Page 44 of Secrets of the Brother
I was too confused and awestruck to respond.
She twisted a corkscrew into the top and pulled. Half the cork popped off. Gabriella frowned. “Dry cork. Should have expected as much from a cheap wine. No worries. I learned this from a rather randy machine laborer when I was probably too young and he was probably too old, which is the best kind of romance.”
She hiked up her skirt and wedged the wine bottle between her thighs. She inserted the corkscrew into the bottle again and gave the top a good smack. It drove the second half of the cork into the bottle. She raised it triumphantly. “There we are!” She poured two glasses. “We don’t mind a bit of cork in our wine, now do we?”
She handed me a glass and sat on the closed toilet as if it were a chair at the Plaza. Crossing her legs, she took an elegant sip of her wine and then asked, “So what’s the problem, is my nephew bad in bed?”
I choked on the swallow of wine I had taken. “I’m sorry? What?”
Gabriella shrugged one shoulder. “Just because he is a Cavalieri does not automatically mean he is good in bed. I mean, look at me and my sister. Technically we were both De Lucas. She was a prude. And yet, by all accounts, I am unforgettably fabulous between the sheets.”
My cheeks flamed. I wondered if you could drown yourself in only a few feet of water?
“I…I…I don’t think I can answer that.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It’s like that is it?”
I blinked. “Like what?”
She tilted her head and slid her gaze to the side as she smiled slyly. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
My stomach twisted. I had a nasty feeling this conversation was rapidly getting away from me. “What is always the quiet ones?”
“Who hide their freak flag of course.” She patted the top of my hand. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”
I rose up in the tub, exposing my breasts. I quickly sank back below the water, to my chin. The violent movement caused a wave of water to crest and splash against my face as I tried to talk. “No,” I choked on bathwater. “I didn’t say that!”
Good God! How did she know?
Thoughts of Enzo roughly commanding me to pull his chest hair and bite him after he had spanked me with his belt came crashing into my mind like out-of-control boulders tumbling down a mountain.
This conversation wasdefinitelygetting away from me.
Gabriella tried to soothe my agitated state. “It’s all right, darling. Truth be told,I’m relieved.”
That caught my attention. “Relieved?”
She leaned forward, resting her forearms on her thighs. She twirled the stem of her wineglass. “Enzo has always been a bit uptight, prudish. He gets it from his mother. It’s good to know behind closed doors he loosens up and gets a little kinky.”
Enzo a prude? She couldn’t possibly be serious. And oh my God, did his aunt just saykinky?
Gabriella continued. “Everything was about preserving the family’s reputation and keeping within society’s rules. Even at the cost of his own happiness.”
She regarded me thoughtfully over the rim of her wineglass as she took a sip.
I couldn't hold her scrutinizing gaze.
Leaning against the tub back, I focused instead on the remaining clouds of soap bubbles I was pushing around on the water’s surface with the bottom of my wineglass. As a casualty of that side of his personality, she wouldn’t get an argument from me on that point, at least.
Gabriella cleared her throat. “Forgive me for saying so, you don’t seem that upset over your sister’s death.”
I bit the inside of my cheek before answering.
Finally, taking a deep breath, I said, “I’m not.” It felt terrible to say it out loud like that in such a matter-of-fact way, but it was the truth. “We weren’t close. Even before… what happened with Enzo. Do you think I’m a horrible person?”
Gabriella let out a relieved breath. “We’ll have to get drunk together for me to know your true measure, but so far, I think you’re delightful. Now your sister, on the other hand….” She made the sign of the cross and looked up at the ceiling. “Forgive me, Madonna, for speaking ill of the dead. She was a nasty piece of work, that one. It’s nice to know I won’t have to pretend to be sorry she’s gone to spare your feelings.”
Damn.Well, okay then. Gabriella certainly didn’t hold back.
