He looked at her, his expression intense, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I never expected you to.”
“You blamed me for it, at least in part. Somewhere, deep inside of yourself, you did.”
“I suppose. You were emblematic of what had changed. And again, I was a teenage boy. I don’t…”
“You were,” she said. “But later you were a grown man who continued to hate me.”
“I did decide that you had tried to trap me when you were in my bed all those years ago.”
“Is that really why you hated me?”
He took a long sip of his Scotch. He rested his arms on the soft leather chair he was sitting in, his legs wide. It was an obscenely masculine posture, and she regretted that she found it so attractive. She regretted that she found him so attractive. But then, that was the story of her life. Rage at Romeo, fantasize about Romeo, repeat. Forever.
“I was angry at myself. For wanting you. It’s like I always knew that the consequences would be heavy. Here we are.”
Was that true? Had there always been this between them? The potential for this life-altering event, had it always been somewhat inevitable?
“I hated you because you were mean to me,” she said, looking out the window as the plane reached its soaring altitude.
“Now, I don’t believe that. I was mean to you, but you felt something else too.”
“Do you know why I was a virgin?”
“No. Because I don’t know anything about you, not functionally.”
“It’s because you messed my sexuality up. I’m convinced of it. I trained myself to want this disdainful, awful man, who promised pain as much as he did pleasure, and I have never been able to figure out how to want someone else. Someone who’s nice to me. Someone who wants my company. I want you. And that is a truly disturbing fact. I met you too soon. You shaped my sexuality, and I think you might’ve broken it.”
She felt exposed by that, but then she’d given herself to him on a table, so what was exposing at this point?
He smiled. Slowly. “Feels good, though. Doesn’t it?”
She laughed. “Yes. It does. That’s how I got myself pregnant. Why are you being a a pain when I can’t drink?”
“I am very sorry.”
“Somehow I don’t think so.”
The two of them decided to do work for the rest of the flight, and didn’t carry on a conversation, and when they arrived at the hotel in Vienna, she was delighted by how glorious it was. Heather had gotten used to luxury. It was part of being an Accardi. But that didn’t mean she didn’t find it delightful in about a hundred different ways whenever she got to experience it.
The old, historic building with its palatial interior was a sight to behold. And the penthouse room that they were in had fabulously Baroque furnishings. It was all over-the-top and utterly ostentatious, and she adored it. She walked into one of the bedrooms, and her breath was taken away by the sight of the blue canopy bed. “This place is fantastic.”
“I’m glad you enjoy it,” he said. “And now I have to go. I am sending a dress for you to wear to dinner tonight.”
“When did you decide that?”
“During the plane ride. Tonight we will go out. Since we’re doing things out of order. I thought we might want to go on our first date.”
CHAPTER NINE
“What is itthat has you upset?” Romeo asked, when he arrived at his mother’s bedside. It was never a good sign when she wasn’t getting out of bed.
“I feel like I haven’t had the chance to properly grieve your father. Because I don’t hate him. I love him. He was the love of my life.”
Romeo clenched the back of his teeth together. It was difficult when she was like this, because it wasn’t true. He knew that. She had hated his father for more years than she had ever loved him. But now that he was dead she was wailing as if they had been lovers only yesterday.
He wanted to get back to Heather. And that was a strange thought indeed. She had been beautiful on the plane. And his body still echoed with the satisfaction of their earlier coupling.
He wanted her again. Tonight in that suite. And he knew that she wouldn’t resist him. Of course she would.
