She headed back into the throng and wove her way towards Luca. She could not quite hide the fear that Pepe’s analysis was accurate. Was Luca still holding interviews for the role of his mistress?
Judging by the way the woman at the bar was leaning into him, it appeared so.
As she closed in on him her stomach roiled.
Watching her husband flirt with other women was surreal. First the assistant in the boutique and now this tanned, pneumatically boobed creature.
When they had been married—properly married, that was—she had often noticed women eye him up but that had been the extent of their interest. She and Luca had been practically glued at the hip. If another woman had tried to garner his attention he wouldn’t have noticed or cared.
As she drew closer she realised any flirting was one-sided, a feeling confirmed when he looked up and she saw the dullness in his eyes.
That look made her heart lighten and relief spread its tentacles through her. The woman could be flirting with a brick wall for all the attention Luca was paying her.
Deliberately, she stepped between them.
‘Excuse me!’ The woman spoke with a broad cockney accent. Able to look closely at her, Grace recognised her as a glamour model, a favourite of the British press.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said lightly. ‘That was incredibly rude of me. I’m Grace, Luca’s wife.’ A glass of champagne had been placed on the bar. Without missing a beat, she picked it up and downed it.
‘Oi. That was mine.’
‘Really?’ She feigned ignorance. ‘I do apologise. I thought Luca had ordered it for me. Please, let me get you another one.’
‘No, don’t bother.’ The model pursed her lips together and stuck her clutch bag under her arm.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ Grace called as the model sashayed off to the dance floor, where a whole heap of rich men were congregated.
Luca stared at her, his lips twitching, before raising his chin and taking a swig of his champagne. ‘Marking your territory?’
‘You should be thanking me for getting rid of her.’ Her fake bonhomie faded away. She had to ask, ‘Unless you were auditioning her for the role of your mistress?’
His gaze didn’t waver. ‘I don’t want a mistress.’
Something hot flooded her veins and seeped through her bones and into every inch of her flesh. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
The icy darkness in his eyes melted. It took everything she had to wrench her eyes from his heated gaze.
She swallowed and stared at his champagne flute before being drawn back to meet his eyes. ‘I thought you only drank Scotch nowadays?’
He didn’t so much as flicker. ‘When I realised that you weren’t dead and had simply run away, I stopped drinking. I needed every wit I had trying to find you.’
‘So my leaving did some good.’ She smiled to cover the sting that lashed across her chest. As much as she knew he’d deserved every second of worry, it hurt her heart to think of the pain she had put him through. ‘I was starting to worry for your liver.’
‘You had nothing to worry about.’
‘Didn’t I?’ she asked pointedly.
From the flicker in his eyes, he knew as well as she that she was not just referring to his drinking habits.
‘I saw you talking with Pepe,’ he said, blatantly changing the subject. ‘I’m pleased he didn’t give in to his impulse of strangling you.’
‘So am I. I think he’s saving all his hatred for when he gets the opportunity to dismember Francesco.’
Mirth played on his firm lips. Turning his head, Luca caught the bartender’s eye and indicated for more champagne.
‘Francesco is not the demon Pepe would have you believe.’ He paused. ‘Well, maybe a little.’
‘He told me you were cutting your business ties with him.’
‘That is correct.’
‘Why?’
‘That is not a conversation for now.’
‘Then when? Tonight? Tomorrow? Next year?’
He turned back to her. ‘Tonight.’
‘Promise?’
‘I give you my word.’
She bit her lip, wishing she could read his mind.
A strange flicker crossed his face. ‘I’m sorry I let Francesco believe you had pre-natal depression.’
An apology? From Luca? That had to be a first.
‘It was the truth,’ she admitted, expelling a huge lungful of air.
He raised an eyebrow, a furrow running down his forehead.
She smiled wryly. ‘Oh, it wasn’t serious like you told him. More a constant lethargy. Motivating myself to keep moving on kept getting harder.’ As if her tongue had a mind of its own, she confided the darkness she had, at the time, been too scared to properly acknowledge to herself. ‘It got worse after Lily was born. That’s why I bought all the exercise equipment—I was terrified of being put on anti-depressants, terrified of failing Lily. I’d read exercise was a good method of combating it.’
‘Did it work?’
‘A little.’ She shrugged, realising for the first time that her return to Sicily—to Luca—had coincided with the return of her old energy levels. For sure, she was still tired—having a small baby who rarely slept through the night ensured that—but the cold fog that had enveloped her bones had vanished. ‘I definitely feel better in myself now.’
‘That’s good.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to support you.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to say the same in return, but this time, by the slightest of threads, she managed to keep her mouth shut. To utter another word would be madness. She was in enough danger as it was.
Fresh flutes of champagne were placed before them. Luca handed one to Grace and held his own aloft. His eyes flashed. ‘Salute.’
‘Salute,’ she echoed, chinking her flute to his. She took a long sip and closed her eyes, enjoying the taste and the sensation of bubbles fizzing in her mouth. It was much the same way she used to fizz at Luca’s touch. The way she still did...
‘We should dance,’ he said.
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to meet his gaze. ‘Why? So we can convince everyone here that we’re happy together?’
‘Because I want to dance with the sexiest woman here and show them she’s mine.’
She swallowed away the dryness of her throat. ‘I’m not yours. Only in name.’ Even as she spoke the words she knew them to be a lie. Luca had imprinted himself indelibly into every one of her senses.
He leaned into her and spoke into her neck. ‘You will always be mine.’
The warmth of his breath sent tiny pulsations darting through her. She swayed, her heels no protection against the dizziness evoked by his touch.
He covered her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. He felt so warm, his touch penetrating her skin and dancing into the very fabric of her being.
As if acting of its own accord, her other hand came to rest on his shoulder.
His muscles bunched beneath her touch. She felt the potent strength that ran through his being, a strength she had always taken such comfort from.
The stars that resided in the midnight of his eyes gleamed, holding her gaze, trapping her into their depths. He had shaved before they left their hotel yet dark stubble had already broken out along his jawline. If there was a sexier man in the world she had yet to meet him.
He brushed his lips against her neck, nipping at the sensitive skin. ‘Dance with me.’
She wanted to, badly. She wanted to say to hell with the past and to hell with the future, to simply take the moment for what it was.
His hand sidled down her chest, tracing the outline of her breast, coming to rest on her hip. He dug his fingers through the soft fabric and into her flesh, a
nd pulled her so she was flat against him. ‘Dance with me,’ he repeated.
For the first time since she’d left Sicily, Grace felt as if the essence of herself had slipped out of the recess in which it had been hiding.
Luca was like a drug to her. She could survive without him but it was like breathing air with only a fraction of the usual oxygen.
She hated him.
She loved him.
The two sides were interchangeable.
The only constant she felt was desire. And she was sick of fighting it and pushing it away. There could only ever be one outcome.
Bending her head, she caught the top of his ear between her teeth. ‘Yes,’ she breathed, tracing her tongue across the contours. ‘I’ll dance with you.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE DANCE FLOOR heaved with bodies, the music blasting out an R & B mix with a sensuous beat that throbbed through the wooden floorboards. The model who had flirted with Luca and whose name already escaped him was grinding with a member of the British aristocracy.
And he was dancing with his wife, a leg pressed between hers as they swayed together in time to the pulsating music, her face buried in his neck, her breath warm on his skin.
She moulded into him perfectly. Just as she always had.
This was an event he had looked at as a necessary evil, even before he had decided to cut all business association with Francesco Calvetti. After their meeting that day, attendance had been a requirement to show the world they were parting on good terms. The last thing either man needed was any usurper sniffing around trying to detect weakness.
The subtle politics of his business life was enough to give anyone a headache.
Grace eased his headache. Holding her in his arms drove away the demons that resided within him, just as it always had. No matter how out of control he had felt at times, one embrace from his wife had always been enough to temper it, if only a fraction.
For the moment he could almost forget the demons she had placed in there.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost believe the past year or so had never occurred. Physically they were as in tune as if they had never been apart.
Slowly he ran his hands down the length of her back until he reached her bottom. Cupping her buttocks, he pressed her ever closer. She could be left in no doubt of his arousal. And why would either of them doubt it? Physically, they were made for each other.
His quest to find a mistress had ended before it started. He had to get used to the fact there was not a woman alive, other than his wife, who did anything for him.
Before Grace had exploded into his life with all the subtlety of a flying brick, he’d never been so selective. His body had never been so stubborn to respond.
He shivered as her fingers brushed the nape of his neck. Such clever, talented fingers.
When had she last painted? In the Cornish cottage where he had found her, there had been none of the usual paraphernalia that used to accompany her everywhere. There had been no sign she had picked up a paintbrush or even a simple pencil since she had left him. The thought saddened him. The thought that he could be responsible for it made his chest tighten.
She raised her thigh slightly and ground against him, nipping at his neck. All his thoughts turned to fog, her soft lips sending darts of pleasure pulsing through his blood.
Turning his head, he captured her mouth in his and closed his eyes. Her hot sweetness engulfed his senses.
He forgot to breathe.
There it was, the taste that filled his mouth with moisture, the heat that turned his bones to liquid and his groin to steel, all so familiar and yet all so powerfully new.
Gently, he coaxed her lips apart and deepened the kiss, deepened the craving that had never left him, had been banished to a dark recess until she came back into his life.
She moaned softly and parted her lips, digging her nails into his scalp.
For an age they stood there, swaying to the music, their mouths fused together, breathing each other in. The swaying bodies surrounding them disappeared into a haze; there but out of sight, the music reduced to a distant beat.
He wanted to consume her. He needed to consume her.
However much she might hate him, Grace belonged to him.
And he belonged to her.
A dancing couple inadvertently knocked into them.
Luca broke away with a muttered oath.
The room came swimming back into focus. Grace came swimming back into focus. She looked dazed, her eyes blinking furiously, her outward features exactly mirroring what he felt inside.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, taking her hand and tugging her off the dance floor.
She didn’t resist. Indeed, she didn’t say a word as they wove through the increasingly drunken revellers and out of the ballroom. Keeping a firm hold on her hand, he texted his driver to meet them at the front of the hotel.
Minutes later the driver opened the back door and they got inside.
‘Take us back to our hotel,’ Luca commanded.
Only when the limousine was moving and the privacy window had been erected did he turn to face her.
Her small chest heaved with short, ragged breaths. There was a wildness in her eyes, something feral seeping out of her pores.
‘Come here.’ His voice thick, he snaked a hand around her neck and pulled her to him.
She didn’t need to be told twice. She pounced onto his lap and threw her arms around him.
Their lips came back together and he leaned back into the plush leather upholstery, cradling her head tenderly as he did so.
He had no idea what the nectar of myths and fables tasted like but knew it could never be sweeter than his wife’s kisses. The most potent aphrodisiac could never evoke the desire one kiss from her could unleash.
Grace was the most openly sensuous woman he had ever known with a sex drive that perfectly matched his own. She’d never feigned coyness and what she initially lacked in experience she had more than made up for in enthusiasm. He had loved that raw honesty about her. The first time she had taken him into her mouth she’d knelt before him and fixed those hazel eyes on him. ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she’d said matter-of-factly. ‘So sorry if I do it all wrong.’
It had ended up being one of the most incredible experiences of his life.
Now, as she straddled him with the earthy hunger he had always adored, he wondered how he had ever managed without her, without making love to her. Whether their couplings were short and frantic or long and luxurious, they would always end sated and content, locked in each other’s arms.
Finally he broke away for air and razed his teeth down her neck, darting his tongue on the lobe of her ear. She moaned lightly and rubbed her cheek against his, her hands creeping down the plane of his chest and tugging his shirt loose so she could burrow under it.
It suddenly dawned on him that they were making out in the back of a car like a pair of adolescent teenagers.
He shifted slightly, then immediately wished he hadn’t as his straining erection rubbed against the apex of her thighs.
‘Enough,’ he said roughly. He grabbed her hips and manoeuvred her so only her legs lay draped over his lap. It did absolutely nothing to ease the ache in his groin. ‘I am not going to make love to you in the back of a car.’
She looked at him with eyes that were wickedly dazed. ‘Why not?’
A bubble of laughter rose in his throat. Grace had perfected mock innocence into a fine art. ‘Because we’re not teenagers and there are two perfectly good beds waiting for us just minutes away.’
She pouted. ‘Spoilsport.’
‘Have I not taught you anything? Anticipation heightens pleasure.’ He reached over and pulled the straps of her dress back up. ‘You can choose the bed
.’
‘You’re letting me choose something?’
‘Don’t start,’ he warned, before deciding it was easier to cut an argument off at the bud rather than let it bloom into something bigger by kissing her again.
‘I thought we weren’t going to make out in the back of a car,’ she murmured between kisses.
‘I make the rules.’ He covered her mouth again in another long, delicious kiss.
Without his being fully aware of it, her hand had burrowed back up his shirt. She pinched a nipple. ‘That’s what you think.’
Before he could respond she had twisted her body to climb back on top of him.
Just as he was starting to think there was something to be said for acting like a lust-driven teenager, the limo came to a stop.
She lifted her head and peered through the window. ‘Oh.... We’re back at the hotel.’
Wrapping an arm around her neck, he pulled her down for one last kiss. ‘What did I tell you about anticipation?’
When the driver opened the door to let them out, they were sitting respectably, side by side, thighs pressed together, hands clasped.
Hand in hand, they strode through the hotel lobby, their minders, who had been in the car behind them, having to hurry to keep pace. Luca could only hope no one was paying enough attention to notice the enormous erection straining through his trousers, or spotted that more of Grace’s orange lipstick covered her face than her lips.
* * *
For Grace, the journey up in the private elevator was little more than torture, the presence of the lift’s concierge preventing her from doing anything more than cling to Luca’s hand. If she had any doubts about what they were about to do, it was too late. The charge had become an inferno.
The second they were in the privacy of their suite, she was in his arms, her hands wrapped round his neck, drinking kisses that scorched, firing her blood.
Luca pushed her against the wall by the door and pressed against her, a hand tracing up her thigh and bunching the skirt of her dress up to her waist.
What a Sicilian Husband Wants Page 13
