by Alison Kent
Oh, where had her pride been—her self-respect? How was it that she’d only had to look into his eyes to convince herself that she could see something burning there that made her cling to hope?
The sound of his laughter floated up to the window. Looking down, she saw his mouth had stretched into a grin. He had not done much of that recently, she mused.
Was that Marisia’s doing? Had her cousin put the laughter back into Rafael?
Were they sleeping together?
Had it gone that far?
Did she care?
Nina turned away from the window, tense fingers coiling around her upper arms to bite hard. She wasn’t ready to answer that question. She wasn’t ready to face Rafael.
Oh, why did he have to come back here today of all days, when she needed time to think—to feel something, for God’s sake?
The moment Rafael Monteleone stepped through the front door he felt the lingering residue of laughter he’d just shared with Gino die from his lips as a chill washed right over him.
It was the chill of cold silence.
He paused to stare at the perfectly symmetrical black and white floor that spread out in front of him like a chequered ocean—flat, cold, and as uninviting as the black wrought-iron work forming the curving staircase and the pale blue paint that coloured the walls.
Home, he mused, and thought about sighing—only to tamp down on the urge. Instead tension grabbed at his shoulders, then slid up the back of his neck before linking like steel fingers beneath his chin. He employed an army of staff to help keep this miserable if aesthetically stunning house running smoothly, yet but for the sound of Gino moving the car round to the garages he could be entirely alone here.
The sigh escaped—because he allowed it—because he needed to ease away some of his tension before he went looking for his wife.
Wife, he repeated. There was yet another word that had become a term of mockery—within the privacy of his mind, at least. He did not mock Nina—did not mock her at all. He mocked only himself, for daring to use the word in reference to the ghost-like image of that once beautiful person which now haunted this house.
He knew exactly where she was, of course. He’d felt the chill of her regard via her bedroom window from the moment he had stepped out of the car. If he closed his eyes he could even picture her standing there, slender and still, observing his arrival through beautiful blue eyes turned to glass.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’
Ah, a real human being, Rafael thought dryly, then had to laugh privately at that when he lifted his eyes to the ancient silver-haired pole-faced butler, who’d come with the house and all of its other soulless fixtures and fittings.
‘Good afternoon, Parsons,’ he returned, and felt himself grimace at the very English sound of his own voice.
But then, this house was English—a small piece of England placed upon Sicilian soil like a defiance. Nina’s father had had it built as a summer home for his wife and daughter to use when they visited. When Richard St James had died, leaving his wife and daughter virtually penniless, they’d been forced to sell up their fourteen-thousand-acre family estate in Hampshire and come to live here, bringing their faithful butler with them. The house belonged to Nina now, left to her in her father’s will, along with a trust fund aimed to ensure that she completed her education in England.
And if all of that did not add up to a man with an axe to grind on his beautiful Sicilian wife’s faithless hide, then he could not read character as well as he’d thought.
‘There are several telephone messages for you.’ Parsons’ smooth voice intruded. ‘I placed them in your study. One, from a—lady, sounded particularly urgent…’
Ignoring the slight hesitation before the word lady, Rafael offered a nod of his head in acknowledgment to the rest, but made no move towards his study. Instead he turned and headed for the stairs. Urgent messages or not, he had a chore to do that must take precedence.
Knowing and respecting this small ritual, Parsons melted away as silently as he had arrived, leaving Rafael to make the journey up the curving staircase to the upper landing, and from there through an archway which would take him to the bedroom apartments of a house he had agreed to live in only to please his wife.
A mistake? Yes, it had been a mistake, one of many he had made with the beautiful Nina, and all of which he intended to rectify—soon.
On that grim thought he arrived outside the bedroom suite, paused for a moment to brace his shoulders inside the smooth cut of his dark silk jacket, then gripped the handle and opened the door.
He never knocked. He found it beneath his dignity to knock before entering what he still considered to be their bedroom, even though they had not shared it for months.
Serenity prevailed—that was his first observation as he stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. She was wearing a blue satin wrap that covered her from throat to ankle and she was sitting at her dressing table, quietly filing her nails. Her hair was up, scraped back into an unflattering ponytail, and her face looked paler than usual—though that could be a trick of the fading light.
When she turned her head to look at him he met with a wall of blue glass.
‘Ciao,’ he murmured, keeping his voice pleasant, even though pleasure was not what he was feeling inside.
‘Oh, hello,’ she returned, ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today.’ With that excruciatingly indifferent comment, the blue glass dropped away again.
Irritation snapping at the back of his clenched teeth, Rafael let the hit to his ego pass. He crossed the room to an antique writing desk on which sat a silver tray complete with crystal decanter and glasses. The ever-discreet Parsons had begun this small piece of thoughtfulness at the beginning of their marriage, when they’d used to spend more time in the bedroom than out of it, and had determinedly continued the habit though he must know that their marriage was now in tatters.
The decanter held his favourite cognac. Lifting off the smooth crystal stopper, he placed it aside, then turned to look at Nina.
‘You?’ he invited.
She gave a shake of her lowered head. ‘No, thanks.’
It was like talking to a dead person. Turning back to the tray, he poured himself a small measure, took it with him over to the window, then unclenched his jaw and drank.
Ritual rules, he mused as he stared out at the deepening sunset. Give her a minute or two and she was going to find an excuse to get up and leave the room.
Only this time he was going to stop her. This time he was going to stop the rot taking place in this room by bringing her—screaming and kicking if necessary—out of hiding and into reality.
His stomach warmed as the cognac reached it, and somewhere else inside him a different sensation gathered pace. The call to battle. He had wrecked this beautiful creature once, and now it was time to put her back together again.
With a bit of luck she would give him a chance to fortify himself with brandy before battle commenced, he mused wryly, unaware that the subject of his thoughts was already struggling to stay where she was.
CHAPTER THREE
TIMING was everything, Nina was reminding herself as she sat there fighting the urge to get up and go.
It was part of the ritual Rafael had developed, aimed to hide the true sickness in their relationship from the servants. He always came directly to her room when he arrived home, and stayed long enough to consume a measure of cognac. He always asked her if she wanted to join him in a glass and she always refused. After a suitable length of time one of them—usually her—would make up an excuse to leave.
But today was different. Today he had come in here wearing the shadow of another woman’s kiss on his lips, and there was no way she could sit here playing this the way it usually played out. She either said something, or left. It came down to those two options, she told herself tautly.
Rafael turned. ‘Nina, we need to talk—’
‘Sorry.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going for a show
er.’
‘Later,’ he frowned. ‘This is important. I want to—’
‘So is my shower,’ she cut in. ‘Y-you should have warned me you were coming home, then I could have told you that I am out tonight.’
‘Your grandfather’s birthday—I know.’ He nodded. ‘That is what I want to talk to you about.’
Not Marisia? ‘Why? What has he done now?’ she asked, in the wary voice of one who knew her devious grandparent well.
‘Nothing,’ Rafael said. ‘I have not heard from him in several weeks. He is not the reason why I—’
‘Then he’s up to something.’ Nina cut in on him yet again. A sigh escaped her. ‘I suppose I had better try and find out what so I can—’
‘I would prefer that you didn’t…’
Just the way he said that was enough to put her nerve-ends on edge. Her chin came up. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded, finding herself suddenly in danger of almost—almost making contact with his eyes. She looked away again—quickly.
If he noticed her avoiding gesture he kept it to himself. ‘It means,’ he murmured levelly, ‘that I already know what he’s up to, so you don’t need to get involved.’
‘He’s my grandfather, Rafael. I have a right to know what he’s doing if it means—’
‘Not when it involves money, you don’t,’ he responded. ‘That is my territory.’
The implication in that certainly hit where it hurt. ‘Then I won’t,’ she answered stiffly. ‘Taking care of my family is why I married you, after all. Thank you for reminding me.’
‘I did not mean it like that.’ He uttered a short sigh. ‘I simply meant that I am able to handle him better if you don’t interfere!’
Well, there you go, Nina thought. You are an interfering wife, as well as a useless, faithless, traitorous one. Things are on the move—hence the reintroduction of Marisia into his life, she supposed.
‘I did not come home early to fight with you over your grandfather. I have something I need to tell you before—’
Time to leave, she decided. ‘Tell me later.’ Spinning away, she began walking quickly towards the bathroom, her spine tingling out a mocking challenge to the cowardly way she was retreating from this.
‘Take a very healthy piece of advice, mi amore and don’t do it…’
It was the silken edge to his voice that brought her to a wary standstill, with her fingers already gripping the handle to the bathroom door. Past experience with that tone warned her to beware—because the silkier Rafael’s voice became the more dangerous he became. If she dared to open this door now then he would not hesitate to react.
‘OK.’ She turned, slender shoulders pressing back against the door. ‘Say what you have to say,’ she invited.
He was still standing by the window, so his face was shadowed by the sunset coming from behind him. But she could see the tension in his jawline; could feel his anger and frustration reaching out to her across the width of the room.
He held it all in check—he always held it in check! It was part of what they had now—Rafael taking what she dished out to him because his guilty conscience demanded it of him, and she dishing it out because—
She didn’t want to finish that—did not want to think about them as a them at all!
He moved at last, taking a few short steps so he could put his glass back down on the tray. When he turned to look at her his face was no longer shadowed, but right there in full focus.
Nothing showed on those hard aquiline features—nothing. But she suddenly felt as if the sky had darkened and a loud thunderclap followed by a lightning strike was piercing directly into her.
It was the way of the man—a force to be reckoned with. Love him or hate him, it was impossible to look at him and pretend she didn’t feel a thing. In fact she hated him—she was sure that she did—but he could still hold her transfixed.
He was going to come close; she could actually sense him making that decision. Her nerve-ends began to scream, her fingers and palms beginning to sweat where she’d flattened them against the door behind her as he took that first deliberate step. They didn’t do close any more, so it had to be a conscious decision. And he might possess good looks any woman would die to stake her claim to—a body any woman would kill to experience—but as those long legs brought him ever closer she felt like a tortoise contracting into its shell.
He came to a halt a couple of feet away, the telltale scent of him invading her private space first. He was big and lean, and stood head and shoulders over her with all the power of a smothering black cloud.
She had to close her eyes. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered.
‘Then don’t challenge me to,’ he threw back in husky response.
The husky voice hurt her heart somehow; she tugged in an anxious breath. Her stomach muscles were coiling into agonising knots.
‘Look at me,’ he urged. Her eyelids remained closed over vulnerable blue eyes and he released a sigh. ‘We cannot go on like this, you know,’ he murmured grimly.
Yes, we can, Nina thought, feeling the sudden burn of tears at the back of her eyes. We can go on for ever like this. I like it like this!
‘We have to move on. You have to move on.’
Her lashes flicked up. ‘You want a divorce?’
The words were out before she could stop them. His response shook her to the core. His hands came up and slammed against the door at either side of her trembling shoulders, and even as a shocked gasp shot from her chest in a frightened flurry he was shifting his stance. The next thing she knew his lean face was exactly level with hers.
Eyes as dark as a deep, deep ocean clashed with her eyes. It was not supposed to happen. She never let herself make eye contact, and now she could not break away! Her throat had locked, with tiny breaths of panic fighting to escape and heaving at her breasts.
He didn’t speak, didn’t even move again, and still nothing of what he was thinking showed in those hard features as he held her trapped there like a mesmerised cat.
Was he sleeping with Marisia?
Did she care? Did she care?
Confusion ran like quick fire in a dizzying circle inside her head.
Ask him, she told herself. Tell him what you know and just get it over with! She parted her trembling lips.
He covered them. It was that quick—that shocking.
Her first response was to pull away from him. The second was to freeze. The third was to feel that kiss in so many places she had believed could no longer feel anything. Now an incandescence was sweeping over her in a tingling, shining shimmer of heat.
It was the shock, she told herself. She just had not expected him do this. They hadn’t kissed in months—hadn’t touched unless it was in the company of others, when keeping up appearances made it necessary.
Which was why she rarely went anywhere with him—why she was standing here now, feeling everything as if it were their first ever kiss.
The tip of his tongue made a slow pass over the tip of her tongue, and a shaken whimper lodged in her throat.
He did it again—and again. No! she cried inside when she felt herself tremble and begin to respond.
That first tiny tremor was all it took to bring the ordeal to an end. He lifted his dark head, studied her for a few wretched moments, then said smoothly, ‘Go for your shower. We don’t want to be late.’
Rafael turned away from the sight of her white-face and shaken composure, his eyes glittering angrily now that she could not see them doing it. She looked like some child’s broken and discarded doll, left leaning against the door.
Had that been his intention when he’d started this? To break her up some more?
No, was the answer. But that had been before she’d looked so damn vulnerable when she asked him if he wanted a divorce.
The rest of that brandy called to him. He was crossing the room to where he had left his glass when a sound from behind told him she was beginning to pull herself together again.
&n
bsp; ‘We?’ she murmured shakily. ‘Y-You said we don’t w-want to be late. You aren’t coming.’
‘Are you saying I’m not invited?’ He picked up the brandy glass, noticed that his fingers were shaking and grimaced.
‘I don’t want you there.’
Well, that was blunt and to the point, he thought, and grimaced again. ‘I am sure your grandfather will be delighted to see me.’
‘If this has something to do with whatever he’s up to then I don’t want you spoiling his birthday!’
‘Still his fiercest champion, cara?’ he mocked.
‘Just leave him alone,’ she said shakily.
‘I will be coming with you tonight,’ he repeated. ‘Resign yourself to it while you take your shower.’
The quiet and level quality of his tone did it, as he had known that it would. He heard her stifled sigh of defeat and turned in time to watch her disappear into the bathroom on a whisper of blue satin and quivering frustration.
The door closed with a slam. Rafael winced, then allowed himself a thin smile. She had not slammed anything in a long time. Maybe the kissing tactic had not been such a bad one after all…
CHAPTER FOUR
THE plain black silk jersey dress still hung ready on its hanger. Nina sent it an indifferent glance as she passed it on her way to select underwear from her lingerie drawer.
Black was not a colour that particularly flattered her, but her grandfather thought it did. He claimed the colour added drama to what he insensitively called her insipidness.
Nonno was an insensitive brute all round, she mused as she slipped a sheer black silk teddy on over her lightly perfumed skin. It never occurred to him that his opinion might hurt someone who had spent most of her life feeling thoroughly outshone by her vibrant Sicilian cousin.
‘I only tell it as it is,’ was one of his favourite statements.
Still, she loved him, and he loved her in his own unique way. So what if he was a reckless rogue who thought nothing of throwing away a million he didn’t have on some no-hope business opportunity? Or, worse, gambled it away in a single night playing backgammon with his friends? He had been her tower of strength when her father had died and her mother had been too wrapped up in playing the merry widow to notice that her fifteen-year-old daughter needed her support. If Rafael thought she was going to let him challenge the old man tonight of all nights, then—
