by Helen Brooks
Her legs giving way, she slid down on to the carpet and put her face in her hands, wondering if he would follow her and try to speak to her.
But there was only silence.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHERRY spent a wretched sleepless night in endless postmortems, and as a warm, peachy dawn banished the last of the shadows she was forced to acknowledge that she had played right into Caterina’s hands. She shouldn’t have reacted as she had, she admitted painfully. She had let the Italian woman’s poison get under her skin and into her veins. And why? Because already she was far too involved with the enigmatic master of the Carella estate. Vittorio’s relationship—past or present—with Caterina, or any other woman for that matter, was nothing to do with her. They weren’t a couple. She wasn’t going out with him. She had no rights whatsoever.
She watched the sun begin to rise in a cloudlessly brilliant blue Italian sky and faced the unpalatable fact that this fledgling feeling she felt for Vittorio was already aeons stronger than anything she’d felt before. Which meant… Here she faltered. The hard lessons of her childhood and youth and her parents’ division—her mother and Angela, she and her father—coupled with Angela’s obsessional demands to subjugate and belittle her, and the most recent episode with Liam, had made her shrink from trusting anyone or admitting her feelings. When her father had died she had been inconsolable for a time, knowing the one person in all the world who really loved her was gone, but no one would have guessed.
She cared for Vittorio. No—more than that. She had fallen in love with him in a way that showed her the emotion she’d felt for Liam was puppy love in comparison.
It was the biggest mistake of her life, she admitted soberly, but it had happened, so she might as well face it and get through the next few weeks without burying her head in the sand. And this morning she felt strong enough to mention the altercation with Caterina without the indignity of tears or temper. She would merely say, without going into details, that Caterina had been hurtful and it had upset her, and she hadn’t felt able to talk about it last night—hence her behaviour, which she now realised was unacceptable.
Her stomach turning cartwheels at the thought of the conversation ahead of her, she showered and dressed, applying sun protection cream, which was an essential make-up item, but not bothering with anything else, before looping her hair into a shiny ponytail. She was ready long before it was time for breakfast, and went to sit on the sweetly scented balcony, taking a book she didn’t even bother to open.
The Carella gardens were ablaze with colour, and for some minutes she simply drank in the beauty stretching in front of her, easing her troubled mind. The brilliant hues of the flowers and bushes and trees against the vivid blue backdrop of sky, the limpid green of bowling-green-smooth lawns surrounded by luxuriant foliage, the warm sun which at this time of the morning was comfortably pleasant, the twitter of birds in the cypress trees which flanked the villa all worked a magic which was bittersweet.
And then the soothing work was abruptly undone as the tall, muscled figure of Vittorio came into view. He was clearly on his way to take an early-morning dip in the pool and was wearing next to nothing—just the minuscule trunks he favoured.
He walked briskly, not looking back at the house, and she felt safe to feast her eyes on the virile male beauty, her breathing becoming quick and shallow. She saw him stop and talk to Francesco, the gardener, for a few moments, and then he continued to the pool, dropping the towel he was carrying on the tiled surround before diving straight in. Unable to tear her eyes away, she watched him cut through the blue water at Olympic speed, covering length after length in the shimmering depths. It was a punishing pace and she sat mesmerised—until she realised he was hauling himself out of the water, at which point she ducked back into the bedroom, feeling as guilty as a voyeur at a peepshow.
It took a minute or two of splashing her hot face with cool water before her colour began to subside, but even then when she looked into the bathroom mirror the lingering sexual awareness in her eyes made her groan. It was acutely humiliating to accept she’d been ogling him like a sex-starved teenager; before she had met Vittorio she wouldn’t have said her sex drive was particularly high, but now…
Groaning again, she resumed the splashing for another few moments, comforting herself with the fact Vittorio had been unaware of her lechery. One thing was for sure, she thought desperately once her hot flushes were under control, she didn’t know herself any more and she certainly wasn’t the woman she’d imagined herself to be. She had expected to fall in love with Italy—everything she’d read or seen about the country, including its exquisitely beautiful language, had told her it would be breathtakingly memorable—but to fall in love with an individual… No. That had never been on the cards. And someone like Vittorio—a man who could have any woman he wanted, a man from a different culture, a man who was out of her league in every way.
By the time she went down to breakfast she was in control again. At least on the outside. She’d made a promise to Sophia and she wouldn’t break her word, so that was that.
Vittorio was alone in the breakfast room, as she’d expected, and without even sitting down Cherry launched into the speech she’d been practising for the last hour. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. ‘I know I spoilt a pleasant evening, but I’d had a few words with Caterina in the ladies’ cloakroom and it threw me a bit, I think. But that’s no excuse, and—’
He’d risen and come to her side. Now he put a finger to her lips and drew her across the room to the chair next to his. ‘Sit,’ he said softly, before pouring her a glass of freshly squeezed juice from the jug on the table. ‘Drink. Then we talk.’
She took a few sips, her nerves jangling as much at his presence as the conversation they were about to have. He looked better than any man had the right to look first thing in the morning, and again the sheer hopelessness of the situation threatened to overwhelm her.
‘Now.’ He took the glass from her nerveless fingers and placed it on the table, then looked at her seriously. ‘Tell me what Caterina said to you, mia piccola.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She was definitely not about to repeat it. It was too embarrassing and degrading—besides which, it might put the idea in his head that she was trying to ensnare him in some way, as Caterina had intimated. ‘Suffice to say she doesn’t like me staying here and helping Sophia. I think she takes it as some kind of personal insult because I’m not Italian.’
He tilted her chin with one finger. ‘Tell me exactly what she said,’ he repeated.
She’d rather be hung, drawn and quartered. She stared straight back at him. ‘No,’ she said, very firmly.
‘It clearly upset you a great deal, so I insist,’ he said with equal firmness.
She jerked her chin free and leaned back, away from him. ‘I’ve told you the gist of it. I can’t remember word for word.’
He must have realised this was one battle he wasn’t going to win because he stared at her for one more moment before swearing under his breath. ‘You are the most exasperating woman I have ever met, do you know this?’ he grated irritably. ‘You look all of sixteen years old this morning, with the horse tail, and yet you are formidable.’
‘It’s a ponytail,’ she corrected, ignoring the rest of what he’d said. She wasn’t sure if she liked being called formidable, but she could live with exasperating—although sixteen? For a moment Caterina’s lush, ripe curves were on the screen of her mind and she inwardly winced. Still, she’d never pretended to be a femme fatale.
‘Ponytail, horse tail, it is the same.’ He stared at her before standing up and taking her hand, and in answer to her surprised look he said, ‘We will walk in the garden for a few moments before we eat. I want to talk to you about Caterina in private,’ he added, pulling her to her feet.
‘You don’t have to—’ she began, but he wasn’t listening.
Once out in the scented sunshine he still
held her fingers, and, her heart thudding fit to burst, she glanced up at the hard profile as he began to speak. ‘Caterina is the wife of my friend, and for that reason it would be disrespectful to Lorenzo if we were overheard,’ he said, sounding very Italian. ‘It is not a happy union. I do not think Caterina is capable of making any man happy, and I know that I, myself, had a fortunate escape many years ago when we parted. It did not take me long to realise that what I’d felt for her was not love but something altogether more earthy. When one is young the desires of the body are paramount. And also, perhaps, when one is not so young. This understanding was timely. It has governed my life since. Do you understand what I am saying?’
She hesitated. ‘That sexual desire is not love?’ And, she reasoned painfully, that he wasn’t about to get caught in the trap of committing to any one woman again.
‘Just so. But back to Caterina. Lorenzo is a good husband. I say this not just because he is my friend but because I know it to be true. He has remained faithful to her despite extreme provocation; she has had many lovers,’ he said grimly. ‘But she is Lorenzo’s wife, and for that reason I tolerate her; not to do so would mean I lose my friend, si?’
Cherry nodded. They had come to a fork in the path they were following and now they turned back towards the house.
‘Caterina had no right to comment one way or the other on your presence in my home, and I wish you to forget anything she said. Will you do that, Cherry?’ He stopped, drawing both her hands to his chest as he looked down at her. ‘It is important.’
She nodded breathlessly whilst knowing it was impossible.
‘This is good.’ He kissed her mouth, a controlled, swift kiss that left her aching for more as he turned and tucked her hand through his arm. ‘So now we will eat, si?’ he said, with male satisfaction that everything had been sorted.
But it hadn’t. For her. In fact Cherry was even more aware that the gap between them was immense and insurmountable. Vittorio’s experience with Caterina had soured him to the idea of love. For him everything was about sexual gratification and affairs which carried no commitment beyond having a good time and enjoying each other’s company and bodies. She believed him absolutely when he said he knew he’d had a lucky escape over Caterina, but the way that experience had turned out, and Caterina herself now, in the present, only could confirm to him the wisdom of staying footloose and fancy-free.
If she was just interested in fulfilling her physical needs and sating this sexual hunger that smouldered between them every minute of every day that would be fine. Lots of women the world over would be satisfied doing that without making an issue of it. But she wasn’t one of them. To make love with a man she would have to give herself body and soul. It was the way she was. It would be for ever. And she couldn’t deny the prospect wasn’t scary. If she was being brutally honest she knew her parents’ marriage had been miserable some—probably most—of the time, and the thought of bringing up children in the atmosphere she’d been raised in was abhorrent. And Vittorio was from a different country, a different culture. Besides which, he’d always been fabulously wealthy and wildly handsome. Whereas she was just… her. The odds against anything permanent working for them were astronomically high—
Cherry caught at the thought, angry with herself that she had even allowed it into her consciousness. There was no question of Vittorio wanting her for anything more than a brief fling. She knew that. She knew it, she told herself with ruthless honesty. And even that would be a disaster. She wasn’t sexually experienced, like his other women, and wouldn’t have a clue how to keep him interested in bed.
‘We are still friends?’ He stopped her just before they went inside the house, his rich, deep voice like warm honey.
She looked at him with veiled eyes. ‘Of course.’
‘Then tomorrow I take you to see the Grotte de Castellana,’ Vittorio said firmly. ‘The stalagmites and stalactites, si? Sophia has told me you are interested in such things, and the history of my country. And there is the museum in Taranto, and the Messapian walls in Manduria, and so much more. We will see it all over the next weeks, I promise this. Together, si? Together, mia piccola.’
Cherry felt a fresh riot in her stomach. She didn’t know how much togetherness she could stand before she threw away her morals and her pride, together with her reason, and begged him to take her on whatever terms he decreed. ‘That—that isn’t necessary,’ she stammered.
His smile was merely a twitch. ‘It is necessary for me, and I think a little for you. I want to be with you, Cherry. I am jealous at the thought that you would see these things with someone else, or even just without me. And I will behave myself, OK? I know you do not trust me yet, it is there in those big sad eyes, but time will take care of that. And I will not make love to you until you trust me.’
‘Make love to me?’ she echoed feverishly. ‘I thought we had agreed there is no question of that. I’m staying to help Sophia. I don’t want—’
‘Then let me do the wanting for both of us.’
And before she could respond to such an outrageous breaking of the rules he kissed her—and no chaste, quick kiss either. His tongue and lips took her by storm as one kiss ran hotly into the next, and by the time he lifted his head she was trembling.
‘You—you said no kissing,’ she said shakily. ‘It—it was part of the deal.’
‘This is a new deal.’ He smiled a wicked smile. ‘Now kissing is allowed. It has to be so. A thirsty man must at least have a drop or two of life-sustaining liquid if his parched frame is to survive.’
The sheer ridiculousness of such a dramatic statement made her lips turn upwards.
His smile widened. He sensed victory. ‘Come and eat,’ he said softly, drawing her into the house. ‘And tomorrow we have the day together.’
It was the first of many such days over the next few weeks as the wedding drew nearer, and each one was a sweet torment.
Puglia was rich in history but its still-small tourist infrastructure meant that its traditional southern Italian lifestyle remained unchanged. There were places where the inhabitants were somewhat bemused by a foreign presence, and Cherry realised that in seeing the country with Vittorio she had the best of both worlds.
He broke the sightseeing with days at the coast a few times, knowing exactly where to go for privacy. East of Gallipoli they found quiet sandy coves where they had stretches of golden sand all to themselves, sharing luncheon picnics Gilda had prepared once they’d swum in the cold salty water, and having dinner in simple but superb seafood restaurants, where the menus were as fresh as the day’s catch, before returning to the villa as a deep twilight began to fall.
The first time they spent such a day together Cherry was on tenterhooks the whole time. Vittorio didn’t seem to realise how overwhelmingly intimidating his masculinity was, how magnificent, but she found it impossible to behave naturally with his practically naked body on show. The swimming costume she had bought in Bari to replace the one she considered scandalously transparent seemed scant protection against the burning desire no amount of swimming in the icy cold water could quench, but to her chagrin Vittorio didn’t seem similarly affected. She had imagined after that scorching kiss in the garden that she would be fighting him off half the time, but although he wasn’t shy of physical contact—taking her hand, putting his arm round her, kissing her and holding her close—he was studiously correct when they were alone. And it rankled. Deeply. Which was the height of inconsistency, she knew, and terribly unfair, but there it was. That was how she felt and she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.
On the days she didn’t see Vittorio, she and Sophia worked on the wedding arrangements. The marriage was to take place in the first week of July, and although Vittorio had spent a great deal of money, and with family and friends there were to be over three hundred guests, it was to be very much a casual, family-orientated affair, with none of the strict timetables a wedding in England necessitated.
As the ti
me drew nearer, Cherry knew she would have to make arrangements to leave the villa. She had promised Sophia to stay for the wedding, but had decided to leave the day after the nuptials. To that end, she dug out the paperwork relating to the hire car firm she’d used and asked them to deliver a car to the Carella estate the morning after the wedding. She didn’t mention this to either Vittorio or Sophia, but in a strange, heart-wrenching kind of way she felt better once she’d made the phone call. She had taken the bull by the horns and faced reality, crucifyingly painful though it was. The magic interlude was nearly at an end, and although she didn’t know how she was going to bear it she would. There was no other option.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE last week sped by. She met Vittorio’s grandmother for the first time—the old lady had been ill for some weeks with a stomach complaint and not up to visitors, but was now recovered—and found her to be an indomitable old lady, very Italian and suspicious of any foreigner. After meeting her, Cherry could see why Vittorio hadn’t given Sophia into their grandmother’s care.
There were several minor panics, but no one seemed as agitated as she was—although everyone else was merely concerned with the wedding, Cherry thought soberly. She was coping with the reality of never seeing Vittorio again. He’d be out there in the world—laughing, eating, sleeping, enjoying life—and she wouldn’t know. It was too unbearable to dwell on, and she managed to put it to the back of her mind during the day. The nights were a different matter. Then the gremlins came in earnest.
Sophia’s morning sickness had gradually diminished to the point where it was no longer a problem, although pregnancy tiredness was still an issue. Vittorio’s sister normally disappeared off to bed immediately dinner was over—something Cherry found a mixed blessing in the circumstances.