Page 158 of Mario
That is where my mind keeps going.
To the note.
To replace what I destroyed.
I had slipped it into my briefcase and smuggled it home Monday night like it was contraband.
Which, frankly, it felt like.
I told myself I was going to put it away. That was all. Put it in a drawer, stop thinking about it, move on with my life like a rational adult woman who had not been ruined by one night with one man.
Then I put it on.
It fit. Perfectly.
The bra cupped me like it had been made for me. The straps sat just right. The panties rested low on my hips, soft and delicate and obscenely expensive, the lace somehow both barely there and impossible to ignore.
I stood in front of my mirror for a full minute and stared at myself.
Not because of the lingerie exactly. Because of how I looked in it.
Like a woman waiting to be looked at.
By him.
Which is a huge problem because now it is Friday, and the lingerie is sitting in the box in my bedroom, and I have spent the entire week inside the same building as Mario Conti while barely seeing him at all.
Working on the same floor. Hell, breathing the same air.
And nothing.
Well, almost nothing. Might as well be nothing.
I saw him Tuesday morning in the conference room when I presented the revised access matrix to him, Lorenzo, Ricardo, and two department heads.
Mario had been calm and focused. Completely professional, while I wanted to rip his clothes off and jump him.
He asked questions, approved two recommendations and pushed back on one timeline. He did not look at me like a man who was feeling the way I was inside.
Except once.
Once, when everyone else was looking at the screen, his eyes found mine across the table.
Just for a second.
Long enough for my stomach to drop.
Then he looked away.
I saw him again Wednesday near the elevators, surrounded by three men in suits, one of them speaking quickly in Italian. He nodded to me as he passed.
Nodded as if I were anyone.
As if he had not had his mouth between my thighs.
As if he had not told me I was his.
Thursday, I heard his voice through Lorenzo’s open office door and nearly walked into a wall.
