She fluttered her lashes, less, he suspected, to be coy, than because she was embarrassed. A faint blush colored her skin. “We don’t have to talk about it. It all happened a long time ago. You yourself said, just this afternoon, that we’re not the same people we were then.”
“I said I was not the same. But you…I don’t know that you’re so very different, after all. I see many traces of that long-ago girl in the woman you’ve become, many of her traits. But at twenty-five, I was arrogant, selfish, and too immature to appreciate your fine qualities. I seduced you, put your good name in jeopardy, and left you to face the consequences alone. And I’m proud of none of it.”
“There were no consequences,” she said, her blush deepening, “and you ought to know.”
“I don’t wish to be indelicate,” he was quick to reply, “nor have I any desire to revive unpleasant memories, but just because I used protection to guard against your becoming pregnant doesn’t alter the fact that, in every other respect, I treated you shabbily.”
“You were honest, Matteo.”
“Brutal, I’d say.”
“All right, brutally honest, then! What I saw as love everlasting, you recognized as infatuation. And a good thing, too! We were mismatched from the start.” She toyed with her Veal Frangelico and ventured a smile. “Can you really see me married to someone like you?”
“The princess and the pauper, you mean?”
“Not necessarily. But we came from vastly different worlds and had little in common beyond an overabundance of hormones. Without meaning to offend you at all, I feel bound to say that if you hadn’t ended our affair, I would have—and sooner rather than later. Let’s face it, Matteo: we were wrong for each other from the outset.”
“And you were looking for Signor Right.”
She turned to stare out the window at the lights of Saint Angelo spattered over the shoreline far below. “Yes.”
“And you found him soon after I vacated the scene.” He took a mouthful of wine, and wondered why the smooth, robust Bertillon should all at once leave such a harsh impression on his palate. “Tell me about this man you married.”
“There’s little to tell. We were together for only two years.”
“So he wasn’t Signor Right, after all.”
“I thought he was, at the time. I thought he loved me.”
“And you loved him?”
A spark of something darkened her eyes, like a coming storm threatening a clear blue sky, and she took a moment to reply. “I told myself I did. It’s easy to convince yourself of that, when your entire family approves.”
“Is that why you rushed into marriage? To please your family?”
“No. Charles and I reached that decision together. I was ready to settle down.”
“Ready for a child, too?”
She cast her eyes down and stared at her lap. “Yes. Charles wanted the baby. He was quite a bit older than I was, you see.”
Not exactly! As far as Matteo knew, a man’s age had little to do with his ability to father a child. But she seemed distracted by the turn the conversation had taken, so he endeavored to end it on a more positive note. “At least you were happy for a little while.”
“I’ve been happy for a long while, Matteo,” she informed him sharply. “My life is very full and satisfying. I have Simon, and a very rewarding career—”
“What career is that?”
“I’m a microbiologist, working in a research facility at the university. I thought you’d have known that, since you’ve always kept in touch with my grandmother.”
He didn’t tell her that, once he heard she was married, he’d found her too painful a topic to pursue. Instead, he said mildly enough, “And those two things are enough?”
“Oh, there’s more,” she said cheerfully.
Too cheerfully for his liking! No doubt there was also a lineup of eligible bachelors dancing attendance on her during her leisure hours—perhaps even a special man wanting to make her his wife, a possibility that, oddly, left him black with suppressed rage. “Such as what?”
“I have a beautiful home in a beautiful city. Friends, enough money, good health, peace of mind…what more could I ask for?”
“Love?”
“I already told you, I have Simon.”
“Not that kind of love, Stephanie. Some women don’t need passion to make them complete, but you’re not one of them. You were made to be loved by a man.”
“I don’t have time for romance, or marriage. I’m too busy being a mother. And men usually aren’t willing to take on another man’s child.”
Masking his relief, he said, “I don’t see why not, when the child in question is so thoroughly likeable—lovable, even.”
She bit her lip, and in doing so drew his attention to her mouth. As if it had last happened just yesterday, he recalled how it had felt to kiss her, and the embers which had been simmering low in his belly almost from the moment he saw her again, burst into flame.
Quickly, before she guessed the direction of his thoughts, he said, “And a boy needs a father figure in his life, you know. Someone to give him proper guidance.”
He meant well by his words, but she didn’t receive them in the same spirit. “Does he really?” she snapped, her hands suddenly shaking so hard that her knife and fork fell with a clatter onto her plate. “Well, thank you so much for your expert advice, but it just so happens that Simon is managing very well with just his mother’s guidance.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. It—”
“Oh, save it for someone who cares, Matteo!” Visibly distraught, she pushed back her chair and sprang away from the table. “This evening was a mistake. I knew before it even started that I’d live to regret it.”
“Stephanie, wait!” he exclaimed, stunned by her outburst.
But he found himself addressing thin air. In a swirl of rosy silk, she was gone, running from the dining room as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. Flinging down his napkin, he went in pursuit and almost caught up with her. But she reached the ladies’ room just in time to slip through the door and slam it in his face.
Chagrined, he turned away and met the amused gaze of Luigi, the club’s head steward. The man lifted his shoulders in a shrug, as though to say, Women! How is a man to understand the workings of their minds!
Right there and then, Matteo had no answer. Where Stephanie was concerned, however, he intended to figure one out. Because while he might have relegated her to the back of his mind for years, ever since she’d come into his life again, she was all he’d been able to think about, and he wanted to know everything about her.
Most particularly, he wanted to know why she was so afraid of him. Why, when he was trying his best to prove himself worthy of her friendship, she persisted in regarding him as the enemy.
CHAPTER THREE
EVERYONE was in bed when Stephanie returned to the villa shortly before midnight. Carrying her shoes, she crept up the stairs and peeped in on Simon. He slept like an angel, blissfully ignorant of how close his mother had come to turning his world upside-down.
“I was beginning to think you planned to spend the night in there,” Matteo had said, waylaying her when she finally left the sanctuary of the ladies’ room at the supper club. “Stephanie, forgive me for upsetting you. That wasn’t my intention. I intended no criticism.”
Doing her best to hide how shaken she’d been by his comments, she’d managed a smile. “It wasn’t entirely your fault. I’m afraid I overreacted. Mothers, especially single mothers, tend to do that when they feel they’re under attack from an outsider.”
His dark, level brows rose. “An outsider?” he said, sounding as wounded as if she’d stabbed him in the heart with a carving knife. “What, have I so soon lost the right to consider myself your friend?”
“Perhaps we were expecting too much in thinking friendship between us was possible.”
“Not so!” He caught both her
hands in his. “I have nothing but admiration for you, both as a woman and a mother, and the last thing I’d ever want is to cause you pain. If you believe nothing else I tell you, I beg you to believe that.”
Unfortunately, she did. He wasn’t the same man who’d stolen her heart, along with her innocence. There was a humanity and compassion to him now which he hadn’t possessed before. Yet he was no less alluring. Not only had maturity softened his arrogance, it also added to his sex appeal, which made him all the more dangerous.
It would be easy to fall under his spell again; to lower her guard and leave herself vulnerable to his insidious charm. Look at what had happened tonight: his smile across a candlelit table, a glass or two of wine, and the next thing she knew, she was betraying damaging evidence that she wasn’t nearly as immune to him as she’d like him and her both to believe. Even the simple friendly way he now clasped her hands was enough to send tendrils of heat curling through her blood, and leave her hungering for more.
“I’ll consider the matter,” she said, pulling herself free and deliberately keeping her tone light. “Right now, though, I’d like you to take me home.”
“So soon? Can’t I persuade you to share coffee and an after-dinner grappa with me, first?”
“I have the feeling I should pass. I’m not sure what grappa is, but it sounds sinful.”
“It’s nothing but an Italian brandy made from the stalks of grapes. Harmless enough when taken in moderation, and a pleasant way to end the evening.” Cupping her elbow, he ushered her toward a wide marble staircase. “And a little sin once in a while never hurt anyone.”
He made sin sound delectable. Something worth dying for! He always had. And she’d never been able to resist it. “But it’s growing late,” she said, a token, feeble objection at best.
He laughed. “It’s not quite ten o’clock, Stephanie—barely the dinner hour in this part of the world!”
“Nevertheless, it’s past my bedtime.”
“I’d have thought you were also past the age where you had to obey a curfew. Surely your father won’t be waiting up to see what time you get home?”
“No. My parents and brothers drove into Forio for dinner, but I begged off going with them. Only my grandmother knows I’m out with you. She offered to look after Simon.”
“I see.” His lashes swept down, concealing the expression in his eyes. “Still afraid the rest of your family won’t approve of the company you’re keeping, then?”
“You’re not the only one who’s different, Matteo,” she informed him tartly. “Despite what you might think, I’ve grown up, too. My life’s my own now. I do as I please, and spend time with whomever I please. But I saw no point in inviting unnecessary comment by making a big issue of having dinner with you.”
“Then don’t make a big issue of finishing the evening in style, with coffee and brandy.” He smiled and let his eyes sweep the length of her. “You can hardly blame me for wanting to show you off, cara. It’s not every night that I have such a beautiful woman on my arm.”
That smile, coupled with his lazy, heavily-lashed glance, laid waste to a woman’s intentions and left her sense of self-preservation in ruins. Bemused, Stephanie allowed him to lead her up the stairs to a lounge softly lit by crystal chandeliers, and elegantly furnished with deep, comfortable couches upholstered in silk tapestry.
After a brief exchange with a hovering waiter, Matteo led her to a quiet alcove separated from the rest of the room by a lacquered screen. They were barely seated before the same waiter reappeared, rolling before him a small brass trolley set with a silver coffeepot, translucent porcelain demi tasses rimmed in burgundy and gold, a decanter of what she presumed was the grappa, and two tall, narrow glasses similar to champagne flutes, but flared at the lip like bud vases.
“I chose the Aglianico for your introduction to our brandy,” Matteo said, pouring a measure of the liquor into each glass and passing one to her. “It possesses the floral notes of an orchard which I think you’ll enjoy. Salute!”
Cautiously, she tasted the contents, and choked as the liquid seared her throat and left her fighting for breath. “You could have warned me I was playing with fire!” she gasped, when she could speak again.
“But it is a fire you can tame, Stephanie. Take but a small amount, the next time. Let it linger on your palate…caress your tongue.”
Out of the blue, the hypnotic cadence of his voice drew her back with shocking recall to the first time he’d kissed her. Open your mouth, Stephanie…let me taste you….
Appalled by the telltale quiver of sexual arousal spearing the length of her, she lifted the glass to her lips a second time, not caring if she burned a hole in her throat. Anything to silence the seductive memories of yesterday!
“Slowly, cara,” he purred. “Ah yes…just so! Now hold it a moment before you release it. Close your eyes, and let it stroke your senses.”
She had no intention of doing any such thing. However, his powers of persuasion far exceeded her puny efforts at resistance and, astonishingly, her eyelids fluttered closed, shutting out the subdued light of the chandeliers. But not, alas, the images surging up from the past and swimming through her mind in living color.
She saw again the stable loft, and the halo of yellow light cast on the hay by the lantern hanging from a beam. Saw him stripped naked, his skin olive-tinted from hip to mid-thigh, but elsewhere burnished by the sun. Saw him stretched out beside her. Felt him draw her hand inexorably toward him until the dark hair at his groin feathered against her skin, and the powerful thrust of his erection nudged at her fingertips.
Once again, his whispered entreaty drifted down the years, hoarse and impassioned. “Touch me, Stephanie…feel me…stroke me….”
Eyes flying wide open, she sampled the grappa again with reckless abandon. Let the blasted stuff choke the life out of her, if it chose! At least that would put paid to ill-timed, inappropriate memories sneaking up and engulfing her without warning.
But this time, the brandy rolled down her throat, smooth as a skein of silken ribbon. It wound its way past the constriction in her chest, warming her blood to the tips of her toes. And opening the door to the past even wider.
From the outset, Matteo had beguiled her with his dazzling, devil-may-care grin and midnight-dark, seductive bedroom eyes. He was a rebel who loved danger and thumbed his nose at the conservative world in which she’d grown up, and if one part of her had known he was bad for her and would bring her nothing but grief, another was drawn to his wild and reckless ways as inexorably as a moth to the flame.
One afternoon in particular stood out in her memory, when he’d lured her up to the hayloft, and right in the middle of their making love, her grandfather had come into the stable. She’d frozen, aghast at being discovered, and attempted to roll free. But Matteo had pinned her with his body and shaken his head in refusal. He’d smiled into her eyes and rocked silently within her, teasing her flesh unbearably.
She’d tried to distance herself emotionally, physically, but danger seemed to heighten her body’s sexual appetite. Despite all her efforts, she’d felt herself teetering on the brink of orgasm. Had been sure her thundering heart could be heard a mile away. And when she finally succumbed to the explosive release, he’d covered her mouth with his hand to stifle her involuntary moans of pleasure.
“Well, Stephanie?”
Focusing her gaze with difficulty, she saw Matteo watching her. “Well, what?”
“I asked if you’d care for more grappa.”
Absolutely not! She wasn’t much of a drinker at the best of times, and this concoction was lethal! It diminished her common sense and made flirting with danger too appealing. On the plus side, though, the warmth of the liquor had a relaxing effect, left her feeling less brittle, less edgy. “Well…maybe just a splash. It’s very potent.”
“Sì. The first time can be something of a shock to someone not used to it. But it improves upon acquaintance, does it not?”
“Did I
hurt you, my Stephanie?” he’d murmured, the night she’d lost her virginity to him. “I’m sorry. It will be better the next time, I promise…you will come also, and it will be beautiful for both of us….”
“And it was!”
“Scusi?” Matteo had leaned forward on the couch and was staring at her, his eyes watchful, his brow knit with confusion.
She grasped at the edges of the memories confounding her, ineffectually trying to contain them, but they slithered, sharp and brilliant, through her mind—of his mouth at her breast, and his hand delving between her legs. Of him looming tall and strong above her, and the stabbing discomfort as he entered her, followed by the engulfing heat of his possession. Of her own whimper of pain, drowned out by his deep groan of completion.
“It does,” she stammered. “Improve upon acquaintance, that is. The grappa, I mean….”
“Of course.” He lifted the coffeepot. “And marries well with espresso.”
She heard the lazy laughter in his voice and knew he must find her a joke. Small wonder! She was acting like a perfect idiot.
“So,” he said, sinking back next to her on the couch after the coffee was poured, “how are you enjoying the Villa Elenna?”
“Very much. It’s quite lovely inside. Have you ever seen it?”
A smile played over his mouth. “A few times, yes. It is, as you say, quite lovely.”
The coffee was too hot to drink. Setting it aside, she sipped again from her glass. “What’s your cottage like, Matteo?”
“Very comfortable. I’ll be happy to show it to you sometime, if you like.”
The mere idea sent an illicit shiver of pleasure over her. Ignoring it, she said primly, “You live alone, do you?”
“Sì.”
“Have you never been tempted to marry?”
“No.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?”
The Italian's Secret Child Page 4
