Boss Meets Baby(72)

‘I’ll ask him!’ He snatched up his shirt and started to pull it on jerkily.

‘No!’ Lily cried in horror. She couldn’t let Vito storm out to confront Luigi. He’d been her guardian angel that night—she couldn’t bear him to suffer Vito’s rage because of his kindness. ‘Listen. It’s not what you think—I’ll tell you what happened.’

‘Speak quickly,’ Vito said, reaching for his jacket. ‘Then, when I’ve heard your lies, I’ll go and hear what Luigi has to say.’

‘He’ll tell you how he found me alone, with nowhere to go, on the night you threw me out!’ She stared up at him, painful memories bombarding her.

‘Continue,’ Vito grated, his face dark with barely contained fury.

‘The fog closed the airport.’ She took a breath, but she knew her voice was still shaky. ‘It was a few days before Easter—everywhere was fully booked. I couldn’t find a hotel—’

‘Are you trying to tell me every hotel room in Venice was full?’ Vito demanded. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

‘It was already late when I left here,’ she said, remembering— how sick and miserable she’d felt, dragging herself from hotel to hotel. ‘I’d stopped for a moment, down the alley near Luigi’s, trying to think what to do. He saw me standing there, alone with my luggage.’

‘Go on.’ Vito’s frown was thunderous, creating a deep vertical crease between his brows and casting his eyes into dark shadow.

‘He was very kind. He took me to his mother’s house, because she has a spare room,’ Lily said quietly. ‘That’s all.’

She looked up at him, anxious that he should believe her—as much for Luigi’s sake as her own. But he remained ominously silent.

Suddenly she found herself wondering how Vito felt. Did he care at all that she had been alone and unprotected— that night in Venice, with no one to turn to and nowhere to seek refuge? She hugged her knees tighter, pressing her forehead against them and letting her hair fall forwards in a curtain around her.

He didn’t care. He’d never really cared about her. A passing acquaintance had cared more for her well-being that night than Vito.

Humiliation gnawed at her. What was she doing here? Why was she here with a man who didn’t care about her and didn’t even have the slightest respect for her?

‘Don’t hide from me.’

Vito’s voice cut through her misery like cold steel. She lifted her head in time to see him reaching for her—then suddenly she was standing beside the bed facing him.

‘I wasn’t hiding.’ She tossed her hair back over her shoulders defiantly, despite the fact it bared her breasts to him again. She was completely naked, while he was almost completely dressed. But she refused to let herself think about that.

‘We will never discuss the night you left Venice again,’ Vito said. ‘Tomorrow we eat at Luigi’s—showing— everyone that we are an ecstatic couple about to be married.’

‘As you wish,’ Lily responded stiffly, thinking that Luigi was bound to be curious as to what had happened.

‘It is unacceptable that you turned to Luigi,’ Vito continued, his voice throbbing with intensity. ‘Mark my words—you will never again take our problems outside of this bedroom. Whatever happens,’ he grated, ‘our affairs are private.’

‘You threw me out!’ Lily cried in her defence.

‘But now you’re back.’ Vito’s eyes swept over her, leaving a trail of sexual awareness prickling over her naked body. ‘And you must take the consequences of your actions.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Lily stood tall, resisting— the urge to fidget under his hot eyes.

‘That you are mine.’ His voice was loaded with sexual possessiveness. ‘And you will do anything I want.’

‘I’ve always done whatever you want,’ Lily threw back at him.

It was true, she realised to her shame. Except when they’d been together it had always seemed that they wanted the same thing.

‘Not always,’ Vito growled, seizing her roughly and dragging her up against him. He loomed over her, plunging his hands into her hair and pulling her head back so that their faces were only inches apart. ‘But now you’re mine—only mine. No other man is ever going to touch you again.’

He dragged her closer, bumping their hips together erotically. Lily gasped at the intimate contact just as his lips closed, hot and demanding, over hers.

His tongue pushed into her mouth, stoking the sexual fire that was suddenly raging between them once more. Desire for him rushed through her veins, making her insides tingle and her legs turn to water.

A pulsing point of sensation starting throbbing between— her legs, and the feel of his hands running over her naked skin was driving her wild with her own need to touch him.

He pulled away from her abruptly, and shrugged his jacket off. Lily stood shakily, taking shallow breaths as she watched him discarding his clothes. Her gaze drifted up to his face.

What she saw made her heart miss a beat.

He was furious.

She could see the anger burning in his eyes, pulling the muscles in his face taut with tension. He was still absolutely livid about her supposed infidelity, and this was an act of vengeance.