Hidden Heart (16 page)

“
Buongiorno, cara
mia
, breakfast is served,” he said and
kissed her full on the mouth. “I ordered everything on the menu, I
didn’t know what would you like, besides it’s not morning and it’s
not noon. I guess we’ll have like the Americans say, a
brunch.”

He filled a plate with
fresh fruit, yogurt, mini croissants with ham and cheese, and a cup
with green tea.

“
How do you know about the
green tea?” Tessa asked.

He walked to the other side
of the bed, lay next to her with a cup of coffee, picked up a bite
of melon and fed it to her.

“
I spent enough time in
meetings with you to observe your habits.” He winked at her, picked
a strawberry and again fed her.

Tessa picked a slice of
apple and brought it to his lips, but when he opened his mouth to
take it, she teased him by taking it away. She teased a few times,
giggling next to him.

“
You’re looking for
trouble,
amore
,
aren’t you?” He removed her plate and straddled her. “Didn’t your
mama teach you not to play with food?” He held her wrists above her
head with one palm while the other tickled her.

She laughed and shook her
head, then kicked to escape his grip.

“
Please, please, please,
stop, I’ll be good,” she pleaded laughing hard.

He finally let her
go.

“
So… I need to go to my
room and start packing,” she said later while Alessandro held her
and toyed with her hair.

“
Already?”

“
Yeah, my plane leaves at
five this afternoon.”

“
Why didn’t you plan to
stay longer?”

“
Well, I knew Isabella and
Antonio would leave for their honeymoon, Carlo is busy with his
family and… and I just didn’t want to be here by myself.” She
brushed a hand over his chest. “When are you leaving?”

“
I leave tomorrow morning,
but I first go to Berlin.”

Berlin meant the
headquarters of the German Company she worked for. The same company
that wanted her investigated for fraud. Her stomach
quivered.

“
Business trip?” she tried
to sound matter of fact.

“
Si
, I’ll meet with your CEO.”

She managed a weak “Oh” and
stopped caressing his chest. Her body tensed
involuntarily.

“
Karl has been my friend
for a long time. We met during our first year at the Sorbonne where
we played tennis on the school’s team. When his company needed the
cash flow for the land you helped purchased, he called me and I
made arrangements with the bank I work for to loan him the money.
It’s not the first business we’ve worked together.”

She weighed his words.
“When did you know it was me the person accused of
fraud?”

He continued to hold her
and play with her hair. “I got a folder with a lot of information,
but didn’t read it until the night I arrived in Bucharest. The name
didn’t register immediately with me. I spent the night reading,
fell asleep and then unexpectedly, while I was sleeping, a light
came on and I got up and read again the name. I had hoped it was
you, did some research online but there are lots of Cosmas in
Romania and three Anastassia Cosma. I came upon a few articles
about a Tessa Cosma, all written in Romanian, so impossible for me
to read. I met several times with Victor outside the office, until
we came up with a strategy on how to start the investigation and
what to do with you. My doubts went away when I saw you in Victor’s
office.”

Tessa got up and reached
for her clothes. She remembered very well that day, the day her
decline started.

“
Why did you act like you
didn’t know me?” She bit her lip; again, the curiosity got the best
of her.

“
I didn’t know exactly what
your relationship with Victor was, didn’t know if he suspected you
or believed in you. I figured it was better to act as if I didn’t
know you and try to help you somehow rather than make our
acquaintance public. Plus, I was still mad at you.”

“
Mad at me? What
for?”

“
Well, we shared that
beautiful night and I thought we could work something out, you
know, like a long distance relationship. You left me like an idiot
with no number, nothing…I thought it meant something to you like it
did for me.”

Alessandro came behind her
and zipped her dress up. Then grabbed her shoulders and turned her
to face him. His eyes gleamed like morning’s dew and his smile made
her heart melt. Again.

“
Alessandro...I had to
leave the next morning. I didn’t think you wanted more than to get
me in your bed.”

“
Why did you think
that?”

Tessa walked away; she
found one of her shoes, and then bent behind the sofa to look after
the other shoe. She didn’t find it there, then moved around the
bed.

“
Well, you know, you hit on
me, kissed me in the yard, you made it clear that’s what you
wanted; sex.”

“
Well
, if you would’ve stuck around long enough to know better, you
would’ve found out that I was interested in more than that. A long
distance relationship is hard work, but I am absolutely convinced
we would’ve made it happen.”

She thought for a few
seconds, and then said, “I guess you are right.”

He came closer and hugged
her. “Of course I am right. We’ve wasted so much time when we
could’ve been together…I could get used to this…”

The sound of his phone
broke the moment. He picked up the phone and spoke for several
minutes.

When he finished, Tessa
said, “So…I am ready…” She wanted so badly to ask when she’d see
him again, but she didn’t want to sound too desperate. She didn’t
want him to think she needed him, wanted him. Better to play it
safe than serve her heart on a silver platter.

He walked her to the door,
opened it, and then slammed it closed before Tessa could leave. He
put a fist to his lips, closed his eyes, then opened them and
looked sideways at her.

“
I hate to let you go…
Would you mind if I asked you to stay one more night with
me?”

Chapter 8

Candles
, check.

Red wine,
check.

Linen napkins,
check.

Oven turned off,
check
.

Tessa assessed her kitchen
one final time before heading for the shower. She cooked lasagna
for the first time in her life and she hoped Alessandro would like
it. His plane should’ve landed twenty minutes ago and with a little
luck he’d be at her apartment in half an hour. Enough time for her
to get ready.

They’d been inseparable
since their get together at Isabella’s wedding a week ago. He
either spent the night at her place or she at his. She had never
felt so content, so at ease with anyone else. Alessandro had
bewitched her and all of her fear, uncertainty, struggles, and
complications seemed to disappear.

At work things moved
slowly; she continued working on closing the deal with R.O.C.A. The
price per square meter that she negotiated was unheard of in the
Romanian market and her prestige skyrocketed.

Victor finally returned to
work. He refused to force her to take a leave of absence again. The
investigation didn’t seem to move any further and he seriously
considered just closing it all together. Just because someone wrote
a letter didn’t necessarily mean Tessa took any money. After all,
she’d made enough enemies in the market to have multiple
competitors wanting her out. They had figured there was a
discrepancy because of the exchange currency from U.S. dollars
transferred into the company’s account to Romanian lei for the
farmers.

But Tessa didn’t stop. She
made her own attempt at finding the truth. She convinced two
farmers to meet with her and although in the beginning they refused
to talk, she found out that the notary had been a very influential
and dreaded person in their community. The city of Otopeni had
several corrupt politicians that seemed to operate hand in hand
with the notary; for that reason, the community had been deprived
of several opportunities to develop and improve their schools,
infrastructure, or even hospitals because the funds had been
deviated from their legal course.

Since she’d severed her
relationship with Daniel, she could no longer count on his support
and confronting the notary without serious evidence was
pointless.

She ran out of time with
each day that went by and she needed to decide what to do with the
baby. Part of her wanted to keep it, part of her didn’t. She saw
how happy Carlo and his wife were with their twins. How natural
Alessandro was with children. She saw the joy on Elena’s face when
Victor announced her pregnancy. She tried to talk with Alessandro
about this subject, but she backed off for fear he might not want
her anymore knowing she carried someone else’s baby. The fear of
losing him outweighed her need to tell the truth. She knew it was
wrong, she knew it could cost her everything; yet she couldn’t
bring herself to discuss it with him.

Today was different. Today
she’d tell him. Today she’d gather all her courage to sit him down
and tell him everything. And if he chose to leave her, well at
least their relationship hadn’t been that long and her heart
broken—yet. Yes, she did want him to stay, and yes she did like
him—a lot, yes she felt a strong connection with him, but would all
of these be enough for the relationship to rise above such
difficult situation? After all, someone else’s baby was a lot to
ask of a person to accept.

“
I’m coming, I’m coming,”
Tessa said, hurrying to open the door.

Alessandro leaned against
the doorframe, a big bouquet of roses in one hand and an equally
big smile on his face.

He kissed her, hungrily, a
ravenous kiss that took her breath away. He lifted her off her feet
and twirled her in the air. He then entered the house and kicked
the door close with his foot. When he put her down, he smiled and
hugged her again.

“
I missed you…”

“
I missed you, too. Thanks
for the flowers, they are beautiful,” Tessa said. She stood on her
toes and kissed him back.

“
Something smells delicious
in here.” They walked together to the kitchen.

Tessa was proud of her
dinner preparations; candles flickered their tiny lights, a bottle
of Lambrusco, his favorite red wine, on the table. He looked
through the oven’s glass door, then turned his face to Tessa and
swallowed hard.

“
You cooked lasagna?
For
me
?”

“
Yes, I did. I almost tried
to make ice cream, but decided at the last moment it’s safer to
just buy it before I ruin it. Come, have a seat, I’m
starving.”

She felt like a high school
student presenting her first project in front of her classmates.
She moved around the kitchen fast in an effort to hide her
nervousness.

Alessandro stopped her. He
faced her, played with her tousled hair, and brushed a finger on
her lips.

“
Grazie, cara
mia
. No need to be nervous, I am sure it is
delicious.” He turned her palms upward and kissed the inside of
each one of them, his eyes never wavering from hers.

He pulled her chair away
from the table, helped her sit, then took over serving the food. He
sat across from her, poured wine and handed her a glass. She barely
wet her lips with it, and put it down, then took a bite of the
lasagna.

“
Mmm, this is so tasty,” he
said between bites.

He took a few more bites,
then pressed the napkin against his mouth, took a sip of wine and
smacked his lips. “I have a surprise for you.”

He leaned forward and
curled a finger at her trying to get her to move even closer. He
pulled an envelope out of his pocket.

Her fork stopped mid way to
her mouth. She swallowed once, twice, then managed to say, “Me too,
but you go first.”

Tessa leaned forward and
felt her skin tingling with anticipation. She raised an eyebrow and
took the envelope. She stared at its content, then looked up at
him; a slow smile widened on her face as surprise sunk
in.

“
Oh my God, a trip to
Greece? Tomorrow? What about work? What about packing?”

Alessandro continued
eating, a witty smile on his face. “I figured Monday is a holiday
and the return flight is Tuesday morning; you could go straight
from the airport and miss just a few hours. Greece is an absolutely
magnificent country and its beaches are world renowned for their
breathtaking location. You’ll like it,” he said and winked at
her.

When he finished his
dinner, he stood, took his plate to the sink, but stopped behind
her chair. Pushing her hair sideways, he whispered in her ear, “I
can hardly wait to spend three full days just with you and have
your undivided attention…” he sealed his words with a hot,
lingering kiss on her neck.

Tessa closed her eyes, her
heart raced, a wave of heat spreading through her body. Why did he
have such an effect on her?