The Veranchetti Marriage(19)

“I’m actually getting one of my own?”

“Why should I wish to share a room with you?” A satiric brow quirked. “I, too, like my privacy. I do not deny you yours.”

It was a concession she had not expected and nor had Sofia, the housekeeper, who protested that the room was not properly prepared. He left Kerry alone, as she struggled against an unjustifiable tide of pain and despondency. Why on earth should she feel insulted? It was a step in the right direction, removing them from the dangerous intimacy she had feared. She stared out of the arched windows at the magnificent view of rock and sea and skyline merging majestically together.

Alex reappeared a few minutes later and insisted upon showing her around before she changed for dinner. She duly admired the clean, tiled floors scattered with priceless Persian rugs, and the air of comfort and tradition which adhered to the sparse furnishings in their plain, earthy colours. After that she took herself off for a short nap and ended up rushing to get dressed in time for dinner.

“You look rested,” Alex saluted her mockingly with his glass. “Has it improved your humour?”

In exasperation, she stiffened. “There was nothing wrong with my mood. How am I supposed to react to a place like this? What are we going to do here?”

Alex burst out laughing, white teeth flashing against brown skin. “Do you really want me to tell you?”

It was a setting for lovers, not for two people who could hardly speak to each other civilly. “All I plan to do here is read some of the books I brought with me,” she warned in dulcet dismissal.

He absorbed her mutinous face with arrogant amusement. “You want to punish me for persuading you into my arms before the wedding. But it was inevitable that the force of our emotions would bring us together. It brought me peace…” he stressed. “The past is over, cara. Why can’t you accept that?”

Angrily, she began to eat. It had brought him peace. It had torn her apart. He had received the ego-boosting response he required from his recalcitrant wife. He had conquered his own distaste and her reluctance. He made no apology for the cruelty of his words to her that night. Why should he apologise? In his mind, he would always have the perfect excuse to employ that rapier tongue if she got out of hand. The past is over. No, he was wrong. The past had made the present for them both.

“I’m not sleeping with you, Alex,” she asserted.

“Inevitably you will. You see, you want me.” Golden eyes held hers steadily. “Why should you be ashamed of that?”

How could he ask her that after his admission that he despised her?

“How many times must I tell you that the past is finished?” His lean, strong features were harshly set. “You made one mistake, but we both paid dearly for it. Some day I will forget that other day, but I promise that I will never throw it at you in anger again.”

Her mouth twisted. “And what are you doing right now?” she flared.

He slammed his wine glass down. “What do you think I am trying to do? I am trying to talk to you, I am trying to be civilised!” he gritted in the most uncivilised snarl.

“You’re in the wrong century. I’ve had enough to eat.” She rose with unhurried grace and left the table.

In her room she paced the floor. She had almost screamed her innocence at him. But she would only have demeaned herself in his eyes. He would never believe her and she had no evidence. Naturally he saw no good reason why she shouldn’t abandon herself to pure physical gratification in his bed. In the depths of Alex’s subconscious would always lurk the reflection that if she could do so with a stranger, she certainly wasn’t in a position to deny a husband.

When she emerged from her bathroom later, swathed in a light cream satin peignoir, Alex was reclining fully dressed on top of her neatly turned-down bed.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

He studied her tousled and damp appearance, the fiery hair tumbling round her heart-shaped face, the tight clasp of her fingers on the lace edges of the scanty covering. He took his time looking her over, a burnished glitter of desire brightening his dark eyes. A brilliant smile curved his mouth, making her vibrantly aware of the leashed sensuality coiled within his relaxed length. “What do I want?” he echoed softly. “Only to kiss you goodnight for the servants’ benefit. You will come to me the next time we make love.”

“There won’t be a next time,” she swore as he slid upright and folded his arms around her rigid body.

His lips feathered across hers, and she trembled long before the hard heat of his mouth properly engulfed the sweetness of her own. It was a taste of heaven and a taste of hellfire damnation all in one go. His hard thighs were imprinted against her softer curves as she leant inexorably closer to him, until he was holding her upright. She shivered violently in the unyielding possession of sensations infinitely stronger than she was, sensations that whispered and yet burned over every part of her. With a husky laugh, Alex gathered her up and deposited her down on the bed before freeing her.

He stepped back, his smile mocking the confusion she could not hide from him as she swam back to reality again. “I do not think that you are cut out for the life of a celibate, cara. Buona notte,” he drawled with silken emphasis.

She groaned as the door shut. What was it about him, dammit, what was it about him that made him irresistible? Her hands curled into claws in the pillows. Her body had a blind spot where Alex was concerned. It was all this slothful eating and lying around and being waited on. Healthy activity was what she needed, and not of the kind Alex would suggest. There was no barrier there. It made no sense. She ought to freeze when he came close. But she didn’t. The same powerful chemical attraction which had drawn her to him at eighteen was still there. Indeed, by some cruel twist of fate it had grown even stronger. She ought to be mature enough to handle Alex’s sensual magnetism and see it for what it was: a hangover from her misspent youth, a symptom of frustration. Unfortunately, none of her frantic efforts to explain away her response to him made it any easier to get to sleep.





CHAPTER SEVEN

KERRY slid out of bed, irritably pushing her hair off her damp brow. A tide of dizziness went over her and she groaned. It was the heat. Alex would die laughing if he saw her like this. Hot, harassed, sleepless. She curled up in the basketwork chair by the tall window. It was their fifth day on the island. From dawn to dusk, Alex had been charm personified. He had broken the ice, in spite of her determination to remain aloof. Somehow…heaven knew how, her sharp, defensive retorts had begun to seem petty. They were talking now without fighting. Of course not about anything in particular. Safe things. Nicky, the house in Florence, his business interests.

Her fingers rubbed at her tense neck muscles. She had changed. She had changed from the moment Vickie told her the truth. An inner strength had been reborn, a surge of returning self-respect. It shook her to admit that for four years she hadn’t really cared about anything but Nicky. She had just gone through the motions, even in business, content to believe herself independent of Alex, but too apathetic to employ the effort of will required to lick Steven into shape. She could have made a go of Antique Fayre. Instead, she had let it limp along, and now there would never be another chance to prove her own mettle.

Last night they had attended a wedding in the village as honoured guests, and amid the jubilant mayhem of the celebration Alex had caught her to him, amber eyes rampant with impatience. “When…hmm?” he had muttered. “Why pretend? Deep down inside you must know what you want. Or perhaps you want to be told.”

The chauvinist emerged around nightfall. Alex wasn’t accustomed to waiting for anything he desired. His restraint over the last few days had been sheathed in a sardonic indulgence. The sexual charge in the atmosphere was like an electric current. After all he had done to her, how could she still want him?

The sight of Alex in a pair of low-slung, tight-fitting shorts and nothing else was lethal enough to stop her in her tracks. And he knew it. The torment was like a knot jerking a little tighter every day. She couldn’t sleep because she ached for him. It infuriated her, it outraged her pride, but she couldn’t deny it. Alex brought her alive as no other man ever had. An unholy and primitive pleasure sent her pulses leaping when he came close.

The clear, moonlit night beyond the glass was dancing dark reflections on the shimmering surface of the pool. It was three in the morning. Everybody would be asleep. The water glimmered a silent invitation. Leaving her room, she let herself out on to the terrace. It was the impulse of a moment to shed her nightdress and slide soundlessly down into the gloriously cool depths. With a sigh of relief she floated on to her back.

Alex would find himself a mistress. She could hug her inviolability to the grave. She turned over and began to swim. She didn’t want him to have other women. She had her pride, too. It was the woman who looked the fool when her husband was entertaining himself elsewhere. She ground her teeth together at that humiliating reality. Lost within her own thoughts, she did not notice the ripples spreading on the water, signifying that she had company.

A pair of hands enclosed her waist. She gave a stifled gasp before Alex spun her round and pressed her back against the side of the pool, his hard, punishing mouth stealing her cry of bewilderment and fury. His lips roamed torturingly over her temples, her wet cheeks and down again to tantalise the corners of her mouth in a passionate barrage of burning caresses. Emerging from shock, Kerry planted her hands on his bare, muscular shoulders. “Where did you come from?”