The Truth About De Campo(34)
His stomach dropped. What if Quinn couldn’t handle what she’d done? What if she chose Silver Kangaroo because it was the only unbiased thing to do?
It occurred to him he might actually have a death wish. With a muffled curse he strode out onto the terrace. But the filtered light of early day only made his sins more blatantly clear. He raised his eyes to the rising sun and let it brand him with the truth. He had put his relationship with his family in jeopardy again over his inability to forget the past. To forgive himself for his trangressions.
He pressed his palms to his cheeks. Was it ever going to go away? Was he ever going to feel as if he deserved a place on this planet again when Giancarlo would never get to live out the best years of his life? Exactly how long was he going to punish himself? Destroy those around him?
Was there even any hope he ever would?
He thought about the trust Riccardo had put in him. Prayed his instincts were right and Quinn would not betray him. His chest tightened until it felt impossible to pull in air and everything went a hazy white.
He did not consciously register himself striding inside and pulling on swim trunks. Taking the stairs to the beach, walking straight into the water and setting out toward the volcanoes with powerful strokes.
Quinn had saved his soul last night. Now he had taken himself straight to hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“SAY, WAS THAT De Campo I saw swimming across to the Pitons this morning?” Daniel Williams slopped half a cow’s worth of milk into his coffee and looked across the breakfast table at Quinn. “I’m all off with my time zones and I sure as heck could have been seeing something, but I could swear I saw him out there and holy crow, that has to be some swim.”
Quinn’s spoon fell to her saucer with a clatter. “That can’t be right.” That swim was miles.
Daniel shrugged. “Like I said, I could be wrong but I thought I recognized him.”
Her stomach tightened. Lord knew what state of mind Matteo had woken up in this morning. Sharks weren’t a common worry in the waters here, but that was a bloody long swim. Even for a good athlete. He was supposed to have met them for breakfast a half hour ago before their trip to Le Belle Bleu...
She stood up abruptly. “I’m going to go see if he misunderstood the breakfast invitation. I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes.”
She walked straight into Matteo as she exited the restaurant. Her heartbeat slowed to a more manageable rhythm as she took in his navy trousers, pale yellow shirt and the grim look he wore like a badge. At least he was in one piece....
“Daniel said you’d swum across to the Pitons.... I told him he must have been mistaken.”
“I did.”
She stared at him. “That was exceedingly stupid.”
“A skill I seem to be perfecting of late.”
“Matteo—”
“Later, Quinn.” His sharp tone stopped her in her tracks. “We need privacy for this discussion.”
She bit into her lip. Or they could avoid it all together....
He waved a hand toward the restaurant. “I need coffee. I’ll get one to take with us.”
Matteo strode into the dining room, leaving Quinn standing there watching him go. She spent the windy drive around the coast to Le Belle Bleu trying to ignore the fact she’d just slept with the man behind her. Engaged in no-holds-barred raw sex with a man who had proven that far from her being the frigid, unfeeling creature Julian had made her out to be, she was capable of losing herself in the moment. As in screaming losing herself in the moment.
Images from the night before flashed through her head like a real-time movie she’d played a starring role in. Her spread across the piano keys...Matteo feasting on her willing body...
An allover flush consumed her. She wanted to feel regret. And she did. Sleeping with the bidder of an open contract likely wasn’t spelled out in the Davis Investments ethics manual because they’d probably figured no one would ever go there. But if the board or Daniel Williams ever found out, there’d be hell to pay. Her judgment would be called into question and her reputation compromised.
Her head throbbed in her skull. The problem was she’d never felt so alive. Never knew she could. She had pulled Matteo back from the fire last night. And in a bizarre way, she had reinstated herself among the living too.
One night, one lapse of sanity might be acceptable. She could still make a decision on this contract with a clear head. If it never happened again. If she wiped it from her brain...
The irony of it all made her shake her head as the marina came into view, sleek, expensive sailboats bobbing in their moorings. The one man who did it for her was the one man she couldn’t have.