Could he really be serious about thrusting them both back into that kind of living breathing hell again? she wondered heavily. Did he think anything would be different this time just because he believed he now knew why she had been like that with him?
Well, he was wrong, because no one knew the real truth about what had happened that night because she had never told the truth, not even to Molly. And nothing was going to change. It couldn’t—she couldn’t.
The bedroom door swung inwards, allowing Sandro to walk in carrying a tray loaded with coffee and a rack of freshly made toast.
He looked different again, dressed for business in an iron-grey suit and white shirt, a dark silk tie knotted at his throat.
‘I have to go out for a short while,’ he said as he placed the tray across her lap. ‘If you want me for anything, then the number of my mobile phone is written on a pad by the telephone.’
‘The prisoner is allowed to make telephone calls, then?’ she said caustically.
He didn’t answer, his mouth straightening. ‘I will be about an hour,’ he informed her instead. ‘Try to eat, then rest. We will talk again later.’
Talk! Talk about what? she wondered apprehensively as she watched him depart again. The past? The present? The future?
Well, she didn’t want to talk about any of them. She didn’t want to eat She didn’t want to rest. She just wanted to get out of here!
Without warning, the old panic hit.
She needed to get out of this apartment, where bad memories lurked in every corner! She needed time to herself, to think, go over what had already happened and how she was going to deal with what was promising to come next. But, above all, she needed to do it now while Sandro wasn’t standing guard over her!
CHAPTER SIX
PUSHING the breakfast tray from her lap, Joanna scrambled quickly out of the bed, only to land swaying on her feet, feeling about as weak as a newborn kitten.
A quick shower might help, she decided, glancing around the room until she spied a door that promised to be an adjoining bathroom.
Ten minutes later she was back in the bedroom, feeling better—clean, refreshed, more alert—wrapped in a snowy white bathrobe she’d found hanging conveniently on the bathroom door. It smelled faintly of Sandro, that subtle tangy scent that was so uniquely him. But then, she grimaced to herself, her whole body now smelled like Sandro since she had just used his soap.
Which led her to another troubling concept—Sandro’s soap, Sandro’s bathroom, Sandro’s bed!
The bed she had just been lying in had to be Sandro’s bed! But, if that was the case, then it was not the same bedroom he had taken her to the last time he had brought her here. That room had been bigger than this one, more opulent, and fifty times more frightening.
She shuddered, remembering why the room had been so frightening; then grimly shoved the memory aside while she dealt with her next most pressing problem—namely, some clothes to wear.
No luggage, she remembered. No need for it, Sandro had said. Did that mean he really did intend to keep her here as a prisoner until he had managed to make this a real marriage?
Alarm shot through her, lending her limbs the required impetus to open wardrobe and cupboard doors; she was expecting to find Sandro’s clothes and frowned when she didn’t.
Instead they were full of the most stylish women’s clothes she had ever laid eyes on—even during her one-year long marriage to Sandro she had never owned outfits as stylish as these!
But then, she had always insisted on choosing her clothes herself, stubbornly refusing to let him spend gross amounts on her because she hadn’t felt that she deserved it. So, although she had been forced to accept the odd designer outfit Sandro bought for her him-self—like the Dior suit she had worn yesterday—most of her clothes had been good but not designer-label, and nothing—nothing like the garments hanging here.
Who did they belong too? she asked herself frowningly, then felt her spine stiffen as the answer came to her.
Did these beautiful clothes belong to his very discreet mistress?
She felt sick again suddenly, too sick to think beyond the need to get away from here. So, with heart pounding and hands trembling, she dragged a pair of denims and a tiny white tee shirt off their hangers, and almost sank to the ground in relief when she noticed they still possessed their shop tags—which meant that all these clothes were brand-new.
They also fitted her slender figure as if they had been bought for her, which led to the next uncomfortable suspicion—that, if they did not belong to his mistress, he must have had them brought here specifically for her.
New clothes, new life.
The two fitted together so neatly that the old sense of wild panic hit all over again, and she scrambled urgently around, looking for something to wear on her feet. She found a pair of lightweight leather slip-ons and hurriedly pushed her bare feet into them. Her freshly-shampooed hair slid like a curtain around her face, drying quickly of its own accord in the heat Rome was basking in—while London still shivered.
At last she was ready to walk out of the room and down the hall to the apartment’s main doors. It took mere seconds to make it as far as the lift, only then to use up precious minutes having to talk herself into using the damned thing.
It’s either that or stay here, she told herself grimly. Because she couldn’t see any sign of a stairwell in the vicinity.
Frustration bit hard into her lily-white cowardice, sharp white teeth doing the same to her full bottom lip. Oh, stop being so pathetic! she told herself angrily. One bad experience in a lift didn’t make all lifts evil places!
Still, even as she stepped forward and made herself press the call button, she was half hoping that the lift wouldn’t come. But there was a whirring sound and a click as it arrived at its destination. The doors slid open and Joanna looked warily inside, memories of what had happened the last time these doors had stood open in front of her like this mingling with all her other wretched lift memories.
With a deep breath, she made herself walk forward, turn to face the console, then sent up a tense finger to stab at the ‘down’ button. The doors swished shut. She closed her eyes, felt the lift start to move and curled her hands into tight fists at her sides as her heart began to hammer.
Oh, why did it have to be like this? she asked herself tragically. Why did she have to live in fear of lifts, or have to run away from a man who had never once lifted a single finger towards her in anger?
A man she loved, a man she cared for; a man who had once loved her enough to move heaven and earth just so that he could be with her! It wasn’t fair—it just wasn’t fair!
The lift stopped. Her eyes flicked open, bright blue and wretched, because she’d suddenly realised that she couldn’t do it; she just couldn’t run out on him like this!
The doors parted; one of her hands snaked up to press the ‘up’ button...
‘Well, well,’ a smoothly sardonic voice drawled. ‘Now, why isn’t this as big a surprise as it should be?’
He was leaning against the lift’s outer casing, smiling at her but in an angry way—very angry; she could see the twin fires burning in his dark eyes.
‘How...?’
‘How did I know you were on your way down here?’ he accurately interpreted. ‘Because each time this lift is used an alarm sounds in the concierge’s office—where I was sitting enjoying a cup of coffee and a pleasant chat,’ he explained with acid bite.
‘I...’
‘You were on your way to look for me?’ he suggested lazily. ‘How nice.’
‘No,’ she denied, flushing slightly. ‘I...’
‘Because you missed me so much, you could not bear to be away from me for a single moment longer.’ He nodded sagely. ‘I am most flattered.’
‘Will you stop finishing my sentences for me?’ she snapped. ‘That was not what I was going to say!’
‘I also see you are feeling much better,’ he drawled. ‘For the shrew is back.�
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‘I wasn’t leaving,’ she retorted, wondering why she had changed her mind about running when, really, two seconds in his company was enough to make any woman run!
‘Just working off your phobia about lifts.’ He nodded again, clearly not believing her. ‘How brave, cara.’
Joanna sighed and leaned a defeated shoulder against the lift wall. ‘I only wanted some fresh air, Sandro,’ she told him heavily.
‘Fresh air? Of course. Why did I not think of that?’ And before she could react, his hand snaked out to catch her wrist and with a tug he had her out of the lift.
‘W-where are we going?’ she demanded as he began pulling her towards the rear of the apartment block.
‘For fresh air,’ he answered laconically. ‘As the lady requested.’
Then he was pushing open a door that took them outside into the sensually warm dappled sunlight, and a cobbled courtyard, high-walled on three sides with the building itself forming the fourth. In its centre the requisite Italian fountain was sprinkling fine droplets of water into a rippling pond. The walls hung with colour, all brilliant shades, and the sunlight filtered down through the spread branches of a fig tree onto a stone bench seat and table set beneath it.
‘Is this fresh enough for you?’ Sandro enquired lightly as he pulled her over to the bench and virtually forced her to sit down on it before leaning his hips against the table behind him. He folded his arms, then proceeded to view her with enough mockery in his eyes to make her wince and blush furiously.
‘I was not running away from you!’ she tried a second time. ‘I—I was going to,’ she then reluctantly admitted, ‘but then I changed my mind.’
‘Why?’
Why? Oh, hell. ‘I haven’t got anywhere to go, have I?’ she shrugged.
‘And you only remembered that on the way down here?’
‘Yes,’ she sighed.
He nodded his dark head as though she had just confirmed every bad opinion he harboured about her. Then, in one of those complete turnabouts in manner which he could make to such devastating effect, he smiled—just smiled—and her heart turned over. The man was too charismatic for his own good!
‘You’re precious,’ he murmured as he dipped a hand into his jacket pocket and came out with something. ‘I adore you for it. Tell me what you think of that,’ he invited amiably, offering her what looked like a glossy magazine.
Bemused, confused, most definitely wary, because his tone had gone from bitingly sarcastic to tender so quickly that she just didn’t trust it, she took the magazine while her eyes remained fixed on his handsome face.
His expression told her nothing.
But then again, she mused as she lowered her eyes to study what was now in her hands, that face of his was just too riveting for anyone to see past its beauty and read what was going on in his mind!
She was staring at a glossy coloured brochure, not a magazine, she realised. A brochure with a photograph of a lovely red-roofed villa set in the middle of the most delightful surroundings.
For some reason it reminded her of Grandpa. She wasn’t sure why, unless it was because she had been thinking about him earlier; she could draw no comparison between Grandpa’s very modest smallholding and the aerial view of very large country estate she was seeing in this picture.
The villa itself was a low, rambling place, with yellowing walls and green paint-washed wooden frames to the windows and doors. There were outbuildings, a swimming pool and several large fenced paddocks, not to mention fruit groves and long rows of grape vines spreading out over rolling countryside.
A magical place, she decided, set in magical surroundings.
Puzzled as to why Sandro wanted her to look at this, she opened the brochure’s cover, expecting to gain enlightenment from its inner pages. But the print was in Italian—though there were more photographs, of the inside of what looked like a commercial wine cellar lined with huge old-fashioned oak barrels, and another one showing a beautifully cared for stable block.
‘Are you thinking of investing in a vineyard?’ she asked in a guess, since the brochure reminded her of those you found in the very best estate agents.
‘Wine-making is not one of my family’s interests,’ Sandro answered reflectively. ‘As you know, we are bankers by tradition. But I stayed close to this place a while back and was enchanted by it. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s beautiful,’ she answered softly. ‘All that blue sky and open space and peace and tranquillity...’
‘No buses, no trains,’ he wryly tagged on. ‘No shops within miles of the place...’
‘No people?’ she asked.
‘Local people, who have worked the land for as far back as their family history will take them. But, no,’ he said quietly. ‘No people in the way that you mean.’
‘Perfect, in fact, then,’ she murmured wistfully.
‘You could say that,’ he agreed.
The mobile phone in his pocket began to ring then, and as he turned his attention to answering whoever was calling him Joanna got to her feet and moved a couple of steps away to look over the brochure in relative privacy. As a barrage of friendly Italian began to wash over her, she heard the name of the person Sandro was speaking to.
‘Ah, Guido!’ he greeted. ‘Ciao! Ciao...!’
After that she was lost, but the name Guido was familiar to her—very familiar. He was just one of Sandro’s many relatives—a cousin who worked as a lawyer for the Bonetti Bank. He was also the man who had stood witness for Sandro at their wedding.
Guido wasn’t built in the same physical mould as Sandro, nor did he wield the same power. But he was a nice enough man. He had been keen to like her because she was marrying Sandro, all of whose family had been eager to like the woman their great chief had chosen to spend the rest of his life with.
Even Sandro’s mother, she recalled, her eyes glazing over as her mind built a picture of Sandro’s slender, dark-haired mother, who had been so warm in welcoming Joanna into her family. Her husband was dead, so she’d poured all of her love into her only child. Anything Sandro wanted, his mother wanted for him too. ‘You are my daughter now,’ she had said kindly. ‘Make my son happy and I will be forever your friend.’
But Joanna had not made her son happy.
‘Si—Si,’ Sandro murmured, bringing her attention swinging back to him in time to watch him grin before he continued in another fast spate of Italian.
She hadn’t seen him this at ease with himself since she’d come back into his life, she noted bleakly. Hadn’t seen that attractive grin warm his mouth, or heard that happy lilt in the deep bass of his sensual voice.
Seeing that grin come alive now made her wish she knew what he was talking about; she wished she’d taken the time to learn his language so maybe she could make him smile like that occasionally.
But she didn’t need a grasp of Italian to make Sandro smile, she recalled. It took her simple desire to please; that was all. Something she’d once used to have, but now was no longer allowed to have.
This beautiful country estate pleased him, she reflected as she looked back at the brochure. She had seen the pleasure in his face as he’d looked at it, seen the desire to own a place like this.
‘So, shall I purchase it or not?’
She blinked, not realising he had finished his conversation and was concentrating on her again.
‘You’re the investment expert,’ she said, passing the brochure back to him with a dismissiveness that brought the old frown back to his face.
‘You don’t like it?’
‘I think its beautiful; I told you that,’ she snapped, half hating herself for raining on his parade like this.
‘Good.’ Casually he put the brochure aside. ‘Because I have just closed a deal on it, via Guido,’ he announced, beginning to smile again. ‘So, if you are feeling up to it, cara, we will drive up there tomorrow and look over our new home.’
Predictably, Joanna froze while Sandro remained leaning where
he was, ruefully watching it happen.
‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered finally.
‘Yes, you do,’ he parried in a soft-toned taunt that sent warning quivers shooting down her spine. ‘For tomorrow will be the third day of your new life,’ he chanted, in what was becoming his most effective barb to keep her mind fully concentrated on who was in control around here. ‘It will begin with a drive out of Rome towards the Orvieto region, and end on the estate, with just you, me, and our marriage to work on.’
‘No.’ The protest was purely instinctive, as was the way she was already stiffening up, making to move right away from him—
But Sandro stopped her with a hand on her arm.
‘No more running from what you don’t want to face, Joanna,’ he warned. ‘That tightly closed door in your head is now open and I mean to keep it that way.’
‘And I have no say in the matter, I suppose,’ she bit back, trying to sound shrewish and only managing to sound anxious.
‘Not while you still fight me, no,’ he confirmed. ‘You see, I know the problem now, so I intend to deal with it.’
The problem, she repeated to herself. The problem which was Joanna’s aversion to sex! But he didn’t know the real problem—didn’t know even half of it!
‘I need to go and—’ Once again she tried to move away.
‘No.’ Once more Sandro stopped her, the hand on her arm firmly drawing her in front of him and keeping her there with both hands spanning her narrow waist while he studied the strain written in her face through very grim eyes.
Not angry, but grim. There was a definite distinction, because his anger gave her something to spark on, but his grimness only made her want to break down and cry.
‘I won’t let you touch me!’ she flashed, eyes snapping everywhere they could go, so long as they did not settle on him.
He didn’t answer, he just kept her standing there in front of him in the dappling sunshine while he moved his eyes over her, from her freshly washed hair to the clothes she had pulled on in her haste to get away from him.
Now she almost wished she’d run naked through the streets of Rome rather than having wasted those extra minutes agonising over whose clothes she was going to have to wear.
The Marriage Surrender Page 10