by Tricia Jones
She was still in the same position, tucked into Enrico side, his arm heavy and tight around her, when she woke during the night. Cautiously, not wanting him to shift away from her, she raised her head to look towards the clock on the bedside table.
Half past two.
She had barely registered the time when hazily familiar sensations whipped through her head, buzzing and humming sounds filling the silence of the room. Then all at once…memories…
Matteo… Edinburgh… The aircraft… I can’t get control, Faye…
Her body froze with the same fear she’d experienced at the time as the memories flooded back with relentless stealth.
Instinctively she clung to Enrico, tightening her arm around his middle as if to anchor herself. As if to ensure that with these returning memories he wouldn’t somehow disappear.
“What is it?” Enrico’s husky voice cut through the fear, his hand stroking comfortingly along her arm as it clung to him. “Faye?”
“I…I remember.” She hadn’t realized she was crying until Enrico brushed moisture from her cheek. “I remember the accident.”
“It is all right.” He stroked her as she clung to him, letting her cry it out. “Hush now. Everything is all right.”
She remembered it all. Every terrifying detail. Matteo’s grim, shock-filled face as he struggled to get control of the aircraft. The ground as it zoomed up to meet them. The awful clunk of the engine as it went into its death throes. The ache in her own heart as she realized she was about to die and would never see her child again—or the man she loved.
Powerless to stop the emotion ripping through her, as she relived the horror of Teo’s last moments, Faye pushed her face into Enrico’s shoulder. Even as grief threatened to overwhelm her she was aware of his strong arms holding like he never intended letting go. For some reason it made her even more wretched.
For eight years she had been the strong one, the one who got on with things. The one who offered support. Teo had tried but it wasn’t in his nature. Which meant it had fallen to her to sort things out. She had never had someone to take things over, to tell her everything was going to be all right as Enrico was doing now.
When her racking sobs finally stopped, she wiped her hand over her eyes. “I’m okay now.” But Enrico didn’t let go, keeping her tight against him so she was aware of his heart thundering. He’d want to know what she remembered but she wasn’t sure she could tell him. Not everything.
Desolate, worn out from the sobs, from the memories, Faye drew in a steadying breath.
Slowly he released her, then switched on the bedside lamp and climbed out of bed. “I will get you some water.”
Squinting against the light, Faye watched through bleary eyes as his naked body disappeared into the living area. How on earth could she tell him? How could she tell him and not betray Teo?
She sat up, bending her knees and hooking her arms around them. She wanted to tell him the truth. After what they had shared she wanted to tell him the truth. There couldn’t be any secrets between them, not any more.
She dropped her head on her knees. She wanted their marriage so much. More than anything she wanted their marriage. But more than anything she wanted it based on trust, integrity—love. While the latter might not happen, at least on Enrico’s part, she could ensure the former.
But to do that she had to betray Teo. She couldn’t.
Grim-faced, Enrico strode back into the room. He handed Faye a crystal tumbler and sat on the bed beside her.
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t stare into his penetrating eyes. How would she be able to perpetuate the lie if she looked into his eyes?
“Tell me,” he said softly, taking her free hand in his. “Tell me what you remember.”
Faye forced water past the tightness in her throat, but it did nothing to ease the discomfort. She gripped the tumbler and told him about the crash. About how Matteo had struggled valiantly to get control of the aircraft, about how he had screamed at her to brace herself at the moment of impact.
More to force back tears than appease her thirst, Faye took another swig of water. “He said my name,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “The last thing Teo said was my name.”
She broke down again, barely aware that Enrico eased the glass from her hands and pulled her into his lap. He tucked the duvet around her.
The hypnotic rise and fall of his chest calmed her, and she snuggled her nose into his throat, comforted by the steady beat of his pulse. She didn’t want to think. To remember. She just wanted to be here like this. With Enrico. With his body sheltering her, protecting her. It felt so good to be held like this.
Perhaps now he might let things go. She had told him about the accident, relayed events as factually as she could. Please God, let him be satisfied with that. Then she wouldn’t have to tell him the rest.
She wouldn’t have to tell him that she and Teo had been returning from a fruitless visit to Teo’s ex-lover. About how the man had threatened to expose their recent affair and Teo’s sham of a marriage to the tabloids—unless a huge amount of cash bought his silence.
“Why were you in Edinburgh?” Enrico asked, affirming Faye’s fears he’d want to know every single detail. “Why were you together?”
Enrico kept his voice low, trying to soothe her. To be honest he didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to hear that the trip had been a chance for Faye and his brother to spend time together, perhaps talk of reconciliation. Dio, he didn’t want to hear that. But the extent of Faye’s distress cautioned it was what he was destined to hear.
It was evident she still loved his brother. A woman didn’t react like this unless she was in love, unless she cared deeply.
When she trembled against him, he slid his hand down her arm in a gesture intended to comfort. She felt soft and warm and vulnerable.
And he was a fool.
“We were visiting an…acquaintance of Teo’s,” she murmured against his chest, her words punctured by breathy sobs. “About a…a business proposition.”
“Hush,” he whispered, when she started weeping again. “Everything is all right.”
Pulling her tight against him, he closed his eyes, making “sshh” sounds until she quieted.
He lifted the tumbler to her lips, waiting until she’d drunk. “What sort of business proposition?”
“N…nothing important.” Her hesitation, and the way she looked down at the glass, told him she was lying. “Anyway, it…it wasn’t viable.”
His jaw clenched. Why couldn’t she just tell him the truth? Tell him that she and Matteo were considering getting back together? Why all the lies, the subterfuge?
His temper bristled. Maledizione! She was so adept at the lies, the deceit. If he wanted proof of that, he had only to consider how he’d been robbed of his daughter for the first seven years of her life.
Faye’s vulnerability, her softness, might have gotten to him, but he would be wise to remember how well, how easily, she could play him. Fool that he was, he had even begun to consider that she might care for him. She’d responded to his touch, his possession, as if at some level it had been what she’d craved. My, what an actress he’d married.
Underneath it all she was ice. She didn’t want him, didn’t want what he had to offer. The only reason she’d gone through with the marriage was because he’d blackmailed her. While he wasn’t proud of that, some small part of him had hoped they could make the marriage work.
She was still in love with Matteo. She wanted Matteo. He would do well never to forget that.
Lifting her from his lap, he lay her gently back against the pillows and tucked the duvet around. It cost him. He wanted to be rough, he realized shockingly. He wanted to throw her down, take her hard and fast, wash every other thought, every other man, from her mind. He wanted to push her hard, so hard there would only ever be room for him in her head, in her heart. In her body.
But he didn’t. Because tears still glistened on her eyelashes, her face p
ale with grief and exhaustion as she looked up at him with haunted eyes.
The wave of tenderness that rippled through him dampened the anger he would rather have chosen in its place. If he let her get to him like this he had only himself to blame.
He’d just received confirmation of what he’d always known. That for her there was only one man who would earn her tears, only one man who would hold her heart. And while in some ridiculous part of him he ached for it to be him, it wasn’t.
“Rico?” Faye reached out to him. He saw her frown at the tense bunching of muscle beneath her fingers, saw the bewilderment flash across her face as he pulled away.
“Sleep now.” He removed her hand, tucking it beneath the duvet. “Things won’t seem so bleak in the morning. We will work something out.”
With that he stood, slipped into his trousers and went into the living area. Faye heard the gentle click of the door closing, saw a snake of light appear beneath it. She heard the clink of crystal as Enrico poured himself a drink.
She wanted to go and join him, wanted to be in his arms. Safe and protected, so that all the memories would find a spot in her mind to settle and heal. But she felt desperately tired and while she didn’t relish the dreams, the memories that would surely come with sleep, she knew exhaustion would take over as soon as she lowered her eyelids.
What did he mean about working something out? And why had he pulled away from her? Faye turned her head into the pillow. She couldn’t think about it, couldn’t think of anything. She was achingly tired.
In the space of a few hours it seemed she had experienced every emotion under the sun. Anxiety and nerves as she said her wedding vows. Happiness and pleasure at seeing the look on her little girl’s face as her parents were joined in marriage. Anger and irritation at her new husband’s seeming lack of desire to take her to bed. Passion when he eventually did, followed by a soul deep contentment lying in his arms.
And now? Now, there was a strange and gnawing uneasiness, and not only because the final pieces of her missing memory had slipped into place.
No. It was more than that. Something fundamental and scary. Something about the long look Enrico had given her as he’d slipped her from his lap and settled her back in bed. There was tenderness there, but it was strangely distant, aloof almost. After what they had shared, after what they had done? It didn’t fit. She had felt the tension coming off him in waves as she’d reached out to him.
And what did he mean about working something out?
Faye couldn’t fight the heaviness any longer and knew sleep would claim her before she could find the answers to the questions that nagged.
The last thing she heard was the further clink of crystal as Enrico poured himself another drink.
Chapter Eleven
As Faye expected, Enrico pumped and prodded her for more information over the following days. They spent the remainder of their honeymoon swimming, relaxing, engaging in long leisurely walks—all the activities which to the outsider smacked of two people in love and enjoying each other. But in reality Enrico was cool, enigmatically distant. He was attentive enough and Faye had little outward reason to complain. But she knew things had changed since their wedding night, ever since she had woken with her memory intact.
He had reverted to how he was before their wedding night, before they had made love and she had thought—hoped—everything would change. How was it possible for a man to treat a woman with such tenderness, such passion and desire, and then go back to acting as if he could take their lovemaking or leave it?
Not that he left it very often. Since their wedding night they made love with a fervency that belied the real state of their relationship. Enrico was insatiable and during sex he was passionate and demanding, while equally considerate and attentive to her needs.
Arriving back at the villa Faye learned that Enrico had instructed her things be moved to his suite. She somehow expected they would have separate living quarters, at the very least separate bedrooms, but once again it appeared she had underestimated her new husband.
Enrico strode into their bedroom as Faye unpacked her luggage. Melita was assisting, or rather hampering her, wanting to know exactly when her mother had worn each item of clothing she unpacked and what was it like to have dinner on a yacht?
“You will find out soon enough, little one.” Enrico smoothed a hand over his daughter’s silky black hair. “Tonight we will drive to the coast and dine on our new yacht. You will enjoy that, no?”
Faye looked up from her unpacking, meeting his gaze for the first time since they had arrived home. The glitter in his charcoal eyes made her insides spin. She loved him so much, and yet he seemed indifferent to her attempts to show him.
She held his solid look. “You bought the yacht after all?” she asked, remembering he had decided against it on their honeymoon.
“I did.”
During the long moments their gazes clashed, Faye wondered what was going on in that deep-thinking mind of his. But as usual, he gave nothing away.
She returned her attention to the last of her unpacking, hearing Enrico inform their daughter that if she wanted to sleep on the yacht overnight she had better go on along and ask Carla to help her pack some things.
This was met with much hugging and kissing, exclamations as to how Enrico was the best daddy in the whole wide universe, wasn’t he, Mummy?
Faye nodded in reluctant agreement and Melita dashed off whooping with excitement. “I would have liked to be consulted,” she said, edgy and frustrated about how things were between them. “Is this how it will be Enrico? You making plans for my daughter and—”
“Our daughter,” he snapped it out, his shoulders set. “I have much time to make up, and you are in no position to chastise me, Faye.” He looked down at the now empty suitcase. “You should have left that.”
“What? For Carla to unpack?” Faye slammed the lid shut, then glanced over to where Enrico’s case lay untouched. “Would it hurt you to do it yourself for once? Carla and Giovanni have enough to do without waiting on your every need. Or am I to do it? Is that one of my wifely duties?”
He turned and strode across the room toward the door. She was about to tell him not to dare leave when she was in the middle of insulting him, when he pushed the door firmly closed and turned back to her.
Fury lit his eyes, barely restrained. “I am aware of how much my staff has to do.” The same restrained fury sounded in the low, clipped tone. “And I am no stranger to attending my own needs.”
He moved toward her, slowly and ominously. Faye’s muscles tensed as he backed her toward the bed.
“As for you…”
Displaying a confidence she didn’t really have, Faye resolutely lifted her chin as he stood in front of her. His gaze whipped over her face, a menacing gleam in his eye. “What I meant,” he said, glancing toward the suitcase on the bed. “Was that as we are spending the night on the yacht, you might perhaps have left your suitcase semi-packed.”
She felt small and unreasonable as color burned her cheeks. What she’d said was stupid and unfair. Even with his vast wealth Enrico never expected people to wait on him. They usually did, of course, but he never made those demands. While it was true Carla and Giovanni had more than enough to keep them busy in the big villa, Faye always sensed most of their work was self-generated.
What she’d wanted to do was attack him, to make him react in any way she could.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…”
“Just?” He inched closer, his warm breath brushing across her mouth. “What has really upset you, cara?”
“Nothing. I’m not upset.” Her heart thumped painfully and all the blood had left her legs. She was actually aroused. All it took was his body pressed up against her, all that honed muscle and warm flesh, and she was aroused. “It’s just that you take charge of everything and I…I…”
“You?” he prompted, nudging her further back against the bed.
“I don’t ever know what to
expect from you.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it. It made her vulnerable to him, like he was keeping her off balance. Even though he was, it was stupid to actually admit it. “What I mean is you do things without telling me, without asking me. It’s not an equal partnership and marriage is supposed to be.”
“Even our marriage?”
“Especially our marriage.”
One little nudge and she toppled back onto the bed. Rapier fast his arm went around her waist controlling the fall, so that when they hit the bed he lifted them both further up toward the pillows.
Her breasts were crushed against his chest, her legs falling open and cradling him instinctively. He dropped a brief kiss on her mouth, then went back for another. Lingering this time, making erotic forays with his tongue. Exploring…tasting…
When he lifted his head it took Faye a moment to get her eyes open, her eyelids seemed as if they were weighted, her body drugged and heavy. Heavens above, he could do that with such amazing ease.
“Perhaps,” he said, a glittering mockery in his expression, “In the interests of equality and the clarification of my intentions, I should advise you that I now intend to kiss you very thoroughly. Do I have your permission?”
His derision did nothing to halt the shiver of awareness running through her, not even when she admonished herself for it. She couldn’t keep on giving in to him like this, like she had done every night since their marriage. He couldn’t think he could take her whenever he wanted, like she was a woman he had rights to because of a piece of paper. And that’s all it was to him, Faye thought miserably. A piece of paper. One that ensured rights to his daughter. Marital relations with his wife.
“No.” She wiggled her hand between them and gave his chest a determined push. “You don’t have my permission. Let me go.”
After one long, narrow-eyed look, he did exactly that. Levering himself off her and walking toward the wardrobe as if nothing had happened.
