Redemption Of The Untamed Italian (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Clare Connelly

  ‘I’m serious, uccellina,’ he murmured, and beneath the table his hand curved over her knee, so little darts of need immediately began to spiral through her. How much she wanted him was overwhelming—it was a physical need that seemed almost unconquerable.

  Combined with the glass of wine she had enjoyed with her steak, it made her feel light-headed, buzzy and ready to succumb to her desire right then and there.

  ‘What about?’ The words were purred, kitten-like, and she had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes lower, sensual heat passing from him to her. She leaned forward a little, aware of the way her silk dress gaped at the cleavage, feeling his gaze drop there as though he were touching her.

  ‘I am not a gambling man and yet I would have bet my fortune on the fact you had the same kind of sexual experience as I have.’

  ‘You were wrong.’

  Bemusement crossed his features. ‘Evidently. Why?’

  There was no side-stepping this. ‘There’s no big reason.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ It was light-hearted, intended to take the conversation in a different direction, but if anything his look of concentration only deepened.

  ‘You like to keep people at a distance,’ he said after a moment, the shift in his questioning unexpected, and all the more so for how right he was. ‘Whenever I ask you anything about your childhood, your work, your life, you shut me down. Why?’

  She was tempted to deny it, but to what end? He was right. ‘Does it matter?’

  He frowned. ‘Not particularly. I’m just curious as to why you would make a habit of closing people off.’

  ‘I don’t make a habit of closing people off...’

  ‘Just me?’

  She bit down on her lower lip, gnawing on it thoughtfully. ‘The parameters of this—’ she pointed from her chest towards his ‘—were established at the beginning. Sex.’ She dropped her gaze again. ‘In exchange for your investment in Laurence’s hedge fund.’ Her stomach rolled with self-disgust. ‘You didn’t buy my inner secrets.’

  ‘You don’t think half a million pounds earns me a few secrets?’ His tone was light, joking, but the words cut deep. It was her own fault for reminding him of the financial nature of this transaction.

  Bitterness coated her insides.

  ‘No.’ She toyed with her napkin, wishing the conversation hadn’t gone in this direction, wishing she didn’t suddenly feel like this. ‘There are some things even you can’t buy.’

  Thud. Thud. Thud. His feet; his heart. Cesare ran, and his body pumped; blood, muscles, legs, regrets.

  When they’d returned to the penthouse the night before it had been immaculate once more, the smell of smoke dissipated, fresh flowers placed on the bench. They’d gone to bed and he’d made love to Jemima until dawn, delighting in the feel of her body even as something unpleasant was unfurling in his mind. It was a darkness he couldn’t outrun, a presentiment of disaster he couldn’t explain.

  And then there was a darkness he could understand, one he had grappled with his whole life. Cesare Durante didn’t like being told ‘no’. He didn’t like having his expectations confounded, nor did he like having to compromise.

  True, this had begun as an exercise in sexual discovery. He’d wanted her physically and he hadn’t much cared about anything else. But along the way the mysteries of Jemima had begun to unravel inside him, so that he needed neatly to tie them back together in order to be able to properly forget about her.

  He needed to pull her apart, piece by piece, to understand her completely. Only then would he be able to walk away.

  He needed her all to himself, and not just at night. They had four nights left of their agreed fortnight, and spending his days at the office no longer felt like a good use of that time. All his life, Cesare had been a person who did things properly, and he saw now that getting Jemima out of his system was going to involve more than sex. The things he didn’t know about her made her all the more compelling, and the questions he had about her life filled him in a way only answers could relieve.

  Without making a conscious decision, he turned around, moving back to the hotel. And as he went a plan firmed in his mind, a plan that would achieve his goals, a way to make it easier to walk away from Jemima at the end of this fortnight without a backward glance.

  Relief flooded him, along with the certainty that this was the right decision, the sensible decision—the way to free himself of her magic once and for all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ISOLA GIADA ROSE from the ocean like something from the prehistoric ages. Green all over, except for the strip of white sand that ran as a band around the island, and the turquoise water that lapped at its edges, it was breathtakingly beautiful.

  ‘Just in case the airline, the hotel, the Alaskan hut and the hedge fund weren’t enough?’ she murmured, her eyes on his as he held a hand out to guide her from the speed boat that had brought them off the eastern coast of Italy.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought someone like you would find that asset list surprising.’

  ‘I think anyone would,’ she corrected, his assumption about her wealth and background jarring. She dropped his hand as she surveyed the island some more. ‘It’s all yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What else is there, beside this?’

  She pointed a little way along the beach where a stunning building seemed to lift from the sand itself, all white walls and glass. It was architectural and compelling while somehow also being organic and respectful of the environment.

  ‘There are some small houses across the island—for staff, when I need them. On occasion, I have come here for weeks at a time, and generally have a housekeeper and the like to run things.’

  ‘Naturally,’ she murmured, his financial situation something she couldn’t comprehend. She knew he was self-made, but it was almost impossible to fathom how anyone could build that kind of empire from nothing. ‘Have you owned it long?’

  Something shifted in his expression. ‘Eleven years.’

  Curiosity moved inside her. ‘Did you build the house?’

  ‘No.’

  She gnawed on her lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Why do I get the feeling there’s a history here you’re not sharing?’

  He eyed her slowly, raking his gaze from the tip of her head to her toes, and at the same time a light breeze lifted off the ocean, so her loose dress pulled against her flesh, and she shivered for no reason she could think of.

  ‘Because there is.’ He held out his hand, and she put hers in it, just as she had the night before when he’d seen the disaster in the kitchen and drawn her from the midst of the mayhem.

  ‘And you’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘That depends.’ He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her inner wrist. A frisson of anticipation trembled across her spine.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what you’re prepared to offer in exchange.’

  Her heart skipped a beat. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Nothing is free, uccellina.’

  He called her that often—little bird—but hearing it here, liberated in the Mediterranean, kissed by the sea air and the sunshine, did something strange to it, so that the moniker pierced the fabric of her being and became a part of her, as much as her eyes and her lips, her heart and her lungs. Uccellina.

  He dropped his head closer, so his lips were just an inch from hers. ‘I will answer any of your questions, if you answer all of mine.’ His eyes were asking a billion questions of her and she felt stripped naked, raw beneath his scrutiny. And though it sparked a sort of anxiety inside her, there was also relief—a heady sense of calm that could only come with letting go.

  Letting go of her barriers, letting go of their boundaries. Just for a moment, here in this slice of paradise far from the real world.


  ‘Deal.’ Her smile turned her eyes from emerald green to a sort of turquoise as vibrant as the ocean. They began to walk towards the house.

  ‘Do you come here often?’

  ‘Often enough.’

  ‘I thought you were going to answer my questions.’

  He stopped walking, tilting his face to hers, his eyes slightly mocking. ‘By my count, you have left many of mine unanswered.’

  ‘Oh. So I owe you?’ she prompted, moving towards him with unconscious grace.

  ‘Definitely.’

  She grinned, pushing up onto the tips of her toes to lay a kiss against his lips.

  ‘What do you want to know, then?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He held her tight, his body not relinquishing hers, and she felt it again—a loosening inside her, the usual restraint she held on herself sliding just a little. Enough.

  The one question he’d asked repeatedly came to her—the pressing interest in how she had been a virgin the night they’d met.

  ‘It’s not like everyone thinks,’ she said softly, making no attempt to move away from him. On the contrary—she liked being close to him like this; it made it easier to think and speak.

  He was quiet, waiting for her to continue.

  ‘Modelling.’ She cleared her throat. ‘It’s exhausting and competitive and by the time I’ve finished a job the last thing I feel like doing is going out. Half the time, it’s written into my contracts that I’ll attend an after-party, like the other night—it helps with promotion, and apparently it’s good for my image.’ She couldn’t help layering cynicism on the last few words. ‘But I was young when I first started working,’ she said wistfully. ‘And far from home, and everything was...too much. Too loud and fast, and people were over-familiar, and I was...terrified, if I’m honest.’

  She winced, hating how juvenile she sounded. ‘I found that the louder it got, the busier, more hectic, the more successful I became and the more surrounded I was by other models and managers and photographers and social media managers and everyone, it just seemed to make me feel lonelier.’

  ‘Your parents didn’t travel with you?’

  She compressed her lips. ‘No.’

  She was surprised he didn’t push her for information—her response had been seething with words unspoken. But he let it go, and she was grateful for that.

  ‘So you rejected the lifestyle completely and chose to live as a nun?’

  She laughed softly, lifting a hand to his chest, her fingers splayed wide across his broad muscles, her nails painted a soft pink, her eyes transfixed by the sight for some reason. ‘Pushing people away was a survival instinct and I never really stopped doing it.’ She risked a glance at him and wished she hadn’t when her heart skidded almost painfully against her ribs.

  ‘And yet your image...’ The words trailed off into nothingness. There was a look of uncomprehension on his handsome features, his lips tugged downwards, a frown on his face. ‘If I didn’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were innocent, I would never have imagined the stories could be so wrong.’ His hands lifted, as if of their own accord, to twist around some of her hair.

  A troubled look crossed her features. ‘I was sixteen when those stories began to run.’ She dipped her face and then took a step away, turning to focus her gaze on the glistening ocean. It was stunning—like a mountain of turquoises had been dropped to float on top of the water’s surface.

  ‘It was said that you had a long-running affair with him—Clive Angmore.’

  She nodded, the pain of that heavy inside of her. ‘He was married.’

  ‘But not faithful.’

  She swallowed, nodding a little. ‘No, he wasn’t. His reputation bled into mine. I was sixteen when we met.’ She shook her head with disapproval now. ‘I’d been modelling for a year, but I was still so sheltered. I didn’t realise what it meant when he started spending time with me, coming to my shows.’

  Her eyes blinked shut at the memories—memories she tried not to think about. ‘When he kissed me, it caught me completely off-guard. I’d never been kissed by anyone before and suddenly he was...’ She lifted her fingers, brushing them over her lips as though she could erase the memory. She couldn’t—it was a part of her, a part of her being, and that experience had built a layer of her armour, shielding her from future hurts.

  ‘He was?’ Cesare’s voice held a tight restraint.

  ‘He was on me.’ Her throat was dry. ‘He was heavy and strong—you know. He was older, but really fit. Anyway, I pushed him away, eventually, and he was furious—he was under the impression that I’d consented to being manhandled by him by virtue of the fact we’d eaten dinner together a few times.’ Indignation made her voice wobble and she kept her gaze averted so she didn’t see the way his hands were forming fists at his side, knuckles white in contrast to cheeks that were slashed with colour.

  ‘I just thought he was taking an interest in my career.’ She groaned, because she’d been so incredibly naive back then. ‘I was lonely and he was nice. I thought he was...a friend.’

  She heard Cesare’s harsh exhalation, but didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. Her feelings were all stirred up inside her. ‘I learned my lesson. People aren’t just nice. Not without wanting something in exchange.’

  Silence followed her pronouncement and, when she angled her face back to his, there was tension visible in his frame. A muscle jerked in his jaw. His eyes showed a hardness that sent a shiver down her spine.

  ‘Anyway, by then the rumour mill was in full swing and no one seemed particularly interested in the truth.’

  ‘So you stayed a part of that world, the same but different, always a little set apart from your friends.’

  She nodded. ‘It’s not my real world,’ she said simply. ‘It’s my job. It’s work.’

  ‘But you must have been curious?’

  ‘About sex?’

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’ And then her eyes flitted to his. ‘Until I met you, I’d never known anyone who made my world catch fire.’

  She looked away again, the admission somehow making her feel vulnerable.

  When he didn’t speak, she moved to fill the silence. ‘It’s your turn.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To answer a question.’

  ‘Fair enough. Ask away.’ His voice was deep.

  Her mind exploded with possibilities. There was so much about him she didn’t know, and even though she’d sworn early on in this relationship that it would be safer not to know all his secrets, it was overwhelmingly vital now that she understood him.

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said simply, honestly.

  When she blinked up at him, a smile had crossed his face. ‘Come. Let me show you the house.’

  At her sound of indignation, he laughed.

  ‘I’ll answer your questions—relax. We have four days. There is no rush.’

  Only it felt as if there was. In the seclusion of the island time seemed both to stand still and move at warp speed, so two nights passed almost in the blink of an eye, every moment sublime. Swimming in the ocean, lying on the sunlit deck, a whole day spent in bed exploring one another, learning, needing, rewarding. She’d fallen asleep some time in the evening and woken up in the middle of the night, starving and full of desire all over again.

  On the evening of the third night—their second last—they walked along the beach as the sun dipped into the ocean. It had been a perfect day. They’d explored the island, walking for miles until they’d arrived at a waterfall. They’d taken the steep rocky path to its bottom and swum in the creek at its base.

  Jemima still didn’t feel that she knew Cesare’s secrets, but she knew him, all of him—his passion, his drive, his determination, his hunger. She understood him.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here.’
She eyed the ocean. Despite the unendingness of it, she knew she would never tire of this view.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not tempted to live here permanently?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ But it was obvious from his tone that he was joking.

  She mulled that over. ‘Where do you live?’

  He angled his head to face her, a grin on his face. ‘I’m a citizen of the world.’

  She couldn’t help but return his smile. ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘It means I fill my passport up every year.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘I travel, a lot.’

  ‘Sure, but you must have a home?’

  ‘They’re all my homes.’

  She frowned. ‘I don’t think it works like that.’

  His laugh was gruff and he stopped walking, pulling her into his arms and kissing her as though he simply couldn’t help himself. ‘Why not?’

  But the kiss robbed her of breath and the ability to think, momentarily, so she had to concentrate to get her brain back into gear.

  ‘Well, a home’s a home. I think by its very definition it has to be where you spend the lion’s share of your time. It’s where you feel most comfortable, the place you crave when you want to just exist.’

  Something flitted in the depths of his eyes, but then he kissed her once more and turned away, taking her hand in his and continuing their walk. ‘Where’s your home, then?’

  ‘Almer Hall,’ she responded without missing a beat. And because she knew and understood him on a soul-deep level, she sensed the tension that tightened his body even when she didn’t comprehend the reason for it.

  ‘You spend a lot of time there?’

  ‘No.’ Her smile was wistful. ‘I have to live in London, but I go back to Almer Hall when I can...’ She bit down on her lip, aware she’d been about to say more than she wanted.

  ‘But?’ he prompted, his voice gravelly.

  She looked up at him and something in the region of her heart panged. The sun was low behind his head, the sky a stunning shade of pink with streaks of purple cutting through from the horizon, but nothing was as breath-taking as Cesare Durante, and the full force of attention he was giving Jemima.