The Heat Of Passion

by Lynne Graham

  packing '

  She missed a step but he carried her on effortlessly. Through the light fabric of her gown, she could feel the thrust of his arousal and her knees went weak, her breath feathering dangerously short in her dry throat. Her nipples were tight little points that ached under the tight bodice. 'I'm sorry.. .’

  'I'm getting more forgiving by the second,' Carlo gritted, binding her even closer so that she was in contact with every inch of his powerful body.

  She was trembling by the time they came off the floor but radiant. Lukas beckoned to her as Carlo dropped her hand. Her father-in-law indicated that he wanted her to bend her head. 'What would you say if I told you I wasn't leaving him a drachmaV

  Still radiant, she laughed. 'I'd say he doesn't need your money.'

  'You love him. Make him happy. That's all I want,’ Lukas growled.

  Across the room, Sunny was the centre of a crowd of bedazzled men. Jessica saw Carlo several yards away and his hooded dark eyes were trained on Sunny. Suddenly sick, Jessica looked away. Lukas had already moved on but Marika appeared at her elbow.

  'Men find Sunny quite irresistible, don't they?' Jessica remarked helplessly.

  ‘Men like my father,’ Marika conceded wryly. 'She's

  an expensive adornment, other men envy. That's why

  Lukas married her when his health was failing. He gets

  to show her off; she gets to spend the money. And I have

  to admit that in recent months she's surprised me '

  'How?'

  'She's been leading a very restricted life here on Paradiso and she's handled it better than I expected,' Marika conceded. "Then she knows her freedom is on the horizon, and Sunny isn't the kind of woman likely to be on her own for long. Right now, she's probably looking out for her next meal ticket and I can't really blame her. Lukas forced her to sign a pre-nuptial contract. When he dies, she gets next to nothing.'

  Marika clearly had no idea that Sunny had already targeted Lukas's replacement and that she was keeping it in the family, so as to speak. Only Jessica had got in her way.

  Carlo's sister sighed, still watching Sunny flirting like mad with her admirers. ‘I wonder why she's upset today.'

  'Upset?' Sunny looked anything but upset to Jessica's untutored gaze. The redhead appeared to be revelling hi all the attention she was receiving.

  'Something's bothering her. She's drinking too much,’ Marika proffered. 'She knows how my father feels about that. She's usually more careful.’

  Carlo crossed the room with a brilliant smile that tore at Jessica's heartstrings. 'What are you doing over here? Come on... I want you to meet my friends.'

  The afternoon wore on and the party became more riotous. Jessica didn't know what time it was when she overheard Marika say something to Carlo in Greek. She caught Sunny's name and Carlo's sudden tension. His hard jawline squared.

  Where was Sunny? It had been some time since Jessica had last seen her. A split-second later, Carlo strode off.

  'Where's he going?' she asked his sister.

  Marika compressed her lips. ‘I asked him to find Sunny. She's drunk and when she's drunk, she can be... indiscreet,' she selected the word curtly.

  Jessica hesitated only a moment before setting off in pursuit. She saw Carlo at the top of the stairs and hurried

  after him. He clearly knew exactly where he was going and she almost lost him down one corridor, catching up round a corner just in time to see him throw wide a door.

  Before she saw for herself the scene that had met his eyes, she heard him explode into guttural Greek. Sunny was half out of her dress on a bed and a highly embarrassed young man was spluttering fervent apologies and struggling to get back into his jacket beside the bed. Carlo stood there with clenched fists, a dark flush highlighting his blazing eyes.

  'You don't want me,' Sunny sluned, fumbling clumsily to right her dress. 'Why should you care?'

  As the young man took advantage of Carlo's stasis to flee, Jessica was almost knocked flying. Her gasp as she grabbed at the door-handle to steady herself turned both Carlo and Sunny's heads.

  Sunny gave an inebriated giggle. 'If it isn't the blushing bride.. .come on, why don't you? It's open house!'

  Carlo was rigid, his dark, strong face utterly impassive. 'Go back downstairs, Jessica.'

  'She's not that sensitive.' Sunny laughed again. 'I know all about her, Carlo. I found the file in Lukas's desk. Her mother was a nymphomaniac and her daddy's a thief. You weren't too choosy, were you?'

  'Shut up!' Carlo gritted furiously as every scrap of colour drained from Jessica's shattered face.

  ‘And her first husband was gay,' Sunny giggled, unconcerned. 'You must be a real shock to the old system after an experience like that!'

  Carlo stilled. His fiercely narrowed gaze slewed at speed back to Jessica and simply stayed there. 'Gay?' he practically whispered in disbelief.

  Jessica unfroze and whirled out of the room. She was outraged and devastated at one and the same time. Lukas PhiUppides must have had her investigated. Where else could Sunny have obtained such information? All along

  Lukas had known about her background. She felt invaded and violated, horrified that such information should have fallen into Sunny's grasping hands, cheap fodder for her spite.

  Carlo caught her back on the landing before she could head for the sanctuary of their bedroom. A far from gentle hand closed round her forearm. 'Pull yourself together!' he warned her with barely subdued ferocity.

  He wasn't laughing. He looked furious, rage threatening to seethe up through the cracks. Jessica felt torn in two. Last night, she had wanted to tell Carlo the story of her marriage and he had denied her the opportunity. She was humiliated by the manner in which Sunny had deprived her of that right.

  Carlo's hands curved powerfully into her shoulders. His dark face pale and set. 'Is it true?' he demanded.

  'None of your blasted business!' she gasped. 'Why don't you go ask Sunny for the same sleazy invasion of my life and read it for yourself?’

  'I might just do that.' Carlo released her with pronounced reluctance and bit out, cDio... if it is true, I don't think I'll be responsible for my actions!'

  He made her rejoin the party, his arm an iron vice clamped to her rigid spine. He held her so close she could feel the tremors of repressed rage still shuddering through him. 'Smile,' he instructed harshly.

  Later she remembered nothing of the last couple of hours of the wedding. Did she smile? She could not understand why Carlo should be so angry. Surely the right to anger was hers alone? It was her privacy which had been crudely and shockingly invaded. A nymphomaniac, Sunny had called her mother. That more than anything else made Jessica feel physically sick with humiliation.

  'To think I thought the impossibility of a honeymoon unfortunate,' Carlo drawled in a murderously quiet tone

  as he flung off his jacket and tie. 'In these circumstances, it would have been grotesque!'

  Jessica was stationed by the window, her slender back defensively turned to him.

  'You're like Pandora's box.. .what else don't I know?' Carlo enquired with flat emphasis.

  'I wasn't the only one who kept secrets,' she reminded him tautly. 'Just when were you going to tell me that Sunny was after you?'

  'That was different.'

  'How dare your father have me investigated?' Jessica suddenly gasped with renewed outrage.

  Carlo released his breath in a hiss. 'I should have ex

  pected that ‘

  'Is that all you've got to say about it?' Jessica demanded hotly.

  ‘It’s done now,' Carlo pointed out drily. 'And I wish

  I had done it myself '

  Jessica turned in disbelief. 'I beg your pardon?'

  'I will request that he has it destroyed. His security must be getting very lax if Sunny was able to get her hands on his private papers.' Carlo shot her pale face a look of grim challenge. 'So now you start at the beginning and tell me everything.'

/>   She stiffened, antagonism leaping through her. 'Last

  night you weren't interested '

  'Last night I had no idea what you were hiding.'

  'I hid nothing. My marriage was my business.'

  Carlo dealt her a seething stare, an antagonism equal to her own firing the atmosphere. 'Six years ago, you made it mine.'

  She went rigid but she held her head high. 'When I

  told Simon what had happened between us, he said that

  it didn't matter to him '

  'He said what?' Carlo broke in incredulously.

  Her throat closed over, her voice emerging unevenly. 'I wanted to cancel the wedding. He begged me not to. He told me that he needed me... couldn't imagine life without me. He said he forgave me absolutely,' she recited with a quivering lower lip, 'and that there was no reason for me to ruin our future just because of one silly mistake.'

  'And you swallowed that.. .DioV Carlo framed with gathering temper, spreading his hands wide as if to appeal for some shred of sanity from her.

  Hot moisture smarted behind her eyes. 'I thought that

  he loved me enough to forgive me and I didn't want to

  let him down ‘

  'You married him because you felt sorry for him!' Carlo stabbed back at her.

  'I felt safe with him. I thought he cared. I really

  thought we could be happy!' she returned with feverish

  emphasis. 'Our relationship had never been based on

  sex. What happened with you.. .it frightened me, and

  the way you reacted afterwards '

  'Go ahead, blame it all on me!' Carlo slashed back ferociously.

  Jessica spun back to the window before the tears could

  fall. 'What I did with you,3 she repeated shakily, 'well,

  it was the sort of thing my mother would have done,

  and in the Deangate Hotel of all places, which she used

  to haunt. It was my worst nightmare come true. I be

  haved like her and it terrified me '

  'I hardly touched you!1 Carlo cut in ruthlessly.

  'That didn't change how I felt. It was the fact that I lost control that was scary, the fact that I wanted you to make love to me,’ she admitted brokenly.

  'I want to hear about your marriage,' Carlo told her rawly.

  Jessica drew in a deep shuddering breath of air. 'Simon got very drunk on our wedding-night. And every night

  after it. I thought it was my fault... that he just couldn't bring himself to touch me because of you. And he let me think that... he let me think that for so long!' she gasped painfully. 'It was hell. We didn't even share a bedroom when we came home and when I tried to talk to him about it he walked out and stayed away.. .’

  Carlo uttered a ground-out imprecation and she shivered.

  'He wouldn't go to marriage guidance or anything. He refused to admit that there was a problem...'

  'Why the hell didn't you leave him?' Carlo roared at her.

  A sob caught in her throat. 'Guilt. I did think it was

  my fault. It wasn't until he became ill that he admitted

  that he was impotent... and that he had never wanted

  any woman physically,' she recounted jerkily. 'Some

  people just don't have a sex drive and I believe that

  Simon was one of them. I don't think he was gay but

  apparently, before he asked me to get engaged, there had

  been rumours about him. He was terrified of his family

  and friends thinking that he was gay.. .that's why he

  married me. He used me to hide behind. It stopped

  people wondering '

  'And this is the bastard you called your best friend?' Carlo murmured tautly.

  A choked laugh escaped her. She was shaking. Remembering brought all the pain and suffering back. 'He was until I married him,' she muttered with unconcealed bitterness.

  'Did you ever consider walking out?'

  'Not once he was ill,' she whispered. 'I felt cheated

  but I felt I'd asked for what I got '

  'You owed him nothing. He knew about me before he married you. You gave him a free choice. What choice did he give you?'

  She wiped shakily at her overflowing eyes. 'None,' she conceded.

  'He lied by omission. He deceived you. Why do you still seek to defend him at your own expense?' She was stunned when she felt his arms close round her. Momentarily she went rigid. Carlo drew her firmly back into the hard heat of his powerful body. 'Don't cry.. .1 can't bear it when you cry,' he said roughly.

  'I thought I loved him,' she mumbled fiercely. 'I grew up thinking I loved him and I would have trusted him with my life. Not much of a judge of character, was I?'

  'You were very young and I was arrogant,' Carlo breathed. 'I never once thought of how you must have felt that day. I couldn't believe that you would still marry him. You said that I never thought of the damage I was causing... you were right. I only thought of winning.'

  'Why are you being so understanding?'

  Turning her round, he studied her with intent golden eyes that glittered with all-male satisfaction. 'It takes an accomplished liar to recall her lies,' he murmured with fierce amusement. 'Four days ago you lied to me after I made love to you... why did you lie?’

  Too late, she remembered her denial of her own inexperience. Her pallor was put to flight by hot colour.

  'You were a virgin. Why pretend otherwise?'

  'I felt I owed that to Simon's memory,’ she whispered, stiff with mortification.

  'And maybe you didn't want to give me the pleasure of knowing that I was the first,' Carlo completed shrewdly, but he smiled none the less.

  The one lie she could tell Carlo and be magnificently, generously forgiven for, she realised dazedly. Why had she ever thought he would laugh when she told him about her unconsummated marriage?

  The joy of conquest had just been made all the sweeter for Carlo. On that level, Carlo was primitive. She

  understood him perfectly. She had never belonged to any other man in the physical sense. On Carlo's terms that meant she belonged that much more to him. All jealousy was magically banished. Simon had not, after all, managed to take what Carlo had regarded as his by right six years ago.

  'Let's go down to the beach,' Carlo suggested softly.

  In bemusement she blinked. 'The beach?'

  'This house suffocates me.'

  A rueful grin slowly tilted her mouth. 'You want me to go down to the beach got up like this?'

  Carlo flipped her round and suggestively ran down the zip.

  Breathlessly she tugged a shocking pink sundress from the closet and slid her feet into flatties. She felt extraordinarily carefree as she walked out on to the terrace to join him. Carlo had changed into jeans and removed the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket beside the bed.

  He dropped an arm round her bare shoulders. 'Come on,’

  'What did you do with that shoe I left behind six years ago?' she heard herself ask. She had always wondered.

  'It's about somewhere.'

  'Oh.'

  'Did you think I might have had it dipped in pure gold and placed in a glass case?' he teased.

  'It was one of my favourite shoes.'

  'What did you do with the one you had left?'

  'Dumped it.'

  'There you are, then,' Carlo mocked. 'I was more sentimental than you were.'

  'I thought you'd laugh about Simon.'

  'Why? It wasn't funny. He put you through a lot of pain and you didn't deserve that. I'm not a sadist. Although two weeks ago I was outraged by the idea that

  you had been blissfuily happy with him. A lot can change in two weeks...'

  'Yes,' she conceded, her voice a whisper of sound.

  'Although I'm still desperate to know how you define a "travelling tart"!' he confided.

  'You offered me a life of luxury on the move in return for sex!' she snapped.

  'I couldn't stay
in England forever. I wanted you to

  myself. What was wrong with that? We hardly knew each

  other. I didn't know whether or not the attraction be

  tween us would last. I was honest with you '

  'You were an ignorant, egocentric swine!' Jessica returned with spirit.

  Carlo shifted a broad shoulder. 'Possibly I could have wrapped it up a little more tactfully but I was angry with you and uncertain of my own feelings. Once bitten, twice shy... after Bella,' he admitted drily. 'I didn't want to make another mistake. I wasn't going to make promises I might not keep. It never at any stage crossed my mind that you might still marry Simon. I thought that was over from the moment you melted in my arms... and if he had been any other man it would have been.'

  'Did you love her very much?' she couldn't prevent herself from asking.

  'Who?'

  'Bella!'

  'At the time, I believed I did. Now I think she might just have been a trophy on my arm. Like Sunny, she was stunningly eye-catching,' Carlo mused softly. ‘Lukas always went for women like that, the kind of women other men would kill to have. What was underneath didn't count. Maybe that's why I chose Bella... maybe in my own way I was competing too. I was a lot more like Lukas then than I like to admit.'

  'Like Sunny, she was stunningly eye-catching...' He said it so carelessly. He did not deny the strength of

  Sunny's physical appeal. Jessica endured a fresh stab of insecurity. She recalled Carlo's blazing fury when he found the redhead with that young man... and Sunny's almost taunting amusement. Then she told herself off. Carlo had given her no cause to distrust him and she was being foolish.

  'Were you shocked by what ?' she began.

  Carlo stilled and pulled her close. 'Shut up,’ he said softly. 'I want to kiss you.'

  Helplessly, she smiled. 'You don't usually ask in advance.'

  He splayed a masterful hand over the rounded swell of her hips and pressed her into the hard heat of his lean thighs. 'Fate had it in for me when it served you up six years ago.'

  The scent and the feel of him made her tremble. And when it came, it was the most devastating kiss. It stole the soul from her body and rocked her from her head to her toes. He released her reddened lips slowly and stared down at her, glittering dark eyes sweeping her rapt face with satisfaction.