Not that he should be pining over the woman who dumped him like yesterday’s garbage. She’d thrown down her ultimatum and he had refused terms. She’d been unwilling to negotiate—that should be the end of it.
Still, he waited with uncomfortable anticipation for his mother to speak.
She sighed again. Fidgeted some more and then sighed a third time. “I have a key to Faith’s apartment.”
“Ah.” But he didn’t feel nearly as insouciant as he sounded. His mother had a key to his lover’s apartment, but he did not. Nor did Faith have a key to his apartment in Marsala. Why not? Why was it that his mother had spent more time in Faith’s studio than he had?
They were friends. They did not limit their time together to sex. So, why had he never seen any of her works in progress? Why had he not known she was the highly successful sculptor TK?
“I stopped by today. Unannounced.”
“I see.” Though he didn’t.
“I let myself in, you know, thinking she might be back soon.” Mama shuddered. “I did a terrible thing.”
“You are not the criminal type. I doubt what you did was terrible.”
“But it was, my son. I wanted so badly to see Faith’s newest work.”
“You peeked.”
“Yes, and that is bad enough—but in looking at her work, I revealed a secret she is clearly not ready to share.”
“A secret?” What kind of secret? Had Faith been making clay tiles of the fifty states because she missed her homeland? What?
“Si. A secret. I have betrayed my friend.”
“Mama, whatever it is, I am sure it will be fine. Faith loves you. She will forgive you.” If only Faith was as tolerant of her lover.
“But a woman has the right to determine the timing of when she will share such news with others. I have, what is that saying your brother uses—oh, yes—I have stolen her thunder. I cannot pretend not to know when she tells me, for that would be a lie. I cannot lie to my friend.” She grimaced. “I did tell her I still wanted to see her work and I do. I stopped looking after the first one because I knew. I knew what it meant.”
Valentino ground his teeth and tried not to glare at his mother with impatience. “What what meant?”
“The statue. It is so clear to see. You could not miss it,” she said, as if trying to convince Valentino.
“I am sure you are right. What was the statue of?” he asked without being able to help himself.
“It is just that I am so worried. If it means what I think, and I’m sure it does—and there is no father in sight. Things are going to get difficult for my friend.”
“What does a priest have to do with Faith?”
“A priest? Who said anything about a priest? Faith is Lutheran. They have pastors, I believe.”
“Mama, I don’t understand. You said ‘father.’”
“Yes, the father of her child.”
“Child? Faith has no children. Her unborn baby died in the accident with her husband.”
“The baby inside her now, Valentino.”
Valentino’s chest grew tight. Although he knew he was breathing, it felt like all the oxygen had disappeared from the air. “Are you saying you believe Faith is pregnant?”
“Of course that is what I have been saying. Weren’t you listening? I should never have snooped. Now when she tells me, I will have to admit I already guessed. She will be let down.”
His mother continued to talk, but Valentino did not hear what she said. He had surged to his feet and was trying to rush across the brickwork of the patio. But his movements were uncoordinated and jerky as his mother’s words reverberated inside his head like clanging cymbals in a discordant rhythm.
Faith was pregnant?
His Faith? The woman who said she did not want to see him anymore. The one who had ended their relationship, such as it was.
He shook his head, but the blanket of shock refused to be dislodged.
He was going to be a father again? Now? When he had thought never to remarry, when he had believed Giosue would be his only child. It was unreal but not. Part of him accepted the news with an atavistic instinct of rightness. He had no doubt the baby was his. Dismiss him though she had tried to do, Faith was his. She had been since the moment they met. Hell, a primal part of him claimed she always had been—even before they knew each other.
Even the most rational part of his mind accepted that she was his now. She had been with no one else since their first time together, and probably for a long time before that.
He yanked open the door of his Jaguar and climbed inside, slamming it again as he started the car with a loud roar of the engine, and then tearing out of the drive.
How was she pregnant?
They used birth control. Religiously. Rather, he did. Still, there had only been a handful of times that their protection had not been one hundred percent. After each slip, he would be beset by guilt, and work extrahard in future to make sure they were covered.
With a sense of inevitability, he realized one of those times had not been too long ago.
He’d taken Faith to dinner at a favorite trattoria. Instead of sitting outside, so they could watch people on the street—as Faith was wont to do—Valentino had asked for some privacy. They had been given a table in the back corner, the restaurant lighting barely reaching into the shadows that surrounded it. The light from the single candle in the center of the table set a romantic mood.
At least, he’d thought so.
Faith frowned as he helped her take her seat. “I know our relationship isn’t common knowledge, but do we have to hide in the dark?”
He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I thought we could entertain ourselves over dinner, rather than finding our amusement in watching other people.”
The embarrassing truth was that Faith liked people-watching—sometimes too much. She paid more attention to the ones surrounding them than to him, and he did not like that. Tonight he was determined to have her entire focus. If it took seducing her publicly, so be it.
And that is exactly what he did, starting with a kiss just below the shell of her ear, using both teeth and tongue as well as his lips.
She was shivering and had made a small whimpering sound by the time he finished and took his own seat across the small table from her.
“Considering what you apparently have planned for our entertainment, I now understand why you asked for a table hidden away from curious eyes.” Faith smoothed her top, accentuating the way the silky fabric clung to her breasts and exposing hardened nipples, despite two thin layers of fabric over them.
“You think you can survive one evening without people-watching?” he asked, his voice husky with the desire sparking his senses.
“I have a feeling you can make it worth my while.”
“You must be psychic,” he teased. “For I plan to.”
“Call it an educated guess. I’ve been at the receiving end of your tender mercies too often to discount their effect.”
“Good.” He had every intention of lavishing those mercies on her tonight.
They teased each other over dinner, working their desire to a fever pitch. He was tempted to find an even darker corner and bring them both to completion right then and there. He refrained, determined to make the night a memorable one for his beautiful lover.
Her peacock-blue eyes were glazed with passion, her lips swollen as if they’d been kissed, and her breathing was shallow and quick. Her nipples were so hard they created shoals in the fabric over them and she’d squirmed in her seat more than once.
“Having trouble, carina americana mia?” He meant his voice to be joking, but it came out deep and sensual instead.
A competitive glint shone in her gaze along with the passion. “I think no more than you.”
She’d definitely done her utmost to turn him inside out, and she had succeeded.
He reached across the table and brushed her cheek in a rare public display of affection. “I think it is time t
o make our way to my apartment.”
“Yes.”
Back in his apartment, they wasted no time in disposing of their clothing, but once they landed naked on the bed, he forced a slowing of the pace. It wasn’t easy, he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her wet, silken depths, but there was more to making love than reaching an orgasm.
There was the element of driving your partner out of her mind.
Her hands were everywhere in a blatant bid to sidetrack him from his silently stated intention, and he had to gather both her wrists in one hand and hold them above her head.
She gasped, her body bowing in clear need. “Kinky, Tino.”
“Necessary, tesoro.”
“Why?”
“I want you out of your mind with pleasure.”