Uncovering the Silveri Secret

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘I do love him,’ she said.

  He gave a mocking grunt. ‘And yet you just had sex with me.’

  ‘It was just sex,’ she said. ‘It’s just a physical thing. It means nothing.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.

  Bella wanted to believe it. She needed to believe it. ‘I should never have slept with you,’ she said. ‘It was a mistake. I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘No, maybe not, but you were feeling,’ he said, pulling her closer, right up against his naked body. ‘Like you’re doing now. Can you feel what you do to me, Bella? What we do to each other?’

  Bella could and it sent a wave of hot, pulsing longing through her. His erection was pressed against her thigh. She felt her feminine core tingling in anticipation, the nerve-endings still sensitised from their passionate coupling earlier.

  His mouth came down and covered hers and in a heartbeat she was lost. Her arms snaked around him, holding him as close as she possibly could. She wanted to crawl inside his skin, to melt into him so that her body didn’t ache with this maddeningly feverish want.

  Her hands delved into his hair, her fingers threading through the thick black strands. She breathed in the scent of him, that erotic mix of his maleness with the delicate overlay of her perfume and body musk.

  His hands slid down to the curve of her back and pressed her hard against him. Bella felt the potent power of him like an electric current through her body. All of her senses were screaming for his possession—it was a raw hunger that could not be satiated any other way.

  She took him in her hand, stroking him, relishing the satiny feel of his skin, delighting in the iron-strong length of him. She loved hearing those deep, unmistakably male noises he made in the back of his throat—guttural groans that had a distinctly primal quality to them. She loved the way his mouth moved with such heated fervour on hers, the way his stubble was so sexily raspy on the soft skin of her face.

  He used his teeth in playful little bites against her lips, tugging and releasing, tantalising her with that little hint of danger in the caress. She bit back with little nips that she followed up with gentle sweeps and flicks of her tongue.

  He walked her backwards, thigh against thigh until the backs of her knees felt the bed. She tumbled backward, all legs and arms and red-hot need. He quickly applied a fresh condom and came down over her, his weight pinning her down, his mouth still locked on hers as his body speared hers in one deliciously vigorous thrust that made the breath hitch in her throat and her bones melt.

  He set a fast pace that made shivers course down her spine and the fine hairs on the back of her neck dance and twitch in response. She felt the contraction of her muscles, all the sensitive nerves twanging as he rocked against her with passionate, heart-stopping urgency.

  ‘You drive me insane, do you know that?’ he said against her kiss-swollen mouth.

  ‘Ditto,’ Bella said, taking another nip at his lower lip.

  He worked his way down her neck. ‘Am I going too fast for you?’

  She angled her head so he could get better access. ‘Can you go faster?’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, pulling back his pace a bit. ‘You’re so tiny compared to me. I feel like I’m crushing you.’

  ‘You’re not,’ she said, urging him on with little hip movements. ‘You feel just right.’

  He kissed her mouth again, lingeringly and tantalisingly. Bella writhed beneath him, her body so wired she felt like she was going to implode. He read her movements as if he had direct access to her thoughts and feelings. He slipped a hand between their bodies and found the swollen nub of nerve-endings that were all shrieking and clamouring for release.

  It was a cataclysmic explosion of feeling. Her whole body quaked with it as if she had been caught in the epicentre of an earthquake. She couldn’t stop from crying out, her breath coming out in jerky little gasps as the aftershocks shuddered through her.

  She was still gasping as he came. She felt every powerful thrust as he emptied himself. She skated her hands down his back, holding him against her, wanting to prolong the deep connection of their bodies. There was something profoundly moving about his total loss of control. Was she deluding herself to think that what they had experienced together was different from anything else he had encountered with previous partners? Was it crazy of her to want to be something to him other than yet another sexual conquest?

  Edoardo eased himself up on his forearms to look at her. ‘You’re frowning,’ he said as he brushed a flyaway strand of hair back off her face. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Bella said, lowering her gaze.

  He smoothed the little crease between her eyebrows with the pad of his finger. ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  She gave him a wry look. ‘So you can read my mind as well as my body, can you?’

  He searched her gaze for a moment. ‘Don’t beat yourself up for giving in to me,’ he said. ‘This was always going to happen—you and me in bed together.’

  ‘Because you wanted to prove a point.’

  ‘I’m not trying to prove anything,’ he said, frowning a little. ‘I just think you need to take a bit more time about your decision. You’re panicking about your future; it’s understandable. You’re about to inherit a fortune. It’s a lot of responsibility for someone so young. You’re looking for someone to help share that responsibility—someone reliable. But I don’t want you to make a mistake that you’ll end up regretting for the rest of your life.’

  ‘Would you approve of anyone I chose to marry?’ she asked.

  He held her gaze for a beat or two before he moved away to get off the bed. ‘I’d better let Fergus out,’ he said.

  Bella frowned as she saw him reach for his trousers on the floor. ‘What’s that on your back?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, shaking out the creases in his trousers and stepping into them. ‘Just a couple of chicken-pox scars.’

  She grabbed at the sheet and draped it around herself as she padded over to him. ‘They look pretty big for chicken-pox scars,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm to stall him. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘Leave it, Bella,’ he said and shrugged off her hold.

  Bella looked up into his inscrutable features.

  ‘Why have you got those little white circles below your tan line?’ she asked. ‘There must be eight or ten at least.’

  It was an aeon before he spoke. A battle seemed to be playing out on his face. She could see the shadows flickering in his eyes as each second passed. The column of his throat looked tight, as if he was having trouble swallowing. His jaw was tightly clenched; she could see the in-and-out movement of a tiny muscle in the centre of his cheek. ‘They’re burns,’ he said.

  ‘Burns?’ She frowned. ‘What sort of burns?’

  ‘Cigarette burns.’

  Bella’s eyes flared in shock. ‘Cigarette burns? But how did you…? Oh, dear God.’ She clapped her hands against her mouth, too horrified even to say the words out loud.

  ‘Clever, wasn’t it?’ Edoardo said with bitterness in each and every word. ‘He was careful to put them where no one would see. He couldn’t get away with blackening my eyes or leaving me visibly bruised. He didn’t want anyone asking tricky questions.’

  Bella felt tears sprouting in her eyes. Her chest ached with the thought of him as a little boy being brutally burnt. What other horrors had he endured? Was that why he never spoke of his past? Was it just too horrible to recall? ‘Your stepfather abused you?’ she asked.

  His mouth flattened to a thin line of bitterness. ‘Only physically,’ he said. ‘He did worse to my mother.’ A muscle twitched in his jaw. ‘He was an absolute bastard to her. I couldn’t do a thing to protect her. He wore her down until she finally gave up on life. She took an overdose. I found her.’

  Bella swallowed as she thought of how awful it must have been for him. To find his mother dead, the one person he thought he could rel
y on gone for ever, leaving him under the care of a madman. How dreadful for a young child to be exposed to such violence. He must have been so terrified, so lost and alone once his mother had died. ‘I’m so sorry…’ she said, blinking back tears. ‘It must have been dreadful for you. I can’t bear to even think about it. How on earth did you survive it?’

  ‘Save your tears,’ he said with a brusqueness that was jarring. ‘I don’t need anyone’s pity.’

  Bella’s stomach churned with anguish as the thoughts came crowding in: a small motherless child with no one but a violent stepfather to take care of him; no loving father to go to for protection; no grandparents or extended family.

  No one.

  No wonder he was so self-reliant. He’d had no one to rely on since he was a little boy. He trusted no one. He needed no one. He loved no one.

  ‘How did you finally get away from him?’ she asked.

  ‘The authorities stepped in when I was ten,’ he said. ‘A teacher at school noticed I was unwell. I hadn’t had food for a week. They sent a social worker around.’

  Her bottom lip trembled as she struggled to control her emotions. ‘I’m so sorry…’

  ‘It’s in the past,’ he said. ‘I want to leave it there.’

  ‘But what about justice?’ she asked. ‘Did your stepfather get arrested for child abuse?’

  ‘He fed the authorities the line that I was a difficult kid,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t control me. I was a rebel—I had conduct disorder, or some such thing. The thing is, I didn’t know how to behave. I was uncontrollable. At times I was like a wild animal. I had so much anger stored up inside, I caused trouble and mayhem wherever I went.’

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault,’ Bella said. ‘The odds were stacked against you. But my father saw through all that to who you are on the inside—to who you had the potential to be.’

  ‘Your father saved my life,’ he said. ‘I was on the road to nowhere when he offered me a home.’

  ‘I think you helped him just as much as he helped you,’ Bella said. ‘You took his mind off the divorce from my mother. Before that he was sliding into a deep depression. You gave him a new focus. He really did see you as a surrogate son.’

  Edoardo let out a jagged sigh. ‘I didn’t tell him about my past,’ he said. ‘I know he would have liked me to. He was very patient. He never pressured me but I just didn’t want to go there.’

  ‘Did he ever see the scars on your back?’ Bella asked.

  ‘No, but other people have.’

  ‘Other people, as in lovers?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, placing his arms through his shirt. ‘But you’re the first who didn’t buy the chicken-pox story.’ He slowly did up the buttons, his eyes still trained on hers. ‘I hope I don’t have to tell you that I would rather this didn’t go public. I’ve spent years of my life trying to forget.’

  She frowned. ‘How could you think I would even think to do such a thing?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time a woman sought revenge when things didn’t go her way,’ he said.

  ‘You have an appalling view of women,’ she said.

  He gave a whatever shrug. ‘Just speaking as I find.’

  Bella bit her lip and looked away. She was just one of many lovers he’d had. Tonight was nothing out of the ordinary. It had rocked her world completely but it was just another encounter for him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She wrapped her arms around her body. ‘Nothing.’

  He came over and placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders. Bella felt his warm hard body behind her. She ached to lean back and give herself up to the pleasure of being in his arms. But hadn’t she already stepped too far over the boundaries? How was she going to get back to her neat, ordered life? Her body would always want him. It wasn’t something she could turn off or on at will. She had made it a whole lot worse by experiencing the sensual delights of his love-making. How would she ever settle for anyone else after him?

  ‘Contrary to what you might think, this was special tonight,’ he said against her hair.

  She turned in his arms and looked up into his blue-green eyes. ‘Do you really mean that?’ she asked.

  He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs moving back and forth in a caressing motion across her cheeks as his eyes made love with hers. ‘Do you have to go back to London straight away?’ he asked.

  Bella felt her heart do a crazy little somersault. ‘What are you saying?’

  He brushed his mouth against hers. ‘Stay with me for a few days.’

  Bella thought of the danger of staying with him. So many dangers—not just the danger of someone finding out about their affair, but the danger of her falling in love with him. Wasn’t she more than halfway there already?

  She linked her arms around his neck and said against his already descending mouth, ‘I’ll stay.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE snow had long melted but Bella kept putting off returning to London. She was aware of the clock ticking on her time with Edoardo. By tacit agreement neither of them mentioned her upcoming engagement. Bella felt as if the girl who was about to become engaged to Julian Bellamy was someone else entirely—nothing to do with her. It was like living a parallel existence. She had compartmentalised her life in such a way as to have it all, or at least to have what she could while she could.

  And Edoardo was what she wanted.

  Since the night he had revealed his past to her, she had started to see him for the sensitive and strong, resilient man he was underneath his cynical façade. He was an intensely private person. She had never met a more private person. He loathed gossip. He didn’t have time for idle chit-chat. He was a man with a strong work ethic; he didn’t believe in people being handed things for free.

  He made Bella see her privileged background quite differently. She didn’t like admitting it, but she had taken so much for granted. She hadn’t thought much about the sacrifices her father had made in order to provide her with an inheritance that was beyond the dreams of most people. She felt incredibly guilty for resenting that her father hadn’t focused all of his attention on her. But Edoardo made her see that her father had been working to provide for her, not for himself. Her father had been stung badly by the divorce from her mother and had spent the rest of his life rebuilding his empire so Bella could have a secure future. Her father had not said the words, but he had shown it in his actions.

  As the week was drawing to a close, Bella went down to the village for supplies and was shocked to see a couple of journalists with cameras at the ready step out of a car as she came out of a shop. She put her head down and turned to go back the other way but within moments they were striding alongside her on the footpath.

  ‘Tell us about your relationship with the reclusive Edoardo Silveri,’ one journalist said as he followed her along the footpath. ‘Is it true you are currently staying with him at Haverton Manor, the house that once was your family home?’

  Bella put her head down and kept walking. She knew from experience it didn’t matter what she said; they would twist it to make it sound like something else entirely.

  ‘A local source told us Mr Silveri was a teenage rebel with a criminal past,’ another journalist said as they came alongside. ‘Would you like to comment on what it’s like to be involved with a bad boy who made good?’

  Bella swung her gaze to the pushy journalist. She could not bear to have Edoardo painted in such a way. ‘He’s not a bad boy,’ she said. ‘He’s never been bad. It’s the people who let him down and hurt him who are bad. They’re the ones who should be exposed and brought to justice.’

  ‘Word has it Mr Silveri would never have made it without considerable help from your father,’ the first journalist said.

  Bella turned to face them. ‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘Edoardo was always going to make it in spite of his background. That’s just the sort of person he is. He’s strong and determined. My father saw those qualities in him and nurtured th
em. He would be very proud of the man Edoardo has become. Now, please leave me alone. I have nothing more to say.’

  Bella pretended to do more shopping until she was sure she wasn’t being followed before she drove back to Haverton Manor. She wondered if she should tell Edoardo about the paparazzi in the village but then decided against it. She didn’t want anything to spoil the rest of the time they had together. It would all too soon draw to a close. She couldn’t stay down here for ever, even though she longed to. But she couldn’t settle for anything less than total commitment. If Edoardo didn’t love her enough to want to spend the rest of his life with her, then she would have to walk away, even though it would break her heart to leave him.

  Bella had only been back at the manor half an hour when she got another call from her mother. She answered it while she was making the bed up with fresh linen in Edoardo’s room. ‘Mum,’ she said tucking the phone between her cheek and her neck as she straightened the covers. ‘I was wondering when you were going to call.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ve been busy sorting out the mess José left me with,’ Claudia said. ‘Speaking of bills, can you lend me a couple more thousand?’

  ‘Lend?’

  ‘Don’t use that tone with me, young lady,’ Claudia said. ‘I’m still your mother, you know.’

  ‘You’re always leaning on me to sort out your finances. Dad gave you a massive settlement after the divorce. What have you done with it all?’

  ‘Oh, well, now, listen to you,’ Claudia said in a la-de-da tone. ‘You’re a fine one to criticise. You haven’t had to work for anything in your life.’

  ‘I know that,’ Bella said. ‘But I’m going to work now. As soon as I get my inheritance, I’m going to set up a trust fund for an orphanage. In the meantime, I’m going to look for work as a volunteer. I want to make a difference in a child’s life, just like Dad did with Edoardo.’

  ‘Your father’s little experiment certainly backfired, didn’t it?’ Claudia said.

  ‘I’m not even going to ask you what you mean by that,’ Bella said.