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He ground the gears in place of his jaw and Mia felt not just his tension but her own and she again asked him to slow down.
‘I am within the speed limit!’
But all the same he slowed right down, taking the bends like a tourist when he knew these roads like the back of his hand.
Mia stopped pressing her foot on an imaginary break and looked out at the colour-drenched view. The splash of poppy fields in the distance, the tall cypress trees and the sights that had been her home for two years. She had honestly thought she would never see Luctano again, but there was no time to enjoy the now familiar scenery spread before her, for the enormity of them being exposed was starting to hit. She was nervous about facing Sylvia and the staff, and about her brother’s reaction too, and panic was building, though she tried to keep it from her voice as she broke the strained silence. ‘Dante, can you do anything to stop the photos being released?’
‘They’re already out,’ Dante said.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because from the buzzing in my pocket I might be forgiven for thinking I picked up your vibrator by mistake instead of my phone.’
‘You’re disgusting!’ Mia spluttered, appalled that he would say such a thing, but Dante was unabashed.
‘No,’ Dante shot back, ‘that title belongs to you.’ Their shameful night would be on stage now for the world to see, and he was furious with himself for his weakness for Mia and the awful feeling that the woman who fascinated him and who he had come to adore might have played him. ‘It took two years for you to get a Romano between your legs. You must have needed something to help you along in the interim.’
‘Absolutely not!’ Her cheeks were on fire, her hands bunched, stunned he would talk about such things.Suchthings she had never done, except for Dante it seemed to be a given that she had.
‘Was just thinking of the millions enough of a turn-on then?’ he asked.
‘Excuse me!’ Mia spluttered. ‘I didn’t knowsuchfeelings existed until you!’ She was embarrassed even to discuss it. ‘And,’ Mia added, ‘it was significantly longer than two years. I was a virgin when we slept together, if you remember rightly.’
Oh, Dante remembered very well indeed.
And he was trying not to do exactly that.
But was Mia saying he’d been not just her first lover but her first orgasm? Dante was considering pulling the car over so curious was he.
Socurious!
He looked over and saw her uptight features and for once felt rather chastised as Ms Prim took out her own phone to look at the articles. ‘Don’t,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You really don’t need to see them.’
‘I want to know what’s being said.’ Mia let out an anguished cry and dropped the phone in her lap as if it was a hot coal.
Oh, it was such an intimate photo.
Mia had barely recognised herself in the mirror before she had headed down to the ball, and she barely recognised herself now, because in the photo she was clearly on fire for Dante for all to see.
There was not a strap or a button undone in the photo, yet she felt as if the world had been invited into her bedroom.
‘What?’ Dante said.
But she refused to answer him, just sat with that pained expression and with her hand over her mouth. Even though they were only a little way from home,nowhe pulled over the car and retrieved her phone to see what was being said for himself.
The headlines were pretty brutal, but one in particular stood out.
Step-Mamma Mia!
Beneath the headline was a picture of them groin to groin and with his face over hers. It had been taken from inside, probably with a phone, but it was enough to capture her in that red dress, gazing right at him, him holding her tight and close. There was a stirring in his groin as he recalled the feel of Mia in his arms, pressing the key into her hand and the quiet certainty that they were again headed for bed.
‘That’s not me,’ she said, and Dante frowned at her choice of words.
‘Oh, that’s you all right, Mia,’ Dante refuted, but it was dawning on him that this was a side to Mia only he had seen, and though usually this type of picture didn’t rattle him, her clear distress had him angry on her behalf. There was no real time to dwell on it, though, as her phone lit up then. ‘Someone called Michael is calling you.’
‘My brother.’ She shuddered. ‘He must have seen it.’
Yet instead of declining the call, he was surprised and more than a touch impressed when she took the phone and answered the call with brisk aplomb. ‘Mia speaking.’
