“How is it that a smart science teacher can’t figure out cause and effect?”
“Cause and effect?” she repeated stupidly, blinking up at him.
“No good can come of this. I will never marry again, much less love again. And you, even after what that man did, you still have stars in your eyes. I kiss you because I can’t help it.” A ragged growl punctured his words. “I kiss you because everything about you drives me crazy. All I can think of when I wake up or go to bed or when I take myself in hand is how good it would be to move inside you. How good it feels when you come alive in my arms. But all I want from a woman is one night, a short, torrid affair at best. You’re not offering that, are you?”
She shook her head automatically, and he snorted. “I didn’t think so.”
With one searing glance at her mouth, he walked away, leaving Pia quaking as if she’d been through an earthquake.
An affair with Raphael—even one night with him—letting his strong body cover hers, welcoming that hardness into her body, letting him see her at her most vulnerable… Heat flushed from every pore. Her body trembled just at the images, hungered for what she knew would be unbearable pleasure.
But it was her heart, drumming even now, that she was afraid of.
Frank had only chipped it. Raphael, given a chance, would crush it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANY DOUBTS PIA had about Raphael’s promise were proved unnecessary over the next few weeks. Any momentary, crazy belief she might have had in his matter-of-fact statement that he wanted her despite his legendary will, shredded in the freezingly polite way he treated her.
Forget kissing. He didn’t even touch her unless it was for an audience. Even then, he barely held her arm with the tips of his fingers as if she would contaminate him. Even his accusations had felt more personal than this.
The news that Raphael Mastrantino was dating Giovanni Vito’s granddaughter swept through society faster than the heat wave that had descended on Milan.
If Pia had thought she’d garnered too much attention as Gio’s American granddaughter, it was nothing compared to the glances and whispers thrown her way as the woman who’d caught Raphael’s interest. His public possessiveness had fended off any other man’s interest, exactly as she’d intended.
Giovanni, while he said he was delighted with this turn of events, was strangely toned down.
Pia, however, hadn’t foreseen how torturous their little facade would be to her. Or that the more she saw of Raphael, the more she found a man worth admiring.
He was the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect boss, although a little distant, if all the things Pia had heard at an office party were to be believed. From Gio, she knew he was the perfect godson. As one woman had explained in lurid detail at another party, unaware that Pia stood behind her, he was a perfect lover.
No, scratch that, the woman had been aware that Pia was there and had taken a petty satisfaction in making sure Pia overheard.
In front of Milan and Gio and his family, he was the attentive boyfriend or lover or whatever the hell it was that they were pretending to be. Every day, he sent her flowers or candy or some other treat. When she’d asked if he’d bought her a subscription for a gift club for the next few years, he’d snarled something in Italian.
She’d had her answer, which festered. She was nothing but a painful chore for him, an item on his damned to-do list.
Between a huge deal VA was cooking with a manufacturing company in Japan and his time with Alyssa, he was hardly available anyway. Their pretense was barely a blip in his life. Whereas for Pia, every carefully orchestrated touch was torture. Every moment she spent in his company, she was caught between wanting to run away and desperately wanting more.
As if that wasn’t enough, Raphael came to see Gio most evenings. Sometimes, it was a quick chat under Gio’s watchful eye.
Sometimes, they dined outside with the spectacular view of the setting sun drawing pink and orange mirages on the lake. If there was enough light or if Gio petulantly demanded that he hadn’t seen enough of them together that week, Pia joined them. She brought out a piece of wood and worked on it quietly while listening to Raphael relay the news and politics of Vito Automobiles.