‘You might look breakable but you pack quite a punch,’ he growled, aware with a flash of shame that he had gone too far.
His eyes narrowed on her face. She was so pale that he thought she was about to faint. He swore as he stretched out his arms to catch her. She drew an audible breath and flinched, and the flash of fear in her eyes shocked him. ‘What the hell?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry—I can’t believe I hit you.’ She pressed her knuckles against her lips. Her eyes were wide with fright and her breath came in sharp bursts. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I’m no better than him...’
‘Than who?’ Torre frowned when she pressed her lips together as if she regretted the words that had spilled from them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again in an appalled whisper. It crossed Torre’s mind that Orla’s strange reaction might be an act to gain his sympathy, but she was trembling, and the gamut of emotions that crossed her face were too raw not to be real.
‘I deserved it,’ he said curtly. Eight years ago she had made him lose control and made him feel less than the man he was determined to be. But the truth was that he couldn’t blame Orla for his failure to live up to the high standard he had set himself. She might be a tramp willing to sell herself to a rich husband in return for financial security like her mother had done many times. Orla already had one failed marriage behind her. But perhaps her behaviour was not surprising when she’d been brought up to think that being a rich man’s trophy wife was a good career move.
The shimmer of tears in her eyes evoked an unknown emotion in Torre that could have been tenderness if he had cared to examine it—which he didn’t. His frown deepened when she tensed as if she was bracing herself to receive a blow. ‘Orla—what are you afraid of?’
Instead of answering him, she spun round and he heard a crack as her knee collided with the edge of the chair. ‘Dio. Slow down,’ he commanded as she dashed across the room. Torre caught up with her as she grabbed the door handle. He put his hand on her shoulder and she gave a thin cry like an animal in pain as she flattened herself against the door.
‘Don’t. Please, David...don’t...’
CHAPTER FOUR
ORLA HEARD TORRE SWEAR.
Torre. Not David. She took a shuddering breath as the images in her mind of her ex-husband standing menacingly over her, his hand raised to strike her, slowly faded. She bit her lip, hoping she hadn’t cried out David’s name. For a few moments she had felt the same sickening fear in the pit of her stomach that she’d felt when David had cornered her in the bathroom. He had locked the door before he’d walked purposefully towards her, and she had sensed that he enjoyed her terror as much as he’d enjoyed physically hurting her. Ten months earlier he had promised to love her and protect her but, according to David, she had been a useless wife and deserved his black temper.
No one ever deserved to be physically or verbally attacked. Orla reminded herself of what the nurse in the A and E department had told her when she’d pretended that the cut above her eye had happened as a result of her tripping on some concrete steps in the garden. There was never an excuse for violence, the nurse had insisted when she’d given Orla a leaflet with information about a local women’s refuge.
Her eyes flew to Torre’s face and she gave a low moan of distress when she saw the livid scarlet print of her hand on his cheek. Dear God, she was no better than David. She had been furious with Torre but that did not excuse her behaviour. Shame bit deep into her and she wanted to weep for the way her disastrous marriage had changed her into someone she no longer recognised as herself. She could not blame Torre if he retaliated. He loomed over her and she squeezed her eyes shut, steeling herself for him to hit her. But the blow never came, and when she raised her lashes she found him staring at her with an indefinable expression in his eyes.
He swore again but there was no aggression in his voice, and when he spoke it was in a low growl that somehow made the ache of misery inside her even worse. ‘Are you afraid of me?’ She saw disbelief and anger in his eyes but she had a feeling that his anger wasn’t directed at her. ‘What do think I’m going to do, piccola?’
He spoke quietly, as if he was trying not to scare her even more. Orla knew that the Italian word piccola meant ‘little one’—and she simply unravelled. Tears filled her eyes and she could not stop them sliding down her cheeks. Her instincts told her that he would not hurt her. But her instincts had been wrong before and she hadn’t guessed that David’s outward charm had hidden his obsessive jealousy, she thought bleakly.
She did not know how to answer Torre. She hated herself for breaking down in front of him, but her tears kept falling and she buried her face in her hands so at least she would not see the contempt that she was sure would be reflected in his steely gaze.
He muttered something else in Italian but Orla was too caught up in her misery to make any sense of his words. She tensed when he slid his arm around her waist and she felt his other arm behind her knees, and then the room tilted as he lifted her and carried her over to a sofa beneath the window.
‘Let go of me.’ She struggled to get away from him, but he sat down and pulled her onto his lap, holding her firmly but without force. Unbelievably she felt him stroke her hair and his unexpected gentleness made her cry harder. She could not explain why she felt safe with Torre’s arms around her. The steady thud of his heart beneath her ear as she rested her head on his chest soothed her ragged emotions. Gradually her panic receded and she drew a shaky breath as the storm calmed. She wiped her tears away with her hands and found her eyes drawn to Torre’s face so close to hers. Too close for comfort.
‘Feeling better?’ he enquired, nothing in his deep voice to give her a clue to his thoughts.
‘Yes, thank you.’ She felt like she was made of glass and could easily shatter.
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ Talk about her ex-husband’s cruelty, or her shame that she had lashed out at Torre? Neither topic made for a conversation she wanted to have with him, now or ever. She attempted to slide off his knees but he subtly increased the pressure of his arms around her and she did not have the strength—mentally or physically—for another fight.
And so she sat still, hardly able to believe that Torre was holding her as if she was breakable, as if he hadn’t said those horrible things to her and accused her of leading Jules on. Torre was wrong. Jules had never given any indication that he wanted more than the easy friendship they shared. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she remembered that Jules’s behaviour since they had arrived in Amalfi had been odd, and his possessive air had made her feel uneasy.
Once again she wished heartily that she hadn’t come to Villa Romano to take part in Giuseppe’s birthday celebrations. The party tomorrow evening was bound to evoke memories of the party eight years ago when she’d met Torre for the first time and fallen for him so hard and fast that she had believed she was in love with him.
‘After the party to celebrate his seventieth birthday Giuseppe is going on a cruise,’ Torre murmured. ‘The change of scenery will be good for him and hopefully help him begin to enjoy his retirement.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘My father thinks that he is indestructible but he was seriously ill with pneumonia, and it’s time he took things a little easier.’
Orla realised that Torre’s light tone and casual conversation were a deliberate attempt to establish an air of normality after her emotional meltdown. She was grateful that he had not pushed her for an explanation. She took his lead and determinedly showed an interest in Giuseppe’s travel plans. ‘Where will the cruise ship visit?’
‘Many of the Caribbean Islands. The ship stops in Jamaica, Barbados and Grenada, and I think St Kitts is on the itinerary.’
‘It’s a beautiful part of the world.’
‘Have you been to the Caribbean?’
She hesitated. ‘I had a holiday in Antigua.’ Her voice was carefully unemotional. She did not explain that it was where she and David had spent
their honeymoon and she’d first glimpsed another side to her new husband’s character. David had accused her of flirting with one of the waiters at their hotel, she remembered. She had denied it and they’d had an argument before David had stormed out of the hotel. He’d been gone for hours and she’d been frantic with worry when he’d finally returned. Somehow she’d found herself apologising even though she’d done nothing wrong. It had been the beginning of ten terrible months when David’s temper had become increasingly volatile and she had never been able to please him, however hard she’d tried.
‘Where have you gone?’ Torre’s question pulled Orla back to the present. Her cheek was still pressed against his shirt and she heard the rumble of his voice deep in his chest. Her other senses stirred to life so that she was aware of the heat of his body and the spicy musk of his aftershave, and tendrils of desire unfurled slowly within her.
‘I’m still here,’ she murmured in a husky voice that did not sound like her own as she pretended to take his question literally. Beneath her bottom she felt Torre’s thigh muscles clench.
‘Believe me, I am aware of that fact,’ he said drily. His chest lifted as if his breathing was suddenly constricted but when he spoke it was still in that calm, unthreatening way so that Orla relaxed. ‘While Giuseppe is away on the cruise for six weeks it is an opportunity for vital renovation work to be carried out on Villa Romano.’
‘What kind of renovation work?’
‘The simple answer is that there is a problem with the foundations. A few of the nearby trees are as old as the house and their root systems drain any moisture from the ground. In layman’s terms, this has led to the house sinking as the ground it was built on shrinks.’
Orla nodded. ‘Subsidence can be a major problem, especially with old buildings. Underpinning the villa to make the original foundations stronger will be a complicated job on such a big house.’
Torre’s brows lifted. ‘I’m surprised you know about subsidence and underpinning.’
For a moment she was tempted to tell him that she had completed three years of a four-year degree in civil engineering. But he might ask why she hadn’t graduated, and she was too embarrassed to admit that she had given up the career she enjoyed for a man she’d thought she loved, only to have her self-confidence destroyed by a marriage made in hell.
She shrugged. ‘When I worked as PA to the manager of the construction firm Mayall’s I picked up some of the terminology.’
To her relief Torre did not ask her anything else, although his gaze continued to rest thoughtfully on her face. Sometimes his grey eyes were hard and bright like steel, but at other times, like now, they darkened and reminded Orla of woodsmoke. Suddenly she no longer felt relaxed as she heard the echo of his heartbeat beneath her ear thudding in time with her racing pulse.
Too late she realised she was in danger—not from Torre but from herself and her involuntary reaction to him. Her eyes were fixed on the expanse of his bronzed skin revealed where the top few buttons on his shirt were unfastened. Everything took on a dream-like quality. Hardly able to believe what she was doing, Orla put her hand on his skin and felt the heat of him and the intoxicating contrast of smooth satin overlaid with wiry black chest hairs. His ribcage lifted and fell unevenly but he made no move to stop her when she slid her fingers up the column of his throat and over the dark stubble shading his jaw.
Utterly absorbed by his male potency, she continued her exploration and traced the sensual shape of his lips with her fingertips. It felt unreal to be sitting on his lap with her body pressed up against the muscled strength of his. And if this wasn’t real, if this was another of the daydreams about Torre that she’d had too often in the last eight years, then it did not matter if she angled her mouth beneath his in a blatant invitation.
The feral sound he made spiralled through her body, right down to the ache that pulsed insistently between her thighs. And with that molten heat came a sense of relief, a fierce joy that David had not taken everything and destroyed her femininity, as she’d feared. The tendrils of desire blossomed into something urgent and intense, a need she had never felt this strongly with her ex-husband, she admitted to herself. Not even in the early days of their relationship when David had been charming and she’d been flattered by his interest in her.
‘You drive me insane,’ Torre said roughly. His warm breath grazed her lips before he claimed her mouth and kissed her deep and slow, with a bone-shaking eroticism that stoked the fire in Orla’s belly. He dipped his tongue between her lips and she welcomed the thrust of his bold exploration with a hunger that matched his. She knew he wanted her. The solid ridge of his arousal pressed into the cleft of her bottom with only the barrier of their clothes between them. Nothing existed but Torre and the fire that burned inside her so that she pressed down harder on his lap and heard him groan.
‘I knew you were a witch the first time I saw you.’
His words were hoarse with sexual hunger, but they were an unwelcome intrusion that jolted her from a haze of sensual pleasure and forced her to accept the reality of the situation. Torre had made it clear that he despised her but that hadn’t prevented her from throwing herself at him like the tramp he thought she was.
She pulled her mouth from his and it was the hardest thing she had ever done. Her body yearned to lean into his strength and burn in his fire. But she was not the naïve eighteen-year-old she had been the first time they’d met. Torre had broken her heart and it had taken her a long time to get over him. She had married David soon after she’d heard from Giuseppe that Torre was engaged to the daughter of an Italian count. It was only now that she could see there was a connection between the two events, Orla thought as she slid off Torre’s knees and stood up.
She quashed a sharp stab of disappointment when he did not try to stop her. What kind of masochistic idiot was she? He had hurt her once and undoubtedly he could hurt her again. She did not fear him in a physical sense. Something deep inside her knew with absolute certainty that Torre was an honourable man and he would never use his superior strength against someone smaller and weaker than himself. But she hadn’t only given him her innocence eight years ago, she had given him her heart and soul, and she had never forgotten his scathing rejection.
‘We shouldn’t have done that.’ She felt ashamed of how easily she had succumbed to his sorcery. And she was confused by her response to him. After David she had been understandably wary of men. But Torre had dismantled her defences—because she had wanted him to, she acknowledged. She wanted him as badly as she had done when she’d been an innocent girl of eighteen—maybe more—because she knew that their passion was electrifying.
Pride was her only defence against him. ‘You had no right to kiss me,’ she said angrily.
‘It was the other way round, surely? You kissed me.’ His lazy smile mocked her but she could not define the expression in his eyes—although when she remembered how she had wept in his arms she thought it might be compassion that darkened his gaze.
She did not want his pity. Shame coiled through her and without saying another word she spun round and marched over to the door with her head held high and the sound of his soft laughter in her ears.
* * *
Torre watched Orla step into the corridor and found himself wanting to go after her. He could not understand the sense of protectiveness he felt, or the urge he had to hold her in his arms and reassure her as he had done a few moments ago. Women like Orla and her mother did not need protection, he reminded himself. He had met plenty of their kind; women who relied on their beauty and sexual allure to attach themselves to rich men like leeches, only letting go once they had bled their victim dry.
Orla already had one divorce behind her. It was easy to understand why Jules had fallen for her ethereal loveliness but her sweet nature and hint of vulnerability were all a clever act—weren’t they?
He walked over to the window, the restless ache that Orla evoked in him making him feel edgy and yet oddly alive, as if
everything was in sharper focus. Eight years ago the sexual chemistry between them had been white hot, but his emotions had become more complicated when he had taken her to bed and been struck by her generosity and eagerness to please him. Dio, she had given him her virginity and made him feel like a king who ruled the world. The next morning, when he had discovered her identity, he had accused her of being a gold-digger like her mother—because he had been glad of the excuse to send her away, Torre acknowledged.
He’d been shocked at how she had undermined his self-control. When he had seen his mother’s earrings in her bag, and Orla had explained that her mother was his father’s gold-digger new wife, he had chosen to believe that she was as mercenary as Kimberly. Why else would she have gifted him her innocence if not because she’d hoped he would put a wedding ring on her finger? He had refused to entertain the possibility that she was not a scheming fortune hunter and he hadn’t stopped her when she had fled from his room. Later he had learned from Giuseppe that she had left Amalfi that same day.
Just because Orla had shown a vulnerable side to her when she’d had some sort of emotional breakdown a few moments ago, it did not mean that he had been wrong about her years ago, Torre told himself. He frowned as he recalled the fearful expression in her eyes when he had followed her across the room after she had slapped him. He certainly had not been about to retaliate, but she had clearly expected him to—which seemed to suggest that she had experienced violence from someone in her past.
He shoved a hand through his hair as he strode back over to the desk and picked up Orla’s CV. His common sense told him that after Giuseppe’s birthday party was over there was no reason for him to have anything more to do with her. But she had insisted that she wanted to work, and if he offered her a job it would give him a chance to find out if she really did only want friendship with his stepbrother, or if she was lining Jules up to be her next rich husband. It would be interesting to discover who the real Orla Brogan was, Torre brooded.
Hired for Romano's Pleasure Page 5
