Dreaming Of… Italy

When she arrived in the dining room he had the Sangiovese breathing. She immediately noticed only two places had been set at the table and she stopped a few feet away from her seat.

Her gaze swung to his. “Just you and me?”

Downplaying the significance of that, since he didn’t want her running before they had a chance to talk about that kiss, he walked over and pulled out her chair. “It seems Maria’s gotten herself into some trouble with her mother. Constanzo has to smooth ruffled feathers.”

She laughed lightly as she sat. “It’s kind of funny to think of Maria as being in trouble with her mom. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who answers to anyone.”

“Everybody answers to someone.”

She laughed again. “Yeah. With my parents I think I know that better than anyone.” She paused until he sat at the place across from her. “You do know they came to check up on you the day they visited New York?”

This time he laughed. “I’m sure I made a stellar impression.” But even as he said that, an odd realization came to him. He’d never met a girlfriend’s parents. Not one. Because he didn’t really have girlfriends. He had dates—lovers.

“Good enough that my parents trusted me to go to Italy with you.” She winced. “Of course, I had to do some persuading, but in the end they trusted you.”

He sucked in a breath. Strange feelings tumbled around in his gut. No parents in their right minds should trust their beautiful, naive daughter to him—

Unless they expected him to behave like a gentleman? To them, Olivia wasn’t a “date” or a “lover”. She was their daughter. Their little girl and they would expect him to treat her as such.

The maid brought their salads and garlic bread. After she was gone, Olivia tasted her salad and groaned. “That is fantastic. I’m going to have to diet when we get home.”

“Then you probably don’t want to know that our main course is spaghetti Bolognese.”

She groaned again and set down the garlic bread. “I’ll focus on the salad so I have room for the spaghetti.”

They ate in silence for a few seconds, then she glanced around. “My mother would probably love Italy.”

More talk of her parents, more of those uncomfortable feelings. “Really?”

“My mom likes things with roots. Family recipes. Older houses. She researched our house after she and Dad bought it. Found relatives of the woman who had owned it, and got some of the family recipes.” She took a bite of salad, chewed and swallowed. “She said preparing those dishes was like keeping that family alive, too. She respects the sense of continuity.”

He smiled, but discomfort graduated to awkwardness. He didn’t even know who his parents were. He’d tried to find them a few years back, but there were no clues. He was a baby left alone in a church. Generic blanket. Department-store bottle and diapers. There was no way to find them. He had no parents, no pictures. No old family recipes. No sense of continuity.

“That—” He paused. Not having a normal family had always bothered him from the perspective of not having a support system. But from the way Olivia talked about her mother it was clear she was her friend. They were close. Loving. Impossible for him to comprehend. “That sounds nice.”

“It is nice.” She laughed. “She’s quite the mother hen.”

He poured more wine. “What about your dad?”

“Oh, he’s our big teddy bear. He doesn’t say a lot but we always know he loves us, you know?”

He didn’t. He’d never known anyone loved him. In fact, in spite of the declarations of a few lovers, he didn’t think anyone had actually loved him.

“He’s also a card player. When we lose electricity in an ice storm, he always starts a candlelight game of Texas Hold’em or rummy.”

Which explained why she had been so comfortable playing rummy with Constanzo the day she’d met him.

“Your dad gambled with you?”

“We’d play for candy.”

“Sounds nice.” Again. He could envision her family huddled around a table, playing a game by candlelight. Laughing. Just enjoying each other’s company. The thought twisted his heart but teased his imagination.

“What about holidays?” He really shouldn’t ask. Hearing her stories only reminded him of what he didn’t have, but he couldn’t resist. In the same way she tempted him, so did thoughts of a family. He’d longed for one as a child, considered the possibility of having one when he tried to track down his parents, then closed the door when he couldn’t find them.

Now here he was longing again, just like a little boy with his nose pressed up against a candy-store window.

“My mom’s favorite is Easter. She loves pastel colors. Hiding Easter eggs. Going to the Easter-egg hunt sponsored by the volunteer firemen. And though most Americans don’t wear hats anymore, she still gets a new one every year for church on Easter Sunday.”

He laughed and took a sip of wine.

“But even though she likes Easter the best, my dad’s the Christmas freak. Have you ever seen those movies where people try to outdo each other with outdoor lights?”

“I’ve seen a few.”

The spaghetti came. The aroma filled the room and she inhaled deeply. “Wow. That smells fantastic.”

“Constanzo promised you some really good food in return for sharing that leftover Chinese food. So far he’s made good on his promise.”

She winced. “He probably thought I was such a dork. I didn’t even have a plate for him. He had to eat out of the box.”

“I think he was too hungry to care. Besides, a lot of people like eating food out of boxes. It reminds them of their childhood.”

“Does eating food out of boxes remind you of your childhood?”

His chest tightened. He should have realized that she’d turn this discussion to him. She was too polite to monopolize a conversation.

“I don’t remember a lot of my childhood.”

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. He’d convinced himself to believe his lonely childhood had strengthened him, made him into the strong man he was today, but strength wasn’t the only quality a person wanted to have. Knowing her had resurrected his longing for a connection, a place, a real place where he wasn’t just wanted and respected, but where he could be himself.

“I’m sure growing up in foster care had to have been difficult.”

“It was.”

“I shouldn’t have brought up Christmas.”

“It’s fine. Really.” He cleared his throat. To salvage his pride, he couldn’t let her feel sorry for him. “Some foster families really tried. But they don’t get a lot of money from the government to care for the kids they take in so they can’t do everything. As a foster child, you adjust.”

The room fell silent again. He toyed with his spaghetti. Worried that she still felt bad, he caught her gaze. “But I had some nice Christmases.”

Her face brightened. “Did you?”

“Yes. Two. One year when I was about six I really wanted a certain video game. My foster parents already had the game box in the family room that could play the game, so I asked for it knowing I probably wouldn’t get it, but they got it for me.”

Her eyes warmed. “That’s nice.”

He thought back to that day. The one day in his childhood when he actually thought life could be wonderful. “It was nice. But because my foster parents had spent so much on the toy, I didn’t get the usual clothes I would have gotten as gifts and my jeans wore thin. I spent the rest of the winter wearing shoes with a hole in the bottom.”

“Oh.”

He cursed himself in his head. Now he knew why he shied away from honesty. It hurt. And not just him. He could actually feel sorrow pouring from her.

And that was why he’d always be alone. Or with women who didn’t care to know him. No man wanted a woman he lusted after feeling sorry for him.

“You have to be proud of yourself for how far you’ve come.”

“Yes. Of course, I am.” He sat straighter on his chair, closed his heart. Forgot about all those longings for the things she’d had and could tell him about. “But it should also make you realize that if you really want to become successful, you shouldn’t let anything stand in your way.”

He turned the conversation to a discussion of focus and discipline as they finished dinner then excused himself.

The empty, lonely feeling that followed him to his room was an echo of what he’d sensed with Constanzo, and he realized he and the reclusive old billionaire had a lot in common. His refusal to be vulnerable might be the right choice, but at sixty-five or seventy, he was going to wake up one day and find himself every bit as alone as Constanzo was now.

But in some lives there was no choice. Opening up and being honest simply couldn’t be done.

* * *

Two days later, with Antonio settled and Constanzo thinking he might like to be the one to tell Antonio he was his father, Vivi and Tucker left Italy. After their dinner alone, he’d become quiet. So she wasn’t surprised when he handed her work to do on the long flight to New York City.

Hours later they landed at the private airstrip and transferred to his limo. He instructed the driver to take her home first. After a quick, impersonal goodbye, she climbed the three flights of stairs.

When she stepped into her apartment, she was bombarded by hugs and questions from Laura Beth and Eloise. She managed to sidestep the more personal aspects of her trip by focusing on Antonio, her work with a gallery owner and an artist, and her pool games with a billionaire who really would have taken her money if she’d been foolish enough to bet with him.

She told them about the beautiful Italian countryside and then spilled over into a gushing report on Bordighera, which, she told them, they would have to visit—if they ever got enough money to go on a vacation.

She slept like a log, woke groggy, but capable of working, and headed to the office dressed in the gray trousers and pink shirt. No blazer this time. June had turned into July and it was getting hot.

When she arrived at the office, Tucker was already there, head bent over papers on his desk.

She stood by her chair, confused. In a little over a week she and Tucker Engle had gone from being something like adversaries to—

She didn’t know what. Almost friends? He’d apologized for pushing her into talking about something that was none of his business. Hell, she’d told him about something that was none of his business. They’d sat by a swimming pool and talked like normal people.

He’d kissed her.

Then they’d had that wonderful private conversation over the spaghetti Bolognese. He’d told her things about his past. Personal, intimate things. Things that showed her that deep down he was a nice guy, a good guy. Not somebody born to money who abused people. Not somebody she had to fear. But somebody she could trust. Somebody special.

And now they were just supposed to go back to the quiet?

She glanced into his office again. His head was still down. His focus clearly on his work. Wasn’t he even going to say good-morning?

Apparently not.

It was sad, painful. Especially considering that that conversation hadn’t just shown her she could trust him. It had also caused her to like him. The real him.

Maybe too much.

She turned, slid her backpack beneath her desk. A file sat beside her desktop computer. She opened it to find the financials she’d been reviewing the night before. She lowered herself to the office chair, turned the pages to her stopping point, found the legal pad on which she’d been jotting notes and did what she was supposed to do: looked for inconsistencies. Hot spots. Potential trouble.

But her heart broke. She’d never met anybody like him. Never had an adventure like the one she’d had in Italy. And now they were back to not talking.

Two hours later the elevator bell sent a spike of noise into her silent space, causing her head to snap up. Ricky Langley and Elias Greene walked out. Though disgust rolled through her when she saw Elias, he smiled apologetically. She smiled politely and turned to grab the phone to alert Tucker that they were in her office.

But Tucker was already standing in his doorway. He greeted them without as much as a glance in her direction and closed the door behind them.

She sat back in her chair with a huge sigh. Not speaking might work to get them past the awkwardness of their near miss with friendship and their kiss, but it wouldn’t do anything to stop her longing for more. If she closed her eyes, she could see the blue Italian sky. The rolling hills. The green grass. The cobblestone streets. The villa gallery.

Her opinions had been important. Antonio had listened to her advice. Constanzo had treated her like an equal. And Tucker had kissed her.

She traced her fingers over her lips. Every time she thought about that kiss, they tingled. Her whole body came to life as if remembering every single detail of the way his lips felt pressed to hers, the way his tongue felt taking possession of her.

Now here she sat in an office so quiet she could hear her own breathing.

Tucker’s meeting with Elias and Ricky lasted an hour, then he took the pair to lunch. She ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a bottle of water.

Knowing she had to withdraw money for the week, she left the office in search of an ATM. She punched in her account number and waited for her balance to appear. When it did, it was twelve thousand dollars over what she expected.

Twelve thousand dollars.

Crap. Somebody somewhere had made a mistake and she’d have to fix it.

Knowing she had sufficient cash to cover a meager withdrawal, she retrieved the money she needed and returned to the office to call the bank.

“This is Olivia Prentiss. My checking account number is—” she rattled off her number “—I seem to have too much money. Twelve thousand dollars too much money. You might want to check that out.”

The service representative chuckled. “Thank you for calling us. I’m pulling up your account now.” She paused. “Hmm...I see a twelve thousand dollar deposit from a company called Inferno.” Another pause. “Do you know them?”

She sucked in a breath. “Actually, I work at Inferno.” She grimaced. It would probably be better to tell Human Resources about the mistake and let the company handle it. “Never mind. I’ll check it out with my boss.”

She disconnected the call and was ready to dial the extension for HR, but a strange thought popped into her head. What if it had been Tucker who’d dropped the twelve thousand dollars into her bank account?

And if so, why?

She went over everything that had happened in Italy and stopped when she remembered that kiss. The rush of excitement. The rightness. The swirl of need. The way he took possession of her.

And the cash in her checking account felt like a glaring, horrible insult—a blackmail payment. Forget everything that happened in Italy.

Waiting for him to return, she tried to focus on the financials, but the money in her checking account haunted her.

The second the elevator doors opened, she said, “So, what? Were you afraid I’d tell somebody you kissed me? Or afraid I’d tell somebody the things you’d told me while we were eating spaghetti?”

Tucker’s face scrunched in confusion. “What?”

“The twelve grand. Is that payment so I’ll keep my mouth shut?”

He rubbed his fingers across his forehead as if totally unable to believe what she’d said then he pointed at his door. “My office. Now.”

She rose from her seat, her head high, and followed him. He fell to the chair behind the desk. She primly sat on the chair in front of it.

“That kiss meant nothing.”

Her heart kicked against her ribs. Just when she thought she couldn’t feel any worse, he proved her wrong.

“Well, thanks.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Miss Prentiss. Either you’re insulted enough by the kiss to think I’d need to pay you off, or you liked kissing me.”

Heat rose to her face.

He sighed. “The order to get the money into your account went out before we went to Italy. The day we left, HR called and told me there was too big of a disparity between Betsy’s salary and yours. We couldn’t give you a raise to take you up to Betsy’s salary since you won’t earn that much in Accounting, so we chose a bonus. Your direct deposit is equivalent to an extra thousand dollars a week while you’re filling in for her.”

Her mouth hung open. Everybody had told her Betsy would be out eight weeks, ten tops. Now suddenly it was twelve? Twelve weeks with a guy she liked, a guy she’d confided in, a guy she’d kissed...a guy who now hated having her around?

“I can’t take it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not right.”

“Betsy makes about three times what you make in Accounting. Adding another thousand dollars a week hardly evens the score. It was a compromise number set by Human Resources. Besides, you earned your keep last week.”

“I did very little.”

“You understood Antonio. You knew to jump in when he needed someone to intervene.”

“We haven’t told him Constanzo’s his father.”

“Constanzo wants the chance to tell him himself. We have to respect that.”

“I still don’t feel right.”

He leaned back and steepled his fingers. Vivi surreptitiously studied him, suddenly realizing why she didn’t want to take his money. She wanted him to like her and he didn’t. She didn’t know why he behaved so different in Italy, but they’d talked honestly. Openly. He’d apologized. She’d explained things to him that she’d only ever told Eloise and Laura Beth. They’d connected.

That’s what made him different from Cord. That’s why she liked him. It wasn’t the money or his good looks or even the romantic trip to Italy.

They had connected.

“I don’t want your money.” She lifted her chin. “I want to go back to what we had in Italy.”

“We didn’t have anything in Italy.”

“Yes, we did. We talked. We got close. You kissed me.”

“That was a mistake.” Tucker looked away, but he knew this was his opportunity to fix the slip up of kissing her and talking to her, to get the stars out of her eyes and get their relationship back to a professional one.

He deliberately caught her gaze again, held it. “Kisses lead to becoming lovers and if I take a lover it’s for sex and sex only.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“You liked talking to me.”

“Maybe, but in that conversation I also realized you like connections. Continuity. You want somebody to connect with long term. Somebody to share your life with, I’m not that man.”

“How do you know if you won’t even try?”

“Because it’s not what I want. And I’m rich enough that I don’t have to do things I don’t want to do.”

He saw the light of recognition come to her eyes. They widened with surprise, then dulled with acceptance. In essence, he’d just dumped her.

She rose. “I still don’t want your money.” Head high, she walked out of his office.

The relief he expected didn’t come. Instead, his stomach soured with the truth. No matter how much he wanted her, how tempting her body and how alluring her honesty, he couldn’t have her. And it was time they both faced that.

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