Читать книгу Modern Romance April 2019 Books 5-8 - Шантель Шоу, Chantelle Shaw - Страница 22

HE WATCHED AS she considered those words, wondering at the sense of reserve she wore like a cloak. It hadn’t been there on the night in her cottage, when she’d brandished a meat cleaver and made him laugh, despite the seriousness of his business with the diSalvo family. Was it him that unsettled her?

The nature of their marriage?

Inwardly he cringed—how could it be anything else? Blackmailing someone into marriage was hardly a way to encourage closeness. Yet here they sat, husband and wife—as much an enigma to one another as the day they’d first met.

‘I think,’ she said, and he didn’t realise until then that he’d been holding his breath, waiting for her to speak and half believing she wouldn’t, ‘some people would characterise it as fun.’ She wrinkled her nose and his gut twisted, hard. He made an effort not to move, to appear natural, but it was as though he was hyper aware of every movement he made, every movement she made.

‘But not you?’ he asked, the words low and husky.

‘No.’ Her eyes met his and there was that thread of defiance, a whip of strength, that made his body arc up in immediate response. ‘Not me.’ She smiled, a tight smile, as she reached for her water glass, sipping from it slowly, her eyes landing on the view beyond them. ‘I think the novelty of freedom is exactly that—a novelty. As a child I was always afraid.’ She cleared her throat, and said no more.

So he prompted, ‘Afraid of what?’

‘What my mother would do.’

As though screws were being turned in every joint, his body tightened. ‘She hurt you?’

‘Oh, God, no.’ She spun back toward him, her eyes enormous, and he could see so much of the famed supermodel in his wife’s face that he wondered if they were alike in ways other than the physical. ‘My mother was the kindest person you could ever meet. Too kind.’

‘Is there such a thing?’

Amelia’s frown was instantaneous but it was as though a storm cloud was moving in front of the sun. ‘Modelling is a hard business. You can never be the prettiest, the skinniest, the best. She spent her life trying.’ Amelia shook her head. ‘She was a “good-time girl”—that was her reputation anyway, and it came to define her. She could never grow out of it, never shake it free. As I’ve got older, I’ve come to realise that she was living in fear, that she was afraid people wouldn’t like her any more if she wasn’t always the life and soul of the party.’

‘I’m sorry if she lived with that fear.’

‘I am too.’ Amelia swallowed. ‘But I spent a long time being angry with her.’

‘Why?’ he asked, though he had his own reasons for feeling anger towards her too.

‘She shouldn’t have kept me,’ she said with a wry twist of her lips. ‘I used to wish she’d put me up for adoption, you know.’

Sadness for the young Amelia flooded him—a surprising reaction, and not entirely welcome. ‘Why were you afraid of her, then?’ He reframed their conversation to her original statement.

‘Because she was erratic, and almost always drunk or high. She’d invite random people back to whatever hotel we were living in at the time. I can’t even tell you how often I woke up and found she’d left the hotplate on or taps running.’

Oh, Cristo.

Tears sparkled on Amelia’s lashes, making her eyes shine like the ocean on a sun-filled day but, instead of letting them roll down her cheeks, she ground her teeth together, her expression almost mutinous. ‘New boyfriends every few weeks—some of them creepy or not very nice, some of them fun but bad for her. I resented them all.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I hated them all. I hated them for taking her away from me. She was never a great mum, but at least when she was single, she’d try. Not very hard.’ She frowned. ‘Or maybe she did try hard and she just wasn’t wired that way.’

And—he couldn’t help himself—he reached out, pressing his hand over hers and squeezing it. ‘And yet you turned out okay,’ he said, the praise too faint, too light, but he wasn’t sure what else he could offer.

She wrinkled her nose again and shrugged. ‘I had examples of everything I didn’t want to become. It was odd, growing up that way. Lots of people might think fame is aspirational, but oh, how I hated it.’ She shook her head. ‘Photographers going through our trash, Mum being in those gossipy magazines every time she got dumped or stumbled out of a nightclub. When I was old enough, I did my best to protect her from it, but there was only so much I could do.’

‘You must have still been a child, even then.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You were only twelve when she died...’

‘Yes.’ She shook her head. ‘But I think having a mother like mine forces you to grow up a lot sooner.’

With a visible effort to clear her thoughts, she stretched an uneven smile across her beautiful face. ‘So that’s my story. What of yours?’

He didn’t want to stop talking about her—having opened Pandora’s Box, he wanted all the secrets, all the mysteries. ‘Far less interesting,’ he promised.

‘I doubt that.’

The waiter appeared and they ordered—a simple lunch, vegetarian for Amelia and seafood for Antonio—and then they were alone once more.

‘Your mother died when you were young?’ she prompted.

Antonio expelled a breath, wondering if it was impolite to discuss such a thing with a pregnant woman. ‘In childbirth,’ he said at length—there was no way to sugar-coat it. ‘But from very rare complications.’

‘Oh, I hadn’t realised,’ she said, looking away from him. ‘That’s awful.’

‘As I said, it was extremely rare.’

‘I’m not worried about myself,’ she rushed to assure him, angling her face to his, and now she turned her hand upside down, capturing his and lacing their fingers together, templing them on the table.

She looked at their interwoven fingers as she spoke—it was an intoxicating contradiction—his fingers so tanned and long, hers fair and small, with the wedding ring he’d given her sparkling back at him. ‘But how awful, that she never got a chance to know you. To be a mother. And she must have been so excited.’

That had him arching a brow. ‘Are you excited?’

‘Are you kidding?’

He laughed then. ‘No. I’m curious.’

‘Of course I’m excited!’ Her free hand curved over her stomach and his eyes followed the betraying gesture with curiosity. ‘Aren’t you?’

It was an excellent question. At no point had he stopped to analyse his feelings. He had discovered her pregnancy and known only that he had to make her his, and that the baby would be raised a Herrera, right here in Spain.

‘I’m...’

‘Yes?’ She blinked at him, a smile tickling the corners of her lips, as though she were trying to suppress it—and failing.

‘I’m curious.’

She burst out laughing. ‘That’s it?’

‘Well, is it going to be like you, or like me?’ he said, uncharacteristically sheepish. ‘A boy, a girl, tall, short, with blue eyes that shine like the Aegean? Or dark like mine?’

She sighed. ‘And isn’t that...exciting? I mean, we have no idea about any of this, and yet this is our baby! No matter what, they’ll be part me, part you. I can’t wait to meet them.’

Her excitement was contagious and he found himself nodding, trying to fathom what their baby would be like. Their food arrived and she pulled her hand from his—he regretted the separation, and wondered at that. But for weeks he’d kept his distance and then, after last night and the magic of seeing their baby’s heartbeat on the screen, suddenly, he didn’t want to keep his distance any longer.

‘And you were close to your dad, obviously,’ she murmured, bringing the conversation back to something calmer and more grounded in the present. ‘I mean, the park, the puppets, football...’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘We were close. I idolised him.’

Her eyes were speculative, loaded with questions she didn’t voice. She was tentative in a way he couldn’t stand. They’d been sharing so much of themselves a moment ago, he didn’t want her to withdraw from him again. ‘You look like you wanted to ask me something,’ he said softly, and her eyes widened with surprise.

She nodded gently. ‘Is he...?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, unprepared for the rush of emotion that filled him. ‘He’s dead.’ He frowned. ‘Saying that is strange. I haven’t...talked about him in the past tense yet.’ A frown stretched across his handsome face. ‘My father was an incredibly dynamic man—larger than life. I still find myself forgetting that he is gone sometimes.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She speared a small tomato and lifted it to her lips. ‘You must miss him a lot.’

‘Yes.’ He reclined in his chair, taking in the view, his expression unknowingly sombre. ‘When your brother set out to destroy Herrera Incorporated, it was very hard on my father. He’d spent his life building the company up, making it bigger and better than it had been under his father, and to have that in jeopardy—’ He turned back to face her and for a moment he recalled she was a diSalvo, and he remembered all the reasons he had for keeping her at a distance.

But then she sighed, a soft, small noise, and she was so sympathetic that he couldn’t throw her in the same box as her brother and father. She was different—lacking the killer instincts that had brought his father to his knees.

‘I imagine that must have been very difficult for you.’

‘Yes,’ he drawled, and at her look of pain he grimaced, making an effort to soften his expression. ‘The markets were weak and confidence was low. His investors deserted him—he was left with barely anything.’

‘But you rebuilt it,’ she said.

His nod was short.

‘That must have taken an incredible amount of work.’

He shrugged laconically. ‘It’s what I’m good at.’

Her smile was just a shiver across her lips. ‘I can see that.’

‘I needed him to know that Herrera Incorporated was valuable again. It’s more than a business, hermosa. This is a birthright. A legacy. No one wants to leave something worse than when they inherited. But my father...’ he said, breaking off, not quite sure why he felt so free to confide in Amelia when he generally made a point of holding his private matters close to his chest. But she waited patiently, her enormous eyes promising him discretion, encouraging him to finish his sentence. ‘He was a gentleman,’ he went on, smiling as he surrendered to the memory. ‘He believed in honour and decency. He came from a time when a man’s handshake truly was as good as his word—and a word between decent people meant more than a contract. It was naïve, in hindsight, but it’s how he’d always done business. It was easy for your brother to target him.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The despair almost killed him.’

She blanched visibly. ‘You couldn’t do anything to stop it?’

‘Not at the time. My father didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late. Their plan was ruthless, meticulous and executed with brilliance. Within the space of a fortnight, he’d lost almost everything.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently, her eyes showing the sincerity of her words. ‘I wish...that hadn’t happened.’

How long had he been waiting for a diSalvo to apologise? A long time. But not this diSalvo—and not now. It was too late for apologies, too late for forgiveness. The die had been cast long ago: his hatred and need for vengeance had been forged in fire. No words could weaken those feelings.

‘It is part of our history now,’ he said, sipping his drink, his eyes holding hers.

‘But not our future,’ she ventured, her look one of hope.

He stayed silent—how could their future be anything but?

‘When did he die?’ she asked, turning the conversation away from their blood feud when he didn’t respond. And he was relieved by that—another out-of-character feeling, for Antonio Herrera never shied away from a conflict.

‘Not long ago.’

A frown flickered across her face. ‘When?’

‘Four months,’ he said.

Her frown deepened. ‘That’s right before we met?’

‘A month before,’ he agreed.

‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘Why would I?’ he prompted, as though it didn’t matter. As though his father’s death hadn’t invigorated his passionate need for revenge. As though it hadn’t scored through his flesh like acid with new resentments, fresh pains.

‘Because,’ she responded with exasperation, ‘we talked about stuff and because it feels like something your wife should know,’ she said simply. And then, less simply, infinitely more pleasurably, ‘Because I want to know stuff like that. Because maybe I could help you. Maybe talking is important.’

Her kindness was unexpected and touching—it was also unsettling. Because he suspected he didn’t deserve kindness—particularly not from Amelia.

‘Perhaps seeing you put all thoughts of my father from my mind,’ he said, aiming to lighten the mood.

Her cheeks glowed pink, but she dropped her gaze, suddenly pretending fascination with the meal in front of her.

‘I doubt that.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’ And she looked him square in the eyes, and something in the region of his chest tightened. ‘You came to me because of your father. Why else would you act then? Shortly after his death, you enact this revenge plan of yours?’

‘It wasn’t that,’ he said, although of course the timing had seemed fortuitous. ‘It took my detective some time to locate you.’

‘Detective?’ she repeated, scandalised. ‘You had a detective looking for me?’

His shrug was more relaxed than he felt. ‘You weren’t in Italy, as I’d presumed you would be. Nor were you in London. Who would have thought you’d take up a job as a teacher in a school in a town in the middle of nowhere, using an assumed name? It was as though you were trying to disappear from the face of the earth.’

Her lips twisted. ‘I suppose I kind of was.’ Her expression assumed a faraway look. ‘I love my family, Antonio.’ She sent him a look, and he heard the words she hadn’t said: Enough to marry you to save them. ‘But I never fitted into their way of life. I didn’t like the sense of being a commodity rather than a person. All my life, I’ve wanted to be normal. Just a regular person with a real job, who can do normal things. That’s why I was in tiny village in the middle of nowhere. It’s why I became a teacher.’

His chest compressed at the picture she painted, of a girl always out of place and time, and he couldn’t help the surge of guilt that rushed through him. Because he’d dragged her back into the spotlight, and deep down he knew she would have been happier if only he’d left her alone.

‘But a detective?’ she teased, turning their conversation back to his method of locating her.

He took her lead, but his mind was raking over her admission of having felt so out of place, and making a new kind of sense of that. Her refusal to take part in a wedding reception suddenly made sense, and he marvelled at his insensitivity. Her reaction had been unusually panicked. Now he understood that. Pity clouded his eyes but he kept his voice light.

‘Why does that surprise you?’

‘I suppose it shouldn’t. You wanted my shares in Prim’Aqua; you did what you needed in an attempt to procure them—including sleuthing me out with a private eye. You don’t let anything stand in the way of your dreams.’

But her words rankled and he needed to reject them instantly. ‘I didn’t come to your home to seduce you, Amelia,’ he said throatily. ‘What happened between us that night was as simple as me wanting you and you wanting me.’

‘It wasn’t simple,’ she said softly. ‘Not with all this between us.’

Never had truer words been spoken, yet still he sought to refute the statement. ‘I wasn’t thinking of our families when I took you to bed.’

And more heat suffused her cheeks and, Cristo, he wanted her in that moment. He wanted her, but not just because his body was tight with desire. He wanted her because he longed to kiss her, to make her cry out for him; he ached to seduce her slowly, to show her how it could be between two people completely in sync. Their single night together had been too short; had he known he would not have the pleasure of her company again, he would have lingered over their lovemaking, enjoying every move and thrust, every shift of their bodies in that primal heat. He would have helped her learn the ways of her own body, the pleasure she was capable of feeling, what she longed for most.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said, but the words hitched in her throat and there was a breathless quality to them that spoke of her own desires and needs, and how he ached to indulge those!

And, despite the fact this was all new and different, and he didn’t know what they were doing, he reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss against her fingertips as his eyes held hers.

Her lashes fluttered closed, but not before he saw the desire swirling in their cornflower-blue depths. Not before her lips parted on a sharp intake of breath.

Sensual heat was in the air around them, and he had no intention of ignoring it this time.

* * *

Did he have any idea what he was doing to her?

She tried to focus on the page of her book, but with Antonio doing push-ups on the terrace just beyond her, wearing a pair of black bathing briefs, his broad, tanned chest on display, his powerful legs, his dark hair slicked against his head like a pelt after his early evening swim—she was lost, powerless, completely entranced. The words in her book swirled before her eyes and she valiantly made an effort to read the paragraph once more.

It was her own fault, she supposed, for picking up Anna Karenina. Having read it before and suffered through a more in-depth appraisal of nineteenth-century Russian agriculture than anyone truly needed, she wasn’t exactly sure why she’d felt compelled to pick it up once more.

It was hardly engrossing.

Not as engrossing as her husband, in any event. Their conversation over lunch had got deep under her skin. His insistence that he had come to her to buy shares but had then wanted her, not because of Prim’Aqua, not because of anything. Except desire. Lust. Need. Passion.

She hadn’t realised until lunch how desperately she’d needed his assurances on that score and, now that she had them, how empowering it was. Because it legitimised what she felt—it showed that, no matter what else they were, this desire was real. It was true. He hadn’t seduced her because he’d thought it would lead to her compliance. He’d been unable to resist her.

For the hundredth time in a handful of minutes, her eyes lifted towards the terrace. He wasn’t looking at her. She allowed herself a moment to stare, to savour the lines of his body, the sleek, smooth masculinity that was all hard edges and beautiful planes, and then turned back to her book.

Two sentences later and her eyes lifted and finally, with an exasperated sound, she dropped the book and stood.

Did he have any idea what he was doing to her? Surely he did.

And couldn’t two play at that game?

With a small smile on her lips, she slipped upstairs and strolled into the enormous walk-in wardrobe. He’d filled it with designer clothes, but she’d assiduously ignored them, preferring to wear clothes she felt most like herself in, to wear the clothes of her old life like a uniform.

Only she hadn’t brought a swimsuit with her, and she knew there were several stashed in one of the drawers. She opened the first—it was filled with jewels, so she snapped it shut and went lower. The next drawer revealed what she was looking for.

She pulled out a simple navy-blue bikini and dressed quickly, pulling her hair over one shoulder as she crossed the room on her way back downstairs. Only the sight of herself in the full-length mirror arrested her step for a moment.

She curled her hands over the hint of a curve, a smile stretching her lips from one ear to the other.

She began to walk once more, but the smile didn’t shift. So as she stepped out onto the terrace she’d almost forgotten that a small part of her had wanted to go and get into a swimsuit just to repay the sensual distraction Antonio had been subjecting her to for the past hour. He was doing sit-ups now and, as he pulled towards his knees, he stopped, holding himself there, his body sheened in a light layer of perspiration so that he glistened all over, his expression burning her with its intensity. He dragged his eyes from her face, down her body, over the soft curve of her breasts to her newly rounded stomach, her legs and then back up, until her skin was covered in goosebumps and her heart was racing.

He stood slowly and, with the same pace, she took a step towards him, her eyes unable to pull away from his.

‘You are...’ He spoke with a voice that was husky, words that were dredged from deep inside his soul.

She held her breath, waiting for him to finish the sentence, but he shook his head, as if to clear the thought.

‘Yes?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said finally and moved a hand to curve around her cheek, tilting her face towards his.

She could hardly swallow, so dry was her mouth. ‘Thank you.’

‘I cannot believe this.’ And he dropped his hands to her stomach, discovering the roundness there for himself.

‘I know; it’s kind of surreal,’ she said, trying to sound light and breezy.

But the look on his face rid her of any such notion. There was such an acute watchfulness in his expression, a sense of powerful, passionate possession, that she took a step closer, as close as she could get without touching him, and then he went the rest of the way, closing the gap and wrapping one arm around her waist. He held her, vice-like, to his body and she made a soft sound of surrender before his lips dropped to hers and he kissed her, his mouth demanding, as though everything was hinged on this kiss.

She tilted her head, giving him more access, and she lost herself in that moment but she found herself too.

Emotions surged inside her but Amelia couldn’t have described them—not happiness, not doubt. She was a mix of everything and nothing; she knew only that answers lay within this kiss, within this touch, within him.

He lifted her easily, cradling her to his chest and carrying her towards the pool. And, despite the fact he was moving in that direction, the feel of cool water against her sun-warmed and passion-heated body still made her gasp. He swallowed the gasp and kissed it right back to her, and she laughed softly as the water rose higher and higher.

She spun in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and then she kissed him with all the pent-up hormonal needs that were ravaging her common sense and making her need Antonio more in that moment than she’d ever needed anyone or anything.

‘Make love to me,’ she demanded, her hands weaving behind his back, interlocking and holding him tight.

He groaned, a guttural noise that was empowering to Amelia for it spoke of his desperation and slavery to this feeling, and she was so glad for that! Glad he was as lost to this as she. Glad he was as in her thrall as she was his.

‘Why?’ he asked, but his hands were curving around her rear, lifting her so she felt the strength of his arousal and tipped her head back. Her hair fell into the water, saturated, and he kissed the exposed column of her neck then found the tie for her bikini.

‘Because you’re my husband,’ she said as he stripped the bikini top from her, discarding it in the water. His eyes devoured her breasts before his lips took over, his mouth moving over one of her nipples and then the next.

It wasn’t a reason. At least, it wasn’t as simple as being her husband: there were so many other factors. Having known this pleasure only once, she wanted to feel it again. She wanted to feel everything he could show her. She ran her hands over his body, delighting in the feel of his skin beneath her touch and the way he responded to her inquisitive exploration.

‘Make love to me,’ she whispered again, like an incantation, a demand that needed fulfilling, dropping her lips to his shoulder and nipping the flesh there with her teeth.

And there was a look of intense understanding in his eyes, a look of fierce determination too. ‘I intend to, querida.’

Relief soared inside her and she found his mouth with hers, kissing him as though there was nothing between them but this passion, this heat. She kissed him as though this were a new beginning, and all the old hatreds and resentments were nowhere to be seen. In that moment, she wasn’t a diSalvo and he wasn’t a Herrera, and there were no storm clouds threatening on their horizon.

Her hands roamed his body in all the ways she’d been wanting to do since that night in the cottage. Movements that her dreams had crystallised became real. She pushed at his shorts, a low, keening noise in her throat when her fingertips grazed the strength of his arousal, the promise of his possession.

He pulled his head from hers, his expression one of utter need when he stared down at her. And awakening too, as though he were shifting out of a dream state and discovering this new reality.

‘Why the hell haven’t we done this sooner?’ he demanded gruffly, finding her bikini bottoms and pushing them down at the same time she kicked out of them.

‘Because we’re stupid,’ she said, the words intended as a joke but coming out seriously. There was nothing funny about the intensity of their desire.

‘Sí,’ he grunted, lifting her legs and staring at her for a long, intense moment before wrapping her around his body and sinking his powerful arousal deep into her moist core.

She groaned as he swept inside her, remembered sensations kicking to life along with new ones. It was so overwhelming! And as he thrust deep into her feminine centre, he brought his mouth to hers and his kiss mirrored the movements of his body, so her blood stirred to his tempo, gushing fast and desperately. She writhed in his arms, her ankles crossed behind his back, her hands tangling in the dark pelt of his hair, and then pleasure turned to something far harder to quantify—something earth-shattering and mind-blowing. She dug her nails into his back, scoring red marks over his flesh as the pleasure became unbearable and finally she exploded, holding onto him for dear life as everything she’d ever known seemed to fade into a distant, faraway pinprick of light.

She was high above the earth and there was only this—blinding, inconceivable light.

Amelia held onto him as slowly she sunk back down to earth, her eyes blinking open in disorientation to find she was in the pool, held by Antonio, his body tight against hers, his arousal still rock-hard inside her. He was watching her, and heat bloomed in her cheeks to recall what madness she’d just succumbed to. How lost she’d been to the feelings he could stir within her so easily.

But realisation didn’t last long before he moved within her once more, this time watching her, their eyes locked in an ancient, primal examination. He watched as he drove himself deep inside her, he watched as her teeth sunk into her lip to stop herself from crying out, and he shook his head, lifting his thumb and rubbing it over her lips. ‘Do not censor yourself.’ The words were heavy with his exotic accent, thrilling over her nerve endings, setting little fires beneath her blood.

Before he could pull his hand away, she sunk her mouth around his thumb and his eyes flared wide at the sight of her pink lips swallowing a part of him.

His own groan was loud then, and power surged inside her to know that she could drive him every bit as wild as he could her. ‘Tentadora,’ he growled, his strong, virile thrust sending spasms of awareness spiralling through her.

‘Right back at you,’ she whimpered, digging her nails into his shoulder as another wave of pleasure built.

But he stilled suddenly, his face wiped of anything she could discern, his expression unrecognisable. ‘I want you to be my wife, Amelia,’ he said, and the words were foreign and confusing when all she could think of was sensual pleasure.

‘I am.’ She rolled her hips, needing him to keep doing what he had been, needing him to keep pushing her towards the edge of what she could bear.

‘No. I want you in every sense. In my bed, by my side. From now on. Entiendes?’

Something other than pleasure punched through her, something that set her soul on fire, that she couldn’t analyse and couldn’t comprehend, beyond knowing that it mattered more than the world to her.

‘Sí,’ she moaned, rolling her hips once more. And, satisfied with her agreement, he gave her what she needed, his body resuming its rhythm, driving her higher and higher into the heavens. And as she stood on the precipice, preparing to dive into an unknown heaven, he was there with her, his body vibrating alongside hers, and they clung together as they fell apart, into a billion pieces of what they had once been.