you’ve always said you wanted a partnership between us. But the point is for you to be happy, Angelina. That’s what I want for you.”
A glow inside her sparked, grew to almost scary proportions. She’d never imagined they could be this good. This amazing together.
She didn’t want to be afraid of loving him anymore. She wanted to trust that this was going to work out, that they were meant to be together, just like he’d said that night in the Hamptons. Taking that last step, however, making herself completely vulnerable, was painfully hard.
His eyes darkened with a sensual heat that made her pulse leap. He nodded toward the half-eaten croissant in her hand. “You going to eat that?”
She shook her head. Put it down. He reached for her, covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was pure heat. Pure possession. She relaxed her grip on the sheets as he stripped them off her, working his way down her body, tasting, idolizing every inch of her.
It was the most leisurely, spine-tinglingly good buildup he’d ever lavished on her. The most perfect thing she’d ever experienced. By the time he joined their bodies, she was so far gone she was never coming back.
Mouth at her ear, his hand closing possessively over her breast, he started to move, seducing her with words as well as with his body. Heart stretching with the force of what she felt for him, she refused to consider the possibility her husband would never love her. She was through sabotaging her happiness.
THE WEEKS FOLLOWING her trip to Italy were as busy as Angie had expected as she caught up on the backlog of commissions that had come in. She ploughed through the work with the help of her fellow designers, knowing it was a good problem to have—growing pains for a business that seemed to have come into its own.
Burying herself in her work allowed her to achieve her other goal of putting her pregnancy into a manageable box and not let the fears eating away at the fringes of her psyche take control. The doctor had confirmed her pregnancy upon their return home, giving her a clean bill of health. She wasn’t going to fret about it. Or at least she was telling herself that.
Her husband, however, had clearly elected to take the opposite strategy. Although he was giving her the time to work he’d promised her, he had been monitoring her eating and sleeping habits like a hawk, enforcing periods of rest. When he happened to be around, that was. Ever since they’d come home, he had been working day and night to close the Belmont deal. Add to that another acquisition Franco was negotiating that required her husband’s counsel and Lorenzo wasn’t doing any eating or sleeping himself.
She knew it was an inordinately busy time, but the feeling that their life was sliding into its former self was growing stronger with every day. Their bond was too new, too nascent, not to allow the warning signals to affect her.
Another long day at the studio behind her, she walked into the penthouse just after eight, kicked off her shoes and made herself a cup of tea. Carrying it into the living room, she sat reading a book while she waited for her husband. But the book failed to keep her attention.
Weeks like this were the worst when Lorenzo was gone for nights on end. Old fears crept around her unsuspecting edges, insecurity set in. Given their dinners together at home had vaporized with her husband’s insane schedule and he refused to wake her up when he came to bed so late, she didn’t even have the comfort his passionate lovemaking offered, that seemed to make any obstacle seem surmountable.
The minutes ticked by, her agitation rising. Perhaps now that Lorenzo had had his fill of her, now that he’d gotten everything he wanted, he would lose interest again. Perhaps whatever client he was out wining and dining tonight was a convenient excuse to stay away. Perhaps the emotional distance she’d sensed in him since Portofino was a reality.
The clock struck ten. Discarding the book, she decided to take matters into her own hands. To be proactive rather than reactive. To take control of her relationship, something she hadn’t done the last time.
In her bedroom, she dug out the lingerie she’d bought earlier that week and slipped it on. The sexy cream-and-black baby doll that just covered her pertinent assets was fairly indecent. She stared at herself in the mirror, rosy color stinging her cheeks. The cream lace bodice did nothing to hide the bold thrust of her nipples, the silk encasing her curves a seductive caress that was pure temptation.
She pulled the elastic from her hair and let it fall around her shoulders the way her husband liked it. A slow smile curved her mouth. If this didn’t bring him running, nothing would.
* * *
Lorenzo arrived back at the table at the trendy restaurant in the meatpacking district, where he and his CMO were entertaining his Japanese business partners to find his phone sitting on his chair.
An amused smile curved his CMO’s mouth. “Figured you might not want the whole table seeing that,” he said, nodding toward the phone. He leaned closer. “PS—I’d go home if I were you.”
Lorenzo glanced at the screen. Almost choked on the sip of beer he’d taken. His wife dressed in a piece of lingerie he’d never seen before—an outrageously sexy piece, by any male’s standards, occupied the entire screen. Hair loose around her shoulders, the lingerie doing little to hide the dark shadow of her nipples beneath the transparent lace, she was the twenty-first-century version of a pinup poster. Times ten.
He glanced at the message.
Are you coming home?
Heat claimed his cheeks. It took very little of his creative ability to imagine peeling that silk off of her. How she would taste under his mouth. He’d thought his crazy social schedule might prove an ideal cooling-off period for the two of them given the depth of the emotion they’d shared in Portofino. But this, this was too much to resist.
“You didn’t see that,” he muttered to his CMO.
“What?” Gerald said innocently. “I’ll cover for you if you want to make an exit.”
Lorenzo tucked his phone into his pocket. Put his exit strategy into motion. Except his Japanese colleagues were intent on taking in the entertainment the club provided. It would be rude for him to cut the night short.
He texted his wife back.
Hold that thought.
It was close to midnight, however, by the time he walked into the penthouse. Devoid of light, it was cast in shadows. He let out a low oath that turned the silent space blue and threw his jacket on a chair.
Body pulsing with frustration, every ounce of his blood so far south it was never coming back, he reached up and loosened his tie. A flash of movement near the windows caught his eye.
He took in his wife, silhouetted against the New York skyline, the sexy negligee plastered to every centimeter of her voluptuous body.
Her breasts were bigger with the advance of her pregnancy, their lush, creamy expanse drawing his eye. That tantalizing glimpse of nipple beneath sheer, gauzy fabric made his mouth go dry.
“You waited up.” His voice was husky, laced with a need he couldn’t hide.
“I was on my way to bed.”
Chilly. Distinctly chilly. He gathered his wits as he moved toward her. “I tried to get away, but my business colleagues were in from Japan. It would have looked rude to leave.”
“It’s fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest, amplifying the view of the bare flesh he ached to touch.
He reached for her. She stepped back. “I don’t think so.”
“There was nothing I could have done, Angelina.”
“I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
He caught her hand and pulled her to him, content to work his way back into her good graces. Her perfume