by Penny Jordan
Now she knew that the fantasies she had created for herself as she was growing up—first that of being part of a close-knit family with loving parents, and then her desire for Gabriel to fall in love with her—had been her way of trying to give herself the love she had not received as a child. In her daydreams she could create her world as she yearned for it to be. But in reality that was impossible. No real relationship could have carried the burdensome weight of her expectations.
The night before the girls had been due to fly back to the UK, Sasha had seized her chance to bring herself to Gabriel’s attention. By what self-destructive instinct had she homed in on a man who was as emotionally damaged as she was herself? Theirs had always been a relationship doomed to failure—if you could use the word ‘relationship’ to describe what they had shared. Theirs had been a dangerously compulsive sexual addiction to one another coupled with an equally dangerous hunger for emotional dependency on her part and an ingrained rejection of emotional intimacy on Gabriel’s. If she had deliberately set out to do so she could not have found someone less able to meet her expectations. A wiser person would have seen that. But all she had seen was the fantasy she had created.
On that first night she had truly believed that the most challenging element of her daydream future had been finding the bravado to step in front of his car with assumed studied nonchalance, mimicking the more worldly-wise girls. Miraculously, it had worked. She had inveigled her way into his car and from there to his bed. But what she hadn’t known then was that there was no access from there to his heart...
The boys had finished their lunch and were clamouring to go back outside, bringing Sasha back to the
present.
* * *
TODAY HAD TO have been just about the longest and worst day of her life, Sasha reflected tiredly, several hours later. The boys were now in bed, but, drained of physical and mental energy, Sasha felt too emotionally wired to sleep. But sleep she must. The boys were always awake early.
Gabriel had gone up to the suite he had claimed hours ago, saying brusquely that he had some work he needed to do and telling the boys that he would see them in the morning. It shocked her how easily he could tell them apart—something that Carlo had never been able to do.
Gabriel. She still didn’t want to believe that this had happened, that he was here, she admitted as she made her way from the bathroom to her waiting bed.
* * *
GABRIEL HALF WOKE up in the darkness of the unfamiliar room, so disorientated between past and present that before he could stop himself he was automatically reaching out, expecting Sasha to be there, his hand already cupping to take the warm, soft weight of her breast and rub his thumb-tip over her nipple in the caress she had told him so many times she could not resist. He had never known a woman so sexually sensitive to his touch, so immediately and uncontrollably responsive and aroused by him. But then he had also never known another time when he himself had been so equally and eagerly sexually charged. There had been times when his hunger for her had actually led him to analyse the feasibility of dismissing the yacht’s crew and sailing it himself, simply so that he could have the convenience of taking Sasha wherever and whenever he wanted. She had baulked a little at first when he had suggested she wear one of his shirts over the erotically designed swimwear he had bought her instead of its matching cover-ups. But when he had told her softly and explicitly that beneath the protective cover up of his shirt he wanted her naked and ready for him, the look on her face had been one of open excitement rather than rejection.
Gabriel wasn’t the type to be turned on by the thought of others witnessing their intimacy—quite the contrary—but it had become necessary for him to know that she was there, and that he could help himself to the sweetest of all fruits without hindrance. Unlike in his youth, when the basic necessities of life had been withheld from him.
He had enjoyed knowing that all it took to bring the tide of aroused colour surging up under her skin was to slide his hand beneath the hem of the shirt and stroke his way up her naked thigh. Long before his fingers had discreetly parted the soft closure of the tender outer lips of her sex she would be leaning into him, her eyes closing, her body trembling violently with the urgency of her need. There had been times when it had satisfied him more to watch her orgasm against his stroking fingers and know how completely enslaved she was by her desire for him than it had to feel his own body reaching its climax within hers. Sometimes. But his own flesh hadn’t been able to go very long without hungering for the firm slide of her muscles as they gripped and caressed, and urged him deeper into her, so deep sometimes that the act of possessing her felt as if he was making her a part of himself.
Gabriel frowned when he realised that he couldn’t feel the softness of Sasha’s flesh at an easy arm’s length from his possession. Beneath his hand the bed felt cold and empty.
Abruptly he was fully awake and even more fully aware. He cursed himself beneath his breath, and his face burned with angry determination. His pride would not be satisfied until he had brought Sasha to the point where she was begging him to take her; when nothing mattered to her other than his possession of her; when he was the one to walk away from her.
It was years since he had woken in the night like this, and the only reason he could be doing so now, he reasoned, was because his subconscious sensed he was close to punishing Sasha for what she had done. That was all. Nothing else. How could there be anything else?
He moved to the middle of the bed and determinedly closed his eyes. Only when his pride had been satisfied would he be able to properly address the issue of his duty toward Carlo’s sons, and the need to protect them from the damage that having Sasha for a mother must be inflicting on them.
CHAPTER FIVE
A PATH LED DOWN from the house to the beach, and as he stood at the top of it Gabriel could see Sasha and her sons walking along the shore. They hadn’t seen him as yet, giving him the opportunity to study them at leisure. The early-morning sun was warming the sand and glittering on the sea. Every now and again either Sasha or one of the boys paused to crouch down and pick up a shell or a pebble.
Sasha looked more like a girl than a woman, in a
T-shirt, with a pair of binoculars slung round her neck, and cut-off jeans, her hair caught back off her face in a band. He could hear the sound of their conversation but not what they were saying. Occasional bursts of laughter indicated that they were all enjoying themselves. Sasha looked out to sea and said something to the boys, lifting the binoculars to her eyes and then crouching down beside them. Nico—somehow Gabriel knew without knowing how or why he knew that it was Nico—leaned against her, putting his arm round her and his head on her shoulder while Sam stood on her other side. As Gabriel watched she handed the binoculars to Sam and then to Nico. Gabriel shielded his eyes with his hand and looked out to sea himself. In the distance he could just about make out the shape of a small school of dolphins. Sasha had always been entranced by the creatures, he remembered.
Nico was handing the binoculars back to her. She kissed him on the top of his head as she took them from him, one arm wrapped firmly around Sam, the other around Nico.
There was a pain in his gut, a familiar dull ache that suddenly flared into a hot, stabbing sensation. As a child he had never known the tenderness of any woman’s maternal embrace, never mind that of his own mother. Kicks and curses had been his lot, followed by the harsh pride of a grandfather who had tolerated him because he’d had no choice.
Down on the beach, Sasha gave her sons a final hug and then released them. These early-morning walks were a part of their traditional holiday ritual, made especially pleasurable this morning thanks to the sighting of the dolphins.
She was just straightening up when Sam called out excitedly, ‘There’s Cousin Gabriel!’ and began to race across the sand towards him, followed by Nico.
Sam reac
hed Gabriel first, flinging himself against him. There was no need for her to worry that her sons might object to Gabriel’s presence in their lives, she acknowledged. Nico was now clinging to him as well, and their faces were turned up toward Gabriel’s as they chattered non-stop, telling him about their walk and the excitement of seeing the dolphins.
‘I’m going to write about seeing them in my life book,’ Nico announced.
‘So am I in mine,’ Sam insisted, not to be outdone.
‘You could do some research on them first,’ Sasha suggested. ‘Perhaps we’ll be able to find some pictures on the Internet you can paste into your books.’
‘I’ve already written in mine about Gabriel being our guardian,’ Nico told Sasha. ‘Perhaps I should put a photograph of him in my life book as well.’
‘What’s a life book?’ Gabriel asked.
‘It’s a form of diary,’ Sasha answered him distantly. ‘The boys have kept a life book right from when they could first write. They put in their good memories—’
‘And when we feel sad as well, like when Dad died,” Sam piped up. ‘Race you to the house, Nico,’ Sam called out to his brother.
On the face of it, Sasha was everything a good mother should be, Gabriel acknowledged. Involved with her children, concerned for them, protective of them, but at the same time encouraging them to grow towards independence. On the face of it. But the truth was that she was no more than a good actress who had played her part for so long it was almost real. He knew that.
With the boys gone, Sasha kept her distance from Gabriel. Her whole body ached with anxious tension, as though she was constantly holding her breath and tensing her muscles. She had barely slept the last three nights, since Gabriel had arrived, and she knew that her nervous system was running on empty with fear-induced adrenalin.
The twins had run on ahead of them, eager for their breakfast. Automatically Sasha increased her own walking pace, so that she could catch up with them, deliberately keeping her gaze focused on the two boys as she started to walk past Gabriel.
‘You’re wasting your time—you know that, don’t you? You can’t fool me, Sasha. I know you far too well. I know what motivates you and what drives you.’
Gabriel’s low-voiced assertion was just loud enough for only her to hear, Sasha recognised. Her heart had started to thump in an unsteady, almost sickeningly heavy beat. How could he know about the sexual effect he was having on her? Not even the fun of her walk along the beach with the boys had had the power to silence the hammering pulse of need that had invaded her body. How was it possible for her to feel like this? She had truly believed that the long weeks she had spent after leaving him, too sick with physical and emotional longing for him to do more than gratefully allow Carlo to take care of her as though she were an invalid, had burned away that part of her that was so vulnerable to him and inoculated her against him for ever. But what if she was wrong? What if, like a drug addict or an alcoholic, she could never truly claim to be free of her old addiction to him?
She was free of it, she told herself fiercely. She had learned the difference between the destructive nature of the unhealthy physical and emotional need that had driven her relationship with Gabriel and the life-enhancing qualities that comprised a healthy relationship. And she still wanted him physically? No!
‘You may think you know me, Gabriel,’ she retorted, as calmly as she could. ‘But the girl you knew no longer exists. Carlo gave me—’
‘Carlo gave you what?’ She winced at the savage tone of his voice. ‘Sexual pleasure? Sexual satisfaction? Did he make you moan in hot pleasure when he touched you with his old hands, when he filled you with his withered flesh, Sasha? Or did you close your eyes and think about his money and his ring on your finger? Did he give you this?’ he demanded.
And then, shockingly, his fingers were digging into the soft flesh of her waist as he pulled her towards him, one hand immediately securing her flaying fists behind her back while the other slid through her hair, holding her so that she could not even turn her head to avoid the dark possession of his kiss.
The boys had disappeared inside the house, and the rhythmic sound of the waves surging against the shore mingled with the beat of her own blood surging through her veins. She was surrounded by an assault against her senses she couldn’t withstand: the familiar scent of Gabriel’s skin; the living, breathing male reality of him as he held her; the way her own body instantly accommodated the intimate thrust of his leg between her own; the sensation of her breasts swelling with arousal as his tongue thrust against hers in a slow, erotic dance of sensual pleasure that stripped her defences from her. Already her body was anticipating the touch of his hand. Already the ache deep inside her had become a sharply tight pang of longing.
A seagull mewed in the sky above them and immediately Gabriel released her.
‘You may think you can deceive me by acting the devoted widow, Sasha, but you can’t. I can see right through your little act.’ Gabriel was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling unsteadily as he spoke. Sasha focused on its movement as she struggled to make sense of what that just happened.
She badly wanted to be sick. Her stomach was churning with nausea and a guilt that was pushing her to hit back at him, to hurt him as he had done her. She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes dark with emotion. ‘Do you know something, Gabriel?’ she told him shakily. ‘I actually feel sorry for you. You think you’re so strong, but in reality you are pitifully damaged. You can’t comprehend that it’s possible for a person to change because you can’t change. You can’t comprehend that it’s possible for love and respect to exist within a relationship because you have never experienced them. All you can do is mirror the pain of your childhood and reflect it back to others. Thanks to Carlo, I have learned how to be emotionally healthy. That was his gift to me, and the most precious gift I have to give my sons. I’ve changed. I’m not the girl you knew any longer.’
Keeping her head held high, Sasha walked past him and into the house.
Gabriel could feel the inner explosion of his own anger in the ice-cold shards of fury that splintered through him. So Sasha pitied him, did she? Well, very soon now she was going to realise that she should have saved her precious pity for herself—because she was going to need it. He could feel the savage pulse of the tumult of emotions surging through him.
How dared she, a woman who had lived as she had done, accuse him of being damaged? And as for her having changed—that was impossible. But for some reason an image had lodged itself inside his mind of the way she had held her sons as the three of them watched the dolphins, and it refused to be deleted. Whatever she might have been, wasn’t it the truth that she was now a woman with two sons whom she loved with an intensity that he could almost feel, never mind see? But if he allowed himself to accept that he was misjudging Sasha, then what might that lead to? Pain? Regret? The admission that he had lost something irreplaceable, something infinitely precious?
That could not be allowed to happen. No matter what the evidence to the contrary, he had to go on believing that Sasha was not to be trusted or believed, that she was just putting on an act. He could not forget that she had come to him from another man, from other men, saying openly that she preferred what he had to offer her. And she had left him for exactly the same reason. He owed it to Carlo and to Carlo’s sons to be there for them against the day she chose to change again, and trade in her love for them for a new love with someone else.
No matter what she might say, he did not trust her. Sooner rather than later she was going to start looking for another rich and foolish man to take over Carlo’s role in her life. She could act the doting mother all she liked now, but that couldn’t alter the fact that she had already put the boys into boarding school once to suit her own needs, so she could be free to jet off to New York. How could she be the loving mother she was so successfully portraying a
nd have done that? Especially when their father had been dying and they must have needed her more than ever? It wasn’t possible.
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER Gabriel looked up from his computer and out of the window of the room in the main guest suite he was using as a temporary office. The demands of his business were such that it should not have been possible for any thoughts of Sasha to surface, but somehow they had done so. For all her assumed anger and contempt, he had still felt her body’s unmistakable response to him.
Had she taken lovers during her marriage to Carlo? That feeling gripping him surely wasn’t really pain; it was simply anger on his cousin’s behalf. When Sasha had walked out on him he had refused to think about her or what she might be doing, but now, living in such physical proximity to her, that wasn’t possible. Her presence filled the house so that even when she wasn’t physically visible he could feel her around him.
He looked at his computer. Several e-mails had just come through, including one from his PA in Florence whom he had instructed to find a scholarly tutor capable of evaluating the boys’ strengths and weaknesses so that he could make a decision as to their future. He certainly wasn’t going to allow Sasha to send them to boarding school. And one from an architect capable of turning the hotel back into a private house. He owned properties all over the world, but neither they nor his yacht were the right environment for a pair of nine-year-olds.
Quickly he opened and read the e-mails, and then instructed his PA to have the two men at the top of the list flown out to Sardinia so that he could interview them.
Sasha, of course, would not like what he was planning to do. She would no doubt much prefer to live at his expense in the kind of environment she most enjoyed: the kind of environment that went with designer shops and exclusive restaurants. No doubt she thought she had the upper hand, and that because he was allowing her to remain here in Sardinia at his expense he would continue to do so.