A Family Affair: The Secret (20 page)

“You might be right, Sal. We could be in for one heck of a show.” Pop’s next words were filled with a burst of humor. “And maybe a wedding and a baby.”

***

Angie’s brushstrokes matched the rhythm of her humming as she painted the “A” in Sal’s. She’d gotten to the Towne Hall two hours before she expected Sasha because she hadn’t been able to sleep. A smile slipped across her face, the memory of
why
sleep escaped her making her tingle. Roman. He’d invaded her brain, stolen her heart, her senses, claimed her body and soul. She couldn’t form a solid thought without his voice penetrating it, swirling through her, promising everything. These past four nights had been magical, better than a dream, as they explored each other’s bodies, filled the need inside that had lain empty and wanting for too many years: the loneliness, the sadness, the desire to belong, to be understood and accepted. To be loved. But it was more than that. They talked, they laughed. They shared. Did it matter that she hadn’t told him about the ex-fiancé who left her three days before the wedding? Or that she had no idea why he’d divorced his first wife? It would come, all of it, as time passed and they grew closer. Maybe one day she’d even tell him about the entertainment magazines she obsessed over, especially the ones with his pictures inside. But not now, not yet.

“Excuse me, Angie?”

Angie looked up from the lattice she’d been painting and spotted Charlotte Simmons standing a few feet away, looking as delicate and beautiful as an orchid in her pink sundress, blond hair swept from her face in a chignon, pearl earrings on her ears. This was Roman’s ex-girlfriend, the one who broke his heart when she dumped him. “I’m Angie,” she said, setting the paintbrush on a piece of cardboard. “How can I help you?”

The woman offered a faint smile as if it were almost too much energy to give a full-blown one. “I’ve come about Roman. We have a history together, one you couldn’t possibly understand.” Her voice shifted, the smile grew. “We shared a lot of firsts; we planned to share a life together.” A sigh escaped her full lips. “He was such a dreamer…”

Was she for real? Did she think she could waltz in here and reclaim her stake on Roman as if she had a right? “I think you forgot about your husband and children,” Angie said, hands on hips, gaze narrowed on the delicate flower. “And the fact that you dumped Roman when he needed you most.”

“I had my reasons and Roman knows that.” Pause, a sniff. “And my issues with my husband are
my
issues.”

“And your children? What about them?”

“I love my children.” The woman raised a brow. “Do you have children?” When Angie shook her head, the smile Charlotte offered splintered into a flat line. “Exactly. You have no idea what that means, just like you have no idea what Roman needs. But I do.” Her voice dipped, turned possessive. “I can give him
everything
he needs. Oh, yes, I know how to keep him happy.”

“Sex isn’t everything.” Damn, this woman and her superior attitude.

“That’s what I was about to say to you.” Her words stretched between them, wrapped around Angie’s neck, pulled tight. “Roman’s a virile man and you are so obviously panting after him, why wouldn’t he take what you offered?”

“Get out.”

Charlotte Simmons batted her lashes, those blue eyes glittering. “Roman Ventori’s mine. Now, always, forever. Don’t forget that.” Then she turned and was gone.

There were so many levels of wrong with what had just happened that Angie couldn’t see through the mess to the solution. Did the woman not care about her husband? Was she so desperate to have Roman that she’d create a bigger scandal than the one fourteen years ago? Why such a profession of love now when she’d dumped him before?

And how the hell did she know about Angie and Roman? That last was a silly question because the second they stepped into Lina’s Café hand in hand, the rumors spread like paint saturating a paper towel. And when he cupped her chin and kissed her, long and slow, outside of Barbara’s Boutique and Bakery, well, quite a few people saw that, too. Of course, once the suspicions rose, she guessed someone went looking for Roman’s car outside the Heart Sent at night and if it were there past 1:00 a.m. or later, that was a sleepover, even if he technically left before Mimi’s 5:30 a.m. wakeup. For the first time in a very long time, Angie smiled, laughed, joked—she was happy. Very happy. And it was all because of Roman Ventori.

But the visit from his old girlfriend and her bizarre comments made Angie uncomfortable and threatened her newfound happiness. She was going to get to the bottom of Charlotte Simmons’s behavior and, if necessary, she’d expose her. Angie did not expect Natalie Servetti to be the one who could actually help her find answers. When Natalie, carrying two coffees and a designer bag full of pastries from Barbara’s Boutique and Bakery, sashayed into the Towne Hall an hour after Roman’s ex left, how could Angie say no? So the woman was sex in stilettos? At least she brought coffee and pastries, and that was a lot more than Roman’s old girlfriend brought.

“I’m here to help.” When Angie frowned, Natalie shrugged and said, “That bitch. She came after you with her sweet ‘Roman Ventori’s mine and nobody else’s,’ didn’t she?” When Angie nodded, Natalie said, “Figures. You know she accused me of having an affair with her husband? I see that look on your face. You’ve heard all about me, right?” Again, another nod, followed by, “If I do the deed, I admit the deed.” She paused, her voice dipped, “Most of the time. I had a bad run that I don’t like to think about. I’m reformed now; I don’t do that stuff anymore.” Her voice shifted, turned whisper-soft. “Or if I do, it’s only with my man.” She smiled, slid Angie a look. “You know what I mean, don’t you? You’d do anything for your man, right? And we all know Roman Ventori is your man.”

They all knew?
Who was
they
and how did
they
know? “Uh…”

“Oh, come on. It’s so obvious. Roman’s been singing and that man never got past mouthing the words in high school choir class.” She laughed, her eyes bright. “He is so in love, it’s ridiculous.”

Natalie’s words sucked the air from the room, made Angie gasp for breath. In love? With her? She opened her mouth, tried to suck in air. “Roman isn’t…”

“Yes, he is, whether he’s said the words or not. It’s so obvious.” She handed Angie a coffee, opened her bag, and pulled out two cream puffs. “These are stuffed with custard. Yum and yum. Here, take a bite.” Natalie bit into the cream puff, made a sound that was almost sexual, and sighed. “So good,” she said around a mouthful of cream puff.

Natalie’s comments had pretty much stolen Angie’s appetite, but she didn’t want to disappoint the woman, so she bit into the cream puff. Once she did, she understood Natalie’s enthusiasm for the sweet. “These are delicious.”

“Told you. I think you and Roman should buy a box, take them to bed…feed each other…naked…” She laughed. “Just kidding.” The laughter died and she turned serious. “Roman Ventori deserves to be happy and I’m going to see that nothing gets in his way, like Charlotte Simmons. Did you hear someone’s sending lace panties to men and saying they’re from me?”

Angie nodded, fought the blush creeping up her neck. “I did. Sorry to hear that.”

“I guess I deserve it for the sins of my past, but I’m not sending the panties or the notes that go with them. Now a fifteen-year-old boy received them and the police brought me in for questioning, something about contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I can’t have certain people finding out about this.” Her voice cracked when she went on. “I mean, I’m just getting myself straight and I can’t have this coming back on me.” Her blue eyes grew bright. “I’m innocent. Honest.”

She’d heard of the destruction Natalie Servetti had caused to other people’s lives: cruel, selfish, painful. Maybe she shouldn’t believe her, but the sorrow in the woman’s words and the near-tragic expression on her face made Angie believe she was telling the truth. “So what are you going to do?”

“Find out the truth. And if Charlotte’s husband is really having an affair, I’ll uncover that, too.”

“But how?”

“I know a few people.” A slow blush crept from her neck to her cheeks, telling Angie that Natalie probably knew them a little too well. “A detective, a cop, and a private investigator. They’ll help me. I’m going to find out what’s really happening here and maybe I’ll even get Paula Morrisen to talk.”

“You really think you can?”

“Of course I can.” Her smile lit up the room. “I’m Natalie Servetti.”

“I’m turning over my kitchen to you, young man, but only because I like seeing you smile.” Mimi Pendergrass winked at Roman, leaned close, and whispered up at him, “And be quieter when you leave. Didn’t anybody ever teach you how to tiptoe out of the house?”

Roman tried to ignore the heat creeping up his neck, but he didn’t exactly like the idea of a senior citizen knowing where he slept. Still, the choices were this place or driving out of town to share a room because his parents’ house was out of the question. Sal would probably walk in and plop on the edge of the bed, looking for a conversation, and Lorraine was no fool, but she didn’t want him “carrying on” under her nose. Plus, Angie would never agree to that. She’d had enough of an issue with Mimi and Sasha knowing he was sharing her bed even if he did creep out before dawn.

“Why are you sneaking out two minutes before I get out of bed? Can you tell me that?” Her blue eyes sparkled with interest and a hint of humor. “If you two think you’re fooling anybody but each other, you can think again. The whole dang town knows what’s going on.”

“Figured.” He cleared his throat, settled his gaze on the crock pot taking up a huge chunk of kitchen counter. What was Mimi cooking today?

“Barbecue,” she said. “If you happen to be wondering what’s in there.”

He met her gaze, worked up a smile. “It’s not my idea to leave.”

“Ah. I see.” A knowing smile slipped over her face. “Did you tell her you’d rather stay?”

Damn, was it getting hot in here? Sure felt like it, unless it was Mimi’s subtle inquiries that were cooking him. He wasn’t used to answering such personal questions, hadn’t done it since he was eighteen. But from that first night when his father caught him sneaking in the door, there’d been subtle and not-so-subtle inquiries
and
suggestions. Angie would not be happy if she knew she was the center of so much speculation. Roman shifted from one foot to the other and said, “She knows.”

Another smile and then, “I do like that girl. She’s got a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to use it.”

Mimi was right on that one. “I appreciate you letting me use your kitchen.” He paused, added, “And the extra room.”

She flashed him a look that signaled you-are-not-getting-out-of-this-one and said, “Oh, you mean the honeymoon suite? Sure thing. Who knows, maybe one day you and Angie will use it for its intended purpose.” Pause, a raised brow, and then the zinger, “A honeymoon suite.”

Mimi’s comments hunkered in Roman’s subconscious as he fixed shrimp scampi for Angie, shared a bottle of wine and a shower with her, and even when they made love. Twice. Mimi hadn’t raised her voice but the meaning had been ear-shatteringly loud.
Marry Angie Sorrento
. Maybe not tomorrow, but don’t let this one get away. Could a person know if someone was the right one after such a short time? Who could say? All he knew was that he wanted to be with Angie, no matter the hour or the circumstance, and when she was gone, she was in his thoughts, always crouching around the perimeter, trying to find a way in. When she was in a room, he wanted to touch her, and he wanted
her
to touch him. Just looking at her sucked the breath from him.

If that was a precursor to marriage, then he was on his way, and that scared him. Did he love her? Hell, what was love anyway? He’d
loved
Charlotte when he didn’t understand the meaning or the commitment of the word. He’d
loved
Jess when he believed love had more to do with “getting along” and “sexual attraction” than respect, friendship, and compromise. And what about Angie? How did she feel about him? The woman burst with fire and passion when they were together, in bed and out, but what did that mean to her? Was she interested in long term or just “for now”? He had no idea, but tonight, as he lay in the honeymoon bed naked and satisfied, waiting for Angie to bring milk and chocolate chip cookies from Mimi’s kitchen, he realized he wanted to know.
No, he needed to know
, not a full-blown pledge of now and forever, but a “we’re heading in that direction” would be good.

After, he would curse his need for organization as the thing that destroyed his relationship with Angie Sorrento. Or maybe he’d think of it as the trait that exposed her seconds before he confessed his feelings. What a disaster that would have been because the chance encounter between them hadn’t been chance at all but a carefully orchestrated meeting from a master manipulator.

Roman’s impatience grew as he waited for Angie’s return. Was she packing up the whole kitchen? He wanted her back in bed, naked and touching, skin to skin, and he could go for a few of Mimi’s chocolate chip cookies, too. He slid out of bed, intent on helping her speed up the cookies and milk gathering, but he couldn’t find his jeans. Roman squinted, spotted them on the floor, and as he bent to pick them up, he kicked his shoe under the bed. It was the damn shoe that did him in. He knelt on the hardwood floor, lifted the bed skirt, and spotted the stack of magazines. Roman had kept one or two “skin” magazines hidden under his mattress back in the day, but Angie? He eased them from their hiding place and grew curious when he saw they were
Chicago Nightlife Magazines
. Several had been flagged with sticky notes, and he flipped the first one to the marked page…and wished they
were
“skin” magazines.

He stared back at himself and the asterisk next to the picture with the word
Gorgeous
scrawled in what he assumed was Angie’s handwriting. She underlined words in the caption like
eligible
and
wealthy
. Roman tossed it aside, scanned the next magazine. This one showed him in a tux, holding a glass of bourbon and a caption that read
Roman Ventori is available again
. He remembered that event, hadn’t wanted to attend, but his business partner insisted, said it was good PR and showed he’d moved past the divorce. Who moves past a divorce three weeks after it’s final unless it’s been dragging on for years? But Adam hadn’t understood; how could he when the man kept shoes longer than relationships? Why had Angie marked comments in the margins like
gorgeous
and
eligible
and
rich
unless she’d been after him?

Had she come to Magdalena with the sole purpose of hooking up with him? For what? His money? His name? Had she not cared about
him
at all? His gut threatened to heave the shrimp scampi and wine they’d had for dinner, but he fought it back. How much did a dollhouse designer make anyway? When she’d thrown Rourke Flannigan’s name out as the husband of her friend, maybe she’d been playing Roman, maybe she didn’t know Flannigan at all. Roman sat on the floor, naked, thumbing through the magazines, reliving the media’s obsession with men like him. He’d finally learned to ignore them, but what he couldn’t ignore were Angie’s side comments; those burned themselves into his brain, gouged his heart, tore the feelings he had for her from his soul.

“Roman? What are you doing on the…”

Angie’s gasp told him she knew exactly what he was doing. He stared at her, held up a magazine, said, “Were you stalking me?”

She shook her head, the wild hair he loved swinging about her shoulders. “No, of course not.”

He tossed the magazines at her feet. “These magazines and the comments in them say otherwise.”

Angie set the tray with cookies and milk on the bed, made her way to him, knelt. “I promise you, it was all just a ridiculous attempt to make myself feel okay about being alone by finding public figures who’d suffered misfortune in love.”

He stared at her. “That’s sick.” Pause. “And probably not true.”

“It
is
true.” She touched his arm, but he shrugged it away. “Roman, please. Listen to me. I’ve been obsessed with entertainment magazines for years. At first, because I loved reading about rich and famous people and fantasizing what their life might be like. It was fun and innocent, but later, I read them because it was so much easier than risking my own heartache, and I realized most of them were worse off than I was.”

None of this made any sense, unless it was all a lie. He’d known his share of conniving women, but who would have thought the one who seemed so real, so unlike anyone he’d ever known, would be the biggest liar of all? “I don’t believe you. It doesn’t make any sense.”

She looked away. “It would if your fiancé left you three days before your wedding.”

“Fiancé?
Fiancé?
”

She nodded, slid her gaze to settle on his chin. Apparently this kind of truth could not be met eye to eye. “I had one of those. He dumped me.” The gaze shifted to his neck. “I stopped believing in love and happily-ever-afters and insulated myself from the pitiful looks and well-intended comments that made me feel worse than a loser.”

She shrugged and the half-buttoned shirt she wore—
his shirt
—slipped off her shoulder. She adjusted it, lifted her chin, and met his gaze. Finally. Roman did not want to see the hurt in those dark eyes, or the misery and regret. She could have told him about the magazines and the fiancé at any point over these last several days, but she hadn’t. No, damn it, she hadn’t said one word. Instead, she’d acted like she cared about him, really cared, but it had probably all been a damn setup and he was the one who’d gotten snagged. He glanced at the open magazines, his stomach lurching again. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me? Another fiancé? Maybe you’re from Chicago and followed me here?”
What was the truth?
Did she even know or was it all one string of lies, woven together with such speed and precision, fact and fiction meshed, making it near impossible to differentiate?

The woman he could have loved pinched her lips, forced out words that meant nothing to him. Not anymore. “I’m sorry, Roman. Please, I should have told you, but I didn’t know how. It’s not in my nature to share my feelings, especially with a man.”

He blew out a disgusted sigh, narrowed his eyes on her. “Yeah, because we’re all such beasts.” Where the hell was his underwear? He spotted his boxers by her left foot, leaned forward and snatched them.

“Can we talk?”

He yanked them on, stepped into his jeans, fastened his belt. “Talk? What’s left to say?” His chest ached right now as if a truck had flattened it. The pain was worse than the day Jess announced the marriage was over. He’d seen that one coming, had been replacing the bandaid to keep the relationship from hemorrhaging for a long time. That wasn’t a shock or grief-worthy. It was time and when it happened, it brought with it a whole new meaning to relief. But this? To have a woman look in his eyes and flat out not tell him her backstory and her sick obsession with entertainment magazines, ones with him in it?
That
was a huge betrayal, one that spun him around so fast he didn’t know which direction he’d come from or where he was heading. And that spelled disaster.

“We should talk through this, try to figure it out.” She inched toward him, worked her bottom lip with her teeth, an action that had made him hard a few hours ago but now left him empty, feeling nothing.

“Sorry, the time to talk was when I didn’t already know.” He held out a hand. “I need my shirt.”

She backed up, pulled the shirt tighter. “Roman, I’m sorry. Please don’t go.” Her dark eyes grew bright, too bright. “Please.”

“You can keep the shirt.” He grabbed his shoes and said, “Good-bye, Angie. Good luck with your make-believe life and your make-believe relationships. I hope they make you happy.”

***

Word of Roman Ventori and Angie Sorrento’s tragic breakup swirled through town like the flu that had sent half the residents to bed four years ago.

What happened?

They were perfect together. Perfect.

She must be heartbroken.

How could he do this to that sweet girl?

She’ll never recover.

I thought Sal would get his grandchild.

I thought Roman would get his wife.

Dang that boy, why couldn’t he settle down?

I heard Natalie Servetti was snooping around.

No, not that woman. How could he choose her over Angie?

Poor, poor girl.

The speculation continued but most didn’t dare ask Roman what he’d done for fear the man would blast them clear across town. Word had it he was in a foul mood, given to clipped sentences and keeping to himself. Not a good sign. And poor Angie Sorrento had glued herself to Sasha Rishkov’s side and let the woman become her spokeswoman.
Angie isn’t feeling well. She’s not available. Please respect her privacy
. Sasha didn’t fool anyone with her Mama Bear protection; they all knew Angie was heartbroken, and it didn’t take a spokesperson to tell them.

There were a few residents, however, who weren’t interested in the short version or the Sasha Rishkov revised story of what had happened. There weren’t many, but they were the brave ones who’d seen enough heartache in their day to know what it looked like. The Ventoris had believed their son finally found a girl to make him happy. He would start a family and find the peace he’d been searching for most of his life. Whether he settled in Chicago or Magdalena, it didn’t matter as long as he’d found his slice of heaven. Now it was gone, without an explanation. That was hard to suffer through. The town had bets on how long it would take Pop Benito to get involved because the man was not the type to watch the show without an objection and a demand to know more. He’d make his move, and then they’d all find out what had happened to tear this perfect couple apart.