A Sicilian Seduction

by Michelle Reid

  ‘I have the power to bite like one also,’ Alegra returned.

  And suddenly Natalia was beginning to feel definitely in the way as something she had never been privy to before began to fill the air space.

  It was love. It was affection. Despite all the lies and pain and anger, it was a deep and abiding togetherness nurtured through years and years of tender loving care administered from one constant soul to another.

  Bearing witness to it brought the tears back to Natalia’s eyes because this was exactly what her father had been protecting when he’d kept her a secret from everyone. Now the secret was out, and she was afraid it was going to spoil everything he had worked so hard to hold on to.

  ‘I have been sent to instruct you that it is time to rest,’ his wife firmly changed the subject. ‘So make these introductions so we two can go away and leave you to recover from your sinful life.’

  ‘I’ve told you before,’ Edward said harshly. ‘Natalia was born before I married you!’

  ‘Two months?’

  Natalia winced, understanding the curt thrust. So did her father, who became very weary suddenly. And for her the tears became harder to fight, because in the end, and once Alegra had time to think it all over properly, the fact that Edward had married her instead of standing by his ex-lover and child said a lot about his love for Alegra.

  A nurse arrived then, insisting they leave now, and a few minutes later Natalia found herself outside in the corridor with her father’s wife.

  ‘Don’t weep, child,’ Alegra Knight murmured, and a gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. ‘We fight. It means nothing. We know that, even if you do not.’

  ‘I never wanted to come between you,’ she whispered painfully. ‘I j-just needed to know him. It was…’

  ‘I know.’ The gentle hand squeezed her into a thickened silence. ‘Edward has explained all. You do not need to justify yourself to me—or to anyone else concerned here, come to that,’ she added carefully.

  ‘He was never unfaithful to you after you married,’ Natalia felt compelled to say. ‘He never saw either me or my mother again, from the day I was born. If I’ve forgiven him for all the years of rejection, can’t you forgive him too?’

  The hand was removed. Alegra began walking. ‘He was unfaithful during our betrothal,’ she said coldly. ‘Would you find it easy to forgive that?’

  No, she wouldn’t, Natalia had to admit.

  ‘And while I was busy grieving the death of our beloved son, he was discovering he had another child to help salve his broken heart.’

  ‘I didn’t know about Marco until after Edward and I met, or I wouldn’t…’ Her voice trailed away on a guilty thickening of her throat, which required her to swallow before she could try again. ‘M-my mother had passed away, you see, and I found all these private papers relating to a father I never knew existed. It…’

  This time she really couldn’t go on. It had been one of the lowest points in all her life to discover that the mother she had adored had lied when she’d told her that her father was dead. Twenty-four relatively happy years suddenly soured on a medley of remembered conversations about a man called Nathaniel Deyton, a merchant seaman with eyes and hair the same colour as her own, who’d had the chance to meet his baby girl only once before the sea had taken him. There had never been such a person as Nathaniel Deyton. It was a name her mother had made up and taken up when she’d moved out of London with her daughter, to live the rest of her life in a quiet little village in Suffolk where nobody knew her so could not dispute her story.

  From the moment Natalia had found out about her real father, she had made it an obsession to trace him and try to get to know him. It had taken several months to locate the right Edward Knight. Yet it had taken him mere days to reply to her tentative letter of introduction. They’d met in a crowded wine bar not far from his office building, and in minutes had been so at peace with each other that it seemed strange now to look back and know that first meeting had been only six months ago.

  ‘He gave you the Fabergé watch, didn’t he?’

  Pulling herself back to the present, Natalia sucked in a thick breath of air and nodded. ‘If you want it back, I’ll be very happy to—’

  ‘No, I was not asking for it,’ Alegra responded. ‘It belongs to you. You had a right to receive it. I just—missed it, that was all, several months ago, and Edward refused to say what he had done with it. So I began to worry—as wives do—whether he had found some other woman he preferred to give it to.’

  ‘So you mentioned as much to Giancarlo,’ Natalia murmured, beginning to see a whole new way of looking at the scene she and Giancarlo had had about the watch.

  ‘But it was Howard Fiske who gave the silly imaginings of a grieving woman their hard substance,’ Alegra added. ‘He rang Giancarlo in Milan and voiced his—suspicions about your relationship with Edward. Giancarlo being Giancarlo—’ she shrugged with true Sicilian understanding ‘—decided to put a stop to it before I had to find out.’

  And the rest, as they said, was history, Natalia soberly concluded. ‘He deliberately set out to use me.’

  Alegra stopped walking. So did Natalia. They had almost reached the main foyer but neither seemed to notice. ‘You need to talk to him about that,’ she advised, and at the sudden freeze she saw encase Natalia’s face she sighed and said, ‘I am going back to sit with Edward, for I cannot leave here until I know the danger has surely passed.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay with you?’ It was instant and instinctive to make the offer.

  But Alegra’s refusal made its point. ‘We need time alone together. And I need time to get used to the idea of you being a part of my family now.’ A brief smile tried to take the sting out of her words.

  Natalia smiled back in an effort to make it known that she understood, even if it did hurt. Maybe Alegra saw the hurt, because her cold expression softened a little. ‘Go now,’ she advised. ‘I will find you if I need to but I do not see this problem he has caused his silly heart worsening now that the truth is out in the open.’

  No, Natalia thought wearily. Neither did she. Edward had been living under a terrible strain for the last year one way or another. It was no wonder his heart had finally insisted he give himself a break.

  About to turn away, Alegra spoke again. ‘Please forgive my rudeness to you before,’ she intoned. ‘It was a shock when he suddenly collapsed then began to confess all to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had to find out that way,’ Natalia responded, not knowing what else to say to make any of this better.

  Alegra just smiled another of those smiles, then turned to walk back the way she had come, leaving Natalia standing there watching her go with tears in her eyes again, though she couldn’t decide who they were for—herself or Alegra.

  The whole situation had always had the potential to turn ugly. Now it had done, she found herself half wishing she had never contacted Edward, then there would have been none of this. No secret, no lies—and no ruthless Sicilian hell bent on waging a vendetta.

  ‘Are you ready to leave now?’ an all-too-familiar voice enquired.

  A wave of pain washed over her, turning her around before she had a chance to think. Giancarlo was standing not three feet away. Big, dark, and with no expression whatsoever showing on his lean face.

  She wanted to turn away again but found she couldn’t. She wanted to hate him but found she couldn’t even do that. So she ended up just standing there hurting all over, which made such a terrible mockery of everything…

  She didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him. Her mouth was vulnerable but her eyes were like glass, a dark grey glass with the blue lost behind a film of tears which, even as he looked sombrely into them, was quickly frosting into ice to shut him out.

  But the quivering mouth was letting her down. She was hurting and she desperately needed someone to hold her right now.

  Dio, he thought, so did he. But touching, he knew, was out of the question. Touch her now
and she would probably never forgive him for violating that invisible barrier of self-defence she was standing beyond.

  ‘I have a taxi waiting outside,’ he told her, and was relieved to hear the words come out level because he certainly wasn’t feeling level inside.

  He expected the mute shake of her head in refusal. He even expected the cold shoulder she offered him as she altered direction so that she could walk by him without offering him a single word.

  He didn’t try to stop her, but as she went by him he fed quietly after her, ‘I was deceived as much as you were.’

  The claim stopped her, but she didn’t turn, and his throat grew tight as he stood watching her hair and her dress glitter in the overhead lights of the foyer.

  ‘No,’ she said, that was all, just that small, tight denial, then she was walking again, beautiful head held high, slender spine as straight as an arrow, sensational legs long in their stride.

  Grimly determined, he followed, drawing level with her, then adjusting his stride to hers. The gap between them was still there—not quite as wide but wide enough for her to feel her defensive barrier was not being breached. Neither did she turn to look at him and he did not look at her. The exit doors were automatic, swinging smoothly open as they reached them and they stepped out into the cold night air. She paused and shivered, her hands going up to cup her bare arms.

  ‘Where is your coat?’ he asked, beckoning the private taxi forward.

  ‘I forgot it.’

  He grimaced because he hadn’t expected her to reply. The taxi drew up. It was a top-of-the-range black Mercedes promising warmth and comfort—if he could get her inside it.

  Ignoring the car, she began searching the street for the nearest taxi rank.

  ‘Money?’ he prompted next.

  She indicated with a shrug of one folded arm the sparkling black evening bag dangling from her wrist by its narrow strap.

  It was communication of sorts, he supposed. ‘Enough to take you to Chelsea—after midnight—when taxi fares go through the roof?’

  The flicker of her lashes told him he’d hit the right button to achieve his aims. And, as if on cue, the driver stepped out of the Mercedes and jumped to open the rear door for them. Silently, Giancarlo thanked him for his perfect timing.

  ‘Come on,’ he invited. ‘I will take you home.’

  ‘My home,’ she said, swinging her head round to look directly at him at last.

  His hands twitched at his sides with a need to just grab her and kiss some healthy life back into her. But the frost went too deep and it might ruin his chances completely. ‘If that is what you want,’ he therefore agreed.

  ‘It is,’ she confirmed and without another word she stepped forward and slid into the back of the Mercedes.

  With a grim nod of his head at the driver, he closed her inside, then he walked around to the other side of the car to get in as the driver sat behind his wall of tinted glass.

  They moved away from the kerb with Natalia staring fixedly out of her window and Giancarlo gauging that he had about five minutes before she began to realise she wasn’t going to Chelsea.

  ‘A Russian great-grandmother,’ he remarked. ‘Now I know where all the fire and the passion comes from.’

  Her head flicked round, and it was as if a light had suddenly been switched on inside her. ‘Don’t you dare comment on my background!’ she threw at him hotly. ‘Don’t you even so much as dare to make it any business of yours!’

  ‘It is my business if you are sharing your genes with my baby,’ he pointed out, quite happily fanning the flames.

  ‘I am not pregnant!’ she flashed.

  ‘You cannot know that with such certainty,’ he replied.

  ‘Tomorrow will tell,’ she muttered, and turned away again.

  ‘Why tomorrow specifically?’ he asked curiously, following every flash and restless quiver she made and loving every one of them because it meant he was beginning to melt the ice. Once the ice was gone he could begin dealing with the melting woman. A woman who was in for a big fight if she was foolishly allowing herself to believe that he was going to let go of her now.

  Because he wasn’t.

  ‘I’ll buy one of those test-kit things,’ she informed him. ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said agreeably. ‘We will watch the result with interest—together—’

  ‘You won’t be there to watch it!’ she flung at him.

  The caution brought her eyes back into contact with his—and this time he held on to them by sheer grim resolve. ‘Oh, yes, I will,’ he countered very seriously. ‘For I do not think I should trust you to tell me the truth, you see…’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  IT WAS like waving a red rag to a bull, especially when Natalia had been intending to do just that if necessary and lie to Giancarlo! ‘Will you want a DNA test done as well, if I find I am pregnant?’ she enquired ever so, ever so acidly.

  The dark eyes flickered, though they didn’t release her eyes. ‘Do you think it could be a possibility that such a test may be required?’ he countered.

  It was a clean hit. Natalia even found herself acknowledging it with a gasp, because she knew she had set herself up for that. They had known each other for a few weeks only. Not long enough to cover a full menstrual cycle, in fact. So even with his rotten suspicions about her relationship with Edward out of the way, she could quite easily be pregnant by some other imaginary guy, she supposed. How would he know that she hadn’t been involved in an intimate relationship with any man for years?

  She had been too involved in other things, such as a mother dying, and a newly found father to pour all her emotions into.

  ‘No, a DNA test won’t be needed,’ she replied, resenting having to say it at all. Then she wrenched her eyes away to glare out of the side window while she waited for him to come back with some cynically disbelieving reply.

  And why not? she asked herself bitterly. You fell into his bed like a woman who did that kind of thing all the time! Shame engulfed her, followed by a real contempt for the person she had allowed herself to become in her reckless desire for this man.

  Then she stopped thinking. Her eyes blinked into focus on what it was she was actually glaring at. ‘We’re going the wrong way,’ she announced, and was already leaning forward to knock on the glass partition so she could tell the driver—when another hand closed around her hand.

  Suddenly the sparks were flying, crackling around the inner compartment and bouncing off all surfaces in a skin-against-skin chemical reaction that rendered her totally breathless.

  Unable to stop herself, she glanced at him and felt her heart begin to race when she saw what was written in his eyes. He was going to kiss her—and she didn’t want him to!—yet her eyes dropped to his mouth of their own hungry volition. It began to move, her throat locked, her own lips beginning to heat in preparation for what was about to come to them.

  ‘Keys,’ he said.

  Lost in a daze of her own making, ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘The keys to your Chelsea house,’ he gently extended. ‘Do you have them with you in that small bag?’

  Natalia felt herself deflate like a popped balloon as reality pierced sheer fantasy. ‘No,’ she breathed.

  Having made his point, Giancarlo let go of her hand, leaving her to complete the deflation by sinking shakily back into the soft luxury of leather, knowing now that, whatever else had been killed between them, the sex was still there, simmering quietly in the background waiting for its usual release.

  ‘I’ll just pick up my keys and go.’ She seemed to feel it necessary to state her intentions.

  He didn’t even bother to reply, which to her stated his intentions far more ominously than an outright denial could have done. He had coerced her into getting into this car with him because he had been gunning for a complete showdown tonight even though he must know that it wouldn’t be fair.

  Not after the evening she had just been put through. Not
after what she’d found out and hadn’t had time yet to decide what she really felt about it all.

  Yet she didn’t persist with the point, and she didn’t understand why she didn’t. Which had her finishing the rest of the journey with the feeling of being trapped by herself as much as him.

  The car stopped; the driver jumped out to open her door for her while Giancarlo got out on the other side. With a polite thanks to the driver, she walked off towards the glass-plated entrance to the apartment block leaving Giancarlo to tip the driver before following on behind.

  The concierge was at his station, watching his portable TV set which sat beside his security monitor. He glanced up and smiled in recognition as he pressed the button to release the door lock. By the time the doors went swinging open Giancarlo was beside her and, with the usual exchange of polite good evenings with the concierge, they were making their way over to the lift.

  As it took them upwards Natalia found herself making a comparison with this journey and the last one they had made together like this. Last time he had been crowding her into the corner, pulsing with suppressed emotion and ready for a different kind of showdown. Now they stood about as far apart as two people could get in such a confined space.

  The lift stopped, the doors opened, she walked into the white-tiled private foyer, hesitated only for a moment before walking on again, passing the opening to the office on her left because she was no longer interested in doing that kind of business with this man. She walked by the sitting-room entrance because she’d never liked that room and if there was going to have to be a showdown then she wasn’t putting herself so close to the bedroom when it happened. Which left only the dining room she liked about as much as the sitting room, and the kitchen, which was about the only place left.

  Walking in, she went directly to the fridge and got herself a small bottle of sparkling water and a glass, then went to sit down at the table. She was just removing the plastic cap when Giancarlo strode in. Almost ghosting her actions, he went to the fridge to get himself a can of cola instead of water.