by Tricia Jones
Some of the heat was back, Faye noticed as he faced her again, fire and irritation smoldering beneath the steel. He gave her a swift and mildly insulting once over, and slung the jacket over his shoulder. “From your reaction I take it you would have no objection to sharing my bed.”
Frustration and miserable embarrassment had her flesh burning as she pushed the tee into her waistband, wishing she could as easily tuck away her feelings for him. “I won’t be sharing anything with you. Ever.” Least of all the truth about her child. “I’m leaving.”
She pivoted, heading for the door with the intention of giving it a nice healthy slam to help vent some of the wretchedness. But he caught her, his fingers curling into the back of her waistband and yanking her back.
“You are not going anywhere until your memory has returned,” he growled.
Faye whirled on him. “You mean you want me to stay in this room until I can remember everything?” Venom laced her mockingly sweet tone. When his eyes narrowed she shook her head. “I meant I’m leaving this room, Enrico, not the villa. At least, not yet.”
“I want to know what happened,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I want to know why you and Matteo were traveling together. What was the purpose of your trip?”
“Like it’s any of your business.”
“I want to know if you intended to reconcile.”
Faye stared at him. “Why?”
The question seemed to unnerve him. Just imagine that, Faye thought, Enrico Lavini unnerved. But then her heart took a soaring leap with the realization there was only one reason he wanted the answer to that particular question.
“Why?” she demanded when he didn’t answer. “Why do you want to know that?”
He rolled back his shoulders. “Melita needed her father.”
Faye caught the reprimand, and gave herself an even sharper one for the stupid thoughts she’d been harboring.
Guilt surged through her, because he was right. Melita did need her father.
Him.
She was over a barrel. Damned if she told him the truth and damned if she didn’t. If she confessed the truth would he ever forgive her? Regardless, she couldn’t let things remain like this. Couldn’t let any more time go by allowing him to believe his daughter belonged to someone else, that she belonged to someone else.
“We would never have reconciled.” Her throat burned with the words but she had to say them. “Neither of us wanted it.”
Faye paused as her throat tightened painfully. She took in a breath, trying to think clearly, to formulate the words that would change all of their lives forever.
But the short pause allowed Enrico to say, “You cannot be sure, not until your memory returns.” He walked to a nearby chair and dropped his jacket on the back of it. “You were everything to Matteo,” he said wearily. “All he ever wanted in life.”
“That’s not true—”
“You married him,” he interrupted. “You chose him as your husband. There must have been something left between you, something you might have built on.”
“It wasn’t like that.” If she wasn’t careful he’d box her into a corner where her only possible escape meant revealing the true reasons behind her marriage to Teo.
“Facts are facts, cara.” He shook his head. “I only hope in some small way he forgave me for taking from him what was never mine to take. And that he would forgive me now for my lack of restraint around you.”
“For heaven’s sake, Enrico. There you go again. You’re like something out of the Middle Ages. Making it sound like I have nothing to do with anything.” Exasperated, she headed for the door. This was so not the time to be having a conversation about something as important as her daughter’s paternity. The man had it in his head that she and Teo had been the love story of the millennium.
“And it was my virginity,” she snapped as she waltzed past him. “Not the rights to the world’s oil reserves or a bank of diamond mines in some undiscovered—”
“How flippantly you brush aside something so important to a man.”
“To an Italian, maybe.” She jerked as he reached out and grabbed her arm, then looked pointedly down to where his fingers curved around her flesh. “Be careful, Enrico. Who knows what unspeakable taboos you’re violating by touching me.”
It was a childish retaliation and she knew it, but he was just so ridiculously—infuriatingly—Latin.
“This I have already done,” he said in a hard tone, “and have since lived to regret it.”
If he’d wanted to hurt her more he couldn’t have said anything worse. If there was anything in her life she had never regretted, would never regret, it was their one night together. But obviously for him it was a different story.
“Well, I’m sorry I was such a disappointment.” Her heart lurched and she attempted to tug her arm from his grip. “Let go!”
He held firm, waiting until she glared up at him. Only then did he release her.
Faye hurried up the stairs, her feet barely touching the floor as she made for the sanctuary of her room. Heaven help her, it was almost a replay of the scene she’d been remembering. She slammed the door, sank against it and stared at the pillow.
Not this time, she thought. No tears this time. No pillows. No pining for a man who wasn’t worth the effort.
That was one part of history that wouldn’t repeat itself.
Enrico stepped from the shower and snagged a towel. How was it a woman could make a man feel like a complete bastard?
She’d misinterpreted him. She’d managed to twist everything he said.
Maledizione!
He shrugged on a clean white shirt and pushed it into his black tailored jeans. Maybe he’d been too rough on her. She was still recovering from the accident, still battling grief for all he knew. And what had he done? Kissed her—groped her—had her against the wall for pity’s sake. Again. Then for good measure he’d insulted her. At least, that was her interpretation of it. What he’d actually meant was… Dio! She was probably in her room now, cursing him for the insensitive Italian he was. He grumbled under his breath, recalling the sneer in her voice as she’d accused him of living up to his heritage. The woman made it sound like it was a crime for a man to put value on virtue and purity.
He swore at the pompousness of his own thoughts. Perhaps she was right, he was something out of the Middle Ages. But then he wasn’t about to apologize for having standards and living up to them. Dio, he wasn’t.
He slipped his feet into black loafers and left his room.
Stupid, insensitive…Italian!
Faye braced her hands on the edge of the bathroom sink and stared at her reflection in the gilt-edged mirror. Enrico Lavini. Prehistoric man.
She tapped her foot, as if that would relieve some of the tension whipping through her system. Lord, she was furious. What century was the man living in, for heaven’s sake? A woman’s virginity was hers to do with as she pleased. She didn’t need anyone else’s permission, and she certainly didn’t need the intervention of some…some…stupid idiot who acted like she wasn’t qualified to make the decision for herself!
Heat flared along her skin, pumped through her veins. A shower. That was what she needed. Something to wash the idiot man and the memory of that kiss away.
Fifteen minutes later she was drying her hair when she heard a resolute knock at her door. She switched off the dryer and set it on the hook by the dressing table. Another knock came, even more determined. She knew it was Enrico. Even his knock had that imperious quality. Well, he could wait.
Faye tightened the knot in the towel still wrapped around her body.
Another knock. Louder. Any moment now he’d have the door off its hinges, and how would they explain that to the staff?
Determined to stay calm, Faye went to the door. When she flung back the door Enrico took a swift, almost imperceptible sweep of her towel-clad length, and if she hadn’t been tuned to his every nuance she might have missed it.
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��What do you want?”
His mouth hardened. “I came to sort out a misunderstanding.”
“No misunderstanding as far as I’m concerned.” She lifted her chin and faced him squarely. “I believe I know exactly where I stand and that’s fine by me.”
He stepped into the room. “May I come in?”
“Since you’re already in, the question seems superfluous.” She closed the door behind him with a nice, satisfying slam.
He turned slowly, raised a straight black eyebrow. “That snippy tone does you no justice, Faye.”
She stuck her chin higher and waltzed past him to the dressing table, where she snagged the hairdryer. “Really? Well, just another misunderstanding on my part no doubt.” She waved the appliance. “You don’t mind, do you?”
The tiny arrow of heat along his cheekbones signaled he did, and she took a kind of grim delight in it.
“I want to talk to you. You will not hear me over that thing.”
But she’d already pushed the switch and turned her back on him. The hum of the dryer blotted out any other sound in the room.
She knew it would provoke him. Which was exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to hurt him, the way he’d hurt her.
But you didn’t ignore a man like Enrico Lavini, and she wasn’t the least surprised to find the dryer yanked out of her hand. The room was plunged into silence as the steady hum of the dryer ceased. The quiet air crackled with tension.
When he threw the dryer onto the dressing table, Faye followed the action with an expression of mock surprise. “Oh, dear, was that annoying you?” she asked sweetly. “You only had to say.”
A harsh look flashed across his face and set his nostrils flaring. “Enough of this,” he growled. “I did not mean to imply that I regret touching you. My only regret is that I hurt my brother.”
“Because you stole my virginity?”
“Yes.” His resigned, regretful sigh pierced through the anger and touched some part of her heart.
Faye’s shoulders dropped as his did, and some of her temper evaporated. Even the tension in the room seemed to dissolve. Although her awareness of him standing there, big and masculine, didn’t help with a different kind of tension assaulting her body.
She sighed. “You know. Here in the twenty-first century a woman’s virginity is considered hers to do with as she pleases. It doesn’t belong to a man.” She tightened the knot in her towel, watching as his gaze tracked the movement. “I slept with you because I wanted to. It had nothing to do with anything or anyone else. It was my decision, and I don’t regret it.” There. At least she’d sown a seed of sorts, now all she had to do was water it. “I wanted you to be the first man I slept with because…” She swallowed, tightened the knot again. How did you tell a man he was the only one you had ever loved? That your beloved child was his child.
“Because?” Enrico prompted.
Blood rushed in her ears, and her chest thumped with terrifying ferocity. “Rico, I need to…”
Somewhere in her frazzled thoughts she registered her daughter shouting for her. Relief and frustration warred. She didn’t want to tell him like this, not while she was half-naked and the air sizzled with unresolved business between them. Nor did she want to put it off any longer. Her nerves wouldn’t stand it. He had a right to know.
She forced herself to hold Enrico’s steady look as Melita came bounding up the stairs.
“Mummy! I’m going to—Uncle Rico!” Melita launched herself into his arms. “I thought you wouldn’t be home until after I was in bed. Did you have a good time in…?” With her arms tight around his waist she turned her face up to his, her expression one of crumpled concentration.
“Vienna.” Enrico smiled down, smoothing his hand over the crown of Melita’s head to work back the strands of hair escaping her ponytail. “Yes, carina, I had a good time. Now, how would you enjoy a weekend at the sea?”
“Ooh, yes please. Can we go swimming?”
“We can indeed.”
Outmaneuvered, Faye thought, watching her daughter’s animated face gaze up at Enrico with something bordering adoration. He obviously hadn’t taken on board anything she’d said about his tendency to assume he could take control of anything involving her daughter. But then she couldn’t exactly take him to task over it, not when she had been close to giving him information that would ensure he took complete control over everything involving her—their—daughter.
“Can I wear my new swimsuit, Mummy?” Melita turned to Faye but kept her arms tight around Enrico’s middle. “And you can wear yours.” She focused on the towel Faye wore, her eyes huge. “Oh!” Her giggle was muffled beneath the hand she clamped over her mouth. “Mummy, you haven’t got any clothes on!”
Faye felt heat pour into her face, even as her hands went to the knot again. “I know, and that’s because people are keeping me talking about swimsuits and things.” She laughed somewhat nervously down at her daughter, prayed she didn’t look as embarrassed as she suddenly felt. But to hear her daughter spell it out, and see Enrico’s gaze travel the length of her again—and again—made her feel uncomfortably decadent.
Her flesh heated, even beneath the towel. Especially beneath the towel, as he examined her with insolent ease. He lingered, it seemed, at the places not covered by fluffy cotton—the curved outline of her breasts, the middle of her thighs, her breasts again. Electric shocks sizzled through her veins, scorching her nerve endings until she thought she might cry out.
Enrico seemed in no hurry to leave. He looked at Faye as he addressed Melita. “Now, carina, may I have your permission to take your mother out for the evening? You need to have an early night if we are to go swimming and sailing—”
“Sailing?” Melita jumped up and down. “Oh, we’re going sailing.” She pulled away from Enrico, jumping in circles. “We’re going sailing.”
“I take it that is a yes,” Enrico said, as Melita chanted out her delight. Then raised straight eyebrows as if waiting for Faye’s agreement.
“So it would seem.” And Faye made a mental note to chastise her daughter about giving in that easily to a man’s request, but then she supposed that was a conversation for ten or so years’ time.
“I have a meeting with my vineyard manager in—” he turned his wrist glancing at a thick silver watch, “—one hour. I will arrange for you to have that tour you wanted and then we will have dinner.”
And no doubt pick up their conversation where they’d left off, Faye thought, as her stomach spun nauseously. But there was no going back now. It had to be done.
“I’ll just need to check that Carla can look after Melita this evening.”
“Very well.” He took another lazy appraisal of her towel-clad body, making her feel like he could see straight through to the flesh beneath. “I’ll leave you to get some clothes on.”
Chapter Seven
Faye hadn’t remembered the vineyards were quite as stunningly beautiful and she sighed her appreciation as Enrico drove through the cypress-lined entrance to the management buildings.
“I take it my land meets with your approval.” He shot her a glance.
“It does. You’ve done wonders with it. I can remember when you first bought it and it was just a patchwork of neglected plots.”
“I cannot take all the credit, very little of it in fact. The success of the land is due to the dedication of the vinery workers and the expertise of my management team.”
In recognition of their efforts he had set up an extremely generous bonus and commission scheme according to Carla, but Faye didn’t mention it. She knew Enrico wouldn’t appreciate hearing that his private affairs had been the subject of kitchen chatter.
While Enrico had a brief meeting with his manager, Faye was given a full tour of the operation. Later they drove into Lucca and enjoyed dinner at an exclusive restaurant, accompanied by wine direct from the Lavini vineyards.
“It must be difficult for you having to leave the day-to-day running of things to
your manager,” Faye said as Enrico topped off their wine. “It was your dream to work the land for as long as I can remember.”
“We do what needs to be done.”
“But you must hate having to devote the majority of your time to the family business. Banking never really interested you.”
She remembered how fiercely he had battled to set up his own business, how determined he had been not to let his father dictate to him. That determination, coupled with the frustration of being forced to take on the mantle of chairman of the Lavini bank, had culminated in the fight with his father on the day of Ruggerio’s third marriage. Seeing his brother’s interests denied had fuelled his anger.
Faye watched him now as he sipped his wine. There was a somber look in his eyes, and the beginnings of a scowl shadowing his handsome forehead.
He leaned back. “At first I resented having to take over the bank, and will always resent the circumstances that led to it. But I focused on the fact it was my grandfather’s business and as such it is my duty to ensure the continued success of the company he built.” His jaw went as hard as his eyes. “In each generation it is the duty of a first-born son to uphold and protect the foundations, the traditions of the family.”
Her stomach jumped but Faye asked, “What if the first-born is a daughter?”
He looked at her as if the very idea was preposterous. Then he shrugged. “The issue has never arisen, although as long as expertise is assured I see no reason for not having a woman as head of the Lavini Bank.”
“Good heavens, Enrico.” Faye lifted her wine in toast. “Don’t tell me we’ve made a feminist out of you.”
He returned the cautious smile she gave him. “I cannot confess to having progressed that far. But if fate wills a daughter, then so be it.”
They were skirting so near to reality, that Faye needed a fortifying swig of the one glass of wine she’d allowed herself. Perhaps now was the time to water that seed she’d planted. “You…you wouldn’t mind a daughter? As your first-born child, the heir to your empire?”