A Promise of Forever (30 page)

“I can’t help myself, Jake.
She’s the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on and now she belongs to me.
Don’t forget that buddy,” Gianfranco teased his friend as he left the dance floor.

Gianfranco rejoined Kevin, Sylvia and Jenny; they appear to be engaged in weighty conversation.
Katelyn couldn’t tell what they were talking about but she could see that their daughter was agreeing with her father wholeheartedly.
Tonight they would spend the night at the hotel alone and leave for New York in the morning for a short honeymoon before picking up Jenny and leaving for Italy, for who knew how long.

He later told Katelyn that he had booked the honeymoon suite because everyone would be expecting it.
He didn’t want anyone to think that their union was anything short of the loving marriage he intended to portray.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” Jake asked as he danced with the woman who had also become his friend.

“There’s nothing wrong, what makes you say that?” she asked him biting her lower lip.

Jake smiled at her as he lifted her chin lovingly.
“I’ve been around you a lot over the years and who better than me knows that there’s more to this marriage than meets the eye?
I know you both pretty well; something just isn’t right.
Although, I must say that you’re both doing a fine job of hiding it from everyone else.
The tension between you both is so high that you’re ready to explode.
What is it, Kate?” he asked with a note of concern for them both.

“Jake, I appreciate what you’re trying to do but we have to work this out ourselves.”
He wanted to help but he agreed to let the subject drop.
She promised that if she needed him she would call regardless of his friendship with Gianfranco.

All the guests were gathering their things and, wishing them well before leaving.
Kevin had a revelation just before they left.
He realized, for the first time since they started planning the wedding that Katelyn and Jenny were going to be moving to Italy for a while.
He was going to be the uncle and not the father-figure, the role, that he had embraced for so many years and it made him tearful.
Kevin admitted that it was going to be hard for him to give up the role of protector, now that they had someone else to takeover that role but he was happy for them.

Katelyn observed as Gianfranco insisted on carrying his sleeping child out to Kevin’s car so that Kevin could stay behind and help his pregnant wife.
Katelyn followed close behind so that she could say good bye to Jenny once more before they left on their honeymoon.
Jenny moved slightly in Gianfranco’s arms as her little face glanced upward.
She had felt the rain drops on her face and woke up.

“Daddy, will you and Momma be gone long?” her little voice whispered faintly.
Gianfranco could see her tears well up in her eyes as she asked.
He felt as though his heart were breaking his chest. Nothing would please him more than to have his little girl join them on this trip but there were things he and her mother needed to iron out before they could have her join them.
After much discussion and many kisses, he and Katelyn finally convinced her that their trip to New York was going to pass quickly and that, while they were away, Kevin would keep her busy.
After the car pulled away from the curb, he knew, before looking back, that Katelyn would be crying; the mother and daughter bond had been cut, though temporarily.
It was probably the first time, for either of them.

They stood for a long time before the two of them went back inside the hotel lobby and joined Jake.
Jake and Gianfranco talked about the magazine and what they each expected to happen over the next few weeks.
Gianfranco trusted Jake to oversee the merger through its fruition.
He glanced over at Katelyn who seemed bored and lonely after being left alone.

“I don’t want to ignore my wife any longer, Jake.
As beautiful as she is, if she’s ignored for too long she might fly the coop,” he said watching her with adoring eyes.
“If I wasn’t already in love with her, I’d fall in love with her beauty all over again.”
He shared a lot with Jake and as the two men witnessed Katelyn’s growing impatience, Gianfranco thanked Jake again for all he had done and what he was going to do by taking over the merger of
Glitz
.

Jake hugged his friend, razzing that one day he’d make him pay up for all the favors he had done for him.
Jake turned his attention to Katelyn, walked over to her and bid her farewell.
He whispered in her ear that he meant what he had said earlier and then gave her a few parting words, not before looking at her with much skepticism.

“He loves you, Katelyn, trust me.
I know him, give him time to get through the rest of the stuff and I’m sure it’ll all work out,” Jake insisted as he kissed her good-bye.
With that, he started to take off but not before seeing Gianfranco take his wife in his arms and kiss her on the mouth.
Jake smirked, made a face and laughed, told them to get a room and walked out of the lobby.

Gianfranco let his tongue explore the hollow of her mouth; he deepened the kiss as he felt her response.
The kisses that she shared with other men had never been this intense.
If it weren’t for an elderly man coughing at the front desk, meant to interrupt them, who knows, what reactions Gianfranco would have aroused in her.
He looked as though he was searching her soul for some understanding of what was transpiring between them.
He was just as confused by her actions as he was his own.
The two of them acted like horny teen-agers whenever they were together.

“No matter how hard I try to fight the urge to make love to you, I can’t,” he said with regret.
“You’re exquisite, painfully so.”
He had been able to keep his emotions to himself when he was with other women but with Katelyn it was impossible.
Where she was concerned, he wore his emotions on his sleeve regardless of the cost.
It was like he was a teenager and unable to control them.

She was well aware, as they reached their hotel room that the civility between them, had ended.
The air had suddenly chilled and she couldn’t begin to guess the cause.
She decided, once in the room, that she would be the first to shower and change.
The only problem with that was that all she had available was a sexy white negligee that Nellie had designed for her as a wedding gift.
She had packed it away knowing she would never get the chance to wear it.
Only now, all the safe clothes that she had packed were long gone and replaced with Nellie’s newer sexier designs.

His eyes burned into hers as she emerged from the powder room.
There was no attempt to hide from him because there was nowhere for her to go.
He had taken off his tuxedo, as well as his shirt and tee shirt; he stood before her clad only in his pants which were opened slightly, exposing the trickling hair just below his navel.
She didn’t know why she was so fascinated with his body.
She knew instantly what it would do to her. She also knew his thoughts without looking at him because they reflected her own; she stared into his eyes, following a path to her breasts, which were barely covered by the lace of the negligee she wore.

Thinking quickly, he handed her a glass of champagne and lifted his glass.
“To us, that we may we have the luck of your Irish ancestors on our side.
I have a feeling we’re going to need a lot of it if we are to survive each other.”
He clanked his glass to hers and took a sip.
As their eyes met, once again, she found her reaction to him expected but alarming.
How could her body betray her to a man who felt nothing for her but sexual desire?
He stood silently, watching, as if he were trying to study her and gauge what his reaction should be.
The strap on her nightgown fell from her shoulder; he let out an audible sigh as he reached over to put it back in place.

He pulled his hand away from her skin, the skin that was burning from their contact.
She knew her body ached for him to touch her again and she could see, from the look on his face, that he wanted her too.
When she tried to turn away from him, she felt his hand gently take hold of her neck from behind and bring her back to him.
His eyes were black and intense as he turned her body toward him.
Nothing prepared her for the physical ache she witnessed in his eyes.

“Are you always going to treat me like this?
It seems to me that the only time you’re ever civil to me is when you want me in bed,” she said as her breathing became labored and her body betrayed her.

He ran his fingers roughly through his hair in anguish, closing his eyes as he thought about what she had just said.
“I’m sorry, you’re right.
I apologize to you for that.
It’s not what I want for us.
It’s just the way it is.
I want you, Katelyn, and I won’t apologize for wanting my wife but I do admit that I have a problem getting beyond these feelings you have for other men.
I know it’s my problem and I’m going to have to work that out for myself if this is going to work.
I could use your help.
Don’t fight me so much, Katelyn.
Try to meet me half way here, okay?” he pleaded as he moved toward her.

“I’m not in love with Brody or any other man, I never was.
Whether you choose to believe me or not, I don't have any romantic feelings for him.
This marriage doesn’t stand a chance if we can’t get past this.
I was willing to try for Jenny but I refuse to stay married to someone filled with so much animosity and distrust.
I can’t see myself waking up each morning, for the next fifty years, having regrets about this decision.
I made choices years ago and at the time I thought they were the right ones.”
She was out of energy; she couldn’t fight any longer.

“Is that how you see this marriage?
Do you feel regret when you look at me?
I don’t believe you, Katelyn.
I know what you feel when you look at me and it’s not regret I see there.
That’s the one area we do share common ground.
You do agree with me on that, don’t you?” he asked.

She shot him a look but quickly recovered when lightening interrupted her thought process.
She had always been afraid of lightening as a child and that fear continued through adulthood.
She knew that he was aware of her fear.
He took the glass of champagne from her and placed it on the table.
She heard the thunder in the distance and, though it scared the daylights out of her, she went to great lengths to hide her fear from him.
She recalled all the nights she had put Jenny to bed and dealt with her fear on her own.
On those nights when she couldn’t or the anxiety got so bad, she called Jake and he had always been there for her.

Gianfranco went to the bar and poured himself another drink.
This time she could see he was drinking with one thought in mind, to get drunk.
He drank one followed by another.
If he was going to share her bed, holding her to get her through this storm, then he would have to be drunk in order to accomplish it.
There was no way he could lie next to her, have their bodies touch and not take her in his arms and make love to her.

“Do you think you should be drinking so much?” she asked nervously.

“Let’s go to bed, Katelyn, I don’t think I want to talk anymore.
I’ll hold you in my arms because I know it’s the only way you’ll sleep through this storm, but I warn you, don’t move,” he said as he led her toward the bed.

She was the first to get into bed.
After he turned off the light she heard the zipper of his pants and knew that they were being carelessly discarded to the floor.
She wasn’t sure if he would sleep naked as he had in the past but she didn’t think he’d dare tonight since they would not be consummating this marriage.
She heard him breathing heavily as he held her body close to him but Katelyn knew he wouldn’t push her any further.

How could he be so compassionate and understanding one minute and so ruthless the next?
His fingers were soothing as he gently massaged her back as she lay over his chest, taking comfort from the storm.
Katelyn wanted to reach down and find out just what he wore to bed but she dared not.
She knew that touching him would mean they would once again lose themselves in a sexual rapture, they promised they wouldn’t go to.

Katelyn fell asleep in his arms and, in her dreams theirs was a normal marriage.
In her dream, he had just helped her get through her fear of storms by making love to her for the duration.
It’s only a dream,
as she stirred from the sounds around her.

Gianfranco must have risen at the crack of dawn because she could hear the shower and it was still very early.
She could smell his scent left on the pillow next to her as she hugged it, just to feel close to him again.
She got out of bed and carefully laid out the clothes that she was going to wear to the airport.