The Argentine's Price

CHAPTER TWELVE


“As soon as possible” turned out to be two weeks. And they had gone by in a blur of motion and anguish and tiny bouts of happiness that had given way to stark slaps from reality.

Vanessa sort of hated reality. She liked the cocoon of her fantasies. The ones that seemed to have been left behind in Buenos Aires.

The wedding day seemed too bright. The sun shone a little bit too much, the sound of birds and traffic was too loud. It was too clear. And she couldn’t hide from it.

Vanessa shifted her bouquet from one hand to the other. Orchids. And they were gorgeous. So was her dress, a flowing, fitted white gown that skimmed her curves and flattered her figure. It was elegant, sophisticated and without an ounce of princess, which suited her perfectly.

It was all romantic and dreamy, at odds with the prenuptial agreement she’d signed earlier in the week that kept her assets and her future husband’s firmly separated and had custody agreements for hypothetical children and punishments for infidelities. That had been one of the week’s low points.

One of the high points was booking St. John’s on short notice, a lovely, historic cathedral with stained glass and high arched ceilings. Everything was just how she would have wanted it if she’d had years to plan.

Well, had she had her choice her groom would have seen her as a person and not a commodity. He would have loved her. As she loved him. Still. In spite of the ugliness that had passed between them. Lazaro Marino had a piece of her. He always had had.

It was because she saw the man beneath the trappings. She saw the boy he used to be. The boy with the easy smile. The boy who had had a straight nose before her father had sent his henchman to break him and to steal that perfection. To steal his smile.

If Lazaro was hard, full of anger, so much of it was on her father’s shoulders.

That was just one of the many reasons she was walking down the aisle alone today. She already felt like a thing, an asset. She wasn’t about to let her father “give her away” to Lazaro.

She sucked in a deep breath and walked through the double doors and into the sanctuary, her heart pounding hard in her chest.

She looked up at Lazaro’s face, and, for a moment, everything, everyone receded. The clarity was gone, and things were fuzzy around the edges again. For a moment, she thought she saw something soften in him, thought she saw a return of the heat in his eyes—not just the heat, but something tender, an emotion she’d never seen on his face before. An emotion she would only ever see there in dreams.

And then it was gone, replaced with that hardened resolve, that flat, unreadable mask that Lazaro wore to keep her, and everyone else, out.

His voice was measured, controlled as he spoke vows she knew he didn’t mean. Her voice cracked, wavered, because she meant every word. And she wished that she didn’t.

The priest pronounced them man and wife, and gave them the invitation to kiss. She hadn’t touched Lazaro in over two weeks, not any kind of contact. Her heart fluttered as she looked at him, and this time she knew, the heat wasn’t imagined.

He swept her hair over her shoulder and cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing her skin gently as he studied her face.

And she realized he was waiting for her. It was her move. Her decision.

She angled her head and leaned into him, touching her lips to his tentatively. His hold on her tightened and he wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her to him. She clutched his shoulders tightly, kissing him with every ounce of passion pent up inside of her, and all of the anger and the love and the sadness. Because if he was marrying her, he was getting all of it.

She wasn’t just a passive thing to add to his collection. She was a woman. A person. She was Vanessa. He might be able to force her into marriage, but he couldn’t change who she was.

He kissed her back, matching her emotion, her passion, making her dizzy with it.

When they parted, they were both breathing heavily. Vanessa felt her cheeks heat, because during that kiss, the crowd of people witnessing their sacred vows had very much faded away, and now they were in crystal clear focus.

Lazaro leaned in to the priest and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m a very lucky man.”

That broke some of the tension and brought laughter from even their stuffiest witnesses. It made Vanessa’s cheeks heat further. Made her body ache with the longing to have more of him. To do more. To make love with him.

Tonight was their wedding night, and it seemed as though that was what should happen. It was the only thing that felt right. They were back on civil footing, but after the way things had happened … she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure about anything.

As they walked back down the aisle, applause filling the sanctuary, Vanessa fought back tears and an overwhelming ache of loneliness she was afraid would never go away.

“I’ve had all of your things moved in already,” Lazaro said when they reached his penthouse. “Your clothing and personal items are in the room next to mine.”

“Oh. And my furniture?”

“Still at your home. We can hold on to your house as long as you like. Rent it out or keep it vacant. Although, we don’t need two homes in the city.”

“Right.” She walked further into the main area of the house, feeling disoriented—a stranger in a strange land. And this was supposed to be her home. But there was nothing of her in it.

It was cold and clean, with sparse furnishings and a lot of brushed metal giving it a sterile, unlived-in feeling. It was top of the line, no question, everything in it of the highest quality money could buy. But it wasn’t her.

Her town house was plush and luxurious, furnished with her father’s money. But it still had a homey feel. It was a place she was glad to be in at the end of the day. A place that made her feel warm. Lazaro’s penthouse felt like her office. And it kind of gave her heartburn, which made it even more like her office.

“I guess you did it, Lazaro,” she said.

“I did what?”

“You have everything. You’re rich, the richest man in Boston, possibly in the United States. You’re the principal shareholder of Pickett Industries and you have me, your ticket into high society. I guess there’s nothing left for you to go after.”

He looked at her, his dark eyes assessing. “There’s always something more, Vanessa.”

“What?”

“There’s always work to do,” he said, shrugging.

“I see.” That made it all even worse. She was just a means to one end. For Lazaro there would never be rest. Never be satisfaction with what he had.

“Speaking of, I have some work to do. We can have dinner later.”

Vanessa nodded, more than ready to go to her room and sleep off the stress of the day. The stress of the past month.

She walked through the house, feeling a sense of disconnection so strong that she thought she might crumble beneath it. She’d cut ties with her father. She and Lazaro seemed to have lost whatever connection they had found in Buenos Aires.

She blinked and looked around again. No, her surroundings weren’t really to her taste. And yes, she and Lazaro weren’t engaged in the love affair of the century, not emotionally anyway. But they had passion. And she had options.

She had let other people make her decisions for far too long. She had seen herself as honorable, continuing her family’s legacy, doing her duty, being the kind of daughter, the kind of person everyone should be. So self-sacrificing.

She laughed into the empty room. She wasn’t any of that. She was a coward. Too afraid to make her own decisions and step out on her own. So she’d let other people do it for her. Her father. And then, following down that same path, Lazaro. And then, of course, if she was unhappy it was somehow down to someone else. And that made her what? A long-suffering martyr doing her duty?

No. She shook her head and sat down on the couch. She’d made this choice. And she’d hidden behind all kinds of reasons, but the fact remained that she’d made the choice. Just as she’d chosen to put aside her dreams and go to school for business. Just as she’d chosen to give up photography for a life behind a desk.

She had no one to blame. And no one to fix it for her now but herself.

Lazaro’s housekeeper had decided that the newlyweds needed a nice, intimate dinner prepared for them before she went home for the evening. Which was how Vanessa found herself sitting opposite her stoic husband, searching for conversation so they weren’t trapped in uncomfortable silence.

“I want to step down from my position at Pickett,” she said. Those weren’t the words she’d been searching for, but it was the truth. It was her heart. And it was too late to call them back now. “I want to keep my ownership, my stock, but I don’t want an active role in the company.”

“You want to take up lunching?” he asked, looking up from his dinner plate, one dark brow raised.

“Photography,” she said. “I want to take some classes. I want to pursue it as a career.”

“Then you should,” he said. That simple. That easy.

“Really?”

“I told you in Buenos Aires, I want you to be happy.”

“I thought all bets might be off on that.”

“Why is that?”

“Since … you know. Since things haven’t been overly amicable between us for the past couple of weeks,” she said studying her plate of pasta.

“I want them to be.”

“Well, you forced me to marry you, so … the odds of that are low.”

This time she was certain what she saw in his eyes was hurt. A brief flash of it, a tiny glimpse past the stone wall he built over his emotions.

She lifted her glass of wine and touched it to her lips, then set it down without taking a drink. “I don’t have to tell you how it happened. I’m sure you remember,” she said, her voice cracking.

“I don’t want you to be miserable, Vanessa.” “Am I supposed to be happy? You could have fooled me. Was any of this ever about happiness? Mine or yours?”

He didn’t speak, he simply toyed with the stem of his wineglass, his dark eyes glittering in the candlelight. A nice touch from his housekeeper, meant to give them a romantic atmosphere. What a sad farce it was.

“This has always been about business,” he said, taking his hand away from the glass and curling it into a fist.

“And revenge.”

“Yes, that too. I had never planned on seeking revenge …” “But the temptation was too great. I get that. I just don’t think I like being in the middle of it. But I’ve told my father that he isn’t to bar your entrance into the inner circles of society in any way. He’s to roll out the red carpet for you.” “And how did you get him to agree to that?” Vanessa looked down at her food again, unable to meet his searching gaze. “I threatened him. You would have been proud. I actually used the same threat you used on me. I told him we would dismantle Pickett Industries, brick by brick if necessary. Because what he did to you, what he’s done to me all of my life, it’s not right.”

“How do you feel now that you’ve stood up to him?” She sighed heavily and spun her glass in a slow circle on the table. “I felt free. For about ten minutes.” She looked at Lazaro again, then down at the diamond engagement ring and the thick platinum band next to it. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

She stood from the table, expecting him to stop her, to kiss her, demand she join him in bed on their wedding night. He did none of those things. He hardly flicked her a glance.

“Good night.”

Her throat tightened. “Good night.”

Vanessa felt empty. The bed felt empty. Everything did. She rolled onto her back and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling. No tiles to count. It was smooth and glossy, just like the rest of the house.

She wondered if Lazaro was in bed. If he was asleep.

It was their wedding night and it didn’t seem right for them to sleep separately. But then, they were married and it didn’t seem right for there to be this … distance between them.

She was the one who’d tried to back out of the agreement. She was the one who’d created the distance between them—to protect herself because she was afraid of her feelings for Lazaro. They were so strong, woven through her being, like roots of one plant overtaking the roots of another beneath the surface of the ground. Impossible to extricate either without destroying the delicate flower involved.

She loved him. All he had been, all he had become. The man with so much determination and brilliance. The man who was still hurting beneath it all. She sensed that hurt, mostly because she kept coming close to the wounds. She had a knack for saying the wrong things, things that brought those little flashes of pain into his eyes.

He didn’t feel like he was enough. She knew it now, recognized it, because it was what she felt about herself. Lazaro had married her for status, she had done it for Pickett. And none of it was that clean or simple now. Because if all of the external things were stripped away, Lazaro was the man she would want.

It was all the things, they were the deterrent now, not the draw.

She wanted just him. She wanted to forget. To let go of all of the pain and just feel alive. Feel what only he could make her feel.

She slid out of bed and padded over to the door, and out onto the mezzanine floor that overlooked the living area, the windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling showing the lights of Boston shining in the inky night.

The city, at least, was home, even if the house didn’t feel like it.

She knocked on Lazaro’s bedroom door.

“Vanessa?” She heard his accented voice, sleepy and muffled through the bedroom door.

She pushed open the door and crossed to his bed, standing at the side of it. “I couldn’t sleep. And it’s our wedding night, and frankly, I didn’t imagine I would be spending my wedding night alone.”

“You said you were tired, was I meant to break down your door and demand you make love with me?” He was lying in the bed, a blanket pulled up over his lap, revealing his bare chest.

She tried to keep her eyes on his face and not glued to his amazing body. But it was hard. “No. But I … I don’t want to be alone.”

“Neither do I.” He drew back the covers and she slipped in beside him, her heart hammering.

She placed her hand delicately on his chest, excitement and arousal firing through her. “I missed you,” she said. “I missed this.”

This was the man she loved. Here, in bed, it brought him back. There was nothing else now. No revenge. No company. No status. It was everything he’d made her feel from the beginning, before so many things had gotten in the way.

“I did too,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face, trailing his fingertips down over her shoulder to her hand. He lifted it to his lips and kissed the sensitive skin of her palm.

Her heart ached. It was tempting to wonder what might have been. Where they would be now if they had never parted. Maybe poor. In an apartment somewhere with him mowing lawns and her taking wedding pictures. With children. Without all of the anger and the trappings of life that they seemed so tangled up in.

With love.

She closed her eyes, fought the tears that were mounting. She wasn’t living in a fantasy. Right now, this was her reality, and she meant to feel all of it.

He pressed his lips to hers, his kiss urgent, his hands roaming over her curves, slow and firm, his movements sure and expert. “I will never tire of this,” he said against her lips. “Of you.”

Her heart burned in her chest, pain lancing her. He would tire of her. She was a status symbol, the ultimate I-told-you-so. He had been told he couldn’t have her, and Lazaro wasn’t a man who liked to be told no. Beyond that, there was nothing unique about her. He’d wanted to select a society bride and she had been available, and had come with the added perk of vengeance.

She believed him when he said he hadn’t been planning revenge for the entirety of the past twelve years, but she also knew that she served to satisfy a wrong that had been committed against him. And in his place, she wasn’t entirely certain she wouldn’t have done the same thing.

She blocked out the thoughts that were flooding her mind, increasing the flow of pain to her chest. She focused only on Lazaro’s hands, his lips, all the amazing things he could make her body feel. She ignored the pain gushing from her heart with every beat.

“It’s convenient that you don’t wear pajamas to bed,” she said, sliding her hand over his washboard-flat abs and down to where he was hard and ready for her.

He tilted his head back, and even in the dark, she could see his expression, one of pure pleasure. It filled her with feminine pride to know she had the power to make him feel that way.

“More than convenient,” he said, his voice strained.

“I want to try something.”

She moved down his body, flicked her tongue over the head of his erection.

Air hissed hard through his teeth and he wove his fingers through her hair, holding on to her tightly while she explored him, taking pleasure in giving him pleasure.

His thighs were tight beneath her hands, his muscles starting to shake as she took him fully into her mouth.

“Vanessa, someday we’ll do it this way … but now … now I need you.”

The words were broken, strained, and she understood exactly what he meant, because she needed him too. She’d been without him for too long, aching and lonely. To the outside world, she was only the part that she played. But Lazaro knew the woman beneath.

Having one person in the world who knew, truly knew, what she wanted, what made her happy, had made her wonder how she’d ever lived without that. And being without him had been so isolating. She’d felt cut off from everyone, even more than she normally did. She’d felt trapped inside of herself.

She’d been squeezed into a box all of her life, trying so hard to be who she was supposed to be. Not now. Not with him.

Here and now, she was free.

She pushed herself up and positioned herself over him, leaning in to kiss his lips, her palms on his chest, his heart raging beneath them. He was watching her, not giving instruction, just watching and waiting. And she knew that she was in control now.

She smiled and changed her position slightly, bringing the head of his erection against the entrance to her body, slick and so very ready for him. He helped her by guiding himself to the right place and she sank onto him slowly, sighing as he filled her completely.

She locked eyes with him as she moved over him, finding her rhythm slowly, awkwardly at first. Lazaro gripped her hips and urged her on, his words alternating between sweet and explicit, encouraging her.

She could feel her climax building within her, could feel it building with each thrust, could feel, as Lazaro’s muscles tensed and shook, that he was close too.

He thrust up into her and pushed her over the edge, her orgasm moving through her like a crescendo, building as it flowed through her body.

“Lazaro.” She gripped his shoulders hard, her nails digging into his skin.

He groaned harshly as he found his own pleasure and Vanessa collapsed against him, her cheek resting on his sweat-slicked chest, his heart pounding hard beneath her ear, evidence of what she’d done to him. To them.

She wished she knew what it had meant to him. What he felt. It was frightening, being connected with someone physically and feeling so blocked out emotionally. Feeling alone.

Her eyes filled with tears and one escaped, sliding down her nose and onto Lazaro’s chest. He tightened his hold on her and kissed her hair.

Vanessa closed her eyes, trying to focus on the sweet languor that was making her limbs feel heavy, that was bringing her closer to sleep.

Anything to dull the ache in her chest.