On the high ceiling of the great room, a disco ball gleamed dully in the shadows. She stopped.
Black leather furniture, zebra and leopard print pillows, strobe lights and multiple bowls of overflowing cigarette butts decorated the room. In front of the enormous marble fireplace was a bearskin rug stained with red wine...at least she hoped it was wine. Empty liquor bottles littered every corner.
Wide-eyed, Scarlett turned to her husband, who was watching her with amusement. “I told you.”
“Was your tenant a playboy?” she said faintly. “From the early seventies?”
“Styles change. People don’t always change with them.” Vin’s lips quirked. “Luigi did live here a long time. He was quite the ladies’ man, for eighty-five.”
“Eighty-five! So did he move, or...?” She paused delicately.
Vin shook his head with a grin. “Decided he was finally ready to settle down. Moved to Verona and married his childhood sweetheart.”
“Wow,” Scarlett breathed. “Getting married. At eighty-five.”
“Just goes to show it’s never too late to change your life.” His sensual lips lifted to a grin. “He only moved out last week. So this place hasn’t been remodeled yet.” He tilted his head. “The suite at the hotel is still available...”
Scarlett shook her head. “No hotels. When I was young, we didn’t live in any house long enough to make memories, good or bad. Don’t worry,” she said brightly. “We’ll make this the home of our dreams!”
He snorted. “Dream—or nightmare?”
“This house has good bones,” she said with desperate hope. “Wait and see.”
Later, Scarlett looked back and thought the next two months of remodeling the Villa Orsini were some of the happiest of her life.
Their first night was admittedly a little rough. The bodyguards brought in the necessary supplies, then hastily decamped to a neighboring three-star hotel. Only the bodyguard who’d lost the coin toss was forced to remain, and he chose to sleep on a cot in the foyer rather than face the rats’ nests of bedrooms upstairs.
So it was just Vin and Scarlett and their baby sleeping in the great room, where the black leather sectional sofas were in decent repair, that first night.
She and Vin heated water themselves on the old stove for the baby’s first sponge bath. It was almost like camping. There were no servants hovering. No phones ringing incessantly. No television or computers, even. They just shared a takeaway picnic dinner on a blanket on the floor, then played an old board game that Vin found in a closet upstairs, before they both crashed on the sofa, with Nico tucked warmly into his portable baby car seat next to her.
Her husband was protective, insisting that Scarlett take the most comfortable spot on the sofa, offering to get her anything she needed at any moment. When the baby woke her up at two in the morning to nurse, Vin woke up as well and tucked a pillow under her aching arm that held the baby’s head.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“It is nothing, cara.” His eyes glowed in the darkness. “You are the hero.”
Just the two of them, she thought drowsily, regular first-time parents, a married couple in love, with each other and with their newborn baby.
The next morning, the hiring began, of designers and architects and a construction crew to start the remodel. No expense would be spared. “If you’re determined to live here,” Vin told her firmly, “we’ll get it done as soon as possible.”
As the villa was cleared out, cleaned, and slowly began to take shape, Vin suggested that they bring in permanent house staff. He wanted two full-time nannies—one for day, one for night—and a butler, housekeeper, gardeners. After their blissful night alone together, Scarlett had been crestfallen. She’d tried to convince Vin that she could take care of the villa herself. He’d laughed.
“You want to spend your every waking hour scrubbing floors? No. Leave that to others.” He kissed her. “You have a far more important job.”
“Taking care of Nico?” she guessed.
His dark eyes became tender. “Being the heart of our home.” She melted a little inside. Then his smile lifted to an ironic grin. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, married to a ruthless bastard like me.”