AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She’d spent so much time boxing up her feelings, shutting down her emotions, and yet it only took a moment for Marco to undo all her carefully constructed control.
Pull away, she told herself, as heat rushed through her, heat and desire which threatened to crumble the last of her resistance. And somehow she did.
In the morning as they were checking out of the hotel, Marco’s cell phone rang. “Marilena,” he said, answering the call. He moved away a little bit and Payton stood with the girls and their suitcases near the lobby door waiting for the taxi that would carry them to the port.
Payton didn’t hear much of the conversation. She didn’t want to hear much of the conversation and she intentionally busied herself playing a game counting red cars with the girls to keep her focus out on the street instead of on Marco.
Marco glanced at Payton from beneath his lashes as he listened to Marilena describe a party he’d missed the night before. “Everyone asked about you,” the princess said. “You were definitely missed.”
“I’ll be back in a week,” he answered, wondering why he felt so irritated. He and Marilena had always been so social together; they were quite a power couple in their strata-sphere.
“How is it going? How was your night in Naples?”
“The girls enjoyed Naples,” he answered, watching Payton crouch beside the girls at the glass window. It looked almost as if they were playing a game and Payton was laughing as Gia and Livia argued over who’d gotten the last point. “We had dinner at La Terazza.”
“You took the children to La Terazza? But darling, it’s not a restaurant for children.”
“They behaved beautifully.” He saw the taxi pull up and the hotel doorman gestured to Payton. “I need to go,” he said. “Our taxi is here. I don’t want to miss our shuttle to Capri.”
“All right, darling, call me soon. Bye bye.”
The taxi whisked them from the hotel to the bay and they arrived at the port just in time to board one of the high-speed hydrofoils that would carry them to Capri. It was only a forty-minute ride, Marco explained. Hundreds of tourists made the round trip every day in summer.
The hydrofoil picked up speed and Payton watched the steep hillsides with the cascade of pastel houses recede. Naples from the water was even more spectacular. Indeed the whole coastline—all green and blue and jewel tone colors—sparkled in the sun.
As Naples dwindled from the view, Payton thought back to the dream she’d had in high school. The dream had been to come to Italy, to see the great art and cathedrals of ancient Rome. She’d wanted to take an apartment in Milan and study fashion with the top designers. She’d longed to drink coffee and watch the sun rise over the land where great art and great minds had given the world culture.
An hour later, the hydrofoil pulled alongside the harbor and the crew turned to the task of docking. The sun felt warmer already.
Marco suddenly leaned forward and kissed Payton’s forehead, his hand tangling in her long loose curls. “You look happy,” he said. “It’s good to see you smile.”
She blushed, heat blooming through her middle at his touch.
He dipped his head again and this time kissed her cheek, near her mouth. She smelled the spice of his cologne—his own signature fragrance, Marco, which sold like mad in the States, felt the rough edge of his beard despite the fact that he’d shaved earlier that morning, felt his warmth from the dazzling Italian sun.
She could feel him, smell him, and it all seemed surreal. Funny how everything could change but nothing changed. But everything had changed. Marco was not hers. Even if the wedding had been postponed, he was still promised to another woman. He still belonged to another woman.
Marco’s hand slid from her hair and she ducked beneath his arm, took a quick step away. It’d been two years since their divorce. She’d had two years to accept reality.
So why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she accept that she no longer had a future with Marco? And why on earth didn’t the pain—and longing—go away?
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing.” Dammit. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t start feeling all these old feelings again. She’d worked so hard to shut down her emotions, to bottle up the want and need. Yet being around him was making her feel so much and what she felt terrified her.
There was only one man for her. Only Marco, and yet Marco wasn’t an option.
His house wasn’t actually in Capri, but Anacapri, on the other side of the massive mountain. It was built on a slope above the ocean and it sprawled in elegant terraces. Flowers cascaded over the balconies and more flowers surrounded the pool on the lower terrace.
With Liv in one arm and Gia in the other, Marco gave her the grand tour. The house had been his mother’s, and his grandparents before. His mother’s family had come to Anacapri for generations and although they were less than a mile from downtown Capri, Marco’s neighborhood felt peaceful, almost rural.
In Payton’s bedroom he opened the door to the balcony and walked outside into the sunshine. Marco drew a deep breath and exhaled. The girls giggled.
“Smell the air here,” he said. “Feel the sun. Isn’t this wonderful?”
Payton couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. It was wonderful. It was wonderful and awful and she didn’t know how she’d survive the next seven days alone with him.
The girls were here but in some ways the girls made it harder. The girls were a constant reminder that she and Marco had been close once. Intimate. They’d made love.
Payton closed her eyes, took a steadying breath. She couldn’t let herself think about making love, couldn’t let herself remember how amazing it had been with Marco.
His touch had been perfect. His hands knew how to touch her. His body felt like heaven against hers.
She’d heard from friends that sex the first time wasn’t always pleasurable. She’d heard that it sometimes took practice—experience—for the physical act to make physical and emotional sense.
It hadn’t been like that with Marco. The first time had been incredible. She’d cried when he’d moved inside her, cried at the intense pleasure, the unbelievable sensation of him in her, of him with her.
When he brought her to an orgasm she cried yet again and Payton knew, despite her limited experience, that she’d never be with anyone else who made her feel this way, and decided then that if she couldn’t be with Marco, she’d rather be with no one.
“It is wonderful,” she said after a moment, turning to smile at the girls and Marco, doing her best to hide the heartache.
Marco set the girls on their feet. “This island is magical. It has the power to heal, the power to make whole.”
Payton’s heart turned inside out. “Enough for a miracle?”
His intense gaze met hers and held. “Without a doubt.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY spent the first couple of days acting like tourists, visiting the popular spots with the throng of Americans and Europeans visitors who’d taken the boat over from th
e mainland for the day.
Finally, though, Marco had enough of the tourist crush and suggested a picnic away from the crowds and frenzied shoppers in town.
To the girls’ delight, they took one of Capri’s rambling buses and bumped along the road until Marco signaled to the driver that they wanted off.
The driver dropped them just above the Villa Damecuta. The villa had once been one of Tiberius’ twelve imperial villas on Capri but was nothing more than ruins now. Yet the ruins had a spectacular view of the water and offered a perfect spot for picnics.
Payton spread the blanket out on a grassy knoll and they munched on sandwiches and drank lemonade before the girls set out to explore.
Payton followed the girls and then sat down on what was left of an old stone wall. Marco took a seat next to her. The sunshine was glorious. The day was glorious.
“You couldn’t ask for more perfect weather,” he said, leaning back a little, arms braced behind him.
She turned her head and smiled. He was wearing a navy knit shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows and it was a very casual look but very sexy. “I think heaven must be like this.” Her smile faltered a fraction, suddenly self-conscious.
She looked back at the twins who were oblivious to all, intent on their game of hopscotch among the ruins. “The girls are so happy here. You must bring them here again. Promise me.”
“Of course. Capri is my second home. The house here has been in my mother’s family for generations.” He leaned forward, adjusted her hat to better shield her face. “You don’t talk about your mother much. Why?”
“It’s difficult.” Payton was grateful for the straw hat’s brim. His gentleness, his protectiveness, was still so new. She wasn’t accustomed to a tender Marco.
“She had cancer, too, didn’t she?” Marco persisted.
Talking about her mother wasn’t much easier than contemplating her own future but Marco would need to know these things. Someone should tell the girls about their mother’s family. “I loved my mom,” she said simply. “We were very close. It was just the two of us growing up. Dad left years ago—he remarried and has another family somewhere—so it’s been Mom and me for almost as long as I can remember.”
