“For?” She glanced down at her business suit, which was a bit creased, but in surprisingly good shape despite her colossal besmirching.
“Our first public appearance,” he replied in an overly patient tone, like he was explaining things to a child.
“You said we just had to wait out the scandal for a few days.” A strange new panic began creeping into her, coming from a source she couldn’t identify.
“Oh, no, cara,” he said with a patronizing shake of his head. “I said that the worst of the scandal should pass in a few days. We are locked into our lie for a few weeks at least. You don’t get seasick, do you? The wind might come up this evening and the dinner cruise could get rocky.”
* * *
Vito wondered sometimes, when his dispassionate, ruthless streak arose this strongly, whether his father’s genes were poking through the Donatelli discipline he had so carefully nurtured to contain it.
The mafiosi were known for their loyalty to family, he reasoned. The ferocity of his allegiance to Paolo and the bank had its seeds in his DNA. Of course he would do everything and anything to protect both. Of course he would do whatever was necessary to neutralize the threat Jensen posed.
Vito was aware of something deeper going on inside him, though. A pitiless determination to crush Jensen. It was positively primeval and he wasn’t comfortable with it.
He glanced across at the fuel for his suppressed rage and was impacted by intense carnal desire.
Why?
Oh, Gwyn was beautiful. He couldn’t deny it, even though she was pale beneath a light layer of makeup. It had been expertly applied by Lauren’s very trustworthy stylist from Como. Like anyone who worked for society’s high-level players, the stylist knew any sort of indiscretion meant a loss of more than just one lucrative client. Lauren had sent the woman “to help a friend.” The stylist kept her finger on the pulse of celebrity gossip. She had recognized Gwyn with a very subtle start, then grinned and put her at ease so Gwyn had been smiling as she emerged as a butterfly from the chrysalis of a guest bedroom an hour later.
Her smile had faded when she had found Vito waiting for her. That had bothered him, making him feel a small kick of guilt, like he was responsible for her unhappiness.
...targeted by your client with naked photos that will exist in the public eye for the rest of my life...
He had asked her for the name of the spa and had ordered a team to look into it, wondering if a connection to Jensen might turn up beyond his wife recommending Gwyn visit it for physiotherapy.
Gwyn could have used something to relax her in that moment, as she’d stood so stiffly, projecting hostility as she seemed to wait out his judgment on her appearance.
He could hardly breathe looking at her. She was a vision in a long, sparkling blue skirt with a high slit and a black, equally glittering halter top that clung lovingly to the swells of her ample breasts. Her midriff was bare and her hair loose so her face was squarely framed by the blunt cut across her brow and the straight fall of rich, mahogany brown. She wore silver hoop earrings and a dozen thin bangles supplied by the stylist. Lauren’s shoes were a half size too big, but Gwyn’s toes were freshly painted a passionate red.
“You’re stunning,” he had told her sincerely.
Her hands had grown white where she clutched a small black pocketbook. Averting her face, she’d said, “Not sure why I bothered when people are going to look through what I’m wearing.”
“Do you need me to tell you you’re beautiful either way?”
She flinched. “Took a long look, did you?”
So much resentment. It annoyed him to be lumped in with all the other voyeurs. He had spent the past hour taking stock of how thoroughly Jensen was arrowing those images back at the bank, how the world media was exploiting Gwyn’s naked body for ratings. He had looked at everything but her photographs, deliberately sparing her one more pair of male eyes and himself the disturbing dual reaction of arousal and fury.
The thought that men around the world were licking their lips in lascivious heat over her figure was making him grow murderously affronted.
So he didn’t appreciate her goading him.
“They’re imprinted on my mind,” he said without apology, watching something tense and disturbed flash across her expression before she quelled it. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t mean that from a physical standpoint, but that’s true, as well.”
She reacted with a startled stare of confused vulnerability.
“That sounds almost kind. Are you practicing? Because there’s no one here to overhear you being nice to me.” Her mouth pouted in consternation, lips possibly trembling a moment before she firmed them.