‘Hardly what I’d call a threat,’ he said, ‘And entirely understandable in the circumstances.’
‘And you wonder why I have no faith in our future,’ she said with exasperation. ‘You refuse to see me as anything more than an immoral tart who couldn’t wait until your back was turned to seduce your brother.’
‘I have no choice but to believe it, Anna.’ His tone sounded jaded. ‘But I wish to God I had an alternative, I really do.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAMMY was awake and restless when they got back to the hospital. Anna was on edge from her tense dinner with Lucio and felt too overwrought to deal with a recalcitrant child.
‘Stop it, Sammy,’ she snapped at him as he tried to get out of bed. ‘Go back to sleep. You’re going home in the morning as soon as Dr Frentalle sees you.’
‘But I want to go home now!’ he howled, slapping at her hand as it tried to hold him.
‘Sammy.’ Lucio’s firm deep voice brooked no resistance. ‘Get back into bed.’
Sammy’s face crumpled but he slid back under the covers, his bottom lip wobbling as he did so.
‘Good boy.’ Lucio smiled and ruffled his dark curls. ‘Now, I will read you a story and once that is finished I am going to take Mummy and Auntie Jenny home. We’ll be back in the morning to pick you up.’
‘But I was—’ Anna began but he sent her a warning glance before turning back to Sammy. ‘Mummy needs a good night’s sleep before you come home tomorrow. The nurses will take special care of you and before you know it you’ll be back home among your toys.’
Sammy gave in with good grace and once Lucio’s story was over Anna kissed her son goodnight and made her way out of the ward with Jenny as Lucio said his own farewell.
He joined them in the corridor a few moments later. ‘He’s just about asleep, as indeed you nearly are.’ He touched Anna’s cheek with one finger.
‘I should be with him,’ she said.
‘You are not helping him by overprotecting him.’
‘He’s a baby, Lucio! Not a teenager.’
‘Darling.’ He took her arm and for the sake of her sister, who was watching, she had no choice but to suffer his hold. ‘You have been here every night for over a week. You’re his mother not his martyr.’
‘He might need me during the night.’
‘So might I,’ he said in an undertone, turning so Jenny couldn’t read his lips.
Anna felt her face heating and hastily turned away from his compelling gaze.
The drive back to his house was conducted in silence.
Anna could feel her eyelids dropping with every revolution of the tyres on the road, the smooth movement of the car gradually relaxing her tense shoulders, her head moving sideways to find the upholstered comfort of the curved seat…
‘Wake up, cara.’ Lucio’s deep velvet voice sounded near her ear.
She jerked upright and her eyes collided with the deep chocolate of his. ‘Where’s Jenny?’ she asked, glancing around.
‘She’s already gone inside,’ he informed her. ‘She has work tomorrow and wanted to get an early night.’
She tried to ease herself away from him, her hand searching for the door catch, but before she could locate it one of his hands came over hers and held it still.
‘Why are you always trying to get away from me, Anna?’ he asked.
‘I…I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. Whenever I come close your eyes widen and you shrink away.’
‘Maybe I don’t like you touching me.’
The edge of his mouth lifted in a little smile. ‘Now we both know that isn’t true. You like me touching you…You like it very much.’ He traced the end of his forefinger across the upper bow of her mouth before taking it to her bottom lip, the slow, tantalising movement causing her lips to instantly swell with need.
She could scarcely breathe; what little air she managed to scrape past the tight restriction in her throat felt painfully inadequate to fully inflate her lungs.
‘Why deny what is between us?’ he asked.
‘There’s nothing between us,’ she croaked.
‘Is there not?’ He took her hand and placed in on the full thrust of his aroused body. ‘I would call that something between us, wouldn’t you?’
She felt the throb of his body against her hand and her stomach gave a sudden lurch of aching need.
‘You want me as much as I want you,’ he said. ‘I can see it in your eyes, and I can taste it whenever I kiss you.’
‘No…’
His mouth came down and hovered just above hers. ‘I can feel it in the way your body tenses when I do this.’ He trailed a finger across the upper swell of her right breast.
Anna could feel her breast tightening as it strained against the fabric of her bra beneath her cotton shirt, and she clamped her knees together to stop the rise of heat from her traitorous lower body.
‘Don’t fight it, Anna.’ He moved his hand to her knee and prised it away from its twin, his fingers sliding up along her sensitive inner thigh.
Her breath caught in her throat as his fingers came to the shield of lace covering her, her eyes widening in panic as he shifted the tiny slip of fabric to one side.
She sucked in a ragged breath as his finger slid into her warmth, her bones melting as her moist walls contracted around him.
‘I can smell the fragrance of your need,’ he breathed against her trembling mouth. ‘It makes me want to fill you with my own.’
She slipped lower in the seat, her back now pressed up against the door handle she’d searched for earlier in vain, her legs parting automatically as he increased the movement of his finger to intensify her pleasure.
She was outside of her own body’s jurisdiction. He had total control of her, playing her like a virtuoso does a finely tuned instrument, her pleasure rising just like musical scales, higher and higher, sweeter and sweeter.
Her release burst through the tight restraint of her consciousness, spilling over her in waves, leaving her gasping and breathless.
He gave a satisfied smile at her flushed cheeks and dropped a brief hard kiss to her mouth. ‘You are unable to stop yourself from responding to me. Is that why you hate me so much, Anna? Because I can reduce you to this?’
She pushed down her skirt and edged away from him, this time finding the door handle and almost tumbling backwards out of the car in her haste to get away from his hateful smile.
She glared at him as he came around from his side of the car. ‘Must you always taint every physical encounter with your prejudice about me?’ she asked. ‘You never miss an opportunity to make me feel cheap.’
‘Cara.’ His voice was a silky drawl as his eyes ran over her suggestively. ‘Considering the amount of money I’ve spent on your son and sister and yourself so far, the very last thing I would call you is cheap.’
Anger rose in her so swiftly and so violently she didn’t stop to think of the consequences. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hammer hanging on the wall along with a collection of other household tools and, before she could stop herself, she reached for it and threw it with all the pent up fury she possessed.
It shattered the rear window of his car and bounced off over the boot, tearing at the paintwork as it rolled and then fell with a metallic clatter to the concrete floor.
She didn’t wait to see his reaction. She turned and flew from the garage with a speed she hadn’t known she possessed, her eyes blind with angry tears, her heart pounding in panic at what he would do in retaliation.
She made it to the bedroom but there was no key in the door. Spinning around in trepidation, she almost tripped over her stumbling feet as she lunged towards the door of the en suite bathroom, wrenching it open and snapping the lock behind her, leaning back against it, her chest heaving, her breath tearing at her throat.
‘Open the door, Anna.’
She dragged some air into her lungs and searched the bathroom for something to prop up against the door but t
here was nothing.
‘Open the door, Anna, or I will open it myself.’
She turned and, taking a deep breath, opened the door. ‘All right,’ she said, lifting her chin in order to meet his eyes. ‘Do what you have to do.’
He stood unmoving for a long moment, his dark gaze unwavering.
‘Aren’t you going to punish me?’ she asked when he didn’t speak. ‘Or what about throwing me to the bed and reminding me just who is boss around here?’
Still he didn’t move or speak.
Anna could feel herself cracking under the strain. She hadn’t slept properly in days; her nerves were as tight as a drum and her head was pounding with the effort of keeping the tears at bay.
‘What are you, man or mouse?’ she went on recklessly. ‘Don’t you want to prove how big and mighty you are? I’ve been a bad, bad girl. Why don’t you…Why don’t you…’ She choked on a sob and dropped her head into her hands. ‘Why don’t you just get it over with?’
Lucio stepped towards her and, putting his hands on her shaking shoulders, pulled her towards him gently, one of his hands leaving her shoulder to rest on the back of her head.
‘You have an appalling view of my self-control, cara. I am angry—yes, but I realise you are not yourself this evening. What you need is a long soak in a hot bath and a long sleep in a soft bed.’
‘I wrecked your car,’ she gulped into his chest.
She felt his shrug against her cheek. ‘It is a car, it can be repaired.’
She eased herself away from the wall of his body to look up at him. ‘Why are you being so nice about this?’
‘Am I being nice?’
‘You know you are. I was expecting you to…’ Her words fell away in her embarrassment.
‘What did you expect me to do, Anna?’ he asked.
Her teeth captured her bottom lip momentarily. ‘I’m not sure…’
‘You have no need to be afraid of me. I would not hurt you physically to prove a point.’
‘You don’t have to, you do a good enough job emotionally,’ she said.
‘Meaning?’
Her eyes skittered away from his. ‘I find it hard to deal with your insults.’
‘You are amazingly fragile,’ he observed. ‘But I wonder why you insist on provoking me when you are so obviously not up to the task of fighting it out with me?’
‘I don’t want to fight with you. You’re the one who keeps derailing my self-respect with your constant harping on about the past.’
‘What do you want me to do, Anna?’ he asked roughly. ‘Forget all about it? Pretend it didn’t happen and play at happy families?’ He let her go and strode across the room, his hand going to the back of his neck in a rubbing motion as if he were trying to ease a persistent ache. ‘I envy your loss of memory,’ he continued. ‘I wish I didn’t have to see you lying there like that with the fingerprints of my brother all over you.’
Anna felt her stomach tighten with renewed anguish. His bitterness she knew she deserved but she wished she could find some way of erasing what had happened so they could make a fresh start.
‘Why are you insisting on marrying me if the sight of me disturbs you so much?’ she asked.
He turned back to face her, his expression taut. ‘You know why.’
Her stomach did a somersault at the glitter of desire she could see in his dark gaze. ‘You will soon tire of me, Lucio, and then what will we have? An empty marriage and a chasm of bitterness that will hurt both of us in the end.’
‘We will have children.’
‘Children who will be traumatised by our mutual dislike,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine how it would be, living with parents who snipe and snarl at each other all the time?’
‘Anna, you are looking for an escape route but I won’t give you one. We will be married next week no matter what arguments you throw up. Sammy needs a father and I cannot take you back to Rome as anything other than my wife.’
‘Why not? You’ve had mistresses before, surely one more wouldn’t hurt.’
‘My family now believes Sammy to be my son. I have responsibilities that have to be faced.’
‘You should have told them the truth.’
‘What?’ He frowned at her. ‘That you’d seduced Carlo and had his bastard child?’
She sucked in an angry breath. ‘Don’t you dare call Sammy a bastard!’
‘It’s an unfortunate term but nonetheless true. Sammy may not appear to need a father at this young age but he will need a much firmer hand than yours when he’s older.’
‘You don’t think I’m up to the task of being his parent?’
‘I did not say that.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘You cannot hope to give him the sort of life he deserves as a Ventressi. You have no way of providing for him; certainly not as a hotel cleaner or bar maid.’
‘I was working as a personal assistant to a corporate lawyer before I had Sammy,’ she said. ‘They kept the job open for me but I couldn’t cope with the long hours and the high cost of child care when Jenny wasn’t free. I had no choice but to let it go.’
‘You should have contacted me.’
She slapped her forehead in a now-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that? gesture. ‘For you to do what?’
‘I could have sent you money.’
‘With conditions attached, no doubt.’ The look she gave him was cynical.
‘I had thought of contacting you many times,’ he said.
She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Why?’
He gave one of his could-mean-anything shrugs. ‘I wanted to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake in letting you go.’
‘You obviously quickly overcame the impulse.’
‘I was shocked when I heard you had a child,’ he said, ignoring her sarcasm. ‘For a time I hoped…’
Anna’s chest felt tight with emotion at the regret in his tone.
‘But I soon assured myself I wasn’t responsible,’ he continued. ‘But then that left the problem of Carlo and whether he should be told. But before I could make up my mind he announced his engagement to Milana. It didn’t seem the right time to drop that particular bombshell and as time went on it was even less appropriate to do so.’
‘It’s never going to be appropriate, is it?’ she asked.
‘Not now, no. Carlo and Milana are so happy—it would be unforgivable to destroy what they have.’
‘So you are prepared to tie yourself into an unhappy union to protect him from the truth?’
‘I am prepared to do what it takes to give Sammy the heritage that is rightly his. He has a grandmother he hasn’t yet met and uncles and aunts and cousins. He has a right to know who his family is.’
‘What about my rights?’ she asked. ‘Do I have any in this arrangement?’
‘You will be well provided for and I will endeavour to be a compassionate husband.’
‘That is when you’re not angry with me.’
‘I am not always angry with you, cara.’
‘I see it in your eyes,’ she said. ‘You can hardly bear to look at me at times. Do you think I don’t see that?’
‘I am not angry with you now.’
‘No, but it wouldn’t take much to make you so.’
‘Perhaps not, but since there are no hammers in this room I think I can safely say I will not lose my temper.’
She turned away from his teasing smile and stomped back towards the bathroom. ‘I’m going to have a bath,’ she said and slammed the door behind her.
Lucio came back into the bedroom an hour later to find her curled up in the big bed, fast asleep with her still damp hair spread out along the pillow. He sighed and replaced the sheet she’d thrown off, tucking it around her gently, hardly daring to touch her in case his need for her escalated out of control. He had only to look at her to feel the blood surge to his lower body, the ache of desire almost too much to contain.
It annoyed him she had that effect on him, even after all this
time. He’d expected to take one look at her and walk away with no regrets but as soon as he’d seen the vulnerability in her blue gaze all his earlier resolve had melted.
Seeing her making his bed in the hotel suite had changed everything. He knew then he had to have her and he’d been ruthless in bringing about her capitulation even though he still felt some slight residue of guilt. But Sammy was a Ventressi and he could hardly stand by and do nothing. By marrying Anna so many problems would be solved, although it would create a few more…
Anna opened her eyes to find Lucio sitting on the edge of the bed, his dark, watchful gaze resting on her.
She brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes with a nervous movement of her hand and made to sit up.
‘No, stay there,’ he said, pressing her back down with one hand on her shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I was checking to see if you were all right.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘A drink or something?’
‘No…’ She ran her tongue over the parchment of her lips. ‘I’m not thirsty.’
‘Something to eat?’
She shook her head.
‘I’ll leave you in peace then.’ He made to get up but one of her hands reached out and caught his sleeve. He looked down at her with a questioning glance. ‘What do you want, Anna?’
She let her hand slide off his sleeve, her cheeks firing with heated colour.
He sat back down on the edge of the bed and turned her averted face back to his. ‘Anna? What is it?’
She caught her lip between her teeth and then, letting it go, took the plunge. ‘Why don’t you ever stay the whole night with me?’
His eyes held hers for a heart-stopping moment. ‘You want me to stay with you?’
‘I don’t like the way you…you use me and disappear.’
‘I do not use you, Anna.’
‘But you do disappear,’ she said.
‘I thought you wanted to rid yourself of my hateful presence?’
‘It’s not hateful all the time.’ She gave her sheet an agitated pluck with her fingers. ‘In fact, you can be surprisingly nice at times.’
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