by Lynne Graham
They walked along the beach in a curiously peaceful silence. It was a gorgeous night. She kicked off her shoes and walked into the surf whispering on to the shore. The water was warm but cool on her hot feet, gloriously soothing to toes cooped up in stilettos all day.
'Come here,' Carlo said thickly.
She turned with quicksilver grace and looked across at him and the simple pleasure of the water was forgotten. She looked... and she ached with a need that ran far deeper than desire. Her feet carried her back as though he had yanked a string. It was an irresistible pull. He reached for her and she was boneless with anticipation, adrenalin racing through her veins, heat surging between her thighs. For the very first time, she rejoiced
in her own response, neither unnerved by nor ashamed of it.
In fact, she drowned in the meeting of their mouths as desperate as he was for that fierce contact. In the midst of it he shed his shirt; she wriggled feverishly out of her dress. Her breasts felt heavy, swollen, and a soft gasp was torn from her throat as he discovered for himself that she had not bothered to wear a bra. He groaned his approval, shaping her aching flesh with hungry hands, his thumbs glancing over her painfully aroused nipples before he crushed her against his hair-roughened chest.
He shuddered and lifted his head. 'Every time I touch
you, I want you more than I did the last time... but this
time I want to go slow '
'Next time.' Reaching up, she framed his hard cheekbones with loving fingertips and drew him back down to her again, incredibly hungry for the scorching heat of his mouth. Daringly, she employed a tactic he had taught her. She ran the tip of her tongue along the curve of his lower Up.
'Slow,' he intoned raggedly, and snatched her up to kiss her breathless.
For an endless passage of time it was a battle of wills. Her hands fluttered over every part of him she could reach. She was driven by a deep atavistic need to possess and be possessed, to wipe out days of fevered uncertainty and terrible tension with the passion that made him uniquely hers. She would not be controlled but the jerk of his responsive muscles beneath his smooth bronzed skin, the rawness of his breathing and the thunder of his heart against her exploring fingertips defeated her. His blatant excitement was the most shattering seduction of all.
They came down on the sand hi a tangle of limbs, neither one of them able to part for a second. He
skimmed off her lace panties with a powerfully impatient hand and she opened her arms to him in an electrifying state of quivering readiness, every inch of her burning and screaming for the fulfillment that only he could give her.
'Madre di Dio.. ,’ Carlo rasped, coming up for air. 'Did I teach you to do this to me?'
Empowered by a dizzying sense of her own sensuality, Jessica took the opportunity to run her fingers down that intriguing little silky furrow of hair arrowing down over his taut stomach and she found him with shy and shivering pleasure, velvety smooth and hard and... suddenly she was flat on her back, deprived of further journeys of discovery.
She giggled, full of joy and the most wonderful sense of freedom. In retribution, he let his tongue and his teeth rove over her unbearably sensitised breasts and she gritted her teeth and her back arched in agonised response.
£I can't bear it...' she gasped.
'You will,' he assured her.
Her hips began to lift in an expression of need as old as time. He stroked his fingertips over the very heart of her and laughed softly when she moaned, teasing her with the honeyed sweetness of an expert lover, determined to drive her to the outer edge of pleasure before they enjoyed that final union. Time had no meaning. She surrendered to the shuddering instinctive responses that controlled her, lost in the ever-increasing fever of her own excitement.
And when he came to her it was like dying and being reborn in a flash flood of wild sensation. Everything was sharper, hotter and more intense, her body trained to an extraordinary pitch of sensitivity. It was agony and ecstasy, each glorious moment building into an explosive, slow-burning climax that made her sob and gasp
in wonder at the peak and then subside, still shivering in the aftermath of an intolerable pleasure.
Carlo smiled down at her, a very male smile of indolent satisfaction. He pressed his lips to her damp cheek and she felt moisture smart behind her eyes. In all her life, she could never recall feeling so outrageously happy.
They washed the sand off in the sea, drank champagne in great thirsty gulps and a little while later made love again. Jessica was more than a little tipsy by the time they strolled down to the jetty and boarded the yacht.
'We'll go sailing all day tomorrow,' Carlo promised.
'And the day after,’ she whispered, gripped by this terrible fear that such contentment could not possibly be sustained with other people around.
'If you like.' He led her gently into a cabin, exquisitely furnished with a very large double bed.
She tripped on the edge of a rug and he caught her before she fell. 'I'm drunk on you,' she said, losing herself in the smouldering golden eyes.
'How do you feel about renegotiating our divorce?'
'P-pardon?' She froze.
'As in not having one until we feel the need... 1,’ we feel the need.' A brilliant smile slashed his gorgeous mouth.
She melted into him with bone-sagging relief. 'I'll think about it,' she said all the same.
The sun was high in the sky when she surfaced from a deep sleep to hear Carlo on the phone.
'What are you doing?'
'Ordering breakfast.'
She was sprawled on top of him, her tousled silver head resting on his chest. It had been the most incredible night. She was adrift on a sea of love so all encompassing it closed out everything else in the world.
'How does being married feel this time?' He ran a caressing finger along one exposed cheekbone and she stretched and tightened her grip on him.
'Good.'
'How to damn with faint praise.'
She smiled voluptuously. 'Fantastic'
Fast-moving steps sounded somewhere above them. Carlo tensed. Then Marika's voice cried his name.
Carlo sprang out of bed, reached for his jeans and yanked open the door.
Jessica scrambled up but there was no clothing within her grasp. Carlo left the cabin. She heard the swift exchange of Greek, the sob in his sister's shaking voice.
'Lukas has had another attack...' Pale, every facial muscle savagely clenched, Carlo sent Jessica a fleeting, almost blank glance that told her he was already a thousand miles away from her in mind and body.
The honeymoon, she registered, was over.
CHAPTER TEN
JESSICA shivered in spite of the heat. Lukas had left careful instructions for his burial and he had chosen to come back to Greece to the sunbaked hillside where his own parents had been laid to rest. The funeral was small, strictly family but the Press were just beyond the graveyard, a sea of hungry wolves, restrained only by the strong police presence.
'It is time to go.' Marika briefly leant on Jessica's extended arm for support and then straightened again. 'I didn't know I would miss him like this,' she whispered, shaking her greying head. 'But all my life he has been there. For fifty years telling me what to do... I feel lost.'
She wasn't the only one who felt lost. Jessica felt deserted and superfluous to requirements. For days she had told herself not to be childish, not to be selfish, not to expect Carlo to find time for her when his every waking moment was filled with ceaseless demands for his attention. She had innocently expected to make herself useful but had learnt that anything she could do could inevitably be done far more efficiently by a member of his staff. Carlo hadn't just lost a father.. .Carlo had inherited a vast empire, quaking in the turmoil of Lukas's sudden death.
Carlo had also inherited the devastated and publicly inconsolable widow, Jessica thought grimly. Dear heaven, she tried to feel some sense of compassion for Sunny but she had noticed that Sunny invariably wept o
nly in Carlo's vicinity. It was hard to believe that she could be genuinely distressed by her husband's death but
if she wasn't, she was certainly putting on a very good show. And there was no doubt that Carlo was impressed by that display. His attitude to Sunny had warmed and softened.
Sunny drooped in unrelieved black beside the grave, a wispy little silk hanky dabbing behind her veil. Carlo hesitated on his way past in a phalanx of male relatives and then paused. Jessica stiffened and looked away, walking ahead with Marika. The cameras went off in a blaze. Jessica flinched.
'Ignore them, Mrs Philippides,' the security man flanking her said. 'You'll soon get used to it.'
But Jessica could not believe that she ever would. From the instant they had left Paradiso Cay she had understood why Lukas had bought an island. At every airport, in every public place, the Press surrounded them in a stifling surge.
'You're hot news,' he sighed as she was slotted into a limousine.
All she wanted to be was hot news to Carlo, who no longer even travelled in the same car with her, it seemed. Nor did he sleep in the same bed very often. He worked through the night, ate at extraordinary hours and never went anywhere with less than three executives tagging on his heels. When she tried to see him, she learnt that she was in the way, and if she hovered and he forgot she was there, she felt humiliated.
'I think I'll go to bed,' Marika mumbled when they reached the opulent house and surrounding estate outside Athens which had once been Lukas's permanent home.
Sunny had made it into Carlo's car. Jessica watched from the window as Sunny was helped out, the very picture of feminine fragility. Jessica's teeth gritted. Maybe I should practise sobbing and throwing hysterics! Childish, you're being childish, the little voice
said. She is his father's widow and he takes that tie too seriously to ignore her apparent distress.
Sunny was just an irritation, she told herself in exasperation. A symptom, not the source of the illness. Carlo had married Jessica to please Lukas and now Lukas was dead. She was bitterly aware that the only hold she seemed to have on Carlo was sexual and even that seemed to be on the wane. She had this sinking feeling that their relationship was running fast to its natural conclusion. 'I won't hold you a day after his death,' Carlo had said just days ago. How much strength could she take now from the casual assurance that he wasn't planning on an immediate divorce? Those words had been prompted by the heat of passion on their wedding night.
'Carlo...' She intercepted him in the echoing grandeur of the hall.
'What time do you want to eat?' Sunny talked over her as if she wasn't there.
'Seven.' Hooded dark eyes flicked to Jessica and lingered. 'Hello, stranger,’ he said softly.
She moved forward.
'Mr Philippides, the London office is on the
line '
'When would you like this Press release made?'
The twin enquiries from staff stole his attention. He moved on and something simply exploded inside Jessica. 'The next time you want to see me, you make an appointment!' she snapped and spun on her heel, stalking back into the drawing-room.
'Bed.. .by midnight, I promise,' Carlo murmured with soft amusement.
She spun. He had followed her. But they were not truly alone. Just beyond the doorway, his staff awaited them.
'Is it always going to be like this?' she whispered in sudden desperation.
'No, but it will take time to restore calm. Lukas kept a very tight rein on his holdings. He believed in the personal touch. Right to the end he was working an eighteen-hour day,’ Carlo drawled wryly. 'He thought he had more time. This is not the smooth transition he envisaged. Everybody's hitting the panic button.'
He should have been exhausted but he wasn't. If anything his aura of vibrant energy was more noticeable. It was beginning to dawn on Jessica that Carlo Saracini no longer existed. This was Lukas Philippides' son, driven, committed and absolutely in his element, she sensed, and the pace was speed up or fall out. Was there a place for her in this new life of his?
Right now, her position felt exceedingly precarious, and that hurt her pride. Jessica bitterly resented the idea that she was slavishly hanging around just waiting for Carlo to take the time and the trouble to reassure her that he did want her to stay. And even then, how long did he want her for? Carlo was not in love with her. He had taken his revenge. He had used her to make his father happy. When his hunger for her body faded as it surely would, how could they possibly have any sort of a future together?
She had to dine alone with Sunny. Marika had not emerged from her suite. Faced with Sunny, Jessica wished she had stayed in hers.
'You look terrible,' Sunny sighed, scanning Jessica's shadowed eyes and pallor. 'You should have gone to bed too.'
With a helplessly curled lip, Jessica wondered how the redhead could weep without reddening her eyes. 'I'm not tired,' she said.
‘You want me out, don't you?' Sunny guessed. 'But I'm not going anywhere.'
Jessica ignored her.
'You're stuck with me,' Sunny told her with an amused smile. 'I've got nowhere to go. Lukas didn't leave me a bean. I signed a watertight pre-nuptial contract. I'm Carlo's responsibility now.'
Jessica's amethyst eyes flamed. 'And you intend to play it for all you're worth, don't you?'
'Ask Carlo if he wants me to leave,' Sunny suggested
softly. 'You see, he doesn't. Carlo likes having me
around. He always makes time for me. Haven't you
noticed that? It won't be very long before he admits to
himself how he really feels about me '
'I don't want to hear any more of this, Sunny,' Jessica broke in tautly but with dignity.
'But it's the truth. You don't want to see it but Carlo
is using you. You're the one who's going to be hurt and
humiliated,1 Sunny asserted confidently. 'Not me. I know
the score. I know Carlo '
'So you keep telling me.'
'He married you to keep Lukas happy, and now Lukas is gone he doesn't need you any more. It's that simple.'
'Carlo is not in love with you,' Jessica told her shortly.
'But he wants me.' Sunny gave her a brilliant smile. 'That's enough, don't you think?'
Jessica rose from the table and walked out of the room. She would not argue with Sunny, thereby lending credibility to her wild claims. For they were wild claims, weren't they? Carlo had yet to betray any sign of wanting Sunny. Restively she paced the bedroom floor. She was upset, no point denying that! Sunny was so confident of Carlo.., although she hadn't been that night she was drunk, Jessica reminded herself. Then Sunny had said, 'You don't want me...why should you care?' But possibly that had just been a deliberate taunt, a scene engineered to pierce Carlo's tough hide.
Dear heaven, what was she thinking? That it was all true... that Carlo was cold-bloodedly using her? She re-
membered their wedding-night and could not believe that that had all been pretence. But Jessica reminded herself that Carlo had openly admitted that he had brought her here to keep Sunny at bay. That did not suggest that Carlo was one hundred per cent sure of his ability to withstand the lure of what he already knew was blatantly on offer to him.., should he choose to extend a welcoming hand.
She could hardly believe it when Carlo actually made it to bed as he had promised. She sat up, watching him undress with helplessly hungry eyes, but she felt cold inside, resentful that it took the dark of night and his highly sexed nature to bring Carlo to her.
'Is it true that Sunny's staying?' she asked finally because she bad to ask, she had to know.
The silence stretched; her heartbeat accelerated.
'For the moment, yes,' Carlo murmured.
Jessica took a deep breath. 'Naturally I'm not suggesting you throw her out.. .but your father owned other houses,’
Carlo sent her a narrowed shrewd glance, his beautifully cut mouth compressing. Tor the moment, she stays here.'
lDioV Carlo ground out with sudden savage im
patience. 'My father is barely in his grave '
'Where Sunny wanted him to be,’ The interruption leapt recklessly from Jessica's tongue.
Golden eyes blazed over her. 'Like all of us, she says things in distress which she does not mean,’
'She's a damned good actress, I'll give her that!' Jessica snapped back. 'And she's playing you like a fish on a line!'
Pure outrage darkened and hardened Carlo's strong features. 'At this moment, Sunny is my responsibility. She is my father's widow. If I threw her out, where would she go and to whom? I wouldn't do it. She has as much right to be here as you have. She's scared of the future. That is why she is clinging to me.'
'And maybe you enjoy that,' Jessica condemned shakily. 'Macho man and the poor fragile little woman who hangs on his every word. With Sunny beside you, you could turn into a megalomaniac overnight!'
•I'll tell you what I don't enjoy now. Your jealousy,’ Carlo returned with blistering derision. 'At least Sunny knows when to shut up and be feminine and warm...'
Jessica went white, lowering her lashes over shocked and wounded eyes. Carlo had turned on her with a biting cruelty unfamiliar to her.
'All I wanted tonight was the sweet oblivion of your
body '
'Sex,' Jessica countered with a shudder of mingled rage and pain.
'Why not? You're my wife,' Carlo slung back at her harshly.
Dear God, was that all their marriage meant to him? Was she just an available body? Or was she merely a temporary substitute for Sunny until such time as he deemed it acceptable for him to bed his father's widow? Jessica was devastated by the suspicion but when Carlo compared her unfavourably to Sunny suspicion found foundation in fact. It was not as though Carlo loved his wife, not as though they had married for any of the more usual reasons... She was in agony.