All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (11 page)

“Do you know a few of the guys would kill to be where I am right now?” Stephano breathed in her ear, his arm tightening possessively around her waist.

“Eh?” She was so surprised she let out the inelegant sound her mother detested.
 
She and Nathan took great pleasure in saying it to each other in private, but occasionally it slipped out unconsciously.
 
“I mean, pardon?”

“None of them ever asked you on a date because they were scared you would refuse and then it would be awkward to work together afterwards.”

“I hope you guys don’t have some kind of bet going!”
 
The disquieting thought sudden reared its ugly head.

“What?”
 
Stephano sat up and stared down at her, looking so offended, she instantly regretted the words.

“Sorry!”
 
She tried to pull him down for a kiss, but he resisted, his eyes narrowed and his square jaw clenched tightly.

“Natalie, we’ve worked together for fifteen months.
 
You should know me better than that by now.”

Natalie took a deep breath and tried to contain her surprise.
 
He had been with the agency for four years, but she had started fifteen months ago.
 
Did the date she’d started have some significance for him?

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, taking his hand and kissing his palm as she lay it against the side of her face.
 
“I’ve been hurt in the past and it’s hard for me to trust easily.”

He turned his hand over and gripped hers tightly.

“I’m not going to hurt you,
cara
.”

It was a foolish promise.
 
She knew he meant ‘deliberately hurt’, but it was strangely comforting to hear him say the words.
 
There was something so dependable about him.
 
It wasn’t just his physical strength—he gave the illusion he could move a mountain if it stood in his way.

“I must go,” he said abruptly.

“Of course you must.”
 
Natalie was surprised at the bitterness in her voice.
 
It was still early enough for him to claim that he’d been to a nightclub.
 
Some of the more decadent ones didn’t end until noon.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Aren’t you going to shower first?” she taunted as he slipped his shirt on.

“I’ll grab one when I get home.”

Stephano spent more money than he cared to admit on a range of men’s toiletries that kept his skin in top condition.
 
He didn’t doubt that Natalie had a similar or even better range—she had perfectly clear skin—but it was easier to go home, have a shower and change into fresh clothing.

“Aren’t you afraid that she will smell my scent on you?”

“I’m a grown man.
 
My mother…”
 
Natalie watched Stephano’s hands still in the act of fastening his belt.
 
If that wasn’t an indication of guilt what was?
 
“Which
she
are you talking about, exactly,
cara
?

“The woman you kissed outside the office the morning after your father had taken ill.”

“Woman?”

“I only got a glance of her, but she definitely looked like feminine to me.”

“Is that why you’ve been acting the way you have since then?”

“I played second fiddle to another woman once.
 
I wasn’t ready to do that again.”

Stephano sat on the stool in front of her vanity mirror and calmly pulled on his socks and then his shoes without responding.
 
His movements as he tightened the laces of his formal shoes were precise and deliberate.

Finally he stood up and walked over to the bed.
 
He brushed the curl that had fallen over her forehead back and raised her chin until she was looking up into his eyes.
 
“Trust is everything to me,
cara
.
 
Without it we can have nothing.”

Natalie gasped as he turned and walked out of the room.

What the hell did he mean by that?

“Good morning, Natalie.” Stephano’s response to her greeting on Monday morning was frosty.

Natalie battled with her temper.
 
If she had been wrong about the other woman all he had to do was say so.
 
After all, it wasn’t as if she’d made some random accusation—she had seen him kiss the woman.

With a day full of meetings, Natalie arrived back at the office at five thirty to find it empty.
 
She could have gone home instead of coming to the office after her last meeting, but had returned in the hope of seeing Stephano and having it out with him.

Disappointed, she walked around her desk to take her computer off sleep mode and shut it down completely.
 
Stephano rarely left the office before half past six, so he must be trying to avoid her.

“I thought you would have gone straight home.” Natalie jumped as Stephano entered the room with a steaming mug of black coffee.

“I had something I wanted to complete before tomorrow,” she explained.

“Would you like a coffee?”

“Sure.”
 
She’d had a creamy mochachino from Belgique in Wanstead less than an hour ago, but the coffee seemed to be a peace offering; it would have been ill mannered of her not to accept.
 

Stephano returned with her coffee, pulled up a chair next to her desk and sat sipping his, staring at her as if he as trying to read her mind.

She took tiny, occasional sips of hers and stared back at him.
 
She was too angry at him to feel any shyness.

“Trust is everything to me,” he said quietly, breaking the palpable silence between them.

“You said that already, but what exactly do you mean by it?”

“My last girlfriend Renata is a beautiful woman who could have been a model if she was four inches taller, and yet she’s very insecure.
 
I abandoned the guys and went home to her the first three times she called me when I was out with them.
 
She begged me to come home, saying that she needed me.
 
It was exciting to get home and find her waiting for me…ready for us to—”

“Should you be telling me this?” Natalie interrupted, wanting to scratch the woman’s eyes out already.

“I’m trying to explain why I need trust in a relationship,” Stephano replied patiently.

“Okay, but can you do so without telling me how
gorgeous
your ex-girlfriend is!”

Stephano laughed at her vehemence and Natalie wanted to kick herself for coming across like a jealous shrew.

“Sorry.
 
The next time she called I refused to go home.
 
My friend Adam who works in South Africa was in London on business and several of us from university had met for drinks.
 
We don’t see him often and we had a lot to catch up on.
  
When I got home she was crying like someone had died.
 
She accused me of having an affair and nothing I said convinced her.
 
The next time I was out she turned up at the bar, pretending that she’d been in the area.
 
Then one night I went out with the guys and when Harry returned from the bathroom he told me that he saw a blonde at the bar who looked just like Renata.
 
He thought it was just a coincidence, but I knew immediately that it was her, spying on me.
 
When I got to the bar it was her wearing a wig.
 
She admitted that she had been following me for months.

“I admit I found it flattering at first.
 
A gorgeous woman…sorry…behaving as though she couldn’t get enough of me.
 
But the constant phone calls to check up on me and her neediness soon became tiring.
 
She called me sometimes ten times or more when I was on a night out with the guys.
 
I got tired of having to go outside just to hear what she was saying.
 
When I switched off the phone she was accused me of being with another woman so I couldn’t take her call.
 
We were arguing almost all the time and one day I decided that I couldn’t live like that anymore.”

“You lived together?”

“Yes,” he admitted.
 
“She was renting a studio in Shoreditch when I met her and I took over paying the bills when I moved it.
 
I thought I’d met the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
 
I was ready to settle down and have children, but we would have been very unhappy with her questioning my every move and doubting my integrity.”

“How long has it been over?”

“About seven months.”

“And you’re not seeing anyone else now?”

“No.
 
I been on a couple of casual dates, but I haven’t been in a relationship since.”

“So, who was that woman?”

“That was Eva.”
 
Stephano unlocked his iPhone and flicked through his
 
photographs until he found what he was looking for.
 
“If I dated her it would be like dating my sister.”

“She’s quite petite.” Natalie looked at the slender woman smiling back at the camera. She couldn’t be more than 5’2”, but she was beautiful with long, relaxed hair loose around her shoulders and not pulled back in a chignon as it had been the day Natalie had caught a quick glimpse of her before she’d driven away. She was petite, but had curves in the right place and especially where it mattered to Stephano—the hips.

“She’s small but deadly
 
She used to beat up anyone who messed with me!”
 
Stephano chuckled.
 
“She’s a secondary school teacher now and I’m sure her students are all terrified of her.”

Natalie wondered if Stephano was pulling her leg.
 
The smiling woman looked harmless.

“She was my best friend growing up and we’re still close today.
 
I think our parents thought that something might develop between us when we got older, but we don’t feel that way about each other.” Stephano’s voice was filled with a warmth that Natalie hoped would one day be there when he spoke about
her
.
 
“She used to beat me up and take away my sweets when we were younger.
 
Truthfully I’m still scared of her now, though she’s five feet nothing.”

Natalie smiled at the image of Stephano cowering in front of a woman over a foot shorter than he was.

“When you meet her you will see that there’s nothing there for you to be jealous about.”