by Lynne Graham
‘I won’t apologise for that conviction,’ Alissandru argued in frustration as he squared up to her, wide shoulders thrown back, long, powerful legs braced. ‘The estate depends on the properties we own. We house our employees. Your ownership could lead to all sorts of complications. You could decide to rent it out, bring in strangers, turn it into some kind of business, argue about rights of way.’
Unimpressed by that parade of evidently dire possibilities, Isla folded her arms and stared back at him. ‘I’m not planning to do any of those things... Satisfied?’ she prompted.
‘You know that’s not what I’m trying to say.’
‘I just want you...gone!’ Isla surprised herself by throwing out her arms in angry emphasis of that fervent wish.
‘Couldn’t you have warned me that you were intending to come here?’ Alissandru demanded imperiously. ‘Or would that common courtesy have crossed the line that says I have to be the bad guy in your every scenario?’
Isla gazed back at him, her attention locked to his lean, strong features and the raw tension stamped in the set angle of his jawline, the flare of his nostrils and the anger smouldering like an unquenchable fire in his stunning eyes. ‘Well, you pretty much are the bad guy in every scenario...and let’s not pretend that you make much effort to be anything else!’ Isla slammed back at him furiously.
Alissandru froze as though she had slapped him, colour leaching from below his bronzed skin. ‘You’re talking about the baby, aren’t you?’ he prompted curtly.
Isla barely knew what she was talking about but that very personal question knocked her back on her heels and she rested disconcerted eyes on him. ‘No, I’m not, I’m really not.’
‘What else am I to think when you say I’m the bad guy in every situation?’ Alissandru pressed between clenched teeth.
‘Well, when aren’t you the bad guy?’ Isla demanded. ‘You were certainly the bad guy as far as my sister was concerned.’
‘No. Even when she made a pass at me, I kept it to myself,’ Alissandru bit out with suppressed savagery.
Isla shot him an incredulous look. ‘You’re not serious?’
‘Che diavolo!’ Alissandru exclaimed wrathfully, swinging away from her in an angry movement that revealed that that admission had slipped out of him in temper. ‘It’s true that it happened but it’s not something I intended to tell you about. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. I was rich and very much the twin Tania would have preferred to marry and until she got to know me better she saw herself as irresistible.’
Isla swallowed hard, wincing for her sister at his admission, wishing he hadn’t told her that salient fact, but she could remember Tania telling her that if she put her mind to it she could get any man she wanted. And Alissandru would have overshadowed Paulu to such a degree that Tania had eventually succumbed to temptation, Isla gathered unhappily. Alissandru might have been Tania’s brother-in-law but he was also as flawlessly beautiful as a black-haired warrior angel in a stained-glass window. Even more gilded by his great wealth, her sister had unwisely decided to make a play for him.
‘Drop the subject,’ Alissandru urged curtly. ‘It is a distasteful one. I am sorry I spoke so freely.’
Yet in a strange way, Isla was not sorry, for she felt as though she had finally learned exactly what lay behind Alissandru’s loathing for her sister and her sister’s loathing for him. Alissandru would never have forgiven such disloyalty to his twin while Tania would never have forgiven or forgotten such a rejection.
‘You made me into the bad guy when you lost the baby,’ Alissandru breathed in a fierce undertone. ‘You closed me out, ran away—’
‘I did not run away!’ Isla launched back at him in furious rebuttal. ‘I just needed a change of scene. And I didn’t close you out, either...you were already on the outside!’
‘Because I was too honest and I admitted that I wasn’t sure the child you had conceived was mine?’ Alissandru fired back at her. ‘I didn’t realise that you were a virgin. Blame that on the passion or my concussion...whatever you like. I didn’t notice anything different. Blame me for the assumptions I made concerning birth control, too.’
‘Oh, I already have,’ Isla said tartly.
‘But in the absence of proof of whose child it was, I assumed there was room for doubt and that you could even have been pregnant before you slept with me,’ Alissandru intoned grimly. ‘I’m a cynic. I won’t apologise for the way my mind works but I am naturally suspicious when it comes to protecting my family or myself. I tend to assume the worst and act accordingly. But I was upset too when we lost our baby.’
Isla froze. ‘Don’t you dare tell me a lie like that!’ she flared.
Alissandru swallowed hard. ‘Regardless of what you think, for you to continue holding my innate caution against me even after I have done everything possible to be supportive is unjust.’
‘Is it really?’ Isla flung at him thinly as he lounged back against the ugly bar, effortlessly sleek and elegant in his designer suit, utterly untouched by the maelstrom of emotions that had tormented her for weeks. ‘You ran as far and as fast as you could get from me in Scotland! You hated my sister! You accused me of sleeping with your brother! How do you expect me to feel about you?’
Alissandru breathed in deep and slow like a marathon runner readying himself for a race but Isla knew he was struggling to hang on to his temper. ‘I didn’t run,’ he grated.
‘You couldn’t handle the fact that you had spent the night with Tania’s sister! You assumed I was a gold-digging slut even though I was a virgin.’
‘Your behaviour...the way you were dressed...at my brother’s wedding led me to make certain ill-judged assumptions about the level of your innocence,’ Alissandru bit out grudgingly.
An angry flush mantled Isla’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t have much choice about what I wore that day. Tania told me she had a dress for me and I had to wear it because I had nothing else,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘It didn’t fit and it was far too revealing but she said I had to wear it because it matched her silver wedding gown.’
That simple explanation irritated Alissandru more than it soothed because even he could not ignore the unreasonable bias that he had evidently formed against Tania’s sister the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. He waited for her to say something about her behaviour that same day, something that would explain what she had been doing in a bedroom with his cousin Fantino, but when she said nothing more, his lean, strong face hardened. He had misjudged her but she was no angel and why should she be? A woman who could make him want her even when she was clad in furry fabric was obviously more of a temptress than even he had been prepared to acknowledge.
‘Time for you to go,’ Isla told him feelingly, colliding momentarily with smouldering dark golden eyes that left her short of breath and almost dizzy.
He was making her remember that night in Scotland and she couldn’t stand that. The feel of his mouth on hers had created a chemical explosion that raced through her entire body, the magic sensuality of his hands had utterly seduced her. She had realised instantly why she had never been tempted into bed by any other man. Nobody had ever made her feel as he had.
‘I’m not leaving until we have something settled about the house,’ Alissandru intoned stubbornly.
Isla cocked a delicate coppery brow. ‘Seriously?’ she jibed. ‘You storm in here at nine o’clock on a Friday evening, force me out of the bath and demand that we do a deal about a house that I’m not even sure I want to sell yet? Do you think that’s reasonable?’
Alissandru angled his arrogant dark head back, his lean, powerful body acquiring a stunningly insolent air of relaxation. ‘I’m not in a reasonable frame of mind. I’m never in a reasonable frame of mind around you,’ he murmured thickly.
‘And why is that?’ Isla prompted dry-mouthed, her skin prickling with sudden awareness, wicked heat dart
ing up between her thighs.
His eyes, framed by slumberous black lashes, glinted like liquid gold. ‘Because every time I see you I want you and that’s all I can think about.’
‘You did not just say that,’ Isla whispered shakily, her face burning.
‘Tell the truth and shame the devil,’ Alissandru challenged huskily. ‘All I want to do right now is rip that robe off you and sink into you over and over again...’
Isla trembled like a leaf in a high wind, fearful of being torn loose. ‘Stop it!’ she told him fiercely.
‘No,’ Alissandru countered softly. ‘When you came here, you knew this was going to happen. Deal with the consequences.’
Isla dealt him an aghast look. ‘That is absolutely untrue.’
‘You want me,’ Alissandru traded without hesitation. ‘You may not like it but you want me every bit as much as I want you.’
‘You walked away!’ Isla reminded him furiously.
‘I had to force myself to do it and it didn’t work. You’ve spoiled me for other women,’ Alissandru husked, shameless eyes ranging over her with a stormy sexual promise that she felt bite to the very marrow of her bones. That look made her shiver. He emanated a shocking mixture of bold challenge and assurance.
She watched like a hypnotist’s victim as he uncoiled his lean, rangy body from his lounging stance and moved forward. She couldn’t breathe for excitement, couldn’t move for fear of breaking his dangerous spell. He reached for her, all potent male and confidence, and he lifted her right up into his arms.
‘We’ll talk about the house tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘Once this is out of the way, we’ll stop fighting.’
Was that true? she wondered weakly as he carried her up the stairs with the same ease with which he might have carried a doll. One more time, she reasoned wildly, clutching at his conviction that it would free them both from temptation.
‘We mustn’t... We shouldn’t!’ she protested more frantically as he identified the room she was utilising and strode through the door.
‘We’re not hurting anyone,’ Alissandru grated with finality.
And it was true, she realised. As far as she knew nobody could be hurt by them being together. In any case, who would even know? As her brain careened madly from stop to go and then back to almost panic-stricken indecision, Alissandru kissed her with searing heat, forcing her lips apart for the scorching possession of his tongue. Something clenched hard deep down inside her and she started to tremble again, her head falling back, her lips parting, and the impatient drum beat of arousal pounded through her slender body like a storm she knew she had to quench.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHY AM I doing this? Isla asked herself as she looked up at Alissandru in the dim light filtering up from the hallway. And it was so simple she could’ve screamed at the answer when it slotted neatly into place inside her head. She wanted him, just the way he had said she did; she couldn’t control the craving, couldn’t drive it out of her treacherous body, either. That craving was there, simply there, and it rewrote in an instant everything she had ever thought she knew about herself.
He yanked loose the sash on the robe, spreading it open slowly as he leant over her, unwrapping her with a care that suggested she was a very precious parcel. She didn’t cringe the way she had at the croft, didn’t try to hide herself, either. Instead, she listened to the catch in his breath and watched his face as he looked at her breasts with fierce appreciation. His hands lifted to cup the full swells, his thumbs rubbing at the swollen pink peaks as he stole another kiss, and her hands plunged into his luxuriant hair, fingers filtering through the silky strands and then dropping to his shoulders, unsuccessfully trying to come between them to pull at his jacket.
‘I know... I know,’ Alissandru ground out in similar frustration, backing away to unceremoniously yank the jacket off and tug at his tie with thrilling impatience.
Isla lay there, all of a quiver with heat and desire, just watching him undress. They had made love in virtual darkness at the croft and this time she was hungry for the details and curious. He tossed condoms on the bedside table and their eyes met, his defensive, hers troubled and evasive, and he came down beside her and kissed her again then as if his whole life depended on it. Breathless, Isla squirmed at the sleek, hot, heavy weight of him and then she arched as his mouth closed over a swollen nipple, drawing on the sensitised tip until she felt as though fire raced between her breast and her pelvis, stoking the slow burn of need rising between her legs. It was an ache, a sweet, hollow ache she couldn’t bear.
‘Touch me,’ Alissandru said urgently, carrying her hand down over his hard, flat stomach.
And for a split second she froze, unsure of herself, afraid to do it wrong, and then she connected with the hunger in his intent gaze and she jerked as if he had lit a touchpaper inside her because it was the same hunger that drove her. Her hand stroked down the length and breadth of him. He felt like satin wrapped round steel but was infinitely more responsive, arching hungrily up to her touch.
Isla pressed him flat and lowered her head, closing her lips round him as she stroked, listening with helpless feminine amusement and satisfaction to the hoarse sounds and the ragged Italian words she dragged from him. A little more and he was dragging her up to him again, driving her lips apart with the hunger of his, twining his tongue with hers and delving deeper until she writhed against him, glancing into quite deliberate friction with the hard length of him.
‘I intended to go slow but I can’t wait. Madre di Dio, bella mia...what are you doing to me?’ Alissandru groaned, sliding teasingly against the tender flesh at her core.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, Isla tilted up her hips to receive him, and he began to slide home with a sinuous circling of his lean hips and then he froze and yanked himself back from her again to reach for the condoms by the bed.
‘What is it about you?’ he exclaimed in raw disbelief. ‘I almost forgot again and I swear never to make that mistake again!’
For a split second, Isla froze. That mistake... Their baby. Of course that was how he thought about that episode, and how could she blame him? An unplanned pregnancy with a woman he’d only intended to spend one night with? A big drama and a source of stress he could naturally have done without and he would be as keen as she to ensure that that oversight was not repeated. She could not understand why that sensible fact should make her feel so unbearably sad.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alissandru grated as he came back to her and captured her reddened mouth hungrily with his. ‘It won’t happen again.’
That sensual assault unfroze her and mercifully threw her back out of her unhappy thoughts. She could think of nothing but Alissandru as he drove into her with potent energy and an unashamed groan of satisfaction, thrusting home to the very heart of her and sending such a jolt of stark pleasure through her that she cried out, her face warming in the aftermath. Sensation gathered with his every slick invasion, the tightening bands of muscle in her pelvis increasing the waves of excitement gripping her.
‘Don’t stop...oh, please, don’t stop!’ she gasped at the height of a spasm of pure bliss when her very existence seemed to depend on his next virile lunge and her heart was thumping so hard and fast she was breathless.
She hit the heights even faster in an explosive climax that threatened to jolt the very bones from her body, so all-encompassing was the experience. Sweet paroxysms of exquisite pleasure eddied out from her exhausted body and cocooned her in melting relaxation.
Alissandru cradled her in his arms, shell-shocked in the aftermath. Just as in their very first encounter, sex with Isla was sublime but he wasn’t going to think about that, wasn’t going to question anything, anything at all, he instructed himself grimly. A kind of peace, a peace that had evaded him for long torturous weeks, enclosed him.
‘I didn’t even ask you if it was okay...us making
love again.’ Alissandru registered that omission in dismay.
Isla sighed. It was fine, nothing left to worry about.
* * *
He awoke in the early hours and for an instant could not even work out where he was, and then he looked down at Isla and began to slide out of the bed, making a real effort not to disturb her. If he woke her, she would fight with him about something and then everything would go to hell again, he thought grimly. No, he would be discreet and tactful, even if neither trait came naturally to him, but he was getting better, wasn’t he? He hadn’t even mentioned being bitten by the rabid midget dog, had he? He would return home before he was missed and he would send Isla flowers and possibly something sparkly, because she didn’t seem to own any jewellery beyond a watch and he wanted her to know how very much he appreciated being forgiven for his past excesses and awarded a second chance.
Isla woke up in a cocoon of contentment and then turned over and found Alissandru gone. She jumped straight out of bed, checked the bathroom and downstairs and realised with an angry stab of disbelief that he had walked out on her again...as if she was nothing, as if she was nobody, a one-night stand he could dismiss as soon as dawn folded in!
It was a painful moment of truth for Isla.
Alissandru had used her for sex. But hadn’t she used him, too? She freshened up in the shower, her body tender and sensitised beneath her fingertips, and she thought of how he had woken her somewhere in the darkness of the night and made love to her again slowly and silently, but still with that dangerous, exhilarating edge of wildness that seemed to drive his passionate nature. Afterwards he had held her close, and she had felt sleepily, unquestioningly happy and secure.
Why did he have that effect on her when he had already done more to damage her self-esteem and hurt her than any man alive? Did her brain switch off when he was around? Did she have so little pride?
In the light of day, coming to terms with what had happened between them challenged her. She had wanted him and he had wanted her and it had seemed gloriously, wonderfully simple the night before. They weren’t hurting anyone else, he had pointed out, but what about how she was being hurt? Losing their baby had already hurt her more than enough for one lifetime. Sleeping with Alissandru again would complicate their relationship even more.