The last time she had seen this man, he had convinced her over the course of two heady, passion-drenched, impossible weeks to turn her back on everything she had ever known, marry a stranger and ride off into a sunset she had trusted him to provide.
What would he do this time? When she knew better and still, her heart stopped at the sight of all that casual, male grace? When she hadn’t managed a full breath since he’d walked through that door?
This was not a game at all, Bethany realized, far too late, astounded at the breadth of her own stupidity—her own great weakness. This was everything she’d lost. This was everything she grieved for.
This was a huge mistake.
CHAPTER NINE
“YOU have been at pains to tell me what you are not,” he said in that rich, low voice that for all its gentleness still seemed to Bethany to take over the whole of the Felici Valley. “Perhaps it is time to tell me who you are.”
They walked along the cypress-studded footpath that wound down from the castello toward the valley floor and which would, Leo had promised, lead them to a secluded lake just over the crest of the next hill.
It was like a dream, Bethany thought, feeling as if she watched them from some distance—as if that was not her who walked on a warm autumn morning with this dark, brooding, impossibly handsome man, but some other woman. One who was not afraid that her slightest move might shatter this unexpected, fragile accord. One who knew nothing of the long war that had come before and scarred them both.
Oh, the people they could have been. The people they should have been! Bethany could feel the bite of that loss, that tragedy, all around her in the air like the hint of a changing season.
Or perhaps it was simply that they were free of the castello today, free of its heavy stone walls and the great weight of its history—free of the people they had to be when they were inside it.
She darted a glance at him, at his high cheekbones and flashing eyes, at that satyr’s mouth that had once felt so decadent against her skin, yet could flatten into such a grim and disapproving line when he was disappointed with her. And he had so often been disappointed in her.
Next to her, his long legs keeping pace with her shorter ones with no apparent effort, he swung the basket laden with delicacies from the kitchens in one large hand. He seemed as easy with his bare feet stuck in the dirt of his family’s land as he did in full princely regalia at the head of the massive banquet table in the castello’s great hall. For some reason, that observation made her heart seem to expand inside her chest, almost to the point of pain.
“You finished a degree at university, I believe?” he prompted her when it became clear that she was not going to speak of her own volition. Bethany laughed slightly, flustered.
“Yes,” she said, struggling to collect herself, to cast aside the enchantment of the countryside, so green and gold and inviting in the sunshine with the great expanse of the cerulean sky arched above them. To forget what had not been, and could not be. “I studied psychology.”
To find out what was so terribly wrong with me that I could disappear so fully into you, she thought, but did not say. As if I’d never existed at all.
“Fascinating,” he murmured, and though she shot a sharp look at him his expression was mild. “I had no idea the human mind was of such interest to you.”
Only yours, she thought with some fatalism, but then pulled herself together. That was not entirely true, in any case, and this was a day without lies or pretense, she decided. She could act as if they were suspended out of time, as if they had escaped their history today, their tangled and heavy past.
“Human interaction interests me,” she said. “My mother was an archaeologist, which is something similar, I suppose. She wanted to figure out human lives from the things left behind in ruins. I am less interested in the remains of societies and more interested in how people survive what occurs in their own lives.”
She thought that was too much, that she’d gone too far, revealed herself. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth as she waited for an explosion, a reaction. Leo shot a dark, unreadable look at her, from beneath lashes that were frankly unfair on a man of his physical size and indisputable prowess, but did not strike back as she’d expected.
“You do not normally speak of your mother,” he said. Did she only imagine his hesitant tone? Was he as loath to disrupt this fragile peace as she was?
“She died when I was still so young, just a baby,” she said. She shrugged, wrinkling her nose up toward the sun, tilting her head back to let the warm rays caress her face. “To be honest, I cannot remember her at all.” His silence, his somehow comforting presence beside her, encouraged her to continue. “My father never spoke of her when I was growing up. I think it caused him too much pain. But then toward the end he could not seem to speak of anything else.”
She looked down at her feet, slightly chilled against the rich earth, but it felt good to be barefoot, to act as if she was free of cares, regardless of the truth. “I think he was afraid that if he did not she would disappear when he did.”
The path along the valley floor meandered through the vineyards before beginning an easy climb toward the next rolling hill. They walked side by side, as if they had all the time in the world, Bethany thought. As if they were under enchantment. As if this game of theirs was real and they could live this day forever.
What did it say about her that so much of her wished that they could?
“When I returned to Toronto …” she began, sneaking a look at him and flushing slightly when he met her gaze, his eyes sardonic. “I wanted to finish my degree,” she continued hurriedly, jerking her gaze away. “And I suppose in some way I wanted to honor her, too. It felt like a continuation of her studies, somehow.”
“I am glad for you,” he said simply when she stopped talking and returned her attention to the path in front of them. “I know you wanted very much to maintain ties with your family however you could.”
She did not like the way he said that—as if he had spent time pondering her. As if he knew things about her that she might not, as if he cared in ways she was not prepared to accept. It made her feel restless in a way she could not name.
“That cannot be something you ever worry about,” she said, changing the focus of this odd, out-of-body conversation, pushing the spotlight away from herself and the panic that she desperately wanted to hide. “You cannot take a step without coming face to face with the Di Marco history.”
He smiled slightly.
“Indeed I cannot,” he agreed. “But it is not necessarily the voyage of discovery you seem to imagine, I think.” He let out a short laugh. “My father was not an easy man. He believed absolutely in his own dominion over all things. His wealth and estates. His wife and family. He was neither tolerant nor kind.”
“Leo …” But he did not hear her, or he did not choose to stop.
“I was sent to boarding school in Austria when I was barely turned four,” Leo said in that same matter-of-fact, emotionless voice. “It was a slightly more nurturing environment than my father’s home. I was raised to think that nothing and no one could ever be as important as the Di Marco legacy. My responsibilities and obligations were beaten into me early.” His eyes met hers, and she could not read what swam in those bittersweet, chocolate depths, just as she could not identify the mess of emotion that fought inside of her. “There is a certain liberty in having no choices, you must understand.”
“That sounds horrible,” she said, her eyes heavy with tears she could not shed where he could see her. “Cancer took my mother too soon, and my father grieved for her the rest of his days, but he loved me. I never doubted that he loved me.”
“I was raised to disdain such foolishness,” Leo said, something indefinable across that mobile, fascinating face before he hid it behind his customary mask of polite indifference.
She knew she should recognize that odd expression—that something in her swelled to meet it, to match it—but her
mind shied away from it before she could properly identify it. She found she was holding her breath.
“The Di Marcos, no doubt, had more important things to concentrate on,” she managed to say, forcing herself to breathe past the knot in her belly.
“My duties were very clear from a very young age, and there was never any point in rebelling or arguing,” he continued, his voice hushed, his eyes clear. “I must never forget myself and act with the recklessness of other young men. I must always think of the Di Marco legacy first, never my own needs or desires.” He shrugged. “If I forgot myself, there were never any shortage of people around to remind me. Especially my father, using any means he deemed necessary.”
“That seems so cruel.” Bethany could not look at him; she was afraid she would try to do something she should not, like hold him, or soothe him, or try to make something up to the little boy she was not certain he had ever been. “You were a child, not a tiny robot to be programmed according to a set of archaic demands!”
“My father did not want a child,” Leo said quietly. “He wanted the next Principe di Felici.”
There did not seem to be anything she could say to such a simple yet devastating statement. It hung there with them, as if it ripened on the vines that stretched out beside them and climbed the hill along with them.
Bethany could not bring herself to speak because she was afraid the tears she fought to keep at bay would spill over and betray her, and the worst of it was, she was not entirely certain what emotions these were that held her so securely in a tight, fast grip. She only knew that things were clear to her now that had not been clear before, though she could not have articulated what she meant by that.
She only knew the truth of it, and that that truth was painful and seared her right through to the bone.
But then they reached the top of the second hill and her breath caught in her throat for an entirely different reason. The path delivered them to the banks of an absolutely perfect, kidney-shaped lake. The water gleamed like crystal and glass in the autumn sun, basking in the late-morning light. All around, birds called from the shade trees, and sweet-smelling grass swept along the banks.
“This is beautiful,” Bethany breathed. But a different set of tears stung her eyes now. How could she have missed this place, in a year and a half spent only a hill away? How was that possible? She had the strangest sense of vertigo—as if everything she had accepted as fact, had acted upon, was spun around before her, out of focus and somehow not at all what she had believed it to be.
“My mother might have been an artist,” Leo said in that low, irresistible voice of his, velvet and steel, whiskey and chocolate. He gazed out over the postcard-perfect setting, though the look in his eyes was far away. “Had she not had the misfortune to be the Principessa di Felici. When she provided my father with the necessary heir, he provided her with a token of appreciation for services rendered. This lake.”
He crossed his arms over his leanly muscled chest, making the black T-shirt strain against his well-formed biceps.
“He had it made to resemble a lake on an estate in Andalucia where my mother spent summers as a girl.” He sent her a dark look beneath a sardonic lift of his brow. “But do not cast my father as a romantic in this scenario. He had not one sensitive bone in his body. He did, however, care deeply about public opinion, and the birth of a new prince was certainly an event worth celebrating in an ostentatious manner.”
He waved a hand at the enchanting, peaceful view. “And he built her a lake so that forever after Domenico Di Marco might be hailed as the great romantic hero he was not.”
“It is beautiful,” Bethany said again, more firmly, past the lump in her throat, the ache in her heart. “However it came to be here.”
She moved toward the water, that same deep restlessness making her feel edgy, nervous. She stared out over the sparkling surface for long moments, only half-aware that he was moving around behind her. She needed to think, to calm herself. She needed to rein in the wild, chaotic emotions that buffeted her. This was supposed to be a different kind of day—no wildness, no upset.
Surely she could handle that? Surely she could manage to keep her cool if Leo, of all people, could bring himself to talk to her like this?
She would not let herself regret that it could happen only now, when it was all over between them save the legalities. She would not imagine what might have been between them if this day had occurred three years ago, four years ago, instead of now. She would not ruin this, whatever it was, with the things that could not be changed no matter how this day went. No matter what she felt.
When she turned back around, he had set out a large, square ground-covering and had unpacked some of the hamper’s tempting items. Cold chicken, a bowl of olives. Wine and two glasses. Cheeses and slices of meats—carpaccio, prosciutto—and a selection of pâtés. Slices of apple and plump bunches of grapes.
He lounged across the blue and white blanket, his jeans-clad body on deliberate display, every inch of him clearly a delectable and dangerous male animal, for all that he appeared so indolent. She could not seem to look at that tight black T-shirt without losing her focus, much less the tanned, taut ridge of his abdomen that was revealed beneath the hiked-up hem. She had to swallow twice.
The look in his dark eyes, when they met hers, made her temperature soar. She felt feverish, too hot and too cold all at the same time.
“Come sit with me,” he said, the wolf to the foolish girl.
And, because she had never been anything but a fool when she was near him, no matter what else she might have been or wanted to be, she did.
Bethany knew the moment she lowered herself to the ground beside him that something had changed. She wanted it to be no more than a shift in the light breeze that danced in the trees above her head, or in the temperature of the day around them, but she was afraid she knew better.
She tucked the white cotton skirt she’d worn because it felt far too casual for a principessa tight around her knees, and tried to keep her attention trained on the beautiful water in front of her rather than the raw sexual energy emanating from the man lounging next to her.
“Are you not hungry?” he asked after one heated moment bled into another. She could not help herself—she turned to look at him, as if his very body commanded her and she was helpless to do anything but obey.
And he knew it. She could see that smug, male satisfaction in his dark gaze, the faint smile that toyed with the corner of his mouth.
She did not know what to do. She knew how she might have handled this moment even two hours ago, but that had been before they’d walked through fields of green and gold and he’d told her things that still made her feel raw. Unsettled.
That had been before her traitorous heart had let itself yearn for him so fully, as completely as if he had never broken it in the first place. What was she supposed to do now?
“How did your meetings in Sydney go?” she asked, because it seemed so innocuous a question and because it could not possibly make this tension between them any worse. And perhaps because she was every bit the coward he had called her.
Leo’s smile deepened, and he reached down to capture a piece of hard cheese with his long fingers. He took a bite, considering her, and she could not have said why she found all of it unbearably erotic.
The lake was so quiet, the breeze so sweet against her skin. The sun above them was so warm, caressing. Her breasts felt heavy, aching behind her thin shirt. She felt a faint sheen of moisture break out across her upper lip.
She knew he missed nothing. His head cocked to the side. “I do not often lose the things I want, Bethany. But perhaps you knew this already.”
“I know you take your business very seriously, if that is what you mean,” she said, unable to look away from the dark seduction of his gaze, unable to keep herself from imagining what might happen if she tilted forward and let herself fall across that hard, rangy body spread out before her like a buffet of sensual delight
s.
But of course she already knew what would happen. She could already taste the salt and musk of his skin against her tongue. She could already feel his long, smooth muscles hard beneath her palms. She could hardly breathe for the images that chased through her head, memory and imagination fused into one great wave of ache and want and need.
She knew that he knew it, too.
“I take everything seriously,” he said, his voice a low rumble she could feel as well as hear, moving through her, leaving heat and fire in its wake. “I am known for my attention to detail. Renowned for it, you might even say.”
“Leo …” She did not know what she meant to say, but she felt so snared, so captured, as if he’d trapped her here. The truly terrifying part of that was how little she cared. What was happening to her? How could she let him cast this spell over her just by lying there?
But she had the lowering thought that she’d left the fight somewhere back at the castello. That he had finally disarmed her and she was more vulnerable now than she had ever been before. Mostly because she could not bring herself to care as she knew she had even this morning. As she knew she would again when this dangerous moment was past.
Still, here—now—there was only his hot gaze and her helpless melting deep within.
“I can see the way you look at me, Bethany,” he whispered, his eyes intent on hers, his voice a seduction, a caress. “You are eating me alive with all that blue heat, all of your desires written like poetry across your face. I can see that your breathing has gone shallow and your hands tremble.”
“Perhaps this is disgust,” she breathed. “After all.”
He smiled, but it was a predator’s smile, and it connected hard with her core, sending heat searing through her. Electric. Shattering. Leo.
“You are the student of psychology,” he said. “You tell me what it means, these physical signs and your continued denials that they mean what we both know they must mean.”
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