The Moretti Seduction (10 page)

The men left the table to have a cigar in the lower part of the garden. Nathalie felt a moment’s panic when she realized she was going to be alone with two women she had nothing in common with—Antonio’s mother and his sister-in-law.

“I’m so glad you could join us tonight for dinner. The boys are so excited about their new car, and working with your family to get the Vallerio name is so important to them,” Philomena said.

Antonio’s mom was short, curvy and still had ebony-colored hair. She had held her own during dinner, but it had been obvious to Nathalie that she doted on the men in her life, and hearing her call Antonio and his brothers “the boys” was something that made her smile.

“Thank you for inviting me. I’m glad to see my grandfather’s name being used in conjunction with a car again.”

“Marco said your grandfather was pure magic when it came to open-wheel racing,” Virginia said. She was a lively woman who had an aura of earthiness about her. She held her son cradled in her arms and often bent down to brush a kiss on Enzo’s forehead.

Nathalie sadly had never seen her grandfather drive. She was more acquainted with the man he’d been after Lorenzo Moretti had married and divorced his sister. The man who had retreated into his workroom and focused more on what was happening under the hood. “I never got to see him drive until today.”

Dom had put together a documentary that they were going to run in their suite at the F1 races for the rest of the year. The film showed Lorenzo and Pierre-Henri in their glory days. To be honest, the film had done a lot to make her look at all the Morettis in a different way. They had honored her grandfather in a way she hadn’t believed they would.

She hoped even her father realized that. If he didn’t, she was now determined to convince him.

Philomena’s question intruded on her thoughts.

“How long will you and Marco stay in Milan?” she asked Virginia.

“Just another night. Then we are off to Barcelona for the Catalunya Grand Prix. Actually, I’m not sure if Marco mentioned this to you but we were hoping you’d babysit little Enzo here. It’s our anniversary of sorts,” Virginia said.

“We’d love to. You know I had a nursery prepared here as soon as we had the news of your pregnancy.”

“Thank you,” Virginia said.

“I’ve always wanted grandchildren, but I feared my boys were never going to settle down.”

Nathalie understood why. “Moretti Motors is as important to them as family.”

Virginia nodded. “I think sometimes that to them it
is
family and not a business at all. And of course the curse my grandmother had placed on the Morettis hung over the boys’ heads.”

Not a superstitious person herself, Nathalie found it hard to believe that so many of these people were. Virginia hardly seemed like a witch, but she’d told the story at dinner of how she’d used her limited knowledge of the old Strega ways to break the curse on Marco.

The curse that Cassia had placed on Lorenzo and every generation that followed.

Nathalie thought that Antonio and Dominic might believe they were still cursed. That by not finding love they hadn’t found a way out of the blight that Cassia Festa had put on them. She couldn’t help but sympathize with the close-knit Morettis.

“How often do you all get together?” she asked.

“Not often enough. Marco and Virginia travel most of the year for the Grand Prix. Antonio is here in Milan, but he is always busy, and Dominic goes between the offices here and the Grand Prix races.”

“Do you attend the races?” Nathalie asked Philomena as they sipped coffee. Night had fallen and the sweet smell of flowers filled the air.

“Mostly the ones in Europe and always the first and last race of the season.”

“You should come to the race in Barcelona next week,” Virginia urged Nathalie. “There is so much excitement and energy at the races.”

Nathalie doubted she would. Her father would have a fit if she attended a Grand Prix race before they had a deal with Moretti that satisfied him. “Thank you for the invitation. Is it always exciting to watch or are you ever afraid?”

Philomena blessed herself and uttered a small prayer under her breath. “I am afraid every time Marco gets in the race car. One of the Team Moretti drivers almost died last year.”

Nathalie reached over and put her hand on Philomena’s. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“You didn’t,” Virginia said. “But it is a scary profession and even though I know that Marco is a very skilled driver I am reminded most weeks that this is a very dangerous profession.”

Nathalie could see that. She was worried about falling in love with the son of her family’s sworn enemy, but Virginia had to worry about the man she loved possibly dying. It put a lot of things in perspective for her.

She realized that she didn’t want Antonio to be in danger. Then it hit her sitting her in this garden with his mother and his sister-in-law that she was in love with Antonio.

And once that realization opened her eyes, everything else fell into place. She hadn’t returned to Milan to broker a deal. She’d returned to Milan to be with Antonio. In Paris it was easy to ignore the truth and to pretend that she didn’t love Antonio, but tonight under the Milan moon there were no denials. Only the truth. And she was still dealing with that truth twenty minutes later when Antonio returned.

He looked at her and she could do nothing but smile at him. The man she loved.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“And I think I see what you meant about your parents’ love. Your father is positively smitten with your mother.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Funny to think that a curse would have given him that much love in his life.”

Antonio turned to her when he stopped for a traffic light. “I don’t think he’s cursed at all.”

“Do you think the men in your family are? When we talked earlier I couldn’t tell if you really believed you were doomed.”

“Doomed to spend my life alone?” he asked. “Maybe I did. I guess that when you grow up with that kind of love in your home and then you visit with friends, you start to see that not everyone has that kind of love.”

He didn’t elaborate and she wanted to ask if he had wanted to find what his parents had. She knew that she and Antonio couldn’t have that. She was never going to be like his mother and stay home and give up her own ambition.

She shook her head. Realizing she loved Antonio was one thing. Thinking about marriage was another. Had she lost it? Too much needed to be resolved between them businesswise before they could ever consider anything permanent. “What is it about your parents’ love for each other that you really envy…I mean want?”

“I’ve never really thought about it,” he said. He pulled into the parking area of her hotel, where the valet took the car.

She looked at him and asked, “Would you like to come up?”

“I was hoping you’d ask me. I’ve missed holding you.”

That little confession eased the worries she had felt since she’d first realized that she loved him.

“Me too.”

They walked next to each other through the lobby. In the lobby bar Antonio saw a few associates who waved him over, but he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk business tonight.”

“Is this going to be awkward tomorrow?” she asked when they entered the elevator alone. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been seen together.”

“I think my family knows how I feel about you. I didn’t just invite you to dinner tonight as a representative of Vallerio Incorporated.”

Or had he? He was a brilliant strategist and he had to know that seeing his family would make it harder for her to stand firm on what her board of directors wanted.

He had made the Morettis human to her. He had shown her the people behind the car company and that was softening her attitude toward them.

“It was nice to meet your family, but I have to wonder if you didn’t plan it that way…use it as a way to soften me up,” she said once they were in her suite.

“Why would I do that?” he asked. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it over the back of the love seat.

“All’s fair in love and in war,” she said, crossing to the wet bar and taking out a bottle of mineral water. “Would you like something to drink?”

“I’ll have a beer,” he said.

She handed him a bottle, and he took her hand in his.

“Listen, Nathalie, I stopped trying to find an advantage to use to get you to give in a long time ago.”

“Did you really?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to surrender to me. I want to find a solution that will make us both happy.”

“If I said that Moretti Motors should go ahead with their alternate plans you’d be fine with that?”

He took a swallow of his beer and then looked her straight in the eye. “No, I wouldn’t. I think you know that. What would make me happy is coming to an arrangement that both of our boards will find pleasing.”

She stepped back from him and walked to the window of her suite. “I’m…I’m confused, Antonio. For the first time in my life I can’t just focus on work.”

“Why is that?” he asked.

“You made me invest more of myself in this negotiation than I wanted to.”

“I made you?”

She shook her head. “Not like you forced me into it…I guess I don’t really mean that. I meant that I am different this time because of how I feel about you.”

He put his beer on the coffee table and walked across the small room to her. He stopped when only an inch of space separated them.

He took her water from her hand and put it on the bar. “How do you feel about me,
cara mia?
”

“I…”
I love you,
she thought. But she couldn’t say the words out loud. Though he’d claimed to have softened his stance on the negotiations, she couldn’t hand him the powerful weapon of her love to use against her.

She shook her head. “I care about you, Antonio.”

He drew her into his arms. He hugged her close to his chest and whispered soft words against her temple. She felt safer in her love with his arms around her.

Antonio claimed Nathalie’s lips with his and didn’t let her go until they’d reached the bed. He’d had enough talking. He was never going to be able to say the right thing to her. The thing that would make her forget that he was a Moretti and she was a Vallerio. That was always going to be between them.

Earlier tonight Dom had been very blunt that he wanted the Vallerio deal closed. He wanted Antonio to pull out all the stops. Antonio couldn’t tell his brother that he wouldn’t do it. That he was falling for the tall French redhead who was just as strong as he was in the boardroom and in the bedroom.

But now he was in control. And it was important to him that he make her understand this as well.

In three strides he was to the bed. He set Nathalie on her feet and peeled back the covers of the bed. He toed off his loafers and reached down to remove his socks. She still had her shoes on. He bent down and lifted her foot, carefully removing one high heel and then the other.

He stood back up. She looked exquisite in her sapphire wrap dress, like a male fantasy come to life. The neckline plunged deep between her breasts, revealing the creamy white tops of each one, while the hemline ended high on her thigh.

The only light in the room spilled from the city lights outside the window. Darkness enveloped them in a cocoon, as if no one else existed but the two of them. Antonio intended to make the most of their privacy.

He lowered his head and with his tongue, traced the edge where fabric met skin. She smelled of perfume and a natural womanly scent that he associated only with Nathalie. The scent of her skin had haunted him during the week they had been apart. Now he closed his eyes and buried his face between her breasts, inhaling deeply.

Shifting slightly to the right, he tasted her with languid strokes of his tongue. Her skin was sweeter and more addicting than anything he’d ever tasted. He followed the curve of her breast from top to bottom; the texture changed as he reached the edge of her nipple.

The velvety nub beckoned him and he pushed the fabric of her dress out of the way. He wanted to see her.

“Stand here.”

He crossed the room and flipped on the light switch flooding the room in light. Nathalie stood where he left her, her red hair hanging around her shoulders in long curls. Her lips looked full and lush, wet and swollen from his kisses. Her breasts spilled from the fabric, full and white and topped with hard little berries that made his mouth water.

He crossed back to her side in less than two strides. “That’s better.”

“Is it?” she asked.

“I want to see you, Nathalie. The real you, not the dream that’s been haunting me.”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond. He might be playing the fool, but right now he didn’t care. He already knew he was compromised where she was concerned. She had a power over him that he could only hope she never realized she had. And he had a new goal—one that had absolutely nothing to do with Moretti Motors.

That goal was to get as deep inside her body as he could.

He lowered his head once more to the full globe of her breast, scraping the aroused nipple with his teeth. She shuddered in his arms. He used his hand to stimulate her other nipple, circling it with his finger and scraping his nail across the center very carefully while at the same time using his teeth on the first one.

She moaned his name, undulating against him. Her hands swept down his body and she unzipped his pants. His erection sprang into her waiting hands. He wanted her to grasp the length of him, but instead she only teased him by running her finger up and down the sides of his shaft.

He suckled her nipple deep in his mouth and slid his hand up under her skirt, where he encountered a sexy thong. He caressed her sticky curls through the lace, and her touch on him changed, became more fevered, more demanding.

He slipped his finger inside the crotch of her panties and into her humid opening. She moaned and lifted her leg to give him deeper access. The moan was nearly his undoing. He couldn’t wait much longer to take her.

He turned and lay back on the bed, pulling Nathalie on top of him. She braced her hands on his chest and leaned up over him. Their groins pressed together. She bit her lower lip and rotated on him. It felt deliciously hot and he wanted nothing more than to let her rock against him until they both came. Later, he thought. Right now he needed to be inside her.

He pulled her down to him and rolled until she was underneath him again.

“Do you have to be on top?”

He smiled at her. “It’s a male thing.”

“Why?”

“Because you are too strong. I want you to know that you are ceding to my will,” he said.

He didn’t want to say any more, but for once he wanted to feel he was really in control. In control of their lovemaking and in control of this woman who gave away so little.

He tore his shirt off and tossed it across the room and then kicked his pants down. He reached for the bodice of Nathalie’s dress and tugged until the fabric ripped, leaving her body bare.

He slid his hand down to her panties.

“Stop.”

He did, glancing up at her. She reached underneath his body and pushed the panties down her legs. “I like these and don’t want you to tear them.”

He chuckled. “I wasn’t going to rip them.”

He bent his head and followed the path of her skimpy underwear with his mouth. Some of her wetness had rubbed against her thigh and he licked her clean. Then he rose over her.

He bent her legs back against her body, leaving her totally exposed to him. Leaning down, he tasted her pink flesh, caressing her carefully with his tongue until her hips were rising against him and her hands clenched in his hair. He slid up her body, holding her hips in his hands, tilting them upward to give him greater access.

He grabbed one of the pillows from the head of the bed and wedged it under her. Then draping her thighs over his arms, he brought their bodies together. Nathalie reached between them and grasped him, guiding him to her entrance.

“Take me,” she said.

He did. He entered her deeply and completely, stopping only when he was fully seated within her. He felt her clench around him. He knew she was doing it intentionally and smiled down at her. He lowered his head and took her mouth, allowing his tongue to mimic the movements of his hips. Soon he felt close to the edge. It wasn’t going to be much longer until he climaxed in her arms.

She rotated her hips against him with each thrust and soon she was gasping for breath and making those sweet sounds of preorgasm. He reared back, so he could go deeper, her feet on his shoulders.

He held her still for his thrusts and she tilted her head back, her eyes closing as her orgasm rushed over her. It was all he needed to send him over the edge. He felt the tingling at the base of his spine and then emptied himself into her.

Knowing she’d said too much earlier, Nathalie didn’t wait for Antonio to say anything now that they were in bed. When he made love to her she felt like a woman. Not the Vallerio daughter or the Vallerio Inc. corporate shark, just a woman.

His woman.

“Do you want to see the negligee you sent me?”

“I’d love to see it,” he said.

The light was still on and she went to the wardrobe where she’d hung her clothes earlier in the day. She drew out the gown.

It was a Carine Gilson gown. The exclusive lingerie couture was one of the most expensive in the world. “How did you know I like Gilson?”

“I noticed your bra the first time we made love,” he said.

“Most men wouldn’t have noticed.”

“I’m not most men. Put on the gown. I had to rely on my imagination when I ordered it.”

She did as he asked. The sheer gown fell to her knees and she stood in front of him boldly, allowing him to feast his eyes on her. The gold fabric made her skin look even creamy in the light, and the black designs on the side and at the hem added a hint of elegance.

“Come here,” he beckoned from the bed. She couldn’t help but notice his erection and inwardly she smiled, knowing she had the power to make him hard.

“Turn around.”

She did as he said and felt his hand on her thighs, teasing up under the hem of the negligee, then caressing the crease in her buttocks. She shivered with awareness.

Reaching behind her, she found his erection and encircled it with her hand, tugging on it once and then letting go as she stepped away.