by Julia James
Yet it would be for her pleasure too—she knew that with every shimmer in her body as she stood, poised on the pavement, feeling the weight of his lidded gaze upon her. That was the devil of it—that was the allure. That was the reason, Carla knew with a kind of sinking in her heart, that was keeping her here, hovering, just as he was keeping that monstrous, powerful car of his hovering, its power leashed, but ready to be let forth.
His words, mocking her, echoed in her head. ‘What is so difficult about accepting an invitation to dinner?’
His voice—deep, amused—cut across her tormented cogitations. ‘You really will need to decide swiftly—the warden is nearly upon us.’
The uniformed official was, indeed, closing fast. But Carla’s eyes only sparked deep blue. ‘And you couldn’t possibly afford the fine, could you?’ she retorted.
‘Alas, it is a question of my pride,’ Cesare murmured, the glint in his eye accentuated. ‘It would never do for il Conte to put himself in the power of a petty bureaucrat...’
Was he mocking himself? Carla had the suspicion he was not...
For a moment longer every objection she had made when he’d first invited her to dinner flared like phosphorus in her head. Every reason why she should give exactly the same kind of answer as she had then—evasive, avoiding the invitation—then walk briskly away, back to the comfortable, predictable evening she’d planned for herself in her own apartment. Making herself dinner, going through her notes in preparation for writing her article. An evening that had nothing, nothing to do with the man now waiting for her answer...
And yet—
Her own thought replayed itself in her head. How dangerous might it be to light a passion that could not be quenched?
But other thoughts pushed their way into her head. Thoughts she did not want to silence. Could not silence... Desire and passion will burn themselves out! They cannot last for ever.
Neither desire nor passion was love.
Yet both were powerful—alluring—speaking to her of what might be between them.
Passion and desire.
The same tremor went through her, the same flush in her skin as when he had first made his desire for her plain, calling from her an answering awareness. No other man had ever drawn from her such an overpowering response.
For a second longer she hesitated, hung between two opposing instincts.
To resist that response—or to yield to it.
The dark, lidded eyes rested on her—holding hers.
With a sudden impulse, impelling her way below the level of conscious decision, she felt her muscles move as if of their own volition. She got into the car, slamming the door shut.
Instantly, as if preventing her from rescinding her decision as much as avoiding the attentions of the parking official, Cesare opened the throttle, pulled the car away from the kerb—and Carla reached for her seat belt, consciousness rushing back upon her in all its impact.
Oh, dear God, what the hell had she just done?
I got into his damn car just to save his damn aristocratic pride! So he wouldn’t have to endure the ignominy of getting a parking ticket! How insane is that?
Completely insane. As insane as letting Cesare di Mondave drive off with her like this—the lordly signor scooping up the peasant girl.
Her chin lifted. Well, she was no peasant girl! She was no poor, hapless female like the one in the portrait, trapped within the punishing limitations of her time in history. No, if she went along with what this impossible, arrogant man had in mind for her—if, she emphasised mentally to herself—then it would be what she wanted too! Her free and deliberate choice to enjoy the enticing interlude he clearly had planned.
But would she make that choice? That was the only question that mattered now. Whether to do what every ounce of her good sense was telling her she should not do—and what every heat-flushed cell in her body was urging her to do. To resist it—or yield to it. She turned her head towards him, drawn by that same impetuous urge to let her eyes feast on him. He was focussing only on the appalling evening traffic in Rome, which, she allowed, did need total focus. She let him concentrate, let herself enjoy the rush that came simply from looking at his profile.
Sweet heaven, but it was impossible not to gaze at him! A modern version of that Luciezo portrait, updated for the twenty-first century. Indelibly graced with features that made her eyes cling to him, from the strong blade of his nose to the chiselled line of his jaw, the sensual curve of his mouth. She felt her hands clench over her bag. Weakness drenched her body. What she was doing was insane—and yet she was doing it.
She felt her pulse leap, and a heady sense of excitement filled her. A searing knowledge of her own commitment. Far too late now to change her mind.
And she did not want to—that was the crux of it. Oh, the lordly Count might have scooped her up just as arrogantly as his ancestor had scooped up the peasant girl who would become his mistress, but it had been her choice to let herself be so scooped.
Rebelliousness soared within her—a sense of recklessness and adventure.
I don’t care if this is folly! All I know is that from the moment he looked at me I wanted him more than I have ever wanted any man—and I will not deny that desire. I will fulfil it...
Fulfil it with all the ardour in her body, every tremor in her limbs. It was folly—reckless folly—but she would ignite that passion and burn it to the core.
* * *
‘Take the next left here,’ Carla said, indicating the narrow road in the Centro Storico that led down to her apartment, part of an eighteenth-century house. It was a quiet haven for her to write in, and to be well away not just from the buzz of the city but also from the tensions running across the Viscari clan.
Her mother, she knew, would have preferred her to stay on in Guido Viscari’s opulent villa, but thanks to her stepfather’s generosity in his will Carla had been able to buy her own small but beautiful apartment, taking intense pleasure in decorating it and furnishing it in an elegant but comfortable and very personal style.
However, her thoughts now were neither on the ongoing tensions in the Viscari clan nor on her apartment. There was only one dominating, all-encompassing consciousness in her head...
Cesare.
Cesare—with whom she had just dined, with whom she had conducted, she knew, a conversation that had taken place at two levels. One had seen him being the perfect escort, the perfect dinner companion, conversing with her about her job, about the arts, about the Italian landscape—of which he owned a significant proportion—and about any other such topics that two people making each other’s acquaintance might choose to converse about.
He’d asked her a little about herself—neither too little to be indifferent, nor too much to be intrusive. He’d known who she was, but she was not surprised—she’d known who he was, though they’d never chanced to meet before.
But there’d been another conversation taking place as they’d sat there over a lingering dinner in the small, ferociously exclusive restaurant Cesare had taken her to—where he had immediately been given the best table in the house, and where they had been waited on attentively, discreetly, unobtrusively but with absolute expertise.
He had nodded at one or two other patrons, and her presence had caused the lift of an eyebrow from one group of women, and a penetrating glance, but no more than that. She had been acquainted with no one there, and was glad of it. Glad there had been no one she knew to witness the second level of the conversation taking place between herself and Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
The conversation that had taken place powerfully, silently and seductively—oh-so-seductively—between him and her, with every exchange of glances, every half-smile, every sensual curve of his mouth, every lift of his hand with those long, aristocratic fingers.
The light had refl
ected off the gold of his signet ring, impressed with his family crest—the same lion couchant that his ancestor had displayed on his own ring in the Luciezo portrait—and Carla had found herself wondering if it could be the very same ring.
Eventually Cesare’s hand had crushed the white damask napkin and dropped it on the table to signal the end of their meal, and they’d got to their feet and made their way towards the exit.
Nothing so crude as a bill had been offered by the maître d’—nothing more than a respectful inclination of the head at their departure, a gracious murmur of appreciation from the Count, a smile of thanks from herself as they left, stepping out onto the pavement, where his car had been waiting for them.
Now, as they drew up at the kerb by her apartment, he cut the engine and turned and looked at her, an enigmatic expression visible in the dim street light.
Her consciousness of his raw physical presence seared in her again. She smiled at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for a lovely evening.’ Her voice was bright, and oh-so-civil.
She realised she’d spoken in English. They’d gone in and out of Italian and English all evening, for the Count’s English was as fluent as her Italian had become in the ten years she’d lived in Rome, though surely no Englishman could make his native language as seductive, as sensual as an Italian male could make it sound?
But English was the right language for this moment. Crisp, bright and utterly unseductive. The polite, anodyne description of something that had been so much more. She reached out her hand for the door release, her body still turned towards him.
A smile curved his mouth, long lashes dropping over his lidded eyes. ‘Indeed,’ he agreed.
She could hear the amusement in his voice, feel it catch at her, making her breathless, her pulse quicken.
‘And after such a “lovely evening”...’ his amusement was deeper now, his accented English doing even more to make her breathless ‘...there is only one way to end it, no?’
For an instant he held her gaze in the dim light, daring her to accept, to concede, to do what he wanted her to do—what he’d wanted of her from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘Like this,’ he said.
His hand stretched out, long fingers tilting up her face to his as his mouth lowered to hers. Slowly, sensuously, savouring. With skill, with expertise, with a lifetime of experience in how to let his lips glide over hers, his mouth to open hers to his, to taste the sweetness within. As soft, as sensual as silk velvet.
She drowned in it. A thousand nerve endings fired as he made free with her mouth, his long fingers still holding her. And when he had done he released her, drew back his hand, let it curve around the driving wheel.
He smiled. ‘Buone notte,’ he said softly.
For a moment—just a moment—she was motionless, as if all the shimmering pleasure he’d aroused in her with only a single kiss had made it impossible for her to move. She could do nothing except meet that amused, lidded gaze resting on her like a tangible pressure.
Then, with a little jolt, she pushed open the car door. Swallowed. In a daze she got out, fumbled for her keys, found them and shakily inserted them into the lock of the outer door of her apartment building. Then she made herself turn to look back at him. Bade him goodnight in a voice that was no longer bright and crisp.
He said nothing, merely inclining his head as she turned away, let herself into the cobbled inner courtyard, shut the heavy outer door behind her.
She heard the throaty growl of his car as he moved off. On shaky legs she went up to her apartment, and only when inside its sanctuary did she feel able to breathe again.
* * *
Cesare strolled to the window of his Rome apartment and gazed unseeing out over the familiar roofline. The large plate glass window of the modern designed space was glaringly different from the richly historical interiors of his other properties, and it gave a wide view over the city even at this midnight hour. He did not step out onto the large adjoining balcony; instead he merely continued to stand, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, legs slightly astride.
Was he being wise? That was the question that was imposing itself upon him. Was it wise to pursue what had been, after all, only the impulse of a moment—following through on a momentary glimpse of the woman who had caught his eye? Following through sufficiently to decide that it was worth spending an evening of his life in her company. Worth considering, as he was now considering, whether to pursue a liaison with her.
There were many reasons to do so. Uppermost, of course, was the intensity of his physical response to her. Unconsciously he shifted position restlessly, his body aware that a single kiss had only whetted the appetite that he could feel coursing through his blood. It was an intensity that had, he acknowledged, taken him by surprise. But was that reason enough to do what he knew his body wanted him to do?
Before he could answer, he knew from long experience that there was another question he must answer first.
Will she understand the terms of our liaison?
The terms that governed his life just as they’d governed all who had borne his ancient name and title. Had been hammered into him by his own dictatorial father who’d constantly impressed upon him his heritage, and yet who’d regarded him as favouring too much the mother whose outward serenity Cesare was sure had concealed an unvoiced regret.
Her husband had objected to her having any interests outside her responsibilities as his contessa, and she had confined her life to being the perfect chatelaine, the mother of his heir. His father had taken his son’s sympathy for his mother as a reluctance to respect the demands of his heritage, and after his mother’s premature death from heart disease, when Cesare was only nineteen, the rift between them had widened without her presence as peacemaker.
But when his father had died, some eight years later, he’d been determined not to neglect any aspect of his inheritance, dedicating himself to its preservation. If his father could see him now, half a dozen years on, perhaps his harsh judgement would be set aside.
The words that he had uttered only that evening, in front of the Luciezo painting of his sixteenth-century forebear, floated in his head.
‘Pride in his family, his lineage, his honour—all that he owes his house...’
With the echo of those words his thoughts came full circle back to the woman to whom he had spoken them. Did she understand why he had said what he had about his ancestor—about himself? It was essential that she did. Essential that she understood that, for him, one thing could never change.
In his mind’s eye two images formed—the other portraits in the triptych, the Count’s wife and his mistress. Separate for ever, coming from different worlds that could never meet.
Four centuries and more might distance him from Count Alessandro and the women who made up the triptych, but for himself, too, his countess would need to share his own background. Not because of any heraldic quarterings she possessed, but because only a woman from the same heritage as himself could truly understand the responsibilities of such a heritage. That was what his father had instilled into him. He had even identified for him the very woman who would make him the perfect next Contessa...
His expression changed and he stared out over the roofs of this most ancient city into whose roots his own ancestry reached. The lineage of a patrician of Ancient Rome was still traceable in his bloodline.
The woman who would be his Countess was well known to him—and she was not, nor ever could be, a woman such as the one he had embraced a brief hour ago, fuelling in him a desire for satiation that he must not yield to.
Not unless—until—he could be sure she accepted what could be between them. And what could not.
As, too, must he. That, also, was essential...
CHAPTER THREE
CARLA STARED AT her screen. She still had six hu
ndred more words to write for her article, and she was making heavy weather of it. She knew exactly why.
Cesare di Mondave.
He was in her headspace—had been totally dominating it, consuming every last morsel of it, since she’d made it into her apartment the night before, senses firing, aflame.
All through her sleepless night she’d replayed every moment of the evening over and over again—right up to that final devastating moment.
Cesare kissing her...
No! She must not let herself remember it again! Must not replay it sensuously, seductively, in her head. Must instead force herself to finish her article, send it into the impatiently waiting sub-editor at her office.
But even when she had she was unbearably restless, her heart beating agitatedly.
Will he phone me? Ask me out again? Or—a little chill went through her—has he decided he does not want me after all?
Face set, she made herself some coffee. She should not be like this—waiting for a man to phone her! She should be above such vulnerability. She was a strong-minded, independent woman of twenty-seven, with a good career, as many dates as she cared to go on should she want to, and there was no reason—no good reason!—for her to be straining to hear the phone ring. To hear the dark, aristocratic tones of Cesare di Mondave’s deep voice.
And yet that was just what she was doing.
The expression in her eyes changed. As she sipped her coffee, leaning moodily against the marble work surface in her immaculate kitchen, more thoughts entered her head. If last night’s dinner with Cesare was all there was to be between them she should be relieved. A man like that—so overwhelming to her senses—it was not wise to become involved with. She’d known that from the moment he’d first spoken to her, declared his interest.
But where was wisdom, caution, when she needed them? She felt her pulse quicken again as the memory of that kiss replayed itself yet again.
With a groan, she pulled her memory away. She shouldn’t be waiting for Cesare di Mondave to phone her! Not just because she should never be waiting around for a man to phone her! But because she should, she knew, phone her mother—reply to her latest complaint about her sister-in-law’s disapproving attitude towards her.