‘No. That is the whole point of this exercise,’ he said. ‘I did not want her to find out about his involvement with another woman. That is why I want to take things to the next step. If we were to marry she would be totally convinced Rocco has not strayed.’
‘But surely she has the right to know what has been going on behind her back?’ she asked.
‘My sister is vulnerable right now,’ he said. ‘She has been ordered by her doctor to have complete bed-rest. I do not want her to go into premature labour as a result of such a revelation. There is a tiny child to consider.’
Ally frowned as she looked at the food that had been set before her, wondering if her stomach would allow even one mouthful to go down and stay down.
‘You are looking very pale,’ Vittorio said. ‘Is the food not to your liking?’
She picked up her fork and gave him a strained smile. ‘No, it’s lovely…really…it’s just I’m a little stressed right now. I thought we were pretending to be involved. I didn’t for a moment expect you would want to change the terms of our agreement. I’m not ready to take that step. I can’t agree to such an outrageous scheme. It would be immoral.’
‘We are attracted to each other, Ally,’ he said. ‘You have said you are no longer in love with my brother-in-law. Why should we not explore what chemistry exists between us?’
Ally could think of hundreds of reasons—one of them residing in a clinic only a short plane trip or train journey away. ‘I’m not ready for a new relationship,’ she said. ‘Your brother-in-law hurt me. I don’t want to risk such emotional trauma again.’
‘I do not see how you could possibly be hurt by me,’ he said. ‘This is, after all, not a love transaction. I am being totally up-front with you over what I want. I want a wife and a mother for my children. I am prepared to pay for the privilege. All you have to do is sign on the dotted line and you will want for nothing ever again.’
She pushed her untouched food away. ‘How can you be so…so cool and calculated about this?’ she asked. ‘You are talking about people’s lives here. Not just yours and mine, but the lives of little children. Do you have any idea of what damage can be caused by ill-matched couples producing vulnerable offspring?’
‘We are not ill-matched. Anything but,’ he contradicted. ‘The moment we met I felt something I have never felt before. I have the feeling you are the woman I have been waiting for all of my life.’
She gaped at him incredulously. Was he deliberately winding her up? How cruel could he be? Or was there some other motive? ‘How can you say that, knowing what you know about me?’ she asked.
His smile was tilted at a sexy angle as he leaned back in his chair and lifted his wine glass to his lips. ‘What is it I know about you, Ally?’ he mused idly. ‘For one thing you were supposedly my brother-in-law’s mistress, and yet I cannot help thinking you have never been in love with him. In fact I wonder if you have been in love with anyone. You have a look of innocence about you that is very endearing. In fact, if one did not know about your past, it would be all too easy to assume you were still a virgin.’
He was bang on there, Ally thought as she made an effort to pick at her meal, refusing to answer in case she implicated herself.
‘The car thing troubles me, however,’ he went on, watching her with that hawk-steady gaze of his.
Why did her sister do it? Ally wrinkled her brow every time she thought about it. ‘I said I’d pay for it,’ she mumbled as she tried to avoid his all-seeing eyes.
‘And then there is the issue of the missing money,’ he said with another cryptic smile. ‘Do you still have it, or have you spent it all by now?’
Ally compressed her lips for a moment and then, lowering her gaze, mumbled, ‘I have it…it’s in my handbag. I was going to give it back to you…I was waiting for the right moment…’
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘The money is not important to me. The next few days, however, are crucial. If you act convincingly as my besotted fiancée I will wipe out all of your debts towards me. How is that for a bargain?’
Her head came up again, her eyes wide with hope. ‘You really mean it?’
He smiled that killer smile again and, reaching across the table, gently brushed her chin with his bent knuckles. ‘I mean it, cara. Now, eat up and let us paint the town together. Paris has a reputation for being the city for lovers, but Rome is just as romantic. I will show you what you have been missing.’
CHAPTER SIX
ALLY spent the next two weeks in a haze of late-summer heat. Although it made her skin slick with perspiration, it was nothing to the scorching heat of Vittorio’s gaze every time it connected with hers. He showed her the sights of Rome, patiently explaining its chequered and at times brutal history, organising special VIP tours so she didn’t have to wait in long queues with other tourists to see the many galleries and basilicas. The magnificence of the Sistine Chapel took her breath away, and in contrast the ruins of the Colosseum brought tears to her eyes as she listened to the audio guide Vittorio had bought for her.
He came up beside her as she looked over the arena and noticed the passage of tears rolling down her face. He frowned. ‘What is wrong, Ally? Is the heat too much for you?’
He removed his cleanly laundered handkerchief and, instead of handing it to her, gently mopped the tears off her face, his eyes as dark as the espresso coffee they had drunk an hour ago, in a crowded and ridiculously over-priced café near the Spanish Steps.
‘I’m sorry, but this seems to me such a sad place,’ she said. ‘It’s like the castello we visited the other day, with its horrid torture chambers. How could people have done this to each other?’
He pocketed his handkerchief and took her by the hand. ‘They are still doing it in various outposts of the world. Every day the news is full of such depravity,’ he said gravely. ‘Come, it is time for some retail therapy. My older sister is coming to meet you tomorrow evening. I want to get you a ring and a few other things that will assure her and her husband Sandro that this is for real.’
She stopped in her tracks and looked up at him. ‘But it can never be for real, Vittorio,’ she said, her eyes still glistening. ‘You know it can’t.’
His eyes darkened as they held hers. ‘It is real for now, cara, which is all we have to concern ourselves with.’
Ally fell into step beside him, her arm linked through his just like any other couple in love. She could see hundreds of them around her. The happiness on their faces as they exchanged glances said it all, and yet it made her feel inexplicably sad. Would she ever find someone to love her the way she longed to be loved?
‘Are you all right, Ally?’ Vittorio asked as they walked some time later through the ruins of the Roman Forum on their way back to his palazzo. ‘You are looking quite pensive all of a sudden.’
‘Am I?’ she asked, looking up at him. ‘I’m sorry…I was thinking about…things…’
His dark eyes grew warm. ‘What things were you thinking about?’
She drew in an uneven breath. ‘I was thinking about what you asked me to do,’ she said. ‘You know…being your wife for real.’
His gaze dropped to her mouth. ‘And what have you decided?’ he asked.
She brushed the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. ‘If I was someone else…someone who thought money was more important than love…I would seriously consider it. But…but I’m not.’
‘So you are saying no to my proposal?’ he asked, holding her gently by the shoulders.
Ally looked into his bottomless brown eyes and felt something shift inside her chest like a set of rusty gears. He was so damned irresistible when he looked at her like that! She had felt it every day for two weeks. She was going crazy in escalating anticipation of him taking things one step further. She could see it in his eyes, the way they kept going to her mouth, his own lips tilted in that musing way of his, as if he was just biding his time before he claimed his prize.
‘Perhaps I have not demonstrated some of the f
ringe benefits clearly enough,’ he said, moving closer.
Ally felt the brush of his strong thighs against her jelly-like ones. ‘F-fringe benefits?’ she croaked over a convulsive swallow.
He smiled and lowered his head, until his breath skated over the surface of her lips. ‘Do you want me to describe them in intimate detail or should I just show you?’ he asked.
When it came down to it, Ally knew she was hardly what anyone would call an expert on kisses, but as soon as Vittorio’s mouth touched down on hers she knew she was being kissed by a master of sensuality. His lips were soft but strong, supple and yet demanding. The dart of his tongue was another thing entirely. Nothing could have possibly prepared her for its erotic insertion into the moist cavern of her mouth, the stroke and sweeping action making her feel as if every vertebra of her spine had been unhinged. She felt as if she was going to melt into a pool of longing at his feet.
Her own tongue was shy at first, tentative and cautious, in case she lost what little control she still had. But for some reason her natural coyness incited him to be all the more commanding. Her face was suddenly grasped by both of his hands as he deepened the kiss to almost blood-boiling point, his lower body grinding against the neediness of hers in a way that both terrified and tantalised her. She wanted more, but was frightened to ask for it. She didn’t know how to communicate her need. How could she? She was a novice at seduction. She felt as if she was on a stage without a script, acting in a play written for someone else entirely. She didn’t know what lines to say, what moves to make. All she could do was be herself.
But she wasn’t herself.
The reminder was jarring enough for her to break the intimate contact. She pushed him away with both hands pressed against his broad chest, her breasts heaving as she struggled to regain control of her breathing. ‘Vittorio, please…’ Her gaze flicked anxiously to the amused crowd surrounding them. ‘Everyone is watching us.’
‘You worry far too much about what people think, Ally,’ he said with a little smile. ‘But then you are shy, sì? You are blushing like a virgin. You do that a lot, I have noticed.’
Ally felt a tide of hot colour pool in her cheeks. ‘I’m just hot,’ she said. ‘I’m not as used to the heat as you.’
‘What you need is a swim in my pool to cool off,’ he said, and tucked her arm into his to lead her back to his palazzo. ‘I will join you after I see to a few pressing business matters.’
Ally floated on her back in the deliciously cool waters of the plunge pool back at Vittorio’s palazzo, relishing in the change of temperature against her skin. Ghita had left her a jug of chilled water with slices of lemon and bobbing chunks of ice, which had done much to restore her fluid balance and reduce the tight band that had been developing around her forehead.
Her mobile was next to her, and she had spoken to her sister’s therapist, who had assured her Alex was becoming more lucid at times and that the new regime of medication was gradually evening out her moods. Ally desperately wanted to talk to her personally, but the clinic staff felt Alex needed a couple more days due to her high sedation levels before she had contact with anyone—even her sister.
The rippling of the pool water against her skin alerted her to the presence of someone else. Ally looked up from her prone position to find Vittorio within touching distance of her near-naked body. The water he had disturbed was brushing against her like a caress, and every movement she made to counteract it seemed to make it all the more intimate.
He surfaced just inches from her face, smiling that toe-curling smile of his, his long, dark sooty lashes dripping with water. ‘You are like a mermaid, with your hair flowing out behind you,’ he said. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes, much better. Ghita has been wonderful. I feel like a princess, being waited on hand and foot.’
‘And so you should, as my fiancée.’
‘Mistress,’ she corrected him curtly.
‘You do not think I am serious about this?’ he asked.
‘You are serious about diverting attention from your brother-in-law to you. So, no, I do not take any of this seriously.’
‘So what would it take to make you take it seriously?’ he asked, moving so close she felt his strong thighs brush against hers underneath the water.
‘Um…’ Her mind went blank as one of his legs nudged between hers, touching her where her feminine form ached for him most. She could feel herself turning to liquid, could feel the instant melt of her bones, and she could feel her heart thumping rapidly—as if it would stop and leave her deadened and lifeless if he so much as moved away.
‘We have kissed just the once, cara, and it set my blood alight,’ he murmured against her lips, not quite touching but close enough to make them tingle with unbearable want. ‘Why not see what else we can experience together, hmm?’
Ally was lost. She knew it, even though a part of her valiantly tried to fight against her all too ready capitulation. She was young, she was lonely, and she was unsatisfied and sick to death of always having to be strong and in control. There was something incredibly liberating in having someone else take charge for once. And Vittorio Vassallo was taking charge in a way she had only ever dreamed of. He wanted her and she wanted him. There was really nothing else that came into the equation. They were two people who had met under unusual circumstances and had instantly and very deeply desired each other. No one else had anything to do with what they wanted to experience, and yet…
Ally tried to shove the intrusive thoughts aside. This was about her life for once. Her twin sister Alex had made a mistake, but it didn’t mean Ally had to sacrifice her own happiness indefinitely. For one thing Vittorio wasn’t committed elsewhere. Yes, she still didn’t know all the details of what had happened between Alex and Rocco, but she knew what had happened between her and Vittorio, and it was impossible to ignore. For once in her cautious life she was going to go with the flow, even though she was in very great danger of letting her heart lead her head—something she had never allowed before. But she didn’t have the necessary road blocks in place to halt it.
He was like a fever, heating her blood to boiling point beneath the fine layers of her skin. Every time he came close she could feel every nerve in her body switch to high alert as the surface of her skin became desperate for the sensuous glide of his fingers or the simple brush of his lips, perhaps against her forehead, as he had made his practice if he thought someone was watching them, sometimes even when they were totally alone. Each tender action dismantled her defences; it was as if he was doing it deliberately, making her a slave to his sensuality—which indeed she was in very deep danger of becoming.
She could feel it now, his dark eyes roaming her barely covered form as they bobbed and bounced against each other in the cool water, their limbs intimately entwined. At one point she felt the hard bulge of his erection against her lower belly, and her stomach hollowed out in aching need.
Vittorio began to nibble with his tempting lips at the sensitive corner of her mouth, the stubble on his chin and his low velvet drawl unravelling every possible rational reason why she should push him away. ‘Come upstairs to my room with me,’ he said. ‘I want you. Now.’
She kissed him back—tiny kisses, hesitant, shy kisses, that communicated her indecision as well as her growing desire. ‘Should we be doing this?’ she whispered against his mouth, her tongue flicking enticingly against his lips.
He placed a firm hand against the curve of her bottom and held her to his throbbing want, groaning deep in the back of his throat. ‘How can you ask that, knowing what you do to me, what you have been doing to me from the moment I met you?’
‘You’ve wanted me that long?’ she asked, looking up at him in wonder, her heart beating like a trapped swallow in her chest.
He answered by lithely exiting the pool and offering her a hand to help her out. She locked gazes with his, her hand enveloped in the firm hold of his fingers, and knew there was no going back. She might live to reg
ret it, but this was what she wanted—and she was tired of putting her needs on the back burner. For once she was going to feel like a woman and enjoy the pleasure of being worshipped as such. No matter what the consequences.
‘I want you too…’ she said softly, and followed him inside the cool shade of the palazzo.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHAT followed next was beyond anything Ally had ever imagined could exist between two people. Vittorio was not in a hurry, which totally surprised her. She had expected a man with his sexual experience to zone in on his needs with perhaps just a cursory regard for hers, but if anything he held back to an almost torturous pace as her body blossomed and swelled under his expert touch, leaving her breathless and close to begging in his arms.
He uncovered what little there was to uncover, since she was still wearing her damp bikini, exploring each curve and indentation of her body as if it were a priceless work of art. After some exquisite minutes of this she became impatient to conduct her own exploration. She wanted to feel him, hot and hard and heavy in her hands. She wanted to taste him, to stroke her tongue over his length, to bring him to the point where he begged for the release she could feel building inside her like a volcano about to erupt after years of lying dormant.
She decided there was no point in shyness—not now, when they were lying on a coolly sheeted bed, the door locked and the film of sheer curtains fluttering at the windows, bringing in a late-afternoon jasmine-scented breeze that did little to reduce the heat of their writhing bodies as they moved together on the bed in an increasingly urgent mission to come together in the most intimate way possible.
When Vittorio’s mouth began to suckle on each of her breasts in turn she felt her back arch, bringing her honeyed pelvis right where he could reach it with his taut erection.
‘I do not want to rush you, cara,’ he murmured against her tingling lips as he kissed her mouth again. ‘You need time to prepare for me.’
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