Page 240 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Her eyes narrowed. ‘My virginity wasn’t a prize to give, thank you very much, and how do you know what I wish for?’

‘You come from a big family. Do you not want that for yourself?’

‘I want a family of my own but not yet. Not for a long time.’

But she did want one. In his heart, he’d always known it, had recognised it in the softening of her stare at Denise’s baby.

‘Then why did you hold on to it for so long?’

‘It wasn’t a case of holding out. It’s just the way life worked out for me.’

He couldn’t stop himself asking, ‘How?’

Her shrug was almost imperceptible. ‘I’m the plainest of five sisters and from a town so small it should really be called a glorified village. There were hardly any boys there and the ones who weren’t gay all fancied one or other of my sisters. They never gave me a second glance. Not a single boy asked me out until I arrived in America.’

‘Are Irish boys all blind?’ he asked incredulously. How anyone could consider Victoria plain was beyond all comprehension. That she should consider herself plain...he made a mental note to drag her to an optician at the soonest opportunity.

Her beautiful features relaxed and she gave a soft laugh. ‘My sisters are all stunning. I know I’m not ugly but compared to them I’m nothing. When I started at Columbia, I had hopes of finding a nice boy, but I swear American boys are a different breed from Irish ones—they were all soconfident, and because I was this duck out of water trying to find her feet in a strange country, I ran a mile from them. By the time I graduated, I’d loosened up a bit but all the decent ones had paired off, and then I started at Hansons and, as you know, it’s run and staffed by cretins, and then I was poached by this gorgeous Italian man to work as his executive assistant and any hope of finding someone went out of the window by the constant demands he made on my time outside working hours.’

Something stuck in his throat at the same moment something relaxed in him, just as he’d just seen Victoria visibly relax.

Hewasmaking too much of her virginity. He was making too much of this whole thing. He’d crossed a Rubicon he’d sworn never to cross and made love to his closest employee, and there was no turning back. What was done was done. He could spend the rest of the night castigating himself for something that couldn’t be reversed or...

‘This Italian man...’ He leaned his face close to hers. ‘He sounds like a monster.’

She held his stare a long moment before her lips curved into a smile.

‘He is,’ she promised solemnly. ‘He has no concept of personal time. I’ve lost count of the times he’s woken me in the middle of the night because he needs something and doesn’t want to wake his household staff, and that’s not forgetting the time he basically bullied me away from a theatre show I’d spent months looking forward to seeing for the sake of finding a Montblanc pen.’

He ran a finger down her delicate jawline. ‘Definitely a monster. How do you put up with him?’

‘By putting his photo on a board and throwing darts at it whenever I have a minute to myself, and by dreaming up inventive ways to maim him.’

The darkness curdling inside him finally lifted as laughter broke free, lifting and floating away completely when the widest smile lit Victoria’s face, a moment that felt so good and right that he stamped on the voice warning him strongly against taking her into his arms again, and hauled her back to him. The moment her laughing mouth fused with his, the voice evaporated.

CHAPTER EIGHT

VICTORIAOPENEDHEReyes to find Marcello holding a bulging paper bag. The hugest, smuggest smile was on his face.

‘Bagels?’ she guessed sleepily.

‘And coffee. Sit up, breakfast is served.’

Covering a yawn, she held the duvet to her naked breasts and propped her back against the velvet headboard.

‘Bacon, cream cheese and avocado,’ he said, handing her a wrapped bagel with a flourish.

She blinked her surprise.

He grinned and swooped a kiss on her mouth. ‘My powers of observation are limitless.’

‘And only slightly lesser than your ego.’

‘Impossible.’

Laughing, she unwrapped the still-warm goodie in her hands and took a bite. After days of her only sustenance coming from Marcello’s attempts at cooking, it tasted like heaven. That Marcello had ordered it—his plain T-shirt, low-slung shorts and bare feet suggested he hadn’t left the apartment to buy them—and that he’d ordered her favourite fillings only made it sweeter. When he stripped those few items and climbed into bed, she thought it might be the single happiest moment of her life.

The talk they’d had after their first time had helped settle Victoria’s mind. She’d gone into this with her eyes wide open and she would not close them to reality now. She would take this time with Marcello for exactly what it was: a short but very sweet affair. She would hide away the emotions and think only of the pleasure for as long as it lasted.

---