by Lynne Graham
'I don't want you,' she mumbled.
'Then you won't object if I find someone who does, will you?' Carlo delivered with cut-glass precision but he slammed the door so hard that she wouldn't have been surprised if it fell off its hinges.
He doesn't mean it... he's being dramatic... he can't stand it when you say you don't want him, she told herself. Then she burst into tears but that made her feel worse. She propped her chin on her hand and reflected for a long time. Where were her wits? Why had she thrown a scene like that?
Carlo might not be showing it but he was under immense strain. He hadn't even had twelve hours' breathing space to grieve for Lukas and he had been flung in at the deep end of his father's vast business empire and forced to take charge. She shouldn't have attacked him about Sunny. He had wanted warmth and why not? Right now, the bedroom was the only place they were alone, the only place he could relax, and she had driven him away!
Sunny didn't give up the chase easily. She knew Carlo was not in love with his wife and that encouraged her. She was just trying to cause trouble by playing on Jessica's insecurity and Carlo's infuriating sense of what was due to his father's widow. What a fool she would be to allow a bimbo like Sunny to come between her and Carlo!
Jessica slid out of bed and pulled on a lacy peignoir. He had said that she didn't trust him, that she didn't have faith, and she was about to prove him wrong for a change. When life was calmer, she would tell him what she was having to take from Sunny and then he might understand just how offensive she found the situation. She was a big girl, wasn't she? She could deal with Sunny herself.
The house was silent but the corridors fully lit. Wryly, it occurred to her that she couldn't go barging into all
the bedrooms in search of Carlo. But maybe he hadn't gone to bed yet. As she descended the main staircase, she saw a dim light showing below the library door and thought, Bingo!
Only she didn't hit the jackpot she expected when she quietly turned the handle and opened the door, intending to surprise him. Every muscle in her slender body jerked painfully tight. There was a roaring in her eardrums and for a split-second she thought she was going to pass out.
Carlo was sprawled along a comfortable sofa with Sunny in his arms. Both of them were fast asleep in the indolent, relaxed positions of lovers, Sunny's wonderful hair trailing (ike a banner across his chest, one of her hands resting loosely on his shoulder.
Later, she didn't recall actually stepping back and closing the door again, but she did recall her absolute terror of them waking up and seeing her standing there, gaping at them. She mounted the stairs again, returned to their bedroom and lifted the phone.
'I want a car to the airport now. Mr Philippides is asleep. There's no need to disturb him.' An hysterical laugh nearly choked her at that point. She reckoned that it would have taken an avalanche to disturb either of them. Lying there totally at peace on the same day as the very funeral. Dear God, how could he?
He had to want her, just as she had said. Maybe they hadn't even made love yet.. .Carlo had still been clothed, Sunny in one of her drapy white silk nightgowns. Did it matter? They had looked like bloody Romeo and Juliet, she thought sickly, so torn apart by what she had seen, she was still shaking all over with shock.
'So what can I tell him?' Gerald Amory enquired thinly. 'Nothing.' Jessica kept on sipping at her cup of coffee, holding it like a barrier in front of her drawn face.
'All right,' her father spelt out flatly. 'I can accept that you made a mistake rushing into marriage with him, but at least you could have the gumption to tell him that to his face instead of running away and hiding!'
She chewed nervously at her lower lip. It hurt that her father should be on Carlo's side. But how did she tell her father the truth? If she did, he would probably feel he couldn't work for Carlo any more, and he might throw up his new job and then where would he be? 'Are you pregnant?' Jessica stared in astonishment. Gerald sighed. 'Carlo thought you might be ... hormones putting you round the twist or some such thing.' 'I am not pregnant or crazy, thank you very much!' 'Well, you look awful. You've lost a lot of weight.' Silence fell, uneasy, tense.
'Every time he phones me, I feel worse,' her father persisted. 'He knows that we're in contact with each other. He knows that I know where you are.'
If she had had the energy left, she would have hated Carlo for putting her in such a position. What on earth was he playing at? In the six weeks since she had left Greece, it had become painfully obvious that Carlo had no intention of going public with his relationship with his former stepmother. Maybe he thought it was too soon, or maybe Carlo was quite happy just to have Sunny in his bed in secret.
Having run the gamut of every possible conjecture, Jessica had learnt that ultimately it really didn't matter. Carlo wanted Sunny. Sheer uncontrollable lust, or love— what difference did it make? Jessica just wanted to be left alone with the most intolerable burden of misery she had ever endured.
'He's worried sick about you.'
'Breaking his heart, no doubt,' Jessica muttered tightly.
'Why can't you see him?'
Because pride was all she had left, and if she saw him she might let herself down badly. Carlo didn't know that she had fallen in love with him and she didn't want him to know.
Her father took his leave, close-mouthed and disapproving. Having come down to London on business, he was flying back to Glasgow where he had recently embarked on his new job. Jessica looked round her tiny flatlet, over-furnished with her possessions from the cottage. She hadn't been able to find a permanent secretarial position yet. She had signed up with a temping agency and with the aid of some savings was just about managing to survive. But one day blurred with terrifying blankness into the next.
It was around ten when someone knocked on the door. She was on her way to bed and grimaced. Her nextdoor neighbour, a rather pushy male in his late twenties, had been putting his all into trying to chat her up this week, calling round at odd times, refusing to take no for an answer...
Exasperated, she opened the door and then fell back a step, the colour draining from her cheeks, shock cur-renting through her in debilitating waves. Carlo dealt her a razor-edged smile from the vantage point of his greatly superior height and thrust the door shut behind him with a powerful hand.
'Your father was followed. I knew he would meet up with you sooner or later,' Carlo imparted grimly.
'You had no right to do that!'
But she couldn't take her eyes off him. In a superbly cut pearl-grey suit that sleekly outlined his lean, muscular physique, a white silk shirt highlighting the gold of his skin and the darkness of his hair, Carlo looked
breathtakingly handsome. His impact slivered through her nerve-endings, leaving her disturbingly aware of his every movement and badly shaken. She felt horribly like a plant left to wither forgotten on a windowsill suddenly being tantalised with a jug of life-giving water.
'You are going to crawl by the time I'm finished with you,' Carlo sizzled down at her, emanating temper and arrogance and self-satisfaction in perceptible waves.
'I don't think so.' Squaring her slight shoulders, Jessica slung him a look of pure scorn, denying the craving that he could evoke inside her even when he was demonstrating all in one go all the less pleasant characteristics of his powerful personality.
'You have a VCR?' Seeing it for himself, Carlo headed for it in one long stride and deposited two videotapes beside it. 'We'll probably still be sitting here at lunchtime tomorrow. You are going to watch and inwardly digest every unutterably boring hour of this just as I had
'Carlo... w-what are you talking about?' she prompted, watching him feed in a tape with incredulous eyes.
'It was several weeks before it occurred to me that you might have taken off for a reason... as opposed to being just sheer bloody contrary!' he raked at her, suddenly sizzling with rage. 'And I was furious with you. I couldn't wait to get my hands on you. Then I dug out these tapes and I wanted to strangle you!'
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The tip of her tongue snaked out to dry her lips. What the blazes was he rattling on about? What were those tapes? The TV screen came alive with a most disorientating overhead view of the library outside Athens. It was eerie. Jessica gaped, totally dazed by the sight of Carlo striding through the door, pouring himself a large drink and then throwing himself on that self-same sofa.
'Every reception-room and every corridor in my father's houses are protected by twenty-four-hour sur-
veil lance equipment. Only the bedrooms and the bathrooms are off limits,' Carlo informed her. 'You can see the date and the exact time displayed at the foot of the picture."
'Yes,' she quavered.
'And now you can watch me fall asleep.. .really riv
eting stuff. Sunny makes her entrance in about half an
hour '
'Sunny,' she echoed weakly.
‘I could have had the tapes cut to speed this up but I didn't want to spare you a single second of the entertainment.'
Swallowing hard, Jessica dutifully watched Carlo falling asleep, the most awful suspicion beginning to assail her. 'You can fast forward if you like,' she mumbled in a small voice.
'Are you sure?'
'Quite sure.'
With a sinking heart, Jessica watched Sunny creep in and stand gazing down at Carlo. A little while later, she curled up beside him and put her arms round him. A long while after that, Carlo shifted in his sleep and curved an arm round Sunny.
‘I don't want to see any more,’ Jessica told him, unable to meet his eyes.
‘I insist,' Carlo said harshly. "The sole highlight is entry of the betrayed wife.'
Her legs wouldn't hold her up any longer. She collapsed down on to the settee.
'We're on to the second tape before I wake up and chuck her out.'
(I don't need to watch it.’
He didn't switch it off. Through her straining fingers, Jessica caught a glimpse of her own entrance and it looked almost comic on camera, only the memory of how she had felt still cut into her painfully. Carlo had
simply fallen asleep and Sunny had wrapped herself round him.
'I was exhausted that night. I slept like the dead.' Carlo uttered a sardonic laugh, his dark features tautening.
'How could I know that it was innocent?’ Jessica whispered. 'I thought that you wanted her. She was so sure that you did—'
'My father's leavings?' Carlo breathed with distaste.
Jessica lifted her silvery head in disbelief. His re
vulsion at the idea was unconcealed. 'But...but you said
she was stunningly eye-catching '
'So she is, but I have never found her sexually at
tractive. She reminded me of Bella. Vain, self-centred,
thick as a brick apart from a certain greedy streak of
native cunning when it comes to feathering her own
nest ‘
'Thick as a brick?' Jessica echoed, licking her dry lips in shock.
'Enjoy many scintillating conversations with her, did you?'
'Well... no, but you seemed so keen to keep her
around; I thought '
'You really expected me to chuck her out the day of the funeral?' Carlo enquired gently.
Jessica reddened. 'You should have told me how you felt about her.'
'I thought it was obvious...and you didn't ask,’ Carlo
reminded her drily. 'Until we had that stupid argument,
I had no idea she even bothered you. You came at me
out of the blue and I was in a bad mood.' Unusually,
he hesitated, his sensual mouth twisting. 'I don't pay
much attention to Sunny, I have to admit. I did think
she'd given up on her aspiration to move from my
father's bed to mine '
'Like hell she had,' Jessica muttered feelingly.
'So I discovered. That night I woke up to find her wrapped round me like a boa constrictor, I was disgusted with her. I knew she wasn't in love with me. The first time Sunny looked at herself in a mirror she fell in love for the rest of her life,' Carlo drawled with an expressive grimace. 'I paid her off. The minute she got that cheque in her hand, she was off like a hare for pastures new. She won't approach me again. She hates me like poison now. I don't think it had ever crossed Sunny's mind that a man could find her repulsive.'
That was music to Jessica's ears. Carlo had fulfilled what he felt to be his obligations to his former stepmother and if Jessica had only given him time, he would have done that while they were still living together. She knew then that she had to tell him what she had been forced to tolerate from Sunny.
His state of shock by the time she had finished speaking spoke for him. He had had no suspicion that Sunny was putting that much effort into undermining their relationship.
A disturbing silence fell then. Jessica began to wonder if Carlo had gone to all this trouble to force her to face him merely to prove that he had not been guilty of lusting after Sunny.
'I've also been thinking,’ Carlo finally said heavily, 'about how much I allowed what happened with Bella to influence my attitude to you. Six years ago, I suspect you paid some of her dues for her. I was still pretty bitter. My ego was still smarting. I was determined that the next woman I wanted would come to me only on my terms. I didn't trust my own emotions. I wouldn't admit how strong my feelings for you were.'
'Strong?' Disturbed by the gravity of his mood, Jessica prompted him uncertainly.
'I was in love with you,' Carlo confessed harshly, and it was as if the admission had been tortured out of him.
'In love with me?' she whispered dazedly, and she couldn't even get excited by the revelation when he looked so grim about giving her that knowledge. She collided with shimmering golden eyes and sensed that for the very first time she was hearing the truth, not parts of it but all of it.
‘Did you never ask yourself why I behaved as I did? Do you really believe I would have gone to so much trouble merely to get you into bed?' Carlo prompted with a derisive twist to his strained mouth. 'It was my misfortune to fall for a woman on the brink of marrying another man. I wanted time with you and you wouldn't give me that time... and what was worst of all was knowing that you were fighting an attraction as strong as mine right from the beginning!'
'Yes,' she acknowledged unsteadily. 'But I didn't rec
ognise that attraction for what it was. I was terrified of
it,’ She flushed unhappily and tried to laugh. 'I thought
I was turning into a scarlet woman, but '
'You hurt me as Bella never had the power to hurt me,' Carlo cut in flatly.
Hot moisture stung her eyes. She saw the truth of that statement in his expressive eyes. That was another first. He wasn't shielding his emotions from her. His guard was down.
'When I was informed that your father had been helping himself to company funds,' Carlo continued levelly, ‘I was delighted. In fact, I was triumphant.. ,’
'Yes,' she said painfully. ‘I knew that,’
'And you were right, I didn't give a damn about
Gerald. All I saw was a very useful weapon. I could have
handled Sunny on my own if I'd needed to,' Carlo
drawled half under his breath. 'What I really wanted
more than anything was to get you flat on your back on
the nearest bed and make you pay for walking out on
me six years ago '
'You wanted revenge. I kn-knew that,' she asserted shakily, moving away from him, no longer able to bear any form of proximity. It was over, wasn't that what he was telling her? He had dealt with Sunny; now it was her turn.
Carlo drove not quite steady fingers through his thick
black hair, looking less in command of himself than was
the norm. 'I'd be lying if I said I regretted it. I didn't.. .1
don't,' he adjusted, seemingly bent on giving her the
kind of honesty that only hurt her more. ‘I didn't
care
what methods I had to use to get you back '
'Tell me something I don't know!' Jessica condemned in a choked voice, desperately fighting off tears of pain and an increasing urge to show him the door.
There was a long silence and then, Carlo expelled his breath sharply. 'I still love you...'
There was an even longer silence while she stared back at him in shock, afraid to trust her own hearing.
'Still?' It was a whisper of awed hope. 'You still love me?'
'What the hell do you think I'm doing here with those tapes?' he demanded roughly.
'You were pretty objectionable when you came
through the door '
'You walked out on me ‘
'And you thought of the last time.' With a look of remorse, she flung herself into his arms. 'Carlo... don't you know when you've won?'
He trembled against her. ' Won?' he repeated uncertainly.
'Don't you know that I love you?'
With a groan, he crushed her into a fevered embrace. 'We've been stalking each other like wary animals!' he vented furiously. 'How long have you loved me?’
'It feels like forever,' she mumbled truthfully. 'As if
I woke up one day when I was twenty and there you were
and I've never been free of you since '
He muttered a driven imprecation, deciding that they were both talking too much, and swept her off her feet.
"The bed's through there,' she murmured helpfully.
His slashing sensual smile plunged her into an ecstasy of anticipation.
'Want me?' he breathed, standing over her, removing his clothes with far more haste than cool.
'Desperately.'
'No divorce.'
'Absolutely not.'
'Children?'
As he came down beside her, she laughed for pure joy. 'What is this?'