“Then why such shades of sadness? Are you wishing we’d brought Simon with us, after all?”
“No. I miss him, of course, but I really want these few days to be about just you and me.” She gestured at the view beyond the helicopter windows, at the backdrop of green hills, and the profusion of towers rising above the ancient walls enclosing the old part of town. “If I seem preoccupied, it’s because I’m rather overwhelmed—by the flight here, everything you’ve told me, the sense of stepping back in time. It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
“On top of which, it’s been a long day and you’re probably starving.”
“Actually, no. I had a late lunch. But I’m ready to stretch my legs.”
“Good thing our ground transportation’s arrived, then.” He slid open the door and jumped to the ground, just as a low-slung black Ferrari pulled up a few yards away.
After helping her alight, Matteo introduced her to Adriano, the car’s driver, who was busily transferring their luggage from the JetRanger’s baggage compartment to the Ferrari’s trunk.
“Buona sera, Signora!” Adriano’s smile flashed white in his swarthy face. He was a ruggedly handsome man, somewhere in his mid-fifties, she guessed, with large, capable hands and the strong physique of one used to manual labor.
Ushering her into the car, Matteo called out, “You’ll take over from here, Adriano, and have the aircraft ready for take-off Monday morning?”
“Sì, Signor De Luca. It will be done.” He aimed another smile at Stephanie. “Buon divertimento, Signora!”
“What did he say?” she asked Matteo, as they drove away.
“That although he knows you’ll make love to me every hour on the hour between now and Monday, he hopes you won’t leave me too exhausted to fly us back to Ischia.”
On what seemed like the first genuine burst of laughter in days, she said, “He did not!”
“Not in so many words, perhaps, but it amounted to the same. He wished you a good time. Are you very tired, cara?”
“Not now that I’m on firm ground again.”
He took her hand; held it firmly beneath his as he shifted gears. “Then let’s take a tour of the countryside while it’s still light. There’s something I need to speak about with you.”
A thread of uneasiness clutched at her. “You make it sound serious.”
“Important, perhaps, but not serious in the way you think.” He steered the Ferrari away from the town and up a narrow, twisting road which wound among hillsides washed in the clear, golden light of early evening. Half an hour later—an eternity to Stephanie, during which she braced herself to withstand all sorts of dire revelations—he turned again at a sign marked Proprietà Privata Vietato L’Accesso!, and followed a rough, weed-choked track which ended about a mile farther on, on the shores of a small, lonely lake.
Then, as the engine dwindled into silence, he climbed out of the car and held open her door. “Shall we walk awhile?”
“If you like.”
He linked her fingers in his and led her down by the water. “You haven’t asked where we’ll be staying for the next three nights.”
Aiming for a lightheartedness she didn’t feel, she said, “Are we camping out here?”
“Not that I wouldn’t enjoy sharing such an experience with you, but no! My mother and grandmother are hoping we’ll stay with them.”
“Oh!” She swallowed, more than a little taken aback. “And you think I might not care for the idea because…?”
“Because, in Italy, a man doesn’t take a woman home to meet his family unless he harbors very serious intentions toward her. If you’re not yet ready to deal with that, Stephanie, you have only to say the word, and I’ll arrange for us to stay in a hotel. That was, in fact, my original plan, but when they heard I was bringing you to Lucca, my mother and grandmother both knew you weren’t just a casual qualcuno passing through my life—here today and gone tomorrow. They knew you had to be important to me in a way no other woman has ever been. And so they begged me to bring you to stay in our home. How do you feel about that?”
How did she feel? Honored. Threatened. Terrified!
Guilt left her throat thick and aching. On the one hand, he was offering her more than she’d ever dared hope for. And he’d probably take it all away again, once he learned the extent to which she’d deceived him.
Would he still want her under his roof, when she told him? Would he ever want her again, at all?
“You hesitate,” he murmured, pausing to draw a gentle finger down her cheek. “Have I assumed too much, too soon?”
She shook her head—a fatal mistake because in doing so, she loosed the flood of unshed tears in her eyes, and left them sparkling on her lashes. “No,” she gulped. “I’m very touched by your family’s generosity.”
“You should know that my mother is sixty-six and my grandmother eighty-seven.”
“Does that matter?”
“Only insofar as it makes them Italian of the old school.” He shot her a rueful glance. “It will mean we must sleep in separate bedrooms.”
Not to lie in his arms all night long? Not to make love with him, time after time until they were both sated and then, after a few hours’ rest, to awaken and make love yet again?
It shouldn’t have mattered. Wouldn’t have, if it weren’t that such a chance might not come her way again. But, given the circumstances, she cared terribly and he, seeing the disappointment in her eyes and misunderstanding the reason for it, begged, “Non piangere, tesoro! Don’t cry! We’ll find other ways to be together.”
He framed her face, followed the tear tracks running down her cheeks with a string of kisses. “Here…now, in this beautiful, isolated place,” he whispered against her mouth. “It’s ours to enjoy…to enjoy each other. Come with me, Stephanie, over there in the hollow between those rocks….”
Despite her body’s sudden craving, she was too North American, too socially repressed not to demur. “No! Someone might see—!”
“No one will see,” he said roughly. “This land is posted private property, and people in these parts respect such warning.”
“So how come we’re here?”
He kissed her again, lingeringly. “Because we’re allowed to be. I have special dispensation.”
The touch of his lips, and his voice, husky with desire, were all it took to send a ripple of sensation spiking in a hot stream directly from her breasts to between her legs. She clung to him, drinking in the taste and texture of his mouth, wanting to be consumed by him. Without another murmur, she allowed him to lead her to the secluded spot he’d pointed out.
The sun had disappeared but remnants of its dying light flared raspberry red, low across the sky, and its daytime warmth lay embedded in the fine sand nestled between the rocks. Clumps of wildflowers, yellow and purple, dotted the area. The quiet murmur of tiny waves lapping ashore mingled with the sleepy chirp of birds.
If this wasn’t the Garden of Eden, Stephanie thought, shivering with delicious anticipation as Matteo removed her clothing and let his fingers drift over her bare skin, it surely resembled heaven close enough that she didn’t care if she never knew the real thing.
He came to her quietly. Buried himself inside her in one smooth glide of hot, potent masculinity. Once there, he rested on his forearms and looked down at her, his eyes dark and intent.
He moved once, a deep, urgent thrust. “Do you know why I left you before?” he asked thickly. Another thrust, quick and imperative. “Do you, Stephanie?”
Yes,” she said, the word escaping on a breathless sigh. “I wanted more than you could give me.”
“Wrong, tesoro.” A third peremptory incursion, so penetrating this time that she felt its effect reverberate clear throughout her body, a lovely resounding echo of leashed passion. “Because I was afraid of the feelings you aroused in me—the emotions I wasn’t able to control.”
She dug her fingers into his shoulders, lifted her hips to meet his. “You weren’t ready,
Matteo.”
“I’m ready now,” he ground out, and she saw the sweat, cast in shades of blood from the dying sunset, gleaming on his forehead.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, any fear of discovery by strangers long forgotten. Let them line up and sell tickets, if it pleased them! Her world had narrowed to exclude anyone but Matteo. He was her world, and she wanted all of him, the hot spill of his seed secreted in her body, the fevered heat of his kiss branding her his forever.
Whatever was wrong with their past, whatever setbacks they might face tomorrow, this moment between her and him was as right, as honest, and as perfect as anything ever could be, and she ached desperately for a permanent keepsake, something to immortalize the experience.
God help her, she wanted his baby. Again! And when his body fused with hers in an explosive culmination of passion, she experienced a brief but piercing sense of loss that, as always, he’d taken the precaution of using a condom.
Of course, sanity returned faster than her hectic breathing grew calm. Quickly enough for her to be grateful that he, at least, had shown responsible foresight. But not, alas, soon enough to stem words which wouldn’t be held back any longer.
“I love you, Matteo,” she whispered, trembling all over from the pure emotional catharsis of finally putting into words that which had lain repressed in her heart for such a long, long time. “I love you so much!”
He lifted his head and gazed down at her, his dark eyes troubled. “You’re shivering, Stephanie.”
“Not really,” she said, even though her teeth rattled.
“But yes!” He sprang to his feet and reached for her clothing, spread haphazardly on the sand. “What a selfish brute I am! Here, cara, let me help you dress.”
All at once chilled in a way that owed nothing to the outside temperature, she stood passively as he pulled her blouse over her shoulders. “Did you hear what I said, Matteo?”
“I heard.” He knelt to pull her underpants up her legs. Lifted her feet, one at a time, to slip on her sandals.
Staring at the broad, tanned expanse of his shoulders, at the luxurious thickness of his dark, shining hair, she asked hollowly, “Is that all you have to say?”
“You took me by surprise, that is all.” Suddenly sounding inscrutably foreign, he shook the sand from her skirt and passed it to her, then busied himself with his own clothing.
Instinct told her not to pursue the matter further, but hurt pride had her wailing, “You’d rather I kept quiet, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” he said. “What man does not wish to hear such words from his woman?”
“This man, apparently!”
“Not so, Stephanie. I just don’t believe you mean them.”
“How can you doubt it?” she cried.
“Because you speak out of fear. When you trust me enough to say I love you unhindered by reservation, you may be sure I’ll welcome hearing it.” He sighed heavily, as though striving for patience. “This isn’t the same as before, Stephanie. I’m not going to hurt you this time.”
His insight and candor devastated her. If he’d driven a stake through her heart, he could not have wounded her more deeply. “What if I hurt you?” she whispered.
“You won’t. You don’t have it in you to inflict pain.”
Oh, dear God!
Tell him everything now! her shattered conscience urged.
She could not. Let me have these few precious days first, she begged, before the light in his eyes grows dark with anger, and his voice turns cold and distant, and he no longer cares whether or not I love him, because all he feels for me is disgust and hatred!
CHAPTER TEN
STEPHANIE’S self-possession, already badly cracked by his too-astute assessment of her inner turmoil, fell apart completely when she laid eyes on what Matteo off-handedly referred to as “the family casa.”
She’d anticipated something small and pretty, not unlike his cottage on Ischia, with bougainvilleas climbing up pale, ice-cream colored walls, and a paved path leading through the garden. She’d imagined his mother dressed in severe black as befit an Italian widow well into her sixties, and his grandmother, positively ancient, also wearing black. She’d envisioned the pair of them hovering at the front door, nervously waiting to welcome home the beloved only son, and the woman threatening to replace them in his affections.
Instead, the car turned in between stone-pillared gates, and proceeded up a long driveway lined with ancient cypresses, at the end of which the residence sat majestically among a vast spread of immaculately tended gardens. As it swam into view between the trees, like a vision from an era of classic elegance long past, Stephanie’s jaw dropped. To refer to such a gem as a mere “house” was such a massive understatement as to be absurd. The villa’s magnificent facade alone was enough to elevate it to baronial stature.
“You don’t live here!” she exclaimed, utter shock rendering her words less a question than an absolute statement of fact.
He cast her a lazy, amused glance. “Why not?”
“Well…because….!” She floundered to find an answer, something that wouldn’t come out sounding insultingly condescending. “Because it’s too big for two old women to live in alone.”
Oh, for crying out loud! If that tactless response was the best she could come up with on short notice, she’d be better off keeping her mouth shut altogether.
But far from taking offense, he grinned and said, “They entertain a lot. For two old women, they’re quite a lively pair.”
“But, Matteo…!” Unable to draw her gaze away, she continued to stare in stunned wonder at the perfect symmetry and grace of the building before her. Supported by four Greek columns, the central section stood two floors high, with single-storied wings extending from each side. Although the windows and front door of the main part were rectangular, those running the width of the wings rose in tall, elegant arches. “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
“And much too grand for a lowly quarry worker?”
“I didn’t say that,” she insisted defensively, but knew her fiery blush put the lie to her words. “It’s just that…well, you live in a gardener’s cottage, on Corinna’s property, when you could obviously afford…!” She clapped a hand to her mouth, as awareness dawned.
“The much more impressive villa next door, which I inherited from my grandfather and which is currently occupied by my very dear old friends from Canada, and their dysfunctional family members?” he supplied. “The idea appears to dismay you, Stephanie. Why is that?”
“I’m not dismayed,” she said haltingly. “It’s just that you’ve never mentioned you’re….” She stumbled into silence, shying way from the only word that sprang to mind.
“Rich?” He said it for her.
Once again, she scrambled to compose a reply. But this was one time when bald truth was the only option. “Well…since you put it that way, yes!”
He brought the car to a stop in the forecourt and cocked another amused glance her way. “Should I have?” he asked silkily. “Does it matter whether I’m rich or poor?”
She was spared having to come up with an answer to that by the appearance of a tall, dignified manservant who hurried from the villa to open the driver’s side door. “Welcome home, Signor Matteo,” he said, then came around to Stephanie’s side. “Buona sera, Signora.”
“Buona sera,” she managed, her mind spinning madly.
“Welcome to the Villa Valenti.”
“Thank you.” Still dazed, she clutched his hand gratefully as he helped her alight.
“Grazie, Emanuel.” Matteo tossed the car keys to him and took her arm. “My mother and grandmother are in the evening salon, are they?”
“Sì, Signor.” The man’s face broke into a smile. “And the champagne is chilling.”
“Eccellente!” Matteo shepherded Stephanie toward the house. “Brace yourself, tesoro! It’s time to meet the dragon ladies.” He put his mouth close to her ear, and in a
low voice added, “One more thing: try not to stare at my grandmother’s mustache or she’ll put the evil eye on you. Oh, yes, and my mother has two fingers missing on her right hand—an accident when she was helping out in the marble quarry as a child. It’s best that you be forewarned, to avoid any awkwardness, sì?”
Dragon ladies? Mustache? Evil eye and missing fingers?
Good grief, what next?
Stephanie hung back, desperately needing a few minutes to compose herself. Too much was happening, much too fast. She wasn’t prepared for any of this. But Matteo was in no mood to delay, and practically galloped her through the carved front door and into a grand entrance foyer.
Passing from there through a wide, softly lit central hall, she gathered a fleeting impression of high painted ceilings, marble floors, gilt framed portraits and masses of fresh-cut flowers arranged in huge jardinieres. Then, before she could catch her breath, let alone any semblance of poise, he was flinging open a door at the rear of the house, and thrusting her willy-nilly into a tastefully appointed sitting room decorated in shades of aquamarine with white accents.
Stephanie’s eye was drawn inexorably to the two women sitting opposite each other on sumptuously upholstered couches near the window. Immediately, the so-called dragon ladies rose in unison and came forward, uttering melodic cries of pleasure.
The taller, younger one, obviously Matteo’s mother, was a dark-haired, strikingly handsome woman with a wide smile and an air of unshakable serenity. Her dress, a superbly cut, simple cream silk, fell in graceful folds to mid-calf. Her heeled shoes were the same rich shade as the garnet studs in her ears and the ornate dinner ring on her right hand.
His grandmother’s thick white hair was swept up in an elegant twist and held in place with a silver clasp. She wore an ankle length crepe silk skirt in deep blue, with a matching top, a string of jet beads and pendant earrings, and was quite the most fashion-conscious octagenarian Stephanie ever expected to meet.
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