LOVING VENUS
By Sally-Ann Jones
Cover design by Erin Steenson
By the author of
Love: Classified
A Hard Man to Love
I, Rhiannon
Dragon Orchid
Beyond the Border
CHAPTER ONE
Alessandro de Rocco wasn’t sure exactly when she’d arrive. And he’d been dreading it for weeks.
He scowled as the village’s one battered taxi drew to a halt in the white, dusty road below. It was the first time since the funeral that a car had been anywhere near Casa dei Fiori and the young man noticed with impatience that several of the hired workmen leaning on their spades in the sunflower fields were also peering eagerly to get their first glimpse of the new heiress. For who else could afford to pay for a taxi to come all the way out here, high in the Tuscan hills?
He knew his second cousin, his Australian second cousin, he reminded himself with a shudder, wouldn’t catch sight of him on the terrace, where he’d been sitting at the table, trying to make sense of the disheartening rows and rows of figures. He wouldn’t let her know he’d seen her and give her the satisfaction of knowing her imminent arrival meant anything at all to him, good or bad.
He saw the passenger door of the road-weary taxi being flung open with imperious determination. One black-booted foot, then the other, were planted firmly, proprietorially, on the road, followed by long, denim-clad calves. Alessandro recognized Doc Marten footwear when he saw it and an involuntary tremor of loathing shot through him. In his varied experience of women, only the very, very bossy and, yes, common, wore such thick-soled, clod-hopping, unfeminine articles.
So far, so bad.
Alessandro caught his breath in amazement when the rest of his second cousin emerged like a red tidal-wave from the black confines of the vehicle. Suddenly, there she was in the road, having flung her back-pack carelessly into the dirt while she paid the driver from a bulging wallet. Her waist-length auburn hair snapped and crackled around her like a flame, just as he remembered it when she was a child. But the plump, boxy little body he’d once taken so little notice of was gone.
She was, he saw with a sinking heart, a beauty. Hers was a beauty he knew would haunt him during every waking moment as well as in his dreams. The kind of loveliness that only surfaced every few generations. Yet, he was sure he’d seen someone like her before – but where? Even from high up behind the crumbling villa that was now hers, his hungry body was already responding to her. Those aggressive boots she wore, her travel-stained jeans, the torn scrap of silk she’d wound around her breasts couldn’t hide her natural assets.
He swore under his breath and shifted his weight uncomfortably as his wayward maleness strained against the confines of his tight jodhpurs. His second cousin had bent to pick up her backpack, then straightened to wave her thanks to the taxi driver, two motions that sent her hair flying like a silken banner in the breeze and gave him the perfect view of her round, pert bottom and generous breasts swaying free under that ridiculous piece of fabric. A spasm of hot-blooded lust powered through his whole body as he watched her. Then, she opened her mouth and Alessandro recoiled in disgust.
“Streuth!” she cursed, as she stood, legs astride, looking up at what their great-grandfather had bequeathed her. “What the hell did he think I was going to do with this old wreck?”
Her broad Australian accent assailed his ears just as ferociously as the rest of her set every other cell in his body into an uncontrollable reaction to her unexpected sexiness. How many months – or was it years – had it been since he had felt such a lightning bolt of pure lust? He had had many lovers but this woman brought out the animal in him, even at this distance. Her combination of spirit and unblemished girlish beauty sent his hormones spinning into overdrive.
He watched her resolutely square her shoulders then stride up the steep road to the house, the denim outlining her shapely legs and curvy thighs and hips.
He admired women who revelled in their own femininity, who didn’t starve their bodies into stick-thin androgyny. This relation of his seemed to be composed of arcs, circles and globes, like a downy, softly-ripe peach. Her skin was luminous, her face creamy in its frame of fiery curls. Even from up here, he caught the emerald-flash of her big green eyes. But that accent! he thought with repugnance. Her body was that of a thoroughbred, but her voice betrayed her roots.
Their great-grandfather might, in a moment of dementia, have willed his beloved estate to a dimly-remembered, stubborn little red-head who’d come to visit only once, but Alessandro refused to graciously accept his crazy decision. As soon as he learnt of the contents of the old man’s final testament, he decided he would not make Annabella Smith feel welcome. With any luck, she’d be so unhappy at Casa dei Fiori, whose name in English translated as House of Flowers, that she’d catch the next plane home to her daddy’s wheat farm in Western Australia.
How dare the old man leave the villa and its fifty acres of surrounding forest and farmland, to this, this…Antipodean ingrate! he fumed. How could she possibly appreciate the generations of culture and discernment that had created the beautiful house and grounds? Her grandmother had been the old man’s daughter, but what was left of Annabella’s fine, Tuscan blood had been diluted by several lines of Australian farmers, all descended from convicts.
It should have been he, Alessandro, born in this very house thirty years before, to whom their great-grandfather left the estate. But the old man had concocted the idea of luring his beloved only daughter’s flesh and blood away from that barbaric country, back home, to Italy.
Alessandro started. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t realized Annabella was almost inside the walled garden, in the furthest corner of which, on the highest outcrop of rock, was his table, behind a shady, concealing tree had taken root two hundred years ago. He heard her surprisingly light footfall on the weed-encrusted gravel path, caught the snatch of a song she hummed under her breath.
His heart did a somersault. The song, Bella Campagnina, was one he loved as a little boy, when his own mother sang it to him before she was killed. He hadn’t heard it since and he swallowed hard to keep down the lump in his throat.
She kicked the tiny stones in front of her as she walked, swinging her arms as if she were on a stroll in the countryside, not carrying an enormous, overflowing back-pack uphill. Her full breasts bounced under their silk square and, when she turned to adjust her heavy load, he caught sight of the milky-smooth underside of one. How he longed to feel the weight of it in the palm of his hand, to tease the rosy nipple until its peak was as hard as he was!
Damn and blast her! he raged. He could have coped if she’d been an ugly creature. But she was delectable. And, damn her, she reminded him of someone but he couldn’t for the life of him think who it was. She had bedeviled him and she’d only been here a few minutes! How would he cope with her presence long-term? He moaned, wishing she’d hurry up and go into the house so he could strip his clothes and plunge into the cold swimming pool, despite its being full of algae and goodness knows what else. The slimy green water would cool his ardour and, if he were lucky, give him a dose of something that would take his mind off this infuriating woman for several long months.
She could at least seem overawed by her good fortune, Alessandro smouldered. And she could have dressed more modestly, more formally, for her first day as mistress of Casa dei Fiori. She looked like a…
“Hi, Al!” she called, her sharp eyes spying him, despite the sheltering branches behind which he’d been watching. She poked her head around his tree.
“Er…er…” he stuttered, wi
shing the damn rock would split open beneath his feet and swallow him up. His erection, now that she was close enough for him to reach out and pull her into his arms, was too urgent for her not to notice, even if she were myopic.
“Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?” she asked, grinning wickedly, her eyes unashamedly lingering on the bulge between his muscular, horseman’s thighs.
Then, realizing he was acutely embarrassed, she tore her eyes upwards, to his outrageously handsome face. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice soft. “I’ve always wanted the opportunity to say that and it…” Again, she smiled impishly, “It came up.”
She suppressed a giggle, her eyes alight with laughter. His heart lurched again, as he recalled those same eyes, when she had been a plump, cute twelve year-old and he a young man of seventeen. How adorable she’d seemed to him then! Almost like the little sister he never had, although, even then, he sensed that they might, in time, become closer. However, his feelings for her right at this moment were far from filial.
Her skin, in the dappled shade, was the warm colour of almond kernels. Her mouth was luscious, the lips full and moist, sticky with nibbling at the wild strawberries that rioted everywhere. Unable to help himself, he inched forward and, before either was aware of what was happening, she was in his arms, supple and pliant against his insistent firmness.
Neither knew who made the first move, only that their ravenous bodies sought each other. Through the wisp of silk that covered her breasts, he felt her nipples swell against his own chest, clad as it was in a fine cotton shirt. Only two pieces of summer-weight fabric separated their naked, burning flesh. He glanced down at her, at her face upturned to his, at the heavy-lidded look of lust that she unashamedly gave him.
“Annabella!” he rasped, bringing his mouth down to taste those strawberry lips, to suck the juice from the pink tongue, to lick the sun-warmed alabaster of her neck. He was a connoisseur of women and he fully appreciated this one’s colouring, rarely seen in Tuscany. He sensed she was as fiery as her mane of hair, as quick to passion as he was, as hungry for love.
Her mouth yielded, opened like a rose to admit his, and he was surprised and very pleased to feel her hands slide up under his shirt, across his smooth, tanned back. But, when her fingers hurried down, to where he throbbed for her, he came to his senses. She had Casa dei Fiori – he was damned if she was going to have him, too. And God knew, he thought with grim satisfaction, she wanted him.
“No!” he bit out, pushing her from him so that she almost fell backwards. “You’re greedy. Just as I remember you. You’ll have to look elsewhere to satisfy your appetite.”
“Al!” she cried, her eyes asparkle with tears. “I thought you really were pleased to see me. We’re second cousins, after all.”
“Why should I be glad? You have evicted me from my home, which I love more than anything in this whole world.”
“I haven’t evicted you!” she snapped. Then her voice changed, softened. “You’re more than welcome to stay here, with me. I was so looking forward to seeing you after all this time, Alessandro. I thought we could share…” She was holding out a slender, pale hand to him but he ignored it.
“Casa dei Fiori is yours now, Annabella,” he said, cutting her short. “Enjoy it. I’ll take my belongings and go and live in the caretaker’s cottage, down at the bottom of the hill.”
“You’re angry because our great-grandfather left this dump to me!” she exclaimed, her eyes as incisive as green Arctic ice. “Well, you watch me turn it into something special!” she spat.
“Go ahead,” he retorted, his hunger for her a distant memory. “I suppose you’ll convert it into a wheat station, complete with barbed-wire fences, windmills and dams. I hope the silly old man turns in his grave.”
“Al!” she pleaded, but he turned and stomped away.
He’d never admit to her that he’d always expected to be the master of Casa dei Fiori, had never even imagined ever living anywhere else. His roots were here, as surely as were those of the sheltering cyprus, and he was devoted to the place, despite its ramshackle appearance and the fact that the farm had run at a loss for decades, gradually eking away the fortune amassed by his blue-blooded ancestors.
Alessandro had been selling off pieces of artwork to keep the place going, to prevent it falling into the hands of the receivers who would likely subdivide its precious acres and flog it to German or American tourists. He knew every stone and blade of grass on the estate as well as he knew the creases on his own palms. Every time he had to drive to Rome or Florence with a centuries-old painting or piece of sculpture, he felt he was chipping away at another piece of his heart. He’d grown up with these beautiful things, they were part of him, they linked him to generations of past de Roccos.
And now the estate and the villa belonged to Annabella, who cared not a fig.
He stormed into the house. Tonia, who’d seen the heiress’ arrival, had prepared a special luncheon for the cousins and she ran into the hallway to ask him if he’d like her to serve it under the fig tree on the front lawn. But, seeing his furious face, she knew better than to disturb him and scuttled back into the kitchen, out of his way.
Alessandro flung up the curving staircase, flinching as he always did at the pale patches in the stucco on the walls. These were places where paintings had once hung, to be admired and enjoyed by the family. At the top of the stairs, he turned to the right, marched down the wide, stone-flagged passageway and threw open a door. At once, from a wide-open doorway on the other side of the palatial room, a glorious view met his eyes. Yellow sunflowers in the foreground, purple hills beyond, with a village the colour of the flesh of a blood grapefruit nestling in their folds. This had been his bedroom, his sanctuary, since babyhood. But he couldn’t stay here another minute.
He ransacked drawers, cabinets, cupboards, wardrobes, and tossed the contents over the balcony railings. Books, boots, shirts, trousers, underwear, aftershave, a toothbrush, all flew down in the fresh breeze and landed on the chamomile-starred lawn below, on the rosemary or tomato bushes, or across an old urn filled with scarlet ivy geraniums.
When the room was cleared of his possessions, he went and stood on the balcony to take in the view one last time. He saw that the workmen were now eating their lunch, sprawled under an oak tree. He saw the river snaking below the estate, its passage etched into the towering cliffs over millennia. He saw the magenta splashes of the wild cyclamen that seeded themselves throughout the unkempt garden. And he saw his second cousin, sprawled under the flapping sheets on the washing line, weeping her heart out into the grass.
His own heart contracted. Her noisy crying reminded him of how she had been as a child. He’d loved her then. But, he told himself fiercely, he could not love her now. She was the cuckoo in the nest and he wanted her out.
CHAPTER TWO
Annabella sobbed out her disappointment, her salty tears falling into the long green grass under the washing line. She’d been so looking forward to seeing her charming, funny, handsome, brave second cousin again. She idolized him when she was a little girl, in those three short months her family had spent here, at Casa dei Fiori. And now he wanted nothing to do with her, resented her, even!
She wept lustily, not caring who saw or heard her. She’d always been the same. When she was a baby, her Italian mother had blamed her fierce temper on her red hair, which she had inherited from her paternal relations. Her father, however, had put her passionate nature down to her maternal Italian blood.
But, from wherever it had come, there was no doubting she had a wild, untamable streak. Once, Alessandro had loved her for it.
“Al, let’s go riding together,” she’d suggested all those years ago on her first day on their great-grandfather’s estate. “I want to see everything and I want you to show me.”
“I’ll saddle the pony for you, then, Bella,” he’d said, running his hand through her tangled red curls.
“The pony! I don’t ride
ponies!” she spat contemptuously. “I need a big horse, so I can see more. I don’t want to miss anything.”
Alessandro roared with laughter. His second cousin was so short, she hardly reached his waist, and here she was, insisting on a big horse. “Very well then,” he’d laughed, “You can ride Gregorio.”
He took her by the hand and they walked to the stables, where several elderly animals neighed with pleasure when they saw Alessandro. Even then, it had been many years since anyone at Casa dei Fiori had been able to afford a new, young horse.
“Meet Gregorio,” he said, leading her to a stall where a huge chestnut stood, his big head hanging over the half-door.
Alessandro suppressed a chuckle as Bella’s shining eyes tripled in size as they took in the twenty-hand-high monster. But he couldn’t help admiring her for her grit.
“You’ll have to give me a leg-up,” was all she said, refusing to betray any fear. Alessandro doubted she was familiar with fright, she was such a plucky kid.
He saddled the gentle giant for her, helped her up, made sure she was safe then leapt aboard his own spirited Arab mare, Sofia. They clip-clopped down the road, skirting the sunflower fields, then headed for the forest, where thirty-foot cliffs towered over the river.
“Race you to that gate at the end of the wood!” she called, booting old Gregorio into a canter.
Alessandro laughed indulgently, reining in Sofia so his diminutive relation could have the pleasure of winning. He ambled slowly behind her, marvelling at her skilful handling of the big horse, at her insouciance when she came perilously close to the edge of the rock-face. He trusted Gregorio to stay on the track that threaded its way through the oaks that grew near the side of the cliff. But he prayed his darling Annabella would stay firmly in the saddle.
How well she remembered that wonderful day! Where had that young man gone? Although he was seventeen, with several girlfriends telephoning him at least six times a day, he’d been more than happy to spend time with her. He’d proudly ridden into the village, Fortezza Rosa, with her and introduced her to the priest, the baker, the butcher and the green-grocer, as his piccola cugina d’Australia. His little Australian cousin. He’d asked her about her own farm, about school, about her friends and pets.
Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance) Page 1
