Jane Porter - Mistress To a Latin Lover

And slowly it broke her. It was the waiting for love that reduced her to this.

“Maybe it wasn’t love,” Maximos said, his shuttered gaze resting on her face. “Maybe it was lust and you thought it was love.”

Her lips tugged, emotions sharp, too intense. “I know the difference,” she whispered, thinking that the past seemed light-years removed, their volatile relationship part of someone else’s life…someone else’s experience, and even though the good feelings seemed so far away, she knew there’d once been good feelings in this relationship.

She looked at him, seeing his dark beauty, the hard lines and edges of Maximos Guiliano. Tall, powerful, authoritative. A Sicilian man who didn’t compromise.

Her heart squeezed inside her chest. If only he’d compromised for her…

“I loved how I felt when I was with you,” she said after a moment. “I loved how I felt when I looked at you. You gave me joy. You gave me peace. When I was with you I wanted nothing else, nothing more. Every moment was precious, every moment meant so much to me.”

“Yet you never saw us in the future. You never saw us growing old together.”

She looked at him strangely. “Why do you say that?”

Lines formed on either side of his mouth and for a moment he didn’t answer. Then his head shook, his features tightening. “I know I wasn’t good for you, and I know I—and our relationship—had hurt you.”

The relationship had hurt. After awhile. After the limitations had become too narrow, too restrictive, too binding.

“You didn’t give me a future.” She couldn’t look at him anymore, the heartbreak back, the feelings so sharp and bittersweet. “You didn’t allow me to dream. You made it clear from the start it was sex, and I tried to be content with sex.”

She exhaled hard, and drew another breath, the air hot, aching inside her lungs. “But I fell in love with you anyway. I couldn’t help it. You’re not like anyone I’ve known before.”

“You’ve been pursued by many successful men.”

“It’s not your success that makes you fascinating. It’s you—your darkness, your complexity, your sharp edges. You’re… dangerous, Maximos. And I know it. I’ve always known it.”

“Danger’s that attractive?”

She looked out over the deep blue water, trying to think of an appropriate answer, but all she saw was the ad campaign Italia Motors had hired her to do for their European market. The ads had been dark, moody, sexual. Nothing light or playful in the Italia Motors branding and she’d gotten that directly from Maximos herself.

One look at him and she wanted to slide out of her clothes and into close contact with him.

One night alone with him and she’d wanted every night with him.

“You’re that attractive,” Cass answered, ruefully. “You’re that man every woman dreams about—the dark handsome stranger, the forbidden—and I wanted that.”

“Forbidden.”

She shrugged. “There’s always an appeal to that which is out of reach, to that which we can’t have.”

“But you did get me. You did have me.”

There was something in his voice, in his tone, that reminded her of how she used to feel when alone with him—desired, sheltered, adored. God, how she’d loved being with him, being loved by him. It was the best feeling in the world. “And I just wanted more.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t.

Maximos’s forehead creased, deep lines furrowing between his strong eyebrows and silence stretched between them, the silence stretching so long that Cass shifted. “I obviously shouldn’t have wanted more,” she added after a moment. “Me asking for more was the kiss of death, wasn’t it?”

“There was nothing wrong with you asking for more.” His voice was low, harsh. “I know you wanted more, needed more. I gave you very little.” He hesitated, glanced at her, features savage. “I gave you virtually nothing.”

He’d known .

Cass felt a flicker of pain, like the sharp edges of a palm frond brushing her heart, simultaneously cutting and caressing. He’d known.

She couldn’t see, the sudden sting of tears blinding her vision and Cass gripped the railing, her head so full of words and emotions that she didn’t even know where to begin.

How could love be so complicated?

As a child love had seemed so very simple. Emotion had been simple. You loved, you laughed, you hoped, you feared. Emotion had just been that—emotion. And you made your decisions based on honest emotion.

Then you learned.

You grew up.

You changed.

Love stopped being simple, direct, uncomplicated. Love became difficult. Dangerous. Complex. Love became something one could lose, something elusive and negotiable.

It became about behavior.

It became a reward.

It even became a punishment.

And for a moment Cass wanted nothing more than to be a child again with a child’s innocence and the pure heart of one still young, still trusting. Because love was better like that, when one trusted, when one didn’t worry and fear, when one didn’t anticipate pain. When one didn’t fear scrutiny never mind rejection.

Did anyone manage to grow up unscathed? Unscarred?

Did anyone reach adulthood—maturity—still trusting? Still centered? Still optimistic?

She wished she had. She wished she was more like the image she projected, the one with impeccable suits, flawless hair, dazzling success. On the outside she looked like the perfect woman. But the perfection stopped there. Because on the inside she wanted so much more.

On the inside there was a woman who’d never felt secure, never felt loved, and she’d picked Maximos to love her because if he—difficult, untamable Maximos—should love her then she was truly valuable. Lovable.

“Can I just interrupt for a moment?” Annamarie, Maximos’s middle sister, asked, joining them. She was cradling her infant daughter against her shoulder, one hand raised protectively to shield the baby’s head and neck from the sun.

“Of course,” Maximos answered, reaching to take his young niece from his sister. “I’ve wanted to say hello to this beautiful bambina all morning.”

Cass couldn’t watch Maximos with the baby. It was the last thing she wanted to see and she turned toward his sister who was looking at her with the strangest expression—surprised, as well as intrigued.

“I’m Annamarie,” his sister said, introducing herself. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to meet you earlier. I think there was a misunderstanding—”

“It’s okay,” Cass interrupted, knowing what Maximos’s sisters thought, and as it was what they were supposed to think, the last thing Cass wanted from any of them was an apology. “I understand.”

“You’re an American?” Annamarie asked.

“Yes.”

“But you’re Italian is excellent. I can hardly detect an accent.”

“I hope so. I’ve lived in Europe for ten years now, five of those in Rome.”

“You like Rome?”

“Very much so,” Cass answered, tucking another loose strand of hair behind her ear. The yacht was moving at such a clipped speed that the deep blue water frothed with white foam. “It’s become home.”

“And Sicily?” Annamarie persisted. “Do you like it here?”

“It’s my first visit.”

“Your first visit? You mean Maximos has never brought you to his own country, to meet his own people before?”

“She’s going to Catania and Aci Castello now,” Maximos said calmly, gently patting the baby’s back.

“But what about Agrigento, Palermo, Mount Etna?” Annamarie protested. “Those are all important to our culture. You can’t possibly say you’ve visited Sicily if you haven’t seen more.”