"I'm sure you don't realize," I say, my tone remarkably steady given my rising anger, "but you've been staring at my husband. I'm sure you mean no offence. But I'd prefer if you found something else to look at. Otherwise I'll be forced to do something unpleasant."
The women look confused. They exchange a glance and murmur something I don't catch. I feel like an idiot. They clearly don't speak English.
From the table beside them, a small girl of perhaps eight years old, sitting with her father, leans over and speaks to them rapidly in Italian. I watch the color leave their faces.
"Thank you," I tell the girl.
She grins with mischievous delight. "I told them if they didn't stop staring you'd beat them up. I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all." I catch a passing waiter's eye and point to their table. "Their meal is on me." I lean down toward the girl. "Order dessert. And something to take home. My husband is very rich."
I return to the table to find Gabriele laughing. Not just smiling — actually laughing, in a way that takes years off him and makes him look entirely himself.
"Oh, Katya," he says, shaking his head. "What am I going to do with you?"
I pick up my fork and return to my pizza. "Finish your lunch and take me home," I tell him with a grin. "I have a few ideas."
TWENTY
Katya
We're barelythrough the front door when Gabriele turns and takes my face in both hands and kisses me. It's crazy that we've been married for weeks and this is our first proper kiss.
I'd begun to wonder if it would ever happen, if Gabriele would avoid it like he's dodged so many other forms of closeness. I stopped expecting him to kiss me, yet I thought about what it would be like.
A part of me worried it would be different, that the distortion at the corner of his mouth would make this unpleasant somehow. It doesn't.
Gabriele kisses me slowly at first, with a reverence that almost makes me cry. I feel a gentle stirring that goes right to the tips of my toes, a gradual awakening of my senses. He coaxes my lips apart. His tongue slides into my mouth and deepens the kiss.
When he pulls back, there's a faint smile on his lips.
"Upstairs," he says.
Taking my hand, he leads me to his bedroom, not mine. That's significant, I think. We've been in here before but he'd been distracted.
This time he's brought me into his inner sanctum deliberately. It feels like it means something though I don't yet know what.
We stop by the bed, the late afternoon sun bathing us in its golden glow. Gabriele reaches out and unfastens the tie at my waist.
"I like this dress," he says as he unwraps it and pushes it off my shoulders.
He admires me in my black lace bra and panties.
"I like those too." He waves a finger at my underwear. "But it has to go."
I reach back and unhook my bra, letting it drop to the floor. I shimmy out of my underwear, making sure to give my hips a sexy little wiggle. Heat flares in Gabriele's eye and I can't help the satisfaction that swells my chest. This man cannot resist me.
He undresses without ceremony. My mouth goes dry because Gabriele Volante is a sight to behold.
"Get on the bed."
As always the command in his voice sends a shiver of anticipation through me. Who would have thought I would respond so well to being told what to do?
I turn toward the bed and bend to drape my torso over the mattress.
"No." The word cuts sharply through the air and I turn to Gabriele, confused.
"On your back," he says.
