Valentino's Love-Child

“I thought it was when I was grumpy.”

“Have you ever woken up not irritable?”

“I have a perfectly sunny disposition in the morning. Not that you would know that little fact as we’ve never spent a full night together, but you’ll have to take my word on it. It’s only when I have to wake up after being sated so gorgeously with your body that I complain.”

It was an old argument. She had never taken his refusal to spend the entire night together with full grace. She understood his desire to be home for breakfast with his son, but not his insistence on leaving their shared bed after at most a short nap after their lovemaking.

Her continued pressing the point frustrated him and that leaked out into his voice when he said, “Be that as it may, there is something I have been meaning to tell you.”

She stiffened and pulled away, her blue-green gaze reflecting an instant emotional wariness. “What?”

“It is nothing bad. Well, not too bad. It is simply that my parents are going on a trip. They wish to visit friends in Naples.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know.”

“Naturally, I did not tell you.”

“And?”

“And I cannot leave Giosue at night when he does not have his grandparents there to watch over him.” Never mind the staff that lived on site at their vineyard, Vigne di Grisafi, much less the housekeeper that had her own room in the house. It was not the same.

“I understand.” He could tell from her expression that she really did. “How long will your parents be gone?”

“Two weeks only.”

“I won’t see you at all?”

“It is unlikely.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but in the end she simply nodded.

“I will miss you,” he found himself admitting. Then he scowled. He hadn’t wanted to say that. “This.” He brushed his hand down her body. “I will miss this.”

“I heard you the first time, tough guy. You can’t take it back now. You may as well admit you like my company as much as me in your bed.”

He bore her back to the bed, his mouth hovering above hers. “Maybe almost as much. And speaking of sex. I will have to do without you for two weeks, I think we should take advantage of our time together.”

“Have I ever said no to you?” she asked with a husky laugh.

“No and tonight is no time to start.”

Faith woke surrounded by warmth and the scent of the man she loved.

Her eyes flew open and a grin split her face. It hadn’t been a dream. After making love into the wee hours of the morning, Tino had asked her to spend the night. For the first time ever.

Okay, maybe not asked…more like informed her that she was staying, but it was the same result. She was in his arms, in his bed—the morning after they’d made love.

And it was glorious.

Every bit as delicious a feeling as she had thought it would be.

“Are you awake?” his deep voice rumbled above her.

She lifted her head from its resting place on his hair-covered chest and turned the full wattage of her smile on him. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like you were telling me the truth when you said you had a sunny disposition in the morning. Maybe I will have to start calling you solare.”

Sunlight? Her heart squeezed. “Tay used to call me Sunshine.”

“A past boyfriend?” Tino asked on a growl, the morning whiskers on his face giving him a sexily fierce aspect. “You are right, discussing past amores while in bed with your current one is definitely bad taste.”

She laughed, not in the least offended. “He was my husband, not a past boyfriend,” she said as she scooted out of the bed, intent on making coffee.

“You were married?”

“Yes.” Weird that after almost a full year together, she was telling him about having been married before for the first time. But then, that was the nature of their relationship. She and Tino focused on the present when they were together.

She’d learned more about him—and a tragic past similar to her own—from his mother than she’d ever learned from him. Strangely enough, where Tino showed no interest in Faith’s art, his mother was a fan. They’d met at one of Faith’s showings in Palermo. In spite of the generation difference in their ages, the two women had hit it off immediately and both had been thrilled to discover they lived so close to one another. Vigne di Grisafi was a mere twenty-minute drive from Faith’s small apartment in Pizzolato.

Not that she’d ever been there as Tino’s guest. She’d been seeing Tino for two months before she realized the Valentino Agata mentioned so frequently was Tino, the man Faith spent her nights making love with. At first, she’d found it disconcerting, but she’d soon adjusted. She hadn’t told Agata about the fact she was dating Tino though.

He’d been careful to keep their relationship discreet and she felt it was his prerogative to determine when his family would be told about her.

In another almost unreal twist of fate, Faith was his son Giosue’s teacher, too. She taught an art class for primary school children in Marsala once a week. She may have lost her one chance at motherhood, but she still adored kids, and this was her way of spending time with them. Giosue was an absolute doll and she more than understood Tino’s desire to be there for him. She applauded it.

“Divorced?” Tino asked, his brown eyes intent on her and apparently not done with the topic of Tay.

“Widowed.” She didn’t elaborate, knowing Tino wouldn’t want the details. He never wanted the details. Not about her personal history.

He said he liked to concentrate on the here and now. Since that was her own personal motto, she didn’t balk at the fact he showed no interest in her life before Sicily. She had to admit, though, that he didn’t show much interest in her life here, either.

He knew she was an artist, but she wasn’t sure he knew she was a successful one or that she was a clay sculptor. He knew she lived in Pizzolato, a small town a few minutes south of Marsala, but she doubted he knew exactly where her apartment was. In the entire year they’d been together, they had made love in one place only—his apartment.

Not his home, because he didn’t live there. He said he kept it for business purposes, but she thought he meant the business of getting sex without falling under the watchful eye of his mother. Tino had been very careful to keep their lives completely separate.

At first, she hadn’t minded. She’d been no more interested in a deep emotional connection than he had been. He’d promised her sex and that was all he’d given her.

Only, at some point along the way, she’d realized, she couldn’t help giving him love.

Even so, she’d been content to keep their relationship on a shallow level. Or at least convinced herself to be. She’d lost everyone she’d ever loved and had no doubt that one day she would lose him, too. That didn’t mean she hadn’t loved spending the whole night together—she had. But as for the rest of it, the less entwined in her life he was, the better for her it would be when that time came.

At least, that was how she had thought. She wasn’t so sure anymore.

“So, that is all you have to say on the matter?”

She pushed the start button on the coffeemaker and turned to face Tino. “What?”

He’d pulled on a pair of boxers, leaving most of his tall, chiseled body on mouthwatering display. “Your husband died.”