by Lynne Graham
‘Lydia…?’
Cristiano turned back, wondering why she was being so quiet.
”This is…this is a ship,’
she breathed, in what he took to be a tone of excitement.
‘boat-my yacht Lestara.’ For the very first time Cristiano was proud of his floating palace. They would cruise in total peace and privacy. He would choose some places that she would enjoy seeing, and the yacht would dock there for them to go ashore. There would be no set itinerary. The paparazzi would never be able to track them.
She would love that freedom. She would relax and unwind and stop talking nonsense about hating him. His veiled gaze gleamed with satisfaction.
Lydia forced herself inch by inch closer and peered sickly through the terrifying gaps in the rails. It was a long, long way down, but there it was, the substance of her worst nightmares: water in perpetual motion, and beneath its surface the terrifying churning dark depths that had claimed the lives of her father and her brother. Her skin was turning clammy, perspiration breaking out on her brow.
‘1 don’t like boats,’ she whispered cockily.
Cristiano laughed.
‘lt’s a very big boat, Lydia.’
‘1 feel sick…’
”You couldn’t possibly be feeling seasick,’ he told her wryly.
”We haven’t even sailed yet.’
While Cristiano watched in frank disbelief, Lydia threw up over the side of the yacht. He went immediately to her assistance, pressing an immaculate handkerchief on her and urging her away from the railings.
‘Let’s get you inside…’
But Lydia didn’t want to go inside. All she wanted was to be off the boat and back on to dry land again. She was attempting to withstand a hysterical desire to throw herself back into his helicopter.
‘1 don’t like the sea,’ she confided tautly.
‘‘Then don’t look at it,’ Cristiano countered, as if he was dealing with a fractious child.
”You must have eaten something that disagreed with you. 1‘11 ask the doctor to check you over’.
‘1 don’t need a doctor.’
When he wasn’t looking at her, Lydia crammed a fist against her wobbling mouth, tears standing out in her eyes.
Cristiano took her straight to a huge and opulent state room, but she was only interested in the washing facilities. From a window she saw the sea, seemingly so tranquil, with the summer sunlight shining on the water, and she was sick again.
‘Go away,’ she told him wretchedly, her teeth chattering together with misery.
Ignoring her feeble remonstrations, Cristiano carried her out of the superb marble bathroom across to the wide bed, where he rested her down and pressed a cool cloth to her pounding brow.
‘The doctor will arrive at any moment, care mia.’
‘Don’t you understand? ‘I’ll be fine if you take me off this boat’
”When did you last eat?You slept through breakfast on the flight from Italy. Did you have any lunch’?’ ‘l must sick with fear! ‘ she gasped strickenly.
‘But there’s nothing to be afraid of …’
Suddenly it was all too much, and she burst into floods of tears, sobs racking her slight body where she lay on the bed. He cradled her in his arms and pulled her against him, urging her to calm down. He didn’t understand, and she knew he didn’t. Running away, surrendering to fear, was anathema to him. He could not comprehend her irrational terror. She fought that suffocating darkness in her mind long enough to say,
‘My father and my brother drowned… ‘
Cristiano was suddenly still. He looked down at her pale tormented face and read the truth of those desperate words in her haunted eyes.
‘1 don ‘t like boats…1 don ‘t like the sea’.
He wrapped his arms tightly round her.
‘l’m sorry…1’m very sorry,’
he intoned half under his breath.
‘We’ll leave as soon as the doctor has seen you.’
A knock on the door announced the doctor’s arrival.
The two men spoke in low voices and Cristiano returned to her side.
‘Will you accept an injection to ease the sickness’?’ ‘And then we’ll leave…immediately’?’ she pressed frantically.
‘1 promise.’ He gripped her hand.
She was so overwrought that she was supersensitive to everything, and she flinched from the tiny prick of the injection in her arm. A miasma of drowsiness crept over her.
Her sense of time ebbed. Her frantic thoughts were dulled, her limbs increasingly heavy. She pressed her cheek into Cristiano’s jacket, the achingly familiar scent of him washing over her like a soothing balm, and fell asleep.
Lydia dreamt that she was trapped deep under water.
Her lungs burning, she struggled frantically to break free and find her little brother. She was calling his name and only bubbles were coming out.
‘Lydia…’
Her terrified eyes flew wide on a softly lit room. She was sobbing for breath, hopelessly disorientated, her skin damp.
‘That was some bad dream.’
Cristiano was hunkered down by the side of the bed so that their eyes were level.
‘1 could hear you yelling from next door.’
‘lt’s always the same dream,’ she whispered shakily.
‘1 hate ill’
”You need something to eat.’ Vaulting upright, he picked up the phone by the bed.
She pulled herself up against the pillows. Registering that she was naked, she anchored the sheet below her arms. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light and she knew where she was: back in the master bedroom of the penthouse apartment in London. She reached for his hand and turned his wrist to check the time on his watch.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she exclaimed, when she realized it was one in the morning.
‘That injection really knocked you out, but you needed the rest,’ Cristiano contended.
‘1 don’t remember flying back-‘
”We travelled by limo. With you fast asleep, it made more sense.’
He was wearing cream chinos that sat low on his lean hips, and a black shirt. Even though it was the middle of the night, and he was badly in need of a shave, he still looked drop-dead gorgeous.
‘l’m sorry…you must’ve thought I’d gone off my head or something,’ she muttered in a mortfi|ed rush.
‘But I haven’t been on a boat since…well, since the accident. 1 suppose that’s pretty gutless of me, but until today 1 was always able to avoid it.’
‘You were with your father and brother when they died’?’ Cristiano queried in surprise.
”What age were you’?’
”Eleven. Robert was only six,’ she framed unevenly. ‘We were on holiday in Mallorca. Dad used to take us down to the beach to watch the motor boats racing about. 1 asked him to take us out on one, and we went on the last day. He took us round the headland because the bay was so busy.
He said it would be safer, but it meant we couldn’t be seen from the beach. And before you ask, no, we weren’t wearing linebackers…”
‘What happened, care mia-‘
Cristiano used the question to break the heavy silence that had fallen.
‘A couple of other boats passed us, and then this big wave came over the edge of the boat and water came in. It happened so fast 1 couldn’t believe it. Robert was screaming, Dad was panicking, and the boat capsized. Apparently Dad hit his head on something and was knocked out. All 1 know is that 1 n-never saw him alive again.’
Cristiano closed both hands round the fingers she had tightly knotted together.
‘You…? Your little brother… ?’
‘lwas thrown clear…but he was caught under the boat. 1 was a good swimmer…1 went underwater but couldn’t find him. It was so dark, and there was a strong current. A fishing boat came, and they got Robert out, but it was too late.’
‘It’s a miracle you survived.’
A sob was wreste
d from her and she pulled her fingers free of his to cover her face, for the recollection of that tragic day still haunted her.
‘lt was my fault… If 1 hadn’t begged, we’d never have been in that boat.’
”That’s nonsense.You were a child. It was an accident’. Nobody should be allowed to go sailing without life pre-servers. What was your nightmare about’?’
And she told him. It had been a very long time since she had talked about that day, or its repercussions, and he was a surprisingly good listener. So she told him about how her mother had gone to pieces after the boating accident, and how her father’s business had gone belly-up within months.
When it had all been aired, she felt a surprising sense of relief, and the past settled back into the recesses of her memory. Only then did she put a hand up to brush her hair from her brow and register that, after hours of sleep, it was a tangle of tousled waves and she probably looked a real mess.
‘l could do with a shower.’
Forgetting that she was naked as the day she was born, she pushed back the sheet and scrambled out of bed. With a moan of embarrassment, she raced for the bathroom to the sound of his laughter.
”You have five minutes before we eat,’ he warned her cheerfully.
Wrapped in a big towel, her wet hair slicked back from her brow, she emerged again, thoroughly scrubbed, squeaky clean and breathless. He was lounging back on the bed, watching the business news.
A trolley of food awaited them in the room next door. ‘1 should get dressed.; - ‘
‘l forbid it, bella mia. ‘
Pulling out a chair for her occupation, Cristiano dealt her a slow-burning smile of sensual appreciation. ”Why put on clothes that I’m only going to take off again’?’
She blushed, while a tiny wicked twist of anticipation leapt low in her pelvis. Once again her own sensuality took her by surprise and filled her with chagrin. He only had to look at her in a certain way and she was gripped by a fever of wanton longing. He knew it too. That awareness made her cringe, and she focused her attention on her meal and ate with appetite.
‘Wren’t you having anything’?’
‘l dined earlier.’
He cradled a glass of red wine in one lean hand.
‘l’m relieved to see that you can eat a healthy meal. . you skip too many’
‘The last few months have been stressful. But let’s not talk about that,’
she said hastily, for she was reluctant to drag up anything controversial that might spoil the relaxed mood between them.
‘Now you know all about me, isn’t it time for you to talk about you’?’
‘Me…?’ Taken aback, Cristiano frowned.
‘Your mum…your dad-just that sort of basic stuff.’
Lydia pushed her empty plate away.
‘Who were they? Are they still alive?
Cristiano groaned and sprang upright.
”They’re both dead. That’s all a matter of public record.’
‘Well, I don’t know it…please,’ she pressed, rising from her seat as well.
Cristiano closed a hand over hers and walked her back into the bedroom with a distinct air of masculine purpose.
‘Do you want me to start onnce upon a time”’?’
‘Was your childhood like a fairytale’?’
Cristiano settled her down against the pillows and stepped back as though to admire the picture she made.
‘Not at all-although the palazzo is the family castle and money was always plentiful. My mother was an heiress, very rich and very spoilt.’
Lydia was hungry for detail. ‘Did she look like you? Was she beautiful’?’
‘I believe she was considered so.’
His lean dark face had a bleak light as he undid his shirt and stretched out beside her. Even though she tried to resist the urge, his long, lithe powerful physique drew her gaze. she wasn’t the maternal type.
It was an accident, and my nannies knew me better than she ever did. She liked to be amused, and 1 wasn’t an amusing kid.’
”What about your father’?’
‘An entrepreneur of great brilliance and very successful-but he was my mother’s slave.’
Cdstiano couldn’t hide his distaste.
‘she had endless affairs. She dragged his name in the dirt, slept around, and laughed in his face. He couldn’t live with her and he couldn’t live without her. When 1 was eighteen he found her in bed with one of my friends, and that night he shot himself …she didn’t even attend the funeral.’
Lydia flinched, appalled by that flat recitation of the distressing facts and the horrendous scandal that must have marred his youth. She leant over him, sapphire-blue eyes bright with sympathy.
‘1 don’t know what to say…’
He wound two fingers slowly, enticingly, into her hair, and used the silky waves to draw her down to him. Hot dark golden eyes entrapped hers.
‘Cristiano… ‘ she whispered, feeling the sensitive peaks of her breasts tighten and throb below the rough towelling.
He pulled back from her again, and reached up with a leisurely hand to tug loose the towel. He made a ragged sound of appreciation low in his throat when he had bared the pouting swells of her breasts.
‘1 love your body…l love what it does for mine.’
To steady herself, her fingers spread like a starfish on his hard muscular thigh. He stroked a tender candy-pink nipple with skilful fingers that knew a woman’s body as well as his own. He listened to her breath catch, watched her tremble. His scrutiny was so intense that she muttered anxiously,
”What’?’
‘You want me so much and you can’t hide it. I like that,’ he confided thickly.
”You excite me.’
She was mesmerized by his compelling gaze. ‘Do 1?’ ‘sex has never been this hot for me. If you tried to walk away from me now, I’d lock you up,’ he swore.
‘l’m not going anywhere.’
‘anywhere that 1 don’t, care mia, ‘
Cristiano affixed with husky satisfaction, tumbling her down to him to taste her reddened mouth with an erotic intimacy that made her tummy perform a somersault.
”That’s romantic…’
Cristiano tensed.
‘There are more of my mother’s genes in me than alike to admit. 1 won’t be unfaithful to you, but 1 don’t do the romantic stuff.’
‘1 only said that because it sounded better than admitting that the only thing 1 like about you is how you make me feel in bed’
Lydia snapped back at him in a defensive surge.
Cristiano laughed, tipping up her chin, pinning her under him so that he could kiss her again with slow, sensual deliberation.
‘You’re such a liar…such a gorgeous, sexy liar. You have so much to learn, and 1 will very much enjoy teaching you.’
Lydia was embarrassed and uneasy, wondering why he had so smoothly brushed off her declaration of indifference to him.
‘Teaching me what’?’
‘How to enslave me between the sheets,’ he teased, Sliding off the bed to skim away his shirt and remove his chinos.
‘Methods, techniques, timing.’
‘1 don’t want to be taught that sort of thing.’ Watching him, she felt her mouth run dry. She felt as though a pool of honey was dissolving inside her, and the charge of that languorous heat made her quiver.
‘Yes, you do, gioia mia.’
Cristiano came down to her again, smoothing caressing hands over the pale skin of her narrow shoulders, leaving an invisible trail of fire where he touched her. although it would take a lot of patience and discipline on my part, and right at this moment those qualities are in very short supply’ His brilliant golden eyes were raking over her small white breasts and rosy nipples with unashamed hunger.
She was breathing in short rapid spurts. Desire was in her and she couldn’t suppress it. He raised her up on her knees and toyed with the tender buds until she moaned, and then he kissed her with roughened masc
uline need. He traced the delicate flesh between her thighs and she shivered, wanting him, needing him. It was as though her bones were melting below her supersensitive skin. When he stroked the most tender spot of all she gasped, whimpered, momentarily losing herself within that surging tide of frowningly sweet pleasure.
‘l can’t bear it,’ she finally cried, rising up against him, rebelling against the tormenting ache of need that drove her.
He took her without words in a storm of passion that sent response hurtling through her in a fireball of energy. Answering her wildness, he cast aside his smooth self-control and plunged into her with hard, sensual force. Frenzied excitement seized her. She had never been so attuned to him. She was stunned that he could know so exactly what she craved.
She wasn’t prepared when he pulled out of her and re-arranged her almost roughly on her knees. In shock and arousal, she gasped his name.
Without hesitation he hungrily repossessed her willing body with a primal savagery that drove her out of her mind with pleasure. When her world erupted in a dazzling rush of ecstatic sensation she went with it in mindless acceptance. Convulsive waves of delight quivered through her while he vented an uninhibited growl of satisfaction and shuddered with release.
‘l-lmm …’ Having tipped her over and drawn her back into his arms, with a hair-roughened thigh hooked over hers to hold her in place, Cristiano nuzzled her brow and sighed,
”You’re sensational, bella mia.’
‘so we can skip the lessons’?’ she dared, languorous with the sense of joy and contentment that always followed their passion.
Husky laughter shifted him in the circle of her arms.
‘No. You can tell me why you were still a virgin when 1 had my wicked way with you.’
Lydia tensed, her fingers absently stroking over the satin smooth damp skin of his back.
‘1 was very wary, and not very interested when 1 was younger. Maybe 1 took longer to grow up than other girls. My mother had a boyfriend who tried to get into bed with me once. Nothing happened, because 1 screamed the place down, but he really scared me and made me feel bad about myself,’ she shared.
‘Mum said 1 must’ve encouraged him-‘
Cristiano raised his head, his beautiful dark eyes narrowed to gleaming pinpoints of steel.