Page 242 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Cursing to himself, he rolled off Victoria’s heavenly body to read it.

She rolled with him and kissed his shoulder blade. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘It is a message from Benito.’

‘Your brother?’

His brother and also the head of the European side of Marcello’s empire. ‘He has questions about the keynote speech I agreed to make.’

Victoria’s lips stilled against his skin. He knew without having to ask that the real world had just penetrated her as it had him.

‘That’s only a week away.’

‘Sì,’he agreed heavily. They were scheduled to leave next Friday for it.

‘You should call him back.’

‘Later.’ Firing a message to his brother saying just that, he put his phone down and turned onto his back. Immediately, Victoria slung her arm over his waist and cuddled into him.

‘Everything’s already organised for the conference, and all the travel to and from it,’ she told him quietly.

He kissed the top of her head. ‘I know.’ Victoria would have organised everything with her usual forensic efficiency.

He still couldn’t understand why he’d agreed to it. Marcello avoided Rome as much as possible. It had been during his latest Christmas visit, over a game of pool in their parents’ games room, that Benito had asked Marcello to make the keynote speech at a conference he was organising. He didn’t know which of them had been more surprised at his acceptance.

He’d called Victoria straight away to inform her. He remembered the noise in the background. She’d been playing charades with her family. There had been a huge smile in her voice. He’d suspected she might have been a little tipsy, something that had madehimsmile.

‘I’ve done the first draft of the speech for you too.’

He kissed her again and held his mouth to the hair he’d combed conditioner through when they’d shared a bath. Victoria was the only person he’d ever trusted to write a speech for him. She had an unerring ability to put herself in his head and write as if she were speaking from his mouth. He rarely made alterations to them.

Damn it, he couldn’t lose her.

It was impossible that they could return to the status quo of their working life but he had to find a way to ensure this affair between them didn’t have the repercussions he’d feared before it had even started. He would do whatever it took to keep her by his side as his right-hand woman. Whatever was necessary.

‘Let’s take a walk into Central Park,’ he impulsively suggested. Get some fresh air into their lungs and into his head. Prove to himself that he could go more than a few hours without having to make love to her.

She lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest, bemused doubt in her stare. ‘You? Walk?’

‘Why not? We only have two days left before we return to the office.’

There was a flicker in her eyes but her bemused smile didn’t falter. ‘Are you seriously telling me you have suitable clothes to go trekking through feet-high snow in?’

‘All the roads and paths have been cleared.’

‘You wear handstitched shoes. They will be ruined.’

‘I am sure there is an outdoor clothing shop that will deliver stuff to me...’ A thought occurred to him, a thought that was, to his mind, a most excellent idea.

‘What?’ she asked.

He smiled. Truly, no one knew him or could read him better than Victoria Cusack. ‘I have just thought of the perfect surprise for my favourite redhead.’

‘Which is?’

‘It will not be a surprise if I tell you, will it?’

‘Please?’

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