Mistresses: Blackmailed With Diamonds / Shackled With Rubies

by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker

  She shook her head, trying to shut out his presence.

  He wrapped a fluffy bath sheet around her and then set her on the closed toilet seat. “What can I say to make it better?”

  “Nothing. I want to go to bed. To sleep. Alone.” She glared at him with wet eyes. “Without you,” she said for emphasis in case he didn’t get it.

  He sighed and pulled off his wet clothes. He toweled his hair and she realized he’d gotten pretty soaked taking her from the shower. “I cannot leave you like this.”

  “Because my feelings don’t matter to you.”

  “This is not true.” He tightened his jaw like a man trying to hold in his temper.

  “It is true. I want to be alone and you won’t let me. Wh-what d-do you c-call that?” She’d started crying harder again.

  He jerked around and marched out of the bathroom, through a door she now saw was hanging in a broken doorframe. So that was how he’d gotten in. Brute force. At least he had left. She could wallow in her pain in peace now.

  It was too much of an effort to get up and go into the bedroom, so she sat on the toilet seat and let the tears fall.

  That was how he found her when he returned a few minutes later. He swept her into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed as if she were some kind of fragile porcelain doll. Then he tucked the covers around her, but he made no move to join her.

  And that was what she wanted. It was.

  She needed to be away from him to think.

  He sat beside her and she shied away from him. She couldn’t help it, but he scowled.

  “I won’t hurt you, damn it.”

  “You already have.” She said it in such a defeated tone, she shocked herself.

  His complexion went from olive darkness to paste white in a breath. “It was not my intention.”

  “That doesn’t make it better.” She wasn’t even sure if she was talking about now or a year ago, but it didn’t really matter. The pain was now. The grief was now.

  She went to turn away from him, but he lifted her into a sitting position and pressed a wine glass to her lips.

  She refused to drink. “What is it?”

  “Just wine. You need something to settle you.”

  “Alcohol is bad for the baby.”

  “Your tears and upset are worse for the baby than a few sips of wine.”

  She knew he was right and guilt assailed her.

  Her self-indulgence could very well be putting their baby at risk. She sipped the wine and reined in her emotions.

  She’d stopped crying. Salvatore had handed her a tissue to mop up and now they both sat in silence. Her under the covers, him on top, the distance between them as good as a mile.

  “I want to sleep alone.”

  He nodded. “If that is your wish.”

  And he left.

  And she wondered if it really had been. Her emotions were careening all over the place and she hated this seesaw they seemed to be on.

  She turned on her side, away from the mental image of Salvatore sitting beside her on the bed, and tried to sleep. In sleep, the pain would go away.

  Salvatore went downstairs to the library. He pulled out a bottle of aged Scotch from the cabinet below one of the mahogany bookcases and poured himself a glass. He sipped, but tasted nothing. He wanted more than anything to go back up to that bedroom and convince Elisa that she was wrong about his feelings for her, wrong about his motives.

  He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He’d left in the first place because she looked so fragile, so ready to go over the edge of her emotional control once again. Like Elisa, he had now accepted she was pregnant even without the confirmation of a test. He could not force a confrontation that would put the baby at risk. Not again. He would not allow his stupidity to end in the death of his child again.

  He slumped into the armchair closest to where Elisa had set up her temporary office, feeling as if the very heart had been ripped from his chest.

  The pain he had known upon discovering Sofia’s betrayal was like a pinprick compared to the slashing knife wound to his soul inflicted by Elisa’s rejection.

  It had only been as he sat there, forced to witness an emotional pain so profound it pounded his heart like a sledgehammer that he had realized the true extent of his feelings for her. He loved her.

  Why did that come as such a shock?

  No other emotion could explain how completely necessary she was to him. He had existed, not lived, the past year while she had avoided him.

  And, like an idiot he had denied the emotion, preferring to believe he was righting a wrong done. Admitting he had been prompted by love would have given her too much power over him. So he had protected his vulnerability, only to destroy his chance at happiness with the one woman that mattered.

  She believed he had thought she was not as good as Annemarie. Porca miseria! She could believe he still felt that way, for all he knew.

  The conversation he had had with Francesco had been so short, of so little consequence, he had allowed himself to forget it. It had happened two days after Elisa’s arrival in Sicily. He too was visiting his family home and had already spent one evening and an afternoon in her company.

  His response to her had been so strong that he had reacted by going to Francesco and casually mentioning the idea of marriage between himself and Annemarie. Anything to avoid being controlled by the violence of feeling Elisa provoked in him. Francesco had shrugged and said he would not be adverse to joining their two families, but that had been the extent of it.

  Salvatore had never once attempted to court Annemarie, but he doubted that would make any difference to Elisa. Not in her current state, definitely. She had reacted like a woman betrayed and he did not blame her.

  His own stupidity had led to such a pass.

  She hated him when he had finally come to the realization that he loved her and needed her more than he needed life-giving sustenance.

  He tossed back the Scotch and poured himself another glass.

  Elisa tossed in the bed, the covers twisting around her legs, and fought the memory of Salvatore’s face when she had sent him away. He had looked devastated.

  Why?

  OK, so she was probably pregnant with his baby. He no doubt didn’t want her tearing off to parts unknown again, but she hadn’t threatened to do that. She hadn’t even said she wanted to call off the wedding. As much as she hurt, she could not quite make those words come out of her mouth.

  They were too permanent.

  A lifetime without him elicited more fear and pain than the knowledge that he had thought so little of her last summer.

  Last summer. Those two words blinked like a caution light at a four-way stop in her mind. She’d been reacting as if this revelation was about something recent, something now. Only it wasn’t.

  Salvatore had told her why he’d thought such stupid things about her. Because of a misunderstanding over something her father had said. And what had Salvatore said about that, besides a very uncharacteristic apology? Oh, yes…that he had wanted her so much he had needed to believe she wasn’t a virgin so he could have her.

  Because he hadn’t been thinking marriage.

  He was thinking it now, though, and according to him he’d been married to her in his mind since she told him about the baby. After Sofia, he’d been afraid of strong passion, just as she had been afraid of depending on anyone after growing up the unwanted and illegitimate daughter of a famous actress.

  Was she still afraid to depend on Salvatore?

  Was that why she had reacted so strongly to her father’s news and put the worst possible connotation on Salvatore’s actions and motives? She had believed the worst of him because then he could not let her down as she had been let down so many times before.

  She’d also been confusing unresolved emotional pain from her miscarriage with what she felt now.

  So, she’d rejected him.

  A rejection that had hurt.

  If h
e didn’t care about her, she could not hurt him. It followed, then, that he cared. Guilt thwarted would never have put that look on his face.

  Giving up on getting any sleep with things unresolved between her and Salvatore, Elisa threw back the covers and climbed out of bed.

  She went looking for Salvatore, but she didn’t find him in their bedroom. So, she went downstairs. She tracked him down in the library. He was sprawled in a dark brown leather armchair, his shirt undone, his hand wrapped around an empty glass. He wasn’t asleep though; his eyes were open and staring with bloodshot intensity at her.

  “Salvatore?”

  “What do you want, Elisa?” His perfect diction slurred the words together, so she could barely understand them.

  So much for having a heart-to-heart talk. The man was drunk. Further evidence that she affected him deeply. He was way too strong and self-controlled to indulge in excess drinking on a whim.

  “I want you to come to bed.”

  He blinked. “With you?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “You do not want me in your bed.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “You cannot. You hate me. You told me this.” He sighed and looked at the empty glass in his hand as if trying to figure out how it had gotten there. “I must not forget.”

  “I don’t hate you. I was angry, but I didn’t mean it.” She’d been unable to tell him she didn’t want to marry him, but she’d certainly been capable of spouting enough hurtful words.

  “You did not mean it.” He set the glass on the table, but it caught the edge and fell to the floor.

  Luckily, it did not break.

  She ignored it because he was swaying to his feet and she wasn’t sure he was not headed the same way as the glass.

  To the floor.

  He stopped in front of her and grasped her shoulders. She put her hands on his waist to steady him and then smiled at the thought of her puny strength holding up his massive body.

  “You did not mean it,” he repeated. He sounded as if he was having a hard time grasping the concept.

  “Right. But I think we should talk about it in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re drunk.”

  His brow furrowed. “I do not drink excessively.”

  “Yes, I know, but this time you must have.”

  “You said you hated me.” He said it much like a first-grader repeating his memory lesson and slightly bewildered by it.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she repeated slowly, trying to get through the alcoholic stupor he appeared to be under, “and I want you to come to bed.”

  His bleary eyes brightened. “You will sleep in my bed.”

  “Our bed, and yes.”

  He let her lead him from the room, docile as a lamb. It almost scared her, this unknown Salvatore, but she liked it a little too. Usually he was so forceful, he would never let her undress him…at least not without doing some undressing of his own. This time he allowed her to pull his clothes off and press him toward the bathroom to brush his teeth before they went to bed.

  Ten minutes later, she was wrapped snugly in his arms and he was snoring slightly. Salvatore never snored. It must be the alcohol. They would talk in the morning. She would make him tell her his real feelings once and for all.

  Salvatore woke with little men in hobnailed boots dancing inside his head. His mouth tasted as if it were stuffed with wadded-up cotton and he needed to go to the bathroom.

  That was his first sense of awareness.

  His second told him that a small, warm and very naked body was curled into his and that body belonged to Elisa. Her hand was buried in the hair on his chest, pressed against his heart. One of her shapely legs was tucked between his own and her stomach pressed lightly against his morning erection.

  It bobbed in awareness and he groaned.

  She squirmed beside him.

  He lifted his hand to his face, rubbing the rough stubble on his cheeks and wondering what this rapprochement meant.

  How had she come to be in his bed? He remembered thinking briefly last night, during one burst of particularly drunken brainstorming, that he should go upstairs and carry her there. Had he done that?

  Hazy memories of her undressing him did not fit with that scenario. Surely she would not have put him to bed if he had carried her into the room against her will. Then he remembered. She’d come to the library. They had talked. He couldn’t remember the whole conversation, but certain things stood out.

  He slid from the bed, careful not to wake her, the movement jarring his head. The tiny men in hobnailed boots each grew a second set of feet. He stifled another groan and headed to the en suite. He needed to shower, to shave, to drink some fluids and become at least semi-human before he could talk to Elisa and tell her what was in his heart.

  She woke from a gentle brushing on the top curve of her breast. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked up. Salvatore sat beside her on the bed, freshly showered, looking much better than he had the night before. He’d donned a robe, but nothing else.

  She looked down where the backs of his knuckles continued to brush back and forth against her soft flesh. The sheet was around her waist and her breasts were bare to his sight, a fact he had definitely noticed.

  She reached for the sheet, feeling vulnerable all of a sudden.

  He stayed her hand. “No, amore. You are so beautiful; it is a crime to cover such perfection.”

  The words were said so reverently that she could not take issue with them, but she curled her fingers around his wrist to stop the tantalizing movement of his hand. “We need to talk.”

  “Sì.” His dark brown gaze caught and held her own. “You said you do not hate me, is this the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were very angry last night. My thoughtlessness hurt you and for this I do not know how to make amends.”

  “You wanted to marry my sister.”

  “I did not.”

  He sounded so sure that she had to believe him.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You scared me. The way I felt when I was around you scared me.”

  She shook her head back and forth on the pillow. “No. Nothing frightens you.”

  Not even gunmen. She would never forget how she had had to blackmail him into the vault.

  “Sì. Scared. You evoked strong emotions I did not want.”

  “Because of Sofia.”

  “My first reaction to you eclipsed any feelings I ever had for her. You did not only threaten my self-control, you threatened my heart.”

  Her breath paused and then came out in a big whoosh. “That sounds as if you cared.”

  “I fell in love with you before you ever left Sicily, but I refused to admit it. Did not need to admit it. You allowed me to seduce you, gave me all of your spare time. I was happy.”

  “And then I told you I was pregnant.”

  “And I destroyed what we had because of fear, old wounds and a stupid misunderstanding.”

  “You kept trying to see me.”

  “I could not let you go. You are the other half of myself. Without you I am not half-alive, I am dead.”

  She shivered at the finality and sincerity of his words. He’d said he had fallen in love with her. “Do you still love me?”

  “More than you can know, amore. More than I can ever say.”

  “But Annemarie…”

  “Was a thought, an attempt at a smoke screen of my feelings.”

  “But I didn’t know what you felt!”

  “Not for you, for myself. I lied to myself and convinced myself what we had was merely physical, but I paid a price.”

  “The baby.”

  “And you. I lost my child and my woman in one fell swoop of my pride, in doing things in the wrong way.”

  She struggled into a sitting position, needing to touch him. He allowed her to put her arms around him, but he remained distant.

  She kissed his hairy,
muscular chest, reveling in the scent of his skin and the warmth of it against her lips. “I care about you. I need you.”

  “How can you after all I have done?” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “Last night, you cried so much.” The torment in his voice tore at her heart.

  “Last night…” She paused, unsure how to go on.

  “Sì?”

  “It was more than just what you thought about me last summer. It was as if a dam had burst and all the hurt I’d tried to ignore after losing the baby came out.” She drew on the strength of having his warmth surrounding her and spoke a truth that had devastated her. “I didn’t cry after the baby. There was no one to grieve with.”

  “I would have grieved with you.”

  Finally, she believed that was true and it healed wounds that had been gouged by his supposed indifference.

  “I couldn’t forgive you. Not then.” She sighed, wishing he would put his arms around her, and nuzzled his chest some more. “And last night everything got all jumbled together.”

  His big body shuddered and then two strong arms locked around her in a hold that said he would never let her go. “I am glad you finally grieved, but I pray God you never know such pain again. It unmans me.”

  She shifted slightly and felt a growing hardness against her. “You don’t feel unmanned.”

  “Do not tease. We have serious things to discuss.”

  “Like what?” she asked, all innocence.

  He pulled back and glowered at her. “Like whether my love is returned, you little torment.”

  “I could never stop loving you, Salvatore.”

  “You tried.”

  “We had it all backwards.”

  “Sì, the honeymoon before the courtship.”

  She nodded.

  “We have to fix this, to put it right.”

  She didn’t know what he meant, but she soon learned. Salvatore spent the next week courting her in every way a man could court a woman. He escorted her to the auction, treating her like a date, leaving the security to his father, who had flown in to attend the sale of the crown jewels.

  There were no problems and later she learned the men who had tried to rob Adamo Jewelers had not been fanatics at all. Just regular jewel thieves who’d had a tip-off on the early transport of the crown jewels. They had been caught in a net set by Salvatore’s firm and were now facing long sentences in an Italian prison.