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  He couldn’t deal with the unknown at the moment. Hell, he felt as if he were skating the very edge of sound reasoning from the moment he’d taken her call yesterday afternoon. Among those absurd feelings, the need to cherish and protect were ones he couldn’t comprehend. He had no intention of comprehending them. At long last, she was back in his bed. That would be the extent of his personal dealings with Carla.

  He raised himself up and stared down into her face. Lust-glazed eyes met his and he exhaled when they didn’t immediately slide away. Leaning down, he tasted her kiss-swollen lips, groaning when they clung briefly to his. He indulged them both for a minute, before reluctantly pulling away to dispose of the condom.

  On his return he saw that she had rolled onto her side, away from him. Javier tried not to let the sight disturb him. She would not be going far this time. Nor would any attempt to reject him ring true. Her responses had been genuine. And borderline innocent, just like the first time. Almost as though she hadn’t taken any other lover since him.

  He frowned. The urge to probe the extent of her sexual history hovered on his tongue, but he curbed it. Simply because that didn’t matter in the here and now. And not because the idea that she might have been with someone else messed with his head.

  Sliding into bed, he gathered her close, releasing a trapped breath when she came willingly, melted against him. She laid her injured hand on his chest and he found himself reaching for it, smoothing a kiss over the cast before curling his fingers over it.

  She raised her head and her eyes met his. The quiet fire he’d missed seeing in them was back. But so was the bewildering feeling powering through his own body. Leaning down, he kissed her one more time. When her lids drooped, he settled her firmly against his body.

  ‘Sleep now, if you want to, querida. You’ve passed the first test with flying colours.’

  He tried not to read too much into her response when she murmured, ‘I’m so glad,’ then promptly drifted off to sleep. But he was wide awake several hours later, staring up at the stars, his mind abuzz with unsettling thoughts. When one thought kept recurring—that he was dreading the approach of morning in case history repeated itself with a vengeance—he grunted and kicked away the tangled sheets, a wicked thread of satisfaction spiking through him when Carla opened her eyes. He was donning protection and sliding into her before she was fully awake. After that, he encouraged her to join him in raiding the fridge.

  Then, sated, he dragged her back to bed.

  * * *

  Carla awoke splayed out on top of Javier. She knew he was awake because his fingers teased through her hair in long, lazy movements. Her heart kicked hard as the events of last night flooded her mind. But as much as the euphoria made itself felt, it was the bright sunlight filtering in through the curtains that made her stomach dip in alarm.

  Her last experience of the morning after had been abysmal. And she didn’t doubt that the memory would be in the forefront of Javier’s mind too.

  ‘I’m willing to forget our previous experience if you are.’

  Her head jerked up. Polished mahogany flecked with gold regarded her steadily, but she saw the steady tic in his cheek as his fingers continued to play with her hair.

  With every cell in her body, she wanted to say yes, to brush the unfortunate incident under the carpet and forget it’d ever happened. But she owed him an explanation. ‘No, I don’t want to forget it. I want to explain.’

  His eyes darkened but he nodded. ‘Very well. Go on.’

  She bit her lip. ‘That week we met was the first time I’d ever been given any form of freedom or time off since I was twelve years old. The day I was accepted into the international figure-skating programme, my life stopped being my own.’

  Javier frowned. ‘I thought you loved it.’

  ‘I did. I do,’ she replied, but Carla knew the ambivalence she’d been feeling lately bled into her voice. ‘It’s the only thing I excel at, but it’s hard to love something when you know without it you’re nothing.’

  His frown deepened. ‘Nothing? What are you talking about?’

  ‘If I wasn’t a figure skater what would I be?’

  ‘Whatever you want to be. You’re the only one who can set limitations on yourself.’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s just it. I don’t want to be anything else, but I was never given a choice of what I could be. Does that make sense?’

  His fingers trapped in her hair. ‘Sí, it makes sense. But I don’t understand what this has to do with what happened three years ago.’

  A flicker of shame singed her. ‘My father was against me coming to New York with Maria and Draco. He wanted me to return to Tuscany with him for the two-week break, like always. We...fought badly, but I refused to back down. But every minute I was away I was terrified of what he’d do.’

  ‘What do you mean? Did he physically hurt you?’

  ‘No, but he...had his ways when I disobeyed him.’

  Javier flipped their positions and reared over her. ‘What ways?’

  ‘He would have my trainer double my training, or my favourite horse would suddenly be lent to a neighbour’s daughter for the summer.’

  His jaw tightened. ‘He wanted to show you he was in control.’

  ‘Sì. But three years ago, I turned twenty-one. And I challenged his authority by taking my two-week break without him. But that wasn’t all I did. I called my mother and begged her to intercede with him on my behalf over his controlling behaviour.’ Her voice broke, the emotions she’d held in check for so long bubbling to the surface.

  A firm hand cupped her jaw, his thumb trailing over her cheek. ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He called me...during your party. He told me he was disappointed in me. That I shouldn’t have got my mother involved in our lives again.’

  ‘Again?’ he queried.

  Carla swallowed. ‘She left when I was ten. I won the regional skating championship when I was nine, and had been scouted for the nationals. My mother thought I was too young for the intensity of the training. My father disagreed. They fought for a solid year and, towards the end, their arguments got more intense. My father never physically abused her, but I could tell he was close to it.’ She shuddered in remembrance of the latent violence that had lingered in those confrontations. ‘The week before she left, she cried every night. When she told me she was leaving, I was shattered, but I was also relieved.’

  Javier’s eyes darkened with quiet fury. ‘She never contemplated taking you with her?’

  ‘My father would never have allowed her to do that. He worked in a factory when I was a child. The moment he realised my potential, he gave up his job. I was his ticket to a dream life and he wasn’t about to let it go.’ Bitterness and sorrow duelled for supremacy within her. Javier saw it, leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips.

  Tears prickled her eyes but she blinked them away.

  ‘So you reached out to her when you turned twenty-one...?’

  ‘My father had planned out my life for the next five years, and I was suffocating.’

  ‘You could’ve walked away, started afresh with a new management team.’

  She shook her head. ‘We’re locked into a management agreement that ends when I’m twenty-five. Or at least we were. Once this new deal goes through, I’ll be free of him.’

  He swore under his breath. ‘So your mother was your only option?’

  Her heart shuddered, regret biting deep. ‘She agreed to talk to him. She was on her way to Tuscany when I came to Miami. He called me during your party, and I’d never heard him so angry. Something in his voice scared me, but I convinced myself it was nothing.’

  ‘That’s why you got drunk?’

  She gave a shaky nod. ‘I wanted to drown him out...to drown everything out.’ She risked a glance at him and fou
nd his steady, intense gaze on her. ‘I didn’t regret what happened to us, but...’

  ‘But?’ he bit out.

  ‘But, I would’ve done things differently if I’d had another chance.’

  ‘How differently?’

  ‘I would’ve started the evening sober, for a start.’

  ‘Sí, but you weren’t drunk by the end of it.’

  Unable to resist, she grazed her fingers over his morning stubble. ‘That’s because you made sure I wasn’t. Can you imagine if it’d been someone else less honourable than you?’

  He tensed. ‘Did we agree not to mention other people while you’re in my bed?’

  ‘I didn’t mean...that was a hypothetical question, Javier,’ she admonished.

  He gave a stiff, arrogant shrug. ‘Spare yourself my hypothetical wrath and stick to your story, querida,’ he suggested.

  ‘I woke up the next morning hating myself for hiding behind my mother and not facing my father. I hated the circumstances that brought us together and I didn’t handle it well.’

  ‘So you deliberately let me believe you were going from my bed to Angelis’s?’

  Heat crawled up her face. ‘Mi dispiace molto.’

  ‘And the dates in London? The kiss in Tuscany?’

  ‘All completely platonic. I’m not in love with Draco, Javier. I swear. I never have been.’

  He stared at her in silence for a full minute, before he nodded. ‘Bene,’ he replied gruffly, then took her mouth in another heart-stopping kiss.

  After several minutes, he raised his head. ‘We seem to have come full circle, Carla. Give me your word that you’re mine and I’ll let this matter rest.’

  ‘I’m yours,’ she affirmed.

  He kissed her again, then nodded for her to continue.

  ‘For years I’d been promising myself that when I could I would walk away from my father. But in the end I wanted everything. My career, my father, my mother, everything in harmony. A stupid wish, of course.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘The day we stop dreaming and striving for the unachievable is the day we die. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’

  ‘But don’t you see? I wanted too much. Because she died.’

  He stiffened. ‘But you said you don’t know how she died. How do you know it’s because of what you asked of her?’

  The thorns that had never quite melted away from her heart pierced her unbearably. ‘Because if I hadn’t got her involved she would still be alive. I begged her to intercede with my father, and she died because of it.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JAVIER SLOWLY PULLED back from her. The absence of his warmth struck her almost as deeply as the pain ravaging her insides. He sat with his back against the massive headboard, his features inscrutable. In the next instant, he pulled her up against him, one strong arm around her shoulders as he leaned her back against him.

  ‘You believe your father did something to her or you wouldn’t be torturing yourself this way,’ he stated, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

  Her breath caught. ‘I don’t want to think that...but I can’t help myself.’

  ‘Tell me what you know.’

  ‘Not much. All I know is she went to Tuscany to talk to him. She didn’t leave there alive. I found out she was dead a week after I left you, after I’d completed my three-day competition in Switzerland.’

  ‘Dios mio. He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘He didn’t want the news to affect my performance. The first I knew of her death was on the way to the funeral home. He said it was an accident, that he was sorry, but I needed to put it behind me as soon as possible.’

  Carla didn’t realise she was crying until his thumb brushed the moisture from her cheeks. Then, as if the floodgates of her grief had been ripped open, thick sobs exploded from her heart. Javier held her closer, both arms folding her into his body as she purged her grief. Selfishly, she clung to him, knowing deep down that it was unwise, but unable to stop herself from soaking up his support.

  Gentle words spoken in Spanish floated over her. Long moments later, her hiccups the only sound in the room, Carla attempted to pull away.

  He held her still. ‘Stay.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t—’

  ‘Reliving the past was bound to resurrect bad memories for you. Don’t be distressed for needing a shoulder to lean on sometimes. We both know you’re strong when you need to be.’

  Her laughter was harsh and one hundred per cent self-deprecating. This time when she pulled away, he let her. Rising on her knees, she brushed away the last of her tears and faced him. ‘Strong? If I was I wouldn’t have left it another three years after her death to finally seek answers. I wouldn’t be giving in to my father’s demands for a bribe just so I find out how my own mother died. That doesn’t make me strong!’

  A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘We try to find answers the best way we can.’

  She spiked her fingers through her hair, bewilderment raging high. ‘I don’t know why you’re trying to make me feel better, Javier. If it hadn’t been for me, your mother would be resting in peace by now.’

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a grim smile. ‘That was your father’s doing, not yours. I was hacked off when I lumped you in with him. You can’t be held accountable for his failures. For my part, trying to afford my mother some peace now doesn’t alter the fact that I left her with Fernando for years, distanced myself as far away as I could.’

  ‘You left because you wanted to make a better life for both of you,’ she countered.

  ‘Sí, but also because a part of me was disappointed that she wanted so very little for herself. That she was too weak to break away from his poisonous presence. No matter where she was in the world, she pined for him. It was a weakness I didn’t understand. So in the end, I left her to it. And she died alone.’

  Tears she’d thought were long spent clogged her throat again. ‘So you’re saying we deserve this anguish we’re both going through?’

  A heavy shrug. ‘We can accept our part in the theatre of our lives, even flog ourselves daily for it. But you can’t lose yourself because of it.’ His smile turned grimmer. ‘Or let those rightly responsible get away with it.’

  A cold shiver went through her. She might have fooled herself into believing she’d found common ground with Javier. That the shoulder he’d lent her had come without strings. As she watched him reach for her, she knew how wrong she’d been.

  He might understand her plight, might even empathise on some level, but he still held her responsible for a large degree of his unresolved issues with his father.

  And for that, she would continue to pay with her body.

  Heart slamming hard in her lungs, and desperate not to let him see how his final words had affected her, she slid her arms around his neck as he rose from the bed and headed to the large, marble-floored bathroom.

  ‘So...what now?’

  ‘We take a shower and then I take you for an early lunch.’

  * * *

  Javier couldn’t get to the bottom of his fury long enough to gain proper control of it. Hell, he could barely see past the red haze that crossed his vision each time he thought of what Olivio Nardozzi had, and continued to, put his daughter through.

  He’d made love to Carla in the shower with an edge of rage he knew she’d felt. She’d been with him every step of the way, but he’d glimpsed the shaken look in her eyes afterwards as they’d dressed.

  He’d known the other man was as self-centred and avaricious as they came, perhaps even more so than his own father—which was saying something—but he’d never imagined Olivio would put his own child through such raw turmoil.

  As he navigated his sports car along the highway towards South Beach, he suppressed a crude curse. He’d spent the night mos
tly awake and had hated himself for it because he’d dreaded the morning would bring a repeat of Carla’s rejection three years ago. What he hadn’t expected was a wild swing in the opposite direction, a dropping of her guard and a complete baring of her soul that had left a previously unknown part of him touched and reeling. A part he didn’t want to examine, much as he didn’t want to examine the real reason he’d instigated this whole thing with Carla in the first place.

  He glanced over at her, satisfaction pulsing through him that the subject of her and Angelis had finally been put to rest. Truth be told, now jealousy was no longer blinding him, he could see that Angelis had only ever been looking out for her. And three years ago, Carla hadn’t actually come right out and confessed that she was in love with her agent, had she? Looking back, he realised it was the deeper effect of her father’s actions that had fuelled his need for vengeance.

  And even that need was dissipating.

  She returned his gaze and he lost his train of thought as his eyes drifted over her.

  Her stretchy cream dress ended a good few inches above her thighs, showing off her slim legs in a mouth-watering expanse of light golden flesh. The material skimmed her curves in a way that made his palms itch to follow each thread of cotton, and Javier was ridiculously jealous of the seat belt that rested between her breasts. As he watched, she twitched beneath his scrutiny, her hand lifting to tuck back the hair shifting in the breeze of his open-top car.

  A different sort of turbulence attacked him, this time much lower in his body but equally insistent. And equally unsettling. Carla hadn’t been far off in her accusation that his sexual liaisons were fleeting at worst and a step above short term at best. He certainly didn’t crave any woman he dated after having her as many times as he’d had Carla in the last twelve hours. Yet, his body’s continual reaction to her threatened to reduce him to hormonal teenager status.

  ‘Are you going to spend the entire journey in silence?’ she asked, her voice a touch shaky, he knew, from the thick, aggressive vibes he was throwing out.