Читать книгу Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8 - Мишель Смарт, Natalie Anderson - Страница 23

ORLA WINCED. SHE’D been too hasty in her escape. She should have left it a few minutes longer to ensure Tonino was deep in sleep.

Ashamed at being caught fleeing like an escaped bank robber, she counted to three before turning to face him.

His bedside light switched on and she found herself staring at Tonino’s gorgeous yet inscrutable face. ‘You don’t have to leave.’

She tucked a strand of hair behind an ear then tugged at her dress. ‘I can’t sleep in this.’

There was a moment of loaded silence before Tonino jumped to his feet. ‘Wait there,’ he ordered as he opened a door and disappeared behind it. He came back out moments later carrying an item of clothing.

Stalking over to her, he pressed it into her hands. ‘Take this. Change in my bathroom. If you look in the cabinet beneath the sink you will find a spare toothbrush. It’s never been used. You are welcome to shower. There are fresh towels. Help yourself to anything you need.’

‘I have stuff in my…’

‘You are sleeping with me. End of subject. Now, unless you want me to remove your dress and expose the scars you are too frightened to let me see, I suggest you go use the bathroom.’

Something deep inside her withered painfully.

‘I called Aislin,’ he explained into the loaded silence.

‘What?’

He sighed. ‘Go and sort yourself out, Orla. I’ll explain when you’re ready.’

Defeated, afraid she could cry, which she absolutely did not want to do in front of Tonino, she hugged the clothing to her chest and locked herself in his luxury bathroom.

Suddenly desperate to wash the shamed feeling off her skin, she double-checked the door couldn’t be unlocked from the bedroom and shed her dress.

Closing her eyes, she welcomed the rush of hot water that stung her skin and turned her face up to it.

Was this how she’d felt the first time they’d made love? Ashamed of herself?

She’d never dreamed she was capable of such wanton, lusty behaviour. Women like her just did not behave in that way. That was for women like her mother, women who embraced chaos, women who didn’t care who they hurt or what others thought of them.

Orla did care. She cared deeply. Her pregnancy had shamed her more than any walk of shame the evil authorities had made women perform in medieval times. It wasn’t that she’d been unmarried—her grandmother’s old-fashioned views hadn’t soaked into her that much—but that she had given her virginity to a man she’d barely known who she’d then learned she hadn’t known at all. All her life she’d believed she would wait for the mythical perfect man from the realms of fairy tales to appear before giving her heart and her body, not a man she’d known barely two days.

That she still wanted Tonino as much as she had then, that one touch of his hand in her hair made her want to rip his clothes off… It mortified her. It terrified her how easily she lost possession of herself for him.

Only when she feared she was using the whole of Sicily’s water supply did she switch the shower off and reach for a huge, fluffy towel neatly laid on the heated towelling rail.

She found an unused toothbrush exactly where he’d said and brushed her teeth vigorously, as if she could brush away the demons that plagued her as well as any dirt clinging to her teeth.

And then she shook out the white item of clothing Tonino had given her and felt a tear in her heart.

It was one of his shirts.

Before slipping it over her head she buried her nose in it and inhaled the faint trace of his cologne amidst the laundry soap.

When she finally found the courage to leave his bathroom and face him, she took three large breaths and unlocked the door.

He was sitting up in bed, the sheets covering him to his waist. He was not on his phone or watching television or reading. He was simply waiting for her.

‘Better?’ he asked sardonically.

Her heart thudded painfully, and she blinked away the wet burn in the backs of her eyes as she nodded.

He patted the space beside him. It was a command, not an invitation.

Climbing onto the bed gingerly, she sat beside him, making sure not to sit close enough that their bodies accidentally touched.

Tonino, however, was not disposed to have her beside him but apart, and, with a glare, he hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her against him.

‘Stop fighting me,’ he murmured, dropping a kiss onto the top of her head.

‘I’m not,’ she lied even as she wriggled to free herself from his tight hold.

‘Relax, dolcezza. I’m not going to rip the shirt off you.’

His chest hair brushed against her cheek. The musky scent of his skin skipped down her airwaves and filtered into her veins and somehow pushed much of the angst inside her out.

A pang rent through her heart.

Being held in his arms like this…

It felt right. It had always felt right.

With a sigh she placed her hand flat on the plane of his stomach and pressed a kiss to the warm skin even as she screwed her eyes tightly together to stop the gathering tears from escaping.

‘When did you speak to Aislin?’ she asked quietly when she could speak without choking.

‘Earlier, when you were getting ready for dinner.’

‘Why?’

He smoothed her hair with his hand. ‘Because you have been hiding things from me.’

‘I haven’t hidden anything. Not since we met at the wedding and the missing memories came back. I’ve been upfront about Finn—’

‘I’m not talking about Finn. I’m talking about you.’ He brushed a finger down her face and tilted her chin up so she was forced to meet his stare. ‘Getting information about the long-term effects the accident had on you has been like drawing blood from a stone. You seem to operate on a need-to-know basis, and I think I know why—you’re afraid that I will use your injuries as a weapon against you to gain custody of Finn.’

Tonino’s instincts were terrifying in their accuracy.

‘I know you suffered much more than a head injury,’ he continued, his thumb still resting gently under her chin. ‘You were partially paralysed and needed three major operations to help you walk and regain your motor functions. You spent six months in hospital and a further year in a rehabilitation centre. Your muscles are still weak and prone to spasm. You regularly sleep ten hours a night because your brain has to work twice as hard as everyone else’s to perform simple tasks so you lose your energy quickly. You suffer from debilitating headaches. One of the reasons you both waited six months after your father died before Aislin came to Sicily to fight for your share of his estate was because you were too weak to be left in sole charge of Finn. Have I missed anything?’

Tonino deliberately kept his voice light as he relayed the list of damage inflicted on Orla’s beautiful body. He could have continued, could have mentioned the broken ribs and broken arm, but the solitary tear that trickled down her cheek as she shook her head in answer let him know he’d said enough.

He’d called Dante because it had become blindingly obvious that Orla was masking the severity of her own condition. It had been a gradual reckoning until it had reached the point where he noticed it in her every action. Just the way she concentrated when carrying a cup was a big giveaway. He’d had to convince Dante that his intentions in seeking this information were honourable before he’d been put through to Aislin, who’d relayed all the details to him in what had made painful listening.

Orla put a brave face on but she still suffered the effects from it. She might always suffer them.

‘You need to learn to trust me.’ Tonino bent his head and brushed a soft kiss to her trembling lips. ‘I will never take Finn from you. You do not have to hide things from me. I want to help you.’

She blinked rapidly and swallowed before whispering, ‘I find it hard to trust people.’

He shifted his legs forward and lay down, taking Orla with him, then rolled over so he lay on top of her.

Placing his elbows either side of her head, he stared into her eyes. ‘You need to try. I am not your enemy. I am not going to take our son from you because your injuries mean you can be clumsy and that you need more sleep than me. And I’m not going to stop wanting you because of some scars.’

Her throat moved as she bit into her bottom lip.

Placing a hand on her thigh, he parted her legs and rested his hips between them. ‘Do you feel that?’ he murmured.

Her eyes widened as his arousal pressed against her and she gave a short, breathless nod.

‘No one turns me on the way you do. No one.’ Bending his head, he kissed her plump mouth while running a hand down the side of her body then back up to cover her breast. He could feel its softness more easily through the shirt than he could through the thicker material of her dress and bra but he wanted to feel it bare against his hand and feel the nipple pucker in his mouth.

‘I will never force you to do anything you don’t want,’ he whispered as he drove his arousal inside her, savouring the way her neck arched and the softest moan flew from her mouth. He pulled back to the tip then thrust in harder. ‘All I want is to give you pleasure.’

Maybe if he showed her all the pleasure they were capable of creating together, the Orla who had given herself to him without reservation four years ago would come back to him.

When Orla opened her eyes the room was bright with daylight. The space beside her on Tonino’s bed was empty.

She sat upright, looking for something to tell the time with.

Padding out of the bedroom, she went to Finn’s room and found it empty. The nurse’s room was empty too.

In her own room she donned some underwear, shrugged her robe on and set off looking for everyone.

She ignored the chiding voice in her head that told her she was being sentimental keeping Tonino’s shirt on.

After a search that took far longer than expected, she found her son and his father in Tonino’s office. Tonino was reading something on his desktop, Finn sat on the floor building something only he could recognise with his blocks.

They both turned to her when she walked in.

‘Mummy!’

She sank to her knees and scooped her son into her arms, then waited a moment for her heart rate to lower to something resembling normality before turning her gaze to Tonino.

Her heart rate accelerated. Images of everything they’d shared the night before flashed in vivid colour before her eyes.

From the knowing smile playing on Tonino’s firm mouth, he was having the exact same recollection.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

He looked at his watch. ‘Eleven.’

She raised her brow in dismay. ‘That late? You should have woken me.’

‘You needed the sleep, dolcezza.’ And then he winked, making her cheeks turn into a furnace all over again. ‘If you go and get ready, I’ve promised Finn a swim in the pool.’

The next day, after a couple of hours spent building sandcastles on Tonino’s private stretch of beach and eating the picnic lunch made for them by his chef, Finn fell asleep. Removing the sandwich half hanging from his mouth and making sure the parasol shaded his delicate skin, Orla covered him from shoulder to toe with a thin sheet for good measure, then stretched her legs out and lifted her face to the sun’s rays.

‘You look happy,’ Tonino observed, cold bottle of beer in hand.

She nodded, glad she had her shades on so he couldn’t see what lay behind them. Sometimes it felt as if he only had to look into her eyes, and he could read everything in her head.

This was the second day in a row she’d woken in Tonino’s bed, replete by a night of lovemaking. Her promises to self that she would sleep in her own bed had been broken pretty much the moment she’d made them.

Deny herself the opportunity of making love to Tonino again? She was no masochist.

Or was she?

Was the heady pleasure she found in his bed worth the inevitable heartache heading her way?

‘Finn’s happy here too,’ he added into the silence before helping himself to a chunk of honeydew melon.

She looked at their sleeping son and could only agree.

‘Have you thought any more about us marrying?’ he asked.

Her answer was automatic. ‘No.’ She shook her head for good measure, her loose ponytail whipping with a crack.

He exhaled slowly. ‘What is stopping you from saying yes?’

‘Everything that stopped me when you first suggested it. Marriage is a terrible idea.’

An edge crept into his voice. ‘Why?’

Orla felt an edge form inside her too, defensive spikes lifting beneath her skin. ‘Because it wouldn’t mean what it should mean. You wouldn’t even be thinking it if it weren’t for Finn. I mean, come on, four years ago you pretended to be someone else and, while I believe you about Sophia, it doesn’t change that you did lie about your identity, and the only reason I can see for you doing that is because you never took me seriously from the start. I was so far removed from what you considered suitable wife material that you didn’t need bother tell me the truth.’

A long pause of silence opened up between them, broken when Tonino took a swig of his beer.

‘Thoughts of your suitability…’ he delivered the word with a curled lip ‘…didn’t cross my mind. When we first met my only thoughts were of bedding you. You didn’t know me. You had no preconceptions. You just wanted me. And that felt great.’

He turned his head to face her. Even with both their eyes masked by sunglasses, his gaze penetrated her flesh and set her heart racing.

She remembered her own instinctive reaction when she’d learned the wealth, connections and power Tonino and his family had. It had frightened her. For many other women, it would have attracted them.

His voice lowered. ‘But then you got under my skin and I knew I had to tell you the truth. The mistake I made was to fly to Tuscany before telling you because Sophia got to you first and fed you all those lies.’

‘No, the mistake you made was not telling me the truth to begin with.’ She shook her head to clear it from the effects of Tonino’s seductive voice. He had a voice that could recite the worst kind of poetry and make it sound like a masterpiece. ‘You were playing with me. I was just a joke to you, some naïve Irish girl you could play make-believe with.’

He downed the last of his beer. ‘Maybe it started like that,’ he admitted, ‘but that is not how it finished. I fell for you, dolcezza, harder than I had ever fallen for anyone, and you ran away rather than confront me and allow me to defend myself. You believed Sophia’s lies.’

‘She was very convincing.’ She rubbed her cheeks, feeling wretched. He was right. She hadn’t given him the chance to defend himself from Sophia’s lies.

‘Sophia is a superb actress.’

‘I think her hatred of me is genuine.’

‘What hatred? What makes you say that?’

‘Did you not see the dirty looks she kept throwing me at Aislin and Dante’s wedding?’

‘All I remember from that wedding is feeling sucker-punched by your reappearance in my life.’

‘She looked like she wanted to throttle me.’

‘Don’t take it personally. She looks at everyone like that.’ Tonino popped the cap off another beer, removed his sunglasses and looked at her squarely. ‘I’ve known Sophia all my life. She’s a bitch, yes, but she would never hurt you. She’s married now and has a child of her own.’

‘Oh.’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘I suppose I imagined she’d spent the past four years making effigies of me.’

‘Put your fears to rest. She is a professional grudge holder, but her violence is only verbal.’

‘But why the grudge? If you didn’t cheat on her with me, why does she hate me?’

‘Because she knows I ended our engagement for you.’

‘What…?’ Until Orla had lost her memories, Sophia’s pain and her unwitting contribution towards it had plagued her. She’d hoped she could put her guilt to bed but now Tonino was saying the ending of his engagement had been about her? ‘You ended your engagement for me?’

Long moments passed before his nostrils flared. ‘It wasn’t strictly about you. It was about my desire for you. It was a desire no man who is bound to one person should feel for another.’

‘I might be Irish but that’s a riddle too far, even for me.’

He laughed but it contained a bitter tinge. ‘The truth is, Sophia and I should never have got engaged.’

‘Then why did you?’

‘It was something our families always hoped for. Our mothers have been friends since they were babies. It was a running joke between them from when we were babies that Sophia and I would marry and as I neared thirty and felt the urge to settle down, marrying her made sense. On paper we were perfect for each other. You see, dolcezza, when you’re rich you have to think of marriage in terms of reputation and with an eye to the future. My personal reputation is of little concern to me, but my parents’ reputations matter greatly to them. Marriage to a Messina, a family as old and as noble as the Valentes, could only enhance that. And vice versa.’

‘How did they take the ending of the engagement?’

She caught the flash of bitterness on his features.

‘Not well?’ she guessed.

‘No,’ he agreed shortly.

‘I suppose that was understandable.’

His features sharpened. ‘Understandable?’

Feeling she was dipping her toe in water infested by sharks that no one had told her about, she said tentatively, ‘If they were such good friends with Sophia’s parents, it must have been embarrassing for them.’

His jaw clenched. ‘They weren’t embarrassed. They were furious that I’d ruined their dream. They accused me of disloyalty. Can you believe that?’ He ran an angry hand through his hair and shook his head. ‘I knew they wouldn’t be happy about it, but I never expected my mother to come this close to slapping my face or for my father to threaten to disinherit me if I didn’t change my mind.’ He made a distinctive snorting sound. ‘As if I cared about his money. I was already worth far more than him.’

Orla, thinking of all the times her grandmother had threatened to cut her mother off without a penny without actually going through with it—after her death, her mother had shared the small inheritance with her siblings—said softly, ‘And how are things between you now? I assume they must be better if we’re taking Finn to their party.’

He made the snorting sound again.

Dismissive. That was what it sounded like.

‘I will never forgive them for putting their reputations and pride above my happiness but they’re still my parents. We’re still a family and nothing can change that.’

‘Did they disinherit you?’

Her question caused him to pause then give a low chuckle. ‘Not as far as I know.’

‘The threat was made in anger?’

He didn’t answer.

Despite the seriousness of the discussion, a bubble of laughter rose up Orla’s throat. ‘You are so your father’s son.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When you get angry you make threats you don’t mean. Like your threats of taking custody of Finn… I wonder if he’ll inherit the Valente temper,’ she added musingly.

Tonino stared at her, part in disbelief. Was she taking his parents’ side? Surely not? If it had been one short argument he would get her point but he’d lived with their hot fury for months, a period when his mother could hardly bring herself to look at him. The first big argument had come the evening he’d ended it. He’d done the right thing by telling them personally and immediately.

He’d found solace from their fury in Orla’s arms. He’d turned his phone off and cloistered her in his oldest apartment. Those magical days together had pushed the mess he’d created far from his mind. Unfortunately it had given his parents the time and space to build everything up so when he’d next seen them, they’d been ready to unload their venom at him. Reeling at their selfishness, reeling from Orla’s disappearance, he’d unloaded right back at them.

‘There are some lines that should never be crossed,’ he said shortly. ‘And now that I’m a father it makes their reaction even more unforgivable.’

‘Oh, come on.’ Her shades masked her eyes, but he could swear he heard her eyes roll. ‘They’re only human. Life’s too short to hold on to grudges.’

‘Can you forgive your mother?’

‘That’s completely different. She was always a useless parent.’ And then she surprised him completely by climbing onto his lap and straddling him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed. ‘Remember, to err is human, to forgive divine.’

‘When are you going to forgive me?’

‘I’m working on it.’ And then she kissed him with such tenderness that if Finn hadn’t been sleeping beside them, he would have ripped both their shorts off and taken her there and then.