‘I’ve just received a message from the project manager of the Harbour Side development, asking if we can meet him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning,’ Torre told her, glancing up from his phone. ‘I’m interested to see the site now that demolition of the old printing works that stood there is nearly complete.’
Orla knew that Harbour Side was an exciting new project for ARC UK, with plans to create a residential area with houses, a school, community centre, shops and leisure facilities in a run-down area of London’s Docklands. It was exactly the kind of project she would have loved to be part of if she had qualified as a civil engineer. Once again she felt a sharp pang of regret that she had not finished her engineering degree. It was hard to accept that she had allowed David to have so much power over her when he had put pressure on her to drop out of university.
Wasn’t she making the same mistake with Torre? The thought sent shockwaves through her. She did not fear that he would abuse her like her ex-husband had done. He was a generous and unexpectedly tender lover. The problem was her, Orla acknowledged heavily. Torre had made it clear that he regarded their relationship as temporary, but she knew she was halfway to falling in love with him.
She stared out of the window as the car crawled along in the London traffic. They were on their way to an exclusive hotel in Mayfair, where Torre had asked her to book them a suite for two nights before they were due to return to Italy. Her treacherous body was impatient for him to make love to her and take her to the magical place of tumultuous passion that was uniquely theirs. But afterwards would come the self-recrimination because she knew that Torre was only using her body for sexual gratification. She did not think she could bear it tonight when her emotions felt as though they had been scraped raw.
Her phone rang from the depths of her handbag but by the time she had located it, the ring tone had stopped. She noticed that she had a number of missed calls, but before she had time to see who they were from she received a text from her neighbour Mandy.
Are you free tonight? Do you fancy sharing a bottle of wine and a pizza?
An evening spent chatting to a girlfriend and a night alone in her own bed was exactly what she needed, Orla decided. She turned to Torre. ‘While we are in London I’d like to go home to my flat. I need to catch up on a few things and collect any post.’ No doubt there would be a stack of bills from her mother’s creditors waiting for her.
She was surprised that Torre did not argue and, in fact, she sensed that he was relieved. Perhaps he was tiring of her already? Her heart clenched. She knew he was often in London for work and it was likely that he had another mistress who he could summon to his hotel to entertain him, she thought bleakly.
‘Can you ask the driver to drop me at the next underground station? I’ll take the tube to Islington.’
He frowned. ‘I thought you lived with your mother at the penthouse apartment in Chelsea that Giuseppe gave to Kimberly as part of her divorce settlement?’
‘The apartment was sold when my mother went to America.’ Orla did not explain that she had used the proceeds from the sale of the flat, after the mortgage had been paid off, to pay some of Kimberley’s medical bills.
‘Give the driver your address,’ Torre told her. ‘He can drop you home before driving me to the hotel.’
Twenty minutes later, the limousine drew up outside a tall Victorian house in North London. Orla quickly got out of the car while the chauffeur retrieved her suitcase from the boot. She hoped Torre would not suggest that she invite him in. ‘I’ll meet you at the Harbour Side development tomorrow morning,’ she told him before she hurried up the front path.
From the outside the house looked impressively large, but inside it had been turned into ten studio flats. Orla’s flat was in the attic and the sloping ceilings made the cramped living space even smaller. She had done her best to make the flat homely with a rug covering the threadbare carpet and brightly coloured cushions on the bed. The door opened directly into the flat’s one main room, which doubled up as a bedroom and sitting room. Through another door was a tiny kitchen area and beyond it a shower room.
She dropped her suitcase and handbag onto the bed and collapsed into the well-worn armchair. It was hard to believe it was only two weeks ago that Jules had collected her from her flat and driven her to the airport for their flight to Naples. So much had happened since then. Torre had happened since then. She felt as though she had been riding a roller-coaster and now suddenly the ride had stopped and she was trying to get her breath back.
As she had predicted, there had been a pile of letters in her pigeon hole down in the entrance hall. Before she dealt with them she changed out of her work clothes, swapping her elegant skirt and blouse for faded jeans and a soft grey sweater, and replacing her stiletto heels with comfortable trainers. With a sigh of relief she pulled the pins from her chignon and as her hair unravelled down her back she massaged her scalp with her fingertips.
While she was filling the kettle to make a much-needed cup of tea, there was a knock on the door. Guessing it was Mandy from the flat below, Orla quickly crossed the room and her heart gave a lurch when she opened the door and found herself staring at Torre’s broad chest. Would he always have such a devastating impact on her? she wondered despairingly. His tall, muscular frame filled the doorway, but it wasn’t just his physical size that was overwhelming—it was his impossibly handsome face, the swathe of almost black hair that he pushed off his brow and his discerning grey eyes that seemed to see into her soul.
‘What are you doing here?’ Surprise made her voice sharp. She did not want him to see how she lived and she stood in front of him to prevent him from stepping into the flat. But he pushed past her with insulting ease, frowning as he took in the shabby furnishings and peeling paintwork. Orla could have died when his gaze lingered on the clothes drying rack that was festooned with her knickers.
‘I’ll ask you the same question,’ he said tersely. ‘Why do you live in this shoebox?’
‘Because it’s all I can afford. The cost of renting in London is astronomical.’
He gave her a close look. ‘You said you did not receive the huge divorce settlement from your ex-husband that was rumoured in the press, but you must have come out of your marriage with some sort of financial security.’
She shook her head. ‘I wanted nothing from David.’
Torre seemed taken aback by her fierce denial. After a moment he said, ‘Couldn’t your mother have helped you after you were sacked from Mayall’s? God knows, she made a fortune from my father’s inability to spot a gold-digger.’
Orla gathered up the opened letters on the bed. One was a bill from the specialist stroke hospital in Chicago where her mother had spent the past few months, and another was from a loan company, demanding repayment of the money she had borrowed to pay some of Kimberley’s creditors. When Orla had discovered the extent of her mother’s financial problems she had taken responsibility for her debts.
‘My mother spent all the money your father gave her,’ she said flatly. ‘She’s hopeless with money and blew most of her divorce settlement on a champagne lifestyle and some ill-advised investments.’ Torre gave a snort, and she said quietly, ‘I know you despise my mother but Giuseppe is more astute that you give him credit for. I think he knew she was attracted to his wealth but he married her anyway. Kimberly had a terrible childhood. She was raped by an uncle when she was fourteen and she ran away from home and ended up living on the streets.’
She slumped down onto the bed. ‘My mother suffered a stroke while she was in America and almost died. I lost my job at Mayall’s because I had to take so much time off work to visit her in Chicago. While I sat at her bedside in the hospital she told me what had happened to her when she was young.’
Orla sighed. ‘Ironically, just before she became ill, Kimberly fell in love with a really nice man who isn’t wealthy. Neville married her in the hospital chapel. She has serious health problems from the stroke but Nev is devoted to her. The
specialist is optimistic my mother will regain some of her mobility, but medical treatment in America is expensive. When Jules told me about the vacancy for a PA at ARC UK I was desperate for the job so that I could continue to pay for Kimberly’s care.’
Torre sat down next to her on the bed and she heard him expel his breath on a heavy sigh. ‘And so when you were turned down for the job at the London office you accepted my offer to work as my temporary assistant.’
‘That was one reason.’ The words left her lips before she could stop them and she blushed when he gave her an intent look that pierced through the layers of her defences.
‘What was the other reason?’ His voice was not sardonic, as it so often was, and his steel-grey eyes had softened to the colour of woodsmoke. He was so big in her tiny flat. Earlier in the car he had pulled off his tie and undone the top buttons on his shirt, and Orla’s gaze was fixated on the expanse of his darkly tanned skin covered with black chest hairs. The evocative fragrance of his aftershave teased her senses, and she knew with a sharp pang of sadness that in a few weeks from now, when she only had his memory to hold onto at night and he had doubtless forgotten her, she would always associate the scent of sandalwood with him.
He lifted his hand to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear before he brushed his fingertips down her cheek. ‘Well, cara?’
‘You know why,’ she whispered. ‘I wanted to find out if...’ She broke off and moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
‘If the white-hot chemistry between us still burned as fiercely,’ he finished for her. He slid his hand beneath her chin and angled his mouth over hers. ‘It was for the very reason that I gave you a job that entailed us spending every day and, I hoped, every night together.’
She went up in flames the instant his lips claimed hers. It was always the same, she had zero ability to resist him, but now, instead of hating herself for her weakness, she made the decision to savour every moment she spent in his arms, fully aware that it wouldn’t last for ever.
He deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue into her mouth as he tumbled them both down so that they were lying side by side on the bed. She ran her hands over his shirt, feeling the heat of his body through the fine silk and the erratic thud of his heart beneath her palm. Their clothes were a frustrating barrier and she tugged his shirt buttons open while he slid his hand beneath her sweater and gave a husky growl of satisfaction when he discovered she was braless.
Orla moaned as Torre spread his fingers possessively over one breast and teased its hard tip with his thumb, sending exquisite sensations shooting down to the hot, eager place between her legs. The sudden loud peal of the landline phone barely impinged on her consciousness and after a few rings the answering-machine was activated.
‘Are you having fun with your lover boy? You filthy bitch.’ David’s voice was slurred, a sure sign that he had been drinking.
Orla tensed in Torre’s arms. She wanted to rush across to the phone and cut the call, but her limbs refused to move and she felt sick as her ex-husband’s voice continued.
‘He’ll soon discover what a waste of space you are. Has he found out yet that the way to keep you in line is with a few slaps?’
The line went dead but David’s mocking laughter still echoed in Orla’s ears. She did not dare look at Torre, could not bear to see the disgust in his eyes that he must surely feel.
She froze as a phone rang again, not the landline this time but her mobile. She stared uncomprehendingly as Torre pulled her phone out of his jacket pocket. ‘You left it in the car. That’s why I came up to your flat, to return it to you,’ he told her, sounding grim.
Orla took the phone from him just as the ring tone ceased and saw that she had ten missed calls from David. There were also several texts from her ex-husband and it was not necessary for her to read them to know that they would be as poisonous and vitriolic as his phone message a moment ago.
‘What the hell?’ Torre growled. The landline phone rang again and he jumped up, strode across the room and snatched the handset out of its holder. ‘If you attempt to contact Orla again you had better pray that the law deals with you before I do, Keegan,’ he snarled before he cut the call.
‘Don’t. Oh, my God,’ Orla whispered. ‘That will just make things worse. He’ll be angry now, and when David is angry he’s not a nice person.’
She stood up from the bed and automatically lifted her hand to the scar above her eyebrow. Torre walked towards her and she crossed her arms defensively over her chest, creating a physical barrier to keep him from getting too close.
‘He hit you?’ There was something in Torre’s voice that Orla had never heard before. Anger, ruthlessly controlled, but also a note of pity that made her want to sink through the floor.
‘Go away.’ She tried to sound forceful but her voice was thick with tears that clogged her throat. ‘Please leave. I don’t want you here.’
He ignored her and ran his finger lightly over her scar. ‘Keegan did this, didn’t he?’ His jaw clenched. ‘What exactly did he do?’
Torre put his hands on her shoulders to prevent her from pulling away from him. Even if she could run away from her humiliation, where would she go? Orla thought bleakly, and in that moment she had never felt so alone. The fight drained out of her and her shoulders slumped.
‘The verbal abuse started on our honeymoon. Up until our wedding David had always been charming and I didn’t have an inkling that there was another side to him, a very nasty side.’ She sighed. ‘Within weeks of marrying him I knew I had made a mistake but I had nowhere to go and no one to talk to. My mother had her own life, and I didn’t want to admit to my friends who had been envious when I’d married a famous sportsman and celebrity that David was a bully. Whenever we were out in public he was nice to me. He has a Jekyll and Hyde personality. Everyone who meets him thinks he is wonderful,’ she said heavily.
‘I started to believe that he was right when he said the problems in our marriage were my fault. I tried my hardest to please him, but nothing I ever did was right.’ She swallowed. ‘I was scared of him. He had often threatened to hit me, but on the day that it...it happened I had done something to displease him, I don’t know what. It didn’t take much—especially when he’d been drinking,’ she said flatly. ‘I tried to lock myself in the bathroom but he was right behind me and I was trapped.’
Orla’s voice shook as she pictured the murderous rage in David’s eyes as he’d walked towards her. She’d known he was going to hit her and she remembered how her heart had thudded with dread. She only realised she was crying when Torre brushed his fingers over her cheeks to wipe away her tears.
‘Go on,’ he said quietly.
‘He had often threatened to “slap some obedience” into me, as he put it. This time he actually struck me.’ Torre’s hands clasped her shoulders a little tighter but he made no comment. ‘He was wearing a big gold and onyx signet ring.’ In her mind she could see the ring glinting in the light as David’s hand had descended. ‘He hit me across the left side of my face. The ring must have had a sharp edge because it cut the skin above my eyebrow. Afterwards... I tried to stop the cut from bleeding by holding a towel over it, but it wouldn’t stop, and eventually I went to the local hospital by taxi—David had drunk too much to drive, and anyway I wouldn’t have asked him to take me. After the cut had been stitched I went to stay with a friend and I never went back to the house where I’d lived with David after we were married.’
‘Did you report the attack to the police?’ Torre frowned when she shook her head. ‘Why not? Keegan had physically assaulted you and if you had reported him...’
‘Who would have believed me?’ she said huskily. ‘David Keegan is on his way to being a national treasure, and last year he received an OBE for his charity fundraising activities. He is still regarded by many as one of the best cricket players in English sporting history. When his career hit a low point the finger of blame was pointed at me—the gold-digger wife who had m
arried him for financial gain and broken his heart. That’s what the media said about me and everyone believed that story.’
She stared at Torre but his features were blurred by her tears and she told herself she must have imagined the flash of pain on his face as she choked, ‘You believed the worst of me without ever asking me why I walked out of my marriage.’
She stiffened when Torre tried to pull her closer to him and she swallowed the sob that rose in her throat. ‘No one would believe that David is a violent alcoholic. If I went public with what he did to me I would just be accused of being a vindictive ex-wife.’
‘Piccola—’ Torre’s voice was deeper than she had ever heard it ‘—no woman should have to suffer domestic abuse. If you had gone to the police they would have investigated your claim, and you have evidence that Keegan threatened you in the phone and text messages he sent you. There must also be your medical notes when you went to hospital to have the cut above your eye stitched.’
‘I made up a story that I had fallen and hit my head,’ she muttered. She saw incomprehension in his expression and grimaced. ‘I was too ashamed to admit that my husband, the man who was meant to love me, had hit me.’ She hid her face in her hands and her tears dripped through her fingers. ‘David said I deserved to be treated badly. He made me believe that I was useless and chipped away at my self-confidence. That is why I didn’t go back to university to finish my engineering degree.’
Torre muttered something indistinct but Orla was crying too hard to make out what he had said. She did not know why she had told him the sordid details of her failed marriage and she felt utterly mortified. But when she tried to move away from him, he wrapped his arms around her and held her carefully, as if she were a delicate little thing—which of course she wasn’t. She was a survivor, she reminded herself. But right now she did not feel like one, and she leaned against him and let her tears fall.
CHAPTER TEN
RAGE SWEPT THROUGH TORRE, violent and murderous in its intensity. His first instinct was to hunt down David Keegan and use his fists on the other man in the same way that Keegan had hurt Orla. He did not stop to examine the surge of protectiveness for her that pulsed a dangerous beat in his veins. He’d seen photos of the famous cricketer in the sports section of newspapers, and the idea that burly, physically powerful Keegan could have laid a finger on her, let alone struck her so hard that the resulting injury had required stitches, sickened him to his stomach.
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