by Lynne Graham
Eden almost knocked her cup and saucer over as she made a sudden lunge at her bag to dig out her diary. Another wave of that irritating dizziness washed over her, forcing her to lift her head again and breathe in deep before she felt able to check dates in her diary. She thought about the light-headed sensations which had been annoying her for almost a week and discovered that her period was a few days late. Her cycle was normally regular.
A beatific glow slowly enveloped Eden. She might be pregnant right now, she thought in shock; right this very minute, she might be pregnant! And how would Damiano feel about that? Well, the guy who had said he was tough would just have to be tough. What she really needed was confirmation one way or the other from a doctor and she wasted no time in reaching for the phone.
After Damiano had gone missing, Eden had just about broken her heart over that reality that there had not been the slightest chance of her being pregnant. Although she had chosen to stop taking the contraceptive pill, Damiano had not shared her bed again in those final weeks. She had believed then that in her situation a child would have been an enormous comfort.
As soon as she had had lunch, Eden was driven back to London to keep an immediate appointment with the Harley Street medical practitioner whom the Braganzi family patronised. She prayed while the pregnancy test was being done. Twenty minutes later, she settled back into the limo shaken, smug and over the moon.
Indeed, Eden did not begin descending to planet earth again until she went to bed that night in solitary state at Greyscott Hall. With increasing anxiety, she was by then wondering how Damiano would react to the news that she was carrying his child. The insane desire to rush straight to the phone and tell him in the hope of bringing him home had receded fast. Five years ago, admitting to Damiano that she wanted a baby had gone down like a lead balloon. And how could Damiano possibly want her to have his baby now when they were estranged?
Everything always seemed to condense down to one humiliating fact: Damiano did not love her. If he had ever loved her, he would have told her. She had never forgotten Annabel Stavely, egged on by Cosetta, showing off her necklace etched with a loving inscription from Damiano. Even so, back then, she had often wondered what Damiano had found to love in Annabel. The redhead’s undeniable physical perfection? Her endless joy in shopping? Her enthusiastic description of each designer garment purchased? Her apparent inability to utter a single intelligent sentence? While prepared to admit that she had scarcely been an unprejudiced judge, Eden had been stumped.
At noon the next day, having entertained herself with a trip to the nearest design and interiors shop and returned with a couple of wallpaper books, Eden was down on her knees in the nursery. To cheer herself up, she was comparing the merits of fluffy bunny rabbits on a border as opposed to dancing teddy bears, and when she heard footsteps behind her she simply assumed it was the housekeeper.
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘Love those drunk-looking teddy bears…’ Damiano breathed without warning above her head. ‘But why are the rabbits jumping over gates like sheep?’
Eden froze.
‘Artistic licence, I expect,’ Damiano answered for himself, his dark, deep drawl so constrained it screamed his tension louder than any tannoy. ‘Not very sophisticated but certainly novel.’
CHAPTER NINE
IN DISCOMFITED haste, Eden flipped shut both the wallpaper books. ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she admitted before she could think better of it.
‘Do I need to make an appointment now?’ Damiano enquired tautly.
‘Of course not.’ Eden did not notice the hand he extended to help her up off her knees. She was flustered and waiting for him to ask why she had been studying nursery wallpapers. She smoothed down her fitted short-sleeved apricot blouse and the toning cotton skirt she wore with nervous hands. ‘When did you arrive?’
Damiano flashed her a narrowed glance from spectacular dark, deep-set eyes, high cheekbones taut. ‘Almost an hour ago. I expected to stumble upon you faster.’
He had been in no hurry to find her, Eden translated, heart sinking at that amount of reluctance after a separation which had lasted three days. Not that three days was that long a space of time, she tried to tell herself. She focused on him with helpless intensity, greedily absorbing every detail of his appearance. The sophisticated pale grey suit cut to enhance every hard line of his wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, powerful thighs. The black silk luxuriance of hair, the strong masculine profile, the authority and intrinsic sensuality of a breathtakingly attractive and powerful male.
‘To be frank, I was thinking…thinking in depth,’ Damiano extended flatly, snapping her out of the abstracted thoughts that were already beginning to make her face burn. ‘Trying to work out what to say to you and, I’m afraid, not getting anywhere fast.’
That honest admission struck Eden with force and filled her with fear. Nobody with any finer feeling found it easy to find the right words with which to break news that would hurt. ‘Let’s go downstairs,’ she urged, swiftly stepping past him.
No, he wasn’t the type to bring in the lawyers without telling her first face to face that he wanted a divorce. There was nothing cowardly about Damiano and nothing underhand. His cool reserve might once have defied her comprehension but he had returned to her, considerably more willing to express what he felt and what he thought. Her fingers fluttered across her tummy in a fleeting protective gesture that she hurriedly cut short. Telling Damiano that she was expecting their first child promised to be a most humiliating challenge. From his point of view, that could hardly be good news, but she had no doubt that he would politely strive to hide that reality for her sake. Her throat thickened with tears.
Damiano followed Eden into the sitting room. Eden left him again to order coffee but she was ashamed of that weak prompting to play for time. The arrival of coffee was hardly likely to deflect Damiano from his purpose.
When she reappeared, Damiano was lodged by the stone fireplace. The angles of his lean, strong face were tense. ‘It’s ironic to think that this is really our first home. I don’t think the town house counts.’
Eden was at the stage of reading threatening vibrations into everything that now passed his lips. She was convinced that the irony he saw in his purchase of Greyscott Hall as their first supposed home was that he now knew he would never share it with her. ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t,’ she agreed tightly. ‘Are you planning to sell the Villa Pavone?’
Dark golden eyes veiled, Damiano shot her a sudden frowning glance. ‘That idea hadn’t occurred to me. But I believe that the villa should be opened to the public for some part of the year in honour of my grandmother’s work.’
A light knock on the door heralded the arrival of coffee. Eden busied herself over the cups but her hands were all fingers and thumbs and she had to do everything very slowly. The atmosphere was so full of charged undertones that her tummy was in knots and her palms damp.
‘Grazie…’ Damiano breathed flatly, retreating back to the fireplace with his cup and saucer as if there were a dividing line down the centre of the room and he could only briefly visit the zone designated as hers. ‘Do you like the house?’
‘It’s really beautiful. I was delighted with the sewing room too. That was a lovely idea,’ Eden completed in a voice that just trailed away on the reflection that that reminder of his warmer intentions towards her might now be unwelcome.
Across the room, a shaft of sunlight playing over his dark, well-shaped head, Damiano stared down fixedly into his black coffee.
Eden feasted her attention on him, noting the taut line of his beautifully shaped mouth, and then watched his cup rattle on the saucer for a split second before she realised that he couldn’t hold his hand quite steady. Almost as quickly, Damiano set his coffee down with a low-pitched exclamation in Italian.
Strained dark eyes claimed hers before she could evade that contact. ‘I very much regret what happened in Italy—’
Eden went r
igid, registering that the main issue could no longer be avoided. ‘Fine, absolutely fine,’ she slotted in with a mindless desire to stop him speaking before he could say anything that might hurt her.
The silence smouldered.
‘No, it wasn’t fine,’ Damiano contradicted. ‘I should never have reacted as I did. I owe you an explanation.’
Eden tore her pained gaze from his. She rose from her seat because sitting still had suddenly become impossible for her and she walked over to the windows. She did not want any long-winded explanations. She knew how he felt; she wasn’t stupid. He had been willing to give their marriage another chance but the belief that she had had an affair had blown that ambition out of the water.
‘When I saw that newspaper cutting, I was confronted by my biggest fear,’ Damiano admitted in a driven undertone. ‘And I am very conscious that I did not shine like a star in dealing with it.’
‘But I understood how you felt,’ Eden conceded heavily.
That tabloid story furnished with a convincing photograph and backed by her own suspicious silence on the subject would not have impressed any man with a belief in her innocence.
‘I doubt it…’
Eden looked up uncertainly.
Damiano studied her with bleak dark eyes. ‘I thought the worst because I felt that I deserved the worst. I was too upset to be rational,’ he confessed with a ragged edge to his dark, deep drawl. ‘But even when I was being a lousy husband five years ago, even when I was being unreasonably jealous, I always knew in my heart that you were the most honest and sincere woman I had ever met.’
‘You…you did?’ Eden pressed in surprise.
‘Of course, I did,’ Damiano asserted forcefully. ‘No matter how damning the evidence appeared, I should have accepted your word that you had not had an affair with Mark Anstey.’
Eden continued to stare at him, utterly disconcerted by that final statement. Meeting the level look of regret in his spectacular dark golden eyes, she realised that he meant what he was saying. No longer did he suspect that she had been unfaithful! The most enormous tide of relief rolled over Eden and left her feeling weak. She sank heavily down on the window-seat and slowly breathed in deep to steady herself.
‘I wish I could tell you that I reached that conclusion without hesitation,’ Damiano continued with a pronounced air of discomfiture. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t—’
‘You can’t?’ Eden cut in anxiously, wondering if she had misunderstood his declaration of faith in her mere seconds earlier.
‘I was able to purchase the entire roll of film that was taken of Anstey and his female companion that day.’ Damiano withdrew several photographs from the inside pocket of his jacket. Colour scored his hard cheekbones as Eden frowned in bewilderment and then stared fixedly down at the snaps he was laying out on the window-seat for her inspection.
‘I didn’t realise that there was more than that one photograph taken!’ Eden snatched up the first. She was astonished to find herself studying a photo of Tina in the act of climbing out of the car, a photo which nobody who knew both women could possibly have mistaken as being of Eden.
‘I had begun negotiations to buy that film before I even landed back in London,’ Damiano informed her wryly. ‘I wanted to ensure that neither the original nor any further photos that might have been taken that day could appear in print again.’
Eden slowly shook her head over the spread. Distaste filled her as she thought of the hidden photographer out simply for profit but ultimately responsible for causing so much heartache. Leaving the photos where they lay, she got up and walked away from them in growing disgust and bitterness. ‘Naturally, the newspaper was only interested in printing that one picture that showed the big kiss but not the woman’s face! So it was just a case of mistaken identity, was it? Some creep who didn’t know either Tina or me well enough to tell us apart?’
‘I have put the matter in the hands of my lawyers. My opinion is that the mistake was deliberate because it provided a tacky little story but I may be proved wrong. Can you forgive me for doubting you?’ Damiano demanded tautly.
‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’ Eden exclaimed, still outraged by what she had learnt from seeing those photographs. ‘I’m just so annoyed that I didn’t have the wit to get in touch with the family legal firm and order my own investigation years ago!’
Crossing the room, Damiano reached for her tightly clenched hands. He closed his fingers over hers. ‘Eden…?’ he prompted grittily. ‘I’ll beg if you want me to.’
Her hands relaxed in the grip of his. She forgot all about the photographs as finally she allowed herself to fully appreciate that the nightmare was over. Happiness began to surge up where once there had only been fear and anxiety. She looked up at him and collided with shimmering eyes that made her heart sing. ‘Would you beg?’ she could not resist asking with considerable curiosity.
‘Per amour di Dio…’ Damiano murmured with ragged stress, almost crushing the life from her smaller hands. ‘Could you doubt it after what we were to each other in Italy, tesora mio? Don’t you know that even if it had been you in that photo, I would have come back to you?’
‘Really?’ Eden gazed up at him with shaken eyes.
‘Now you’re being stupid…’ Damiano muttered with roughened tenderness, gathering her into his arms and releasing his breath in a pent-up hiss. ‘I only came back to London because I was afraid of wrecking what we had found together.’
‘An excess of tact doesn’t become you…or suit me. I would have preferred you to stay and talk,’ Eden confided, her mouth running dry and the breath shortening in her throat.
Being pressed into intimate connection with his lithe, powerful physique awakened little quivers of responsive heat in what felt like every inch of her body. A very feminine smile curved her lips as he shivered against her, his heated male arousal something he could not conceal from her.
‘Sì…’ Turning up her face, Damiano appraised her with scorching golden eyes and then, linking his hands with hers again, he groaned unevenly. ‘I have missed being with you so much. Could we complete this conversation upstairs, cara mia?’
Eden pretended to consider his request and tilted her head to one side. Her eyes danced with provocation.
With a censorious growl, Damiano responded by sealing his hot demanding mouth to hers. Soaring excitement laced her haze of joyous happiness. He released her long enough for them to reach the hall and start up the stairs, but a couple of minutes were lost on the landing when the temptation to kiss again proved too much for both of them.
Damiano deposited her on the bed in the dark oak-panelled master bedroom. Eden kicked off her shoes. ‘Can’t you just imagine this room lit by fire-light in winter?’ she whispered, studying him with dreamy eyes, clasping her hands over her still flat tummy and deciding that she would tell him about the baby after they had made love.
Damiano gave her a slanting grin. ‘I like you in all kinds of light. I’m not at all particular in that direction.’
Her heart just jumped at the innate charm of that smile.
‘Daylight, moonlight, lamplight, total blackout…’ Damiano enumerated in mocking addition, tugging loose his silk tie and removing his jacket with a decided look of intent that made her tense with anticipation. ‘I can’t believe you’re not throwing me out—’
Eden lifted a slim shoulder in an attempt to emulate one of his slight fluid shrugs. ‘I could still be considering it—’
Still half dressed, Damiano came down on the bed and cupped her cheekbones with his spread fingers. ‘Don’t tease,’ he urged feelingly, lustrous dark eyes pinned to her tender smile in raw approach. ‘I have no sense of humour whatsoever when it comes to the idea of losing you.’
She turned her lips into his hand and kissed his palm. ‘That cuts both ways,’ she said a little shakily.
Their eyes met, hot gold into anxious green, and suddenly they were kissing each other breathless with the kind of electrifying mutual hunge
r which brooked no denial. Eden wrenched at his shirt buttons at the same time as he attempted to deprive her of her blouse. With a groan of frustration at their colliding manoeuvres, Damiano pulled back and ripped off his shirt, sending a couple of buttons flying in his eagerness to discard it.
‘Not very cool, Mr Braganzi—’
‘Not feeling cool at all,’ Damiano confided without hesitation, extracting her from her blouse and disposing of her bra.
He pressed his mouth hotly to the exposed slope of one small breast, succumbed to the lure of a pouting pink nipple and lingered there to tease her sensitive flesh with erotic mastery. She writhed under his attentions, possessed by a frantic craving that drove her on like a fever. He ran his hand up the extended length of one slender thigh, driving her wild with anticipation. She closed her hand into his hair, dragging his mouth back to hers again, straining up to him as his tongue delved hungrily into the tender interior of her mouth, leaving her quivering helplessly in reaction.
‘I can’t wait to be inside you, cara,’ Damiano swore raggedly as he pushed up her skirt and deftly removed her panties.
‘Don’t wait…’ Her every nerve-ending felt tightly stretched. She was so hot, so excited, she couldn’t keep still. Her own impatience was unbearable. She wanted him; she wanted him now.
Damiano studied her with smouldering eyes of desire. She rocked up against him and his brilliant eyes suddenly flared stormy gold. He pulled her under him and sank into her with one bold, hungry thrust. For an instant she was shocked by the sheer surge of wanton pleasure. And then her hunger for him took her over again, wild and uncontrollable and torturously sweet as the lithe male dominance of his body over, and in, hers. Her heart was racing as he drove her higher and higher, her whole being centred on reaching that ultimate plateau. The explosion of ecstatic pleasure splintered through her with unforgettable strength and then dropped her slowly again back into the hold of her body.