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She swallowed hard. Dragged her gaze from his, as if the exact same thoughts were going through her own head, and glanced at her watch. Finished the last sip of her coffee and set the cup back down in its saucer. “I have to be up at five,” she murmured. “I should get some sleep.”
“Bene.”He shut down his own thoughts that were sure to get him into trouble. “I will walk you back.”
Jensen walked with Cristiano back to the pool house, his large palm at the small of her back to guide her across the uneven stones burning a heated imprint into her skin. What on earth was she doing opening up to him like that? Telling him those things about herself? She’d been so intent on steering him away from the truth about Monaco, about her recent headlines, she’d revealed things about herself she’d never told anyone else. How much her career meant to her. The very real fear she had about losing it.
Everything good she’d ever had in her life had disappeared. Her family, when her father had left. The normal life she’d never known she’d craved until she’d been thrust into the spotlight and lost it for good. Any semblance of a maternal instinct her mother might have possessed with the bitter divorce and her one-track focus on the show. She’d always been afraid that would happen to her modeling career, too. That it would vaporize like everything else good in her life. Fears that had been heightened by the missteps of the past few weeks.
She’d seen what it had done to her mother, to lose her movie career. When the beauty you’d traded on faded and you were ruthlessly cast aside for the next bright star. One minute her mother had been a glittering beacon of light, the ultimate Hollywood icon, the next bemused and lost. It was why she’d signed up to doHollywood Divas—because Jensen’s father had left her with nothing and she’d needed to survive.
Jensen had sworn it would never happen to her. That she’d build a career so successful, so indestructible, it could never be shattered. Except now, with her mother’s ruinous addictions and financial issues, her bank account was empty and that security she’d been building was gone. It made her feel off-balance and scared, something she was afraid Cristiano had picked up on. When exposing vulnerability was the last thing she’d wanted to do. The last thing sheeverdid.
And then there was the part of her that was frightened of what her mother might do, when she’d just assured Cristiano he had nothing to worry about. That her mother’s promises only lasted as long as her need for the next big hit. Which wouldn’t take long, given how precariously close the show had come to being canceled and the pressure the producers had put her under. She had no idea what her mother would do. A very real fear that made her stomach churn.
She took a deep breath as they reached the pool house, now cast in darkness.
“Oh,” she murmured, “I forgot to turn on a light.”
She’d never liked darkness. Not since she’d been a child and she and her sisters had been left on their own in bed, while her parents had fought like gladiators, rattling the roof of their Beverly Hills home and raising goose bumps on her skin.
Cristiano released the hand he held to her back and walked inside, flicking on a lamp in the living room. Jensen followed him inside, where the salon was bathed in a soft, golden glow, her gaze drawn to the hard muscles that flexed and rippled in his back. The amazing arms which she was sure could hold a woman in any position he chose, for as long as he desired. The thought made her throat dry in the dim, intimate confines of the room, mixing with the cavalcade of emotions coursing through her.
He turned around, his azure gaze focusing on her face. On the tumult that raged beneath. He stepped closer, lifted a hand to trace the line of her jaw, sending the most delicate of shivers down her spine. “Jensen,” he murmured, “are you okay?”
It might have been the wine, or maybe it was the dark spell that wove itself between them, but she suddenly had the insane urge to tell him everything. To unburden herself of the insanity of the past few months. To explain to Cristiano why her professionalism had suffered of late. But she’d learned from experience that trusting anyone with that kind of knowledge was dangerous, even Cristiano, whom she felt instinctively she could trust. Especially with the secrets her family guarded like the crown jewels. Because they would explode, her mother’s secrets, if they ever came to light. It would ruin everything. Not a risk she was prepared to take, no matter how much she wanted to.
“I’m fine,” she said huskily. “Just tired.”
His blue gaze narrowed. Darkened. She should have thanked him and bid him good-night. Instead, she seemed to gravitate toward him, toward that rock-solid presence he exuded, because even if she couldn’t tell him what was eating away at her insides, she could soak up that silent assurance of his. That chemistry that fizzled between them.
His gaze dropped to her mouth, the heat between them banking up into an undeniable force. An instinctual thing, a primal draw that happened every time they came within five feet of each other. A living force that begged to be fulfilled. The wine, which had injected her blood with a heated, sinuous warmth, stripped away her inhibitions, and experiencing what that hard, sensual mouth would feel like on hers became her sole focus. Because she knew it would be amazing.Life-altering. And the reckless part of her, the one that always seemed to hold the greatest sway, wanted it. Was only a second away from acting on it.
She heard him mutter a rough oath under his breath, low and thready. It knocked her out of her stupor as effectively as the frigid water she splashed on her face every morning to wake herself up for a shoot.
What was she doing? She knew better than this. They’d just established some sort of rapport between them. Was she really going to mess it up by doing this?
She wasn’t sure where her brain had gone, but she needed to find it in a hurry. Because confiding in Cristiano, allowing herself to get involved with him, was stupidity of the highest order when he held her destiny in his hands. When she needed this job more than she’d ever needed one in her life. When opening up to someone else had never been an option for her.
She stepped back. Away from all that hard, muscular warmth. Away from temptation.
“I should get some sleep.Buona notte,Cristiano.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JENSENSATINthe sun-soaked kitchen of the main house, devouring one of Filomena’scornetto alla cremaalong with acappuccinothe housekeeper had made, which were always beyond compare.She’d been working since dawn, her only sustenance an apple for breakfast. Famished, her legs needing a rest, she’d sunk down on one of the kitchen stools when her break had arrived, which, according to most people’s schedules, was when they would be leaving for work.
Filomena, busy with her morning duties, had been keeping her company while she baked morecornettiand complained about Pedro, the gardener, who had once again overwatered the roses in the garden, which, according to the formidable Italian, lookedtristi e appassiti, which Jensen had translated loosely with her newly acquired language skills as sad and droopy. She didn’t dare disagree with Filomena, because the roses did indeed look unhappy, and furthermore, no one ever disagreed with the housekeeper if they knew what was good for them. Filomena ruled with an iron fist and was proud of it.
Jensen loved these sun-soaked breaks in the kitchen she’d taken to enjoying every morning. Once you got past her outer walls and earned her trust, Filomena was warm and motherly when it came to her charges, which she now considered Jensen to be. Aware of Pascal’s complaints his dresses didn’t fit, she’d put a fresh tray of pastries in front of Jensen when she’d sat down and ordered her to eat. Which might soon put her in a sugar coma, but it would be well worth it. They were the best thing she’d ever tasted.
It was so nice to have someone take care of her for a change, rather than the other way around—so much of her time spent tracking her mother down and making sure she was on the straight and narrow. A relief to simply sit there and enjoy the sunshine for a few moments while Filomena fussed over her. While the eye of the storm seemed to have passed for the moment.
Alexandre was off in the Caribbean on a whirlwind trip with Juliana working things out, the paparazzi following to capture the drama. The shoot for the collection was going well—one of her favorites ever. The only thing burrowing away at the back of her mind was the conversation she’d had last night with Scarlett.
Her mother, on a high from her record-level ratings, had been blowing off her appointments with her therapist, insisting she hadeverything under control. Which, to Jensen and her sisters, only meant that her mother was going through another of her manic phases. It was making them all nervous. But given she was thousands of miles away and out of reach, this time it was her sisters Ava and Scarlett’s responsibility. A fact she was grateful for, given tonight was the Associazione Nazionale della Moda Italiana party, at which she was to host Ming Li Zhang, a night that had to go seamlessly, without incident.
Filomena regaled her with another colorful tale about the gardener, this time about his encounter with a harmless garden snake, which he had mistaken for avipera. His headlong flight into the kitchen, where he’d snatched up the phone and called the state police, who funneled any kind of emergency to the correct authorities. Only to have the animal expert who’d showed up inform him that the gray-green creature he’d spotted was a garden-variety reptile, whose most harmful property was the foul-smelling odor it emitted when frightened.
“Idiota,”Filomena snorted. “Surely he should know.”
