He took it from her hand and drank, replacing the cup on the bedside table; then, leaning back, he watched her with an impassive expression that made Kelly very nervous, and when he spoke in a voice lacking all emotion she almost spilled her own coffee.
‘The last time you were here we spent a few weeks sharing a bed, and then the doctor said no sex. I slept in a separate bedroom because I wanted you with a hunger, a passion I could not control.’
Kelly sucked in a breath, her startled gaze flying to his, and she saw the heat in the glittering black depths of his eyes he did not try to hide, and felt reciprocal warmth ignite low in her belly.
‘Yes, Kelly. I was a danger to our unborn child because I did not trust myself not to make love to you. You only had to touch me, smile, and everything else faded into oblivion against the irresistible urge to have you.’
Her mouth fell open in amazement. As excuses went it was a Lulu, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. She bit her lip. ‘Yes, well,’ she muttered, and, lifting her coffee-cup, she drained it. The conversation was becoming far too personal, and she didn’t want to go there…
He stretched out, the long, powerful length of him at ease, but his hooded eyes were watchful on her. ‘You know it’s true,’ he drawled. ‘You proved it on one memorable occasion when you gave me the relief I craved, but afterwards I felt guilty, less of a man because I could not do the same for you at the time. But now there are no such restrictions and, if the other night is anything to go by, you are desperate. You obviously want me as badly as I want you.’
Kelly clenched her teeth and slammed her cup down on the table. She would not rise to his bait, she vowed, and counted to ten under her breath.
‘No denial. Very sensible,’ Gianfranco prompted, and at that she did swing back to face him.
‘I suppose you are now going to try and tell me you loved me all along and not Olivia?’ she sneered.
His mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile. ‘No, I am not. You never trusted me before. Why should now be any different? As for love—it does not come into it.’ His expression hardened. ‘The first time we made love or had sex…whatever, you drove me crazy, and you still do. This time we will share a bed, and we will enjoy each other until such time as the passion fades. It will be fun with no consequences.’
He laughed without humour, his dark eyes sardonically appraising her stiffly held figure in the childish white nightgown, her long hair falling down her back in a tumbling mass. ‘You may look like an innocent but we both know you are an experienced lady now. How many have there been besides Tom?’
Kelly’s hands clenched into fists, anger rising like a tidal wave. ‘Why, you…’
‘No, don’t answer that.’ He held up a large hand. ‘We will not talk of the past—it is enough Tom is dead,’ he reminded her brutally. ‘And you and I are very much alive.’
Her eyes met his and she flinched at the implacable intent she saw in them. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Never more so, mia cara.’ Gianfranco’s mocking voice echoed in the tense silence. He swung his long legs off the bed and stood up, totally unconcerned at his nudity.
It wasn’t fair, Kelly thought helplessly, that the sight of his naked body could arouse her, and she was shamed at her weakness. She didn’t hesitate. She ran for the bathroom and locked the door behind her, her heart pounding like a jackhammer in her breast.
It was half an hour later before she ventured out of the bathroom; showered and wearing a white towelling robe, she peered anxiously around the bedroom, but it was empty. In a matter of minutes Kelly was dressed in a blue cotton summer dress, and with sandals on her feet went looking for her daughter.
The sight that met her eyes as she descended the stairs brought a reluctant smile to her lips. Gianfranco was on all fours and Annalou was straddling his back, her tiny hands knotted in his hair, yelling, ‘Faster, faster, Daddy.’
As Kelly reached the bottom step Gianfranco stopped at her feet and lifted his head. ‘Get her off me before she tears every hair from my head. I’m begging you on my knees.’
He quite literally was, and Kelly laughed and lifted Annalou off her father’s back and onto her feet. ‘What’s all this about?’ She tried to sound serious but the light in her eyes gave her away.
‘Daddy said he would buy me a pony, and I was practising. He is going to take me riding some time.’
It was obvious Annalou was completely at ease with her daddy and her new home. Kelly bent down and gave her a quick hug, and, straightening up, wistfully wished she could feel as comfortable in Gianfranco’s presence. He had risen to his feet, and, casually dressed in cream cotton trousers and a white shirt, he took her breath away.
‘I promised to take Annalou out for the day to buy her a pony.’
‘What? A pony?’ Kelly said, pulling her thoughts back from the wayward track they were heading. ‘To ride, you mean?’
Gianfranco’s grin slashed across his face. ‘Yes, a pony and yes, to ride,’ he said blandly. ‘You had better come with us, to make sure you approve of the purchase. I thought we could make a day of it and have lunch in Verona. Perhaps buy some summer clothes for you both.’
‘Please, Mummy, yes.’ Annalou pulled at her skirt.
Kelly cast a fulminating look at Gianfranco. So their clothes were not good enough and he was going to spoil the child rotten. But her voice was steady as she said, ‘If you can spare the time that would be nice.’ She wasn’t going to argue in front of Annalou.
Taking Kelly by the arm, he said softly, ‘I have a lot of time to make up, and we both know why.’
His lean, elegant fingers, lightly restraining her arm, heated her skin. The threat inherent in his comment silenced Kelly. A narrowed glance up into his darkly handsome face told her she had no choice, and, grasping Annalou with her free hand, she allowed herself to be ushered out of the house.
He took them to stables on the outskirts of Verona. And to Kelly’s amazement the owner actually had a tiny Shetland pony. Annalou was delighted, but took a fit of the sulks when her father explained the pony could not go with them, but had to be transported later by horsebox. The little girl soon brightened when they arrived in Verona. After buying a host of toys and clothes, Gianfranco suggested a drive to Lake Garda and the hunting lodge, with its small private beach.
Kelly’s mouth went dry as he took off his shirt and sat down beside her, his eyes fixed on Annalou paddling around in the shallows. Kelly looked away from his bronzed torso rippling with muscle and swallowed hard. It brought back the disturbing memory of the last time she’d been here with Gianni, when she’d been innocent and in love. Sure she’d been loved in return, she had felt free to touch him, caress him.
Suddenly she was blinded by tears, and was thankful for the sunglasses that hid her eyes. Kelly blinked and stared sightlessly out over the lake, hating to admit it, but knowing it was true: whether he was commoner or count, betrayer or betrayed by her desertion, she still felt the same. She ached for him with the same agony of need, the same hunger, and the same love…
They had been married and lived together for six short months and slept together for little more than one. Perhaps this time it would be better—at least there was no Olivia…
Alarmed at where her thoughts were leading her—straight back into his bed—she said quickly, ‘Time to go; it’s getting late, and Annalou has had enough excitement for one day.’
Gianfranco nodded his head, and she saw the amusement lurking in his dark eyes. As though he had read her mind and understood exactly how she felt.
‘Too many memories, cara.’ Rising to his feet, he slanted her a heavy-lidded look. ‘But now we make new ones.’ And, striding across to Annalou, he picked her up in his arms. Kelly had the unenviable feeling she wished it was her.
It had been a lovely day, Kelly agreed with Annalou as she tucked her into bed. But, going down for dinner half an hour later, she was a bundle of nerves. She sat through the meal, making polite convers
ation with her husband and her mother-in-law, but underneath her emotions were in turmoil.
She heaved a sigh of relief when after the coffee stage Gianfranco said he had some paperwork to attend to and left.
Kelly’s relief turned to panic a couple of hours later when, walking out of the bathroom wrapped in only a bath towel, she stopped dead. Gianfranco was standing by the bed wearing a towelling robe. A bottle of champagne stood on the nearby table with two glasses.
‘A toast to our reunion,’ he drawled mockingly, and as she watched he opened the champagne and filled the two glasses, and then walked towards her with a glass in each hand. He held one out to her.
Her heart thumped erratically; it was a moment of truth, Kelly knew. If she took the glass and said nothing she was agreeing to resume being his wife in every sense. She lifted her head, her wary blue eyes scanning his harshly set features, and fleetingly the thought crossed Kelly’s mind that he was not quite as confident as he appeared. Quickly she dismissed the idea as wishful thinking. The decision was hers to take…true. But realistically she knew Gianfranco would have his way whatever…
She took it. ‘Thank you, I could use a drink.’ The slight quiver in her voice revealed her apprehension.
His brilliant dark eyes roamed over her with explicit sexual hunger, and then met and held hers. Suddenly the atmosphere crackled with electric tension.
Kelly felt her body heat as he raised the glass to his mouth. ‘To my wife, the mother of my child; our marriage starts here.’ And he drank it down in one gulp.
With a hand that trembled, Kelly lifted her glass to her lips and took one long swallow. Then spluttered and lowered her head as the bubbles went down the wrong way.
Gianfranco took the glass from her hand and moved to put them both on the bedside table. Then he turned back to face Kelly. ‘Come here,’ he commanded tautly.
She lifted her head. Her watering eyes collided with his smouldering dark gaze, and instantly she was swamped by her intense awareness of him. His sinfully sensuous mouth, the proud tilt of his dark head, his lithe, powerful physique poised and waiting…
Mesmerised by his male beauty, Kelly took a step forward and another… She felt her face flush, heaviness in her breasts, her nipples hardening. She hesitated and swallowed hard, before slowly moving forward again. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her…
‘You look nervous,’ he drawled softly. His hands reached out to her tense shoulders and drew her closer, his dark eyes black and knowing on her lovely face. ‘Yet there is no need; you are an experienced woman,’ Gianfranco said thickly, one hand curving around her throat and tilting her head back.
If only he knew he was the only man who had ever touched her, Kelly thought, but didn’t tell him. She had to keep some defence, even if false, she thought as she trembled with need as all her senses heightened to fever pitch.
His hand slid down over her breastbone, caught the towel, and with one deft movement she was standing naked before him. Tiny flames glinted in the black eyes that slowly ravished her shapely body with a long look, before his head bent and his mouth brushed surprisingly gently over hers until he felt her willing response, then his tongue delved sensually into the moist interior of her mouth.
‘Exquisite,’ Gianfranco groaned against her lips, and tipped her back onto the bed. For a moment eyes as dark as jet raked over her, then he shrugged off his robe.
It was what Kelly had been waiting for. Naked and powerful, he was sheer masculine perfection. Her blue eyes greedily surveyed his great body, the harsh glare of the artificial light gleamed on muscle and sinew, and she ached for him with a hunger so deep that she could not wait. She reached out her hand.
‘Soon, cara.’ He smiled in purely masculine promise as he came down to her and immediately ravished her mouth with his again.
Not another word was spoken over the next few hours. It was an erotic banquet of the senses.
Kelly had never experienced such an intensity of sensations as Gianfranco extorted from her, nor felt the incredible need to do the same to him. Finally, when he was buried deep inside her for the third time, her heart pounding, lost to everything but the explosive excitement she craved, she gazed wildly at him. She saw the skin pulled taut across his cheekbones and the savage satisfaction as he watched her shuddering on the painfully exquisite edge of release. Then with every thrusting stroke he drove her quivering body to a climax so intense she cried out in ecstasy, mindless to everything but the wonder of his total possession.
Wrapped in his arms, exhausted but fulfilled, she should have stayed silent, but she didn’t…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GIANFRANCO rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom again. Kelly groaned; her body aching but satiated, she lay on her back and waited for his return. Her dreamy blue eyes followed him as he walked back, lithe and naked, to sit down on the side of the wildly rumpled bed.
‘You will run out of those before long,’ she teased. It was a new experience for Kelly to have him wear a condom, though he had quickly taught her how to put them on. ‘I don’t know why you bother.’ She lifted her hand and stroked gently up his chest, her heart full of love.
‘Because, Kelly,’ Gianfranco’s dark eyes gleamed down with grim amusement into her own, ‘much as I want you, I am taking no chances with my health. The Pill protects only against pregnancy, not sexually transmitted diseases. I don’t know where you or Tom have been in the past three years,’ he drawled hardly.
As the import of his words sank in, Kelly stared at him, incapable of tearing her gaze away from his handsome but suddenly cynical features. Her hand fell from his chest, her fingers curling into fists at her sides. The last few hours meant nothing to him, nothing at all. She had been in danger of fooling herself yet again.
She lowered her lashes to hide the pain and fury in her eyes, and choked back the surge of anger constricting her throat. She wasn’t on the Pill—the supercilious swine had just assumed she was, and on top of that he thought she might be diseased. If ever the veil of love was torn from a woman’s eyes, it was in that moment for Kelly.
She could explain, maybe even convince him, but she was damned if she would. With a superhuman effort of will Kelly forced a smile to her love-swollen lips. ‘Whatever you say.’ Forcing a wide yawn, she turned away from him and pulled the coverlet over her shoulder. She felt the mattress depress as he lay down beside her, and she made no resistance when he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into the warmth of his body. What was the point? She loved him, wanted him, but some small part of her heart froze. That night set the pattern for the weeks ahead.
The next morning Gianfranco introduced her to the nanny he’d employed to help her look after their daughter, a large widow in her forties, Signora Mussi. He also made it plain the woman was a guard against any repeat of Kelly’s desire to run away with Annalou. The rest of the staff had the same instructions. Kelly didn’t bother to object because she knew it would be useless, and in any case she intended to stay with her daughter whatever the cost.
In the weeks that followed Kelly’s life fell into a routine. She spent all day with Annalou, in the evenings and weekends Gianfranco joined them, and the nights… The nights were spent with her husband.
Kelly had studied chemistry, but nothing had prepared her for the sexual chemistry between them. Every night in the huge four-poster bed they came together with a hunger, a need that knew no bounds. Gianfranco taught her every subtle erotic nuance the human body was capable of and then some! And she was a willing learner. They tormented and teased and pleasured each other, and afterwards fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion in each other’s arms.
Before, when they had been together, Kelly had been pregnant the whole time. Their lovemaking had been wonderful, but now she realised just how restrained Gianfranco had been. Three years later he had no such inhibitions; he delighted in her body with a fervour that bordered on obsession. Sometimes in the early morning she would wake to find him
watching her with an intensity that was scary. He could spend hours caressing every inch of her body. But it was the same for her. She gloried in the freedom to explore his hard masculine frame, until finally they would find yet more ways to please each other.
At first Kelly was hopeful the passion they shared would bring them closer together, but as the weeks moved into months she had to accept it would not.
In day-to-day life they were Mummy and Daddy, for Annalou. They obeyed the social niceties on the few occasions they appeared as a couple, at business dinners or events at the Casa Maldini. But the rest of the time they were like two strangers. Gianfranco was as much a workaholic as ever, but without travelling abroad. Kelly busied herself with Annalou and making friends with the staff and, much to her surprise, Carmela. Lunches and shopping trips were quite frequent occurrences and went some way to combating Kelly’s sense of loneliness.
It was a glorious, hot, sunny day on the twenty-third of August, Anna’s wedding-day. Annalou was standing in the entrance to the small village church, a picture in a froth of pale blue silk with cream roses embroidered around the Peter Pan collar, and the crinoline skirt caught up in scallops around the bottom with cream satin bows.
‘Now do as the chief bridesmaid tells you and stand still and behave yourself,’ Kelly told her quietly. ‘Your daddy and I must take our seats.’
‘Yes, Mummy.’
Sitting in the front pew, Kelly glanced around the church. She recognised most of the faces: they were all people who worked for her husband. She cast a sidelong glance at Gianfranco beside her. The expertly tailored silver-grey silk suit he wore fitted his impressive frame to perfection, but could not hide the raw animal magnetism of the man. She studied his dark, devastatingly handsome face, and surprisingly discerned tiredness around his eyes and mouth that gave a harshness to his features. He glanced back at her as though sensing her surveillance, one perfect ebony brow arching quizzically.
The Italian's Runaway Bride Page 15