He was headed back to Portland and would arrive later that evening. He said nothing about the gossip stories, but he did apologize for not calling when he’d been unable to fly out the day before.
She listened to the message three times just to hear his voice and then erased it with a jab of a button, irritated with her lame, sappy behavior.
The phone rang again, this time a local newspaper name showed up on the caller ID and she let it go to voice mail again. The rest of the day, the phone rang off the hook and the two times she made the mistake of answering it, a reporter was on the other end of the line.
She was in the middle of preparing a tray of snacks for Angelo’s arrival and muttering to herself about Ray-the-rat and Baron when something struck her.
What made her angriest about Baron’s phone call earlier had nothing to do with the past. No pain from his betrayal lingered to catch at her heart. No longing for what might have been tugged at her thoughts, but she was furious he had implied Angelo was untrustworthy.
And she was feeling downright feral that her attempt to avoid another phone call from Baron had made her miss one from Angelo.
Baron couldn’t begin to understand, because he didn’t have a protective bone in his body, but she was sure Angelo wouldn’t hurt her. Nor would he allow her to be hurt by others. He was going to be enraged when he found out she’d been fired and she had no doubt Ray-the-rat was going to heartily regret making her and Angelo the crux of his career advancement…such as it was.
Another sudden, not so welcome thought scorched through her consciousness.
She trusted him.
She really trusted a tycoon.
That’s why she’d given him the benefit of the doubt about her employment termination. That was why she was waiting for him to show up with a heart full of hope instead of a loaded shotgun. Against all odds, something deep inside of her had bonded with him and told her she could believe in him.
That was scarier than having Baron trying to come back into her life. Her ex-lover posed no threat to her emotional health, but Angelo was something else altogether. She wasn’t at all sure how much damage to her current happiness letting him go would do, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be negligible.
She did not want to fall in love again. She did not ever want to be that vulnerable.
Before she started hyperventilating, she reminded herself that trust was not love. They weren’t mutually exclusive emotions of course, but neither were they absolutely mutually inclusive.
Were they?
How could she have let herself come to this pass? She’d only spent a few days with him. She knew powerful men like him weren’t innately trustworthy. She hadn’t needed Baron to tell her that, but when he’d said it, she’d been offended. Was still offended.
Her heart insisted that Angelo was different. Unlike with Baron, she didn’t have to convince herself…she had to fight belief. Maybe it was the things Angelo had told her about his past. He hadn’t condemned his mom, but he was determined to make the man responsible for her pain pay.
That made him protective, even if it was of a memory.
She should never have researched him. All that stuff about what a ruthless but really fair guy he was had turned her head, or her heart. He’d told her he didn’t give up, that he made things work and she had no option but to believe him.
And seriously, a man who spent ten years preparing for revenge didn’t change his mind on a whim. If he wanted to marry her, he planned to make it stick.
Was she trying to convince herself to accept his proposal? Or facing the inevitable?
She trusted him, she wanted him and in a way she did not understand, but could not deny, she needed him.
The decision she’d been wrestling with all week was really no decision at all. In a way, Baron’s call had put it into perspective. Angelo was nothing like the older man and Tara was sure that if she refused his offer, she would regret his leaving much more than she’d ever regretted her failed relationship with Baron.
The buzzer sounded, scattering her thoughts and letting her know she had a visitor. She rushed into the entry hall to press the black button which would unlock the front door. Sure it was Angelo, she opened her door and waited just inside so she could see down the hall.
Within seconds his tall, muscular body came into view. His eyes looked tired and his skin was pale, but he strode toward her, his body vibrating with purpose.
She didn’t smile, didn’t speak. She just waited.
He reached her and without a word, yanked her into his arms and kissed her with claim staking intensity. She locked her fingers behind his neck and kissed him back.
When they finally came up for air, she was in his arms and he was leaning on the inside of the closed door to her apartment. She wasn’t going to waste time wondering how they’d gotten there. He made things happen.
This was just one of those things.
Nuzzling her neck, he squeezed her. “I missed you, stellina.”
“I missed you, too, Angelo.”
He lifted his head, his gimlet stare enough to make her heart contract in her chest. “Don’t ever buzz your apartment open without using the intercom to see who it is again.”
She laughed, relieved that was all it was. “All right.”
He kissed her again. Hard and fast. “I mean it.”
“I know.”
He carried her into the living room and sat down on the sofa with her in his lap. His thighs weren’t the only hard things under her bottom. Heat flashed through her, sensitizing nerve endings already on edge.
“You really did miss me,” she teased.
He didn’t smile in response. “I have severely reprimanded my second in command.”
“He’s the one who ordered I be fired?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know about the articles as well.”
“I saw something at the newsstand in the airport.”
She cringed at the reminder how widespread was her humiliation. “Did you flip?”
“That’s one word for it, but my reaction to the initial article was nothing compared to my fury when I was told you’d been fired as a crisis containment measure. If you were a different woman, that kind of crisis containment could have blown up in our collective faces.”
She knew he’d been too smart to take such a step.
“My managers will not act so impetuously on my behalf again.”
She shivered at the chill in his voice.
“Why did they?”
His brows rose. “What do you mean?”
“It just seems to me that they had to have some reason for believing you would approve their decision.”
“Ignorance.”
“Well, yes, but…”
“They were ignorant because they’ve never been in this situation before.”
She waited in silence for him to continue explaining and was surprised when he did after only a brief pause.
“They know only that I hate personal publicity of any kind. I’ve never dated a woman employed by one of my companies and I don’t usually make it on the front pages of the weekly tabloids. My last magazine cover was Newsweek.”
“I read it. That article had a lot more