‘Coming to bed,’ he said, slipping off the robe.
Gisele’s eyes drank in the sight of him: that hard muscular chest, that gorgeous flat washboard abdomen and the arrantly masculine heart of him that was already partially aroused. Her heart gave a jerky kick inside her chest and her throat almost closed over. ‘But I told you I—’
‘And I told you how things were going to be,’ he said before she could complete her sentence. ‘We will share a bed for the month even if we don’t make love. I will not force myself on you. You should know me better than that.’
She swallowed deeply, wondering if it was possible to share a villa of this size with Emilio without wanting to make love, let alone a bed. It was a big bed certainly, but not big enough for her to avoid those long, strong hair-roughened legs coming into contact with hers. ‘That’s not the point,’ she said, running the tip of her tongue out over lips so dry they felt like ancient parchment.
‘What is the point, Gisele?’ he asked with a glittering look. ‘You don’t seem to know what you want. One minute you look at me as if you want to throw yourself back in my arms and never leave, and the next you look like you want to claw my eyes out. At some point you’re going to have to make up your mind.’
Gisele had thought she had made up her mind but her body had chosen an entirely different path. It was calling out to him now in a secret sensual language he couldn’t fail to misinterpret. But in her haste to disguise how much she wanted him she swung away from the bed and in doing so accidentally knocked the glass of water and her pills off the bedside table. The glass landed with a thump on the carpet and the little bottle of pills rolled across the floor and came to a stop right in front of Emilio’s left foot.
She watched, dry mouthed, as he bent to pick them up. ‘What are these for?’ he asked, frowning as he read the label.
‘Give them to me,’ she said, trying to make a grab for them but he held the bottle just out of her reach.
He frowned as he read the label. ‘Sleeping tablets?’ he asked, looking at her again.
‘So?’ she said, throwing him a defensive look. ‘Lots of people take them.’
‘How long have you been taking them?’ he asked.
Gisele folded her arms mutinously, her mouth in a flat line.
‘Gisele?’ He tipped up her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. ‘How long have you been taking sleeping medication?’
She let out a shaky breath. ‘A while … a few weeks … a couple of months maybe …’
‘Sleeping tablets are meant to be a temporary thing,’ Emilio said reprovingly. ‘You shouldn’t be on them any longer than a few weeks. They’re highly addictive.’
Gisele rolled her eyes. ‘You sound just like my doctor.’
He caught her just before she made to turn away from him. His eyes were dark and a concerned frown sliced deep into his forehead. ‘Cara, did I do this to you?’ he asked hollowly.
Gisele thought of the weeks after his rejection when she had done nothing but sleep most days as well as the nights. She had slid into an abyss of depression that had made every little task an impossible feat. Having a shower hurt her skin. Brushing her hair felt like torture. Getting dressed in street clothes made her muscles ache. Walking to the front door had seemed like a marathon. Getting through each day felt like a lifetime. The warm, secure nest of her bed had been a reprieve from a life she didn’t think she could live without him in it.
And then she had discovered she was pregnant. The news had pulled her out of her depression. She had started to look forward to life again with hope and a tentative happiness that had all too soon been torn away from her.
Was Emilio to blame that Lily had died?
For a while she had felt as if he was, but over time she had come to realise no one was to blame. It was just one of those things, or so the doctors had said—a genetic abnormality, a mistake of nature.
‘No …’ Gisele said in a voice so soft it was more of a whisper. ‘No, it’s not because of you.’ It was the sound of Lily crying that haunted her sleepless nights. The only way to escape the torture of hearing that tiny mewling cry was to numb herself to sleep. Not that it always worked.
Emilio looked deeply into her eyes as if he wanted to see into the very heart of her. His eyes were pitch-black, still etched with concern as he cupped her face. ‘Is it because of the business? Your father’s death? Finding out about Sienna?’
Gisele put her hand on his to peel it off her face and stepped backwards, wrapping her arms about her body. Should she tell him about Lily? She could feel guilt nipping at the heels of her conscience. Didn’t he have the right to know he had been a father, even for such a short time? She would have to tell him one day. What if he somehow found out by some other means? The thought was terrifying. Wouldn’t it be better to hear it from her rather than someone else? But how could she drop that sort of bombshell into the conversation? Her chance to tell him had been right at the start. She couldn’t talk about it now. Not like this, with no preparation. ‘I … I’ve just been under a lot of stress,’ she said. ‘It’s no one thing but everything, I guess.’
‘You should wean yourself off them,’ he said, still frowning. ‘I don’t like the thought of you drugging yourself to sleep. You never used to have any problem sleeping.’
She gave him a wry look before she could stop herself. ‘As I recall, we didn’t always do a lot of sleeping.’
The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment, the erotic images they conjured up gathering around like ghosts from the past.
Gisele saw the flare of heat in Emilio’s eyes as he took in her scantily clad body. She had slipped off her wrap just before he had come in and her creamy satin nightgown left very little to the imagination. She felt the tight buds of her nipples pressing against the soft fabric and knew he could see them too. Her belly gave an excited flutter as his eyes skimmed her lower body, the heat in her core liquefying as if he had touched her there. His body responded to her as if she had stroked her fingers along his length. She saw him swell and rise, the sheer power and potency of him taking her breath away.
‘No, we didn’t, did we?’ Emilio asked with a smouldering look as his eyes slowly came back to mesh with hers.
Gisele drew in a quick breath, her chest feeling prickly and tight. The heat from his body radiated out and touched her like a caress. Her skin felt tingly and supersensitive, as if all the nerves had repositioned themselves on the outside of her body. ‘Don’t do this, Emilio,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.
‘Don’t do what, cara?’ he asked as he shrank the gap between their bodies by taking half a step. ‘This?’ He touched his lips to the skin of her neck just below her ear, not a kiss, not a bite, but something sinfully and sexily in between.
She shivered as his tongue grazed her skin as he moved down to the fragile scaffold of her collarbone. ‘Or this?’ he asked as his breath moved over her like a sultry summer breeze.
Gisele’s lower body ached to move forwards to find his. It was like a magnetic field she had inadvertently stepped inside. It was pulling her inexorably towards him. She could sense him there, thick and hard, pulsing with the same longing that was making her heart race and her breathing become shallow and uneven. His feet touched hers, a sexy bump of toes that sent a shockwave of forbidden pleasure right through her body. She felt him then against her belly, the blunt head of him as scorching as a naked flame against her skin.
He worked his way back up towards her mouth, slowly, each brush of his lips setting her skin alight. ‘This is what used to keep us both awake, remember?’ he said just above her quivering mouth.
Gisele moistened her dry lips, her heart hammering as he slipped a hand beneath the curtain of her hair. The sensations shimmering down her spine made her dizzy with need. She remembered it all. It had never left her. How he made her feel. How he could set her aflame with just a look.
How much she still wanted him.
Time stood still for a heart-stopping
pause.
She prepared herself for the press of his mouth; her eyelashes came down, her lips were softly parted, her breath had stilled …
But Emilio suddenly broke the spell by stepping backwards and moving to where he had dropped his bathrobe.
Gisele blinked a couple of times in bewilderment as she watched him shrug himself into it and tie the cord around his waist, seemingly untouched by what had just transpired between them. How could he leave her like this? Was he doing it deliberately to prove how little he needed her? That she was just another woman he could have sex with if he could be bothered?
He was the only person she wanted to be intimate with. She couldn’t imagine wanting anyone else the way she wanted him. Her body felt as if it belonged to him. It had belonged to him for more than two years.
‘I’ll give you the rest of the week to settle in,’ he said. ‘I’ll make up some excuse for Marietta for why we’re not sharing a room.’
‘And after that?’ she asked.
His eyes pulsated as they locked with hers. ‘I think you know what happens after that,’ he said in a gravel-rough, oh-so-sexy tone.
Gisele felt her belly do another crazy little tumble turn but she hid behind her increasingly fragile armour of pride and haughtiness. ‘You think two million dollars is going to be enough to make me enjoy being back in your bed?’ she asked.
His mouth curled up at the corners in a confident smile as he opened the door to leave. ‘I’ll make sure of it,’ he said and, with a soft click of the lock falling in place, he was gone.
Gisele spent the night in a fitful state of tossing and turning. Emilio’s promise had made her so edgy and agitated she hadn’t had a hope of sleeping a wink in spite of her pills. Her body had been so uptight with longing she had felt like a tightly coiled spring. She hadn’t been able to rid her mind of his aroused naked body so close to hers, touching hers. How dared he entice her like that with his mouth and hands, only to step back from her as if she was nothing to him? It made her so angry she had been so close to giving herself to him. It made her absolutely furious to think he knew how weak she still was. He was playing with her, toying with her like an angler with a fish on his line. He was biding his time before he reeled her right in.
She would show him.
She deliberately lingered in her room, taking an extra-long shower, dawdling over her hair and light make-up, determined to keep her distance for as long as she could, hoping he would have long ago eaten breakfast and headed off to work.
She walked down the stairs with an assured smile hovering about her mouth. She would show him how little she needed him. She would keep herself busy all day, sending him the clear message she wasn’t waiting around for him to crook his finger and summon her back to his bed.
Marietta was on her way out to the terrace with a tray of fresh rolls and fruit. ‘Signor Andreoni is waiting for you,’ she said. ‘You like tea, sì?’
‘Grazie,’ Gisele said, forcing a smile. It looked as if she wasn’t going to be able to escape Emilio’s disturbing presence after all. It was almost eleven in the morning. He was not one to linger about the villa. He had never taken a day off in the past. He had even worked most weekends, leaving her for long periods on her own.
He was sipping a cup of coffee when Gisele stepped out onto the sun-drenched terrace. He looked fabulously rested, his skin glowing from good health and his eyes clear. He was dressed in black trousers and a white business shirt but it was rolled back over his tanned forearms in a casual manner, making him look even more arrestingly handsome.
He put down his cup and rose to his feet, pulling out a chair for her. ‘Cara, you look like you had a rough night,’ he said. ‘Your little pills not working, hmm?’
She gave him a gimlet glare as she plonked herself down on the chair. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’ she asked.
‘I took the day off to spend it with you,’ he said. ‘That’s what a newly reconciled couple would do, is it not?’
‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ Gisele said crossly, flicking her napkin across her lap. ‘I don’t feel like being around you or anyone.’
‘Too bad,’ he said, picking up his coffee cup again. ‘We will be expected to be seen out and about together.’ He took a sip of his coffee, looked at the contents frowningly for a moment before looking at her again. ‘I have a business function to attend this evening. I thought we could go shopping for you to find something suitable to wear.’
‘I can go shopping by myself,’ she said, shooting him a look across the table. ‘I don’t need you to carry my bags.’
Emilio placed his cup back down on its saucer with unnerving precision. ‘Gisele,’ he addressed her sternly, ‘you are walking a very fine line. I am trying to be patient with you but there is only so much leeway I’m prepared to give.’
Gisele saw the steely determination in his dark eyes and had to look away. ‘What did you tell Marietta about me sleeping in the other room?’ she asked to fill the heavy silence.
‘I told her you have a snoring problem.’
Her eyes flew back to his. ‘You what?’
He gave a little shrug as he brought his cup towards his mouth. ‘It’s OK, cara,’ he said. ‘Lots of people snore.’
‘I don’t!’ she said, bristling with outrage. ‘Why didn’t you tell her it was you with the problem?’
‘Because I’m not the one with cold feet about sharing a bed, that’s why,’ he said smoothly.
Gisele scowled as she took a roll and tore it into little pieces. ‘You could’ve thought of something a little less demeaning,’ she said. ‘Snoring sounds so … so unsexy.’
‘Are you going to eat any of that roll or just play with it?’ Emilio asked.
She pushed the plate with the decimated roll to one side. ‘I’m not hungry.’
He challenged her with his narrowed coal-black gaze. ‘Are you doing this deliberately to annoy me?’ he asked. ‘Because, if so, it’s working.’
Gisele felt a little frisson race down her spine. She liked the sense of power it gave her to get under his skin. He was still in control but she could see the leash on it was straining. There was a muscle pulsing at the corner of his flattened mouth and his eyes had hardened to chips of black ice.
The air between them seemed to crackle like electricity along a wire.
‘You are not leaving this table until you’ve had something to eat,’ he ground out. ‘Do you hear me?’
She glared back at him. ‘If you want me to eat, then why don’t you stop deliberately upsetting me?’
The sound of Marietta’s footsteps sounding on the flagstones broke the tense moment.
Emilio sat back and visibly forced himself to relax and Gisele did the same. She sensed the housekeeper’s intrigue and wondered how much she had overheard of their heated exchange. How well did Emilio know this new housekeeper? Concetta had been the soul of discretion. Was that why Emilio was so determined that Gisele should occupy his room? Journalists on the hunt for a story paid well for leaks and for photo opportunities. Marietta could exploit the situation if she sensed a lack of harmony between them, and clearly Emilio was fully aware of it.
‘Here is your tea, signorina,’ Marietta said as she placed a teapot beside Gisele, her gaze watchful.
‘Grazie, Marietta,’ Gisele said, trying to smile but not quite managing to pull it off.
‘Is everything all right?’ Marietta asked, hovering about the table.
‘Everything is fine,’ Emilio said firmly.
Once the housekeeper had left he raked a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t mean to upset you, Gisele,’ he said. ‘This is a difficult time for both of us. There are adjustments and compromises to be made. I want this to work. I really do.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
He frowned as if she was suddenly speaking a different language, one he couldn’t understand. ‘Because what we had was good,’ he said. ‘You can’t deny that.’
‘I do deny it,’ Gisele said
. ‘What was good about me having to sign a prenuptial agreement? Where was the trust that most good relationships are built on?’
‘I’ve worked hard for my money,’ he said. ‘I have the right to protect my interests. If you were so unhappy about it, why didn’t you say something at the time?’
Gisele looked away again, embarrassed that she had been so biddable back then. She had felt terribly hurt when he had told her about it but she had kept her feelings well hidden. She had signed the wretched agreement with a heavy heart, wondering if he would ever trust her, or anyone, enough to believe they weren’t going to rip him off or betray him in some way.
‘Gisele?’
She blew out a breath and set about pouring a cup of tea for herself. ‘Can we just forget it?’ she asked. ‘It’s not like we’re getting married now. It’s irrelevant.’
‘It might not be so irrelevant if we do decide to make our reconciliation permanent,’ he said.
Gisele’s cup rattled against the saucer as she put it back down. ‘Are you crazy?’ she asked. ‘There’s no way I would ever agree to marry someone who didn’t love me enough to trust me.’
‘Love and trust are two different issues,’ he said. ‘They don’t always come hand in hand.’
‘Well, they come hand in hand to me,’ she said, picking up her cup again and cradling it in her hands.
He studied her with an inscrutable look on his face for what seemed like an endless moment. ‘You think I didn’t care about you, cara?’ he asked.
Gisele felt her heart contract. Like a lot of people, he cared about a lot of things but it didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine life without them. He had lived quite well without her for two whole years. ‘Where was that care when you threw me out of your life without giving me the benefit of the doubt?’ she asked.
His expression tightened. ‘I can do no more than apologise,’ he said. ‘I was wrong and I have admitted it. What else do you want me to do?’
Love me, Gisele thought. ‘Nothing,’ she said, lowering her gaze from his. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’
Deserving of His Diamonds? Page 8
