AS THE limousine climbed the steep road Luciano never once removed his steady gaze from the Villa Contarini, which dominated the lush valley.
The magnificent seventeenth-century palazzo built by the first Roberto Tessari sat high on a hillside thick with oak woods and clumps of black cypress. It was not a building that proffered a warm welcome, it was a living stone monument to Tessari power and money. At the foot of the long, sweeping driveway, Luciano told his chauffeur to stop. Just beyond the walls he had scaled as a boy he alighted from his limousine, determined to savour his right to walk up through the superb gardens which had been his father’s pride and joy. In the drowsing heat of early evening, the aroma of the flowering oleanders lay heavy on the still air.
Impatient to find Kerry, he crossed the immaculate marble terrace that bounded the imposing front entrance. He felt good. Everything had fallen smoothly into place, everything was just as he wanted it to be, for he had never pictured being at the villa without Kerry. He snapped off a single white rose that had been allowed to curl round a pillar carrying the weathered bust of some mythical sea creature and went inside. The interior was silent, for he had given the staff the evening off. The arrival of Luciano da Valenza, the bastard son of Stephanella, in the grand villa of his titled forebears was a special occasion to which he wanted no witnesses. His steps echoed round the big porch.
In the vast hall that stretched before him, huge portraits hung in serried ranks on the walls. Although he had never set foot in the Villa Contarini before, he could name virtually every face depicted on those canvases. As a teenager, he had devoured all the books that documented the history of the Tessari family and depicted their treasure house of a home. In one portrait he now recognised the lineaments of his own hard bone structure reflected in the stern visage of his paternal grandfather. But the resemblance meant nothing to him, for it was many years since he had experienced a need to belong to any family tree and he averted his attention with cool disdain from the painting of his own father.
Yet the claustrophobic silence still began to make him feel oddly uncomfortable. His own reflection in a giant mirror startled him and he frowned. In rebellion, he jerked loose his tie, cast it on a marble side-table and unbuttoned his shirt collar. This was now his home: he should make himself at home. But it did not feel like home. But then for longer than he cared to recall nowhere had ever felt like home to him. When he had left the Contarini estate as a child he had never again allowed himself to become attached to a place.
A slight sound alerted him to the awareness that he was no longer alone and he swung round, light as a dancer on his feet for all his commanding height and powerful build. Kerry was poised at the foot of the imposing staircase, an uncertain smile wavering on her soft mouth. Her sweet familiarity twisted something inside him. The dying brilliance of the sunlight cascaded down through the tall landing window above and turned her hair to a fiery, curly halo and illuminated her skin to a pale gold that glowed against the perfect white of her dress. His hunger to possess her again was immediate, ferocious, primal…
In the suffocating silence Kerry stared back at Luciano, her heart going bang-bang-bang, her mouth running dry as a bone. His charcoal-grey pinstripe suit was conventional in colour but the sharp cut was all Italian designer style and gave him the suave, sardonic aspect of a sexy gangster. He had strolled down the hall with a lithe grace of movement that would have made a lion on the prowl look clumsy. She had watched him peel off his tie and throw it aside, luxuriant black hair gleaming as a slice of light fell on his bold, bronzed profile. Simultaneously, her bones had turned to water. He just took her breath away.
The stunning golden eyes Luciano levelled on her released a flock of butterflies inside her tense tummy. Her legs were so rigid that her knees began to wobble. He had an effect on her very similar to a chain reaction, she acknowledged in dismay. Embarrassment claimed her when she registered that her nipples had tightened into stiff little points pushing forward within her bra and possibly even visible to him through the fine, clinging material of her dress.
His brilliant gaze arrowed over her, lingered around chest level, his dense black lashes lowering and then skimming up with all male enjoyment to watch the wave of slow, hot colour climb her face.
With a flourish, he presented her with the rose. ‘Did the staff look after you?’
The petals felt like soft, smooth silk beneath her appreciative fingers. ‘Yes…I was shown to my room—’
‘My room too,’ he slotted in lazily.
At that reminder, Kerry ran even more out of breath. Some timbre in that throaty drawl of his teased at her spinal cord like a honeyed caress. ‘Then I was served with afternoon tea in a very opulent drawing room. It’s a very large building and rather intimidating…’
‘Do you realise that you’re whispering? We’re alone here. Feel free to shout…even scream,’ Luciano suggested huskily while he settled his hands to her slim hips and lifted her up onto the second last step of the stairs. ‘Don’t let the Villa Contarini inhibit your natural instincts—’
‘Doesn’t it inhibit you?’
‘You must be joking, cara mia.’ Lifting a seemingly casual hand, Luciano let his fingertips trace the fine line of her throat and watched her automatically tip her head back to invite his touch.
With the same measured cool, he tugged free the first button on her dress and watched her snatch in a sudden driven breath. ‘I want to look at you here before the sunlight goes…the way I often used to imagine you…’
‘Imagine me…?’ Kerry could barely get breath into her constricted lungs.
‘While I was in prison I pictured you in many ways in many places. You’re not ready for the details, which makes it more exciting for me because you have no idea what I plan to do at any given moment,’ Luciano pointed out with a roughened edge to his dark, rich drawl.
‘F-fantasies?’ Only the one word escaped Kerry, for as soon as the stammer emerged she clamped her lips closed.
‘What do you think?’ The second button came loose, the parted edges springing back to expose the upper slopes of her breasts and the pronounced rise and fall of those pouting swells as her breathing grew more quick and shallow.
‘Shouldn’t we g-go upstairs?’ she heard herself gasp.
‘This is my fantasy but I can promise you that you are about to receive more pleasure than you have ever dreamed of…trust me, bella mia.’
Kerry was trembling. As the fourth button gave, she saw his molten golden gaze drop to the flimsy white bra which only accentuated the prominent pink buds below the lace. Her own sense of anticipation was so intense she was ashamed and she shut her eyes tight, for she was a total slave to the treacherous, maddening ache between her thighs that only he could satisfy. The dress fell away from her warm, damp skin and she hovered in an agony of expectation, the rose falling forgotten from her flexing fingers.
‘You can’t wait…I like that,’ Luciano savoured. ‘But I will make you wait.’
Her dazed blue eyes opened on him, her pupils darkened, dilated.
While Luciano surveyed her with possessive satisfaction, the surge of his own desire gripped him with almost painful intensity. A delicate beauty in silk lingerie, finally his to enjoy, and nothing had ever felt so good or given him such a raw sexual buzz. One provocative glimpse of her slender, quivering body adorned only in narrow bands of lace prevented him from lingering on the uneasy acknowledgement that it was taking him longer to work her out of his system than he had foreseen. He reminded himself that he was in Tuscany to unwind and he was taking time out from the real world only to lose himself in pure erotic pleasure. And never had the pursuit of pleasure exercised greater appeal than it did at that moment.
‘I can’t believe I’m standing here like this…’ Kerry was already shocked by the discovery that it was a turn-on to be half-naked in front of him while he remained fully dressed in his business suit.
‘Not for long…’ Luciano pushed the cups of her bra out of his path and teased her straining nipples with expert fingers until she moaned out loud. He could feel the tiny little ripples of desire pulsing through her taut frame. Suddenly he didn’t want the fantasy, the stupid, impractical fantasy of having her every which way on the stairs, he wanted to carry her upstairs and make love to her in a bed where he could torture her at length in comfort. In defiance of that weakness, he clamped her to him and let his tongue penetrate between her eagerly parted lips with a hungry need to imprint himself on her that was already threatening to rise out of his control.
Kerry was dizzy with longing, weak with desire. She had surrendered all self-will before he even got her dress off. When he let his fingertips skim a provocative sweep of the thin, taut expanse of lace between her trembling thighs, she jerked and cried out, for the slick, wet heat of her feminine core was unbearably sensitive to his merest touch. Her breath sobbing in her throat, she clutched at him with desperate hands to stay upright and buried her burning face in his shoulder.
He decided that he would do the staircase scenario some other time, scooped her off her feet and carried her on up to the gilded double doors that provided an entrance to the master bedroom off the landing.
‘You make me weak,’ Kerry confided unsteadily.
Luciano tensed at that word that had always had the power to fill him with rare unease. He was always waiting for weakness of some kind to make a sneak attack on him and he knew he would waste no time in rooting it out like the sickness it was. But wanting to spend at least six non-stop weeks in bed with Kerry was just rampant lust, perfectly normal for a sex-starved male, not a sign that he was getting unhealthily hooked on her again. And by the time he left Tuscany in—what?—maybe three, four months, he would be fully cured of the belief that she had any appeal whatsoever. Reassured by that conviction, he stood over her, pitched off his jacket and pulled off his shirt to expose his impressive, hair-roughened pectorals and sleek, smooth brown stomach.
‘Weak…weak…weak,’ Kerry mumbled in helpless addition.
‘Stop saying that,’ Luciano commanded in a raw undertone.
When he chose that same moment to discard his boxer shorts, she stretched back against the pillows and just burned for him. He came down beside her, all thrusting masculine heat and driving energy, but he lay kissing her with loads of arousing restraint. He closed her hand round his bold, smooth shaft and groaned out loud and shuddered when she explored him with an unashamed hunger that she found insanely exciting. But then she found everything that he did next and every move that he made even in response to her insanely exciting.
‘I can’t wait,’ Luciano confessed raggedly.
She was way beyond talking, on an edge so high that when he finally plunged into her the flood of glorious pleasure shockwaving through her took her by storm. She hit a peak very fast, drowned for long, timeless moments of bliss in her own helpless release. But before she could even begin to recover, he flipped her limp length over, tugged her up on her knees and slowly, smoothly entered her again without even losing his pagan rhythm. She could not believe what she was allowing him to do but her own excitement triumphed over her. ‘We shouldn’t—’
‘I have to,’ Luciano growled and sooner rather than later he sent her over the edge of ecstasy all over again and any urge to reason with him evaporated.
When the world had settled again, Kerry lay in his arms and let her eyes drift blissfully shut while he tried to keep her awake. ‘It’s supposed to be guys who fall asleep—’
‘Have a free ego trip. You’re way too lively for me,’ Kerry mumbled.
‘I could keep going all night. This is all I’ve thought about since that first night with you, cara mia.’
She uttered a sleepy laugh. ‘Surely not—’
‘Every minute on the minute. I’ve been obsessed. It can only be because five years back, you’re the one that got away…’ Luciano admitted as the sheer seductive power of his own relaxation took over.
Kerry froze.
Appreciating too late what he had let slip, Luciano framed a soundless swear word above her head.
‘It’s the same for me,’ Kerry whispered back sweet as saccharine and felt the big, powerful length of him tauten against her. ‘I knew you had a reputation for being good at this caper, and at twenty-six years old I thought it was time I—’
‘No, you didn’t. Don’t cheapen yourself by talking like that!’ Luciano grated angrily. ‘Virgins don’t think that way—’
‘How would you know?’
Luciano thought about that and frustration made him simmer like oil in a boiling cauldron. He just knew he was special to her but to say so might suggest that he was arrogant, which he knew he was not. ‘I know…OK?’
Kerry was very pale. So, on his terms, she was the one who had got away, was she? The only woman he had not scored with? Could Luciano be that caveman basic? She decided he might well be. Pulling free of him in hurt rejection, she scrambled out of bed. Making for the first door her tearful gaze lit on, she found herself in a bathroom and hurtled thankfully into the shelter of the shower cubicle. She remembered the rose he had given her, the reference to the fantasy, and a rueful smile tinged her lips. He was telling her stuff that once he would never have told her. Some of it was bound to be total rubbish, wasn’t it?
Luciano groaned out loud. Why was she the only female he blew it with on a regular basis? He sprang out of bed, went through one of the other two doors available and discovered that there were two adjoining bathrooms. That infuriated him because it would not be cool to insist on sharing a shower with her when there was no need to do so. When he returned to the bedroom, Kerry was back in bed pretending to be asleep. He decided to settle for that, for she was at least still within reach.
When he wakened at some timeless hour of the night, disorientated and in the grip of his usual nightmares, Kerry had both arms wrapped round him. ‘Where do you go in those dreams of yours?’ she whispered.
He breathed in deep and slowly exhaled again. ‘Back to that cell eight feet wide by ten feet deep—’
‘It was…that small?’ She sounded shocked.
‘I had to share it too…no big deal.’ Luciano strove hard for a macho shrug of indifference even when his heart was still thumping with sick fear in his chest.
That must have been torture for a loner who had always cherished privacy, Kerry reflected painfully. In the darkness, her eyes were wet. ‘If you’d phoned me or written to me just one time, just one line, even one word—’
Luciano froze and yanked himself free of her embrace. ‘Per meraviglia! Why would I have wanted to do that?’
‘Are you planning to punish me forever?’
He raised himself against the pillows. ‘I’m not punishing you…What do you think I am? A cross little boy?’
Sometimes his emotional responses seemed disturbingly similar. He lived in rigorous denial of his own anger and pain, she thought ruefully. That anger and pain got to leap out of his subconscious and attack him only while he slept. Silence fell. The gap between them widened. When she wakened soon after eight, she was alone.
A maid brought her fruit, fresh baked rolls and coffee while she sat at a shaded stone table out on the terrace. A glorious new day had dawned to display the colourful living tapestry of the Tuscan countryside. She could see fields of waving green grain and golden rape interspersed with silvery green olive groves and orchards. Here and there rows of fresh lime-green grape vines marched up the slopes with geometric exactitude, but the valley still rejoiced in dense tracts of natural woodland.
She was finishing her breakfast when a phone was brought to her.
‘Good morning,’ her sister, Misty, declared chirpily, making Kerry sit up straight with a frown of surprise.
‘How did you know where I was? How did you even get this phone number?’
‘Do I have to confess to being a snoop?’ Misty groaned in comical apology. ‘We spent years looking for you and we really would die if we lost track of you now! Will you give me some tips in advance of meeting Grandpa and Grandma? I’ve heard this vague rumour that our grandparents may be rather individual personalities.’
Involuntarily, Kerry smiled. ‘That’s not a rumour.’
Almost an hour passed while she talked to her sister. When the call ended, Kerry was amazed that they had chatted for so long without any awkwardness. But then, Luciano’s name had not been mentioned once. She was convinced, however, that once he allowed her sisters to buy back the castle, their hostility towards him would vanish. Was it disloyal of her to still want to get to know her siblings even though they had threatened Luciano? Presumably, though, there would be no further threats. How loyal ought she to be to a male who had yet to utter a caring word to her? Without further hesitation she decided that she was right to pursue further contact with her sisters.
Mid-morning, Luciano strode out onto the terrace. Faded denim jeans hugged his long, powerful thighs, a casual aqua shirt accentuating his bronzed skin. He sank down in a fluid motion into the seat beside hers. Lean, handsome features taut, bright eyes veiled, he set another white rosebud down on the table-top next to her hand. She glanced at it, then ignored the offering with pointed determination. In a sudden movement, Luciano leant forward, curved one hand to the nape of her neck to entrap her and brought his sensual mouth down in hungry appeal on hers. Her body tightened and tingled, terrifingly eager to respond.
He lifted his proud dark head again. ‘I went out very early. The vines are beautiful at dawn when the dew rises off the ground like a mist…tomorrow morning I’ll take you out with me.’
Grapevines at dawn…how could she resist such an invitation?
The rose, the kiss, the vines, all evasion tactics to keep her from discussing more controversial topics. ‘Last night—’ Kerry dared unsteadily.
Before she could say any more, Luciano closed his hand over hers. ‘I just want to be with you…’
Warmth enclosed her, squeezed out her fears and insecurity. He had said enough to soothe her. She told him about Misty’s phone call. ‘I expect she’ll stay in touch. Do you mind?’
A stark little silence fell.
His strong jawline clenched. ‘Why would I?’
Luciano had already spent a day and a half ring-fencing his companies from potential threats. After all, come hell or high water, he had no intention of selling Ballybawn to her sisters but he saw no reason to worry Kerry with that announcement. Her desire to communicate with her siblings and satisfy her curiosity was natural. Rationally he knew and accepted that but he was not happy about it. He was already convinced that her sisters would do everything within their power to destroy his relationship with her.
‘Why do you never mention the case you’re still pursuing to clear your name?’ Kerry asked him then.
His keen gaze hardened. ‘What’s to mention? To have the case retried, I need new evidence. I have investigators working on it but it is five years since that money was syphoned out of the accounts. It was a neat and clever scam and the culprits have had a long time to cover their tracks. It will be difficult to find a fresh lead—’
‘You think there was more than one person involved?’
‘It’s possible.’ Aware that she was still very much in contact with Miles, Luciano regretted even saying that much.
‘You know, Miles suspects my cousin, Steven,’ Kerry confided.
Thinking about wimpy Steven, Luciano almost laughed out loud, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. An honest, straightforward woman was a pearl beyond price and that was Kerry, for she could not recognise cunning in others. Without hesitation she had repeated what Miles had undoubtedly primed her to repeat. How could he ever have believed that Kerry could have been involved in framing him for his prison term? Now he could only smile at the very idea. But Miles had severely underestimated Luciano’s intelligence when he had used Kerry as a vehicle for his misinformation campaign.
Luciano plucked yet another ripe cherry from the neglected tree and crouched down to dangle the succulent fruit just within reach of Kerry’s juice-stained lips. ‘I’m sure you can manage one more, bella mia.’
Stretching up, Kerry swiped the cherry from his lean, elegant fingers with her mouth. ‘You tempt me…’
‘Temptation is the spice of life.’ Luciano flung himself back down on the rug spread in the shade and leant over her, slumberous golden eyes pinned to her with mockery. ‘Don’t you dare fall asleep on me again. I could set a clock by your naps. At midday, off again late afternoon, dead to the world before midnight. What happened to the livewire who used to get by on a few hours a night?’
‘Obviously endless sunshine makes even livewires sleepy.’ Kerry blamed the summer heat for her unusual tiredness.
For three glorious weeks, day after sun-drenched day at the Villa Contarini had dawned fresher and brighter than the last. The sky above would seem a more heavenly blue and the sun would drench the fertile earth with ever more golden warmth. She was wonderfully, wildly happy just to be with Luciano. That lean dark-angel face of his made her very heart lurch with longing and as he was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes in the morning and the last at night, how could she be anything other than blissfully content?
The Villa Contarini had shaken off all the gloom that she had once found daunting. Curtains had been thrown back to let the light flood in, windows flung wide and all the doors lay open on to the terraces. Informality ruled. Cushions were often tumbled on the floor, for lovers had no interest in sitting on antique sofas twenty feet apart, and meals were eaten at odd hours and most often in the fresh air.
By day, Luciano had shown Kerry all the places he remembered from his childhood. He had begun by taking her to see his former home and he had been disconcerted to find the old farmhouse lying in ruins. That he and his mother should have been evicted all those years ago only for the house to lie empty and unused angered him. On their return to the villa, he had had his father’s portrait taken down from the wall.
‘Santo cielo. I thought in time I might be able to look at him, at least acknowledge who he was,’ Luciano had confessed in a ravaged undertone that night. ‘But I can’t even do that. We had so little but even that he took from us to protect his name from gossip and he got away with it because we were powerless.’
‘Don’t even think about him.’ Kerry had curved round his lean, muscular frame in sympathy, hurting for him, wondering why she had never appreciated that anyone who felt anything as deeply as he did had to be much more vulnerable than he might seem on the surface.
Exploring the extensive Contarini estate often on foot had been very enjoyable. She had not cared where they went or what they did as long as he was with her, and he was very energetic. The designer clothes he had bought her got laughably dirty, torn and stained while they roamed through the woods, climbed over fences and tumbledown walls and picnicked in fields. In the evening, however, they often ate out in exclusive restaurants in Siena. Then she would see other women look at his bold, bronzed profile and lithe, powerful physique with a frank appreciation and sexual avidity that scared her. For Luciano never mentioned love, the future or even the past that they had once shared, and she soon realised that without even one of those important elements insecurity was to be her lot in life with him.
Most mornings he dragged her out of bed early to tour the vineyard with him. She thought all wine tasted like nasty medicine and had never been interested in how the grapes made it from the vines into the bottles, but she was really pleased that he should want to share his interest with her. Shamefully, however, what lingered longest in Kerry’s memory was the passionate excitement of making love with him in a dusty cellar below the winery, her wild cries of pleasure silenced by his marauding mouth.
Occasionally he would leave her alone for an hour or two while he caught up with business. When they were apart, Kerry spent virtually every minute on the phone. If she wasn’t chatting to Miles, she was chatting to one of her sisters. That first call from Misty had soon been followed by others from Freddy and Ione. Kerry was getting acquainted with her siblings through their daily phone conversations. But she found herself trying to conceal from Luciano the sheer frequency of the calls they exchanged, for she could not help feeling that, in getting on like a house on fire with them, she was being disloyal to him.
‘Will this keep you awake long enough for me to have my wicked way with you?’
Dredged from her last uncomfortable thought back to the present, Kerry blinked and muttered, ‘Sorry?’
With a husky laugh, Luciano lifted her hand so that the sunlight drew a rainbow glitter from the sapphire and diamond bracelet he had clasped round her wrist while she lay drowsing by his side.
Kerry’s eyes widened to their fullest extent and she sat up. ‘Oh, my goodness…it’s…it’s amazing!’ She watched the jewels flash and catch the light. ‘Are they real?’
‘Of course they are!’ Luciano was insulted.
The gift made her feel uneasy. ‘You shouldn’t have bought me something so expensive—’
‘Why not? I can afford it.’
Registering from the flare in his brilliant eyes that she had offended, Kerry forced a smile. ‘I suppose you can now that you’re rid of the responsibility of Ballybawn.’
He quirked a brow. ‘But I’m not rid of it.’
That was the moment when Kerry grasped the worst drawback of avoiding the discussion of sensitive issues with both him and her sisters. ‘But I just assumed that you would accept my sisters’ bid for the castle—’
‘Why would I allow them to dictate what I do?’ Luciano demanded. ‘You have more right to Ballybawn than they have. But for your efforts, your grandparents would have lost their home years ago.’
Kerry was taken aback by his attitude. ‘That’s not how I feel. If you let my sisters buy Ballybawn, it will still be in the family. That’s all that matters and I just want peace. I can’t believe that you’re being so stubborn—’
‘Believe it, mia carina,’ Luciano urged as he pulled her close to his lean, sun-warmed length. ‘I never liked being bullied. Stop worrying about me. I can look after myself.’
‘You’re very obstinate.’ Kerry met slumberous golden eyes full of amusement. ‘I gather that nobody has yet tried to put you out of business.’
‘Not so far. Dio mio, I want you all the time.’ Tasting her lush mouth, dipping his tongue into the moist, tender interior to make her shiver, Luciano slowly tugged her back down to the rug and came over her. She could feel him, hot and hard and hungrily aroused against her stomach. In answer tiny tremors of desire quivered through her and damp heat burned at the heart of her.
It was not the most timely moment for a mobile phone to start ringing from the Toyota Landcruiser parked only a few feet away.
‘Don’t answer it. I wish you’d switch it off,’ Luciano commanded as he angled back from her. ‘If I can leave mine off, so can you—’
‘But it might be Freddy, and with the time difference between Europe and Quamar it’s so hard for her to reach me at a reasonable hour—’
‘Misty sent you a mobile that works abroad so that you could be reached twenty-four hours a day. Do you know why? Not one of your sisters can bear to wait five minutes for anything!’ Luciano breathed with an amount of derision that shook her. ‘You are the latest toy in your sisters’ lives. Some day soon, I will smash that phone—’
‘Look…the call might be something important.’ Endeavouring to ignore his annoyance, Kerry got into the car to reach for the phone she had left lying there. It was Ione, ringing to ask whether or not Kerry would be attending the party Ione and Alexio were holding to celebrate their wedding anniversary the following month.
Conscious of Luciano’s brooding scrutiny as he stood by the driver’s door, Kerry reddened and lowered her head, her fingers plucking nervously at the pocket of her skirt. ‘I’m not sure yet how I’m going to be fixed that week.’
‘That’s what you said the last time I asked. Can’t you make a move without Luciano?’ Ione groaned ruefully.
Kerry flushed. She was uneasily conscious of Luciano’s proximity, for he had settled into the driver’s seat beside her. ‘How many moves do you make without Alexio?’
Without the smallest warning, Luciano lifted her phone from her hand and slotted it into the handset on the dashboard so that the call would be broadcast over the car speakers.
In the tense silence, Ione’s voice emerged as clear as a bell. ‘I’m married. You’re still single and free to do as you like. If the date doesn’t suit Luciano, come to the party on your own!’ Her sister laughed. ‘Do I have to bribe you by promising to line up some hot Greek guy for you?’
Dark colour had fired over the fierce slant of Luciano’s cheekbones and shimmering outrage blazed in his incredulous golden eyes. ‘Kerry is not free to do as she likes!’ he interrupted her sister with raw emphasis, speaking so that the microphone above the driver’s door would pick him up. ‘Nor should I need to state the obvious…a hot Greek guy would be superfluous to your sister’s needs.’
An aghast silence buzzed at Ione’s end of the line before her sister exclaimed, ‘Is that Luciano I’m speaking to?’
‘Yes, and I can tell you right now, Kerry won’t be attending your party!’
‘Luciano, stop it…’ Kerry hissed in embarrassment.
‘Do you make a habit of listening to my sister’s calls?’ Ione asked worriedly.
‘From here on in, I’ll be listening to all of them!’ Luciano ground out without any hesitation whatsoever. ‘I won’t let you interfere in our relationship.’
‘But I wasn’t trying to interfere between you,’ Ione contradicted in audible dismay.
With an angry stab of one lean brown hand, Luciano cut off her sister’s call.
Kerry did not know who she was most annoyed with: Luciano for eavesdropping or Ione for her provocative sense of humour. In silence, Luciano swept up the rug and the picnic hamper and pitched them into the Land-cruiser with a violence that spoke louder than any words could have done.
Indeed, Luciano was so enraged that he did not trust himself to speak. His worst suspicions had been proven true. He was now convinced that all Kerry’s sisters were working against him and pouring spiteful poison into her innocent ears in an effort to cause trouble.
But that was not the least of it. Some hot Greek guy? Luciano seethed at that basest of all insults. How could Ione Christoulakis offer to set Kerry up with another man? That was downright immoral and disgusting! The very idea of it made Luciano feel sick to the stomach. He wanted to tell Kerry that she was never under any circumstances to accept a call from one of her sisters again. After hearing Ione in full flow, he knew he would be equally unhappy about allowing Kerry to even visit her siblings’ homes. It would be like sending a little child into a den of iniquity.
‘You know…Ione was only joking about lining up a Greek guy,’ Kerry muttered in the smouldering silence.
Like hell had Ione been joking! Bold profile rigid, Luciano sent the four-wheel-drive raking up the dirt track towards the road. He was incredibly grateful that the revealing look of guilty embarrassment on Kerry’s face had made him break in on that phone call. Forewarned was forearmed!
Evidently there were no depths to which her sisters would not sink in their determination to oust him from Kerry’s life. Even if it meant tempting her into infidelity. It was not that he didn’t trust Kerry…he trusted her totally. But she was very naive, always doubting herself, a prime target for unscrupulous manipulative tactics. Hadn’t he occasionally used those same tactics on her himself? And very successfully? Suppose they got her drunk? Who could tell what lies her sisters might be prepared to tell about him? Hadn’t she once listened to Rochelle’s lies and swallowed them whole?
Just when had the balance of power changed in their relationship? Luciano asked himself angrily. When had the casual affair he had initially planned fallen by the wayside? Why had he made her his mistress but treated her as his lover? Just when too had he become so possessive of Kerry that even her sisters’ antagonism towards him could make him feel threatened? He had always been possessive of her, he acknowledged grudgingly. But then Kerry was essentially his in a way no other woman had ever been…
On their first night in Tuscany, she had asked him when he planned to stop punishing her. But by that stage, Luciano recognised, he had already moved on beyond that need. The discovery that there had been no other man in her life or her bed while he had been in prison had gone a long way to easing his bitter sense of betrayal. Seeing what a hard, cold, miserable slog she had endured at Ballybawn during those same years had helped as well. He had also relished the belief that he was in control of their relationship. However, her sisters had destroyed his complacency…
Now he knew what he was up against. Misty, Freddy and Ione would be waiting to pounce on his every mistake and magnify it into a hanging offence for Kerry’s benefit. Sexy, eligible guys of Greek, Sicilian and Quamari extraction would be trailed in front of her like seductive bait at every opportunity. Every time he had to go away on business or even work late, her sisters would see it as an opportunity to undermine their relationship. As long as they were plotting and scheming in the background, he would never know a moment’s peace. Her siblings would not be happy until their kid sister was as respectably married as they were themselves. He could spike their guns by marrying Kerry himself…husbands were a lot harder to exclude and destroy!
Kerry stole a troubled glance at Luciano’s brooding profile. Her own tension was increased by the fact that there had been a certain amount of unwelcome truth in Ione’s contention that she ought to make up her own mind about the party. Kerry knew that she needed to make her own plans rather than just drift from day to day in what was essentially Luciano’s world. Two days earlier, her grandparents had flown to London to stay with Misty and her husband, Leone, and were to remain there until the castle was ready for their occupation again. Within another couple of weeks at most, she would have to go home to Ballybawn…yet Luciano was already talking as though he would be making a pretty much permanent return to Italy. Where did that leave her?
As they entered the palazzo, the housekeeper hurried up to speak to Luciano.
‘I believe we have visitors.’ An arm lightly curving to Kerry’s spine, Luciano walked her straight into the drawing room with him.
Two women, one young and exceptionally pretty, the other an older version of the first, rose to greet them. Kerry’s recognition of Paola Massone was instantaneous. The sight of the Italian beauty who had talked in her magazine interview as though she was only waiting for Luciano to name the date for their wedding, made Kerry tense in surprise and dismay. Luciano introduced her to Paola and the brunette’s frosty-faced mother, neither of whom paid Kerry the slightest attention. Kerry felt at a horrible disadvantage with her hair tossed, her face bare of make-up and her mouth swollen from his kisses.
Paola had chocolate-brown eyes and silky black hair and her trendy caramel suit was the last word in fashion. A determined smile on her face, Kerry endeavoured to conceal the grass stains on her skirt. Luciano tried to include Kerry in the conversation but Paola and her parent would only speak Italian. As Kerry began to appreciate the extent to which she was being ignored and treated as though her very presence was an affront, her cheeks began to burn with mortified colour.
Finally, Kerry stood up and without a word went upstairs to their bedroom. She had been made to feel about an inch high. Did Paola and her mother regard her as Luciano’s mistress, just some silly little foreigner sharing his bed for a while and unworthy of any further interest? Did it matter? Their treatment had cut her to the bone.
Why had she never questioned Luciano about Paola? Well, she had not believed what she had read in Paola’s magazine interview, for it had not made sense. Why would Luciano be pursuing his former fiancée if he had plans to marry some other woman? The very fact that Rochelle had drawn Paola’s existence to Kerry’s attention had also ensured that Kerry was even less impressed by Paola’s dramatic claims. But Paola here on the spot, making a confident visit with her mother in tow, was a very different matter. It was proof that Luciano and Paola did have an ongoing relationship, and if that was true, what else might be true as well?
It was time for her to leave the Villa Contarini, Kerry told herself fiercely, fighting the shell-shocked feeling of loss already tearing at her. She had to take hold of her own life again. What was it about Luciano that prevented her from holding back, being sensible and protecting herself in their relationship? Love was not an excuse for her to lose her wits and make a fool of herself. Somehow just being with Luciano again had stripped her of her independent shell and strength. She was very happy with him and happiness was seductive. She could not conceive a day without him, never mind a lifetime, but she would have to learn how to do so.
From the dressing room, Kerry lifted the overnight bag with which she had originally arrived. She changed into the trouser suit in which she had flown out to Italy. It felt hot and scratchy. She almost laughed at herself. Was she being ludicrously petty? What odds would it make to him that she was leaving behind the fancy wardrobe which he had bought for her? She was removing the sapphire and diamond bracelet when Luciano appeared in the bedroom doorway.
‘I apologise for my visitors’ bad manners,’ Luciano drawled, his keen gaze noting her rigidity and scanning the overnight bag at her feet. ‘Going somewhere?’
Blue eyes hollow, Kerry gave him a jerky nod. ‘It’s time for me to leave.’
The cool, relaxed pose fell from Luciano as he moved deeper into the room. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Her spine tightened. ‘That I’m…leaving?’
‘Like hell you are!’ Luciano slung back at her. ‘You’re not using the Massones as an excuse to walk out on me!’
Her chin came up, eyes bright with bitter strain. ‘I wasn’t aware I needed an excuse—’
His lean, strong face clenched hard. ‘You’re annoyed about Paola—’
‘Why would I be?’ Kerry demanded.
‘But all that’s between Paola and me is the business proposal that she asked me to consider a few months ago—’
Kerry had meant to demonstrate no interest but that claim disconcerted her. ‘Business?’
‘Paola’s a distant cousin of mine. Her father, Armanno, inherited my father’s title but both Tessari’s entire estate and his money came to me. Armanno Massone is a famous wine-maker. Aware of my ambitions for the vineyard here, Paola suggested a very practical alliance between us all.’
‘Alliance?’ Kerry queried.
His sensual mouth twisted. ‘If I agreed to marry her, her father would take charge of the Contarini vineyard. She also believed I would benefit from her family’s superior status in society. The Massones may not be wealthy but they’re very classy.’
Kerry was hanging on his every word. ‘And what was Paola going to get out of this arrangement?’
‘A very rich husband. Being classy is a challenge on a budget.’
Kerry’s lips parted, rounded and then closed again, her smooth brow still indented. ‘And what was your answer to this incredible proposal?’
‘Santo cielo! I said I’d think about it…and why not?’
As Kerry fully grasped what Luciano was telling her, furious anger lanced up through her and a shaken laugh of disbelief fell from her taut lips. ‘No wonder you were so keen to let me know that marriage wouldn’t be on the cards! All the time you’ve been with me, you’ve been planning to marry Paola!’
‘Dio mio! That’s not how it was!’ Luciano was startled by that accusation. ‘I don’t have a relationship with Paola. What she offered me was a business deal and as such worthy of consideration. I won’t apologise for that—’
‘Oh, won’t you?’ Kerry gasped in fevered interruption.
‘No, I will not. At the time that offer was made, I was still in prison. I was in the mood to consider a practical marriage that had nothing to do with sentiment,’ Luciano launched back at her with hard golden eyes. ‘I was very bitter…I’d lost five years of my life, five years when I had expected to be married, setting up a home and starting a family. But I’d forgotten what the outside world and freedom would feel like!’
‘So you then decided to make the most of your freedom before you made the sacrifice of settling down with her!’ Kerry condemned, brushing past him in her eagerness to reach the door.
‘But I’m obviously not cut out for much in the way of freedom,’ Luciano murmured with wry self-mockery. ‘Within weeks of my release, I was back with the same woman I was with before I went into prison.’
Only a couple of feet past him, Kerry stopped and tried to swallow the thickness of tears in her throat. ‘Yes, but—’
Lean hands closed over her slight shoulders and gently imposed pressure to turn her back to him. ‘It’s also several weeks since I informed Paola that I wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. But she’s persistent.’
‘It doesn’t matter. All she’s done is force me to think about stuff I should’ve thought about sooner than this. When you said that what we once had was gone, I didn’t really listen because I didn’t want to believe that,’ Kerry admitted unevenly.
His strong jawline clenched hard, golden eyes screened by his thick lashes as his wide, sensual mouth compressed. ‘And I didn’t want to believe that what we once had could still be there. Now I’m afraid that your sisters have managed to convince you that I’m bad news—’
‘No, they’re not like that—’
Luciano snatched in a ragged breath. ‘But, bad news or not, I want to marry you, and if you say no I’m just going to lock you in here and deprive you of sleep until I wear you down into agreeing.’
Engaged in fighting back the tears stinging behind her eyelids, Kerry could not persuade herself that he had truly said those words. Slowly she tipped her head back and looked up at him with questioning intensity.
His brilliant gaze clung to her pale, taut face. ‘I feel like we’ve never been apart, only we’re closer than we used to be. I want you with me all the time, bella mia.’
‘Are you s-serious?’ Kerry stammered.
‘When I reach the stage where I’m worrying that your sisters will send in a hit squad to steal you away in the middle of the night, it’s time to bite the bullet like a man and head for the church…before I lose any claim to sanity that I ever had,’ Luciano mocked in a roughened undertone.
‘But you said you weren’t going to marry me—’
Beautiful dark golden eyes sought and held hers. ‘I was wrong. I want to marry you—’
Kerry was starting to tremble, almost afraid to believe, for she could see how much her answer meant to him in the depths of his clear gaze and it was a look she had believed he might never give her again. ‘I know you’re saying that but—’
‘As soon as possible. I’d like to get married here in Italy and I won’t wait a day longer than necessary…we’ve already lost out on too many years.’
The gruffness in his accented drawl made her own throat ache. She pushed forward into his lithe, lean, powerful frame and he crushed her so close that she could hardly breathe.
‘Yes…I think I’m going to cry,’ she mumbled shakily.
Luciano looked down at her, a slashing grin curving his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Over me? Can I watch?’
‘Pervert…’ Kerry laughed, for he had successfully banished all threat of tears.
Just when Luciano was in the act of backing her towards the bed, dark golden eyes smouldering, she looked up at him in sudden appeal. ‘Would you mind…would you mind if I just rang Misty?’
Disconcerted by that particular request, Luciano tensed.
‘I can’t wait to tell her our news. I know she’ll be so happy for us. I’ll only be two minutes, I swear…’