by Lucy Gordon;Sarah Morgan;Robyn Donald;Lucy Monroe;Lee Wilkinson;Kate Walker
‘And what if I don’t want this marriage to continue?’
His smile turned her blood to ice, made her heart struggle to beat.
‘I told you, carissima, that is not an option.’
‘But surely you would prefer to be free—to marry again?’
‘You are my wife.’ It was harsh, inflexible, totally unyielding. A death knell to all her hopes of a future.
‘But…but what if you fell in love?’
‘Love?’
His accent had deepened, thickened on the single word, turning it into a syllable of total disbelief. He sounded as if he had no understanding at all of what the word meant, as if he had been unaware of its existence until now.
‘And you must want children.’
‘I always assumed that any children I had would have you as their mother.’
It was like the stab of a stiletto going straight to her unprotected heart. She had wanted his babies, too. Had dreamed, even before her wedding night, of a small son or daughter with Vincenzo’s black hair and eyes. She wouldn’t have cared if that first night together had left her pregnant, so hungry had she been to hold his child in her arms.
‘It seems to me, Vincenzo, that you made too many assumptions in the past. Perhaps if you’d stopped to consider anyone else’s needs, you might not have made such a mess of things—’
‘And perhaps if you had paused to consider anyone’s needs other than your own, then you might not have been so very blind,’ Vincenzo inserted with a smooth arrogance that literally took her breath away, leaving her gasping like a stranded fish. ‘It seems to me that you were far less unhappy with the arrangement than you pretended to be.’
‘Pretended!’
Amy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Had he really believed her tears, her distress, the agony of heartbreak he had put her through, had all been nothing but a pretence?
‘Well, you were only too eager to tell me you’d married me for my money four years ago—and it seems that the idea of wearing a token of my esteem now is still not repugnant to you.’
‘I told you—I didn’t bring any other clothes with me!’
How she wished she hadn’t succumbed to feminine vanity after all! She should have known just what an interpretation Vincenzo would put on what had seemed just a practical course of action.
‘I had no choice, so—’
‘It was not your clothes I was thinking of.’
The sudden movement of his eyes, the way the dark gaze dropped from hers, homing in on a point at the base of her neck dried the words in her mouth as she hastily reconsidered. With an uncomfortable little judder of her heart she realised just what he was looking at.
Instinctively her hands flew up to touch the fine gold chain, shaking fingers closing over the single, beautifully cut diamond that hung from it.
If the truth were told, she had forgotten she was wearing the necklace, its delicacy making it almost weightless around her throat. It had been the first gift Vincenzo had given her on the day of their engagement, the most simple piece of jewellery he had presented her with, and always her favourite. She had never taken it off from the moment he had fastened it around her neck until the day when, her eyes blurred by bitter tears, she had left it behind along with everything else he had given her.
Last night, finding it in a box on her dressing table, she had been unable to resist trying it on. It had settled into its accustomed place with an ease and familiarity that had torn at her heart, bringing bittersweet memories rushing to the surface of her thoughts. She had fully intended to replace it where she had found it, but sleep had claimed her before she had done so. And this morning she had simply not noticed it was there, slipping back into past patterns without even realising that she had done so.
‘You promised me a diamond for every year of our marriage!’ she flung at Vincenzo now, using attack to disguise the sudden vulnerability that clawed at her painfully.
‘So I did.’ Smooth as ever, he didn’t miss a beat. ‘So now I owe you another four. If you will let me have it…’
‘Oh, no!’
Thoroughly unnerved, Amy struggled to ignore his outstretched hand. To give him the necklace now, to allow him even to think of adding other jewels to the single, perfect stone, would seem to be colluding in his determination that their marriage was to last; that she was never to be free from him.
‘You don’t want the stones?’
The cold-eyed questioning gaze he slanted in her direction shrivelled her protest on her tongue.
‘What woman would be fool enough to turn down diamonds?’
She aimed for airy flippancy and was pleased to find she almost hit it, just a touch of brittleness marring the effect.
‘But we’re late enough already. If we delay any longer, the day will be half over before we’ve even set foot outside. And you did promise me a tour of the city.’
When he had suggested the idea this morning over breakfast, she had snatched at it gratefully, thankful for the thought of some way to fill the long hours of the day. If Vincenzo was set on staying away from his office—and she knew the determined set of his handsome features well enough to realise that she had no hope at all of persuading him to change his mind—then she preferred to be out and about. That way at least she could dilute the potent impact of his forceful personality with the bustle and noise of the city at large. And besides, she had always adored Venice.
She had fallen in love with the city from the moment that she had first set foot there, and the thought that she might get another chance to explore this most beautiful of places was an unexpected delight. When she had set out for Italy, this time, she had believed that she would have no chance to linger, that she would have to declare the reason for her visit and then leave at once.
But Vincenzo’s unexpected reaction to her appearance and her own fearful lack of the courage needed to explain just why she was here had at least allowed an unexpected bonus in this sightseeing trip.
‘So I did.’
Vincenzo lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug of resigned acceptance.
‘If that is what you want, then that is what we’ll do. So if you’re ready, cara?’
The first surprise was his easy agreement, his willingness to go along with what she wanted. It made the prospect of the whole day seem somehow brighter, easier, so that Amy actually found herself relaxing in his company. The second surprise was one that had her mouth opening wide in shock, a gasp of disbelief escaping her.
‘A gondola, Vincenzo!’ she exclaimed when she saw the form of transport he had laid on for them. ‘You shouldn’t have!’
On her first visit to Venice she had stared longingly at the elegant boats that were always associated in everyone’s minds with the essence of Venice, knowing that her meagre allowance wouldn’t run to the cost of hiring one even for an hour.
‘Nothing but the best for my wife.’ Vincenzo dismissed her protest with a snap of his fingers as he handed her into the swaying craft and settled her against the cushioned seat before coming to lounge beside her in elegant indolence. ‘Today will be perfection from start to finish.’
And the final surprise was that that perfection was exactly the word Amy would have used to describe the experience. With only bitter, painful memories of lies and betrayal uppermost in her mind she had forgotten how, when he set his mind to it, Vincenzo could turn on an overwhelming charm that was positively lethal to any weakly susceptible female heart.
And today had been a small reminder of just how effective that charm could be, Amy reflected as the afternoon sunshine began to fade and the gondola made its way through the canals back towards Vincenzo’s home. It was as if, in their mutual enjoyment of the day, and Vincenzo’s evident delight in sharing his love of this beautiful city, some sort of a truce had been declared.
‘Happy?’ Vincenzo had caught her sigh and recognised it for the sound of content that it was.
‘Very.’
She didn’t have t
o struggle to inject a genuine enthusiasm into her voice and the smile that she directed up into his watchful dark gaze was warm and unrestrained.
‘I’ve had a lovely day. In fact, there’s just one thing missing. One thing that would make it quite perfect.’
‘Let me guess…’
Vincenzo’s own smile in response was knowing, very slightly complacent.
‘Dinner and bellinis at Harry’s Bar…’ A slight inclination of his head acknowledged her start of surprise. ‘I anticipated that. I know my wife.’
And he had been the one to introduce her to the particular mixture of champagne and peach juice to which she had become hopelessly addicted.
‘The table is booked for nine. All you have to do is to dress—to make yourself look even more beautiful than you do now—and I will do the rest.’
When he smiled like that, the past four years melted away. That smile gave her back the man she had once known, if not the man she had loved.
And he was still the sexiest man she had ever met in her life. The bitter knowledge of the monstrous way he had treated her, the way he’d used her, had done nothing to dilute the stunning impact of glossy black hair and the deepest, darkest eyes she’d ever seen. With him lounging here beside her, long, powerful legs stretched out in front of him, the sinking sun gilding smooth, olive skin to molten gold, the clean male scent of his body tantalising her nostrils, she knew she had only been half alive until today. Knew that no man had ever touched her senses, brought them into singing response as fast and as easily as he could.
And she also knew that she had been lying when she had allowed him to believe that simply dinner at Harry’s Bar and a cocktail was all that she needed to make her day complete.
What she wanted was far more basic and primitive than that.
And far more dangerous.
It was impossible to keep her clouded blue gaze from going to Vincenzo’s mouth and lingering, refusing to be dragged away again. Impossible not to trace the finely carved shape of his upper lip with her eyes, then take a slow, sensual survey of the softer, fuller curve of the lower one. Impossible not to think of that mouth pressed against her own in a long, demanding kiss. The heady combination of the hard and the soft, enticement and demand. And she knew that that was what she wanted most in all the world.
Kiss me, Vincenzo!
The words were so loud, so clear inside her head that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t actually said them.
And yet something had alerted Vincenzo anyway.
Something about her face, her expression, the truth he could read in her eyes. Something about the inclination of her body, turned instinctively towards his like the pointer on a compass automatically seeking true North. Something silent and unspoken, but communicating on the deepest, most intuitive level between two human beings so that words were unnecessary, superfluous.
‘Amy…’ he said and her name was a sound of enticement, a caress in itself.
She didn’t know which one of them moved first. Whether her head lifted towards his or his lowered all in the same moment. All she was aware of was Vincenzo and his arms coming round her, his lips coming closer. The warm touch of the sun, the faint sound of the water, the sway of the boat as it slid forwards under the impulse of the gondolier’s movement faded into a buzzing blur as their mouths met after what seemed like an endless agony of waiting.
And it was his gentleness that stunned her most. When she had expected the heated passion, the cruel demand of the previous afternoon, the delicacy, the tenderness of this caress took her breath away.
Her heart clenched in sharp response, hot tears stung her eyes and slid out from under the corners of her closed lids and she gave herself up to feeling, to need, to the sheer, burning joy of achieving her heart’s desire.
‘Amy…’ Vincenzo murmured against her mouth, his voice thickened and rough. ‘Carissima. Bella mia.’
His hands were in her hair, tangling in the dark silky strands as he held her closer, keeping her mouth against his so that he could take it, taste it to his heart’s content. And still with that same stunning gentleness, with a lightness of touch that she could have broken free of in a second if she only exerted the slightest effort.
But that effort was beyond her. She didn’t have the focus of mind, never mind the strength, to move, to even think of doing anything other than simply respond. Her mouth opened under his, her lips parting to allow the silken invasion of his tongue, every nerve, every cell in her body tingling into life as if a fizzing electrical current had set them all alight.
She had lost all awareness of where she was, who she was. She only knew that this…
‘Signore…’
The careful cough, the single word, polite and softly spoken as it was, still had the effect of an icy blade slicing through the glow of contentment that held her where she was.
‘Signor Ravenelli…’
It was only the gondolier, politely hesitant, informing them that they had reached their destination, but it shattered the world that had enclosed them, bringing reality rushing back with a vengeance.
With a cry of shock Amy started back, shadowed blue eyes opening wide in distress, clouding in disbelief at what had just happened.
‘I…’ she began, but Vincenzo’s low-toned laughter killed the words on her lips.
‘Oh Amy, Amy,’ he chided softly. ‘There is no need to look as if the world has come to an end. It was just a kiss.’
Just a kiss. Just a kiss. The phrase beat at Amy’s temples until she was ready to scream, fighting against the impulse to lift her hands and press them against her skull in an attempt to drive the tormenting words away.
Just a kiss. No, it had been so much more than that. For Vincenzo it might just have been a casual caress, but her own response had brought home to her the truth of the terrible danger she was in. A danger that came as much from herself as from any action Vincenzo might take.
And that danger could only grow and grow with every second she spent in Italy, in Vincenzo’s home. She had to break free, get away once and for all—and stay away. Only then would she be safe.
She would have to tell Vincenzo the truth and she would have to do it tonight. She could only pray that dinner at Harry’s Bar might just mellow him enough to listen to her without shooting her down in flames, because she didn’t dare to leave it any longer than that.
Chapter Five
‘ARE you tired?’
Vincenzo’s low-toned question broke into Amy’s absorbed thoughts, making her start in shock and turn wide, uncertain eyes on his shadowed face as he paused just outside the pool of light shed by the nearest street lamp.
‘Should I not have dismissed the water taxi?’
‘No…’
Fearful that the way she had shaken her head, sending the dark strands of her hair flying around her face, might have seemed over-emphatic, far too emotional, that it might draw his attention to her in a way she dreaded, she switched on what she hoped was a believable smile.
‘No, really, I’m fine.’
She would have to do better than that if she was to convince him there was nothing wrong. Already those deep eyes were searching her face, probing with a laser-like intensity for the truth behind the careful act she was showing him.
She couldn’t bear it if he so much as suspected that her steps had slowed, her feet dragging, because she wanted to delay as much as possible the moment when they would reach his house. The moment when the hesitation she had allowed herself must come to an end, and she must tell him the real reason why she was here in Italy at all.
‘It’s just that—that everywhere looks so lovely in the moonlight…’
Her gesture took in the high, full moon, the gently lapping waters of the canal, the houses on the opposite bank painted in amazing spicy colours of saffron yellow and turmeric red, the ornate, decorated pillars of the street lamp with its triple lights high above her head.
‘I just want to take it all in.’
<
br /> Take it in and store it in her mind against the future that now seemed to be rushing in on her so fast, well before she was quite ready to face it.
The whole evening had had an unbelievable, dreamlike quality about it, so that she felt she had been living in a bubble of time, suspended from reality. From the moment she had left her bedroom, dressed for dinner at Harry’s Bar in a slim-fitting sleeveless deep purple velvet dress topped by a matching evening coat, to find Vincenzo waiting for her, dark and devastating in a black suit, severe white shirt and silver-grey tie, she had been able to let herself forget the past and live only in the present.
Or perhaps what she really meant was that she had let herself slip back into the further past, into the time before reality had hit home and she had learned the truth about the reasons why this man had made her his wife. It was as if those terrible, tearing moments of disillusionment and distress had never been.
She was once more the Amy Redman who had never known the shocking force and power of love at first sight. Never experienced the sense of being blasted out of a world she knew and into one where everything had splintered into tiny pieces and been replaced in a new and very different way, one she didn’t recognise at all.
And Vincenzo was the sophisticated, charming, delightful companion who lit up her life simply by being in it. The man whose personality shone like the brightest star, who concentrated his attention on her with an intensity that took her breath away, making her feel as if she was the only woman in a world in which no one else existed.
And so, after dinner when he had suggested that they dismiss their water taxi near the Rialto Bridge and complete the rest of their journey home on foot, she had accepted willingly. This way the trip back would take so much longer. She could even delude herself, just for the moment, that the evening would never have to come to an end. That she would never have to look into the darkness of those coal-black eyes and watch them change, icing over, as she asked him for a divorce.
‘I mean, have you ever seen anything so beautiful?’
‘Never.’
Vincenzo’s voice was suddenly husky, strangely raw, and when Amy looked up at him in confusion it was to meet the full force of those amazing eyes, find them fixed on her face with a fierce concentration that made her heart clench inside her chest.