He was about to interrupt her when he heard the elevator doors open with a swish at the entrance to the suite, followed by familiar voices. Clio instantly went still, the knuckles of the fingers clutching the pink ballpoint pen becoming white.
Feeling an uncomfortable knot in his gut, Stefan made his way through the corridor into the lounge and stared wordlessly.
Wearing a beaming smile, his mother practically ran toward him. Threw her petite form into his arms, uncaring whether he caught her or not.
As it had been for a decade, shame sideswiped Stefan, robbing his ability to speak.
His father, tall and broad like Stefan, was more remote, watching him silently.
He hadn’t seen his father in almost a decade and his mother only a couple of years ago when she had traveled to Villa Mondelli, his friend Rocco’s house in Milan, to see Stefan.
Tears flowing over her cheeks, his mother launched into a rapid dialogue just as Clio arrived from the lounge.
His father, a traditional and usually reticent man, moved toward Clio and grasped her hand in his. Studied her with a mixture of curiosity and warmth. “You’re as beautiful as you are generous, bella.”
The familiarity his father showed Clio stunned Stefan, rendering him mute.
Her face suffused with warmth, Clio was shaking her head. Her hands trembled, her gaze resolutely turned away from Stefan. “It’s nothing, Mr. Bianco. I was just doing my duty.”
Duty?
“Thank you for inviting us to your home, Clio,” his mother said in heavily accented English from the circle of his arms.
“You have to excuse us, it’s not a proper home,” replied Clio, looking anywhere but at him.
“But home is where your heart is, sì?” his mother said, fresh tears filling her eyes again.
His head swapped between Clio and his parents as if he was at a tennis match, shock literally robbing him of coherent speech.
A decade ago, he had tried to convince his parents of the same thing—that he had fallen in love with Serena and that he wanted to stay back in New York.
They had been so against it that they had threatened to cut him off and he, so naive, so desperate to be in love, had told them he was fine with that.
But Serena had wanted nothing to do with him without his parents’ fortune.
“We would have loved to come for the wedding but it was not to be,” his mother piped up again, glossing over the fact that he had not invited them.
Except for phone calls, he hadn’t been able to even meet his father in the eye.
“He’s fortunate, to have such a loving wife.” This was said to his father.
“Please, come in,” Clio finally said, her voice hoarse. “Did you have a safe flight?”
“Yes,” his mother replied. “Aboard Stefano’s luxury jet means we don’t need anything.”
Shock shuddering through him, he grasped Clio’s wrist and tugged her toward him.
“I have to call the butler and have some food arranged for them,” she said, tugging her hand back.
“How long will you run, bella?” he whispered before his mother commanded his attention again.
He felt the shiver that racked through her slender frame.
The little minx had arranged everything, even commanded his pilot without his knowledge.
All Stefan wanted to do right then was to excuse himself from his parents, drag his wife inside and demand an explanation. Or maybe ravish her first and demand explanations later.
Because his desire for his alluring wife seemed to be the only constant thing in his life these days.
* * *
After a dinner of expertly prepared pasta con le sarde and impanata di pesce spada, swordfish pie, his favorite, which Clio had requested the butler learn and cook for dinner, and lots of colorful conversation—which had been mainly his mother’s curious questions about how they had fallen in love, the wedding and when they were planning bambini, and Clio’s deftly spun tales for answers—the silence in the cavernous lounge jarred on Stefan’s nerves.
Every time he had visited New York over the past decade, he had stayed in the same suite at the Chatsfield. Now it was as if a volcano had erupted all over his life and there was no way he could contain the damage being done, couldn’t turn it back into the safe, sterile place it had been just a month ago.
His father’s hand on his shoulder prodded him out of his thoughts. “You’re angry with your wife for inviting us.”
Stefan shook his head in automatic denial before he caught a flicker of understanding in his father’s eyes. His father had never lied to him, had never done anything but love Stefan.