“He did not approve, no.”
“So what? Your daddy said he didn’t like the guy and you ended it?”
She swallowed. Her throat hurt. Were they tears, cloying to be shed?
“My father didn’t just say things. He made sure he was understood, loud and clear.”
Benedetto heard the words but there was a disconnect between what he’d understood and what she’d meant, surely. After all, she couldn’t have been implying that Augustine Beauchamp had resorted to physical means to get his daughter to obey him.
“What did this man do to your father?” He prompted, wondering if this ex-lover of Kate’s might in fact be able to help him with the proof he needed.
“He was his research assistant. Connor made sure dad’s cases were on point. He checked facts. That kind of thing. He was incredibly bright. I have no idea what he’s doing now.”
“You really ended it just because your father didn’t approve?”
“Yep.” She straightened away from him on the guise of studying the roses. “I didn’t even think twice.” She exhaled a long, slow breath to wipe the thoughts from her mind. “He’d love you, though.”
Benedetto felt nauseated. “Why do you say that?” His words sounded casual but inside he was screaming with rage.
“You’re just the kind of guy he’d want me to marry one day.” She laughed unsteadily. “I’m only twenty-two,” she hastened to add on.
Twenty-two. He froze. He had known that. Somewhere in the thick dossier of information he’d collected on Augustine Beauchamp he had all kinds of facts on Kate, including her age.
She was a baby. Far too young for what he’d done to her. Far too young for how he’d used her. Far, far too inexperienced for the game he’d pulled her into.
“You’re twenty-two,” he repeated, his face showing his surprise.
“So marriage is so completely not on my radar.” She laughed again, and now she seemed so young. Her innocence and naivety were byproducts of her age.
Guilt was slamming through him. Staring at the rose garden his father had tended for his mother, years after her death, he felt disgusted at his actions. What he had done to avenge the incarceration and death of his father should never have led to this.
He had taken a beautiful young woman and he had turned her into a weapon. Nothing more. He looked down at her and everything seemed completely off-balance. He thought of his phone, sitting switched off, in his bedroom and he wondered if there was any chance the message hadn’t actually sent.
Only he’d seen it go. He’d seen the little tick that indicated it had arrived at its source.
“Kate …”
“Don’t look like that,” she cut him off, hating to see him withdrawing from her. She didn’t want him to look cold and distant. She wanted him to stare down at her as though she held all the answers to the universe’s mysteries. “Please don’t look like that.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed his lips slowly, breathing passion back into his soul, pushing out any doubts he had been harbouring.
“You’re twenty-two,” he groaned against her mouth, wrapping his hands into her hair and holding her tight to his body. “I shouldn’t want you like this.”
“Are you kidding me? I’m twenty-two! I’m a fully grown woman! What are you talking about?”
“I’m thirty-four. Do you know that?”
She shrugged. “So?”
He shook his head. It wasn’t the age difference that was bothering him, so much as the fact he’d taken someone innocent and sweet and used her in a way that was so far from what she deserved.
“You’re okay sleeping with me knowing that it has no future?” He demanded. “Knowing that I have a lot of sex, just like this, with a lot of women, just like you?”
The pain was extraordinary. She’d never known anything like it — at least, not emotionally. “This is because I made a joke about marriage?” She said, keeping her mouth close to his.
“No.” He pulled the old t-shirt of his she wore from the waistband of her pants. His hands connected with her skin and he felt a rush of grateful desire. “It’s because, by your own admission, you have limited experience. And this is great sex. Really great sex. But that’s all it is. It would be easy for someone like you to think it was more.”
“I don’t,” she assured him so fast that surely it was true. “I told you yesterday: you have me for two days. So make the most of me.”
He would hate himself afterwards, but he was not strong enough to resist her invitation.
He growled as he ripped her shirt over her head and threw it to the grassed ground at their feet. They knelt as one, hands running over bodies, mouths tasting and tormenting, fingers teasing.
When he was naked, and his arousal was before her, she cupped it with her fingers and stared up at him nervously. “I want to … I’ve never … but I want to …”
“Yes?” He asked, his eyes narrowing as she lowered her mouth and took him within. He swore under his breath as she flicked his length with her tongue and sucked him until he could hardly stand it. She pushed at his shoulders, so that he was lying down on the grass and she was able to take more of him into her warm, moist mouth.
He swore louder, his fingers tangling in her hair and holding her where he needed her. He felt himself beginning to lose control and he pulled her away, lifting her higher so that he could see her face. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks were pink and her lips were so delightfully swollen. He stared into her eyes and he no longer saw Augustine. He saw Kate, and he saw his own soul too. Here, on the brink of the rose garden, where the spell of his parents’ love was perhaps at its strongest, he realised that he was the one in danger.
He had never loved a woman.
And yet he knew he could easily come to love Kate.
“I don’t want to stop,” she complained, dropping her lips to his chest and running kisses across his flesh.
“Nor do I, but believe me cara, things were about to come to an abrupt end if you’d kept going.”
Her smile was beautiful. The evening sun bathed her in a golden glow and he lifted his hands to her breasts. He traced circles around her nipples, and sighed at the splendour of that moment. She ran her tongue from his chest, lower still, back to his erection.
“We have all night, don’t we?” She murmured, and once more she took him deep into her mouth. The sight of her fair head moving as she teased his shaft was too much.
“Kate,” he groaned, trying once more to ease her away. But she caught his hands in hers, tangling their fingers together, so that she could hold them to the side.
He was losing every single hint of control. He was powerless to resist her seduction. For the first time in his life, Benedetto lost command completely and he discovered he loved it. As the sun finally dropped over the last hill, taking its warmth with it, they shared something that was new and different for both of them.
It was the beginning of the change that must, surely, have led to the end.
* * *
The tomatoes were perfect. She squeezed them one by one, feeling for the best, but they were each a testament to this country’s ability to produce fantastic fruit. She settled on a couple of large orbs with a mottled red and purple flesh and smiled at the vendor.
“Just these,” she slipped easily into Italian as she passed the two pieces over to him. He weighed them then wrapped each one in brown paper before placing them into a paper bag.
The markets were busier than the previous day. She handed some money over to him and angled her head to look along the collection of tents. They were all different colours, some selling fruit, others selling cheap trinkets, some with leather jackets and many with wine.
She stopped three shop fronts down and chose a sourdough baguette and a couple of almond croissants, then walked diagonally across to select four perfect dark chocolate truffles. Finally, she purchased a bottle of Prosecco, her lips ghosting into a smile as she remembered the way they’d met.
You w
ill learn to like doing what I say. A shiver ran down her spine now at the arrogant assertion. And yet he’d been right. Kate would have followed him to the ends of the earth.
The basket of the bicycle was overflowing but she made one more stop before turning it back towards the villa.
It was still early. The sun was up, but it was cold. Too cold to be wearing a flimsy shirt and the jeans he’d been wearing the day before. She must have looked like a street urchin, she thought with a grin, pushing her fair hair out of her eyes as the bike began to pick up speed. The ride was not an easy one, for the villa was perched high on a hill and the path wound for several miles at its base before veering steeply up hill. But at each hairpin turn she had an exquisite vantage point of the countryside below, and the little town quickly took on fairy village proportions. Even the markets looked a little like an elaborate toy she might have played with as a child.
Her smile was etched onto her face. She could have burst into spontaneous song.
They’d slept in the hammock overnight, quite by accident. The stars were so clear out in the Tuscan countryside, and the evening though cold was crisp and dry. With the thick feather duvet from his bed, they’d lain together to look up at the heavens. Only Kate was exhausted and she’d drifted off to sleep, her head on his chest. She’d slept better than she had done in years.
Something about his proximity made her feel safe and at ease. She hopped off the bike at the start of the driveway, opting to walk it along the path instead. If he were still asleep she rather liked the idea of surprising him. She propped the bike and the basket of goodies against a thick oak tree trunk and tiptoed to the hammock. But she saw from a distance away that it was empty. With a frown of disappointment, she put her hands on her hips and looked towards the house.
He was stepping through the front doors at that exact moment and she saw him before he noticed her.
Her heart skipped a beat.
He was wearing the tuxedo again; his hair was wet and brushed back from his face. His expression was completely unreadable — but she knew he was lost in serious thought, and that the thoughts were not pleasant. She moved back to the bike and began to ride it up towards the house. She had almost reached him when finally he looked up.
His smile was perfunctory and did not reach his eyes.
“Good morning,” she put the brake down and stepped off the bike. Though she smiled, anxiety was beginning to brick a wall in her tummy. “You’re up.”
He nodded and ran a hand over his chin. It was stubbled after two days without much in the way of amenity. “I thought we should head off early to beat the traffic.”
“The traffic? It’s a Sunday…”
“No sense in sitting around here.”
“Oh.” She fought the disappointment. “Well, actually, I have a surprise for you.”
“Do you?” Was that impatience in his words? Worry gnawed at her gut.
“Uh huh,” she ploughed on, telling herself she was imagining the coldness. “I got the most perfect tomatoes and bread; I’m going to make us bruschetta. And champagne. And also,” she reached into the basket and pulled out a gold packet. “Really, really good coffee. I could see you weren’t happy with the instant yesterday.”
He refused to let the kind gesture touch him. Though it was kind. It was thoughtful. But it all spoke of an attachment that was impossible to indulge. “That will all keep. I have packed up the house. It’s time to go.”
At her look of obvious disappointment he strengthened his resolve. “It’s time to get back to reality.”
Kate nodded, but in her mind she was screaming, This is reality! It’s the only reality I’ve ever wanted.
“And what is reality?” She said, doing her best to sound unemotional. But inside, her heart was cracking into tiny pieces.
“The lives we had before this,” he responded as though it were the easiest thing in the world.
She nodded, and handed the bag of groceries to him with more force than was necessary. Her eyes didn’t meet his. “I just have to go and get my …”
“Your dress and shoes are in the car.”
“Oh, right.” She swallowed. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“I need to get back to Roma, cara,” he responded tautly. The word, cara, sat like a heavy indictment between them. She was not his dear one. She was not his sweetness. She was nothing to him.
He opened the front passenger door for her. She paused in the apex he’d created. Her eyes sought his, searching for any sign of the man she’d fallen completely and totally under a spell of.
But he was gone. In his place was the most deliciously handsome stranger she’d ever known, but a stranger nonetheless.
* * *
Augustine was getting too old for this. He jammed his phone into his pocket with a sense of fury that he was finding increasingly difficult to curb. The closer he got to his bitch of a daughter, the more it became a ground swell, threatening to engulf him.
So she’d fallen into bed – literally – with Arnaud. Did she know that he was using her?
Was she trying to hurt him, too?
His fist clenched involuntarily by his side.
He had looked for her for years. He had searched and he had waited, certain that one day she would use her credit card or otherwise stumble.
How she had evaded him he could not have said. But she would not evade him for much longer. The doors to the airport swished open automatically as he approached and he scanned the row of uniformed drivers waiting to meet their human cargo. His own name was emblazoned on a board. He moved towards it with purpose.
His long wait was about to be rewarded.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You live here?” He pulled up outside the grimy building, the disdain obvious on his features.
She might have been offended, but she was too numb to feel anything but disbelief that this was ending. They had both agreed on two days and yet at some point, somewhere – perhaps even from that first wild evening when he whisked her away into the hills of Tuscany – she’d come to believe it would be so much more.
“Kate?” His word was inflected with raw cynicism. For he knew where she’d come from. He had been to the manor she’d grown up in; he’d seen photographs of the apartments in London. He knew that her first car was an Aston Martin.
“Yes. Thank you for the lift.” She pushed a smile to her face and lifted her eyes somewhere in his direction. But if she stared at him properly she knew she would cry. She felt for the door handle and pushed it open, stepping so hastily onto the street that she banged her knee on the car as she did so.
To her chagrin, he was beside her in a second. He didn’t touch her, nor did he attempt to check her knee for damage. But he stared at her, and it was apparent he was weighing his words.
“Show me,” he said finally, nodding towards the apartment.
Kate bit down on her lip. “Why?”
His smile was without humour. “I thought we had overcome this. Remember how much nicer it is when you do what I say?”
She swallowed. It was a comment that took her back to that first night. How could it only have been two nights ago? It felt like a year, for all that had happened between them.
Her eyes were weary. “Why?” She repeated, shrugging her slender shoulders. And they were slender, he noticed with a frown. She was achingly fragile, standing before him with no make up, her hair in a plait, and the dress she’d worn Friday.
“I want to know how you live.” He angled his head to look across the street and a muscle jerked in his jaw. “I need to know how you live.”
“Why?”
He pinned her with an angry gaze, loaded with impatience and then began to move towards the door.
“It’s none of your business,” she said with a quiet stoicism that he might have admired if it weren’t directly contravening his request. “I’m none of your business anymore, right?”
His eyes roamed her face but words wouldn’t come to him.<
br />
“I just don’t get it,” she said finally. Somewhere down the street, a door slammed shut and Kate winced. Benedetto’s eyes jerked towards the intrusion; two men in dark jeans and hooded sweaters walked past. Their eyes lingered on Kate in a way that made Benedetto’s skin crawl.
“What don’t you get?” He prompted, but his need to see her apartment and assure himself she had adequate safety measures was now paramount.
She swallowed, and then dropped her hand into her bag. She pulled the keys out and clutched them in her palm. “You wanted me. That’s what you said, right? I mean, I know I’m not experienced but I’m not getting that wrong. You wanted me, and you pursued me, and it was … amazing … for both of us. Right?”
His nod was an honest concession to that fact.
“So you’ve had enough of me? You got me, and now you’re done? Is that how it works for you?”
He could understand her confusion. He felt it himself. If it weren’t for the complication of his hatred of her father, perhaps he would have allowed himself more time with her.
“You don’t want me anymore?”
He felt himself harden at the simple question; his body was challenging him not to be such a cold bastard. But Benedetto needed to think. He needed to reconcile what he’d come to feel for Katherine Beauchamp with who she was. He needed time to assess if she could ever understand why he’d planned to use her for revenge.
“I do not wish to discuss something so personal on your stoop,” he said finally, his voice giving nothing of his feelings away.
“Fine,” she inserted the key into the door. “Come in. And seeing as you’re so good at sticking to stupid, arbitrary deadlines, let’s say you can stay for five minutes.”
Her accurate jibe hit him as she’d intended. He put a hand on the small of her back and propelled her through the door but she quickly moved away from him. “This is me.” She nodded towards a door just down the hallway. It was a glossy black where the others were peeled with cream paint.
“Show me,” he said simply.
Seasons of Sin: Misbehaving in summer and autumn... (Series of Sin) Page 21
