Page 228 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

‘I can manage.’ She pulled the duvet off her lap and slowly twisted her legs round until her feet hit the floor.

As with every other occasion that Victoria had left the bed, Marcello did his best to tune out the body clad only in a white T-shirt. It was a feat that was becoming harder with practice, not easier, and he expelled relief that her gait was stronger than the last time, her steps more assured.

She padded slowly past him, her incredible body on full display, the full breasts... God in heaven, he could not stop himself from fantasising about taking them in his mouth...gently moving beneath his T-shirt, the tips jutting out at the perfect angle... And that large, peachy bottom, and thoselegs. Victoria had the hourglass figure of the iconic Italian actress whose films his mother had dieted on in his youth, and as she settled on the sofa and drew her knees up to her belly, he could not stop himself from wondering if the pubis hidden behind the black cotton was the same shade of deep red as her hair or the darker, browner shade of her eyebrows.

His veins, already thick with the awareness alive in him from his waking moment, rose in temperature, and a deep stab of desire burned through his loins.

Turning his face away, he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, swallowing back the moisture filling his mouth.

If she could read his mind she would be furious with him. Sickened.

He was sickened with himself. Sickened that he could not stop his thoughts going to all the forbidden places. Sickened that he was attuned to her in a way he had no right to be. Sickened, too, that it was becoming increasingly hard to control his physical responses around her.

Desire for his executive assistant, the woman who’d become indispensable to him, had grabbed him by the throat and was refusing to let go.

Her phone rang. He picked it up off the bedside table and dropped it on the sofa beside the bottom that the urge to squeeze whenever she was leant against him was becoming intolerable to live with.

‘I will get the bedding,’ he muttered, already striding to the door.

This couldn’t go on. He needed to create some physical distance between them, starting now.

Victoria stared at the door Marcello had just disappeared out of and knew she hadn’t imagined the shortness in the way he’d just spoken. Knew too that she hadn’t imagined the stiffening in his body when she’d walked past him.

Since she’d woken that morning, she’d felt a lot more with it and much less dopey. More attuned to Marcello’s mood. Something was off with him. It was nothing she could put a finger on, more a feeling. There was a tension about him. His attentiveness hadn’t dipped but his good humour was starting to feel forced.

Wasn’t there a saying about guests being like fish and going off after three days? she thought miserably as she answered her grandmother’s call. She didn’t know if her family were more worried about her illness or the storm, but at least she could truthfully assure them—her grandmother put her on loud speaker so everyone could join in the conversation whether they wanted to or not—that she was on the mend. There was a weariness in her bones but the exhaustion that had cloaked her these last few days had finally lifted.

The storm, though, had gained a second wind and seemed intent on causing as much destruction as possible. The wind itself had dropped but the blizzard continued unabated. To leave Marcello’s apartment, even by car, would be akin to pressing self-destruct.

She was in no position to leave his apartment but she could move to one of the guest rooms, she decided when the call with her family ended. Give Marcello his room back. Give him the space away from her she sensed he needed.

And it would give her needed space away from him too. Because no matter how often she told herself that it was gratitude causing her chest to swell whenever she looked at him, gratitude did not explain why her pulses soared whenever he neared her or why her breaths shortened whenever he touched her, or explain the steady burn deep in her pelvis whenever her shortened breaths inhaled his scent.

She couldn’t lie to herself any more. She was attracted to Marcello. Deeply attracted.

She could cry.

Of all the people in the world to experience her first real desire for, Marcello was the worst. No woman with a single brain cell got involved with him expecting it to last longer than five minutes.

And now she could laugh. Why was she thinking such things?

As if she’d be stupid enough to give her virginity to him... Oh, God, why did she just think that?

If he could read her mind, he’d be embarrassed for her. Worse, he’d pity her.

She would never be able to look him in the eye again.

Their working relationship would be ruined.

If he knew the feelings that were bubbling inside her for him, she’d have no choice but to leave his employment for real. They certainly weren’t reciprocated. She should be grateful for this. Shewasgrateful. In all her imaginings, she’d never considered that the first time she got virtually naked with a man would be through sickness. Marcello’s matter-of-fact attitude about it all meant the mortification she would otherwise be experiencing to remember how he’d undressed her, however vague those memories were, never had the chance to take off. She’d spent days in his company wearing nothing but an oversized white T-shirt one glance in a mirror confirmed left little to the imagination, and he’d not given a single sign that he’d noticed.

Facts were facts, and the fact was Marcello never had seen and never would see her as a woman, so more fool her for letting her lowered defences addle her brain enough to finally see him for the drop-dead sexy man he was.

The bedroom door opened.

Her heart kicked against her ribs.

He flashed a smile.

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