by Abby Green
He thought of Orla’s muted reaction to seeing Marie-Ange’s children the previous day and recalled how he’d felt a bizarre sense of regret. What was that all about? He knew how much Orla had invested in her career; she was the kind of woman who might never marry. He certainly couldn’t see her in an apron baking cookies for happy chocolate-covered children … and yet … the image slid into his mind with shocking ease, mocking him. He could see it all too clearly. And the fact that he could even drum up such an image made him break out in a cold sweat.
Antonio’s mouth firmed as he caught his line of thinking and the direction it was taking. It had been a long time since he’d ruminated on such things as his parents’ failed marriage and he had never speculated about a lover and whether or not they wanted children. So why on earth was he thinking of this now when he’d resigned himself to the fact long ago that he had no intention of walking down that path himself? Just because a woman lay in his bed?
Not just any woman, spoke a rogue voice in his ear.
Antonio made a silent sound of rejection at that and instead of doing what he really wanted to do, which was to wake Orla and tumble them both over the edge again, he forced himself to get out of the bed and told himself a six-mile run would empty his mind of such unwelcome imaginings. And hopefully put a dent in his insatiable libido.
As Orla woke slowly through mists of consciousness, she became aware of the slight aches and muscle pains in her body. Antonio. Her eyes flew open and she squinted in the light of the early-morning sun streaming in the open window.
But she knew that the bed was empty beside her. She breathed out and then in. The tantalising scent of fresh-growing lavender tickled her nostrils.
As much as the bereft feeling registered, she also felt a tiny bit relieved. She couldn’t think straight when Antonio was near her. He seemed to short-circuit her brain.
She realised she was stark naked, and that the covers had long disappeared, but instead of reaching to find a cover, Orla let the feeling of half-uncomfortable wickedness wash over her. She felt wanton. And thoroughly satisfied. And in the morning light, all of the disturbing notions Marie-Ange’s children had precipitated felt very distant and silly.
Orla heard a rattle of noise downstairs and her body tightened even at that. She got up and saw that her bag and his had been brought in from the Jeep. She blushed to think of how they’d gone straight to bed and hadn’t even left it to eat or wash.
She took out some toiletries and found the huge en-suite bathroom with its wet-room shower. In an instant she was rewarded with a lurid fantasy of what it would be like to have Antonio lift her against the wall so that he could pound into her body while water ran over their bodies.
Cursing her rampant X-rated imagination, Orla quickly washed and dried herself off. She put on a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt and felt like a teenager all over again. It had been a long time since she’d worn such casual clothes and it tugged at something vulnerable inside her. Like when Antonio had mocked her gently for wearing jeans. Or how she’d felt when she’d admitted she’d been a tomboy.
Halting at the top of the stairs leading down, Orla had to put a hand to her chest for a second. Her heart was beating so rapidly. She had a sudden sense of just how dangerous this man was to her. How easily he was seeing into a part of her she’d not revealed to anyone. Fear gripped her. She vowed in that moment that when she saw him she’d tell him that she couldn’t afford more than a couple of days at the most in this place.
A couple of days … Surely she could keep herself immune from him in that time, and emerge intact?
Biting her lip, Orla made her way downstairs, dreading seeing Antonio because she knew she’d forget everything again and start drowning. But when she walked barefoot into the kitchen, her vow to herself of just a couple of days flew out the window and, as she’d feared, she drowned.
She was faced with the mouthwatering sight of Antonio’s bare back, tapering down to lean hips upon which a pair of battered cargo shorts hung precariously. A towel was slung around his neck and his hair was wet. He whistled softly as something that smelled delicious sizzled on a pan on the stove.
The only thing marring the idyllic picture were the copious scars that criss-crossed Antonio’s back. Some faint and silvery, others uglier raised welts of skin. Orla’s chest tightened and she must have emitted some kind of a sound because he turned around and his gaze swept her up and down so hungrily that she blushed, feeling shy. Which was ridiculous.
‘Hey, you looked so peaceful this morning I didn’t want to wake you.’
Orla came forward and something leapt inside her when Antonio reached for her and pulled her into his side. He was hot.
She looked up. ‘How long have you been up?’
He glanced down and winked at her salaciously and said, ‘I’m always up for you, honey.’
Orla mock-hit him and squirmed out from under his arm and stood back. This teasing Antonio was far too … seductive and disturbing to her equilibrium. Also, it hinted at that slightly rougher side of him. A side that was less in evidence now as she’d got to know him. Wanting to cover up her self-consciousness Orla glanced at the pan and said, ‘I didn’t know you could cook.’
Antonio diverted his attention back to the delicious-looking eggs and onions and mushrooms. ‘We all had to take turns cooking in the army and while it was nothing spectacular, barely edible, when I left I discovered that I wanted to learn how to do it properly.’
His face had tightened up, a tension appearing in his shoulders. But Orla didn’t push it. He was serving the food up now on two plates and instructing her to get the pot where fresh coffee had been percolating.
Orla repressed a smile at his inherently bossy tone. She’d been so naive when she’d accused him of being bossy the first night they’d met.
When Orla took her first mouthful of scrambled eggs and mushrooms and onions and garlic, she swallowed and said with not a little surprise, ‘This is good.’
Antonio shrugged modestly and quipped, ‘It’d be a bit of a disaster if I couldn’t manage something as basic as this.’
Orla coloured and bent her head over the plate but Antonio must have seen it and he said, ‘Don’t you cook?’
Orla speared some food and shook her head quickly. ‘Never had the opportunity.’ She chewed and swallowed. ‘I told you that we always lived at the hotel…. I wasn’t used to home cooking.’
Antonio had hoovered up his food and sat back now, cup of coffee in his hand, supremely relaxed. Supremely gorgeous.
‘So …’ he said lazily, ‘this house of yours, the one you always wanted. Do you know where it is?’
Orla couldn’t get any hotter. She took a quick sip of coffee herself as if that might help. But Antonio was just watching her, and waiting. Feeling something subside inside her, Orla gave in. ‘I do actually. It’s in Notting Hill.’
Antonio arched a brow.
Orla felt like squirming but she went on. ‘Sometimes, on my days off—’
‘You have days off?’ came Antonio’s mock-incredulous tone.
Orla stuck her tongue out at him and started again. ‘As I was saying, sometimes on my days off I’ll look up properties for sale and request a viewing. I know it’s not really fair to make the agents think I’m an interested buyer….’ She shrugged, feeling stupid now.
Antonio’s voice was slightly husky. ‘And what do you do?’
Orla glanced at him suspiciously in case he was laughing at her but the serious expression in his eyes almost made her feel more self-conscious. Reluctantly she revealed, ‘I go and look around, mentally decorating the house, figuring out what rooms I’d use for what. Where my furniture would go.’
Desperate to get Antonio’s focus off her, Orla asked quickly, ‘What about you? Don’t you want to return to your house?’
Antonio practically shuddered and went tight-lipped. ‘No. I left that house a long time ago. My brother Nicolo, the one who was injured in a fire, he
lives there now, and he’s welcome to it.’
‘And what about your brothers and sisters? Are you going to see them?’
Antonio stared at Orla and he wondered how it was that she was able to slice right into him with her soft questions, more accurately than a blade seeking a vital artery. And then he thought of how she’d squirmed to admit to looking at houses in her spare time. He still felt tight inside to think of her walking around those empty houses, dreaming.
‘The truth is,’ admitted Antonio, ‘I’ve been in touch with all of them periodically over the years. I just haven’t actually seen any of them, apart from Lucilla and Cara. And Orsino when he was in Afghanistan to do some crazy extreme skydive.’
‘You shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving them.’
‘I don’t,’ Antonio snapped back, so fast that he saw Orla flinch slightly.
Immediately remorse filled him and he cursed softly. ‘I’m sorry…. I just … Well, maybe I do feel guilty.’
‘Your father is still alive,’ Orla pointed out. ‘He should have been there and he had no right to turn around and lambaste you just because you were doing his job for him.’
Antonio smiled at the touch of defiance in her tone. He’d like to see her meet his father one day; his arrogant old man wouldn’t know what’d hit him. Realising how incendiary that thought was, projecting Orla into a future situation, Antonio stood up and cleared the plates.
He said over his shoulder, ‘I cooked, so you can wash the plates.’
He heard Orla’s chair against the flagstoned floor and then a cheeky, ‘Aye-aye, sir.’
He looked behind him to see her standing to attention, hand angled at her forehead in a salute, and had to bite the inside of his cheek to repress a smile. When the urge had passed he said with lethal softness, ‘Are you looking for punishment for being so cheeky?’
Orla blushed prettily and came over to the sink. She fluttered her eyelashes at him. ‘Yes, please. Sir.’
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and had to stop himself from plundering that soft mouth. He could control this rampant desire. He could.
‘Very well then, Private Kennedy. It’ll be a three-mile swim in the ocean as soon as you’ve finished washing up.’
Already he could feel her breath quickening against his hand which wasn’t helping his resolve.
‘Very well, sir. I’ll get this out of the way and get my bikini—’
Antonio shook his head, cutting her off, and smiled wolfishly. ‘No bikini required, Private Kennedy. You’ll be swimming naked.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ORLA FELT THE SWEAT dripping into her eyes and wiped it away. Her chest hurt with her laboured breathing and her heart was like a piston in her chest. It was all she could do to keep her eyes on the feet and legs in front of her and follow their steps.
When she could spare more than a breath she said, ‘Has anyone ever told you you’re a sadist?’
A faintly humorous-sounding ‘Too many times to recall’ came back to her on the warm breeze. And then a hand came into her vision and Orla grabbed it with the both of hers and let Antonio pull her up beside him at the summit of the hill.
The stunning view made the pain in her legs and pounding heart dissipate as she sucked in oxygen. Orla wiped more sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She felt unbearably hot and sticky even though she was wearing shorts and a singlet vest. She wasn’t even wearing the pack of supplies, as Antonio was. And her legs felt rubbery. But she also felt exhilarated as she looked out over a breathtaking view of the Côte d’Azur and the glittering sea beyond.
Antonio’s villa lay nestled in the trees far, far below them. His swimming pool was just visible in a flash of blue, making her long to dive in.
‘Here, you should drink lots of water.’
Orla accepted the bottle eagerly and drank deeply. When she handed it back she scowled to see him barely out of breath or glowing with sweat.
She grumbled, ‘Just because you’re used to running twenty miles with a pack of stones on your back …’
He smiled as he said, ‘More like thirty miles with fifteen- to twenty-kilogram weight backpacks.’
Orla’s eyes widened. ‘That’s suicidal.’
Antonio’s face got shuttered and he turned away from her. He shrugged minutely. ‘It’s one way of determining who has got what it takes.’
Orla looked at his remote profile for a long moment before pushing down the questions that bubbled up. Antonio always clammed up when she asked him anything about his time in the Legion. As if he was too close to the source in some way.
It had been three days since that morning in the kitchen followed by the very erotic naked swim in the sea. Orla could have laughed at the vow she’d made to stay for two days and then leave.
As she’d feared, she’d been sucked into a bubble of sensuality. And, more disturbingly, a kind of freedom she’d never experienced before: waking up late, making love, eating, swimming naked in the sea … wearing as little as possible in general. Eating again, making love, sleeping.
In some respects, Orla felt as if she were nine years old again … that tomboy girl, always eager to run free and get into scrapes. Living on the edge. Before everything had changed. Before she’d sacrificed her deepest desires and forgotten what she really wanted.
She must have shivered or something because Antonio said gruffly, ‘I told you to wear a hat.’
He was taking his pack off and bending down to open it, presumably to search for her hat which she’d made a face at earlier. Now he took it out and looked stern, plonking it on her head, over where her hair was piled high in a messy bun.
‘And don’t take it off. You’ll get sunstroke.’
He took out cream and Orla saw him pour some into his hands. ‘Turn around,’ he instructed bossily, and his big hands made short work of smoothing the suncream into her bare shoulders, neck and arms. And despite the heat, she could feel the effect on her body and lamented the fact that this desire was showing no signs of waning.
When he squatted down in front of her to do her legs, Orla put up a pathetic protest but Antonio was already slathering cream right up under the hem of her shorts, fingers coming far too close to where her body was swelling, ripening for his touch.
His fingers swept close to the V of her legs and she smacked his hands away, saying breathlessly, ‘I really will get sunstroke if you keep that up and we make love up here on the mountaintop.’
Antonio smiled devilishly and replied, ‘Damn the sun anyway, and your delicate Irish complexion.’
He stood up and took up the backpack again and said, ‘There’s a shaded spot to have some lunch nearby. Let’s keep going.’
The thought of shade and the possibility … Orla’s inner muscles spasmed with lust but she just said lightly, ‘Aye-aye, sir.’
As he walked on and she followed, she had to bite her lip against the lightness building inside her. These moments of spreading joy at being in this man’s company—and his bed—were becoming far too frequent and disturbing.
Marie-Ange and her husband had called by the previous day with their children. She and Marie-Ange had played with the children together in the sea while Antonio and Dominic had barbecued dinner. Then they’d sat around the pool in the gathering dusk, Dominic’s daughter, Lily, asleep on his lap and Pierre, their son, asleep on Antonio’s. That hitherto dormant longing for children had surged up within Orla again.
She had to face it: something was changing within her. Her life and career, the hotel, all felt very far away. She felt as if she wouldn’t fit back into that world as neatly again, as if some edges had been rubbed off her.
Antonio was leading her into a shaded clearing with rocks that served neatly as chairs and a table. Orla sat down and took off the hat, fanning herself with it gratefully. He took out some bread, ham and cheese, a chilled bottle of water, and one of sparkling wine. Something incredibly tender washed through her.
Antonio handed her
a crude sandwich of ham and cheese and she took it, her mouth already watering. He came and sat on the rock beside her, long legs stretched out, and they ate in companionable silence, sipping the water and wine.
At one point he said a touch ruefully, ‘It’s not exactly what you’re used to.’
Orla ducked her face down, pretending an absorption in a speck of dirt on her leg. ‘It’s fine.’ She would have chosen this crude picnic over any number of fancy dinners in fancy restaurants anywhere else in the world. And that realisation told her once and for all, resoundingly, that she would never end up like her mother. Seduced by the glitter of new wealth. Something like relief flowed through her, as if it had been a subliminal fear for years.
‘I notice that you’re not coming out in a rash not to be wearing one of your smart dresses or suits.’
Something unwelcome lanced Orla, a reminder of reality. And she pushed it down, deep. She scowled at Antonio, who was looking far too innocent. And gorgeous. His tan had deepened even more in the sun, making him look even more darkly sexy.
He reached out a hand and his thumb touched her lower lip, tugging it gently. His eyes were on her mouth and then lifted to hers. They’d gone dark, smoky. ‘I think I prefer you like this … sweaty and a little grimy. No make-up.’
The flutters increased in Orla’s belly. She preferred him like this too. All elemental and wild. A man of nature. The distance between reality and this place increased tenfold.
He pulled her over to him and she went willingly. He lifted her so that her legs straddled his hips and she could feel him pushing against her body. When they kissed, it felt deep enough to drown in.
Antonio put out a hand to pull Orla up from the rock a short while later. His chest felt tight. The sun had already turned her hair more russet and golden. Freckles had exploded across her nose and cheeks. No make-up. Skin shiny from suncream. Creased and dust-stained vest top and shorts. He couldn’t believe that she’d willingly come on this hike with him today; she’d jumped at it. And she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen in his life.