected tears could mingle with the rain. She’d hoped that by coming here and having her Italian lover take her to bed, it might wipe away her unsettled feelings. But it seemed to have done the opposite. It had awoken a new restlessness in her. It had made her realise that great sex and champagne in the shadows of a powerful man’s life weren’t the recipe for a happy life—and the longer she allowed it to continue, the harder it would be for her to return to the real world. Her world.
She finished her tea and put the cup down, the subtle taste of peppermint and rose petals still lingering on her lips. It was time for the affair to fade out, like the credits at the end of the film. And even though she was going to miss him like crazy,
