by Joan Kilby
His cell phone rang.
“Don’t answer it.” With a sultry smile, she massaged him with her foot.
The ringing continued. He glanced at the caller ID. “It’s the private investigator. This could be important.”
“The world can get by without you for a couple of days.”
His hand hovered then abruptly, then he turned off the phone. “You’re right. I’m on holiday. What can happen in two days?”
“Good for you.” She dropped her foot and leaned over to kiss him hard on the mouth. “Now let’s play.”
…
Layla sat in the bow of the small motor boat, her heart in her mouth as Giorgio navigated the rough waters near the cliff. White foam surged against the rocks with every wave. The boat pitched so hard that the outboard engine lifted out of the sea briefly, and water poured in over the side. She picked up a small bucket and bailed. No wonder his sisters didn’t know about this cave. A person had to be crazy—or wildly daring—to venture into this dangerous spot. Right now Giorgio was both.
Just when she thought they would be dashed to pieces on the rocks, the boat slipped behind an outcrop into calm water. It rocked a few more times and stabilized. Ahead was a low arch in the rock wall.
“Get down low.” Giorgio cut the engine then bent double as the boat glided beneath the archway into the grotto.
Layla’s eyes widened as the rock skimmed past inches above her nose. Once inside the cave, she sat up with a gasp. The sea was lit from below, bathing everything in a brilliant, otherworldly blue glow. “Wow, where does this amazing color come from?”
“Like the Blue Grotto, beneath the water there’s another, larger passage to the sea,” Giorgio said. “The light comes into the cave and is filtered up through the water, turning it a brilliant blue. Put your hand in the water.”
She plunged her hand into the cool liquid and her fingers glowed blue. “It’s so beautiful. And no one else knows about this place?”
“Not to my knowledge. Not many would be game to make the journey inside.”
“And you’ve never brought anyone else here? Not even your wife?” He shook his head. Layla went quiet as the import of that washed over her. “Why me?”
“I don’t really know.” At that moment he looked younger. Still handsome and virile but somehow more open. “It just feels right. I…wanted to share it with you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I’m honored.” The moment stretched as they gazed at each other, his words silently echoing around the rock walls as wavelets lapped at the sides of the boat.
Then he grinned and picked up the oars and began to row. “Just so you don’t feel like you’ve missed out on anything, this is what the boatmen do in the Blue Grotto.” He began singing Volare in Italian, in mellow bass notes. It could have been cheesy, but after his tacit admission that she was special to him, his singing was thrilling. Layla trailed her fingers through the azure water and watched his face, playful and tender as he serenaded her.
“Do you want to swim?” he asked when the song ended.
“I didn’t wear my bikini.”
“We’re alone. We can go skinny dipping.”
“Why not?” She pulled her dress off over her head and tugged her panties off before slipping over the side of the boat into the cool blue water. Giorgio stripped down and joined her. They swam to the far end of the cavern and circled back again. Treading water, Layla turned to face Giorgio. “This is magic. I’m so glad you kidnapped me.”
“I am too,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t have come to Naples or here if it weren’t for you. I’m seeing this area through new eyes, and what I see is a paradise.” He took her in his arms and kissed her as their legs tangled in the water. One hand cupping her bottom, he used the other to caress and mold her breast, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger.
Layla ran her hands over his back. His butt muscles flexed and contracted with every languid kick. Giorgio took her by the hips, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, holding onto his shoulders. He was big and hard, and she was wet and more than ready for him.
“Hang on,” he said and moved over to the boat. Releasing her, he leaned in and got a condom out of his shorts pocket. When he was sheathed she floated into his arms again and he slid home. Layla’s breath shortened as she moved her hips in small, intense thrusts in tandem with his. Cool water lapped at her heated cheeks. Her breasts floated, the nipples just above the water. He dipped his head and took one peaked bud in his mouth, biting gently then sucking and pulling as he expertly moved against her. His hand slipped between them and he found her clitoris, circling it while his tongue circled her nipple. Like a wave, her orgasm surged over her and she clung, blissed out, to Giorgio, her face pressed into his wet shoulder. While she was still riding the crest of that sexual wave, he pumped hard once, twice, three times and stifled his groan in her hair.
Then he was kissing her all over her face. She couldn’t stop smiling. “Making love in a grotto was a first for me. You’re a bad influence, Signor Borlenghi,” she teased.
“You only have yourself to blame,” he taunted gently. “I was content to stay in my office and work. You coaxed me out to lunch. It’s entirely your fault.”
“Oh, really? Who whisked me away to your yacht? If it was up to me—” She broke off. If it had been up to her, she would have delivered him to his angry sisters for an intervention-style confrontation, and she never would have seen him cheering passionately for his football team or felt the force of his passionate lovemaking. She met his gaze, serious now. “If it was up to me, I’d do it all over again.”
“So would I.” His eyes glowed warmly and almost as an afterthought he added, “No matter what else happens.”
Layla’s smile faded a little, and she couldn’t meet his gaze. If only he knew just how much she’d been acting with him. Not about the important stuff—how they were when they were together. But would he believe that if he knew she was conspiring against him with his sisters?
Chapter Eleven
Giorgio lay face down on a blanket on golden sand. Layla straddled his backside, massaging the residual knots out of his neck and shoulders. Until he’d started to unwind he’d had no idea how much tension had built up in him. Her clever fingers knew just where to dig into the trigger points and eliminate them.
She had thoroughly seduced him, not just with sex but with her enthusiasm for life’s pleasures. After the grotto, he’d taken her to see the villa where the Emperor Tiberius lived. Viewing it from a design perspective, she’d pointed out things about the architecture that he’d never noticed. And when they’d swum at the beach where the Sirens were said to have seduced Odysseus, she was like a fish, at home in the water. She’d told him about holidays in the San Juan Islands in a cottage on the Pacific Ocean. It was strange to think of her having another life far away on the other side of the world.
Now they were in a secluded cove accessible only by dinghy and so well hidden by a curving rocky cliff that no tourists ever found it. He’d taken her to his special places, the grotto and now this beach. He was a little surprised at himself, but he wasn’t sorry. In only three days she’d be gone. He would go back to his normal, twelve-hour workday routine. He had to remember this was a summer idyll, a moment out of time. He’d laughed more today than he had in the past six months. His shoulders were tingling with sunburn and the sand was warm between his toes.
A coconut smell came from the lotion she was rubbing into his warm skin and with every long forward stroke of her hands, her thighs tightened around his hips. Even though they’d made love twice already today, once in the grotto and once when they arrived on the beach, he wanted her again. He craved her like he craved all the good things he’d been missing from life—the sun and the sea, laughter and conversation. Not being pressured to make decisions.
“Are you asleep?” she said.
“Almost,” he murmured. He felt lazy and drowsy and utterly boneless.
“
Then my work here is done.” She made a final sweep across his shoulders and rolled off to lie on her back next to him, breathing out a long sigh. “This is so perfect.”
“Would you like me to massage you?”
“Not now. We both know what happens when you put your hands on me.”
He chuckled and turned on his side to face her. He adored her profile, the slightly upturned nose, the determined chin, and the thick red hair falling away from a high forehead and slanting cheekbones. She was topless, wearing only sheer silk panties of unbelievable hue and incredibly sexy cut.
He picked up a handful of warm, soft sand and sifted it through his fingers onto her right breast, aiming for a freckle at two o’clock from her flattened dusky nipple.
Smiling, she brushed his hand away without opening her eyes. “Stop it.”
Saying stop was like a red flag to a bull. He found a seagull feather half buried in the sand and tickled under her chin. She batted it away. He did it again, gliding the feather tip down her sternum and over the curve of her breast.
“Pest.” She bit her lip and kept her eyes scrunched shut.
Smiling at her determination not to react, he dragged the feather back and forth across her nipple, fascinated at the way it puckered and beaded.
“What happened with that man you were with for three years, Richard? Did he hurt you?” The thought made his chest ache for her.
“It doesn’t matter now.” Her eyes were firmly shut, but she was only pretending to be relaxed. Her fingers had curled tightly around a bunch of towel.
“If you’re still in pain then it does matter. Don’t tell me he thought you worked too much.” How ironic if they had the same problem.
“In a way,” she said. “He wanted me to stay home and be a housewife and a stay-at-home mom. I have no problem with women who want to do that. But I wanted to build my business. He didn’t like that and tried to convince me to give it up.”
“He must not have known you very well if he thought you would do that. So you broke off the engagement over that? You couldn’t reach a compromise?”
She opened her eyes and gave him a look that was too pointed to miss. “He didn’t compromise.”
Meaning like him? How could she compare her fiancé wanting her to give up her career ambitions with him? He would never demand that of any woman. “He wasn’t worthy of you.”
“I totally agree.” Still, there was a trace of sadness in her voice. She, too, had made sacrifices for her work. “Three months after we broke up he was engaged to a school teacher, and they’d bought a house together.”
“If settling down wasn’t what you wanted then it’s good you found out, no?”
A beat passed before she answered, “Sure.” Then she laid an arm across her eyes. “Wow, that sun’s bright.”
He reached for a sunhat she’d brought off the boat and laid it over her forehead. When she shifted her arm away, a tear leaked from the corner of her eye. “Do you still love him?”
“God, no.” She gave an angry laugh. “I don’t know what I’m blubbing about. I learned a valuable lesson. I’ll never get involved with a guy who’s so controlling again.”
She did see him in the same light. It was unfair, but since they were only together for a weekend it didn’t matter, right?
“Do you want children?” Giorgio probed, not quite knowing why.
“Sure, someday, when I meet the right guy.” She rolled on her side, her eyes dry and fierce. “First I need to make my mark, prove to myself and everyone else that I can do something with my life.”
“You’re already doing that.” He slid a finger beneath the leg of her panties. “You’ve created these.”
“It’s not enough. I need to be able to make a living at it.” Her lips pressed together. “I shouldn’t be talking like this to you. I should be telling you how successful I am.”
“You were successful in getting me to take a few days off, something no one else has been able to do for years.”
“It’s turned out okay, hasn’t it? You’re not sorry?” She propped herself on one elbow, head in her hand. Sand had dried on her naked breasts and her eyes were a brilliant blue.
It had been wonderful. At the same time, at the back of his mind, he was conscious of all the things he should be doing—and wasn’t—because of her. He just hoped he wouldn’t have cause for regret later. “No, I’m not sorry.”
“You took a long time to answer.”
“So you think I’m controlling and unable to compromise.”
Her mouth twisted, wry and sad. “If the shoe fits…”
He tweaked a lock of sandy red hair. “I’ve done everything that you wanted today.”
“I don’t mean today, and you know it.” She regarded him curiously. “Why do you have such a hard time letting go? You wear your responsibility like a hair shirt.”
He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. Hair shirt came pretty close to the mark.
She prodded him in the shoulder. “Hey, don’t go to sleep when you don’t like the conversation.” Then her voice changed, became gentler. “How did that car accident, the one that killed your brother, happen? I’ve read articles that mention it but they’re always short on detail.”
Trust Layla to intuit that the accident had changed his life in more ways than the obvious. Or maybe Tina told her. But even Tina didn’t know everything about that night.
He closed his hands around sand and then lifted them, feeling the warm grains slip through his fingers. His control over life felt like that, slipping through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to grasp it and hold on.
“What does it matter? You’ll be going back to Seattle soon. I’ll go back to Rome. This is just an interlude. You don’t need to know me.”
So softly he almost missed it, she said, “I want to know you.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “You weren’t responsible for your brother’s death. He was at the wheel, and he was driving too fast. I gleaned that much from the newspaper.”
“Those are the facts as reported.” His stomach clenched so badly then he had to sit up and lean forward with his arms on his knees. It had been dark that night and raining, the road slippery. He could still hear the squeal of the tires as the car skidded wide around the tight curve and see the truck’s headlights coming straight at them…
Layla’s arm came around him as she rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry your brother died. But it’s not your fault. It was an accident.”
“An accident,” he repeated. Such easy words to say. It wouldn’t have happened if not for him.
“And your father, that’s not your fault,” Layla went on. “He died months later.”
“That was his second heart attack. The first one that weakened his heart happened that night Leo died.”
“Oh.” Layla went still. A gull cried, wheeling in the sky. Far off, in the next cove, children played. “That wasn’t in the papers.”
“No one realized. All the attention was on Leo and me because I was injured too, although less seriously.” He stared up at the deep blue sky, letting his eyes be dazzled by the sun. “Papa didn’t say anything. He went to bed with chest pains and didn’t go to the hospital until two days later.”
“I hate to say it but that was not very smart.”
“He was stubborn.”
“Like someone else I know.” She propped herself up on her elbow. “Are you going to let the past dictate the rest of your life? Is that what your brother and father would have wanted, for you to be a slave to work and responsibility, to keep such a tight grip on the reins that your sisters are in revolt?”
“They know I have their best interests at heart.”
“Trust me, Giorgio, they’re so frustrated they’re ready to storm the castle and dethrone the king. You think you’re protecting them, but they’re adults. They’re crazy about you, but they don’t want big brother telling them what to do anymore. Or cutting them out of the decision making process.”
> He tapped her impertinent nose with the tip of his finger. “I thought you wanted me to relax. This conversation isn’t doing the job.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Kiss me.” He tasted her lips, plump and warm from the sun and slightly salty from swimming in the sea. Inside, her mouth was sweet and moist like the ripe orange she’d eaten earlier. “I haven’t forgotten your promise.”
“You are going to love it,” she said, with a slow smile. “Let’s go back to the boat.”
Chapter Twelve
Layla showered off the sand and salt water and smoothed scented lotion over her sun-kissed body. She took extra care with her appearance, putting on her favorite lingerie beneath a long flowing dress that clung to her breasts and hips. She couldn’t wait to see Giorgio’s eyes light up when he saw her in it.
As she put the finishing touches on her makeup—smoky eyes and just a light lip gloss—she pointed the mascara wand at her reflection in the mirror. “Have your fun, but don’t forget that you’re here for business.”
She wished she didn’t have to lie to him. Last night, and this afternoon on the beach, he’d given her something of himself by taking her to the grotto and the secluded beach. In exchange, she’d revealed things she’d never told anyone else, like how devastated she’d been over breaking up with Richard. She‘d stayed with Richard far too long, hoping he would change. But those kind of men never did. And Giorgio was cut from the same cloth. She should have learned her lesson. Partly her tears had been because she was falling for him hard and was afraid she’d be hurt again. She’d started out being physically attracted to him and wanting him for sex. Now her feelings went much deeper. It was exciting—and terrifying.
Her phone rang and she picked up. “Hello?”
“Ciao,” Tina said. “How is everything? Did you have a good day?”
“It was awesome.” She sighed with remembered pleasure. “We swam in a grotto, went sightseeing, and swam some more. How are things there?”
“I met with my whole team of designers and we talked about your lingerie.” Tina paused. “I want to trial it for this year’s collection. I’m going to have our legal department draw up a contract for you first thing tomorrow.”
