He was quiet. Self-conscious at his lack of response, she pulled her hair over one shoulder and aimed for a joke. ‘I bet you never have to think about this kind of thing when you go out in public?’
‘Generally not,’ he drawled. Then, thoughtfully, ‘So why do it?’
‘Model? That’s easy. It’s what I’m good at.’
‘The only thing you’re good at?’ he prompted with obvious disbelief.
‘Maybe.’ She moved away from him towards the windows, changing the subject out of habit, and because she didn’t like to think about the life she could have led if things had been different. Boats sparkled like fireflies on the sea. ‘It’s a beautiful night.’
‘Yes.’ His voice was dismissive, intolerant for her attempt to find lighter conversational ground. ‘What else might you have done?’
Her smile lacked amusement. In the reflection of the window, she watched as he crossed the room, coming to stand right behind her.
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘You must have wanted to do or be something other than perennially attractive?’
The words were perfectly banal, but she felt a sting to them.
‘Or perhaps not,’ he added as an apparent afterthought. ‘I suppose you might have wanted simply to be Lady Jemima and marry some lord or duke?’
She couldn’t say why, but his question was hurtful. She felt a sting in her chest at that casually worded supposition.
‘No.’ Her response was carefully flattened of any emotion, though. Bland and unconcerned. ‘I wasn’t really into that scene.’
‘Your parents didn’t wish you to marry some titled rich guy?’
Jemima’s eyes swept shut for a second, her face pale, and she was glad he was behind her, glad he couldn’t see the brief, betraying hint of pain—pain at what her family had once been and what they were now. Pain at the fact her parents had lost their ability at and interest in parenting Jemima when Cam had died. ‘They don’t really involve themselves in my life.’
‘You weren’t saving yourself for him, some lord or whatever?’
Jemima spun around to face Cesare and wished she hadn’t when the intensity of his expression almost felled her to her knees. ‘Absolutely not.’ She swallowed and focussed her gaze beyond his shoulder. ‘Do you mind if we change the subject?’
‘You don’t like to talk about this?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Your parents or your work?’
‘Neither. Both.’ A divot formed between her brows. ‘Besides, this isn’t a psychology session. You propositioned me for one reason and one reason only, remember?’ She deliberately brought what they were back to sex, back to the futility in them knowing more about each other. It felt good to control that, good to keep a part of herself separate from him. He wasn’t offering beyond this fortnight; why should she bare her soul to him?
‘Right.’ He nodded slowly, lifting a palm and rubbing it over his stubbled jaw. ‘Closed subjects. I get it.’ He pressed a finger under her chin, lifting her to face him. ‘Did you have a good day?’
Her lips parted. ‘Yeah.’ A husky admission. ‘You?’
He lifted his broad shoulders. ‘I bought an airline.’
She blinked at him, sure she’d misheard. ‘What?’
‘Not a big one. Seventy-one planes. But it’s my first move into the air travel industry.’
‘So, yesterday you bought half a billion dollars’ worth of a hedge fund and today an airline?’
His smile stole her breath. ‘Apparently I’ve been on a spending spree.’
‘Apparently,’ she agreed, his proximity super-charging her blood.
She moved back to the kitchen, taking a sip of her wine. It was sweet and quite delicious, but she reached for a tumbler and filled it with water, knowing that she couldn’t drink wine on its own without losing her head. ‘And did the airline come with a convenient mistress, as well?’ she couldn’t resist asking. ‘Someone to move on to after I leave?’
He turned to face her without speaking and they stared at one another for several beats, the silence somehow raw and tense. Jemima’s pulse began to rush through her, and she was aware of every movement of his, every shift, every lift. ‘Have you done this before?’
He slowly began to walk towards her, and her breath burned in her lungs, her body tense.
‘Done what, uccellina?’
‘Manoeuvred a woman into your bed.’
‘Is that what I did?’
She swallowed and nodded, seeing no point in telling him the truth—that she was exactly where she wanted to be.
‘Blackmailed would be another word for it,’ she drawled, fascinated by the play of emotions in the depths of his eyes. There was no shame, only a hint of triumph.
‘No.’
‘No?’ She frowned. ‘You don’t agree it’s blackmail to tell someone you’ll only help the person they love most in the world if they agree to be your mistress for a fortnight?’
Unapologetically, he reached for her, pulling her body to his, and his eyes held something another person might have taken as a warning.
‘No, I haven’t done this before,’ he clarified. ‘I do not generally find it necessary to leverage women into sleeping with me.’
A range of emotions burst through her. Surprise, relief, pleasure. ‘I suppose you bat them away with a stick.’
His smile was wolf-like. ‘I am not lacking for companionship.’
Jealousy was unwelcome and totally unexpected. It cut her chest right open. She stared at him, wondering where the emotion had come from, and why she should even care. She knew what he was like; she’d known even before they’d met that he was someone who went through women like most men went through underwear. She’d known when he’d kissed her that very first time that he was used to crooking his finger and receiving whatever—whoever—the heck he wanted.
‘So why’d you blackmail me, then?’
‘Why do you think?’
Distractedly, she toyed with the ends of her hair. ‘I don’t know.’
His hands found the fabric of her shirt and he lifted it. Not slowly this time. It was unceremonious, impatient. ‘It’s simple.’
She waited silently, watching him, revelling in the feel of the air against her breasts, in his closeness, the heat of possession he could ignite simply by being close to her.
His finger traced a nipple, running around the edges of her flesh, following the line of her dusky areola with lazy intent. His eyes didn’t drop, though, and she felt as though he was seeing all the way into her soul.
‘You surprised me, and I’m never surprised.’
He moved his body so that she was trapped between him and the bench, so his hardness was against her, and she surrendered to him completely.
‘You were a virgin,’ he continued simply, moving his attention to her other breast, teasing it with the same feather-light inquisition, the same insufficiency of feel. She wanted him to cup her breasts, to take their weight in his hands; she wanted him to overtake every single one of her senses.
‘And you didn’t realise.’
‘It didn’t even enter my head.’ His hands curved in the waistband of her yoga pants so he could cup her bottom and hold her against him. She gasped, his arousal so firm at her belly, his touch so commanding, so strong, that she made a primal sort of noise deep in her throat, her needs overpowering her.
‘There are dozens of stories about you—your lovers, your lifestyle—but aside from that, you are not a child. No, you are very sensual woman...your body catches fire when I touch you.’
She shivered as he did just that, moving his hand to her womanhood and brushing his fingers over the sensitive flesh there. She tilted her head back and then his lips found one of her breasts, his tongue flicking her nipple until she was moaning, incoherent with the ple
asures he promised.
‘How is it possible you hadn’t done this?’ He moved to her other breast, but this time he rolled her nipple in his mouth before sucking it—harder, more forcefully, exactly how she needed it, the pressure setting off an intense cascade of feelings that had her pushing out of her yoga pants without realising what she was doing, needing him in a way that defied reason or sense.
Her hands moved to his waist, pushing at his belt, and he made a husky noise as he lifted his mouth to claim hers, his own hands working furiously to free himself from the confines of his fabric. He layered protection over his cock, and at the same moment Jemima lifted up onto the kitchen bench, he pulled her onto his length, entering her in one firm thrust so she cried out with the relief of his body’s return, her muscles squeezing him tight in welcome, her flesh lifting with tiny goose bumps as he moved deeply, perfectly, completely at one with her and her needs.
Her hands tore through his hair, and she arched her back on an instinctive wave of pleasure, her soul tormented by this in a way she knew she could become addicted to.
His body was so broad, so strong, so completely dominating, and his hands ran over every inch of her, touching her—feeling, worshipping with his touch, until she was like dynamite, lit and ready to explode.
And then, at the moment when she felt as if she would burst, he cupped her bottom and brought her closer to him so he was buried inside her and his kiss was like a command, their bodies melded together. When she tipped over the edge of pleasure into a world that was all sensation, they were so close that she could feel his breath within her soul, she could feel his heart beating against her ribs, and then she felt his own explosion of pleasure, his body racked with the same madness that had commanded hers, his breathing as ragged and urgent, his cries deep and guttural but no less spontaneous.
There was only the sound of their tortured breathing as sanity began to return. Jemima blinked slowly, as though she were waking from a dream when she hadn’t expected to be asleep, looking up at him and seeing him through new eyes.
Through eyes that were fogged by desire and satisfaction. By the newness of this. ‘Is it always like this?’ she asked quietly, hearing the words and wincing at their naivety.
He lifted his head so he could better see her eyes. There was a query in his expression.
‘Sex,’ she muttered, swallowing her self-consciousness.
His lips lifted in something close to a smile. She studied the lines of his face, the squareness of his jaw, the strength of his nose, the cleft in his chin. It was a face that looked as though it had been sculpted by Michelangelo. It was a face of perfection.
‘Like what?’ he prompted, his fingers lifting to one of her nipples, twisting it lightly, indolently, with arrogant possession.
Embarrassment grew stronger. ‘So...’ The word trailed off into nothing. Mortification made it difficult to frame her enquiry. She wanted to know if it was normal to feel as if she needed to rip his clothes from his body whenever she saw him, to fill her with dreams that were positively X-rated, to make her body ache for him in the day when he wasn’t near her, and heat with desire at the slightest touch. But what if he didn’t feel anything like that for her? What if she alone was mired in an onslaught of unexpected sensual enslavement?
‘Sex is thrilling and addictive,’ he said, his cock jerking inside her in a way that made her breath snag, because he was growing hard again and her body was tingling with renewed needs. ‘But I find this generally fades.’ He flicked her nipple with his fingers. ‘I have never met a woman I couldn’t get out of my system in a night or three.’ His eyes probed hers—no, they lanced hers—a look of defiance and determination in his expression. ‘This will fade, uccellina, and we will both go back to our normal lives soon enough.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
IF ONLY.
Cesare scowled as he scanned the contracts, aware that he was fighting a tic that had him looking at his wristwatch every few minutes.
In the five days since Jemima had arrived at the hotel in Cannes, Cesare had forced himself to stick to his routines. Hell, he hadn’t anticipated that would be difficult. He’d flown his helicopter to Rome, arrived at his desk at the usual time, stuck to his meetings and his schedule, because why the hell wouldn’t he? He hadn’t missed a single day of work since he’d founded Durante Incorporated. It didn’t matter that he owned the company and was now one of the richest men in the world. It didn’t matter that he employed an army of executives who were undoubtedly more than capable of keeping things going—if not for ever, at least for a few days.
A few days?
The idea spread like wildfire in his veins. A few days with Jemima. No constraints. No having to get up in the morning and leave her sleeping, her beautiful body naked in his bed, her soft murmur of complaint as she felt him roll away from her, as though protesting the necessity of his departure.
As though she wanted him to stay.
What would it be like if he took the rest of the week off? If he woke her up by kissing her breasts, slowly dragging his mouth down her body, his tongue tracing lines across her flesh, tasting her, teasing her, delighting in her responsiveness.
A curse exploded from him as he scraped his chair back and stalked to the window. He stared down at Rome, his chest moving rapidly with the rise and fall of his breathing, something uncomfortable shifting through him as he accepted that this was different from what he’d anticipated, that it was at risk of getting out of hand.
Oh, it was just sex. He knew that. There were myriad reasons it could never—would never—in a billion years be anything else. Not least of all was her aristocratic birth, her air of being to the manor born, which was something he could never tolerate long term. Not having seen what people like her were capable of, or the way they viewed the world.
But more than that, Jemima was dangerous. She was like a drug—something else Cesare had never indulged in. He had legendary self-control; he refused to be tempted by anything that might prove detrimental to his life, his career, his business, his one-eyed focus.
And yet somehow, he’d willingly become hooked on Jemima Woodcroft. It was all the more reason for him to be firm in his routine, to stick to his schedule, not to let her influence him or affect his life in any way. No woman had ever shaken his convictions, no woman had ever so much as tempted him to blow off work and stay in bed for days at a time, as he wanted to with her.
Jemima was a first.
And why?
Va bene, she was beautiful, but that wasn’t exactly a novelty—there were many beautiful women in the world, and in any event he wasn’t the kind of man to value looks above chemistry and spark. No, it wasn’t a looks thing. So what else could it be? Surely her innocence played a part? She’d been a virgin when they’d met and there was a novelty in that, a curiosity, because it made as little sense to him now as it had that night.
A dark emotion burst through him and he pushed away the dark intrusion on his thoughts—the idea of her having bounced from his bed into someone else’s, the knowledge that some other man had made love to her after him.
Curiosity was natural. It was hardly a crime for her to have decided to experiment with her awakened sensuality.
And yet Cesare felt a sharp burst of rage that didn’t bear examining. It didn’t matter. She was his now, and at the end of the agreed upon two weeks he’d let her go and never think of her again.
It seemed impossible to contemplate, in that moment, when Jemima had been all he could think about all day for many days, but he didn’t doubt even for a second that he’d succeed.
Because he was Cesare Durante and he hadn’t met anyone or anything in his life that he hadn’t had the mental fortitude to conquer. Jemima, ultimately, would prove to be no different.
The bobbing of yachts on the water was a mesmerising sight—hypnotic, almost—and Jemima found, as the days wore on, that i
t hadn’t become less so. She sat at the table now, her hands clasped in her lap, staring at the boats as they moved gently with the water’s pull, not fighting it, surrendering to the tidal ebbs and flows, the enthusiasm of the water to meet the shore and recede once more to its oceanic depths, and she felt a strange affinity to the water. The currents of this body were stirred by a power beyond their comprehension but simply obeyed an ancient, cosmic call.
Jemima was not an ocean, but her pull towards Cesare was no less marked than if he’d been the moon, drawing her towards him each night. Five nights in Cannes and she had begun to understand a few vital and key aspects of this man’s personality.
He was punctual to a fault. She could set her watch by his arrival back at the hotel and by the time he left each morning. Every day it was exactly the same, almost to the minute. From this it was easy to infer that he liked order and control, that he was driven to tame every aspect of his environment.
And, just as Jemima’s career had led to her making an art form out of being charming without divulging anything she truly thought or felt, she began to suspect Cesare operated on a similar principle. Oh, he was significantly less charming. He was definitely not a man who cared what people thought and therefore he didn’t waste time trying to curry good favour. But there was something firm within him, some kind of wall or blockage, something that stopped her from ever feeling that she truly understood him.
That was a good thing. Understanding him, knowing him too well, felt like it would be a slippery slope to danger.
And yet, despite that, she’d arranged all this—a table set on the balcony overlooking the bay, candles dotted around the floor and hanging from the ceiling and a three-course meal already in the kitchen so they wouldn’t be disturbed.
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