There's Something About Her, A Manhattan Love Story (21 page)

I chuckle and grab his black T-shirt. “Just lie down beside me. Let’s talk.”

“I don’t want to talk. I want to make love to you.”

He slides my pants down and then my stockings. I’m in nothing but my panties and bra with one breast covered and the other exposed.
 

“That’s better,” he says and stretches out beside me. “You let Robert get into your head, didn’t you?”

I pause to think. “Maybe. He’s right, though. You’re getting married.”

“It’s not set in stone.”

I face him. “Then you’re not getting married?”

He’s already staring at me. “When I look at you, I see the only woman I’m attracted to. Is Gabrielle beautiful? Yes. That’s undeniable. You’re more than beautiful. You’re my soul mate.”

“Are you saying you want to marry me?”

“If that’s what you want.”

I sit up. “No. That’s not what I’m saying. If you call off your engagement, I don’t want it to be because I promised you myself. Call it off for you, not me.”

Vincent pulls me beneath him before I can roll off the bed. He slips his fingers inside me. “You’re wet.”

“I’ll dry off as soon as you leave,” I snap. I sigh, regretting those words already. “Sorry, I forgot you’re not Robert.”

“He’s been pursuing you?”

“Aggressively.”
 

He flexes his jaw.
 

“Are you two still friends?” I ask.

“So far we are. He knows how I feel about you, but he wants me to move forward with the marriage.”

I narrow one eye. “And you don’t love Gabrielle?”

“No, I don’t.” He’s snippy.

“You’ve never loved her?”

“I liked her a lot. Love her? No.”

“Never?”

“No. Never.”

“Even before I came along?”

“Is that not part of never?”
 

I elbow him.
 

He chuckles. “Remember the last time I made love to you?”

“In the car?”

“That was epic. We have to beat that one day.”

The silence is disturbed by three bangs on the door. “Vincent, are you in there?”

He sighs with dread. “Gabrielle,” he whispers.
 

“My father is in the restaurant downstairs. He wants to talk to you. So stop fucking your high-class whore and get down there!” she yells.

I feel so cheap. Tears flood my eyes, and I flip on my side to turn away from him.
 

“Damn it, Maggie,” he says as he draws me into him.

“Go,” I demand.
 

He doesn’t let go of me. He sucks on my neck. His tongue draws circles on my shoulder. Down my back he goes, tasting away. When he reaches my ass, he takes my hips and flips me over. Vincent grabs my panties and yanks them to one side. The softness and warmth of his mouth consumes my clit.
 

I lift my head to see. “What are you doing?”
 

He increases the intensity. I whimper and grab the blanket. My sex sounds are uninhibited as I arrive at that climactic moment. I get louder. There’s more banging on the door, but Vincent doesn’t stop. Then my orgasm ripens, and I shriek at the top of my lungs.
 

He unzips his pants, spreads my legs, and jabs his dick into my pussy and his tongue into my mouth. This feels so damn right.
 

“Vince!” Robert shouts.
 

He’s screwing me fast and deep, and we’re kissing hard. With every thrust, he possesses more of my soul.
 

“Oh, shit,” he groans and sucks hard on my neck. He humps me faster and faster. “Oh!” he roars and jerks as he comes. As soon as he stills, he gathers me tightly against him. “Don’t forget that we belong to each other.”

He kisses my lips and gnaws on my nipples so that I can feel it. He pins his forehead against my chest. “I haven’t had enough of you yet,” he moans.
 

All I can do is lie here and bathe in the after-sparks of orgasmic sex.

Robert bangs on the door. “If you don’t come out, then I’m coming in!”
 

Vincent kisses his way down my sternum to my belly, licks my pelvis, and stands to straighten his pants. We maintain eye contact as he walks around the bed to kiss me one more time. “I’ll be making love to you in my dreams. Make love to me in yours.”

I nod.

When he opens the door, Robert is standing there. Robert gazes at my ravished body with a look that’s a cross between lust and anger. I think Vincent gave him a view of me on purpose to show him what he’ll never have.
 

I won’t shower tonight. I want Vincent’s scent all over me. I crawl under the blankets, close my eyes, and hope to have a different dream of him tonight, a sweet one.
 

On Thursday, I don’t run into Robert in the hallways. Linda and I replay Wednesday. By five p.m., she reassures me that she can take it from here. I hustle back to my room, call the airline, and book a commercial flight back to New York. I pack my things, make sure the coast is clear before I step out into the hallway, and take the hotel shuttle to the airport. I still haven’t run into Robert. It’s a good thing but a strange one as well. I do miss Vincent, though. I wonder where he is.

Chapter 15

Rejuvenated

Vincent Adams

Six months ago, Vincent had been up for it. He met Gabrielle at a dinner party hosted by their pain-in-the-ass business partner, her daddy Peter Rossetto. Despite her borderline incestuous relationship with her father, Gabrielle developed a thing for Vincent.
 

He’d thought she was pretty enough to ignore the fact that she often kissed her father on the mouth. Once or twice, Vincent thought he’d caught a glimpse of tongue being exchanged.
 

Peter had called and asked Vincent to take his daughter out for a night on the town. What the hell, Vincent thought. They went out to dinner twice. He banged her for dessert. On the second night, he held her during the afterglow of sex, and she said that she loved him. Vincent wasn’t repelled by her admission, but he couldn’t return the sentiment. Romantic love was something other men sought and experienced, not him.
 

Gabrielle had been easy to date. Her idea of fun was unique and extreme. Her buddy, international polo player Pedro Isla, spent an afternoon teaching them both how to hit the ball across a grassy field while riding a horse. They spent weekends at vineyards owned by politicians and international businessmen. They went from skiing in Switzerland to boating in St. Barthes. She liked destinations that started with “Saint”: St. Lucia, St. Barthes, St. Tropez, St. Moritz, etc.
 

Vincent had found her access enticing. Gabrielle strolled into the most exclusive clubs in the world with a wink, a smile, and her daddy’s money. They were having fun, but Vincent was well aware that one day they would part ways. He liked Gabrielle, but she wasn’t the one. She believed he was the one for her, though.
 

It had happened at a regular old meeting. Peter began with a speech about going to hell and back for the people he loved. Vincent and Robert thought Pete had finally lost the two marbles he had left. Rumors said that he was bipolar and foolishly impulsive. That’s why no one else would partner with the bastard, even if he did come with an unlimited resource of cash.
 

Vincent and Robert took a chance. Together, they contributed 1.5 billion dollars to build A&Rt Media Group. Peter Rossetto supplied a whopping three billion. The extra 1.5 billion gave him more power than he needed. So after the monologue on family and the love of a father was over, Robert had agreed to relinquish his controlling interest of A&Rt by letting them buy it back at the price of purchase if Vincent agreed to make “the love of his life” happy forever. At first, Robert and Vincent thought he was pulling their leg. He assured them he was serious and presented them with a notarized letter of intent. Three billion and a wedding, and Peter Rossetto would be out of their lives professionally. Sure, he’d gain a wacky father-in-law, but he would eventually figure out a way to legally divorce Gabrielle.
 

Regardless, Vincent’s initial response had been, “No way.”
 

After a long night of talking it out with Robert over three bottles of Jamaican rum, they had agreed to take the deal. After signing the contract, Vincent scheduled a vasectomy. He had no intentions of neglecting their marital bed, but he didn’t want to bring children into their fucked-up situation either.
 

Then he’d seen Maggie at the wedding, sitting next to Charlie and giving him the same attitude she used to give him back in high school. Vincent felt as if he’d never stopped craving her. He could tell she didn’t remember him. Had he changed that much? She hadn’t changed at all. She was still the most interesting specimen in the room.
 

Where he came from, girls who looked like Maggie knew the price of their stock. Their mothers made sure of it. Maggie slouched, blew her nose in public and didn’t care who heard it, and she flipped girls like Kate Patrick the bird without caring that it shattered Kate’s shallow little world. Maggie was beautiful for sure, but more than that, she was sexy.
 

Fate had wanted him at the wedding. It just so happened that a week before the wedding, he had run into Jack Lord at the C-cup Café buying bagels for his pregnant fiancée. He’d heard that Jack and Charlie had inherited Lord’s Steel after their father died. However, Jack brokered the deal of the century by selling the company under the stipulation that he could repurchase twenty-five percent of the company within a year of the date of sale. Jack invested in high-stakes real estate and was able to buy that twenty-five percent. Vincent read that Belmont Jaxson Lord was worth 15.6 billion, but that was four years ago. Jack was probably worth double that by now.

When they spoke, Vincent had mentioned A&Rt Media Group to Jack. By the look on Jack’s face, Vincent could tell that he pitied Vincent for partnering with Peter Rossetto. Jack ended up inviting him to the wedding. Before they parted ways, Vincent asked about Maggie. He wondered if she had a husband and kids.
 

“Who? Mags?” Jack had snickered as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “No.”

Jack had the same blunt way of answering, “no” with no explanation that Maggie had.
 

So Vincent had gone to the wedding for two purposes. He wanted to shake Jack’s hand and ask for a sit-down with him, and he hoped he would see Maggie. His second goal distracted him from the first.
 

After the strange wedding ceremony, he’d waited for her to finish her talk with Jack, and he rode down with her in the same elevator. He wanted to ride to the docks with her in the same limousine, but she didn’t get into a car. Vincent figured maybe she had to do something first because surely she wouldn’t skip the reception. Yet she never showed up, and that bummed him out. Later that night, Jack came to him asking for a favor. Actually, it was no favor at all. He would give Maggie Conroy his last breath if she needed it.
 

And tonight in Aspen, after abandoning her in the hotel room, he could still taste her sweet nectar on his lips and smell her in his nostrils.
 

Robert shoved him in his arm. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
 

Vincent didn’t budge. “I love her.”
 

“I do too, but I’m not putting the company in jeopardy for it.”

Vincent wondered if he heard him correctly. “You love her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Ha!” Vincent scoffed. “Bullshit.”
 

“You can love her, but I can’t?”

Vincent shook his head. “Maggie isn’t some girl you can tell yourself you love so you can fuck her until the next best thing comes along.”
 

Robert’s silence said Vincent was right on target. Pursuing women and then dropping them after he’d had his way with them was a habit for Robert. Lena was one of those women he pursued, caught, and convinced himself he loved. The excuse used to be that Lena was frigid, which was probably true. Soon after their wedding day, his roaming eyes and cheating ways caused her to lose respect for him—and the loss of attraction soon followed.
 

The elevator door opened, and Vincent and Robert exited and stomped toward the restaurant.
 

Gabrielle sat at a table next to her father, sniffling. She wiped her eyes as soon as she saw them coming. Peter stroked her back. “Daddy” kissed her bare shoulder, watching Vincent as he approached. Until now, Vincent refused to acknowledge that the strange man would become his father-in-law. Pete Rossetto reminded him of a guy who wore a red silk smoking jacket and sat in a leather armchair, petting a white kitty.

“What in the hell are you doing here, Peter?” Vincent growled as soon as he plopped down in a chair.

“Protecting my investments.”

Vincent stabbed a finger at his fiancée. “Are you fucking her?”
 

Peter eyes inflated into an expression of bewilderment. “What did you say?”
 

“What father kisses his daughter like that? It’s perverted as hell.”

Peter pounded his fist on the table. “How dare you!” Spittle glistened on his lips as he leaned across the table, puffing like a raging bull.

Robert lifted his hands in surrender. “Pete, sit. Let’s let calmer heads prevail and talk this out.”
 

Peter slowly, almost theatrically, reclaimed his chair.
 

“Vincent apologizes for his indiscretion. He knows what has to be done,” Robert said.

Peter glared at Vincent with a crazed look. “Do you?”
 

“I don’t want her working for you,” Gabrielle said. “Fire her.”

That was the moment of realization. Vincent had changed since he made the heedless decision to take one for the team. He observed Gabrielle blubbering and wiping her eyes, playing her father like a flute. She was a spoiled brat who snapped her fingers and got everything her father could afford. He could never spend a year, let alone a lifetime, with someone like that. He had to make a move with no delay.