Vinn brought one of his hands to the front of her silky blouse, where her breasts were already aching for his touch. He skated his hands over her shape without undoing the buttons and her flesh leapt and peaked at the promise of more of his touch. He tugged her blouse out of her skirt with an almost ruthless disregard for the price she’d paid for it. He slid his hands up her ribcage to just below her breasts, the slightly calloused pads of his fingers sending her into a paroxysm of pleasure.
His mouth continued its magic on hers, drawing from it a response that was just as feverish as his. Their tongues duelled and tangoed in a sexy combat that triggered a tug and release sensation between her thighs. He reached behind her back and deftly unclipped her bra, freeing her breasts to the caress of his hands. Delight rippled through her as he took possession of each breast in his hands, his thumb pads rolling over the budded nipples until she was breathless with need. He brought his mouth down to one breast, licking and stroking her areola with his tongue, sending her senses into raptures before he did the same to the other breast. His stubbly jaw abraded her tender flesh but she welcomed the rough caress, relishing the marks he would no doubt leave on her skin because it would prove that they were really doing this and it wasn’t just her imagination playing tricks on her.
‘I want you.’ His admission was delivered with gruff urgency that made her blood pound all the harder.
Ailsa was beyond speech and began to work at his clothes, not caring that buttons were being popped. She had to get her hands on his body. She had to get her mouth on his hot skin. She had to get her desperate, unbearable desire for him sated.
A phone began to ring but she ignored it, too intent on freeing Vinn’s belt from his trousers. But then his hand came down and stalled her, and he reached past her to pick up his phone off his desk. ‘Vinn Gagliardi.’
Even the way he said his own name made Ailsa want to swoon, especially with his desire-roughened voice making it sound all the more sexy. He continued the conversation in Italian and she gestured to him to see if it was news from the hospital but he simply shook his head and mouthed the word ‘work’ and turned slightly away to complete the call.
It made her feel shut out. Put aside. Put on pause, just like all the times in the past when his work took priority. Just like last night. Just like it would always be because she wasn’t anything to him other than someone to have sex with when he wanted.
Ailsa did up her bra and tucked her blouse back into her skirt and finger-combed her hair into some semblance of order. She would have excused a call from the hospital, but a work-related call was a stinging reminder of where she stood on his list of priorities. She was a plaything, something he picked up and put down when it suited him. Hadn’t it always been that way? She had fooled herself he would one day see her as more than a trophy wife. But he could have married anyone. She was nothing special and never had been.
Ailsa mouthed at him she would be waiting for him upstairs, feeling a glimmer of triumph when she saw the anticipatory gleam in his gaze. But she wasn’t going to be upstairs waiting for him like the old days. She was going to leave while she still had the willpower and the sense to do so.
CHAPTER FIVE
AILSA SLIPPED OUT of the villa and once she’d walked a short distance she hailed a cab. ‘The airport, thank you,’ she said to the driver. She sat back against the seat and rummaged in her tote bag for her phone and her passport. She planned to book a flight on her phone on the way to the airport but when she looked at her screen she saw it was almost out of battery. Why hadn’t she thought to charge it? Never mind. At least if she turned it off Vinn wouldn’t be able to call her. She knew she should really be calling Isaac to explain and/or apologise about the bitter disappointment he was in for, but she couldn’t face it just yet. She had to get a flight booked, which she would have to do once she got to the airport.
She dug deeper in her bag for her passport but she couldn’t find it. She upended the bag and its contents spilled out onto the back seat of the taxi. She wanted to scream. She wanted to scream and pummel the seat until the stuffing came out. How could Vinn do this to her? It was virtually kidnap. He’d taken her passport. He’d actually taken it out of her bag without her permission. She had always known him to be ruthless but this was getting ridiculous. Why was he so determined to make her stay with him? Was it just about his grandfather? Or was this about revenge?
‘Is everything all right?’ the driver asked.
Ailsa pasted a frozen smile on her face. ‘Erm, I’ve changed my mind. I think I’ll go to a hotel in the city instead.’ She rattled off the first name she could think of, where she and Vinn had once had a drink after seeing a show. She would have no choice but to go back to his villa to demand he give back her passport but she wasn’t going back until the morning. She wanted him to spend a sleepless night—like she had last night—worrying about where the hell she was.
It would serve him damn well right.
* * *
Vinn had only just got his work colleague off the phone when his phone rang again. His heart jumped when he saw it was the hospital calling. He’d spent the night before at the hospital, sitting in the waiting room, wanting to be on site when his grandfather came out of Theatre. But there had been a complication with the surgery and the operation had gone on well into the night. He had finally left the hospital after speaking to the surgeon, once his grandfather was transferred to Recovery, but he knew it was still way too early to be confident his grandfather was out of danger.
He mentally prepared himself for the worst this phone call might bring. His skin prickled from the top of his scalp to the soles of his feet, dread chugging through his veins at the anticipation of bad news. ‘Vinn Gagliardi.’
‘Signore Gagliardi, your grandfather is doing as well as can be expected and is now out of Recovery and in ICU. It’s still early days but he’s stable at the moment. We’ll call you as soon as there is any change.’
‘Grazie.’ For a moment it was the only word Vinn could get past the sudden constriction in his throat. Emotions he hadn’t visited since he was four years old were banked up there until he could scarcely draw a breath. ‘Can I see him?’
‘Best to leave it until tomorrow or even the day after,’ the doctor said. ‘He looks worse than he is and he won’t know if you’re there or not. We’re keeping him on a ventilator for a couple of days to get him through the worst of it.’
Vinn put the phone down once the doctor had rung off. Things had changed a lot from thirty years ago, when relatives were often shielded from the truth out of a misguided sense of compassion. He wanted to know all there was to know about his grandfather’s condition. He didn’t want to be left in the dark like he had been as a child, expecting his mother to come home, excited at the thought of seeing her again, only to find out she was lying dead and cold in the morgue. Nothing could have prepared him for the shock and heartache, but he still believed if he’d been told earlier he would have handled it better. He hadn’t even been given the chance to say goodbye to his mother. He hadn’t been allowed to even see her. For years, too many torturous years, he had fooled himself into believing she wasn’t actually dead. That she had simply gone away and would one day walk back in the door and reach for him with one of her enveloping perfume-scented hugs.
But of course she hadn’t come back. His childish mind had struggled to cope with the enormous loss the only way it could by conjuring up an explanation that was far more palatable than a young mother in her prime going into hospital for routine surgery only to die five days later from complications.
Vinn gave himself a mental shake. He hated thinking about his childhood. The loneliness of it. The sheer agony of it. The sickening realisation that at four years old he was without a reliable parent. His father had never been an involved father so Vinn couldn’t excuse him on the basis of his grief. His father had grieved, certainly. But, within a month of
the funeral, he had a new mistress, one of many who came and went over the years. Vinn had learned not to show his disapproval or his own ongoing grief for his mother. He’d buried it deep inside, locked it away with all his feelings and vulnerabilities because it was the only way he could cope. His grandfather and grandmother had understood, however. They’d never pressed him to talk about it but he knew they were conscious of his deep inner sadness and made every attempt to make up for his father’s shortcomings by always being there as a solid, secure and steady influence in his life.
Vinn was suddenly conscious of the quietness of his villa. Had Ailsa given up on him joining her? He hadn’t intended being away as long as he had the night before but he hadn’t been able to tear himself away from the hospital until he’d spoken to the surgeon in person. Was she still angry with him for leaving her so long? Wasn’t her anger another sign she wanted him as much as he wanted her? He had been longer on the phone than he’d expected. Some smoking-hot sex with her was just what he needed to make himself forget the tragedy of the past. He smiled to himself, picturing her waiting for him, naked in the bed they had once shared. His body thickened at the thought of her silken golden limbs wrapping around him.
He took the stairs two at a time, anticipation making his heart race. But when he opened the master bedroom door, the bed and the room were empty. He swung to the en suite bathroom but it too was empty. He went through each of the spare rooms on that floor, wondering if she had chosen to wait for him in another room.
He went to the spare bedroom furthest from his that she’d apparently slept in the night before and that was when he saw her passport lying almost out of sight next to the bed. Had she dropped it and inadvertently kicked it further out of sight? He picked it up and flicked through the pages. She had been to Italy four times since their separation, but then he already knew that because he had sent her clients to make sure she came back. He’d liked the thought of her returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak. To remind her of everything she had thrown away by walking out on him.
Vinn slipped the passport into his pocket and took out his phone to call her. If she were still in the villa at least he would hear it ringing. He didn’t hear it and within seconds it went through to the message service. Before he could think what to do next a text message came through, but it wasn’t from Ailsa. It was from an acquaintance of his who owned a luxury hotel in the centre of Milan, informing him that Ailsa had just checked in for the night. Nico Di Sante had heard the news of their reconciliation in the press the day before and wondered if anything was amiss. Vinn quickly replied, telling him everything was fine and that he would be joining Ailsa shortly, but to keep it a secret as he wanted to surprise her because she thought he was still caught up with work.
Vinn wanted to do more than surprise her. He was going to put the wedding and engagement rings she’d left behind two years ago back on her finger and that was where they would stay until he gave her permission to remove them. She knew the terms. If she didn’t sign the agreement her brother’s golfing career would be over before it began. He wouldn’t sabotage her brother’s career as he’d threatened. The boy deserved a chance even if Vinn wouldn’t end up being the one to give it to him. Isaac was typical of other lads his age, dreaming of the big time without putting in the hard yards. He liked the boy and thought he had genuine potential but there was no way Vinn was going to get screwed around by Ailsa. Not again. Had he misjudged her love for her brother? Did she hate him more than she loved Isaac?
He didn’t care if she hated him or not. A bit of hate never got in the way of good sex. As far as he was concerned, the more hate the better.
And right now he was damn near boiling with it.
* * *
Ailsa lay back in the luxury hotel bath that was as big as a swimming pool and sipped the complimentary champagne that had been delivered to the door a short time ago. It was a frightfully expensive show of defiance. She had never paid so much for a night’s accommodation before but she figured it was worth it for one night of freedom before Vinn made her toe the line. Because, of course, she would have to do as he commanded.
Commanded, not asked. Argh.
She had thought about it long and hard. She couldn’t let Isaac’s chance slip away from him. After all, she knew what it felt like to give up on a dream. It hurt. The hurt and disappointment never went away. It sat like a weight in her chest, dragging her spirits down like a battleship’s anchor.
You can’t have what you want. You can never have what you want.
The words tortured her every time she heard them inside her head. Ailsa topped up her champagne glass. So what if she was getting tipsy and maudlin? So what if she felt sad and lonely and worthless? She was considering whether to have a good old self-pitying cry when the door of the bathroom suddenly opened and Vinn stood framed in the doorway. She gasped and drew her knees up to her chest, her heart knocking against her chest wall like a pendulum in an earthquake. ‘How did you find me?’
His gaze raked her partially naked breasts—partially because of the amount of bubble bath she had poured into the water. ‘Don’t push me too far, cara. You know how it will end.’
Ailsa put up her chin and sent him a look as icy as the North Sea in winter. ‘You stole my passport.’
‘I did not steal your passport.’ He took something out of his top pocket and handed it to her. ‘I found it on the floor next to the bed in the spare bedroom.’
Ailsa took the passport with a bubble-coated hand and put it to one side on a marble shelf next to the bath. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He shrugged as if that didn’t concern him. ‘It’s the truth whether you believe it or not.’
Ailsa wasn’t sure what to think. She wouldn’t put it past him to have taken her passport, but she also knew her tendency to lose things. She was clumsy and careless under stress and being anywhere near Vinn created more stress than she could handle.
He pulled out a folded document from his back pocket and, using one of the glossy magazines she’d brought into the bathroom as a firm backing, he unfolded it before handing her a pen. ‘Sign it.’
Ailsa wished she had the courage to push the wretched document into the bathwater. She wanted to make it dissolve until it was nothing but flotsam floating around her. She wanted to take his stupid gold pen and stab him in the eyes with it. But instead she took the pen and, giving him a beady look, signed her name with an exaggerated flourish. ‘Happy now?’
He folded the document and put it to one side and then put his hand back in his trouser pocket and took out the ring box she’d left behind two years ago. ‘I want you to wear these until the three months is over.’ There was something about his voice that warned her she would be wise to put the rings back on her finger without an argument, even though it went against her nature to be told what to do.
She took the rings from the box and slipped them on her finger, shooting him another glare. She didn’t want to let him know how much she’d missed wearing those rings. The engagement ring was the most beautiful she had ever seen. He’d had it designed specially for her and, while he had never told her how much it cost, she had a feeling it was more than what most people earned in a lifetime. But it wasn’t the ring’s value she loved. She would have been happy with a cheap ring if he had given it to her with his love. He started to undo his shirt buttons and she reared back in horror. ‘What are you doing?’
‘We were interrupted an hour or so ago.’ His shirt dropped to the floor and his hands went to the waistband of his trousers. ‘I was telling you how much I wanted you, remember?’
Ailsa wished she hadn’t drunk so much champagne. Her willpower was never a match for Vinn’s charm but with alcohol on board it was as good as useless. ‘You were telling me how much you wanted me, yes. But, you might recall, I didn’t say it back to you.’
Something tightened in his jaw and a guarded sheen har
dened his gaze. ‘You didn’t have to say it. You were ripping my clothes off, and if it hadn’t been for that phone call you’d be onto your second or third orgasm by now.’
Argh! How dare he remind her how many times he could make her come? She affected a scornful laugh. ‘You think? I would have had to fake it because I do not want you, Vinn. Do you hear me? I. Do. Not. Want. You.’
He stripped off the rest of his clothes and stepped into the bath, sending a miniature tsunami over her body. ‘How many times do you reckon you’ll have to say it so you actually believe it, hmm?’ There was a dangerously silky edge to his tone and he moved up close, capturing her chin between his finger and thumb.
Ailsa tried to brush off his hold like she was swatting an annoying insect. ‘Stop touching me.’
His other hand slipped back under the curtain of her hair and he nudged his nose against hers in a playful bump that made her self-control fall over like a house of cards in a hurricane. ‘You want me so bad you’re shaking with it.’
‘I’m shaking with anger and if you don’t get your hands off me this instant I’ll show you just how angry,’ Ailsa said through gritted teeth.
He gave a deep chuckle and slowly but surely coiled a strand of her damp hair around one of his fingers, inexorably tethering her to him. ‘I’ve missed your temper, cara. No one does angry quite as sexily as you. It turns me on.’
His pelvis was close enough for her to feel it—the swollen ridge of his arousal calling out to her feminine core like a primal drumbeat, sending an echo through her blood and through her body. ‘No one makes me as angry as you do,’ Ailsa said. ‘I hate you for it. I hate you period.’
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