by Julia James
He held out a hand. ‘So please, will you come back with me?’
Alicia looked at his hand and then back at the queue snaking behind her. She knew if she’d ever had a chance of leaving, this was it. She looked at him briefly. ‘I know I agreed to come and be … with you for the conference … but …’ Her mind seized up, the awful reality was that she couldn’t even contemplate walking away.
Dante could see the struggle on her face, in her eyes. If she turned and walked away now. But at that moment he felt her small hand creep into his palm and he closed his tight around it, relief shocking him as it surged through him. Before she could change her mind, he pulled her outside and into the car.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AS HE drove back into the city Alicia tried to take in everything that had just happened. She could feel him looking at her.
‘When you said Raul Carro had been the cause of you going to Africa … you meant to get away from him?’
Alicia nodded. ‘It was so horrific. His poor wife … I still feel awful about it. I always will.’
‘But you didn’t know.’
‘It doesn’t matter; it feels even worse, he was such an operator. In a way, I’m actually glad Serena called his wife. She had to know, and he had to be found out.’
‘But he was in Africa?’
‘Yes, but not till the end. He came just days before I left.’ Disgust made her voice tight. ‘He barely recognized me and I could see already that he was making the move on various nurses.’
‘Do you still love him?’ Dante didn’t know why he’d asked the question or why his hands tightened on the steering wheel as he waited for Alicia’s answer. He glanced at her but she was looking straight ahead; she seemed to be locked in another place. He wanted to reach out and turn her face to him so that he could see her eyes—and read what? he asked himself angrily.
After a long moment she said, ‘No. And I don’t think I ever did, to be honest.’ Not now that I know what real love feels like … and it’s a million times more scary … Alicia felt as though she stood on moving tectonic plates—one false move and she’d disappear down into a crack for ever.
Dante’s hands tensed on the wheel again as another wave of relief flowed through him. When he’d found her gone and the note in the room, his insides had seized with panic. At the thought that she could just disappear like that, out of his life, gone. It had made him feel out of control. And that was before Derek had found him and told him what he’d found out. Which had made him feel even more out of control.
He flicked the woman beside him a glance. She was still here. And, he told himself, that was all that mattered because he needed her to maintain this precious respectability, which was now restored. When you’ve never let it bother you before? He shut out the voice and concentrated on the traffic.
That night they sat out on the balcony of their suite and shared an after dinner liqueur. Alicia felt very much as if they’d turned a corner, but to go where? Dante had apologized for judging her wrongly but she couldn’t really blame him in the first place as she hadn’t defended herself, not seeing the point. And, now that she had stayed, she felt as if her heart were visibly beating on her sleeve, plain for all to see.
‘What are you thinking about?’
Alicia blushed and choked slightly on her drink. She could just imagine the look on his face if she told him. Instead she shrugged. ‘Nothing in particular.’ She felt him turn more fully towards her and found herself tensing slightly.
‘Did you go to Africa to punish yourself?’
She jerked her head to look at him, eyes widening. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
His face was dark, unreadable and she felt naked, extremely vulnerable.
‘I was just wondering if part of your motivation for going there was in some way a reaction to what had happened.’
Alicia looked away from him again, out to the inky, starry darkness. Her mind whirled. She’d never thought of it like that, but had she chosen to go there as some sort of penance? At times, it certainly had felt like a punishment of sorts. She could feel him looking at her intently and desperately wanted his penetrating mind and gaze off her.
She shrugged slightly. ‘It certainly played a part in my reasons for going … but I hadn’t thought about it too much, to be honest.’ And for him to be the one to assess the psychology behind her reasons? Again, her head swirled and she felt unbelievably vulnerable. She took more than a sip from her drink and then turned to him, seizing on the first thing that came to mind to take his attention from her.
‘Will you tell me something about yourself …? It just feels a little funny … not really knowing anything about you.’ She’d been about to add on, After all, you’re going to be my niece or nephew’s uncle, but stopped herself in time, not wanting to open that can of worms.
He looked at her darkly. ‘What do you want to know?’
She shrugged, relieved that they’d moved off the subject of her. ‘I don’t know. How did you get to where you are now if you came from the streets … and what about your parents …?’
She held her breath. He looked away from her and she could see his jaw clench. When he spoke it was flat and emotionless, it made something go cold inside Alicia, because she recognized that it hid huge pain.
‘When my brother was one and I was six, my mother left us. My father had taken off long before that to God knows where, and Paolo’s father was another wastrel. We were taken into an orphanage but it closed down a few years later due to lack of funds. So we lived on the streets and carved a niche for ourselves there.’
‘You and your brother?’
He nodded.
‘How old were you then?’
‘Thirteen, fourteen.’
He was silent for so long then that Alicia thought he’d had enough and she opened her mouth to speak but then he said, ‘One day a man saw me doing some labour, helping to build a house. He called me over and offered me a job there and then.’ He glanced at her briefly. ‘I said I could only take it if I could bring my brother with me.’
‘But Paolo …’
‘Paolo was about nine then and running around getting into trouble.’
‘This man, Stefano Arrigi, took us in. He mentored me.’ He shrugged. ‘Said he saw something in me that he’d never seen in anyone else, and I worked hard. He had no family. When he died I was twenty-one and he left his small construction business to me.’
‘And now the business is known all over the world …’
He nodded again with no apparent pride. Just quiet modesty.
Alicia’s heart ached for the young man he’d been. She understood because she too had suffered a similar fate, albeit not ending up on the streets, thank goodness. But somehow she knew that he wouldn’t appreciate her baring her soul, and she still felt far too vulnerable to reveal any more about herself. But it gave her an insight into his complex character and when he stood to lead her inside, clearly done with talking, she knew that, despite her best efforts, she had just fallen even harder in love with him.
When they returned to their suite the following Sunday evening from a group wine tasting trip to the beautifully leafy area of Stellenbosch, Alicia picked up a piece of paper that gave the details of a medical unit that was going to be in the hotel for the rest of the conference. She looked at him warily. ‘What’s this about?’
Dante stood apart from her, arms folded. ‘While I thought you were off sightseeing all last week, I found out from Patricia that you were acting as an impromptu Florence Nightingale …’
He seemed almost angry. And Alicia had no idea why. It seemed like, no matter what she did, she’d end up annoying him somehow. They’d shared a comparative truce for the rest of the week but all weekend he’d been dark and brooding.
‘You don’t have to go to the expense of this. I don’t mind looking after the odd child with sunburn or someone with a tummy upset—’
He lifted a hand and ticked off fingers. ‘Or a child with
a sprained ankle, or a man who can’t sleep, or the receptionist with cramps, or—’
‘OK, OK, stop.’ She held up her hands, aghast that he knew this. ‘If I’d known you’d mind so much I wouldn’t have offered to help.’
Dante’s head whirled with the way the whole anatomy of this relationship—this situation, he corrected angrily—had changed utterly. Alicia had endeared herself not only to his close friends, the O’Briens, but to everyone else too, it seemed. Buchanen’s wife, who had arrived towards the end of last week, was in raptures over the fact that she and Alicia shared the vocation of nursing. He couldn’t move for people stopping him and telling him how great she was, how sweet she was, how kind she was.
And it was killing him. Because he knew what she was. The facts were stark. Until that baby was born, the jury was out on Alicia and Melanie Parker. And he would be the biggest prize fool to forget it. Because he knew he was in danger of succumbing, believing in the myth. He’d seen the myth before and it had revealed a very ugly truth. This was when he had to be most vigilant.
He could cope with the fact that Alicia was what she was because he was equipped to deal with a woman like her. But he was angry with her dogged persistence in maintaining this. façade. He forced himself to cool down. Years before, it had affected him, but not any more. He was in control now. No matter what happened. All he was interested in was sating his physical hunger, which burned through him like a bushfire.
He strolled towards her and tipped her chin up. ‘Oh, I don’t mind, Alicia. I just don’t like sharing you around … that’s all.’
His possessiveness should have excited her but it didn’t, because the dark coldness in his eyes hinted at an emotion that began and ended with physical desire. He didn’t want her to stop because he cared about her … foolish girl.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes as he claimed her mouth and the familiar sensations washed through her body. Nothing had changed. He still didn’t trust her, he still thought that she and Melanie had concocted some plan to extort money … and after the end of next week she would be gone, back home.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘I WANT you to come back to Italy and stay with me in Rome.’
Alicia felt dizzy when Dante said the words. They were so far removed from what she would have expected to hear.
And lying on her back, naked, with Dante propped up on one arm beside her, also naked and visibly aroused, was not the best place to be when he said that.
It was the end of the second week. The following evening they were due to fly back to Europe from Cape Town. The negotiations were over and they had been a great success. Buchanen had signed the contracts in a big press conference along with Derek and Dante just yesterday. Work was due to start on the sports stadium within the next year.
That morning they’d travelled down to a luxurious hideaway hotel in a small town called Arniston Bay on the stunningly picturesque Garden Route. Alicia hadn’t questioned Dante’s impetuous decision, made when one of the South African staff in the hotel had offered to fly them down there on the tiny private hotel jet.
She’d grabbed at the chance to be alone with him. And all day Alicia had existed in a haze of self-deluded, fuzzy fantasy. She and Dante had explored the white, white sands and rolling dunes and had swum in the dark blue sea.
And now he was asking her to stay on, to come back and keep indulging in the dream? Her head said, That way lies madness and pain, but her heart just said, Go.
‘But …’ she struggled to try and make sense of what he was saying ‘… why would you want that?’
‘Because what we have is good …’ Here he ran a hand up over her belly to cup her breast.
Immediately it tightened and her breathing changed. She pulled his hand down. ‘But—’
‘I’m not ready to let you go,’ he cut in arrogantly and placed his hand back on her breast, his fingers trapping her nipple now and making her eyes close as she bit back a moan. She trapped his hand with hers, but that just made it feel even more erotic, with her hand on his over her breast. She took it away again quickly.
‘Dante, I’m not some kind of pet. You can’t keep me.’
‘And can you really tell me that you’re ready to leave, to walk away from this …?’
He moved on to his back and pulled her up over him in one fluid movement so that she straddled him. He spread her legs around him with his big hands. She could feel his erection and bit her lip.
No, she wasn’t ready to leave him … She loved him, like a fool.
Abruptly he moved again, sitting up and, taking Alicia with him, he lifted her slightly before lowering her back down on to his rigid shaft. She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her breasts were crushed against him, her legs wrapped tight around his waist, ankles locked behind him and as he moved and surged within her she looked deep into his eyes as they both crested the wave. It was this intense, this amazing, every single time. And he was right—she couldn’t walk away.
Breathing jaggedly in the aftermath, sweat on her brow, her limbs shaking, Dante pressed a kiss to her damp neck and asked again, ‘So … what’s it to be?’
Two Months Later …
A smile of pure masculine satisfaction curved Dante’s mouth as he walked into his apartment in the centre of Rome. He could hear the shower running and was already imagining Alicia, twisting and turning under the spray, hair in long tendrils down her back.
He shed his clothes with indecent haste and his smile got bigger as he walked confidently to the door of the bathroom. His desire was as strong as ever, if not even more urgent. He opened the door and saw the small figure through the steam, hands held high washing her hair, lifting her breasts. He stepped in and she jumped in fright.
‘Dante!’
‘Si … cara. Here, let me do that …’
She let him turn her so that he could run his hands around her front to cup her soapy breasts. He smiled again against her skin and when he pressed close, letting her feel his erection and a shudder ran through her, he knew that he’d made the right decision in making Alicia his mistress. Life was good.
Later, Alicia looked at Dante across the dinner table in the apartment. With each day that went by she was falling deeper and deeper into a dark hole that threatened to engulf her utterly. For the past two months she’d been playing a role—the role of his mistress. A fool’s role. Perfectly compliant, by his side for every occasion and always a smile on her face hiding the fact that, inside, she didn’t even know how her heart kept on beating.
He was as astoundingly gorgeous as ever. Even more so. He’d let his hair grow a little, which had softened his features. She sighed and played with her wineglass, having to take her eyes away because it simply hurt to look at him.
He reached across and took her hand, turning it palm up. She steeled herself and looked at him as blandly as she could. ‘There’s a function on this Sunday night for my charity in Milan … and on Saturday we have the annual Lake Como water sports competition for the kids. You will come?’
As if she had a choice … She could have laughed. What might she say? Actually, no, I want to stay here in Rome in this cool and sterile apartment, alone.
She forced a smile. ‘Of course, that would be lovely.’
He smiled too and it made her chest tight. No words of affection, no words of tenderness or love. And Alicia wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer, because she knew that the only reason she’d come at all, had even agreed to this arrangement, was because she had stupidly dreamt that perhaps, with a bit of time to get to know each other, Dante would come to feel something for her. Instead, she’d come to realize that he felt nothing for anybody. His brother, maybe. But that was it.
The awful thing was, she couldn’t fault him. He was attentive, considerate, generous to a fault … and, as for the bedroom. When he’d surprised her in the shower earlier, it had scared her how much her body still craved his … needed his. Even after this period of time. No, she
thought firmly to herself, she would have to be strong, would have to walk away … soon … as soon as she had the strength.
That Saturday, Dante drove them in a Jeep to the part of the lake which was the water sports centre. They’d arrived at the villa last night from Milan and Alicia had been delighted to see Julieta again, and even had a few words of Italian to try out this time—she’d been taking classes in Rome. The weather was unusually warm for October. In jeans and a T-shirt with a light fleece top, Alicia was relieved to have been able to get some clothes more suited to her own naturally casual style.
When they arrived about a hundred children ranging from three years old to seventeen, stood milling around near the pontoons. And as soon as they saw the Jeep a huge cheer went up. Alicia couldn’t believe it when Dante stopped and got out; they all rushed forward to greet him, some of the younger ones already tugging at his hands and pulling him forwards. She was so stunned that she nearly fell out of the jeep. He looked back at her and smiled ruefully before he was swallowed in the crush. Alicia had never seen him look so boyish … or happy.
A young woman with a pleasant smile approached her. ‘You must be Alicia.’
She nodded and smiled.
‘I’m Maria, the manager of the orphanage.’ She gestured to the kids. ‘They’ve been so excited for weeks now; this trip is one of the most popular every year.’
‘You mean there are others?’
Maria nodded. ‘Oh, yes, we have several, here and in Milano—all over Italy, actually. Water sports, activity centres, horse-riding … you name it.’
Alicia just shook her head, thoroughly bemused now to see Dante and several other instructors in wetsuits striding around and organizing the kids.
‘Come on, I’ll show you where you can sit and watch.’
Alicia followed Maria to a seating area that had a set of bleachers and they sat down. She explained to Alicia that the young adults were all ex-members of the orphanage and street centre who took time to come back and help out.