“Twins,” he said hoarsely after a moment. “It’s Chinese for twins.”

Her fingers stilled and then resumed tracing the intricate markings.

“What was he like? Your brother?” she wondered cautiously. He had told her on the day of Cristina’s funeral that he didn’t want to talk more about Adrian, but that unknown little boy seemed so present at times. Or was that Emma’s overactive imagination?

He exhaled heavily. She waited, but she didn’t feel the tension leap back into his muscles that she’d half expected.

“He was dreamy. Sweet,” Vanni added after a pause, not lifting his head from her neck. “We looked alike, but Adrian was slighter. He was fragile. Physically. You’ve never seen two more different kids on the surface. I was fire and force. I didn’t walk anywhere, I ran. I could take apart an engine and put it back together by the time I was seven. Adrian wasn’t interested in cars or engines, but his brain was just as methodical once he focused on something. He’d get distracted by a hundred different things crossing the length of the yard. He’d stop and watch a bunch of ants or some other animal, and then draw them in amazing detail. If there were such a thing as fairies, Adrian would have seen them.” Emma felt his small smile against her skin. “He was strong, just in a different way than me. That was one thing my father never understood. He never realized how much I respected Adrian, or how much Adrian respected me. We were different, but we understood each other perfectly. We even had our own language,” he said with a dry laugh. “Nobody else could understand us.”

“Two sides of a whole,” Emma whispered, a sharp, cutting feeling rising in her chest, making drawing air difficult. What would it be like, to feel so connected to another human being, to even feel like part of oneself resided in another, only to have that elemental part cut away? Her hands caressed his biceps carefully. She sensed that those things that characterized Adrian were inside Vanni, too. They always had been. Adrian had just been the embodiment of them, that part of Vanni made flesh. Vanni had been Adrian’s strength and fiery focus.

Now Vanni remained, believing himself to be only a part of what he was, existing in a severed state.

No child should have been left to feel so much. No man forced to feel so little.

Cristina’s remembered voice rose into her consciousness. The ache in her chest swelled. Cristina had been talking about Vanni—about his life since Adrian died.

He rose suddenly and flipped onto his back, effortlessly scooping her into his arms. Her head rolled onto his chest, her cheek pressing to a wall of dense muscle and springy hair. She pressed her lips to his warm flesh, trying to calm the upsweep of emotion she’d experienced. His open hand swept up her spine, making her shiver. He cradled her head in his hand, his fingertips rubbing her scalp.

“Vanni,” she said, her lips brushing his skin. “How much exactly did you hear Cristina say on the day she died?”

“Enough,” he said.

“But there was something she said—”

“I don’t want to discuss it. I told you. I heard enough,” he said, and she could tell by the cool, clipped finality of his tone that it wasn’t a topic they’d be broaching anytime soon.

He felt her tense slightly in his arms and frowned. He hadn’t meant to sound so sharp. She had no inkling of how raw he felt. How exposed. He needed distance.

He required it.

Yet he couldn’t bear to part from her at that moment.

“I told you that the next time we were together, I’d take you someplace nice,” he said, his fingertip running down the ridge of her pretty nose, caressing the sprinkle of freckles.

“That’s okay,” she murmured. “You don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t have to.” He leaned down and kissed her. He’d meant it to be a brisk kiss, but he caught her flavor and scent, and lingered. She smelled like lemons and honey. Even the taste of her sweat was sweet. “I want to,” he said a moment later, looking into her sex-flushed face. His gaze ran down the length of her appreciatively. Unable to stop himself, he caressed a pale breast and delicate pink nipple. Desire flickered in him when he felt her bead beneath his touch. Five weeks? Would it be enough? he wondered idly. When she set the limit, it had initially annoyed him until he realized she’d given him a convenient out. Wasn’t she making it all easy for him, and for her as well? That was important in her case. He didn’t want to hurt her.

Emma made everything so easy. Certainly his desire had never been this sharp, ready to rear up and clutch at him with just a glance or a touch.

“Why are you frowning?” she asked softly, touching his furrowed forehead and splintering his thoughts.

“I took you very hard. I hadn’t intended to. Waiting all week for your answer . . . it made things very trying . . .” He faded off. “Are you all right?”

She gave him a half-shy, half-mischievous glance. “Yes. It was incredible.”

“It was,” he agreed. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead distractedly. “Come on, I’ll take you into the city for dinner.” She opened her mouth but he preempted her. “Don’t worry, we’ll stop by your apartment and pick up what you might need until tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?” she asked, clearly surprised

He turned, rolling off the bed. “We’ll stay the night at my place in the city. I’m not flying to Nice until late tomorrow.

“You have a place in the city?”

He nodded. “My plant is in Deerfield, but I have a business office in the city. I need a place there for when I work late.”

He felt her eyes on him as he walked around the bed toward the bathroom. He was starting to think he’d feel her eyes on him even in his sleep.

Chapter 18

Her mind was preoccupied almost exclusively with one—admittedly stupid—thought all the way home. Should I ask him inside my apartment, or would he prefer just to wait in the car? Asking Vanni inside seemed intimate. Somehow it didn’t seem to match up with the purely sexual affair she’d agreed to with him for a circumscribed period of time. She suspected he felt that way, at any rate, and so she wanted to act accordingly.

Earlier in his suite, he’d asked her politely if she’d like to shower there or at her home, to which she’d answered the latter. Then there’d been nothing left for her to do but sit in a chair in the sitting area and watch in mounting fascination the tail end of his grooming/dressing ritual.

He’d quickly showered after they’d made love, and then changed into a suit. It was a dark gray, with which he wore a white shirt, a slim black tie with two white stripes, silver cuff links, and a crisp white pocket square.

He’d donned his clothing in a methodical fashion, as efficient as a knight putting on his armor. He’d put on the pants, shirt, socks, and shoes in a large dressing closet, where she couldn’t see him. When he’d stepped out, she stared at him with a mixture of fascination and lust. He looked beautiful with the shirt unbuttoned, his ridged abdomen and powerful chest showing through the two-inch gap between the plackets. He hadn’t shaved, and an attractive dark scruff was on his jaw and upper lip. She watched, spellbound as he fastened his shirt and crisply tied his tie in the mirror over his dresser. His hair had still been a little damp around the collar by the time he snapped on his platinum watch and turned his gaze to her where she sat on a chair in the seating area, blinking at her expression of bemused fascination. She’d been a little undone viewing the Vanni Montand dressing ceremony, that ritual of blatant male sexuality and precision.