After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed) (10 page)

“Me?” she’d asked incredulously.

“Yes, I’ve told her all about you and she wants to meet the brave young woman who works in an office with nine men.”

“I didn’t know that I was invited,” she had admitted honestly.

“Of course you’re invited!”
 
Stephano threw up his hands in typical Italian fashion of disbelief.
 
“You were here when I issued the invitation!”

“Yes, but you said, ‘guys’.”

“You’re one of us, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she’d conceded.
 
It was a mark of respect and most times she liked the fact that they afforded her mutual respect.
 
But sometimes she wondered if the guys would have found it as easy to think of her as one of them had she been a petite, blue-eyed blonde.

 
“Well, alright then. Give me another half an hour.
 
I just need to reply to this email and I’ll be ready.”
 
Stephano had picked up his mobile and said, “I’ll just tell the guys to finish their drinks and we’ll leave at half five, instead of six.”

His mother had closed the restaurant for the celebration and it had turned out well.
 
She had flitted around the room encouraging her son’s colleagues to try each of the dishes she had prepared specially for the occasion.
 
She was a petite, expressive woman who entwined English and Italian words in a totally delightful way.
 
It seemed impossible to Natalie that she had lived in the UK for almost thirty years and she’d understood why Stephano’s casual conservations were also heavily punctuated with Italian, especially the endearments—his mother used them at the end of almost every sentence.

Natalie had found disconcerting and oddly appealing to see Stephano’s features mirrored in his mother’s more delicate bone structure.
 
Bizarrely she’d thought that he would look like his father.
 
Santo, his father, wasn’t much taller than his mother and his slightly rotund body showed the effects of her exquisite cooking.
 
Later that evening
 
Antoinette had cupped her son’s face and kissed him on the lips and announced that he was the spitting image of her “Papà”.
 
Natalie had smiled as his mother had hugged him—he had been seated at the time and his mother had been standing and there had been much different in their heights.

His mother had paid Natalie special attention that evening, but she had felt that it was only natural for the woman to gravitate toward the only other female.
 
But treating a dinner guest well was not the same as having that person date your beloved son.

“That doesn’t mean that your mother would be okay with us seeing each other.”

“My mother is a romantic.”
 
Stephano took his left hand off the steering wheel and reached for Natalie’s.
 
“She gave up a life of luxury to run away to Britain with my father.
 
He was a laborer with the construction company my grandfather had hired to build an extension on his mansion.
 
They were both eighteen.
 
They fell in love and when my grandfather had my father fired and sent back to his village, my mother packed a bag and ran behind him.
 
My grandfather’s a powerful man in Italy and my father said that even sending my mother return home wouldn’t have guaranteed his safety.
 
They had to leave the country.”

“Aw, that’s such a sweet story.”
 
Natalie was a sucker for stories of couple surviving against the odds.

“It wasn’t sweet when they arrived here with nothing and my mother already pregnant with me!”

“They obviously made it work.”

Antoinette’s was cozy, with six tables each seating a maximum four people.
 
His mother had said that she was always fully booked, but she didn’t want to larger premises because she like cooking or personally overseeing all the meals herself.
 
She’d said that she
 
also liked being able to have the time to mingle with the diners and ensure that they were all happy with their meals.
 
On Sundays she entertained her special group of regulars, some of whom had been patrons of hers for almost twenty-five years.

“It took them almost five years to get on their feet.
 
My father had to keep a low profile, so they had to avoid the Italian community over here.
 
They didn’t even have enough to pay the large deposits the landlords demanded because my father had just arrived and didn’t have a job yet.”
 
They had a arrived at the Thai restaurant but Stephano parked the car and continued, seeing Natalie’s look of rapt attention.
 
“My mother says if they hadn’t met Shirley Jones she didn’t know how she would have survived.
 
She and my father had been house hunting all day,
 
carrying their belongings with them.
 
She said that she suddenly felt tired and cold and hungry and started to cry.
 
Shirley was coming from the shops with her daughters, Cheryl and Faye, and one of them said, ‘Mummy, that lady’s crying!’.
 
Shirley invited them in for a cup of tea and when they explained their predicament, she told them that they could stay the night.

“It was only a two-storey house with two bedrooms and two large receptions downstairs, but when Ivan, Shirley’s husband came home and she told him the kind of rent landlord were asking for a single room, he decided to move the living room furniture to the dining room and convert the room into a bedroom for my Mum and Dad to rent.

“It helped my parents save a lot of money and helped the Joneses with their mortgage payments.
 
Shirley had another daughter, Eva, just before my mother had me.
 
They bought double bunk beds for the girls’ room when we were old enough and the older girls had the top bunks and Eva and I had the bottom, but most nights we used to sleep in one or the other. When mother first opened the restaurant, she had to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to make it profitable and Shirley looked after me for her.
 
People used to call Eva and me the ‘the black and white twins’ when she took us to the shops or to play in the park.”
 
Stephano laughed at the memory as he released the car’s central locking mechanism.
 
It hadn’t been as easy when he and Eva were teenagers—their friendship had incited racial comments and abuse from both races.

***

Within a few minutes of arrival they were shown to their table.
 
The restaurant had a cool elegance that wasn’t typical of the Thai restaurants at which Natalie had previously dined, but the dark wood tables were quite close together.

Natalie had looked forward to having a green curry all day, but changed her mind at the last minute when she thought of the creamy coconut milk.
 
She and Stephano both ordered
Pla Tod Sam Rod
, whole de-boned sea bass with a chili, tamarind and lemongrass sauce.
 
She wasn’t particularly hungry, but when his
Thot Man Kung,
deep-fried crab cakes flavored with red curry paste and finely-chopped lime leaves, arrived it smelled heavenly.
 
When he offered her a bite, she shook her head.

“Try it,” he encouraged.
 
“It’s very tasty.”

She leaned in, took the morsel and found it as scrumptious as it looked.

When he offered another piece, she took it, trying not to appear too eager.

And the proximity of the tables lent intimacy, she discovered as they spent the next forty-five minutes chatting pleasantly and enjoying the beautifully presented food.
 
Leaning in to whisper, so as not to be overheard by the occupants of the next table, created a coziness that wouldn’t have been likely in a larger restaurant.

They were mostly silent on the short journey to her house.
 
She
 
watched him covertly as he drove the racing red Jaguar XKR Convertible—she had a thing about cars and knew how expensive the model was—expertly, letting the power steering work for him.
 
The car with its big-cat sleekness suited Stephano perfectly.

“Would you like to come in for coffee?”
 
He’d had a glass of wine with the meal and they had both refused coffee and dessert.
 
She needed to ensure that he was sober enough for the drive home.

Oh come on, Natalie!
 
You may as well have said, would you like to come in and have me!
she chided herself.

“Yes, please,” Stephano responded readily, coming around to open the car door for her.

He kept her hand in his as he remotely locked the car, opened the gate and hurried up her walkway.
 
Thrumming with excitement, she fumbled to open her front door.
 
And as soon as she did, Stephano wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hungrily even before the door closed behind them.

At the touch of his lips she was right where she had been two Fridays ago—aroused, needy…and desired.
 
His arms were a welcome cage of muscle that made her feel secure and safe from the world.

“This dress is driving me out of my mind,
cara
.”
 
Stephano’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he broke the kiss.
 
“I want to take it off you.”

He was asking her permission and all she had to say was “no”, but she couldn’t.

Instead of answering, she turned and led the way up to her bedroom.

***

She expected them to undress hurriedly when they got there.
 
Instead Stephano slowly unwrapped the black Pashmina shawl and looked at her.

“I was worried that you would pop out of this dress all evening.”
 
He slid his fingers on the delicate straps and pinged them softly.
 
They looked delicate but were quite secure.
 
“I was worried, but at the same time hopeful that it would happen.”

Natalie chuckled at his honesty as he slid the strap off her shoulder and bent to kiss the exposed flesh.
 
He trailed his lips to the slender column of her neck and she shivered in reaction as he stirred the erogenous zones there.
 
He seemed intent on taking it slowly, but she was already on fire.

Reaching up blindly, she opened the top buttons of his shirt and ran her hands over his smooth shoulders as he lowered the other strap and slowly eased the zip of her dress downwards.

“Take it off,
cara
,” he commanded as he stepped back and pulled his shirt free.
 
He shrugged out of it and reached down to open his belt as she let the dress slowly fall to the floor.

She felt the urge to cover her breasts as she stood in front of him in nothing but her tiny red thong, but something in his gaze made her feel beautiful .

“Magnifica,”
he breathed, stepping out of his trousers and reaching for her once again.
 
“Perfezione.”

His erection pressed against her as he lowered her onto the queen-sized bed.
 
His weight pressed her down into the bed and for a moment she felt a little panicked when she remembered the initial pain of his penetration the first time they’d made love.
 
But it hadn’t lasted, she remembered, and relaxed as his lips covered hers and his tongue pressed its way past her lips.

Stephano reigned in his excitement with iron control.
 
The feel of Natalie’s soft skin against his was driving him out of his mind, but he refused to repeat his shameful performance of two weeks ago.
 
Her perfume filled his nostrils and he realized that the scent was so subtle only someone who was intimately close got the pleasure of it.
 
Somehow it made being this close feel more special.
 
He was doing something other men didn’t have the pleasure of sharing.

He cupped her breast, liking the way it filled but didn’t overflow his large hand.
 
It was the perfect size.
 
He loved its springy firmness and the fact that her nipple was already erect.
 
He groaned deep in his throat and tweaked into marble hardness.
 
He heard her moan as he trailed soft kisses on her dewy skin on his way to capture the distended nub of flesh in his mouth.