Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 13
ОглавлениеA HUSKY LAUGH escaped from Luciano. ‘Is that how you work this spell with men who should know better? You flutter your lashes and blush at will and act naïve? Let’s hit the bottom line and save some time. I don’t want naïve or shy or fake virginal, Jemima. I like women who aren’t afraid to be women...just as I am a man unafraid to admit when I feel like sex.’
Jemima was out of her depth and didn’t know where to look or what to say. She couldn’t admit that she wasn’t a fake virgin and she couldn’t admit to being naïve or shy when Julie hadn’t had a shy or modest bone in her entire body. Julie had treated sexual invitations as ego boosts and had revelled unashamedly in male admiration. For just a moment, Jemima longed for the cool to emulate her late sister, who had taken her looks and sensuality for granted. He felt like sex? Involuntarily she glanced up at him again and a tiny little hot frisson ran up from her feminine core to pinch her nipples taut when she collided with his gleaming golden eyes. She felt the pull of his magnetic force then, the potent, compelling awareness of a powerful sexuality.
‘And equally unafraid to act,’ Luciano imparted, every predatory instinct in his big powerful body fired by her masquerade of innocence as he reached for her, determined to smash that façade that was so very foolish in the circumstances when he knew so much about her true character.
Jemima regained the strength to move a little too late, her paralysed legs moving her clumsily backwards in the unfamiliar room. He had knocked her off her usual calm, rational perch and wrecked her composure with that blunt sexual come-on. He had truly shocked her but he had excited her as well because, on a level Jemima didn’t want to examine, she was hugely flattered by the idea that a male as gorgeous as Luciano Vitale could find her attractive.
As he spoke Luciano reached for her and propelled her back against the door she had almost reached, one hand closing round her shoulder, the other rising to curve to her chin. ‘I like the chase. You’re right about that, piccolo mia,’ he told her incomprehensibly as if she had spoken. ‘But this is the wrong time to run away.’
She was entrapped by his gaze, her chest swelling as she snatched in a needy breath, her throat tight with tension. Luciano Vitale wanted her. Her? The very concept turned her inside out because he was drop-dead beautiful in a way she had never dreamt existed. From the crown of his luxuriant black hair to his stunning eyes and flawless bone structure, he mesmerised her.
‘Your pupils are dilated...’ Luciano breathed, stroking a strand of golden hair back from her brow to tuck it below her ear, shifting closer, bending his dark head.
‘Are they?’ She was so insanely aware of how much taller and stronger he was, she was frozen with her hips welded against the solid wooden door. The lemony scent of his cologne assailed her nostrils. He smelled amazingly good and a ball of heat warmed in her pelvis.
‘I scare you, don’t I?’ Luciano laughed again, startling her. ‘I don’t want to scare you...not any more.’
His breath fanned her cheek and she shivered, feeling the press of his long, powerful thighs and the hard, thrusting fullness at his groin against her stomach. Her whole body seemed to overheat at that point of contact. He was aroused and she had made him that way...she, Jemima Barber, without cosmetic witchery or fancy clothes. Who would ever have believed it? She felt like a real woman for the first time since Steven’s betrayal. She didn’t understand what possible appeal she could have for Luciano Vitale, but she didn’t much care during that instant of exhilaration. As he lowered his head a little more and his lips brushed whisper soft across hers, it felt like her moment and it felt crazily like something she had been waiting for all her life.
Long fingers laced into her hair to hold her steady and the pressure deepened. She opened her mouth and he took immediate advantage with a dominance that thrilled rather than annoyed. His tongue darted into the moist interior and tangled with hers and she kissed him back with an eagerness she couldn’t suppress. Her body took flight on new sensation, excitement rising like a tide inside her, drowning out every objecting voice in the back of her head. Every inch of her was suddenly tender and supersensitive, so that firm brush of his hand across her covered breasts made her straining nipples prickle in reaction and the trail of his fingers up her thigh as he lifted her skirt set her on fire with tingling impatience and longing. That passionate kiss held her utterly spellbound, her senses excited beyond bearing, and the throb of awakening between her thighs was almost unbearable in its intensity.
He stroked a fingertip across the tight triangle of fabric stretched between her legs and her knees turned to water. ‘You’re wet,’ he told her thickly.
She couldn’t breathe for shock at the tiny tremors of response quivering through her while the heat at the heart of her stoked higher. She had never in her life before wanted to be touched so badly and she was ashamed of the desire until his hungry mouth found hers again with bruising force and all thought fled in the same instant. One kiss and he dragged her under again while his skilled fingers strummed beneath her panties and stoked the hunger higher, sliding into the moist cleft and caressing the slick tissue before returning to the tiny bud that controlled her entire being.
She trembled and a strangled moan was wrenched from low in her throat as he rubbed her tormentingly sensitive flesh and suddenly her body was racing out of her control and she was jerking helplessly and gasping mindlessly beneath his mouth in a sudden explosive climax that blew her away. Her legs gave way and she would have fallen had he not lifted her and settled her down on the nearest seat.
Limp and shaking, she wrenched her rucked skirt down in a desperate movement. Shock was blasting through her and her heart was still racing. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She couldn’t believe that she had let him do that to her...something so intimate, so inappropriate, so wanton...
‘You were ready for that,’ Luciano purred, staring down at her with smouldering dark golden eyes. ‘You’re a passionate woman.’
But Jemima had never been a passionate woman. Steven had told her that passion was for sluts and she had always been careful not to seem too keen in that line because that had seemed to be what he expected from her. When he had plunged into a wild fling with Julie she had been shattered at how quickly he had changed his attitude. Luciano, however, wanted that passion, thrived on it, she sensed in confusion, forcing herself to look at him, her face hot and flushed, her sated body still somehow feeling like a wanton stranger’s.
‘Let’s not...talk about it,’ she mumbled unsteadily.
‘Let’s not... I prefer to do rather than talk,’ Luciano murmured, wondering why she was still acting so oddly. Touching her had been a mistake. He wanted more. Given the smallest encouragement he would have dragged her off to bed and eased the burn of his libido. He didn’t want to wait. He wasn’t used to waiting but he was suddenly very conscious of who she was. His son’s mother. It would be most unwise to rock the boat before they reached the security of his Sicilian home, Castello del Drogo.
‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ Jemima breathed tightly, rising from her seat and snatching up her bag. ‘I don’t know how it did—’
Luciano was not amused. ‘It’s simple. I wanted you. You wanted me—’
‘I forgot where I was and who I was with for a moment,’ Jemima corrected stiffly, still carefully evading his eyes. ‘I was out of control.’
‘I liked it.’ Luciano could not understand why she was in retreat. With his knowledge of her, she should have been making the most of the situation and trying to please him. And he was very much in the mood to be pleased.
‘You were talking about Sicily and...er...settling bills,’ she reminded him stonily.
Ah, business first. He perfectly understood her change of focus. ‘I will take care of them. You will have to sign a confidentiality agreement first. You will not be free to talk to anyone, and that includes the media, about the surrogacy agreement or about me or my son,’ he informed her with forbidding cool.
‘That’s not a problem. I’ll go and see if Nicky is awake yet. It’ll be time for us to leave soon,’ she said with scarcely concealed eagerness as she checked her watch.
Luciano stood watching the door swing shut on her exit. A black winged brow quirked. Was it some sort of a game she played with men? Give a little and then back off? Some men would want her all the more after that type of will-she-won’t-she uncertainty. But Luciano was in no doubt that she would ultimately share his bed and her withdrawal irritated him. He hardened even more at the prospect of spreading those soft, rounded thighs and plunging between them until he had attained his pleasure. One night would probably be enough, he decided with a dark smile. He wanted her horizontal. For that single night he wanted her every which way up he could have her. That would work her back out of his system and possibly by that stage he would grasp what had attracted him in the first place.
At least there would be no complications with Jemima, he reflected as he phoned his housekeeper to make household arrangements. Never mind Jemima’s little ploys, she knew the score. He would reward her richly for sex, for sharing physical pleasure without emotion or strings, and she would be quite happy to walk away again.
* * *
‘I’m a close friend of Jemima’s and her family,’ Steven Warrington declared smugly as he walked into Luciano’s office. ‘And with respect, I’d like to know why you think it’s necessary for her to accompany you and your child to Sicily.’
Luciano surveyed the smaller blond man with shrewd, unimpressed eyes. ‘That’s my personal business, Mr Warrington. But I see no reason not to tell you that my son is attached to Jemima and I’d like to minimise his sorrow when she moves on.’
‘Taking Jemima to Sicily with you seems a strange way of letting her move on,’ Steven opined with another smile. ‘I’d prefer it if you simply removed your son now and left Jemima to get on with her life unencumbered.’
‘Happily your opinion doesn’t count,’ Luciano fielded.
‘It soon will. She’s the woman I intend to marry.’
Luciano almost rolled his eyes at the idea of Jemima, with her decided preference for the wilder side of life, anchored by a wedding ring to the highly conservative male in front of him, but his lean, dark features remained unrevealing. ‘Congratulations,’ he responded smoothly.
The information he had already requested on Steven Warrington was finally rolling up on Luciano’s computer screen as the younger man departed. Had Luciano the patience, he would have received that information before agreeing to see Warrington but curiosity had driven Luciano to depart from his habitual caution. So, Steven was an ex and there was a very, very long list of exes in Jemima’s chequered past. Did she leave them all longing for a raunchy repeat? Although not the ones whose wallets she had lifted, Luciano conceded, while wondering why that aspect of her nature didn’t bother him more. She was a thief. Why did he want to bed her? He had never knowingly wanted to bed a deceitful woman before. Having grown up in the shadows of a crime-fuelled household, he was not drawn to the dark side in any way. Unlike his late father he was temperate and controlled.
Maybe he had been too ascetic in his habits for too long, he reasoned in frustration, because he was still struggling to understand the key to Jemima Barber’s appeal. Even so, he wanted her and on those grounds he would have her simply because remarkably few things in life gave Luciano genuine pleasure. Steven Warrington’s self-righteousness amused him. Jemima had no plans to marry Steven. He was quite sure of that.
But somehow that didn’t eradicate an almost overwhelming temptation to smash a fist through Steven’s blindingly white teeth. Luciano didn’t comprehend the urge and he suppressed it, thoroughly off-balanced by that sudden lurch towards violence. He had felt it before, of course he had, with his very genes drenched in the violence and corruption of his forebears. But never ever had he had that experience where a woman was concerned and that awareness unsettled him. One night. He would have her in his bed for only one night, he assured himself grimly.
In any case, he reflected thoughtfully, it was not as though he could be at any real risk with Jemima, because Luciano didn’t do emotional connections with anyone. His son would be the sole exception to that rule. Loving and caring for a child was pure and it wouldn’t damage him or anybody else.
* * *
‘I think it’s the best solution for everybody,’ Ellie declared bravely while Jemima was trying to console her weeping mother and her deeply troubled father as the four of them sat round the kitchen table over mugs of tea.
Jemima was feeling sick with shame at having hidden so much from her adoptive parents and she still did not feel up to the challenge of telling them the truth. They would have been horrified if they knew that she was pretending to be her dead sister and faking being Nicky’s mother. No argument she could make would persuade them that such dishonesty was justified. In any case her parents were already dealing with quite enough. The older couple had returned from Devon only that morning to learn that their daughter and Nicky would be leaving the next day for a trip to Sicily, following which Jemima would be returning home alone. Unfortunately Julie’s son had become as dear to Jemima’s parents as any grandchild. They too had been part of Nicky’s life almost from birth.
‘Nicky is Luciano’s son and the poor guy’s been searching for him all these months,’ Ellie pointed out, trying hard to support her friend’s arguments in favour of the trip to Sicily and the inevitable surrendering of Nicky to his sole surviving parent.
‘I believe he’ll be a good father. He’s only asking me along because he knows Nicky’s attached to me and he doesn’t want him to be hurt by me suddenly disappearing from his life,’ Jemima explained afresh.
‘Mr Vitale is being responsible,’ her father conceded thoughtfully. ‘Although I could never condone the agreement he made with Julie. That was rash and she was the worst possible candidate he could’ve chosen—’
‘Yes, but don’t forget it wasn’t Julie he really picked. He believed he was picking Jemima.’ Ellie was quick to remind the older man that Julie had applied to be a surrogate using her twin’s identity rather than her own.
‘True and you’ve certainly stood by the little chap, giving him what he needs to flourish,’ Jemima’s father said to his daughter with warm approval. ‘I suppose we’ll simply have to wait until our daughter gives us a grandchild to fuss over, my dear,’ he said to his wife.
Jemima paled beneath that look of approbation. She knew just how shocked her parents would be if they ever learned about the deceit she had employed in her dealings with Luciano.
That same morning, Charles Bennett made a return visit with a colleague in tow. He read through the confidentiality agreement with Jemima and explained every clause while his companion informed Jemima that he was there on her behalf to protect her interests. He spoke up on several occasions, pointing out that a lot of money could be made from selling stories to the media but that choosing to abide by Luciano’s rules would be financially rewarded by a bonus once she had finished working for him. Jemima signed on the dotted line and was grateful when the lawyers left.
Later that same day, Ellie stood by grinning while Jemima patiently stood and obediently posed while all her measurements were taken and carefully noted down by the middle-aged female tailor and her assistant who had also called at Luciano’s request.
‘So, he’s planning for you to wear a nanny uniform?’ Ellie remarked teasingly after the women had departed.
Jemima pulled a face. ‘Obviously,’ she pointed out ruefully, far from looking forward to the prospect of being dressed in some starchy formal outfit in the Sicilian heat.
‘I suppose it’s one good way of ensuring that you don’t forget that you’re one of the workers rather than a guest... I mean, it could be a bit awkward with you supposedly being Nicky’s mother,’ her friend opined with a wince. ‘When are you planning to tell Luciano that you’re Julie’s sister?’
Jemima grimaced. ‘Probably not until I’m leaving Sicily, which will be the end of August at the latest because term starts the following week and I’ll be starting teaching again,’ she reminded the other woman. ‘It would be a bit of a risk admitting my true identity any sooner than that because Luciano could just ask me to leave immediately but by late August it’s hardly going to matter to him.’
‘Stop beating yourself up about it. You’re not doing anyone any harm—’
‘It’s not that simple, Ellie. Every time I’m with Luciano I’m lying to him,’ Jemima pointed out heavily, wishing she had found it possible to confide in Ellie about how much more complicated her relationship with Luciano had recently become. The problem was that she was too ashamed to admit that their strained relationship had suddenly—inexplicably, to her—dived into the kind of intimacy she had always held back from.
Only three days had passed since that day in London and she still lay in her bed at night unable to quite accept that she had fooled around with Luciano to the extent that she had forgotten not only the tenets that she had been raised by, but also everything she could not afford to forget about her current predicament. She was acting as Julie, not herself, and, although she was convinced that her late sister would also have succumbed to the advances of a gorgeous billionaire, she knew she couldn’t grasp at that as an excuse for her behaviour. In reality she had lost control and had allowed herself to be swept away on a roller coaster of sexual sensation new to her. She had acted like a giddy teenager rather than a grown-up, had lived in the moment, had rejoiced in the moment without any thought of what it would be like to meet Luciano again or to work for him in an official capacity.
‘You’re lying solely for Nicky’s benefit,’ Ellie told her with loyal reassurance. ‘And by going to Sicily with Nicky you’re making all these changes easier for him—’
Jemima gave her friend an anxious look. ‘So you think I’m doing the right thing?’
‘I always thought that the best solution for Nicky was to be with the father who arranged for him to be born. He’s a lovely child, I can see that, but he’s not your child. I hate to agree with Steven about anything but I do want you to get your own life back,’ her friend told her ruefully. ‘Be young, free and single again. You deserve that. Nicky was Julie’s mistake.’
Jemima compressed her lips and said nothing. She could not think of Nicky’s bright, loving existence as a mistake on any terms and being single and free had proved a less fun-filled experience for her than she had been led to expect. Nicky was part of her life now and she loved him. She had not carried her nephew through a pregnancy but the little boy felt as much a part of her as though she had. She knew that walking away from him was going to hurt her a lot, but, if that was truly what was best for Nicky in the long run, she would have to learn to live with that.
The next morning, Jemima, Nicky and their luggage were collected by a limousine accompanied by a car full of bodyguards. The trip to the airport was accomplished in record time and even boarding the private jet awaiting them was a fairly smooth and speedy experience. Jemima was surprised that Luciano was not on board and that, indeed, she and Nicky appeared to be the only passengers aside of the security staff, who took seats at the rear of the plane. The cabin crew made a big fuss of Nicky and were unceasingly attentive.
Luciano boarded in Paris, where he’d had a meeting, and the first thing he noticed was Jemima, curled up fast asleep in a reclining seat with Nicky out for the count beside her in his fancy travelling seat. Her mane of hair was braided when he wanted to see it loose again...even though he knew much of that hair was fake? He shook off that awkward question and scanned the worn jeans and casual washed-out top she sported with a frown of incomprehension forming between his dark brows. Why had she not yet made the effort to dress up for him...even once? No woman had ever been so sure of her hold on Luciano’s interest that she would show up garbed almost as poorly as a homeless person! Or was this deliberate dressing down and this avoidance of glamour merely Jemima’s highly effective way of ensuring that he bought her a new wardrobe?
Jemima wakened slowly, comfortably rested after having endured a final nervous, sleepless night in her parents’ home. Luciano now sat across the aisle. Drowsily she studied his perfect profile, thinking that no man should have lashes that long, that dark or that lush or a nose and a jaw that would not have disgraced a Greek god. Butterflies found wings in her stomach and fluttered. Luciano turned his handsome dark head and she encountered dark golden eyes as lustrous as melting honey. A little quiver ran through her like a tightening piece of elastic, unleashing far less innocent responses that made her squirm with self-consciousness.
‘We’ll be landing in thirty minutes.’
‘Right...er...I’ll go and freshen up,’ Jemima muttered, sliding out of her seat.
For a split second he gazed up at her, scanning the bloom of soft pink warming the porcelain complexion, which merely enhanced the ice-blue-diamond effect of her unusual eyes and the full softness of the lips he had already tasted. And his body reacted as instantly as a starving man facing a banquet, urgency and hunger combining in a mind-blowing storm of response. His strong jaw line clenching, Luciano gritted his even white teeth angrily and looked away, schooling himself to coldness again.
He didn’t like losing control. He had never liked losing control. He had often seen his father lose his head in temper and living through the experience unscathed had been a challenge for everyone around him. Luciano had little fear that he himself would erupt into mindless violence, but he was absolutely convinced that reactions like passion and anger twisted a man’s thinking processes and made bad decisions and human errors more likely. She would be in his bed this very night, he reminded himself soothingly. He would have what he wanted, what he increasingly felt he needed from her, and then this temporary insanity would be over and done with, decently laid to rest between the sheets. It astonished him, it even slightly unnerved him, that sexual desire could exercise that much power over him.
Jemima concentrated on the mechanics of feeding and changing Nicky while stubbornly denying herself the opportunity to look back in Luciano’s direction. He was gorgeous and he had to know he was gorgeous. After all, he saw himself every time he shaved, she thought wildly. But that was not an excuse to stare and blush and act all silly like an adolescent who didn’t know how to behave around a man. Absolutely not any sort of an excuse at all, Jemima reminded herself doggedly as she abstractedly admired how much Nicky’s glossy black curls resembled his father’s and resisted the urge to make another quite unnecessary visual comparison.
Suddenly the thought that she would be in Luciano’s vicinity for the rest of the summer was a daunting one. She could never act polite and indifferent in the company of such a dynamic and passionate male. He lit her up like a fire inside but she ought to be fighting that tooth and nail. She was lying to Luciano and he was Nicky’s father, which meant that there was no possibility of any normal relationship developing between them. Keeping her distance and resisting temptation were what she needed to do. Intellectually she knew that...but knowing and actually doing were two very different things, as she had already discovered. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, Luciano’s attraction yanked at her on every possible level...
