by Penny Jordan
What mattered most of all right now was not making excuses for himself but making it clear to Lily that, far from allowing a need for her he should not have had get out of control, he had in fact been acting out a carefully thought out plan. His pride demanded nothing less.
Inhaling, he expelled the air he’d sucked into his lungs and told her grimly, ‘Having sex with someone as a displacement activity because you can’t have the man you really want might be the way things are done in the world in which you live, Dr Wrightington, but in my rather more old-fashioned world it’s making yourself cheap. Having sex with another man so that you can boast about doing so to an ex-lover is several notches lower down the scale from that, and it doesn’t have a name I’d like to utter in a woman’s presence—even a woman like you. As a man, I warn you that if you really think having sex with me is going to persuade your ex to take you back then you don’t know as much about men as you think you do,’ he finished curtly, getting up off the bed.
To Lily, still trying to come to terms with the intense, agonising ache of unsatisfied desire ravaging her body, his words made her feel as though her emotions were being flayed with a whip that left them ripped and bloodied in a torment of humiliation and pain. How could she have allowed herself to be so … so aroused that nothing else had mattered more than Marco possessing her? Not even her own pride and self-worth? Her shame felt like hot tar being poured into those wounds. He had deliberately led her on, deliberately tricked and trapped her into exposing her vulnerability.
She felt sick with shock and shame, and the only defence she was able to utter was a broken, ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’
It hurt her physically inside, as well as emotionally, that he should think so badly of her—but she was in no state to explain that to him. She was too shocked by her own response to him to be able to do anything more than try to take in what had happened.
‘You’re damned right it wasn’t,’ Marco agreed angrily. He couldn’t trust himself to say anything else to her. He couldn’t trust himself to stay in the same room with her, he admitted. Because if he did stay he couldn’t trust himself not to go back to her. Not to take her in his arms again and make love to her until she was as incapable of wanting any other man as he already was of wanting any other woman.
Furious with himself for that weakness, Marco headed for the door to his suite’s sitting room, acutely aware of the need to put some distance between them.
His chest felt tight with the intensity of his emotions—emotions that were totally at odds with his nature. He had never felt like this before, never imagined he could feel like this—possessed by the kind of raw, out-of-control male needs, thoughts and desires he had believed himself too much in control ever to know. That it was a woman like Lily who had made him feel them only made the situation so very much worse. How could he, of all men, be reduced to this by a woman he should only despise?
He looked at the closed door to the bedroom. The Marco he recognised, the Marco he had always believed himself to be, would have lost no time in going back into the bedroom and ejecting Lily from his bed, if necessary. However, the Marco he was now simply didn’t trust himself to go back into that room with her—because he knew that, far from ejecting her from his bed, he was more likely to end up back in it with her. That, of course, could not be allowed to happen.
How she must be laughing at him, gloating over her hold over him. Marco paced the room, his thoughts feeding his anger, knowing that he could neither escape from it or from her—Lily—the cause of it.
In the bedroom Lily lay tensely in the bed, watching the door. Marco had been so contemptuous of her, and she couldn’t blame him. What on earth had possessed her to behave in the way she had? She, of all people, who had grown up fearing a woman’s need to give herself completely to the man she loved because of what it did to a woman. She who had grown up believing that sexual desire was something that at its worst led to abuse and degradation, used by one person to have power over another, and at best took from those who experienced it all control over themselves and their lives. She had always been so glad that she was immune to its call, unconcerned about discovering its allure and power. She had felt safe in her celibate world—a world in which she could breathe the dusty air of the past instead of the high-octane air of a world she had learned to mistrust.
Anton Gillman had brought her a fear that had dominated every aspect of her life—a fear that ridding herself of her virginity the minute she was sixteen, with a boy as clumsy and untutored as she herself had been had calmed to some extent, but not banished for ever. Everything she had done in her adult life had been to keep herself safe from what she had left behind—even her choice of career. She had been too confident that she had succeeded, though. She recognised that now. Too ready to believe that she was safe from the problems she had seen sex cause in the lives of others.
The truth of that had been brought home to her now. Only minutes ago in Marco’s room, in Marco’s bed and in Marco’s arms, she had forgotten everything she had ever learned, too aroused by her own desire for him to recognise or care about her own danger.
She wanted to creep away and hide herself somewhere like the child she had once been, hiding in the cupboard off the studio where her father had kept some of his photographic equipment. But there was no hiding place from what was within herself. Her body was still tight with longing. Shamefully, she knew that it wouldn’t take much at all for her desire to be reawakened to the point where it was out of her control. Marco’s single touch, his briefest kiss, would be enough to do it.
Marco! She had come here to his suite because at some deep emotional level she had felt that he represented the protection and security she had always wanted and never had. But now she knew that Marco was far more dangerous than any threat Anton might make to her.
What would she do if Marcus came to her now and took her back in his arms?
The leap of aching longing that gripped her told her all she needed to know. Not that Marco was likely to do that, of course. He had made that more than plain. But she couldn’t get out of the bedroom without going into the sitting room beyond it, and she couldn’t do that, Lily knew. If she did she couldn’t trust herself not to humiliate herself even more by begging Marcus to take her back to bed.
An instinct she desperately wanted to ignore was trying to tell her that what had happened had not been a merely physical act, disengaged from her mind and her emotions. She didn’t want to listen to it, and she certainly wasn’t going to believe it. Yes, she had been overwhelmed—but that was just because she wasn’t used to such an intensity of physical desire. Nothing more.
After all, she had seen what giving everything to one man—wanting him, needing him, loving him utterly and completely—had done to her mother when that one man had grown tired of her and wanted her out of his life. She had seen the pain of that destroy her mother emotionally, and then mentally, and finally physically—until all she had wanted was death. As a child her father had often told her that she was just like her mother. She must not let what had happened to her mother happen to her. She must not repeat her mother’s mistakes.
She knew how little what had happened meant to Marco. And she must make sure that it was the same for herself—at least as far as Marco was concerned.
CHAPTER SIX
MORNING. The beginning of a new day. A joy for those who knew happiness, but a misery for those who longed to hang on to the dark hours of the night to conceal their pain, Marco acknowledged as he stood in front of the uncurtained bedroom window, looking out across the lake whilst the sun rose in the sky.
He had barely slept. He was too tall to sleep comfortably in an armchair, and besides his thoughts had been even more uncomfortable than the chair. How could he have allowed himself to be dragged into Lily’s grubby, manipulative plans? His contempt for himself was now every bit as great as his contempt for her. How could he have felt any kind of desire for her? How could he have wanted her with suc
h intensity? He had no idea what had caused last night’s weakness to overtake him, but he did know that it must not be allowed to happen again.
He rubbed his jaw with his hand, grimacing at the rough feel of his stubble. He needed a shave and a shower. He also needed to get dressed. For that, of course, he needed access to his bathroom, and his clothes. He looked grimly at the closed door between the two rooms, before striding over to it and turning the handle.
Lily was lying motionless in the large bed, all that was visible of her above the bedclothes the tumble of her hair and the curve of her throat. Her body formed a slender shape beneath the covers, She was lying on her side, almost in a small tight ball, as though in her sleep she felt the need to protect herself. He was the one in need of protection—especially from the desire she somehow managed to arouse in him. Marco frowned. The very idea of a woman like Lily needing any kind of protection was risible, and he was a fool if he allowed himself to entertain it. Of course she no doubt would love knowing that he was vulnerable to her.
Her clothes—the clothes which last night he had discarded on the floor—were folded neatly on the chair. Marco looked briefly at them, his attention momentarily caught by the sight of her bra, half tucked away beneath her dress. He remembered now how it had struck him as he’d removed it that its plain, practical style was somehow at odds with the kind of bra he would have expected someone like her to wear. Surely something much more sexy and alluring would have been more in keeping with her lifestyle? Or perhaps, like the consummate actress she obviously was, she immersed herself so completely in her chosen part that even her underclothes had to reflect it. Dr Lillian Wrightington must not be allowed to be the kind of woman who wore sensual underwear.
He walked past the bed, the sunlight throwing his shadow across her sleeping face. Immediately her eyes opened, her head turned, the colour coming and then going in her face. Her eyes widened as she looked at him.
‘Excellent,’ he told her cynically. ‘You’ve got the “shocked, prim young woman finding a man in her room” look off to perfection. Especially after last night.’
Lily’s face burned. He was talking about her passionate response to his touch. He had to be. And she had no way of denying that response or defending herself from whatever judgement he chose to make because of it.
Marco noted her flushed face. She was angry—obviously because he had refused to be taken in by her play-acting. Good.
‘Sadly, excellent though your acting ability is, it was wasted on me as an audience since we both know that you knew exactly what you were doing when you came here last night,’ he told her, determined to make sure that she knew he wasn’t taken in by her. He might have been overwhelmed by his desire for her last night, but there was no way he was going to let her get away with using that weakness against him.
‘What’s the next scenario in this little drama you’re concocting? Ideally, I suppose it should be the arrival of your ex-lover and his realisation that you spent the night in another man’s room.’
The initial shock of opening her eyes and seeing Marco wearing only a towel and standing beside the bed looking down at her, had left Lily too stunned to speak. But now she was fully awake—and fully aware of the events of the previous evening. She had embarrassed herself and infuriated Marco. Things had been bad enough between them before, but her behaviour last night would make a workable business relationship between them virtually impossible. The last thing she wanted was Marco thinking that she was going to make unwanted advances to him. She had to assure him that that wasn’t going to happen, no matter how uncomfortable that would be for her.
‘I’m really sorry about last night.’ she began apologetically, but with firm dignity, sitting up in the bed and making sure that the bedclothes were very firmly wrapped around her. No way did she want Marco thinking that her behaviour was sexually inviting. He had, after all, already made it clear that he did not want her when he had left her last night.
‘My behaviour was totally … It was inappropriate. It shouldn’t have happened. And if possible I’d like you to forget that it did happen, if you can.’
Marco’s gaze narrowed. What kind of game was she playing now? Was she hoping to get him to admit that he had wanted her? Her downcast gaze and her pseudohumble words were just a pose. That ‘if you can’ was definitely a challenge to him. Did she want to humiliate him with that knowledge, mock him, telling him that he couldn’t resist her?
‘I should have thought you would be more concerned about letting your ex-lover know that you spent the night here than with expressing regrets to me. Why don’t you go and find him now?’
She opened her mouth to refute his accusation, but before she could do so the closed door between the bedroom and the suite’s sitting room opened to reveal a hotel maid, her arms piled high with immaculately folded clean towels, accompanied by an older woman, obviously of more senior status, with clipboard and pen in hand. The older woman broke off speaking to the maid to cast with expert glance round the room, with Lily still in its bed and Marco clad only in a towel, before apologising and then making a swift exit.
Marco exhaled in grim irritation, only realising then that he had failed to use the ‘privacy’ facility for the suite the previous night.
The fact that Lily had flushed a deep pink and was looking acutely mortified and uncomfortable was lost on him as he strode across the sitting room to the suite’s door to rectify his omission, coming back towards her to demand, ‘What? Nothing to say?’
Lily took a deep breath. On the contrary, she had plenty to say—and she intended to say it.
‘I’ve tried to … to apologise for last night, but it seems that rather than accept my apology you prefer to accuse me … to suggest that Anton was …’
As hard as she was trying to behave in an adult, businesslike manner, Lily’s emotions balked at using the word ‘lover’ with regard to Anton, so great was her fear and detestation of him.
‘Was your lover and you now want to make him jealous,’ Marco insisted ‘No. The last thing I want is for Anton to come in search of me.’
‘It’s well known that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You’ve quarrelled with him and you want to make him regret that and regret the end of your relationship. You want to make him jealous. You want him to go to your room and think when you aren’t there that you’re with someone else—and you are prepared to use any means in order to do so. Isn’t that the truth?’
‘No. I would never stoop to that kind of behaviour,’ she told him, her voice trembling slightly with the force of her feelings. ‘I came here to you for one reason and one reason only, and that was because I was too afraid to stay in my own room.’
‘Why?’ When Lily looked away from him instead of answering him Marco challenged her. ‘If you’re as afraid of this Anton as you expect me to believe there must be a reason.’
There was no reason other than the one he had already suggested, Marco was sure, and that was why she couldn’t answer him.
He had started to turn away from her, he the victor in their exchange and she the vanquished, when she said in a low, tense voice, ‘Very well—yes, there is a reason, and it has nothing to do with me wanting Anton in my life.’ A fierce shudder racked her body. ‘Quite the opposite. But I can’t … I can’t talk about it.’
‘Why not? Surely I deserve an explanation for your behaviour?’
‘Behaviour for which I’ve already apologised.’
Lily had had enough. She could feel her self-control fraying and giving way under the pressure of her emotions. She bent her head, not wanting Marco to realise how close to the edge she was, how afraid she was that her own actions as much as her words might inadvertently give her away.
‘There’s no law that says I have to provide you with an explanation of my … of the reasons for what I did as well,’ she told him fiercely. ‘A … a compassionate man—a man who understands and accepts that other people can sometimes be vulnerable and in need—wou
ld know that. But you aren’t that kind of man, are you? You’re the kind of man who wants to think the worst about others.’
‘I’m the kind of man who knows when he’s being lied to, if that’s what you mean,’ Marco agreed acidly, defending himself against the knowledge that he had been far more affected by Lily’s outburst than he should have been.
‘But you are not being lied to,’ Lily insisted. ‘Perhaps I should be the one questioning you about your motives for refusing to believe me rather than the other way around,’ she added perceptively.
Marco felt his heart thud heavily into his chest wall. His glance fell on his watch and his heart gave a surge of relief as he saw his means of escape from what had now become a very dangerous situation.
‘It’s nearly eight o’clock,’ he told her, ignoring her comment, ‘and we’re due to leave at nine.’
Seated in the privately hired hovercraft next to Marco, Lily warned herself that she was here in Italy to work, and that she must put aside the temptation to let the pressure of her secret thoughts and emotions stop her from doing that. Even though Marco’s unjust accusations had hurt her as well as angered her.
After leaving Marco’s suite earlier, she had only just made it downstairs in time for the arrival of their transport, having returned to her own suite first, to shower quickly and then change into jeans and a tee shirt, worn underneath her faithful cardigan.
They’d been driven to the first villa on Marco’s list, where they’d been given a private tour of its art collection. After lunch at a small, elegant restaurant, where Lily had still been too wrought up by the events of the morning to do her pasta justice, they had gone on to their second villa, where Lily had discussed the loan to the trust of part of a collection of letters written to past owners of the villa by an Englishman who had stayed there in the decade following Napoleon’s defeat. The third son of a duke, the Englishman had come to the lakes for his health, and the letters had been written to a young female relation of the family on his return to England as part of his courtship of her. In addition to the letters there were also some sketches he had done for her of his home in Yorkshire.