Page 13 of Meet Me in Montreal

“Thank you.” Oscar smiled back at her, showing a lot of teeth. Vanessa was starting to wonder if they’d already crossed the forbidden zone between adversaries and lovers.

“Is there any particular reason you needed to see these when we’ve already accounted for everything?” Genesis asked with a raised eyebrow.

Santino looked at his lawyer with a serene, barely-there smile, who turned back to them from across the table and pulled at his tie as if it made him uncomfortable.

“We recently became aware that Ms. Watson was given a promotion at her firm. This obviously makes a difference not only with regard to the support she’s receiving from Mr.Donahue now but any final financial arrangements after the divorce…”

While Oscar and Genesis began discussing the dollar amounts, Vanessa snuck another look at Santino, who was still staring at her. This time, the intensity wasn’t tinged with resentment or anger but something deeper. More sensual.

She hated to admit it butdamnhe looked good in that charcoal button-down shirt with the gray stripes. Santino typically hated dress clothes and only wore them during these occasions. This one brought out more of the silver in his eyes while stretching taut across the impressive expanse of his shoulders. Next to his brothers, he was the “shortest” of the Donahues, but at just over six feet one with that muscular build, he was still a big man.

Vivid memories of first seeing him towering over her while she waited for help in that elevator battered at her defenses, as well as the sensation of falling onto him, falling into his strength and his heat. She’d never been the damsel in distress. If anything, she’d been raised to be the rescuer, to save herself because no one else was going to swoop in if she needed something. But being rescued by Santino that night had been wildly thrilling.

He was tanned, gorgeous, and with that sharp jawline, right down to the slight chin cleft, he’d seemed like a fair-haired hero straight out of a movie. The problem? He’d been twenty-two, seven years younger than her, but the gap seemed so much bigger at that age. That had given her pause. A lot of pause. But when he kept showing up at the building, then at the coffee shop across the street in the mornings, he charmed her into a date. And on those dates, he was fun and genuinely curious about her, so supportive and encouraging with her dreams for her life. It was impossible for her not to fall. He was literally irresistible.

“…. .and most likely will increase exponentially as she progresses in her profession. We think she…”

She zoned out again. Even though she was a lawyer herself, this legalese over the financials was boring. Her thing was defending those who deserved a zealous representation as afforded by the law, not the sad dissolution of love and the petty metrics of who owed what to whom and for how long. She’d been prepared to walk out of this with nothing, but Santino was dragging this out to make her fucking miserable for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

Well…the reason wasn’t exactly a mystery, if she was being honest with herself. He wanted payback. He’d told her as much the first time she asked him to sign the divorce papers two years ago.

She had to track him down at his new place since he refused to accept the papers from the court-appointed process server. When she showed up and handed them to him personally, he laughed harshly. With sharp movements of his big hands, he ripped them to pieces and tossed them up in the air. They fluttered down to the ground like unhappy confetti.

“I’m not signing shit,” he bit out and crossed his arms over his muscled chest, heaving hard as he stared at her, his jaw working. “Why are you doing this?” he asked suddenly. Fury and pain were written so starkly on his face she had to turn away. “Why are you doing this to me, Vanessa?”

She escaped back to her car, barely able to see through blurred vision.

Obviously, he hated her. Hated her for not playing a simp and a doormat as he’d expected. Hated her for not tolerating disrespect from his ex-girlfriend like a good little woman. He was furious at her for having the audacity to walk away with her dignity intact. And he’d been punishing her ever since by withholding the only thing she still wanted from him: her freedom.

Well, was that all she wanted from him? Unfortunately, his bad attitude still hadn’t rendered him physically unattractive to her as she kept praying it would. She snuck another look at him, only to see his gaze had been locked on her mouth. A band of deep color arched over his cheekbones. His mouth was slightly parted, the thicker bottom lip so tempting and full.

Crazily, she found that she would give any concession he asked for to have those lips on her again. Her nipples were tightening at the memory of him sucking on them, and she literally clutched the short strand of pearls around her throat against those memories and Santino’s bold, hostile stare.

Agitated, she pulled her gaze away from his mouth and his piercing eyes and poured herself a glass of water from the carafe on the table as Genesis and Oscar droned on back and forth. She took a shaky gulp. Some of the water spilled from her lips and fell onto her cream blouse and into her cleavage, leaving a shiny trail as it slipped downward into her bra.

Santino’s eyes followed, his expression tightening, and he swallowed visibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down the column of his throat. She’d give anything to revisit that track with her tongue, then go lower, down that muscled chest to his firm stomach to the big cock she’d loved to tease and suck.

It had been hard to believe when he first told her, but Santino had been a virgin when they’d met. He’d been hers to mold, open to whatever she wanted to try, dedicated to learning exactly how to please her each and every time.

And he was always ready. Insatiable. They could go for hours.

Now her nipples were stiff and her clit was pulsing as he leaned forward, radiating heat and the enigmatic scent of Italian cologne across the short distance. A sharp image of him ordering everyone else out of the room, pulling down her panties, and thrusting deep inside her on the shiny black surface of the conference table took full bloom in her mind all at once.

Stop, no.

Smoothing down her damp hairline, she pulled her tortured gaze away from him with effort and mentally cursed herself.

Every time. Every fucking time.

The separation agreement had stipulated their contact was only to take place in front of their attorneys, never in private. This was why.

When he came over to pick up the last of his things, their arguing had turned passionate. Santino pushed her against the wall and kissed her on that spot on her neck, right under her ear. The spot he knew she couldn’t resist. He turned her on like it was nothing, like he was pressing the “on” switch on a device. But this time, as his lips trembled against hers, his face was wet.

He whispered, “Let me come home, baby. Please. I’ll do anything…I’ll do anything…”

And they’d taken her rage and his anguish out on each other’s bodies against that wall, on the dining table, on the floor. It had been that way between them after the sweet early days; intense loving followed by intense arguing, mind-blowing hate fucking, back to love. The cycle had to stop. This time, when they were both spent, she cried and told him to go.

Now she knew better. Being alone with this man was out of the question. Seeing that firm, pleasure-giving body and those soft full lips that had kissed her with such passion and such deep yearning…it was all too much to resist. She wasn’t strong enough. She’d rather not see him and be tempted at all. At least dealing with him with their attorneys present kept her skirts down and her ass out of trouble.

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