Valenti's One-Month Mistress

‘Dante, it’s raining even more heavily now—here, have a towel.’ Faye slipped off her shoes and flitted through to the bathroom. He stood there, poised like a man who had been asked to do a bungee jump without a rope.

‘No, Faye, I shouldn’t—’

‘Come on, you’ll get cold.’ Faye pulled him into the room, laughing, and put the towel around his shoulders, shutting the door behind him.

And the moment the catch clicked shut, something snapped. The air in the room changed, and her naturally quick movements seemed to slow as she became conscious of every move her body made. The smell of rain mixed with her faint floral perfume and his musky cologne. Their damp clothes seemed to long to be removed. She was thrilled at being caught out by nature, as if it was urging them to come together.

She stood before him, the intensity of the look he gave her making her nipples peak beneath the wet cotton of her dress. His silence was unbearable.

‘Let’s get out of these clothes,’ she said, reaching her arm behind her back, turning around. ‘Help me with this zip.’

He did not answer, but she felt him move behind her and his hands begin to release her dress, agonisingly avoiding contact with her skin. Faye heard her breathing fall in time with his. It was as if those lingering glances had reached fever pitch and there could be no more looking away. Faye…bella. The words echoed around her mind, refusing to be forgotten, and her body was crying out for him as the rivulets of water ran over her body, mingling with its own heat.

‘Touch me, Dante.’

She did not know where the words came from. She whispered them in a voice she did not recognise as her own—knew only that she needed him in a way she had never understood needing anything before. His warm breath stirred the hairs on the back of her neck, but still he did not move.

‘Please.’ She turned round to face him and looked up at him, her eyes wide, imploring. ‘Please, touch me,’ she urged.

Dante drew in a ragged breath, his eyes boring into her with unfathomable intensity. She saw his hands move up as if to encircle her waist, and then drop to his sides again.

‘I want…’ Her voice was bolder now, seeing his temptation. ‘I want you to make love to me.’

‘Damn you, you little temptress,’ he bit out, his voice thick as he shook his head slowly. ‘Don’t you know what you do to me?’

She nodded slowly, her lips parted. And then he raised his head and looked deep into her eyes for one final moment, before he brought his mouth crushing upon her own.

And it was then that Faye truly learned what it was to be touched. To feel the exquisite pleasure of being claimed by the man you loved in the most intimate way there was. And the sudden searing of pain was replaced by a mounting pleasure which exploded with all the unexpected welcome of a late-afternoon storm. A sensation which, to Faye, was only surpassed by the feeling of lying beneath a cool white sheet, with Dante just inches away afterwards, and the sound of the easing rain outside the window. The sound of his breathing was steady and deep.

‘Couldn’t you just stay here for ever?’ she whispered.

It was the eye of the storm she had never seen coming.

‘I thought you had got everything you wanted.’

Faye’s face crumpled. She didn’t know what he was supposed to say afterwards, but she knew that wasn’t it. Seconds before he had been crying her name in ecstasy—and now? Now the harshness of his tone made it sound as if he almost despised her.

Faye rolled away from him, whipping the sheet around her. ‘What are you talking about?’ She suddenly felt as if she was playing a complicated game and no one had told her the rules.

‘I’m talking about little girls who cast all dignity aside the minute they get a taste of the high life.’ He glanced towards the designer bag containing the dress and curled his lip in distaste. ‘Those who are so hot for a man they do not see the value of their virtue amidst their haste to lose it.’

He swung his legs over the bed, shameless in his nakedness, and reached for his damp jeans.

‘You came here to learn, bella? Then today you learn this is not the kind of behaviour which makes a man stay anywhere. Why would he, when he has taken all that is worth taking?’

And with that he scooped up the rest of his clothes and headed towards the door. Suddenly it didn’t feel like a game at all.

‘What are you talking about?’ she repeated helplessly, searching his face, willing him to take the words back.

‘Your true colours, s??’ he said with finality before closing the door calmly behind him.

As Faye stared helplessly at the door, nausea rising in her belly, she felt her heart break in two. Felt all the humiliation of loving so blindly, of discovering just why it all felt so unreal. Because it was. Every moment, from the instant they had met until now, turned sour in her mind, as if someone had poured acid into her brain. And something changed irrecoverably within her. Not because she had just made love to a man for the first time in her life. But because all her foolish childhood dreams had just crashed out through the door with him. She had wanted to give herself to him, and he detested her for it. How could she have got it so wrong?

Faye choked back the sobs as realisation seeped in, and suddenly she was caught by a need to get dressed—as if angry at her own body, determined to cover its nakedness. The open wardrobe caught her eye, with its skirts and blouses neatly ordered for her weeks of work ahead. Yes, she thought, there was something worse than this: staying around to face the humiliation day after day, having him look at her thinking he had taken all that was worth taking, having him look at her at all.

And so she packed her bags. Understanding that her leaving would have about as much impact on his world as a pebble skimming the surface of the ocean, but knowing it was preferable to being swallowed up by the ocean completely.

* * *

Faye raised her head to look at him, sitting opposite her, her heart numb with the steady ache she had not allowed herself to feel for so long. She felt ashamed—that she had had no choice but to swallow her pride and return, that she had allowed him to get to her once more—and she felt terrified that she was capable of letting him do it all over again.

‘As you said yourself, Dante, we all make mistakes.’

He seemed oblivious to the pain in her eyes. ‘You mean you realised that you could have got more for your virginity than a few weeks working here?’

What was he talking about? She had wanted nothing from him but for it to have been real. Yet he was angry with her? She looked at his cruel, arrogant, despicably handsome face. He seemed to tire of waiting for her to answer. She was glad.

‘It was fortunate that you were offered opportunities elsewhere, in spite of having come straight from me.’

‘Not everyone is such as Neanderthal as you, Dante. Some men do not consider a woman’s virginity the only thing she has to offer,’ she bit out, furious at his assumptions, and even more furious that she had never brought herself to take up any such opportunities, as he put it, on the occasions when they had come her way. But what would have been the point? She hadn’t even once got close to feeling anything like she had felt that afternoon with anyone. Until she had walked into his office again today, she thought wretchedly.

‘Faye, do not misinterpret me. I meant opportunities in the business world. Not many people walk out on a contract with Valenti Enterprises and are still offered work elsewhere.’

Bastard, she thought. Like hell you meant that. And as for business opportunities—those that had come her way since, she had had to turn down for the sake of Matteson’s. Faye felt all the tension in her shoulders return as she put down her spoon.

‘Champagne to finish, I think. A toast to my new…right-hand woman for a month.’

Faye gritted her teeth. There was no reason to refuse. She had sold her soul to the devil. If she was worried about losing her head, it was too late.

As he chinked his glass against her own, the blood in her veins slowed to a more languorous pace, no less insistent. She wished she had brought her faux pashmina to cover herself from that penetrating gaze which lingered upon her as she took a sip. Did he want her? He hated her, wanted to ruin her—she knew that. But she also knew that was not an issue he’d have difficulty putting aside if he did. The bubbles fizzed on her tongue. She took a deep breath as the alcohol reached her bloodstream, making her more conscious of her surroundings. Two days ago she had woken up to face a day like any other at the restaurant: vacant tables, piles of bills, tired dеcor, tired people. And now here she was, sitting in Perfezione, the antithesis of her life back home. Surrounded by so much luxury, so much life, in a restaurant where it took months just to secure a booking. Unless you happened to be accompanying the man who had haunted her dreams to this day. For a moment she wondered if she had conjured up this whole scene in her imagination.

‘I will have a contract drawn up, which you can sign tomorrow.’

No, not a dream. She nodded reluctantly. He was the devil in disguise. So she had no choice but to stay, but she did not have to stay here. She would return to the guesthouse. Even if it meant having to put it on a credit card and negotiate the busy metro every morning, she needed her escape.

‘Excuse me.’ Faye caught the attention of a passing waiter, ignoring Dante as he stiffened. ‘Please could you order me a taxi to Piazza Indipendenza? Grazie.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Michele. I will drive Miss Matteson. Thank you,’ Dante interjected, almost before she had even finished. The waiter was dismissed instantly and was so professional that not a hint of perplexity crossed his face.

‘You’ve been drinking. You’re not driving me anywhere!’ Faye made no effort to tone down the volume of her anger now. She had had enough of this rollercoaster of emotions. One minute he was masquerading as a reasonable human being, and the next he was verging on the tyrannical.

‘I’m glad you agree. I will not be driving you anywhere, because we have established that you will stay here—have we not?’

‘I have agreed to work for you. Where I stay has no bearing upon that. I will make sure I am on time, if that is your concern.’

‘That is not my concern, and it shall not be yours either. Living here is as much part of your experience as your work here during the day. It is not up for debate.’

No, nothing he decided was up for debate, was it? And no wonder, when his world was full of people pandering to his every need, treating his every word like the Holy Grail. But whilst he might get her diffident agreement, he would not have this ridiculous facade of civility any longer. She would get on with what she was here to do, and spend as little time in his company as possible.