Page 38 of His Housekeeper's Twin Baby Confession
Carrie shook her head.
Massimo reached out and cupped her neck, tugging her gently towards him. The dress whispered around her body, in a sensual reminder of the woman this man had awoken.
‘You’re here because I asked you and you said yes. You want to be here, don’t you?’
She knew that she did. In spite of all her doubts and feeling that she didn’t belong. Carrie nodded slowly. She did want to be here, and she’d chosen to be here.
‘Good,’ Massimo said, and he lowered his mouth to hers before whispering against her lips, ‘Because you are beautiful, and there’s no one else I’d want to be here with me right now.’
Carrie’s chest swelled with an unnamed emotion, but she pulled away from his kiss even though it killed her. ‘Please don’t say things like that, Mass. I don’t need to hear it.’
I want to hear it...too much.
Massimo looked at her for a long moment, his face unreadable. Eventually he said, ‘Fine.’
They left the suite and Massimo only lightly touched her on her back as they walked out of the hotel to the car.
She felt as if she’d broken something, but it was better this way.
Sitting in a box seat at the theatre in Buenos Aires a short while later, Massimo was still feeling exposed. No woman had ever complained before when he’d issued a compliment. Although he’d spent so little time with any of them that it wasn’t usually necessary.
But what he’d said to Carrie earlier, he’d meant. He really didn’t want to be here with anyone else. And it had spilled from his mouth as easily as breathing.She’dbeen the one to pull back. Say there was no need.
What the hell was wrong with him? Did he want her to fall for him?No way. And yet the way he was behaving anyone would be forgiven for thinking he was waging an all-out campaign. He’d never seduced a woman so comprehensively.
He looked at the stage. The hauntingly beautiful strains of the music of Astor Piazzolla, one of the world’s most famous tango composers, mocked him now. Mocked him for being complacent. For losing his mind for a moment.
The couple onstage danced, their bodies moving in sync, twining erotically before coming apart again, then melding again so closely that it was hard to see where one ended and the other began.
Massimo glanced at Carrie and his gaze narrowed. There was moisture in her eyes. The melancholic music would affect the stoniest of hearts. Ricardo, his brother, had found it deadly boring but Massimo had always found it moving.
His brother had teased him once. ‘Admit it, Mass, you’re a secret romantic!’
Massimo had put Ricardo in a head-lock.
But it looked as if Carrie, for all her protests at being complimented, was a secret romantic too. Or maybe she was still lamenting her toxic relationship with her husband.
Massimo hadn’t expected her to reveal that he’d been abusive. The white-hot surge of anger he’d felt when he’d believed he might have hurt her had surprised him. Still surprised him.
All through his parents’ volatile marriage they hadn’t ever been physically violent with each other. Which was about the only saving grace of that marriage.
But the fact that it had been mental abuse rather than physical in Carrie’s case didn’t make it any better, of course. Mental scars left deeper wounds.
If anything, she’d done him a favour—reminding him of what this was. An affair. A deeper one than he would have expected, granted. But just an affair.
The couple on the stage moved into a classic Argentine tango pose as the last strains of the music faded away. Carrie felt hollowed out and wrung dry. She’d never expected a dance and its music to affect her so deeply.
She’d found herself desperately trying to suppress her emotions and, worse, her tears. But it had been almost impossible. The exquisitely beautiful dance, together with the most melancholic music, had touched every deep and hidden yearning she’d ever had. Regret, her loss and grief. And, the pain of confusing the need for security with love which had ended in tragedy.
She avoided looking at Massimo when he reached for her hand to lead her out.
Their car was waiting for them, and as it moved smoothly into the Buenos Aires traffic Carrie felt a little more composed.
From the other side of the car, Massimo said, ‘You were moved by the performance?’
Carrie cursed him for noticing. He noticed too much.
She glanced at him. He was watching her. She’d noticed him watching her a few times during the evening and wondered if perhaps he was insulted that she’d rebuffed his compliment earlier.
