At some point on most days Gabriel would retreat to his study to work. His phone was a constant companion and she tried not to be irritated by him being distracted by messages and emails. He had a large business to run and he took the responsibility for his employees seriously. He had told her things were more settled with his position on the board now that news had got out about his marriage to her.
It was a good feeling to know she had helped him in some way. She still felt a little conflicted about the amount of money he had spent on rescuing her from financial ruin. Terribly conflicted. But whenever she raised the topic with him, he seemed unwilling to discuss it.
Just like the topic of when the time would be up on their marriage. She had resigned herself to it being a no-go area as she didn’t want to spoil their time in France with bickering. She was enjoying being with him too much. Learning more about him, uncovering the deep players of his personality.
Frankie had taken herself out to the heated infinity pool to fill in the time until Gabriel was finished in the study. The sun was surprisingly warm and she couldn’t resist doing a few leisurely laps to cool off. The water sparkled like scattered diamonds as she carved her way through it, and she felt a pang of regret that tomorrow they would be heading back to Milan.
Their honeymoon would be over.
* * *
Gabriel got up from his desk after completing some pressing paperwork and went to the window that overlooked the terraced gardens. He could see Frankie swimming in the pool below, her beautiful body dressed in a tiny black bikini he had bought for her in Marseille. Personally, he preferred her without clothes. He never got tired of looking at her, touching her, making love to her. Her confidence had grown with him sexually and he delighted in how she responded to him so enthusiastically. He couldn’t remember enjoying sex on this level before. Sex had been a physical thing. A bodily need that could be satisfied.
But making love with Frankie took it to a new level, made it less a bodily need and more of an emotional one. And that was what worried him the most. He was allowing her closer than he had allowed anyone. He had shared not just his body, but his background, his heartache, his struggles.
His vulnerability.
There was a nagging worry that his relationship with her was moving into new territory.
Dangerous territory.
* * *
Frankie came to the end of the pool and saw Gabriel standing there with a towel slung around his hips and a glinting look in his eyes. She knew that look so well now. The I-want-to-have-sex-with-you look. It made her skin tingle and tighten all over. ‘Have you got anything on under that towel?’ she asked, with a coy smile.
‘Why don’t you take it off me and see?’
A quiver coursed through her body and she came up the steps to stand in front of him. His gaze ran over her in a smouldering sweep, triggering a throbbing ache between her thighs. She tiptoed her fingers down from the base of his throat to just above the edge of the towel, delighted in the way his breathing changed as if her touch excited him as much as his excited her. She circled his navel with her finger, then whipped off the towel to find him naked and powerfully aroused.
‘Well, look what I found.’ She stroked him with her hand and he gave a deep groan, his legs bracing for her touch. She bent down in front of him, caressing him with her lips and tongue until he was breathing heavily, the sounds coming from his throat more urgent, more desperate.
‘No. Not yet.’ His voice was raw and rough with desire and he hauled her up to her feet, grasping her by the hips. ‘I have other plans for you.’
He untied her string bikini, letting both pieces drop in wet puddles at their feet. His hands cradled her breasts, his thumbs rolling over the nipples, his gaze as hot as a blazing fire. He put one hand just below her right breast, pushing it up to meet the descent of his mouth. His lips moved over her sensitive flesh, his tongue circling her nipple, licking and stroking until she was sagging at the knees. He subjected her other breast to the same exquisite torture, leaving no inch of her skin unexplored. He took her by the hand and led her to the double sun lounge inside the cabana near the pool.
By the time he came down beside her, Frankie was desperate with need. She sat astride him, her feminine folds alive with excited tingling nerves. She leaned over him, her damp hair tickling his chest, and joined her mouth with his, opening her lips to welcome the stabbing thrust of his tongue.
He groaned and grasped her by the hips, his arousal hard and thick against her entrance. ‘Dio, I want you so badly.’ His voice was a hoarse growl.
She didn’t give him time to pull away to find a condom, even if he had thought to bring one with him. She fed him into her with a deft move of her hand and cried out loud as he went in up to the hilt. She rode him with urgent movements, her body responding to the hard friction of his with intense spasms of pleasure.
‘I’ll pull out before I—’ he began.
‘You don’t need to. I’m on the Pill to help with my cycle.’ Frankie couldn’t bear for him to interrupt the delicious rhythm of their bodies. Her senses were on fire and her racing blood heating her core into a pool of molten lava.
His hands gripped her by the upper arms, his gaze suddenly piercing. ‘You take it regularly?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
Gabriel seemed to hesitate but then Frankie moved on him again and he groaned and restarted his thrusts to meet the downward pressure of her body. She could feel her orgasm approaching, the build-up of tension in her swollen flesh almost like torture. She shifted position slightly and suddenly she was flying free, catapulted into a blissful oblivion where nothing mattered but the storm of release coursing through her body.
Within seconds, he came with a deep, agonised groan, his hands gripping her by the hips almost to the point of pain. Frankie could feel his essence within her body, the sharing of bodily fluids making her wonder if she would ever feel the same intense intimacy with anyone else.
How could she when she couldn’t imagine feeling attracted to anyone but him? He played her body like a maestro played a temperamental instrument. He knew every nuance of her response to his touch, could read every contraction or relaxation of her muscles.
Gabriel relaxed his grip on her upper arms, a frown tugging at his forehead when he saw the imprint of his fingerprints on her skin. ‘Sorry, cara.’ He stroked her arms in soft massaging strokes. ‘I was being too rough.’
Frankie leaned forward to brush his lips with hers. ‘I like it when you’re rough. I’m not made of porcelain, you know.’
He pushed her hair back from her face in a tender movement that made something in her stomach swoop. ‘You never cease to surprise me.’ His eyes contained a light she had never seen in them before. Dark. Devilish. Dangerous. He suddenly turned her over so she was lying beneath him, one of his muscled thighs hooked over hers. ‘Now I’ve got you where I want you.’
Frankie gave herself up to the passionate crush of his mouth, her arms winding around waist, holding him as close as she possibly could. Shivers raced down her spine when his teeth took her lower lip in a playful bite, the gentle tug triggering a shockwave through her flesh. He passed the tip of his tongue over her lip where his teeth had snagged her in a sweeping salve that made the hairs on her scalp tingle at the roots.
He moved from her mouth to her breasts, his teeth softly nipping at the flesh, his tongue following with a healing lick. His caresses were exciting and thrilling and just this side of dangerous. But she wasn’t going to let him have all the fun. When his mouth came back to hers, she used her teeth the same way he had on her. Nipping, tugging, playfully teasing him in kittenish bites that made him growl deep in his throat and tighten his hold.
Before she knew it, he had flipped her over onto her stomach, his hair-roughened thighs trapping her. Feverish excitement raced through her from head to foot. She opened her legs for hi
m, arching her spine so he had easy access to where she wanted him the most. He drove into her with a guttural groan and began thrusting with deep, urgent thrusts that made her entire skin lift in a shower of goose-bumps. His breathing was as hectic as hers, the rhythm of his body within her sending fizzing, whizzing fireworks through her blood. The tension in her core was unbearable. Need clawed at her with ravenous jaws. She was whimpering and gasping and almost sobbing with the desire to come.
Gabriel read the need in her body as she knew he would and placed his hand between her trembling legs and tipped her over the edge. She flew into the stratosphere with a high cry of intense rapture, her body quaking and quivering as the rush of sensations swept through her like a tidal wave. He followed with his own release, his thrusts hard and fast and deep, his body tensing in those final moments before he let go. He collapsed over her, his head buried against her neck, his arms splayed either side of her.
Frankie savoured the moment, the stillness and peace after the sensual storm. She breathed in the scent of their lovemaking, the musk and salt and sweat as fragrant as any expensive cologne.
Gabriel rolled off her and turned her in the circle of his arms so they were lying side by side. One of his hands tidied her hair in gentle strokes that were in stark contrast to the frenzied movements only moments before. ‘For the first time in my life, I’m going to hate going back to work.’ He kissed her on the tip of the nose and smiled. ‘I could get used to this. Way too used to it.’
Frankie stroked his lean jaw, gazing into his espresso-dark eyes. ‘You work too hard. Do you ever turn off your phone?’
He gave a rueful grimace. ‘No.’
‘Because of your sister? In case she needs you?’
He sighed and turned onto his back, keeping her tucked up against his side. His hand stroked up and down her bare arm in a slow, smooth caress. ‘It’s one of the reasons I can’t bear the thought of having a family of my own.’
For some reason Frankie couldn’t quite explain, his confession made her heart contract as if it had been pinched. Hard. Painfully, cruelly hard. She kept her head resting on his chest, not willing to meet his gaze. ‘But surely you would provide your children with a much better upbringing than your father did?’
‘True. But having been a stand-in parent for my siblings since I was nine, and with all Carli’s ongoing dramas, I can safely say I’ve had more than my fill of parental responsibility.’ There was a chord of finality in his tone that was disquieting.
Disquieting and distressing, because she could think of no better father material than Gabriel. He was strong and steady, caring and hard working. Images popped up in her head of him cradling a newborn baby, his large male hands cupping the infant’s tiny head with exquisite gentleness and care.
Their newborn baby.
The baby she could not imagine having with anyone else.
A lengthy silence ticked past.
Frankie stroked her hand over his toned pectoral muscles, then circled his flat male nipple with her finger. ‘You never know...one day you might change your mind.’
Gabriel turned his head to look at her, a frown pleating his forehead. ‘Don’t get any crazy ideas, Francesca. You know the rules.’
Frankie pulled out of his hold and got off the bed, snatching up a bathrobe, tying it vicious movements. ‘Wow, you really know how to kill the mood.’
He swung his legs over the edge of the cabana bed and stood, not bothering to cover his nakedness. ‘I don’t want you to get any false hopes about me. I’ve been honest with you. Brutally honest.’
‘You certainly have.’ She didn’t bother toning down the sarcasm in her tone. ‘But what I am finding hard to understand is how we’re going to go from this...’ she waved her hand at the cabana bed where they had made passionate love ‘...to saying goodbye at the end of the year.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that.’
He compressed his lips until they momentarily disappeared. ‘It will only be hard if we make it hard. We’re adults. We can be civil about it. There’s no need for either of us to be bitter.’ He turned and went to the poolside bathroom and shut the door with a conversation-closed click.
But what if one of us is heartbroken?
Frankie couldn’t ask it out loud. She didn’t dare reveal how her feelings had undergone such a massive change. She had broken his rule. She had fallen in love with him. How could she not have fallen in love with a man who made love to her so exquisitely? Who listened to her, who made her feel safe enough to share her deepest secrets and insecurities? He had dismantled the ice cage around her heart with every kiss, every stroke, every caress. But it wasn’t just his touch that had melted her. It was the quality of the man he was, the good man from a horrible background who had fought so valiantly to be something better than fate had planned.
She admired him, respected him. Adored him.
And in a year, according to his rules, she would lose him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A WEEK OR so later, once they were back in Milan, Gabriel had to fly to Rome overnight to sign off on the billion-dollar business deal he was working on. Frankie was surprised, and a little hurt, that he hadn’t asked her to accompany him, especially since he had married her to convince his corporate colleagues he was worthy of their trust. But ever since they had come back from Marseille she had sensed a subtle change in him. He was still just as passionate and attentive with his lovemaking, but he seemed even more preoccupied than usual.
She knew he was worried about his sister and worried about the business deal. But she couldn’t help wondering if their conversation that night on their honeymoon, about his desire never to become a father, had triggered something in him. Something that made him fully present physically, but with a part of him—the emotional, feeling part she most wanted access to—locked away.
Gabriel’s housekeeper had left for the day, and Frankie was settling down for a lonely night in front of the television in Gabriel’s gorgeous villa in Milan when she heard the front door being unlocked and then footsteps as someone entered the house. She jumped off the sofa, wondering if Gabriel had changed his mind about staying overnight in Rome.
‘Gabriel? Is that you?’ She came out of the sitting room and encountered a slim young woman dressed entirely in black, with bleached blonde hair and eyes the same colour as Gabriel’s.
‘Carli?’ Frankie said.
‘Sì.’ Carli’s gaze assessed Frankie from head to foot in a way that could only be described as insulting. ‘So. You’re my brother’s wife?’
‘Yes...’ Frankie offered her hand. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you...’
Carli ignored Frankie’s hand and strode past to walk into the kitchen as if she owned the place. ‘Where’s Gabriel?’ she tossed over her shoulder.
‘He’s in Rome. For business.’ Frankie followed her, feeling like a servant attending to a snooty-nosed house guest. ‘Can I make get you a drink? Something to eat? Maria has left for the day but she made some—’
‘Do you love him?’ Carli’s gaze was as penetrating as a laser beam.
Frankie didn’t have to hesitate with her answer. ‘Yes. I do. Very much.’
Carli took an apple out of the fruit bowl on the bench and took a noisy bite, her eyes never leaving Frankie’s face. ‘I’m not going to like you just because you’re married to him, you know.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Frankie said. ‘But it would be nice for Gabriel if we were to become friends, don’t you think?’ Although she knew he wasn’t keen on her becoming close to his sister, Frankie could sense an aura of loneliness and isolation surrounding Carli.
And didn’t she know all about loneliness and isolation?
‘Maybe.’ Carli’s look was so sceptical she could have worked for the FBI. Street-smart and highly intelligent, she reminded Frankie of a puppy that had been kicked too many times t
o ever come close to a human again. ‘When’s he coming back from Rome?’
‘Tomorrow,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m sure he’d love to see you. Would you like to stay and—’ Carli suddenly winced and clutched at her stomach. ‘What’s wrong? Are you unwell?’
Carli sucked in a breath. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘But you don’t look well at all. You’re pale and sweaty and—’
‘Do you have any painkillers? It’s just bad period pain.’ She winced again. ‘Really bad.’
‘Of course. I’ll get something for you,’ Frankie said. ‘Why don’t you come and lie down in one of the bedrooms and I’ll get a hot pack for you. That usually helps me when I have mine...’ She bit her lip and wondered with a jolt when her last period had been. She did a mental tally... Her stomach dropped like a boulder off a cliff.
She was late. A week late.
She tried not to panic and concentrated on getting Carli sorted. She had been late before. She had a wacky cycle, which was why she was taking the Pill. Had she somehow not absorbed a dose?
Frankie was glad of the distraction of taking care of Gabriel’s sister. She couldn’t think about the possibility of a pregnancy right now. She would get a test kit and make sure. She didn’t even have to mention it to him. If it wasn’t positive, then what would be the point? But the thought of a baby kept creeping back into her thoughts. It was sad to think Gabriel didn’t have any future plans for fatherhood. Who else would she want to father her children? She couldn’t imagine being with anyone else now. It wouldn’t feel right to share her body with anyone but him.
It wouldn’t be possible for her to love anyone but him.
* * *
Gabriel had planned to stay in Rome overnight but once his meeting with Alessandro De Angelo was over, all he wanted was to go home to be with Frankie. He had been preoccupied with this business deal, and he would be lying if he said his conversation with Frankie about fatherhood hadn’t unsettled him. Not because he was going to change his mind.
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