Because Of Love

Rafe tried to concentrate throughout the presentation, but with Talia seated right next to him, her scent washing over him, it was near impossible. He couldn’t understand why the hell he was reacting so strongly to her-or it. What was it? It wasn’t flowery nor a brand he could easily recognize, but it was very much designed to entice a man. He was reacting way too strongly towards her for it to be anything else. It wasn’t like he was a curious, horny teenage boy. Rafe has always prided himself for being in control, especially of his emotions, and now that control was being threatened and it shook him to the very core. It was that damn scent. Surely she must know that? She must know the effect her perfume had on men? The kind of frenzy it instigated? He was tempted to look at the man seated next to her and ask him if he was having the same problem. It couldn’t possibly be just him getting drugged by that scent.

And that stupid pen she had in her mouth! He was beyond distracted. Was she baiting him? Rested on the arms of the chair and hidden under the table, he fisted his hands to keep his itching fingers from grabbing for her. From his side view he watched as she turned the ball pen cap at the end of the black pen-twice clockwise, thrice anticlockwise-between her purple painted lips. Her entire focus was on the man standing on the other side of the boardroom pointing at the projected whiteboard as he spoke. He might as well have been speaking alien for all that Rafe could understand. His mind was completely on a different topic-a different galaxy altogether. He couldn’t stop wondering if her tongue was rolling over that ball pen cap as well. Just imagining those lips and that tongue on him had his ears ringing and his head swimming in a lust fog. If the room wasn’t filled with people, he would have pulled her under the table already, sunk himself inside her and exorcised the spell she’d cast on him.

But Rafe wasn’t completely sure if her attention was on the presenter or something was on her mind too. Her free hand, resting on the arm of the chair, from the way her thumb swiped the tip of her fingers, there was almost a rhythm to it, and he was dying of curiosity to know the tune playing in her mind.

Rafe’s jaw clenched tighter as he forcefully pulled his gaze away from the skinny fingers to stare at the board. She was a distraction. And the worst part of all, she was obstructing him from his work. That never happened. Ever. It didn’t matter if a woman was seducing him actively during a meeting -which had happened more frequently than not- he never lost focus, but this witchy vixen was just sitting there. She was doing nothing but sitting there and sending his hormones into overdrive. If he didn’t get control over his body, he was never going to make it through this meeting, let alone the few weeks he’d planned on staying in the country, without doing something stupid.  Merde he was engaged!

That thought put a bitter taste in his mouth and deflated a part of him that had been active just a few seconds ago. That situation and tempting Talia were two things he didn’t want to think about at the moment, not singularly and especially not as a combination. With his hand to his forehead, he pressed his left thumb to his left temple. He was already getting a migraine just thinking about the boat load of crap that combination would bring him.

The proposed marriage wasn’t a love match. It had been arranged when he and Gabriella were still in high school. The joining of the two powerful families was a given, according to his father. The DeLuca’s and Rossi’s had been family friends for years, and since the only son Alex was just as unproductive as his brother Renaldo, and Gabriella, though the first born, was uninterested in everything that didn’t involve travel and shopping, his father had decided they were fated to be together. Signore Rossi, for no other reason but for the sake of his family’s survival, was very agreeable with the arrangement.

Rafe scoffed at that thought. He saw a few heads turn his way at the sound he made but chose to ignore them, keeping his eyes fixed to the graphs on the white board. Rafe wasn’t very sure about the friendliness of the two families. This marriage was just a scheme by his father to absorb the Rossi’s companies into DeLuca. He wondered how old man Rossi hadn’t realized that-that the moment Gabriella said I do, it was the end of the Rossi Empire. The DeLucas and Rossis were known competitors and unlike all the others, his father hadn’t tried to buy out or sabotage the Rossis, which meant one thing: Signore Rossi had dirt on his father. Or they possibly had dirt on each other, bad enough to keep them out of each other’s way.

Rafe’s fingers tapped unconsciously on the mahogany table. He would love nothing more than to find out what that was. Maybe, just maybe, he could use it to get out of the stupid arrangement. Before, around two months ago in fact, just as the wedding talks began, a distaste for the match had begun to grow inside him. Until that very moment he hadn’t cared much about his marriage to Gabriella. To him, it was just another acquisition but with the added clause of sharing his bed with the heir of half the multibillion fortune. From a business point of view, it was a win-win situation. But what he hadn’t considered was that it wasn’t simply another person in his bed, it was a lifelong contract. The ’til death do us part’ kind, no divorce allowed. Signore Rossi had made that very clear.

Before, during their almost twenty year engagement made when they were teenagers, it had been uncomplicated, and when there had been a chance of the arrangement being broken thanks to Alex’s birth, the Rossi’s second child and only son, he and Gabriella had an agreement. They did what was expected of them when duty called but lived their own lives when they were free. They dated other people and never lied about their engaged status. How could they? It was public knowledge. Of course the added bonus of free sex between relationships suited him perfectly. Gabriella was a stunner and well educated in pleasuring a man. And that was one of the problems.

Before, he didn’t care who she slept with or how she knew to do half of the things she did, especially with that tongue of hers. He was reaping the benefits. He wasn’t stupid enough not to wear a condom with her. He hoped she was smart enough not to have unprotected sex. But once he said ‘I do’, that would have to change. He was always going to wonder. When he walked into a room during a social function, he would always question, with every man he saw, who she hadn’t slept with. Gabriella’s taste in men was just as expensive as her other luxuries. And the children they would be required to have, would he have to take a DNA test immediately after they were born?

The other problem was a major one. She didn’t arouse him like she used to. Sex with her was… uneventful and he had no plans of keeping a mistress after getting married. One, it would be too much work and he barely had enough time to himself with all his work responsibilities. Two, Gabriella wasn’t the type to share and he didn’t need the drama. They had lost the only thing that made her presence bearable to Rafe, leading to issue number three.

The third problem was he couldn’t stand her long term. He could only take Gabriella in small doses. Most of their past interactions involved them being naked from the waist down. They didn’t talk, they shared no same interests, and she wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t involve herself. The thought of being stuck married to her felt like a death sentence. His collar felt tight just imagining it.

Merde! After he left here, where else could he escape to? If he could escape the marriage even for one more day, he would, happily. He clenched his teeth so tight his back teeth hurt. The great Rafael DeLuca II was running away from a woman? His reputation would be ruined if anyone knew that. Rafe wasn’t a coward, he had never shied from anything no matter how hesitant he may be, but the prospect of marrying Gabriella and the pressures that would come with it…

Rafe wrapped his fingers tightly around the arms of the chair to keep from reaching for his collar and ripping it off, the tie with it.

The sting in his eyes when the light brightened brought him to the present. His mind focused on the white board to find it empty. Dannazione a tutto! He’d missed the entire presentation. First, because of the vixen next to him and then to the thoughts of one of the few reasons he’d escaped back home.

Rafe looked at the head of finance, still standing in front of them, looking at him with a mix of expectation and trepidation. He’d seen that look a hundred times before and he was never going to get used to it. It annoyed him to no extent. But then again, he had to remind himself he wasn’t exactly an easy person to speak to and his position only made things worse. When had that happened? When was it he became ostracized? Or had he done that to himself? He’d been very easy going and social all through his school years. When had he become so scary, the terremoto, that people broke into a cold sweat when he looked at them or simply in their direction?

“Don’t just sit there like some deity deciding whether or not he gets to go to heaven or hell,” Talia whispered.

Rafe frowned and stared at Talia from the side of his eye.

She’d leaned close to him, that hand holding the pen lifted over her mouth as she whispered more harshly, “Say something. Or blink for crying out loud!”

His lips pulled up as he chuckled softly. No one had ever said that to him, if it had happened before he couldn’t remember who or when. It was unexpected and, quite frankly, refreshing. He looked around the room again and caught all the startled stares directed at him. Some bounced between him and Talia and he could see all the insinuations already forming in their minds. That sobered him up. The last thing he needed was office gossip that could make its way to his father’s ears.

He cleared his throat and sat up straighter and said, “Let’s begin.”

The head of finance gave him a confused look. “From the beginning?” he squeaked. “I just finished the presentation.”

Rafe held out his right hand to Enzo seated behind him on his right and said, “No. From my beginning.”

Enzo placed a folder full of questions and notes of discrepancies Rafe had finished compiling just that morning in his hand. Rafe placed it down on the table in front of him and opened it, his eyes fixed on the man who stood before him. What was his name again? Rafe was sure he’d introduced himself during the presentation, but thanks to the vixen next to him, he couldn’t remember.

The poor man’s eyes widened, he turned a shade lighter and his Adam’s apple moved up and down frantically as he swallowed heavily. A deity, Talia had called him. From the look on that man’s face, Rafe was more like an executioner. But that would depend heavily on how he answered Rafe’s questions, then maybe he’d bother to find out what his name is.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g