Her posture stiffened, cords of tension visible in her slender neck. ‘This is my mother’s private life we’re talking about—an issue that’s sensitive and painful. Not to mention perfect fodder for the gossipmongers. I couldn’t trust what you might do with the information.’
He bit back a mirthless laugh. She didn’t trust him? He let his disbelief at that feed his anger, because the other emotion—the one that was feeling a lot like guilt—was burning a crater in his gut he’d prefer to ignore.
‘Besides...’ Accusation blazed in her eyes. ‘Would you have reconsidered your plans if I’d told you everything then? Are you reconsidering them now?’
Dammit. Did he have an answer for that? He dragged in a deep breath, reminded himself that Douglas Shaw was the villain in all this. Not himself. ‘Violent men can have many triggers, Helena. The takeover has clearly upset him—’ as intended ‘—but any number of things could set him off. Changing my plans will not change the fact that your mother is in a volatile relationship and constantly at risk of abuse.’
‘I understand that. But when my father learns that you plan to dismantle the company it isn’t going to “trigger” a bad mood. It’s going to trigger a major meltdown. I need more time before that happens—time to convince my mother to get out.’
‘And our arrangement gives you that time, does it not?’ Time he could extend, if he so chose. But not by much. Convincing his board to back the takeover hadn’t been easy. The buyout of shares had been costly, and divesting the company’s assets would be critical for balancing the books.
Helena’s shoulders suddenly lost their starch. Her gaze slid from his. ‘Yes. It does. And hopefully it’ll be enough.’
The resignation in her voice, the slope of her shoulders as she stared down at her hands, undid him.
His anger drained and he sat down.
‘Your mother’s never considered leaving?’ He strove for neutrality but still the censure crept into his voice. He knew domestic violence was a complicated issue. Understood that fear and circumstance could deprive victims of freedom and choice. But surely Helena’s mother had resources? Options? Why would she tolerate abuse?
‘It’s easy to judge from the outside looking in, Leo.’
The reproach in her tone made the tips of his ears uncomfortably warm.
‘There’s a hundred reasons women stay trapped in abusive relationships. Fear of reprisal. Fear of isolation from loved ones. Fear of being alone. Believe me, I’ve tried talking to her, but she shuts me down every time.’
He heard the tremor in her voice, saw the quiver in her lip she tried to suppress, and cursed.
To hell with not touching.
He shifted over and lifted her into his lap. She stiffened, surprise flitting over her pale features. But as he wrapped his arms around her, her body softened, acquiesced, and she dropped her head on his shoulder.
‘I am sorry, cara,’ he murmured against her hair. ‘I know how painful it is to watch someone you love suffer.’
Everyone he’d loved had suffered. His mother with cancer. His father from grief and addiction. Marietta, whose life had been irreversibly altered by that one fateful decision.
Helena turned her face into his neck and he buried his fingers in her hair, the soft, peachy scent reminding him of the organic fruit orchards surrounding his villa in Tuscany.
He closed his eyes.
Five weeks they’d had together in London.
Five short, intense weeks. Barely enough time to get to know one another, and yet he’d fallen like a teenager on his first romantic crush.
Hell.
Had he really thought he could bring Helena to Rome for seven nights, keep her in his home, his bed, and not risk a return of the insanity that had proved his downfall the first time around? It was a colossal mistake—one he would no doubt regret. But not today. Not yet. Not until he had all the answers he needed.
‘You said your father hit you twice.’
Instantly her body tensed. He waited until she relaxed, her breath warm on his neck as she released a pent-up breath.
‘After that first time I’d never seen my mother more furious—or more willing to stand up to my father. It was the most violent argument I’d ever heard them have—and I’d heard a few.’ She paused. ‘I was in my room and couldn’t hear it all, so I don’t know everything she said to him, but I do know he didn’t lay a hand on me again for six years.’
Swiftly Leo calculated that she’d have been nineteen when Shaw had next assaulted her. His brows sank. Nineteen. Her age when he’d met her. Coincidence? A sick feeling in his gut told him it wasn’t.
‘The night you wouldn’t see me...after you sent me away from your hotel,’ she said, her words segueing from his thoughts with uncanny accuracy, ‘I went to confront him. I knew Mum was out at some charity thing but I was too angry for caution. Too upset to notice he’d been drinking.’ A faint quiver undermined her voice. ‘One minute he was cool and condescending, the next...he lashed out so quickly I never saw it coming.’
Leo gritted his teeth.
‘My lip split,’ she said before he could speak, ‘and I fell, hit my head on the fireplace. When he came at me a second time I picked up the first thing within reach—an iron poker—and swung it at him.’
‘Dio!’ She’d fought back? Gutsy, but unwise if she’d had the safer option of fleeing. He smoothed her hair back, pulled her chin up so he could look at her. ‘That could have been dangerous, cara.’ He ran his thumb over the soft skin of her cheek, made the mistake of imagining that cheek bruised, her mouth bloodied. Tension coiled in his muscles. ‘What happened?’
‘I struck him,’ she whispered, emotion creeping in now, her shoulders hunching forward. ‘And he...he went down. I was horrified. I felt sick. There was a gash on his head and...and a lot of blood. I ran to help him, but he was already staggering to his feet and he shoved me away—so hard I fell again.’ She shook her head, as if trying to dispel the ugly images. ‘I got out as fast as I could and... Well, you know the rest. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since.’
‘And he cut you off?’
‘He cut off my allowance, stopped paying my college fees, but I chose to make it on my own. As long as he supported me financially I was bound by his rules. His dictates. I wanted freedom, for myself and—’ She stopped suddenly.
‘Helena?’
She pulled her chin from his grasp, looked down. ‘I... I wanted to live free of his control.’
Her fingers plucked at a button on his shirtfront and he covered her hand, stilled her fidgeting. ‘Your father never met me, yet he took exception to our relationship. To me.’ Even now, years later, that rankled deep. ‘Why?’
Her hand curled into a delicate fist under his. ‘Father had rules for everything—including who I dated. Boys who were wealthy, British and well-connected were the only ones deemed acceptable.’ She emitted a soft snort. ‘He never tried to hide his disappointment that his firstborn wasn’t a son. He once said my greatest worth was as marriage material, so I should at least choose someone he could benefit from.’
Leo’s stomach clenched. He’d thought his loathing for the man couldn’t deepen. He’d been wrong.
Helena shifted and he tensed. The glide of her soft, rounded buttocks over his groin was doing nothing to quell the desire he’d been struggling to subdue from the moment her backside had landed in his lap.
Her eyes rounded with comprehension. ‘Sorry—’
‘Sorry,’ he said at the same time.
They both stopped, and half-laughed, half-groaned.
Before lust could incinerate his restraint, he gently moved her off him. Then rose and pulled her to her feet.
‘Thank you.’ He tipped up her chin. ‘I know those weren’t easy things to talk about.’ He tucked a curl behind her ear, something tender, perplexing, moving inside him. ‘Do you still want that walk?’
She stared up at him ‘No,’ she said.
And then she leaned in
and pressed her lips to his—a move so entirely unexpected that for a moment he simply stood there, inert, caught by the sweetness of her breath and the subtle sizzle of promise in that tentative kiss.
Then her tongue darted out, stroked over his lips, and in one red-hot second her kiss had escalated from sweet to incendiary.
Leo groaned, hauled her against him and thrust into her mouth, needing to feel her, taste her, unable to get enough even when her fingers stabbed into his hair and pulled his head down for a deeper kiss. His clothes felt too tight, chafing his skin.
Too many layers.
Too much fabric between them.
He wanted the barriers gone.
Wanted her naked, laid bare—just for him.
His pulse firing with a flammable mix of impatience and lust, he scooped her up, enjoying the warm nuzzle of her lips on his neck as he carried her to his bedroom. He lowered her feet to the rug beside his four-poster bed, satisfaction roaring when she tore at his shirt with an urgency that matched his own frantic need to get naked.
In seconds their clothes were shed and Helena was spreadeagled on his bed, her slender limbs pale against the dark cotton coverlet. He kissed her jaw, her collarbone, then sucked the hard, rosy peak of one breast into his mouth.
A low moan vibrated in her throat. When he slid his finger along her hot, wet seam her legs widened in a brazen invitation. Her fingers scraped over his scalp, her hips writhing as he circled her clitoris with his thumb and slid one finger, then two, deep inside her.
‘Oh, yes...’ Her moan fractured into soft little cries that stoked his desire. ‘Please... I want you... Don’t make me wait.’
I want you.
The words snapped his restraint. Shredded his intent to touch and taste and savour before burying himself inside her.
Hands unsteady, he pulled a condom from his nightstand and tore into the packet. Helena rose on her elbows and watched him roll on the sheath, her eyes glazed, her lips moist and slightly parted.
Leo moved between her thighs, positioned himself at her entry and began to nudge in. But she raised her knees, wedged her heels into his buttocks and tilted her hips so he slammed full-length into her searing heat.
‘Dio!’
Stars exploded in front of his eyes and he squeezed them shut, opening them again when her hands framed his face and he heard his name whispered over her lips. He held himself rigid above her.
‘You don’t need to be gentle with me,’ she said, and rocked her pelvis.
The sensual rhythm created an exquisite friction that forced another rough exclamation up his throat. He searched her face for any hint of the fear he’d seen earlier but saw only the flush of desire. The stark look of hunger in her eyes that mirrored his own.
He surrendered control and started to move, stroking his hard length in and out, building to a frenzied rhythm that she matched thrust for thrust until, a second before he climaxed, she sank her teeth into his shoulder and arched in violent orgasm beneath him.
A feral, utterly alien sound was torn from his throat, the intense pleasure of release amplified by the erotic pain of her bite and the feel of her internal muscles convulsing around him.
Moments later his strength gave out and he rolled onto his back, dragging Helena with him. Sensations came and went. Rapture. Languor. Satisfaction. But they were all fleeting. And as his heartbeat slowed and his breathing returned to normal Leo had the disquieting sense that he, not Helena, was the one laid bare by their lovemaking.
CHAPTER NINE
THE TINY TRATTORIA tucked down a cobbled lane a few blocks from Leo’s building was not what Helena had expected when, after a steamy afternoon in bed, he had declared they would go out to eat. From the moment the owner had greeted them with a broad smile and a back-slap for Leo, then ushered them into a cosy booth, however, everything about the place had charmed her.
She chased down her last bite of crispy Roman pizza with a large sip of Chianti. ‘You were right.’ She wiped the corners of her mouth with a red-and-white-checked napkin. ‘That is quite possibly the best pizza in the world.’
He smiled, and her heart missed a beat even though she tried to be unaffected. Tried to wedge a solid wall between her head and her heart. Sitting here sharing a casual meal felt too...ordinary—and nothing about their contrived relationship or the things she had told him this afternoon was ordinary. Letting a few hours of phenomenal sex, a little easy talk over pizza and a disarming grin convince her otherwise was naive...and yet there was no harm in relaxing for a bit, surely?
She sipped her wine, savoured the intense flavour of ripe cherries on her tongue. She was pleasantly full, but the warm, contented feeling inside her wasn’t only thanks to good food and wine. It was a carryover from earlier, when Leo had held her in his arms. When he’d listened to her talk about things she’d never talked about with anyone and made her feel safer, more secure, than she ever had in her life.
‘You seem to know the owner well,’ she remarked. ‘Are you a regular?’
He leaned back, extended his long jean-clad legs under the table. ‘I worked here as a delivery boy during my first few semesters at university—one of three jobs that supported us while I studied.’
She couldn’t hide her surprise. The man who ran a multi-million-dollar global business had delivered pizzas?
‘Us?’ she said.
‘Marietta and me. My father was still alive then, but he was drunk most days and the people he mixed with were undesirable. My sister needed a better environment, so as soon as I could afford the rent I took her with me to a bedsit in a safer neighbourhood. It was cramped, but clean—and secure.’
Helena frowned. ‘Your father was an alcoholic?’
‘He turned to drink after my mother’s death. He never got over her loss.’
Sympathy bloomed. Leo and his sister had had such a traumatic childhood and then, as if they hadn’t dealt with enough, Marietta’s paralysing accident had happened. By contrast Helena’s childhood, though far from perfect, had at least afforded material comforts, her father’s wealth ensuring she’d wanted for nothing except the one thing money couldn’t buy. The one thing she’d constantly craved as a child. His love.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I can’t imagine the hardships you and your sister endured.’
He shrugged. ‘We survived.’
She twirled the stem of her wineglass. They’d survived because Leo had made sacrifices, worked hard to keep his sister safe and create a better life for them both. Leo didn’t trust or forgive easily, but he looked after his own. It was a quality in a man impossible not to admire.
‘Does Marietta live in Rome?’
‘Si. She has her own apartment and she’s largely independent—both at home and at work.’
‘What does she do?’
‘She’s curator at a contemporary art gallery—and an artist in her own right. She recently had her first exhibition.’ His voice resonated with pride. ‘The landscape in my entry hall is her work.’
Helena’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Wow! I was admiring that just this morning. It’s fabulous.’
‘The accident quashed her ambition for a time, but with encouragement from her physical therapist she resumed painting a few years ago.’
‘It would have been a shame if she hadn’t. Talent like that shouldn’t be wasted.’
‘No,’ he agreed, watching her intently. ‘It shouldn’t.’
Something in his tone made Helena’s hand still on her glass. He wasn’t talking about his sister now and they both knew it. She dropped her gaze, a flicker of unease chasing the warmth from her insides. She couldn’t let the conversation go down this road. Couldn’t explain the real reason she’d abandoned her textile design degree.
Desperately she cast around for a diversion, but only one sure-fire tactic sprang to mind.
Stifling a twinge of guilt, she reached under the table and slipped her palm over one muscle-packed thigh. ‘So, are we staying for dessert.
..?’ She glided her hand higher until, under cover of the table, she found the impressive bulge in his snug-fitting jeans. ‘Or should we indulge at home?’
She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and watched his pupils dilate, his throat muscles work around a deep, convulsive swallow.
He clamped his hand over her wandering fingers and leaned close, eyes glittering darkly. His voice, when he spoke, was a low, sexy rumble. ‘You, tesoro mio, are insatiable.’
A breathless little laugh escaped her. The flash of raw hunger in his gaze—the knowledge that he wanted her even now, after hours of lovemaking—was a potent aphrodisiac in her blood.
Keeping pace with him on the walk back proved a challenge. By the time they tumbled through the front door of his apartment—hot, gasping for breath—his roving hands had already driven her mindless with need. He toed the door shut, backed her up against the hallway wall. For a long moment they stood panting, gazes locked, the heat of desire a living, pulsing thing in the air around them. Then his head came down, and his possession of her mouth was swift, almost brutal.
Helena’s body responded with a powerful throb and she wrapped her arms around his neck, hungry for the crush of his mouth, the hot slide of his tongue against hers.
Lord.
He was right.
Her need for him was insatiable. Beyond her control.
Somehow they reached his bedroom, a haphazard trail of shoes, clothes and undergarments strewn in their wake. And then he was sheathed and inside her, filling her to the hilt with the hard, powerful thrusts of his possession.
Taking her to a place where there was only him.
Only her.
Only pleasure.
And then, too quickly, she was climaxing, her body arching wildly under him, multiple waves of pleasure radiating from her core as her internal muscles milked his simultaneous release. Her orgasm was so swift, the sensations flooding her so intense, she had to bury her face in his neck and hold back a sob of some inexplicable emotion as he rolled onto his side and cradled her into his chest.
When, a short while later, he carried her into his massive marble shower and started soaping the sweat from their bodies, she didn’t have the energy to talk or move. She simply closed her eyes, clung to his wide shoulders and let the hot soapy water and his gentle touch prolong her bliss.
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