by Tessa Radley
She didn’t let him down. Dio, but the woman could kiss! She kissed with a reckless abandon he’d never associated with the calm façade she presented to the world.
He couldn’t stop the groan that burst from him and, totally enthralled, he closed his eyes and lost himself in the vortex of heat and turbulence, biting at her mouth with a desperation that was frighteningly foreign. His head started to spin. Forcing himself to slow down, he slid his lips over the soft skin beside the engaging dimple, trailed a row of frantic kisses down her chin, down…his mouth open against her smooth, silky neck.
Jackknifing away from her, he unfastened the buttons of her ivory jacket with clumsy fingers and, pushing the edges apart, stared at the curves of her breasts beneath the clinging vanilla silk camisole. His breath caught.
Mother of God but she was beautiful. All pale-golden skin and slender bones, framed by the delicate lace that edged the camisole.
So soft, so feminine.
His hand lay reverently against her—it looked dark and too masculine against her paleness. Damn, but it had been a long time since he’d touched a woman’s skin.
Tension prickled at the thought, but he thrust the underlying anxiety away, focusing on the woman stretched beneath him. He brushed his fingers over the fine fabric, imagining the texture of the flesh beneath and noticed that his hand shook.
Hell!
Shoving the camisole aside, he hurriedly dealt with the front snap of her bra and gazed hungrily at the magnificent curves with the dark-pink hardening tips. Need swept through him, making him aware of the ache between his thighs. Soon! Bending, he closed his mouth over the provocative nipple. She gasped and her body arched against his. A groan shuddered deep inside him. Gently he pursed his lips on the peak of flesh, tasting her like a starved man faced with a banquet.
He slid a hand down between their bodies, under her hindering skirt, until his fingers found the valley between her thighs. Whimpers burst from her mouth. Releasing the berrylike nipple he surged upward to cover her mouth roughly with his, feeling his control strip as she bowed against his fingers and more keening sounds of pleasure broke from her throat and vibrated against his lips.
Impatiently Rico yanked at her skirt, wanting to touch her right there…where she was hottest, needing to feel her moist response to him.
She wriggled, and the skirt gave. He arched back, twisting to free her from his weight, and, unable to resist, glanced down.
The glimpse of white lace covering the intimate mound between her thighs was like a blast of cold water. Memories, as fresh as her floral scent, of a similar pair of pristine panties fashioned from flowered lace spun inside his head creating a turmoil that thundered in his ears.
Dio! What in heaven’s name was he doing?
He straightened, raked an unsteady hand through the inky hair that had fallen onto his face, reluctant to confront the dazed desire in her lake-grey eyes.
“Why are you stopping?” Her voice sounded husky. “I thought you meant…”
Incapable of responding, he sucked in deep lungfuls of air.
“Haven’t you got protection?” she asked.
A fragment of sound, somewhere between laughter and pain, escaped him. Why would he have protection? He hadn’t wanted a woman in years. A shudder shook his taut frame as he gazed at the woman draped over the desk, her pale-golden skin standing out against the sheen of the rich cherry wood beneath her.
When he finally lifted his gaze to meet her clear eyes, the vulnerability he encountered caused some aching emotion to clog his throat. He swallowed convulsively. Her eyes weren’t the colour of dark-purple velvet, nor did her hair tumble in ebony curls over voluptuous curves.
Instantly his stomach cramped with self-loathing. He hadn’t expected such raw passion, hotter and more impulsive than anything he’d ever experienced. Nor had he expected the shame that had followed. Up until now he’d been in command, but the balance of power had shifted. Suddenly he’d lost it, and she was in control, a sensual stranger who knew exactly what she wanted…no sign of the cool woman he’d worked beside. And he wasn’t sure if he could handle the change.
Could he go through with his planned revenge? For the first time doubt assailed him.
She wasn’t Lucia. Pain and panic seized him. Suddenly it was no longer a simple matter of procreation or revenge. Dio! He had to face the knowledge that he’d betrayed his dead wife’s memory. Damn. He had to be desperate.
The last thing he’d ever expected had happened: Danielle Sinclair had turned him on.
Six
“R ico?” Danielle prodded.
Pushing away from the hard desk against her back, she reached up and tangled her arms around his neck. For an instant he resisted her gentle tugs, and she thought all was lost. Then he sighed softly and his head came closer, causing her pulse to quicken. At the last moment he ducked his face into the curve of her shoulder, instead of kissing her as she’d intended.
“Of course, we don’t need protection, do we?” she whispered softly, trying for a hint of seduction. Heck, what did she know about seduction? But, darn it, she’d try her best. “The whole point of all this…is a child, isn’t it?”
A pang of guilt at her deceit pierced her as his large body trembled. Ignoring it, she lifted her head. From her vantage point, she couldn’t see his eyes, only the half-moons of his eyelids, his thick, impossibly long lashes, and the skin pulled taut across his cheekbones. But she could sense his anguish. Was he suffering from misgivings? For a moment sympathy welled inside her. Then she tensed. His motives were far from pure. He’d used her.
If he backed off, he’d never make love to her, and she’d never know…
She couldn’t let that happen.
Rico was her chance to catch up on the years she’d missed. In the confusing period after her mother’s death, she’d been hamstrung with the responsibility of Kim and by her own innate discernment that hadn’t let her bed the boys emboldened by a few beers at a student party and bent on a quick lay.
But Rico was different.
He was her husband! Pride, a peculiar kind of affection for him—despite his outrageous plan—and, of course, the ever-present sharp longing filled her. For heaven’s sake, she had to get a grip. She couldn’t afford to become addicted—or dependant—on Rico. She bit her lip. Their marriage wasn’t intended to last. The seeds of its destruction were already sown. And if he discovered the truth…
The truth. Blindly she stared at the sexy dark stubble shadowing his jaw. When he found out, their temporary marriage would be finished. But at least she’d have memories to pull out one day, to cherish and treasure when all she had was a Sinco directorship to keep her warm at night.
Her hand hovered over his face, drawn by the need for contact. “Come on, we don’t have a moment to waste.” She touched his cheek, enjoying the masculine roughness under her fingertips.
His body went rigid, then he hauled himself up, away from her. Her hand dropped. And suddenly Danielle felt cold and very, very alone.
“Strange as it may seem, I can’t do this.” The back he presented to her was rigid. “Not yet.”
Hurt seeped through her. Was she so undesirable? No, she refused to believe that. He’d been on fire for her. One minute he’d been tearing at her clothes, kissing her like a man in the grasp of a sexual thrall, the next moment he’d gone tense and silent.
“Are you saying you don’t want to make l—” she caught herself “—have sex with me?”
He turned and his mouth twisted. She read the distaste in his eyes. “Do you really want to do it here? In your office? Spread-eagled on your desk?” He gestured at their surroundings. “Where we might be interrupted at any minute by cleaners?”
“We could lock the door,” she suggested, fixing the familiar face-numbing smile in place, but the crude image he’d evoked of her sprawled across the desk made her flush, destroying the unique excitement and the sensuous yearning that had burgeoned inside her. He made it sound s
o…sordid.
Rico didn’t smile back.
Slowly Danielle sat up and pulled her skirt down. In a desperate bid for equanimity she said, “It’s no big deal. It’s only a kiss.” Even as she uttered them, she knew the words were a lie. It was far more than a kiss. But no way was she revealing that to Rico. Not while he stared at her as though she were a stranger.
Instead of the woman he’d married.
Married for real.
Today.
Rebuttoning her jacket with hands that trembled, she slid off the desk and almost said, “Hey, remember me? Danielle Sinclair? The woman you intend to impregnate?” But thought better of it. Rico didn’t need to be reminded of who she was—she was still wearing the suit she’d worn in front of the celebrant, and the glittering eternity ring he’d slipped on her finger this morning rubbed against the antique ring he’d given her on Saturday.
But everything had changed. Under her jacket her nipples were tight and hard, her bra undone. As for Rico, under the veneer of contempt he looked shaken, his hair rumpled where he’d run his hands through the overlong strands.
“Rico.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
For a moment he didn’t move. Then he dropped his head and gave a bitter laugh and his whole body shook. “Trust me, you wouldn’t understand.”
She drew a deep breath and said carefully, “Perhaps you should trust me…tell me what’s bothering you.”
Silence.
Then his hands dropped to his sides. “I can’t trust you.”
Flinching, she slid her hand off his shoulder and stepped away. She wasn’t really surprised at his bleak words, although she hadn’t expected the raw pain that seared her. But in the end, he was right not to trust her. But not for the obvious reason. “Because I’m a Sinclair?”
He ignored her challenge. “If I trusted you—” he paused “—it would be a betrayal.”
She stared at his hands clenched against his thighs, fighting to fathom out what he was thinking. “Why?”
“Hell, it’s myself I can’t trust.” He lifted his head. His eyes were a molten mix of turbulent emotions. Danielle recognised anger, wariness and something hot and dangerous. “What in hell’s name am I thinking of? To consider sleeping with a Sinclair?”
His words hit like a rain of blows, and a second burst of pain exploded inside her. But she refused to react with the anger she suspected he was trying to goad her into. Instead she asked, “Are you saying that you want to try this some other way?”
“Other way?”
“There are medical procedures, you know. You don’t actually need to touch me.” Why was she suggesting this? She wanted him to make love to her, needed to know how it felt to be a real woman. The medical route would screw it all up.
For an instant he hesitated, and she waited tensely. Was he going to call the whole elaborate scheme off? Or was she so repugnant that he’d go for the sterile, medical option to avoid the necessity of touching her? And send her hopes up in smoke?
Seconds dragged past, then his eyes hardened, and the jumble of emotions disappeared behind his formidable control. “No! I want to be sure the child is mine. A D’Alessio. I want the world…particularly your sister and your father—” his eyes stabbed at her “—to know exactly how this conception took place.”
A public revenge.
Nothing less would satisfy him. It hurt more than any pain she’d ever experienced. Even more than—
No! She dared not think about that now. Danielle glanced away, determined not to reveal any vulnerability to him. He had the power to bruise her soul if she let him.
But she was damned if she’d let him discover the power that he held over her. Pulling herself together, she decided he didn’t deserve her…sympathy. Whatever happened, Rico had it coming.
Danielle didn’t break the silence on the drive home. Bone tired, she concentrated on the road, checking and rechecking her rearview mirror, regularly slowing and changing lanes as Rico had instructed her. Rico had the passenger visor down, and out of the corner of her eye she watched him use the small mirror to monitor whether they were being followed. She turned off into a narrow street in Newmarket and after a sweeping glance of the street nosed the BMW into the drive of a tall, narrow double-storey townhouse. The hum of the electronic garage door filled the air after she killed the engine. A click signalled the door’s closing and the humming stopped.
The sudden silence rang between them. She waited for Rico to speak. When he didn’t, Danielle suppressed a sigh, and climbed out.
The garage accessed directly into a small lobby off the kitchen, Rico followed her into the house. She knew he’d been here earlier in the week to go over the place with a fine-toothed comb. Afterwards he’d ordered additional security measures before he’d pronounced himself satisfied. His clothes hung upstairs in the master bedroom. Parsons, her father’s trusted butler, had personally overseen the transfer of her possessions and a suitcase of Rico’s.
Parsons had fussed that the furnishings were too spare. Eventually she’d given in and picked a suite for the bedroom and living room from an upmarket furnishing catalogue to satisfy the butler. As Rico had insisted on a real marriage, she’d substituted her double bed with a vast king-size one. On the basis that it would at least give her and Rico acres of space between them.
It had been liberating making choices, taking decisions. Danielle had firmly suppressed the unexpected niggling of guilt, telling herself this was her house. Not Rico’s. There was no need to consult him about choices she’d made. Because his stay was temporary. Yet, annoyingly, she’d found herself refraining from further catalogue shopping and resolving to go on a spree over the weekend.
Tiredly she hung up the car keys, dropped her briefcase and made for the freezer that she’d stocked on Friday, before the wedding—the pretend wedding. The one that had felt like the real thing. Spots danced in front of her eyes. Heck, she was tying herself up in knots. She no longer knew what was real and what was illusion.
She selected a frozen slab of lasagne, pulled off the cover and stuck it in the oven. Rico was checking the window catches, she could hear him moving around the sitting room, and a little later she heard his footsteps overhead. Hastily she set two places in the breakfast nook. Five minutes later he strolled into the kitchen. Danielle handed him a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.
“Need help, Princess?”
Relief shot through her at his casual tone. For once the taunting “Princess” didn’t bother her. At least the dark cloud that had hung over him since that kiss had lifted—he was speaking to her again. “I’m perfectly able to open a bottle of wine. I simply thought you might want to do something useful.”
“Ah.”
Had he realised that all this security stuff was setting her teeth on edge? Not to mention the spiralling tension that his proximity evoked. A glass of wine would relax her and establish a pretence of congeniality between them. Last night they’d stayed in the suite at the San Lorenzo and today it had been business as usual. Tonight was the first time they’d been in a home together, like a normal married couple. Hardly surprising that she was a little edgy.
Rico handed her a glass, and she took a quick sip. The wine seeped through her, warming her. She offered him a smile. He returned it. Danielle started to relax.
It was going to be okay.
When the timer pinged, she took the lasagne out of the oven, scooped the contents onto two plates and set one before Rico.
“What is this?” he asked, frowning at his plate.
“Lasagne.”
He poked it with a fork. “No.” He shook his head emphatically. “Whatever that sorry dish is, I can assure you it’s not lasagne. I’ll cook you lasagne so you know the difference.”
“You’ll cook?” Danielle examined him across the counter-top, looking for any oddity that might reveal he was an alien visiting from another planet. Her father had never as much as boiled an egg in all the years t
hat she could remember.
“Of course.”
There was no “of course” about it. She started to grin. She should’ve known he’d be able to cook. Rico D’Alessio would be good at most things. His pride demanded it.
“Well, for now there’s no choice. I’ve cooked. You can eat it or starve.”
“Shoving a frozen lump of cardboard in the oven does not constitute cooking,” he growled.
“I’ll leave it to you to show me what does constitute cooking,” she said sweetly. “I’ve always enjoyed watching cooking programs, now I’ll have my very own naked chef in my kitchen.”
He shot her a glare that she suspected was designed to incinerate her on the spot. Danielle watched him fork the first mouthful of the lasagne into his mouth, pause and chew, a look of surprise on his face.
“Edible?”
He nodded. “Not half as bad as I expected. But if my mother heard me she’d disown me.”
“Your mother…she lives in Italy, right?” With his younger sister, she remembered him saying.
Another nod.
“So how did you end up in New Zealand?”
He shrugged. “I did a stint in the SAS, and while stationed in Afghanistan I met some members of the New Zealand SAS who sold me on their country. I came for a visit, met Lucia. Time came to leave I chose to stay. Next thing I knew I was married, and someone introduced me to your father and I had a job. That’s the story of my life.”
“Right!” She didn’t believe him for an instant.
Rico was a jigsaw puzzle. A fascinating one. She had some pieces, but she still had a lot to put together.
