Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections. Кейт Хьюит
down.”
“And how is our tiny tyrant?” he asked, going over and pulling out her chair like a gentleman instead of staring at her like the slavering beast he was. She skimmed past him, her hair brushing his arm, her sweet scent wrapping around his senses. She smelled like vanilla, he realized. Soft, warm vanilla.
It reminded him of home. Of his early home, when he was still a small child and his mother had plenty of work—and plenty of male attention, though he’d not known or cared how important that was to her then. They’d had a nice apartment with a sliver of a sea view. It had been tiny, but his memories of it were warm and happy.
Faith laughed as she sat down, though the sound was a bit high and nervous. Not the sound of a woman who planned to say no. Possessive heat coiled in his belly even as he felt a twinge of guilt.
“She is very tiny, and very tyrannical,” Faith said, and he remembered that they had been talking of Lola. “But so adorable.”
He took his seat, determined to do this right. To make this night special for her. “You love her already.”
She smiled. “I do. It’s hard not to. That’s why Mother Nature makes babies so cute.”
“Then I did the right thing in giving her to you.” It gave him pleasure to see her smile. He’d rarely seen her smile in all the time she’d worked for him. She was always so serious, so proper.
She met his gaze then, and he could see the worry in her expression. “How is your leg, Renzo? Was it just a cramp, or did you reinjure it on the track today?”
Something inside him tightened. “I did not injure myself, cara.”
She let out a sigh. “I’m glad.”
A lot of people would be glad he wasn’t injured—his team, his stockholders, his mother and sister—but somehow it seemed more important that she was relieved. That the worry lining her face was even now smoothing out and disappearing.
The meal arrived then, and their talk was confined to things like the kitten, his run on the track today—without any further mention of a doctor or his difficulty at the end of the ride, grazie a Dio—and the beauty of the Tuscan countryside.
“I will take you to Florence soon,” he told her, and she smiled so genuinely that it actually hurt. She was so sweet and innocent, and he had no right to take her for his own when he did not intend to keep her.
He should get up now, get into his car and go to his apartment in Florence. Alone.
But he would not. He wasn’t that selfless.
“Can we see David?” she asked excitedly.
“Of course. He is quite magnificent. I am an Italian male, and yet the first time I saw him, even I was moved by the beauty of the sculpture.”
She sighed. “There is so much beauty in Italy.”
“Si,” he said meaningfully. “There is.”
Her lashes dropped. She reached for her wineglass, her fingers trembling. It nearly undid him.
“Faith.”
She looked up. “Yes?”
“You can say no.” He drew in a deep breath. He couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “You probably should say no, cara. I offer you nothing except pleasure. And you can wait for that when the time—and the man—is right.”
She dipped her head to study the wine in her glass, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she did so. “If you don’t want me, it’s okay. I understand. I’m not sophisticated or experienced enough for a man like you, and maybe it is better if we continue to be professional after all.”
He reached across the table to tip her chin up. She tried to keep her eyes from meeting his. “Look at me,” he commanded.
Her lashes lifted until he was staring into the deepest, greenest eyes he’d ever seen. He felt a jolt in his gut, a visceral need for her that stunned him with its intensity.
“What I want is you beneath me. Naked, cara mia. Right now would not be soon enough.”
There was an electrical current in the air, sliding between them on invisible pathways that sparked and sizzled with each look, each touch, that flowed between them. Faith’s blood felt hot, thick, and her chest ached as if she couldn’t quite breathe properly.
Anticipation coiled in her belly. Naked. She tried to imagine it, tried to imagine what he said he wanted, and her vision swam as she did so.
She could hear Renzo’s soft laugh, and then he was standing and pulling her to her feet, holding her close. “Breathe, Faith. Don’t pass out on me.”
She clutched her fingers into the expensive silk of his shirt and sucked air into her lungs. Air that smelled like him, spicy and male and clean.
“You must think me ridiculous,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He stroked her hair. “Not at all. I think you’re refreshing. Lovely.”
“This is not quite how I imagined my first time would go.”
His voice was smooth, warm. “And what did you imagine, cara?”
She shrugged. She’d imagined love, though she wouldn’t tell him that. She wasn’t naive—she was a grown woman who’d had to take care of herself for the past eight years. She’d had roommates, she’d watched movies and she’d listened to bedroom tales when her roommates wanted to share. But, through it all, she’d imagined some sort of special moment when Faith Black—Faith Winston—met her Prince Charming. The man who would love her the way she loved him, and who would pledge his soul to hers when he made love to her for the first time.
It was a crazy fantasy, a girlish fantasy. She knew better. Relationships were messy and imperfect, and you kissed a lot of frogs before you found Prince Charming.
“I’m not sure,” she said softly. “Music, dancing, candles. Romantic nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense if it’s what you want.” He took her hand and led her into the living area. The room was beautiful, she thought wistfully, as she sat on the plush couch at his direction and let her eyes roam over the wood beams and the original artwork that graced the stuccoed walls. Renzo picked up a remote control, and then the soft strains of smooth jazz filled the background.
There were candles clustered in the hearth, she realized, when he struck a long match and lit them. Then he returned to the couch and sat beside her. She thought he might pull her into his arms, kiss her, but he simply sat back and put his arm around her. After a moment’s hesitation, she curled into him and watched the flames.
“Do you want me to tell you about my first time?” he asked.
Faith nodded. She could feel his smile against her temple. “This is top secret information, cara. It would surely ruin me if it got out.”
“I doubt that.”
He laughed at the sarcasm in her voice. “I was seventeen,” he said. “And very green. She was older than I, so sexy and experienced that I could not believe she wanted me.”
“I can,” Faith said, and meant it.
“Nevertheless, I fumbled quite badly. She was very patient.”
Faith pushed back until she could see his face. “What do you mean, fumbled?”
His blue eyes were sharp. Sexy. She could drown in those eyes. “I mean that I failed. That I lasted about as long as it takes the Viper to go from zero to one hundred.”
Faith could only blink.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said.
“But you did it right the second time.”
He