“You’ll regret it.” Her voice was like gauze and had as much effect.
“I’ve already regretted you for a decade, cara,” he growled. “What does it matter to me if I add a little more?”
He leaned in closer, felt her quiver against him and thrilled to it. To her, because he knew her true face this time. He knew her. There would be no losing himself. There would be no fanciful dreaming of marriage and happy-ever-afters in the Tuscan countryside, deep in all the sweet golden fields that were his heritage. There would only be penance. Hers. Hard, hot, bone-melting penance, until he was satisfied.
Which he anticipated might take some time.
“This doesn’t make sense.” Did she sound desperate or did he want her to? Giancarlo didn’t care. “You hate me!”
“This isn’t hate,” he said, and his smile deepened. Darkened. “Let’s be clear, shall we? This is revenge.”
* * *
Paige thought he would leap on her the moment she agreed.
And of course she agreed, how could she do anything but agree when Violet Sutherlin had become the mother her own had been far too addicted and selfish and hateful to pretend to be? How could she walk away from that when Violet was therefore the only family she had left?
But Giancarlo had only smiled that hard, deeply disconcerting smile of his that had skittered over her skin like electricity.
Then he’d dropped his hand, stepped away from her and left her alone.
For days. Three days, in fact. Three long days and much longer nights.
Paige had to carry on as if everything was perfectly normal, doing her usual work for Violet and pretending to be as thrilled as the older woman was about the return of her prodigal son. She’d had to maintain her poise and professionalism, insofar as there was any professionalism in this particular sort of job that was as much about handling Violet’s personal whims as anything else. She’d had to try not to give herself away every time she was in the same room with Giancarlo, when all she wanted to do was scream at him to end this tension—a tension he did not appear to feel, as he lounged about, swam laps in the pool and laughed with his mother.
And every night she locked herself into the little cottage down near the edge of the canyon that was her home on Violet’s property and tortured herself until dawn.
It was as if her brain had recorded every single moment of every single encounter she’d ever had with Giancarlo and could play it all back in excruciating detail. Every touch. Every kiss. That slick, hard thrust of his possession. The sexy noise he’d made against her neck each time he’d come. The sobs echoing back from this or that wall that she knew were hers, while she writhed in mindless pleasure, his in every possible way.
By the morning of the fourth day she was a mess.
“Sleep well?” he asked in that taunting way of his, his dark brows rising high when he met her on the back steps on her way into the big house to start her day. Violet took her breakfast and the trades on a tray in her room each morning and she expected to see Paige there, too, before she was finished.
Giancarlo stood on the wide steps that led up to the terrace, not precisely blocking her way, but Paige didn’t rate her chances for slipping past him, either. Had she not been lost in her own scorching world of regret and too many vivid memories as she’d walked up the hill from her cottage, she’d have seen him here, lying in wait. She’d have avoided him.