Breathless for Him (Davison & Allegra) Read online

  When my mother was alive, I loved waking up in the morning to the smells that came from our kitchen. She was an early riser, so she would start cooking and baking just after dawn. On any given day, I detected anything from the thick cheese and robust sauce of pizza margherita to the sweet cream and sugar of cannoli.

  “Mia Allegra, taste this.”

  My long brown braids bouncing on either side of my head, dressed in my freshly pressed first-grade Catholic school uniform, I came running up to my mother in the kitchen as she held out a mixing spoon of fresh cream.

  “What do you think? Too sweet?”

  “It’s yummy, Mamma. What are you making?”

  “Just a surprise for your father. He’s been working so hard, and I just wanted to bake him a special treat.”

  “I hope one day I can be a good cook like you.”

  She touched my cheek. “You will be, cara. Someday you will meet the one man who you will want to cook for and he will love you for it.”

  After she died when I was five, my grandparents on my mother’s side came over from Italy to help my father take care of me. They also liked to get up early, but all I ever smelled in the morning was the strong aroma of espresso. My father spent as much time as he could with me while he ran his butcher shop downstairs. Once I reached my teenage years, my grandparents returned to Naples, and then it was just Papa and me.

  The kitchen in our fourth-floor walk-up has never been the same since.

  The morning after my encounter with Davison Berkeley, I’m sitting at the breakfast table eating my usual—a hard-boiled egg, whole wheat toast, and a cappuccino. My father sits next to me, sipping his espresso.

  “How is school going, cara?”

  “Fine,” I mumble.

  “And how was work last night?”

  Work…last night.

  Do you think I could make you come just by doing this?

  I shiver.

  Answer the question.

  “Allegra, are you listening to me?”

  I shake my head to snap myself out of the memory.

  “Scusa mi, Papa. I was distracted.”

  “Is something troubling you?”

  I pat his hand reassuredly. “No, everything is fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “Maybe we could do something this weekend. I don’t see you enough.”

  My heart starts to break, hearing that from my father. “I would like that very much. We can see if there’s something Italian playing at Film Forum. I can check the listings.”

  “That would be very nice.” He smiles at me.

  I glance up at the clock on the wall. “Oh God, I have to run!” I push back from the table, grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl. “I can’t be late for class.”

  “Will you be home for dinner?” he asks.

  “Sì. I’m not working until tomorrow night.”

  “Bene. Ti amo, cara.”

  “I love you too,” I tell him, leaning down to kiss him on the cheek before I dash out of the kitchen.

  * * *

  The following night, I’m back at work inside the coat-check room at Le Bistro. It’s a Friday night, so the restaurant is more crowded and hectic. But everything is running smoothly. I’m arranging the tote bags and briefcases on the flat metal shelf that lines the top of the coat racks when I hear a loud voice, akin to scraping one’s nails on a chalkboard, declare:

  “You know, you really should have a small bell on the counter here so you can actually know when someone is waiting for you to assist them.”

  I grind my teeth together and take a deep breath before I turn around because I know who is at the door.

  It’s Ashton Canterbury. With Davison Berkeley standing right next to her.

  Shit.

  Her eyes are narrowed at me in anger, while he has a look of complete shame on his face, his head shaking in embarrassment.

  They’re with another couple; the man is checking his phone, while the woman is smirking at Ashton’s comment to me.

  Professional. Be professional.

  “Of course, ma’am. That’s a very good idea. May I check your coats?”

  “Well, that would be nice, seeing as that is your job,” she tells me, her voice dripping with pure, unequivocal disdain. She looks back at her friend, exchanging a shared look of triumph.

  “Ashton…” Davison admonishes her.

  “Am I wrong, Davis?” she asks him, almost as if she’s horrified that he would disagree with her.

  “Just give her your fucking coat already!”

  Along with Ashton’s and the other couple’s, my eyes widen at his outburst, but I’m the only one whose mouth hasn’t dropped. His face is red, which I’m guessing is from both impatience and anger. But why would he be angry?

  “Fine,” she huffs as she takes off her floor-length sable fur. “Don’t do anything to it,” she warns me as she hands it over to me.

  “Enough, Ashton!” Davison admonishes her again.

  He lets the other couple check their coats before him, while he hangs back.

  “Go on. I’ll be right with you,” he tells the three of them.

  We both watch as Ashton and their friends walk away, leaving me behind with Davison.

  He turns back to me, stepping in close enough to the counter that I can feel his warm breath on my face, sending chills up and down my arms, my pulse racing.

  “I’m so sorry for Ashton’s behavior. I’m completely mortified.”

  “It’s okay, sir. You really don’t need to apologize. I’m fine. No harm done. Truly,” I reassure him as best I can.

  “Don’t do that, Allegra,” his voice growls in warning.

  “What?” My voice lowers slightly at the sound of my name from his mouth, and I’m stunned that he remembered it.

  “Pretend that it didn’t hurt.”

  My hands grip the edge of the counter, trying my best to keep calm as a million thoughts rush through my head, number one being why it matters so much to him in the first place. But I can’t help but be touched by the fact that he cares that what Ashton said affected me, despite what I tell him. I need to put a stop to this, whatever it is.

  “May I take your coat? I don’t want to keep you from your party.”

  His eyes blaze at me as he exhales deeply through his nose. He removes his navy-blue wool coat, giving it to me. I try to keep cool when what he’s wearing underneath is revealed—a charcoal-gray pin-striped suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. He looks so damn good.

  Our hands brush briefly, but enough for me to feel his thumb brush against the top of my hand, igniting a thrum of pure electricity throughout the entirety of my body. Goose bumps pop up on my skin as I hand him his coat-check number, sliding it to him along the wood of the counter so he can’t touch my hand again.

  “Thank you, Allegra. I’ll see you later,” he tells me with a sly smile before he picks up the small piece of plastic and walks away.

  * * *

  The end of my workday nears, and luckily there are only a few customers left. My chest tightens as I watch four of those customers approach me to collect their coats.

  Even though I don’t need their numbers, I wait patiently as they come closer, with Ashton engaged in a high-volume conversation with her friend, while Davison looks straight at me as the man is talking to him, oblivious to the fact that Davison is ignoring him.

  “Ashton, give me your number,” Davison tells her.

  She continues chattering away.

  “Ashton, do you mind? Your number,” he repeats, more short with her this time.

  “Davis, drop the attitude, will you?” she tells him, finally reaching into her clutch and handing it over.

  The other man gives Davison his numbers as well. I quickly take them from his hand to prevent any lingering rubs from his thumb. I return with all four coats, watching as Davison helps Ashton into her fur. For a moment, a flutter of jealousy waves through my stomach, which I swiftly sweep away, mentally reprimanding myself.<
br />
  I watch as the party of four moves toward the entrance. I turn my back on the open door, taking a step farther inside, shutting my eyes and biting on my lower lip to keep myself from getting upset that Davison didn’t say good-bye or leave me a tip. It doesn’t matter.

  “Allegra?”

  I inhale deeply before I turn back around to see Davison standing at the door.

  “I’m sorry. I totally forgot. This is for all of us,” he murmurs, sliding a twenty-dollar bill underneath my hand on the counter.

  “Oh yes, thank you, sir,” I stammer like a complete idiot.

  Professional. I am a professional.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you called me by my name?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Because I would like to hear my name cross your lips.”

  My heart starts pounding inside my chest. Suddenly, I don’t feel my legs holding me up as he leans in closer to me and his thumb starts to stroke my hand again like it did two nights ago.

  I swallow in my throat before I answer with a smile plastered on my face. “Have a pleasant evening, Mr. Berkeley.”

  “There, now,” he whispers, his warm breath caressing my face, “was that so hard? I’ll see you again soon because I’m still waiting for something from you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “An answer to my question.”

  A shock wave hits my lower body, sending fiery pulses of blazing heat to my nerve endings from the top of my head to the pads on my toes. His eyes turn hungrier, more dangerous as he waits for me to say something, his thumb still sliding back and forth across my hand.

  “What question?” I ask innocently, my voice cracking slightly.

  “Really, Allegra, acting coy doesn’t become you at all,” he teases me. “But I’m not worried. I’ll have my answer soon enough, because I always get what I want.”

  He sweeps his eyes over me with a hooded look one last time before he turns and heads for the front door.

  I finally start breathing normally again, shutting my eyes as my heartbeat regulates. I push away from the counter, but then I feel the money Davison left me under my hand. I open the twenty and, tucked inside it, a fifty is staring back at me—the fifty I didn’t accept from him the night he claimed his driving glove from me.

  I fist my hands, crushing the money inside my right palm.

  Damn him.

  Chapter Three

  The Gotham Conservatory is located in a former grand hotel from the 1920s near Gramercy Park. It doesn’t have the cachet of Juilliard or Manhattan School of Music, but it’s the only graduate school that accepted me and offered me a partial scholarship.

  “Hey, Alli!”

  I turn to see my best friend, Luciana Gibbons, dressed in a tight white sweater and boot-cut jeans, perfect for her shapely and voluptuous figure. We always joke that thanks to our physical shapes, I’d be perfect as the ill-fated Mimi who dies from tuberculosis in La Bohème, with my long dark hair and wide-set brown eyes, while her dream casting, with her honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, would be as the strong, fierce warrior maiden Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. I’d practice my coughing while she’d learn how to handle a shield of armor.

  She looks me over closely. “Did you study much for the exam? I pulled an all-nighter.”

  “It’s Puccini, Lucy. I practically started listening to him in utero thanks to my parents. I could pass it in my sleep.”

  “Ugh, I hate you,” she jokes, bumping her shoulder with mine.

  Luciana and I met on the first day of classes in our first year at the conservatory. We decided then that we would give each other nicknames because our first names are so formal. We are the only ones who call each other by those names.

  We take our seats in the classroom, where our professor, Signora Pavoni, is already waiting. Once the entire class is present, she clears her throat to get us to settle down. The exam is passed out, and we begin.

  When the last person turns in the test, Signora Pavoni stands in front of the class.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have some very exciting news to share with you. I wanted to wait until after you completed the exam because I feared you wouldn’t be able to focus after I’d told you.”

  I see everyone’s eyes are focused on our professor, just as eager as I am to know what had happened.

  “I received word from our dean this morning that an anonymous donor has arranged for all of us to take a private backstage tour of the Met.”

  A smattering of “No way!” and gasps of awe can be heard throughout the room.

  “I don’t know yet when the tour will take place, but I think it might even be as early as two weeks from now. I will keep you posted when I receive further details. You are dismissed.”

  Lucy and I can’t contain ourselves as we join our classmates in the whoops and hollers of our shared excitement as we leave the room.

  * * *

  A week later, my classmates and I, along with Signora Pavoni, exit through the front doors of the Metropolitan Opera House. We can’t stop reveling over what we had seen. Some costumes and scenery were even brought out from the archives for us, which was unexpected and very exciting. Lucy and I are excitedly showing each other the pictures we’d taken on our phones, pointing out the details in the background scenery from Verdi’s Aïda and in the water nymph costume for the lead role in Dvořák’s Rusalka.

  Signora Pavoni allows us to go home after the tour. As we begin walking across the plaza, Lucy clamps her hand over my arm. “Oh my God. Look at him.”

  “Who?” I ask indifferently, my eyes scanning the open space.

  “That hot guy leaning against that car right in front of us.”

  I look to where Lucy’s eyes are fixed, and I freeze on the spot.

  It’s Davison Berkeley. Standing next to a sleek black Maybach, he is staring right at me. Dressed in his long navy-blue wool coat and matching cashmere scarf, his green eyes are fixed on mine.

  “Davison…” I murmur.

  “What did you say? Don’t tell me you know him.”

  “Umm, kind of. He came into the restaurant a few weeks ago to pick up a glove he’d lost.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “I am the coat-check girl, you know.”

  “Who is he?” she asks excitedly.

  “Davison Berkeley.”

  Lucy’s grip on my arm tightens. “Wait, you mean the guy who’s like a gazillionaire and is dating that blonde chick?”

  I wrestle my arm out of her grasp. “Ow! I don’t know how much money he has, and frankly, I don’t care.”

  “But why can’t he stop staring at you?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  I shiver in fear, my heart threatening to explode from my chest. Lucy begins to pull me by the arm toward him, but I stay firmly in place. However, the more I resist, the more she pulls. I realize I’m just putting off the inevitable, so I give in.

  As we get closer to him, I notice the glare in his eyes begins to soften, as a sly grin takes over his face. I start to feel like a mongoose about to be snatched up into the cobra’s mouth.

  His voice still possesses that hypnotic rumble. “Hello again, Allegra.”

  Lucy looks at me curiously as my throat suddenly goes dry. I barely manage to get a word out. “Good morning, Mr. Berkeley.”

  “Did you enjoy the tour?”

  “We did…Wait…how did you know? Did you arrange that?”

  He nods. “I thought your class would appreciate it.”

  In a flash, Lucy thrusts her hand out to him. “Hi, I’m Luciana Gibbons. It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for the tour.”

  He returns her handshake. “You have an interesting name. Did your parents name you after Luciano Pavarotti?”

  Lucy giggles as I roll my eyes in exasperation. “I know, right? I have zero Italian blood in my family, but my mom is a total opera buff.”

  “That’s c
harming.”

  I can’t tell if he’s being sincere or patronizing her. But it’s his voice that hypnotizes me with its low rumble, the words oozing out of his mouth like melted caramel. But before I can come to a conclusion, he speaks again. “May I give you a ride home, Miss Orsini? And you as well, Miss Gibbons.”

  That is the last thing I want. “No, thank you. I’ll just take the subway.”

  “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all,” he counters.

  “Thank you, Mr. Berkeley,” Luciana says, “but I’m meeting my mom for lunch at Boulud Sud.”

  I catch her gaze, narrowing my eyes at her with a knowing glare.

  Liar.

  “Really, I’ll be just fine,” I protest. “Anyway, it’s too far.”

  In a not-so-subtle manner, Lucy coughs, clearly signaling that I should take him up on his offer.

  “I insist,” he says, practically commanding me to get into the car.

  He stares at me long and hard. The voice in my head is screaming to walk away, to stay detached as I have been up to this point, to keep my secrets safe. But something in me makes me answer, “Okay.”

  As he turns to open the door for me, Lucy gives me a quick Call me gesture with her hand. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Berkeley.”

  He nods in her direction. “A pleasure, Miss Gibbons.”

  Davison stands behind the open door, waiting for me to get into the car. As he presses his lips together, his jaw locks, as if he’s anxious for me to get into the car without any further delay.

  I sink into the cream leather seat, my head lolling back into its caress. The other passenger door opens, and he slides in, confident and self-assured. He crosses his long legs and turns to me.

  “Where am I taking you?”

  My folded hands start fidgeting as my feet start to tap the floor of the car. I can’t say it. I’m too embarrassed. He’s one of the most popular bachelors in Manhattan and I’m a butcher’s daughter from Little Italy.

  But that’s why it doesn’t matter, since you’ll never see him again after this.

  “Allegra, I can’t drive you home if you don’t give me your address.”

  Finally, I whisper the words, “Little Italy. Mulberry Street between Kenmare and Broome.”

  He shouts to the open partition, “Did you get that, Charles?”