by Lynne Graham
Damiano did not like Mark. That was still fresh news to Eden and she marvelled that she had not previously managed to work that out for herself. But then Damiano might well have liked Mark better had she not confided that, as a teenager, she had been infatuated with the younger man. Recalling that trusting confession of her own youthful immaturity now made her cringe. After all, more than five years earlier, Damiano had been anything but confiding on the infinitely more important subject of why he had broken off his engagement to Annabel Stavely!
‘I asked you a question,’ Damiano reminded her with icy cool. ‘Why did you look as guilty as hell while you were speaking to Mark?’
‘Probably embarrassment!’ Eden threw her head back, golden hair rippling back over her shoulders, green eyes sparkling with sudden annoyance. ‘So you can stop acting like some Victorian domestic tyrant questioning his flighty child-wife!’
Taken aback by that angry assurance, Damiano’s lean dark features froze. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Mark is my friend and I don’t feel that I should have to justify that.’ Eden tilted her chin in defiance. ‘After all, he was never an intimate friend…not like you and Annabel, who as an ex-fiancée was put under my nose practically every day of our marriage!’
‘What an exaggeration!’ Damiano’s wide sensual mouth twisted. ‘Annabel was my sister’s closest friend. Did you expect me to tell Cosetta that Annabel was no longer welcome in our home?’
‘No, indeed. Such a sensitive request would never have occurred to you on my account!’ Eden slammed back at him helplessly as the humiliation of a hundred whispered giggling conversations and scornful glances surfaced in her memory like rocks on which she might still run aground. Annabel and Cosetta had worked together to undermine Eden’s every attempt to feel secure in her position as Damiano’s wife.
‘Accidenti—’
‘You made me put up with Annabel,’ Eden recalled bitterly. ‘I wasn’t allowed to be possessive…in fact, you called me silly and petty and spiteful when I suggested that your sister could socialise with Annabel some place other than our home, so you can just put up with my fondness for Mark’s company!’
‘Is that a fact?’ Damiano drawled smoothly.
‘Yes, that is a fact.’ Clashing unwarily with eyes as broodingly dark as a stormy night, Eden then found herself subsiding like a pricked balloon. Indeed, a sense of panic once again gripped her for she was frightened by the undeniable urge she seemed to have to hurl recriminations about the past. Right now their relationship was too fragile to bear the strain.
‘I knew you felt threatened by Annabel back then,’ Damiano asserted, taking her very much aback with that admission. ‘I liked the idea that you were jealous. In those days, I liked punishments of that variety. It was my version of the whip and the chair.’
Focusing on him with truly shocked intensity, Eden parted her lips and then slowly closed them again.
‘Manipulative wheels within wheels, a war of attrition which you were in no way equipped to fight, cara,’ Damiano conceded with wry regret, reaching out to close his hand over her tensely curled fingers where they rested on the seat. ‘You really didn’t have a clue what was going on beneath the surface of our marriage, did you?’
‘No,’ she conceded unevenly, colliding with his stunning dark eyes, rational thought suspended, for in the back of her mind she knew that if she actually thought through what he had just smoothly admitted, it would scare the life out of her to accept that he had once played such dangerous and hurtful games with her.
‘Never again,’ Damiano swore softly, unfurling her taut fingers within his and drawing her closer.
Her heartbeat speeded up. Suddenly she was very short of breath. Gazing into those spectacular eyes smouldering with golden highlights, she felt a little burst of heat ignite deep within her and her colour heightened. He was taking his time but she was just desperate for him to touch her, so desperate that she trembled with anticipation.
‘Nothing has to be rushed,’ Damiano murmured with slumbrous cool.
Her free hand clenched into his shoulder to steady herself. She could not have agreed with him. Even that dark, deep, sexy drawl of his did something extraordinary to her senses and, brought that close to his lithe, powerful frame, it was as if her body were being whirled into the eye of the storm and out of her control. The straining peaks of her breasts tingled and tightened within her clothing. Lacing his fingers into her silky hair, Damiano let the tip of his tongue delve in a provocative flicker between her soft lips. She jerked as if he had burnt her, a flood of such hunger released, she closed her eyes in quivering aftershock.
‘I’m not about to fall on you like a sex-starved animal,’ Damiano asserted a shade raggedly, his husky sexy vowel sounds running together. ‘Try to relax.’
Not while she was the victim of her own most secret memories. Her mind filled with erotic recollections of Damiano pinning her to the bed with dominant male sexual power and driving her out of her mind with pleasure, she felt utterly wanton.
‘Try to stop shaking,.’ Damiano urged, sounding more than a little pained. ‘I promise not to do anything you don’t want to do—’
Eden tore her other hand free of his hold and curved it to the back of his well-shaped head in near desperation. ‘Kiss me…please.’
Long fingers cupped her cheekbone. ‘Eden—?’
‘Shut up!’ she gasped and pushed her mouth in a blind seeking gesture against his.
For a split second, Damiano was absolutely motionless. Then he tugged her head back to make access easier and crushed her eager mouth to his with a raw, deep urgency that her body recognised with surging joyous response. White-hot excitement engulfed her in a scorching wave. A formless little sound broke low in her throat as sensual reaction slivered through her every skin cell, leaving her weak as water but as attached to Damiano’s hard, muscular physique as a vine.
However, he set her back from him. Eden opened passion-glazed eyes and attempted to breathe again. She was maddeningly conscious of the dampness between her thighs and of the extraordinary ache of craving he could awake in her so easily, but she was trying not to be ashamed of that reality in the way she had once been.
Damiano surveyed her from beneath semi-lowered long ebony lashes, feverish colour lying along his taut cheekbones in a scoring line. The thick silence smouldered. ‘We’re at the airfield,’ he stated not quite evenly, scanning her hot face and the sudden downward dip of her eyes.
Wasn’t a little enthusiasm what he had always wanted from her? Did he find it unfeminine? Or was he pleased? Unable to bring herself to look at him in case she discovered that once again she had done the wrong thing, Eden said nothing. Still all of a quiver, she climbed out of the limo on wobbly legs. What sort of a welcome would she receive from the rest of the Braganzi family? Her tummy lurched at the prospect. For Eden, it would be a very distasteful meeting.
When they landed at Heathrow, bodyguards met Eden and Damiano, ready to protect them from harassment should the paparazzi appear. Eden was relieved when they were able to leave the airport without incident. But tomorrow a press announcement would be made. Damiano’s return from the dead was a major news scoop. The paparazzi would be desperate to track Damiano down to gain that all-important first picture of him.
Inside the unremarkable saloon car, chosen in place of a more noticeable limousine, Eden’s hands trembled as she nervously smoothed down her dress. As the press turned the media spotlights back on to Damiano, would one of the newspapers choose to resurrect the allegations made against her three months after her husband had gone missing? Her blood ran cold inside her veins. That photograph which had been printed had looked so utterly damning. While the face of the woman in Mark’s arms had been concealed, the registration of the car beside which they had stood had been distinct and that car had, at that time, been Eden’s.
The sheer emotional surge of a most extraordinary day was now catching up on Eden fast and she felt incredibly t
ired. They entered the town house from the mews garages at the rear. Struggling just to keep her eyes open, Eden was past caring about the reception she was likely to receive.
In the grand hall, Damiano paused to rest dark, deep-set eyes levelly on her. ‘I’m not expecting you to mend fences with my family tonight. Everybody is under too much strain at present.’
But even that concessionary assurance filled Eden with dismay for, without realising that he was asking for a virtual miracle, Damiano was warning her that he did expect her to heal those divisions some time soon. Before she could comment, however, her attention was distracted by the sight of a large photograph of Annabel Stavely prominently displayed on a side table. The undeniably gorgeous redhead, who had once had the power to drive Eden mad with jealousy, had one arm curved round a cute little boy with dark hair, presumably her son.
As Damiano thrust open the drawing-room door and stood back for Eden to precede him, Eden was assuring herself that she couldn’t care less about the Braganzi clan’s partiality for an ex-fiancée who should have been ancient history. Her eyes cloaked, Eden then scanned the three occupants of the elegant room with its coldly impressive blue decor. Nuncio was already moving towards them. Although he was four years younger than Damiano, he actually looked older. Stocky and portly, he had a weak jawline and brown spaniel eyes.
‘Back home where you belong, Damiano!’ Nuncio exclaimed in an emotional burst, coming between them to grasp Damiano by the arms and hug him again.
Damiano had probably been hugged all the way back from Brazil. Eden reckoned that Nuncio’s slavish attachment to his elder brother was probably the only thing that she could now like about him. Cosetta, Damiano’s sister, eight years his junior, remained by the fireplace, her dark eyes challenging Eden with derisive distaste.
Tina, Nuncio’s wife, approached with an uncertain smile, like someone shyly testing the water but eager to please. But then Tina had always kept well in with Damiano, Eden recalled painfully, and, over five years back, getting friendly with Damiano’s naive wife had just been part of that same self-serving strategy.
The Italian woman was small and blonde just like Eden but there the resemblance ended. Tina had had an oval face with delft-blue eyes and a Cupid’s bow mouth. ‘How are you, Eden?’
‘Eden’s exhausted by all the excitement and I’m sure you’ll excuse her,’ Damiano intervened to answer for his wife. ‘Why don’t you take her upstairs, Tina?’
Eden left the room in Tina’s company, grudgingly amused by what Damiano no doubt saw as a smooth move. Knowing that she had once been close to Tina, he probably thought he was doing her a favour in giving them the privacy to talk.
‘Well…you being here with Damiano is quite a surprise, isn’t it?’ Tina remarked.
That almost childlike little voice sent an absolute shiver down Eden’s spine. But then Nuncio’s wife had perfected her non-threatening camouflage long before Eden had entered the family. Nuncio had been a student when he’d met Tina, who was seven years older. Tina had fallen pregnant at supersonic speed and had persuaded Nuncio into a quick marriage behind his big brother’s back.
Ignoring the other woman’s leading comment, Eden said proposally, ‘How is my niece, Allegra, doing?’
Tina frowned at that reference to her six-year-old daughter and could not hide her irritation. ‘Fine. She’s in a boarding-school now.’
It was little comfort that she could now see so clearly through the other woman, Eden conceded. Over five years back, as an insecure new bride, Eden had been eager to believe that she had found a close friend in Tina and shocked to realise too late that she had fallen for the act of a woman who would do whatever it took to protect herself, regardless of how low she had to sink.
Reaching the imposing landing, Eden turned towards the bedroom that had always been hers.
‘I’m sorry but Annabel and little Peter use those rooms when they’re staying now.’ Tina’s apologetic intervention was saccharine-sweet. ‘I’m afraid I just haven’t had time to rearrange things yet.’
Staggered by that explanation, Eden suppressed a surge of pure raging disbelief. Annabel Stavely and her son had been allowed to take over the principal bedrooms in the house when they came visiting? What kind of a nonsensical arrangement was that?
Tina showed Eden into a guest room some distance down a corridor.
‘You haven’t forgiven me yet, have you?’ Tina sighed.
Eden tensed. ‘I don’t think we should talk about the past—’
‘But you can’t ignore what’s going on right now. Nuncio is just dying to tell Damiano about Mark and he won’t keep quiet on your behalf for ever!’
‘On my behalf?’ Eden queried gently. ‘You’re the one who had the affair, Tina.’
‘No comment.’ Open ridicule gleamed in Tina’s bright blue eyes.
‘Five years ago, the tabloid press assumed that the woman in that photograph with Mark was me. I covered for you,’ Eden reminded the other woman, provoked by her mockery. ‘I didn’t want to do it! But you persuaded me that it would be horribly selfish to tell the truth and cause trouble between you and Nuncio—’
‘Well, so it would have been! After all, I was a mother as well as a wife. I had Allegra to consider and I didn’t think that Damiano would ever be coming back!’ Tina cut in defensively. ‘Naturally I was grateful for what you did for me—’
‘So grateful that as soon as you felt safe from exposure you joined Nuncio and Cosetta in calling me a slut and attacking me at every turn!’ Eden interrupted with pained recollection of what she had had to endure. ‘I was forced out of this house and you were just as keen as the others to see me gone!’
‘Can’t you understand that I was afraid that Nuncio might start suspecting me if I didn’t play along?’
‘All I understand is that while I was grieving for my husband, I took a heavy punishment for something I didn’t do,’ Eden framed ruefully. ‘And you have to accept that if talk of that affair should surface again, I’ll be telling Damiano the truth—’
‘And I’ll say you’re lying! Who’s going to believe your version this long after the event? Don’t forget how much you were seen to lean on Mark after Damiano went missing.’ Tina stressed with scorn. ‘That’s all anybody will remember.’
Eden paled. She saw what a fool she had been to allow herself to be bullied into protecting the other woman almost five years earlier. Tina had talked of her shame, her regret and of how much she had still loved Nuncio. Eden had been made to feel so guilty about her desire to defend her own reputation. Tina had been her friend. And all Eden had had to do was allow the assumption that she was the woman in that photograph to stand unchallenged. Unfortunately the consequences of shielding Tina had been far greater than Eden had foolishly foreseen.
‘I honestly don’t believe that Damiano would go tattling to Nuncio…oh, for goodness’ sake, Tina,’ Eden muttered in weary and distressed appeal. ‘I told you that if Damiano ever came home to me, he would have to be told the real story and you agreed—’
‘Of course I did.’ Tina gave her a catlike smile of acknowledgement on that point. ‘I married a useless lump of lard but he’s a very rich lump and there is nothing that I wouldn’t do to fight my own corner!’
Eden studied the older woman with shaken recoil from that description of Nuncio.
Tina dealt her an even more disconcerting look of malicious amusement. ‘Nobody will ever believe that I was the unfaithful wife, so you’re in no position to threaten me—’
‘I’m not threatening you—’
‘You’ve got one huge shock coming your way in any case,’ Tina murmured with venomous softness. ‘But being sworn to secrecy by all parties concerned, I dare not let that particular cat out of the bag. Wait and see whether or not your marriage has a future before you waste your time trying to wreck mine!’
As the door closed on the blonde’s triumphant exit, Eden was genuinely bewildered. ‘One huge shock’? What on earth wa
s Tina trying to suggest? Tired as she was, Eden took a quick shower in the en suite to freshen up. She only wished she could as easily wash away the memory of Tina’s spite. Pure and pointless, spite, that’s all it was, she told herself. At least Mark had no personal axe to grind over his affair with Tina, she reflected with relief. Damiano might not particularly like Mark but, if she needed Mark to clear her own name, he would surely accept the younger man’s word.
Her suitcase still sat just inside the bedroom door. In spite of the fact that no Braganzi expected or indeed usually received anything less than twenty-four-hour domestic service, nobody had come to unpack for her. Eden smiled at the fact that she was feeling slighted and tugged out a nightdress. Clambering into the big comfortable bed, she wondered how long it would take Damiano to come upstairs and join her.
Eden had actually drifted off to sleep when a loud noise interspersed with raw male invective woke her up with a start. She sat up and switched on the light. Damiano, lean strong face grim with anger, had evidently tripped over her case in the dark.
‘Are there no maids in this house? And why have you chosen to sleep so far away from me that I have to go on a major search to find you in my own home?’ Damiano demanded with eloquent outrage, striding over to the bed, trailing back the duvet and scooping her off the divan without a second of hesitation.
‘What on—?’ she gasped.
Heading out into the corridor again with her still gripped in his powerful arms, Damiano breathed flatly, ‘We share the same room, the same bed.’
Settled down on to a bed in a much more impressive room situated off the main landing, Eden flushed. ‘Sleeping elsewhere wasn’t my idea—’
‘Per meraviglia! Do I look dumb enough to believe that?’ Damiano was crushingly unimpressed by her plea of innocence.