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I glance at the phone ringing on my desk.Daniela. It’s like she knew I was thinking about her. I start to reach for the damn thing but let it go to voicemail instead.
Not a minute later, Cristiano answers his phone. “I’m not sure he’s available. Is there something I can help you with? Okay,” he replies after a pause. “I’ll ask him to call you. I understand,” he mutters, seconds later. “Hold on.”
Cristiano mutes the call and turns to me. “Daniela wants to speak with you. She claims it can’t wait.”
If it were a true emergency, she would have told Cristiano. “Did she give you any clue as to what’s so damn important?”
He shakes his head. “No, but she sounds upset.”
I hold out my hand for the phone, and put the call on speaker, cursing myself for being soft. “I’m a busy man. I hope this is important.”
She doesn’t say anything for a moment.
My shoulders tighten at the prospect of something, or someone, upsetting her.I’m getting too emotionally involved with her—I can’t let her weaken me.
“Do you need something, or did you interrupt my day to listen to me breathe?”
“You haven’t been home in a week.”
What the hell?
“Let me stop you right there. I’ve been home every night. I keep two homes, and several apartments around the world. I’ve been working until all hours, and it’s more convenient to stay in the city.”
“But you found time to attend a benefit gala with Sonia.” She spits out the words, with a tenuous grasp on her composure.
How does she know about the gala?
“I don’t need to justify anything I do, but I didn’t go to a benefit or anywhere else with Sonia.”
Lucas shoves a laptop under my nose, with an image of me seated beside Sonia.Fuck.Now my neck has joined my tight shoulders.
The paper knows better than to print photos of me that haven’t been preapproved, but this was a fundraiser. Normally we give them carte blanche to print those types of images because they’re good for business.Not anymore. They messed up, but I’m not entertaining Daniela’s tantrum. I take the phone off speaker.
“Should I send you an emerald trinket to go with the lovely shade of green you’re sporting?”
“Listen carefully, Antonio,” she says after a moment. “I don’t pretend to be able to control anything you do, and that includes Sonia, but you will not rub my nose in it, and you will not humiliate me publicly. But more important than any of that, you willnotsend a message to Valentina that this is acceptable behavior.”
“Get out,” I growl at Cristiano and Lucas, who waste no time leaving the villa.
I won’t chastise her for taking this stand, because she’s my wife, and she’s entitled to demand fidelity—in private, anyway. I would be disappointed if she didn’t. But she needs to save her wrath for when we’re alone.
“So you don’t care who I fuck as long as it’s done with discretion?”
“That’s right,” she says so unconvincingly I almost laugh.
“I wasn’t with Sonia.”
“I know what I saw. Photos don’t lie.”
“But they can be manipulated,Princesa.”
“That one wasn’t.”
“No. It wasn’t.” For a moment, I contemplate what to tell her. If I justify my behavior every time she raises an eyebrow, I might as well just hand over my balls now. But the photo is misleading, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I’d have already murdered the guy sitting near my wife.
“The seat near me was unoccupied—it had been reserved for you, but I didn’t want to drag you away from Valentina for an entire evening. The gala wasn’t important. Before dessert was served, Sonia came by the table and joined us.”
“And?”
