I took the call. “Hey, Mom. How are you?”
She had a voice that was naturally elegant. I could picture her deep brown hair and blue eyes just by listening to the sound of her voice. She’d always been a lot more easygoing than my father, which was interesting because in most other areas, it was the opposite. My mother knew how to smile, knew how to enjoy life. My father was serious nearly all the time. “Hey, Con. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Even if she were, I would never tell her. “Just having breakfast on the terrace. It’s a beautiful day.”
“It is. Your father and I just had breakfast with Vanessa in Milan. We were in the area and thought the three of us would stop by.” My parents lived five hours away in the southern part of Italy. They preferred wine country, where the summers were truly hot and humid.
“Are you here on business?”
“Your father had a meeting with a restaurant owner in Milan.”
“That’s nice.” My father was almost sixty, but he’d never slowed down. When I was growing up, he never took sick days and always went to work. He loved to spend time with my mother, but he always needed his own space. Now he was still working even though he could have retired decades ago. That was how he was wired—and I was exactly the same way.
“We were thinking of stopping by for lunch. You’re at your home in Verona, right?”
My thoughts immediately went to the woman living on my property. I couldn’t hide her forever, but I wasn’t ready to reveal her either. “I’ll come to you, Mom. I’m sure you guys have already been driving a lot lately.”
“We don’t mind. Your father wants to see Carbine.”
Oh, fuck. I couldn’t deny my mother a second time. “What time were you thinking?”
“Noon?” she asked. “Unless you’re working today?”
It was Saturday. I didn’t usually go to Milan on the weekends. My other studio was here, and Nicole was always available through email. Now that I’d brought Sapphire with me, I didn’t have a lot of incentive to drive to Milan anymore—not when my inspiration lived with me. “No, I’m off.”
“Alright. I’m so excited to see you, Con. I miss you so much…” The maternal side of her emerged, her voice reaching a new tone as the sincerity came through the phone. I was almost thirty, but my mother still loved me like I was five.
“I miss you too, Mama.”
* * *
When I found the empty breakfast tray in Muse’s room, I knew she’d already left for the stables.
I was hoping she would still be there so I could have a morning fuck.
I walked down the dirt path and reached the barn and stables. Muse was there, carrying a bridle and reins to the tack room. She hung it on the metal hook then wiped her hands on her denim jeans. Even when she was dressed like a cowgirl, she still looked sexy. Made me wonder if I could make a design to complement it, maybe have a photographer shoot her right here in the barn. “Muse.”
She turned my way, her hair in a braid over one shoulder. Her eyes narrowed in a hostile smolder.
Fuck, she was hot. I loved that pissed look she gave me. All I had to do was fuck her to make it go away. I’d claimed her innocence and changed her into a sexual woman. I made her enjoy sex, made her enjoy me.
I walked toward her then gave Marco a meaningful look.
He disappeared.
“I have a lot of work to do, so what is it?” she asked, taking a step back and keeping distance between us.
“I need you to head back to the house and stay in your bedroom for the rest of the day.”
“Why?”
I glared at her.
“It’s not even ten yet,” she said. “I have a lot of work to do and plenty of time to get it done.”
“That’s what I pay Marco for. So get in the house.”
“Why?” she repeated.
“Because I said so,” I hissed.
We were out in the open with a witness just around the corner. She probably thought she was safe out there, that there was nothing I could do to get her to cooperate.
She shouldn’t underestimate me.
She turned away. “I like being out here.”
I grabbed her by the elbow and jerked her back toward me. “And you can be out here tomorrow. But for today, you need to go inside. Don’t make me ask you again. I’ll take you in one of those stalls and fuck you with your jeans around your ankles. Try me, Muse. Try me.”
She didn’t jerk away from my grip, but the menace in her eyes suggested she was considering it. “Tell me why.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
My hand tightened on her elbow, and I pulled her closer to me. “I have company coming.”