A Starlet in Venice (11 page)

Liam:

I’d been afraid she’d run after that aborted training session. But if anything, it seemed to free her. She looked happier. She laughed more. She kissed me and teased me.

As for me? My feelings for her only got deeper. There was depth to this woman. There was a sweetness that life should have beaten out of her, but she’d triumphed over her circumstances, because it hadn’t. She was strong. Resilient. Smart. Funny. And she was mine.

We had two days before her film shoot resumed in Dingle. I kissed her as often as I wanted. When we sparred for the blanket while watching a movie, I ran my hands up her leg, before parting them to lower my mouth on her sweetness. I came up behind her while she washed dishes and nuzzled her neck, whispering all the naughty things I wanted to do to her.

What I didn’t do was another training session. I needed time for that. She frowned and worried that somehow, this was a problem for me, and I did my level best to kiss her fears away. Love was not defined by how well your submissive obeyed your directives. Love was shared memories and laughter. Love was stolen hugs and kisses. Love was her sigh of pleasure as I sank into her body. In the end, the BDSM games were just that. Games. I liked control; I couldn’t pretend otherwise. But I loved Tatiana, and that was the greater emotion.

Much too soon, and far before I was ready, it was time for my rabbit to pack and head to Dingle. “I’m coming to visit you,” I promised her. The filming was four excruciating weeks long.

“You better,” she laughed.

***

Tatiana:

I was in a happy daze as the plane took off. Liam had ignored my protests and had come to the airport to see me off. He’d held my hands and he’d kissed me thoroughly before I got on the plane. My fingers grazed my lips, and I shivered. They felt swollen and tender and good. The way my heart felt.

For too long, I’d chosen to detach from the world, letting the walls down fully only when I was in front of a camera. The secrets I’d kept had taken on a tangible weight. When I’d finally revealed the last secret, I thought I would have felt flayed open and raw. I hadn’t. I’d felt like a weight had lifted from my shoulders.

Liam knew everything about me there was to know, and he hadn’t left. He’d stayed. He’d moved closer. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I didn’t have to keep detached. I felt like I had someone to lean on.

I had someone that wanted me, the way my parents never did. I’d found someone who wouldn’t be taken away from me, the way Antonio and Enzo had been.

I loved Liam. He owned me, body and soul, heart and mind. And I hoped I owned him the same way too.

Almost, I’d said those words to him at the airport. But something had held me back, the last vestiges of old walls, determined to protect my heart.

My heart didn’t need protecting from Liam. With him, I felt loved and cherished and healed and whole. I would tell him on Skype tonight. I would tell him what I felt, because he was a writer, and he understood the shape and power of words. Tonight, I resolved to tell him exactly how much I loved him.  

***

There was a message waiting for me at the B&B I was staying at. ‘
The new executive producer would like to see you,
’ said the note on my bed. It had a hotel name and room number. Room 104.

I hadn’t even known the show had a new executive producer. All of last week, I’d been immersed in Liam. I wondered what I’d missed. In general, I tried to stay out of the politics and the gossip of film making, preferring to focus on the work. But a new executive producer could indicate that the show had acquired new owners. And with new ownership often came changes.

What does he want?
I wondered to myself as I tossed my bags into my room, ran a comb through my hair, and headed off to find out.

The hotel was just five minutes away. The air was chilly, and I walked fast, rubbing my hands together and blowing on them to warm up. I was smiling. The damp air had reminded me of my Christmas in Cork, which had, in turn reminded me of Liam.

Ah, who are you kidding, Tia? Everything reminds you of Liam.

I was probably still smiling when I knocked on the wooden door of Room 104. “Come in,” I heard a voice say, and for some reason, that voice set goose bumps rising on my skin. I pushed open the door, and the reason for my unease became perfectly clear.

In front of me, seated on a deep chair next to the flickering fireplace was Mark Driscoll, my rapist from so many years ago. The man who had lured a naïve seventeen-year old into his room with the promise of a movie role, tied her down on a bed, taken her virginity without her consent, and left her to deal with the resulting pregnancy.

***

There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes, and that chilled my blood even more. He didn’t even remember me. How commonplace was his act of violation? How many women had there been before me, how many after?

“Ah, you must be Tatiana Cordova,” he said. I could feel his eyes run over every inch of me, resting on the swell of my breasts and the soft vee of the dark navy sweater. I’d worn the sweater for Liam, who had dipped his mouth to my cleavage to kiss each breast as part of an extended goodbye before we left for the airport.

Just a few hours ago, but in this room, with my heart beating so loud that I thought it would burst from my chest, it felt like a lifetime ago.

I felt ill. I felt violated. My legs were shaking, but I clenched my nails deep into my palm and forced myself to walk forward. I wasn’t afraid of him. I wasn’t that terrified seventeen-year old anymore that he had forced in a room much like this one. In the intervening years, I’d learned to defend myself, a tangible response to the panic attacks that almost crippled me, and I had learned that I was far more resilient that I had given myself credit for. That thought gave me the strength to walk further into Mark Driscoll’s hotel room.

I wanted to know what Mark Driscoll wanted.

“We have a change in direction,” he said. His eyes leered at my body. “Something I’ve been working on with the writers. We think we are going to kill off your character.” His eyes met mine, and the message was clear. “Unless you can make a case for why that shouldn’t be so?”

He was blatant about it.
Suck my dick if you want to keep your job.

Though it had been suggested many, many times, I’d never stooped to this level for a movie role. It had always been a hard line for me. I cared about my career, but I cared more about my soul. There would always be another role. This was not the way forward.

I turned around and walked out, not noticing the slight drizzle that had started falling. When I got to my room, I closed the door and locked it, and I put a chair in front of it, driven entirely by instinct and fear. I was trembling, shaking all over. My blood was pounding in my veins, and I could feel myself shiver uncontrollably. Seeing him had brought it all back. The fear, the searing pain, the utter helplessness.

Twelve years back, I hadn’t asked for help. I had kept it all bottled up inside me. But right now, at this moment, the only person I wanted was a phone call away, and I knew that if I reached out to him, he would be with me as fast as he possibly could.

Liam would be there for me.

Three
was a number that had echoed throughout my life. There had been three of us in the orphanage. In my childhood, I had felt abandoned three separate times. I had three secrets, all revealed to Liam.

I had run from Liam twice. After we made love for the first time, I’d sneaked out of his apartment like a thief in the middle of the night. When he’d tied me up, I’d retreated into myself, an involuntary reaction to something that had been done to me.

Yet Liam had never turned away. He’d never been angry. He just waited for me.

I wasn’t going to run from him a third time. This time, I was going to ask for help. My hand reached for my cellphone, and it was shaking as I made the most important phone call of my life. “Liam,” I said when he picked up. My voice sounded thin with fear and almost unrecognizable. “Liam, I need you.”

***

Liam:

I extracted a few key bits of information from her. She wasn’t in immediate danger. She wanted me. Something had happened that she wasn’t ready to talk about over the phone.

Dingle was a difficult place to get to this late in the evening. There were no more flights out of Venice. I checked schedules and grimaced. It would be tomorrow afternoon by the time I got to Tia, and that just wasn’t acceptable. I called my boss, Antonio Moretti. Head of Thieves Guild, owner of Casanova, and probably half of Venice. And at that moment, what was most important was that he also owned a private plane.

“Tia just called for help,” I told him. “I need to borrow your plane.”

You had to hand it to Antonio. One of his employees called and asked to borrow his plane, and he didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Is she alright?” he asked me quickly. “What’s the matter?”

“She didn’t say. No immediate danger.”

“And she reached out for help?” He sounded both astonished and worried. “Tia never asks for help. You guys are dating, yes?”

“We are.” Tia was like family to Antonio, I knew that. I had three sisters. I understood his protectiveness. But I also liked Antonio, and I didn’t think this was going to be a pissing match.

It wasn’t. “Good,” was all he said. “Are you going to Dingle?”

“Yes.” I was too worried about Tia for polite chitchat, and given his focus on the details, so was Antonio.

“Keep her safe. I’ll call and have them prepare the plane. It will be ready for you by the time you get to the airport.”

“Thank you, Antonio.”

He ignored that. “Tell her to call me and let me know what’s going on, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbled instead.

“Will do.” Despite my worry, I had to smile a little. I recognized that tone. It appeared on the surface to be irritation, but it wasn’t – it was thinly disguised concern. They were family, Antonio and Enzo and Tia. They worried for each other.

Liam:

I’d taken Antonio’s private plane and arrived in Dingle, and I’d headed instantly to her bed-and-breakfast, and it wasn’t until I had her folded into my arms that my worry dimmed a little. Then I heard why she’d called me and I was furious all over again.

But she had called me. If she had wanted Mark Driscoll killed or hurt, she would have called Antonio or Enzo. So, I held her against my body, and she snuggled into my chest, and I swallowed back my rage at the asshole who had hurt Tia once, and then dared to walk back into her life again.

“What do you want to happen to him?” I kept my voice steady with effort.  

Hers was thoughtful. “I don’t want him to end up in the canal floating face down. I don’t want him to be beaten to a bloody pulp. Not that I don’t think he deserves either of these fates, but I also know it’ll just haunt me.”

With difficulty, I nodded. I hated letting this jerk walk free.

“I just want to move past this. I can’t work with him every day.”

“And if he is fired?”

“Just that? No violence?”  

“Tell me why, Tia.” My voice was hard and insistent. “Tell me why he gets to walk away after what he did to you.”

And so she did. She told me, her voice soft and remembering, of the number of times she’d watched Antonio and Enzo being beaten at the orphanage. Of how she never had any power to stop it, and how she never wanted to be exposed to violence again. She just wanted to forget it all and live. She just wanted to reach for the light.

I looked at her. “You are the light, rabbit. Okay. Fired it will be.”

She drew a deep breath of relief. “How?”  

I hadn’t been idle on the plane. I’d done my research, found out who just bought the show Tia was working on. It was owned by an Irish company, and I had contacts up and down Ireland, England and Venice. “I know people,” I shrugged. “I can call in some favours.” I grinned at her to lighten the mood. “Claire went to school with the guy who owns the production company that just bought your show. He used to have a huge crush on her. He’s going to be broken-hearted when he hears about Christophe.”

Donal was also a Dom and he was a frequent attendee of a club I’d worked for in London many, many years ago, but I didn’t mention that to Tia. I knew people’s secrets; that was a by-product of what I did. The reason Donal would pick up my phone call in the middle of the night was because I also knew how to keep them.

Her voice was very quiet. “Thank you, Liam. Thank you for doing this my way.”

I kissed her. “You are my girlfriend, rabbit. Your opinion is never inconsequential. What you want is always going to be the most important thing to me.”

***

I walked away to the dining room of Tia’s B&B to make my phone call. When Donal answered, I just laid it out for him. “He raped my girlfriend when she was seventeen.” My voice was flat. I didn’t mention the pregnancy or the abortion. That was Tia’s secret to keep or reveal.

Donal exhaled into the line. “Sadly, I’m not entirely surprised. There have been rumours, but I’ve been reluctant to act on rumours. You want him dead?” His voice was matter-of-fact.  

“She doesn’t want him harmed, and I respect that. Fire him instead.”

“Done,” Donal said promptly. “And Liam, your girlfriend might be the sweetest person in the world, but I don’t let assholes like that walk away without consequences.”

“I want what she wants.” No matter what I personally thought about Tia’s decision, externally, we spoke with one voice.

“He’ll never work in the industry again, and there’ll be charges brought up on something. Tax evasion, maybe. He’ll see a minimum of ten years if that’s the last thing I do.” Donal’s voice was seething with suppressed anger. In the club in London, Donal was known as a hard Dom. Tough but fair. But everything between him and his submissives was consensual. What Mark Driscoll had done to Tia wasn’t.

Donal hated jerks who preyed on women. I could tell that he was personally offended by this, and I could understand. Donal felt that his judgement had failed. He would do everything in his power to make amends. Tia didn’t know it, but her desire for peace was truly the only thing standing between Mark Driscoll and death.

“Works for me,” I replied. I only promised Tia that he wouldn’t be beaten or killed. As far as I was concerned, I’d kept my promise. The louse could go to jail, where he’d be unable to harm another young defenseless girl again for a long time. And if there was any fairness in the universe, prison wouldn’t be kind to him.

***

“Done,” I told her when I went back to her room.

She gave me a peculiar look. “Just like that?”

“Should I have drawn it out more, rabbit? I called a friend.”

“You called Antonio too to borrow his plane,” she said.

I eyed her. There was something in her tone. “I can’t do everything by myself, Tia.”

“And I can’t either.” Her voice was very soft. “It’s a learning experience watching you reach out and ask for help. My parents didn’t want me. Antonio and Enzo left, and I thought it was just me making decisions for me.”

“Maybe it was true once, rabbit,” I said to her gently, “but it isn’t true anymore. Antonio and Enzo will walk into a burning building for you. Antonio almost literally just handed me the keys to his plane because he was so worried about you.”

“And you?” she teased. “Will you walk into a burning building for me?”

“Does it need said, Tatiana? Nine months of aching celibacy, and you have to ask how much I love you?”

“Wait what? Nine months of celibacy? Explain,” she demanded.

My lips twitched at her tone. “I’ve been in love with you for months.”  

“But you didn’t approach me?” It was a question disguised as a statement, and I answered her, because despite how utterly beautiful and perfect and sweet and kind and clever she was, my rabbit didn’t believe that people could fall in love with her. In lust, maybe, but not in love.  

“That’s what every single guy who sees you does. If this was going to be real, you had to want me.”

She tilted her head and considered my words, then she honed in on the other part of what I’d said. “When did you know you were in love with me?”

I groaned. Women. “Rabbit, if we are going to do this, I insist we do it naked. Take off your clothes.”

“Yes Sir.” She winked at me, but sweetly and obediently, she followed directions.

***

When the immediate distraction of a naked, wriggling Tia had been dealt with, we lay back on the bed, our skin flushed and sweaty. “Okay, tell me now,” she insisted.

I kissed her knuckles. “It was the first time you came over in a t-shirt and shorts. You looked embarrassed, and all I could do was think – god, this is the most beautiful woman in the world, and she’s shown me a little bit of herself that the outside world doesn’t get to see. And it felt so special.”

“Do you want to know when I fell in love with you?” she asked when she’d finished kissing me.

“Sure,” I said easily. “But I’ll settle for you just saying the words.”

She looked stricken. “I never did, did I?” She sounded horrified. “Liam, I’m so sorry. Of course I love you.”

I chuckled and hugged her. “I was kind of assuming that when you called me for help, rabbit.” I dodged the kick she aimed at me. But I was greedy for the details as well. “When?” I asked.

“I’m considering not telling you,” she threatened, but it wasn’t a serious threat. She was too sweet for that. “It was the first time you cooked for me.”

“That was months ago,” I protested.

She grinned. “Right then, I knew.”

“That’s all it took? A meal?” I tried not to sound disbelieving.  

“The way to my heart is through my stomach,” she said smugly. “Are you sorry we didn’t get together sooner?”

I considered it. “I don’t know,” I told her finally. “Here, now. I’m exactly where I want to be. If we’d been involved sooner, would we have flamed and died? Who can tell?”

“True,” she conceded. “I know that I’m not just tits and ass and pussy to you.”

I winced. I hated that phrase. I hated how it reduced my girlfriend to her fuckable parts, when she was so much more than that. “You forgot mouth,” I teased her though, like I always did, and she laughed too, like she always did.

“Let me correct that,” she breathed, before she slithered down my body to my cock. Her tongue reached out and licked my head delicately, and my cock stirred instantly to attention. Before we got too distracted though, I pulled her back towards me.

“Thank you for calling me.” Antonio was right; Tia didn’t ask for help. It had mattered that she had reached out to me.

She looked at me quite seriously. “I’m learning,” she said. “You’ll have to be patient with me.”

I’d been in love with this woman for months. Patience? I had it in spades. Tia was worth every bit of the wait. “I can do that,” I told her. “Now, I believe you promised me a blowjob?”

“Yes Sir,” she winked, before lowering her mouth onto my dick again.