by Jennie Lucas
She swallowed as he reached out a hand and stroked back the hair from her brow, winding a tendril of it around his finger. It was hard to think with a naked man standing in front of her, his proud erection almost reaching out to touch her. The caveman taunting her with his club. Making her hungry for him. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘You do the caveman thing particularly well.’
He smiled, and tugged on the curl of hair he had wound around his finger and drew her mouth closer to his. ‘Surely not the only reason you’re here, Valentina? Don’t you enjoy being with me?’
‘No,’ she said, as he tugged on her hair and drew her still closer to his mouth. She held her breath. ‘I’m counting down the days until I will be free.’
He smiled as if he didn’t believe a word of it. ‘In which case,’ he said, ‘I’d better make the most of the days that are left.’
He pulled her face to his, his lips meshing with hers, insistent but still coaxing, inviting. And when he finally took his mouth away and she breathed in again it was to have her whole body infused with his scent and his taste.
He sighed. ‘I’m sensing a problem here.’
It was impossible to make sense of his statement through the thick fog of desire clouding her brain. She licked her lips, tasting him on her tongue. ‘What problem?’
He put a hand to her breast, cupped the aching weight of her through her dress. ‘You’re wearing far too many clothes.’
And she almost sighed with relief as she gave herself up into his kiss. Of all the problems in her life right now, an excess of clothes was one problem she could fix.
* * *
She’d imagined he wanted quick sex, fast and hot and furious. What he did was make love to her as if she were as fragile as that tiny glass horse.
His hands were slow and hot, his mouth scorchingly tender, his tongue an instrument of exquisite torture, and with all these things he spun a web of silken arousal around her, so that when she came, it wasn’t wrenched from her or like being caught in the maelstrom of a storm, but almost like an admission. A confession. A giving up of herself to him.
She lay there panting, eyes open and afraid, staring at the ceiling.
Because sex was one thing. She could handle sex. Rationalise it. Treat it as a currency if she must. And she could stick it in that imaginary box under the bed in the cold light of day and shove the lid on and divorce herself from what was happening.
But giving herself up to him, losing herself in him when she knew she was going to walk away empty-handed in a few short weeks, that scared her.
It wasn’t just the sex that was making her feel this way, she knew. It was Luca himself who was changing. Showing concern when she felt shell-shocked on the boat—buying her a new computer because her old one was decrepit and inefficient. She knew he could afford it a million times over—she knew a few hundred euro would mean nothing to him—but it was the fact he’d even bothered that cut her deepest. For he didn’t have to do those things. He didn’t even need to find Lily an apartment when she already owed him so much.
Why did he have to appear half human when she wanted him to stay one hundred per cent monster? Why did he make it so hard to keep hating him?
She wanted to hate him.
She had to hate him.
She closed her eyes and sent up a silent entreaty to the gods. Because if she was ever to walk away from here with her head held high and her ego intact, she needed a reason to hate him.
Now, more than ever.
* * *
He should take more days off. He lay in bed listening to the rumble of his stomach—he would have to get up and have lunch soon, he supposed, before it turned on him and ate him alive—but there was something so utterly decadent about spending the middle of the day in bed. Especially when you had a good reason not to get out of it.
Like Valentina.
Idly he stroked her hair, listening to her soft breathing as she lay alongside him. He liked that she didn’t feel the need to chat incessantly or ask him if it was good for him. What he liked even better was watching her eyes when she tipped over the edge. He shifted one leg, making room. God, but just thinking about it made him hard all over again.
He should do this more often.
Then again he could, at least for the next month. Or what was left of it. Plenty of time yet. Maybe even tomorrow. Thinking of which...
‘I’m seeing your mother for lunch tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘Would you like to come with me?’
He felt her body tense. Wary. ‘Why are you seeing my mother?’
‘There are some papers to be signed, to finalise the transfer of the properties, the palazzo to me, the apartment to your mother.’
‘And you want me there why exactly?’ She sat up clutching the sheets to her chest, her golden eyes bright with argument and accusation. ‘So you can gloat about how clever you are in front of us both?’
He blinked. Where had that come from? He’d thought her half asleep and she’d come out fighting.
‘I thought you might like to see your mother.’
‘Like hell, you did.’ She clambered from the bed, dragging the bedding with her, uncaring that she was pulling the sheets from him at the same time. He grabbed hold and pulled back and the sheets snapped tight between them, caught in the crossfire, stopping her in her tracks.
She spun around, trapped in the tangle of sheets. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve tricked my mother out of her house and why—’ she waved her hand around the room ‘—when you obviously need another house like a hole in the head? You’ve got a playmate in your bed for a month because it’s what you wanted and bugger what anyone else wants. What kind of sick person are you that you need to see us together like some kind of weird trophies?’
‘I thought you’d like to see your mother,’ he said through a jaw so stiff it could have been made with the same Istrian stone that formed the foundations of Venice itself. ‘I know I’d give the world to be able to visit mine somewhere other than in a cemetery.’
She seemed to cave in before his eyes, the fight evaporating from her in a heartbeat. ‘Luca,’ she said softly, making a tiny move closer to the bed.
‘Forget it,’ he said, throwing off the sheet. ‘It was a lousy idea anyway.’
He stormed off to the bathroom. So much for enjoying a lazy day in bed.
* * *
She didn’t see Luca after that and she suspected he’d taken himself back to the office. She couldn’t blame him. She’d jumped down his throat at the suggestion of visiting her mother as if it was for his spurious pleasure to have them in one room at the same time. But then, after such tender love-making, after his impromptu gift, the foundations under her seemed to be shifting and she’d needed to see him as the villain. She needed to reclaim the anger she’d felt when she’d marched into his study and practically demanded he make love to her.
Instead she almost felt sorry for the way she’d snapped at him.
She felt as if she’d let him down.
She felt as if she’d let herself down and failed some kind of test.
Crazy.
It wasn’t as if she even cared what he thought of her. Her relationship with her mother was her business. He wouldn’t know about the way they’d last parted, the argument that had sent her foaming mad to his door to almost dare him to take her. He wouldn’t know the fractured history that lay festering like the worst of Venice’s rotting piles between them.
But his gut-wrenching admission that he’d adore the opportunity to see his mother if only she were alive...
And regardless of what she thought of Luca, regardless of her justification for acting this way, it shamed her that her relationship with her own mother was so appalling.
Maybe there was just cause given the events of the last few days. But equally ma
ybe, now that the dust had settled on the deal that had been made, perhaps while she was in Venice she should try to heal that rift, even just a little.
She heard her father’s words come back to her, the rationale he’d used when she’d tried to wiggle out of coming to Venice in the first place.
‘She’s still your mum, love...you can’t walk away from that.’
She’s still your mum.
Maybe her dad was right. Maybe Luca was right. Maybe she should make an effort after all.
While she was still in Venice.
While she was lucky enough to still have a mother.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘YOU’RE sleeping with him, then?’
Carmela had her back to Lily as she poured Tina a cup of coffee and threw her a sympathetic smile. Tina smiled back, appreciating the shared moment, regretting just a little that it had to be with the housekeeper rather than her mother, but then again, so far the visit had been surprisingly pleasant, given all the places it could have gone. They’d talked about the weather, and all about the new apartment Lily had visited just this morning. The biggest surprise had been finding the boxes and tissue paper scattered around the floor and learning that Lily was already sorting through her trinkets and thinking about which pieces to keep and which to sell through consignment with a local gallery owner. Tina’s unexpected visit and coffee had come, she’d said, as a welcome respite.
So yes, it was progress of sorts, that Lily was accepting the inevitability of her move, even if there was remarkably little so far in the ‘sell’ box.
Of course, she was still railing on about the injustice of the whole thing and how could she possibly fit into a ‘tiny’ six-room apartment? But Tina was still glad she’d come, although she’d always figured she was never going to dodge the bullets for ever.
‘It’s true, Lily,’ she admitted, wondering how many other daughters were interrogated so openly on who they might be having sex with. But then, what was the point of avoiding the truth? It wasn’t as if it was a secret. Everybody in Venice who wanted to know must know. ‘I’m sleeping with Luca.’
Her mother sniffed as she sat back in her chair, and it was hard to tell whether she was pleased or disappointed. It was obvious she wasn’t surprised. ‘So, will it lead anywhere this time, do you think?’
That one was easier to answer. ‘No.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘I am sure.’
‘What about Luca?’
‘He’s sure too. We’re both sure. Can we just leave it at that?’
‘Of course,’ she said, putting her cup down on its saucer with barely a clink, and Tina hoped that was the full stop on that particular conversation.
But then her mother sighed. ‘And yet,’ she continued, ‘it seems to me that for a man to come back for a second bite of the cherry, there must be something he finds...compelling about a woman. I mean, if a man comes looking for an encore, then surely he must be—’
‘—looking for an easy lay. Leave it, Lily. I don’t want to hear it. It’s not leading anywhere. At the end of the month I walk away. Luca stays here.’ She shrugged. ‘End of story.’
‘Well, it just seems such a waste. I don’t know why you’re not taking advantage of this arrangement. You could do a lot worse for a husband.’
Tina rubbed her forehead. Why did headaches so often coincide with visits to Lily? ‘I’m not actually in the market for a husband.’
‘But if something were to happen...’
‘Like what? Like a baby, you mean? I’m hardly going to fall pregnant. Not twice to the same man. I’m not that stupid.’
Her mother shrugged and stood, looking around the room. ‘It’s lovely you dropped by, but I should do some more sorting, I suppose. Luca is sending an army of men to do the chandeliers, but I don’t want them touching my precious ornaments and there’s such a lot to do.’ She looked up at her daughter, a decided gleam in her eyes. ‘I don’t suppose you could help?’
Tina blinked, not really surprised that her mother would ask for help, more surprised she wanted her to help with her precious glass. ‘Are you sure? I’m hardly going to be able to decide what you want to keep.’
‘Oh, I’ll decide what to keep,’ she said, handing over a bundle of tissue. ‘You can wrap.’
Tina smiled in spite of herself, liking her mother’s succinct and pointed delineation of their duties.
And because it wasn’t as if she didn’t have time on her hands and because maybe it would offer them a chance to talk, maybe even to get to know each other a little better than they did, she agreed. ‘You’re on.’
* * *
Two hours later they’d barely made a dent on the collection and there was still precious little in the ‘sell’ box. Lily gave a sigh of contentment as if she’d just cleared an entire room when all they’d touched was a couple of side tables. ‘Well, I think that’s more than enough for the day.’
Tina looked around at what was left. At this rate it would take six months to clear the room, and then there was still the rest of the palazzo.
‘Oh no,’ her mother said, passing an ornament across. ‘This one can go.’
Tina took it from her, a strange shivery sensation zipping out along her nerve endings. It was a prancing horse, just like the one the glassmaker had made at the factory. ‘Luca took me to Murano this morning,’ she said, holding the horse up to the light. ‘They made one of these there while we watched.’
‘I suspect that’s probably where it came from. You might as well throw that one away. Nobody will buy it. They’re a dime a dozen.’
Tina held the fragile glass horse. Thought of the boy with big brown eyes. Thought of another child who would have grown up with horses on the property, who would have ridden before he could walk, who would never get the chance to have his own horse.
Her son should have his own horse.
He deserved it.
‘Can I have it?’
‘Of course you can have it. But I thought you didn’t like glass.’
‘Not for me,’ she said, already wrapping it carefully in layers of tissue. ‘It’s for...a friend.’
Carmela appeared, brandishing a tray with drinks for them both, and it was only then, thinking about the trip out to Murano, that she remembered what she had meant to tell her mother. And what she most wanted to ask. ‘Oh, I meant to say, Luca’s cousin asked him to drop off some flowers on the way home from Murano at Isola di San Michele. I took the opportunity to pay my respects to Eduardo.’
‘Oh poor Eduardo,’ Lily said on a sigh, looking wistfully out of the window. ‘I do wish he hadn’t left me like he did. None of this would be happening if he was still around.’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘Of course I do.’ Lily sounded almost offended. ‘Besides which, it’s such a difficult business trying to find a new husband at my age. It’s not easy when you’re over fifty.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘And that’s why you should take your chances while you have them. You’re young and pretty now, but it won’t last, let me tell you.’
In spite of herself, Tina smiled. ‘The World According to Lily’ would make a fabulous book if her mother ever thought to write it. It wouldn’t be a thick book, certainly, but part fashion advice, part self-help, with a big dollop of how to marry into money, and all put together by someone who had lived by its principles and—mostly—prospered, it would be a guaranteed bestseller.
But just right now she didn’t want her mother’s advice. What she wanted was her knowledge to answer a question that had been burning away in the back of her mind ever since her visit to the cemetery island.
‘I visited the crypt, of course. I couldn’t help but notice Luca’s parents were both dead. I had no idea and he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. What happened
to them?’ she ventured cautiously. ‘Do you know?’
Lily sipped her gin, looking thoughtful. ‘That was way before my time. Must be twenty years ago now. Maybe more. Some kind of boating accident here on the lagoon if I remember rightly. It was the reason Luca came to live with him and Agnetha, of course.’
Tina’s ears pricked up. ‘He lived with Eduardo? Here?’
‘He grew up with them. Of course he lived here, although he’d already moved on by the time we married. I’m sure Eduardo told me. Let me see...’ She hesitated a while, blinking into the distance. ‘From what I remember him saying, Matteo’s family offered to take him in but because Eduardo and Agnetha had no children of their own, it was decided he should go to them.’
Tina drank in the details, holes in her knowledge filling with new information. Holes filling with even more questions.
So this had been his home then.
Where he had lived with his uncle and aunt before his aunt had died and before Lily had come along...
Was that why he seemed to resent Lily so much? Because by marrying Eduardo she had stolen his inheritance out from underneath him?
Was that the reason he was so desperate to get it back?
* * *
Where the hell was she?
Luca stood at the balcony overlooking the Grand Canal wondering where she’d disappeared to. Sure, they’d had an argument, but they had a deal. One month she’d agreed to and she’d been the one to set the term. He’d checked her wardrobe. The clothes seemed untouched, her pack still there stowed in one corner. So she hadn’t just decided to take advantage of his absence and renege on their deal.
So where the hell was she?
Sightseeing?
Or just blowing off steam?
He looked out over the canal that was the lifeblood of Venice, feeling sick to his stomach and desperately scanning the faces on every passing vaporetto, searching for a glimpse of Australian sunshine in a size-eight package. She was out there somewhere. She had to be.