Alessio shuddered in the clinging circle of her arms and with a shout of hoarse, agonised satisfaction he found his own release, collapsing down on top of her, heavy and damp with sweat and achingly familiar. A raw flood of tenderness filled Daisy to overflowing and made her eyes smart. But he had finally got the truth out of her—a truth she had never dreamt she might speak or he might suspect—and now she felt naked and horribly exposed.
‘You were worth waiting for,’ Daisy whispered tightly, painfully.
Alessio lifted his dark, tousled head. With a slightly unsteady hand he smoothed her silky hair from her brow, long, caressing fingers cradling her cheekbone in a gesture of almost awkward tenderness. Only then, disturbingly, his beautiful dark eyes slewed away from the anxious intensity of hers, his lush lashes screening his gaze, but not before she’d seen the daunting bleakness etched there.
‘I feel bloody guilty,’ he confessed, and immediately released her from his weight.
Daisy didn’t know what she had expected from him but it hadn’t been that admission.
‘Why no one else in all this time?’ Alessio prompted tautly.
Now, that question was predictable but not one which Daisy was prepared to answer honestly. Defensively she turned her head away, aching with love for him and suppressing a dangerous urge to close the physical gap he had opened up between them. ‘When you have to look at a man and think, How would I feel if I got pregnant by him? it kind of chills your bones.’
Instead of laughing as she had hoped, Alessio sat up in a sudden movement and swore long and low in Italian. ‘Porca miseria,’ he finally groaned. ‘I didn’t use anything!’
Daisy lay with all the life of a block of wood. His horror at that realisation had the same effect on her as several blows with a hatchet.
‘Don’t you understand?’ Alessio gritted, as if he was expecting more of a reaction from her. ‘I didn’t take any precautions!’
‘Relax,’ Daisy urged in a choky little voice. ‘I doubt if I’m as fertile as I was at seventeen.’
‘Dio...what have I done?’ he bit out, only half under his breath.
Daisy hunched herself under the cover of the sheet. Witnessing Alessio’s appalled response to the risk that he might have fathered a child with her a second time was, she was convinced, the most humiliating and painful dose of hard reality that she had ever experienced. Hurt and bitter tears boiled up behind her lowered eyelids.
‘I feel incredibly guilty,’ Alessio said again.
‘Go away,’ Daisy mumbled thickly, not even caring what he might have to feel guilty about any more.
A surprisingly hesitant hand came down on her rigid shoulder. She shook it off and scooted over to the far side of the bed. ‘Leave me alone!’
His weight left the bed. But ironically she didn’t want what she had said she wanted and immediately started feeling bereft and deserted and resentful.
‘Get some sleep,’ Alessio urged heavily. ‘I have to go out for a while.’
‘Don’t come back,’ Daisy spat, and burst into floods of tears the minute the door closed. She crammed her fist against her mouth but she still sobbed herself hoarse.
Obviously Alessio had no feelings for her other than lust. And now he clearly wished he hadn’t bothered with that either. So why had he dragged her off to bed?
No doubt it had been part and parcel of his desire to put on a show of marital harmony for Tara’s homecoming. Their daughter would undoubtedly not be impressed by the fact that the parents she wanted to regard as reunited lovers were sleeping in separate bedrooms.
CHAPTER TEN
DAISY was still in bed when the phone rang. At first she ignored it but the persistence of the caller finally triumphed and she reached for the receiver in a sudden spasm of irritation, no longer able to bear that intrusive shrill.
The feminine burst of imperious Italian reproof that greeted her was instantly recognisable. ‘Bianca?’ Daisy flatly broke into the flood of complaint. ‘This is Daisy, not one of the staff. Alessio’s out. Shall I ask him to call you?’
‘Actually it was you I wanted to speak to,’ Bianca informed her, her annoyance suddenly replaced by saccharine sweetness. ‘I’m well aware that Alessio isn’t at home. Shall I tell you how I know? He’s with Nina...’
Daisy tensed and then slowly expelled her pent-up breath in a hiss. ‘Don’t you ever give up, Bianca? Thirteen years on, you’re still playing the same old silly tune!’
‘Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me! Nina is staying in a holiday complex only a few minutes’ drive from the villa.’ Bianca reeled off the address with audible satisfaction. ‘Alessio’s Ferrari is parked at the door—’
‘You’re wasting your time,’ Daisy told her angrily. ‘I’m not a credulous teenager any more and I trust Alessio... do you hear me? I trust your brother!’
‘But you put him in an impossible position. Alessio wanted his daughter. He had to marry you! You’re the intruder, not Nina!’ Bianca condemned sharply. ‘It’s Nina he wants to be with and is with at this very moment! Why don’t you get out of his life and leave him alone?’
Without hesitation, Daisy slammed the receiver back down on the cradle. She was shaking. Moisture beaded her short upper lip. In an abrupt movement, she sprang out of bed, knelt down, traced the phone wire to the wall and hurriedly disconnected it. It occurred to her that it would be nice if she could as easily disconnect the unsettling thoughts that kept assailing her no matter how hard she tried to block them out.
Why had Alessio behaved like a man suffering from a very uneasy conscience? Why had he twice said how guilty he felt? Daisy paced the carpet. As a rule, Alessio was outrageously stubborn and confident of his own judgement. Retreat was an unknown option to him and regret a rare emotion. But Alessio had been upset. That same scenario ran back and forth through her restive brain.
Alessio... appalled at the smallest risk that he might have made his wife pregnant. Why? Why should that be such a disaster? They were married. They were mature adults now. He adored Tara. He had admitted how very much he would have liked to share their daughter’s early years. He did not dislike children. And surely the oddest thing of all was that he should have made no attempt to discover Daisy’s feelings on the subject...
It was ridiculous even to think that he might be with Nina, Daisy scolded herself angrily. She had seen no evidence of questionable intimacy between Alessio and Nina the day before. Do you really think they would advertise if they planned to continue their affair in secret? a little voice asked drily. Indeed, hadn’t the distinct lack of strain between them been in itself more suspicious?
Daisy pulled on a black cotton skirt and scoop-necked pink silk T-shirt. But she was not going out. No, definitely not. She would be waiting downstairs for Alessio when he came back. They had to talk, not least about Bianca. For heaven’s sake, they had only been married a couple of days! On the other hand, wouldn’t finding Alessio at that address be her proof that his sister had contacted her to tell her where he was? After all, how else would Daisy have been able to locate him?
Suddenly appreciating that she had a perfect excuse for checking out Bianca’s story, Daisy did not hesitate. There was another car in the garage. It was bucketing down with rain but she didn’t waste time running back indoors to get a coat. Driving out onto the road in the Mercedes, she told herself that it would be amusing to confront Alessio when he least expected her. And, whoever he was visiting in that complex, she was convinced it would not turn out to be Nina Franklin.
The Ferrari was sitting in a well-lit parking area. Daisy stopped on the other side of the road. As soon as she saw Alessio she would get out of the car. She didn’t have long to wait. The door of a ground-floor apartment opened and a rectangle of light silhouetted Alessio’s arrogant dark head and lean, powerful body. He was wearing his pearl-grey suit, the jacket open, his tie missing. Daisy slid out of the Mercedes.
And only then did she realise that Alessio wasn’t alone. The door slammed noisily and Nina hurried down the path after him, calling out his name at the top of her voice. ‘Alessio...!’
They walked together to the Ferrari, engaged in seemingly urgent conversation. Daisy stood and watched as they climbed into the car and drove off. Her legs felt as if they had turned to stone. She couldn’t move. Rain soaked her hair, dripped down her face and drenched the silk T-shirt until it clung like a second skin to her chilled flesh. She didn’t feel cold or wet. Shock had temporarily deprived her of sense and awareness.
And then a wave of sick dizziness ran over her and she shivered violently. She hadn’t believed, she truly hadn’t believed that he would be with Nina ... that he could have made passionate love to her and then gone straight to another woman, a gorgeous, sophisticated blonde in her early twenties. No wonder he had an uneasy conscience...
The flood of pain which followed the disbelief hit Daisy on the drive back to the villa. He had to be in love with Nina. She could not believe that Alessio would betray her for anything less than love. In her mind, it all seemed so agonisingly clear. He had married her purely to get hold of Tara. He hadn’t once pretended otherwise, had he? But evidently he had never expected their marriage to last indefinitely.