The Italian Tycoon's Mistress
Page 17
Something flickered in Rocco’s eyes and he looked at her with piercing, savage intensity.
Amy sensed it and knew that if he was only aware of just how deeply her feelings for him ran, then he would make his move and she would be lost.
‘I never said that I wasn’t attracted to you…’ she wavered. ‘I thought that’s why we were here…’
‘It is why we are here,’ Rocco grated. ‘But I am not sure…’
‘Okay.’
‘No, it is emphatically not OK!’ The harsh escalation of his voice brought Amy’s head snapping up in shock. ‘Correction, it might be OK for you…a bit of lust between the sheets, your first steps out of the cocoon you’ve been living in before you hit the big, bad world out there!’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know exactly what I am talking about! Look at you! As competent as any businesswoman I have ever met, and why do you think that is?’ He didn’t give her the opportunity to answer. He steamrollered any possible response before she had time to get a syllable out. ‘Because you have given everything to your job. At sixteen, it was your escape and you were determined enough to climb every rung of the ladder, only focusing on what lay ahead. You threw everything you had into work and men were sidelined into entertainment when you thought you needed it. Which,’ he added shrewdly, ‘was probably not very often. And now, you are on the brink of a brave new world, you’re willing to start flexing your sexuality and I don’t intend to be your first stepping-stone.’
Flexing her sexuality? Amy wondered dazedly if they were talking about the same woman. He didn’t want to be her first stepping-stone? As if she had suddenly turned into a predator of innocent young men and had dark intentions of gobbling them up one by one? She opened her mouth to try and point out the glaring misconception, but Rocco was on a roll.
‘I never thought I would hear myself say this but…’ He paused and shot her a look that was openly, heart-tuggingly, bemused.
‘But…?’ She leaned forward, heart racing, dreading further disappointment but unable to beat back the flood of hope. ‘I’m not asking for commitment,’ she forestalled anything that might be going in that direction.
‘Which is my problem,’ Rocco confessed with raw emotion. ‘Why not?’
‘You said…’
‘I know what I said. And once I meant every word of it, but sleeping with you isn’t enough. I want strings attached. In fact, I want so many strings that you’re tied up completely.’
‘You want strings…? Attached…?’ A tremulous smile broke like sun peeping out from behind a bank of clouds.
‘You find that amusing?’
‘I find that…’ she reached out and stroked the side of his face with a trembling hand and shuddered when he caught it with his and held it tightly ‘…I find that very…satisfying.’
‘And why would that be?’
‘Because I love you,’ Amy replied simply. ‘At first, I just wanted to get away from you because I knew that I couldn’t love you and be with you without getting hurt, because I knew that you weren’t looking for a relationship, but then…tonight…I didn’t care any more about protecting myself. I just wanted you.’
Rocco gave a low-throated laugh and kissed her knuckles, then looked up at her from under his gloriously long lashes.
‘Of course you did.’ He pulled her down to him and they fell backwards on the carpet, untangling themselves with breathless laughter. He rolled her onto her side so that he could look at her. ‘Even when you were still going out with that man, I bet you only had eyes for me.’
‘How did you know?’
Rocco flipped her onto her back and covered her legs with one heavy thigh.
‘Hoped, my darling. Hoped and wanted because it’s impossible to believe you could ever have eyes for anyone else when you are the object of all the love I have in my heart.’ He tenderly kissed the nape of her neck and murmured warmly into her ear. ‘You know you have to marry me, don’t you?’
‘Have to…?’
‘No choice, I’m afraid.’
‘In that case…I’d be a fool to argue, then, wouldn’t I…?’
Antonio looked at his son and the young woman who had been as close to him as his own daughter for so many years and was filled with the richness of contentment.
In his most secret dreams, he had never dared hope that he might be blessed with a reconciliation with his son. He had nursed his private regrets and accepted the distance between them with the weary resignation of an old man who had given up expecting the unexpected.
But reconciliation this most certainly was. In fact, the past week spent with his son and his daughter-in-law had been the happiest days of his life. So much catching up to do. To think that he had missed so much because of his ignorance and pride. To imagine that the bond he should have forged with his only son had been lost because, in his despair and grief, he had pushed the child away only to watch the child become a man and do the same to him. Serena had been taken from him, yes, but it had never been Rocco’s fault and he had finally found the courage to tell him that, to tell him how his own misplaced pride had allowed barriers to be built between them that the years had further cemented.
Amy had mellowed him, he thought now, watching as they strolled back from their walk along the private beach, fingers loosely linked, their body language speaking volumes. He was relaxed, he laughed and when he looked at her there was such love in his eyes that Antonio almost felt he could reach out and capture some and bottle it.
He waved at them as they approached.
‘You should have come walking with us, Antonio.’ Amy smiled at him and gave him a quick hug. ‘It’s beautiful here.’
‘A man could forget about the reason for working in a place like this.’ Rocco looked at his father and grinned.
‘And I know a man who has,’ Antonio informed his son. ‘Not that he would not appreciate a little company from foreign shores now and again…’ One more week and they would be gone. He would miss them more than he could express. ‘And, of course, whoever else might accompany them in due course…’
‘Friends, you mean?’ Amy asked innocently and Antonio and his son exchanged a wryly knowing look.
‘Somewhat closer than that.’ Rocco laughed, pulling her to him and kissing the top of her head, which smelt of sun and cool breezes. ‘More along the lines of family, but little ones…’
‘Well, we’ll have to work on that,’ Amy murmured softly, eyes shining at every dream she had ever had that had now come true.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1905-6
THE ITALIAN TYCOON’S MISTRESS
First North American Publication 2008.
Copyright © 2004 by Cathy Williams.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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