‘Then?’ she prompted again.
He wasn’t even angry with her for her persistence because now it felt like some rank poison was throbbing beneath his skin and he needed to cut through the surface to let that poison out.
‘One night there was some big row. I don’t know what it was about—all I do know is that my father was completely loaded and my mother was shouting at him. I heard him yell back that he was going out and then I heard her going after him. I knew he was in no state to drive and I tried to stop her. I...’
He’d done more than try. He’d begged her not to go. He’d run over and clung to her with all the strength his eight-year-old body could muster, but she hadn’t listened. She’d got in the car anyway and the next time he’d seen his mother was when she’d been laid out in her coffin, with white lilies in her hands and that waxy look on her cold, cold cheeks.
‘She wouldn’t listen to me,’ he bit out. ‘He crashed the car and killed them both. And I didn’t manage to stop her. Even though deep down I knew what a state my father was in, I let her go.’
He stared out at the grounds of the house he’d moved into soon afterwards when his grandfather had brought them all here. A place where he’d been unable to shake off his sorrow and his guilt. He’d run wild until his grandfather had sent him and Dario away to school. And he’d just kept on running, hadn’t he? He wondered now if the failure of his attempt to stop his mother had been the beginning of his fierce need to control. The reason why he always felt compelled to step in and influence what was happening around him. Was that why he’d done what he’d done to his twin brother?
‘But maybe you couldn’t stop her.’
Willow’s voice—suddenly so strong and sure—broke into his thoughts.
‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded.
‘Children can’t always make adults behave the way they want them to, Dante,’ she said, her words washing over him like balm. ‘No matter how hard they try.’
Dante turned round, still unable to believe how much she’d got out of him. She looked like some kind of angel sitting there, with her pale English skin and that waterfall of silky hair. In her simple cotton dress she looked so pure—hell, she was pure. But it was more than just about sex. She looked as if she could take all the darkness away from him and wash away the stain of guilt from his heart. And her grey eyes were fixed on him, quite calmly—as if she knew exactly what was going on inside his head and was silently urging him to go right ahead and do it.
He wasn’t thinking as he walked across the room to where she sat at an antique writing desk with the oil painting of Sicily which hung on the wall behind it. The hot, scorched brushstrokes and cerulean blue of the sky contrasted vividly with her coolness. Her lips looked soft and inviting. Some warning bell was sounding inside his head, telling him that this was wrong. But some of the poison had left him now. Left him feeling empty and aching and wanting her. Wanting to lose himself in her.
She didn’t object when he pulled her out of the chair and onto her feet. In fact, the sudden yearning in her eyes suggested that she’d wanted him to touch her just as badly as he needed to.
His hands were in her hair and his mouth was hovering over hers, their lips not quite touching, as if he’d had a last-minute moment of sanity and this was his chance to pull back from her. Was that why she stood up on tiptoe and anchored her hands to his shoulders? Why she flickered the tip of her tongue inside his mouth?
‘Willow,’ he whispered as his heart began to pound.
‘Yes,’ she whispered back. ‘I’m right here.’
He groaned as he tasted her—his senses tantalised by the faint drift of her scent. Dropping his hands from her hair, he gripped her waist and he thought how incredibly light she felt. As light as those drifts of swansdown you sometimes saw floating across hazy summer lawns. He deepened the kiss, and as she sucked in a breath, it felt like she was sucking him right inside her. For a moment he thought about the very obvious place where he would like to be sucked and his hand reached down to cup her breast. He heard the urgent little sigh of delight she made. He felt the restless circle of her narrow hips, and he could feel control leaving him as she kissed him back. He tried to remember where he’d put his condoms and just how long they had before they were expected up at the main house. And all the time he could feel himself going under—as if he was being consumed by a tide of rich, dark honey.
But along with the sweet, sharp kick of desire came the reminder of all the things he’d told himself he wasn’t going to do. He’d messed up enough in his life. He’d failed to save his mother. He’d ruptured his relationship with his twin brother. In business he’d achieved outstanding success, but his personal relationships were not the same. Everything he touched turned to dust. He was incapable of experiencing the emotions which other men seemed to feel. And even though Willow Hamilton had allowed her stupid fantasies to manipulate events... Even though she had dragged him into her fantasy and made it impossible for him to walk away from her—that gave him no right to hurt her.
It would be too easy to take her innocence. To be the first man to claim her body for his own. To introduce her to the powerful but ultimately fleeting pleasures of sex. He closed his eyes because imagining her sweet tightness encasing him was almost too much to bear. He thought about easing into her molten heat, with his mouth clamped to one of her tiny nipples. He thought about how good it would feel to be able to come inside her. To pump his seed into her until he was empty and replete. To kiss her and kiss her until she fell asleep in his arms.
But a woman’s virginity was a big deal, and someone who had suffered as Willow had suffered deserved more than he could ever give her. Because he was programmed not to trust and never to stay. He would take pleasure and give pleasure and then close the door and leave without a backwards glance.
Dragging his mouth away from hers and dropping his hand from her breast as if it was on fire, he stepped away, trying to quieten down the fierce sexual hunger which was burning inside him. But when he saw the confusion clouding her beautiful eyes, he felt a moment of unfamiliar doubt which he couldn’t seem to block out.
His mouth twisted.
‘I meant what I said back in England,’ he gritted. ‘You aren’t somebody I intend to get intimate with, Willow. Did you think that because I’ve just told you something about my deeply troubled past...’ His voice took on a harsh and mocking tone. ‘That I would want you? Did you think any of this was for real? Because if you do, you’re making a big mistake. For the sake of my grandfather and his romantic ideals, we will play the part of the happily engaged couple whenever we find ourselves in his company. But when we’re alone, the reality will be very different. Just so you know, I’ll be sleeping on the couch.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘And I’ll do my best not to disturb you.’
CHAPTER NINE
THE DARK SHAPE was moving almost silently around the room but it was enough to disturb Willow from her troubled sleep. Pushing the hair back from her face, she sat up in bed and snapped on the light to see Dante standing fully dressed, his face shadowed and unfriendly.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
‘Going out for a drive.’
‘But it’s only...’ She picked up her watch and blinked at it. ‘Just after five in the morning!’
‘I know what the time is,’ he growled back as he grabbed a clutch of car keys.
‘So...why?’ Her voice was full of bewilderment as she looked at him. ‘Why in heaven’s name are you going out before the sun is even up?’
‘Why do you think?’ He turned to look at her properly and all his dark and restless energy seemed to wash over her. ‘Because I can’t sleep.’
Willow swallowed. ‘That couch does look very uncomfortable,’ she agreed carefully. ‘It can’t be doing your back any good.’
‘It’s got
nothing to do with the damned couch, Willow, and we both know it.’
She leaned back against the pillows, wishing that he would stop snapping at her, and just end this impasse. Wishing he’d just take off those jeans and that stupid jacket and come and get in bed with her and do what was almost driving her out of her mind with longing. How many nights had they spent here now? And still her virginity was intact. Nothing had changed—at least, not in him—though her desire for him was as strong as ever. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to hold him. Yet he acted as if she was contaminated.
‘It was a mistake to come to this damned cottage,’ he bit out. ‘And an even bigger mistake to agree to stay on until after Natalia’s opening.’
‘So why did you agree to it?’
‘You know damned well why,’ he growled. ‘Because you managed to make yourself completely irresistible to my grandfather, didn’t you? So that I could hardly refuse his suggestion that we hang around for a few more days.’ His fingers tightened around his car keys as he glared at her. ‘Was this just more of the same kind of behaviour you demonstrated so perfectly at your sister’s wedding? Manipulating events so they’d turn out the way you wanted them to?’
‘That is an outrageous thing to say,’ she retorted, wrapping the duvet more tightly around herself and trying very hard to keep the sight of her tightening nipples away from his accusing eyes. ‘Unless you’re suggesting that I deliberately went out of my way to be nice to your grandfather, just because I had some sort of hidden agenda to trap you in this cottage?’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘Because, believe me, no one would deliberately angle to have more time alone with you, when you’re in this kind of mood!’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I guess not,’ he said.
‘And to be honest, I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this,’ she said. ‘Maintaining this crazy fiction of presenting ourselves as the happy couple whenever we’re with Giovanni or Natalia—and yet the moment we’re alone, we’re...we’re...’
Dante stilled as he heard the unmistakable break in her voice, which only added to his growing sense of confusion and frustration. Because he hated it when she acted vulnerable—something which was surprisingly rare. When her voice wobbled or she got that puppy-dog look in her eyes, it started making all kinds of unwanted ideas flood into his head. Was it possible that duplicity didn’t come as easily to her as he’d originally thought? That the sweet and uncomplicated Willow he’d seen here in his Long Island home—being endlessly patient with his grandfather and lovely towards his sister—was actually the real Willow? His mouth hardened. Or was she trying and managing very successfully to twist him around her little finger?
‘We what, Willow?’ he questioned silkily.
‘We circle each other like two wary animals whenever we’re together!’
‘Well, let me ease the burden by going out and making sure we’re alone for as little time as possible,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’m going out for a drive. I’ll see you later.’
Walking across the room, he clicked the door shut behind him, and as Willow listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps, she slumped dejectedly back into the pillows.
A heavy sigh escaped from her lips. She was living in a prison. A gilded prison where everything she wanted was right in front of her. The only man she’d ever wanted was constantly within touching distance—only she wasn’t allowed to touch. And the fiction of the happy front they presented to the outside world was cancelled out by the spiralling tension whenever they were alone together.
She’d thought she’d been getting close to him. She had been getting close to him. On the day they’d arrived, he’d dropped his formidable guard and told her things about his past—things about his childhood and his family which had made her want to reach out to him. She’d seen the bitter sadness distorting his features and had wanted more than anything else to comfort him.
And for a while he had let her. For a few moments he had held her tight and kissed her and something deep and strong had flickered into life as they’d stood, locked in each other’s arms. Her experience of men was tiny, but she had known that kiss was about more than sexual desire. It had been about understanding and solace. She’d thought it had been about hope.
But then he had pushed her away almost coldly, and since then he hadn’t come close. Only when they were being observed by other people did he soften his attitude towards her.
She’d met one of his sisters, Natalia—a talented artist who lived at the house. With her wavy brown hair tied back in a ponytail and tomboyish clothes, she wasn’t a bit how Willow had imagined Dante’s sister to be. She had recently returned from a trip to Greece, but her clear hazel eyes became shuttered whenever anyone asked about it.
And Willow had at last met the legendary Giovanni, Dante’s grandfather. She’d felt a punch of painful recognition after being shown into his room and seeing the pills which the attendant nurse was tipping into a small plastic container. A sense of sadness had curled itself around her heart as she saw the unmistakable signs of sickness. She thought how the Di Sione family had so many of the things which society lusted after. With their lavish wealth and a sprawling mansion in one of the world’s most expensive areas of real estate, they were a force to be reckoned with...but nobody could avoid the inevitability of death, no matter how rich they were. And Dante’s grandfather’s eyes held within them a pain which Willow suspected was caused by more than his illness. Was he trying to get his affairs in order before the end? Was that why he’d asked Dante to trace the costly tiara and bring it to him?
On the first of what became twice daily visits, Willow would perch on a chair beside the bed and chat to the old man. She told him all about her life in England, because she knew better than anyone how being housebound made the dimensions of your world shrink. She was less enthusiastic about her fictitious future with his beloved grandson, even though the old man’s eyes softened with obvious emotion when he reached out to examine her sparkling engagement ring. And she hoped she’d done her best to hide her guilt and her pain—and to bite back the urge to confess to him that none of this was real.
After Dante had gone she lay in bed until the light came up, then walked over to the main house for breakfast. The dining room was empty but Alma must have heard her because she came in with a pot of camomile tea, just as Willow was helping herself to a slice of toast.
‘Where is everyone?’ asked Willow as she reached for a dish of jam.
‘Signor Giovanni is resting and Miss Natalia’s upstairs, trying on dresses for her exhibition,’ replied Alma. ‘Would you like Cook to fix you some eggs?’
Willow shook her head. ‘I’m good, thanks, Alma. This jam is amazing.’
Alma smiled. ‘Thank you. I made it myself.’
Slowly, Willow ate her breakfast and afterwards went for a wander around the house where there was always something new to discover. And it was a relief to be able to distract herself from her endless frustration about Dante by admiring the fabulous views over the Di Sione estate, and the priceless artwork which studded each and every wall of the mansion. She was lost in thought as she studied a beautiful oil painting of Venice when suddenly she heard a small crash on the first floor, followed by the unmistakable sound of Natalia’s voice exclaiming something.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she walked up the curving staircase and along a wide corridor, past an open door where she could see Natalia standing in front of a mirror, a heavy silver hairbrush lying by her bare feet. She was wearing a green shift dress—one of the most shapeless garments Willow had ever seen—which did absolutely nothing for her athletic physique.
Instinctively, she winced and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. ‘You’re not wearing that, surely?’
‘What?’ Natalia
looked down at the garment before glancing up again and blinking. ‘This is one of my best dresses.’
‘Okay,’ said Willow doubtfully, going into the room and walking around behind Natalia to see if it looked any better from the back. It didn’t.
‘So what’s wrong with this dress?’ Natalia asked.
Willow shrugged as she looked at Dante’s sister. ‘Honestly? It looks like a green bin bag. Admittedly a very nice shade of green, but still...’ She narrowed her eyes in assessment. ‘Did Dante tell you that I work in fashion?’
Natalia shook her head. ‘Nope. He’s been characteristically cagey about you. If you want the truth, I was pretty surprised to meet you. He once told me that he didn’t think that marriage was for him, and I believed him.’ Her voice softened. ‘That’s why I’m so happy for him, Willow. Sometimes he seems so...alone...despite all the planes and the parties and the money he’s made. I’m so glad he’s found you.’
Willow’s heart clenched with a guilt even though she felt a perverse kind of pride that their farce of togetherness was working so effectively. She turned her attention to Natalia again.
‘You have a knockout figure and gorgeous hair and you don’t do much with either.’
‘I’ve never had to.’
‘But today is different, isn’t it?’ persisted Willow. ‘I mean, it’s meant to be special.’
There was silence for a moment before Natalia answered. ‘Yes.’
Willow glanced over at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Look, we have plenty of time. I can see what you have in your wardrobe or we could raid mine. And I’m a dab hand with a needle and thread. Will you let me give you a bit of a makeover? Only if you want to, of course.’
There was a moment of hesitation before Natalia gave Willow the sweetest smile she’d ever seen. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’
* * *
Dante parked the car and walked slowly to the house, his dark glasses shading his eyes against the bright golden glitter of the day. It was a beautiful day and he should have felt invigorated by the air and the drive he’d just had. He should have felt all kinds of things, but he didn’t.
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