Loving Gigi (23 page)

When their conversation hit a lull, Alessandro sat back in his chair and studied Gigi for a long moment. “You look like you have something on your mind, Gigi.”

Gigi looked down at her hands momentarily then across at the open expressions on her uncles’ faces. “I do.” She cleared her throat. “I was hoping you could answer a few questions about my father and his wife.”

Victor looked at Alessandro quickly.

Alessandro’s face tightened slightly. “Gigi, neither is with us anymore. Let the past go with them.”

Gigi gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white. “I would if I could. I don’t want to be angry anymore. I want to forget what I know and rewrite my childhood. I don’t want to be the daughter of your brother’s mistress. Every time I look at my mother I ask myself why she settled for so little. Tell me my father loved her. Explain to me what I have spent my whole life not able to understand.” She wiped away quiet tears that had begun to run down her cheeks.

Victor started to say something, but Alessandro put up a hand to silence him. “There are many kinds of love, Gigi. I used to pass judgment on which were moral and which were not, but now I leave that to God to decide. You are old enough to remember what your parents were like when they were together. Were they happy?”

Gigi wiped away another tear as she remembered the smile on her mother’s face each time her father returned to them. How their house would be full of laughter while he was there. “Yes, I believe they were. But when I look back at that time, I am so angry. None of it was real. We weren’t his real family. How do I stop being angry about that?”

Victor’s eyes shone with emotion. “Gigi, people are going to hurt and disappoint you. It’s part of life. You can’t control that. What you can change is what’s in your heart. When we were young, I made a terrible mistake with Patrice, your father’s wife. They weren’t married, but it was wrong. I have regretted it every day since. She let that one event shape the rest of her life—even taint the last moments with her sons. Who are you punishing with your anger, Gigi? Your father? He’s gone. Your mother? Maybe. My guess is the person you’re hurting the most is yourself.”

Gigi didn’t say anything, but inwardly she agreed. Her mother still missed her father, but she was at peace with his death. Gigi, on the other hand, still felt he had abandoned them.

Alessandro looked at Victor with approval, then back at Gigi. “Your mother comes across as a woman who knows her own heart and speaks her mind.”

Gigi let out a shaky sigh. “That’s true.”

Alessandro gave his niece a gentle smile. “Then, perhaps, being like her is not a bad thing, no?”

In a tight voice, Victor said, “If any of us could go back in time and do things differently, we would. But what would the cost be? If we had done everything right, we wouldn’t have you.”

Gigi smiled through her tears. “My mother said almost the same thing.”

“See,” Alessandro said with conviction, “she is very wise.”

Gigi nodded. “I’m beginning to see that.” It might have been because the talk she’d had with her mother was still fresh in her mind or because her uncles had spoken to her so frankly, but something inside Gigi shifted. Although she didn’t agree with anyone being with a married man, her uncle was right. Passing judgment on her parents hadn’t hurt them nearly as much as it had her.

It had paralyzed her heart and caused so much bitterness to grow. That wasn’t who she used to be. She had been happy when her father had been alive and with them. She did remember so many good times and had never felt like she was second best or unimportant to him.
I had been loved unconditionally, just like these men seem to love me now. Can I let my anger go? Do I have a choice really? Have I lost that chance at love?

Misunderstanding Gigi’s suddenly sad expression, Victor waved a hand dismissively through the air. “Ack, don’t worry. It takes most children a long time to realize that their parents may have done one or two things correctly.”

“I should go check on Annelise.”

Alessandro smiled with amusement. “Tell your friend if she wants a husband, she should learn to cook like my grandmother. With the right sauce recipe a woman can have her pick of men to marry.”

Gigi stopped on her way to the door to reprimand him. “Really, Uncle Alessandro? That’s all it takes?”

Alessandro smiled widely and shrugged. “Men are easy. It’s women who complicate things.”

Gigi wagged a finger at him, but she couldn’t deny his claim.

I lost Kane because I was too afraid to admit how I felt about him.

I told myself it was because he didn’t look for my mother’s possessions, but how ridiculous is that? He spent a month in Edinburgh with me. He respected my decision to wait before having sex again.

He was wonderful to me. We had amazing chemistry. I started missing him the moment he left.

So, of course, I had to end it.

What would he say if I called him now? Asked him to forgive me for being a fool. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to tame dragons. I’m a strong, independent woman. I can tame my own.

My mother never gave up on anything or anyone she cared about just because it was difficult.

Not my father.

Not my education.

Not even me when I deserved a smack more than her understanding.

She loved us all unconditionally. That takes courage.

I couldn’t see that through my anger, but I see it now.

Is it too late to say I’m sorry?

To Mamma.

To Kane.

How do I begin to explain what I’m only now coming to understand?

Love isn’t something I’ve done well, but I can do it better.

I will do it better.

*     *     *

Kane hung up
with Max and threw the paper he’d been taking notes on down onto the kitchen table of his apartment. Gigi’s spur-of-the-moment arrival in New York had changed the timeline of their plan.

He called his jeweler and put a rush on the ring. Forget about the week or two he’d said was fine. He needed it by the weekend. It could have been Kane’s tone or the amount of money he was paying for the ring, but the jeweler didn’t balk at the request.

Several phone calls later, Kane was satisfied that everything would still go smoothly. He shrugged off his suit jacket, stepped out of his shoes, and had started to unbutton his shirt when his cell phone rang.

Gigi.

He cleared his throat and tried to sound calmer than he felt when he answered. “Hello, Gigi.”

“Kane.”

Kane closed his eyes at the simple pleasure of hearing her say his name. “I heard you’re in New York.”

She didn’t answer for a moment, then said softly, “I’m downstairs. May I come up?”

Yes. Yes. Hell yes.

He buzzed her in. She hung up after he gave her the number to his apartment. He stood there, his cock swelling with excitement, his chest tight with anticipation, and told himself to not to rush her. This was not the plan, but it would still work. She probably wanted to explain what he’d overheard in Edinburgh.

Possibly apologize for hurting him.

She wouldn’t be ready for what his dick was hoping for.

He was at the door a heartbeat after her soft knock. She was holding a plastic food container in her hands. The room sizzled as their eyes met.

She smiled shyly. “I went to see my uncles today. I brought you a container of leftovers.” Like Kane, Gigi looked as if she was having difficulty concentrating on anything beyond the attraction between them. Her voice became husky. “Just some pasta and sauce.”

He stepped closer to take it from her. When his hands closed over hers, he groaned audibly. His need for her was scattering the last of his sanity. They stood in the doorway, both holding the plastic container between them.

“I’ve missed you, Gigi,” he admitted.

She stepped back, releasing the container to him, and he cursed himself for pushing her before she had time to say why she’d come.

Gigi closed the door behind her then gave him a sexy little smile that took his breath away. She bit her bottom lip deliciously, and he practically came at the memory of how those lips had felt around his cock. “I’m sorry about what I said.”

Kane opened his mouth to say . . . really he had no idea what he would say, but he hoped it would be what she wanted to hear. Before he could utter a sound she placed a finger across his lips to silence him.

He swallowed hard.

She started to unbutton her blouse as she spoke. “I missed you, too.” She slid her shirt off and tossed it on the floor beside her, then reached back to release her bra and threw that aside also. “There is so much I want to say, but can it wait? Right now I just want to be with you.”

The food container hit the floor, and Kane pulled Gigi into his arms for a kiss he’d remember the rest of his life. All the waiting had built a need within him unlike any he’d felt before. They kissed as lovers do after a painfully long separation. He couldn’t get enough of her. His mouth ravaged hers. His hands tore off the rest of her clothing.

She was stripping him just as enthusiastically.

Kane picked her up and carried her to his bedroom, feeling like a conquering warrior about to claim his bounty. He threw her onto the bed, loving the wild hunger in her eyes, the way she didn’t try to hide any part of her from him.

He was kneeling above her, running his hands over her with a roughness that matched his desire for her, and she moaned in encouragement. Nothing that had occurred before, or what would happen later, mattered. Gigi spread her legs wide for him, and the glisten of her arousal drove him to savor a taste.

She buried her hands in his hair, writhing against his mouth. He claimed her sex mercilessly with his tongue and his teeth, as his hands closed over her hips and held her to him. She was sweeter than he remembered, more powerfully addictive than before. Had she denied him then, he doubted he could have survived the pain.

When she came in his mouth it was the sweetest nectar.
How have I survived without her taste?
He massaged her sensitive clit with his thumb, and drove his tongue deeper and deeper inside her until she was crying out his name again and digging her nails into his shoulders.

When she was quickly approaching another orgasm, he raised himself above her and plunged his cock into her. She cried out for him to take her harder, and he did. He held nothing back, pounding into her with a force he normally would have reined back.

She wrapped herself around him, meeting his thrusts with a frenzy that matched his own. He leaned down and kissed her, loving how she opened herself to him completely. He made love to her mouth with the same intensity.

When an orgasm shook through him, he tried to hold it off, but he couldn’t. With one last powerful thrust, he came, loving how she tightened around his cock and shuddered with her own release.

He stayed above her, inside her, looking down into the most beautiful wild eyes he’d ever seen. As his breathing slowly returned to normal, he gave her a lusty smile and said, “You’re forgiven.”

‡

B
liss
was the only word Gigi could think of to describe how she felt in Kane’s arms. When she’d left Annelise at their hotel suite, she’d told her she wouldn’t be late. She’d planned to apologize to Kane and then talk to him.

She’d planned to keep her clothing on.

Gigi closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure when Kane cuddled her closer to his side and kissed her bare shoulder. Being with him had felt right the first time, but this had been mind-blowingly right. An orgasmic epiphany.

“Shit,” Kane said with a harshness that made Gigi’s eyes fly open. “I didn’t use a condom.”

Gigi tensed, but didn’t know what the proper response to that revelation was? She’d love to announce she was on birth control, but she wasn’t. Outside of Kane, she hadn’t needed to be in a very long time. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Kane didn’t loosen his hold on her, but his expression had changed. He wasn’t happy. “I don’t make mistakes like this. And you shouldn’t either. There are way too many risks involved.”

Gigi sat up and pushed her hair back from her face. “First of all, I don’t usually worry about birth control because I haven’t slept with anyone since college. Second of all, I don’t like your tone—”

A grin spread across Kane’s face, and he spoke over her. “When did you graduate? Three years ago?”

He looked so happy about it; Gigi was torn between irritation and amusement. “A little more than that.”

“So you haven’t been with anyone since you met me.”

Gigi rolled her eyes and swatted Kane’s chest. “A coincidence.”

He rolled her on top of him. “Maybe, but one I like.”

Gigi propped herself up with a hand on either side of his head. “What about you?”

With feigned innocence, Kane kissed her shoulder and asked, “Have I mentioned how beautiful you are?”

“You think I’m that easy to distract?” Gigi went to move off him, but he held her where she was and took one of her nipples gently between his teeth. He tugged on it lightly while running his tongue back and forth across its tip. Whatever annoyance she’d felt dissolved as a wave of desire rocked through her. She moved her hips back and forth over his hardening shaft, loving how he felt against the lips of her wet sex.