It was what it meant to be a Ricci. Passion. Perseverance. Commitment.
CHAPTER THREE
CHARLOTTE SLEPT BADLY, her sleep restless with dreams of Brando. Kissing him, making love with him...fighting with him, hiding from him, dreaming one dream after the other.
And now he was back at her hotel, driving the same classic sports car he’d driven to her hotel last night. It was a sleek glossy black car, a collector’s car no doubt, a car that matched his sophisticated style and impossibly handsome face.
“I left the roof up,” he said, “but if you prefer, I can put it down.”
It was a beautiful early June day, the warm weather hinting at the summer heat to come. There would be no rain, nothing but gorgeous blue sky all day. “Is it too much trouble to put it down?” she asked.
“Not at all. You won’t mind all the air?”
“I’d like it. It might help blow the cobwebs out of my brain.”
“You didn’t sleep well?”
“I’m having a hard time adjusting to the time change. I don’t usually. Not sure what’s changed,” she said lightly.
“I do,” he answered, “and I think you do, too. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending everything is ‘normal.’ Nothing is normal. Nothing will ever be quite the same again, either.”
She stiffened, even as dread swept through her. What did he mean by that? It sounded so ominous, and yet Brando wasn’t negative, or pessimistic. Perhaps she was just overreacting. Perhaps her exhaustion was making her overly prickly. “There will certainly be some changes,” she answered, “but nothing problematic. Nothing I can’t handle,” she added.
“That’s a good attitude,” he said.
Charlotte fought the urge to scream. She was losing control, wasn’t she? It wasn’t her imagination. Brando was slowly seizing the upper hand, bit by bit, smile by smile, encouraging word by encouraging word.
She’d come to Florence expecting tension, and drama, especially after the results of the paternity test came in, but Brando was anything but tense, or angry. He wasn’t cold or detached. He was kind...calm. Solicitous. He was managing her, versus the other way around, and that would end badly. She knew it’d end badly. She’d seen how he worked, and how he turned situations to his advantage.
She should have had a better plan.
She should have remembered how smart he was. How strategic.
“I was worried about you flying at this stage of your pregnancy,” he added, his hand light on her back as he walked to his car, and yet the possession was clear. He was acting as if she was his, and the baby was his. He was acting as if they belonged to him. But they didn’t.
She stepped away from him and gave him a pointed look. “No touching,” she said under her breath. “Remember?”
“Cara, I do this for every little old lady, including my grandmother.”
Annoyed, she bit her tongue and gave her head a short, sharp shake.
“I might as well be a cane,” he added soothingly.
She wasn’t soothed. Her nerve endings tingled. She felt hot all over, hot and incredibly aware of him, as well as aware of the night spent together. It wasn’t all that long ago. Just months ago. And it had been the most sensual, memorable night of her life, a night so full of passion and sensation that she didn’t think she’d ever be the same.
She certainly didn’t think she’d have to be here, now, dealing with him.
She’d allowed herself to do everything because she hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again...
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why are you aggravated?”
“I’m not aggravated. And I’m not a senior citizen, Brando, nor am I in need of assistance. I’m strong, and capable, and really happy not being helped,” she answered tersely, hating herself for wishing his hand would return to her lower back, wanting the press of his fingers against the curve of her spine. Her body felt even more sensitive now that she was pregnant, and for some reason her libido was even stronger than before. She dreamed erotic dreams at night. During the day, she found herself wanting more, fantasizing about making love, and since that wasn’t an option, she’d pleasured herself once, and the orgasm was so intense she’d worried that she might have hurt the baby, and so she hadn’t done that again...even though she still craved touch and sensation. Satisfaction.
Brando opened the car’s passenger door, and she settled into the sports car’s low seat, feeling decidedly awkward. Her center of balance was changing, and her narrow skirt hindered her movement. Brando waited patiently, though, before closing the door behind her even as the hotel bell captain finished putting her bags in the trunk of the car.
Brando then went to work putting the convertible top down, which required just a couple of adjustments on his part, and then he was done.
“Was the international flight taxing?” he asked, returning to the driver’s side and sliding behind the steering wheel.
He was dressed in a pale gray linen shirt and gray linen trousers, the shirt open at his throat, sleeves rolled back on his forearms. His throat and chest were tanned, the same burnished color of his arms. It took effort for her to focus on his words and not his lean, powerful body.
“I flew business here so I had my legs up,” she answered, “and that definitely helped. But this is probably my last international trip until the baby arrives.”
“Do you know if we’re having a boy or girl?” he asked, shifting into Drive and pulling away from the hotel to merge into traffic.
She tensed all over at his use of we and she glanced at him, studying his profile as he focused on the congestion ahead caused by a truck delivering sleek modern leather couches to an interior design store. The truck was blocking a lane and drivers were honking. “Does it matter to you if I’m carrying a boy or girl?” she asked.
“No.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him. “Would you really love a daughter as much as the son?”
“I might love a daughter more,” he said with a faint shrug.
She didn’t know why but his words made her heart ache. Her father hadn’t been unloving, but he hadn’t been particularly affectionate, or attentive. She’d always thought if she was a horse he would have loved her more. He adored his horses.
She’d once wanted to be adored. She’d wanted him to miss her the way he’d missed them when away for too long.
He never did, though, and her mother had never really missed her, either, not even when she’d gone to Switzerland for boarding school.
Charlotte had learned to fill her time, and she’d learned the art of distraction. Don’t think too much, don’t feel hardly anything. Work, focus, achieve.
Those three things had become her mantra, and her mantra had made her successful.
She could still be successful as a mother. She’d certainly be a more devoted parent than either of her parents. She’d make sure her child knew he or she was loved and wanted.
Finally, Charlotte would have a family of her own. Finally, she’d have someone she could shower with love...
“There are no disadvantages to being a girl.” Brando’s deep voice drew her attention.
Charlotte glanced at him, heart suddenly too tender. “But there might be with a boy,” she said.
He lifted a brow. “How so?”
She adjusted her seat belt around her middle and tried to make herself more comfortable. The interior of the sports car was small and Brando was close, his hand resting on the stick shift just inches from her knees. She could smell whatever he was wearing—aftershave, cologne, body spray. It was light, and sexy and very masculine. Between his heady scent, and the warmth radiating off him, she felt painfully aware of him. “I don’t want to quarrel. I’m too tired today to quarrel—”
“Why would we quarrel?”
“Because if I’m carrying a boy, you might feel differently
about being...involved. It might influence you somehow.”
“How so?”
She swallowed hard. “This isn’t the best time. I don’t want to do this now—”
“Do what? Discuss the future?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s why you’ve come to Florence.”
“But you’re taking over, dictating everything—”
“You’ve had six months to be in charge. It’s time I had a say, don’t you think?”
She gritted her teeth, battling her anger, battling fear. She wasn’t just losing control, she’d lost it. She’d been a fool to come to Florence without a proper plan, a fool to think it’d go any other way. For a split second she wished she’d never come to Italy, wished she’d never told him about the pregnancy, but just as quickly as the thought came, she smashed it. It wasn’t right, or fair, not to Brando, and not to their child. Their child had a right to a father as much as a mother. “I hate this,” she whispered. “I hate all of it.”
He said nothing for a long moment, his jaw hard, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated on the road. And then after an interminable silence, he said, “You hate me.”
Her eyes burned. It hurt to swallow. “I don’t hate you.” Charlotte blinked back the sting of tears. “I hate that we’re going to be playing tug-of-war with our baby. I hate that he or she will never have what I always dreamed of—a stable, unified, loving family. A family that stays together, sticks together, through thick and thin.”