by Penny Jordan
That punishment was swift and shocking. His mouth taking hers in a kiss of blistering male revenge that seared her senses. It had been years since she had last been kissed—and never, ever like this. Never, ever in a way that imprinted everything about the male lips possessing hers on her senses and her psyche, from the texture of his skin to its taste. In a thousand rapid-fire shutter actions his maleness was being matched by her femaleness. Why? What was happening to her?
Lily lifted her free hand in protest, her eyes opening and widening when her fingertips grazed the flesh of his face. She could feel the contrast between the skin of his jaw where he’d shaved and the skin above it. The photographer in her, the artist, wanted to explore the lines of his face, so dramatically perfect. She wanted to. Her lips softened and parted. So that she could protest. It had to be for that. It couldn’t be for anything else. And that small mewing sound locked in the back of her throat? That was a complaint, she assured herself.
His own eyes were open now, his gaze a dangerous volcano of molten gold fixing on hers. She could feel herself starting to tremble, weakness filling her, so that she was forced to lean into him. Into him and onto him.
There was a moment in space and time during which it seemed to Lily that their bodies moved together of their own volition—and then abruptly he was pushing her away from him.
What was happening to him? He never normally allowed emotion to control his behaviour. Never.
Someone was trying to open the door from the other side. Without looking at one another, never mind speaking to one another, they both stepped back from it. As swiftly and determinedly as he intended to step back from what he had felt holding her in his arms, her lips clinging to his, Marco told himself, acknowledging grimly as he did so that he had been right to have doubts about the wisdom of this project. He should have trusted his instincts and refused to get involved. The trouble was when he had had those doubts it had never for one minute crossed his mind just why he had been right to have them. It had been the ability of a foreign organisation in a foreign country to do justice to the history of Italy in general and his own family in particular that had made him feel wary about the project.
Now, though, he was having to deal with a far more immediate and personal cause for concern. And that was …
He snatched a brief, hard glance at Lily. On the face of it there was no immediately discernible reason why his flesh should be so aware of hers, or so responsive to it. No discernible reason why his senses should so attuned to her presence, her scent, the shadow cast by her body, the sound of her breathing, the lift of her breasts as she did so. Grinding his teeth against the way his thoughts were running free, he battled to bring them back in order, straining the muscles of his self-control just as controlling runaway horses and chariot would have strained the muscles of an experienced Roman gladiator.
She was attractive enough—quietly and discreetly beautiful, even. In a way that blended perfectly with her current persona whilst being completely at odds with the persona she had revealed in the studio—her real persona, he was sure. And was that the persona to which he was attracted? Like a schoolboy aroused by the thought of the pseudo-wantonness of a naked centrefold model? Was there deep within him a hitherto unknown part that was attracted to and aroused by such a woman? The thought revolted him, and it told him all he wanted to know about his real feelings. A part of him would have preferred that to be the truth rather than having to admit the actual truth—which was that his body was every bit as responsive to her in her present role as Dr Lillian Wrightington as it had been to the streetwise, jean-clad, predatory woman.
So physically he had responded to her? What did that mean? Nothing. Nothing at all. He would not allow it to mean anything.
Holding the door open for her, Marco told Lily in a curt voice, ‘I shall be watching you, Dr Wrightington, and if I suspect for any reason that your presence here is compromising the success of this project I shall have no hesitation in getting in touch with the trust and requesting them to replace you with someone else.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Lily protested. Her mouth had gone dry and her heart was thumping unevenly. This project meant so much to her. There’d even been talk of it being covered for a very well thought of TV arts programme. More than the career benefits that kind of exposure would bring her, though, Lily wanted to share with a wider audience the huge impact Italian art brought back to Britain had had on so many aspects of British life—from architecture to literature, from gardening to fashion, and so much more. To be dismissed from this project was the last thing she wanted.
Marco was a powerful man, and one who was already prejudiced against her. What was that sharp stab of anguish all about? She didn’t care what he thought about her. He could misjudge her as much as he wished. In fact she was glad that he had. Was she? Was she really?
Marco was still holding the door open. The buzz of conversation from the people gathered inside the room receded like an ebbing tide, until there was nothing left apart from a rustling silence as everyone looked towards them.
Whilst she felt uncomfortable, her companion seemed completely composed and in control, announcing, ‘Please accept my apologies for the fact that we are a little late. The blame is entirely mine.’
And he would be forgiven for it, Lily could tell. The smiles being directed towards him were both admiring and respectful. No one, it seemed, wished to question or query the Prince di Lucchesi.
‘I know you are all impatient to talk with our guest of honour, Dr Wrightington, so I think I shall dispense with a lengthy speech and just say instead that her scholarship in the subject of the art collected by our predecessors and the architecture of our homes should speak for itself.’
Had anyone other than her noticed that questioning ‘should'? Lily wondered, thankful of the poise she had learned from observing her mother—before heartache and prescription pills had destroyed her. It was surprisingly easy to stand tall with a smile pinned to your face once you’d learned the trick of hiding the reality of what you were feeling within yourself.
Easy, too, to make small talk as she circled the floor at Marco’s side whilst he introduced her to people with names that were woven into the very fabric of this part of Italy’s.
‘Your Grace.’ Lily responded to Marco’s introduction to an elderly duchess with a formidably upright bearing. ‘I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to see your villa and your art collection. There is a wonderful sketch in the archives at Castle Howard of one of your ancestors, drawn—’
‘By Leonardo. Yes, I have heard of it. Although sadly I have never seen it.’
Lily smiled at her. ‘I was given permission to photograph it so that I could show it to you.’
She was impressive, Marco acknowledged reluctantly. Not just in her knowledge of her subject but also in her manner—but how much of her was learned and how much the real woman? Not very much, he decided.
‘It will be interesting to compare it with the painting of my husband’s ancestor by Leonardo,’ the Duchess told Lily with a smile.
Normally Lily enjoyed this kind of occasion—the opportunity to talk with people who shared her interests and her love of Italian art—but today for some reason, after less than a couple of hours of mingling with the other guests, she developed the beginnings of a very painful pounding stress headache that made her feel slightly sick.
For some reason? She was supposed to be an intelligent woman. The reason for her tension was standing less than two yards away from her, and right now she could feel his gaze burning into her back. So the man running the project here in Italy was hostile to her and contemptuous of her—so what? She more than most people was adept at cocooning herself in her own private emotional and mental space and not allowing others to penetrate that space. Adept at it? She was an expert in it, Lily acknowledged wryly. In fact if there was a degree to be had in it she would have graduated first class with honours.
‘It will soon be time for us to
leave.’
The sound of Marco’s voice from directly behind her had Lily almost choking on the sip of wine she had just taken. Not because she hadn’t heard him move—she had. She was acutely aware of every single move he made. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck, where it was revealed by the soft knot of her drawn back hair. Was it just because he had caught her off-guard that she had felt the shower of tiny darts that had now brought her skin out in goosebumps? Goosebumps of delicious sensual pleasure?
Lily knew that it wasn’t. She wasn’t even going to begin question how it was that a person who had turned her back on the delights of sexual pleasure should immediately be able to recognise and understand that the degree of sensuality she had just experienced spoke of a vulnerability to the man who had caused it that went far beyond the norm of casual sexual attraction. Some questions were better not asked—especially by someone like her—when they involved someone like Marco.
When a man standing in a group to her right moved, accidentally nudging her arm and causing some of her wine to spill from her glass onto her bare skin, Lily was relieved—grateful, in fact, for the small incident. It distracted her attention and Marco’s far too perceptive and sharp gaze from her earlier involuntary shudder of delight.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the man apologised, telling a passing waiter, ‘We need a dry cloth, please.’
‘There’s no need …’ Lily began to say, but the words became locked in her throat as out of nowhere, or so it seemed, Marco himself produced a white cloth, which he placed on her damp arm. He ignored her panicky, ‘I can do it myself,’ just as he ignored her attempt to move away from him. Somehow he had taken possession of both her nearly empty glass, which he had placed on the tray of a hovering waiter, and her damp arm, his hand and his fingers lean and tanned against the white starched fabric of the cloth. He had good hands, Lily acknowledged. Strong artist’s hands. Hands with a powerful male grip that could crush a woman’s resistance to their hold should he feel it necessary.
A new quiver forked through her. Not on her flesh this time, but deep within it—a swift, tightening, convulsive sensation that gripped and then relaxed, leaving a far too intimate pulse beating in its place.
Lily was perfectly familiar with the outward signs of sexual arousal. After all she had seen models mimicking them in one form or another for as long as she could remember. Bitterly she recalled how when her father had finished working she would be pushed into the small boxroom off his studio whilst he ‘played'. Her father had been of that order of photographers in a certain era who had believed that having sex with models was one of the perks of the job. No, she was no stranger to the signs and sounds of physical arousal, both real and faked, male and female, but when it came to being familiar with her own sexual arousal. That was haunted, poisoned territory that had long ago become an empty wasteland and she didn’t go there. She didn’t want to go there.
Marco was releasing her.
‘It’s time for us to go,’ he told her. ‘The traffic to the airport will be heavy at this time of the day.’
‘The airport? We’re flying to Lake Como?’
She’d assumed that they’d be driving there.
‘By helicopter. It’s much the easier way to get there,’ Marco informed her, clapping his hands for silence so that he could announce their departure.
‘I was already looking forward to introducing you to Villa Ambrosia,’ the Duchess told Lily, coming over to say goodbye to her and holding both Lily’s hands in her own as she did so, in a gesture of genuine liking and approval. ‘But now that I have met you I am looking forward to it even more. She is a delightful girl, Marco,’ she added, turning to him. ‘Look after her well, won’t you?’
Of course Lily didn’t dare look at Marco once the Duchess had left them and they were on their own. The Duchess’s comment about his looking after her wouldn’t have gone down at all well, she suspected.
The museum official who had taken her case and insisted on wheeling it for her escorted them to their waiting car. It would be very easy to get used to such a pampered way of life, Lily thought, remembering ruefully how often she had ended up with an aching back from a bulging bag holding her laptop, her camera, and assorted other necessary paraphernalia for her work.
The traffic was heavy, but the insulated interior of the luxurious saloon car protected them from the fume-clogged air outside. A glass screen separated them from the driver, and the combination of that and the soft leather of their seats made Lily feel that they were isolated together in a space that was far too intimate.
Not that there was any intimacy between the two of them. Marco had produced his cell phone the minute the chauffeur had closed the door of the car, his brief, ‘Please excuse me,’ immediately distancing him from her. Because he wanted to be distanced from her? Of course he did. He despised her. Lily knew that was true, but she also knew that—like her—he had felt the startling electric connection that had burned into life between them the first time he had touched her. A connection that neither of them wanted.
Now Marco was putting his phone down and turning towards her.
‘Just before we left the reception the Duchess asked me if there was any chance that we might be able to spend a couple of nights at her villa as her guests. You obviously made a very big impression on her.’
The stiff hostility in his voice told Lily how little he liked telling her that.
‘I’ve just been checking through our schedule. It would be possible for us to extend the tour to include a short stay with her if you wish to do so.’
So he hadn’t been distancing himself from her. He had actually been working on her behalf, or rather on behalf of their shared project, Lily was forced to admit reluctantly. She didn’t want to have to feel guilty about misjudging him, but it seemed that she was going to have to admit that she had. Just as he had misjudged her—although she suspected she would never be able to convince him of that. Not after everything that had happened between them. Not that she was going to even attempt to change his mind about her. Why should she want to?
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what had caused such a deep-rooted loathing of what he believed she represented. Whatever it was, she couldn’t imagine him ever telling her about it. Everything about him said that he simply wasn’t the kind of man who confided in other people. He was too remote for that, too proud, Lily thought tiredly as she forced herself to respond with professional politeness.
‘It’s very generous of her to make such a kind offer. I’d love to have the opportunity to spend more time studying both the villa and her art collection.’
‘Very well, then. I’ll e-mail an acceptance of her invitation to her personal assistant.’
The chauffeur swung the car out of the static traffic and into a space he had spotted in the adjacent lane. Automatically Lily put her hand down to stop herself from sliding along the leather seat, but to her embarrassment felt only the hard, unyielding surface of Marco’s thigh.
Scarlet-faced with mortification, she snatched her hand away. Was it her imagination or were her fingertips tingling with awareness of the flesh they had accidentally touched? It was certainly her imagination that was providing her with unwanted and dangerous images of charcoal sketches of a taut male thigh. Marco’s thigh.
‘We’ll be at the airport in a few minutes.’
The calmly delivered information should have been enough to block out such images but somehow it wasn’t. Lily kept her face turned towards the car window as they approached the airport. She didn’t dare risk looking directly at Marco. Not that he could see what had been going on inside her head, of course. Thank goodness.
From his own corner of the comfortable limousine Marco cursed under his breath at the effect Lily’s brief touch on his thigh had had on him. Because he hadn’t been expecting it, that was all. There was nothing special about her touch that could have caused that almost violent surge of unstoppable des
ire from stabbing up his thigh and into his groin. He had been so involved in his business affairs that he hadn’t realised until now just how long he had been celibate. Too long. That was what had made him vulnerable to her. Nothing else. His intellect and his emotions were appalled by the very idea that he could find her physically desirable, given what he knew about her. She was a woman whose way of life he had very good reason to abhor—a woman he had already discovered to be involved in the same kind of world that had destroyed Olivia.
Olivia.
Lured away by promises of the fame her beauty could bring her as a top model, Olivia had been seduced by the thought of excitement and adventure far from the safety and security of her sheltered life with her parents.
It had taken him several weeks to discover that she had moved to London. He had pleaded with her to come home but she’d refused. She had told him that she had been taken on by a modelling agency and had been sharing a flat with other young models.
He had gone to see the owner of the model agency and appealed to her for help. She had seemed so sympathetic and understanding, so concerned for Olivia, that he had made the mistake of believing her when she had assured him that he had her personal guarantee that Olivia would be safe in her care, and that she would quickly tire of her new life and decide to return home.
At eighteen, he had been a gullible fool. How that knowledge still burned like acid within him. He’d had no idea that the woman was little more than a procuress, and that far from protecting the girls in her charge she was selling them into a life of drugs and prostitution. That life had led ultimately to Olivia dying from an overdose, alone in a New York hotel room.
He had buried his shame, his gullibility, his guilt deep within himself, making a vow to himself that his days of trusting others were over and that in future he would rely on logic and not emotion to direct the course of his life.
Until now—until Dr Lillian Wrightington, with her lies and her connection with all that he loathed—he had had no difficulty whatsoever in keeping that vow. But now, in the short time that he had known her, she had not only undermined that resolution she had also found a fault line in his defences that was causing all his long-buried vulnerabilities to rise like ghosts to mock and taunt him.