Bought by Her Italian Boss(28)

Her gaze had scanned the entire inventory list, from eyebrow tweezers to  toe rings, seeing novels and anklets and flower vases, but no mention  of "Vito's heart."

She had asked the men to stack the boxes in the den, closed the door on  them, made a huge breakfast for Henry, ate none of it herself and had  cried in the shower before forcing herself to leave for work, already  thirty minutes late.

So when she parked her car outside her new job and saw the cameras  running at her like laser-shooting weapons in a sci-fi movie, she was  already on her last nerve. A million babbled questions washed over her,  all of them prompted by some shred of news in the Jensen case that she  no longer cared anything about. But when one of the voices said, "We  deserve to know everything that happened between you and Vittorio  Donatelli," she lost it.

"You deserve to know? I'm supposed to betray his confidence and my own  right to privacy and tell strangers about our personal relationship?  What is wrong with you people? Do you understand what a relationship is?  You rely on the other person not to talk about you. That's why humans  make connections, so we have a safe place to be ourselves. Vito  Donatelli gave me that. That's what happened between us, okay? Trust.  What a kinky, filthy concept, right? I'm sure it is to you!"

She used her elbows to get through the crowd, rather pleased when she  heard grunts of startled pain and anxiety for their precious equipment.

"You don't deserve one damned thing."

* * *

Vito started to replay the moment where Gwyn gave the paparazzi a piece  of her mind, but heard a squawk through the closed doors to Paolo's  office.

He rose, not getting any work done anyway, and went through to find  Lauren pacing in a light, bouncing step, patting the back of her fussing  son.

"Hi," she said with a warm smile, coming across to kiss his cheeks.  "Paolo's meeting me here with the other two, but I'm early. Sorry if we  disturbed you. This one's fighting sleep even though he's overtired and  grumpy." She wrinkled her nose at her son, then kissed his crinkled  little chin.

Vito took him and settled him into what he privately labeled The Sleeper  Hold. He'd learned it from watching his many relatives comfort his many  infant relations. If a baby didn't take to the shoulder or a cradle  hold in the arm, they wanted to lie on their stomach across a forearm,  head pillowed in the crook of his elbow, limbs dangling.

Arturo made a stalwart effort to keep up his complaints, but settled in  short order with one discontented kick of his leg and a weary sigh. Vito  kept rubbing his back, pacing laconically to the window and back.  Moments later, he held a warm, limp, sleeping baby.                       
       
           



       

"You're such a natural," Lauren said, stroking her son's hair, stopping  short of the words he'd heard from countless women in his family. Don't  you want children of your own?

"Paolo was visiting the old bank today," Vito said. "He took Roberto and Bianca?"

Lauren nodded. "Your aunt was meeting them there with a photographer."

Erecting this modern building and moving the Donatelli fortune into it  had been a massive decision into which the entire family had weighed.  While no one could dispute the practicality of bigger rooms and proper  air-conditioning, or the SMART Boards and Wi-Fi and improved security,  there was something to be said of the old financial district. The  community was a tight one there. It had relied for centuries on  old-fashioned networking in the narrow, cobbled streets of the city  center.

It was how a young, beautiful daughter of an Italian banker had wound up  catching the notice of a mafioso's son looking to launder his own  father's ill-gotten gains.

"I've read there are hidden passageways under those old banks where  secret deals were arranged back in the day. Paolo won't tell me if it's  true."

"If he did, we would have to kill you," Vito said casually. It was a myth that all of Milan enjoyed perpetuating.

"You bankers," she said, with a teasing grin. "You pretend to be so boring, but you're walking secrets, aren't you?"

Vito glanced down at the sleeping baby to disguise his reaction. "Hardly. What you see is what you get, cara."

"So you won't tell me yours," Lauren said after a brief, decidedly significant pause.

"Secrets? I have none to tell," he said, lifting his head and looking her in the eye as he spoke his bold-faced lie.

She tilted her head, but her gaze was soft with affection. "I've always  imagined you fell in love with someone you couldn't have. That's why you  won't marry and have children when you would make such a wonderful  husband and father-"

"Lauren," he said gently. "I adore you. Let's keep it that way. Stop now."

"But then I saw you with Gwyn." Here was the woman who was strong enough  to be Paolo's match. She rarely had to show this sort of steel because  her sweet nature inevitably paved smooth streets wherever she went. But  Paolo was not as domesticated as he appeared. A weak woman would not  have fared well as his wife.

"Take him," he said, rolling Arturo into her arms. "We're not having this conversation." He started back to his office.

"I spent five years married to a man who didn't love me because I was  afraid of what I felt for Paolo. Five years sleeping with the wrong  man," she said to his back. "She'll find someone else you know."

He was at the door, feeling the latch like a knife hilt against this  palm. A pain in his chest was the blade. He twisted it himself.

"She'll try to make babies with him," her voice continued in brutal  purity behind him. "I did. Because she'll think that any man's baby is  better than no baby at all..."

He almost had the door shut on her. Rude, but necessary.

Her voice elevated. "If you won't tell me, at least tell her why you're breaking her heart."

He pulled the door closed and turned the lock for good measure. Then he  leaned his forehead upon it, blood moving like powdered glass in his  arteries, the baby's body heat still imprinted on his aching arm.





CHAPTER ELEVEN

GWYN THOUGHT SHE was doing pretty well. It had been two months and most  of the paparazzi vultures had learned that she lived a very boring life,  going from Henry's to work to the grocery store to the dentist to the  quickie oil change place. Even she was bored with her life.

Which is why she went on a date with a friend of her brother's. She told  herself it was any number of things: getting back on the horse,  research about a possible move to New York, interest in a career change  to landscape architecture-hilarious. As if she had any interest in  watching grass grow. But it was also an opportunity to eat in a  restaurant where she didn't work, to see a jazz trio and wear one of the  dresses she couldn't bring herself to discard.

She also told herself it was a test, to see if she could let any man other than Vito kiss her.

She was honest with him, told him up front that it was her first date  since "it" had happened. He was good-natured, kept things casual and  friendly, was a gentleman and a pleasant companion, making her laugh. He  made her forget for moments at a time that she was pining and lost  without the man she really loved.                       
       
           



       

But at the end of the night, when he moved to kiss her, she balked. It was instinctive. He wasn't Vito. It felt wrong.

He drew back, solemn and knowing, ruefully disappointed. "Not ready, huh?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He picked up her hand and kissed her bent knuckles. "I'll be  back at the end of the year. We can go out again then. See if you feel  differently."

"Thank you," she said, privately sighing. But I won't.

Then Henry turned on the porch light and they both chuckled.

Travis was at the breakfast table when she walked into the kitchen the next morning.

"Do not look at anything," he warned.

She knew the paparazzi had gone crazy. Cameras had been flashing around them all evening.

"He said we could go out again the next time he's in town." She poured a  cup from the coffee he'd made. "But he doesn't realize how notorious I  really am, does he?"

Travis said it wouldn't matter to his friend and as Gwyn went about her  week, she wondered if anything mattered. It certainly hadn't mattered to  Vito that she was dating other men.

Because deep in a sick corner of her soul, that was the real reason she  had done it. She had hoped he would see one of those images that had  been taken of her dining and dancing. She had hoped it would make him  react.

Nothing.

Crickets.

Which was as painful and disheartening as the fact that she'd felt  nothing for a perfectly nice man when he'd acted like he liked her, not  just her face or body or the bare skin he'd seen online, but her.