Seduced by Stratton (The English Brothers Book 4) (19 page)

“Stratton English,” Val told her father tersely, crossing her arms over her chest and shrugging Joe’s arm off her shoulder.

“Mr. English,” said Mr. Campanile, turning to Stratton and nodding politely. “Yes. Yes, I know you. You helped my sister with her studio?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You want a glass of wine?”

“No, sir.”

“Some food?”

“No thank you, sir.”

“We don’t talk business on Saturday evenings. This is a family dinner.”

“And he was invited,” said Zia
Angelina to her brother.

“Always meddling, Angelina,” tsked Val’s mother, Francesca.

“And I suppose you would’ve landed my brother on your own if I
hadn’t
meddled,” she answered tartly.

Francesca gasped, then covered her mouth and sat back down in her seat, shooting her sister-in-law dagger-eyes.

“I’m not here to discuss business,” said Stratton, sliding his eyes back to Val, who made his heart race and throb. She was so beautiful, but she also looked furious and terribly emotional, and Stratton felt profoundly out of his depth. “I’m here to . . .”

Stratton hesitated and it was the only opening Joe Conchetta needed to make a move. He placed his arm back around Val’s waist and leaned his head close to her face. Though Val’s eyes remained locked with Stratton’s, Joe spoke intimately to her, just loud enough that everyone, including Stratton, could hear.

“Valeria,
cara, tesoro mio
, I’ll make him leave. You’re finished with him.”

Stratton didn’t know what Joe’s face looked like, because he couldn’t look away from Valeria. Some warrior. He’d been captured after willingly surrendering, and merely awaited his fate at Val’s hands.

Joe cleared his throat, trying to get her attention, but failing, he addressed the entire table and declared, “Friends and family, before we arrived tonight, I asked Val to be my girlfriend—officially—and she said yes.”

Valeria gasped, jerking her neck to look at Joe with wide eyes.

Stratton clenched his jaw, and the flowers fell from his grasp to the floor as he watched Joe lean down and press his lips to Valeria’s. Stratton took a deep breath and held it, fear and frustration immobilizing him as he watched another man kiss the woman he loved. When Joe drew back, Val stood motionless, staring at her boyfriend with an expression of disbelief. Joe turned to Stratton with a victorious smirk and narrowed eyes.

“It’s time for you to go, Mr. English.”

“Ahhhh!
Bella Valeria
!” exclaimed Dina, leaping up and clasping her hands together in excitement as she shot a smile to still-pouting Francesca.

The whole time, Stratton kept his eyes trained on Val, his savior, his executioner, who finally turned away from Joe to look at him. Her eyes were wide and wild, angry, confused, and bewildered. He held them, searched them, willed her to refute Joe’s claim, but she didn’t. She didn’t say anything as she stared back at him, and it twisted his heart to realize that he was too late.

Except . . .
this is a war, not a skirmish, not a battle. A war. On her heart. No prisoners. Only victory.
Thank God for Kate. He had one last thing to say, and nothing left to lose.

Stratton cleared his throat, resisting the urge to straighten his glasses, his eyes never wavering from hers, and for just a moment, just a split second, it was as though they were the only two people in the room, the only two people in Philly, the only two people on the earth. And in that moment, the words tumbled, loud and clear, from his lips.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

A small, strangled sound emerged from her throat as her mouth dropped open. Only her lower lip trembled as she stood frozen in place while every person in the dining room stopped celebrating Joe’s news, and every eye slid to her face.

She blinked several times, and Stratton realized her eyes were glassy, and she was trying not to cry. Her voice was raspy and breathless when she asked, “
What? Wh-What did you say?
”

“I think I’m in love with you,” he repeated.

“You
think?
” asked Zia
Angelina, elbowing him in the side.

“No. I don’t
think
. I
know
.” He straightened his glasses and licked his lips, holding her eyes like a lifeline, the only possible source of forgiveness, of hope, of reprieve. His words were softer, meant only for her when he said, “I’m in love with you, Val.”

Captivated, he watched as her face softened from shock and disbelief to unimaginable tenderness. Her head leaned slightly to the side, shaking in gentle rebuke as her shoulders relaxed, and her lips tilted just the slightest bit upward.

In a soft and dream-like voice she asked, “You’re in love with me?”

“Yeah,” said Stratton, equally as breathless. “I am.”

“What the
fuck
?” yelled Joe, pulling Val closer to him. “You come here, to
her
family dinner, and you—”

“Wait,” she said, as though awakened by Joe’s tirade. She wrestled herself free of his embrace with an annoyed yank before turning back to Stratton. “What happened to Amy?”

“Who’s
Amy
?” shouted her father.

“She’s out of the picture,” said Stratton.

“Yeah, right,” muttered Danny.

“What changed?” asked Val, her eyes searching his desperately for answers to fill in the gap of time between waking up together three weeks ago and now.

“You. Me. Her.”

“That simple, huh?”

“I think so. I fell in love with you. She got engaged. And I’m hoping that you—”

Her sharp gasp—a terrible, ragged, broken sound—truncated his words, and he watched her eyes widen with fury. Finally she closed her mouth and clenched her eyes shut, holding her breath for a moment before releasing it in a sob. Her eyes popped open, and she grabbed a large chunk of bread from the center of the table and threw it at Stratton’s head.

“She’s
engaged
.” She closed her eyes again, shaking her head as her face crumpled. “
Quello che una ragazza stupida
.
!
”
What a stupid girl!

When her eyes opened, the hurt Stratton saw there made his breath catch. He reviewed his words in horror and suddenly realized why she was so upset. He started shaking his head and held up his palms in surrender. “No! Wait! Val, let me explain. It didn’t come out right. You’ve got it all wrong—”

“No,
you’ve
got it all wrong!” she exploded, reaching under the table for her purse, then stepping over the back of the bench and making her way toward the stairs. “Danny’s right. You
are
a—a
stronzo
! You lost your first choice, so you thought you’d come here and see if—”

“That’s not true.
You’re
my first choice, Val. You! I just didn’t know it until—”

“Shut. Up. Shut up now, S-Stratton!”

She was trying to catch her breath, but it was obvious she couldn’t. She panted as she finally made her way around the end of the table to stand directly in front of him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes on fire. “Don’t
ever
come near me again, Stratton English. You’re in love with me? Well, I’m in
hate
with you!”

She pulled her hand back and smacked his face soundly, then turned and marched up the stairs. Thirty-ish pairs of shocked eyes fixed on him as the loud crack of her hand on his cheek echoed around them.

Zia
Angelina, who’d stood beside him for most of the confrontation, leaned down to pick up the battered bouquet of roses, then shook her head. “At least you went out with a bang.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I just wanted to—”

She shook her head again, and he looked beyond her to the long table of increasingly angry faces staring at him, including Joe Conchetta, who looked about ready to leap across the table and commit murder.

Stratton’s jaw was suddenly seized by two strong fingers. He looked down to see Zia
Angelina grimacing. “Time to go, Romeo. Now.”

He nodded weakly, heading for the stairs, stunned and stricken, wondering if unleashing his romantic side had just sealed his fate and lost Valeria forever.

Valeria was so furious with Stratton, she could hardly see straight. She stomped up the stairs of the restaurant, kept her head down as she bee-lined through the dining room, hailed the first cab that passed by, and gave him her address. Simmering with anger and on the verge of tears in the back of the cab, she enumerated his offenses.

1. Showing up uninvited at her family dinner.
   
2. Showing up uninvited at her family dinner after not calling, texting, or e-mailing in almost three weeks.
   
3. Showing up uninvited at her family dinner after not calling or texting or e-mailing in almost three weeks
   and
   telling her that he was in love with her.
   
4. Showing up uninvited at her family dinner after not calling or texting or e-mailing in almost three weeks, telling her that he was in love with her, and then embarrassing her in front of her family by admitting she was a consolation prize for losing the girl of his dreams.
   

Her eyes welled with tears, and she didn’t stop them as the cab pulled away from the curb. They poured down her face in rivulets while her bruised and battered heart cruelly insisted on replaying the words
I’m in love with you, Val
over and over again.

And how her pathetic heart had swelled with gratitude, with forgiveness and—goddamnit—
hope
in that precious moment.
He wants me. This beautiful, complicated man who makes me feel everything and frustrates me and challenges me is in love with me.
Every cell in her body had been desperate to believe it was as simple as Stratton seeing her for exactly who she was and realizing he wanted her.

“Stratton,” she sobbed, rubbing her burning eyes.

Because she didn’t believe it was true. No. The girl he loved had decided to marry someone else, and left high and dry—and likely broken-hearted—Stratton had decided to soothe his loss by turning to Val. This was nothing more than transference gone terribly wrong. And it hurt. Oh God, it hurt so much to hear him say that he loved her only to discover it wasn’t true at all.

Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she thought about the stunned faces of her family. Her father’s confusion. Her mother and Zia
Angelina getting into a tiff. Joe’s fury.

The thought of Joe initiated a whole new wave of rage, and she gritted her teeth together as fresh tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks. How dare he declare to their families that there was a serious understanding between them? She’d never answered his question in the car—she’d
never
agreed to be his girlfriend. And now she was going to have to figure out how to break up with him and make it clear to her family that there was never, ever, an understanding between them. They’d dated casually, no more. She’d start with telling him he was no longer taking her to Daisy and Fitz’s wedding.

“Which means you won’t have a date,” she whispered softly, staring out the window as she tried unsuccessful to take a deep breath. “Pathetic, single girl alone at a wedding, with frizzy hair and a fat ass.”

Swiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands, she considered not going at all. She’d tell Daisy she came down with something, or had a sick relative . . . or . . .

No. No way. She was one of three bridesmaids, in addition to Emily and Alex’s fiancée, Jessica. She wasn’t going to bow out just because Daisy’s future brother-in-law was a jackass. No. It would take more than Stratton English acting like a selfish moron for Val to let down one of her best friends.

The little burst of spirit helped slow her tears, and she sniffled lightly as she stared out the window, feeling miserable.

She thought of him standing there in the dining room and shook her head. He didn’t even look like himself. He looked like a caricature of a man in love—a cartoon, not the real thing. Not that she knew what the “real” Stratton-in-love would look like, but crashing her family dinner in a suit and tie with a bouquet of red roses? That didn’t feel like him at all.

She rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. Val knew she wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the world, but did he consider her so unworthy, so undeserving, that he’d offer her the position of “second best” in front of her whole family? And God! Why the fuck had he said he was in love with her?

Because that was impossible.

Wasn’t it?

Of course it was. They barely knew each other. They’d had drinks once and spent a handful of days together. But, as she thought back on that handful of days, on the electricity between them, the promise, the excitement, the chemistry—
the one-of-a-kind chemistry
—tears poured out of her eyes once again.