by Julia James
She gave a sigh. Her mother—never popular with Guido’s younger brother Enrico and his wife, Lucia—had become markedly less popular after her husband’s death, when it had become known that the childless Guido, rather than leaving his half of the Viscari Hotels Group shares to his nephew, Vito, had instead left them to his widow, Marlene. They had been outraged by the decision, and when Enrico had suddenly died, barely a year later, his premature death had been blamed on the stress of worrying about Marlene’s ownership of the shares. Since then, Vito had sought repeatedly to buy them from Marlene, but Carla’s mother had continually refused to sell.
To Carla, it was straightforward. Her mother should sell her shareholding to Vito—after all, it was Vito who was the true heir to the Viscari dynasty, and he should control the inheritance completely. But Carla knew why her mother was refusing to do so—her ownership of those critical shares gave her mother status and influence within the Viscari family, resented though it was by her sister-in-law.
Carla’s mouth tightened in familiar annoyance. It also continued to feed her mother’s other obsession. One that she had voiced when Carla was a teenager and had repeated intermittently ever since—despite Carla’s strong objection. An objection she still gave—would always give.
‘Mum—forget it! Just stop going on about it! It’s never going to happen! I get on well enough with Vito, but please, please, just accept there is absolutely no way whatsoever that I would ever want to do what you keep on about!’
No way whatsoever that she would ever consider marrying her step-cousin...
Vito Viscari—incredibly handsome with his Latin film star looks—might well be one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors, but to Carla he was simply her step-cousin, and of no romantic interest to her in the slightest. Nor was she to him. Vito was well known for liking leggy blondes—he ran a string of them, and always had one in tow, it seemed to her—and he was welcome to them. He held no appeal for her at all.
A shiver went through her. She remembered the man who did...who’d made every cell in her body searingly aware of her physicality. Who’d cast his eye upon her and then scooped her up into his sleek, powerful car effortlessly.
She felt the heat flush in her body, her pulse quicken. Heard her phone ring on her desk.
She dived on it, breathless. ‘Pronto?’
It was Cesare.
* * *
‘But this is charming! Absolutely lovely!’
Carla’s gaze took in the small but beautifully proportioned miniature Palladian-style villa, sheltered by poplars and slender cypresses, in front of which Cesare was now drawing up. It was set in its own grounds in the lush countryside of Lazio, less than an hour’s drive beyond Rome, and its formal eighteenth-century gardens ideally suited the house.
She looked around her in delight as she stepped gracefully out of the low-slung car, conscious of the quietness all around her, the birdsong, the mild warmth of the late-afternoon sun slanting across the gardens—and conscious, above all, of the man coming to stand beside her.
‘My home out of town...what is the term in English? Ah, yes...my bolthole.’ He smiled.
He ushered her inside, and Carla stepped into a marble-floored, rococo-style hallway, its decor in white, pale blue and gold.
Into her head came a description for the house that was not the one Cesare had just given.
Love nest...
A half-caustic, half-amused smile tugged at her mouth. Well, why not a love nest? It was a conveniently short distance from Rome, and so very charming. An ideal place for romantic dalliance.
Because that was what she was embarking on. She knew it—accepted it. Had accepted it the moment she’d heard Cesare’s deep tones on the phone earlier that afternoon, informing her that he would be with her shortly. Taking for granted what her answer would be.
Was she being reckless, to come here with him like this? Of course she was! She knew it, but didn’t care. All her life she’d been careful—never one to rush into passionate affairs, never making herself the centre of any gossip. Yet now, a little less than twenty-four hours since she had stood in front of that Luciezo portrait of Count Alessandro, she was going to do just that.
And she would revel in it! For once in her life she would follow the hectic beating of her heart, the hot pulse of her blood, and respond to a man who, like no other she had ever met, could call such a response from her merely by a flickering glance from his dark, hooded eyes. However brief their liaison was to prove—and she knew perfectly well that it could never lead to anything—she would enjoy it to the full until the passion between them burnt itself out, until her desire was quenched.
A man in late middle age was emerging, greeting the Count with respectful familiarity.
‘Ah, Lorenzo,’ Cesare answered, in a reciprocal tone that told Carla he showed full appreciation of his staff. ‘Will you show Signorina Charteris where she may refresh herself?’
Carla was escorted upstairs, shown into a pretty, feminine bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom that had once, she presumed, been a dressing room. As she looked at herself in the glass, checking the careful perfection of her hair and make-up, retouching the rich colour of her lips, for just a second she felt a qualm go through her.
Should I really go ahead with this? Plunge headlong into an affair with a man like this? An affair that can come to nothing?
But that, surely, was why she was doing it! Because it could come to nothing! There could be no future with a man for whom marriage to her could never be an option, and therefore love could never be a possibility—never a danger. She would not follow in her mother’s footsteps, imagining love could come from an affair.
And that is all it will be—an affair. Nothing more than indulging in the overpowering effect he has on me, such as I have never, never known before.
She could see the pulse beating at her throat, the heightened colour in her cheeks, the quickening shallowness of her breathing. All telling her one thing and one thing only. That it was far too late for any qualms now.
With a quick spritz of scent from her handbag, she headed back downstairs. A pair of double doors stood open now, leading through to a beautifully appointed drawing room with French windows. Beyond, she could see Cesare.
Waiting for her.
At her approach, he smiled, his eyes washing over her with satisfaction.
Yes—he had been right to make the decision he had. This would go well, this affair with this enticing, alluring woman. He had no doubts about it. Everything about her confirmed it. Oh, not just her sensual allure and her responsiveness to him—powerful as it was—but any lingering reservations he might have had about her suitability for such a liaison were evaporating with every moment.
All his conversations with her so far had been reassuring on that score. Though she was Guido Viscari’s stepdaughter, she made no special claims on the relationship, which indicated that she would make no claims on the relationship that he and she would share.
Her cool, English air of reserve met with his approval—like him, she would seek to avoid gossip and speculation and would draw no undue attention to her role in his life while their affair lasted—or afterwards. She had a career of her own to occupy her—one that was compatible with some of his own interests—and intelligent conversation with her was showing him that she was a woman whose company he could enjoy both out of bed and in.
She will enjoy what we have together and will have no impossible expectations. And when the affair has run its course we shall part gracefully and in a civilised manner. There will be no trouble in parting from her.
Parting with her...
But all that was for later—much later. For now, the entirely enticing prospect of their first night together beckoned.
His smile deepened. ‘Come,’ he said, as she walked towards him.
A little way along the terrace an ironwork table was set with two chairs, and there was a stand on which an opened bottle of champagne nestled in its bed of ice. But Carla’s eyes were not for that—nor for Cesare. They were on the vista beyond the terrace.
Once more a pleased exclamation was on her lips, a smile of delight lighting her features.
‘Oh, how absolutely perfect!’
Beyond the terrace, set at the rear of the villa, a large walled garden enclosed not just a pretty pair of parterres, one either side, but in the central space a swimming pool—designed, she could see at once, as if it were a Roman bath, lined with mosaic tiles and glittering in the sun. Ornamental bay trees marched either side of the paving around the pool, and there was a sunlit bench at the far end, espaliered fruit trees adorning the mossed walls.
Cesare came to stand beside her as she gazed, enraptured.
‘We shall try out the pool later,’ he said. ‘But for now...’
He turned to pour each of them a glass of softly foaming champagne. As she took hers Carla felt the faint brush of his fingers, and the glass trembled in her hand. She gazed up at him, feeling suddenly breathless.
His dark gaze poured down into hers as he lifted his glass. ‘To our time together,’ he murmured.
She lifted her glass, touching it to his. Then drank deeply from it.
As she would drink deeply from her time with this most compelling of men...
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FIRE WAS burning low in the grate. The long, heavy silk drapes were drawn across the tall windows, cocooning them in the drawing room. Cesare’s long legs extended with careless proprietorship towards the hearth from where he sat on the elegant sofa.
The evening had been long and leisurely. Champagne on the terrace, watching the sunset, followed by an exquisitely prepared dinner, discreetly served by Lorenzo in the rococo-style dining room.
Conversation had been easy—wide-ranging and eclectic—and Carla had found it both mentally stimulating and enjoyable, as it had been in the restaurant the night before. As it continued to be now, as she sat, legs slanting towards him, on a silk-covered fauteuil, sipping at a liqueur. Coffee was set on the ormolu table at her side...candles glowed on the mantel above the fire. An intimate, low-lit ambience enclosed them.
Their conversation wove on, both in English and Italian, melding Carla’s expertise on High Renaissance art with Cesare’s greater knowledge of the politics and economics of the time. And then at some point—she could not quite tell when—the conversation seemed to drain away, and she could not think of one more question to ask him.
Her liqueur was consumed, she realised, and she reached to place the empty glass on the low table at her side. As she released it Cesare stretched out his own hand. Let his fingers slide around her wrist.
It was the first physical contact between them that evening, and it electrified her.
Her eyes went to his, widening at the ripple of sensation that his long, cool fingers circling her wrist engendered. His eyes were on her, heavy and lidded.
Wordlessly, he drew her to her feet. Wordlessly, she let him. Still holding her wrist loosely, he lifted his other hand to her face. Those long, graceful fingers traced the outline of her cheek, her jaw. Faintness drummed in her veins and she felt her body sway, as if no longer able to keep itself upright.
Cesare smiled—a slow, sensual smile. As he had done in the car the night before, just before he’d kissed her. Kissed her as he did now—slowly, leisurely, with infinite sensuality, his mouth like velvet on hers...
‘How very, very beautiful you are...’ The words were a murmur, a caress. His gaze met hers. His mouth drew free. Her lips were still parted, her eyes still wide and clinging.
‘Shall we?’ he asked.
She did not answer. Did not need to.
She let him take her upstairs, into the bedroom she’d been shown to earlier, the house hushed around them. Then he was slipping the embroidered evening jacket from her, letting it fall to a chair, sliding down the zip of her dress, easing it from her shoulders. His mouth grazed the bare skin between the cusp of her arm and her neck, and she felt her head move to take in the luxury of his kiss. Slowly she stepped away from him a moment, to step out of her dress, drape it carefully on the chair.
As she turned back she saw that he had carelessly shrugged his own jacket free, and was loosening his tie, slipping the buttons of his shirt. Her eyes went to the smooth, hard wall of his chest. With an instinct older than time she stepped towards him, clad only in bra and panties, and the girdle of her stockings. She saw his eyes flare with male reaction. Felt her own fingertips reach to graze with infinite delicacy across the revealed skin of his torso. Saw his shoulders tense, his pupils become pinpoints.
Wickedly, oh-so-wickedly, she let the palms of her hands slide beneath his shirt, around the warm, strong column of his back, craning her head back to smile into his face with invitation and desire.
For one long, impossible moment he held fast, and still she smiled up at him.
Then, as if a limit had been reached, he gave a low growl in his throat and crushed her to him. His mouth came down on hers and now there was no slow, velvet arousing caress. Now there was only male hunger. Raw, insistent.
Fire flamed in her and her hands flattened on his spine, holding him against her as his mouth devoured hers. Arousal seared in her, her pulse soaring, skin heating. She felt her nipples crest, her breasts engorge—felt, with a fierce flare of arousal, his own arousal against her hips. Sensual excitement filled her...a mad headiness possessed her.
Desire, hot and tumid, took her over—took him over. Possessed them both.
He crushed her down upon the bed, upon the heavy satin covers, and the world was lost to her.
And more than just the world.
* * *
Carla twirled around her apartment, her body as light as air, her feet almost off the ground. Cesare! Oh, the very name, the very thought of him, filled her being, her mind, every synapse of her utterly possessed existence! How she thrilled to say his name, to see his face, his body—that powerful, sensual, perfect body!—in her mind’s eye all the time...
She did not need to be with him to see him. He was there in her head, a constant presence, and every beat of her pulse was telling her what he had done to her.
Their first night together had set her aflame—caught her in a maelstrom of sensation and ecstasy that she had never known possible, that had set her alight with a flame that could not be quenched.
They had stayed at the villa for two days, and Carla had simply blotted out the rest of the world. She’d phoned in to the office the next day, on some pretext or other, to say that she was out of communication, and then she’d turned off her phone and given her entire and absolute focus to the man she was with. To Cesare—who had possessed her utterly, body and mind.
Cocooned at the villa, the only person they’d seen had been Lorenzo, for they had not ventured beyond the formal rooms that she and Cesare had occupied or the gardens beyond the terrace—and the joys of the sparkling Roman-style swimming pool. Where swimsuits had not been necessary...
And making love in the water, beneath the stars at night, had been a revelation of sensual pleasure such as she had never, never anticipated. She had cried out in ecstasy as he’d held her, cradled her to him, and her head had fallen back, her hair streaming out into the water, her face lifted to the heavens, eyes wide with their reflected glory, as her body had shuddered, and shuddered again, in Cesare’s strong possession.
Then, finally, as she’d let her head rest against his shoulder, let the water lap gently around them, he’d waded from the pool, wrapped her in the softest towels and carried her indoors and up to the bedroom—to make love to her all over again...
And again and yet again. Waking and sleeping, sleeping and wa
king, until the morning sun had streamed through the curtains and he’d been smoothing her tousled hair, smiling down at her.
‘Breakfast,’ he’d said. ‘And then, alas, Rome. I have a lunch meeting I can’t get out of.’
Carla had gazed up at him. ‘And I must phone my editor.’
She’d smiled, lifting her hand lazily to graze the growth along Cesare’s chin. If he grew a beard he’d look even more like his ancestor, she’d found herself thinking, amused.
But amusement had not been uppermost in her thoughts. There had been a stab of fear in the back of her mind—one that had returned as they drove back into Rome later in the morning.
Will he want to see me again—or is this all I shall have of him?
The stab had come again, almost drawing blood...
She’d hidden it, though—had known she must. Known with every instinct of her femininity that making any reference to that at all, asking any such question, would be the very last thing that would help to persuade him that he did want to see her again—did want more, much more, of what had been between them these last two incredible days.
And so it had proved. As he’d dropped her off at her apartment, he had casually wrapped his hand around her nape, drawn her to his mouth for a farewell kiss. But only farewell for the moment.
‘I can’t do tonight,’ he’d said with a smile, his eyes washing over hers with warm intimacy, ‘but the following night is clear. Tell me...how are you with opera?’
Carla had smiled in return, not letting the relief show in her face. ‘Very predictable, I’m afraid. Verdi and Puccini, fine, Wagner and modern, not fine—’
He’d laughed and let her go. ‘How about Donizetti?’
‘Bel canto I can cope with,’ she’d said in answer, and laughed too.