by Penny Jordan
‘You were a virgin,’ he said quietly, followed by, even softer voiced, ‘Why did you choose to lose your virginity with me?’
He had put the plate from which he had been feeding her down, and it gave Giselle a small pang of emotion that she hastily pushed away when Saul pulled her to him whilst he waited for her answer, settling her head comfortably against his shoulder. Thank goodness she already knew that this intimacy they were sharing now was no more than a sexually experienced man’s way of showing his appreciation for the sex they had shared. It had nothing to do with anything deeply emotional that might have hinted at the development of a true relationship between them. That awareness helped her to focus on her answer to him, and she responded truthfully.
‘You already know. Well, sort of.’
Saul’s fingers beneath her chin lifted her face, so that he could look down into it.
‘I do?’ he questioned.
‘Yes,’ Giselle confirmed, nodding her head. ‘I wanted you. That shocked and frightened me at first. It was relatively easy before I met you not to want anyone. I knew, of course, that I couldn’t and mustn’t, because I knew—well, I felt it would be wrong of me because of—’
‘Because of your childhood?’
‘Yes,’ Giselle agreed, grateful to him for helping her over the stumbling block with which she had been struggling. ‘Yes—exactly because of that. I knew I couldn’t…I knew I mustn’t have a child…children. I didn’t want to be promiscuous and have a procession of men through my life and my bed, and besides I was afraid that I might start to care for one of them, or they for me, but with you it was different.’
‘Because you knew that I would understand your childhood?’
‘Yeees…’
Giselle hoped that Saul wouldn’t hear the small hesitation in her confirmation and question her more deeply. She couldn’t tell him the deepest and darkest secret that separated her from the fulfilment and happiness other women were free to want—not now when she was so happy, when she felt so complete, and so…so normal. Telling him the truth would only spoil things, and there was no point. No point and no need for him to know, given that she knew this glorious, heavenly, wonderful gift from fate was simply a magical moment out of time, whose beauty, like a delicate soap bubble, could not exist for very long.
The truth was shocking, destructive and ugly. Were she to tell it to him he would look at her so very differently than he was doing now. It wasn’t really wrong of her to want to keep these moments precious and safe, was it? Not when his knowing was so unnecessary, and when she already knew that the pleasure he had given her was quite literally all she could have of him.
Poor child. She must have suffered even more than he had because of the loss of her parents. And not just her parents, he remembered, there had been a small child involved as well—a baby sibling. Knowing that child had lost its life was bound to have created in her young mind an awareness of the fragility of human life and a fear of losing those she loved.
Saul drew her even closer, filled with tenderness for her and a desire to protect her—things he would once have repudiated with anger immediately had he thought he might experience them, but which now, instead of being his hated enemies, seemed natural and necessary accompaniments to the other emotions he was feeling. Emotions? He would question his own feelings later, Saul told himself. Right now his duty of care was for Giselle. For the child she had once been when he had not been there to protect her, and for the woman she had become in his arms now that he was. Such a huge step could not be taken without the person taking it being deeply affected by it, even if Giselle herself was not aware of that fact yet. He was aware of it, and it was up to him to see to it that she made that transition safely.
‘I was so afraid and angry when I realised that I wanted you, but then I kept hearing about your views on…on things.’
Saul knew she meant on his not wanting a child, and he bent to kiss the top of her head.
‘Today—I mean yesterday, when we arrived,’ Giselle corrected herself, squirming in heady pleasure as Saul kissed the side of her neck, his hand finding her willing breast beneath the wrappings of her towel and caressing it softly whilst she talked. ‘When you kissed me and everything I wanted you so much.’ She looked up at him. ‘I’d wanted you before, and wanting you had kept me awake at night, thinking and imagining. I knew I couldn’t bear not to know, to spend the rest of my life wishing. I felt at first that fate was tempting me and tormenting me—laughing at me because I couldn’t be with you. But then I thought perhaps fate was really trying to give me something, to make it up to me, and that I should…if you wanted to. And then tonight, when you didn’t want to come into my bedroom with me, I felt so desperate.’
‘I didn’t want to because I knew what would happen if I did,’ Saul told her.
‘And now that it has, do you regret it?’ Giselle asked him anxiously.
‘Do you?’ Saul pushed the question back to her.
‘No,’ Giselle answered him, simply and truthfully.
‘Good,’ Saul told her, without answering her question himself, and pulling her to him he kissed her until nothing else mattered.
Somehow they made it back to the bedroom—his this time because, as he told her explicitly in between increasingly intimate caresses, it was closer than hers, and he was close to not making it as far as any bed, thanks to the way she was kissing him and touching him.
His bedroom, like the kitchen, was decorated in masculine shades of off-white, grey and black, with just a softening touch of dark cream.
Saul slammed the bedroom door and reached for her, leaning her back against it as he lifted her so that she could wrap her legs eagerly around him. His sex, almost of its own volition, was nudging its way between the lips of her sex, to rub eagerly against her slick readiness and then hotly and eagerly to move within her, filling her so wholly and completely that her body sang with joy.
This time there was no restriction and no hesitation. Her womanhood rejoiced in the full hard presence of him and embraced him, holding him, urging him to move ever deeper and faster.
Her orgasm was swift and intense, driving the breath from her lungs so that she couldn’t even cry out her pleasure. Saul cried out his, though, in a deep shout of exultation as Giselle’s body took the gift of his release from him and his body pumped its pleasure into her soft, warm readiness.
Another shower, with Giselle almost falling asleep beneath it this time, and then they were back in bed. She was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.
Saul didn’t sleep, though. Instead he propped his head up on his hand, his elbow on the pillow, and watched her, frowning as he did so.
What was happening to him? He didn’t know. He only knew that tonight something profound and deep-rooted within him had been shaken to its core; beliefs he had thought set in stone had been revealed as shaky because the foundations had been split along a fault line that tonight had exposed.
He felt vulnerable, he recognised, like a creature robbed of its protective shell. It was only sex, he told himself. That was all. Just sex. And, no matter how fundamental its effect on him might be now, it did not and could not change anything about the way he intended to live his life. What had happened between them was just a one-off, an event out of time. It meant nothing to him other than that. And besides, it was Aldo he should be thinking about—not himself, and certainly not Giselle.
The discussions he had had with his cousin had shown him that the situation was even worse than he had first suspected. Aldo hadn’t just invested his own money, or rather the money Saul had given him, in the fraudulent investment scheme with its far too high interest rates—which would have alerted anyone who understood the financial world better to the fact that it had to be a con—he had also invested the state’s money in it. Money which was needed to pay for teachers and nurses and doctors, and to run public services and infrastructures.
When Saul had asked Aldo why he had said nothing to
him prior to making these investments, why he had not sought his advice, Aldo had replied shamefacedly that he had been told not to discuss the scheme with anyone, because access to it was limited to only a few specially chosen investors.
‘Natasha felt that if you knew you would want to invest in it as well. Please do not blame her,’ Aldo had begged him. ‘The fault is entirely mine. Natasha’s only fault was that out of her love for me she wanted to prove to you that we could be independent of your generosity. She has far more pride than I do, Saul, and she feels that since I am Grand Duke, I should be…’
‘Richer than me?’ Saul had supplied wryly, but he had known that what his cousin did not want to say was that Natasha wanted her husband to take precedence over him in every single way—because she felt that that would punish him for not wanting her.
Right now, though, saving his cousin from the public embarrassment of being declared bankrupt, and the knock-on effect that would have on the country and its finances, was far more important to him than Natasha’s spitefulness.
He mentally reviewed his own assets to assess which of them he could most readily and easily realise in order to refloat Aldo’s finances.
It was perhaps a pity he had bought the island, but having done so he wasn’t prepared to sell it at a loss. There were other assets he could sell, though, such as his share in a new office block in Singapore. Aldo was family, and sometimes family had to come first.
Chapter Ten
GISELLE had woken up once already, to find that she was pinned to the bed by the weight of Saul’s leg lying across her lower body and his arm holding her against his side. It was a welcome imprisonment, though, and it enabled her to lie silently within its captivity and marvel at the magical events of the night and the happiness they had brought her. Now she was awake again—this time to find that she had the bed—his bed—to herself, and that she could stretch out languorously in it, entranced by the sweetly heavy ennui that possessed her body as intimately and intensely as Saul had possessed it during the night.
Saul was her perfect lover, in every single way. With him there was no need for her to feel guilt because of the pain she might ultimately cause him, or to fear her own emotions. She knew that this pleasure that filled her and surrounded her like a fluffy pink cloud of delight was only fleeting and could only be enjoyed very briefly. And if knowing that brought safety, perhaps it also heightened its sweetness—because she knew it could only be for now, for this short precious time beyond which she was not going to look until she had to.
Their time together, like the intimacy it had brought, could not continue once they returned to London. That would be impossible. She knew that. There was no need for Saul to say so to her, and she hoped that he believed her and trusted her enough to know that. She didn’t want a single second of this special time spoiled or marred by any kind of discord or distrust between them.
How she would deal with the realities of life once they were back in London she would figure out once she was back there. If Saul chose to end her secondment to him then so be it. It would be the sensible and practical action to take—and that sharp, agonised fluttering of anguish inside her chest was simply a knee-jerk reaction and didn’t actually mean anything, she assured herself firmly. Nevertheless, it was enough to have her getting out of bed and making her way to her own bedroom, where she showered and dressed in one of the tee shirts and the skirt that her personal shopper had recommended to her.
It wasn’t because last night Saul had stroked his hand along the length of her leg and said how long and slender her legs were that she was wearing a skirt instead of trousers or jeans. It was simply because she could see that outside the sun was shining. It was spring, the trees were in blossom, and a light skirt seemed more appropriate than something heavy.
Saul, already showered and dressed when he had kissed her awake earlier, had told her that they would have to stay in Arezzio for longer than he had originally planned because of the complexity of his cousin’s financial affairs. Giselle had hugged that news to herself, gloating like a miser given a pure gold coin over the prospect of their intimacy being extended.
She was just brushing her hair when a messenger arrived in the form of a maid dressed in black, her brown hair coiled round her head in plaits. She looked young and nervous, Giselle could see, immediately feeling sorry for her as she bobbed a small curtsy and informed her that the Grand Duchess had sent her, to see if Giselle would like to accompany her on a shopping trip into the city.
Accompanying Natasha anywhere was the last thing Giselle felt like doing. But good manners compelled her to accept the other woman’s invitation and to follow the maid back along the now more familiar corridors and down the flights of stairs until she was standing in a sunshine-filled room decorated in shades of lemon and powder-blue, where Natasha was seated on a gold-brocade-covered sofa.
‘Ah, there you are,’ she greeted Giselle, flicking a dismissive gaze over her before smoothing her hand over what Giselle knew must be an infinitely superior and far more expensive designer outfit of golden-yellow silk. The skirt of her dress was so short and tight that Giselle was surprised she was able to sit down in it—to sit down in it and then walk in the vertiginous strappy white leather metal-studded heels she was wearing.
Heavy diamond-encrusted bracelets circled her narrow wrists, and her make-up, if anything, was even more heavy than it had been the night before.
‘A business associate of my father has opened a shop here in the city, and this morning he has telephoned me to say that he has in some clothes by a new designer that he knows I will love.’
It was late afternoon. The shopping trip had not been a success, at least as far as Giselle was concerned. Natasha had spent her time flirting with the odiously oily friend of her father, who had encouraged her to try on and then parade in front of him in a selection of increasingly short and tight-fitting outfits, each one of which had seemed to require that he tugged and pulled at the fabric, whilst leering at Natasha in a way that had turned Giselle’s stomach and aroused her indignation and pity on Aldo’s behalf. Poor Aldo. The outfits Natasha had tried on were surely more suited to a Page Three model desperate for attention than to a Grand Duchess, but of course it had not been Giselle’s place to say so.
On their return to the palace Aldo had been so genuinely pleased that Natasha had had the chance to spend time with an old friend that Giselle had felt like asking Natasha if she knew how fortunate she was and what she was risking losing with her contempt for Aldo’s adoration and love. But then Giselle had reminded herself that she was in no position to lecture anyone about their emotions, or allying sexual desire to those emotions, when she herself was so determined not to do so.
Now the four of them were sitting in the blue and yellow salon, and Aldo was telling her it had been his and Saul’s grandmother’s favourite room.
‘Which is why we always take tea here—because it was her habit to do so.’
Natasha pulled a face when Aldo said this, and insisted that what she wanted was a vodka and champagne cocktail—the same cocktail she had been drinking at the dress shop, Giselle knew. And she felt even more sorry for Aldo when his kind face became slightly shadowed. Because Natasha threatened a fuss if she refused, Giselle was also obliged to drink a cocktail instead of the tea she would have preferred.
The alcohol did not seem to be improving Natasha’s temper, which now flared up again as Aldo suggested very discreetly that perhaps she already had enough expensive clothes.
‘What?’ she challenged her husband, before gulping at her drink—her third since they had all sat down. ‘So now you mean to deny me the only pleasure I’ve got left, do you? Since being good in bed isn’t exactly your forte, is it, darling? You should perhaps ask Saul for some tips.’
Giselle could hear the sound of Saul’s expelled breath as he stood behind her, and no wonder. Poor Aldo must feel mortified—although he was merely shaking his head and saying gently, ‘I think you are
embarrassing our guest a little, Natasha.’
‘Is that possible?’ Natasha retaliated. ‘Can anyone embarrass one of Saul’s women? I wouldn’t have thought so.’
Giselle suspected that Natasha’s drinking had brought her mood to that borderline where it could easily move from mere truculence to something more unpleasant. For Aldo’s sake she didn’t want to provoke her into crossing that line, even though her stomach muscles had tightened defensively with dislike for her.
Rather than retaliate, she decided to make her exit, and said quietly, avoiding looking at anyone, ‘I’m feeling rather tired. If you will excuse me, I think I’ll go to my room.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Saul said immediately. ‘I’ve got some work to do myself.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Saul apologised the minute they were on their own. ‘Natasha’s behaviour was appalling. I don’t know how Aldo puts up with her.
‘He loves her, and he’s afraid of losing her,’ Giselle assessed as he unlocked the door that led to his private apartment and held it open for her.
‘I feel desperately sorry for any child they end up having…I think that Natasha will be a very demanding mother, with exacting standards for any child they have, but especially a son. She’s so competitive herself that a…a more sensitive child will find it hard to deal with.’ He paused, mulling over the way she had behaved. ‘If you were to ask me, I would say that there’s a degree of instability within Natasha. I hadn’t noticed it before, but today…’
Giselle’s mouth had gone dry, and her heart was pounding. ‘I think it was just the drink that made her behave the way she did.’
‘You’re defending her?’ Saul’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s very charitable of you, but I thought her behaviour pointed quite plainly to some kind of emotional and perhaps even mental instability—and that can only lead to a great deal of unhappiness for those close to her.’