by Lynne Graham
'How long is it since Carlo last saw your father? Carlo doesn't talk much about his family,' Jessica added hurriedly, fearful that she had made a slip.
But his sister's plump face merely looked sad and resigned. 'Over nine years. Of course, I have always kept
in touch with Carlo. I would say I was going shopping and we would meet up in Miami. I am deeply attached to Carlo,' she shared with great warmth. 'Ever since he was a little boy. I was seventeen when he was born and he was the most beautiful baby...'
They strolled along the paved terrace beneath the starry night sky while Marika gave her chapter and verse on Carlo's baby years. Her pride was touching, as was her pleasure in sharing such titbits with the woman she believed to be her brother's bride-to-be. Jessica felt horribly guilty. Marika was so kind and trusting, clearly not even dreaming that there was anything strange about her brother's sudden engagement.
'What was his mother like?' she asked encouragingly.
'She was very beautiful. Then, Lukas would not have
married her otherwise,' Marika chuckled, and then her
smile dimmed. 'I think, for a while, he really loved Sofia,
but he wanted more children and she couldn't have them.
That's why he divorced her. It was a very bitter divorce.
Carlo wanted to live with his mother but my father would
not allow Sofia to take Carlo away '
'Why not?'
'Carlo was his son,' sighed Marika. 'Unfortunately, Carlo was very protective of Sofia and he blamed his father for hurting her. That's when the trouble between them began. Lukas was furious... his young son, daring to condemn him. Then Lukas remarried and Sofia died. Carlo hadn't seen his mother in many months and that made him even more bitter. Eventually he was sent off to school. When he was eighteen, he took his mother's name and I have never known my father as angry as he was then. For Lukas, it was the most base insult. He is immensely proud of the Philippides name,’
But father and son had got together again nine years ago and Jessica was insatiably curious about what had occurred to upset the apple cart then. Sufficient to sever all familial ties, to employ Carlo's phraseology.
‘He forgave him, though... didn't he?’ Jessica fished, and then suddenly despised herself for trying to draw his sister into telling her more.
There was no mistaking Marika's tightening features. Her gentle dark eyes hardened. 'Did he? I don't think so,’ she said reflectively. "But this time, yes. My father very much wants to win his son back to his side. He is aware of how little time may be left to him. He will not admit it but he is very proud of the success Carlo has achieved without his help.'
Hail the conquering hero, the return of the prodigal to the celebration feast.
Suddenly Marika laughed and leant closer to Jessica to whisper, 'I tell you a secret. Lukas has a library of Press cuttings on Carlo but Carlo would never believe it unless he saw with his own eyes.'
Her homely face tightened and she patted the younger
woman's arm. ‘I am very happy that Carlo has found
it possible to love again. I feared that he would never
marry. A weaker man might have had his faith in women
destroyed forever by such treachery but '
What treachery? Jessica was on the brink of asking when a manservant emerged from the villa and spoke to Marika.
'Please excuse me. My father wants me.'
'I think I'll go to bed,' Jessica said, but as Marika sped off at an obedient trot she decided instead to stay outdoors a little longer. The slight breeze was deliriously welcome and her brain was engaged on such frantic activity that she knew she had no hope of sleeping.
Some woman Carlo had loved had betrayed him. Jessica ached at the image of Carlo loving a woman that deeply. It hurt, yes, she acknowledged grudgingly, it really hurt.
Why did that knowledge hurt her? Ego? He had not loved Jessica, had laid no heart at her feet, had made no concessions to her self-respect or pride and had em-
ployed no heated persuasions. He had offered her the vacant space in his bed and the time limit of his boredom. A cool, arrogant, take-it-or-leave-it choice. Was that why it had been so easy to run away?
Leaning on the terrace railing, she let her cool hands press against her hot cheeks. She had gone to the Deangate that day in a colossal rage. Calling into her father's office, she had found him sitting with his head in his hands.
'I've sold Amory's,' he had muttered as if he couldn't quite believe it himself. 'I've sold to Carlo. Without finance, the firm was going to sink. I had no choice. Better money in the bank than bankruptcy...and I suppose your mother will be pleased.’
like a madwoman, Jessica had hammered on the door of Carlo's suite. He had opened it himself.
'Take a long, slow deep breath,' Carlo had suggested,
reading her furiously flushed face with ease. ‘I gather
your father's told you '
'How dare you steal Amory's from him?' she had blitzed.
Carlo had poured her a brandy and handed it to her in silence.
She had downed it in one, outraged by his cool.
'I didn't steal it, I bought it. For far more than it's worth in its current state of efficiency,' he had drawled. 'And I am not a man known for my generosity. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have bought. Your father doesn't realise how fortunate he is to possess such an asset.'
'What the hell have I got to do with it?'
'If you had surrendered last week,' Carlo had spelt out gently, 'I would have given him the finance he requires to survive and he would still have owned his business.'
Sick with horror, Jessica had stared back at him. He had cruelly laid the responsibility for the loss of Amory's on her shoulders. And there had been worse to come.
"This week, as you may have guessed, that ^ffer was
concluded and I bought instead,’ he had continued lazily.
'And by next week, I will no longer be prepared to con
sider offering your father the opportunity of staying on
as managing director '
'That's blackmail,' she had whispered incredulously.
'That's business,' Carlo had asserted.
And Jessica had gone crazy, appalled and outraged that he could use her father to pressure her. A violent row had ensued. She had been so furious, she had no memory of her abuse, but Carlo had lost his temper too. Her attempt to slap his face had landed her on her back on the sofa with Carlo on top of her... and then it had begun, in raw mutual anger that, terrifyingly swiftly, had turned into the scorching heat of an uncontrollable passion.
A passion that was insanity to her in the aftermath of shame and disbelief. But he had not held her down and forced her to submit to his mouth and the heated caress of his hands. She had been a full participant. Hating him, wanting him, needing him, hating hersel He had unleashed a woman she did not know and did not want to remember afterwards. When they were interrupted, she had been fathoms deep in shock.
But Carlo had blazed with triumph. He had skated an insolently intimate hand across her breast in an arrogant display of sexual possession. ‘You tell Turner tonight. It's over now. Why did you fight me? From the first, I knew it would come to this.'
And she had lain there listening while she died inside at both what she had almost done and what he wanted to make of her. She had hated Carlo with boiling ferocity at that moment of biting humiliation. She had been repulsed by the future he had offered her so casually.
But that had not been why she had run out of the Deangate like a madwoman.
No, far from it. She had run in terror from her own physical response to Carlo, absolutely convinced that she was as oversexed and immoral as her mother. Carlo had been the very first temptation she had ever had to withstand and she had not withstood him. From the moment he touched her she had been a lost cause, burning with a passion that equalled his and utterly, hopelessly submerged in her own sexuality. And then, she ackn
owledged, she had not been able to cope with that discovery.
Only maturity had brought her closer to understanding. She was a normal healthy woman but for six years she had been forced to repress and deny all her physical urges. Simon's complete indifference to her as a woman had been deeply wounding on every level, a secret shame that had destroyed her faith in her own femininity. Carlo had taught her that she had sexual needs but she had been bitterly ashamed and afraid of those same needs at the age of twenty.
But she owed no other man loyalty now, and why should she be ashamed, she suddenly asked herself angrily—why should she be ashamed of experiencing the natural physical promptings of that side of her nature? Sexual attraction made the world go round. Without it, the human race would die out.
She was not like her mother, ready to jump into bed with any man who took her fancy, she told herself fiercely. If she had been like Carole she would have found it out by now, would have experienced this attraction with a whole host of other men and would surely have ended up having affairs. That she had not told her that she was not as vulnerable as she had once feared, no... not vulnerable at all in that sense.
Take Carlo out of the picture and she could live like a nun. Only Carlo could turn her inside out with one burning glance, only Carlo had the ability to infiltrate
her mind with erotic thoughts and melt her to molten honey in his arms. For the very first time in her life she was attempting to understand the sheer driving force of sexual desire and accept it, rather than run in terror and shame from it. But accepting that those promptings existed did not mean that she wanted to act on them.
Slowly, she straightened and made her way back to her bedroom. As she opened the door, she saw that a light was burning. Carlo, minus his jacket and tie, was reclining on her bed.
On the brink of verbal attack she belatedly recalled that she had told him that she wanted to speak to him. 'I gather this is as private as we can get,' she said coolly. ‘I had a visit from your stepmother before dinner and very interesting it was too.'
The dark planes of his features were impassive.
'She suggested that our engagement was a masquerade and asked me how much you were paying me,' Jessica volunteered. 'She then offered to double it.'
'She was fishing,’ Carlo dismissed carelessly.
"Was she? She seemed to be basing her convictions on
the belief that we only met for the first time last
week '
'I wonder where she got that from.' But Carlo did not seem particularly interested in the subject, his veiled dark eyes intent on Jessica as she stood there at the foot of the bed. Her heartbeat skidded at the thickening of the atmosphere.
I told her I'd known you for six years and I think
she then assumed that I was suggesting we had been
having an affair while I was married but she still thought
it was a fairy-story,' Jessica relayed in an increasing rush
as Carlo sprang gracefully off the bed and moved to
wards her. 'What I would like to know is why she was
so convinced that we '
'Ignore her.'
'Carlo, I really would like to go to bed,’ she began.
'Your luggage has already been moved.'
Her eyes widened. 'Moved where?'
'My room...where else?' Carlo responded drily, casting open the door in expectation. 'Do you really think it would be credible that we sleep apart?'
But when she had trekked quite to the far side of the villa it occurred to her that someone had been very keen to keep them apart, by night at least. Marika? • Carlo had an entire suite of rooms, complete with twin bathrooms. like an automaton, Jessica took her night attire into one, changed and ten minutes later slid into the wide, empty bed and over to the furthest edge of it. She doubted that some eleventh-hour miracle would save her tonight. Carlo reappeared and shed his towelling robe in an untidy heap on the floor. He looked at her, blazing all-male satisfaction, and she shrank under the sheet.
He stood half in shadow, half in light, the long, muscular planes of his golden body a glorious vision of rampant masculinity, and she felt her own hunger stirring, insidious as a secret invader. Her skin flushed hotly and she closed her eyes, stricken by that hunger and her own sudden blinding shyness.
As he came down on the bed beside her, her mouth ran dry. She felt boneless, scared. Dear God, how was she going to get out of this? If he made love to her, would he be able to tell she was a virgin? Surely not, she told herself, preferring to think of the aftermath rather than what might come before. She had read that a woman's first experience of sex was often a very big disappointment.
Carlo stared down at her in total silence, smouldering golden eyes hungrily scanning her face. Slowly, he raised a blunt forefinger and skimmed it along the voluptuous line of her lower lip. 'Why are you so shy?' he whispered in wonderment.
‘S-shy?' She forced a jerky laugh. She could have told him. Every other time he had touched her, he had taken
her by surprise. There hadn't been time for considered thought. This was different. 'Don't be ridiculous!'
'You look as if you're running a fever, too.' Leaning over her, Carlo flicked one pink cheek mockingly.
'I don't want to do this,' Jessica said fiercely.
'You're no virgin...' Carlo breathed with sudden
shocking insolence, his starkly handsome features dark
ening, brilliant eyes hard. 'You gave that to him. You
gave to him what should have been mine ‘
He was so damn primitive and arrogant. What should have been his... how dared he say that after the way he had treated her that day? Did her supposed lack of virginity take the edge off his triumph, dull the pleasure of his conquest? Well, he would never hear from her lips that he had been her first lover. She would take that secret to the grave with her.
'Tough!' The retaliation just erupted from between her clenched teeth.
Dark blood slashed his cheekbones and she paled, knowing instinctively that she had never pushed Carlo closer to violence and realising rather too late that that was the very last mood she wanted him in.
A pair of hard hands sank to her slim hips. He jerked her into the hard heat of his very masculine length, bringing her into direct contact with the full force of his arousal.
'If you hurt me I'll.. -I'll scream the place down!' Jessica gasped, energised by both that contact and his mood.
'Hurt you? What sort of an animal do you think I am?' Frowning in disbelief, Carlo studied her with probing golden eyes and his sensual mouth firmed.
A very male animal, she thought fearfully.
'I have no intention of hurting you,' Carlo asserted drily, and lowered his dark head.
He took her parted lips in a hot, hungry surge of passion. He knotted a hand into her hair, holding her
there as though he feared she might seek to evade him, but the instant their mouths met Jessica went limp, bowing to the inevitable. Within seconds the fear was burned away by the heat of his mouth. She quivered in response, and thought became far too much of a challenge.
He bent his dark head over the full swell of her breasts and her fingers speared helplessly into his thick black hair. His lips pulled on a taut pink nipple and a whimper of sound escaped from her convulsed throat. He lingered there, toying with her sensitive flesh until every skin cell went on red alert and every nerve-ending tautened in sizzling anticipation. Her hands gripped his smooth brown shoulders and skimmed in near-desperation over the tautness of the muscles flexing in his back.
She felt as if she was being consumed. There was no breathing space between one spasm of response and the next. Sensation took over and she was mindless in the grip of it. His mouth on her breast was an unbelievable pleasure, but when he began to employ his tongue and the teasing edge of his teeth she went crazy, possessed by a hunger so intense she was lost to all else. She twisted restively beneath him, too hot to stay still, sobbed out his name,
drove her fingers into his hair, wantonly, wildly out of control.
'We have all night,' Carlo muttered thickly, lifting his head.
She focused on him with the blankness of passion's grip and simply, instinctively reached for him again because he had dared to stop and she couldn't bear that.
With a husky laugh, Carlo caught her to him. 'Slow down,' he urged softly.
She ran exploring fingers through the curling black hair on his chest, tracing the superb musculature rippling below his golden skin. She heard the startled hiss of his breath escaping and then he took her hand and
thrust it down to the hard swell of his erection, shocking her, startling her.
'Touch me,' he invited with an earthy groan.
He was velvet-smooth and hot and hard and she was helplessly alarmed by the sheer size of him. She looked up at him, dredged from the hold of passion by the bite of her own ignorance and sudden shyness.
Carlo dealt her a sudden vibrantly amused smUe and moved against her, pure sexual licence barely contained. 'I'll teach you some time.. .but what an extraordinary gap in your education.' He punctuated the comment by driving her flat again with the force of his mouth.
Sanity trickled away again like sand through a mesh grid. He kissed her breathless, long, deep, drugging kisses that stole the soul from her body and melted her into a quivering length of subservience.
Only then did he lift his head again and slide with aching slowness down the length of her extended body, making love to every part of her he could reach. The tip of his tongue dipped into her navel and she whimpered with an intolerable desire, jack-knifing wildly under the taunting, teasing fingers skimming her unbearably tender nipples. She couldn't stay still but he forced her still with powerful hands, forcing her to endure every maddening second of his tormenting assault.
Her entire body was possessed by an electrifying excitement and yet simultaneously one gigantic ache expressing the raw agony of her need. By the time he parted her thighs and let knowing fingers brush against the honeyed centre of that ache, she was at screaming pitch and she cried out his name, her hips moving with a rhythm that required no enforced learning. It came as naturally as the air in her lungs.