‘I am jealous of any man who looks at you,’ he growled. While she was digesting this statement he jerked her against him and tangled his fingers in her long hair. ‘I guard my possessions fiercely, cara.’
He brought his mouth down on hers and kissed her with a savage hunger that triggered an instant reaction in Kristen. She had long ago given up trying to resist him, and wound her arms around his neck while she kissed him back with all the pent-up passion that had built to an intolerable level during the five nights that he had been away.
‘Dio! If we were alone I would take you right here on the sand,’ he muttered when he eventually lifted his head and dragged oxygen into his lungs. ‘I wish we weren’t hosting a dinner party tonight. Maybe we could cancel it?’
Kristen wasn’t sure how she felt about Sergio regarding her as one of his possessions. There was something very primitive about the idea of being owned by him. But, for all his effort to be a ‘new man’, he was at heart a hot-blooded Sicilian male, she thought ruefully, and she could not deny a little thrill of pleasure when he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her against his chest so that she could feel the strong beat of his heart.
‘Of course we can’t cancel. I’m looking forward to meeting your friends, Benito and Lia, and I really liked Gerardo and Flavia when we had dinner with them last week.’ Kristen gave an impish smile that made Sergio catch his breath. ‘I promise the anticipation will be worthwhile,’ she murmured, trailing her fingertips down his chest and abdomen and stopping at the waistband of his shorts.
‘Witch,’ he groaned, and kissed her again. From along the beach they heard Nico calling for his papà. ‘I have to go,’ Sergio said regretfully.
‘Go away on another business trip, do you mean?’
‘No. Go and build my son a sandcastle like I promised him.’
She laughed. ‘You’d better hurry up then.’
As she watched father and son digging in the sand Kristen’s thoughts returned to the phone call she had had that morning from Steph, her boss at the physiotherapy clinic in London. Steph had asked when she planned to return to work.
‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know in a couple of days,’ Kristen had replied. She appreciated that over the last few weeks Sergio had made a lot of effort to allay her concerns about marrying him. Steph’s question had been lurking in the back of her mind all day, and the conclusion she had reached was frightening and yet glaringly obvious.
* * *
It was almost midnight before the dinner party guests departed. The evening had been fun, Kristen mused as she walked into the master bedroom that she had shared with Sergio for the past weeks. The two married couples they had dined with had young children, and Kristen had arranged play-dates so that Nico could make new friends. He had settled at Casa Camelia amazingly quickly and, although she seemed to spend her life chasing after him to cover him in sun-cream, his arms and legs were already nut-brown and he looked much more Sicilian than English.
Returning to their old life in London was not an option. It wouldn’t be fair to uproot Nico and it wasn’t what she wanted either, Kristen acknowledged. She walked over to the dressing table and stared at the reflection of the slender, elegant woman wearing a stunning designer gown of black taffeta that was a perfect foil for her blonde hair, which was caught up in a loose chignon on top of her head. The dress was strapless, floor-length and showed off her tiny waist, while the low-cut neckline revealed the pale upper slopes of her breasts.
Sergio had brought the dress back from his trip especially for her to wear tonight. With it he had given her a diamond necklace, and she had caught her breath when he had fastened the single strand of exquisite glittering stones around her neck. But her heart had raced faster still when he had stared into her eyes and told her how beautiful she looked. There had been something in his expression that she could not define, but it gave her hope that the decision she had made was the right one.