Bellissima (6 page)

In four days, she would see him again, but, in the meantime, she was once again Mrs. Rollins, housekeeper, and, as she walked toward the kitchen, she determinedly left
Sweet Jane
, Sergio Fontini’s professed
cara mia
, behind.

Chapter Six

No matter how old a man gets, Sergio thought, he is but a child in a controlling father’s eyes. From the moment he’d walked into the parlor of his parents’ small townhouse, he was aware of being the focus of his father’s brooding stare. Now, as the family sat around the dining table, enjoying one of Mama’s delicious meals, there was a sudden lull in conversation, and his father seized the opportunity.

“This foolishness, giving dance lessons, needs to stop.” Ennio Fontini stabbed his fork in Sergio’s direction. “It is time to do something worthwhile with your life and talents.”

By that, of course, he meant devoting all his time to the family business. It meant nothing to his father that Sergio was doing well, making enough to keep himself very comfortably supported. In fact, knowing that probably drove the older man’s anger. He would have liked for Sergio to fail and have to come back, both to the family home and to the business.

He had broken with tradition when he got his own rooms, began spending less time in the workshop of the jewelry store his father owned. While they specialized in cameos, intaglios and other fine pieces imported from Italy, Ennio had discovered early that Sergio had an eye for design. While Sergio’s older brother, Marco, helped with customers and kept the books, and the youngest, Nico, travelled with his father, learning about gems and the acquisition of the jewelry they sold, Sergio was supposed to remain trapped in the workshop.

That had not suited him at all, on many levels.

“I take care of myself, Papa.” He said it calmly, looking his father in the eye, hoping to put an end to the discussion before the quiet Friday-night family dinner turned into one of his father’s tirades. Poor Sophia, Marco’s young wife, already looked terrified, and Papa hadn’t even raised his voice—much.

“But you do nothing for the family.” Ennio glared back at him, black eyes flashing. “You think only of yourself.”

“Papa—” Marco tried to interject, but Sergio sent him a swift, quelling glance. There was no need for his older brother to try to protect him and perhaps draw some of their father’s ire. When the older man lost his temper, there was no telling what he might say. Marco and Sophia had only been married half a year, and already Ennio was wondering aloud why he had no grandchildren on the way.

“Family is everything.” Ennio ignored his eldest son, his focus fixed unwaveringly on Sergio. “Yet you treat us with no consideration. No respect. You move away as though we are not to your liking. Refuse to contribute to our well-being. Sometimes I think you would be rid of us completely if you could.”

Too far. That was too far by half. Sergio felt his temper rising but tamped it down, unwilling to give his father the satisfaction of making him lose control.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Papa.” Sergio glanced down the table at his mother, caught her glaring at his father. It was impossible not to feel a little flare of amusement, knowing Grazia Fontini would give her husband what-for some time in the very near future. He turned back to meet Ennio’s furious gaze again. “I hope you know that is not true.”

“Sorry?” His father punctuated the shouted word by slamming his fist on the table, making everything rattle and poor Sophia jump and squeak. “You are not sorry. If you were truly sorry, you would make amends.”

Now they were getting to the crux of the matter. Didn’t his father know he could see through his tricks? Ennio shouted, waved his hands, insulted and denigrated until the person he was berating would do almost anything he asked to make it stop. What would his father demand of him now? More designs for the shop? More of his time? That he return to the stuffy workroom full-time, break his back and lose his eyesight in the creation of some expensive bauble that would, more likely than not, live in some ungrateful society matron’s jewelry box?

He had no illusions that the skills he imparted as a dance master were important to anyone other than the social-climbing mamas who dreamed of their daughters rising above their stations. It was, in a very real sense, fools’ work. But it was his, built on his ability and drive to succeed, owing nothing to anyone else’s influence or skill. He was proud of what he had achieved, even if no one else was.

Sergio took a breath, tightening his grip on the rage boiling in his stomach. Get it over with. Let his father say what it was he wanted so Sergio could have the pleasure of denying it to him. “Amends?”

“Yes,” his father roared. “Amends.”

“What kind of amends, Papa? Tell me what it is you think I should do to make up for my egregious sins.”

The words were soft, low, yet so laden with sarcasm Ennio’s face went red, his eyes widening until it was a miracle his eyeballs didn’t fall out of their sockets. And when he next spoke, his voice had fallen yet was no less filled with rage and determination.

“Fabrizio Bertuca’s daughter is coming to London. When she arrives here, you will marry her. If you will do nothing else for your family, this you will do.”

It was not completely unexpected. How could it be when they had married Marco off the same way, bringing him a wife aligned with one of the best intaglio carvers in Rome? Fabrizio Bertuca was one of the foremost goldsmiths in Italy. Another attempt by his father to solidify his trade aspirations through marriage should come as no shock. Yet the words made Sergio freeze, a ball of icy rage and denial forming in his belly.

And just like that, in an instant, he thought of Jane. His sweet, licentious Jane, whose memory he had willfully tried to push aside while he sat at his mother’s table, surrounded by his family. A memory that hovered, just beneath all other thoughts, despite his best intentions.

And instead of increasing his anger, somehow just that brief whisper of her name through his head, the equally quick recollection of her smile, steadied him.

“Marco,” he said quietly into the thick silence, without taking his gaze from his father’s face. “How many designs have I brought to the shop in the last six months?”

“Um,” his brother hesitated, whether to count or with the wish he hadn’t now been brought into the argument, Sergio didn’t know, or care. “Twelve, I think.”

“Fourteen.” Sergio corrected him, watching Ennio’s face get redder. “And do you know if any have sold?”

“All of them,” Marco said.

“And my payment?”

“You refused payment, even though I offered it.”

“Thank you, brother.”

“That signifies nothing.” Ennio was shouting again, both fists planted on the table, ready to pound, just as he’d like to pound his will into his son. “We could have sold double that, triple that, if you dedicated yourself to the task. Since you will not do that, since you will not help us in that small way, you will marry Lucretia Bertuca. Then I can once more consider you a true part of this family.”

Sergio put down his cutlery, distantly surprised to realize he’d been clutching it so tightly his fingers ached as he let the knife and fork go. Picking up his napkin from off his lap, he set it beside his plate and pushed his chair back from the table, aware of the entire family watching him, waiting to see what he would say.

“I’m sorry my production hasn’t met your expectations.” His teeth were clenched so tightly it was all he could do to speak. “And I’m sorry you feel my contributions are too paltry to be considered worthwhile.” He paused, watching his father’s face, letting the older man see his anger, letting it bleed out through his eyes, even as he kept any hint of it from his voice. “I will not promise to do better. In fact, I find myself too busy to continue supplying you with designs. I also suggest, sir, that you inform Signor Bertuca his daughter will not be marrying
me
when she arrives on England’s shores.”

He turned away then, ignoring his father’s shouts, his brothers’ interjections, Sophia’s wide-eyed shock. By the time he was shrugging into his coat in the small entry hall, his mother was by his side, her hand on his arm.

“Sergio, please…”

“
Non
, Mama.” He tried to be gentle with her, not wanting his anger to color how he spoke, but wasn’t completely successful. “In this I will not be moved.”

“Too much like your papa.” She made a sound, half laugh, half sob, and, surprised, he looked down at her. There was the unmistakable sheen of tears in her eyes, and his heart wrenched to see them. “Stubborn. Pigheaded. Will you tear our family apart over such a little thing? You must have known your father would arrange a marriage for you. It is our way.”

He shook his head, unable to explain to her his reluctance—no, repugnance—at the thought of taking a wife when his body, his heart, craved another. She would not understand, would be horrified to know he was placing his feelings for a woman, one not only outside of their culture but not even of their class, above the wishes of his father and the future of the business.

“I will not relent, Mama.” A tear beaded on her thick, black lower lashes, then dripped down her cheek, and he touched it with his fingertip, aching with the knowledge he made his strong, brave mother cry. “I’m sorry.”

Bending, he kissed her cheeks, and she hugged him hard. “We will work this out, Sergio. It can be done, if one of you will bend, just a little.”

A huff of laughter, raw and derisive, broke from his throat. “You mean if I will, Mama.”

Grazia just shook her head as she stepped back, and the last thing Sergio heard as he left his parents’ house was his father’s voice, shouting for him not to return until he came to his senses.

It hurt. Of course it did. Especially since, in this situation, he knew his father meant it and Sergio would not contemplate backing down either. This was an impasse, and he could think of no way it would be resolved.

As he turned up the collar of his coat in an attempt to block the cool night air, Sergio knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t accede to Ennio’s demand. There had always been within him the need to be independent, to live life the way he wanted, rather than how his father or society deemed fit. This was just one of many battles his father and he had fought over the years, as Ennio tried, with little success, to bring Sergio to heel. But somehow this felt the most important. As though if he should give in on this one thing, the rest of his life would follow suit, leaving him nothing of his own, rendering him just a marionette whose strings were twined about his father’s fingers.

And then there was Jane.

Sergio groaned quietly, holding the sound in his chest so the people passing by him on the pavement wouldn’t think him a lunatic. Just the thought of her, the way she so fully gave in to his every demand, made his cock hard in an instant. Yet there was more to their association than just lust, at least on his side. He admired her, even more so since he’d coaxed from her the story of her life. Abandoned as a child and yet able, through her wits and strength, to make her way in the world.
Dio
, he didn’t know if he, in similar circumstances, could do as well. He’d always had his family, always known if things went wrong they were there, or should he need help, it would be forthcoming. His heart ached to think of her, young and innocent and alone.

Jane was no longer innocent, that much he knew, but she was still alone.

The former he could do nothing about, and even if he could, he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to him where she had gotten the experience she so freely exhibited, although he had his suspicions. He was just happy to be the beneficiary of it and wanted more. More of her soft flesh, her responsiveness, the taste and scent of her and the little cries of pleasure she was unable to suppress. He wanted to unwrap her from the cocoon she hid within, lay her on his bed with her legs sprawled wide and her body fully exposed, explore and tantalize every inch of her, until she found release so many times she begged for mercy.

And he wanted more from her than just her body, which should have surprised him but didn’t, really. Over the hours they’d spent together, he’d come to appreciate her nimble, inquiring mind, the sly wit that sometimes escaped her carefully placid mien. He found himself looking forward to their conversations, storing up observations and bits and pieces of information to share and discuss with Jane. The interest and enthusiasm in her eyes as they spoke of art or books or events of the day echoed his own pleasure. The sentiments they shared, and even the matters they disagreed on, which she argued with calm reasonableness, only made him admire her more.

She was becoming his obsession, and Sergio had no idea where that would lead. The situation was fraught with danger for them both. If what they were doing were to become known, she would be turned away without a reference, and his reputation would be sullied. He had only just begun to get commissions from members of the landed gentry to teach their children to dance, as word of his skills spread beyond the newly rich. To be known as the dance master who seduced one of his employer’s housekeepers would be the end of his current career.

Yet he couldn’t stop thinking of her, wanting her time and smiles, to hear her voice. Wanting to take her body in every way he could imagine, and perhaps to expand beyond the imaginable into new and even more licentious acts.

He wanted all of her.

The thought brought him to a standstill in the middle of the pavement, his heart thudding with the realization that somehow, somewhere, she had become of tantamount importance to him. There was nothing else he could think of right here, right now, that seemed even slightly significant in comparison.
Madre di Dio
, was this love or just the intensity of lust?

Sergio didn’t know. All he could feel was his need for her, like molten silver, burning through his veins. And there was only one thought that stood out in his head.

Whatever it took—the loss of reputation, family, the very life from his body—he would have her. Take her over and over until he understood what he was feeling, until he could make sense of it and decide what to do.