One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  ‘What things?’ He ran his hand along her thigh and felt her suppressed sigh. ‘A few olives and some tomatoes? It can wait until tomorrow.’

  ‘I have to get back and start doing what I should have been doing today. Lord, Jack must be wondering what’s happened to me!’

  ‘Let him wonder. Today we celebrate.’

  ‘What exactly are we celebrating?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He raised his eyebrows and treated her to an expression very much like the one worn by the cat that had got the cream. ‘We make great lovers and here we are, doing what we should have been doing all along.’

  Francesca tried not to think too far ahead. Pondering on the destination of a road leading nowhere wasn’t exactly going to put her in the perfect frame of mind and, having told herself that she would enjoy the present and not live beyond it, even in her darkest thoughts, she wanted to maintain her perfect frame of mind. And, yes, it did feel perfect. Right here, wrapped up with this man, the sunlight fighting a losing battle against the thickly bunched gauze curtains, the day lost in a haze of blissful love-making.

  ‘I’m a little hungry.’

  ‘That’s a very pedestrian way to greet my remark,’ Angelo complained, thinking how much he had missed her forthrightness. ‘Shall we go out for dinner? I know a very nice little restaurant just around the corner…’

  ‘You mean get dressed, walk somewhere, order food, wait for food, eat it, then drag the remainder of the evening out with coffee? That sounds a little long.’ She grinned and nudged her leg along his. His body felt slick, as hers did, from the physical exertion of making love. ‘I could rustle up something from your fridge.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,’ Angelo drawled.

  ‘Why not?’ Francesca was genuinely puzzled. Once upon a time they had cooked together, or rather she had watched him while he cooked, lounging around in one of his shirts, in that little apartment in Venice. Now that she herself had become a cook, and one in demand, it made no sense to her that they should hunt out cuisine in any restaurants.

  ‘Because what we have now,’ he told her dispassionately, ‘is all about sex. It’s not about domesticity and cooking.’ Never again would he go down that road with this particular woman. He could look back now at the past and in retrospect make a couple of very good deductions as to how she had managed to insinuate herself beneath his skin to the point where he had recklessly allowed himself to become vulnerable. It had been an easy enough road but a slippery one. The sex had turned into something warmer and more comfortable, and lazy, snatched evenings in his kitchen with the sound of some classical music wafting in the background while they played at being real partners had been the first step downhill.

  ‘Oh, right. Yes. I understand.’

  ‘I hope you do, Francesca, because if you don’t then we might just as well call it off right now.’

  He was deadly serious.

  ‘It would be a shame, considering how much pleasure we give to one another, but it would be life…’

  The rush of hurt that followed his words, his casual indifference to anything intimate between them aside from intimacy of a purely physical nature, was intense. Why the hell should she be hurt? It wasn’t, she reminded herself, as though she could ever, ever allow her relationship with Angelo Falcone to go anywhere. What he had offered was just what suited her, the only thing that could suit her, when it came to him. It was lunacy to get wistful about something as trivial as sharing the cooking.

  ‘Are you sure it’s okay for us to even be here?’ she asked ingenuously. ‘In your townhouse? Considering it’s all about sex, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to meet in a hotel somewhere? Maybe we should think about eliminating conversation completely.’

  ‘Now you’re being ludicrous.’

  ‘If a No Cooking rule applies on the premises, then that’s fine with me.’ She hated herself for the desperation that kept her rooted to the spot, but if he was using her then wasn’t she similarly using him? She loved him and wanted him and if she chose to indulge those feelings for a while, then what was wrong with that?

  For the first time, she envied Jack his cavalier attitude towards members of the opposite sex, the blithe manner in which he could have passing relationships and be perfectly happy. It was a damn sight healthier than being hunkered down in a hole of her own making.

  ‘Just so long as you know that you’ll never sample my fabulous cuisine now, even if you begged.’ She kept her voice light as she slipped out of the bed and headed towards the en suite bathroom.

  Angelo followed her. He had had to be frank with her but, still, it was a relief that she hadn’t walked out. Not that it would have been the end of the world, but it would have been a tad disappointing when his expectations had been raised.

  She wasn’t aware of him pushing the door open and for a few seconds he stood there and stared as she stepped under the shower, catching her hair in her hands and raising her face to the shower head. She had the most exquisitely graceful body he had ever seen.

  He entered the shower cubicle before she was even aware that he was in the bathroom and relieved her of the shampoo.

  ‘Stay still,’ he ordered, massaging it into her hair. With her back to him, his imagination provided all the necessary details of her nudity, turning him on even as his fingers worked their magic on her scalp. He rinsed her hair, then took the soap and very thoroughly began soaping her, sliding his hands along her shoulders and then over her breasts.

  ‘I don’t want to do a rushed job of this,’ he murmured into her ear, as she arched back against him, ‘so you’ll have to keep as still as possible.’

  Francesca allowed the luxurious sensuality of the moment wash over her, just like the warm darts of the shower were washing over her body. When he was touching her like this there was no room in her head for thought and that was fine because thinking wasn’t something she wanted to do. It was something she couldn’t afford to do. She gasped as his fingers played with her nipples before travelling down across her belly, then between her legs, which she parted as his fingers probed places that made her want to squirm.

  ‘You’re moving,’ he warned.

  ‘And you’re impossible.’ She spun around, laughing, dripping, wanting him so much that it hurt. Her body felt alive and fired up and, without bothering to switch off the shower, he took her. She barely noticed the discomfort of the marble wall against her back as he thrust into her and they came together, a powerful explosion that had him panting and propping himself up, eyes shut, his body shuddering from the aftermath of his orgasm.

  The last thing Francesca felt she needed was the bother of getting dressed and setting foot outside the heated cocoon they had created for themselves, but dress she did, blow-drying her hair until it gleamed. The only make-up she had was in her bag, and amounted to no more than some mascara and lipstick, but when she looked back at her reflection it was glowing. A woman in love and living dangerously. Not a good combination.

  She caught him looking at her in the mirror and smiled, asked him about the restaurant, teased him that too much rich food would have him putting on weight and enjoyed the sound of him laughing back with her. Keeping it light all the time.

  They strolled to the restaurant, which turned out to be an Italian and a very good one.

  Looking at her across the table, he was amazed to find himself getting turned on by her, by the habit she had of resting her chin in her hand and frowning slightly, as though every piece of conversation was being given the utmost consideration. Even when the topic of conversation happened to be work, a subject guaranteed to turn off the most ardent female and therefore one he had never felt the slightest inclination to discuss. Francesca, though, made a good listener. She offered opinions, which, he had to admit, were not entirely frivolous, and teased him out of his seriousness by telling him one or two amusing anecdotes about her own job and the near disasters they had had over the years.

  Nearly two and a hal
f hours later, Angelo was prepared to admit that he felt relaxed. Relaxation, he reasoned, was not an intrusion into the ground rules he had laid down. Sex was one thing, but it had to be interspersed with something else. Obviously, not as a rule, but occasionally they might surface sufficiently to go out for a meal and at such times conversation was fine.

  Perfectly satisfied with how the day had progressed—in fact, how life seemed to be progressing at the moment—he instinctively began walking back to his townhouse. Lord knew, but the blood was already surging through his veins at the prospect of ravishing her again. After a couple of steps he realised that she wasn’t next to him. In fact, spinning round on his heel, he saw that she was standing on the kerb, hand outstretched to hail a passing cab.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, waving away the taxi that had slowed down for the fare.

  ‘Going home.’ Francesca looked at his darkly scowling face and smiled. ‘It’s late and I’m going to have to get up early to catch up on all the things I should have done today but didn’t get around to.’

  Angelo looked at her through narrowed eyes, weighing up whether to try and entice her back to his house. He knew he could. Instead, he nodded and smiled. All told, it wouldn’t be a good idea to have her back anyway. It was late and he had no intention of her sleeping over.

  ‘I’ll call.’

  Francesca dropped her eyes. Those two words said it all. She had become the puppet and he the all-powerful puppet master, holding the strings, in control. If sweet revenge had been what he was after, then he had got it because he had reduced her to a state of voluntary helplessness. But she believed what he had told her, that revenge was not the name of the game. If it had been, he would have walked away the very first time he had proved to himself that he could have her. He certainly would not have broken off his engagement with Georgina and wrecked his perfect plans. Angelo Falcone was not a man to disturb the onward march of his well-planned life on the spur of the moment. He wanted her and had given her the option of satisfying him and herself in the bargain, and she had taken it because she was a coward when it came to him. He had stormed back into her life and revealed it for what it was. A life devoid of any emotional passion or connection to anyone else, given meaning only by virtue of the career she had chosen.

  She nodded and turned away, stretching out her hand once again for a passing cab. She neither expected, nor was surprised by the fact that he didn’t see fit to wait by her side until one arrived. Why should he? She meant no more to him than a body that could excite him. Any feelings beyond that were illusory. They could chat and laugh but her main purpose was to be his willing bed companion. Everything else orbited around that one central need.

  And she would do it, because she loved him and loved life when he was in it, for better or for worse.

  The fact that her circumstances would never change, that she would never be able to even dream of anything more, was her cross to bear.

  In the meantime, she would snatch what she could get. A black cab pulled up and she hopped in, tempted to look back and seek him out, and making herself stare straight ahead, destination unknown.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SOMETHING wasn’t quite right. Angelo could feel it in the small breaks in conversation, during which her eyes slid away from his and her hand fiddled with the damn wineglass, from which she was drinking very little.

  ‘Okay, you might as well spit it out. What’s wrong?’ The Italian restaurant, at which they had dined for the first time almost six weeks ago, had become their staple eating out place. It was convenient and convenience counted when sitting down and eating was something that they wanted to do in the minimum amount of time.

  Because their need for one another had not diminished. Angelo looked at her broodingly across the table and raised his wineglass to his lips. He was mildly surprised that she was still a fixture in his life, considering they now saw each other several times a week, which had given him ample time to grow bored, but he wasn’t questioning the situation. He just knew that when he clicked his fingers she came running and that suited him superbly. He had also been careful not to allow any complacency to enter into the well-oiled arrangement. No cosy cooking in the kitchen, not even a take-away. They either ate out or didn’t bother to eat at all. And no sleeping over. He left, whatever the time, when they utilised her house and she did the same when, as more often than not, she came to him. His boundaries were perfectly intact, allowing him to enjoy himself without any bothersome stirrings of conscience or doubt.

  ‘Nothing.’ Francesca dragged her eyes back to him and forced herself to smile. ‘I’m not very hungry.’

  ‘So I notice. But I’m not buying that as an excuse. So tell me what’s wrong. Some catering job not going according to plan? Or are you worrying about Jack again? He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.’ He had heard a great deal about Jack over the past few weeks, entertaining stories of his various escapades, some of which left her tearing her hair out in despair.

  ‘I know that,’ Francesca said, staring down at her plate and contemplating the arrangement of chicken and sautéed potatoes there which was making her feel slightly nauseous.

  ‘So what then?’

  She detected the hint of impatience in his voice and winced. Mood swings were not part of the deal.

  ‘What if I told you that I was tired? That I just wasn’t in the mood to go back to your house tonight and make love? Or that yes, I wanted to go back to your house, but to talk.’

  ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘Anything.’ Francesca shrugged. ‘What you’ve been up to. What I’ve been up to. The weather. The crisis in the Health Service. Why it always seems to rain on weekends. Anything.’

  ‘We know what each other has been up to. The weather is autumnal. The Health Service always seems to be in a mess, and it rains on weekends because the English climate is unpredictable, diabolical and likes to see people cancel their planned activities at the last minute. There, covered.’ He signalled for the bill and continued watching her while he waited.

  ‘So it is. I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now we can repair back to your place and do what we do best.’

  ‘Long evenings spent chatting isn’t what this is about, Francesca. I thought you understood that.’ He saw the way she flinched and was tempted to exercise a bit more compassion, but he resisted. No point in setting precedents that he would then find himself compelled to continue fulfilling. He wasn’t in the business of building a relationship with her. He had been there, done that and had the tee shirt to show for his efforts. Besides, he thought, they talked, didn’t they? How much more conversation was she looking for?

  ‘I do understand, Angelo. I don’t know what came over me.’ Now she was beginning to feel emotional, saying all sorts of stuff that she hadn’t intended. She certainly hadn’t intended to launch into a tirade about wanting to go back to his place and bond on some kind of spiritual, platonic level. The opposite. She had been looking forward to seeing him, to sleeping with him before she broke her news. She hadn’t planned on an emotional outburst which would leave him cold and withdrawn.

  Angelo, expert as he was at second-guessing other people, recognised her wobbly smile for what it was, a plaster covering up something else, and for a fleeting second felt a chill of foreboding sweep through him before he reminded himself that there couldn’t possibly be anything substantially wrong. He had seen her two days ago and they had spent an amazing four hours together, a marathon and lazily indolent evening during which they had not managed to struggle out of his much-used king-sized bed. And, dammit, they had talked then, hadn’t they? What could have happened in the space of two days to have brought about this sudden and unwelcome shift in atmosphere?

  Had Jack been talking to her? He knew that they shared some kind of bond, although the reasons behind it were beyond him, but that being the case, maybe the man had put notions in her head, notions about the wisdom of getting involved in a purely sexual rela
tionship that wasn’t going anywhere. From what she had told him, Jack was the last person to lecture anyone on the importance of building relationships but then people who lived in glass houses were often the ones who threw the most stones. And, like it or not, she paid heed to things the man said, which was something he found irksome but was willing to put up with in view of the fact that they were just friends. He did not feel inclined to be quite so generous if the man had been putting ideas into her head. In fact, he would have to mention something to her about Jack, maybe give her a little talk on the importance of cutting apron strings.

  He fulminated in silence as they stepped outside the restaurant, where the swing towards autumn was felt in the chill in the air. Francesca was making conversation, chatting about a television programme she had watched the night before. Normally, he would have teased her by adopting a viewpoint he knew would get under her skin and they would have a heated debate, even if the topic only happened to be something trivial that had taken place in one of those ridiculous reality shows she was addicted to. By the time they finished discussing the subject her cheeks would be flushed and her eyes dancing with pleasure at the sparring.

  Not tonight.

  He waited until there was a pause in the conversation, then inserted silkily, ‘You never told me, how is Jack? Is he between women at the moment? Or is he still dancing around the one with the kid?’

  Startled by the abrupt change of conversation and the tone of his voice, Francesca glanced at Angelo’s hard profile and felt her stomach flip over. She so much wanted this evening to go well but had to concede that she had ambushed her own good intentions from the start by antagonising him with her foolish speculations about wanting to talk to him, wanting to know whether he would ever see her without sex being the primary objective. She linked her arm through his and attempted to smooth the situation back to where she wanted it to be.