‘How soon will you know if your grandfather is going to be out of immediate danger? I could stay in a hotel for a day or two...until I’ve made up my mind about the agreement.’ Would he allow her that much leeway? A day or two wasn’t much of a reprieve but she needed to keep as much distance from him as she could—while she still could.
His hand moved further along her scalp, the glide of his fingers sending her senses spinning and her willpower wilting like a daffodil in the desert. ‘Is it me you don’t trust or is it yourself?’ His voice was rich dark honey and gravel swirled together.
Ailsa could feel his body just inches away from hers, his tall frame like a powerful magnet, pulling her body, drawing it inexorably towards his. Her lips were suddenly so dry they felt like cardboard but she daren’t moisten them because she knew Vinn would read that as a signal that she wanted him to kiss her.
Damn it. She did want him to kiss her. Wanted. Wanted. Wanted. But no way was she going to let him know that. She would get her willpower back into line. Right here. Right now. She glanced at his mouth. Where the hell was her flipping willpower? Why did he have to have such a beautiful mouth? Sculptured and firm and yet the lower lip had a sensual fullness to it that her mouth, and other parts of her body, remembered with a frisson of excitement.
Ailsa raised her chin and locked her gaze with his. ‘You think I still want you?’ She affected a little laugh. ‘That ego of yours really is something, isn’t it? I feel nothing for you. A big fat nothing.’
His eyes darkened and a knowing smile lifted one corner of his mouth and his fingers shifted back to her nape to toy with the underside of her hair. A sensation shimmied down her spine like a warm flow of melted caramel, gathering in a hot whirlpool between her thighs. His gaze went to her mouth and back to her eyes and back again as if he were in the process of deciding whether to kiss her or not. Every nerve in her lips prepared itself—leaping and dancing and clapping their hands in anticipation. Every cell of her body vibrated with a hum of primal longing as needs she had ignored, suppressed or denied for the last two years came to throbbing life.
But then he suddenly moved away from her and a mask came down over his features like a curtain lowering on a stage. ‘Someone’s waiting for this car space. We’d better get moving.’
Ailsa had completely forgotten they were still in the hospital car park. But that was typical of being in Vinn’s company. She forgot stuff, like how he had only married her so he could tick the job of ‘finding a wife’ off his to-do list. She was a fool to think he still wanted her. Maybe he did physically, but that was a male thing. Men could separate the physical from the emotional far more easily than most women.
Vinn had never been emotionally connected with her. And she had been a fool to accept his proposal on those terms. He’d offered her marriage but she had a feeling that was only because she had been the first woman to resist him. He’d seen her as a challenge, a conquest, and putting a ring on her finger and having a big flashy society wedding had publicly broadcast his success in claiming her as his prize. Even if he hadn’t loved her at the start of their marriage, she had been happy with his desire for her. It had been enough because no one had ever made her feel that way before.
Wanted.
Needed.
As if she was irreplaceable.
But if she had been so irreplaceable, surely he would have fought a little harder to keep her? She’d been let go without a whisper of protest. Sure, he’d been a little difficult over the divorce proceedings, but that was because of the wording of the pre-nuptial agreement. The fact that he’d insisted on a pre-nup was another stark reminder of the sort of marriage they had. She had ignored it at the time, telling herself that of course a man with that sort of hard-earned wealth would want to make sure it was well protected. She had dutifully signed the document, pretending she was happy to do so while a tiny alarm bell tinkled in the back of her mind. She’d slammed the door on it, but now the door was swinging wide open and the alarm bell was clanging with a warning.
Be careful.
CHAPTER THREE
VINN DROVE OUT of the hospital car park with his gut clenched around brutal balls of barbed wire. He would have stayed on the ward until his grandfather was out of surgery but he knew it would be many hours, and then even more, before Nonno was out of Recovery.
If he ever got out of Recovery.
He hated hospitals. Hospitals were places people you cared about went in and never came out. He had been young when his mother had come into hospital for routine surgery—four years old—but he’d been old enough to realise something was horribly wrong when the doctor came out to speak to his father. The look on his father’s face was something he would never forget. But his father had lied to him, pretended everything was fine and that Mamma was coming home when she got better. It was the first of many lies his father had told him over the next few days, until his grandparents had stepped in and insisted he be told the truth.
Where would Vinn be without his grandfather? Nonno had been there for him through thick and thin and each and every one of his father’s sins. He had stalwartly stood by Vinn, refusing to allow the shame of his father’s behaviour to leave a stain on him.
And then when his father died, two days after Ailsa left, and the distraught family of those poor innocent victims had been baying for blood, Nonno had been steady and supportive, even though his grief at losing his only son must have been devastating. Vinn had mechanically organised his father’s funeral and gave a short but respectful eulogy, but he’d done all of it like an automaton. He couldn’t remember feeling anything during that time. He’d been blank. Like his motherboard had frozen. People had come up to him at the funeral expressing their condolences and casting their questioning gazes around for Ailsa. He’d made up some excuse for her absence, fully believing at that time she would be back.
But, in a way, his father’s death had been a good distraction from Ailsa walking out on him. It meant weeks, almost a month, had passed before he had to face the fact she wasn’t coming back. He had assumed she would call him in a couple of days or text him, telling him she didn’t mean it, that she was sorry and could they make up. She had often blown off steam like that and, once she got over her little temper tantrum, everything would return to normal.
But it hadn’t returned to normal because she hadn’t returned.
There had been no phone calls.
No text messages.
Vinn hadn’t called her to inform her about his father’s death. But then, why would he? She hadn’t met his father and even Vinn rarely had much contact with him during their brief marriage. He’d assumed she’d find out from the press coverage, because there had been plenty of that at the time. Although the London tabloids didn’t always carry what the Italian ones carried, which was a good thing as far as Vinn was concerned. The less the rest of the world knew about his father’s shady dealings and the misery he’d inflicted on others the better.
But none of that mattered now because Ailsa was back and Vinn was going to make sure that when she left the second time around it would be on his terms not hers. He would get her to sign the agreement if it was the last thing he did.
* * *
Ailsa was expecting Vinn to take her to a hotel, but when he took the road that led to his villa in the upmarket district of Magenta she sent him a questioning look, her insides fluttering and flopping with panic...or maybe it wasn’t panic. Maybe it was a feeling of excitement, but she refused to acknowledge it. She had no right getting excited around Vinn. That part of their relationship was over. Dead and buried over. ‘I said I’ll stay in a hotel, not with you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. What will the press make of that if they see you staying at a hotel now our reconciliation has been announced?’ he said. ‘It might get back to Nonno. You’ll stay with me. It’s the most sensible thing to do.’
Sensible?
Nothing about being in the same country—the same geological era—with Vinn was sensible—never mind being alone with him in his villa. Not that they would be truly alone since he had a housekeeper and two gardeners. Ailsa had grown up with comfortable wealth—not rich, not poor but somewhere in between. But nothing had prepared her for the wealth Vinn had accumulated.
One of the things she’d enjoyed most about their brief months of marriage was how he’d let her decorate his villa. It had been her project—one of the biggest she’d done—and she’d relished the opportunity to bring the grand old beauty into full glory. Of course, she’d had to deal with the interference of Vinn’s grumpy old housekeeper Carlotta, who’d always seemed to take issue with Ailsa over each and every change she’d wanted to bring about. But in the end Ailsa had ignored the old woman’s comments and asides and got on with the job. It was her proudest achievement and, while she’d since removed the photos from her website, barely a day went past when she didn’t think of the love and hard work she had poured into that beautiful old building.
Had Vinn changed it? Had he stripped every room of her influence? Purged the villa of her? Taken away every trace of her presence in his life? The thought of him undoing all of her work squeezed at her chest like a giant claw.
But then she remembered the one room that had triggered the final breakdown of their relationship.
The room that Vinn thought would make a great nursery. At first she’d thought he was joking, but day after day he kept bringing up the subject to the point where she would childishly plug her ears and walk away. She had planned to decorate the room as a guestroom with en suite bathroom and a lovely reading area near the windows overlooking the garden below. In the end she had left the room untouched.
She had closed the door on it and on their marriage.
‘Same old Vinn,’ Ailsa said, shooting him a murderous glare. ‘Ordering me about as if I’m a child. But aren’t you forgetting something? I haven’t signed up for this. I’m only here for a day or two, max.’
He released a slow breath as if trying to remain patient. ‘Can we just get through the next twenty-four hours without the verbal fisticuffs? I’m not in the mood for it.’
Ailsa remained silent until he pulled up outside the villa. Her chest was tight and her breathing shallow when he helped her out of the car and led her towards the front door. So many memories assailed her. He’d carried her over the threshold the day they returned from their honeymoon. Memories of making love in each room of the house in those first blissfully happy months. Kissing in doorways. Touching, wanting. This house was where they had their first argument...and their last.
Vinn opened the front door and silently gestured for her to enter. Ailsa stepped past him, breathing in the scent of him—the lemon and lime top notes of his aftershave with the base notes of something woodsy, reminding her of a deep, dark secluded forest.
She stepped into the hallway and it was like stepping back in time. Nothing had changed. The colours she had chosen, the furniture and fittings and little touches she had placed about were still there. Was every room still the same?
Ailsa swung her gaze back to his. ‘I thought you would’ve gutted the place after I left. You know, got rid of my handiwork.’
He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t be bothered, to be frank.’
‘Are all the rooms still the same?’
‘Why wouldn’t they be?’ His expression was hard to read. ‘I spent a fortune having it redecorated. I wasn’t going to let the walk-out of my wife make me waste even more of my money.’
Ailsa could feel herself bristling like a cornered cat. ‘I thought it was our money. We were married, for God’s sake. Anyway, I spent a lot of my own money on this house because, unlike you, I don’t have a problem with sharing.’
His eyes became hard, as if they had been coated with an impermeable sheen. ‘I wasn’t the one who forgot we were married, Ailsa. That was you.’
She blew out a whooshing breath, anger flooding her like a tide. ‘Why is everything always my fault? What about your role in this? You shifted the goalposts, just like you did today. You overrode my opinions as if I hadn’t spoken. You tried to force me to sign that stupid agreement and then you brought me here even though I expressly told you I wanted to go to a hotel. You don’t listen, Vinn. You never have. You just do what you damn well want and to hell with anyone else’s wishes. That’s not how a marriage is supposed to work.’
His features had a boxed-up look about them, as if he was retreating inside himself. Or maybe it was more a case of him locking her out. ‘I told you my reasons for bringing you here.’
‘Yes, but we didn’t discuss it first,’ Ailsa said. ‘You just got behind the wheel of your car and drove here, not once asking if it was okay with me.’
He rolled his eyes in a God-give-me-patience manner. ‘Okay. We’ll discuss it now.’ He folded his arms and planted his feet as if he was settling in for a century or two. ‘Talk to me. Tell me why you want to stay in a hotel.’
Because I don’t trust myself around you. Because you’re still the sexiest man I’ve ever met and I can barely keep my hands off you. Ailsa kept her expression masked. ‘I prefer my own space. I’ve got used to it after the last twenty-two months.’
His gaze studied hers as if he was seeing through the lie like a detective saw through a false alibi. Then his gaze went to her mouth and something molten-hot spilled in her belly. ‘Really.’ He didn’t say it as a question but in a tone that was faintly mocking.
Ailsa fussed with a loose strand of her hair, securing it back behind her ear for something to do with her hands in case they took it upon themselves to reach for him. A possibility that terrified her as much as it tempted her. Why was she so...so weak around him? It was like her body had no connection with her mind. It was running on autopilot and no amount of self-discipline or self-control had any impact.
‘Yes. Really,’ she said. ‘I haven’t missed you at all. Not a bit. In fact, on the contrary, I—hey, what are you doing?’
Vinn suddenly placed his hands on her hips, drawing her close enough for their lower bodies to touch pelvis-to-pelvis, heat-to-heat. Male to female. His eyes locked on hers, the slow burn of his gaze unravelling something tightly knotted in her body. ‘You’ve always been a terrible liar.’ One of his hands came up to cradle her face, his thumb moving over her cheek in a lazy caress that sent a frisson of electric awareness through her body. If her self-control had been in serious trouble before, now it was on life support. Nothing could have made her move away even though his hold was light.
No one had held her for the last twenty-two months.
No one.
Her skin craved human touch. She ached to be crushed to his body, to feel his warm male skin pressed to hers—to feel his mouth come crashing down to hers with its hot erotic promise. She fought the desire to close her eyes and lean into the hard heat of his tempting body. Need pulsed and pounded in each and every cell of her body, making her aware of every inch of her flesh. Flesh he had touched and teased and tantalised with such thrilling expertise in the past.
‘I’m n-not lying.’ Ailsa was ashamed her voice betrayed her with its wobble and whisper-softness.
Vinn’s half smile switched off the ventilator on her self-control. His fingers splayed through her hair and his mouth came down to within a breath of hers, the sexy mingle of their breaths a heart-stopping reminder of other intimacies they’d shared. Intimacies she craved like an addict did a drug they had long been denied. Vinn was exactly like a drug—potent and powerful and with the unnerving ability to totally consume her.
Ailsa knew she should push him away. Knew it in her mind but her body was offline—it wasn’t even in the same Wi-Fi zone. She even got as far as placing her hands on his chest but, instead of pushing, they fisted the front of his shirt until the buttons strained against their buttonholes.
‘You t
hink I still want you?’ she said in a tone that was meant to be scornful but somehow sounded exactly like the cover-up it was.
His gaze flicked to her mouth and back again to her eyes, the pad of his thumb moving against her lower lip in a soft-as-a-puff-of-air motion. ‘You want me. I want you. Some things never change.’
Ailsa frowned. ‘But you told me before you didn’t want to sleep with me. You said our reconciliation would be a hands-off arrangement—or words to that effect.’
He gave a lip shrug as if the prospect of sleeping with her was not much of an issue. Not for him maybe, but for her it was The Issue. ‘Why not make the most of what’s still between us?’
‘There’s nothing still between us.’ Ailsa tried to pull away but his hold subtly tightened...and a part of her—a part she didn’t want to believe existed any more—clapped its hands in glee and cried, He still wants you!
Vinn’s thumb gently pressed down on the middle of her lower lip—the most sensitive spot where thousands of nerves were already firing off in anticipation for the pressure of his mouth. ‘Are you sure about that, cara?’
Ailsa knew she had to resist him. She had to stop him kissing her. If he kissed her she was not going to be able to control herself. When had she ever been able to control herself when his mouth connected with hers? But with the tantalising presence of his thumb on her lips, she suddenly found herself parting them and tasting his salty skin with the tip of her tongue as if the connection between her rational brain and her body had been sabotaged. A bomb of lust exploded in his bottomless black gaze. The same explosion went off in her own body, sending flaming-hot darts of longing to sizzle in her core.
One corner of his mouth came up in a sexy slant. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’ His deep voice was a silky caress in places that hadn’t been caressed in so long Ailsa had almost forgotten what it was to be a woman. Almost.
She knew it was a mistake to moisten her mouth, but there was nothing she could do to stop her tongue sweeping over her lower lip where his thumb had rested. She kept her gaze locked on his. Not that she could have looked away if she’d tried. ‘Why not?’
Blackmailed into the Marriage Bed Page 5