And yet, instead of recognising her good fortune,
she was actually daring to take it upon herself to lecture
him! Well, she was no loss to him. She wouldn’t
have lasted a day, not even twelve hours once
Caterina had got her claws into her, and he was a fool
to have wasted his time on her in the first place. He
could drive down to the coast and find a dozen
women within one hour who would jump at the opportunity
she had turned down.
"Fine," he snapped, turning his back on Jodie as he
strode back towards the Ferrari.
He was leaving her here? He couldn’t — he
wouldn’t! Jodie’s eyes widened in mute shock as she
watched him walk away from her.
"No, wait!" she called out, as she stumbled anxiously
after him, gasping at the pain in her weak leg,
her anger giving way to a fear that was only slightly
alleviated when he eventually stopped and turned
round. "I need to get in touch with the car hire firm
and let them know what’s happened."
"They won’t be very happy about the fact that you
have damaged their vehicle. I hope you have brought
plenty of money with you," Lorenzo warned her
coldly.
"I’m insured," Jodie protested, but a cold, hard knot
of anxiety gripped her stomach as she remembered
her cousin warning her about the problems she would
face if she were to be involved in an accident.
"I doubt that will benefit you, especially when I
inform the authorities that you were driving on a private
road, and in doing so that you endangered not
just your own life but mine as well. You are going to
need a very good solicitor, and that will be very expensive."
"But that’s not true!" she protested. "You weren’t
even here when…"
Her voice trailed away as she saw the look in
his eyes.
"You’re trying to frighten me and — and blackmail
me!" she accused him.
He shrugged and continued to walk back to his car.
She watched helplessly as he opened the door, whilst
her emotions raged in impotent fury. He was the most
hateful, horrible man she had ever met — arrogant, selfish,
and the very last kind of man she would have
wanted to marry for any kind of reason. But a logical,
practical voice inside her head was pointing out that
it was late at night and she was miles from anywhere
down a private road, wholly dependent on the goodwill
of the man now about to leave her here.
He had started the engine and was pulling out to
drive past her. Panic filled her. She started to run towards
the car, gasping at the pain in her weak leg as
she flung herself at the driver’s door and banged on
it.
Expressionlessly, Lorenzo opened the window.
"All right, I’ll do it," she told him recklessly. "I’ll
marry you."
He was staring at her so impassively that she wondered
if he had changed his mind. Her heart started
hammering uncomfortably fast, making her feel
slightly sick.
"You’re agreeing to marry me?"
Jodie nodded her head, and then exhaled shakily in
relief as he pushed open the passenger door of the car
and said brusquely, "Give me your keys and wait here
whilst I get your things."
It was a warm night, but anxiety and exhaustion
were making her shiver slightly, so that her fingers
trembled against the impersonal hand he had stretched
out for her car keys. A prickle of unwanted sensation
raced up her arm, causing her to recoil from her physical
contact from him. He had long, elegant hands,
with lean, strong fingers — unlike John, who had had
somewhat plump hands with short fingers. The
knowledge that the stroke of those hands against a
woman"s body would deliver a dangerous level of
sensual pleasure pierced the thin skin of her defences,
making her emotional recoil from it even more intense
than her physical recoil from his touch.
Lorenzo frowned as he got out of the Ferrari and
strode over to Jodie’s hire car, unlocking the boot.
Her recoil from him had the hallmark of a kind of
sexual inexperience he had imagined no longer existed.
In fact, the last time he had seen a grown
woman recoil like that from a man"s casual touch had
been the last time he had visited his grandmother,
when he had sat with her watching one of the old
fashioned black and white films she’d loved so much.
He lived in a world peopled by the sophisticated, the
blase., the experienced, the rich and the aristocratic: a
world driven by cynicism and greed, by self-interest
and envy. Power did not go hand in hand with goodness,
as he had every reason to know. Jodie Oliver
wouldn’t survive a month in that world.
He shrugged away his thoughts. Her survival was
not his concern. He had other matters, another kind
of survival, to worry about, and she was merely the
instrument by which he would achieve that. Had he
genuinely wanted to marry her… His frown deepened.
What kind of thought was that? He had no desire
to marry anyone, much less a thin, wan-faced
young woman who had "broken heart" written all over
her.
He glanced down at the small case he had removed
from the boot of the car, and then went to check the
interior of the car itself.
"How long did you say you intended to stay away
from your home for?" he asked Jodie wryly as he
carried her things back to the Ferrari.
Jodie flushed at the implication she could hear in
his voice. "I have enough with me for my needs," she
told him defensively, adding with angry dignity, "And
there are such things as laundries, you know." She
wasn’t going to tell him that she had chosen her small
trolley case specifically because it was light enough
for her to lift, and that the last thing she had felt like
when she was packing had been bringing with her all
the pretty things she had bought for her honeymoon.
She felt the increase in weight of the car as Lorenzo
got back into the driver’s seat. There was a disconcerting
intimacy about being in a machine like this
one with a man who was so very much a man.
The scent of expensive leather reminded her poignantly
of an afternoon she had spent with John,
when he had gone to buy a new car and taken her
with him. They had visited showroom after showroom
as he admiringly inspected their top-of-the-range vehicles.
But none of them, no matter how expensive,
had come anywhere near being as luxurious as this
car, she thought now, her senses suddenly picking up
on the cool, subtle woody scent of male cologne
mixed with the very sensual smell of living, breathing
male flesh.
By the time she had finished absorbing the messages
with which her senses were bombarding her,
/> Lorenzo had reversed the Ferrari and turned it round.
"Where are we going?" she demanded uncertainly.
"To the Castillo."
The Castillo. It sounded impossibly grand. But five
minutes later, when she saw its steep escarpments rising
sharply up out of the rock face, she decided that
it was more barbaric than grand — like something left
over from another less civilised age. An age where
might was more valued than right; an age where a
man could take what he wanted simply because he
chose to do so. An age surely well suited to the man
seated next to her, she decided a little sourly.
They drove into the Castillo through a narrow
arched entrance, so evocative of the Middle Ages that
Jodie had to blink to dismiss her mental images of
chainmailed men at arms and heralds announcing
their arrival.
The empty courtyard was lit by the flames from
large metal sconces that threw moving shadows
against the imposing stone walls with their watching
narrow slit windows.
"What an extraordinary place," Jodie heard herself
saying apprehensively.
"The Castillo is a relic left over from a time when
men built fortresses rather than homes. I warn you, it
is every bit as inhospitable inside as it is out."
"You live here?" She couldn’t keep the dismay out
of her voice.
"I Don’t, but my grandmother did."
"So where…?" Jodie began, and then stopped uncertainly
as she saw the way his mouth was compressing.
It was obvious that he did not like her asking
so many questions. He had opened the door of
the car and she wrinkled her nose as she caught the
pungent smell of something burning. "Something’s on
fire," she told him.
Lorenzo shook his head. "It is merely the mixture
of wood and pitch that is used in the sconces. After
a while you will grow so accustomed to it that you
won’t even notice it," he added in a matter-of-fact
voice.
After a while? Did that mean that she was to live
here? Without electricity?
As though he had read her mind, Lorenzo informed
her, "My grandmother preferred the old-fashioned
way of life. Fortunately I was able to persuade her to
have a generator installed to provide electricity inside
the Castillo."
When one thought of an Italian castle one thought
of something out of a fairy tale, but this place was
nothing like that. Bleak and brooding, it made her
shudder just to look up at the granite walls.
"Come…"
Sitting in the Ferrari had caused her weak leg to
stiffen and seize up. Jodie could feel her face burning
as Lorenzo waited impatiently for her to get out of
her seat whilst he held the door open for her. The
agonising pain that shot through her leg as she finally
managed to do so made her bite down hard on her
bottom lip to stop herself from betraying what she
was feeling. John had hated anything that drew attention
to her infirmity, insisting that she always wore
jeans or trousers to hide the thinness of her leg with
its tell-tale scars.
"If you wear trousers no one is going to know that
there’s anything wrong with you," he had told her
more than once. Jodie could feel her throat closing
with painful tears. She had wanted so desperately to
hear him say to her that he didn’t care what she wore,
because he loved her so very much that every part of
her was equally precious to him. But, of course, men
were not like that. Louise had said as much when she
had explained to Jodie just why John preferred her.
"The trouble is, sweetie, that men Don’t like all that
disfigurement stuff. It makes them feel uncomfortable.
Plus, they want a woman they can show off—
not one they’ve got to apologise for."
"You mean some men Don’t," Jodie had corrected
her, with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Most men," Louise had insisted, before adding
bluntly, "After all, how many men besides John have
actually wanted so much as a date with you, Jodie?
Think about it. And let’s not forget," she had added,
pressing home her advantage, "any man is bound to
worry about what he’s going to have to face in the
future, with a wife who’s got health problems, from
a financial point of view alone."
"I haven’t got health problems," Jodie had objected.
"The hospital has given me a complete all-clear—"
"Because they can’t do any more for you. You told
me that yourself. Your leg is never going to be as it
was, is it? You get tired if you have to walk any
distance now — imagine how awful it would be for
poor John if in, say, ten years you needed to be in a
wheelchair. How would he cope? With the business
booming the way it is, John needs a wife who is a
social asset to him, not one who is going to be a
handicap. You really mustn’t be so selfish, Jodie.
John and I are trying to make this as easy for you as
we can."
It was the "John and I" that had done it, igniting
Jodie’s temper so that she had exploded and told her
one-time friend in no uncertain terms exactly what
she thought of both her and of John, ending up with,
"And, personally, the last kind of man I would want
to commit to is one so shallow that all he sees is what
lies on the surface. To be honest with you, Louise,
you’ve done me a big favour. If it hadn’t been for
you I might have gone ahead and married John with
out knowing how weak and unreliable he is. You obviously
aren’t as fussy in that regard as I am." She
had finished pointedly, "But I should be careful, if I
were you. After all, you won’t be young and glamorous
for ever, will you? And, since you’ve said yourself
that looks are so immensely important to John,
You’re going to have to live with the knowledge that
ultimately he may dump you for someone younger
and prettier."
She had been shaking from head to foot as she
walked away from Louise. And when John had turned
up on her doorstep less than an hour later, accusing
her of upsetting Louise, she hadn’t known whether to
laugh or to cry. In the end she had laughed. Somehow
it had seemed the better option.
It was then she had gone out and bought herself
the shortest denim miniskirt she could find. The accident
had not been her parents" fault, and she had
fought long and hard to be able to overcome her own
injuries. From now on, she had decided, she was going
to wear her scars with pride, and no man was
ever, ever again going to tell her to cover up her legs
because of them.
For ease of travelling, though, right now she was
wearing a pair of jeans — an old, faded pair of jeans
that made her look totally out of place next to
Lo
renzo in his beautifully tailored suit, she thought,
as he propelled her across the courtyard and into a
cavernous baronial hall, his hand resting firmly on the
middle of her back.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE room they entered was furnished with several
pieces of intricately carved dark wooden furniture. A
coat of arms had been cut into the stone lintel above
the huge fireplace. The carpet on the stone floor beneath
her feet looked worn and shabby, and she could
see where the film of dust on a table in the middle of
the room had been disturbed by something thrown
down on it with such force that it had skidded through
it.
A door in the far wall was thrown open, and a
woman stood there, framed in the opening. Immediately
Jodie forgot her surroundings as she focused on
her. Tall and soigne.e, she was everything one imagined
a wealthy and elegant Italian woman should be.
Her dark hair was pulled back in a smooth knot to
reveal the perfect bone structure of her face. Dark
eyes flashed a look of triumphant possessive mockery
towards Lorenzo — the same kind of predatory female
look Jodie had seen in Louise’s eyes when she had
looked at John. The other woman hadn’t even seen
her, hidden as she was in the shadows. Who was she?
A sense of disquiet started to seep through her; an
awareness of deep and dark waters driven by dangerous
unseen currents that could suck her down into
their icy depths if she wasn’t careful. Instinctively
Jodie sensed that Louise and this woman were two of
a kind, and that knowledge was enough to rub against
the still painfully raw emotional nerves inside herself.
She looked at Lorenzo. He looked relaxed, but she
could feel his tension in the sudden increased pressure
of his fingers, where they were splayed across her
back. Something was going on here that she wasn’t
privy to — but what? So many unanswered questions,
and they were destined to remain unanswered, Jodie
guessed, as she watched the full mouth thin, crimson
with carefully applied lipgloss, and the delicate nostrils
flare. A huge diamond flashed blindingly as the
woman raised one hand to touch the deep vee neckline
of the expensive black dress she was wearing in
a deliberate gesture of enticement. What man could
resist following with his gaze the scarlet glisten of the
long nails as they rested briefly in the valley between
THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE Page 4