She’d forgotten that he was a flesh and blood man. She’d forgotten that their time together had been wonderful because he’d been wonderful... No, she hadn’t forgotten. She’d just convinced herself it had all been an act while he’d had his fun with her.
Guilt that Finn and Tonino never had the chance to be father and son from birth gnawed at her. She remembered carrying the guilt in her...
A new memory flashed in her mind and sent her heart racing anew, of searching Tonino’s name online and finding a picture of him and a new woman. She’d effectively cyber-stalked him, she suddenly remembered. She’d searched his name most days.
She remembered Finn reacting to her reaction to Tonino and the new woman by giving a huge kick. She must have seen that picture shortly before the accident because Finn had only really started kicking her belly with gusto a few weeks before it.
Orla thought hard, trying to remember who the new woman had been, but the memory refused to form. It would come in its own time. The memories refused to be forced, especially the significant ones.
Orla thought again about that woman later that evening while soaking in the bath. Tonino had announced that he was taking her out for dinner, leaving the duty nurse in charge of Finn. He’d refused to listen to a word of argument against it.
They’d dined on his rooftop veranda the night before, a relaxed meal under a starry sky with the waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea a distant roar.
But the relaxed vibe had been a lie. Orla had spent the evening with a kaleidoscope of large-winged butterflies dancing a storm in her belly. Every time their eyes had met she’d been certain he’d been remembering what had happened in the back of his car. She’d been on tenterhooks for him to allude to it or make a move on her, but when she’d announced at ten p.m. that she was tired and going to bed, he’d inclined his head, raised his glass and wished her a good night.
She’d walked away feeling the burn of his stare scorching her, then crawled into bed unsure whether she was relieved or frustrated.
She should not feel so damned excited at the thought of being alone with him. The dancing butterflies in her belly and the buzz of anticipation bouncing over her skin were traps.
She must remember that Tonino had an ulterior motive in taking her out for dinner just as he had an ulterior motive with everything he did. That ulterior motive was Finn. The incredible effort Tonino was making for her to feel at home and at ease, the beautiful bedroom he’d appointed for her with the triple-aspect windows and private bathroom Cleopatra would consider die-worthy, the walk-in wardrobe filled with brand-new clothing specially selected by a personal shopper under Tonino’s instructions especially for her...
She must not let her head be swayed by it all because she knew exactly what he was doing it for—he was making her see how great it would be to marry him. He was making her see all the things he could give her and all the perks she would receive by being his wife. He thought those things would impress her and turn her head. He didn’t know her head didn’t need turning. It had been turned four years ago and she’d never got over it.
Ultimately, it was Finn he wanted, not Orla. He was just using her as a means to have his son in his life permanently. She couldn’t blame him for it.
By the time she’d dressed in a scoop-neck silver dress that fell to her knees and had the requisite long sleeves, and a pair of black glittery heels, she stared at her reflection. She stared at the mirror for so long she half expected a voice to emerge from it.
What would the voice say? Would it laugh at her and say that it didn’t matter how she looked with clothes on because any sexual interest Tonino had for her would be extinguished like a candle if he saw her naked?
A part of her thought she should go knocking on his door, whip her dress up to expose the scars and brazenly say, ‘There you go. Still fancy me, do you?’
If she couldn’t bear to look at her scars herself, how could she ever trust Tonino enough to see them and not use them as a weapon against her?
CHAPTER TEN
THE NIGHT THAT unfolded was one of the best of Orla’s life. Tonino drove them in a tiny vintage car that must have been older than the pair of them combined to Palermo, where they dined in the tiniest restaurant she had ever set foot in, which held the grand total of eight tables. Despite its diminutive proportions, the restaurant had a zest to it that could have lifted the lowest of spirits. Loud but not overbearing music pulsed from walls adorned with clever and funny artwork. The food...
‘It’s just as well I’m not a fussy eater,’ she confided when the music dipped low enough for Tonino to hear. The restaurant did not provide a menu. It served three courses of whatever the chef had dreamt up that day, take it or leave it. Having eaten her first course, the most divinely cooked octopus served on a pea and mint broth, with the largest langoustine she’d ever seen accompanying it, she was firmly in the ‘take it’ camp.
‘That’s why I brought you here.’ He grinned, making her already noodly bones soften even more. Under the subtle lighting, his handsome features had become more defined. With his magnificent body snug in black chinos and a charcoal shirt open at the neck, it was all she could do not to salivate. The man was a walking stick of testosterone.
Tonino was glad he’d followed his instincts and brought Orla here rather than one of Palermo’s classier restaurants. This place was one of Sicily’s hidden gems, a restaurant that operated on a word-of-mouth basis. If the owner didn’t want you there, reserving a table was impossible. If the owner liked you, reserving a table with only hours’ notice was easy.
He’d guessed Orla would prefer the informality here but also relish the opportunity to dress up. Four years ago, when she’d been short of money, she’d made an effort with her appearance. Orla was a woman with an eye for fashion, her clothes back then cheap but stylish. She still had that eye but the quality had markedly increased to reflect her increased bank balance.
Time, he was learning, had changed Orla, yet dig beneath the surface and the fundamental essence of who she was remained the same.
Life had dealt her the severest of blows and she was still picking the pieces of it up. He needed to make her see that, together, the pieces could be mended far more effectively than if she remained alone. He needed to make himself indispensable to her and Finn.
While they ate their second course of spaghetti and clams, the music being piped through the restaurant was turned off and a violin quartet appeared. Instead of playing the classical music all the diners anticipated, they tapped their feet and drove straight into a rock classic.
Orla clapped her hands and grinned widely, clearly loving the twist.
‘You like?’ he murmured, thinking for the hundredth time that evening how beautiful she looked.
She nodded enthusiastically. ‘Very much.’
Picking up her fork, she twirled some spaghetti around it and popped it in her mouth, all the while her shoulders danced along to the rock beats.
Tonino found his attention caught with Orla rather than the entertainment. She held his attention like no one else. She always had.
She began nodding her head in time to the music along with her shoulders and absently tucked a lock of her dark hair behind a dainty ear.
He inhaled deeply then exhaled slowly.
He remembered her performing similar moves four years ago at a beachside reggae bar he’d taken her to one evening when he’d decided they needed a short break from his bedroom for food. As his cooking skills consisted entirely of opening packets, and as he hadn’t at that point been ready to confess his true identity and so couldn’t order a member of his household staff over to his apartment to whip up a four-course meal for them, he’d taken her out, intending to find a semi-decent restaurant. The music pumping from the reggae bar had made Orla’s beautiful face widen into a beam and they’d ended up there, sitting at a wooden table on the beach, a blanket cov
ering their laps against the sea breeze, drinking mojitos and sharing a large basket of chips.
It was a memory that had stayed with him. When he thought of the dates he’d been on in his life, that had been by far the best. The simplicity of the setting mixed with the growing realisation that Orla’s feelings for him were entirely for him...
He wouldn’t rewrite history by denying that he’d been a player until his engagement to Sophia. Women had flocked to him and he’d welcomed their attentions while not being under the least illusion that their interest wasn’t in part to do with his wealth. If he’d come from a poor family, many of them—Sophia included—would not have looked twice at him.
Orla had huddled under that blanket sharing chips with him, oblivious that he was worth more than a small nation.
If he could turn back time and re-enact history, he would return to that night and tell her the truth of who he was. His mistake had been to not trust her with the truth. He’d been afraid the truth would change how she was with him.
He should have realised that night that his wealth would mean little to her. For Orla, money was a means to an end. Her brother’s wealth had been welcome only for what it could do to improve Finn’s life. Orla didn’t value possessions. She valued family. She valued those she loved.
Driving them back home, Tonino opened a window to get some fresh air into his lungs. He felt lightheaded even though he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol.
Awareness throbbed through him, his mind busy recalling the way she’d wiggled her shoulders to the music; he shot surreptitious glances at her, catching the surreptitious glances she kept shooting back at him... So shot was his concentration that it was a miracle they made it back in one piece.
He brought the car to a stop in the courtyard. A member of his staff would park it in the underground garage for him.
For a long time they just sat there, the only sound their individual breaths.
He turned to face her at the exact moment she turned to face him. The soft lighting of the courtyard’s perimeter cast her in an ethereal shadow that made his lungs tighten along with his loins at the beauty before him.
He reached out to capture a lock of her hair in his fingers.
She stilled, eyes wide on his as if in a trance.
‘Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?’ he whispered, releasing the lock of hair to trace his fingers around the rim of her ear.
She shivered at his touch. Her breathing deepened.
Lowering his tone to a purr, he spoke into her hair. ‘I have spent the night fantasising about us making love.’
Orla knew Tonino’s seductive words and tone were deliberate. His voice had always been an aphrodisiac to her, something he’d taken full advantage of four years ago and which she knew he would not hesitate to use as a weapon again. Her shameful lack of resistance was her own fault.
She tried to breathe, tried to grit her teeth in a form of mental defence, all the while praying, Please don’t touch my body...
Her aching body begged to differ. Her aching body craved his touch.
When he’d touched her in the back of his car she’d melted into butter.
His finger drifted down her neck to the top of her chest then skimmed lightly, almost nonchalantly, over a breast.
Her insides became liquid and she instinctively pressed the tops of her thighs together, a motion she knew didn’t escape his attention. Nothing escaped Tonino Valente’s attention.
His hot breath whispered through the strands of her hair to burn her scalp. ‘We should go in.’
She swallowed and instead of the bright, ‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea, I’m tired and want to go to bed. Alone. See you in the morning!’ she intended, all she managed was something that sounded like, ‘Hmm?’
‘I said we should go inside...unless you want me to make love to you right here in the car in the middle of the courtyard?’
The liquid inside her heated to unbearable levels. The finger that had skimmed her breast had settled on its underside and was making the lightest circular motions that had her wanting to grab his hand and place it over her breast properly. She wanted to feel his hand there without the barrier of clothes, to feel the heady sensations that had so enraptured her all those years ago.
While her body’s responses contradicted everything in her brain, his hand swept over her belly then left her body altogether to unlock her seat belt.
For a moment all she could do was stare into his hooded eyes before the tiniest smile curved on his firm lips and she was suffused in his scent as he leaned over her to open her door.
She got out of the car, her legs like overcooked spaghetti, a different kind of weakness than she usually felt in her limbs. This weakness was nothing to do with her brain. It was all to do with Tonino. Her legs would have felt like spaghetti even without the after-effects of the accident still grabbing at her.
Orla stared up at the black night sky and prayed for the strength to resist this undeniable attraction.
Attraction? If her tongue weren’t so tied to the roof of her mouth she would laugh at this pathetic description of the powerful feelings engulfing her.
All the years when she’d tried so hard to remember his name, his face had haunted both her dreams and her waking hours. Her first dream of him after the accident, around the time the doctors had ended her sedation, had been so vivid and real that if she’d been able to get off the bed and walk she would have stalked every inch of the hospital for him.
The accident had wiped his name from her memory bank. It had wiped their time together. It had wiped Sophia’s confrontation with her and Orla’s discovery of his lies.
The one thing it hadn’t wiped, apart from the image of his face, was her feelings for him. But only in her dreams had she dared let those feelings out.
Her heart thumping hard against her ribs, she walked beside him into the chateau and slipped her shoes off. There was not a sound to be heard within the thick stone walls.
Not until they reached the sleeping quarters did she manage to untie her tongue. ‘I need to check on Finn.’
She turned the handle of her son’s bedroom door and slipped inside. The night light in the corner of the room gave just enough illumination for her to see him sleeping peacefully. The adjoining door to the nurse’s room was ajar. Loud snores could be heard from it.
Orla watched her son sleep until the thuds of her heart settled into a gentle rhythm. She crept silently back out, her heart lifting right back to a canter when she found Tonino with his back against the corridor wall, arms loosely crossed over his chest, waiting for her.
Their eyes met. His chest rose.
Her throat caught.
Long, electrified moments passed before Tonino unfolded his arms. Straightening, he took a step towards her.
Her bare feet refused her brain’s order to move into the safety of her bedroom, remaining rooted to the terracotta floor.
Two more steps and the distance between them had closed.
A muscular arm hooked around her waist and pulled her flush against him.
She gasped and gazed up at the face that had haunted her dreams for so, so long. Another long, electrified stare passed between them.
She gasped again as she was lifted off her feet, a gasp smothered by the firm, sensuous mouth she had kissed a thousand times in her dreams crushing her lips.
Oh, but this was a kiss that could turn a nun’s head, never mind a love-starved Irishwoman whose heart had been given to, then broken by, the only man her body had ever ached for. A thousand brand-new feelings erupted in her and, wrapping her arms around his neck, she returned the kiss with all the passion in her soul, scraping her fingers down his nape as their tongues collided and their mouths moulded into one.
Heat fizzed through her veins as her every atom made a collective sigh that had her tightening h
er hold on him.
Tonino held her just as tightly. Only when they finally came up for air did he remove an arm from her waist and reach out for the door handle, pushing it open before wrapping the arm back around her.
Orla found herself being half carried into an intensely masculine bedroom. The tips of her toes swished gracefully over thick carpet until she was twisted around and the backs of her legs met resistance in the form of a humongous four-poster bed, which her bottom fell onto.
Immediately he sank down to kneel on the floor before her. Tonino was so tall that with him kneeling and her sitting on the bed, they became the same height.
Large hands cupped her cheeks, dark brown eyes swirling with desire pulsed straight into her. He breathed heavily. ‘Amore mio...’ he muttered thickly against her lips, before plundering her mouth anew, his kisses feverish and wet and fierce with intensity.
Another rush of sensory feelings exploded in her. It was as if all her passion for Tonino had been locked away in a box similar to the box that had contained her memories of him, waiting for him to prise the lid open with a kiss like the prince from a fairy tale.
The fever in Tonino’s kisses was matched by the fever in her response. She felt drugged. Her aching body craved his touch and craved to touch him, to feel the bristles of his chest hair against her cheek. She wanted to rub her nose into it and bite at the brown nipples as she knew she’d done before.
Her fingers unbuttoned his shirt so expertly she could only assume it was muscle memory from the days when she must have unbuttoned his shirt before working for her. In moments she had it undone and was pulling it apart and tugging the sleeves down his arms.
Her Sicilian Baby Revelation Page 11
