Page 41 of Resisting the Bossy Billionaire

They still had this one last night together.

‘Beautiful?’ he said, feigning outrage. ‘I think the word you are looking for is handsome.’

She turned around and gently tugged at his bow tie. Eyes on his, she said with simple sincerity, ‘No. The word is beautiful.’

Her words touched something in him that made him close his eyes before taking a step back so he could drink the whole of herin. The red velvet dress fitted as if it had been tailored especially for her. Long sleeved, it dipped in a V to her breasts, giving the most tantalising glimpse of her generous cleavage, then hugged her curvy waist before cascading like drapes to her feet. Only the heels of the black knee-high boots she was wearing, a sop to the wintry weather, stopped the hem trailing on the ground. Her red hair, the perfect complementary shade to the colour of the dress, had been parted in the centre but then gathered together to fall over her right shoulder. It gleamed like the finest gold. ‘No. You’re the beautiful one.’

Rosy colour flushed her cheeks. ‘It’s the expensive makeup you bought me.’

Expensive makeup subtly but strikingly applied. ‘It only enhances what God has blessed you with. You are a beautiful woman, Victoria Cusack.’

The flush deepened. ‘I keep telling you, you should see my sisters. They really are beautiful. No enhancement needed,’ she quipped.

He captured her chin and rubbed his thumb over the faint cleft in it. ‘Stop comparing yourself to your sisters. You are perfect exactly as you are.’

The hazel eyes softened. ‘You mean that, don’t you?’

He brushed a kiss over her lips and breathed her in. ‘Yes. And it is time you started believing it.’

CHAPTER TEN

VICTORIAWASSPELLBOUND. When she’d watched this musical all those months ago, her vision had been obscured and she’d been sat so high up and so far back the cast really had seemed as small as ants. She’d also kept her phone clutched in her hand, surreptitiously checking it every five minutes. When Marcello had asked her back to the office, she’d told herself she was furious with him for calling her away on something so whimsical, but now she could admit the truth to herself—she’d been waiting for it. Hoping for it. By the time her phone had silently vibrated with his call, she’d already planned her escape route to take it without disturbing the other theatregoers.

This time, she kept her phone in the gold clutch bag that had been in another of the gold boxes Marcello had surprised her with, and watched on a seat so good it was as if she could reach out and touch the stage. Maybe if her hand weren’t so tightly clasped in Marcello’s she would have tried.

To Marcello’s surprise, he thoroughly enjoyed the show. Victoria’s joy would have made it worthwhile for its own sake, but the songs were catchy and the plot good enough to keep his interest.

When things had settled between them and they’d slipped back into the old rhythm of their lives, he would take her to another Broadway show. They would go as the friends they’d been from the start. He knew it would take time to find that old rhythm but they would find it. They had to.

But not yet. Tonight they were enjoying Broadway as lovers.

Outside, the snow was falling again, and when they climbed into the back of his waiting car for the short drive to the restaurant he’d booked them to dine at, fat flakes clung like sparkling diamonds in her hair before melting into a glisten and vanishing.

Palming her cold cheek, he leaned his face into hers and thought he would never be able to endure seeing the sparkle in her eyes vanish, not when they shone with such brilliance as they did now. ‘Go on, tell me, how many times have you already seen it?’ he murmured.

She grinned. ‘Four times. How did you guess?’

‘Your singing along to every word was the giveaway.’

Both laughing, they kissed, a short kiss because their short drive had ended.

Marcello watched for a reaction when she recognised the name of the restaurant, and experienced a surge of gratification when the sparkle in her eyes intensified. Famed for its fresh atmosphere and even fresher seafood, something he knew she had a deep and abiding love for, he’d selected this place with Victoria’s desires at the forefront of his mind.

Thinking there was a very real danger she could burst from happiness, Victoria felt like a celebrity when they were whisked up the steps and welcomed into what she could only describe as a sophisticatedly funky interior. Evening coats taken—her Merino wool coat had been another surprise from Marcello—they were swept off to a corner table. Water poured, drink order taken, a limoncello vodka martini for Victoria, a dirty vodka, whatever that was, for Marcello, and then they were left alone with their menus.

Immediately, she leaned her face over her menu to confide, ‘I looked at bringing Sheena here for her birthday last summer but couldn’t get a reservation for love nor money.’ She’d beensnootily informed the restaurant had a fourteen-month waiting list. ‘She is going to begreenwhen I tell her I’ve been.’

‘You should have told me—I could have got the two of you in.’

‘Don’tevertell Sheena that.’ Not that he would ever meet her. Not now. Marcello didn’t know it but this wasn’t just their last night together. This was the beginning of their end, something she was resolutely not allowing herself to think about. He’d gone to so much effort that it would be cruel to ruin the evening by letting her emotions get the better of her. There would be plenty of time for that when she broke the news to him. Let them have this one last night and part with the best memories of each other.

He grinned. ‘How do you know Sheena? Did you meet at Columbia?’

‘No, after Columbia. We lived together for a while. I was looking for a new place to live and she was looking for a new roommate. Mutual friends facilitated it and introduced us. They were convinced that as we’re both Irish we were bound to know each other because obviously everyone from Ireland knows each other.’

His grin widened. ‘I used to get that when I first moved here. Anyone with a first-generation Italian friend was certain we must have spent our childhoods together.’

‘Do you know what the best bit is?’

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