by Helen Brooks
'Sit down, Claire.' Quite how he managed it she wasn't sure, but instead of the chair she had aimed for she found herself sitting on one of the richly upholstered divans scattered about the room, and within moments, or so it seemed, he was back with a tray of coffee, the aroma of which perfumed the air deliciously.
She didn't know whether to be furiously outraged or relieved when he seated himself in a chair opposite, placing the tray on a coffee-table which he moved between them. Well, so much for her suspicions that she was about to be seduced in spite of all his fine words, she told herself wryly. That would teach her to keep her imagination under control. He clearly fancied the bust of Venus that stood in one corner of the dining room more than her!
It was as she reached for the cup of coffee he was handing her, her mind only half on what she was doing, that the accident happened, and scalding hot coffee poured all over her legs as the cup tilted crazily and then left the saucer altogether.
The thick denim of her skirt saved her from bad burns, but it was still fiercely hot and hurt like mad, and as she leapt up with a strangled scream, her hands patting frantically at her legs, he was beside her in a second.
'Cold water.'
'What?'
When in the next moment she found herself whisked up into his arms and swiftly carried out of the room and up the stairs, she felt all reason beginning to cloud. The pain was severe, but it wasn't that which was making her head spin—or the wine either, come to that. He had lifted her up as though she were a tiny child, his strength formidable, and now, as he walked quickly to one of the bathrooms, holding her securely against the hard wall of his chest, she could feel his heart thudding against her soft flesh, and the sensual, intoxicating smell of him enveloping her until she knew she wouldn't be able to stand when he placed her on her feet.
'Get that off.'
'What?' She stared at him appalled, shocked out of her thoughts as he sat her in a big cane chair next to the shower which he then turned on to cold, directing the jet of water downwards.
'Your flesh will still be burning. You need to take the heat out of it. Get your skirt off,' he said firmly, 'now.'
'You go out, then.' She stared at him anxiously.
'No way. You've had a shock and you might be unsteady on your feet,' he said impatiently. 'I'm not asking you to strip off, woman, merely to remove your skirt. You will still be decent, with a lot more clothing than if you were on the beach.'
She couldn't. She just couldn't. Her hand instinctively covered the faint silver lines that criss-crossed her flat stomach and she felt panic grip her. The jumper she was wearing only reached her waist, and her tiny bikini briefs covered only the bare essentials. He would see…
'Look, I'll turn my back while you take it off and just stand here so you can call out if you feel faint or something.' He was clearly on the point of losing his temper, as his next words proved. 'I'm not going to leap on you when you are at a disadvantage, damn it, and I promise you I won't come within a foot of your body, but get under the damn shower!'
She got under the damn shower, stripping off the skirt as the cold water played over her hot legs, and almost immediately relieved the pain. Unfortunately within moments her top was soaking too, the spray covering it despite the downward pointing jet, and as she stood there, dripping wet and freezing cold, with Romano's back to her but his body still managing to express offended outrage, she was seized by the most absurd desire to laugh. So much for her careful preparations for this night out, she thought ruefully. She was now more like a drowned rat than anything else.
'How long have I got to stand here?' she asked meekly after a few minutes, when her legs and torso had gone completely numb. 'I'm freezing.'
'Ten minutes in all—five minutes more,' he said gruffly. 'Do you think you'll be OK if I go and clear up the mess downstairs?'
'Yes.' She paused a moment and then said, 'I'm…I'm wet all over, I'm afraid. I couldn't borrow a robe or something, could I?'
'No, I shall expect you to go home dripping wet or stark naked,' he said with cutting sarcasm. 'Of course you can borrow a damn robe. There's one in the cupboard in the far corner, along with fresh towels if you need them.'
'Thank you.' In view of her position, she kept her voice meek.
Once he had left she duly waited the requisite five minutes and then stepped out of the shower and towelled herself dry. Her legs were only faintly pink now, and didn't hurt at all apart from being slightly tender at the very point where the liquid had first hit. After stripping off all her clothes she rummaged in the cupboard, which was stocked with enough towels to supply a leisure centre, finding a huge fluffy towelling robe in dark blue at the very back with a pair of matching towelling slippers that were twice the size of her small feet.
She left the dripping wet clothes in the bottom of the shower for now and padded out onto the landing, her hair still in its high knot on top of her head and the robe trailing on the floor behind her as she made her way downstairs, the voluminous sleeves rolled back several times yet still managing to bury her hands. She had never felt such a fool in her life.
'Hello.' She stood still at the entrance to the sitting room, not sure if he was asleep or merely shutting his eyes, but knowing that the sight of him, spread out in the chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his hands behind his head, was certainly getting her circulation in full flow again after the numbing effects of the water.
He opened his eyes slowly, straightening in the chair as he did so, but then his eyes caught and held hers in the way they had done once or twice before, their glittering depths mesmerising. He didn't say a word as he stood up, and neither did she, but as he walked across to her, his steps quiet and controlled like a predatory wild animal, she began to tremble very slightly.
'You are cold.' He had seen the tremors she couldn't hide and mistaken them for the chilling effects of the water, but she still couldn't speak, sensing what was to come but unable to stop it. 'Let me warm you.'
And then she was in his arms, and as she felt the hard, male mouth take hers she knew she had known this would happen from the first moment of meeting him. It had been inevitable, like the tide coming in and going out, the sun setting and the moon rising, spring following winter…
As her hands moved upwards to the broad, muscled shoulders her body curved into him all by itself, and his kiss penetrated the soft contours of her mouth in a way that caused pleasure to shoot like a white-hot flame through her limbs.
He was good. He was too good. He must have had hundreds of women to be able to kiss like this, and he was sophisticated, cosmopolitan. This wouldn't mean a thing to him… The thoughts were there but they couldn't compete with what his hands and mouth were doing to her.
'Claire, Claire, so warm and soft.' He was murmuring against her throat now, his kisses burning her skin and causing desire to mount in her like some unstoppable primeval force that was gathering her up and taking her into a world of wild light and exquisite sensation. 'This is crazy, crazy…'
And then his mouth took possession of hers again, hungry, searching, and she clung to him, returning kiss for kiss with a passion that matched his.
She could feel his arousal now through the thin barrier of clothes that separated their flesh, and she knew she ought to feel frightened, apprehensive of its alien power; she had never allowed Jeff full intimacy, and since he had finished with her she had never looked at another man, but somehow, somehow it was a fierce exultation that gripped her senses. He wanted her.
His hands had been moving up and down her body on top of the soft towelling, and now, with a little impatient groan of need, he let them slip inside and brush over her breasts, causing her to quiver with awareness. She could feel her flesh swelling as the sensual exploration continued, but then, just as his hands moved downwards past her waist, the movement caused the belt on the robe to loosen and begin to open.
'No!' It was instinctive and fierce, the memory of
Jeff's rejection, his disgust and revulsion at her injuries suddenly hot and caustic in her head, and before the robe could open fully and betray her she had jerked away with a violence that spoke of panic and fright, turning to one side and pulling the belt tight round her waist. 'No, I—I don't want this,' she stammered frantically. 'I'm not… I can't do this.'
'It's all right. Shush, it is all right.' As Romano took a step towards her she shrank involuntarily, her arms crossed protectively round her middle now and her face white.
'Don't…don't touch me,' she whispered faintly. 'I want to go back to Casa Pontina, please. I want to go now.'
'Don't look at me like that. I am not going to hurt you, Claire.' His voice was curiously expressionless, as though he was exercising an iron control that was taking every ounce of his will. 'I did not intend for this to happen any more than you did. It was just one of those things.'
'It was not "one of those things".' She had to get away, stop this. He might think she was desirable now but he didn't know, and when he did…
'Claire—'
'I mean it—I don't want this. I don't want you.' She was lashing out in terrified self-protection and fear, hardly aware of what she was saying. 'I'm not like you. I don't have affairs, sleep around—'
'Now just a minute,' he said grimly, his whole countenance darkening. 'What the hell have you been hearing?'
'I want to go back.' How could she have encouraged him to kiss her, touch her so intimately? she asked herself. Where were the standards she had lived by all her life? She had only met the man twice, twice, and she had allowed…
Oh, she must have been mad, and she couldn't even say it was her moral principles that had made her draw back in the final analysis. It had been panic—panic and fear that he might notice the scars on her stomach and be repulsed by them after all the raging beauties he had had. What was she turning into? It was the wine—the wine and the accident with the coffee. But even as she grabbed at excuses in her mind she knew she was fooling herself. It wasn't the wine or the incident with the coffee. It was Romano Bellini.
'I asked you a question, little English girl.' His voice was cold now, icy, his eyes jet-black gimlets of stone. 'Who has been filling your mind with stories about the big bad wolf?'
'I… No one…no one's said anything.' Now the physical danger was past the look on his face was frightening her. 'I…I saw the photos.'
'Photos?' he growled tightly. 'What the hell are you talking about? What photos?'
'In the albums.' Oh, this was awful. Why hadn't she kept quiet? All she'd done now was make a bad situation ten times worse, she thought miserably.
'I have never had an excess of patience, and the little I possess is fast running out,' he ground out through clenched teeth. 'Now will you please explain what you mean about photographs? Where are they and of whom?'
'At Grace's.' She took a deep breath—her voice had been humiliatingly shaky—and continued, 'And they are of you and Donato and…women, before you both got married.'
'Before…' His voice trailed away incredulously. 'Let me get this straight, Claire. You see photographs of Donato and I when we are young and you assume I am some sort of sexual deviant, is that it?'
'No—'
'But, yes. I think, yes. You are saying I slept with all the women I dated before I got married, is that it? That I had one affair after another, one-night stands, that I— how do you say it?—put it around, sì?' His accent was very marked now, his rage making him grind out the words slowly, with a force that was intimidating. 'And possibly you think that once I was single again I reverted to my old habits, like a dog returning to its vomit—'
'I didn't—I didn't say that,' she broke in quickly, the harsh analogy shocking her into speech.
'You do not have to.' He took a deep, shuddering breath, obviously fighting for control, and then said, his voice flat now and almost indifferent, 'If it was not for the fact that you are Grace's friend, and of necessity part of the family for the time you stay in Italy, I would not countenance justifying such accusations with the favour of a reply. However…' he stared at her, his eyes narrowed and as hard as black ice '…you will be around for some time and so I will spell it out for you.
'I was not a virgin when I married Bianca, but neither had I run my love-life like a stallion at a stud farm. OK? And one more thing.' Now the eyes were blazing with a rage that was all-consuming. 'You need have no fear that what happened tonight will ever be repeated—you understand this? It was not planned, it was a momentary thing, a whim.' The scorn and contempt in his face as he slowly looked her over was almost more than she could bear. 'And it was not even particularly enjoyable.'
CHAPTER FOUR
She had deserved it. As Claire swam up and down the Olympic-size pool, putting every ounce of energy into the fierce exercise as though trying to purge her mind of everything but the physical, the thought that had haunted her since that dreadful night three weeks ago remained stark and clear. She had deserved those last cutting words Romano had growled at her, but, oh, that didn't make them any easier to swallow.
He had driven her home in a taut, arctic silence, she still ensconced in the massive robe, and she had left the car without a word outside Casa Pontina, watching him roar off down the drive with the sickening feeling that she had just made the biggest fool of herself ever, besides alienating Donato and Grace's best friend.
He had called by several times since then, but she had noticed that he carefully avoided being in the same room as her if he could help it. And although he had been very polite and tactful about it she hadn't been surprised when Grace had spoken to her after his first visit, her face concerned.
'Claire?' They had been sitting in Grace's own sitting room in the wing of the house Donato and Grace had christened Bambina Pontina when Donato had had it built. 'You and Romano didn't have an argument or anything on Saturday night, did you? Everything is all right between you two?'
'Of course.' The last thing she wanted to do was worry Grace at this stage in her pregnancy. 'Everything is fine, Grace, don't worry. I just don't think we are particularly compatible, that's all. We don't have anything in common to talk about—that's probably what you've sensed.'
'Unlike Signor de'Medici?' Grace responded with a teasing smile. 'I've noticed you two seem to have hit it off quite well.'
'Attilio is nice enough,' Claire said quietly, 'and he's certainly an excellent tutor. How long has he been teaching Lorenzo?'
'Some years. Liliana didn't want him to go away to school or attend one in the district. Lorenzo was only five when his father died and apparently he was quite badly affected at the time. Liliana felt the adjustment of schoolife on top of that would have been too great a burden on the child. Attilio was recommended by a friend of hers and he and Lorenzo liked each other from the start, so it was arranged he would teach Lorenzo from eight to two on weekdays. It's been very successful and he's very good with Lorenzo—and Benito,' she added wryly. 'Although he did put his foot down about having lessons in the same room as Benito.'
'I can understand that.' The parrot could be extremely vocal if he felt he wasn't getting his due share of attention.
'He's very good-looking, isn't he?' Grace remarked casually, although her eyes narrowed as she waited for Claire's response.
'I suppose so,' Claire answered vacantly. 'Yes, he's all right.'
'Just all right,' Grace repeated slowly. 'Oh, well…'
Claire climbed out of the pool now, and stood panting for a few moments in the cool air. It was the beginning of March and the day was a pleasant one, the temperature mild and soft, but the sun was still without any real warmth and the fierce heat of summer had yet to make an appearance.
She was just reaching for her robe, which she had placed at the pool's edge, when Lorenzo bounded into view, closely followed by Attilio. 'Oh, Claire, you aren't going, are you?' Lorenzo said immediately. 'Stay a little longer and have a game with us, please?'
'I
don't know…'
'It would be good if you stayed, Claire. I think maybe I shall be in trouble if you don't?' Attilio said lightly. 'This young man has been pestering me for a swim for the last half an hour, knowing you were out here, but I am a hard taskmaster and insisted he finished his work first'
She smiled uncertainly. Taken at face value there was nothing in the tutor's words to make her feel uneasy, but certainly in the last couple of weeks there had been one or two occasions when she had felt Attilio was attracted to her, and if he was feeling that way she didn't want to encourage it by word or action. He was good-looking—very good-looking—with his dark eyes and skin and light brown, almost blond hair, but although she enjoyed his company on a day-to-day level she didn't feel any interest beyond friendship.
Attilio had always been the perfect gentleman, as well as amusing and inoffensive, but he had somehow managed to wind the fact that he was at present unattached into their conversations, along with an outline of his pedigree, his preference for English and American girls, and his longing to settle down, at the age of twenty-nine, with the 'right' girl. There had been several incidents, like today, when he and Lorenzo had sought her out once their day's work was finished, and it just made her feel uncomfortable, knowing, as she did, that there could never be anything between them of a romantic nature.
'Come on, Claire.' Lorenzo decided the matter by the simple expedient of whisking her robe out of her hand and pulling her into the clear blue water, where the weak, watery sun caused the ripples to glitter and fragment into hundreds of tiny shiny waves as he splashed her playfully. 'We are going to have a game of tag and I will be it, yes?' He eyed her hopefully, smiling the charming smile he was so good at and widening his big brown eyes with their thick lashes until she was forced to capitulate.
'Just a few minutes, then.' In truth she felt happier now she was in the water again. Although the neat black swimming costume she had on concealed all of her torso, the way Attilio had looked at her had made her aware that the wet material clung like a second skin, outlining her small full breasts with their cold roughened tips as though she were naked. 'But you're too good at this.'
