by Lynne Graham
In the circle of her clinging arms, his lean, powerful body went rigid. Her declaration of love had felt so natural to her that it took her a moment or two to register that it had had a quite different effect on him. The silence that had fallen was heavy, nerve-racking. Slowly she lifted her pale blonde head to look up at his lean dark face. ‘I’m not expecting you to reciprocate,’ she told him awkwardly.
‘I have no intention of reciprocating,’ Valente retorted with sardonic bite, shifting his bronzed shoulders to break her hold and ease back from her. His beautiful dark eyes were hard and unyielding. ‘I could never feel that way about you again.’
Shaken by that very extensive rejection, Caroline murmured, ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ve got too used to not having to watch my words with you-but you’re right. It’s far too soon for me to be saying stuff like that.’
‘There could never be a right time. I need a shower.’ His lean, strong face was cold and set. Springing out of bed, Valente strode into the bedroom next door to use his own bathroom.
I could never feel that way about you again. Why on earth hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? How could she have been so foolish as to blurt it out like an infatuated teenager? He still hadn’t forgiven her for past events, and by the sound of it he would never do so, she conceded painfully. She cringed for herself, while at the same time fighting off a deep sense of hurt and rejection.
In the shower, she felt those feelings begin to recede, and anger took their place. Valente was full of contradictions and so volatile! For almost a month he had played the role of the perfect honeymoon partner and then, without any warning at all, he had turned on her! Everything a considerate lover could do he had done for her. And in bed he had been tender and patient, never putting pressure on her, always letting her set the pace. Was it any wonder that following that long, impossibly slow and very sexy seduction she had told him she loved him? But she had a right to know exactly where she stood with him. She pulled on a light green summer dress and went downstairs.
Koko was still waiting in the hall, and padded in her wake after being petted. Valente was watching the business news in the room he used as an office. He flicked the remote to mute the sound and dealt her a measuring glance. ‘I’m not in the mood for an emotional scene, Caroline.’
‘As you once said to me,’ she framed dulcetly, ‘tough! I need to know where I stand with you.’
‘You have a forty-five-page-long pre-nup that leaves no stone unturned on that score,’ Valente reminded her with sardonic cool.
‘I thought we’d moved on a little from that,’ she admitted tightly, hit on her weakest flank by that reminder of the bricks-and-mortar legal foundation of their far from normal marriage.
‘What made you think that? Nothing’s changed aside of the fact that we’re starting to have some fun in bed. Everything is as it should be.’ Brilliant dark eyes rested levelly on her, bright and cold as winter frost. ‘As you are very well aware, there is nothing sentimental about our agreement, so talk of love is ridiculous. I’ve kept my side of the bargain financially, and now I expect you to do what I have paid you to do.’
He had torn the deceptive veil of normality from their relationship and ripped it into tiny shreds, forcing her to face reality-indeed, rubbing her nose in the truth that all he wanted was her body and eventually a child. Her back remained poker-straight, her eyes undimmed. ‘No problem. But don’t forget that what you sow, you will reap.’
A satiric ebony brow lifted. ‘Meaning?’ he said, very drily.
‘That I’ll get over you. Of course I will-because I don’t see in you the man I used to love, and I’m no masochist,’ she told him, with unshaken dignity and her head held high in spite of the drum of pain starting to beat behind her left eye-the infallible warning of a migraine headache. ‘But think twice before you ask me to have a child with you. Does any child deserve to be raised in the corrosive, bitter atmosphere of a bad marriage?’
CHAPTER NINE
THE marital bed that lay in the lofty grandeur of the Palazzo Barbieri was not christened that night. Indeed, Valente and Caroline slept in separate bedrooms below the same roof for the first time since they were married.
Caroline’s migraine had settled in with a vengeance by the time they boarded the jet. Her medication had barely taken the edge off the drumming pain in her temples, and she’d been nauseous and wretched during the flight. Valente’s efforts to provide comfort had rolled off her like water off a duck’s back. He was the guy who didn’t love her, and just then she hated him.
There hadn’t been an ounce of forgiveness in her body during that taxing journey. The housekeeper, Maria, had helped her to get into bed when they’d finally arrived at the vast building on the Grand Canal, the mechanics of having to get there across all that water having merely exacerbated her misery. She’d lain there in the shaded room, the pain blinding every other sense, until a softly spoken doctor had arrived in Valente’s unusually unobtrusive company. The doctor had given her an injection that had sent her to sleep, and the last thing she’d recalled was the comforting feel of Koko’s soft trusting furry warmth nestled against her, and the realisation that her pet had finally triumphed over the bedroom ban.
By the following morning Caroline was fine again. Maria informed her that Valente had embarked on his day’s work in the offices on the floor below at seven, and Caroline breakfasted solitarily on a big stone balcony overlooking the world’s most famous waterway.
Early on a bright new day, that glorious, vibrant, unforgettable view of the city stole her heart. The magnificent buildings set against an azure-blue sky and lapped by the canal were rescued from picture-perfect beauty and brought to vivid life by the busy surge of water traffic and the milling crowds in the campo on the opposite bank.
Valente strolled out to join her, Maria bobbing in his wake to pour him coffee. Caroline snatched in a slow steadying breath. As always he looked amazing, sleek and dark and breathtakingly beautiful in a dove-grey designer suit, cut to a perfect fit for his strong, muscular body.
Cradling a cup of black coffee in one hand, he leant back against the ancient stone balustrade, trained liquid dark eyes on her and murmured lazily, ‘Feeling better?’
‘Back to normal, thankfully.’ Even as she looked at him, Caroline was disturbed by an ill-timed recollection of the mind-boggling pleasure he had given her the afternoon before. A dulled ache stirred between her thighs and she shifted uneasily in her seat, her face colouring as agonising awareness washed over her.
‘If you want me to, I will come to England with you, gattina mia,’ Valente informed her smoothly.
Caroline shifted her attention from him to the elegant china on the marble-topped table. Was he taking pity on his pathetic lovelorn wife, who could hardly be looking forward to doing without his divine presence for a few days, or was he just basking in the ego-boosting knowledge that he was adored? Her teeth gritted. She could still barely credit her stupidity in gushing out her love and inviting such humiliation.
‘I’ll be so taken up with Mum and Dad that it would be a waste of your time,’ she declared briskly.
An attractive brunette PA in a business suit put in a contrite appearance, holding a phone. With an apology Valente took the call, spoke at speed in Italian too fast for Caroline to follow, and tossed the phone down on the table.
‘Do you like the view?’ he enquired teasingly, evidently untouched by her assurance that his presence was not required in England.
‘Yes. Now I know why you once told me that you could never live anywhere else in the world but Venice. All this-’ Caroline raised small expressive hands, her appreciation sincere ‘-would be impossible to match.’
Just as she was without match, Valente conceded reluctantly, watching the sunshine gleam over the silvery pale long hair pooling in silken loops over her slight shoulders and then highlight her flawless skin, sparkling eyes and soft pink mouth. Seeing her in his home felt surreal. But such thoughts spoo
ked him, since he was a very practical man. Somewhere-possibly even within the beloved city of his birth, he assured himself-there might well be another woman equally beautiful and possessed of Caroline’s special appeal. That imaginary woman might even be less complex than the woman he had married, and a great deal more entertaining, he told himself in emphatic addition. No woman was irreplaceable or irresistible. Nor had any woman ever been necessary to his comfort and peace of mind. He didn’t need Caroline; no matter how hard she tried to entangle him in her sentimental promises she would fail-because he would never allow a woman to have that much power over him again.
Yet, in spite of those reassuringly cautious reflections, Valente could not stop studying his wife’s attractions, nor seeking to pinpoint the source of them. She did that looking-up-through-the-eyelashes thing that all women did to flirt, yet in spite of her essential innocence there was a curiously sultry gleam of promise in her misty grey gaze that made the fit of Valente’s well-cut trousers uncomfortably tight. He regarded her broodingly from below luxuriant lashes, resenting the fate that would remove her from his bed when he most wanted her there, despising the ache at his groin. It would do him good to cool off without her for a few days.
Her body was already reacting without her volition to the growing heat of Valente’s appraisal. Her nipples were pushing against her green lace bra, her breasts felt constricted in the cups, and her heart was racing. And, angry though she still was with him, she could neither stifle that physical tumult of response nor break the hot connection with his gaze.
Valente reached a sudden decision. There would be plenty of time for him to cool off while she was in England with her family! She was his wife. He didn’t need to practice self-denial now. Who was he trying to impress? He swept up the phone to cancel all his appointments, unmoved by his senior PA’s astonishment at his instruction because business always came first with Valente. But if there had ever been a good excuse for breaking the rules it was Caroline, sitting there, huge pearl-grey eyes pinned to him, a silk top lovingly moulded to her delicate curves, a short floral skirt revealing her long slender legs.
He extended a lean long-fingered hand to her. ‘Come here…’
His charisma proved stronger than her antagonism or her wariness. Quivering with tension, she took his hand and he pulled her close. She buried her head in his shoulder and drank in the gloriously familiar scent of him before she let him walk her back into the palazzo-through the grand drawing room, with its superb Murano glass chandeliers adorned with flowers and cupids, and up the stairs to the remarkable master bedroom suite, with its hand-painted murals of frolicking gods and goddesses.
‘Take off your jacket,’ she told him, standing dead centre of the room.
Amusement gave a dazzling edge to his handsome smile. The jacket was cast aside with a flourish. Caroline undid his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt. Although she was absolutely determined to be a full partner, her hands were a little shaky, and he yanked his shirt out in the same moment that he bent his arrogant dark head and kissed her, long and hard and hungrily, one hand meshed in her hair to hold her still and deepen the penetration of her tongue. Liquid lightning travelled through her, firing up every skin cell with anticipation.
With a hungry groan and a dangerous light in his scorching golden eyes, Valente freed her and stepped back from her. ‘I’m sorry, I must be scaring you, gattina mia. I’m too fired up to be gentle. Perhaps this is not a good idea.’
Caroline stretched her taut shoulders before moving forward, confidence fizzing through her veins like a shot of adrenalin. She wanted to be the same as every other woman. She didn’t want him to hold back and handle her with kid gloves, as if she was precious glass he might crack. She didn’t want him to protect her from his passion. He had already taught her that all cats were not grey in the dark. She had gone way beyond the stage of expecting Valente to hurt her or scare her, as Matthew had once done.
‘I’m not scared any more,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I liked that kiss. I like the feeling that you’re on the edge…’
His burning gaze made her blush, and he urged her back to him with impatient hands, covering her ripe mouth with his while he backed her down on the bed. ‘I’m always on the edge with you,’ he admitted roughly. ‘But if you’re still virgo intacta, I can’t promise that this won’t hurt a little. I don’t know. You’re my first virgin.’
Caroline wanted to be his one and only, his last. But desire and the need to experience what other women took for granted had a headier hold on Caroline than the emotions that had brought her hurt and humiliation only the day before. Her body still humming from the erotic mastery of that kiss, she whispered tautly, ‘I want you, and I don’t want to wait any longer.’
It was all the encouragement that Valente needed. Between kisses he extracted her from her fine silk top, pausing to admire the rigid pink buds already poking through the lace of her bra. His hunger at a tormenting high, he bent her back and suckled those ripe buds through the delicate lace, shifting between one and the other while she gasped and jerked. He pushed up her skirt, parted her thighs, scored his finger down over the taut seam of fabric and felt the dampness there with an earthy groan of satisfaction.
‘I used to dream of having you dressed up in the most expensive lingerie,’ he confided with dark amusement as he released the fastener on her bra. ‘But now I’ve got you in it, I just want to rip it off you again.’
He stripped her naked with very little regard for the longevity of the items, but she didn’t care because he was kissing her in hungry, breathless bursts that made her tingle all over. He addressed his attention to her rose-tipped breasts, sucking on the distended tips until she was almost unbearably aroused. And then, when she thought she could take no more, when she was crying out to be touched, he traced the tender damp folds of her womanhood and parted them to discover her narrow channel. His thumb rubbed the swollen pouting bud below her mound, and from that moment on she was writhing and drowning in sensation so intense it was an exquisite torment.
By the time Valente rolled her under him she was so excited that her every skin cell yearned for the next step. He pushed a pillow under her hips to raise her. ‘You’re very small, and I’m shockingly excited, tesoro mia.’
She was more than ready for the hard, hot probe of his separating the tight wet walls of her most tender flesh. Instinct made her arch back and his passage eased. He sank into her in a long, deep surge of power, and there was a sharp flash of pain which made her tense up and bite her lip. But even that didn’t stop her glorying in the strong feel of him inside her, didn’t stop her tightening her inner muscles and watching his beautiful dark golden eyes semi-close with sexual pleasure.
‘Okay?’ he prompted anxiously.
‘Better than,’ she told him shakily. ‘I like it.’
‘I hope so,’ Valente traded with an erotic smile. ‘I have high hopes of persuading you to repeat this pleasure over and over again.’
And, while she was more than satisfied at the wondrous intimacy of his possession, she was thoroughly stunned by the delight of what happened to her when he began to glide in and out of her eager body. Excitement blazed a trail through her and she clung, surrendering to the hot, drugging pleasure of his every thrust. She cried out at the passionate peak of the orgasm which sent her shooting to the stars.
‘I want to pack you in my suitcase to take back to England,’ Caroline confessed dizzily.
Valente laughed out loud and leant over her to kiss her, smoothing her tumbled hair off her damp brow. ‘I hope that was a compliment, because I found you amazing, belleza mia.’
With every fibre of her being she wanted to hug him and kiss him and express her emotions, but she rigorously suppressed those promptings because they could only embarrass her. There was going to be no more of that nonsense! No more emotional outpourings calculated to stroke his ego!
‘You were amazing too-but then that’s only to be expected with all the exper
ience you’ve had,’ Caroline replied carelessly. ‘At least I don’t need to be afraid of sex any more, and we can have as much fun in bed as you like. After all, it has to be the only thing we have in common.’
Valente was not quite sure how to take that assurance, but he didn’t like the tone of it. ‘We are married,’ he reminded her seriously.
‘Sexually speaking,’ Caroline added. ‘How long will it be before you get bored with me?’
Valente sat up and sent her a flashing glance of censure. ‘I’m not going to get bored with you. You’re my wife!’
‘Does that mean you’re going to be the only lover I ever have?’ Caroline enquired, in a forlorn tone of disappointment.
‘Yes, it bloody well does!’ Valente raked back explosively, and thrust back the bedding to get up. ‘What’s got into you?’
A ferocious desire to wind him up, she might have admitted, had she been in a sympathetic mood-but she wasn’t. ‘You’re the one who told me not to bring sentiment into our marriage.’
‘There’s a fine line between candour and bad taste,’ he spelt out coolly.
‘Would it be bad taste for me to ask who the turquoise wrap at the Villa belonged to?’
His bold bronzed profile tensed. ‘Si, and inappropriate.’
‘Well, I thought it was tacky that the evidence of her occupation wasn’t removed before I arrived,’ Caroline traded.
‘Point taken,’ Valente breathed with sardonic bite. ‘May we now close the subject?’
Caroline slid out of bed. ‘I have packing to do.’
‘Your maid can take care of that-I need you to take care of me,’ Valente murmured huskily.
Caroline, already conscious of the slight ache of discomfort at the heart of her, thought that a repeat bout of lovemaking would be unwise. With a rueful smile she vanished into the bathroom, reflecting that Valente, with his high-voltage energy and powerful libido, would take a good deal of taking care of in the sex department, so it was hardly a source of surprise that women like the turquoise wrap lady featured in his life. Whether it was reasonable or otherwise, Caroline could not help wishing that he had never had a need for other women. She also hoped that, unlike Matthew, Valente did not suffer from an ongoing desire for sexual variety and fresh conquests to satisfy his ego. She was in a marriage where she could afford to take nothing for granted.
