The Italian's Vengeful Seduction
‘Put my jacket round your shoulders before we go inside. You’ll feel more comfortable.’
He opened the door and she hissed out the breath she’d been holding in. What a fool. What a fool! She had actually contemplated kissing him—kissing him! And—worse—she’d thought he was going to kiss her too. She must be out of her mind. After all this time? That bump had definitely gone to her head. She had to get her game on or she was going to let herself turn into a pile of mush.
And a woman with no home, no job and no money could not afford to be mushy.
Marco opened the door and stood there, ready to shield her with his jacket. She swung her legs out noting that the thigh-length split in the skirt of her dress was leaving even less to the imagination than the bodice. Another notch down in his estimation, no doubt. Ignoring the pain, she held on to the sides of the car and eased herself to her feet.
‘Too kind,’ she said, slipping her arms into the deep sleeves he held out and wrapping the navy silk jacket around her. He closed the door and clicked the remote key to lock it. Two beeps. One for every ten billion, she’d guess.
‘It’s not a problem,’ he said, every inch the uninterested chaperone.
She felt the weight of his world envelop her in heavy fabric and wide shoulders. It was as if gold had been spun into the cloth and wishes might fall out of the sleeves. Life was not fair. Not at all.
‘You’ve clearly done well for yourself, Marco. I think it was a beat-up farm truck I last saw you driving. Win a little on the slot machines?’
As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. His father had been a compulsive gambler. Damn. She scrunched her eyes closed, remembering.
‘I don’t gamble, Stacey—in fact I despise it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say, and she felt the thrust of his anger. ‘I forgot.’
‘I can’t forget. We lost everything due to my father’s gambling. Everything.’
She knew. It had been the very thing that had bound them together at one point—Marco’s rapid fall from the elite ranks of Montauk society all the way down to the gutter. All the way, but not quite. He was a Borsatto after all.
‘If I had my way I’d shut down every toxic casino in this town. And the others.’
‘I’m glad not everybody sees it that way. I’ve made a living from them one way or another these past ten years.’
‘You’re entitled to your view,’ he said, as if it was the most stupid thing he’d ever heard. Then he turned and began to walk towards the building.
She watched his retreating back, outlined against the white marble.
So what if he’d lost it all? She’d never had it in the first place.
She started after him, her heels dragging on the gravel of the car park.
‘Not everyone who gambles is a loser, you know.’ She fired the words into his back.
He paused. ‘I guess not,’ he said, turning slowly, judging her.
In the smallest slide of his eyes he was telling her that she had been found completely and utterly lacking. He stood there, framed in the white-pillared entrance. Sheets of black glass wrapped around the building behind him. Sunlight sparkled.
‘But in my experience there are a hell of a lot more sinners than saints.’
‘More whores than Madonnas? Is that what you’re saying? Because I’m dressed like this?’
His mouth curved a little. He shook his head.
‘I was talking about the customers, Stacey. Not the staff.’
There she went again—jumping to conclusions and shooting her mouth off like an unmanned artillery gun. She threw him her worst possible look but he didn’t flinch.
‘You told me you don’t normally dress like that. So I assume it’s your “uniform” if you were working today?’
Before she got a chance to answer an immaculately presented woman in a sleeveless tailored dress and heels, with the most perfect hair Stacey had ever seen, clicked across the marble entrance, hand extended, smiling her Ivy League best.
‘Mr Borsatto, how pleasant to see you.’
‘Thank you, Lydia, nice to see you too. I’m afraid I haven’t got a scheduled appointment today, but I’d be obliged if you would arrange urgent scans for this lady.’
Stacey eyes flashed to the name badge which read ‘Executive Administrator’, whatever that was, even as the lovely Lydia arched her eyebrows then swept her with an all too familiar look. The one that said, What’s the likes of you doing with the likes of him? That said, You don’t belong here. The one that she’d endured over and over in her youth. That always ended with her losing her temper—because what gave them the right?
But then she looked at Marco, and for a moment she was right back in Montauk. Right back in the little café where she’d worked and where ‘the crowd’ had hung out. Where he’d keep his eyes on her in a long, intense stare, telling her he had her back.
Back then.
‘And we’ll need the best possible St Bart’s welcome, Lydia. Miss Jackson and I have had a minor traffic accident, unfortunately. But she’s kindly agreed to get herself checked out. Just to reassure me that she hasn’t done any lasting damage.’
Was she imagining it? Or was there a warning in those tones?
Whatever—the cold, calculating eyes of the other woman told Stacey that it didn’t make one blind bit of difference what Marco said. They both knew that she was a little plastic flower in his otherwise perfect garden. Here today, gone tomorrow. So don’t go getting any big ideas.
Stacey pulled Marco’s jacket round her shoulders. If the pink-faced, bull-headed Bruce Decker couldn’t get to her, there was no way on this earth that this pristine princess was going to.
‘Did you catch that, Lydia?’ she said, stalking right past her and slipping her a little of her best acid. ‘The. Best. Possible. St Bart’s. Welcome.’
CHAPTER TWO
STACEY LIFTED ANOTHER glossy magazine and began to flick the pages noisily. She took a sip of the pretty spectacular Italian coffee they’d served her and remembered again that money wasn’t everything. But it sure could gild the world in a million beautiful ways.
This may be a hospital, she thought, but it oozes more luxury than a five-star hotel.
Even the scornful Lydia had been as good as instructed, and it was ‘no trouble at all’ to get Stacey everything Marco had asked for. And it seemed he had asked for everything. She’d been scanned and quizzed and prodded and now she was back in a private room, surrounded by all manner of things to eat or drink or read while she waited for some kind of decision.
She flicked on, through pages and pages of fashion, jewellery, homes and gossip. Exotic locations in European cities and tropical beaches. Jaw-droppingly handsome men and sombre-faced stick-thin women. Make-believe worlds that some people actually lived in.
People like Marco.
She looked up from the magazine to see he had stopped pacing for a moment and was sipping on a tiny espresso. Framed by two giant palms and some expressionist art, he was the very image of the self-made superhero. He could slide right onto the pages of this magazine and the world would sigh and drool and smile indulgently at how one man could have just so much going on.
He turned to put down the cup and walked out to take a call, and of course her eyes landed on the perfect male curve of his backside. His legs were clearly outlined in his trousers—strong and long. The man worked out. Of course he did. Back in the day he’d been an athlete and a team player. A hero and one of the crowd. Every single girl had wanted him to ask her out and every guy had wanted to be his buddy. The whole world had loved him.
And they still did. Including the crack team of nurses who kept zapping into her airspace like killer flies, patently ignoring Stacey while directing all their queries to him. It was as if he was some kind of deity, while she was completely invisible, or too stupid to know and understand what was happening to her. And it was sending that prickle of anger up her spine again.
‘Where is Mr Borsatto?’ asked Lydia, bustling in briskly for the third time.
‘I don’t know,’ drawled Stacey, deliberately feigning interest in her magazine. ‘Down the hallway doing some brain surgery?’
She ignored the tutting sound and continued to flick through the magazine. Everyone was getting on her nerves. The pain in her back had eased, but her head was pounding mercilessly and a purple bruise had begun to bloom along her thigh. That wasn’t their fault—she knew that—and if she was hostile to them it was because they were the kind of people who judged a person by net worth. It didn’t seem to matter what you brought to the table—it was all down to how much you had in the bank.
And pay-cheques didn’t write themselves, she reminded herself grimly. Her cheques from Decker’s were overdue and her fairy godmother was still AWOL. And this fabulous new job in New York City wasn’t going to happen by magic.
She had to go and find it herself. She’d wasted too much time here already.
She swung herself round and tried to stand up. Pain shot up her spine and her head throbbed and pulsed. Nausea heaved in her stomach and she gripped her brow and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept in over eighteen hours and it was beginning to take its toll.
From the corridor came the unmistakably commanding voice of Marco. She could hear the dreaded word ‘concussion’ as the conversation moved itself towards her. That was the last thing she needed to know. She didn’t have time for it. She had a life to get on with.
‘Ready?’ he said, appearing round the door, with not-a-hair-out-of-place Lydia beside him.
‘Always,’ she said, swallowing down some bile and trying to stand as still as possible so as not to hurt her head.
They continued their conversation, still ignoring her.
Her head continued to pound. She needed to get out of here...lie down. Go and die quietly somewhere she didn’t need to listen to the vowels of the super-rich.
Marco picked up his jacket, still ignoring her. He held it out—an unasked-for modesty cloak in case her bare flesh offended any of the nice patients or staff in the hospital.
The prickle of anger became a surge that she couldn’t ignore. She stepped away from the bed and stood as upright as she could.
‘Hello! Over here! Anyone planning to tell me what’s happening? Or is it the kind of news that’s only shared with rich people?’
Marco turned to stare. He frowned, lowered the jacket.
‘Your scans are clear. Everything’s fine apart from the bruising.’
His eyes slid over her face, her neck and chest, and rested fleetingly on the slashes of fabric across her breasts. Just that, even now, still made her body pulse in anticipation.
‘You’re quite badly bruised.’
They both stared at her as if she was something the cat had dragged in. Dragged in to their state-of-the-art uptown hospital. What did they care about the person under the stupid dress? The working girl who’d ended up here because she’d had enough of being leered over and bullied? Who’d had enough and made one of her trademark escapes—right into the path of Mr Hotshot’s limo?
‘Yes, the bruises are from where I got hit on the leg, Marco,’ she said, and tugged at the thigh-length split in her skirt to expose the red and blue bruises. ‘By you.’
He stared. She bent her knee and twisted her leg like the best showgirl Vegas could offer.
Lydia tutted and bustled off out of sight.
‘Seen enough?’ she asked, staring right into his eyes.
‘I’ve seen far too much,’ he flashed right back.
‘Yeah, but you never got to touch—did you, Marco?’
‘One of the few who didn’t, Stacey. Let’s not forget that.’
Only once before in her life had Stacey felt a punch of pain so hard that tears had sprung and she hadn’t been able to hold them back. And it hadn’t been when her father had left and never come back. It hadn’t been when none of the girls had wanted to be her roommate at summer camp. And it hadn’t been when she’d hitched her way to Philly, to her dad’s new house, to find that he had a new wife and a new family and thought it would be better she didn’t visit, if it was all the same to her.
No, she’d managed to hold herself together each of those times. But then she’d returned from Philly and headed straight to the Meadows—longing to see Marco, longing to tell him she’d lied, that her anger had made her say those stupid things. Longing to tell him what she’d found out about her dad.
But Marco Borsatto had had his own troubles. That same day he’d been evicted. He’d had no time for a stupid girl who had caused the community such pain. That was when she’d first learned the true meaning of ‘breakdown’.
Now, just like then, her throat burned, her eyes burned and her chin wobbled uncontrollably. Her hand flew to her mouth and she stepped back—once, then twice. He would not see her like this—nobody would. She spun on her heel, looked for the door. Getting away from Marco Borsatto for a second time became the most important thing in her life.
‘No, you don’t—not again.’
She saw his reflection in the glass and felt his hand slide round her waist. He grabbed her against his side and without losing stride walked her right out of the room, along the corridor and through the sliding doors.
Her bruised leg bumped against his, and her neck seared with pain as she tried to wrench away, but the more she pulled the closer he held her.
Two beeps and she was back in the car. Two seconds and she was being driven away.
‘Make no mistake—I don’t want to spend any more time with you than you do with me. But for the next ten hours you’re a high-risk concussion patient. And, much as I would rather leave you in the capable hands of the staff at St Bart’s, I think they’ve had more than enough of your nonsense for one day.’
She said nothing. She saw nothing. A sob welled like lava in her chest. Her eyes burned like molten glass.
‘So you’ll come to my home for the night. You’ll stay there until I know you’re in the clear. And then you’ll get a cab to wherever you want. You might not have any shred of a conscience, Stacey, but I’ll be damned if I’ll have you on mine a second time. Got that?’
‘Consider yourself absolved,’ she spat, but her burning throat, aching head and lack of sleep coupled with her whole collapsing world dumbed it down to one thick sob that she stifled with her fist. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and twisted herself to the side, so she didn’t even have to breathe the same air as him.
‘If it wasn’t for your mother I’d put you in a cab to Montauk and send you back there. But she didn’t deserve your selfish histrionics back then and she doesn’t deserve them now. So let’s say you and I agree to put up with one another until you’ve calmed down and I can safely pass back the burden of responsibility to her.’
‘What are you talking about? The only person responsible for me is me.’
She felt the words but could barely say them—they wedged in her throat like hot bricks. Everything hurt...everything ached. But she kept her face to the side. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her so weak and vulnerable.
The car sped on.
Calls were placed and received.
He demanded and instructed and rattled off orders that made her head spin even more. A mechanic to check out his car, a pause on a half-dozen meetings, a bunch of flowers and a tennis bracelet to some woman whose shelf life had expired.
‘Address?’ he barked at one point.
She jumped but refused to look round.
‘Give me your address, Stacey, and I’ll get your stuff picked up. Unless you’ve got a better idea?’
Still she stared out of the window, the wonder of this whole unfolding drama making her feel more and more incredulous, more and more disorientated.
‘Am I too rich to deserve basic manners from you? Is that it? Is it only poor people who are worth bothering about?’
‘I can’t believe that I ever bothered about you, that’s for sure. I might have made a lot of mistakes back in the day, but thinking you were anything other than a giant egotistical hypocrite was the biggest.’
He barked out a laugh.
‘Still at it, Stacey? Still opening that mouth and firing out your poison darts? You still think that’ll fix all your problems, honey?’
‘Don’t “honey” me. I’m not your honey.’
‘Ain’t that the truth? You’re no one’s honey, are you? That would require you to be soft and sweet. You might look like butter wouldn’t melt, but all you want to do is bite people’s heads off. You know, I’ve been with you less than three hours and already I can feel my cortisol levels are sky-high. I live a pretty full-on life, and yet I haven’t felt this much stress since the last time I saw you—ten years ago—do you know that?’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise I was responsible for your stress levels. How selfish of me! To bounce off your car and then insist that you drive me to your fancy hospital with all those super-friendly people who made me feel so at home. And then I beg you to make me stay overnight in your house while you threaten me with my mother! I am beyond inconsiderate.’
‘This sarcasm is a new and even more unattractive trait.’
‘Even more unattractive than I already am? Wow. I’ve hit pay-dirt!’
‘Enough!’
He had stopped the car outside a huge pair of gates. He pulled on the brake so quickly that she slammed back in her seat. For a second they both froze, and in the startled moment that followed she thought she saw a flash of concern and an apology hovering at his mouth. But he shook his head and growled, unbuckled his seat belt and swivelled right round to face her.
‘That’s just about as much as I can bear to hear. What the hell’s got into you? You know damn well that you were the most attractive girl I ever knew.’
Stacey stared, shocked. Marco’s jaw was fixed and tense, his lips an angry line. His eyes blazed. In the still of the moment all she could hear were their breaths, shallow, panting, slightly out of synch.
He was so close now that she could see faint lines around his eyes—lines that had never been there before. Lines from laughter and sunshine that she had never shared with him. Lines from good times in faraway places with people she would never know. She’d made him laugh once. They’d had so much to laugh about back in Montauk.
There was no laughter now.
Tension. Tight across the breadth of his shoulders and in the thick column of his neck. She noticed now the full bloom of his masculinity—the man who had once been the boy. The boy she had once loved.
‘You are a very attractive girl,’ he added, his voice quieter now, a mere imprint of those deep, fierce tones. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, Stacey. I thought your hard edges would have rubbed off by now. But seems like you’ve got more and more jagged and angry with the world.’
With each word his voice softened. Her defences began to crumble. She could take everything the world could throw at her when it was hostile. She could defend and attack in equal measure. She was a match for anyone—male or female—and she never, ever left anyone in any doubt as to how they measured up in her eyes.
But she could not take kindness. It undid her at the very foundations. All her strength was sapped away, like a finger pulled from the dam.
The tears finally sprang and tumbled one after another in hot, wet streams down her cheeks.
His eyes filled with concern.
‘You’re crying,’ he said softly. ‘Stacey, I’m sorry. I’ve never seen you cry.’
‘Yes, I’m crying—and I never cry. I never cry!’ she sobbed, furiously rubbing at her face and gulping back the sobs that threatened to choke her. ‘I was fine—and now look at me. I don’t need your help. I don’t want you. I don’t need anyone and I don’t need you to contact my mom. She doesn’t need to know any of this. It’s fine. I’m fine.’
She rubbed and rubbed and gulped and sobbed and her nose began to burn. She searched in her little purse. But she didn’t have a tissue—she was never that organised. She wasn’t like her mother. Her poor mother who’d crumple if she thought anything had happened to her.
‘I haven’t contacted Marilyn. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not all monster, you know. Here.’
She looked through the blurred shapes that were all her eyes could see and saw Marco offering her a pure white linen handkerchief.
‘Take it,’ he said when she turned away. ‘For God’s sake, it’s only a piece of cloth. Come here, then.’
And he cupped her chin in his hand and began to dab her eyes and her cheeks. She smelt the spicy blend of his cologne and felt the gentle press of his fingers with every touch. She felt strength. She felt kindness. She couldn’t bear it.
She pulled away.
‘I hate you, Marco,’ she sobbed into the linen square. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘I hate you so much.’
He sat back. She could hear him laugh in between blowing her nose.
‘Plenty do, sweetheart. Plenty do.’
‘We both know that’s a lie,’ she said, giving her nose one final blow. ‘Unless you’ve had a personality transplant in the last five minutes. Those nurses were all over you like a rash. It kind of made me want to hurl.’
He laughed again. It was the best medicine she could have wished for.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘And I thought it was from eating those pastries. You looked as if you hadn’t seen food in days.’
He turned back to the road and nosed the car in through the double gates.
‘No. Although that would be a great excuse,’ she said, her voice still thick with tears and tiredness. ‘They were amazing. And the coffee.’
She swallowed, shook her head.
‘Thanks,’ she said, cursing her own selfishness. ‘Thanks for getting me checked out. I appreciate it.’
He parked the car in front of a villa—pillars, wide windows and a terracotta-tiled roof. Planters stuffed with flowers and miniature trees and topiary. A rich man’s house. A very rich man’s house.
She flipped down the visor to look in the mirror. Panda eyes—the eyeliner had completely melted and seeped into her eye sockets. She pressed with her knuckle to wipe away what she could. Even her nose was swollen and red. She’d never looked worse in her life.
‘Forget it. The staff did it all. I’ll pass on your thanks to Lydia and the team.’
Instantly she saw Lydia’s perfect hair, Lydia’s perfect face. She slammed the visor shut on her own disastrous image.
‘If it’s all the same I’ll pass on my own thanks. To those that deserve it.’
‘There you go again. Flying off in some crazy direction, damning people whose only crime is not coming from the same social class as you. You want to tone that down, Stacey, or it’ll start to show on your face. And then you’ll be left an angry and bitter old woman—all alone.’
With that he got out of the car, closed the door and walked towards his house.
She sat in silence, enveloped by his words as they settled all around her, harsh and hurtful. But the truth of them was clearer than a clarion call. She knew she didn’t make friends easily. She knew she attracted men but just as quickly scared them away. She knew she was lonely to the bones of her being.
But she’d rather be lonely than patronised, or mocked, or judged.
Marco stopped, turned, raised a solemn eyebrow and held out his hand in a gesture of welcome. Or sufferance.
She didn’t feel welcome. She felt backed into a corner by Marco’s conscience.
What a guy. She could imagine the porch gossips already: ‘You know he even looked after Stacey Jackson in his own house when her mother was out of town.’
With the last of her strength she stifled the agony of her body and her head and her heart and swung herself out of the car. She could feel the cords of the town pulling tight round her neck. She could feel them pulling her back there, like fishermen landing their catch.
But nothing had made her more sure of her decision to have left the place than spending this time with Marco. She hated that world. She hated everything he stood for. And she was counting down the seconds until she could be back on the road, doing her thing, as far away from those parochial, judgemental pains in the ass as it was possible for her to be.