Deserving of His Diamonds?

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He pulled her roughly up against him, his expression hard and bitter and thunderously angry. ‘Then I’d better get my money’s worth while I can, hadn’t I?’ And then his mouth crashed down on hers.

  It was a blistering kiss, no hint of softness about it. Gisele felt its impact from the top of her prickling scalp to her toes curling into the carpet at her feet for purchase. His lips ground against hers with bruising force, making a dam inside her break its bounds. She kissed him back with all the fury that was inside her. She felt the demand of his tongue at the seam of her mouth and didn’t hesitate in allowing him in. She wanted him in.

  She wanted to duel with him until they were both breathless with need. She wanted to taste him, to savour that essential maleness that had always sent ripples of delight through her body.

  She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to remind him of what he had thrown away. She used her teeth, and not just little nippy bites either. She bit down on his lower lip and held on like a tigress with a prized piece of prey.

  He bit her back, the alpha-male-taming-his-mate action sending a rapid blast of heat straight to her core. She tasted blood and wasn’t sure if it was his or her own. She felt the rough graze of his stubbly jaw against her face as he changed position. His hands were clutching her head, his fingers buried deep in her hair, holding her captive to his sensual assault.

  Gisele’s hands moved up from lying flat against his chest to rediscovering the thick silkiness of his hair. He shifted against her urgently, his body so thick and full she felt her body quiver in reaction. Raw need clawed at her, an ache that was so tight and ravenous it burned inside her.

  She wanted him.

  She wanted him even though she hated him. She wanted the savage thrust of his possession to make her feel alive again. Oh, dear God, please make her feel alive again …

  Emilio suddenly pulled away from her, his hands dropping from her as if she were a carrier of some deadly disease. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, grimacing as he saw a smear of blood. ‘Is that yours or mine?’ he asked.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Gisele asked with an arch look.

  ‘Actually it does,’ he said, frowning darkly. ‘I didn’t intend to hurt you.’

  She challenged him with her gaze as she touched a finger to where her bottom lip had borne the brunt of his kiss. ‘Didn’t you?’

  He took a clean folded handkerchief out of his pocket and stepped back into her body space, lifting her chin as he gently held the cool cotton against her lip. His eyes were unfathomable coal-black pools as they held hers. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way between us, Gisele,’ he said in a husky tone.

  She took the handkerchief from him and moved away, turning her back on him. ‘It’s not going to work, you know,’ she said. ‘Nothing is going to change my mind. I will never forgive you.’

  She heard the rustle of his clothes as he moved. Then she felt his hands come down on the tops of her shoulders and her whole body shivered in reaction. She closed her eyes, summoning her resolve. Where was it? What was happening to her that she wanted to turn around and melt into the warm protection of his broad chest? ‘Don’t …’ she said, squeezing her eyes even tighter.

  ‘Don’t what?’ he asked.

  ‘You know what,’ she said, suppressing a sigh of delight when his fingers began to massage the tightly knotted muscles of her neck and shoulders. If he was running true to form, any minute now he would slip the wrap from one of her shoulders and press his warm lips to her needy flesh. God help her if he did. She would have no power left in her to resist him.

  ‘You want me, Gisele.’ His still-aroused body brushed against hers from behind.

  ‘You think.’

  ‘I know.’

  She turned and glared at him hotly. ‘I want this month to be over so I can finally be free of you.’

  His eyes roved her face, looking for what, she wasn’t quite sure. She schooled her features into cool indifference, her version of it anyway. ‘You should go to bed,’ he said, brushing his thumb ever so gently against her bottom lip. ‘It’s a long flight tomorrow, even when travelling First Class.’

  ‘What?’ she said with a mocking look. ‘No private jet any more?’

  His expression remained inscrutable. ‘Owning a private jet is no longer my measure of a successful person,’ he said. ‘I have other things I would rather spend my money on.’

  ‘Such as?’

  His hand dropped from her face as he stepped back from her. ‘Good night,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘It is morning,’ she said, just to be pedantic and annoying, but it was a wasted effort on her part as he had already left the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OF COURSE she didn’t sleep. Not even the chemical cocktail the doctor had prescribed to help dull the nightmares about Lily had any effect on her tonight. Gisele tossed and turned and watched as the clock went round, her mind racing with thoughts of Emilio and the month ahead and how on earth she was going to get through it.

  In the end she gave up. She padded over to her suitcase and took out Lily’s blanket and cradled it against her chest as if her tiny baby were still alive and breathing, wrapped inside it. Tears rolled down her cheeks unchecked. How many nights had she spent doing exactly this? When was this searing pain ever going to ease?

  She must have dozed off for she suddenly heard the rap of Emilio’s knuckles on her door. ‘Time to get up, Gisele,’ he said. ‘It’s 7:00 a.m.’

  ‘I’m awake,’ she called out as she struggled upright off the bed. She put Lily’s blanket safely back in her suitcase before heading for the shower.

  Emilio was pouring himself a cup of coffee when Gisele came in. She had a stoic look about her as if she were being led to the gallows and was determined not to beg for last-minute mercy. ‘Sleep OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Out like a light.’

  He doubted it. She had damson-coloured shadows under her eyes and her face was deathly pale. ‘You should have something to eat,’ he said, waving a hand towards the food he’d had delivered to the suite.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  He drew in a breath. ‘You think by going on a hunger strike that it’s going to help things?’

  She shot him a glare. ‘I’m not on a hunger strike. I’m just not hungry.’

  ‘You’re never hungry,’ he snapped at her in annoyance. ‘It’s not normal. You need food. You’ll fade away to nothing if you don’t eat.’

  ‘What would you care?’ she asked. ‘Your last girlfriend was much thinner than me. It was a swimwear model you were dating last month, wasn’t it? Or have I got her mixed up with that London socialite with the big boobs?’ She tapped a finger against the side of her mouth as if trying to prod her memory. ‘What was her name again? Arabella? Amanda? Ariel?’

  Emilio ground his teeth as he pulled out a chair for her. ‘Sit.’

  She gave him a castigating look. ‘You know you could have saved yourself a heap of money by buying a dog to obey your commands.’

  ‘I thought it would be much more fun training you,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Now, sit and eat.’

  She sat with a toss of her head. ‘At least I don’t pee on the carpet,’ she said.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ he muttered.

  She picked up a rasher of bacon and dropped it on her plate. ‘So did you sleep?’ she asked. ‘You don’t look like it. You look like hell.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She stabbed the bacon with her fork. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Emilio watched her as she nibbled at the bacon. Her small white teeth and those luscious lips of hers had kept him awake for what had been left of last night. He tore his gaze away and refilled his coffee cup. ‘Do you want coffee or tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Tea,’ she said and, rolling her eyes, added, ‘Sorry for being so un-Italian.’

  ‘You’re not sorry at all,’ he said, putting a steaming cup of tea in front of her. ‘Do you wa
nt milk or sugar?’

  She raised her brows at him. ‘You don’t remember how I take my tea?’ she asked. ‘Or have there been so many women since me you’re getting us all a little mixed up?’

  Emilio pressed his lips together. He wasn’t proud of how many women there had been. It was just like her to twist the knife as much as she could. ‘You take it black with one sugar,’ he said.

  She pressed her finger to the table and made a buzzing noise like that on a game show. ‘Wrong answer.’

  He frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  She gave him a look. ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’

  ‘So when did you give up the sugar?’ he asked.

  ‘I did that when I was …’ She stopped and dropped her gaze to her plate.

  ‘When you were?’ he prompted.

  She pushed back from the table. ‘I have to get my things together,’ she said. ‘I haven’t packed.’

  ‘You haven’t unpacked,’ he pointed out wryly.

  ‘I have to do my … my hair,’ she said, ruffling it with one of her hands. ‘It’s a mess.’

  ‘It looked perfectly fine until you just did that,’ he said.

  ‘I have to do my make-up.’

  ‘You’re wearing make-up,’ he said.

  She bit her lip and then winced and put her fingers up to her mouth.

  Emilio felt his gut clench. ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked.

  Her eyes fell away from his. ‘I’ve felt worse pain.’

  A little silence passed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said heavily.

  ‘For what?’ she asked, shooting him another cut glass look. ‘Buying me back into your life or throwing me out of it in the first place?’

  Emilio held her brittle gaze for a lengthy moment. ‘I have already told you I’m not proud of how I handled things back then. This is my chance to make it up to you.’ He let out a rough-edged sigh. ‘It must have been terrible for you the night I asked you to leave.’

  ‘It wasn’t a highlight of my time in Italy, that’s for sure,’ she said, affecting a couldn’t-care-less pose. ‘But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?’

  Emilio swept his gaze over her thin frame. ‘You don’t look stronger, cara,’ he said softly. ‘You act it but you don’t look it.’

  She seemed to be actively avoiding his eyes. ‘I’d really prefer it if you didn’t call me that,’ she said.

  ‘I always called you that in the past.’

  ‘This is not the past,’ she said tightly. ‘This is now. It’s different now.’

  ‘Not so different,’ he said. ‘We are together again.’

  She flashed him a defiant glare. ‘Only for a month.’

  He picked up his coffee and took a sip before he responded. ‘Maybe you’ll like it so much you’ll change your mind and stay.’

  ‘And do what?’ she asked. ‘Hang off your arm and your every word like some besotted bimbo with no mind of her own? No, thanks. I’ve grown up. I want more for my life than to be a rich man’s plaything.’

  Emilio buttoned down his anger with an effort. ‘You were going to be my wife, not my plaything,’ he said.

  Her eyes clashed with his. ‘Why did you ask me to marry you, Emilio?’ she asked. ‘Why not one of the many other women you’d been involved with before me? Why was I so special?’

  He put his coffee cup down with a little thwack. ‘I think you already know the answer to that, Gisele.’

  ‘It was because I was a virgin, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘What a novelty in this day and age to have a woman no one else had ever had. I was a perfect candidate as your future wife. I was perfect until that scandal broke and then suddenly I wasn’t worth anything to you. I was soiled. Used goods. Imperfect. And there’s nothing you like less than imperfection, is there?’

  Emilio pushed himself away from the counter, the set to his mouth grim. ‘We need to leave in less than an hour,’ he said. ‘I hope I don’t need to remind you that your behaviour towards me will be under intense scrutiny as soon as we leave the privacy of this hotel. I will not tolerate your insults or your childish attempts to pick a fight in front of any member of my staff, or the press, or indeed the public. If you want to have a showdown with me, then at least have the decency and poise to keep a lid on it until we are alone.’

  Gisele looked at him in alarm. ‘You don’t expect me to act as if I’m still in love with you, do you?’

  He gave her a look that would have sliced through steel. ‘That’s exactly what I expect,’ he said. ‘We’re meant to be trying to resurrect our relationship.’

  She felt her stomach shift uneasily. ‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I can’t pretend to feel something I no longer feel.’

  ‘You will have to,’ he said implacably. ‘I’m not paying two million dollars for you to look daggers at me while the whole world looks on. If you can’t meet the terms, then tell me now and I’ll tear up the agreement. It’s up to you.’

  Gisele hesitated, caught between wanting to walk away and wanting to prove something to him and to herself. Could she do it? Could she act the role she had played for real with such embarrassing enthusiasm in the past? It was just a month. Four weeks of playing for the press. In private she could be herself. She could hate him a thousandfold and no one would be the wiser. ‘All right,’ she said, mentally crossing her fingers that she was doing the right thing. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Thankfully, the Australian press had not been present when Gisele and Emilio left the hotel for their flight. But it was a completely different story when they landed in the Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome. As soon as they stepped through Customs the paparazzi swarmed like bees. Gisele felt under siege as it brought back horrible reminders of the time when the scandal had broken. The camera flashes made her flinch, and her heart was racing so much she felt as if she was going to faint.

  She had pretended to sleep on the plane rather than try and make polite conversation with Emilio, but it was all catching up with her now. She felt tired and sick and way too much out of her depth to cope with the barrage of comments firing like machine gun bullets at her. She had always found the intrusion of the press rather daunting from the moment she became involved with Emilio. She had felt as if she was under scrutiny all the time. The speculation on what she wore, how she looked or whether she was smiling or frowning was something she had never got used to. Rumours about their relationship would appear from time to time, which Emilio had laughed off, but Gisele—although she had pretended otherwise—had been distressed by the lack of privacy.

  Emilio spoke in Italian, asking the press to keep back to give Gisele some room. His arm came around her protectively, and if it hadn’t been for their terse exchange before they left the hotel, Gisele would have been tempted to believe he truly cared about her welfare rather than his reputation.

  ‘Signor Andreoni—’ a journalist pushed through the cluster of cameras with a microphone ‘—does this mean you and Signorina Carter will be getting married as soon as possible?’

  ‘We are enjoying some time together before we make any firm plans,’ Emilio answered.

  Gisele had learnt a bit of Italian while she had lived with Emilio but it wasn’t enough to follow every rapidly spoken word, although she did hear the word matrimonio—marriage. What exactly was he telling the press?

  ‘Signorina Carter?’ The same journalist turned the microphone in Gisele’s direction but this time spoke in English. ‘Is it good to be back with Signor Andreoni?’

  Gisele stumbled over her reply. ‘Urn … I’m very happy …’

  ‘It has been two years since your very public break-up,’ the journalist continued. ‘You must be feeling very relieved the truth has finally come out about who exactly it was in that sex tape.’

  Gisele felt uncomfortable talking about her sister’s private life. Sienna had seemed reluctant to go into any details other than to say the press had blown it up to be much more than it actually was. Gisele suspected that ignominious inc
ident had been devastating for her twin, although Sienna pretended otherwise. ‘I’m happy that I’ve found my sister,’ she said. ‘That’s been the most important outcome of such a difficult time.’

  ‘Is your twin sister planning on spending some time with you now that you are going to be living in Italy?’ another journalist asked.

  ‘I’m not planning on stay—’

  Emilio cut Gisele off. ‘We are both looking forward to spending time with Sienna Baker. Now, if you will excuse us, we have to get moving.’

  ‘Signorina Carter, one more question …’ Yet another journalist rushed after them.

  ‘Basta,’ Emilio said and then repeated it in English. ‘That’s enough.’

  He spirited her away to the waiting car, physically blocking the swarm of press as she got in. ‘Remember what I said earlier about what you do and say to me in public,’ he said.

  Gisele caught the driver’s watchful eye in the rear-view mirror. A glass partition separated her and Emilio from the front of the car but it was hardly what one would call being in private. She forced herself to sit with a relaxed pose beside Emilio even though she wished she had the courage to thrust open the door and throw herself out of his life, both literally and figuratively.

  She drew in a sharp little breath as she looked out at the scenery passing by. The Colosseum suddenly appeared and a tight ache settled in her chest. She could still remember the excitement of her first trip to Italy after she had met Emilio while she was doing a needlework course at the London School of Embroidery. They had met at an art exhibition she had been invited to by one of the girls she had met doing her course, whose boyfriend couldn’t make it at the last minute. Gisele had been in two minds whether or not to attend but in the end had decided to go so that her new friend wouldn’t have to go alone. Within minutes of walking into the small privately owned gallery she had met Emilio’s gaze from across the room. She could still recall the way her heart had fluttered in her chest as he moved through the knot of people to get to her. He had been head and shoulders above all the other men, not just in stature, but also in looks and in his proud, almost aristocratic bearing. She had thought he must be Italian royalty at the very least, and why he should single her out was beyond her comprehension. But single her out he had, and within a week she had been swept off her feet and totally, blissfully in love.