“If I were to comment on notes,” Antonluca continued, because he was suddenly seized with the need to actually see her laugh. Just once. Surely that would…scratch this itch he didn’t understand inside of him. “If I were to lower myself in such a fashion, I might point out that I did not make suggestions to the kitchen. I changed the menu. Input was not sought and will not be received.”
He saw a flash of her smile at that and it felt like a sharp, wild joy, the same way he’d felt—so long ago now—when he’d tasted something he’d made once he’d gotten it right. That brightness like a song within him, and not one involving angels, herald or otherwise.
“I will pass that on,” Hannah murmured in her appropriate, professional voice, though her eyes were gleaming.
And later, when he walked her out to her car as she left for the day—and did not question himself as to why he was dancing attendance on an employee—Antonluca found himself standing there on the old forecourt for some time after she drove away.
He had taken it upon himself to walk to and from the hotel every day now, as the land was all his. And for other reasons, most of them involving getting his head on right and doing the closest thing to a cold shower without actually committing to one of those dreadful cold plunges. And besides, a brisk tramp in the December cold was an excellent way to remind himself that while his trappings might be soft these days,hewas not.
Tonight, as he walked down into the fields and then wound his way through vineyards nestled down for the winter, it occurred to him that he had never spent this much time with a woman he wasn’t related to without having sex.
It shocked him enough that he stopped walking for a moment, his breath making clouds against the dark.
Behind him, the hotel lolled about over one hillside, brightly shining into the night. On another hill ahead of him stood his castle, with only the one beacon of light high up on the old stone walls. And here he was caught in the valley between the two, the intensity of the winter darkness and that woman making him feel like a stranger to himself.
Again.
Antonluca had always enjoyed women, in the same way that he enjoyed other people’s food. He liked the taste, the experience. But he was always hungry again—and rarely for the same thing.
What he had never done was get to know a woman like this.
All this talking. All this sitting around together, studying things as one. All these conversations while they observed the way the hotel ran and exchanged their thoughts on it. If he recalled correctly, they hadn’t spoken much at all that night in New York.
There had been far too many other things to do.
Here, now, the night was wet and cold, and he welcomed it. It pressed against him as he moved, a bit like it was fighting back, and he welcomed that, too. The cold seemed to seep into his bones, despite the very warm coat he wore, and whether he welcomed that or not, it was familiar.
It reminded him very much of the way Hannah seemed to have crept inside of him. As if she’d taken up residence in his bones herself, and that hadn’t started when she’d walked into the hotel library.
He had thought about that night in New York…often.
Now, however, it was worse. The memories of that night haunted him. They kept him up at night. He would lie in his bed, staring at the ceiling, remembering every moment, every shift of their bodies, every breath and sigh.
Sometimes the ache was so intense that he would take his cock in his own hands and handle it himself.
And then, every morning, there she was again.
Bright. Gleaming. Seemingly completely unaffected by him in every way, and he couldn’t understand why that made him want her more.
There was something about that sleek, cool exterior of hers that made him long to get his hands on her. To pull down that hair that she always kept in that subdued twist. To penetrate the armor of her elegant clothes, her carefully applied cosmetics—always a quiet enhancement, never a conversation piece.
He longed, with every part of him, to mess her up again.
Maybe it was because she had come to him that night in New York so emotional, so wide-open to whatever the night might bring.
To whatever happened between them, again and again and again.
This version of Hannah was far more circumspect.
It made him want to crack her open and find his way inside, any way he could.
He did not allow himself the pleasure. He vowed to himself that he would not. Mixing business and pleasure had never worked. Not for him when he was younger and tempestuous and far more foolish. And not for him with the woman he’d flown across the world to fire personally, either.
A wise man—like the one he aspired to be—would know better.
As the year wound down, his siblings began calling. They did not have the same feelings about the holidays as he did. But then, why would they? He was the reason their holidays had not been dire.
“When was the last time you came to Melbourne?” asked one of his sisters. “You’re well overdue a bit of a summer Crimbo, don’t you think?”
