Ultimate Temptation (Harlequin Presents)

by Sara Craven

  ‘I imagine it’s a family trait.’ She drank some more of the juice. ‘And if I decide to ignore your command?’

  The amber eyes met hers starkly and sombrely. He said, ‘Then I shall make you sorry—sorry that you ever came here.’

  ‘You’re too late, signore.’ Lucy lifted her chin. ‘I already regret it more than anything in my life. So, what have I got to lose?’

  The silence between them seemed to stretch into eternity. She saw his face harden into a bronze mask. Watched him take one long stride towards her. And stop, as if he’d suddenly found himself on the brink of some abyss.

  He said with remote civility, ‘In that case, signorina, there is no more to be said.’

  Then the door to the salotto opened and Fiammetta came in on a gale of laughing apologies, the children following in her wake.

  Lucy went over to the window, staring unseeingly at the shadows falling across the garden.

  She thought, So that’s that. And wished with all her heart that she could feel relief instead of this aching wilderness of desolation.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IF LUCY hadn’t been feeling so raw, dinner at the Villa Dante that evening would have been almost funny.

  Philip, seated by the contessa, found all his conversational overtures either stonily blocked or sent whistling past his ear in the verbal equivalent of a passing shot, however much charm he exerted. Before the melon and prosciutto was finished, and the next course of chicken in a wine sauce served, he had developed a hunted look.

  Angela, in a cream silk sheath which would probably have cost Lucy three months’ salary, and did more than justice to her seductive cleavage and long, shapely legs, was focusing all her attention on Giulio. The lowered voice, the body language which virtually excluded everyone else at the table with one turn of her shoulder, the hand toying with his cuff button, the soft, breathy giggles—all these proclaimed a long-established and unassailable intimacy.

  Which Giulio’s own behaviour did nothing to contradict, Lucy admitted fairly and with pain. He was relaxed, the dark face amused and intent as he responded to his companion.

  Lucy’s forebodings, it seemed, had been perfectly justified. Philip, she addressed him silently, you haven’t a prayer. So much for your romantic holiday. All this and the Uffizi too.

  She concentrated her own efforts on persuading the children to sit still and eat, and lending an ear to Fiammetta’s rapturous description of the apartment in New York that they would all be moving into in the autumn.

  She too would move, she decided. She might even change jobs when she got back to London. Make a whole fresh start. Seek forgetfulness and healing in a frenzy of activity and new horizons. And pray that it worked.

  Marco nudged her. ‘When does the day start?’ he whispered conspiratorially. ‘The day when we have to be good.’

  ‘Right this minute,’ she whispered back. ‘Twenty-four whole hours. So no being horrid in the night.’

  His crestfallen air suggested that plans for tormenting Emilia had been well advanced. Then, with a philosophical shrug, he applied himself to his peach ice cream.

  It was when coffee was served and the carafes of grappa and Vin Santo appeared on the table that everything suddenly changed.

  The contessa, ignoring Philip, was talking to Fiammetta, waving a languid hand as she made a point, when Giulio leaned forward.

  ‘My dear Claudia.’ His voice was silky. ‘I see you are wearing the Falcone ring tonight. Does this mean you are returning it at last?’

  The contessa glanced at her hand. The ring in question, Lucy saw, was a spectacular ruby in an antique gold setting.

  ‘Caro Giulio,’ she purred. ‘How wicked of you to raise such a subject with strangers present. We surely do not need to—wash our linen in public.’

  Giulio shrugged indifferently. ‘My attempts to do so privately have been fruitless. As your lawyers have told you on several occasions, the ring is an heirloom, not a piece of costume jewellery, and should have been given back to the Falcone estate after my father’s death.’

  ‘In order that the new Conte Falcone might present it to his wife?’ Claudia Falcone gave a silvery laugh. ‘But you have no wife, mio caro. Indeed, you are becoming quite famous for remaining single.’

  She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. ‘So—the matter is in your own hands.’ Her smiling glance rested obliquely on Angela. ‘All you have to do is gratify the wish of my heart by announcing your engagement, and I shall willingly bestow the ring on your bride to be.’

  She stretched out her hand, studying the ruby at arm’s length. It glowed like blood and fire on her thin finger.

  ‘This is a tiresome argument,’ Giulio Falcone said coldly. ‘My marriage plans have no bearing on the issue. The ring belongs to the estate whether or not I stay a bachelor to the end of my days.’

  ‘And is that what you intend?’ Her arched brows lifted in challenge.

  ‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘I shall be married before the year is out. But that—forgive me, my dear Claudia—is no concern of yours. And the presentation of the jewel to my fidanzata is also a private matter, not some ritual devised and orchestrated by you.’

  ‘What a drama.’ Claudia laughed again, but a tiny muscle twitched at the side of her mouth. ‘We should apologise to our guests, caro, for subjecting them to this boring family squabble.’ She looked at Giulio, her eyes hard, her lips thin. ‘I cherish the ring in memory of your dear father. I cannot believe that you could be so heartless as to deprive me of it without just cause.’

  ‘My cause is just,’ Giulio returned icily. ‘And established in law.’

  Claudia inclined her head regally. ‘And when you decide to marry I will hand it over. Until then, it is perfectly safe with me—indeed I hardly let it out of my sight—and there is no more to be said.’

  Marco was still scraping the last of his ice cream from his plate, but Emilia’s eyes, Lucy saw, were like saucers.

  They should not, she thought grimly, be hearing all this. And nor, she added as anguish lanced through her, should I.

  She pushed back her chair. ‘With your permission, signora, I will put the children to bed. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Twenty-four whole hours,’ Marco contributed brightly, and a laugh ran round the table, visibly dissipating the tension.

  ‘Come to me, carissimo.’ The contessa held out her arms to the child, and he ran round the table to her, to be hugged and kissed. When it was Emilia’s turn, Lucy noticed with fury, her grandmother simply touched a swift, indifferent hand to the child’s cheek and immediately turned away.

  ‘I will come with you.’ Fiammetta helped Lucy usher the children from the dining room. ‘Dio mio, what a scene!’ she confided in an undertone as they walked through the night-scented garden, the children scam pering ahead. ‘The problem is, the ring has great value—it dates from the fifteenth century—and it should be kept in the bank. Mamma knows this, but always she has some excuse not to hand it back, and now Giulio has become angry, and little wonder.’

  She rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘And so it is war between them. I only hope Mamma does not do something foolish. She is not good with money, you understand,’ she added with an expressive shrug. ‘If Giulio took her to court, as he might, she could be ruined.’

  ‘Can’t you—reason with her?’ Lucy suggested awkwardly.

  ‘Over some things, but not this. She will not listen. And she provokes him constantly, as she did tonight, by flaunting it on totally unimportant occasions.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps he should not have said what he did, but I cannot blame him.’

  ‘Maybe she was trying to needle him into proposing to your cousin there and then.’ Lucy spoke haltingly, the words stabbing her like knives.

  ‘Then she does not know Giulio,’ said Fiammetta dismissively. ‘Although it cannot be long,’ she added, after a pause. ‘Did you see how they were together tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lucy said dully. ‘I saw.’
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  ‘And this poor Philip Winslade, who has now served his purpose...’ Fiammetta gave another gusty sigh. ‘If I were in his shoes, I would not stay here to be humiliated any further, would you?’

  ‘Perhaps he loves her,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘Maybe he’s prepared to endure anything just to be with her, even if he knows, deep down, he’s wasting his time—that all the future can promise him is pain and loneliness beyond belief.’

  Fiammetta shot her an amazed look. ‘Why, Lucia, that came from the heart, I think.’

  And it’s also given far too much away, thought Lucy, seeing the inevitable questions forming on her companion’s lips.

  She quickened her step. ‘Slow down, you two,’ she called. ‘It’s dark, and you’re going to fall and hurt yourselves.’

  Any hint of possible damage to her little ones was exactly the right diversion for Fiammetta, who fussed the remainder of the way to the casetta.

  The children’s bedtime passed without trouble, although Emilia was inclined to whinge and cling to her mother. But who could blame her for that? Lucy thought wearily.

  When Fiammetta had departed for the villa, and the casetta was quiet, Lucy went and sat down on the stone bench outside the door. After the stillness of the day, the night was full of noise and movement—the rasping of crickets, the moths swooping round the overhead lamp, the harsh cry of a bird.

  And, rising above the villa, there was the moon’s golden crooked smile, which seemed in Lucy’s present vulnerable state to be taunting her.

  She had her book on her lap, but she didn’t open it. Her mind was running riot with thoughts and impressions, most of them unhappy. How could your whole life—your whole perception of who you were and what you wanted—change so fast and so irrevocably? she asked herself, not for the first time. It wasn’t sane—it wasn’t rational.

  Giulio Falcone had taken possession of her, heart, mind and soul. From that first encounter, she’d seen the danger—recognised what was happening to her—but been unable to resist.

  Swept away helplessly, she thought, by the force of destiny. And who could tell where it would all end?

  She rallied herself. Yet there’d been one positive step. She had kissed Emilia goodnight, and while the embrace hadn’t been returned it hadn’t been rejected either. Maybe if she could help stabilise the child, give her a sense of her own worth, then her stay in Tuscany would have some meaning—even some value.

  The sound of approaching footsteps invaded her reverie, and she sat up sharply, her whole body tensing as a tall, familiar figure walked under the archway into the courtyard.

  ‘Good evening once again, signore.’ It took every scrap of courage she possessed to speak so nonchalantly. ‘Have you come for another fight?’

  ‘No.’ His tone was dry, almost reflective. ‘My battles are over for the day. I came to check on the children—and to make sure you have everything you need.’ He paused. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you go back to your guests?’

  ‘I invited Fiammetta and the children,’ he said softly, ‘and them alone. And as Fiammetta is playing cards, and the children, presumably, are asleep, I can now please myself.’

  She moved to the far end of the bench, tucking the folds of her skirt around her. Giulio observed this manoeuvre with raised brows, then seated himself at the other end.

  ‘You are not nervous, away from the main house?’

  Not until this moment, she thought.

  She said, ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me there are gangs of armed robbers roaming the neighbourhood.’

  ‘No, thank God. Here we are among our own people.’ He paused again. ‘But down at the pool you mentioned that you thought someone was watching.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, yes, but I could have been wrong.’

  ‘Because it was not me, it follows that it must be no one?’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘Grazie.’

  ‘It might have been a cat,’ she said lamely.

  ‘Si, or a wild boar, or a wolf from the hills.’ His tone was exasperated.

  ‘Or just my imagination,’ she persisted. She managed a laugh. ‘There’s an old Chinese curse—May you live in interesting times. Well, I’ve lived through some fascinating ones lately. Perhaps it’s made me a little paranoid.’

  ‘I do not think you are that.’ He was frowning. ‘But I know you are unhappy, and it troubles me, because I am to blame.’ He drew a breath. ‘I never meant you to be hurt like this, Lucia, believe me.’

  ‘Please.’ All the breath in her body seemed to catch in her throat. ‘I—I’d rather not discuss it.’

  ‘But we cannot pretend that the situation does not exist.’

  ‘You may not be able to,’ she said almost savagely. ‘But I can. I’m a great pretender.’

  ‘Lucia.’ He stretched a hand towards her, and she recoiled.

  ‘No. Can’t you see—don’t you understand that talking about it only makes things worse? Can’t you show me a little mercy at least?’

  ‘Dio mio, he whispered. ‘I did not realise the wound had gone so deep.’ The dark face was like stone. ‘Columbina—is there nothing I can do?’

  ‘You said this morning that it would be better if I went.’ She bunched her trembling hands into fists and hid them in the folds of her skirt. ‘I—I’ve come to agree with you. I’ll leave just as soon as you can find someone else to look after the children.’

  He was silent for a moment, staring down at the rough cobbles. Then he said quietly, ‘As you wish. Teresa has a cousin, training to be a teacher, who is looking for a vacation job. I will see what can be arranged.’ He paused again. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘What I originally planned. Go back to England on the first available flight.’ She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Get on with my life’

  ‘How simple you make it sound.’ Beneath the surface of the smooth words, something very different was bubbling. Something that could have been anger—even bitterness. ‘How rational. And yet we both know it is nothing of the kind.’

  Before she could guess what he was going to do, he had reached for her, the long arms drawing her roughly, inexorably towards him, lifting her so that she was lying across him, cradled on his thighs.

  For a brief second, she saw his face above her in the moonlight, the suddenly harsh lines etched beside his mouth, the glitter in his eyes. The falcon, she thought dazedly, with his prey. About to swoop—to carry her off into eternal darkness.

  Then his lips were on hers, fierce, searching, demanding a response which Lucy knew, in some distant, reeling corner of her mind, she should deny him. She knew she should struggle, beat him with her fists, make him let her go.

  But the heat of his mouth and the scent of his skin were like some insidious drug, draining the power of resistance from her. Her head fell back helplessly against his arm as her lips parted in acceptance. Even welcome.

  And when her hands lifted it was not in self-defence but to close on the whipcord strength of his shoulders and draw him down to her.

  Because this was what she wanted, she thought achingly. What was the point in pretending otherwise? She could not have his love, or a share in his life, but she would take what little he could offer. A brief interlude of passion. A memory to warm her in the bleak emptiness of the future.

  His mouth explored hers roughly, as if he too was driven by forces, needs he could not control. The thrust of his tongue was like burning silk, creating a sweet madness she had never known before. Awakening longings she had never realised existed.

  She kissed him back, answering his fire with her own ardour, drinking him as eagerly as a flower absorbed the rain.

  His hand went to her breast, outlining its rounded swell with fingers that shook slightly, before sliding with new mastery beneath the clinging top to push it upwards. To find and celebrate her warm nakedness.

  For a long moment, he was still, cupping the soft weight in his palm. Then he took his mouth slowly fro
m hers, his eyes studying her flushed face with telling awareness. As his gaze held hers, he began to move his thumb softly and rhythmically, circling—tantalising her nipple.

  Lucy felt herself gasp in startled yearning. Saw him smile. Felt that smile brush her parted lips in a kiss of magical tenderness, before he feathered a caress across the delicate peak, bringing it to instant pulsating life.

  He bent his dark head, his mouth seductive as it moved on her heated, tumescent flesh. The gentle tug of his lips, the faint graze of his teeth, the flick of his tongue on the hardened, sensitive bud—-all these were a web of arousal enmeshing and enthralling her. As, somehow, she had always known they would be. As if she had been born for this moment alone, her body arched towards him in delight and an unspoken offering more eloquent than any words.

  ‘Mia bella, mia carissima.’ His voice was hushed, husky against her skin. He sounded, she thought, almost like a stranger. He lifted his head—looked at her. ‘Do you know you taste of moonlight?’

  Half-shyly, Lucy touched the dark, springy hair, then ran a hand down the column of his throat to the V of skin exposed by the open neck of his silk shirt. The need to touch him in her turn was overwhelming. Fingers shaking, she began to undo his shirt buttons. She spread her hands across his chest, savouring the texture of his hair-roughened skin, letting the race of his heartbeat thud against her palm.

  She planted frantic little kisses over his torso, feeling the flat male nipples pucker and harden under the teasing of her lips.

  He took her hands, kissed them and carried them to his body. ‘This is how I want you.’ The words were barely a whisper.

  The breath caught in Lucy’s throat as she recognised the strength and power that would soon be part of her—joined with her. She was aware of him parting the folds of her skirt, of the glide of his hand along her slender thigh, and her whole body clenched in anticipation and desire.

  His mouth took hers again, but this time his kiss was subtle, sensuous, his tongue as light as a butterfly’s wing as it explored the swollen softness of her lips, while with equal and unerring delicacy his long fingers began a more intimate quest.