'With hindsight, probably from that night. I kissed you and went up in flames.'
'Don't lie to me, Dex,' Beth said quietly. 'We both know that isn't true.'
'True? What is truth?' Dex demanded, looking into her worried eyes. 'You want the truth—I will give it to you. You know I have been married before, that my wife left me for an older, richer man?'
'That must have been hard.'
'Not really. I had long since stopped loving her—if I ever did. She was the first woman I had sex with, so I married her. She then proceeded to dole out her favours—very occasionally, and only after I had presented her with a suitably expensive piece of jewellery. She was a mercenary, frigid bitch, but it took me five years to realise it.'
Beth could her the anger in his voice. 'I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about it. . .'
'Yes, I do, Beth, because she coloured my view of women for years. Until I met you I had never been out with the same woman more than a couple of times. I am not proud of how I have lived my life, I admit, but when I met you I had no intention of changing.' He tenderly smoothed her hair down the side of her head, and dropped a soft kiss on her brow.
'But with you I met my Waterloo, Beth, darling. I kept telling myself I was seeing you to keep you away from Paul for Anna's sake, but I think I knew deep down I loved you. I vowed after my divorce I would never give another woman a piece of jewellery, and yet I found myself quite happily standing in a jeweller's shop, picking out a ring for you. The day after we got engaged and I went to New York I finally admitted to myself I loved you. A week in your company and I missed you so badly I wanted to phone you a dozen times a day.'
'You didn't, though,' Beth said, remembering her own doubts at the time. 'You didn't even tell me where you lived, about this house. . . Did you share it with your wife?' She still had doubts, she realised.
"The villa was built after my divorce, and, no, I didn't phone you as I wanted to. And then I got back to England, and the conversation you overheard. Well, it was my last-ditch attempt to pretend I was not desperately in love with you. I made myself have a drink with Bob. Bob knows me well, and I think he guessed the truth when I told him I had given you an engagement ring. I said the things I did to him because I was on the defensive, but in my heart I knew I wanted you and I was going to marry you.' His grey eyes hardened. 'I made myself delay seeing you only to discover you were out. Then you kept me waiting for hours and gave me my marching orders.'
She could hear the underlying fury in his tone. 'Only because I thought you were using me,' she responded, and gently stroked her fingers through the crisp hair on his broad chest. He caught her hand in his and placed it around his waist, one long leg moving restlessly against her thigh.
'What price truth, then, Beth? You could have told me.'
'Pride,' Beth said sadly. 'Plain pride. I thought, why should I tell you about Paul and put you and your sister out of your misery? It was nothing to do with me. And later, well. . .you were so angry. . .'
'Later. . . ' Dex sighed, a deep frown creasing his brow. 'I behaved like an animal. Afterwards I stood in that tiny bathroom of yours for ages, afraid to come out, afraid to face you. And then you said I'd forced you, and, heaven help me, I still wonder. Can you ever forgive me for that night, Beth?'
How could she have let him think that? Especially now she knew how his ex-wife had treated him. 'Oh, Dex!' She stroked her hand up his back. 'There was nothing to forgive. I'm ashamed to admit I only said that because Í was shocked at how much I wanted you and how much I—well. . .' She looked away, still shy even though they had been as close as it was possible for two people to be.
'Well, what?' He caught her chin and turned her back to face him, his silver eyes boring into hers.
'How much I enjoyed—no, loved what you did to me. Then I felt shocked, ashamed at my own reaction, and I took it out on you.'
A slow smile of pure male pride curved his sensuous mouth. 'And I took it out on you, in a way. I resented the fact that I had fallen in love with you, but in my conceit I thought you would be forever grateful I was going to marry you. My pride was shattered when you had the nerve to jilt me.'
'But you came back,' Beth said breathlessly as his hand trailed down from her breast and settled low on her stomach. 'Halloween night. And you tried to blackmail me.'
'Ah, yes, the party,' Dex drawled huskily, lowering his head and brushing her lips with his. 'Seeing you in that cat costume has caused me more erotic dreams than I dare think about.'
'You wouldn't really have cost Mike his job?' Beth asked, just as he was about to kiss her again.
'I can't blame you for asking, but, no, I would never do anything that would harm you. It was the last, desperate try of a man crazy with love but not prepared to admit it. When you didn't call the next morning, I rang you.'
'That's right,' Beth realised. 'The phone woke me up.' But there was still something she didn't understand. 'If you knew you loved me, why were you so furious with me on Friday night?'
'On Friday I had just flown in from New York. Anna had not seen fit to tell me anything about the wedding, simply the time and place, and I arrived to see you kissing Paul. I yelled at you because I was mad with jealousy, and then when you explained I felt a complete fool. I hoped to talk to you later that night, try and start afresh.'
'I did think you looked a bit nervous when you came into my bedroom. This room.' She smiled up at him.
'You are so innocent, Beth.' His hand slid from her stomach to stroke back up her body and settle softly over one breast. Not for much longer, if Dex has his way, Beth thought, as her nipple hardened beneath his palm and she moved her hips restlessly from side to side.
He chuckled, his thumb flicking the nub of her breast. 'I can laugh now. But have you any idea what it does to a man's ego to have the woman he loves tell him she overslept? I spent the whole night at my hotel unable to sleep, waiting to hear your answer. And you overslept!'
'The answer was no, anyway,' she murmured, and nestled closer to his hard frame, rubbing one of her shapely legs against his muscular hair-covered one.
'I guessed as much. You're not the type of woman to be bullied into anything,' he opined with an ironic smile. 'And God knows, I've tried.'
'I noticed,' she teased, and then frowned. 'But yesterday you ignored me almost all day.'
'Ignored you!' Dex grinned, his silver eyes gleaming with wicked delight. 'My god, Beth, I didn't dare look at you. When I saw you in the red suit again, my body reacted much the same way as it is now.' He flung a long leg over her slim hips and made her vitally aware of his aroused state.
'I could barely walk straight all day. I wanted to kill Bob for talking to you, but I didn't dare stay beside you myself. And as for dancing with you, I couldn't trust myself not to have you on the dance floor.'
'Dex, that's terrible!' She laughed, finally believing this proud, handsome man did love her.
He roiled over her completely. 'Truthfully, Beth, I resented the way you made me feel. I don't like to be out of control. And this morning, when you slept in again, after I'd had another sleepless night, I was furious. I thought, why waste my time yearning for a girl who obviously cares so little she doesn't lose so much as a minute's sleep over me? But when I saw you in the sea. . . Pride, conditioning—nothing mattered but that I told you how I feel. I love you and I want you to marry me. And you still haven't answered.'
'Yes,' she murmured, and answered him in the most convincing way. She slipped one hand around his neck as her other hand traced down over his hip and around his thigh.
Dex groaned and covered her mouth with his. This time it was a long, slow loving, and at the end Beth opened her eyes and watched his dark face contort in rigid lines of ecstasy before she was swept along in a torrent of sensations, her eyes closing, and she cried out as they reached the ultimate release together.
'Are you all right?'
She heard his voice and slowly opened her eyes. She could feel his heart slam
ming against his chest where he lay on top of her, her own equally as erratic. 'I'm. . .I'm fine,' she whispered, and, lifting her hand, she pushed back the errant black curl from his damp brow.
His grey eyes were almost black as they held hers. "The rare times I could sleep I used to dream of you like this,' he rasped. 'Your glorious hair spread across my pillow, your luscious body beneath mine. But my dreams came nowhere near the reality, Beth.' He gently rubbed his mouth against hers. 'I want you to know it has never been like this for me before. . .ever. . .'
Beth wrapped her arms around him and hugged him to her. 'I'm glad,' she sighed.
'You are the only woman in the world for me and I will cherish you to my dying day. Understand?' Dex said, almost fiercely.
So typical of Dex, Beth thought, rejoicing in his avowal of love. Even when he was at his most vulnerable, sated with love and laying his heart at her feet, the arrogant, powerful man still shone through. She smiled lazily up at him. 'I understand,' she said demurely, and kissed him.
Dex rolled over and pulled her gently into his arms. 'Are you warm enough?'
Beth laughed out loud. 'If I was any hotter the sheets would catch fire and your housekeeper. . .' She sat up. 'Oh, my God. It's the middle of the day-—anyone could walk in.' Her eyes slid down over his naked body and she blushed.
'Don't panic. The housekeeper and her son always have Sunday afternoon off.' Dex chuckled, amused by her embarrassment at his nudity.
'I've missed my plane. I have to go to work tomorrow.' In the euphoria of discovering Dex loved her, Beth had forgotten the more mundane aspects of life.
'Forget it.' Dex caught her around the waist and pulled her down on top of him. 'You don't have to work any more; you're going to be my wife.'
'A lady of leisure?' Beth queried. 'I don't think I'd like that,' she told him seriously, resting her arms on his chest and staring down at him.
'Remember the first time I visited your apartment?'
'What has that got to do with anything?' Beth asked. He wasn't taking her desire to work seriously.
'You have a computer for your graphic art, but you also keep a drawing board. Maybe you are more like your father than you know. I could convert one of the rooms here into a studio for you. Think about it, Beth. Given a choice, which do you prefer? Hands-on art or sitting at a computer?'
'You're right. . .you know me so well.' She looked down into his eyes and he grinned, his hands sliding down over her bottom.
'And now I'm going to know you again,' he drawled throatily. And he did. . .
Eighteen months later, the priest and a group of people stood outside the little church on the Isle of Capri in the spring sunshine.
'If they're not here in the next five minutes it will be too late. I have another baptism at ten-thirty,' the priest told Mr Morris—who was holding his own one-year-old boy in his arms—and Mrs Morris, the prospective godparents.
A white Mercedes drew up with a squeal of brakes. Dexter and Bethany Giordanni got out, Dex carrying a small infant in his arms. They raced up to the church door, Beth very red-faced, her husband suffering from no such embarrassment.
'What happened to you, Dexter? You're twenty minutes late for your child's christening,' Anna reprimanded her brother.
Dex turned, looking at Beth, his silver eyes brilliant with reminiscent pleasure. Beth blushed even redder and Dex, with a wicked wink, turned back to his sister and said, 'We overslept.' And, with his baby girl in one arm and his other arm around his wife, he swept past an open-mouthed Anna into the church. . .
Giorganni's Proposal Page 16
