by Lynne Graham
‘As you reminded me,’ Maya murmured stiffly, ‘I picked this option.’
‘We will both adapt to this, to us as a couple,’ Raffaele pronounced with assurance. ‘That you want me as much as I want you gives us a solid foundation.’
‘Your idea of a foundation and mine are as far apart as the polar ice caps,’ Maya fielded tightly, wishing that she could deny what he said but remembering that kiss with an inner shudder, that kiss that had taught her that she was utterly naïve when it came to sensual temptation. But what was the point in beating herself up about it when she should be grateful for that attraction with a wedding night lying ahead of them?
Her stomach began churning again and the first thing she did when they arrived back at the house, where a reception was being staged, was reach for a glass of champagne being proffered by a uniformed waiter.
Why was she so nervous about sex? Was it only that she didn’t love Raffaele? Was it that she knew the first time might very likely hurt to some degree? Or was it simply that Raffaele was already making her feel far more than she was comfortable feeling for him? Her emotions were getting involved: he fascinated her.
The truth of that admission slivered through her like a threat because his attraction for her wasn’t solely physical. No, the source of that deeper attraction lay in the seeming conflicts she sensed within him. On the surface, Raffaele was cool, logical and ruthless but deep down, where it didn’t show to the outside world, Raffaele was actually intense and volatile and highly intelligent, capable of being unexpectedly sensitive to her wants and needs.
That was the man who had searched out her dream wedding gown and who had invited her long-lost Italian grandparents to attend their wedding to foster a family reunion for her benefit. There had also been the jewellery he had given her to replace items he had admitted would only resurrect bad memories for him. All those actions were very personal and specific and the very opposite of what she had expected from him.
‘I thought you didn’t touch alcohol,’ Raffaele commented.
‘A wedding should be an exception to any rule like that,’ Maya fibbed, determined not to admit that she was so feeble that the alcohol was easing her nervous tension and relaxing her. Dutch courage, she had heard it called—well, today she needed it, lest somewhere in her mind she found that dangerous sexual attraction combining with deeper feelings of a more personalised nature. No, she wasn’t foolish enough to make that mistake with the bridegroom.
She had noticed the effect Raffaele had on women, even in the church. Eyes trailing acquisitively over him and lingering before looking enviously at her, a feminine hunger that she recognised now that she had experienced it for herself. But Raffaele wasn’t hers and never would be. He wanted the right to buy a giant technology company and she, as well as the child she might conceive, were the price. And that was all he wanted. Maya wasn’t going to be the idiot who forgot that salient fact for a second.
In the aftermath of the luxury buffet, Raffaele swept her out onto the dance floor and she thought once again about how shockingly fast her life had changed. She had married a man who owned a home large enough to provide a fancy pillared party room with a dance floor. How weird was that?
His hand splayed across her hip as he steered her round the floor and she could feel him, lean and powerful, fingers lifting to her spine to feather against bare skin that had never felt more naked. It was a revelation that that little keyhole of unadorned skin above her waist could be that sensitive and she shivered, still fighting that response to a man she barely knew.
Raffaele tensed as once again his bride moved out of contact. It was as if she didn’t want him when he knew she did. That desire was there in her eyes whenever she looked at him. Why did she then back away? His hand lifted from her shoulder and his fingers splayed to lace into the wondrous fall of her pale fair hair, tipping her head back, lifting her face to his. He collided with distrustful green eyes fresh as ferns and before he had even thought about it he was crushing that ripe pink mouth under his, plundering it with raw fervour.
Maya reacted to the burn of his sensual mouth on hers, setting her on fire in places she didn’t want to think about but, even so, she was achingly aware of the tautness of her nipples and the yawning ache between her slender thighs. Closing him out didn’t work—he burned through her defences like a blowtorch, she conceded grudgingly. Embrace that, her brain urged her; fight it, her instincts protested.
‘I want a drink,’ she told him, angling her head back, stepping away.
‘You’re driving me crazy. Is that the point?’ Raffaele pressed with a ragged edge to his dark deep accented drawl, dark caramel eyes shimmering like gold lighting the shadows.
Maya was feeling dizzy, hazy.
Raffaele stared down at her dilated pupils and murmured, ‘I think a drink is the last thing you need. Time for us to leave.’
‘Leave?’ she exclaimed in astonishment.
‘We’re leaving on my yacht, Manzini One.’
Manzini One? Self-important, much? Her tummy shimmied at the prospect of the sea and she breathed in deep and slow. ‘I feel dizzy.’
‘Of course, you do. You’re drunk,’ Raffaele pronounced, suddenly cool and judgemental in tone.
‘I’m not!’ Maya protested fiercely.
And she was still arguing the toss all the way through the polite goodbyes to their guests and into the helicopter, when silence fell because it demanded too much effort to talk over the noise of the rotor blades and, besides, she was beginning to feel a little bit queasy.
Unasked, Raffaele scooped her out of the helicopter and carried her down a wooden dock in silence.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded sharply.
‘What I have to do,’ Raffaele parried grimly.
Maya groaned. ‘I didn’t intend to drink so much.’
‘It’s our wedding night,’ Raffaele reminded her unnecessarily. ‘This is not a good start. But when you said you didn’t drink, was that a warning that you shouldn’t drink?’
‘No, this is my very first time ever intoxicated,’ Maya told him with precision. ‘Take that as you will.’
‘Not a compliment.’
‘Wasn’t intended to be.’
‘Was the idea of sex with me that offensive?’ Raffaele growled in apparent disbelief.
‘I know that you want me to say that it wasn’t but the way I think, it would be wrong,’ she framed apologetically.
‘You’re my bride! This is our wedding night,’ Raffaele countered with startling ferocity.
‘But you feel like a stranger,’ his bride admitted in colloquial Italian before she passed out.
CHAPTER FIVE
MAYA WAKENED WITH a groan, tormented by the waking nightmare of the night she had passed.
Dawn light illuminated surroundings that were still only vaguely familiar. A big room, a glimpse of the sea through a window, a slight rolling gait in tune with the swell of the sea something else to be regretted alongside the amount of alcohol she had imbibed the day before. She scrambled out of bed, her head aching and still swimming, shame almost choking her. But the mortification of her splintered shards of memory was indescribably worse...
She recalled floundering like a landed fish on top of a pale marble floor and wanting to die, literally die. Worst of all, she recalled throwing up in that bathroom with Raffaele tugging her hair out of the way. She recalled Raffaele tucking her into bed, trying to get tea down her, failing because her stomach wasn’t up to anything but water and even drinking that had been a challenge, she remembered with a shudder. Raffaele had looked after her; she remembered in shock that he had bothered, that he hadn’t just stuck her in a yacht cabin to be sick without him as an audience. What did it say about her that she dearly wished he had simply abandoned her to her sufferings?
* * *
Sal was out on deck at dawn havin
g a cigarette when Raffaele emerged from the couple of hours of sleep he had snatched and stepped onto the terrace with a cup of black coffee in his hand.
‘So?’ Sal challenged, smooth as glass. ‘Marriage not quite what you expected?’
Raffaele breathed in deep and slow and strove to resist rising to the bait, but the temptation was too great. ‘I thought she had more sense.’
‘You blackmailed her... I can’t imagine why she would be so sensitive,’ Sal murmured softly.
Raffaele clenched his teeth together and said nothing at all, waiting until the older man went back inside before making the same move.
Maya emerged from the bathroom, every inch of her washed and shampooed and freshened, her slender body clad in denim shorts and tee shirt, but nothing could take the awful memories away. Her head was still sore. She winced as the cabin door opened. Cabin, she repeated ruefully to herself, for such an ordinary word in no way described the shining expanse of the wooden floor, the opulent upholstery, the glorious built-in furniture or the patio doors that led out onto a private terrace that was also splendidly equipped. When she glanced up to see who had entered and saw Raffaele carrying a tray, her knees gave way and she dropped down on the side of the bed sooner than look him in the eye.
‘Feeling pretty rough?’ Raffaele murmured flatly.
‘Let’s be frank... I deserve it,’ Maya muttered. ‘I can only say sorry—there’s not much else I can say.’
Raffaele extended a glass of water to her. ‘Painkillers,’ he proffered, dropping a couple on her lap. ‘No need to suffer if you don’t need to.’
Maya snatched in a steadying breath and took the pills, imbibing the water slowly, still terrified that she would start feeling ill again. Mercifully that phase of her recovery seemed to be over. ‘I don’t usually do stuff like this,’ she sighed.
A table settled in front of her and a tray appeared on it. ‘Eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘The food will help. Eat,’ Raffaele repeated insistently. ‘You speak Italian,’ he added, switching languages. ‘You didn’t mention it.’
‘It didn’t seem important. You’re happy speaking English.’
‘But more at home with Spanish or Italian,’ Raffaele told her gently.
Maya buttered a piece of toast and ate the egg on offer. She poured the tea, passing him a cup and saucer as he crouched down in front of her, cruelly enforcing eye contact.
And it was cruel, she reflected numbly, because in the daylight flooding through the windows they were wickedly beautiful eyes the colour of caramel or melted honey.
‘If that wasn’t the norm for you, I need to know why,’ Raffaele murmured almost softly, as though he was trying to be persuasive or, at the very least, non-threatening.
Maya swallowed her tea. ‘It’s just the whole situation,’ she mused ruefully. ‘I let it get to me. I won’t let that happen again.’
‘You didn’t want to share a bed with me last night... I assume,’ Raffaele continued lazily. ‘Yet I believed you were attracted to me.’
Maya could feel her face starting to blossom in a dreadful slow-burning blush. ‘I was...er... I am,’ she admitted tightly, feeling that he deserved that much truth from her.
‘So, what was the problem?’ Raffaele enquired levelly as he set the tea down that she had handed him untouched.
Maya sipped her tea and stared down into it as if it might provide her with a miraculous rescue from the dialogue. ‘I’m not very experienced.’
‘Not a problem for me.’
‘Actually, not experienced at all,’ Maya confided thinly, resenting the need to invade her own privacy, but still feeling that she owed him an explanation for her less than adult behaviour.
Without warning, Raffaele vaulted upright again and moved out of view, utterly astonished by her admission but trying to hide the fact from her. ‘Again,’ he breathed a little gruffly, ‘not a problem... I assume.’
‘You...assume?’ Maya prompted in surprise, glancing across the cabin at him, studying his long, straight, shirt-clad back as he gazed out through the sliding doors onto the terrace.
Raffaele swung fluidly around, dark deep-set eyes settling on her with sudden intensity. ‘I’d be a liar if I told you I’d been a woman’s first before. I think that the more honest we are with each other, the easier this marriage will be for both of us.’
‘I agree with that,’ Maya framed round an enormous yawn, her virtually sleepless night catching up with her even as much of her earlier awkwardness with him drained away and somehow without her noticing. ‘But, you know, I’m not a child. I wasn’t freaking out about the sex as much as...as...what are you doing?’ she gasped.
Seeing that yawn, Raffaele had begun moving towards her even while she was speaking and, removing the cup from her hand, he set it down and bent to lift her off the side of the bed and then immediately lower her back down with her head on the pillows. ‘You need more sleep,’ he told her. ‘I’m shattered too.’
Maya watched him toe off his canvas shoes and throw himself down on the other side of the bed with wide anxious eyes.
‘I didn’t get much sleep last night either,’ Raffaele pointed out. ‘I’ll keep my clothes on though, since I suppose anything else would freak you out.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ Maya mumbled, her face reddening. ‘I don’t mind if you get undressed.’
He unbuttoned his shirt and sighed, stretching out his long, lean, powerful frame. ‘I don’t think I can be bothered.’
Maya lifted her head and looked down at him, the curling black lashes resting on his high cheekbones in a flawless masculine face. The shirt lay open now, revealing a long bronzed slice of muscular torso. ‘Take the shirt and the jeans off or you’ll be uncomfortable,’ she instructed drily.
Raffaele’s eyes flew open again and a sudden grin slashed his wide perfect mouth and stole away the darkness that often edged his strong features. ‘Only if you have the guts to match me.’
Impatience gripping her, Maya peeled off her tee and wriggled free of her shorts, pushing them off the bed. She had forgotten that she wasn’t wearing a bra and, flustered by the knowledge that she had bared her breasts for his benefit, she wrenched the sheet back on the bed and scrambled beneath it to close her eyes, acknowledging that she truly felt as if she could sleep for a week.
For a split second as he took in that view of her pale pert breasts, Raffaele had frozen halfway out of his shirt but, gritting his teeth, he shed the shirt in a heap and embarked on his jeans.
‘I’m afraid I’m going commando,’ he warned her.
‘I’m not looking...couldn’t care less.’
‘Maybe I want you to want to look—maybe my male ego is squashed by this amount of disinterest,’ Raffaele murmured with sibilant bite.
‘A twenty-ton weight couldn’t squash your ego,’ Maya mumbled soothingly, sliding a hand below a pillow and tucking her cheek gratefully into its soft support because he was correct: she had never felt so tired in her life. It was as if all the stresses, all the fears and worries that had dogged her over the past weeks had all homed in on her at once and she was exhausted, mentally and physically.
‘You’re doing a very good job all on your own.’ Raffaele listened to the soft sound of her breathing ease into a regular rhythm while tension kept his own tiredness at bay.
When had he last been with a woman who didn’t want anything from him? He couldn’t remember. It had started so far back in his life with his mother’s incomprehensible demands. If it wasn’t attention a woman wanted from him, it was sex or money or the desire to show him off like a trophy in public. That knowledge had forged an iron barrier inside Raffaele and for the first time Maya was making him realise that it wasn’t that he was unfeeling, it wasn’t that he didn’t have emotions, it was that he had walled them up behind that barrier. Every time h
e had seen someone reveal humanity’s worst traits of cruelty and greed, he had felt justified in his outlook, and it had never occurred to him until that moment that he would one day be cruel and greedy too and visit those ugly qualities on the woman he had trapped into marrying him.
No, he hadn’t blackmailed her, he hadn’t forced her in any way, he rationalised with confidence. Facts were facts: Maya had made her own choice when she decided to save her parents from their mistakes and had paid with her freedom. But it was also fact that he didn’t need the Parisi technology company to survive and that he had pushed her into their current predicament simply because he was bored and in search of a fresh business challenge. He wasn’t, he decided, a good enough person to decide that he regretted what he had done: he didn’t. But he was also burning to possess Maya with a hunger that was deeply unfamiliar to him, in spite of his rich, varied past experience of women.
Because she was a challenge? Because she didn’t seem to want him as much as he wanted her to want him? Was he really that shallow, that arrogant?
Or was it because she had some strange unidentifiable quality that revved his libido? Was sex really that important to him? He would’ve claimed it wasn’t. After all, it had been weeks since he had last had sex, because sex had become as lacklustre as everything else in his life. At least, he could be grateful to Maya for returning him to the sexual land of the living, he conceded grimly, amused by the tent in the sheet over his hips. His handsome mouth quirked as she burrowed her hips into his thigh with a sleepy murmur. With care, he gently pushed her back from him because he didn’t need the temptation and he didn’t do affection. Loving or even highly valuing anyone or anything in his life was too risky, too dangerous, as he had learned at a very early age.
* * *
Maya wakened slowly to a room that had been plunged into the warm peach and golden shadows of the afternoon. Checking her watch, she saw that she had slept several hours away and she was about to sit up when the bathroom door opened and Raffaele stalked out stark naked, a towel still in one hand as he dried his wet black hair, leaving it tousled and damp and spiky.