by Helen Brooks
'So you are refusing to have dinner with me?' he asked grimly.
'Like I've said, it's not necessary. Grace and the babies are my first concern—my only concern,' she said firmly, the beat of her heart so loud now it was making her feel sick. 'So you can rest assured there is no air to clear. Good morning.'
She had put down the phone on the sound of him speaking her name and promptly burst into tears—something she had continued to do fairly often over the last six weeks when she was alone, she reflected now, trying to ignore the sight of the two men playing football with Lorenzo on the big lawn close to the pool.
She and Grace were sitting under the shade of the spreading branches of a huge willow tree some distance away, the two babies fast asleep in their carrycots between them with the odd grunt and snort to reassure Grace that all was well.
Claire purposely turned in her seat now, so that her back was to the pool as she reached for Grace's hand and said, 'They are going to be fine, you know. You don't have to keep poking them to make sure they still squeak.'
'I know.' Grace grinned shamefacedly. 'I really do know. It's just that they are so perfect and I love them so much. Lorenzo is marvellous with them, isn't he? I think he's quite fascinated, actually.'
'So's Benito.' Claire shook her head gently as she went on, 'If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would never have thought a parrot could be in love, but he's as near to it with these two as anything else. He's gone all soppy.'
'He's more than just a bird,' Grace said, with a peculiar note in her voice. 'If it hadn't been for him—'
'What?' Claire leant forward as Grace stopped speaking. 'What were you going to say?'
'If it hadn't been for Benito I don't know if Donato and I would be back together again,' Grace said slowly. 'We'd got ourselves in such a muddle, such a tangled web, and he helped out, that's all. Donato laughs at me, but I know Benito can think and reason—he's more intelligent than some people I know.'
'And certainly more vocal.' Claire's voice was slightly astringent. The parrot had taken to linking her and Romano's names together at every opportunity, and although Grace and Donato laughed, assuring her it was because of the babies, she didn't think so. He had done it more than once before the babies were born, and always with that long drawn-out 'ummmmm' which sounded so terribly thoughtful. It was as though the bird knew the secret desires of her heart and it made her uncomfortable. As did the secret desires, she admitted wryly.
The last six weeks could be likened to a form of painful torture, she thought as she settled back in her seat. After the furore of the night at the hospital she had expected that Romano would keep his visits to Casa Pontina to a bare minimum—enough to prevent Donato and Grace from suspecting all was not well but that was all. But instead it seemed as though he was forever popping in.
But that was probably what he always did, and May had been a beautiful month of clear blue skies and radiant heat that had just begged for barbecues and outside meals, she told herself wanly. It was natural he would choose to be with his friends rather than in the solitary splendour of his own home.
But it didn't help her deal with this love that had persisted in growing in spite of all her efforts to the contrary. She felt like a cat on a hot tin roof most of the time, forever aware of a tall, dark presence brooding in the background whatever she was doing. Like now. She turned and glanced over to where the men were now lazing by the pool, and even from some fifty yards away the somnolent power in the big, relaxed body made every muscle tighten.
Why couldn't he have a paunch? she thought crossly. Or bow legs? Anything to help combat this overwhelming attraction that was as physical as it was mental. And that was another thing—the more she had got to know him over the last few weeks, the more she had seen him with the family—especially Lorenzo, with whom he displayed a tender understanding that caught at her heart time and time again—the stronger her love grew. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair—but Grace still needed her here so she was trapped, like a pathetic little fly in the web of a big black spider.
She was aware of the very second the two men stood up, as Lorenzo leapt into the sparkling clear blue water of the pool, and of every step they took as they walked over the bowling-green-smooth lawn to where the women were sitting.
The sun, it is burning hot.' Romano's eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses as he spoke and she really wasn't sure if he was addressing her or not, but then he threw himself down by her feet and looked up at her, his jet-black hair, still a little damp from his swim in the pool some minutes earlier, curling slightly onto his tanned brow. 'You are wise to keep that fair English skin protected.'
'It isn't that fair,' she protested quickly, feeling, as she always did with him, that there was some slight intended. 'I'm not exactly a blue-eyed blonde, am I?'
'More of a velvet-eyed, smooth-skinned nervous little foal, I would say.' His voice was low and deep, but quite loud enough for the others to hear, its tone almost expressionless.
'I take exception to the "nervous".' She spoke lightly, the way she did to Lorenzo in one of their bantering sessions, but the analogy cut deep. He didn't have to remind her that she wasn't one of the voluptuous sensual females that seemed to be everywhere now the summer had started, she thought painfully. She was all too aware that the minuscule bikinis that covered the tiniest amounts of flesh on the slim golden bodies populating the beach were not for her—never again. And most of the girls were stunning, clothed or unclothed, anyway, with a confidence in themselves she had never had even before the accident.
'You are brave, then? Fierce, like the tigress?' he asked softly, the sunglasses hiding the expression in his eyes and his dark, hard face giving nothing away.
She hesitated, not sure if he was being nasty or merely teasing her a little. 'I don't know about fierce,' she said after a moment or two, 'but I'm not jumpy or neurotic, if that is what you were suggesting.'
'Not at all,' he murmured lazily. 'That would be most uncourteous, would it not?'
'Well, I don't suppose that would stop you for a minute if that was what you were thinking,' she answered frankly, before realising that she had let her tongue run away with her again.
'Ouch, I had forgotten that even little foals can give a hard kick if provoked.' But he was laughing, in that unrestrained, husky way that made her pulse beat a little faster and made her want to leap into his arms and cover his face with kisses. All of which would not exactly be appropriate, she thought as her heart gave one of the strange little jerks it was wont to do in his presence.
'Come and have a swim.' He was looking at her again, and she just knew that the conversation that had gone before had turned the invitation into a challenge. 'The water is beautifully warm.'
'Romano, the water is freezing,' Grace interrupted laughingly. 'I had a swim earlier and it's really cold.'
'You see—everyone has had a swim except for you, little foal.' He reached up a lazy hand and removed the sunglasses, his eyes narrowed against the splashes of bright white light filtering through the branches overhead. 'Donato and Grace are able to look after their children for two minutes while you cool down.!
The 'cool down' was a dig, indicating that he had got under her skin, she thought balefully as she looked into the handsome face staring up at her. Which he had. But there was no way she was going to admit it.
'Of course they are,' she agreed lightly. 'But I'm not dressed for swimming.' She indicated her sleeveless sun-top and long cotton skirt. 'Besides which we need to eat before long; I'm starving. Shall I go and ask Gina and Anna to bring out the food?' she asked Grace, standing up as she spoke.
'I'll come with you. There are a couple of bottles of Rubino di Piave in the cellar that will go very well with steak and chicken,' Grace said easily. 'We'll sort them out while the men get the barbecue going. OK, Donato?'
'No problem.'
No problem? Oh, she wished there wasn't a problem, Claire thought desper
ately as she walked back to the house with Grace, the sun burning hot on her unclad head and the air sweet and soft and richly scented. But there was—a huge, gigantic, gargantuan one—and these cosy foursomes, or sevensomes if you counted Lorenzo and the babies, she added wryly, were testing her to the limit.
Everything was against Romano ever feeling anything for her; in her brain she knew that. He was hugely rich, a sharp-witted and cynical man of the world who, in addition to his power and good looks, was possessed of a certain something that drew women to him like a magnet. He could have any woman he liked and he must know that. He would be viewed as the ultimate catch for most of the unattached women he came into contact with. And as if all that wasn't enough he had been married for some years to a stunningly beautiful woman he had clearly adored and still wasn't over. And she—she was not beautiful, stunningly or even mildly.
Why had he wanted her that night? Her brow wrinkled as she sought an answer to the question that had plagued her for weeks, and the only reply her heart gave her was…availability. She had been available, there at hand. It hurt, it cut deep, but she couldn't lie to herself. Everything he had said and done had made it clear it would have been a one-night stand, something pleasant but meaningless…to him. And to her? It would have destroyed her. She just couldn't have given herself to him and then walked away as he had expected. She couldn't.
He had seen her as a pleasant diversion and she had seen him—saw him—as the man she would love for the rest of her life. There was no meeting point.
The barbecue and the afternoon passed like the ones before it, pleasantly, with lots of lively conversation and tongue-in-cheek banter—to all intents and purposes an enjoyable Saturday spent in the company of good friends. But later that evening, as the adults sat drinking coffee in the drawing room with the windows open to the last of the dusky light, Claire knew if she stayed one more minute in the room she was going to shout and scream and tear her hair out.
'It's getting late.' She stood up slowly, as though her head wasn't near to bursting point, and gestured to the gardens outside. 'I think Lorenzo is still down by the pool. I'll fetch him, shall I?'
'Gina or Anna will do it,' Grace said quickly.
'No, it's all right, I'd rather. I've got the beginnings of a headache and a few minutes in the fresh air might clear it.' Claire gave the bright, sweeping smile she had perfected in the last few weeks, which brushed over Romano's face in just the same way as it did the others. 'You all finish your coffee. I won't be a minute.'
Once outside she stood for a moment with her eyes closed and her face lifted to the darkening sky, oblivious to the river of grey and gold above her and the faint twitterings and melodious birdsong all around as nature settled down for the night. The air was still beautifully warm, but without the fierce heat of the day, and a faint breeze touched her face in a whisper of a caress.
Grace or no Grace, she would have to leave here— and soon. She had a solid ache in the place where her heart was all the time now, and everything about Sorrento was getting deeper and deeper into the very fibre of her being, its influence insidious.
Grace was coping wonderfully well with the babies and she had plenty of help with Anna and Gina to hand. She knew her friend had appreciated her presence before the birth of the twins and in the early days afterwards, when she had been a little tearful and emotional, but she was back to being the old Grace now—happy and perfectly content.
She began to walk down to the pool as her thoughts solidified. Yes, she would go soon—maybe even next week. She was beginning to feel so lacerated inside she really couldn't stay any longer.
'Help! Please…' For a moment, a split second after she heard the cry and gurgling moan she froze, and then she was running over the grass like the wind, calling as she went.
'Lorenzo? Lorenzo, I'm coming. Hang on—hang on…'
How long Lorenzo had been struggling in the water she didn't know, but she could see immediately that he had cramp, his face and body contorted in agony and his mad thrashing frightening as he went under the water.
She leapt straight in, surfacing just a few feet from where he had gone under. She could see he was still moving under the water and that he wasn't on the bottom of the pool, and she dived down beside him, grasping him round the chest with one arm as she made for the life-giving air above them.
They surfaced once, both gasping and spluttering, but Lorenzo's panic-stricken struggles and her long skirt, which had draped itself round her legs, made keeping afloat impossible, and they went under the water again in a mad tangle of limbs as Lorenzo pulled her down with him.
Without thinking about it, she kicked away from his hold, her hands tearing at the fastening of her skirt. Once she was free from its constriction she grasped Lorenzo again, his back against her chest as she forced them both up through the water that was suddenly such an enemy to the surface.
'Relax—relax. Listen to me, you'll drown us both…' She doubted if Lorenzo could hear her as he gasped and choked and twisted in her hold until he was facing her, his arms locked round her neck in a stranglehold, and then they were going down for the third time—and she began to feel as frightened as he was.
The relief she felt as Lorenzo's arms were whipped from her neck made her limp for a moment, but then, as she felt herself being hauled upwards by her hair, the pain made her kick out for the light above.
'Claire? You are OK for a moment?' She was aware that she was sucking in great mouthfuls of air, her eyes and nose and throat smarting and burning, but she managed to nod and gasp, 'I'm all right—go on,' as Romano let go of her and concentrated fully on Lorenzo, who was horribly still.
By the time Romano reached the side of the pool Donato and Grace were there to help haul Lorenzo out, and as Donato turned his younger brother over and began to apply artificial respiration, which almost immediately caused Lorenzo to choke and heave, Romano cut through the water again to Claire's side.
She was still trying to breathe. 'It's all right, I'm all right…' she gasped. But he took no notice of her protestations, turning her round and drawing her back to the side of the pool with his arm round her chest.
'Claire—oh, Claire.' Grace was almost hysterical. 'We didn't hear you. Donato and me, we didn't hear you, but then all of a sudden Romano was up and out of his chair like a bullet. Oh, you could have drowned— you could have both drowned.' She was kneeling by the side of Donato and Lorenzo, the latter now sitting up in his brother's arms. 'For this to happen…'
'Enough, Grace.' Romano's voice was soft. 'She is quite safe. But perhaps you can go ahead and organise baths and hot drinks for both of them and we will follow. Donato, you will take Lorenzo?'
Donato was clearly in shock, it showed in the whiteness of his face and the way he was clasping Lorenzo to him, but he nodded slowly, rising with Lorenzo in his arms as Romano helped Claire from the pool.
And it was only in that moment, when it was far too late, that she realised the worst had happened. Her concern for Lorenzo, her own fear and shock and the numbing effects of the water, had blinded her to the fact that her skirt was gone and her brief, bikini-style pants revealed most of her stomach.
She knew he must have seen the faint, thread-like lines that were pale and silvery on her skin, even though the hard, handsome face remained the same in the second before he lifted her up into his arms, but there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, she realised with sickening clarity.
'I can walk. There's no need—'
'Be still. You are not walking. You almost drowned out there,' he said tightly. 'Why the hell didn't you call me?'
She could feel his hair-roughened chest against her cold skin as he held her close to his heart, his shirt having come open in the rescue, and the touch and feel and texture of his maleness was causing her head to swim. Nevertheless, she rallied sufficiently to say, with some heat, 'Don't be so stupid—there wasn't time. I heard him call and I knew I had to get there at once
.'
'At risk to your own life?' he bit out grimly. 'If I hadn't heard you call the pair of you could be lying at the bottom of the pool by now, do you realise that?'
'It's not my fault.' She couldn't believe they were having this conversation, and the unfairness of it brought hot tears to the back of her eyes. 'Are you saying I should have let him drown? I couldn't… There just wasn't time…'
'Shh…shh.' As her voice wobbled he stopped and lowered his head, looking down at her with glittering black eyes, his face all planes and shadows in the dusky scented gloom. 'I really do not know whether to spank you or kiss you, do you know that?' he said surprisingly.
It was so unlike anything she had expected him to say that she could only stare at him with great liquid eyes, her body continuing to register the thrill of his taut male-ness, the slight muskiness of his skin, the raw sensuality in his face.
'Claire…' His voice was husky and low, and he paused for a moment before he continued, 'You were brave—very brave.'
He had been going to say something else, she knew it, and she also knew it would have come from the heart of him, the real man, which was why the drawbridge had suddenly been raised so swiftly. Something had stopped him. She remembered his eyes on her skin, and felt a disappointment and pain so acute it stopped her breath.
Damaged goods. The accusation was there, hot and sharp, before she fiercely denied it—and him. 'Let me down. I can walk—'
'You are not walking,' he interrupted tightly.
'You can't tell me what to do—'
'Well, it is about time someone did.' And then his mouth had claimed hers, possessing it hungrily and with something approaching fury. His breathing was ragged as he crushed her into him, their wet clothing accentuating the hard thrust of her nipples against his muscled chest and the damp heat of their bodies as desire rose.
Donato had disappeared by now, and in the last few minutes the shadows of night had encroached quickly, the sky a charcoal blanket overhead with the first stars already beginning to make their appearance. The birds were silent, and there was no sound to be heard from the house in the distance or from the world beyond Casa Pontina's boundaries. They could have been the only two people alive.
