Читать книгу The Sicilian's Wife - Kate Walker - Страница 7

‘MEGGIE—tell me!’

This time, Cesare’s use of the childish nickname was far from gentle. Her hesitation, the seconds she had spent hunting for the right words to tell him what was on her mind, had pushed him to the limits of his patience in a very short space of time. He was barely keeping hold of his tenuous grip on his temper, and the way the words hissed through his teeth made that plain.

‘Just what is the problem? I need to know.’

It was the impatience in his tone that caught on Megan’s tongue and held it immobile, unable to speak a word. That and the way that, towering over her, big, dark and dangerously imposing, a severe frown drawing together the black arcs of his brows, Cesare had reverted to the man she had known—and feared—as an adolescent. Then he had been able to strike her dumb simply by walking into a room, and any attempt to answer one of the occasional questions he arrogantly tossed her way had reduced her to a mumbling, stammering, red-faced heap of embarrassment totally unlike her normally reasonable, sensibly functioning self.

And that was just what he did to her now.

‘Megan…’

This time her name had a note of warning in it. One that only made matters so much worse. She could only shake her head despairingly, unable to find any words with which to answer him.

‘Is it your father? Are you worried about the problems he’s having with the company?’

‘He told you about that?’ Shock released her tongue, pushed the words from her mouth.

‘Of course he told me—I am a friend after all.’

‘Did he ask you to help him—to bail him out? And you agreed?’

Some degree of strength was returning to her limbs now, and her brain seemed to be functioning with just a degree or two of clarity. If he was prepared to help her father, save Tom Ellis from the almost inevitable bankruptcy that was now staring him in the face, then at least one of her worries would be eased.

‘You said you’ll lend him what he needs?’

The change in Cesare’s face gave her the answer without a word having been spoken. The dark, carved features seemed to close up; the burnt-coffee-coloured eyes clouding as they met the urgent entreaty in hers. He had moved away from her mentally before he stepped back physically, withdrawing into himself in the space of a couple of heartbeats.

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I did not.’

‘You did not!’ Megan repeated, unable to believe what she had heard. ‘You said no! I don’t believe—’

‘Believe it!’ Cesare cut in sharply, not liking this direction the conversation had taken. ‘Your father told me of his problems. Regrettably…’

‘Regrettably… Oh, yes, I just bet you regretted it.’

The cynicism in Megan’s voice, the way it twisted at her mouth, dulled her eyes, made him wince. He wouldn’t have hurt her this way if he could have helped it.

‘You could have afforded it! The amount he needed would have been just a drop in the ocean compared with the fortune you possess! Why, you must make that much or more in just a year or so!’

Megan had got to her feet now and was coming towards him furiously. The anger that sparked in the depths of her eyes actually made him take a step or two backwards, away from her.

‘Yes, I could have afforded it.’

‘And you weren’t prepared to do so! I thought you were his friend!’

‘I am. Dannazione, Megan, you know I am!’

The haughty toss of her head dismissed his words with supreme contempt, green flames flaring in the angry eyes that blazed into his.

‘Some sort of friend that wouldn’t help him when he most needed you!’

Cesare could not hold back an impatient sigh as he raked both hands through the midnight-dark strands of his hair. He had hoped to have this conversation later—much, much later when things would have had a very different sort of perspective.

‘Meggie,’ he remonstrated as calmly as possible, ‘it wouldn’t have done any good. Your father understands that.’

‘Well, I don’t! I think you’re going to have to explain it for those of us who aren’t blessed with your near-genius financial ability. And don’t “Meggie” me! I might have let you call me that when I was growing up, but I’m no longer a child. I’m a woman of twenty-two, with three years at university and a degree behind me. I’ve done a lot of maturing lately!’

‘You certainly have.’

Dark-chocolate eyes skimmed over her slender figure in the close-fitting jeans and T-shirt, lingering appreciatively on the high curves of her breasts in a way that made Megan think unwillingly of the changes she had sensed in her body over the last week or so.

‘My name is Megan and I’ll thank you to remember that!’

‘Of course.’

His smile at her outrage was wry, and the small, sideways inclination of his head in acknowledgement of her outburst seemed to make a mockery of the apparent gesture of submission.

‘Are you laughing at me?’ Megan demanded suspiciously.

‘Would I dare?’ he returned drily, the lift of humour in his voice, the hint of a gleam in his eyes, tugging at something in her heart.

The man was too damned attractive for his own good, she told herself furiously—furiously because she didn’t want to find anything in him appealing right now. Once she had thought him the most delicious, the most devastating man in the world, but not any more. Especially not now! Though when he smiled like that…

Hastily she caught herself up, cursing her wandering mind. Such thoughts were dangerous, weakening her when she most needed to be strong.

‘My father might understand, but I certainly don’t! Would you care to explain?’

No, Cesare answered in the privacy of his thoughts. No, I would definitely not care to explain. Once more he was caught by the way he had given his word to Tom Ellis. The older man was proud to the point of stupidity. Even to rescue his company he couldn’t take a hand-out from his friend—but his son-in-law was a different matter.

‘If Meggie marries you,’ he’d said, ‘then I’ll take your money. It will be a family matter then. But not otherwise.’

Tom had demanded that this deal was to be a secret between the two of them and, knowing it was the only way his stubborn friend would take his help, he had been forced to agree. But his loyalty to Tom was being worn away by his feelings for the woman in front of him.

Did she know how it twisted a knife in his heart when she had looked at him, first with that entreaty in her eyes, and then with the scorn that had replaced it? And what made it so much worse was the instinctive, very basic way that his body reacted simply to being in the same room as her. Every sense was on heated red-alert, his pulse throbbing heavily in his veins. Since the moment he had walked into the room to find her sitting in the shadows, he had been fighting the impulse to grab her and kiss her, plundering her mouth with the force of the hunger that had him in its grip.

But to act on that impulse would be the most stupid behaviour he could come up with. At best, it would annoy and alienate her. At worst, it would drive her right away from him, send her screaming from the room. With a violent struggle he pushed the uncomfortable feelings back down inside himself, stamping on them hard.

‘Cesare…’ Megan’s tone was a warning. ‘Explain!’

‘Your father’s in a very tricky situation,’ he began carefully. ‘The state of the markets has just about destroyed the value of his investments—and the company’s been having problems too.’

‘So why wouldn’t you help him?’

‘I’m not in the business of buying up failing concerns! If word got about that I’d done it for one, then next moment I’d have thousands of lame dogs at my door, looking for a rescue deal—a hand-out!’

Pushed to the limit by the reproach in her voice, Cesare flung the words at her then almost immediately wished them back as he saw her recoil in distaste at his outburst. For perhaps the millionth time he cursed the promises to Tom Ellis that tied him down, making him feel like an angry, frustrated fly caught in the imprisoning, sticky threads of a huge spider’s web.

‘It isn’t sound business sense, Megan.’ But for Tom he would do it. If he got the chance.

‘Oh, and we must always put “business sense” first!’ Megan flung back bitterly.

‘I wouldn’t have got where I am unless I had.’

‘No—you wouldn’t. But now that you are where you are, you seem to have lost all sense of caring about the smaller man. You used to have more charity than this, Cesare!’

‘It wouldn’t help!’

Stung beyond endurance, Cesare couldn’t hold back any longer. His conscience only added to the feeling of mental discomfort, giving him another reproachful twist as he saw her flinch as if he had slapped her in the face.

‘Your father’s in too deep—and he knows it! He couldn’t manage another loan—he owes too much already to too many people.’

Her silence betrayed the depth of her shock, and his spirits, already low, sank right to rock-bottom. This wasn’t how this had been supposed to go. But from the moment he had walked into the library nothing had followed the path he had expected.

‘It—it’s that bad?’

Megan felt as if there were a thousand angrily buzzing bees swarming inside her head, making it swim unpleasantly so that rational thought was impossible.

‘Cesare—are you telling me that—he’s ruined?’

He didn’t have to spell it out. It was there in his face, etching lines around the stunning eyes, the beautiful mouth.

‘Oh, no!’

Her legs went from under her, threatening to send her crashing to the floor but, even as she sagged weakly, Cesare had moved, coming to her side with the swift, instinctive reflex action of a hunting tiger. Powerful arms folded round her, enclosing and supporting her, holding her close as one hand fluttered in a weak gesture of supplication.

‘It’s all right, carina.’ His voice was rough, sounding husky in her ear. ‘I have you safe. I won’t let you fall.’

Safe, Megan thought hazily, the single word, the only one that would register in her clouded thoughts. Yes, here, at last, she felt safe. For the first time in six long, unhappy weeks, she felt something other than lost and afraid and alone. It seemed as if Cesare’s strength flowed along his arms and into her through the strong-fingered hands that clasped her around her waist.

The heat of his body surrounded her, the clean, musky scent of his skin reaching her nostrils, making her want to inhale deeply, as if to draw in more of him that way. The urge to lean on him even more was irresistible, her head feeling too heavy for her neck to support. Giving in to the impulse, she let her head drop down onto his shoulder, feeling the hard bone, the taut muscle provide the perfect, much needed rest.

‘Oh, Cesare…’ she sighed, abandoning herself to the luxury of giving in to a moment of weakness.

‘Megan…’

His voice was unexpectedly gruff and tight. Her heart thudded in time with his breathing, the sound of his own pulse under her cheek providing an echo, beat for beat. Again Megan sighed, nestling closer, turning her head so that her mouth was close to the smooth, bronzed skin of his neck.

‘Megan…’

This time there was a note of what seemed like warning in his use of her name, but she was too comfortable, too relaxed to heed it. For the first time since she had left Lancaster and travelled back to London at the end of her university life, she felt as if she had truly come home. As if she was where she wanted to be. Where she had always been meant to be.

The heavy throb of Cesare’s heart gave a sudden jolt then lurched into a new and faster beat and she felt her own pulse quicken in response. Her breathing became faster too, shallower, uneven, until it was rasping in and out of her lungs like liquid fire.

‘Cesare…’

She tried for his name but the heat inside her had dried her throat so that the single word came out on a raw, uneven croak. Her lips were parched and as she licked them nervously to ease the uncomfortable sensation she felt the faint adjustment of his head, knew even before she opened her eyes that he was looking down at her and that he had caught the small, betraying movement.

Her eyelids felt unnaturally heavy and swollen so that it was an effort to lift them and meet his gaze. But in the second that she managed it and looked straight into the dark unblinking force of his stare, she was caught and held transfixed, like a rabbit in the oncoming glare of a car’s headlights.

And she didn’t want to move. Instead she waited, outwardly patient, but inwardly fizzing with anticipation and excitement. Waited, knowing that this was a moment she had been moving towards all her life. One that she had dreamed would come, then feared she had missed out on altogether, but which now she knew was as inevitable as her next breath, the beat of her heart.

‘Megan…’ Cesare began again in a voice that was thick and raw and sounded quite unlike the controlled, sophisticated man she had always known. ‘I think I’m going to have to kiss you.’

‘I know…’

‘I am sorry if you—you know?’

‘Mmm.’

Megan nodded slightly, feeling the brush of the soft cotton of his shirt against her cheek, the warmth of his skin burning through it.

‘I know. And do you know something?’

Her mouth quirked up at the corners into a mischievous pixie-like smile.

‘I’m going to have to let you—’

The words were smothered, crushed back down her throat, as his mouth covered hers. With a rough, jerky movement, he swung her round in front of him, his hands coming up to the back of her head, shaping themselves round the fine bones of her skull, holding her close, crushing her face up against his. It was the wildest, most passionate kiss of her life, one that drove her breath away, made her head spin, set her heart pounding.

Her own arms went up around his neck, fingers twisting and tangling in the black silk of his hair, keeping him still when he would have moved away. Her whole body was suffused with a heat that was more primitive, more basic, more pagan, than the simple effect of feeling the hard, hot length of him against her. She was on fire with delight, with hunger, with need, her hands moving lower, clutching, clinging, stroking. She was unable to get enough of him, unable to touch enough of him all at once.

‘Madre di Dio!’ Cesare muttered against her lips, snatching in a quick, raw breath as best he could without actually moving away. ‘Oh, Megan, Megan…’

‘Did you know, I love the way you say my name?’

Megan’s response was breathless too, shaking on an edge of near-laughter.

‘Maygan…Maygan,’ she echoed his pronunciation deliberately. ‘It sounds something special, something much more exotic and sensual than plain, ordinary Megan Ellis could ever be.’

‘No! Never say that.’

Cesare shook his dark head in reproof, laying one long finger across her lips to silence her.

‘Never say the words plain and ordinary in the same sentence as your name. The two things should never be linked together. You are not plain—and you are most definitely not ordinary!’

‘No?’

Megan looked up at him in stunned bewilderment, hunting for the teasing, the amusement she felt sure must be gleaming in his eyes. She didn’t find it. Instead she saw a very different sort of light burning in the brown depths. The sort of glow that made her think of fires and heat and the scorching, searing heat of the sun. Her heart gave a sudden, jolting shudder of excitement inside her chest, so that she gasped aloud in shock.

‘You’re beautiful—squisita—a stunning, wonderful woman.’

‘Squi—squisita—exquisite!’

Megan couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She felt like a child who had been caught with her nose pressed up against the window of a sweetshop, only to have the owner come to the door and invite her in to help herself to anything and everything she wanted.

‘You’re—you have to be joking! No?’ she questioned, silenced once more by the rough, shake of his head.

‘No joke,’ he insisted in a tone that made it plain she shouldn’t allow herself even to begin to doubt that he was deadly serious. ‘Would I joke about something like this?’

One hand trailed softly down her hair, smoothing and caressing the bright auburn strands, lifting them and letting them coil softly around his fingers.

‘About hair that burns like the glow of lava from a volcano in the dead of night…’

To her astonishment he bent his head and pressed his lips to the strand of hair in his hand, kissing it softly.

‘Eyes that have the cool, shadowy appeal of the olive groves…’

He repeated the caress, this time on her eyes, pressing her lids shut with the soft pressure of his mouth and lingering there for a moment that held her entranced, her heart seeming to stop, her breathing become so shallow it was almost non-existent.

‘Skin so soft and so delicate I’m almost afraid to touch it for fear it would bruise like a ripe peach…’

For a second the blunt tips of his fingers hovered over her face before gliding softly downwards, tracing the line of her cheek, her jaw, with a delicacy that made her shiver in uncontrolled response. But when his lips followed the same path then she froze in sensual delight, keeping her eyes tight shut in order to better enjoy the exquisite sensations he was creating.

Cesare’s mouth moved over her skin, kissing, caressing, occasionally nipping very softly, until it reached her lips and covered them again.

‘And a mouth,’ he murmured against them, ‘that is just made for kissing.’

This time his kiss was pure sensual enticement, the sort of kiss that seemed to draw her soul out of her body, making her head swim and her blood heat in her veins.

She melted against him, her body arcing as it pressed up against his, her breath catching in her throat as she felt the heated, swollen evidence of the reality of his desire for her. He might be able to choose his words, disguise his tone in order to be able to carry out whatever tormenting plan had been in his mind, if he had meant to tease her as he had done in the past. But this was no tease. This was hard, solid, physical reality. The uncontrollable response of a man to a woman for whom he felt a desire that he was incapable of concealing.

And the same response was flooding through her own body, melting her already vulnerable heart, twisting along her nerves. Every sense throbbed in hungry reaction, sending a stinging sensation straight to the most intimate, most feminine point between her legs. Sighing her need into his mouth, Megan moved restlessly, her hands clutching at the broad strength of his shoulders as the unwary movement brought her once more up against the heat and force of his erection.

‘I think we would be a little more comfortable if we…’

The rest of Cesare’s words were lost in another long, burning kiss, but Megan didn’t need words. Half-blind, totally absorbed, she would have followed him anywhere, and so she went with him, step by sightless step as he led her towards the big, squashy settee that stood before the huge open fireplace in the centre of the library.

‘Sit down…’ he dragged his mouth from hers long enough to say.

Obediently she sank down onto the soft cushions, her clinging hands pulling him down with her. As soon as he was beside her she moved closer, taking his mouth for herself, letting her tongue play intimately with his and slide along his lips.

‘Meggie…’

This time she found nothing to object to in his use of her childhood name. It was soft and tender, a seductive and a verbal caress in one. But what excited her most was the thread of total surrender in the sound, the wordless declaration of the way that he had abandoned himself totally to her lead.

The thought gave her a thrilling sense of power, one that had her reaching for his tie and tugging it loose at his throat. No sooner had she exposed the tanned skin, the strong, corded lines of his neck than the overwhelming need for more gripped her, driving her to impulsive action. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against the point where his pulse raced, hard and strong, savouring the slightly salty taste of his flesh, the heated velvet against her mouth.

‘Meggie!’

It was a groan of resignation, a sound of total abandonment. In one twisting movement he came to lie on his back on the wide settee, with Megan half at his side, half lying across the supporting strength of his body.

His hands were impatient now, tugging the white T-shirt free of her jeans at her waist, pushing it upwards over her slender ribcage, his fingers caressing the exposed skin left in its path. Megan caught her breath sharply, writhing in pure delight, her breasts hardening, pouting, pushing against the confinement of her bra in a physical mirroring of the burning arousal she had seen in Cesare himself already.

‘Bellissima, magnifica, squisita…’ Cesare had lapsed into his own language, crooning the words deep in his throat, his lyrical accent growing deeper, more musical on every word. ‘Megan, you always were enchanting as a child, but as a woman…’

Words failed him as he lifted passion-glazed eyes to hers and for a moment it seemed as if time had frozen. For long, silent seconds, their gazes locked and it seemed to Megan that in that time there was some wordless question asked, and equally soundlessly answered.

She thought she could guess what was in Cesare’s mind. He still thought of her as a child, the infuriating youngster who had hung around him, dogging his every step until she must have driven him to distraction. And those thoughts must make him hesitate, wonder if she was ready to go further, if she was woman enough for him.

Surely the fearless, unwavering way she met that burning, questioning stare was enough of an answer for him? But just in case it wasn’t, she lowered her head and took his mouth again, deliberately putting every ounce of sensuality and enticement she possessed into the kiss, using it to communicate the heated need that throbbed between her legs.

‘The answer’s yes, Cesare,’ she whispered unevenly, her mouth very close to his ear. ‘If you want me then yes, yes, yes! I’m yours right here and now—anywhere and anyway you want me!’

His only answer was a thickly muttered and near-incoherent curse in raw Italian and a moment later Megan too was beyond thought as hot fingers slid underneath the elastic sides of her bra, not even pausing to unfasten the slip of lace at the back. Her involuntary cry as the hard warmth of his palms cupped and held the soft weight of her breasts was a primitive sound of ecstasy, her head going back, her eyes staring sightlessly ahead. And when his thumbs moved, softly, slowly encircling her nipples in a tormenting, tantalising dance of provocation she writhed in delight under his touch, sighing her pleasure.

‘Madre de Dios!’

Cesare muttered in Italian again, tugging off her clinging T-shirt and tossing it impatiently aside before coming back to take her breasts into his hands once more, holding them up and out so that all he had to do was lift his head ever so slightly from the worn velvet cushions and he could take one swollen tip into his mouth, suckling on it hard.

‘Megan, mia amante, you weren’t lying when you said you’d done a lot of growing up lately. When I last saw you, you were still a little girl…’

A wickedly hot tongue snaked out, slid over the sensitised nipple, making her shudder violently in uncontrolled response.

‘Here, as everywhere else. But you’ve changed, developed…become all woman.’

Changed. Developed. Become all woman. The words echoed bleakly inside Megan’s head, becoming more frighteningly ominous with every repetition. And just the sound of them was a dreadful, hateful reminder, a violent death knell to all her hopes, dousing her passion in one brutal, bitterly cold rush.

‘No!’

It was a cry of pain, of bewilderment, of confusion, sounding high and wild in the echoing room. And it froze Cesare into immediate stillness.

‘No?’

It was like being slapped hard in the face. One moment she had been wild and willing, totally uninhibited in his arms. The next…

‘You don’t—you can’t mean it!’

‘I can! I don’t want this!’

‘Little liar.’

It was softly vicious, deadly. The nagging ache of frustrated passion was doing nothing at all to help his ability to think straight or reasonably.

‘You’re just teasing, you—’

‘No! That’s not it at all!’

With unexpected strength she tore herself from his restraining arms, flinging herself halfway across the polished floor towards the marble fireplace. Wrapping her arms around herself, concealing the creamy breasts his ardent passion had newly exposed, she shook her head so violently that her russet hair flew in a wild arc around her.

‘You have to believe me! I’m not teasing—honestly I’m not! I don’t want this!’

But that was too much.

‘You “don’t want”,’ Cesare echoed with gentle menace. ‘You “don’t want”! Oh, come now, cara, stop playing games! You were up for it every bit as much as I was—and don’t try to deny it!’ he snapped, seeing that she was about to refute the accusation once again. ‘I’m not blind—or deaf! I could see the passion in your eyes—hear it in your voice. “If you want me then, yes!”’

Megan flinched as he quoted her own thoughtless words of only moments before, echoing her passionate tone with cruel accuracy.

“‘I’m yours…anywhere and anyway you want me!” That was what you said, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes…’

Megan could only whisper words into the hands that concealed her ashen face.

‘I know I said that but…’

But what? The question rang inside her head, self-reproach in every syllable.

‘But I—I wasn’t thinking straight.’

She couldn’t have been thinking at all to let herself fall into Cesare’s arms like that, to invite his kisses, caresses…more!

For a few crazy, deluded moments, she had let herself pretend that she was still the young, innocent Megan, the adolescent with the world’s biggest ever crush on Cesare Santorino. And as that Megan she had seen his sudden new interest in her as the fulfilment of her long-held dream, the reward for half a lifetime of waiting.

But she was no longer that Megan. She no longer had the freedom to indulge in such wild and wanton behaviour. She couldn’t think only of herself…as Cesare’s words had reminded her. And the thought of what might have been had brought with it such a bitter sense of loss that she felt as if someone had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart without hesitation.

‘And it doesn’t matter what I said because I can’t—I can’t…’

‘Can’t what?’

Cesare was sitting up now, dark eyes fixed on her, his breathing, and apparently his temper, at last under control. Only the way his skin was drawn tight over the forceful cheekbones betrayed the way he was feeling below the surface of apparent calm.

‘Megan,’ he began again when she could only shake her head weakly in mute despair. ‘What can’t you do?’

‘I can’t sleep with you—or anyone. I mean, I can’t have an affair with just anyone—no matter who.’

‘And why not?’

But that was too much. She couldn’t answer that question because she knew what his reaction would be. And right now she was feeling far too lost, too vulnerable to cope with the rejection that she knew he must inevitably toss in her direction when he knew the truth.

So she simply shook her head again, silent as before, fixing her unfocused eyes on the distant view from the window so as not to have to look into his dark, angry face.

‘Megan—why not?’

Cesare’s tone warned that he would not stop until he got an answer. She knew that he was totally ruthless when he was determined to get what he wanted. And he wanted to know the truth.

‘Why can’t you have an affair with me—or anyone? Why? Megan—are you going to tell me, or do I have to come over there and…’

The step he took towards her was positively the last straw.

‘All right!’

Megan cried out in despair and resignation.

‘All right! I’ll tell you! You want the truth—you can have the truth!’

‘And that is?’ Cesare persisted mercilessly when she still couldn’t make herself form the words. ‘Just what is the truth that you…’

‘That I’m pregnant!’ Megan cut in when, having drawn a deep, determined breath, she knew there was no going back. ‘That’s what’s happened. I had an affair at college—I made a mistake and—and I’m pregnant as a result,’ she finished starkly. ‘I’m having a baby in seven months’ time.’