Second-Time Bride

by Lynne Graham

  Alessio dragged her back up the steps regardless. ‘I’d like to see some proof of your proficiency before I risk standing around while you drown.’

  Infuriated by her inability to strike an impressive note of injured dignity around Alessio, Daisy snatched up a towel to dry her face, pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes with furious hands. ‘You make me so mad sometimes, I could scream!’

  ‘“O lady, speak again!”’ Alessio quoted with deep irony.

  It took a second or two for Daisy to absorb the shock of Alessio throwing lines of Shakespeare at her. ‘Romeo and Juliet?’ she scorned with a curled lip. ‘I don’t think so. And I am not playing Desdemona to your Othello!’

  ‘It would indeed be difficult.’ Alessio elevated a winged brow sardonically. ‘Desdemona didn’t have a past that encompassed half the men in the UK.’

  ‘How dare you?’ Daisy gasped in outrage.

  In thunderous silence, Alessio peeled off his sodden jeans and shirt, his rough, impatient movements lacking his usual grace and cool. Mesmerised against her will, Daisy watched him execute a perfect dive and plough in a fast, aggressive crawl through the water.

  Walking to the edge, Daisy waited for him to hit the side and crouched down in readiness. ‘You think I made love with every one of them, don’t you?’

  Stormy golden eyes struck hers like forked lightning. ‘What do you think?’ Alessio bit back with slashing derision, and launched into another deeply aggressive length of the pool.

  The next time he touched base, Daisy murmured, ‘Alessio…?’

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ he grated, and, planting his hands on the tiled edge, he hauled himself up, water streaming from his lean, powerfully muscled body in rivulets that glistened on his bronzed skin. Watching him, Daisy found it extraordinarily hard to recall what she had been about to say. Inflating her lungs again was even more of a challenge. He strode past her stark naked and stood towel-drying his hair.

  ‘Put your eyes back in your head and look the other way like a lady, Daisy,’ Alessio advised silkily with his back turned to her.

  A deep crimson flooded her cheeks. ‘I—’

  ‘I can feel you looking at me. I always could.’

  ‘It’s a little hard to ignore a naked man.’

  ‘Is it? Do you recall that nudist beach I once took you to? You welded shut your eyes and hung onto your bikini like it was the only thing that stood between you and moral damnation!’

  ‘That must have given you a laugh.’

  ‘Actually… it shamed me into taking you home.’

  ‘About those albums—’

  ‘Piccola mia, you are not as a rule this persistent. I have no desire to talk about your rogues’ gallery of photographic trophies.’

  ‘I haven’t had a single serious relationship since our divorce!’ Daisy admitted grudgingly.

  ‘Tell me something that might surprise me,’ Alessio drawled in sardonic invitation.

  Daisy paled. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot… I’m such a shallow person, aren’t I? I’d be wasting my breath telling you anything.’

  As she attempted to brush past him, Alessio caught her arm in a powerful grip and yanked her back. ‘No more running away,’ he spelt out grimly.

  ‘Let go of me!’ Daisy blazed.

  Instead he took her mouth in a hard, punishing kiss. Her world swung violently and dizzily on its axis, her legs buckling as his tongue stabbed between her lips in an expression of raw, hungry need. She struggled to resist and then surrendered as a river of fire ignited low in the pit of her stomach. With a moan of helpless response, burned by the ferocious heat of his desire, Daisy wrapped her arms round his throat.

  ‘I’m still not speaking to you,’ she mumbled shakily. ‘I want you to know that.’

  ‘I’m a jealous, possessive toad. We both know it. What is there to discuss?’ Alessio demanded unevenly, divesting her of her bikini top and letting his hands rise to cup her bared breasts with a shameless groan of appreciation. ‘Dio…I would burn a thousand years in purgatory for this alone!’

  Crushing her to him, he lifted her high in his arms and carried her into the villa. ‘The staff…?’ she began.

  ‘I sent them home.’

  They landed on the bed in a wild tangle of damp limbs. Alessio pulled her over him, golden eyes smouldering over the pouting swell of pale breasts adorned by succulent pink nipples. Her breath was trapped in her throat as he stroked the painfully taut buds, sending shivers of excitement coursing through her.

  ‘You are the only woman I have ever loved,’ Alessio murmured roughly. ‘And I want to be inside you so badly, I ache.’

  As he reached up and played with the excruciatingly sensitive peaks with his teeth and his tongue, Daisy cried out, shifting briefly to bury her mouth hungrily in the hollow of his strong brown throat. Her worshipping hands travelled up over his broad chest, loving the flex of his muscles and the rough curls of black hair that met her exploring fingertips. He tangled his hands in her hair and dragged her lips back to his in an explosive kiss that melted her bones to hot honey. The sun-warmed scent and the never forgotten feel of him engulfed her, leaving her utterly without defence.

  ‘Yes!’ she gasped as he forced her down to him again and the hard, smooth jut of his manhood pressed against her belly, extracting a whimper of urgent, breathless need from her.

  She couldn’t get enough of him. She couldn’t get close enough to satisfy herself. He rolled over, an impatient hand skimming the clinging bikini pants from her slender hips. Her heartbeat thundered as he found the pale, damp curls at the junction of her thighs and moved onto discover the hot, silken flesh she opened to him. And then, as suddenly, she could hardly get breath into her lungs and what she could burned and rasped in her throat as sensation clawed at her with a bitter-sweet intensity that was more than she could bear.

  As he explored the aching, wet emptiness at the very heart of her, a long, sobbing moan of tormented frustration was dragged from Daisy. Never in her life had she craved anything as much as she craved the hot, hard invasion of Alessio’s body into hers. She clutched at him with wildly impatient, pleading hands, out of control, drawing her knees back in feverish invitation.

  Alessio lifted her up to him, eyes ablaze with answering desire, and entered her with a single powerful thrust. A startled cry of pain escaped her as intimate muscles locked tight in instinctive rejection.

  Alessio stilled in shock. Astonished golden eyes raked her hotly flushed face. ‘Dio…you feel as tight as the first time we made love!’

  Ungritting her teeth, Daisy looked up at him.

  ‘Like a virgin,’ Alessio breathed in hoarse, shaken addition. ‘I hurt you.’

  But the pain had already receded and her wildly sensitive flesh was now aware of his intrusion on a very different plane. Her eyes slid shut in voluptuous acceptance. She gave a sensuous little wriggle, excitement taking hold of her again. He felt so incredibly good inside her, filling her, stretching her.

  ‘Just how long has it been since you made love?’ Alessio demanded unevenly.

  ‘Please…’ she moaned, every fibre of her straining body maddened by the stillness of his.

  ‘How long?’ Alessio grated with all the persistence of a natural-born torturer.

  ‘Thirteen years!’ Daisy shot at him in a burst of anguished frustration.

  ‘Madre di Dio, piccola mia…’ Alessio growled in a daze of disbelief.

  He studied her with stunned intensity, a dark surge of blood rising to highlight his cheekbones, his shimmering eyes clinging to hers. And then, with a driven groan, he sank into her, deepening his penetration with fiery dominance. He delved his tongue between her lips with a sense of erotic timing that made every nerve-ending scream. There was only him then, and the incredible intensity of what he was making her feel.

  He drove into her hard and fast. She rode a storm of frantic, feverish excitement, her heart slamming wildly against her breastbone. Then, without warning, the excruciatin
g ache inside her intensified sharply, making her sob out his name in torment. A split second later, the wildness inside her expanded in a blazing explosion of sensation, shooting a hot, sweet overload of pleasure into every quivering inch of her being.

  Alessio shuddered in the clinging circle of her arms and with a shout of hoarse, agonised satisfaction he found his own release, collapsing down on top of her, heavy and damp with sweat and achingly familiar. A raw flood of tenderness filled Daisy to overflowing and made her eyes smart. But he had finally got the truth out of her—a truth she had never dreamt she might speak or he might suspect—and now she felt naked and horribly exposed.

  ‘You were worth waiting for,’ Daisy whispered tightly, painfully.

  Alessio lifted his dark, tousled head. With a slightly unsteady hand he smoothed her silky hair from her brow, long, caressing fingers cradling her cheekbone in a gesture of almost awkward tenderness. Only then, disturbingly, his beautiful dark eyes slewed away from the anxious intensity of hers, his lush lashes screening his gaze, but not before she’d seen the daunting bleakness etched there.

  ‘I feel bloody guilty,’ he confessed, and immediately released her from his weight.

  Daisy didn’t know what she had expected from him but it hadn’t been that admission.

  ‘Why no one else in all this time?’ Alessio prompted tautly.

  Now, that question was predictable but not one which Daisy was prepared to answer honestly. Defensively she turned her head away, aching with love for him and suppressing a dangerous urge to close the physical gap he had opened up between them. ‘When you have to look at a man and think, How would I feel if I got pregnant by him? it kind of chills your bones.’

  Instead of laughing as she had hoped, Alessio sat up in a sudden movement and swore long and low in Italian. ‘Porca miseria,’ he finally groaned. ‘I didn’t use anything!’

  Daisy lay with all the life of a block of wood. His horror at that realisation had the same effect on her as several blows with a hatchet.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Alessio gritted, as if he was expecting more of a reaction from her. ‘I didn’t take any precautions!’

  ‘Relax,’ Daisy urged in a choky little voice. ‘I doubt if I’m as fertile as I was at seventeen.’

  ‘Dio…what have I done?’ he bit out, only half under his breath.

  Daisy hunched herself under the cover of the sheet. Witnessing Alessio’s appalled response to the risk that he might have fathered a child with her a second time was, she was convinced, the most humiliating and painful dose of hard reality that she had ever experienced. Hurt and bitter tears boiled up behind her lowered eyelids.

  ‘I feel incredibly guilty,’ Alessio said again.

  ‘Go away,’ Daisy mumbled thickly, not even caring what he might have to feel guilty about any more.

  A surprisingly hesitant hand came down on her rigid shoulder. She shook it off and scooted over to the far side of the bed. ‘Leave me alone!’

  His weight left the bed. But ironically she didn’t want what she had said she wanted and immediately started feeling bereft and deserted and resentful.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ Alessio urged heavily. ‘I have to go out for a while.’

  ‘Don’t come back,’ Daisy spat, and burst into floods of tears the minute the door closed. She crammed her fist against her mouth but she still sobbed herself hoarse.

  Obviously Alessio had no feelings for her other than lust. And now he clearly wished he hadn’t bothered with that either. So why had he dragged her off to bed?

  No doubt it had been part and parcel of his desire to put on a show of marital harmony for Tara’s homecoming. Their daughter would undoubtedly not be impressed by the fact that the parents she wanted to regard as reunited lovers were sleeping in separate bedrooms.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAISY was still in bed when the phone rang. At first she ignored it but the persistence of the caller finally triumphed and she reached for the receiver in a sudden spasm of irritation, no longer able to bear that intrusive shrill.

  The feminine burst of imperious Italian reproof that greeted her was instantly recognisable. ‘Bianca?’ Daisy flatly broke into the flood of complaint. ‘This is Daisy, not one of the staff. Alessio’s out. Shall I ask him to call you?’

  ‘Actually it was you I wanted to speak to,’ Bianca informed her, her annoyance suddenly replaced by saccharine sweetness. ‘I’m well aware that Alessio isn’t at home. Shall I tell you how I know? He’s with Nina…’

  Daisy tensed and then slowly expelled her pent-up breath in a hiss. ‘Don’t you ever give up, Bianca? Thirteen years on, you’re still playing the same old silly tune!’

  ‘Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me! Nina is staying in a holiday complex only a few minutes’ drive from the villa.’ Bianca reeled off the address with audible satisfaction. ‘Alessio’s Ferrari is parked at the door—’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Daisy told her angrily. ‘I’m not a credulous teenager any more and I trust Alessio… do you hear me? I trust your brother!’

  ‘But you put him in an impossible position. Alessio wanted his daughter. He had to marry you! You’re the intruder, not Nina!’ Bianca condemned sharply. ‘It’s Nina he wants to be with and is with at this very moment! Why don’t you get out of his life and leave him alone?’

  Without hesitation, Daisy slammed the receiver back down on the cradle. She was shaking. Moisture beaded her short upper lip. In an abrupt movement, she sprang out of bed, knelt down, traced the phone wire to the wall and hurriedly disconnected it. It occurred to her that it would be nice if she could as easily disconnect the unsettling thoughts that kept assailing her no matter how hard she tried to block them out.

  Why had Alessio behaved like a man suffering from a very uneasy conscience? Why had he twice said how guilty he felt? Daisy paced the carpet. As a rule, Alessio was outrageously stubborn and confident of his own judgement. Retreat was an unknown option to him and regret a rare emotion. But Alessio had been upset. That same scenario ran back and forth through her restive brain.

  Alessio… appalled at the smallest risk that he might have made his wife pregnant. Why? Why should that be such a disaster? They were married. They were mature adults now. He adored Tara. He had admitted how very much he would have liked to share their daughter’s early years. He did not dislike children. And surely the oddest thing of all was that he should have made no attempt to discover Daisy’s feelings on the subject…

  It was ridiculous even to think that he might be with Nina, Daisy scolded herself angrily. She had seen no evidence of questionable intimacy between Alessio and Nina the day before. Do you really think they would advertise if they planned to continue their affair in secret? a little voice asked drily. Indeed, hadn’t the distinct lack of strain between them been in itself more suspicious?

  Daisy pulled on a black cotton skirt and scoop-necked pink silk T-shirt. But she was not going out. No, definitely not. She would be waiting downstairs for Alessio when he came back. They had to talk, not least about Bianca. For heaven’s sake, they had only been married a couple of days! On the other hand, wouldn’t finding Alessio at that address be her proof that his sister had contacted her to tell her where he was? After all, how else would Daisy have been able to locate him?

  Suddenly appreciating that she had a perfect excuse for checking out Bianca’s story, Daisy did not hesitate. There was another car in the garage. It was bucketing down with rain but she didn’t waste time running back indoors to get a coat. Driving out onto the road in the Mercedes, she told herself that it would be amusing to confront Alessio when he least expected her. And, whoever he was visiting in that complex, she was convinced it would not turn out to be Nina Franklin.

  The Ferrari was sitting in a well-lit parking area. Daisy stopped on the other side of the road. As soon as she saw Alessio she would get out of the car. She didn’t have long to wait. The door of a ground-floor apartment opened and a rectangle
of light silhouetted Alessio’s arrogant dark head and lean, powerful body. He was wearing his pearl-grey suit, the jacket open, his tie missing. Daisy slid out of the Mercedes.

  And only then did she realise that Alessio wasn’t alone. The door slammed noisily and Nina hurried down the path after him, calling out his name at the top of her voice. ‘Alessio…!’

  They walked together to the Ferrari, engaged in seemingly urgent conversation. Daisy stood and watched as they climbed into the car and drove off. Her legs felt as if they had turned to stone. She couldn’t move. Rain soaked her hair, dripped down her face and drenched the silk T-shirt until it clung like a second skin to her chilled flesh. She didn’t feel cold or wet. Shock had temporarily deprived her of sense and awareness.

  And then a wave of sick dizziness ran over her and she shivered violently. She hadn’t believed, she truly hadn’t believed that he would be with Nina … that he could have made passionate love to her and then gone straight to another woman, a gorgeous, sophisticated blonde in her early twenties. No wonder he had an uneasy conscience…

  The flood of pain which followed the disbelief hit Daisy on the drive back to the villa. He had to be in love with Nina. She could not believe that Alessio would betray her for anything less than love. In her mind, it all seemed so agonisingly clear. He had married her purely to get hold of Tara. He hadn’t once pretended otherwise, had he? But evidently he had never expected their marriage to last indefinitely.

  The break would have come once Tara was settled in Italy. Alessio would have waited until his daughter had forged closer ties with his half of the family. He had married her to steal their daughter, Daisy thought, in an agony of grief and betrayal. Setting out to win her trust, he had no doubt planned to ditch her as soon as she became surplus to requirements. Meanwhile he could continue to meet up with Nina whenever he liked.

  ‘If it is the last thing I do in this lifetime, I will punish you for this,’ Alessio had sworn the very day he had found out that he was a father. How could she have allowed herself to forget that threat?