by Julia James
So why did that sound a little hollow to his ears now? He took in her rigid profile as they descended in the lift and reached for her hand. She looked up at him warily and he had a sudden picture of her about to walk out of the door in bare feet. The expression in her eyes now and that made him feel very strange. The bell pinged and they walked out.
The few wives and partners and children had also arrived today but when they emerged out to the dining area—on a decked platform which was somehow amazingly suspended over the beach—Alicia was still taken aback. There now seemed to be way more people and children running around in between legs and feet. It was a far cry from the cosy, protected intimacy of Lake Como.
And, almost immediately, she caught Serena’s eye in the distance. The woman gave her another cold once-over and took in the man who still held her hand. Alicia’s tightened on his instinctively, as if to protect herself from harm. Dante looked down. ‘What is it?’
She looked up and shook her head. ‘Nothing … nothing.’
The dinner itself was somewhat chaotic but quite pleasant. Patricia came and found her and sat down as they had their coffee as people were breaking away from the table. ‘Well, my dear, quite a difference from last week, isn’t it?’
Alicia smiled and nodded. Some of the crowd had gone into the bar behind them, which was open at one end to the warm night air. With dim lighting and soft jazz playing, it was all very seductive. Alicia sighed deeply and, bizarrely, felt a little relaxed.
‘So, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you two meet?’ Patricia looked at Alicia with her intelligent and kind gaze.
Alicia felt such a fraud. She searched for some way to fudge the truth. ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly conventional.’
Patricia smiled a conspiratorial smile. ‘With a man like Dante I’m not surprised, my dear. He’s not exactly the conventional type, is he?’
Alicia’s eyes snagged on the man with deadly inevitability. He stood in the bar in a throng of people, proud and resplendent in dark trousers and a light shirt. No, he wasn’t. He was complex and hard, yet in bed, or when he kissed her. Her heart clenched so tight for a moment that she had to close her eyes briefly. She finally regained control and looked back at Patricia and shook her head. ‘No, he’s not.’
‘I’d like to tell you something, Alicia, and I’m sure Derek won’t mind …’
Alicia looked at her curiously, glad to have the focus taken off her and Dante.
‘If it wasn’t for this merger, Derek’s company might have folded.’
Alicia frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Patricia shuddered slightly. ‘I mean that he almost went bankrupt. His company took a big hit in recent years with the downturn in the property market and he was too proud to accept help …’
She looked at Alicia and couldn’t hide the glimmer of moisture in her eyes. Alicia’s heart went out to her as she touched her arm. She automatically thought of their four daughters, the joviality that Derek obviously hid behind.
‘Derek helped Dante once a long time ago, gave him his first big contract, because he was too busy himself to take it on. And Dante’s never forgotten. Derek isn’t investing half of what Dante and Buchanen are in this merger, but Dante doesn’t care. He’s carrying the deficit. And, with this merger, he’s going to be able to give Derek back his company …’
Alicia reeled with that knowledge. ‘I had no idea.’
The older woman smiled a watery smile. ‘Oh, I’m not surprised, my dear. Dante would want to protect Derek’s reputation at all costs.’
Patricia laughed then. ‘Listen to me! Let’s go and join the men; some of those women are looking far too interested in Dante’s considerable charms and, while I don’t doubt he’s only got eyes for you, let’s not give them a chance to knock you off your pedestal.’
Alicia stood up, still reeling and thought hysterically, Knock her off her pedestal? She’d started out from near enough the gutter as far as Dante was concerned, so where would she have to fall to?
In love …
That stopped her in her tracks. And she only moved forward after a second—jerkily. No way. It couldn’t be possible.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘I’M GOING to go up to bed.’
Dante’s jaw clenched and for a moment he looked as if he was going to order her to stay. But then he just nodded.
‘Thank you.’
The fact that she’d thanked him, as if he were some kind of gaoler, rankled with him. She turned to go making her way through the crush, and Dante only registered then how pale her face had been, her features tight. He remembered her deep, heavy sleep that first night in the villa, the fact that she’d been shot … and a whole host of unwelcome feelings started to flood through him.
Alicia opened the door to the suite with unchecked relief. Her head throbbed mercilessly and she kicked off her shoes, gasping in pain as she did. Her heels were bleeding. She winced as she looked down. Haste made her clumsy; she wanted to be in bed and asleep by the time Dante came in. She couldn’t bear it if he touched her tonight, not after what had just sprung to life in her mind, her heart. Patricia’s words resounded in her head—the truth revealed of the depth of Dante’s loyalty to a friend in need.
Could she possibly, fatalistically, be falling in love with the man? And if she was, had none of the pain she’d endured with Raul Carro taught her anything?
Despair flooded through her. She felt tears of self-pity prick her eyes as she tended her feet and took some aspirin for her headache. Splashing cold water on her face, she looked at herself sternly in the mirror. She had no reason to feel sorry for herself. She shut her eyes. If all she had to worry about was whether or not she was falling in love with Dante, then she wasn’t doing too badly.
She climbed into bed, feeling very alone. Melanie was in London with Paolo. Alicia had called her earlier and she’d heard about the first scan with Dr Hardy that morning which had shown that everything was OK and progressing normally. So when Alicia couldn’t stop the tears and they fell unchecked down her cheeks, she told herself it was because she was so happy for Melanie. And that it had nothing to do with the past and the role she’d played in it. Or for herself now.
Dante came into the room quietly. He’d tried to get away from the bar ages ago but had been constantly stopped on his way out. As soon as Alicia had left him alone, a steady stream of women had accosted him. It always amazed him, but didn’t surprise him, how blatant they were under the noses of their own husbands and partners. And somehow, knowing Alicia was there, they were even more pushy, as if bringing a woman was throwing down some kind of provocative gauntlet.
He came and stood close to the bed. Alicia was asleep on her back, her hair in disarray around her head. She looked innocently childlike in silk pyjamas, buttoned up almost to her neck. Something like anger flooded him. Why wasn’t she sleeping naked? Why wasn’t she waiting up—waiting for him? His eyes travelled down and he frowned. She’d thrown off the cover and her foot peeped out; he could see a ring of what looked like dried blood around the heel. Had that been from the shoes?
He straightened and his expression became stony as he recalled what someone had just told him. While he trusted that person about as much as he trusted Alicia, he had to admit that what he’d heard probably was the truth and he didn’t want to acknowledge the ridiculous disappointment he felt. Instead he let the anger rise. Alicia was going to prove a liability after all.
When Alicia woke the following morning her first feeling was of uneasiness. She opened her eyes, assessing her surroundings in a second. The bed was empty beside her. Relief flooded her; she’d survived the night.
‘No need to look so happy with yourself.’
She flinched and her head turned to find where Dante’s voice had come from. He sat on the balcony, a table set up for breakfast.
‘Come join me; it’s beautiful out here.’
Why didn’t she trust his easy invitation? But she couldn’t stay in bed e
ither and he was dressed so that made her feel a little more relaxed. She pulled a hotel robe around her pyjamas and he noted her action with a dry look as she came out.
‘I think I can control myself; you don’t have to cover yourself up like a yeti.’
She scowled at him and helped herself to some fruit and a croissant.
He sat back, watching her, and sipped at his coffee. She avoided his gaze and looked out over the amazing view—the clear blue sky, clean beach and blue water that rushed in in foaming waves. And, as he watched her he had to acknowledge again what a duplicitous nature her innocent looking face hid. But then what had he expected?
‘I had an interesting talk last night with an old colleague of yours.’ Dante’s tone was idle, bored even.
Immediately Alicia’s blood turned to ice in her veins and her hand stilled on the way to her mouth with a glass of juice. She dropped it back down with a clatter and looked at Dante reluctantly, her chin coming up unconsciously. Serena obviously hadn’t wasted any time.
‘And? Come on out with it, you’re obviously dying to tell me.’ Fury and disdain sparked in her eyes and Dante felt a little nonplussed; shouldn’t he be the one looking at her disdainfully?
‘Serena Gore-Black, Jeremy’s wife … I didn’t realize you knew him.’
Alicia was defensive. ‘I don’t. I only found out yesterday that Serena was married to him when I saw her here.’
Her head went into a spin, trying to figure what she might have said; she wouldn’t put it past Serena to have given him all the gory details. ‘We worked in the same hospital a couple of years ago. But please, do tell me what scintillating titbit of half information she passed on to you.’
Half information.
Dante frowned slightly, the overbearing woman had had the same zealous look in her eye as all the other women. Come to think of it, the only woman who didn’t look at him like that was Alicia. It made his voice harsh. ‘Well, you obviously already know—she told me about your adulterous affair with Dr Raul. What was the name?’
So she had done it. Pain sliced through Alicia, even though she tried to deny it, and guilt, clawing at her insides. That would never go. She spoke faintly. ‘Carro … Dr Raul Carro.’
‘Was he the reason you went to Africa?’
She looked at him for a long moment, something pained in her eyes, and then nodded slowly. She could well imagine that Dante assumed that he had gone too and that she had followed him there. And Carro had ended up there … so what was the point of trying to put him straight when he so obviously wanted to think the worst?
After all, he had been a big part of her reason for going. But it had been to get as far away as possible, disgusted and sickened by what had happened. By the fact that she’d fallen for someone so amoral.
Her obvious confirmation of the story made something weigh Dante’s chest down. He leaned forward. ‘So you don’t deny you had an affair with a married man, who had a wife and four children at home in Spain?’
Alicia got up jerkily, unable to bear it, and stood at the railing, her hands gripping it. After a second she turned around, a wild look in her eyes as she fixed them on Dante.
‘No. No, I can’t deny it. I had an affair with a married man. There, are you happy? You can just lump this on top of the gold-digger label. There. Does that please you? All the justification you might need to feel better about yourself. I’m a bad, wicked woman. A gold-digger and a husband-stealer.’
Dante stood too and came close, his features livid, her barb about justification cutting far too close to the bone. ‘Well, let’s just say that it doesn’t surprise me. But what the hell do I care anyway? You mean nothing to me, and as for your conniving sister—’
Alicia’s hand came out of nowhere and cracked across Dante’s cheek. Too shocked to take in what she’d just done, she said very shakily, ‘Don’t you ever mention my sister like that again. She’s had enough of your unfair censure and it’s entirely your fault that she ended up in hospital in the first place.’
Heat and anger and passion simmered between them like a visible force. With an inarticulate sound and Alicia’s livid hand print across one cheek, he hauled her into his arms and drove his mouth down on to hers with punishing force. Bending her back, literally to his will.
With some tiny piece of sanity left to her, Alicia broke her mouth away from his and tried to arch away. ‘Dante no—’ Not like this. The shock was beginning to hit her at what she’d just done—the fact that she’d hit him. She’d never struck another living soul in her life.
‘Dante, yes.’
Ruthless and determined to get payback, to punish her, he pulled Alicia in to him even tighter and fused his mouth to hers. At the moment their lips touched again the anger that Alicia had been clinging on to fell away like a flimsy wall. Her desire which had been simmering, burst out of control and again that treacherous, all consuming need flooded every part of her.
Dante pulled back after a long moment, his hands encircled Alicia’s back, holding her captive. Her cheeks were pink, beads of sweat on her brow, a tendril of hair clung to her cheek in a kiss curl. And he’d never wanted anyone so badly than he wanted her right at that moment. He quite literally ached with the need to punish and possess. To take her so thoroughly that he would wipe any other man from her consciousness.
Alicia opened her eyes with effort. She had to stop this, had to make him see that this wasn’t what he wanted. Not like this. She wanted to apologise for hitting him and, more than that, she realized that she wanted to explain … tell him the truth about what had really happened with Raul Carro.
But in a fast, efficient movement Dante had lifted her up into his arms and was striding to the bed. Alicia was still disorientated from the kiss, held against his chest as if she weighed no more than a bag of sugar.
‘Wait,’ she said weakly. ‘Dante, we can’t, really. I don’t want this. Not like this.’
He stopped in his tracks and looked down into her eyes. Her pupils were so enlarged that her eyes looked black, mirroring his own. She felt it too.
‘Don’t lie,’ he said tightly.
‘I’m not lying …’
‘You are. You want this so badly that, even now, even though you hate me, you want me. I know, cara, because it’s the same for me.’
A cold feeling settled into her heart even as her betraying body’s temperature seemed to soar under that look. He put her down on her feet and undid the tightly tied belt on her robe. Alicia stood still, her head downbent as he shucked it off her shoulders and down her arms. A sense of inevitability washed through her. What could she do? He was right, she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want this too. This was the only pure communication they had, without words, their bodies didn’t lie to each other. She hungered for him again so intensely that it washed away all other concerns.
He tipped up her chin with a finger and she forced herself to look blank, not to let him see the pain.
‘Take off your clothes.’ His demand made an erotic shiver skate down her spine. She felt sickened and angry with herself for even thinking of complying. But, with a shameful weakness that proved to be stronger than her will, her hands went to her buttons. A rogue part of her wanted to drive him to the edge of his control now. Without taking her eyes off his, she undid them one by one. The top slipped to the floor with the robe and then she pushed the trousers down and stepped out of them.
Dante looked down her body. Took in her small, high, pointed breasts, the tips puckering under his look. He’d had to ask her to undress because he wasn’t sure that his hands wouldn’t have shaken with everything that had just happened, with the desire that pumped through him, washing away all sanity and coherence, leaving only a need to take … and possess.
He took her hands and brought them to his shirt, instructing her with his eyes to undress him. Alicia’s breath had long ago become laboured. Her fingers were clumsy on the buttons, the heat of his skin making her want to sag against him. Until finally
somehow his shirt was free. His trousers were next. She pushed them down, taking his briefs with them, freeing that turgid, pulsing centre of his masculinity and desire. Her mouth went dry as she looked at him, wondering how she’d taken him before.
‘Touch me.’
She looked up, feeling dazed and then slowly put out a hand and encircled the hard shaft. It felt hot and silky with a steel core. Dante’s jaw clenched, his eyes looked bright, glittering, the muscles in his neck corded and his chest swelled as she moved her hand up and down. Her naive skill made stars dance in front of his eyes and made him immediately correct what he’d thought—there was no naive about it, she was a witch.
He had to stop her, he’d had no idea her touch alone could send him so close to the edge. So he stopped her hand, for one brief moment his hand lay over hers and their eyes met. It was a moment so loaded with sexual tension that he nearly did explode. With supreme control called from somewhere, Dante moved their hands away and pressed her down on the bed.
Alicia was gone. She was in another place and, like the first time they’d made love, she welcomed it. As Dante stroked his hands down her body over silky skin, he lowered his mouth and suckled at her breasts, rousing the peaks to pink tips that looked angry they were so tightly aroused. She could feel the waves building; she was going to come even though he hadn’t even entered her yet!
And then she felt him move down and he spread her legs with his big hands; they came under her buttocks, gripping tight and holding her open to his gaze and … mouth. She wanted to tell him to stop, wanted to say that this was too intimate, but her voice wouldn’t work. Her head sagged back against the mattress as his lips, mouth and tongue sought and found and paid homage to her secret sensitive core. Her immediate instinct was to close her legs but Dante ruthlessly held them apart. She was laid open, bare … like some wanton. And she couldn’t help herself as the tension spiralled out of control and her hips bucked unashamedly towards him as he held her and teased out every last ounce of pleasure from her quivering form.
