The Truth About De Campo (14 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
T
WAS
QUITE
literally a miracle when Le Belle Bleu opened on August 5 with a VIP party that was next to flawless.

Italian marble shone in the opulent lobby, the cracks it had sustained during installation filled and polished to perfection. The connected series of fountains and pools which hadn’t been close to finished when Quinn had arrived in St. Lucia were miraculously complete and bubbling with a magical shimmer that made them flow like liquid silver. And the hors d’oeuvres from the new menu being passed out by white-coated serving staff were spectacular—decadent and full of local flavor.

Quinn stood at the edge of the crowd on the torchlit patio by the sea as the evening shifted into the later hours and took it all in. She drew in a deep lungful of air and exhaled slowly, feeling her equilibrium right itself. It was the perfect debut for the legendary hotel. The blood, sweat and tears had all been worth it.

Bar staff moved seamlessly between the groups of guests who had decamped to the fire pits scattered around the patio. A reggae band played for the dancers. The shadowed profiles of every important personality in the Caribbean gleamed in the firelight, joined by their first round of guests and the global travel press. Her mouth curved. The staff hadn’t missed a beat, polished to their own version of perfection by a newly inspired Raymond Bernard.

She might even keep him.

Lifting her glass to her lips, she took a long sip of champagne. Matteo had been right about giving Raymond a second chance. Right about a lot of things. He had brushed aside her mounting panic this past week and brought her back to earth, teaching her to take one day at a time. That with the right groundwork, everything would work out as it should.

Faith. It was all about faith, he’d told her. Not a trait she had a whole lot of experience with. But he’d inspired her to look deeper. To find it in herself. And in doing so, she had become a different person.

She sought him out in the crowd. He was talking to François and a government official, looking like the force of nature he was in a dark gray suit with an expensive sheen to it. The kind of handsome that made her heart race in her chest. Although she and Matteo had been unfailingly discreet during the day, given her inability to get hold of her father and recuse herself from the committee, every night they had come together in an insatiable melding of mind and body that had rocked her world.

It was crazy, dangerous, being with him like this but she couldn’t seem to stop her headlong plunge back into the living. Being with Matteo was like ingesting high-octane fuel when she’d spent her life running on regular. And not even her promise to end it first was penetrating the rosy glow surrounding her.

He appeared at her side as if summoned by the pull of her thoughts, magnetic, lethal, far too disconcerting. “Stop looking for things to fix,” he murmured. “The penny isn’t dropping tonight, Quinn.”

But it would eventually, wouldn’t it?

“
I can’t thank you enough,” she threw into the silence between them. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

He lifted his broad shoulders. “We make a good team.”

They did. He softened her hard edges. She made him tighten up on process when his creativity ran amuck. Their
combined
skills had made this night happen. One piece could not have existed without the other. And she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to always have him by her side. To always
have him.

Her lashes fluttered down. That was dangerous, silly thinking. Matteo De Campo did not do permanent. And neither did she.

He gave her a long look. “Dance with me.”

She eyed him. “Not here, Matteo.”

“A dance between business partners,” he murmured, sliding an arm around her waist and ushering her through the crowd. She let him propel her through the guests, sure she wasn’t a good enough actress for this. And when he took one hand and slid the other around her waist and started moving to the sensual rhythm of the reggae, she was sure she wasn’t.

“I can’t move my hips like that,” she complained. “Can we do this later?”

He bent his head to her ear. “Let go, you little control freak. Let me lead.”

She tried. Tried to match her undeniably stiff steps to his sinuous, smooth ones, but she kept stepping on his feet and stumbling to catch up. He wrapped his fingers tighter around hers and brought her closer to his body so he could force her steps into line with his. “It’s a good thing there are times when you
do
know how to follow or a man wouldn’t know what to do with you,” he said roughly in her ear.

Heat filled her cheeks
.
“Matteo.”

“What? No one can hear us.”

She
could hear her heart pounding in her chest, its insistent drumbeat reverberating in her ears. The burn of his thighs against hers was primal. The way he made her want to throw caution to the wind disconcerting in the extreme. She pulled in a breath and pushed back to put some distance between them. It wasn’t just that he was the most charismatic man she’d ever met. He was also kind. Insightful.

She was a better person around him.
Happy.

And tomorrow he would fly back to New York and she would fly back to Chicago and it would be over.

She stumbled. He tightened his hold on her waist and drew her back to him, those all-seeing eyes drilling into hers. “What’s wrong?”

She was madly in love with him, that’s what was wrong.
Although she had no experience with the feeling, the inescapable, glaring truth hit her like a slap in the face.

She swallowed hard. “Nothing.”

He studied her face. “Your lying skills have not improved.”

“This has to end, Matteo. You know it and I know it.”

His eyes deepened to that stormy hue that telegraphed a fight. “When did you happen to come to this conclusion?”

“You...I...” She shook her head. “We’re flying back to the States tomorrow. To two separate cities. To two separate lives.”

“So?
This is the jet plane age, Quinn. Soon to have regular space travel
.
”

Yes, but soon he wouldn’t want her and she couldn’t go through being left again.

He read her thoughts as effortlessly as he always did. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he growled, his hand tightening around hers. “We started this and we’re seeing it through. I want you in my life, Quinn.”

The crowd around them grew louder, buzzed in her ears. What did that mean, he wanted her in his life? For a month? Six? Until he lost interest and ended it, his contract intact? Until she went the way of all his other women, with a broken heart and a bar set so high no man could ever live up to it?

Her insides curled in on themselves. Julian hadn’t even come home to pack his things. Instead he’d sent movers on a Saturday morning when she was still in her pajamas, barely awake and on her first coffee. She’d stared dumbfounded at them, wondering what they were doing there. Called Julian in Boston where he was
supposed
to be watching a ball game with his brother, only to discover he was with his lover of three months. And he was leaving Quinn.

The movers, he’d said, were the civilized way to end things.

After the movers had left, she’d closed the door, leaned against it, and slid to the floor. And hadn’t been sure whether her tears were ones of relief or humiliation.
Failure.
All she’d been able to think of was what was she going to tell Warren. How she was going to explain his perfect match had been a failure before it had even begun.

“Quinn?” Matteo squeezed her arm, his gaze impatient. “Are you listening to me?”

She lifted her chin. “What’s the longest you’ve ever been with a woman?”

His dark brows came together. “What does that have to do with us?”

“Answer the question.”

“I was with my last girlfriend for six months. I cared for her, Quinn.”

Six months.
She, the failure at relationships and he, the man most likely never to commit were going to make this work?

“I think we should call it quits while we’re ahead.” She kept her gaze level, her tone even. “I’m about to put a major dent in my career aspirations when I tell my father about us. Perhaps that’s enough for now?”

His gaze darkened. “Not when the only reason you’re doing it is because you’re afraid of failure.”

Her blood fired in her veins, mixing with confusion to form a deadly cocktail. “What exactly are you offering, Matteo, beyond a hot affair with an Italian stud? What does
having me in your life
entail?”

His eyes flashed. “You had best take that back right now, Quinn.”

Her gaze bounced away from his. “You know what I mean.”

“Somehow I
don’t.
Perhaps you’d like to explain.”

“Your track record makes it very clear where this will end.”

“This isn’t about the past.” A muscle jumped in his jaw, a heated fury building in his eyes as he captured her jaw in his fingers and forced her gaze back to his. “This is about the future.
Our
future. And you’re trying to end this before it’s even begun.”

She pulled out of his grasp. “It’s an act of self-preservation, Matteo. I have more brains than the rest.”

His stormy gaze sliced over her. “You really are spoiling for a fight.”

“That would be you, not me.” She felt a set of eyes burn into them, fueled undoubtedly by Matteo’s caveman tactics and turned her head to find the source. A photographer sat with a camera at the bar watching them intently.

“
This
is not the place to be having this conversation.”

“You’re right
.
”
He nodded tersely. “But you are not going to withdraw from me, Quinn. Get that through your head. It might have been an insane idea on both our parts to get involved, but it’s done. Now, later, we are going to see this through. I promise you.”

The music ended. She stepped out of his arms, relief flashing through her. “I should go talk to the governor general before he leaves.”

His gaze followed her as she walked across the terrace with quick steps toward the governor. No way was she doing this now. No way was she making life-altering decisions when her head was clearly not on straight. Because agreeing to be with Matteo De Campo would have a ricochet effect on her life she couldn’t contemplate right now.

* * *

It was the early hours of the morning before the party started to wind down and Matteo joined François at the bar for a drink, content in the knowledge that the evening had been an unqualified success. The tourism press and the VIPs had raved about the hotel’s return to its former glory. The contractors would stay on to help Quinn finish the outstanding issues.

His work here was done. He and Quinn were not.

“Where’s Quinn?” he asked François.

“She went to find a bottle of port for a guest. She said she’d join us after.”

His mouth tightened. She’d been avoiding him ever since their conversation earlier. Deliberately. Unapologetically. He’d watched her shell come down around her as the minutes had ticked by. Shutting him out.

François handed him a shot of the ten-year-old rum he’d promised and babbled on about the night, his hands moving expressively through the air. Matteo lifted the glass to his lips.

This has to end. You know it and I know it
.

Quinn’s rash preemptive strike was festering like a gigantic sore. He didn’t
know it.
In fact, he’d been avoiding the whole subject entirely until she’d said it. And as soon as she had, he’d realized he didn’t want it to end. He wasn’t ready to give her up. Might never be. But she was doubting what they had. Her history was kicking in and he didn’t like it—not one bit.

Not when they’d both risked everything to be together.

He set his glass down with a thud. “I’ll be right back.”

Matteo’s long strides carried him into the empty restaurant and down to the massive, ornate cellar. He found Quinn in the perfectly climate-controlled showpiece of a space, staring bemused at the rows of ports.

She looked up at him, hand on her hip. “Another request?”

“No. Which port are you looking for?”

She named it. He scanned the rows, yanked out a couple and found it. Setting it on the shelf, he caged her against the racks with his hands on either side of her.

“I’d like to know what’s going on in your goddamned head.”

Her eyes went round. “I thought we were going to talk about this later.”

“Now.
Why are you withdrawing? Why do I feel like we’ve regressed a week in a few hours?”

The delicate muscles of her throat convulsed. “Matteo, not now. I need to get someone a drink.”

“And
I
need to know what’s going on in your head.”

She pressed a hand to her throat. Was silent for a good two or three seconds. “I’m panicking.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know, it’s just all too much right now and I—I—”

“Spit it out, Quinn.”

She glared at him like a cornered animal that wanted out, her emerald eyes sparking. “I am falling for you. I know it’s stupid and I don’t want to be but—”

He cut her off with a kiss. It might have been relief because it flooded through him like a life-infusing force. Or it might have been the need to put his mouth on hers and feel her sweet lips beneath his and know that it wasn’t over between them. Because it couldn’t be. She had wormed her way inside his heart, had become his weakness. And he couldn’t resist her.

She sighed into his mouth as if she’d lost a battle and brought her hands up to frame his face. He wedged his knee in between hers and hauled her closer. Took the kiss deeper until he was sure he had branded her irrevocably his.

“You have to believe in us, Quinn,” he murmured against her mouth. “This is real.
We
are real. And we are going to figure this out together.”

“That’s a nice cutline for the photo.”

The amused voice came from behind them at the same time a bright light exploded. He jerked his hands from Quinn and spun around as another flash went off.
A photographer
.