All of her nerve-endings prickling now, Portia tiptoed out of the nursery and headed for the bathroom to mop herself up, holding the damp bodice of her dress away from her skin.
Ugo glided out of the sitting room and said, ‘Buona sera, signorina,’ with his customary wide grin, closely followed by Lucenzo, who stood in the doorway, watching her with narrowed eyes.
Portia watched him watching her and her heart felt as if it might burst. His mouth was a straight, forbidding line and his eyes looked haunted. Did being around Vito’s child remind him of his terrible loss? She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to watch a loved one die, the two most important people in his world wiped out by a stupid accident.
A sob rose in her throat but she gamely swallowed it. She so much wanted to comfort him, make him happy. But it wasn’t in her power. She was fathoms deep in love with him, she admitted wretchedly, but he would never, could never, feel the same way about her.
He had obviously loved his wife so much that falling in love with another woman was an out-and-out impossibility. And even if it weren’t he would never take his brother’s cast-off.
Portia felt the fine hairs on her body all stand to attention and knew she had to find a way to break this unnervingly strange silence. She moistened her lips. ‘You’ll be keeping the others waiting,’ she said, and her voice sounded strangled.
‘No. I used your house phone to give my apologies and ask Ugo to bring supper for two. Which, as you saw, he has done.’ Lucenzo knew he sounded wooden and struggled to break free of the trance-like state looking at her had induced.
She was flushed and flustered, her lovely eyes clear, wide and a little too bright, and a pulse was beating madly at the base of her slender neck. One hand covered the thrusting curve of her left breast and he wished his hand were her hand.
He groaned softly. As he knew from experience she could so easily tip him over the edge, and mere animal lust was taboo where she was concerned. She’d had it tough and she deserved better—and he wasn’t the man to give it to her. He couldn’t give her or any other woman emotional commitment. He’d lived by that rule for a long time now and wasn’t about to break it.
He was here in this room, with her, to do a job, he reminded himself cuttingly, not for any other reason. He had to tell her what was in Eduardo’s mind and warn her that if she accepted his marriage proposal she’d be making one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
Watching his face close down grimly, Portia shuddered. Supper alone with him would be much too intimate. How could she hope to hide the way she felt? By trying to act as normally as possible, which in her case meant—if her parents were to be believed—like a half-wit! She would start by shutting herself away in the bathroom and getting on with mopping up. The fabric beneath her hand still felt damp.
Grasping the neckline and flapping wildly, she babbled, ‘I’ve got baby dribble on my lovely new dress. I should have stuck to my guns—new mums should wear nothing but charity shop rejects!’
Perhaps he’d say what he’d come for and go.
He did no such thing. Just gave her a long, comprehensive look that made her whole body tingle and her heart pick up speed, beating so madly she thought it might choke her. She gave a long painful shudder as he turned abruptly, stepped into the bathroom and reappeared a second later with a towel. Walking as though he were in a trance, his voice thick, more heavily accented than she’d ever heard it before, he said, ‘Here, let me deal with it.’
As he scanned the damp area one hand rose slowly to slip beneath the neckline while the other dabbed gently with the soft white towel. The backs of his fingers grazed the tingling swell of her breast and Portia sucked in a ragged breath. She felt as if she had walked into the heart of a blazing fire, and colour accented the harsh lines of his cheekbones as his body went taut and very still.
Portia wanted to step away, but her limbs had lost all power of movement and her mind was a total blank. When he raised his heavy lashes and she saw the melting, drowning darkness of his eyes she was utterly, and for all time, lost.
The towel fluttered uselessly to the floor as with a groan of helpless capitulation Lucenzo dragged her into his arms. One heartbeat later his mouth was plundering her and reality spun away.
CHAPTER NINE
THE driven urgency of Lucenzo’s passion, his hungry need, inflamed Portia and her own out-of-control wildly emotional responses exulted her. As the yielding softness of her body was welded to the hard male lines of his, her hands flew up to cradle his head, her fingers twining convulsively in the soft dark silkiness of his hair.
The insistent, yet utterly seductive thrust of his tongue was drugging her and her heart was beating to the wild rhythm of blind adoration when he finally broke the kiss. His broad chest heaved as he struggled for air, gathering her even closer as she gave a tortured gasp of loss.
And then he was husking something in his own language and nuzzling her hair aside, his mouth finding the pulse-beat at the base of her throat, kissing her there. Her heart grew wings of soaring joy, her fingers sliding over the breadth of his shoulders then curling into the fabric of his shirt.
He wasn’t going to push her away. This time her answering passion didn’t disgust him! She shuddered deliciously as his feathering kisses moved lower, down to the neckline of her dress where the pouting swell of her breasts began.
Portia gave a low whimper of pleasure. She felt delirious. She wanted more and more and more. Feverishly her fingers scrabbled at the tiny buttons. She wanted to remove the barrier of fabric, to offer her peaking breasts for his pleasure, for her immeasurable delight, needed to hold on to an ecstasy she had never known existed—needed him, loved him. Loving this man so very much, she ignored the whispery little voice in what remained of her thinking processes which reminded her that she really hadn’t meant to fall in love with him at all.
She heard his breath hiss through his teeth and then his hand was covering hers, moving her frantic fingers away from the seemingly hopeless task before slowly, carefully, undoing the buttons himself, parting the fabric and sliding it off her shoulders. His smouldering eyes were intent on the soft mounds of her breasts, intent still while he deftly disposed of the black satin bra, intent until they drifted closed as he bent his head to suckle her.
His whole body was tense, shaking with tiny tremors, and Portia clung to him, her head thrown back, every inch of her on fire for him. Her hunger was savage and uncontainable, so that when he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the fabulous bed she couldn’t even think of protesting but cradled his head between her hands again and covered his face with fiery kisses.
Clothes were frantically disposed of. Lucenzo didn’t know who had undressed whom. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but what was happening between them.
Three weeks away hadn’t tamed this pagan need, his desire to have her. She was a primitive fever that hadn’t attacked him for longer than he could remember. Gesu! She was so exquisitely beautiful! So fantastically responsive, generous and willing! What more could any man want?
Her loving arms enfolded him and he gave a throaty groan as his mouth closed hungrily over hers.
Sam’s cry woke her. Portia, her mind and body sated, her limbs still boneless with the after-effects of the passion of the night. Struggled feebly within the tangle of sheets. The darkness was thick and velvety, just a tiny glow from the nursery nightlight showing through the partly opened door.
‘Wait.’ Lucenzo’s voice was soft and languorous, and the hand that had been resting on her tummy stroked her there before moving away. ‘Stay where you are. I will bring him to you.’
He flicked the bedside light on and Portia struggled up against the heaped pillows, watching him as he slid off the bed, her soft lips parted, her eyes drowsy, dreamy with love. So much love.
Naked, he was utter perfection, and her heart kicked beneath her ribs as she took in the wide shoulders tapering down to the narrowness of his waist an
d hips, the neat buttocks and long, lithely muscled legs, the olive tones of his skin lightly dusted with dark body hair.
She couldn’t believe that such a man could find her desirable. But the way he had made love to her through the night proved that he did, proved that she possessed a streak of wild sexual generosity where he was concerned. Beneath the drugging expertise of his hands her body had become passionately wanton, demanding, enticing, shamelessly willing.
Hot colour stole into her cheeks as he disappeared into the nursery and her baby’s cries stopped as if they’d been turned off by a tap. She could hardly believe what had happened. The past few hours seemed like a fevered dream. Quivering with the explicit memories, she put the tips of her fingers to the burning skin of her face, testing for reality, wondering if all this was just a dream, only seeming to be real because she’d wanted his lovemaking so very much.
But it had happened. She was wide awake now. It only seemed like a fantasy because before tonight she had never understood what true, out-of-this-world ecstasy was.
When her conscience had pricked her into spending that weekend with Vito, she remembered—to make their engagement really special, or so he had pleaded—all she had felt was a vague discomfort and quite a lot of embarrassment. Her only consolation had been that she’d made him happy.
Vito had said that wanting her and not having her was driving him crazy. Vito had said he loved her, but he’d lied. Lucenzo had said very little beyond murmured Italian endearments and he hadn’t said he loved her. Lucenzo had more integrity; he wouldn’t lie.
Sudden tears welled in her eyes. She grabbed a corner of the sheet and scrubbed them away. What sort of woman was she? Comparing one brother with the other. Oh, how shameful! And was she the sort of woman who threw herself into bed with any man who said he wanted her?
Stuffing the sheet into her mouth to stifle a howl of anguish, she mentally tried to calm herself down, to assure herself that of course she wasn’t.
Lucenzo hadn’t had to say a word. He’d only needed to touch her. And believing herself in love with Vito had been understandable, hadn’t it? He’d appeared to be offering her everything she’d ever wanted—the ordinary, simple, uncomplicated things in life because she was an ordinary, simple, uncomplicated creature.
Besides, at that time she’d had no idea what real love was—something dark, dangerous, driven and compulsive, all mixed up with an aching tenderness, a need to give as much of herself as was humanly possible. Like her feelings for Lucenzo.
And what must he be thinking of her now? That she was sex-starved? Anybody’s? It didn’t bear thinking about, not right now when she didn’t feel up to coping with it. With tear-blurred eyes she gazed at the nursery door. The single bedside lamp made the bedroom, this huge four-poster bed, look like a shadowy cave. It was beginning to give her the creeps—and, come to think of it, what was happening through there? Why was Lucenzo being so long?
About to go and find out, she was paralysed by a thought so cataclysmic she couldn’t move a muscle.
Neither of them had used any protection. Falling pregnant by one Verdi brother could be viewed as careless—falling pregnant by two—!
When she’d let Vito make love to her it had been her first time, and she’d naively believed that he would take care of that side of things because although they’d planned to have children that was something that would happen in the future, when they were married and more secure financially. Falling blindly into bed with Lucenzo with no thought of future consequences was inexcusable!
Tears of mortification were trickling down her cheeks when Lucenzo walked back into the bedroom, cradling Sam in his arms. He was actually cuddling the tiny boy, she noted, furiously scrubbing her cheeks, which meant that her baby didn’t remind him of the child he had lost, didn’t give him pain. And that was something to be glad about, she told herself, giving him a wavery, watery smile as he put her baby into her arms.
‘I’ve changed him for you,’ he told her softly. ‘And made up his bottle—don’t worry, I read the instructions on the formula pack! It’s cooling now; I’ll fetch it through for you.’ He frowned slightly. In the dim light it was not possible to be sure. He leant forward, lifting her chin in his cupped fingers. ‘You’ve been crying.’
There was no way she could deny it and seeing her there, her hair wildly disarrayed around her lovely tear-stained face, her baby in her arms, lit a bright light of sudden inspiration inside him.
He hadn’t meant last night to happen, but it had, and he couldn’t regret it. She had been fantastic. He should have been spending the time warning her off accepting Eduardo’s proposal. But he hadn’t. He’d given in to his baser instincts and made love to her instead, and because of that he now knew exactly what he must do to make amends. And stop his father marrying her and making a fool of himself at the same time.
‘There’s no need to cry. I don’t want to make you unhappy,’ he whispered. ‘I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me, Portia?’
From the east-facing window of his room Lucenzo watched the sun rise, casting long fingers of shimmering light over the valley. He’d been right to leave Portia to think about what he’d said, he told himself firmly. And that almost irresistible temptation to stay right with her, cajole her into accepting his offer, spend the rest of the night with her, had been a temporary aberration, nothing more.
Spending the rest of the night with her would have meant making love to her again. And again. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself. He frowned with deep irritation as heat pooled in his loins and his body surged at the mere idea. The ease with which she aroused his baser instincts quite frankly amazed him, and definitely proved he’d been right to do the sensible thing and remove himself.
He had seen the beautiful logic of his offer of marriage perfectly clearly in that one blinding flash of inspiration. But Portia went with her emotions, not her brain. He could have swept her along with great sex, he was fairly sure of that, but he wanted her to use her intelligence, her logical thought processes, and figure out the advantages of such a union for herself. And that might take some time.
He had too much respect for her to cajole, coerce or seduce her into doing something that might turn out to be wrong for her.
That his father might be furious when he learned he, Lucenzo, had beaten him to it, suddenly occurred to him—provided Portia agreed to marry him, that was. Madre di Dio! What did that matter! He’d square it with him, make him see that he was a caring son, shouldering the burden of duty for him!
Running his fingers through his already wildly tangled hair, he stalked through to the adjoining bathroom to take yet another cold shower.
Portia crept back into her own suite feeling dreadfully guilty. She’d smuggled the untouched supper tray for two down to the kitchen, quickly putting the wasted food into the bin, stacking the plates and cutlery and bowls into the dishwasher and making a hasty exit before Cook came in to start the working day.
It would have been truly shame-making if whoever had come to collect the tray had noticed the untouched contents, put two and two together and come up with the right answer!
The news would have been all over the villa in next to no time, and what had happened last night was her secret—hers and Lucenzo’s.
Already events were taking on a quality of unreality, and his stunning proposal of marriage was even more unreal—quite unbelievable, really. For ages after he’d left her she’d felt brain-dead!
Puffing from her exertions, she checked on Sam. It would soon be time for his bath and early-morning feed. Disappointed that he was still sound asleep, she pattered back to the bedroom and launched into the task of making the bed look normal, not as if a dozen rugby players had spent the night in it practising scrums.
That finished, she dragged herself back to the nursery, sitting cross-legged on the floor, waiting for Sam to wake, her head bowed. She really wished she could think straight, make sense of it all. But her mind was numb and
shivers of reaction were making her skin come out in goosebumps.
His shock proposal of marriage had been the most tempting, tantalising, wonderful offer in the whole wide world. But she couldn’t understand it, no matter how hard she tried.
Much as she would like to believe that he’d suddenly fallen head over heels in love with her, she did have enough common sense—despite her parents’ conviction that she didn’t have a grain of the stuff—to know that it simply could not be true.
Watching his dearly loved wife and their unborn child die in that tragic accident had traumatised him so badly that the poor darling must be incapable of falling in love again, she thought mournfully, her big grey eyes filling with sympathy.
However, that had been ten years ago, she’d learned. It would be perfectly understandable if he’d met a really beautiful woman now, one who was clever, witty and wise and full of grace, who came from his own social strata, and had finally put the past behind him and found himself falling in love.
But her? Ordinary Portia Makepeace, single mother with no skills to speak of, no graces that you’d notice? It simply wasn’t on, no matter how she tried to delude herself into thinking it could be.
And then a truly appalling thought hit her, making her feel nauseous. If she knew anything at all, she knew Lucenzo was a man of integrity. Had he looked at her and decided she was begging for it? And goodness knows she had been more than willing. She had been provocative and, let’s face it, greedy! No normal man would have turned down such an opportunity, she thought with deep mortification.
She was a guest in his home, he’d spent half the night having rampant sex with her and they hadn’t taken precautions. How could he present his father with yet another illegitimate grandchild? He’d probably felt honour-bound to offer to marry her.
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