by Lynne Graham
He brought his hands slowly, caressingly up over the straining thrust of her breasts, their swollen fullness pushing against the smooth cotton of the shirt. As his thumbs brushed and circled over the aching prominence of her nipples, all Daisy’s breath escaped at once. Damp heat surged between her trembling thighs and her legs buckled. Twisting her round, Alessio lifted her against him to bring her down on the bed, locking her mouth urgently beneath his again.
‘You said I was incredible in bed,’ Alessio breathed raggedly, blazing golden eyes holding her entrapped as he sat up and peeled off his shirt. ‘It wasn’t true. We were incredible together…’
As a muscular golden brown expanse of chest highlighted by a triangle of curling black hair filled her vision, Daisy started melting from outside in, languorous weakness enclosing every limb. Alessio leant over her, releasing the buttons on the shirt then spreading the edges apart with deft fingers, to gaze down at the pouting swell of her pale breasts with explicit appreciation.
As their eyes collided again and meshed, Daisy quivered in sensual shock. He lowered his dark head and his mouth engulfed an achingly tender pink nipple, making her jerk and moan in unconscious supplication as her fingers tangled with his hair and then clutched blindly at his shoulders. The sensuous glide of his teeth was followed by the soothing sweep of his tongue. Her breath escaped in torturous bursts, her whole body burning up.
Somewhere irritatingly close a telephone shrilled and she frowned. Alessio cursed with what breath remained to him. Two more rings and a vicious burst of Italian was dragged from him. With the abruptness of violent frustration, he lifted himself away from her and lunged a seeking hand down to retrieve a mobile phone.
Then, unexpectedly, Alessio froze, dark blood highlighting the hard slant of his cheekbones while Daisy watched him in growing fascination.
‘Hi,’ he murmured with surprising warmth. ‘Si… Si… wonderful… terrific… great… Would you like to speak to your mother?’
‘Tara?’ Daisy mouthed, her embarrassment as instinctive as it would have been had their daughter walked in and surprised them in bed together.
Alessio extended the phone without a word.
‘How are you guys getting on?’ Tara chattered. ‘I knew you’d be worried sick about me because this is the first time I’ve been away.’
‘Yes-’
‘Isn’t Dad romantic taking you back to where you first met?’ Tara gushed. ‘I bet you were really knocked flat by that.’
‘Yes-’
‘Well, I’m fine and I’m having a whale of a time, so I hope you won’t mind me not ringing again…’ Her daughter’s voice dropped very low before she continued, ‘Sorry, but it looks really naff having to phone home.’
Seconds later, Daisy returned the phone to Alessio. He tossed it aside. A gulf of silence stretched and Daisy’s brow furrowed when Alessio made no move to pull her back into his arms. Her still heated body tautened and flushed with guilty acknowledgement of her own lingering and intense arousal.
‘I thought my memories might have been coloured by adolescent fantasy but they weren’t.’ His dark, deep voice flat with a curious lack of expression, Alessio cast her a sudden chillingly cold glance from below spiky black lashes, his brilliant dark gaze bleak and hard. Springing lithely off the bed, he reached for his shirt. ‘You really are dynamite in bed… but I think I’ll take a rain check.’
Daisy’s face flamed with shock and humiliation. That rejection slashed like a winter wind across her exposed flesh. She tugged the sheet over herself, her fingers bone-white as she clenched them beneath its cover. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she heard herself whisper strickenly.
Alessio swung back to her, his dramatically handsome features taut. His wide, sensual mouth twisted. ‘I’m still very angry with you. Every time I remember that you took my daughter away from me, it makes me want to smash things. But I’ll get over that. If s irrational to expect more from you than you are capable of giving and it’s impossible to turn the clock back.’
Ill-prepared for that level of frankness, Daisy flinched. He had hidden that anger so well from her that she had been fooled. Now, when her every defence was down he condemned her with that reminder, throwing her into guilty confusion. ‘You’re not being fair.’
Alessio’s screened gaze closed in on her and lingered in cool appraisal, his detachment somehow making her even more painfully aware of her nudity beneath the sheet. ‘On the contrary, I am being very fair. You’re a remarkably good mother. You’re gorgeous and sexy and great in bed.’
Daisy bent her head, burning pink invading her cheeks afresh. But not so sexy and not so great that he couldn’t still walk away, she thought, in an agony of mortification and self-loathing.
‘That you should also be a little greedy and emotionally shallow is no big deal,’ Alessio added grimly.
Her head flew up. ‘I am not greedy… and I am not shallow!’
‘Daisy, you have the staying power of a butterfly.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘It’s not important.’ In the thundering silence, Alessio shrugged with an air of arrogant finality. ‘If it wasn’t for Tara, we wouldn’t be here now.’
‘I don’t need you to tell me that.’ He was only confirming what she had already known, what she had inexplicably allowed herself to forget over the past half-hour. Yet the reminder made Daisy feel incredibly empty and degraded. The intimacy she had foolishly believed they had recaptured had only been an illusion, born of her own stupid sentimentality and sexual hunger. She hated herself for that weakness. She wanted to lie down and die, but not in front of him.
Without warning, Alessio strode over to the door and flung it wide, an impatient frown drawing his black brows together. ‘I think we have a visitor.’
‘A visitor?’ Daisy repeated in bewilderment.
A female voice echoed through the upper reaches of the villa, the distant tap-tap of stiletto heels sounding on the marble staircase, telegraphing their wearer’s impatience.
‘Bianca,’ Alessio breathed, already moving out into the corridor to intercept his sister.
Daisy paled. ‘But how on earth did she get in?’ she gasped. ‘Through a window on a broomstick?’
Alessio froze, his dark head whipping round, the smooth planes of his strong profile hardened by a flash of angry incredulity.
Daisy turned crimson as she realised what she had said.
‘Grow up, Daisy,’ Alessio advised with withering bite. ‘You may be stuck in a time-warp but the rest of us have moved on. If you can’t behave like an adult and be civil, I suggest that you stay up here!’
‘I—’
But the door closed with a final thud. With a groan of frustration, Daisy flung herself back against the pillows. Smart move, Daisy. Alienate him more by attacking his twin. Alessio had no idea how much abuse she had once had to take from his sister. Daisy hadn’t told tales. And it was too late now to redress the balance. She would only sound like a sulky child harbouring a grudge. And really Bianca was the least of her problems, she told herself painfully as she threw back the sheet and got up.
For only now did she truly appreciate the depth of Alessio’s bitterness. In angry impatience, he had taken her beliefs and shaken them inside out, shattering her view of the past. Alessio had not been grateful to be released from their shotgun marriage. Alessio had been equally devastated by their divorce. He had actually thought he was the one being dumped.
That picture dredged a shaky laugh from Daisy but it also made her think. Bianca’s assurance all those years ago that within months of their wedding her brother was already involved with his former girlfriend again no longer seemed credible. Had her sister-in-law lied about Sophia and that supposed reconciliation in a cruelly clever play on Daisy’s insecurity?
Whatever—Daisy gave her head an impatient shake—naturally Alessio was still seething at the fact that after walking out on their marriage she had chosen to deny him all knowledge of his dau
ghter. Alessio thought she was a greedy, shallow woman who could not be trusted. Although, with cool Leopardi calculation, he had not shared that news with her until after the wedding. Daisy shivered, suddenly cold with apprehension about what the future might hold. She had still fallen into his arms, her every defence destroyed, a physical hunger that terrified her betraying her with humiliating ease.
Ten minutes later, she descended the sweeping staircase, her battered confidence bolstered by the elegant pale blue dress she wore. Inside she was still a mess of see-sawing emotions and conflict but she had no intention of entertaining Bianca with a miserable face.
The front doors in the hall were wide open. On the last step of the stairs, Daisy froze. Alessio was standing outside with a blonde draped round him. Daisy blinked and looked again, unable to credit the evidence of her own eyes. Slender brown arms were linked round Alessio’s throat as the woman laughed up at him, her flawless profile and the flowing mane of her corn-gold hair instantly recognisable to Daisy…
Her heart gave a sickening lurch as she was plunged into shock. Nina Franklin. What was she doing here? And why had Alessio led her to believe that the visitor was his sister? A stifled moan of distress trapped in her throat, Daisy reeled off the stairs before she could be seen and fled into the drawing room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘SOMEHOW you don’t look quite as smug as I expected,’ a languidly amused female voice remarked.
Startled, Daisy spun round, breathless and bewildered. In shock, she focused on Alessio’s sister. Bianca was standing by the window, a tall, rake-thin brunette in an enviably simple white shift-dress that screeched its designer cut. ‘Bianca…?’ she muttered dazedly, her brain refusing to function.
The only image stamped inside her head was that of Nina with her arms linked round Alessio, laughing and smiling with confident intimacy, certainly not reacting as any woman might have been expected to react when her lover had broken off their relationship and almost immediately married another woman. That disturbing image still twisted like a fiendish knife in Daisy’s shrinking flesh.
Bianca strolled forward, a mocking smile pinned to her lips. ‘Yes, I have to admit that much as I despise you, Daisy, I also have to admire your sheer nerve. You are holding a real live Leopardi as a hostage to fortune.’
In an uncertain gesture, Daisy pushed back damp tendrils of silver-fair hair from her brow. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Tara…your miracle ticket back into the family circle!’ Bianca vented a scornful laugh. ‘But I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were you. Alessio may have married you to get custody of his daughter but I don’t think he’s planning to hang on to both of you—’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Daisy cut in tautly, fighting to get a grip on her wits again.
‘So you still need everything spelt out in words of one syllable.’ Bianca shot her a look of pitying superiority. ‘Alessio will keep Tara and ditch you. And why not? The way he sees it, you did the same thing to him!’
‘Why do you still hate me so much?’ Daisy whispered in a shaken undertone, appalled by the brunette’s continuing malice. ‘And what on earth are you doing here?’
‘You loused up my brother’s life once and now you’re trying to do it again. Twins stick together,’ Bianca told her succinctly. ‘As to what I’m doing here at the villa…business, strictly business, although I do feel that I ought to apologise for inadvertently reuniting Alessio with Nina. You’re such a passionately jealous little soul, and what hope have you got against a girl that age?’
Daisy turned bone-white. ‘You bitch,’ she mumbled strickenly.
‘Madre di Dio, what the devil is going on here?’ Alessio’s whiplike intervention cut across the room like an icy wind on a hot summer day.
Sharply disconcerted, Daisy whirled round, cannoned into an occasional table and sent an exquisite vase of flowers smashing down onto the marble hearth of the fireplace. Glass flew everywhere. ‘Oh, hell!’ she gasped, and automatically dropped down, intending to gather up the shattered shards of crystal.
Bianca released her breath in a long-suffering hiss. ‘I’m afraid that your wife is not prepared to let bygones be bygones, Alessio. I tried… now you can’t say I didn’t try…but you heard what she called me, didn’t you?’
‘Daisy, leave that glass alone!’ Dark eyes blazing, the cast of his strong features implacable, Alessio followed up the scorching command by striding over and hauling Daisy upright. ‘Right now we can do without a blood-spattered bride playing a starring role here.’
‘It must be a frightful embarrassment to be so clumsy,’ Bianca commented drily.
As her teeth sank into the soft underside of her lower lip and absolutely brutalised the tender flesh, Daisy tasted the sharp, acrid tang of blood in her mouth. Bianca had heard Alessio’s approach, she realised, and all Alessio had heard was Daisy insulting his sister.
‘I’m sorry Daisy has been so rude,’ Alessio drawled with gritty delivery, one powerful hand anchored to his wife’s slight shoulder like an imprisoning chain, long brown fingers exerting meaningful pressure. ‘But I’m sure that she wants to apologise for losing her temper.’
Daisy went rigid and remained mute, outraged to be dragged forward like a misbehaving child and ordered to eat humble pie. Frustration and fury lanced through her, for she was painfully aware that anything she said now in her own defence would not be convincing.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Bianca sighed with a forgiving smile.
Daisy surveyed the brunette with barely concealed loathing, every nerve in her body still jangling from what she had both witnessed and withstood in the space of ten nightmare minutes.
‘Under the circumstances …’Alessio hesitated, and then shrugged a fatalistic shoulder. ‘You can use the grounds for your fashion shoot. I appreciate that it would be difficult to find another venue at such short notice—’
‘I knew Nina would change your mind!’ Bianca carolled in a nauseating tone of girlish relief.
Daisy’s teeth ground together.
‘We only need a few hours and the crew are already here,’ Bianca continued sweetly and apologetically. ‘I know it’s very inconvenient timing but I never dreamt that you and Daisy might be coming to this old place for your honeymoon!’
In a sudden movement that took Alessio by surprise, Daisy tore herself free of his restraining hand and stalked out of the room.
‘Dio …’ Bianca groaned in her wake. ‘If I’d known it was likely to cause this much trouble for you, I’d never have asked!’
Daisy raced up the stairs like a woman jet-propelled. Not one more moment would she spend in this house, not one more moment… not for Tara, not for anybody! She was getting out right now! Her breath catching in sobs in her throat, she trailed her still unpacked suitcase across the dressing-room floor and struggled to close it, stuffing in sleeves and protruding hems of clothing disarranged in her haste to get dressed only minutes earlier.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at now?’ Alessio enquired from the doorway.
Daisy jerked round on her knees, two spots of enraged colour burning over her cheekbones. ‘Get out of my way, you swine! No, you’re not a swine, you’re lower than that! You’re a snake—a sneaky, sly, double-dealing, stupid snake… because if you think I intend to stay here and put up with you, your girlfriend and your shrew of a sister you’re living in fantasy land!’
Alessio folded his arms and stood his ground. ‘You’re not going anywhere, piccola mia,’ he spelt out rawly.
‘Do you think that treating me like a child means you can ground me like one?’ Daisy launched back, angrier than she had ever been in her life, her eyes burning an incandescent violet challenge.
‘I think that if I strip you naked, trash all your clothes and keep you locked in the bedroom you’ll find it a little difficult to stray beyond these walls.’
‘You wouldn’t dare!’ Daisy told him, flying furiously
upright.
‘Try me,’ Alessio invited with soft menace, his shimmering eyes striking threatening sparks off her incredulous stare. ‘When my daughter’s happiness is at risk, I don’t think there is anything that I wouldn’t dare.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means that the day you walk out on this marriage I start fighting to keep Tara in Italy with me. I will not be shut out of her life again,’ Alessio asserted with harsh emphasis.
Daisy went white with shock, a shiver of cold fear slithering down her rigid spine. That uncompromising threat electrified her. All of a sudden, Bianca’s spiteful allegations no longer seemed quite so fanciful. Alessio was already letting her know that if their marriage failed he would fight to retain custody of their daughter. Was it at all possible that he might also be planning to use Daisy for as long as he needed her to get Tara settled in… before dispensing with her services as a wife and mother altogether? Or was that a paranoid suspicion?
‘You are scaring me,’ Daisy muttered in a surge of involuntary candour.
‘Maybe you scare me when you haul out a suitcase barely twenty-four hours after you say “I do” for the second time!’ Alessio was very pale beneath his golden skin but fierce determination harshly delineated his sculpted bone structure. ‘Now, I don’t expect you to become bosom pals with my sister but I do expect a mature acceptance that my family are also Tara’s family and that when she arrives here at the end of the week she does not need to be dragged into the midst of some continuing, petty war that started before she was even born!’
‘I did not restart the war.’
Alessio spread his lean, strong hands in a bold arc of impatience with a subject he clearly considered beneath his notice. ‘I will not allow Tara to come home to us for the first time and find a hostile atmosphere—’
‘And what are you intending to do to improve that atmosphere?’ A laugh that was no laugh at all escaped Daisy as she recalled the humiliation of his earlier rejection. Fighting blindly to conserve her pride, tom with savage pain and confusion, she thrust up her chin in defiance. ‘I hate you, Alessio. I really hate you for what you’ve done to me today!’