she didn’t love him any more, she surely would have
done so now.
"Are you ready to leave?" Lorenzo asked Jodie.
Silently she nodded her head.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEY had driven back to their hotel in silence, and
Jodie was only thankful that Lorenzo wasn’t saying
anything. Now that they were back in their suite she
realised how shocked and distressed Louise’s spiteful
attack had left her feeling.
All she wanted was the privacy of her room, so
that she could give way to the tears that weren’t far
off, and to her relief Lorenzo made no comment when
she said quickly, "My head aches. I…I think I might
as well have an early night."
In her room she undressed and then showered, drying
herself quickly before padding across to the bed
and slipping between the cool clean sheets, reflecting
that it was just as well that Louise had not known she
and Lorenzo were sleeping in separate rooms.
She tensed as she heard a firm tap on her bedroom
door and Lorenzo calling out, "I’ve ordered you some
supper. I’ll bring it in for you."
It was too late to tell him that she didn’t want it.
He was already opening the door and pushing a
heavily laden trolley into the room.
"It’s just a cold salad and a pot of tea. I remember
you said you liked to drink tea when you had a headache.
Or is your pain that of a heartache?" he asked
her dryly.
Jodie bit her lip and struggled to sit up, whilst holding
on to the protective cover of the bedding. Taking
a deep breath, she said huskily, "Lorenzo, I haven’t
thanked you yet for…for…for supporting me with
what you said to Louise."
"You are my wife. When it comes to the validity
of our marriage being questioned, naturally you have
my support. Equally naturally, I could not allow that
foolish woman to make her ridiculous accusations unchecked."
Jodie shook her head. "We both know it wasn’t
your idea that we should come here."
"No, it was yours, because you wanted to see your
ex-fiance.. You are better off without him, you know,"
he told her coolly. "The impression I gained from the
people I spoke with is that he is a rather weak and
shallow young man, very much still dominated by his
mother."
"Louise’s family are quite well off, and I suppose
that, coupled with Sheila"s concerns about my health,
would have made her think Louise would be a better
wife for John — not that I want him. He means nothing
to me now. I can see him for what he is, and I think
I’m lucky not to be marrying him."
Lorenzo frowned. "You sound as though you really
mean that."
"I do. I’d stopped loving him before I left England.
Coming back has just confirmed what I already
knew." In more ways than one, she admitted, but of
course she couldn’t tell Lorenzo that coming back and
seeing John had shown her just how strong her love
for Lorenzo was compared with the feelings she had
once thought she had for John. She still had her pride,
and that pride was stinging badly now from Louise’s
attack on her.
She chewed on her bottom lip and then said unhappily,
"I should have realised that people would
guess that our marriage isn’t real and that you Don’t
want me." She laughed a little wildly. "I suppose I
must have ""unwanted virgin"" written all over me,
what with my leg, and—"
"What nonsense is this?" Lorenzo demanded, putting
down the cup of tea he had been pouring for her
and coming over to stand beside the bed.
"It isn’t nonsense," Jodie persisted miserably. "John
rejected me because of my leg, and It’s because of it
that I’m still a virgin. I hate knowing that other people
pity me, and…and look down on me because of it,"
she told him fiercely. "And I just wish that…"
"That what?"
"That when Louise looked at me she had seen a
true woman."
Lorenzo sat down on the bed next to her.
"If that is really what you want, it is achieved easily
enough," he told her smokily. "Because, far from sharing
your idiotic ex-fiance."s opinion, I happen to desire
you very much."
Jodie swallowed and squeaked uncertainly,
"You…you do?"
"Yes. And, what’s more, I’m more than willing to
prove it to you. We’ve got tonight," Lorenzo told her.
"And if you wish tomorrow you can witness their
wretched marriage with all the bloom of a woman
whose sexual curiosity has been answered and whose
sexual hunger has been satisfied."
Lorenzo was offering to make love to her?
A little apprehensively, she wetted her lips with her
tongue tip. "But…but before you said that we
couldn’t because—"
"The hotel management here are most forward
thinking."
When Jodie looked puzzled he explained, "There is
a pack of condoms with the other toiletries they have
supplied."
"Oh. Oh, I see…"
"The choice is yours," Lorenzo told her.
His willingness to have sex with her meant nothing
in any real sense, Jodie knew. It was sex he was offering
her, that was all. Not the love she longed for,
and certainly not the future and the permanence. But
still she wanted what he was offering.
Jodie swallowed hard and looked at him.
"Then I choose to say yes."
When he got up off the bed and walked away from
her all she could think was that the pain was a million
times worse, in a million different ways, than it had
been when John had walked away from her. But then
she saw that instead of going to the door Lorenzo had
stopped beside the trolley. He had removed a bottle
of champagne from an ice bucket and was opening it
to fill two glasses.
He walked back to the bed with them and handed
her one.
"To tonight and what we will give one another.
May it be everything you wish it to be," he toasted
her softly.
Apprehensively Jodie took a sip of the sparkling
champagne, and then trembled as Lorenzo took the
glass from her and kissed her.
His mouth tasted of champagne and of him, and
she clung to that thought whilst his tongue-tip stroked
her lips and then teased them apart.
He kissed her until she couldn’t think beyond the
pleasure of their shared intimacy and her own desire
for more; until she had reached out to him and
wrapped her arms around his neck whilst her lips
parted eagerly under his; until they were lying together
on the bed and his hands were caressing her
naked body as he removed the unwanted barriers between
them.
Skin on skin with the man she loved: could there
be anything more sensual or more desire-inducing?
Jo
die wondered deliriously as she allowed herself the
luxury of exploring the warm flesh padding Lorenzo’s
muscles whilst his hands skimmed and then shaped
her body with slow, purposeful sensuality.
He kissed the hollow at the base of her throat, and
then the hollow between her breasts, rimming the indentation
of her navel whilst she shivered with pleasure
and sighed softly.
Only when he caressed her injured leg did she tense
and waver, shuddering anxiously and trying to pull
away. But Lorenzo refused to release her, bending his
head to kiss the criss-cross pattern of her scars.
"No…" It was the first time she had spoken, her
plea sharp and filled with pain.
Ignoring her, Lorenzo told her softly, "I thought the
first time I saw you that you had the most wonderfully
long legs. I knew then that I wanted to feel them
wrapped around me whilst I possessed you."
"You couldn’t have thought that," Jodie protested.
"You were so angry!"
She saw his mouth curve into a genuinely amused
smile. "didn’t you know, little virgin, that a man can
be both angry and aroused? Your ex-friend is a fool.
No man worthy of the name would ever reject you,
Jodie."
"My leg," she protested.
Lorenzo kissed her scar a second time.
"Your leg is all the more beautiful because it carries
the evidence of your courage."
Emotional tears filled her eyes, but before she
could shed them Lorenzo had started to kiss his way
up the inside of her thigh, and other, more intense
emotions were gripping her.
His hand covered her sex. Slowly he began to caress
it, until she was arching up to press herself closer
to his touch, her fingers digging into the warm flesh
of his shoulders as her legs opened wider for him and
his tongue joined his fingers in an erotic exploration
of her arousal.
She moaned with pleasure when she felt him penetrate
her wetness to ease one finger inside her, stroking
her and then slowly moving deeper. Immediately
her muscles tightened eagerly around it and her body
pulsed fiercely. Lorenzo positioned himself so that he
could kiss her breasts whilst he slowly stroked her
intimately, a second finger joining the first, the pleasure
of their movement inside her making her cry out,
then cry out again as Lorenzo answered her appeal
with the sensual rake of his teeth against her stiff
nipple.
Her body was moving of its own accord, seeking
an intimate rhythm that came from deep inside her,
accompanied by a small growl of female frustration.
"You want me inside you?" Lorenzo asked her
thickly.
Jodie nodded her head and dug her fingers into his
flesh more tightly as he positioned her, lifting her and
then reaching for a pillow, which he eased beneath
her hips whilst the frustration inside her grew.
She had no apprehensions, no reservations, only an
aching female hunger, and she watched openly as he
positioned himself over her, her senses delighting in
the sight of him, so thick and strong.
More easing himself into her than thrusting,
Lorenzo watched the expressions chase one another
across her face as her muscles accepted his thickness,
closing tightly round it.
"Do you want more?" he asked.
Jodie took a deep breath and whispered fiercely,
"Yes. All of you. I want all of you…"
She could feel him filling her so completely that
the sensation of him within her made her catch her
breath, and then rake her nails against his back as he
moved out and then in deeper, with rhythmic thrusts
that took her breath and drove her to want more and
still more, until she was moving with him, eagerly
giving up her own control to him, as her body became
his to fit to himself and pleasure until she could not
endure that pleasure any more.
She felt the onset of her orgasm gripping her, so
much more intense than what she was already used
to, so very different, and it took her pleasure into a
different dimension that was filled with the feel of
him inside her. She cried out to him, and then cried
out again, as he filled her with his own release, clinging
to him as she murmured words of love and pleasure.
Lorenzo looked towards the bed where Jodie still lay
sleeping, and wondered despairingly how it was possible
for his whole life to have changed between one
heartbeat and the next.
He had looked at her in that English garden, seen
the pain and despair in her eyes, and known immediately
that his savage need to protect her was born
of love.
Love. Had it been there from their first meeting,
unrecognised by him because he had not wanted to
recognise it? Or had it grown as his knowledge of her
had grown? Did it even matter?
Jodie opened her eyes.
"Lorenzo." She smiled, and then blushed a little.
"Are you okay? No regrets?"
Jodie shook her head. "No regrets."
"You Don’t wish that it had been John?" Lorenzo
questioned wryly.
"No. I wanted it to be you."
"Mmm. Well, since it was me, I think we need to
talk about the future." He took a deep breath and
looked away from her. "How would you feel about
us making this marriage permanent?"
When she didn’t reply he turned round, frowning,
only to see the tears spilling from her eyes.
"I can’t say yes," Jodie wept. "I want to, but it
wouldn’t be fair to you. Not when…"
"Not when what?"
"Not when I know that I love you," she admitted,
very softly.
Lorenzo went over to the bed and sat down on it
next to her.
"Would it make any difference if I admitted that
I’ve fallen in love with you?"
"Only if It’s true," Jodie answered him gravely.
He had reached for her hand and twined his fingers
through her own, and now he was lifting their interlocked
hands to his lips so that he could kiss her palm.
Her heart was thudding heavily, slamming against her
chest wall. She wanted so much to believe him, but
she was afraid to do so.
"I didn’t use a condom," he told her quietly.
Jodie swallowed. "You mean you forgot?"
"No, I mean I chose not to. Because I wanted our
pleasure to be skin to skin, with no barriers between
us, and because I can’t think of anything more wonderful
than knowing we could have created our child."
"You trust me enough for that?"
"Yes, and more than that. I trust you enough to
admit that I love you. I saw the way you looked at
me when Louise was insulting you. I saw that you
were asking not just for my help but for me."
He leaned forward and kissed her softly, then drew
back from her. Jodie gave a small murmur of protest
&nbs
p; and moved closer, pressing her lips to his.
"Tell me properly that you love me," she whispered.
"Show me."
EPILOGUE
"LOOK at their faces," Jodie whispered to Lorenzo as
they stood side by side in the Castillo courtyard,
watching the expressions of the children who were
just being helped from the specially adapted bus that
had brought them from the airport. The first of the
young victims of war to come to the Castillo under
the scheme Lorenzo had initiated.
It was a year almost to the day since they had returned
from England, committed to one another and
their marriage, and to the accomplishment of
Lorenzo’s dream.
In the state apartments the restored paintings
glowed with the richness of their vibrant colours. In
the newly painted and furnished dormitories, beds
waited for the children and trained therapists waited
in the new extension housing the swimming pool,
treatment rooms and gym.
"This is such a wonderful thing you are doing,
Lorenzo," Jodie told him emotionally. "You are giving
so much to so many, bringing so much joy to their
lives."
"No more than the joy you have brought to mine,"
he told her, bending his head to kiss her, and then
laughing as their three-month-old son, whom she was
holding in her arms, reached out to grip his finger.
***
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Document ID: 94d8b80f-c031-4034-879f-8fa8ea298a79
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Document creation date: 25 August 2010
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OCR Source: Copyright © 2006 by Penny Jordan
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THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE Page 18
