Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) (23 page)

“You know how to drive a stick shift?”

She blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “Have you forgotten the day we met?”

His grin was sexy, wicked and wonderful. “How could I possibly forget that day,
cara
?”

She dug an elbow into his ribs. “I meant the truck. I was driving one, remember?”

He gave a deep sigh to hide his delight. The truth was, he’d been waiting for her to ask.

“Go ahead,” he said, handing her his keys. “But drive slowly,
si
?”

“Slowly, of course,” she replied.

She did drive slowly… for the first couple of minutes. Then she put her foot down hard and the Ferrari’s engine roared.

It was exactly what he had expected, and he laughed. She did, too. He fought hard against the desire to do what he’d done that first time—grab the wheel, force the car to the side of the road, take her in his arms and kiss her.

Instead, he wondered how it was that he could be so happy when he’d been so full of anger and despair only a week ago.

He knew the answer. It was she. Cheyenne. She had changed everything.

* * *

They had dinner at home, on a brick patio lit by candlelight and what were surely a billion stars.

His cook had outdone herself. The meal was perfect, from the from the Insalata Caprese that began it to the ricotta cheesecake that ended it. Luca opened a bottle of Brunello
they’d bought at a centuries old vineyard in Montalcino. They drank the wine, talked, laughed, looked at the pictures they’d taken with his cellphone the day before, including the silly selfies from Pisa that made it look as if they were holding up the famous leaning tower. Then they danced to music carried to the patio from speakers tucked into the branches of the two towering oaks.

When the moon had ridden high into the night sky, Luca kept Cheyenne in his arms even as the strains of the last melody faded away.

“We have to leave tomorrow,” he said softly. “I have business in New York and I cannot put it off any longer.”

She leaned into him so that her head rested under his chin. She’d known the magic had to end, but hearing him say the words was hard.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” she murmured.

He tilted her face up to his.

“We can do the next best thing,
bellissima
. When we return to New York, move in with me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

H
e’d taken her
by surprise.

He saw it in her face. She was shocked by what he’d said. Well, he understood that, because he’d shocked himself, too.

Waking in the morning with her in his arms, falling asleep that same way, even just seeing her sitting across from him at breakfast, he’d found himself thinking how nice it was to have her there.

That had been the first surprise.

He’d always liked his privacy. Growing up under the ever-watchful eye of a Sicilian mother, he’d had a bellyful of answering questions about where he was going and what he was doing. His years at school hadn’t helped: first the harsh confines of boarding school in Palermo where your every act was subject to the dictates of an unsmiling priest, and then the regimented routines of the prep school his father had insisted he and Matteo attend on the English moors.

His first taste of freedom had come when he’d left Europe to go to college in America, despite his father’s insistence that he attend an Italian university.

Answering to nobody but himself had been a remarkable experience and he’d never seen a reason to change the practice.

Until Cheyenne.

A couple of days ago, when he’d realized he could no longer put off returning to business, he’d thought how good it was that he was mostly going to be working out of his New York office. It would be easy to see her as often as he wanted.

Not really.

She lived in Soho. He lived on the East Side. On a map, the distance between the two locations wouldn’t look like much. Factor in Manhattan traffic, the pressure of differing schedules, and they might as easily have lived in different cities.

That morning, watching her dress, it had occurred to him that one of them could move.

She, of course. Not he.

He could find her something handsome and spacious on Park. Or Madison. Or—why not?—right near him on Fifth.

And then he’d thought, why do that when she could simply move in and live with him?

For a second or two, he couldn’t believe he was considering the idea. He had never, ever asked a woman to live with him. And then he’d thought, what did that matter? There was a first time for everything.

Not that he’d actually ask her.

It was just an idle thought, something to toss around, maybe eventually to discuss with Matteo. Matteo was logical. Matteo was a lawyer. Matteo would help him see the good and bad without emotion getting in the way.

Not that his own emotion was getting in the way.

He was having an affair with an interesting woman. He enjoyed being with her. Why not make being with her simpler? And then he’d thought,
What the hell am I do
i
ng?
and he’d emptied his head of all those nonsensical ideas.

Except, evidently, he hadn’t.

He was holding her in his arms, facing the reality of life returning to normal, and he wanted her with him.

Now, all he had to do was convince her. From the way her mouth had dropped open, it wasn’t going to be easy.

“There’s plenty of room in my condo,” he said.

Brilliant, Bellini. That is certainly a reason she would want to live with you.

He tried again.

“My place is more centrally located than yours.”

Another outstanding reason.

“There’s so much to see and do in my neighborhood. Shopping. Proximity to the Park…”

Cristo!
He sounded like a real estate agent. He swallowed hard.

“We are good together,
cara
,” he said softly. “Why should we lose that?”

At least she was not looking at him as if he were crazy.

“We don’t have to lose it,” she said, just as softly. “We can see each other as often was we like, once we’re back in the city.”

She touched her hand to his cheek. “I’m honored that you asked me.”

“Honored,” he said, with a little laugh. He clasped her hand, brought it to his lips, kissed the palm.

“Honored,” she said. “And—and deeply touched.”

He didn’t want her to feel honored or deeply touched, he wanted her to be as eager to hold onto what they had as he was. Still, part of him was breathing a sigh of relief because, when you came down to it, what was it that they had? Friendship? Passion? Something else?

Really? Something else, Bellini? Surely, you should have an idea of what that ‘something else’ is before you step off the edge of a cliff?

The rational answer was ‘yes,’ and by the next morning, he was once again a rational man.

Last night’s idea had been the result of a week of Tuscan sun and the best sex he’d ever experienced.

And she was absolutely correct. They could see each other all they wished, once they were back in Manhattan.

* * *

That was what they did.

Saw each other all they wished—and that turned out to be every day.

It was inconvenient for one or the other of them to have to go home late at night just to get a change of clothing for the next day, so they compensated.

She left a few things to wear at his place. Jeans. T-shirts. A couple of silk blouses, shoes, panties, bras… His closet was big enough so that she had a rack and a wall of shelves to herself.

Her toothbrush hung next to his in the bathroom and when he opened a drawer in the vanity one morning, he found a lip gloss, a brush, a comb, a compact and a little tube of something called
EyeLights
. He opened it, sniffed it, wondered why on earth a woman as beautiful as Cheyenne would think she needed cream to put under her eyes or around them or whatever it was women did with such stuff.

In the past, if a woman left a lipstick or a comb behind, he’d seen it as an intrusion in his personal space, but seeing her things mixed in with his was different.

It made him feel good.

He began leaving things at her place, too. Toothbrush. Razor. A couple of T-shirts and jeans. A suit, then two suits. Dress shirts. Ties. Socks and boxers. Mocs as well as black shoes. She cleared out a dresser drawer for him and she didn’t have a closet the size of his, so his suits ended up hanging among her dresses, but he was fine with that.

She was, too.

There was something—what was the word? Comforting. That was it. There was something comforting in just knowing his things were there.

His doorman and concierge greeted her by name. Her neighbor, Mrs. DeCenzo, did the same with him after he rang her doorbell, introduced himself, kissed her wrinkled hand and presented her with a dozen long-stemmed roses.

July gave way to August. Then, one balmy Sunday morning Matteo showed up, unannounced, to find out if Luca wanted to join a game of soccer some friends were putting together.

Well, not entirely unannounced.

It was routine for the concierge to announce visitors, but Matteo was accustomed to going straight to the elevator. He had his own key. The brothers had always exchanged keys to their homes.

This time, the concierge was wise enough to call Luca on the house phone.

“Mr. Bellini,” he said, “I thought you might want to know that your brother is on his way up.”

By the time Matteo stepped from the elevator, Cheyenne and Luca were having coffee on the terrace.

They looked innocent…unless you noticed that her face was flushed and Luca’s sweatshirt was inside out.

“Matteo,” Luca said, clapping his brother on the back. “What a nice surprise.”

Matteo looked from Luca to Cheyenne. “Indeed,” he said politely

“You remember Ms. McKenna?”

Matteo said that he did.

“She stopped by to discuss, ah, to discuss plans for her ranch. “

If this was the way people looked when they discussed plans for ranches, Matteo thought with delight, the world would surely discuss ranches more often.

“Such dedicated people,” Matteo said. “Working even on a Sunday.”

“Business always comes first,” Luca said stiffly.

Matteo smiled, shook hands with Cheyenne and declined his brother’s offer to join them. “As you said, business comes first, and I am sure you would prefer to get back to it.”

Luca glared at Matteo as he walked him to the door.

“That remark about business was inappropriate,” he growled.

“I have no idea what you mean…unless… Is something going on between you two?”

“Certainly not. But just to avoid confusion, I would appreciate it if you would not mention any of this to our sisters.”

“Why would I do that?” Matteo asked, looking aggrieved at being told such a thing. And was it his fault the news slipped out the next day, when he called his sisters?

They wanted all the details and though there weren’t many, the three Bellinis agreed.

Something was going on.

The trick would be in discovering what—and in getting a good look at Cheyenne McKenna. If their brother was seeing her, there had to be more to her than the bitchiness they’d all observed July fourth weekend.

Luca, no fool, suspected Matteo would pass the news along.

He waited for it to trouble him—and realized that it didn’t. In fact, he began to think it would be nice to introduce Cheyenne to his family under better circumstances than when they’d all first met.

He realized another thing, too.

He was more than happy. He was content.

By day, he was deeply involved in work on the residential glass tower he was designing. By night, he was deeply involved with Cheyenne.

He loved ending the day with her, going out to dinner or ordering in pizza, even if she preferred hers with broccoli instead of pepperoni. He loved the way they shared what the day had been like. She was thrilled because she was working again. Just as she’d hoped, the job in Milan had changed things. Top-notch offers were rolling in, and she’d already been booked with several designers for New York’s famous Fall Fashion Week.

She told him that she’d learned to keep her advice for photographers and makeup artists and everybody else to herself.

“Most of the time,” she added.

Luca grinned and kissed her.

She sighed as she nestled in his arms.

She
had
learned to curb the need to exert control. She also knew it was Luca’s doing.

In bed and out, she could trust him. Give herself to him.

Be her real self with him.

For years, she’d hidden the true Cheyenne McKenna from the world. Maybe it was one of the reasons she’d had so much success as a model. She had the right looks—the slender but curvy body, the coltish legs, the fine-boned face, the sexy stride, all of that—but so did a lot of girls.

Her strength was in becoming the precise girl a designer or advertiser needed.

A girl straight out of the Old West? She was it. An exotic beauty from the Arabian Nights? Of course. A seductress who could convince men that the perfume she wore would magically turn their wives and girlfriends into duplicates of her? Consider it done.

She could still do those things, lose herself in an assumed persona while the cameras clicked, but now, away from the cameras, she could also be Cheyenne McKenna.

She could laugh with Luca. Be silly with Luca. Go for long walks with him, share the
Times
with him on a rainy Sunday, stop at a hotdog stand just because the hotdogs you got from a corner cart in Manhattan were the best in the world. Spend a long weekend together at her little country place, introduce him to her horses and watch with delight as the still-shy pair of animals took to her lover as if he’d always been part of their world.

She’d let Luca see who she really was.

He knew about her mother. About Baby. He knew
her
, the good her and the bad her…

Except, he didn’t.

He didn’t know the ugliest, darkest part of who she was.

She told herself there was no reason for him to know. Nobody had to know everything about another person.

Unless—unless you were building a life together. Honesty counted then, didn’t it? But they weren’t building a life together. They weren’t even living together…

And then, one evening, she faced the truth.

In all the ways that mattered, they
were
living together.

And he had begun talking about the future.

He spoke of the future in little ways—making idle plans for Thanksgiving, for Christmas—but she knew it marked a change in their relationship.

She wanted that change more than she’d ever wanted anything, but how could she think of the future when the past was always ready to reach out and grab her by the throat?

A shrink, the only one who’d ever done her any good, had assured her that the things that had been done to her had been exactly that. Things that had been done to her. Forced upon her. She had not brought them on, she had not wanted them. In all the ways that mattered, she had not participated in them.