She would not think about that. She wouldn’t think about yielding to him.
“What do you think of your first sight of New York?”
“Amazing,” she said, grateful that he was asking about the city and not about his chest. “Like I said. It’s big and busy like London, but different, too. The energy is different.”
He frowned slightly, tilting his head to the side. “The energy is different.” He nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s true. Though, I had never thought of it quite that way.”
“Well, you’ve never sat on the floor and eaten your cereal in a sunbeam either.”
“Correct.”
“Noticing energy is more the sort of thing someone who’d eat their cereal on the floor in a sunbeam would do.”
“I would imagine that’s true.”
“You’re too busy to notice things like that. The real estate development business is...busy, I guess.”
“Yes. Even during slow times in the economy, it’s comparably busy if you’ve already got a massive empire.”
“And you do,” she said.
“I would think that was obvious by now.”
“Yes. Pretty obvious.” She forced herself to turn away from him, forced herself to look back at the view again. “I find cities so very interesting. The anonymity of them. You can be surrounded by people and still be completely alone. Where I grew up, there were less people. By far there were less people. But it felt like you were never alone. And not just because I lived in the house with so many other people. But because every time you stepped outside you would meet somebody you knew. You could never just have a bad day.”
He lifted a shoulder. “I am rarely anonymous when I go out.”
She frowned. “I suppose you aren’t. I mean, I would never have known who you were. I’m not metropolitan enough.”
“You’re certainly working on it.”
She looked down at the outfit that had been chosen for her to travel in. Dark jeans and a white top. She supposed she looked much more metropolitan than she had only a few weeks ago. But it wasn’t her. And none of this belonged to her either.
“The appearance of it at least.” She regarded him more closely. “I suppose you can’t exactly have a public bad day either.”
He chuckled, the sound dark, rolling over her like a thick summer night. “Of course I can. I can do whatever I like, behave as badly as I like. I’m Renzo Valenti, and no one is going to lecture me on decorum.”
“Except maybe your mother.”
He laughed again. “Oh, yes, she most definitely would. But there is nothing my parents can do to me.” He looked past her, at the city visible through the large windows. “They gave me too much freedom for too long, and now I have too much power. All they can do is direct their disapproval at me with as much fervor as humanly possible. A pity for them, but rather a win for me, don’t you think?”
“In some ways approval and disapproval is power, isn’t it?” She thought of her own family. Of the fact that what had kept her rooted in her childhood home for so long was the knowledge that if she should ever leave she would never be able to go back. That if she ever stepped foot out of line her father would disown her. Would turn all of her siblings against her, would forbid her mother from having any contact with her. It was the knowledge that the disapproval would carry so much weight she would be cut off completely, and in order to make even one decision of her own she would have to be willing to accept that as a consequence.
“I suppose.”
“You don’t believe me. But that just means that your parents’ approval doesn’t come with strings.”
That made him laugh again, and he wandered over to the bar, taking out a bottle of Scotch and pouring himself a drink. She wouldn’t have known what the amber-colored alcohol was only a few months ago, but waiting tables had educated her.
“Now, that isn’t true. It’s only that I possess a certain amount of string-pulling power myself. So what you have is a power struggle more than a fait accompli.”
“That’s what I needed,” she said, “strings.”
Of course, that was what actually hurt, she concluded, standing there and turning over what he said. The fact that she wasn’t a string. Her presence in their life wasn’t a string. Control mattered to her father, not love. And he couldn’t have anyone around to challenge that control because it might inspire the other people in his household to do the same.
Parental love wasn’t strong enough to combat that. If there was any parental love coming from his direction at all.
“You should probably get some rest. You will have to start getting ready for the gala tonight as soon as possible. So a short nap might be in your best interest.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what had inspired the abrupt comment, but she would be grateful for some distance. Grateful for a little bit of time away from Renzo and his magnetic presence, and all of the feelings and emotions he stirred up inside her.
“I think I will have a nap. Is... Is someone going to come and help with my makeup and hair?”
“Of course. I’m hardly going to leave that to chance on the night of the most important professional event of the year.”
“Good. I’m too relieved to be offended.” And then she turned and walked away from him, heading into the first bedroom that she saw. Without another thought, she threw herself across the plush mattress and closed her eyes.
And if it was Renzo she saw behind her closed lids rather than the brilliant city skyline, she chose to ignore that.
* * *
Renzo had a plan. And he had a feeling it would be one that was quite simple to complete. He was intent on seducing Esther tonight. Judging by the way she had looked at him this afternoon, the seduction was halfway complete. He was not a vain man, but he was also not a man given to false modesty.
Esther was attracted to him. She had been affected by that kiss, and he would be able to overtake her senses yet again when he touched her tonight. More than that, she was affected by all of this. By the luxury of the travel, by the places in the world that he brought to her fingertips by virtue of his money and connections.
He wasn’t angry that she had an interest in these things; rather, he found it to be a boon to his cause.
If she had been as unaffected by these things as she had claimed that she would be, then he would have lost some leverage. But she wanted to go to school, she wanted to see the world, and whether she knew it or not, she craved his touch. He could give her all of those things. He could satisfy her in a way that no other man could, in a way no other man had.
All she would have to do was agree to marry him. Beyond that, she would have to present a respectable front in public. But that was it. He could see no reason she would find that objectionable.
He had lied to her, of course, when he said that his parents had no leverage with him. His father had presented incredibly hard leverage at his home only two weeks ago. And dammit all, Renzo was not immune. He would not have control in his stake of the family business given up to his brother-in-law. He would not have it given to anyone. He had given up enough.
In order to maintain the status quo, he had already given up a child. He would not lose anything more.
Rage burned in his chest, the kind of rage he had not felt for years. He hadn’t realized it was quite so strong still. He had thought he had accepted that decision. His parents had been acting in his best interest. But it burned. In fact, the more the years passed, it seemed to burn even brighter.
The older he got, the more control he assumed of his life, the angrier he was about the lack