by Lynne Graham
And had Alessio really said, ‘If you don’t eat, you don’t sleep,’ and cut up a steak into tiny, bite-sized pieces while her head had sunk back down on the supporting heel of her hand and her eyelids had kept on closing no matter how hard she tried to keep them open? He had been so damnably domineering, but the chocolate gateau which had come next had melted in her mouth and for the first time in a week her stomach had felt settled instead of queasily empty.
They were in Italy… and Alessio was smouldering again but, unhappily, not in silence, she thought as she recalled that scene with the photo album. At nineteen, Alessio had told her that a boy who slept around was only gaining necessary masculine experience but that a girl who slept around was a tart. That might not be fair but that was life, he had informed her cheerfully. But Alessio could not find it within himself to be quite so cheerful now about the idea that he might have married a tart.
Daisy might have told the reassuring truth had she been asked, but she hadn’t been asked. Alessio was not prone to demanding direct answers on sensitive subjects. He was naturally devious. Being sneaky had put him into the hands of his equally sneaky daughter. Tara, bless her scheming and shrewd little Leopardi brain, had worked out exactly what her father wanted to hear and had given it to him in spades. Daisy felt no pity for Alessio. Her sex life… or indeed her lack of a sex life…was none of his business.
But, for her daughter’s sake, she had to make the best of this crazy marriage, she told herself staunchly. Thankfully, she was not the sort of female who made a six-act tragedy out of a broken cup, contrary to Alessio’s opinion. She lifted her feathery lashes and then froze. A stricken gasp was torn from her. All languor banished, Daisy jackknifed upright, her horrified gaze flying round the eerily familiar contours of the spacious room.
Vacating the bed in a flying leap, she wrenched back the curtains with impatient hands and looked out in disbelief at the formal gardens spread out below. Boxshaped parterres adorned with statures and fountains and huge planted stone urns ran up to the edges of a magnificent oak wood. Beyond the trees stretched the rolling verdure of the Tuscan hills.
The very first time Daisy had seen that magnificent view, she had been under the naive impression that she was having a guided tour of the palatial Leopardi summer home. Alessio’s parents had generally been in residence only at weekends. Daisy had been hugely intimidated by her luxurious surroundings. Having got her off balance, Alessio had easily overcome her shy, uncertain protests by smoothly locking his mouth to hers in heated persuasion and sweeping her off to bed to deprive her of her virginity…
But not before assiduously assuring her that he would not go one step further than she wanted him to, that she had only to say no and he would immediately stop. Daisy hadn’t been capable of vocalising a single word in the flood of passion which had followed. Alessio would naturally have worked that fact out beforehand. Even as a teenager, he had been ruthlessly well acquainted with her every weakness.
Daisy finally spun from the window and back into the present; trembling with outrage and discomfiture. How dared Alessio bring her back to the family villa in Tuscany? How could any man be so insensitive that he didn’t appreciate that this was the very last place she would want to revisit? This was where they had fallen in love, where they had played adult games of passion, blithely risking consequences that neither of them had been equipped to deal with.
She was standing beneath the shower in the adjoining bathroom before it occurred to her that thirteen years ago that bedroom had been his bedroom. Of course it wouldn’t still be his, she thought, scolding herself furiously for the fact that her impressionable heart had just skipped an entire beat. Instead of being clenched by horror, she had been clenched by excitement, she conceded with deep chagrin. But she would never allow herself to succumb to the potent lure of Alessio’s allpervasive sexuality again. A healthy distance and detachment would provide the only safe and sensible foundation for a marriage of convenience.
Daisy turned off the shower and towelled herself dry. Then, throwing the towel aside, she padded back into the bedroom. She was heading for the dressing room, where she hoped to find some clothing, when a light knock on the door momentarily froze her to the spot. She wasn’t wearing a stitch! As the doorhandle began turning, she gave a frantic, unavailing pull at the securely lodged sheet on the bed and then dived with a strangled groan under the massive bed to conceal herself. The rattle of china broke the silence. Daisy waited to see a pair of maid’s feet approaching but instead she saw male feet… unmistakably Alessio’s feet—bare, brown, beautifully shaped.
‘Daisy…?’ he called.
She held her breath and turned puce with mortification. Things like this did not happen to other people; why did they continually happen to her? Especially around Alessio, who would greet a hurricane in the middle of the night with a stopwatch. He checked the bathroom, the dressing room, muttered something in Italian.
Daisy couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She cleared her throat. ‘I’m under the bed. For heaven’s sake, go away!’ she hissed in furious conclusion.
‘So… you are hiding under the bed,’ Alessio drawled after a lengthy pause, a slight tremor disturbing his diction.
‘I thought you were the maid.’
‘I know you used to feel a little self-conscious around the staff, piccola mia…but don’t you think this is rather excessive?’
‘If you must know, I haven’t got any clothes on!’ Daisy blitzed back.
‘Oh, I’m well aware of that,’ Alessio assured her huskily. ‘I was standing below the trees earlier when you hauled open the curtains and stood there in all your unclothed glory for an entire ten minutes.’
‘You timed me?’ Daisy could barely frame the scandalised demand.
‘I may not wax lyrical about sunrises or spout romantic speeches under balconies but I was deeply appreciative of that particular view. I also congratulated myself on my foresight that the domestic staff come in at only discreet hours of the day. We are presently the only people in the house—and isn’t it fortunate that I included the gardeners in that embargo? I don’t think I’m narrow-minded but I’m remarkably selfish. If you had even unwittingly flashed your attractions for anyone else, I would have wrung your neck!’
‘Get out of here, Alessio!’ Daisy exploded, fit to be tied.
‘But I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in years,’ Alessio said with intense appreciation. ‘Why? I have learnt to cherish and value eccentricity and I am rejoicing in the sure knowledge that my wife is unique. I am certain that I am the only man in Italy who had to force-feed his bride on their wedding night, put her to bed alone and then hold a conversation with her while she hid naked under the bed the next day.’
‘Push off!’ Daisy screeched, unimpressed. ‘I’m not coming out until you go away!’
Alessio set down a tray on the carpet. ‘Look,’ he invited in a lazily seductive undertone. ‘Your favourite hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. Disgustingly rich and sweet. Every undiscriminating taste bud you possess has to be watering…’
‘I don’t want it!’ Daisy hauled wildly at the sheet hanging over the bed. It still wouldn’t budge. Her teeth ground together. Then she espied something cotton lying in a heap on the floor on the other side of the bed and rolled over to stretch out her hand and retrieve it.
‘Even when you are concentrating sufficiently to know what’s happening around you…which admittedly isn’t all that often…you still fascinate me,’ Alessio mused reflectively, stretching out long, denim-clad legs as he sank down in an armchair. ‘Any other woman would have got into the bed to conceal herself but you crawled under it.’
Feverishly engaged in trying to button the shirt, Daisy’s fingers slowed to a clumsy fumble as she focused on those legs. She emerged from below the bed, silver hair wildly mussed, her violet eyes as bright as jewels in her triangular face. Treating her to a shimmering smile of blinding brilliance, Alessio sprang fluidly upright, a di
sturbing distraction in faded tight jeans and a white polo shirt.
Transfixed by that heart-stopping smile, her mind a dizzy blank, Daisy was now wholly absorbed by the jeans. Her mouth ran dry. She moistened her lips, her breath catching in her throat. Denim faithfully followed every superbly virile line of his lean hips and long, powerful thighs. Her magnetised attention strayed to the distinctively masculine bulge at his crotch and something almost painful twisted low in her stomach, colour slowly creeping up her slender throat in a burning wave.
‘Do the jeans still make your socks sizzle even when you’re not wearing any?’ Alessio enquired with purring emphasis as he reached down a strong hand and tugged her upright. ‘Dio, I should have ransacked my wardrobe in London. To bell with sartorial elegance! Clearly I missed out on a critical coup.’
‘Rubbish!’ But Daisy was convinced that even her toes were turning shocking pink and could not credit that she had gawped at him like that. How could she have? How could she have? Her face burned hotter than ever.
‘And you are walking a tightrope in that shirt. Tara is not in a bedroom next door. You have no safety net. When you fall…I’ll catch you.’
His narrowed gaze was a hot sliver of stark gold, semiconcealed by the lush crescent of his lashes. In the humming stillness, her fingers flew up to the pulse flickering madly at the base of her throat and pressed against it; she frowned as she tore her gaze free and finally registered that she was wearing one of his shirts.
‘Where did you sleep last night?’ Daisy demanded starkly.
‘In the dressing room…like a gentleman.’
Her brows knit as she pondered that admission. ‘Was there only one bedroom prepared for us?’
‘You haven’t buttoned my shirt up properly,’ Alessio murmured as if she hadn’t spoken, and that deep, low-pitched observation made her knees wobble. ‘Don’t worry about it. I have every intention of taking it off again.’
Her startled eyes whipped back up to his. ‘But we’re not going to do things like that!’ Daisy gasped.
‘You do have some very peculiar ideas about marriage, piccola mia.’
‘You only married me to get custody of Tara…it’s nothing more than a convenient arrangement!’
‘Convenient—available, ready-made, handy,’ Alessio defined softly, savouring the words, his brilliant golden eyes smouldering over her with unconcealed anticipation.
‘Forget it!’ Daisy said furiously, drawing herself up to her full five feet. ‘I am not a fast-food outlet…’
Alessio flashed her a megawatt smile of wolfish challenge. ‘And I am no celibate. I’m an unreconstructed, very old-fashioned guy. My wife shares my bed. That is not an issue up for negotiation today, tomorrow or any other day. You will not qualify for a separate bedroom should there be fifty guest rooms under the marital roof!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
DAISY was stunned by the sheer challenging cool of that brazen assurance. ‘You know that I won’t agree to that,’ she stated tightly.
Alessio elevated a winged ebony brow. ‘No?’
‘No. Sharing a bedroom or a bed is out of the question. And I’d like you to leave so that I can get dressed,’ Daisy informed him in speedy conclusion.
‘Daisy—’
‘There’s the door. Use it,’ Daisy advised, tilting her chin. ‘This is not the average marriage. I was forced into it against my better judgement.’
‘But whichever way you look at it we’re still married. And without the passion this marriage hasn’t got a hope in hell. In fact right now it’s the only damned thing we’ve got going for us,’ Alessio returned very drily. ‘So why would you try to deny us that one positive element?’
Unprepared for that raw candour, Daisy lost every scrap of her animation and colour. In demanding a room of her own, she had only been trying to protect herself. She was terrified of putting herself in a position where Alessio could hurt her again. And she could not imagine making love with Alessio without an awful lot of vulnerable feelings becoming involved and putting her at risk.
‘I will not allow you to sabotage this marriage before it even gets a fighting chance,’ Alessio asserted with stark impatience. ‘Just for once in your life you are going to stand your ground and make a real effort.’
Daisy snatched in a shaky breath. ‘You have no right to speak to me like that.’
His starkly handsome features were set concrete-hard. Icy eyes held hers with an innate force of will. ‘It was a warning. No matter how bad things get, you are staying this time. We have Tara to think about now—’
‘Yes…but—’
‘And it was a miracle that I didn’t drop dead with shock when you attacked me last week!’ Alessio continued with raw emphasis, his lip curling at the memory. ‘It took you thirteen years to work up the courage to tell me why you walked out and you slung it all at me as if you were telling me things I already knew!’
Daisy stiffened. ‘I—’
‘But not one word did you say to me at the time!’ Blazing golden eyes raked over her small, still figure. His wide mouth clenched hard, fierce tension splintering from every taut angle of his lean, poised length.
So, believe it or not, the divorce hit me very hard! I wasn’t prepared for it and I certainly didn’t see it coming. I loved you and I genuinely believed that you loved me…and then I found out different, didn’t I, Daisy?’
That devastatingly candid admission hung there, quivering in the rushing silence.
Daisy was frozen to the spot, plunged at shattering speed into emotional turmoil. Even that day at the bank, she had not considered the staggering idea that Alessio might not have wanted the divorce. ‘You’re just saying that now to make me feel bad,’ she censured him in a faltering undertone. ‘You’re lying.’
Alessio strode forward. ‘Dio, I—’
Pale and taut, Daisy whirled away from him. ‘You’re trying to twist everything and act as if I left for no good reason when you know very well that there was nothing left to stay for! You had already moved out of our bedroom!’
Alessio tugged her back to him, his strong hands closing round her slim forearms to imprison her. His dark features were rigid and his eyes held something that looked remarkably like bewilderment. His long fingers tightened on her slender arms and then loosened before slowly dropping from her. His ebony brows drew together, black lashes lowering as he frowned down at her. ‘Only because I couldn’t sleep in the same bed and hope to keep my hands off you.’
‘That doesn’t make sense—’
‘Doesn’t it? The most embarrassing time of my life,’ Alessio confided with a rueful twist of his eloquent mouth, ‘has to be the day my father cornered me to say that he sincerely hoped that I wasn’t still making sexual demands on my wife because pregnant women didn’t find lovemaking comfortable after the first couple of months.’
Daisy’s jaw dropped.
‘I was seriously embarrassed,’ Alessio admitted with a grim half-smile of remembrance. ‘And I wanted to ask you whether I had been hurting you but I couldn’t quite work up the courage. My demands in that department had, after all, been pretty voracious—’
‘I thought you didn’t want me any more,’ Daisy interrupted, in a complete daze. ‘You never hurt me.’
‘Didn’t I?’
She shook her head in an urgent negative, her shining silver-blonde hair flying round her flushed cheekbones, her violet eyes welded to his.
‘That was why I felt so guilty when you lost the baby,’ Alessio confessed harshly. ‘I thought that all those passionate encounters might have contributed to that—’
‘No!’ Daisy protested in a pained whisper, her gaze soft with distress as she drew instinctively closer to him and smoothed her fingers down his arm in a comforting motion. ‘That was just something that happened. The doctor had assured me that there was no reason why we shouldn’t be making love—’
‘How the hell could you have believed that I didn’t want you any more?’ Alessio broke i
n with a blatant lack of understanding.
‘That’s how it seemed. You never touched me again,’ she muttered uncomfortably.
‘Daisy, I couldn’t trust myself to touch you! I didn’t have any self-control around you and I was very frustrated,’ he breathed feelingly. ‘Celibacy felt like another punishment. I was a selfish little jerk.’
‘No, you weren’t,’ Daisy said shakily, devastated by what he had told her but undeniably touched too. Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes connected with his vibrant golden gaze. A tiny muscle somewhere deep down inside her pulled tight and her lower limbs turned weak as insidious heat curled in the pit of her stomach. ‘But you didn’t have to be so extreme…’ She swallowed and the tip of her tongue stole out to moisten her full lower lip. ‘We could have done—’
‘Other things to ease my raging libido?’ Alessio slotted in huskily as he reached out and folded both arms round her to ease her up against him, his burnished gaze nailed with magnetic attention to the voluptuous curve of her pink mouth. ‘Having made my magnificent gesture of self-sacrifice, I was in full martyr mode, and I was far too proud to come back and ask for favours.’
‘It…it wouldn’t have been a favour…’
‘No?’ Alessio prompted thickly.
‘I always liked making you lose control…it was almost as exciting as losing it myself,’ Daisy confided abstractedly, in severe shock and unable as yet to emerge from it. In one bitter bout of confidence, Alessio had yanked the ground from beneath her feet. All those years ago, he had not turned away from her in deliberate rejection. No, indeed. Incredible as it seemed to her, Alessio had still been seething with unabated lust for her dumpy little barrel of a body, and that thought knocked Daisy sideways and over.
‘Please…don’t say things like that,’ Alessio groaned, and with lean, strong hands he gradually drew her up the poised length of his taut, muscular body, letting her find out for herself why he was trembling as she came into head-spinning contact with the bold, hard jut of his aroused masculinity.