Page 50 of The Price of Power
But even as I pulled free from the tangle of her sleepy limbs and forced myself up, I kept looking back at her. A riot of auburn curls splayed across my pillows. Her fingers loosely wrapped around my Egyptian cotton sheets. Eyes closed, she was still very much asleep and probably would be for hours.
I couldn’t blame her.
While I’d never been particularly quick with any of the women I left the club with, I’d really taken my time with Liv last night. I couldn’t seem to help myself.
Every moan, every purr, every gasp as I played with her body spurred me on. I could have listened to the music of her pleasure until daybreak, but even I had my limits. There was only so long a man could surround himself in that warm, lush heaven and not lose himself.
But even though the sex last night had been earth-shattering, the world around us had stubbornly continued to turn.
The life I lived didn’t come with weekends off. There were no office hours or time off. As the head of the family, I had to be available no matter the day or time. I was always on.
I headed toward the espresso maker on the far counter and started heating the milk for my morning cappuccino.
“There are pistachio and chocolate cornetti for you this morning, Mr. Gabriel,” Letizia said as she continued to bustle around the kitchen. “Which do you think your new lady friend would prefer?”
A puff of foamed milk flew into the air as I accidentally dipped the milk pitcher in my hand down too low. “I’m not sure.”
“Hmm.” Only my housekeeper could infuse a single sound with so much judgment and disappointment. “How about her coffee? Espresso? Con latte? Cappuccino?”
“I don’t know?”
Once I finished pouring my own cup, I turned around to find my housekeeper staring daggers at me. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
I shrugged, doing my best to look unbothered, even though Letizia was one of the few people in the world who knew how to play my emotions. The woman had been running this house since before I was born, after all, and had all but taken on the role of mother to my brother and me when our own had died.
She was also a true master when it came to guilt, working it with the same skill and precision as Michelangelo had with marble. I firmly believed that if Letizia ever found herself in this kitchen with the devil, he’d be the one who left in tears.
“What kind of man are you, inviting a woman into your home without learning a thing about her?” she asked.
“A bad one,” I answered honestly.
“Pshh,” she waved that excuse off with a dramatic flourish. “You might fool everyone else with that tough guy role, but not with the woman who changed your diapers, monello.”
A tsk carried in from the doorway behind me, and I looked over to see my twin walking in with a stack of papers in his hands.
“Not even nine o’clock, and Letizia is already handing you your ass,” Matteo said. “What did you do this time?”
If I wasn’t in such a good mood, I would have told him to wipe that ridiculous grin off his face. Like any true younger brother, he couldn’t resist gloating every time I found myself on the housekeeper’s bad side.
“I don’t know if our guest prefers pistachio or chocolate cornetti,” I said.
“Or how she takes her coffee,” Letizia quickly added, shaking the wooden spoon still clutched in her hand. “Or anything else about her, I imagine. I’m surprised he even knows her name. And here I thought this one might be different. Well, at least you’re not shooing her out the door at daybreak like usual.”
Matteo put his papers down on the kitchen’s center island and leaned in, reaching for one of the green-ribboned pistachio pastries off the plate in the middle. “See. This is exactly why I don’t ever bring anyone home,” he muttered in a hushed tone.
But if Matteo thought that whispers were all it took to escape Letizia’s venomous tongue, he was wrong.
She brought the wide part of her spoon down hard on the side of the plate, making Matteo snatch his hand back before his fingers could get thwacked. The sound was as sharp as any gunshot as it echoed through the stone-tiled kitchen.
“Don’t act like you’re any better, cattivello,” she sniped. “I know the kind of women you like to spend time with in that club of yours. The only reason they’re not here come morning is that you’re too tight-fisted to pay them their hourly rate to spend the night.”
Now, it was my turn to laugh as Matteo’s grin faded away.
“Sometimes, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you boys,” she lamented—mostly to herself—as she turned around and headed back to the stove. “Your poor father must be heartbroken, looking down from heaven at the state of his family. Any hope of the family name continuing on washed away as his sons chase after every skirt in Manhattan.”
“Not all his sons,” Matteo said. Now that Letizia and her spoon were across the room, he was brave enough to reach for his breakfast again. “Dorian is engaged now. And given the way he can’t keep his hands off his fiancé, I’m sure they’ll be popping out kids left and right soon.”
“True,” Letizia admitted. “Mr. Dorian has always been the most dependable of one of you boys.”