The Truth About De Campo(40)

She stopped in front of the incomparable view of the sparkling sea that stretched for miles in front of her. And admitted it. Wasn’t the real problem what a good job he was doing ignoring her?

She wanted to kill him. How rational was that?

Quinn stalked inside and changed into the bikini she’d raided from the boutique. Who cared if the sides were cut so high you could see her butt? Or if the triangles of fabric on the top didn’t do a great a job of covering her chest? Matteo had damn well walked away from her again. Without a backward glance. Which was absolutely their deal. It was. She just didn’t know how he could so completely turn off his feelings. Forget how unbelievable that night they’d shared had been. Because she’d tried. She’d really tried. And it wasn’t working.

She went back outside and sat on the edge of the plunge pool. The storm had moved off, silvery moonlight slanting across the smooth surface of the water, reflecting her confusion back at her. One night was supposed to have been all it was, yet she felt changed somehow. Matteo’s hands on her skin, his passion for her, had replaced the fear and inadequacy Julian had implanted in her with the alternate reality that she was beautiful and desirable. Worthy of being treasured.

It had shattered a perception of herself carved over a roller-coaster year of marriage. She wasn’t home enough, Julian had said. She wasn’t warm enough to the wives of his business associates. Which had degenerated into the fact she wasn’t warm enough in general. She didn’t treat him like the man of the house.

She downed another gulp of the wine with a jerky movement. Her inexperience in bed had been a major disappointment to Julian. But now that that night with Matteo had proven she wasn’t a cold fish, now that she’d sampled her ability to feel, to want, she was struck by the disturbing thought that she would never experience it again. That no man would ever know her as instinctively as Matteo did. Had from day one.

She sank her toes into the water. Lifted them out and watched the droplets fall like big fat tears from her skin. Hot moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes. She didn’t want to be that person anymore. The woman who had written off a part of herself as unrecoverable. Who had never believed herself capable of more. A lump formed in her throat, swift and hard. Julian had taken away her desire to feel. Matteo had given it back to her. But he was just a playboy doing his thing. He would move on now, win this deal. Focus on what was important to him. And Quinn would be left with the empty shell of who she’d always been.

The tears slid silently down her cheeks, shocking and unbidden. She hadn’t cried like this since Sile had died. When she had finally lost the fight she had so valiantly waged against the cancer that had been too strong even for her adopted mother, who had been the most courageous woman she’d known. Now it felt like a fissure had opened up inside her and exposed everything. Every part of her. Made it painful to breathe.

The silvery moon dipped behind the clouds. Everything became blindingly clear in that moment. So blindingly clear that she didn’t care anymore. She wanted more. She wanted her life to be more. The problem was, she thought, swiping the tears away from her cheeks with the back of her hand, she didn’t know any other way to be. This was all she’d ever been. Quinn, who got the job done.

She blinked hard as the tears flew faster down her face. Matteo was damn right she didn’t want to be human. Being human sucked.



Sometime around midnight Matteo, hot and unable to sleep, emerged from his bedroom and headed for the pool. The rhythmical song of the tree frogs filled the otherwise silent air with a deafening symphony he was surprised anyone could sleep through, yet he had slept through it these past couple of weeks, finding it exceptionally soothing white noise.

But not tonight. He’d emptied his email in-box, read every last report and talked to Gabe who was presently wildly excited over a new wine. And he was still wide-awake with no sign his head wanted to join his body in its state of complete exhaustion.

He grabbed a towel from the rack and turned toward the pool. Then he froze as he saw Quinn sitting with her legs dangling in the water. Her gaze was fixed on the dark mass of the Caribbean Sea, her profile so exquisitely drawn he couldn’t tear his eyes from it. He had never met a woman whose beauty was so all-encompassing—so layered. Just when you thought you’d reached the end of it, she revealed more of herself that made you fall deeper under her spell.

If he had continued on with his sensible behavior of late, he would have turned on his heel and gone back inside. Instead he focused on the spare amount of material in the tangerine-colored bikini that did little to cover her mouthwatering curves. Her upswept ponytail revealed the long, graceful curve of her neck that he wanted to sink his teeth into. Dammit. He should never have shared this space with her.