He threw his jacket over a chair, stripped his tie off and rolled up his sleeves. “Drink?” he asked Olivia, who was sitting on the sofa unbuckling her shoes.
She nodded.
He poured himself a much-needed tumbler of Scotch along with a glass of wine for her and crossed over to where Olivia stood at the windows.
“She was only twenty-five when she died.” Her profile was ridiculously beautiful in the moonlight. “We met at a panty hose shoot when we were nineteen. They were asking us to say these ridiculous lines about how sexy the panty hose made us feel, and we both giggled our way through it. After that, we were best friends.”
“You loved her a great deal.”
She nodded. “She was the one who kept me sane. When there was too much money, too many people wanting to know us only because of who we were, too much partying and too much drinking. We were young and we had everything.”
“But you didn’t have everything.”
“No.” She turned to face him. “We were out of control near the end. I wasn’t an alcoholic, but I was close. I always managed to rein myself in, but Petra couldn’t. Her new boyfriend liked to do drugs, and it was a dangerous combination. I tried to get her to break up with him, but she was strong willed. One night—” her voice took on a gravelly note “—we were at a party and we split up. She went home with Ben and I stayed. A few hours later, I went to her apartment to check on her. But it was too late.” A hot tear escaped the brimming pools of her eyes and slid down her cheek. “She was by herself and she didn’t have a pulse.”
His insides turned over. He captured her hand in his, wrapping his fingers tight around hers. “That must have been awful.”
She looked down at the hand he held. “I was still holding her body when the paramedics told me she was dead. When they told me I had to let go.”
“Mi dispiace.” His voice was rough. “I am so very sorry, Olivia.”
Her brilliant blue gaze clung to his. “If you hadn’t been there tonight, I couldn’t have done it. I would have destroyed myself.”
He shook his head. “You would have walked out of there and you would have found your way.”
“Not the right way.” She pulled her hand free to swipe the tears from her face. Blinked hard. “I needed to face it. Face the past.”
“And you did.”
She nodded slowly as if just realizing that now. Her creamy skin was blotchy, her eyes red rimmed, but she was still the most bewitching woman he’d ever seen in his life and, with Olivia, it was not all on the outside. So much of what he hadn’t seen in the beginning was inside that stunning exterior.
“Is that when the panic attacks started? When Petra died?”
She shook her head. “Those started when I was a teenager. My mother was emotionally unavailable, my father was gone, and there I was traveling to all these foreign countries under so much pressure.” She looked out at the lights. “I went to see a therapist, learned how to try to control them, but they never went away. Sometimes they were worse than others.”
“And that night in New York, that’s what it was?”
“Yes.” Her gaze stayed glued on the cityscape. “It was the end.”
“Not the end,” he countered softly. “You conquered it tonight.”
“With you.” She turned back to him, eyes brimming with emotion. “Thank you.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Yes, it is. Rocco?”
“Sì?”
She brought her fingers to his lips. “Can we not talk anymore?”
Need roared to life inside of him, so fast and sharp it blinded him for a moment. He was in complete agreement, because to keep talking was rational, and this was not rational. He didn’t want to think.
He captured her hand and pressed an intimate, openmouthed kiss against it. The way she tensed made his blood fire in his veins. “Do you still love him?”
She frowned. “Guillermo? I told you I never loved him the right way.”
“Do you still lust after him, then?” He was shocked at how dark and gritty the words came out.
She looked down at the trembling hand he held in his. “What do you think?”
He put his drink down with a jerky movement. Took hers and set it on the table beside his. Her gaze tracked him as he bent his head and allowed himself a mouthful of her bare, smooth shoulder. She was a silken, golden feast for him to explore, and she shuddered beneath his mouth. His stomach jammed into a tight, hard ball. Five weeks of wanting her had weakened him. Badly.
He blazed a path from her shoulder across the delicate skin of her collarbone to the throbbing pulse at the base of her neck. He was so enthralled with the taste of her, with the salty, sweet essence he had finally secured access to, he didn’t hear her speak at first.