‘Do you know how good that feels?’ he said as he began to move inside her.
She swallowed. ‘I’ve...I’ve got a pretty good idea.’
‘Oh, Darcy. It’s you,’ he groaned, his eyes closing. ‘Only you.’
He said the words like a ragged prayer or maybe a curse—but Darcy didn’t read anything into them because she knew exactly what he meant. She was the first and only woman with whom he hadn’t needed to wear a condom, because her virginity had elevated her to a different status from his other lovers—he’d told her that himself. He told her she was truly pure. He’d been fascinated to find a woman of twenty-four who’d never had a lover before and by her fervent reply when he’d asked if she ever wanted children.
‘Never!’
Her response must have been heartfelt enough to convince him because in a rare moment of confidence he told her he felt exactly the same. Soon afterwards he had casually suggested she might want to go on the pill and Darcy had eagerly agreed. She remembered the first time they’d left the condom off and how it had felt to have his naked skin against hers instead of ‘that damned rubber’—again, his words—between them. It had been...delicious. She had felt dangerously close to him and had needed to give herself a stern talking-to afterwards. She’d told herself that the powerful feelings she was experiencing were purely physical. Of course sex felt better without a condom—but it didn’t mean anything.
But now, in the dimness of his Tuscan bedroom, he was deep inside her. He was filling her and thrusting into her body and kissing her mouth until it throbbed and it felt so amazing that she could have cried. Did her low, moaning sigh break his rhythm? Was that why, with a deft movement, he turned her over so that she was on top of him, his black eyes capturing hers?
‘Ride me, cara,’ he murmured. ‘Ride me until you come again.’
She nodded as she tensed her thighs against his narrow hips because she liked this position. It gave her a rare feeling of power, to see Renzo lying underneath her—his eyes half-closed and his lips parted as she rocked back and forth.
She heard his groan and bent her head to kiss it quiet, though she was fairly sure that the walls of this ancient house were deep enough to absorb the age-old sounds of sex. He tangled his hands in her hair, digging his fingers into the wayward curls until pleasure—intense and unalterable—started spiralling up inside her. She came just before he did, gasping as he clasped her hips tightly and hearing him utter something urgent in Italian as his body bucked beneath her. She bent her head to his neck, hot breath panting against his skin until she’d recovered enough to peel herself away from him, before falling back against the mattress.
She looked at the dark beams above her head and the engraved glass lampshade, which looked as if it was as old as the house itself. Someone had put a small vase of scented roses by the window—the same roses which had been scrambling over the walls outside—and all the light in that shadowy room seemed to be centred on those pale pink petals.
‘Well,’ she said eventually. ‘That was some welcome.’
Deliberately, Renzo kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady because he didn’t want to talk. Not right now. He didn’t need to be told how good it was—that was a given—not when his mind was busy with the inevitable clamour of his thoughts.
He’d felt a complex mixture of stuff as he’d driven towards the house, knowing soon it would be under different ownership. A house which had been in his mother’s family for generations and which had had more than its fair share of heartbreak. Other people might have offloaded it years ago but pride had made him hold on to it, determined to replace bad memories with good ones, and to a large extent he’d succeeded. But you couldn’t live in the past. It was time to let the place go—to say goodbye to the last clinging fragments of yesterday.
He looked across the bed, where Darcy was lying with her eyes closed, her bright red hair spread all over the white pillow. He thought about her going to Norfolk when they got back to London and tried to imagine what it might be like sleeping with someone else when she was no longer around, but the idea of some slender-hipped brunette lying amid his tumbled sheets was failing to excite him. Instinctively he flattened his palm over her bare thigh.
‘And was it the perfect welcome?’ he questioned at last.
‘You know it was.’ Her voice was sleepy. ‘Though I should go and pick my dress up. It’s the first time I’ve worn it.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll have Gisella launder it for you.’
‘There’s no need for that.’ Her voice was suddenly sharp as her eyes snapped open. ‘I can do my own washing. I can easily rinse it out in the sink and hang it out to dry in that glorious sunshine.’
‘And if I told you I’d rather you didn’t?’
‘Too bad.’
‘Why are you so damned stubborn, Darcy?’
‘I thought you liked my stubbornness.’
‘When appropriate, I do.’
‘You mean, when it suits you?’
‘Esattamente.’
She lay back and looked up at the ceiling. How could she explain that she’d felt his housekeeper looking at her and seeing exactly who she was—a servant, just as Gisella was. Like Gisella, she waited tables and cleared up around people who had far more money than she had. That was who she was. She didn’t want to look as if she’d suddenly acquired airs and graces by asking to have her clothes laundered. She wasn’t going to try to be someone she wasn’t—someone who would find it impossible to settle back into her humble world when she got back to England and her billionaire lover was nothing but a distant memory.
But she shouldn’t take it out on Renzo, because he was just being Renzo. She’d never objected to his high-handedness before. If the truth were known, she’d always found it a turn-on—and in a way, his arrogance had provided a natural barrier. It had stopped her falling completely under his spell, forcing her to be realistic rather than dreamy. She leaned over and brushed her mouth against his. ‘So tell me what you’ve got planned for us.’
His fingers slid between the tops of her thighs. ‘Plans? What plans? The sight of your body seems to have completely short-circuited my brain.’
Halting his hand before it got any further, Darcy enjoyed her brief feeling of power. ‘Tell me something about Vallombrosa—and I’m not talking olive or wine production this time. Did you live here when you were a little boy?’
His shuttered features grew wary. ‘Why the sudden interest?’
‘Because you told me we’d be having dinner with the man who’s buying the place. It’s going to look a bit odd if I don’t know anything about your connection with it. Did you grow up here?’
‘No, I grew up in Rome. Vallombrosa was our holiday home.’
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘And it had been in my mother’s family for generations. We used it to escape the summer heat of the city. She and I used to come here for the entire vacation and my father would travel down at weekends.’
Darcy nodded because she knew that, like her, he was an only child and that both his parents were dead. And that was pretty much all she knew.
She circled a finger over the hardness of his flat belly. ‘So what did you do when you were here?’
He pushed her hand in the direction of his groin. ‘My father taught me to hunt and to fish, while my mother socialised and entertained. Sometimes friends came to visit and my mother’s school friend Mariella always seemed to be a constant fixture. We were happy, or so I thought.’
Darcy held her breath as something dark and steely entered his voice. ‘But you weren’t?’
‘No. We weren’t.’ He turned his head to look at her, a hard expression suddenly distorting his features. ‘Haven’t you realised by now that so few people are?’
‘I guess,’ she said stiffly. But she’d thought...
What? That other people were strangers to the pain she’d suffered? That someone as successful and as powerful as Renzo h
ad never known emotional deprivation? Was that why he was so distant sometimes—so shuttered and cold? ‘Did something happen?’
‘You could say that. They got divorced when I was seven.’
‘And was it...acrimonious?’
He shot her an unfathomable look. ‘Aren’t all divorces acrimonious?’
She shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘Especially when you discover that your mother’s best “friend” has been having an affair with your father for years,’ he added, his voice bitter. ‘It makes you realise that when the chips are down, women can never be trusted.’
Darcy chewed on her lip. ‘So what happened?’
‘After the divorce, my father married his mistress but my mother never really recovered. It was a double betrayal and her only weapon was me.’
‘Weapon?’ she echoed.
He nodded. ‘She did everything in her power to keep my father out of my life. She was depressed.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And believe me, there isn’t much a child can do if his mother is depressed. He is—quite literally—helpless. I used to sit in the corner of the room, quietly making houses out of little plastic bricks while she sobbed her heart out and raged against the world. By the end of that first summer, I’d constructed an entire city.’
She nodded in sudden understanding. Had his need to control been born out of that helplessness? Had the tiny plastic city he’d made been the beginnings of his brilliant architectural career? ‘Oh, Renzo—that’s...terrible,’ she said.
He curled his fingers over one breast. ‘What an innocent you are, Darcy,’ he observed softly.
Darcy felt guilt wash over her. He thought she was a goody-goody because she suspected he was one of those men who divided women into two types—Madonna or whore. Her virginity had guaranteed her Madonna status but it wasn’t that simple and if he knew why she had kept herself pure he would be shocked. Married men having affairs was hardly ground-breaking stuff, even if they chose to do it with their wife’s best friend—but she could tell him things about her life which would make his own story sound like something you could read to a child at bedtime.
And he wasn’t asking about her past, was he? He wasn’t interested—and maybe she ought to be grateful for that. There was no point in dragging out her dark secrets at this late stage in their relationship and ruining their last few days together. ‘So what made you decide to sell the estate?’
There was a pause. ‘My stepmother died last year,’ he said flatly. ‘She’d always wanted this house and I suppose I was making sure she never got her hands on it. But now she’s gone—they’ve all gone—and somehow my desire to hang on to it died with her. The estate is too big for a single man to maintain. It needs a family.’
‘And you don’t want one?’
‘I thought we’d already established that,’ he said and now his voice had grown cool. ‘I saw enough lying and deceit to put me off marriage for a lifetime. Surely you can understand that?’
Darcy nodded. Oh, yes, she understood all right. Just as she recognised that his words were a warning. A warning not to get too close. That just because she was here with him in the unfamiliar role of girlfriend, nothing had really changed. The smile she produced wasn’t as bright as usual, but it was good enough to convince him she didn’t care. ‘Shouldn’t we think about getting ready for lunch?’ she questioned, her voice growing a little unsteady as his hand moved from her breast to the dip of her belly. ‘Didn’t...didn’t Donato say it would be ready in an hour?’
The touch of her bare skin drove all thoughts from Renzo’s mind until he was left with only one kind of hunger. The best kind. The kind which obliterated everything except pleasure. He’d told her more than he usually told anyone and he put that down to the fact that usually she didn’t ask. But she needed to know that there would be no more confidences from now on. She needed to know that there was only one reason she was here—and the glint of expectation in her eyes told him that she was getting the message loud and clear. He felt his erection grow exquisitely hard as he looked at the little waitress who somehow knew how to handle him better than any other woman.
‘I employ Donato to work to my time frame, not his,’ he said arrogantly, bending his head and sucking at her nipple.
‘Oh, Renzo.’ Her eyes closed as she fell back against the pillow.
‘Renzo, what?’ he taunted.
‘Don’t make me beg.’
He slid his finger over her knee. ‘But I like it when you beg.’
‘I know you do.’
‘So?’
She groaned as her hips lifted hungrily towards his straying finger. ‘Please...’
‘That’s better.’ He gave a low and triumphant laugh as he pulled her towards him. ‘Lunch can wait,’ he added roughly, parting her thighs and positioning himself between them once more. ‘I’m afraid this can’t.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘THIS?’ DARCY HELD up a glimmering black sheath, then immediately waved a flouncy turquoise dress in front of it. ‘Or this?’
‘The black,’ Renzo said, flicking her a swift glance before continuing to button up his shirt.
Her skin now tanned a delicate shade of gold, Darcy slithered into the black dress, aware that Renzo was watching her reflection in the glass in the way a hungry dog might look at a butcher, but she didn’t care. She found herself wishing she had the ability to freeze time and that the weekend wasn’t drawing to a close because it had been the best few days of her life.
They’d explored his vast estate, scrambling up hilly roads to be rewarded with spectacular views of blue-green mountains and the terracotta smudge of tiny villages. Her hiking boots had come in useful after all! He’d taken her to a beautiful village called Panicale, where they’d drunk coffee in the cobbled square with church bells chiming in stereophonic all around them. And even though Renzo had assured her that May temperatures were too cold for swimming, Darcy wasn’t having any of it. She’d never been anywhere with a private pool before—let alone a pool as vast and inviting as the one at Vallombrosa.
Initially a little shy about appearing in her tiny bikini, she’d been quickly reassured by the darkening response in his eyes—though she’d been surprised when he’d changed his mind and decided to join her in the pool after all. And Renzo in sleek black swim shorts, olive skin gleaming as he shook water from his hair, was a vision which made her heart race. She could have spent all afternoon watching his powerful body ploughing through the silky water. But he’d brought her lazy swim to a swift conclusion with some explicit suggestions whispered in her ear and they had returned to his bedroom for sex which had felt even more incredible than usual.
Was it because her senses had been heightened by fresh air and sunshine that everything felt so amazing? Or because Renzo had seemed unusually accessible in this peaceful place which seemed a world away from the hustle and bustle of her normal life? Darcy kept reminding herself that the reasons why were irrelevant. Because this was only temporary. A last trip before she moved to Norfolk—which was probably the only reason he had invited her to join him. And tonight was their final dinner, when they were being joined by Renzo’s lawyer, who was buying the Sabatini estate.
Their eyes met in the mirror.
‘Will you zip me up?’
‘Certo.’
‘So tell me again,’ she said, feeling his fingers brushing against her bare skin as he slid the zip of the close-fitting dress all the way up. ‘The lawyer’s name is Cristiano Branzi and his girlfriend is Nicoletta—’
‘Ramelli.’ There was a moment of hesitation and his eyes narrowed fractionally. ‘And—just so you know—she and I used to have a thing a few years back.’
In the process of hooking in a dangly earring, Darcy’s fingers stilled. ‘A thing?’
‘You really are going to have to stop looking so shocked, cara. I’m thirty-five years old and in Rome, as in all cities, social circles are smaller than you might imagine. She and I were lovers for a few months, that’s
all.’
That’s all. Darcy’s practised smile didn’t waver. Just like her. Great sex for a few months and then goodbye—was that his usual pattern? Had Nicoletta been rewarded with a trip abroad just before the affair ended? But as she followed Renzo downstairs she was determined not to spoil their last evening and took the champagne Stefania offered, hoping she displayed more confidence than she felt as she rose to greet their guests.
Cristiano was a powerfully built man with piercing blue eyes and Darcy thought Nicoletta the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. The Italian woman’s sleek dark hair was swept up into a sophisticated chignon and she wore a dress which was obviously designer made. Real diamond studs glittered at her ears, echoing the smaller diamonds which sparkled in a watch which was slightly too loose for her narrow wrist. Darcy watched as she presented each smooth cheek in turn to be kissed by Renzo, wondering why she hadn’t worn the turquoise dress after all. Why hadn’t she realised that of course the Italian woman would also wear black, leaving the two of them wide open for comparison? How cheap her own glimmering gown must seem in comparison—and how wild her untameable red curls as they spilled down over her shoulders towards breasts which were much too large by fashionable standards.
‘So...’ Nicoletta smiled as they sat down to prosciutto and slivers of iced melon at a candlelit table decorated with roses. ‘This is your first time in Italy, Darcy?’
‘It is,’ answered Darcy, with a smile.
‘But not your last, I hope?’
Darcy looked across the table at Renzo, thinking it might bring the mood down if she suddenly announced that they were in the process of splitting up.
‘Darcy isn’t much of a traveller,’ he said smoothly.
‘Oh?’
Something made her say it. Was it bravado or stupidity? Yet surely she wasn’t ashamed of the person she really was. Not unless she honestly thought she could compete with these glossy people, with their Tuscan estates and diamond wristwatches which probably cost as much as a small car.
Secrets of a Billionaire's Mistress (Mills & Boon Modern) (One Night With Consequences, Book 29) Page 5
