by India Grey
And then…
And then his mouth was on hers, his fingers biting into her shoulders as he gripped her, and kissed her, and she kissed him back with all the pain and loneliness and desperate longing of the last four years. Showers of incredulous joy burst inside her head and spread through her whole body. She felt weak with relief, with joy, as their mouths devoured each other, brutal and ruthless, their tongues probing and fighting, their teeth clashing.
Distantly she was aware of the music coming to a thundering climax, and the eruption of applause—which suddenly got louder as the door behind them opened.
‗Cristiano?‘
The voice was sharp and impatient, and Cristiano was lifting his head, pulling away from her, and the real world was rushing back in, in a blur of bright light and noise. He let go of her shoulders abruptly.
Kate staggered backwards, her hands flying to her mouth, which pulsed and throbbed, covering the incredulous smile that she couldn‘t suppress. A beautiful and exotic-looking girl she remembered from Monaco as Cristiano‘s PA, and whom she had seen coming and going from the hospital, was standing in the doorway. Her slanting, cat-like eyes flickered over Kate before going back to Cristiano.
‗Silvio is about to make his speech.‘
‘Va bene,’ he said tersely. ‗I‘ll be there in a minute.‘
The girl stared at him for a second, as if she wanted to say more, but then she turned and disappeared with a disdainful flick of her black shiny hair. The noise from the crowded room was shut off suddenly as the door closed behind her.
Kate was trembling violently with shock in the aftermath of that kiss, and with a sort of wild, excited anticipation, unable to take in the fact that the moment she‘d waited for all these years was finally here.
He was here.
Her gaze travelled wonderingly over him, as if trying to make her dazzled mind believe what she was seeing. She had only ever seen him in racing overalls or jeans and a T-shirt before, but the black, perfectly tailored dinner jacket added a whole new dimension of sexiness to his racing driver‘s physique, making his shoulders look wider and stronger, his hips narrower. Or maybe they were narrower, she thought with a wrench of desire and compassion. He had lost weight since the accident. The realisation made her want to wrap her arms around him and…
Slowly he turned back to face her. There was a curious stillness about him.
In the golden light of the chandeliers his face looked unusually pale.
‗ Mi dispiace. I shouldn‘t have done that.‘
His voice was toneless. Kate felt a pinprick of icy fear at the base of her spine. She shook her head, twisting her hands together to stop herself from reaching out to him.
‗It‘s OK.‘
He smiled—a chilling echo of the lazy, sexy, delicious smile she remembered so well.
‗Not really. I‘m afraid I mistook you for someone else. I apologise…‘
The fear blossomed and spread through her, as if it was being injected into her veins. She felt her own smile freeze on her face—a rictus grin of horror. Her whole body suddenly seemed to be made of stone, and it was all she could do to turn her face away so he wouldn‘t see the desolation and utter humiliation there.
‗Kate. It‘s Kate.‘
Her voice was a cracked whisper. She had to leave. Now. Before everything she had ever imagined in her worst-case scenario paled into insignificance.
He nodded curtly, taking a step backwards in the direction of the doors, giving her the benefit of his heartbreaking, ironic half-smile. ‗Kate. Forgive me for my…impulsiveness. It was a pleasure to meet you.‘
It felt as if she‘d been punched hard in the stomach. She wanted to double up and gasp for air. It had been a mistake. She‘d thought he‘d recognised her.
Remembered her. But it had been…a mistake.
He turned, his shoulders very rigid as he walked away. In a second he would open the door and go back into the crowded room and she would be alone. The moment would have passed.
‗We—we‘ve…met before, actually. I‘m from Clearspring Water. I interviewed you…once.‘
Oh, God. She sounded desperate. Unbalanced. Like some disturbed, obsessed fan. She wouldn‘t blame him if he alerted Security now. So to save herself the humiliation of being escorted off the premises, she gathered up her skirt and backed off a couple of steps.
He stopped.
For a moment he was absolutely still, as if turned to stone. Kate had to remind herself to keep breathing. Slowly, stiffly, he turned back to face her.
‗Kate Edwards.‘ His voice was soft, his tone completely neutral, but his face looked as if it had been carved from ice. ‗You interviewed me the night before the Monaco Grand Prix four years ago.‘
‗Yes.‘
So he knew. He knew who she was and yet he stood there, looking at her across the cavernous space with eyes that glittered with some emotion she couldn‘t read, but which certainly wasn‘t love. Or happiness, or excitement, or relief—or any of the other things she had felt when she saw him again. Her heart was beating very hard, very fast, shaking her whole body and pounding in her head as she began to back towards the door.
‗I‘m glad you‘re well again. I‘m glad you‘re back—i-if that‘s what you want…‘ Her skirt twisted around her legs, slowing her down. She managed a smile, though it felt as if her face might crack. ‗It was nice to see you again.‘
She was almost at the door. She could feel the cold night air at her back, and she turned round and covered the remaining few feet as quickly as she could in her agonising high heels. She didn‘t slow down until she had reached the door of the Hotel de Paris opposite.
It was only then that she remembered the letter in her evening bag.
Silvio‘s speech was mercifully short. As the crowd clapped and cheered, Cristiano made his way round the back of the platform to where Suki stood.
‗I slept with her, didn‘t I?‘
‗Who?‘
Suki looked up at him with deliberately blank eyes. Cristiano had to grit his teeth, steadying himself against the feeling of panic that was closing in on him.
The whole evening had taken on a kind of nightmarish quality, so that he wasn‘t sure what was real any more.
‗Kate Edwards,‘ he rasped. ‗From Clearspring Water. I slept with her the night before the crash. Why didn‘t you tell me?‘
Suki‘s blank gaze slid away again and she shrugged. ‗What does it matter?
You slept with everyone.‘
Cristiano jerked backwards, raising his hand so that for a moment Suki thought he was going to hit her. He thrust it into his hair and swore, and then swung round and began to push his way through the crowd.
Except me, she wanted to scream after him, watching his massive shoulders as he walked away, and the way people moved aside to let him through. Everyone except me.
Adrenaline burned through Cristiano‘s veins as he ran down the Casino steps. The cool air, with its whisper of pine and the sea, felt good—tasted better than the champagne he‘d been avoiding all evening—and out in the street-lit darkness the pounding inside his head was less intense. He knew that Silvio would be looking for him now, wanting him to stand in front of the two cars on the platform while the flashbulbs of hundreds of press photographers exploded all around, but he didn‘t care.
He didn‘t care about anything except finding Kate Edwards.
She had gone into the Hotel a Paris when she‘d run out of here. Standing in the middle of the marble floor, still reeling from the realisation of who she was, he had watched her crossing the square, dodging in front of a car in her haste to get away.
He nodded curtly at the doorman, who leapt forward to open the door for him as Suki‘s words came back to him. She wasn’t your type at all…seriously plain and boring…
She was right about the first bit at least—Kate Edwards was different entirely from the women he usually bedded, and yet there was something about her that tugged like a fish hook in h
is brain and left him in no doubt that he‘d slept with her that night.
And that the experience had been worth remembering.
Worth repeating—especially if it helped him to remember.
The receptionist glanced up from her computer screen as he approached the desk and, seeing who he was, started visibly.
‗Can you tell me which room Kate Edwards is in?‘
Her pink-painted mouth had fallen open, and she was looking at him in undisguised awe, so it was a second before she answered. ‗ Pardon, Signor Maresca…b-but really I shouldn‘t…‘
‗I hope Miss Edwards would disagree with that.‘ He dropped his voice and, looking her straight in the eye, smiled. ‗Please?‘
Colour flooded into her cheeks as she tapped the keyboard, and Cristiano felt a grim moment of satisfaction. It had been a long time since he‘d actively flirted with anyone, but that at least was something he could still do. He just hoped that Kate Edwards would fall for it as easily.
Because she was his best hope of recovering those lost hours. He‘d slept with her then—would sleeping with her again bring them back?
So that was it.
After four years of waiting, hoping, dreaming and wishing, it was finally over.
With a shaking hand Kate swept up all the brand-new expensive cosmetics so carefully picked out by Lizzie and shoved them back into her make-up bag.
Most of them hadn‘t even been opened. What a waste of money, she thought, stifling a sob.
But what was money compared to four years of her life?
She pulled her cheap suitcase down from the rack by the door and threw it onto the bed. She didn‘t intend to waste a second longer on a man who couldn‘t even remember sleeping with her. A shallow, cold-hearted playboy, with eyes like black ice and a heart of stone.
Straightening up for a moment, she clenched her fists and took in a deep, shuddering breath. Her eyes and her throat burned with the tears that she couldn‘t shed yet. Not while humiliation and fury and bitterness were still so raw.
And the desire.
Her stomach still fluttered with it, and her legs felt weak and shaky. Passing the long mirror on her way to the wardrobe, she caught sight of her reflection and saw that her eyes were huge and dark-centred, her make-up smudged, her lips red and swollen.
She stopped, one trembling hand flying to her mouth, her rapid heartbeat seeming to echo in the muffled silence of the opulent room as her mind replayed the kiss.
How could she have been so stupid?
Not just tonight, she thought bitterly, kissing him like that, but for the last four miserable years. All those nights of waiting, looking out into the darkness and wishing for him. The loneliness of antenatal appointments, when all the other expectant mothers had had their husbands with them and she‘d been alone. Visiting times in hospital, when she‘d watched proud fathers take their newborns in big, awkward hands and gaze down at them adoringly—all those times when she‘d silently wished for Cristiano, silently held onto her memory of his kiss, his touch, the way he‘d looked into her eyes that night and the sound of his voice in her head.
This isn’t over…Last night was just the beginning. Wait for me.
Well, she had waited. And she‘d hoped and believed that it was the accident that had kept him away. That somehow he‘d been trying to reach her, thinking of her the way that she‘d been thinking of him, but that something or someone had stopped him making contact.
How unutterably, embarrassingly stupid that seemed now. She had spent four years pining for a man who didn‘t exist.
Well, at least tonight hadn‘t been a complete waste of time and expensive make-up. At least she had finally learned that Cristiano Maresca was not the kind of man she wanted as a father for her son. She picked up her velvet evening bag from where she had thrown it on the bed and shoved it into the bottom of her open suitcase, suppressing a shiver of relief that she hadn‘t handed over the letter.
Alexander was better off without him in his life, and Cristiano…
A fat tear wobbled for a second on her eyelashes and then fell, glittering, and sank into the thick blue carpet as she pictured her son. Cristiano didn‘t deserve to know Alexander, she thought fiercely. Children weren‘t possessions to be passed between rightful owners. It took more than one night of great sex to make a parent, more than genes and chromosomes. It took love. Selflessness. Dedication.
Patience. Being there.
And Cristiano Maresca didn‘t qualify on any of those counts.
Gathering herself, she yanked open the wardrobe door. Suddenly aware that she was shaking violently, she pulled on the polo-necked jumper that her mother had given her for Christmas over the blue dress and began bundling up the rest of her things and shoving them back into the case from which she‘d so recently unfolded them.
A knock at the door made her jump. It must be the concierge, with information about changing her flight home, she thought with a surge of relief, throwing an armful of underwear on the top of the bag and rushing to answer it.
Please God, let him have found her a seat on a plane tonight—
She had only opened the door a crack when she realised her mistake.
It wasn‘t the concierge who stood there.
It was Cristiano Maresca.
A jolt of electricity shot through her, and acting on pure adrenaline-fuelled instinct she went to slam the door in his face. But he was too quick for her. Too quick and too strong. Before she knew it she was stumbling backwards as he thrust his body into the gap between the door and the wall.
‗Wh-what are you doing here?‘
Kate‘s chest was rising and falling rapidly, her breath coming in uneven gasps, but he was perfectly unruffled. His face was completely expressionless, his eyes dark and opaque.
‗I want to talk to you,‘ he said softly.
Kate couldn‘t stop the bitter laugh from escaping her. ‗Really? That wasn‘t what it looked like back there.‘
Her voice was breathless and shaky. He made no move towards her, but her heart was hammering viciously against her ribs, and beneath the jumper she was suddenly boiling hot.
‗We were interrupted.‘ Leaning back against the wall with deceptive nonchalance, he was still looking at her steadily. ‗I hoped you‘d wait.‘
‗I did.‘ Suddenly the narrow space by the door seemed horribly claustrophobic. Whirling round, Kate walked quickly back into the room, desperate to put some space between them. ‗Last time. I waited last time—remember?‘
‗What?‘
Something in his tone made her turn back to look at him. He had levered himself away from the wall and was advancing across the room towards her, his eyes burning with an intensity that was almost frightening.
‗Forget it,‘ she muttered, going into the bathroom to collect the things she‘d left in there. ‗It doesn‘t matter.‘
She threw her toothbrush into her washbag and, going out again, collided with him in the doorway.
Before she could back away, he caught hold of her shoulders and looked down at her with a twisted, ironic smile that skewered her heart. ‗Actually, it does.‘
Noticing the washbag, he frowned. ‗What are you doing?‘
‗Packing. I‘m going home.‘
His grip on her shoulders didn‘t loosen, but his gaze shifted from hers, sliding downwards. ‗That‘s a shame,‘ he said gravely. ‗I would have liked to get to know you better.‘ He lifted a hand, brushing a strand of hair back from her cheek.
In the soft light his face wore an abstracted expression, and was almost impossibly perfect. ‗Could I persuade you to stay?‘
Agonising desire zigzagged through her like lightning, rooting her to the spot for a second as every nerve in her body sang beneath his touch and her senses reeled at his nearness. For all this time she had carried the scent of his skin in her memory, and now it was in her head, and the eyes she had looked into so often in her dreams were staring straight back into hers…
But thei
r expression was different now. Gone was the emotion that had reached inside her and tugged her heart from her chest, and in its place was something darker. Harder. Colder.
‗ No. ‘
Wrenching herself away, she took a couple of steps backwards, gathering up folds of satin, twisting them in her damp fists as she walked around to the other side of the pristine hotel bed. ‗I don‘t want to be another notch on your bedpost, another anonymous name on your list of one-night stands.‘ Grabbing her case, she viciously shoved the washbag into it and gave a shaky, slightly hysterical laugh. ‗I suppose that if you take into account that night four years ago that would technically make it a two-night stand, but it would also make me doubly stupid to fall for the same routine tw—‘