The Moretti Heir / Billionaire Extraordinaire: The Moretti Heir / Billionaire Extraordinaire
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“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
She glanced at the woman who’d spoken. She was tall and slender and very beautiful.
“Very.”
“I love Picasso’s work, before he started doing the abstract stuff.”
“Me, too. He reminds me a little of Pissaro in some of his early work.”
“I’m not that familiar with Pissaro. Just Picasso. Are you in town for the race?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I saw you at the party in Melbourne. My boyfriend is Keke Heckler.”
“He’s on the same team as Marco Moretti.” Virginia didn’t know if Marco had mentioned her after their night together. She realized that she hoped he hadn’t. She didn’t really want anyone to know about what had happened between them, especially since she had no idea how he’d felt the next morning.
She’d left while he was sleeping, afraid that if she stayed there in his arms, she’d forget her plans and resolve and just stay with Marco until he tired of her. Leaving like that was something that she suspected her own mother had done with Virginia’s father.
“Yes, he is. We didn’t meet at the party, but I saw you dancing with Marco. I’m Elena Hamilton.”
“I’m Virginia,” she said.
“I have a confession,” Elena said. “I followed you here because I was curious about you.”
Virginia tensed. “Why?”
“Because Marco has been asking about you. Questioning everyone, to see if they know your last name or where you went. Keke said he’s never seen Marco so angry when he thinks no one is looking.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Marco’s like a brother to Keke. And I’ve come to know Marco, as well. He means a lot to me, and I don’t want to see him being used.”
Virginia was glad to hear that. Glad that Marco had good friends who looked out for him. “I’m not using him.”
Elena glared at her. “I don’t believe you. Just know that I’m watching you.”
Virginia nodded as the other woman walked away. It might be harder than she’d thought to have a second night with Marco.
Marco finished the Catalonia Grand Prix in second place, but he didn’t mind not winning this week. Keke had been unstoppable on the track. His friend and teammate had a string of good luck going that stemmed in part from his recent engagement to Elena.
Marco smiled along with everyone else. Dominic was happy, because a win for the Moretti team kept them ahead of Ferrari and Audi, which was really all Dom cared about.
Marco rubbed the back of his neck, realizing he wasn’t as joy-filled as he should be. He needed to get away from Keke and the rest of the crowd.
He started to leave when he saw the familiar brown hair that he’d been searching for at each race since Melbourne. Virginia.
She was here. And he was going to get some damned answers about where she’d been and who she really was.
Fans swarmed around him as he made his way over to her. He didn’t have time for smiles or photos, but he made himself take the time. His popularity was one of the things that was important to the success of Moretti Motors. He signaled Carlos, his security guard.
“Keep that woman here,” he said, pointing to Virginia.
“Yes, sir,” Carlos said, and went to Virginia’s side. She arched one eyebrow at him and he guessed that she didn’t like that he was keeping her from leaving. Too bad.
He took his time flirting with the women fans who were always waiting for him. They liked to pose with him and have their pictures taken. Today while Virginia was waiting, he said no to no one.
Why was she back? he wondered as the last of the fans moved away. He signaled to Carlos to bring Virginia to him. She didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to give her any further ground. He was in charge, and it was about time she figured that out.
She slowly walked toward him, hips swaying with each step, drawing his eyes to her body. He was intimately familiar with her curves and longed to touch her again. When she was within arm’s reach, he took her wrist in his hand and pulled her to him.
She gasped as her body came into contact with his. He was hot and sweaty from the race and he was pumped with adrenaline and something else. Something he didn’t want to define.
“Hello, Marco.”
“Bongiorno, Virginia.”
“You raced well today,” she said.
She was nervous. And that pleased him. She should be leery of him. He’d never hurt her physically, but he was angry with her and he wanted her to know it.
He cupped her jaw gently and tilted her head back. “I want answers.”
“I’ll give them to you,” she said. Her eyes were wet as he lowered his head, taking her mouth with his.
This was no gentle seduction. He meant to be masterful, to remind her that he wasn’t a man to be toyed with. That his passion—and hers—belonged to him.
He forced her lips wide and thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. She clung to his shoulders, her fingers gripping him tightly.
He heard a small sigh escape her and he softened his embrace—wrapped one arm around her and hugged her to him. God, he wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he’d missed her.
“Come with me,” he said. The track wasn’t the place for this kind of reunion. She nodded, speechless, and he led her to the motor home he used as a dressing room and place to relax at the races.
He had a million questions to ask, but touching and caressing her made him want to take her. He needed to establish his dominance over her. She’d left him, and while it was true that one-night stands weren’t out of the ordinary for him, he’d always been the one to leave.
“Why did you leave the way you did?”
She folded her arms. Her short, emerald-green designer dress brought out the creaminess of her skin. He tried not to notice.
“I…I didn’t want to wait around for you to tell me to leave.”
“Why do you believe I would have done that?”
“Marco, I know the type of man you are.”
“What kind of man am I?” he asked, curious to know what she thought she knew about him.
“You have a reputation of living fast and large on the track and off. And I knew, just as I know now, that a simple girl from Long Island has little chance of slowing you down for long.”
There was a certain amount of truth to that. But he suspected that wasn’t the only reason she’d left. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that there was more to Virginia than met the eye.
“I have never hurried a woman out of my bed.”
“It wasn’t you.”
She lowered her gaze to the side and walked around the living-room area of the luxury motor home. She paused to look at the picture of his family on the wall. From over her shoulder, he saw his family all posed in front of the main Moretti Motors plant in Milan.
“Then what made you leave?”
“It was me,” she said, turning to face him. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to leave gracefully if you were awake and I had to walk away from you. So I skulked out while you were sleeping.”
“Why are you back?”
She took a deep breath and walked over to him. She brushed her fingers over her bottom lip, which was swollen from his earlier kiss.
“I’m back because I missed you, Marco. And I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
He didn’t admit that he’d missed her, as well. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes. I have to shower and change, then we will go for an early dinner.”
He walked away from her before she could answer. She was here, and he was suddenly determined that she would never leave him again.
Five
Marco’s attitude made it difficult for Virginia to do anything but follow him. He’d showered and changed in the motor home and then come out smelling wonderfully masculine, and she felt very much like a school girl enamored with a boy. Though there was nothing boyish about Marco. He was all man.
A man who was determined to set the rules of their…“relationship” didn’t seem the right word to describe what was between them. But he was definitely letting her know that he was in charge.
Whereas in Melbourne he’d wooed her, this time he simply took charge. And as they drove through Barcelona, she admitted to herself that she secretly liked the forcefulness of Marco.
To lessen some of his impact on her, she gazed out the window. Barcelona was a beautiful city. Very Mediterranean in feel. Whenever she traveled outside of the United States…as if she was a world traveler, she thought. But both times, she had left her home country, she noticed how different the world was. She loved the architecture of the old buildings. She loved the streets lined with people walking from place to place. And she loved the way that Marco fit into this world. This was his place, and she felt very much the intruder tonight.
But then she’d always felt like an intruder, and being in beautiful Barcelona wasn’t helping.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him what she was really thinking. She cast around her mind for something to say and remembered that Picasso painting in the museum where Elena had cornered her.
“About a painting I saw earlier at the Picasso museum.”
“Which one?”
“The Embrace. Are you familiar with it?”
“I am. My mother is an art history teacher.”
“Really? Did you grow up surrounded by art?”
He shrugged. “Not really. She tried to expose us, but we were more interested in cars and engines.”
“All of your brothers?”
“Yes. And my father.”
“How did your parents meet?” she asked. She’d heard via the grapevine that Giovanni and Philomena had a love match. That their love had meant the destruction of Moretti Motors.
“My mom was hired to buy art for the lobby of our building. My father took one look at her and forgot all about cars and racing.”
“Was he a driver like you?”
“No. He did one twenty-four-hour race with his cousins when he was in his twenties, but didn’t care for it.”
“What’s a twenty-four-hour race?”
“An endurance race that involves a team of at least three drivers.”
“And you drive for twenty-four hours?”
“In shifts…usually each guy drives for three hours.”
She couldn’t imagine what would make someone want to do that. But then again, she was a little unsure of why Marco raced. Wanting to go fast, she understood. She even got that he wanted to beat other people on the track—but racing as a calling she didn’t really get.
“Is it fun?”
He laughed a little. “No. It’s more. It’s exhilarating and a bit of a headache. There’s nothing else like it.”
“Do you drive through towns or around tracks?”
“Tracks, usually,” he said. He drove through the streets of Barcelona with skill and competency, which really didn’t surprise her.
“Have you done one?”
“Every year my brothers and I participate in at least one.”
This was his world, she realized. She wondered if the child they had would be like Marco. Would he have the need for speed? And what would being raised so far away from the racing world do to the child?
For the first time, she realized that, while her plan was to fix this generation, she had no way of knowing what the fallout of her solution was going to be.
“I like the track at Le Mans. We’ve done charity events, too, where we compete against other car companies.”
“How is that different from what you do each week? Is it friendlier?”
“Not really. But we do raise money for charity. One charity rule requires you to have a woman driver for one leg.”
“Who do you guys use?”
“No one. We haven’t participated in that one…my family is cursed.”
“Cursed?” She wondered how much he’d tell her about the curse and whether she should pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about.
“It’s an Italian thing,” he said. “Our curse involves women.”
“Being around women?” she asked, wondering how much he knew of the actual curse.
“No. But being involved with a woman. Okay, here’s the truth, Dom has always been afraid that either Tony or I will weaken and fall in love with a woman, and then our family curse will kick in. So that’s why we’ve never participated in that particular race. I think he fears that if I met a woman who loved racing as much as I do, I’d fall for her.”
Virginia didn’t like the sound of that. That Marco wasn’t going to fall in love. But that shouldn’t matter to her, she wasn’t after his heart, only his child. “You seem very successful, to be cursed.”
He turned into a parking lot and pulled into a space, but made no move to turn off the car or get out. “It’s not a curse like that.”
“What kind is it?”
“As I said, it’s one that involves women.”
“From where I’m sitting, you seem to do okay with women.”
“I do. But I never fall for a woman.”
“So, do you want to fall in love?” she asked. She wondered if he was lonely like she was at times. It didn’t matter how full his life was. Because of her grandmother, he could only be lucky in business or in love. Never both. And since he’d chosen business, that meant a lonely life.
“No,” he said with a smile. “I’m still young and have my life ahead of me.”
“Indeed. What about racing? Are you going to retire?”
“Not for another few years,” he said, turning off the ignition and looking at her.
The smell of his aftershave and the leather of the seats overwhelmed her, and she was very aware of the fact that she’d made small talk to cover her nervousness about being alone with Marco again.
This was something she hadn’t planned for. Being with Marco again wasn’t going to be easy, because each time she was with him she didn’t want to leave. But more than that, she realized that he wanted answers from her, and she was going to have to keep on her toes to stay one step ahead of him.
Marco led the way upstairs to his apartment. He hated staying in hotels, and since Moretti Motors always had a driver in F1, over the years the company had bought residences in all of the major cities where the races were held.
He was trying to be genial and laid-back, though he really wanted answers. But after that one passionate outburst he’d had back at the track, he knew he needed to rein himself in.
He didn’t want Virginia to realize how much she’d gotten to him. And she had. Until he’d seen her again, he hadn’t realized that he’d been searching for her in every crowd—that he’d been waiting for her at each race. And that each win and each loss was marked by the fact that she wasn’t there.
He’d never let anyone have that kind of power over him. He didn’t think he’d “let” Virginia. For some reason, she was the one woman who could make him react this way. Only finding out every detail of who she was would give him the peace he needed.
Dinner had yielded few answers. She was very clever at keeping the conversation off herself and on him. But he was determined to learn more about Virginia, and he wanted to do it without asking her flat out for the answers. She’d set the rules of their game by disappearing and by the very mystery of who she was.
“You’re staring at me,” she said.
“You’re a beautiful woman. Surely I’m not the first man to stare at you.”
She shook her head. “I’m not really beautiful.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I find you captivating.”
“Marco.”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll be tempted to believe you, and you just said that you weren’t interested in any woman for the long term.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re not really interested in the long term, either, are you, Virginia?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
He had no idea what she meant by that comment. Maybe she was just as confused about what was happening between them as he was. But she’d left after one night. Most women didn’t do that.
He wasn’t being a chauvinist or anything like that. His experience had shown him that women stuck around for a while. That only when they were convinced a man wasn’t going to be the right one for them to spend their lives with did they move on.
“A woman who leaves while a man is sleeping surely isn’t looking for ‘happily ever after’…though I thought most American women were.”
“Why would you ever think such a thing? American women are independent.”
“My mother watches Desperate Housewives.” To be honest, he wasn’t too sure about that show as a standard for American women. But Elena was American, and she wanted to be married.
“That’s a TV show.”
“Television shows are made popular by the way they exaggerate real life.”
“Marco, that makes no sense.”
“You are simply saying that because you don’t agree with my theory.”
“Okay, if you’re right about TV echoing life, how do you feel about movies?”
“I think that, to a certain extent they reflect the view of what they are representing. You know, I’m not saying that movies and television programs are real life, simply that they mirror an attitude of the culture that produced them.”
She was so bubbly with her passion for discussing this. He liked it because he could tell that she wasn’t planning what she would say to him. She wasn’t keeping this conversation all about him, the way she had during dinner. This was something real. An indication of the woman who was Virginia.
He still didn’t know her last name, but he would before morning. He hoped to spend this night uncovering all of her secrets.
He would know everything about her body, of course—he was already intimately acquainted with the sounds she made when her body was suffused with pleasure. Now he wanted to know what made her mad. What made Virginia cry? What made her laugh and smile? He needed that knowledge and he would be ruthless about getting it.
“Did you see the movie Talladega Nights?” she asked him.
“Yes. It was quite funny, with that Will Ferrell.”
“Um…by rights I should assume you are like the French driver in the movie.”
It took him a moment to figure out that she was trying to say he might be gay. He saw the sparkle in her eyes. She was teasing him. He knew he shouldn’t feel good about that fact, but he did.
He closed the distance between them, tired of not holding her in his arms. The last month had been too long. He’d focused on racing and on the promo events that went with the Formula One season, but every night he’d had passion-filled dreams of Virginia and he wanted to make them a reality.
“I think I’ve proven that I’m more interested in women than men,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “But perhaps you need another demonstration?”
She put her hands on his face and rose up to kiss him with the gentle passion he associated only with Virgina.
“I have no doubts that you are interested in women. I was trying to make a point,” she said.
“Instead, you proved that Americans think Frenchmen are gay. It matters not to me. I’m Italian, and interested in only one woman tonight.”
“Me?”
“You,” he said, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her down the hallway and into the bedroom.
He put her on her feet next to the bed. As he stroked one finger down the side of her neck and traced the soft fabric neckline of her dress, shivers spread down her body. His fingers were warm against her skin and she wasn’t really listening to what he was saying.
She simply watched his lips to see if he was going to kiss her. That was what she really wanted and needed. She had missed him. And though she’d had other relationships before Marco that one night in his arms had far exceeded what she’d expected. He’d marked her indelibly and she’d been unable to forget his touch.
“I’m almost afraid to believe that you are really here.”
“I am here,” she said. Truly, she was afraid to believe that he’d taken her back into his arms so easily.
He leaned down, his lips brushing over hers. They were so soft, yet so commanding. And as he sucked her lower lip into his mouth and laved it with his tongue, she stopped thinking and just gave herself over to the feelings that were swamping her.
When she was standing naked in front of him, he traced the scar under her breast. “Do you realize that this is one of the only things I know about your past?”
She felt a frisson of fear at his words. He could never know about her past. His family and hers were enemies. Real life Capulet and Montague stuff.
“My past isn’t important, Marco. Only what we have when we are together. Make love to me.”
“Why?”
She felt more vulnerable now than she had just a second before. “I want to know that I’m really here in your arms.”
He bent down to trace the scar with his tongue. His hands cupping the weight of both her breasts, one long forefinger stroking up and over her nipples. She shivered in his embrace, needing more of him. He made her react so quickly…he was like a flame she couldn’t stay away from.
She tunneled her fingers through his thick black hair and held his head to her body. He murmured something in Italian against her skin. Then she felt his lips against her breast. His mouth moved over the skin, tongue licking and teeth lightly scraping until she was desperate for more of him. She needed more than just his mouth lightly touching her.
His hand on her other breast just kept stroking lightly, until she couldn’t stand it a second longer. She pulled his head up to hers and kissed him deeply, sucking his lower lip into her mouth and biting him. She shifted in his arms until her breasts were pressed to his chest.
The cool fabric of his shirt shocked her naked skin. She hadn’t realized he was still fully dressed and she was wearing nothing but her silky thong. The thought of being naked in his arms was very arousing.
He stood back up and lifted her onto the bed. Pulling his mouth from hers, he bent down to capture the tip of her breast. His hand still played at her other breast, arousing her, making her arch against him in need.
She reached between them and stroked his erection through the fabric of his pants, spreading her legs wider so that she was totally open to him. “I need you now.”
He lifted his head. The tips of her breasts were damp from his mouth and very tight. He pressed his chest against them.
She reached up to unbutton his shirt. “Leave it. I need to be inside you now.”
She nodded, and instead fumbled with his belt, finally getting it unfastened. Then she couldn’t get the button at his waistband open. “Damn it.”
He laughed softly and brushed her hands aside so that he could unfasten his own pants. She heard the swish of fabric and then felt the warmth of his erection against the center of her body. He rocked his hips against hers, rubbing the length of his arousal against her feminine core.
She needed him inside her. She reached between them and took him in her hand, positioning him for easy entry. But she could get no more than the tip inside her body.
He held his hips still, and no matter how she squirmed or moved, he wouldn’t budge. Finally she looked up at him. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting for you to really want me.”
“I do. I want you inside of me right now. I feel like it’s been a lifetime since we were together, and I’ve missed you so much.” The words wouldn’t stop coming, and she knew she’d revealed too much, but she couldn’t help herself. “Please, Marco,” she said again. She ran her hands down his back, cupping his buttocks and trying to draw him closer to her.
He gave her barely an inch. “That’s all you get.”
His words were breathed right into her ear and almost made her climax. She shifted in his embrace, trying to take him deeper.
“Marco, please, I need more.”
“No. You were a bad girl.”
“When I left?”
“Yes,” he said, pulling his hips back and thrusting into her again, still just an inch.