Читать книгу Sins of the Past - Elizabeth Power, Elizabeth Power - Страница 9

THE clock on her dashboard was showing ten past five as she swung out of the cobbled courtyard and along the leafy lane towards the dual carriageway.

‘How could it have happened?’ she demanded fiercely of anyone who might be listening. How could she—after not seeing the detestable Damiano D’Amico for nearly five years—suddenly be working for him? And not just working for him—at his beck and call!

The snarl of her car’s engine reflected her mood as she pulled out into the rush-hour traffic, and despite all the concentration needed to keep her mind on the road the past suddenly rushed upon her like a submerging tide.

Born when her mother was barely eighteen, Riva knew everything about deprivation and financial hardship. Her father she could only remember as a shadowy figure, flitting in and out of their lives, absent more than he was around. By the time she was old enough to know him he was already in prison, and that, and then his early death shortly afterwards, had plunged Riva and her mother into inescapable poverty.

Young, artistic and pretty, Chelsea had had no end of possible suitors who might have taken her and her daughter on. Strong-willed and free-spirited, though—a champion of causes—Chelsea Singleman had been determined to ‘go it alone'.

Scarred and disillusioned after her experience with

Riva’s father, her mother had always warned her of the dangers in succumbing to sexual desire. When Riva had met Damiano D’Amico, therefore, she had been ill-equipped to match his hard sophistication—which was why it had been so easy for him to turn her lack of experience to his own ends, she thought, hating him with a passion she couldn’t believe she could feel for anyone. But with just cause, she assured herself, feeling emotion surfacing as hot tears in her eyes at the way she was allowing him to use and manipulate her—unavoidably—now.

She couldn’t forget the impact he had made upon her the first time she had seen him standing there in the drawing room of Marcello’s villa—the dark excitement of his features, the blazing charm of his smile, the breath-catching power of his smouldering sexuality. Nor could she forget the way he had looked at her with a fire in his eyes that had touched the secret places of her young, untutored body. But there had been suspicion too—that she’d been too inexperienced to recognise—as he’d looked from her to her mother and then back at Riva again, with a hard, concealed intent behind that lazy urbane charm which she had foolishly mistaken for mutual attraction.

His exciting masculinity had blinded her to everything—even the truth—because he had come to vet his uncle’s new fiancée under the pretext of merely celebrating Marcello D’Amico’s betrothal.

A picture flashed through Riva’s mind of the gentle silver-haired man who had captured Chelsea Singleman’s heart and who, for the first time in Riva’s life, it had seemed, had made her struggling parent perfectly happy. He’d been nearly twice her mother’s age, and yet Riva had had no problem with that. Her mother had been head over heels in love with Marcello, and he with her, and Riva had been happy for them both without a thought for how wealthy he was. She’d been only aware and pleased that all the struggles Chelsea had endured throughout her life, her loneliness and her sometimes inevitable depressions, were finally going to be things of the past.

After a celebratory lunch, tipsy with champagne, they had giggled like schoolgirls while strolling arm in arm through Marcello’s spectacular gardens, on one of those sultry, halcyon days before the storm broke.

‘I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you,’ Chelsea had commented when their conversation had turned, as it always had, to the disturbing subject of Damiano. ‘I’ve seen, all right—and all I can say is that he’s trouble, Riva. And I don’t mean trouble like your father was. I mean the type most women imagine they want and then wind up regretting with a passion—especially when he tosses them aside for the next easy conquest, as I’m sure a lot of women must have found to their cost.’

As if her mother’s words alone had conjured him up, he had appeared on the hot flagstones in front of them.

‘Well … Damiano … Or should I call you Nephew?’

His smile for Chelsea Singleman didn’t actually touch his eyes, and he seemed to be assessing the mere ten years or so between their ages.

‘A little premature, I think.’ With that almost detached air—just one of the many things about him that excited Riva—he dismissed the familiar way in which her mother had addressed him. ‘I believe Marcello’s looking for you. I think he feels he has been deserted.’

Even the mention of her fiancé's name had made Chelsea’s eyes light up.

Keen to get back to him, she turned a little too quickly and almost lost her footing on a crack between the stones. Riva’s arm shot out to steady her.

Chelsea had giggled, Riva remembered, obviously self-conscious about making a fool of herself in front of a man of such formidable poise and self-possession. ‘Come on then, Riva,’ she’d encouraged, eager to get away. ‘Let’s get back.’

‘Not you, signorina.’

His soft command had been startling, causing excitement to leap wildly in Riva. But more startling had been the dark, warm hand that had suddenly entrapped hers—because that was how it had felt. Like a trap, Riva thought bitterly, wishing she had followed her instincts and fled from the reckless danger she had sensed, which Chelsea had warned her about. But she had been too flattered and too attracted to him, as well as far too inexperienced and swept off her feet, to care.

‘I think your mother has had a little too much champagne,’ he’d commented, turning from the figure of the older woman tripping back to the villa with her blonde hair billowing out behind her, like her loose white cotton sundress, and Riva had sensed an edge of disapproval in his tone.

‘No, she hasn’t. She’s just happy.’ Instantly she flew to Chelsea’s defence. ‘And if she has, then why not? She’s celebrating her forthcoming marriage, after all.’ She didn’t know why she suddenly needed to feel protective of her mother. ‘Don’t you approve of anyone being happy?’ she challenged him, and then with a sidelong glance at him from under mahogany lashes she tagged on, far more coquettishly than she had intended, ‘Don’t you like being happy, Damiano?’

She felt the burn of his gaze move over her face and touch the gentle swell of her breasts, just visible above the multi-print gypsy-style blouse she was wearing with a long plain calico skirt, and she felt their tender tips drawing into tight buds.

‘Sì. I like being happy,’ he breathed, the downward sweep of those thick black lashes unable to conceal the heated desire in his eyes that promised her that what would make him happy would be to tug loose the strings securing her tantalising blouse and show her pleasure such as she had never known. ‘And you, Riva? What do you suppose I should call you if your mother marries my uncle? Cousin?’ The intimate way in which he enunciated the word, with those visual images already in her mind of him, stroking and arousing her with those long hands, and that voice that was designed for loving a woman, sent molten heat coursing through her veins.

‘What do you mean “if"? It’s “when", surely?’ She exhaled, her cheeks tinged with colour from the feelings he aroused, which were a wild concoction of sexual excitement, indignation and inexplicable unease.

He smiled that lazy smile, the type that made her feel she was drowning in those incredible ebony eyes. Then he was pulling her gently towards him, allowing his lips to brush hers in a feather-light kiss that sent her rocketing senses into overdrive, before he breathed—humouring her, she realised now—in that dark, seductive and oh, so caressing voice, ‘Sì. When.’

That had been the first of many such blissful times when they were alone together, though she’d never fully lost her nervousness with him, amazed as she’d been that such a frighteningly attractive man could be interested in her.

He’d wanted to know everything about her. Where she came from, who she was, what made her tick. No one had ever made her feel so special—or so aware of herself as a woman. But knowing that he would reject her out of hand if he knew the truth, unable to bear it, she had woven a fanciful and glamorous picture around herself, mixing fact and fiction in a story she’d dearly wanted to believe, unaware of how dangerous he was, oblivious to the sensual and deadly trap he had been laying for her.

When he had made a point of extending his visit to the villa, idiotically she’d convinced herself that it was because of her.

‘Be careful, Riva,’ Chelsea, aware of her excitement, had warned her daughter again.

They’d been in Riva’s suite, experimenting with make-up, because Marcello was taking Chelsea out to dinner. She’d looked young and modern and sensational, Riva remembered with a swift sharp shaft of pain. Because Chelsea had borrowed a dress from her that her mother adored.

‘I know he’s handsome and mature and far more exciting than any of the boys you’ve brought home, but he’s too experienced for someone of your age. I know we might not look so different, but I’ve been around a bit longer than you have, and I don’t want to see my baby getting hurt.’

‘I’m not your baby any more, Chelsea,’ Riva had reminded her gently. ‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown up.’

‘I know.’ Standing behind her at the dressing table mirror, Chelsea had bent and kissed the top of her head. ‘And dangerously dynamic creatures like Damiano D’Amico have noticed it too—and that’s what worries me.’

Oh, Mum! Riva mourned now—now it was too late. If only I’d listened to you!

‘Don’t worry. I can handle him,’ she remembered telling her anxious mother.

What a misconception! What a joke!

She’d been so far out of her depth she hadn’t realised that her feet weren’t even touching the bottom any more, that she was playing with a hard, masculine sensuality that was more dangerous than a lethal current. Unaware that there was no safety net to catch her—nothing to stop her from drowning beneath her own stupidity. Because, desperate to keep him from guessing how inexperienced she was, she had woven an illusion of sophistication around herself that had fooled even a man as worldly as Damiano D’Amico.

‘You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ he had groaned that night in his private rooms, when things had got so out of hand between them, when her hands had stolen inside his shirt and slipped it off his shoulders so that she could see him, touch him, feel the satin of his pulsing flesh that clothed the exciting strength of his body. The night she had allowed him to lead her into the bedroom, realising that unless she admitted the truth there would be no turning back.

Scared by what her boldness had instigated as she’d allowed her hands and lips free rein over his muscular, hair-feathered chest, she’d been even more afraid of his turning away from her in disgust if she told him the truth, perhaps ridiculing her innocence and her lack of sophistication. There was no way she could have suffered the humiliation of that. It would have been too demoralising and degrading, as well as agonizing, to have him reject her. And so, aroused to fever-pitch by his lips and those skilled and oh, so capable hands on her body, when he’d asked her if she was on the pill, she had murmured tremulously that she was.

He had known almost at once, of course, that she had lied, but things had gone too far, and the fire that had raged between them had been too hot and consuming even for his disciplined will.

As pain had made her cry out, she’d heard his groan of rejection, swiftly followed by one of defeat as he lost control.

It had been an experience she could never have imagined. Rivers of sensation had tumbled through every electrified cell in her body, making her cry out again, but this time in ecstasy from the earth-shattering strength of her climax.

He’d waited until she’d slumped back against the pillows, gasping and spent, before rolling away from her with the swiftness of the mistral that blew down from the mountains in winter, and to Riva it had seemed just as chillingly.

‘What the devil was all that about?’

Riva recoiled from the white-hot emotion running through his burning question.

‘You lied to me! Why the hell did you think you could get away with lying to me?’

He was angry. She couldn’t understand how he could be so angry. Not if he loved her! He should have been pleased, flattered …

‘I—I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Reduced by the experience of a lifetime and then his frightening anger, she let slip the charade of sophistication that had resulted in her winding up in bed with him.

‘You didn’t think I’d mind!’ On his feet now, he swung away from the bed, slapping his forehead as he did so. ‘My dear, reckless girl. Mamma mia! Did you even think?’

Shamed by his unexpected reaction, and by how irresponsible he thought her, she covered her small breasts with the sheet and asked candidly, ‘Why is my virginity so anathema to you?’ And, in view of how gladly she had sacrificed it for him, she murmured, ‘Shouldn’t you be glad?’

‘No, I darn well shouldn’t! What did you imagine I would say? “Grazie, signorina? That was very generous of you"?’

‘Stop it!’ She couldn’t bear it! Not his mood, nor his angry words, let alone the meaning behind them. He was reducing what they had just done to nothing. No—worse than that—to something sordid, making her feel no better than a whore.

‘And what if I’ve made you pregnant? Had you thought of that?’

Yes, she had, she remembered thinking, but only fleetingly, caught up in too many other emotions—desire, passion, embarrassment, the fear of rejection.

‘Do you really think I will have any sympathy with you if you come crying to me in a few weeks saying you’re going to have my baby?’

Numbed by the significance of what those last words could only mean—that he didn’t love her—Riva couldn’t believe he could hurt her any more until, with eyes narrowing into cold, speculative slits, he added, ‘Or was that all part of the plan?’

Pain and bewilderment crumpled her forehead. ‘What?’ She couldn’t even follow what he was saying. ‘What plan?’

‘Is that why you lied to me about being on the pill?’ His features were growing harder with every syllable. ‘Were you hoping to snare me in the same way your mother has snared poor, unsuspecting Marcello? Was the magnanimous gift of your virginity just one more clever ploy to try and feather your own nest? The older woman takes on the uncle, while the younger little siren makes a bid for the even wealthier deluded nephew!’

Even now Riva winced from the spearing cruelty of his words. He had been using her, although she hadn’t realised it then, but he hadn’t been able to swallow the knowledge that he might possibly have been a victim of the same treatment—which he certainly hadn’t been.

‘No!’ she’d flung back, rejecting every cruel sentence he’d seemed to think it was his right to throw at her. ‘And anyway, I am on the pill!’ She couldn’t bear him knowing she had been such a fool—not after his cold and lacerating accusations. ‘And my mother hasn’t snared Marcello. How you can say that?’

Ignoring her wounded question, he said only, ‘You were a virgin.’

She gave a miserable little shrug. ‘So? I knew I was coming to Italy.’ Wretchedly she went on, compounding the lies and worsening the situation for herself in an attempt to prevent him thinking that she was reckless and foolish, and most of all that she might possibly be in love with him. ‘Every girl has to start somewhere.’

‘So you chose me to initiate you?’ He began pulling on his clothes, his body fit and tanned and agile. ‘I’m flattered!’ His voice, his face and the hard purpose of his actions assured her he was anything but.

‘Why not?’ She was near to tears but dared not show it, although her voice was so close to trembling that she didn’t risk saying any more.

‘Well, I sincerely hope I didn’t disappoint you! Unless those cries of pleasure to which you treated me were as fake as you are!’ He left her then, with his shirt flying open, his angry exit punctuated by the thunderous closing of the door.

A couple of days later her mother came crying to her because Marcello had broken off the engagement. Damiano, it seemed, had had both women investigated, and had convinced his uncle of their unsuitability to marry into the D’Amico family. He had found out about Riva’s father, Chelsea’s protest marches, her jobs in downmarket pubs and restaurants. Her emotional breakdowns. The flat she had once vacated, dragging a sleepy six-year-old with her in the night, in a hurry, and without paying the rent.

Though she’d never actually disclosed any of this, Riva realised that it was the innocent seeds she had sown in his mind during their long conversations which had nurtured the suspicions he’d already had about them both, and led him to discover all the things that her mother—that both of them—had tried to cover up, or rather wanted to forget.

Riva confronted him about it, shaking with anger and wounded pride, and it was then that he took great satisfaction from calling her a liar. After all, she was, she thought, unable to defend herself. The way she had behaved with him, pretending to be sophisticated, experienced, not letting on about her true background, her upbringing.

‘You’ll excuse me if I’m not too distressed by not seeing the name of my family dragged down by the likes of you and your mother, carissima.’