“Of course I did,” Vivian answered, perfectly calm but there was a tiny glint of satisfaction in her gaze. “Perhaps she’ll return. Who knows…you took all her money, how do you suppose she managed to disappear?”
Good question. “What have you turned up?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. It’s as if she just packed a bag and left with hardly anything. It’s very curious.”
“
Curious
isn’t the word for it, Vivian,” he growled, shoving his hand through his hair. “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would she leave now? She is penniless, packing a four-year-old around. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize Nico’s safety, which means either something caused her to act recklessly or she’s been seeing someone on the side that I’m unaware of.”
“Either scenario sounds entirely plausible,” Vivian noted with a faint nod.
“Why aren’t you more concerned?” he demanded.
She gave him a mildly annoyed look. “And why should I be concerned? You’re the one who overestimates her value, not I. A whore is easily replaced,” she said, shrugging.
“She is more than that and you know it. She is the mother of my son. How easily you forget.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten. But let’s be real, Belleni, you haven’t been a father to that boy, so why should I let the fact that you provided the necessary DNA to create that child move me in any fashion?”
As always, when Vivian strove to make a point, she made sure it jabbed. True, he’d never truly given the boy much thought aside from his use as leverage against Skye but he was starting to see the error in that. Now he was ready to truly be a father. “Things change,” he snarled.
“For you. Not me. I continue as I always have, with clarity and precision. A business such as ours does not run itself, Belleni. You’ve grown soft and lazy in your old age,” she chastised.
“Watch yourself,” he warned, his temper finding a new source, funneling toward the lithe smartly dressed older woman. “You forget your place.”
She hit him with a seething glare and they locked stares for a long moment. He saw more than cool disdain there, he saw something that burned like hatred in her blue eyes and a seed of doubt burrowed into his brain. Vivian made no secret that she hated Skye. But just how far would Vivian go to remove Skye?
“Vivian, did you have something to do with Skye’s sudden disappearance?” he asked.
Vivian’s slow smirk said volumes even if she merely lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug. “I can’t recall anything of particular importance that might’ve caused her to react so badly. But she is rather highstrung, so who knows what set her off.”
Belleni itched to hit something, his temper reaching a dangerous level. He should’ve insisted Skye move into the house earlier but he’d been influenced too much by Vivian and her obvious distaste for the younger woman. Now she was gone. He regarded Vivian with growing suspicion. “What did you say to her?” he asked.
She didn’t stop in her task. “Whatever are you talking about, Belleni? Really…can this wait? I have checks to write before payroll is finished.”
“I want to know what you said to Skye to cause her to bolt.”
She chuckled. “I find it amusing that you immediately assume it was something I said when you have given the girl plenty of reasons to hate you. Surely you don’t buy the sweet smiles she gives you? The seemingly complacent whore? You’re a bigger fool than I imagined if you don’t see through her facade. Deep down she hates you. Loathes you even. And with good cause. You’ve kept her from her family, isolated her from the outside world and leveraged her son for sexual favors. Even for you…that’s pretty low.”
He gaped, seeing a new side of Vivian. “You lie out of jealousy.”
At that Vivian pinned him with a deadly cool glare. “What have I to be jealous of with that simple girl? She has nothing I desire. She is an irritant. Nothing more. However, watching you lower yourself, simpering after her like a lovesick hound is revolting. It’s time you picked yourself up and stopped slavering for that spoiled piece of meat.”
“You will fix this,” he demanded, his voice shaking with the barely contained anger erupting in his body. Suddenly, in spite of himself, he replayed events in his mind, seeing things from the angle Vivian suggested. Where he’d wanted to see devotion, he saw banked revulsion in Skye’s eyes; where he wanted to see loyalty and desire, he saw coerced and forced action.
Vivian scoffed. “I’m not a miracle worker, you silly fool. Perhaps you’ve forgotten how you had her beaten for her deception?” She sighed and straightened the stack of checks for her assistant to pick up later. “Oh, Belleni, you look like you’re about to have a heart attack. Calm yourself before you expire on the spot. Think of this as a blessing in disguise—”
He crossed to the desk faster than Vivian expected and she jumped when he slammed his fists on the surface, the force of it scattering pens and pencils and other items to the floor. “You. Will. Fix. This.” Belleni stared down Vivian as she shrank away from him, real fear replacing her formerly smug and haughty demeanor. Good. Let her remember what it felt like to be on the other side of his grace. “Your years of service and our history together have earned you a reprieve, but if it were anyone else who dared to do this to me, I’d have ripped out their tongue and fed it to them. You are not above punishment, my darling. Do not push me to such dangerous places again. You will not enjoy the consequences.”
He shoved away from the desk, away from her tight-lipped fury and slowly regained control. “I want her back by Sunday. I have big plans to implement and I will not have your petty grievances cause trouble. In fact, it is time for you to find your own place. You have outstayed your welcome. Besides, it wouldn’t do to have two mistresses in the home. Skye will take her place by my side as we raise our son together.”
He felt nothing even though he knew the words twisted a knife in Vivian’s bony backside. The woman was nothing but artfully stretched skin and bones with only her bitterness to keep her heart going. He’d been a fool not to have seen it earlier.
Absolutely not. She’d handpicked each Rosa Aurora marble tile for the foyer, overseen each and every stone and timber for the building and kept a watchful eye on the craftsmanship of each room so that no detail went unchecked.
Leave?
The man was slipping into early dementia. She would not leave her home.
She bent to retrieve the fallen items from the floor and when each one had been properly returned to its rightful spot, she breathed a little easier. A level head is what she required for the moment. Ranting and raving would gain her no ground, not with Belleni, and besides, she was above such nonsense. The trick was not to allow anger to rule your head, she chastised herself. Don’t get mad…get even, as the saying went.
And Vivian knew a thing or two about getting even.
It was just time to remind Belleni of her true skills.
He wanted Skye. He could have her. In fact, she would do as he demanded and return the miserable maggots to his possession. But it would not be a happy homecoming, she vowed silently.
No. In fact, it might be…deadly.
She smiled tremulously.
That’s better.
Having a plan always managed to smooth out the edges.
Now to make some phone calls and find that intolerable woman and her brat.
“Rise and shine,” he announced softly. She shot him an aggrieved look, taking in his flannel pajamas with a barely concealed snort of laughter and rolled away from him in spite of the enticing aroma of coffee. “Not a morning person I see,” he observed.
“Very astute of you,” she said, yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Now go away until it’s at least 10:00 a.m. But feel free to leave the coffee.”
“Sorry, no can do. Full day on the schedule,” he said, affecting a regretful tone that she knew was completely false. “Besides, Mama Jo has already been up since five and around here, 7:00 a.m. is sleeping in.”
“How dreadful,” she muttered, burying her head under the pillow, which he promptly removed. She groaned.
“Drink this,” he said, thrusting the mug into her hands. “And become human again.”
“Ha-ha,” she retorted but she accepted the mug and curled her chilled hands around its heat. “Smells good,” she said grudgingly.
“Mama grounds the beans herself as a hobby.”
“Of course she does,” Skye said with an uncharitable sigh. Mama Jo was not only a saint but an amateur coffee bean enthusiast. The woman probably trains Seeing Eye dogs in her spare time, just for kicks. Egad, that was catty. She sipped the coffee and waited a minute for the caffeine to seep into her bones, awakening each part of her with a jolt. The awareness leached away the surliness and she gave Christian a sheepish glance. “Sorry. So not a morning person,” she admitted.
“Noted and filed away. Never approach Skye in the morning without promise of immediate caffeine or run the risk of total annihilation.”
She laughed in spite of herself, then said, “I was just kidding about Mama Jo. She’s an amazing woman.”
He laughed good-naturedly and sipped his own coffee before saying, “No worries. Now, want to know what we’re doing today?”
“Sure,” she answered cautiously. “Does it involve heights of any sort? I’m deathly scared of heights. So if you’d like to completely wreck any illusions you have about me being a demure, sweet, docile type…go ahead and take me someplace more than two feet off the ground. I turn into a screaming, panicked lunatic.”
He sipped his coffee with open contemplation. “Another good thing to know. But no, no heights to worry about.”
“So what are we doing?” she asked.
“Have you ever gone horseback riding?”
She grew up on a farm but her sister had been the horse fan. She’d been too busy dancing to add more to her plate. “No,” she answered.
“Good. Then you’re in for a treat. My brother Thomas’s girl owns a horse stable at her parents’ property and we’re going to meet them for lunch and then go riding. It’ll be great and Nico will love it.”
“You ride horses,” she mused, not quite able to wrap her head around this country version of the city bartender. “How well?”
“I’m not an expert or anything but I know enough to keep from making an ass out of myself.”
She grinned. “And what if I was allergic to horses? What then? What was your backup plan?”
“Are you always this difficult?” he asked.
“Yes.” She laughed. “Do you always wear flannel pajamas?”
He lifted his cup with a wink. “Only when I’m visiting Mama Jo. When I’m home I sleep naked.”
Her cheeks flared with heat and she murmured into her cup, the early morning fuzzies loosening her tongue in a way she might not have otherwise allowed. “That makes two of us.” She grinned when his Adam’s apple bobbed, his expression a comical cross between pained and excited.
“Now that wasn’t nice,” he managed to say before spinning on his heel and disappearing from the room.
“I know,” she murmured with a soft chuckle. It felt good to flirt on her own terms, to be in charge of her own sexuality again.
“Breakfast in ten,” he called from the other room and she sighed with a smile.
A girl could get used to this, she thought to herself, allowing a finger of heat to curl around her heart and give it a squeeze.
Intoxicating.