Page 44 of ‘I Do’ for Revenge
Vito’s gaze narrowed on her. He stepped out onto the terrace. ‘Flora...what’s going on?’
She struggled to articulate what she was feeling and finally she blurted out, ‘I’m not just some sort of doll that you can pick up and put down and move around.’
Rain was falling now and it was heavy. Vito was shaking his head, hair beginning to flatten against his skull. He said, ‘That’s the last thing I think of you.’
They were getting drenched already, in just seconds, but Vito didn’t seem inclined to move. Flora had to raise her voice over the rain. ‘You just...need to give me notice, okay?’
‘Notice of what?’
She bit her lip. ‘Notice of when you don’t want me any more. When it’s over. You can’t just announce it one morning, that you’re done with me. Over breakfast.’
‘Maybe you’ll be done with me before I’m done with you,’ Vito said. Flora absorbed that notion, as unlikely as she knew it was.
She said, ‘Maybe I will, maybe you’ll wake up one morning and I’ll be gone.’ Moving on with her life, going after her dreams and goals, even if they were still a little hazy. Flora had a sense of appreciation in that moment of how she’d survived in those first days after the wedding debacle. She could do it again, and she would. Perversely, the man who she knew would inevitably cause her untold emotional pain was also the person helping to remind her of her own agency and strength. A contradiction she didn’t want to untangle right now.
Vito moved closer then, putting his hands on her waist, hauling her into him. She could feel every hard sinew of his powerful form. Their clothes were plastered to their bodies by now. The sky flashed with lightning and thunder rolled.
Vito said, ‘No way, you’re mine.’
Flora reached her arms up and wound them around his neck, arching herself against him. ‘For now,’ she said, echoing his words back to him but, even as she was reminded of her own strength, she hated to admit that she didn’t feel as if she’d won any kind of victory.
She pressed her mouth to his and his hands speared in her hair, holding her in place so he could plunder her and stamp his very essence onto her. He lifted her then and brought her out of the rain and through the suite to the bedroom, and their sodden clothes were peeled off. He stood before her, every muscle sleek and taut, and she lay back on the bed. ‘Make love to me, Vito.’
He came over her on two hands, and she opened her legs to him. He said as he joined their bodies in one single cataclysmic thrust, ‘You’re mine, Flora.Mine.’
She was his, for now, and he was hers, and she revelled in his possession, knowing that it wouldn’t last.
The following day, Vito was distracted in his meeting. He’d given up trying to fool himself that he could avoid thinking about Flora. He texted her to see where she was—she’d mentioned going for a walk with Benji that morning. They had a function to attend that evening and he’d arranged for a glam team to meet Flora at the hotel. Even though he usually preferred how she looked before they teased her hair into some sort of up-do and put make-up over her freckles.
The after-effects of making love to Flora after that rainstorm lingered in his blood and body. He hadn’t been able to get her words out of his head or the intensity of the way she’d said them.
‘I’m not just some sort of doll...’and‘Maybe you’ll wake up one morning and I’ll be gone.’
When Vito had woken that morning, to find Flora curled against his back, one arm draped over his waist, a hand splayed on his belly, he’d put his hand over hers and he hated to admit it, but he’d felt a sense of relief and he’d thought to himself,Not today.
But he wasn’t fooling himself. It might not be today but it would be one day. Either he would end it because he would look at her and not want her, or maybe shewouldbe the one to leave. And shouldn’t Vito welcome that? After all, it wasn’t as if he wanted anything more with this woman.
‘Vito?’
Vito looked around. He hadn’t even realised that his thoughts had propelled him up out of his seat and to a window. His phone pinged and he looked at it. A message from Flora with a location pin to a residential street in Mayfair. He frowned. What was she doing at a house in Mayfair?
He turned to the people around the board table. ‘Can we wrap this up? I have somewhere I need to be.’
The fact that Vito was speeding through a meeting that would normally have absorbed one hundred per cent of his attention barely impinged now. He needed to go to Flora.
Flora was standing in the back garden when she felt the little hairs rise up on her arms.Vito.He’d come. She hadn’t expressly asked him to but on some level she’d wanted him to come.
He came and stood beside her and asked, ‘Are you interested in buying this house?’
Flora shook her head. ‘No, of course not. They were having an open viewing. I had no idea it was up for sale.’
‘So...why are you here?’
Flora swallowed. ‘It was my home, with my parents and brother. I grew up here for eight years. After they died...my uncle sold it and the proceeds went into my inheritance.’ She made a face. ‘Well, whatwouldhave been my inheritance.’
Vito came and stood in front of her, obstructing her view of the large verdant garden. Benji ambled around nearby, sniffing the border hedging.
Flora forced herself to look at Vito, but her chest was tight and she was afraid of the emotion swelling up inside her. It had affected her more than she’d thought, when she’d first seen the number on the house and realised that the one for sale was her family home. She’d gravitated there without even knowing what she was doing.