voice she did not recognise as her own—knew only that she needed him in a way she had never understood needing anything before. His warm breath stirred the hairs on the back of her neck, but still he did not move.
‘Please.’ She turned round to face him and looked up at him, her eyes wide, imploring. ‘Please, touch me,’ she urged.
Dante drew in a ragged breath, his eyes boring into her with unfathomable intensity. She saw his hands move up as if to encircle her waist, and then drop to his sides again.
‘I want…’ Her voice was bolder now, seeing his temptation. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
‘Damn you, you little temptress,’ he bit out, his voice thick as he shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t you know what you do to me?’
She nodded slowly, her lips parted. And then he raised his head and looked deep into her eyes for one final moment, before he brought his mouth crushing upon her own.
And it was then that Faye truly learned what it was to be touched. To feel the exquisite pleasure of being claimed by the man you loved in the most intimate way there was. And the sudden searing of pain was replaced by a mounting pleasure which exploded with all the unexpected welcome of a late-afternoon storm. A sensation which, to Faye, was only surpassed by the feeling of lying beneath a cool white sheet, with Dante just inches away afterwards, and the sound of the easing rain outside the window. The sound of his breathing was steady and deep.
‘Couldn’t you just stay here for ever?’ she whispered.
It was the eye of the storm she had never seen coming.
‘I thought you had got everything you wanted.’
Faye’s face crumpled. She didn’t know what he was supposed to say afterwards, but she knew that wasn’t it. Seconds before he had been crying her name in ecstasy—and now? Now the harshness of his tone made it sound as if he almost despised her.
Faye rolled away from him, whipping the sheet around her. ‘What are you talking about?’ She suddenly felt as if she was playing a complicated game and no one had told her the rules.
‘I’m talking about little girls who cast all dignity aside the minute they get a taste of the high life.’ He glanced towards the designer bag containing the dress and curled his lip in distaste. ‘Those who are so hot for a man they do not see the value of their virtue amidst their haste to lose it.’
He swung his legs over the bed, shameless in his nakedness, and reached for his damp jeans.
‘You came here to learn, bella? Then today you learn this is not the kind of behaviour which makes a man stay anywhere. Why would he, when he has taken all that is worth taking?’
And with that he scooped up the rest of his clothes and headed towards the door. Suddenly it didn’t feel like a game at all.
‘What are you talking about?’ she repeated helplessly, searching his face, willing him to take the words back.
‘Your true colours, sì?’ he said with finality before closing the door calmly behind him.
As Faye stared helplessly at the door, nausea rising in her belly, she felt her heart break in two. Felt all the humiliation of loving so blindly, of discovering just why it all felt so unreal. Because it was. Every moment, from the instant they had met until now, turned sour in her mind, as if someone had poured acid into her brain. And something changed irrecoverably within her. Not because she had just made love to a man for the first time in her life. But because all her foolish childhood dreams had just crashed out through the door with him. She had wanted to give herself to him, and he detested her for it. How could she have got it so wrong?
Faye choked back the sobs as realisation seeped in, and suddenly she was caught by a need to get dressed—as if angry at her own body, determined to cover its nakedness. The open wardrobe caught her eye, with its skirts and blouses neatly ordered for her weeks of work ahead. Yes, she thought, there was something worse than this: staying around to face the humiliation day after day, having him look at her thinking he had taken all that was worth taking, having him look at her at all.
And so she packed her bags. Understanding that her leaving would have about as much impact on his world as a pebble skimming the surface of the ocean, but knowing it was preferable to being swallowed up by the ocean completely.
* * *
Faye raised her head to look at him, sitting opposite her, her heart numb with the steady ache she had not allowed herself to feel for so long. She felt ashamed—that she had had no choice but to swallow her pride and return, that she had allowed him to get to her once more—and she felt terrified that she was capable of letting him do it all over again.
‘As you said yourself, Dante, we all make mistakes.’
He seemed oblivious to the pain in her eyes. ‘You mean you realised that you could have got more for your virginity than a few weeks working here?’
What was he talking about? She had wanted nothing from him but for it to have been real. Yet he was angry with her? She looked at his cruel, arrogant, despicably handsome face. He seemed to tire of waiting for her to answer. She was glad.
‘It was fortunate that you were offered opportunities elsewhere, in spite of having come straight from me.’
‘Not everyone is such as Neanderthal as you, Dante. Some men do not consider a woman’s virginity the only thing she has to offer,’ she bit out, furious at his assumptions, and even more furious that she had never brought herself to take up any such opportunities, as he put it, on the occasions when they had come her way. But what would have been the point? She hadn’t even once got close to feeling anything like she had felt that afternoon with anyone. Until she had walked into his office again today, she thought wretchedly.
‘Faye, do not misinterpret me. I meant opportunities in the business world. Not many people walk out on a contract with Valenti Enterprises and are still offered work elsewhere.’
Bastard, she thought. Like hell you meant that. And as for business opportunities—those that had come her way since, she had had to turn down for the sake of Matteson’s. Faye felt all the tension in her shoulders return as she put down her spoon.
‘Champagne to finish, I think. A toast to my new…right-hand woman for a month.’
Faye gritted her teeth. There was no reason to refuse. She had sold her soul to the devil. If she was worried about losing her head, it was too late.
As he chinked his glass against her own, the blood in her veins slowed to a more languorous pace, no less insistent. She wished she had brought her faux pashmina to cover herself from that penetrating gaze which lingered upon her as she took a sip. Did he want her? He hated her, wanted to ruin her—she knew that. But she also knew that was not an issue he’d have difficulty putting aside if he did. The bubbles fizzed on her tongue. She took a deep breath as the alcohol reached her bloodstream, making her more conscious of her surroundings. Two days ago she had woken up to face a day like any other at the restaurant: vacant tables, piles of bills, tired décor, tired people. And now here she was, sitting in Perfezione, the antithesis of her life back home. Surrounded by so much luxury, so much life, in a restaurant where it took months just to secure a booking. Unless you happened to be accompanying the man who had haunted her dreams to this day. For a moment she wondered if she had conjured
