Bought by Her Italian Boss(22)

The moment she tried to excuse herself, however, Vito's arm hardened on her.

"I should say hello to Ms. Tamsin," Gwyn said, caught between  homesickness and dread. She would love to hear the news on her former  colleagues, but really didn't want to talk about herself.

"I'll come with you." Vito nodded at the man who'd been pontificating.

"But I want your advice!" the executive blurted.

Gwyn was so far into her own head, she completely misplaced where she  was and who they were talking to. In that moment, a coworker was asking  for guidance so she offered it. "Why don't you use the UK model as a  template? Tailor it to US regulations and plug in that bit about  interstate transfers. The section on overseas rates should work almost  word for word."

The surprised pause and dumbfounded stares from both men were almost  laughable, except Gwyn realized how badly she'd overstepped and  instantly wanted to die of embarrassment. She never would have spoken to  Oscar Fabrizio or any other higher-up that way. No, she would have done  that work for him, she thought privately, and let him take the credit.  Such was the life of lower-level administrators.

The executive was taken aback and glanced between her and Vito, as if to  say, Are you going to let your porn star girlfriend talk to me like  that?

"Excellent suggestion," Vito said. "Why reinvent the wheel? I'll expect  to see the draft tomorrow," he told his executive and walked her away.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"For what?"

"Interjecting like that."

"Why? You were right. I would have thought of it myself eventually, but I  wasn't really listening. Too busy thinking of something else," he said  with a pointed look that shot sexual heat from her heart to her loins.  "I've never gone without a condom before. That was exciting. Grazie, mia  bella."

Her hand tightened on his sleeve as her knees wobbled, making him smile like a shark.

The rest of the evening was a trial, but she got through it. And when  they were leaving, he surprised her by taking her downstairs to a  waiting car instead of back up to the penthouse he'd already paid for.

"What about the early morning meetings you have here tomorrow?" She  tilted her head at the hotel. "I thought that's why we were staying  here."

"I want you in my bed."

Her skin tightened in reaction. "Okay."

* * *

Vittorio was not a weak or needy man. He loved his family and would  certainly be a lesser man without them, but he considered himself a  supporter of them, not the other way around. He wasn't a dependent  personality, either. He drank a glass of wine most days because it was a  cultural habit, not because he was addicted.

Gwyn was another story.

As he tied his tie, he glanced at her sleeping form reflected beyond his  shoulder, brunette hair spilled across his pillow where she'd rolled to  hug it when he'd risen, murmuring a sleepy and satisfied, "Thank you,"  before falling back asleep.

Words she had promised him he would never hear, he thought edgily, still  high on the powerful orgasm they'd shared from a very lazy missionary  lock in the predawn hour, the paroxysm holding them gasping for long,  exquisite moments.

It had been two weeks and, if anything, the chemistry between them was  stronger. If he was in her presence, he wanted to touch her. If he  touched her, he wanted to have sex with her.

His desire was becoming the sort of all-consuming hunger that he  arranged the rest of his life around. If he had other thoughts, they  tended to be of the reckoning kind: dark acts of retaliation against  Jensen and his cohorts. He wanted justice for Gwyn, but not necessarily  the legal kind that would put an end to their reason for being together.                       
       
           



       

"I'm jealous," Gwyn said in a soft morning voice that lifted the hairs all over his body.

"Of whom?" he asked, reaching for his suit jacket, shrugging it on like armor.

He'd had these sorts of conversations before, but he had to admit to  shock that Gwyn would have any reason to feel possessive. Had he even  looked at another woman since meeting her? If he had, it was a  comparison that Gwyn always won. Not just in looks, either. If he heard a  woman laugh, he thought the sound too sharp or coarse, not the perfect  joyful huskiness of Gwyn's. None seemed to have her same intuitive  ability with conversation either, steering seamlessly from business to  small talk to current events. His lack of interest in other women might  have worried him if his libido hadn't been showing such vigor and health  in bed with this one.

"You," she answered ruefully, rolling onto her back and throwing her arm  over her head. "Going to work." She touched the headboard, looking up  to the pattern her finger found and traced.

Her remark didn't entirely surprise him. He might have had innumerable  mistresses who expected to be supported, but his sisters and the bank's  abundance of female employees told him that many women enjoyed their  careers as much as men did. Gwyn was bright and confident and had had  clear goals before Jensen had derailed her. A life of leisure was not  something she had aspired to-which was yet another side of her character  that set her apart and shone a favorable light upon her in his eyes.

It was also why he enjoyed supporting her. She didn't expect to be  spoiled so her reaction was priceless when he collared her with precious  stones and shackled her with gold bracelets. Her protests against his  generosity were refreshing, her newness to belonging to a man endearing.

He moved to the bed and lowered to hitch his hip beside hers, splaying  his hand over the rumpled sheet that covered her belly. "I thought you  enjoyed the art exhibit yesterday?" He had liked watching her face light  with enthusiasm as she had told him about it last night.

"I did. I'm not sure your bodyguards did, though." She covered his hand,  traced her light touch over the backs of his fingers, sending a ripple  of pleasure down his back, as if he was a wolf being petted by a maiden.

"Well-secured places like art galleries make their job easy. They're  happy to follow you around one." That wasn't the real issue, he could  tell, but he didn't know what else she needed to hear. Perhaps, "Rather  than go back to Milan when I finish here, why don't we take a few days  on the water?" he suggested. "I'll hire a yacht."

Her gaze met his. "I feel like I'm back in my childhood, moving around  before I can establish myself, not even trying to make friends because  there's no point."

He frowned, having supposed that she connected with her friends online  when he wasn't around, but she never mentioned any conversations or told  anecdotes, he realized. She'd already told him that the family she did  have was a very loose tie. She was still too embarrassed to speak  directly to her stepfather and was keeping to short texts with her  stepbrother.

He couldn't imagine living in that sort of social desert. He had  curtailed a lot of his nonbusiness dinners because of work pressures and  was sidestepping family occasions to avoid awkward questions about his  relationship with Gwyn, but he was Italian. An active social life was in  his biological makeup.

"Why did you move so often?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "Every reason. Lost job, better job, good luck, bad luck,  harassment, location... I think the biggest reason was that Mom had  itchy feet. That's why she married my dad, to move to America. She and  Henry were going to travel once I finished school." Her fingertips  smoothed under his cuff, tracing the band of his watch. "I wanted to see  the world, too, but by moving to a new city and settling in, so I could  absorb the culture and become part of the community."

Whatever friendships she'd made in Milan had been blown apart by the  photos and her termination. He hadn't forbidden her from contacting any  of her coworkers or neighbors, but she had isolated herself and he'd  been pleased to keep things simple. He wondered now if he should make  more of an effort to draw her into his own circles, but to what end?  This was a temporary affair, not a relationship.

And knowing their time together was finite, he found himself very unwilling to share her.

"No news from Paolo about how much longer the investigation will take?" she asked.

"No," he said so abruptly her eyes widened and a shadow of injury crept  across the back of her gaze. He mentally kicked himself for revealing  the brute that he was, but her question almost sounded as though she was  anxious to end things and he wasn't ready.                       
       
           



       

"Living in limbo is hard," she said in stiff explanation, trying to sit up.