Ruthlessly Bedded Forcibly Wedded(28)

He sighed heavily and against her will she looked back, schooling her expression. To her surprise he looked almost… defeated.



‘Why didn’t you tell me that you worked at the club, Cara?’



She froze. ‘How did you find out?’



Vicenzo smiled a small grim smile. ‘When I got to Rome someone called Rob had been calling every day, looking for a way to reach you. I finally allowed one of his calls to be put through, and he informed me that you are due some tax back on your wages and he was sure you’d need it. He wanted to know how to send it to you. He was rather bullying in his demands to know how you were.’



Cara couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Rob bullying Vicenzo over the phone, but she quashed the smile when she saw how Vicenzo was looking at her so intensely. ‘I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have believed me, and I didn’t have the energy to fight.’ She shrugged one slim freckled shoulder and looked away for a second. ‘It looked bad. I could see that.’



‘You said it was like a second home to you,’ he said, almost accusingly.



Her eyes met his. ‘It was like a second home. Rob, his boyfriend Simon, and Barney on the door were…are…like family to me.’



Vicenzo shook his head. She could see him trying to figure it all out.



Cara crossed her arms. ‘I used to drive Cormac to the club every night…’

She couldn’t look at Vicenzo when she told him this, so she turned and looked down, absently kicking at the grass. ‘He used me like a kind of taxi service. He’d make me wait outside, so that he could leave whenever he wanted.’ Cara’s back was very rigid. ‘One night the weather was horrendous, and I was trying to study in the car.’



She cast a quick glance to Vicenzo. His jaw was hard, and it made a flutter run through her belly. She looked away again, out to sea.



‘Barney took pity on me and brought me into his little office, so I could study in the warmth. He made me tea, gave me biscuits…it became a routine then. I’d drop Cormac off, and go and study in Barney’s office.’



‘How did you go from that to working there?’



Vicenzo’s voice had an edge that made Cara cross her arms tighter. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he didn’t believe her. In an effort to communicate this to him she turned back to face him, not letting herself be daunted by the speculative look in his eyes.



‘One night Simon was in a tizzy because his door hostess had called in sick at the last minute. He was understaffed as it was… I offered to step in. It worked out well, and when that hostess left he asked me if I’d take over on the door.’



Cara’s thoughts went inward.



‘Cormac gave the job his blessing because he wanted to impress Simon—

and after all—’ she couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice ‘—once I was earning money it meant he could charge me rent for my room in his apartment.’



‘He charged you rent?’ Vicenzo couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice. What Cara spoke of now was so far removed from what he’d believed…



He saw the way her chin tilted up, the defiant light in her eyes. The pride.

And felt a sinking sensation in his chest. He knew it wouldn’t take much to check out her story, and he was horribly aware that if he instructed his accountants in Rome to go through Cormac’s accounts with a fine-tooth comb they would probably find some regular amount of money being deposited into one of them. And, a small voice reminded him, she’d said that morning in London that she hadn’t had access to the account in her name. He had to concede now that he’d seen absolutely no evidence to prove that she had ever received funds from it. The memory of her reaction to the earrings mocked him now. And the plain clothes she insisted on wearing. Those were not the actions of a spoiled princess.



Cara could almost see the cogs whirring behind Vicenzo’s eyes as he tried to assess everything she was saying, and it was too much to have him stand there and deliberate. She turned away abruptly, holding herself so tight she thought she might crack. ‘I told you that things weren’t as they seemed.’



Cara willed him to just leave—go back to Rome, or anywhere, and leave her alone. This was why she’d held back; to have him know the intimate anatomy of her life was to invite a level of pain that she’d been avoiding.



But suddenly Vicenzo was much closer, and Cara felt a warm hand come to her chin, bringing her head around and tipping it up where she couldn’t avoid his gaze. It lit a fire through her that she was terrified he’d see. It was as if telling him the truth and needing so badly for him to believe her had stripped back a layer of skin, bringing her desire to the surface, where she couldn’t hide it or deny it.



When he said, ‘The flowers on Allegra’s grave?’ Cara’s brain couldn’t figure what he meant for a few seconds. She looked up helplessly, in thrall to the way her body was reacting, and then finally his words sank in. But she was having a hard time focusing, with the feel of his hand on her chin and the fact that he was so close she could smell his tantalizing scent.



She spoke, but it felt like a struggle, and a dart of apprehension went through her. Was he angry that she’d gone to such an intensely private place? That thought made her voice husky, slightly defensive. ‘I like going up there. It’s peaceful…but if you’d prefer I didn’t—’



He shook his head abruptly, a curious light in his eyes. ‘No. Thank you. It was nice to see them there.’



His proximity was too much all of a sudden, and there was a new charge in the air around them. Cara stepped back.



‘You mentioned the kind of place you’d like to see when we were on the Emerald Coast. There’s somewhere near here. A friend’s place…we’ll eat there tonight.’





‘Oh, no,’ Cara blustered. ‘We don’t have to go anywhere…’



But Vicenzo just took her by the arm and led her back inside, Doppo following faithfully.



‘Yes, we do. It’s casual, so don’t worry about dressing up…’



That evening when Cara came into the front hall she felt jittery and jumpy. She told herself fiercely that this wasn’t a date. She knew that the only reason she was still here was because there was the unresolved issue of the debt—but perhaps now she could convince Vicenzo to let her go to find work and start paying him back? She ignored the dull pain in the middle of her chest as she thought about making a bid for freedom…but she knew she couldn’t stand much more of Vicenzo looking at her the way he had done earlier, as if he was really seeing her for the first time.



And then her mind ground to a halt as Vicenzo appeared at the front door, in low-slung jeans and a thin grey long-sleeved top that lovingly hinted at every defined muscle in his chest. He held one motorcycle helmet in one hand and another in the other hand.



His eyes raked her up and down, taking in her faded jeans and black sleeveless silk shirt with a high neck. Flat black ballet pumps. Her hair was down, golden red strands coiling over one shoulder like the lick of flame against the shirt. She carried a cardigan over one arm, and Vicenzo didn’t think he’d seen anyone as sexy as she looked right then. Yet the black of the shirt made him feel as if he wanted to march her out to the nearest boutique and dress her in the vibrant colors that would so suit her coloring.



But she was not a lover, dressing to seduce and entice, even though she was effortlessly arousing him more than he cared to admit. She was his wife, and a whole tangled history still lay between them, revelations or no revelations. And beyond all that was desire, urgent and more powerful than before, beating through his entire body.



Cara watched as Vicenzo handed her the smaller of the helmets and gestured for her to come outside, to where a huge, powerful motorbike sat waiting.



‘Have you ever ridden on a motorbike before?’





Cara shook her head, her eyes wide as she took in its elegant lines.

Excitement licked through her, along with relief that they weren’t going in a car or the Jeep.



‘How do we—? I mean, how do I get on…?’



She watched as Vicenzo lifted one leg over and sat in the cradle of the bike, the material of his jeans stretching tight over hard thigh muscles.

The sight was so unbelievably erotic that Cara’s legs turned to jelly. He held out a hand for her and she stepped forward, feeling inexplicably as if she were crossing a line in the sand when she felt him close his hand around hers. He held her hand and put his other one on her waist.



‘Just lift your leg over there, at the back.’



She did as he said and found herself straddling the bike, the design of the seat making her slip down tight against him. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, blushing furiously as she tried to back away.



He put a hand on her thigh and it stopped Cara dead, the feel of his palm against her making her throb in response. ‘Stay where you are. It’s meant to be like that.’



Cara gulped. She couldn’t be any closer to him if she climbed into his jeans.