Читать книгу Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8 - Мишель Смарт, Natalie Anderson - Страница 20

WHEN ORLA TASTED her starter of cured salmon, crab and smoked roe all wrapped in the most delicate pancake, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. When she took her first bite of her main course of aged fillet of Irish beef and the shiitake tart accompanying it, she decided that if this was heaven, she wanted to stay. If reaching heaven would allow her to drink Tonino’s wine without conking out, then even better. She hadn’t been joking when she called it beautiful. It was easily the most delicious wine she’d ever tasted, and she wished with all her heart that she could have more of it.

‘Were you not tempted to make the menu more Sicilian?’ she asked.

‘This hotel could not be more Irish,’ he said dryly. ‘I don’t think a Sicilian theme would work, do you?’

She shrugged. ‘I know nothing of hotels and restaurants. I was just curious. How many hotels do you own?’

‘Eighteen. I’m in the process of buying another on the Greek island of Agon. I’m flying there tomorrow to deal with some paperwork.’

‘You’re leaving tomorrow?’ That was not disappointment she felt.

‘First thing in the morning.’ He grinned. ‘Are you going to miss me?’

‘Like a migraine.’

His laughter filled her ears and sent a warm feeling trickling through her veins. ‘I was going to discuss this with you. I will be away for two days. That will give my staff enough time to set up a bedroom for Finn—when I return to Sicily I want Finn to come—’

‘That’s not possible,’ she interrupted. In less than a second, all the warmth in her veins had solidified into ice.

‘Why not?’ He asked it pleasantly enough, but she detected the underlying warning in his tone.

‘It’s too soon. He has medication and…’

‘There is nothing he has here that he cannot have in Sicily provided we prepare well for it. It will only be for a week.’

‘Only a week?’ she echoed faintly. Was it her imagination or were the restaurant’s stone walls starting to blur and spin? As much as she was enjoying this meal, being apart from Finn for an evening felt as if she’d had a limb removed. How was she supposed to cope for a whole week without him?

‘Sì. I can clear my schedule for a week so Finn and I can get to know each other but then my schedule is packed with appointments that cannot be rearranged,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The weekend after that my parents are hosting a party for all the family to meet my sister’s new baby—’

‘Giulia had another baby?’ Orla interrupted again, startled, remembering that four years ago Tonino had been excited for the forthcoming birth of Giulia’s first child.

‘She had a baby girl last week.’

‘You never said.’

He shrugged. ‘We have had other things to talk about, dolcezza.’

‘I know, but a new baby is something to celebrate.’ Orla had nearly hit the roof in excitement when Aislin told her she was pregnant.

‘And it will be. The party is a good opportunity to introduce Finn to everyone. There will be lots of small children for him to play with including my other nieces and nephews.’

‘How many do you have now?’ she asked faintly. He’d spun her on the dance floor to face his family while he rebuked her for keeping Finn from them, but that had been the only time since their lives had collided back together that he’d mentioned them.

‘Five in total.’

Feeling another headache starting to form, Orla rubbed her temples. ‘I don’t know if the nurses will be able to travel at such short notice.’

‘There are private nurses in Sicily. It will be easy to arrange. Which brings me to my next point—the funding of Finn’s medical care.’

‘Dante pays for anything not covered by our healthcare system.’

‘I thought as much.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you fund it before you found him?’

‘We didn’t. It’s what made us seek Dante out in the first place.’ She took a deep breath and tried to get the panic under control. How could she let Tonino take Finn to Sicily? It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to let him go. ‘When his father—my father—died, Aislin and I were skint. The insurance company was fighting over any pay-out from the accident. Aislin convinced me I was entitled to some of my father’s estate. Neither of us knew he’d gambled most of his wealth away. Once Dante learned about me and Finn he became our knight in shining armour. Before he stepped in, Aislin and I were basically on our own.’

Thinking about the large number of Irish guests at Aislin and Dante’s wedding, Tonino found this hard to believe. ‘What about the rest of your family?’

‘Spectacularly useless.’ She rolled her eyes and shook her head but there was no malice in the gestures. ‘Most of them live miles away and have their own worries.’ To his surprise, she reached for her wine glass and drank a tiny bit more before inhaling deeply and seeming to brace herself. ‘Tonino. Please. I’m not trying to be awkward but it’s too soon for you to be taking Finn to Sicily.’

‘I would say it’s too late. I have been incredibly patient, dolcezza…’

She snorted inelegantly.

‘But Finn has been deprived of half his heritage. It is time for him to learn the Valente half of himself.’

She dropped her stare. When she looked back at him he couldn’t tell if it was anguish or anger that was the most prevalent emotion in her eyes. ‘Is that what this evening is all about?’ she accused. ‘A nice meal together to lull me into a false sense of security before you snatch my son from me?’

‘You need to get some perspective,’ he said coolly.

‘Perspective?’ She clutched at her hair and looked as if she was preparing to shout at him. Thankfully the waiter arrived at their table to clear their plates away, giving her a few moments to calm herself.

‘Tonino, please, just listen to me,’ she beseeched. ‘Tonight is the first time in two years that I’ve left Finn for longer than half an hour. I’ve spent the evening stopping myself from phoning home to check on him every five minutes. I know I must sound selfish, but I can’t…’ To his shock, tears filled her eyes. She closed them and took another long breath. ‘I don’t know how I’ll cope without him for a whole week. And then to do it all again a week later?’

Cope without him?

Suddenly everything became clear.

Leaning forward, Tonino stared at her until her damp eyes met his. ‘Orla, I never said I would take him to Sicily without you.’

Confusion creased her brow. ‘Didn’t you? But you only spoke about Finn and getting to know him and introducing him to your family and the party and everything.’

He muttered a curse under his breath. ‘I want all these things but I cannot believe you would think me cruel enough to take him without you. He hardly knows me. It would terrify him.’ And, he could see, destroy Orla. ‘You seem to have a habit of assuming the worst about me.’

‘I’m sorry…in fairness, you did threaten a custody battle,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s not an easy thing to forget.’

He drummed his fingers against his wine glass. ‘I accept that, but those threats were made in anger and I’ve assured you since that I don’t want to put Finn through that. Stop thinking the worst and accept that, where our son is concerned, you and I are of the same mind—we only want what’s best for him.’

She slumped in her chair and pressed her palm to her forehead. ‘I can be such an eejit.’

‘Sì,’ he agreed.

A smile unexpectedly formed on his lips as he recalled the first time he’d heard that particular Irish insult from her. They’d been driving in his car—well, not his car but one of the staff cars he’d bought for his hotel staff to do their errands in—with the roof down when he’d made a comment about something, he didn’t remember what. He did, however, remember Orla lightly punching him on his biceps and calling him an eejit.

That had been one hell of a good day. The sun had blazed as hot as their passion and through it all had been the knowledge that this sweet, funny, beautiful woman had wanted him only for himself. She had wanted Tonino the man, not Tonino Valente the billionaire hotelier. She hadn’t wanted to be in his bed to join the Valente dynasty, she hadn’t been playing the role of a chess piece taking a strategic move with the ultimate hope of becoming his queen.

She’d just wanted him.

The memories filled him with a warmth that had him reaching out to cover her hand. ‘You and Finn come as a package. I accept that. Now you need to accept that I’m part of that package too and that means telling Dante his money isn’t needed any more. I’ll be paying for everything now.’ Before she could protest, he added, ‘I’m Finn’s father. You two are my responsibility.’

She tugged her hand from his and wrapped her fingers around her glass of water. ‘If you want to pay for Finn’s care then I won’t argue, but I’m not your responsibility.’

‘You’re the mother of my child.’

‘Exactly. I’m not your child. I’m an adult. Dante gave me my share of what was left of our father’s estate and got his lawyers to make the insurance company pay out. I have money of my own right now.’

‘How much?’

‘Enough to keep me going for a few years.’

‘Marry me and you need never worry about money again.’

She gave a splutter that could have been laughter or exasperation. ‘How many times are we going to have this conversation before you get it in your thick head that I’m not going to marry you?’

‘My mother assured me throughout my childhood that it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I have every intention of changing yours.’

‘Good luck with that. I’m a stubborn mule.’

‘And I’ve never been able to resist a challenge.’ He poured himself some more wine and contemplated her lazily. Now that he’d put her mind at ease about her travelling to Sicily with Finn, she’d visibly relaxed.

She had the peaceful air about her that he remembered from before and for a moment he could almost imagine they were the same two people they’d been then.

But of course they weren’t. He wasn’t the same man. And she wasn’t the same woman. Her memory was mostly repaired and she looked the same as she’d done four years ago but her movements had lost much of their old grace. She tired easily. Even the way she ate, holding her knife and fork so tightly, cutting her food with such concentration…

‘You were six months pregnant when the accident happened?’ he asked carefully.

She nodded. A sad smile curved her cheeks. ‘Finn was born by emergency Caesarean. He spent eight weeks in Intensive Care. They didn’t think he was going to make it.’ A spark flashed in her eyes. ‘But our son’s a fighter. He proved them all wrong.’

Feeling his stomach clench then churn, he took a moment to ask, ‘And you? Was there a danger you wouldn’t have made it?’

She hesitated before giving the tiniest of nods. ‘I was in a coma for three weeks and then under sedation for another month. But I’m fine now,’ she hastened to add. ‘And things are massively better with Finn too. We know what we’re dealing with and I always think that’s half the battle.’

‘Who looked after him while you were in hospital? Aislin?’ She’d already said Aislin had been the one to register Finn’s birth.

She gave another nod. ‘She quit her degree—quit her life—to look after us both. When I finally came home, she taught me how to care for him. Finn is my miracle. Aislin is my angel.’

She’d already described Dante as her knight in shining armour. So what did that make Tonino?

He thought it better not to ask.

‘Where was your mother in all this?’

An emotion he couldn’t determine flittered over her face. ‘I haven’t seen my mother in seven years. As far as I know she’s in San Francisco.’

‘She wasn’t there for you?’

She picked up her wine glass and stared at the burgundy liquid. ‘I don’t think she’s ever been there for me. Aislin and I spent more time with our grandparents next door than we ever did with her. Two weeks after Aislin finished high school our mother scarpered to Asia and never came back.’

Even the edge to her voice, never mind her words, struck Tonino like a blow. It was a tone he’d never heard before and he peered closely at her. ‘Never?’

The misery he witnessed on her face struck him like a second blow.

She swallowed before answering. ‘Put it this way, she’s never met Finn.’

A grandmother who’d never met her only grandchild? Surely not? ‘What about when you were in the coma and he was in Intensive Care?’

‘She texted Aislin for updates.’

That struck him even harder than Orla’s other revelations.

He imagined her hooked to machines, locked in her own head, unable to communicate, unable to respond to anything and his heart swelled so greatly it became an effort to breathe. To think her own mother had abandoned her to that fate without one single visit defied all humanity.

Little wonder Orla struggled to trust and open up to people. Of the two people whose job had been to love her and raise her, one had rejected her in the womb, the other doing the bare essentials until she could leave for good.

His throat moved before he asked hoarsely, ‘How did the accident happen?’

‘I don’t remember.’ She shook her head as if clearing her ears. ‘That period is still a blur. I don’t even remember where I was going. I know it must have been somewhere important because there was a bad storm and I’m not comfortable driving in bad weather. I know I had a collision with a Transit van but I don’t remember anything of the accident itself.’ Suddenly she grinned. It made her whole face light up. ‘Probably just as well. I’m terrible around blood.’

He returned the grin, glad of the lightening of mood.

But he couldn’t escape the feeling in his guts that there was more to Orla’s injuries than she was sharing with him.

As they left the cosy warmth of the Bally House Hotel restaurant, the breezy chill in the air outside came as something of a shock, especially as Orla had neglected to bring a jacket with her. She looked up at the sky and was disappointed to find all the stars hidden under thick cloud. Summer was practically over, she thought wistfully.

Yawning as the long day finally caught up with her, she rubbed her arms for warmth. Eagle-eyed Tonino noticed and removed his charcoal suit jacket and placed it on her shoulders.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she protested.

‘I’m not cold,’ he answered smugly.

And now, neither was she. Tonino’s jacket was so big and contained so much warmth that it enveloped her body like a giant hug.

Its warmth came from his body heat.

The driver noticed their approach and opened the back door for her.

She climbed inside and was about to reluctantly give Tonino his jacket back when he slid in beside her.

‘You don’t need to escort me back,’ she chided, smothering another yawn.

‘I want to see you home safely.’

The driver pulled away.

‘Don’t be silly.’ She smothered yet another yawn. She was utterly exhausted and yet…

Alone with Tonino in the confines of the back seat of his car, the partition between them and the driver raised…

Suddenly she was aware of the beats of her heart and the thickening of her blood.

Suddenly she was aware of Tonino’s cologne dancing through her airwaves. The urge to rub her cheek into his jacket still draped over her shoulders became almost irresistible.

And suddenly she was aware of his thigh pressed against hers.

She should move away from him. Edge herself to the door. Create a distance.

She knew what she should do. Her body had other thoughts and was refusing to take orders from her brain. She cleared her throat. ‘You’ve only got to come all the way back and it’s not like you’ll see Finn—he’ll be asleep.’ The car’s interior darkened as they drove through the thick woodland. ‘You should get some sleep too before all that travelling you’ve got to do…’

His hand closed over hers, stifling her words. It felt very different from the way he’d covered her hand in the restaurant. That had been for reassurance during what had proved to be a difficult yet ultimately necessary conversation. Since then, they’d spoken only of light, forgettable things and yet, instinctively, she knew she would remember every word exchanged.

If only she could remember those last missing pieces. What had happened with her father was becoming clearer. She’d waited on his doorstep for his housekeeper to find him. She didn’t need the actual memory to know the housekeeper had returned with the message that he didn’t want to see her. Orla knew it in her heart.

The memory she most wanted back was the accident. Where had she been going? She’d been two hours from home on the main road to Dublin…

Her desperate thoughts, barriers to help her pretend that the electricity bouncing over skin wasn’t really happening, dissolved. The weight and warmth of Tonino’s skin against hers made coherent thought impossible.

‘I would sleep much better if I was in your bed,’ he murmured.

A loose breath escaped her throat, barely audible above the humming in her ears.

She should move her hand from his and move her body away too. Instead she found her fingers lacing through his. When his thigh pressed tighter against hers and his shoulder leaned against hers, she smothered a gasp at the throb that pulsed through her abdomen and sent an ache rippling through the rest of her.

She didn’t dare utter another word. She didn’t dare look at him.

There was an excitement in her belly that was both new and yet familiar. She didn’t remember the feelings but knew, in the same instinctive way she’d known she was pregnant and that Finn’s father was Sicilian before the memories came back, that she’d felt them before.

His fingers squeezed then unlaced from hers to rest lightly on her thigh. The heat from his touch fizzed right into her veins.

Her fingers spread themselves over his thigh before her brain could compute what they were doing.

Slowly, slowly, his fingers crept upwards, gently caressing until they reached the apex of her thighs. She squeezed reflexively and gasped when his thumb brushed over the material covering her femininity.

She found herself helpless to stop her fingers slowly dragging themselves up the muscular thighs, closer and closer to…

Orla swallowed hard when the tip of her finger brushed something solid.

Dimly she was aware that Tonino’s breaths had become heavy. In the echoes of her mind she heard her own breaths too, ragged bursts as erratic as her heartbeats.

She pressed her pelvis against his hand.

He shifted so his chest pressed against her breast. His mouth pressed against the top of her head. Hot breaths permeated through her skin, darts of need careering through her veins and down to her liquid core.

Feeling drugged, she turned her face up to his. The heat swirling in his dark hooded eyes only heightened the sensations that had taken control of her body. The whispers of his breaths danced over her lips.

He covered her hand and gently slid it to cover the bulge between his legs. A thrill so powerful shot through her that her breath hitched, and it took a moment for her to register his hand no longer covered hers but had moved to her shoulder. Slowly it brushed down, over her breasts and stomach to the part of her body now aching with torment.

And then the warmth against her lips changed. It solidified, flesh forming from the air…

Tonino’s mouth was grazing against hers…

This time she could not hold back the gasp that flew from her throat. The firm pressure of Tonino’s lips against hers muffled the sound but did nothing to muffle the shaking of her right knee.

When his mouth moved she found her own mouth moving in time. She found her chest straining to him…all the cells in her body were straining to him. She barely noticed he’d undone the button of her trousers until he slipped his hand into the loosened space and burrowed into her knickers. Her gasp was muffled again by the delicious pressure of his mouth. Her mouth flooding with moisture, Orla cupped his cheek and tried to hold on to herself but it was a battle she’d lost before she’d started. A thick finger slid over her swollen nub, making her gasp again and turning her breaths into shallow pants that echoed around her. Wantonly, she pressed against the finger, heightening the sensation, and moaned into his mouth.

Her fingers moved from his cheek to cradle his head and she closed her eyes, letting her body and Tonino’s clever manipulations guide her responses.

Clinging tightly to him, their breaths merged together, she bucked against him with increasing urgency until the pleasure consumed her in its entirety and she was whimpering against him, her face burrowed in his neck, sensation that felt as if it had been dipped in nectar flooding her throbbing pelvis.

She had no idea how long it took for reality to snake its way into her delirious consciousness.

She opened her eyes.

That was Tonino’s neck her face was pressed against.

That was Tonino’s strong arm holding her so tightly and protectively against him.

That was his heartbeat thudding through his chest and reverberating in her ear.

That was his hand…

That was her hand…

Suddenly awash with mortification, Orla snatched her hand away from his crotch and yanked his hand away from hers and turned from him to fasten and straighten her clothes.

Tonino didn’t make a sound or a movement until, moments later, the car came to a stop and he shifted beside her.

She swallowed and kept her gaze fixed forward, afraid to look at him.

How could she ever look at him again?

‘We have arrived, dolcezza,’ he said huskily. His breath danced against her cheek. She closed her eyes.

A finger touched her chin.

Her heart jumped.

The air around her shifted again. Tonino had moved even closer.

There was not an inch of her skin that didn’t reawaken. Anticipation bubbled but still she kept her eyes closed.

The finger on her chin skimmed lightly over her cheek, reaching her ear. A hand plunged into her hair. Fresh tingles capered joyously on her sensitised skin.

‘Are you going to invite me in?’ he whispered into her ear.

‘What?’ Dazed, she opened her eyes, her stare immediately captured in the swirling depths of Tonino’s hungry gaze.

He captured her chin again and kissed her. Kissed her properly. Kissed her so hard and so thoroughly that the heat rebuilding deep inside her liquefied her bones as it bubbled to the surface.

The hand in her hair drifted down her back. ‘Invite me in,’ he whispered against her lips before crushing her mouth again. His hand reached her bottom and squeezed then ran over her thigh, squeezing and massaging, his mouth devouring her, sensation running amok through her.

It would be so easy to invite him into her home and lead him up to her room rather than Finn’s…

And just like that, sanity reared its gloriously ugly head.

Fixing their son’s image in her head and focusing only on that, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him off. ‘No.’

He sat back, breathing heavily. ‘No, what?’

‘No, I am not going to invite you in.’ Heart hammering furiously, she groped for the door handle but found herself all fingers and thumbs.

A large, warm, hard body lightly covered hers. ‘Let me,’ he murmured. And then he opened the door.

Before she could escape, he palmed her cheek and brushed his lips against hers one last time. ‘I will see you in a few days,’ he murmured.

‘Grand,’ she answered in what she intended to be a tart fashion, but which came out all breathless.

She felt breathless. Tonino was the only man she had ever desired and it made her want to weep that the old feelings were still there inside her but impossible to fulfil.

Eyes glittering, he brought her hand to his mouth and grazed a kiss against her knuckles. ‘I will count the hours.’