Page 273 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
Rolling over, she plucked her phone off the bedside table. It was barely six thirty. How long had Enzo slept? He must have been awake a good long while. Charlotte didn’t understand how anyone could subsist on so little sleep.
She pushed herself up to rest against the pillows, feeling a pleasurable ache in her body that brought a smile to her lips. Images from the night before replayed behind her eyes.
Enzo’s mouth worshipping at her. Torturing her. It seemed to bring him as much pleasure as it did her. He had drawn her a bath afterwards. Gently and teasingly taking care of her. Caressing her skin with soap on his hands.
They had ordered room service but hadn’t eaten much when their hands were all over each other again.
It was as if that kiss at the ball had unleashed all their desire upon the world, and there was no hope of containing it now.
Not that Charlotte wanted to.
Their night hadn’t only been about passion. Enzo had opened up to her a little. But then he’d kept her busy, almost as though he wanted to prevent her thinking on his revelations. Or asking much more. She understood that need for privacy, so she’d let him sweep her away to a place where there existed only him, her and this unquenchable thirst for each other.
Charlotte would have liked nothing more than to get a few more hours of sleep, but there was no hope of that now. So she tossed the covers and padded, naked, to the bathroom where in the mirror she saw a red mark on her neck.
Enzo had left another on her breast and one far lower on the inside of her thigh. He was possessive, normally a thought that unsettled her, but the anger she’d felt radiating from him when she told him of the arranged marriage she’d escaped had eased that flare of unease. He wasn’t like Grant or her father. He would give her the choice of being his. He had proved as much in the way he made certain that she wanted him.
How could she not?
The more of him she saw, the more she craved him. His warmth. His safe embrace.
Temporary.
She reminded herself it had to be temporary. They couldn’t have a relationship in the light. Even though he had seen the real her, he still thought she was Celeste. She had to acknowledge that she was already playing with fire. She just prayed that she could prevent anyone from getting burned.
Charlotte freshened up and brushed through her dark hair. She would go in search of Enzo. Perhaps she could persuade him that breakfast in bed was a far more appealing proposition than work.
The thought made her stomach unfurl in that way it did only when Enzo was around.
She picked up the fluffy white robe that had been discarded on the bench at the foot of the bed. She was tying the belt around her waist when Enzo entered. He always sucked the air out of the room with nothing more than his presence, but with his hair tousled, his chest bare and those dark blue pants sitting on his hips in the most delicious way, bare feet carrying him towards her, there was not a force on earth that could get air back into Charlotte’s lungs.
She wanted to go to him. To run her hands over the planes of his torso. Trace her fingers over the corded muscle that held so much strength, but when she looked at him, desire faded away. A plummeting sensation replaced it in the pit of her stomach.
His eyes were burning. There was a look in them she had never seen directed at her. Fury.
He was a tempest of rage as he walked towards her. Tense. Lips in a thin line. A muscle feathering in his jaw. She felt every step like a cataclysmic earthquake and took a step back. Shrinking away.
Something was very wrong, but a small voice told her that he could have heard bad news about the vineyards. There was no need to panic just yet.
‘Are you a spy?’
‘What?’ Charlotte asked. Her heart beat frantically.
‘Isaid—’ Enzo shouted, then grit his teeth, speaking calmly, icily, terrifyingly ‘—are you a spy? Have you been planted in my company to steal information?’
Charlotte’s mouth had gone dry. ‘Enzo! No!’
‘Then, to steal information from me?’
She knew then that he had found out who she was. Knew of her lie. She’d known this day would come. It was inevitable, but it was so much worse than she could have imagined. Why did it have to happen now, when she just wanted to pretend she could enjoy a little bit of happiness? A little bit of the joy that been missing in her life for so long.
She didn’t know exactly how much Enzo had uncovered, so she tried to hold on to the charade for a little while longer. Maybe she could calm him and convince him that she was the same Celeste he had known these past two years.
‘What are you talking about?’ Breathless. The lump in her throat made it hard to talk. To swallow. To breathe.
‘Do you take me for a fool?’ His voice was hard, trembling slightly at the obvious difficulty he had in controlling his ire. The tone sent shivers down her spine. She had never seen him this angry, and now it was hard to breathe for a different reason from only moments before.
Her eyes welled with tears that she couldn’t control. Scared for herself. Upset that Enzo would feel that she too was a liar. Someone who’d betrayed him just like the others. She wasn’t that person, and she needed him to believe her. She needed him to listen because being in his shadow made her feel a little safer.