by Penny Jordan
Whilst he waited for her, Saul studied her bedroom. There was nothing here to give any sense of who or what she was. The room was a blank canvas of anodyne good taste. He wouldn’t even have known it was her room apart from one small thing. She might not wear any perfume, but her body carried its own personal scent, recognisable to a man who had held her close, and that scent was elusively and unexpectedly provocatively discernible to him. It reminded him of how she had felt beneath his kiss, of how her body had responded to his touch, her nipples swollen and flushed—
He was doing it again—or rather she was doing it to him again.
Giselle had come back into the bedroom. Saul watched as she unzipped her case and hastily placed the dresses she was holding into it. Her hands were shaking slightly. Watching her, he had a sudden fierce urge to throw the bag onto the floor, then take hold of her hands and place them on his body whilst he stripped hers of its barriers to his possession. What would she do if he did? What would she do if right here and right now he did what his body had been urging him to do virtually from the minute he had set eyes on her?
An overwhelming urge to find out stormed through him, carrying him towards her. He wanted to fill her body with his own. He wanted to take her with him deep into the fire, holding her there until it consumed them both. He wanted…He wanted her, Saul recognised.
Giselle refastened her case, and then reached for its handle to lift it off the bed. But Saul beat her to it, picking it up as easily as though it weighed less than her handbag.
Giselle hadn’t expected Saul to be driving himself, so was unprepared to be alone with him in the car. It was an unfamiliar experience for her to be sitting in the front passenger seat of a car driven by a man. That was something that couples did—or people who shared some kind of intimacy other than the sort of intimacy they were sharing now, shut away together in the enclosed space of the car’s luxurious interior.
Her leather seat seemed almost to shape itself to her body, and the thick-pile carpet was soft beneath her feet. Beneath the expensive leather scent of the car she could smell Saul’s skin—not just the cologne he was wearing but his actual flesh, warm, living and male. She could see his hands on the steering wheel, strong and capable hands, with long fingers and clean nails, the skin tanned. Hands whose touch she had felt against her own flesh—but not, of course, in a caress.
What must it be like to sit in a car next to a man, the way she was sitting next to Saul, as his lover? For other women that kind of intimacy—the physical, mental and emotional closeness to a man, a lover—was something they took for granted. But she would never travel through life with a man she loved and who loved her in return. Out of nowhere, a yearning ache of loss welled up inside her. A sense of barren hopelessness that panicked and angered her.
Why should being with Saul Parenti and his…his maleness cause this awareness within her of all that she could not have, all that she could not permit herself to want? He was the very last kind of man she would be attracted to if she was in a position to allow herself to become attracted to someone. Determinedly she dragged her gaze away from him and focused instead on the road ahead, busy now with traffic.
It didn’t take them long to reach the airport. As he changed lanes for the airport turnoff, Saul asked, ‘Have you already been to Kovoca?’
Giselle shook her head.
‘I’ve seen photographs and video footage of it, and read the surveyors’ reports. The land rises pretty steeply on the western side of the island, and with the mountain in the east it makes sense to build the resort on the relatively flat area in between. From the photographs I’ve seen it looks incredibly beautiful.’
‘It is,’ Saul confirmed, as the airport buildings loomed up ahead of them. ‘Like a green jewel set in a turquoise-blue sea. My grandfather always bemoaned the fact that Arezzio is landlocked, and I suppose that is part of the reason why I bought the island—part, but not all. No man who is controlled by sentiment can ever expect to become successful.’
‘And success is very important to you?’
‘Very,’ Saul agreed, unabashed. ‘Any man who denies that he feels the same is lying. Success matters. It feeds the male psyche and it nourishes male pride in much the same way that a man’s desire for her nourishes a woman’s pride in herself.’
Giselle shot him an infuriated look.
‘That is a ridiculously sexist remark, and totally untrue. Women do not need to be desired by a man to feel pride in themselves.’
‘Maybe not. But when he does, they do,’ Saul insisted.
Giselle would have responded and told him what she thought of his ego-bound arrogance if she hadn’t suddenly realised that Saul was driving straight towards a gleaming private jet parked only yards away from them on the tarmac.
Giselle had flown in private jets before. The firm had several wealthy clients who thought nothing of flying those they commissioned and employed to wherever they wanted them as speedily as possible. However, there was still something about the exclusivity and luxury of stepping out of a car right in front of the plane that was to carry you through the skies that pulled her in two very different ways. There was a distinct thrill and sense of awe about enjoying such privilege, but it came with a feeling of guilt and resentment on behalf of those who could not afford such extravagance.
Chapter Seven
THE jet was coming in to land. Saul, who had spent most of the flight working, switched off his laptop, the movement drawing the fabric of his shirt tightly across his shoulders and chest. Through the cotton Giselle could see the dark shadowing of his body hair. Her stomach lurched, her muscles tightening in protest against her awareness of his sexuality. She tried to look away from him, but somehow her brain misinterpreted the command she had given it because her gaze slid upwards instead. He’d unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt and loosened the tie he’d been wearing when they came on board. The five o’clock shadow on his jaw was darker now, its darkness somehow underlining the shape of the male mouth her gaze seemed so eager to focus on, despite her attempts to will it to move away.
Her face burning, Giselle pulled her gaze away. Another few seconds and she’d have been reliving that kiss—again. But even though her instincts screamed for her to think of something else, anything else, she couldn’t. And then it was too late for her to do anything other than submit to the sensual memories flooding through her. How was it possible to be so affected by just one kiss? Was it because she had starved herself for so long? Denied herself any expression of her own sensuality? Or was it because Saul Parenti had some special demonic power to affect her that she was powerless to resist?
Saul’s voice warning, ‘We’ll be landing in a minute,’ brought her back to reality. Her hands fumbled with her seat belt as she looked rigidly away from him, not daring to look at him in case her body betrayed her and he could see in her eyes what she did not want him to see.
Through the cabin window Giselle could see the countryside over which they were flying. The sun was setting against a backdrop of imposing mountains capped with snow, their lower slopes forested, and the dying light streaked across the calm waters of a large lake.
They were losing height now, and she could see towns and villages clustered in valleys, hugging the edges of the lake, their route following the ribbon of a river tumbling from the lake into a manmade dam and from there meandering across a broad valley. To her left she could see a sizeable town, with stone bridges spanning the river, a castle built high on a vantage point where an outcrop of rock had resisted the attempts of the river to smooth it away, the mountains rising up behind it. The town had been built at a good strategic point, Giselle recognised.
Beyond the town on the flat delta plain she could see the runway. The plane touched down smoothly as the dying sun began to sink below the horizon in a blaze of pink and gold, leaving the sky richly blue.
A man in a uniform heavily decorated with gold braid—an official aide-de-camp of some sort, Giselle supposed—lif
ted a white-gloved hand in an unsmiling salute for Saul as he exited the plane and reached the ground. A red carpet had been laid out, running from the plane to a waiting car.
Although Giselle kept in the background as Saul greeted the uniformed official and shook his hand, she heard the other man saying to Saul, ‘Welcome home, sir,’ as he escorted them to the waiting car, climbing into the front passenger seat once he had seen them both safely into the opulence of the white leather rear seat.
Since a glass screen separated them from the driver—who was also in uniform—and the official, Giselle felt free to speak to Saul. ‘I noticed he said “welcome home” to you. Did you grow up here?’
She didn’t really yearn to know all there was to know about him. Not one little bit. No, she was simply making conversation so that she wouldn’t keep on thinking about that kiss, that was all, Giselle assured herself.
‘Not exactly—although Arezzio was home to my father when he was growing up. I did spend some of my school holidays here, though. I was at boarding school in England, and sometimes it was easier for my parents to fly to Arezzio to spend time with me than for me to go and join them. London is where I spend most of my time, although I have my own apartment in Arezzio within the Royal Palace.’
His life was a world away from her own—so much so that they could be living on different planets. And she was glad about that, she told herself fiercely. She welcomed everything that reinforced for her how impossible it was for…For what? For her to want him to take her to bed? Her body shook inwardly with the enormity of what was being revealed to her. She must stop thinking like this. She must break free of the spell she was under.
Determinedly she asked Saul, ‘Is that the building I could see from the plane?’
‘Yes. It was originally constructed as a fortress—some say as far back as the time when the Goths invaded the Roman Empire. But I suspect that that is more legend than truth. Though certainly it dates back to the time of the great castle-building era in Europe. You couldn’t see it from the plane, but a new palace was added to the original fortress during the time of the Renaissance—one of my ancestors made a diplomatic marriage with a supporter of the Medicis, and his visit to Florence to woo and claim his bride resulted in him bringing back with him more than a Florentine wife. It is rumoured that she had in her personal retinue a chef who had trained with the chef Catherine de Medici took with her to France, a perfumier, an artist, and several artisans skilled in creating the kind of buildings admired by the Florentines. Apparently she brought her own velvet and silk bed hangings and a good deal more, including her own men at arms and a chest packed with the gold she had coaxed out of her guardian. She was a very ambitious woman, with a desire to create a dynasty.’
‘It sounds fascinating,’ Giselle told him truthfully.
‘My cousin is an academic whose knowledge of such matters is far more extensive than mine. I am sure he will be delighted to show you the records we have of the Florentine bride’s dowry.’
As Giselle moved in her seat next to him, Saul felt his own body responding to her proximity with a fierce male surge of pleasure and desire that caught him off guard. He had never experienced anything like this before, and his instinct for the survival of his emotional independence fought against it just as he was fighting against his body’s need.
Giselle felt the movement of air as Saul moved back from her, very obviously putting a distance between them. His action filled her with a sense of desolation that scorched her pride. Had he thought that she wanted to be close to him? Well, she didn’t. She moved closer to her own window and stared fixedly out of it, even though there was nothing to see other than darkness now the sun had set.
The lights of the town were up ahead of them.
The town was obviously very old. They drove into it through a bridge tower, and then over a bridge that reminded Giselle of photographs she’d seen of the old Charles Bridge across the river in Prague. Like the Charles Bridge, this one too was decorated with Baroque-style statues and ornamentation.
Once they had crossed the bridge the road opened out into an imposing square, well lit with decorated lamps, whilst the magnificent frontage of the Renaissance building on the opposite side of the square was illuminated by soft floodlighting.
It all looked very imposing and very regal. There was enough light to reveal the flag flying on top of the building—gold-crowned lions rampant against a deep blue background, a Florentine lily between the lions.
The car had come to a halt alongside a flight of stone steps that led to the entrance of the building, its doors guarded by uniformed men, their blue coats the same colour as the background of the flag.
It would be easy to be over-awed by this kind of pageantry, Giselle admitted to herself a few minutes later, when the enormous polished wood double doors were thrown open with a flourish to reveal a large round entrance hall, flooded with light from a chandelier that Giselle suspected was larger than the entire floor space of her flat.
Several sets of doors opened off the hallway, whose walls were painted with the now familiar blue of the ducal arms, and the light from the chandelier crystals splintered and danced on the highly polished wooden parquetry floor. A flight of marble stairs led upwards to a galleried landing, the walls filled with portraits of autocratic, arrogant-looking men who all bore a strong resemblance to Saul. But it was the woman standing halfway up the stairs who drew and kept Giselle’s attention.
She was, Giselle thought, quite simply the most beautiful-looking woman she had ever seen. Tall and slender, with thick, dark shiny hair that fell to her shoulders and framed the perfect symmetry of her face. It didn’t need the jewels round her throat and wrists or the fit of the gown she was wearing to tell Giselle that this was a woman who was used to the very best of everything.
‘Saul.’ Her lips formed a smile as she almost purred Saul’s name.
Her eyes were the same shade of rich sherry as the silk dress she was wearing. She descended the stairs with graceful ease, standing in front of Saul in such a way that Giselle, who had been standing at his side, was forced to step back onto a lower step, excluded from the intimate circle the other woman was forming with the angle of her body. Her hand was on Saul’s arm, her diamond-set wedding band and the huge solitaire she was wearing with it glittering as they caught the light.
There was a predatory possessiveness about her attitude to Saul, Giselle recognized. An intimacy that brushed coldly against her own senses, causing her to feel an inner disquiet and revulsion—because already Giselle was sure that this woman was Saul’s cousin’s wife. And she was equally sure that she desired Saul.
Without seeing his face it was impossible to see whether or not he reciprocated her desire, but surely no man could fail to be tempted by such beauty—and availability?
Giselle took another step down the stairs, and then went rigid with shock when out of nowhere Saul’s hand curled round her arm, pulling her back towards him. Automatically Giselle tried to pull away, but Saul wouldn’t let her. She could see the way in which Natasha’s gaze had fastened on Saul’s hand on her arm.
‘I thought you’d be coming alone,’ Natasha said to Saul. ‘Since Aldo has such important and private family business to discuss with you.’
‘You thought wrong.’ Saul’s answer was unequivocal. ‘Where is Aldo?’ he added.
‘He’s in the library—where else?’ Natasha gave a petulant shrug. ‘I am bored with these books he finds so fascinating, and I have told him so. But soon I shall have some fun as my father has a new yacht and I am to spend the summer on it as his hostess. You must join us, Saul. My father will introduce you to many influential people. There is good business to be had in Russia for those with the right connections.’
‘I’m afraid that my plans for the summer depend very much on what Giselle wishes to do, Natasha.’
Saul’s voice held anything but regret, but it wasn’t that that had Giselle turning to him with a shocked demand for an ex
planation on her lips. He silenced it by nipping her arm sharply.
‘Goodness.’ Natasha’s smile was as deadly as arsenic. ‘Your new friend really must have some very special talents if you envisage still enjoying her in three months’ time, Saul. You don’t normally keep your lovers that long.’
If she had been Saul’s lover then his cousin’s wife’s offensive remarks would have been bound to cause her distress and anger, Giselle knew, but right now it was Saul who was the cause of those emotions, not Natasha. What on earth was he doing? Why hadn’t he told the other woman that theirs was a business relationship? Giselle looked accusingly at him, ready to correct Natasha herself, but there was a look in Saul’s eyes that warned her against doing so, reminding her of just how much she was already in his power, and how dependent financially she was on his good will, no matter how much she might resent that reality.
‘Tell Aldo that I’ll talk with him later, will you, Natasha?’
‘Later? Why can’t you talk to him now?’
‘You’ve just said that he’s busy—and besides, it’s been a long week. I’ve been in New York and Giselle has been in London. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’
As he spoke Saul turned to give Giselle a look that said quite openly that the kind of catching up he had in mind involved a bed and Giselle’s body naked for his enjoyment in it. Even though she knew that look was manufactured and meant nothing, and even though she was furious with him, it still had the power to melt through her resistance and leave her quivering inwardly on the edge of a quickening pulse of desire that arced and ached almost painfully inside her.
It was plain that Natasha was equally aware of what Saul had wanted to convey. Her lips pressed together and her gaze hardened on them both—but especially on her, Giselle recognised.