He frowned as he handed them to her. ‘Do you take them regularly?’
She shook her head as she swallowed a couple of pills. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only in an emergency.’
He was still frowning as he led her out to the car. ‘When did you develop your fear of flying?’ he asked.
‘Ages ago,’ she said.
‘What caused it?’ he asked. ‘Rough turbulence or a mid-air incident?’
She shrugged. ‘Can’t remember.’
His dark gaze searched hers. ‘When was the last time you flew?’
‘Can we get going?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to fall asleep in the car. You’ll have to carry me on board.’
Angelo glanced at Natalie every now and again as he drove to the airport. She was not quite so pale now the medication had settled her nerves, but she still looked fragile. Her cheeks looked hollow, as if she had recently lost weight, and her eyes were shadowed.
Her concern over her brother was well founded. He had struck a deal with Lachlan, but already Lachlan was pushing against the boundaries Angelo had set in place. The staff at a very expensive private rehab clinic had called him three times in the last week to inform him about Lachlan’s erratic and at times uncontrollable behaviour. He had organised a therapist to have extra sessions with him, but so far there had been no miraculous breakthrough. It seemed Lachlan Armitage was a very angry young man, hell-bent on self-destruction.
Speaking with Natalie’s father had made Angelo realise how frustrating it must be to have a child who, no matter how much you loved and provided for him, refused to co-operate. Adrian Armitage had hinted at similar trouble with Natalie. Apparently her stubborn streak had caused many a scene in the Armitage household over the years. In spite of all of her father’s efforts to get close to her she had wilfully defied him whenever she could. Angelo wondered if it was a cultural thing. He had been brought up strictly, but fairly. His parents had commanded respect, but they had more than earned it with their dedication and love for him. He hoped to do the same for his own children one day.
He turned off the engine once he had parked and gently touched Natalie on the shoulder. ‘Hey, sleepyhead,’ he said. ‘Time to get going.’
She blinked and sat up straighter. ‘Oh … Right …’
He put an arm around her waist as he led her on board his private jet a short time later. She was agitated and edgy, but he managed to get her to take a seat and put the belt on.
‘Can I have a drink?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What would you like?’
‘White wine,’ she said.
‘Are you sure it’s a good idea to combine alcohol with those pills?’ he asked.
She gave him a surly look. ‘I’m not a child.’
‘No, but you’re under my protection,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you getting ill, or losing consciousness or something.’
She started chewing her nails as the pilot pulled back. Angelo took her hand away from her mouth and covered it with his. ‘You’ll be fine, cara,’ he said. ‘You were in far more danger driving to the airport than you ever will be in the air.’
She shifted restively, her eyes darting about like a spooked thoroughbred’s. ‘I want to get off,’ she said. ‘Please—can you tell the pilot to stop? I want to get off.’
Angelo put his arm around her and brought her close against him. ‘Shh, mia piccola,’ he soothed. ‘Concentrate on your breathing. In and out. In and out. That’s right. Nice and slow.’
She squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head to his chest. He stroked the silk of her hair, talking to her in the same calm voice. It took a lot longer than he expected but finally she relaxed against him. She slept for most of the journey and only woke up just as they were coming to land in Rome.
‘There,’ he said. ‘You did it. That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
She nodded vaguely and brushed the hair back off her face. ‘Have I got time to use the bathroom?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
Her cheeks pooled with colour. ‘No, thank you.’
He gave her a mocking smile. ‘Maybe next time, si?’
The press had obviously been given a tip-off somewhere between their arrival at the airport and Angelo’s family villa in Rome. Natalie watched in dismay as photographers surged towards Angelo’s chauffeur-driven car.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said as he helped her out of the car. ‘I’ll handle their questions.’
Within a few moments Angelo had managed to satisfy the press’s interest and sent them on their way.
An older man opened the front door of the villa and greeted Angelo. ‘Your parents are in the salon, Signor Bellandini.’
‘Grazie, Pasquale,’ he said. ‘Natalie, this is Pasquale. He has been working for my family for many years.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ Natalie said.
‘Welcome,’ Pasquale said. ‘It is very nice to see Signor Bellandini happy at last.’
‘Come,’ Angelo said, guiding her with a hand resting in the curve of her back. ‘My parents will be keen to meet you.’
If they were so keen, why hadn’t they been at the door to greet her instead of the elderly servant? Natalie thought bitterly to herself. But clearly there was a different protocol in the upper classes of Italian society. And Sandro and Francesca Bellandini were nothing if not from the very top shelf of the upper class.
Natalie could see where Angelo got his height and looks from as soon as she set eyes on his father. While an inch or two shorter than his son, Sandro had the same dark brown eyes and lean, rangy build. His hair was still thick and curly but it was liberally streaked with grey, giving him a distinguished air that was as compelling as it was intimidating.
Francesca, on the other hand, was petite, and her demeanour outwardly demure, but her keen hazel eyes missed nothing. Natalie felt them move over her in one quick assessing glance, noting her hair and make-up, the style and make of her clothes, the texture of her skin and the state of her figure.
‘This is Natalie, my fiancée,’ Angelo said. ‘Natalie—my parents, Sandro and Francesca.’
‘Welcome to the family.’ Francesca was the first to speak. ‘Angelo has told us so much about you. I am sorry we didn’t meet you five years ago. We would’ve told him he was a fool for letting you go—si, Sandro?’
‘Si,’ Sandro said, taking her hand once his wife had relinquished it. ‘You are very welcome indeed.’
Angelo’s arm came back around her waist. ‘I’ll see that Natalie is settled in upstairs before we join you for a celebratory drink.’
‘Maria has made up the Venetian room for you both,’ Francesca said. ‘I didn’t see the point in separating you. You’ve been apart too long, no?’
Natalie glanced at Angelo, but he was smiling at his mother. ‘That was very thoughtful of you, Mamma,’ he said.
Natalie had to wait until they were upstairs and alone before she could vent her spleen. ‘I bet you did that deliberately,’ she said.
‘Did what?’
‘Don’t play the guileless innocent with me,’ she flashed back. ‘You knew your mother would put us in the same room, didn’t you?’
‘On the contrary. I thought she would go old-fashioned on me and put us at opposite ends of the villa,’ he said. ‘I told you she’s incredibly insightful. She must have sensed how hot you are for me.’
Natalie glared at him. ‘I’m not sharing that bed with you.’
‘Fine,’ he said unbuttoning his shirt. ‘I’ll let you have the floor.’
She frowned at him. ‘What are you doing?’
He pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers. ‘I’m getting changed.’
Her eyes went the flat plane of his abdomen. He looked amazing—so masculine, so taut, so magnificently fit and tanned and virile. She swung away and went to look out of the windows overlooking the gardens.
‘Why did you let your parents think it was you wh
‘I didn’t want you to get off to a bad start with them,’ he said. ‘I’m their only child. Parents can be funny about things like that.’
Natalie turned around. He was only wearing black underwear now. The fabric clung to him lovingly. Her insides clenched with greedy fistfuls of desire. She had kissed and tasted every inch of his body. She had taken him in her mouth, ruthlessly tasting him until he had collapsed with release. She had felt him move deep within her. She had felt his essence spill inside her. She had been as brazen as she could be with him and yet still he had always been a step ahead of her. He had pushed her to the limit time and time again. Her flesh shivered in memory of his touch. Her spine tingled and her belly fluttered. She drew in a breath as she saw his gaze run over her. Was he too thinking of the red-hot passion they had shared?
‘I don’t expect you to take the blame,’ she said. ‘I’m not ashamed of breaking off our relationship. I was too young to get married.’
‘That won’t cut it with my mother, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘She was barely sixteen when she fell in love with my father. She has never looked at another man since.’
‘Is your father faithful to her?’
He frowned. ‘What makes you ask that?’
Natalie lifted a shoulder up and down. ‘They’ve been together a long time. It’s not uncommon for a man to stray.’
‘My father takes his marriage vows seriously,’ he said. ‘He is exactly like my grandfather in that.’
‘And what about you, Angelo?’ she asked. ‘Will you follow in their honourable footsteps, or will you have your little bits on the side if I don’t come up trumps?’
He came over to where she was standing. Stopped just in front of her. So close she could feel her body swaying towards him like a compass searching for magnetic north. She fought against the desire to close the minuscule distance. She stood arrow-straight, stiff to the point of discomfort. Her heart was racing; the hammer blows were making her giddy, her breathing shallow and uneven.
Her resolve, God help her, was crumbling.
Angelo slipped a warm hand behind her head at the nape of her neck setting off a shower of sensation beneath the surface of her sensitive skin.
‘Why do you fight with yourself so much?’ he asked.
Natalie pressed her lips together. ‘I’m fighting you, not myself.’
His fingers moved through her hair in a spine-tingling caress. ‘We both want the same thing, cara,’ he said. ‘Connection, intimacy, satisfaction.’
She could feel her resolve slipping even further out of her control. Why did he have to look so damned gorgeous? Why did he have to have such melting brown eyes? Why did he have to have such amazing hands that made her flesh tingle with sensation? Why did he have to have such a tempting mouth?
For God’s sake, why didn’t he throw her backwards caveman-style on the bed and ravish her?
In the end it was impossible to tell who had closed the distance between their bodies. Suddenly she felt the hard ridge of his erection pressing against her belly. It was like putting a match to a decade of dried-out tinder. She felt the flames erupt beneath her flesh. They licked along every nerve pathway, from the top of her scalp to her toes.
Her mouth met his in a combative duel that had no hint of romance or tenderness about it. It was all about lust—primal, ravenous lust—that was suddenly let loose after being restrained for far too long. She felt the scorch of his lips as they ground against hers. And then his tongue thrust boldly through the seam of her lips, making her insides flip over in delight. Her tongue tangled with his, fighting for supremacy, but he wouldn’t give in. She felt the scrape of her teeth against his; she even tasted blood but couldn’t be sure whose it was. She fed off his mouth greedily, rapaciously, and little whimpers of pleasure sounded deep in her throat as he varied the speed and pressure.
He crushed her to him, one of his hands ruthlessly tugging her top undone so he could access her breast. She felt her achingly tight nipple rubbing against his palm. A wave of longing besieged her. She felt it flickering like a pulse between her thighs. She felt the honeyed moistness of her body preparing for his possession. She rubbed up against him intimately, the feminine heart of her on fire, aching, pulsing, contracting with a need so great it was overwhelming.
He kept kissing her relentlessly, his tongue diving for hers, conquering it with each and every sensual stroke. Her lips felt swollen but she didn’t care. She kissed him back with just as much passion, nipping at him with her teeth in between stroking him with her tongue. He tasted just as she remembered him: minty and fresh and devastatingly, irresistibly male.
He tore his mouth from hers to suckle on her breast, his tongue swirling around her areola and over her nipple until her back arched in pleasure. She knew it would take very little to send her up into the stratosphere. She could feel the tremors at her core, the tension building and building, until she was close to begging him to satisfy that delicious, torturous ache.
He brought his mouth back to hers—a slower kiss this time. He took his time exploring her mouth, his tongue teasing hers rather than subduing it. She melted like honey in a hothouse. Her arms went around his neck. Her hands delved into the thick denseness of his hair. Her throbbing pelvis was flush against the hardness of his.
He raised his mouth from hers, his breathing heavy, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded and smouldering with desire. ‘Tell me you want me,’ he commanded.
Natalie was jolted out of his sensual spell with a resurgence of her pride. ‘I don’t want you,’ she lied.
He gave a deep and very masculine-sounding mocking laugh. ‘I could prove that for the lie that it is just by slipping my hand between your legs.’
She tried to back away but he held her fast. ‘Get your hands off me,’ she said through gritted teeth.
He slowly slid his hands down the length of her arms, his fingers encircling her wrists like handcuffs. ‘You will come to me, cara, just like you did in the past,’ he said. ‘I know you too well.’
She held his gaze defiantly. ‘You don’t know me at all,’ she said. ‘You might know your way around my body, but you know nothing of my heart.’
‘That’s because you won’t let anyone in, will you?’ he said. ‘You push everyone away when they get too close. Your father told me how difficult you are.’
Natalie’s mouth dropped open in outrage. ‘You discussed me with my father?’
His hands fell away from her wrists, his expression masked. ‘We had a couple of conversations, yes,’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘I asked for your hand in marriage.’
She gave a derisive laugh. ‘That was rather draconian of you, wasn’t it? And also hypocritical—because you wouldn’t have let the little matter of my father’s permission stand in the way of what you wanted, now, would you?’
‘I thought it was the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘I would’ve liked to meet him face to face but he was abroad on business.’
Natalie could just imagine the ‘business’ her father was working on. His latest project was five-foot-ten with bottle-blonde hair and breasts you could serve a dinner party off.
‘I’m sure he didn’t hesitate in handing me over to your care,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t offer to pay you for the privilege.’
His gaze remained steady on hers, dark and penetrating but giving nothing away. ‘We also discussed Lachlan’s situation.’
‘I take it he didn’t offer to postpone his business in order to be by Lachlan’s side and sort things out?’
‘I told him to stay away,’ he said. ‘Sometimes parents can get in the way when it comes to situations like this. Your father has done all he can for your brother. It’s time to step back and let others take charge.’
‘Which you just couldn’t wait to do, because it gave you the perfect foothold to force me back into your life,’ she said, shooting him a resentful glare.
Those piercing brown eyes refused to let hers go. ‘You came to me, Natalie, not the other way around.’
A thought slipped into her mind like the thin curl of smoke beneath a door. ‘My father was the one who contacted you, wasn’t he?’ she said, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘I only came to you because my mother begged me to. I would never have come to you otherwise. He put her up to it.’
‘Your father expressed his concern for you when we spoke,’ he said. ‘It seems it’s not only your brother with an attitude problem.’
Natalie stalked to the other side of the bedroom, her arms around her body so tightly she felt her ribs creak in protest. Her anger was boiling like a cauldron inside her. She wanted to explode. She wanted to hit out at him, at the world, at the cruel injustice of life. The thought of Angelo discussing her with her father was repugnant to her. She hated thinking of how that conversation would have played out.
Her father would have painted her as a wilful and defiant child with no self-discipline. He would have laid it on thickly, relaying anecdote after anecdote about how she had disobeyed him and made life difficult for him almost from the day she had been born. He would not have told of how he had wanted a son first, and how she had ruined his plans by being born a girl. He would not have told of his part in provoking her, goading her into black moods and tempers until he finally broke her spirit. He would not have told of how his philosophy of parenting was ‘might is right’, how tyranny took precedence over tolerance, ridicule and shame over support and guidance. He would not have told of how he had used harsh physical discipline when gentle corrective words would have achieved a much better outcome.
No, he would have portrayed himself as a long-suffering devoted father who was at his wits’ end over his wayward offspring.
He would not have mentioned Liam.
Liam’s death was a topic no one mentioned. It was as if he had never existed. None of his toys or clothes were at the family mansion. Her father had forced her mother to remove them as soon as Lachlan had been born. The photos of Liam’s infancy and toddlerhood were in an album in a cupboard that was securely locked and never opened. Natalie’s only photo of her baby brother was the one she had found in the days after his funeral, when everyone had been distraught and distracted. She had kept it hidden until she had bought her house in Edinburgh.
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