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“What does Marcellus Archambault say about her?” Severino asked.
“He says she’s extraordinary and definitely indicative of their family, but one trained from childhood. Her body has to be made up of the muscle and cells theirs are made up of. He’d like to have their doctor examine her. He’s extremely interested in her abilities, as no one has ever exhibited her talents before,” Stefano said. “Not just coming in cold like this.”
“Naturally, the Ferraros would manage to get her in their family,” Elie said. “Her genetics are amazing even for my lineage.”
Taviano felt Nicoletta stiffen.
“Well,” Eloisa said, sitting back in her chair. “This is rather amazing. I didn’t think this girl would be worth much to the family, and yet she’s a prize beyond belief. Her children will be the riders we need to carry on the family name. It’s just possible, Emmanuelle, that you won’t need to have kids if she can produce several like she should, wouldn’t you agree, Stefano? That really takes the pressure off everyone.”
Nicoletta pulled her hand out from under Taviano’s. When he reached for her, she stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach right now.”
She didn’t wait to see what anyone said. She walked away, not toward the inside of the house, where the other women were, or any one of the numerous bathrooms, but toward the elevator. She was leaving. Her back was ramrod stiff, her shoulders straight and her head high. She knew how to make an exit.
Stefano shook his head. “Why is it, Eloisa, that you always know exactly what to say to wreak havoc?”
“What did I say? I implied she was extraordinary. I wanted Emmanuelle to know she might be off the hook. It was a good thing. Nicoletta said she was ill. Maybe she’s already pregnant.” There was a hopeful note in Eloisa’s voice.
Taviano ignored the exchange and, swearing under his breath, hurried after Nicoletta. He stepped into the elevator just as the doors were closing. She didn’t say anything to him, but her eyes all but dared him to talk to her. He didn’t make that mistake. Instead, he remained silent and just stayed close to her.
Nicoletta stepped off the elevator and walked right into the middle of the Ferraro luxury hotel, oblivious to the sudden turning heads of those in the lobby. Taviano glanced around. Emilio and Enzo came hurrying in through the rotating door, no doubt called in by Stefano. They slowed down when they spotted Nicoletta striding toward the doorman, who had stepped up to courteously open it for her. She smiled at him without really seeing him and went right out onto the sidewalk without checking for danger first.
Taviano clenched his teeth. Nicoletta wasn’t used to the danger she could be in just by being married to him. Fortunately, few people were aware of their marriage yet, but she needed to be more careful. He stepped close, ignoring the fact that she quickened her pace as if she wanted to get away from him. Enzo and Emilio fell into step behind them. They were smooth about it, as if they weren’t really in any way shadowing them.
“I didn’t say or even think what Eloisa said.” He kept his voice low.
She sent him one smoldering look from under her long lashes. “Don’t talk to me yet.”
He counted to a hundred, his own temper mounting with each step rather than fading. He was trying to be understanding, but he wasn’t the one who’d fucked up. That was Eloisa. That was his mother—trying to regulate Nicoletta into being a broodmare and their children into being nothing but shadow riders. He had never once said that was what he wanted. If anything, he had reassured Nicoletta over and over that he wanted her, not babies.
“Damn it, Nicoletta,” he hissed under his breath. He caught her hand as they stalked down the street like two soldiers marching on Armageddon. At least she didn’t pull away from him, and it was a damn good thing, too.
She glanced up at his set jaw. He knew his eyes were blazing fire. He felt like strangling his mother. And maybe Nicoletta, too. She could try believing in him. Her dark chocolate eyes went from a lethal smoldering to suddenly bright, brimming over with laughter. He didn’t see anything the least bit funny at all about what had happened. His mother’s behavior or hers.
Taviano set the pace now, and the direction, heading toward Petrov’s Pizzeria. It was only the best pizza in Chicago as far as he was concerned, and if he was missing out on a home-cooked meal at Francesca’s, even if he was helping to cook it, to hell with it, they were having pizza. He quickened his stride, texting Tito—the co-owner with his father and manager of the pizzeria—one-handed, to ensure he had the Ferraro private table available as well as a table close for Emilio and Enzo.
A small sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter escaped Nicoletta’s throat. She had that sweet little musical laugh that was always on such perfect pitch there was no mistaking it. The sound always made him want to smile with her—but not this time. He glared at her. “You don’t get to storm out, mad as hell at me for no good reason, and then laugh.”
“I’m thinking it isn’t a good idea for both of us to get angry at the same time, Taviano,” Nicoletta said. “You have a rip-roaring nasty temper, and mine isn’t so hot, either. Can you imagine the kind of fights we’re going to have?”
“We’re going to have one right now, a big one,” he said and kept walking straight down the sidewalk, nodding every now and again—rather curtly—to anyone who lifted a hand to him.
He half expected his woman to take offense and try to walk off in a huff, as she’d done at Stefano’s, but she kept pace with him, even if she did have to nearly jog. He slowed down to give her shorter legs a break, but his temper wasn’t in the least appeased.
“I should have been given the benefit of the doubt.” He shoved open the door to the pizzeria.
Berta, the waitress and sometimes hostess, looked up and smiled at them as they came in. She gestured toward the back. The restaurant was large, and two tiered, with tables and booths accommodating all sizes of groups coming in. Petrov’s was extremely popular. Aside from the locals, people came from all over to eat there. Take out orders were common as well. The pizzeria kept a few tables available for the locals to drop in when they got off work, which made them happy.
“Maybe you should have given me the benefit of the doubt,” Nicoletta said cryptically, the smile fading from her face. Her dark eyes went right back to smoldering. “I think you’re right. We might just get into a rip-roaring fight.”
Alarms went off. He bit down on his retort, taking a deep breath and replaying the scenario in Stefano’s penthouse. Taviano stepped back to allow Nicoletta to precede him. She followed Berta to the booth in the back, the one his family considered “theirs.” It was mostly in the darker side of the restaurant, allowing the shadows to fall across it, making it difficult for other customers to see them as they had dinner, giving them a sense of privacy.
Nicoletta slipped into the booth first and Taviano slid in next to her. Close. Thighs touching. She shifted away from him. Just an inch or so. It annoyed him.
“What the fuck, Nicoletta?”
“Don’t say fuck to me. I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like being blamed for something I didn’t do.”
Berta smiled brightly at them. “I would be happy to bring you the antipasto plate and breadsticks. Do you already know what you’d like, or do you want a menu?”
“We know,” Taviano said.
“A menu would be great, thank you,” Nicoletta said perversely.
“She doesn’t need a menu,” Taviano snapped. “She’s just being difficult. She likes pepperoni and black olive with extra olives and mushrooms. Thin crust, because she’s not really Italian. She just looks like it.”
Nicoletta kicked him under the table, but she didn’t put much of an effort into it. “She would like an Italian soda to drink along with water. Peach, please.”
Berta nodded. “What kind of pizza for you, Taviano?”
“I’m eating hers.”
“I’m not sharing with you,” Nicole
tta declared. “Because you’re all kinds of an ass.”
“If you want ice cream, you’re going to share with me.”
“Fine, but only because I love the ice cream here.”
“You love me.”
“Sometimes I love you. I love ice cream all the time.”
Berta nodded again, a small smile on her face. “Water for you, Taviano?”
“I’ll have an Italian soda as well. Strawberry.” He waited until she left before he turned fully in the booth to face his woman. “Look at me, Nicoletta.”
She turned in the booth to face him. “I wanted to punch her. Right in the face. I know that’s childish and absolutely wrong of me. She is your mother, and a rider, and I should find a way to be respectful, especially with everyone around, but I was so afraid of jumping up and attacking her or screaming insults at her right in front of everyone that I had to leave. I had to. I couldn’t say anything because if one word escaped … I was so angry at her, I didn’t know what might slip. She’s just so above everyone else. She acts like she’s so much better. That she can plan our children’s lives and we’re just going to let her do it. I’ll burn in hell first, Taviano. She’s not getting near our children.”
Taviano couldn’t take his eyes off Nicoletta’s impassioned expressions as they moved across her face. The anger. The guilt. The ferociousness. The protectiveness. She was everything he could ever want. He’d wanted passion and he’d gotten it in abundance. Just seeing those expressions chasing across her face and blazing in her eyes had him wanting to sweep the basket of dried flowers off the table and lay her down on it. She was so beautiful.
“I’m not a mind reader, tesore. You could have indicated to me when we were alone in the elevator that it wasn’t me you were upset with.”
She frowned. “Why in the world would I be upset with you? And upset is a very insipid word for what I was feeling. Angry. Emotional. Wanting to commit murder. She was talking about our children. Weren’t you just a little bit angry?”
He rubbed his jaw and the five-o’clock shadow already on full display there. “I really hate to tell you this, piccola, but Eloisa honestly thought she was giving you a compliment. Producing riders from a spectacular bloodline is the one thing she prizes in a woman. You have a spectacular bloodline.”
“Yay me.” Sarcasm dripped. “I’m so very glad your mother approves.”
He hooked his palm around the nape of her neck, his thumb sliding along her cheek. “You are extraordinary, Nicoletta, in so many ways. Our children will be as well. No one will have a say in their lives but us. We’ll decide what we want for them. And then they’ll decide. That’s a long way off. Right now, it’s your life and you decide whether or not you’re going to be a rider. Stefano would never have allowed you into that meeting if he wasn’t going to say you were one of us. Obviously, you have to train more. You need to learn so much more before you can actually participate.”
Nicoletta nodded. “I’m fine with that. I’m not ready to be whatever it is you call yourselves. I do want to go along though and learn. I want my body to get used to the feel and pull on it. I can tell each time I go, it’s easier.”
Taviano’s phone buzzed. He glanced down. “Stefano says they’re having dinner and to come back when we’re finished here because there is quite a bit more to discuss.”
“I guess I gave your mother a good opportunity to take another dig at me about not keeping my temper.”
He tipped her chin up. “You can pretend with Stefano if you want, but you aren’t feeling in the least bit guilty or remorseful. You wanted to punch my mother, woman. Own it. Don’t give me that I-should-have-stuck-around mask.”
“I was looking at my lap so I wouldn’t have to try for the mask,” she pointed out. “And don’t say I wanted to punch your mother where someone might hear.”
“Only Emilio and Enzo are close enough to hear us right now.”
“My point exactly. They are related to you.” She glanced over to the other table. “Please tell me that their mother or father isn’t a sibling to your mother.” She dropped her face into her palm.
Taviano glanced over to the bodyguards. Both men were valiantly looking at the menus. He knew they had the menu memorized, as many times as they came there. They’d already ordered. They were desperately trying not to laugh. He flashed them a small grin.
“Taviano.” She hissed his name between her teeth.
He leaned over and kissed her. The moment he touched her lips, he knew he shouldn’t have, not there in the privacy of that restaurant, not there in the dark. She ignited for him and burned, a fuse that detonated an explosive in him. She leaned into him as he put pressure on the nape of her neck, pulling her closer to him.
She slid her hands up his chest. His heart accelerated. She did that to him every time. Little flames licked at his skin while electricity snapped between them. Heat rushed through his veins and hot blood filled his cock. His heart beat there, throbbing and aching for her. He wished they were home and he could have her. He could be in her. He had to stop kissing her. That way was disaster, and it was also paradise.
Berta cleared her throat. Reluctantly, Taviano lifted his head enough to press his forehead against Nicoletta’s. “What is it, Berta?”
“Your drinks, Taviano.”
“Put them on the table, Berta,” he said without lifting his head. He kept his eyes closed, inhaling Nicoletta’s scent. He was so in love with her. She mattered to him more than anyone or anything else.
“I have. And the antipasto as well. Um. Mr. Petrov doesn’t like public displays of affection in his restaurant. He used to be cool about it, but ever since his wife died, he gets upset when couples start kissing and he throws them out. Just a heads-up warning. I’m sorry.”
Taviano did look up then. He wasn’t a teenage boy caught in the booth by the older Petrov sneaking kisses with a fifteen-year-old. He was grown, and Petrov had known him for years. He couldn’t imagine the man kicking him out, let alone sending Berta to reprimand him.
Nicoletta’s laughter escaped. “I’m so going to tell Francesca and the others. Especially Sasha. Taviano Ferraro, the playboy of the world, reprimanded in a pizzeria for kissing his wife. You weren’t even getting all handsy. I’m dreadfully disappointed.”
“I can get handsy if you want. They’ll kick us out. It could be front-page news. I know most of the paparazzi by name now. Maybe a photograph as well.”
“Think of the publicity it would generate. Do you have a race coming up? Something you need to market?” Nicoletta turned in the booth and put her feet back on the floor, reaching for her Italian soda. “I really am going to tell Francesca.”
“If you do, it will get back to Stefano and the others,” he warned. “We’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I know”—she sent him a wicked grin—“you mean you’ll never hear the end of it. The boys are very careful of me. They treat me with kid gloves.”
She was right. His brothers were very careful of her. They were all too aware of the terrible things that had happened to her. That had been one of the reasons, as he had gotten older, that he didn’t want his family to know what had happened to him. The knowledge would change how he would be treated. It would be subtle, but they would be much more careful of him. There would be less teasing. Most likely, Stefano would yell at him less. The bottom line was, he didn’t want his family to treat him any differently.
He understood what Nicoletta meant when she had told him long ago that it was humiliating that his family had read the reports. She hadn’t known just how detailed those reports had been or she would have been even more humiliated. He would have had a very difficult time facing his brothers at the age of ten, given his parents’ reaction. He didn’t think they’d ever tease him, but he didn’t know what children would do at that age. Now, he didn’t want to find out even as a grown man.
He lifted the tall glass to his lips. There was condensation on the outside. Fresh strawberries and ice fi
lled the glass, along with the light-colored liquid. It looked refreshing and tasted as good. Her glass was similar but filled with fresh peaches and ice. The color was more toward clear, just a slight peachy color, but when she tasted it, she smiled.
“Perfect. I have to learn to make these.”
“The drinks and the pie are always the best here,” he said.
“And the bread.” She took a breadstick. She never used the marinara dip, but he did. She preferred the salty oil. She dipped the breadstick in the oil and took a bite. “This is so delicious. I was careful not to come in very often. I would end up weighing a ton.”
He looked her over. “You’d look beautiful even weighing a ton.”
She laughed. “You’d probably really think that. I don’t want to get diabetes. No shots for me, thank you. I’ll just keep Petrov’s as a special treat.” She looked up as Tito Petrov sauntered over with their very large pizza and placed it on the table.
“Made it myself, just the way you like it, Taviano. Nicoletta, you look beautiful tonight.” He took her hand as if he might bend over it to kiss it, saw immediately she was wearing a wedding ring and straightened, looking shocked. His gaze jumped from Taviano to Nicoletta and back. “You two married?” He looked at Taviano’s left hand. “Holy shit. You’re married. To each other. You’re fuckin’ married. How come no one knows?”
“We’re planning a big wedding soon, but I couldn’t wait to get the ring on her finger. You know how she’s always got one foot on the road leading out of here.”
Nicoletta pretended to ignore them so she could get a jump on eating the pizza. She wasn’t fooling him. He knew she loved pizza, and she was already calmly eating a slice and declaring it hot and good. Not to be outdone, Taviano took a slice and bit into it. She wasn’t kidding when she said it was very hot. He nearly burned his mouth. She sent him a smug smile.