The Italian's Runaway Bride

by Jacqueline Baird

  ‘You,’ she murmured—it was as if by thinking about him earlier she had conjured him up. Quickly she tore her gaze away from his and sought Annalou, who was sitting in the sand, her brown eyes turned quizzically up at the man.

  ‘Big man,’ Annalou said. ‘Do you want to make a sandcastle?’

  Gianfranco glanced down, and immediately dropped to his haunches with lithe grace. ‘Anna, isn’t it?’ he said softly. And as Kelly watched the transformation on his hard, sculptured face was miraculous. He smiled at the child. ‘I love to make sandcastles, Anna.’ He reached out a none too steady hand to touch the fiery red hair surrounding the angelic-looking face. Two sets of identical deep brown eyes met and fused with each other. It was instant attraction.

  Kelly saw Annalou grin, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her.

  ‘My name is Anna Louise Hope, but everyone calls me Annalou,’ she corrected him seriously.

  Gianfranco shot a glance at Kelly that would have blistered paint. But the face he turned back to the child was gentle. ‘Then I shall call you Annalou,’ he said with a smile. ‘And you can call me Daddy.’

  Go straight for the jugular, why don’t you? Kelly was struck dumb by Gianfranco’s blunt admission.

  Annalou looked up at Gianfranco with wide excited eyes. ‘You my daddy?’ she began…then, glancing up at Kelly, ‘Mummy?’ she said. Only one word, suddenly unsure for the first time in her young life.

  Narrowed black eyes lifted to Kelly. Gianfranco was watching her like a great black panther waiting to pounce. He scanned her ashen face and horrified eyes. ‘Tell her, Kelly,’ he drawled silkily.

  Kelly could hardly string two coherent thoughts together, let alone a sentence, she was shivering in so much shock. Annalou hadn’t noticed the absence of a daddy in her life until she had started playschool after Easter. Kelly had told her he lived far away, and left it at that. Looking down at the man and the child, at the triumph on the face of the former, she realised with a sinking heart she had nowhere to go… She was trapped.

  Bending her knees, she dropped in the sand beside Annalou. ‘Yes, sweetheart.’ She instinctively curved a protective arm around her shoulders. ‘This—’ She saw the derision in Gianfranco’s eyes, and stammered helplessly. ‘He—I mean, this man is your daddy.’

  Annalou wriggled from under Kelly’s arm and threw herself at Gianfranco. ‘You really are my daddy.’ And with childish logic added, ‘Uncle Tom had to go to heaven, so he has sent you.’

  Gianfranco closed his arms around Annalou, and held her hard to his broad chest. ‘Something like that.’ Gianfranco slashed a look of utter hatred over the top of the child’s head at Kelly, and, leaping smoothly to his feet with Annalou still in his arms, he added, ‘But, unlike your Uncle Tom, I am going to stay with you forever.’ He made his promise softly, with a kiss on the child’s smooth cheek that Annalou happily returned.

  Lifting his proud head, his narrowed eyes studied Kelly’s stricken white face with a kind of grim satisfaction. ‘Isn’t that so, Mummy?’ He demanded her compliance, the derision in the deep, dark drawl obvious to Kelly, but lost on the child.

  Kelly staggered unsteadily to her feet; she had turned even paler as the full horror of what he had said sank in. She had escaped Gianfranco once, but he would never make the same mistake again. At least not where his child was concerned. As for her… She was probably just as dispensable now as she had been three years ago.

  ‘Mummy?’ Annalou’s small face was turned towards her, her expression expectant, waiting for her mother’s confirmation of the wonderful news.

  Suddenly, Kelly was overwhelmed with the most horrible feeling of guilt, mixed with a deep-rooted fear for the future. But she could do nothing but agree…

  Hours later, the sandcastle built and marvelled over, Kelly had been unable to avoid taking Gianfranco back to her home. Tom had left her the house in his will, along with his money—which was actually what was left of hers! He had lived on his pension, and it had stopped at his death. Kelly had been worrying over what she was going to do, but now that worry was replaced with a much greater fear. Annalou was too young to notice, but Gianfranco had made it obvious by each look and gesture in Kelly’s direction that he was biding his time until they were alone, and then all hell would break loose.

  ‘Read a story, Daddy,’ Annalou said, now bathed and safely tucked up in bed. She turned away from where Kelly stood to Gianfranco, at the opposite side of the bed. ‘Please.’

  Kelly felt a swift stab of jealousy at how quickly her daughter had fallen under Gianfranco’s spell. But then she glanced across at him, his black hair dishevelled, his dark eyes smiling down at the little girl. Kelly doubted any female from three to ninety-three could resist his seemingly effortless charm. He was lounging on the bed, one arm around Annalou, the other holding the book, one long leg stretched out on top of the coverlet, his other foot on the floor. The fabric pulled taut across his muscled thighs was enough to make any woman groan, and to Kelly’s dismay she was no exception…

  Her hands turned into tight fists at her sides. She had to get out of here; the tension that had simmered between Gianfranco and her all afternoon was driving her mad and her nerves were at screaming pitch. ‘Goodnight, sweetheart.’ She leant over and pressed a kiss to the downy cheek, making sure to avoid any contact with Gianfranco, and, straightening up, she added, ‘I’ll leave Daddy to tuck you in.’

  She almost ran out of the bedroom and stumbled back down the stairs. Walking into the kitchen, she eyed the table, a grim smile curving her lips. They had eaten beans on toast for dinner—hardly Gianfranco’s style, but Annalou’s favourite. Quickly she set about cleaning up. She washed the dishes, wiped down the benches—anything to keep busy so she did not have to think. But she could not control her thoughts so easily. Finally, with nothing left to do, she wandered back into the living area and across to the picture window that filled almost the whole wall. She stood still as a statue and gazed out over the sand and sea.

  She had been so happy—perhaps not happy, she amended, but certainly content here. It had been an old barn, converted quite simply with the front door at one end opening into one large living area, and a kitchen, utility room and rear door at the back. A staircase up the side of the wall led to a galleried landing with two bedrooms and a bathroom. It stood on its own on the outskirts of the small fishing village, and had originally been rented out as a holiday home. Tom had stayed here once and then bought it.

  Tom; if only he were here now, she thought as she squeezed back a stray tear. He would know what to do. He would know how to handle Gianfranco. Still, straightening her shoulders, she drew in a deep breath. She had matured a lot in the last three years; she was no longer the naïve pregnant girl who had jumped at Gianfranco’s offer of marriage, flattered that he had hired a detective to find her.

  ‘Quite a spectacular hiding place,’ a deep husky voice drawled mockingly behind her, and she jumped as if she had been shot, as she had not heard him come downstairs.

  Spinning around, she faced him. ‘How did you find me?’ Kelly went straight onto the attack. ‘Detectives again,’ she sneered.

  Gianfranco studied her with half-closed eyes. ‘Your friend Tom wrote and told me.’

  Of all the things he could have said, that was the most hurtful; every vestige of colour drained from Kelly’s face as she looked up at him with wide, pain-filled eyes. ‘No. No, I don’t believe you.’ Tom would never have betrayed her trust.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Please yourself.’ Strolling across the room, he sank down on the leather sofa, his long legs stretched out before him in nonchalant ease. ‘It is immaterial now. Though I must congratulate you on doing a very good job. At first I thought it might be post-natal depression, and I checked with Dr Credo. But no… You had left his surgery one hundred per cent fit and happy, with six months’ supply of contraception pills in your hand,’ he said drily.

  Colour flare
d in Kelly’s cheeks, her lie revealed. She threw Gianfranco a sharp look, deeply disturbed at his tone, but she could read nothing from his coldly remote expression.

  ‘You are a great actress. I take my hat off to you,’ he said with cutting cynicism. ‘I spent a fortune hiring the best detectives known, and they could find no trace of you after you left a London hotel. You have remarkably little family—a second cousin on your father’s side in Bristol, I believe, was as near as they got. Your mother was brought up in an orphanage. You were incredibly lucky—or it was great planning?—to have met Tom, my dear wife.’ His mouth twisted chillingly. ‘Or you would never have got away with it.’

  Uneasily Kelly listened and frowned. Gianfranco was right in every detail about her escape, and her family, so why would he lie about Tom telling him where she was? Horrified, she knew Gianfranco was telling the truth. Suddenly her legs felt wobbly, and she moved to sit down in the nearest armchair. She couldn’t take it in. Tom had betrayed her. Kelly glanced warily across at Gianfranco. ‘When did he write to you?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Ten days ago, from his hospital bed apparently. But I only received the letter last night. He knew he was going to die, so he wrote to inform me that, although he loved you as his own, he could no longer take care of you.’ He said it so dispassionately that Kelly was lulled into a false sense of security. In a way she could understand Tom’s reasoning, even though she wished with all her heart he had not done it.

  ‘He also said it was time I took care of my own.’ One dark brow arched sardonically. “‘Chance would be a fine thing,” I believe, is the English expression.’

  Lounging back on the sofa, Gianfranco was an incredibly attractive vision of relaxed masculinity. To her horror, despite being in the midst of fear, Kelly felt the familiar flood of sensual awareness heat her whole body. He was still the same insensitive, arrogant devil, she reminded herself firmly. ‘Yes, well, now you have the chance. You made sure of that when you blurted out you were Annalou’s father,’ she declared bitterly. ‘You could have traumatised the child,’ she added for good measure.

  In a blur of movement Gianfranco lunged off the sofa and hauled her to her feet by her upper arms. The transformation was incredible; his face was so taut with rage that Kelly feared for her safety.

  ‘You dare say that to me, you bitch! You, who deprived her of her father for three years.’ His night-black eyes, leaping with violence, bored into hers. ‘Deprived me of my child. Replaced me with your lover, Tom.’

  ‘No. No,’ Kelly cried, stunned by his reasoning. ‘Let go of me.’ She tried to shrug his hands off, terrified at the fury in his tone. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  She tried again to pull free, but his hands tightened on her arms. ‘Yes, it was, my beautiful, traitorous wife. Don’t take me for a fool—this house has just two bedrooms,’ he said through clenched teeth, and hauled her closer into his hard body.

  ‘There are two beds; I share with Annalou.’

  ‘For appearances’ sake, I don’t doubt,’ he snarled. ‘And tonight I share with Anna Louise. Dio, you even deprived my child of her family name, and I—I, her father—had to hear her tell me she is always called Annalou.’ He focused on her with a dark, blistering anger that heightened the tension to breaking point. ‘I saw you today on the beach and I wanted to kill you. Three years of hell you have put me through. But you are not worth losing my freedom for. Instead I am going to make sure you suffer as I have,’ he hissed with lethal intent.

  The fear and tension that had held her since the moment he had walked back into her life finally snapped and Kelly exploded. ‘Make me suffer! You did that from the day you married me. You never wanted me, all you ever wanted was my child. You never even tried to get in touch with me until you discovered I was pregnant. And even—’

  ‘You stood me up,’ Gianfranco cut in ruthlessly. ‘I do not run after any woman.’

  Kelly sucked in air convulsively. He was the same arrogant, conceited jerk he had always been. ‘Exactly,’ she ground out mockingly. ‘As I said, it was only my baby you wanted. Amazing the lengths you would go to, even marrying me for that manic Olivia you love so much. You kept me in that great mausoleum of a house like a damned broodmare; you never believed a word I said, but Olivia or your mother could do no wrong.’

  One hand slid upwards to curve around her jaw, and as he tilted her head back his glittering eyes bored down into hers. ‘You dare to blame me?’ he raked back scathingly. ‘I gave you everything a woman could want, and you repaid me by running off with my child.’

  ‘You gave me everything but your support.’ Everything but your love, she almost added, but stopped herself in time.

  ‘You had that, and if you had demanded more I would have given it. But, no, shall I tell you why you ran?’ He emitted a harsh, cynical laugh. ‘Because in your usual childish fashion you listened to rumour and innuendo and jumped to a whole lot of false conclusions. I told you I had never loved Olivia as anything but a sister in poor health and needing help, but you chose not to believe me.’ His fingers tightened almost cruelly on her chin and she tried to jerk her head away.

  ‘Look at me,’ he demanded savagely, and she did, suddenly aware of the brush of his thighs against her own, the close proximity of his large body. ‘I might have made mistakes as a husband, but I never deserved what you inflicted on me, the loss of my child.’

  Maybe not, Kelly conceded—she had felt guilt over the years, but above all she knew he was lying. She had seen him with Olivia in his arms, and heard him.

  He looked at her, and subtly the atmosphere changed. He was smiling, his hard eyes glinting with a devilish light as he said silkily, ‘But you know what really gets me? I have tortured myself for three years, wondering if you were all right, staring at the one photograph of my daughter on her first birthday that you deigned to send me. Posted in London with no way to trace it.’ He traced his fingers smoothly over her cheek while his other hand closed firmly around her waist. ‘Clever, very clever. Then I discover you have a lover—“Uncle” Tom,’ he spat, in a voice laced with bitter contempt.

  ‘No.’ She saw it too late in his darkening eyes. Felt it in the hard length of his body pressed against her. ‘No, Gianfranco,’ she cried, but his mouth took hers and she was shamed by the incredible hunger that shook her to the depths of her being. No, her mind cried as her lips helplessly parted to his savage invasion.

  Held against the hard length of his body, she tried to struggle, but the total contact was like an electric shock to her system, awakening a dormant awareness she could no longer control.

  ‘Three years you owe me,’ he grated as his mouth moved down her throat, then her shoulder.

  ‘No.’ Kelly shuddered as his hand slipped inside the bodice of her dress to cup her breast, and at his touch desire swept through her, leaping from nerve-end to nerve-end with a speed that shocked her as it seduced her. The scent of him filled her nostrils, and the taste of him—ah! The familiar taste of him as once more his mouth covered hers was like a drug to her sensually deprived body.

  She knew she should stop him, but at that moment his fingers rolled across her rigid nipples and she was swamped in a wave of heat. Instead her arms slipped around his neck. He lowered her to the floor, his lips against her throat, her shoulder, his long body stretched out half over her, his knee between her thighs.

  Gianfranco stared down at her; her dress was around her waist, and a scrap of white lace was the only barrier to the heated centre of her. He slipped the dress down her arms and bent his head, his mouth suckling on a rigid nipple.

  Kelly shut her eyes, a low moan of dismay and desire equally mixed escaping her. She felt his hand slide up her thigh, his long fingers slip beneath the lace barrier and wrench it from her body. His hand curved around the blonde curls at the apex of her thighs, his long fingers intimately exploring the velvet flesh. She was hot and damp and she shook with a need, a want so agonisingly painful that she cried out his name. And from that
moment on she was lost in her own fevered response to the awesome passion he evoked in her body, which had been celibate for far too long.

  Rearing up, Gianfranco touched the tip of his tongue to the tip of each breast as he deftly unfastened his trousers. Then he slid his hands under her and lifted her up to accept the fierce thrust of his manhood, burying himself deep in the hot, tight heart of her femininity.

  There was nothing tender or gentle about their coupling. More a wild white-water ride, two bodies grinding, drowning in a savage, primitive hunger, hand and mouth, tooth and nail, they caressed and clung until Kelly’s body convulsed first, in an agony of exquisite pleasure, and Gianfranco followed, his great body shaking with the force of his release. For a long moment he lay with his face buried in the soft curve of her throat and shoulder, then with a violent curse in Italian he rolled off her.

  Kelly understood the curse he had uttered, and heard the slight sound of his clothes being readjusted, the zing of a zip. She shivered. Not with cold but with shame.

  Leaping to his feet, Gianfranco ran a hand through his rumpled hair. Damn it, that was not supposed to have happened. He stared down at her, his black eyes raking over her flushed face and the abandoned position of her slender body, and he grimaced. But she was so hot and willing she couldn’t help herself. Once she had been all his. Dio, how many more men had tasted her sweetness? he wondered grimly.

  Kelly saw her briefs lying on the floor and silently groaned, shame keeping her from looking at Gianfranco.

  ‘You could earn a fortune as a porn star. Straighten yourself up, for God’s sake,’ Gianfranco said bluntly, his voice as hard and cold as ice.

  Ashen-faced, Kelly pulled up the bodice of her dress, pulled down the skirt, picked up the torn briefs and, ignoring him, walked into the kitchen and shoved them in the bin.

  Zombie-like, she crossed to the bench, filled the kettle at the tap, and switched it on. She took a cup from the shelf and spooned instant coffee into the cup. With her hands propped on the bench and her head bent she waited for the kettle to boil. And all the while her mind was screaming. What have I done? She couldn’t believe she had surrendered to Gianfranco so quickly, so uninhibitedly. Three years, she silently groaned, and as far as her traitorous body was concerned it could have been yesterday. Nothing had changed.