Читать книгу One Summer at The Villa: The Prince's Royal Concubine / Her Italian Soldier / A Devilishly Dark Deal - Rebecca Winters - Страница 12

ANTONELLA fought hard not to shriek and spin away like a frightened virgin. No, she had to play this cool. Collected. He thought she was experienced—so experienced she must act.

But Cristiano di Savaré was the first man she’d ever seen naked in the flesh, and the sight affected her quite oddly. She felt dizzy for one thing. Like she needed to sit before her knees buckled.

And she felt hot. Prickles of heat skittered along her skin like tiny flames, scorching everything in their path. Her mouth dropped, snapped shut again.

He was…was…big…all over. And completely unabashed.

The towel lay heaped at his feet, forgotten. His eyes glittered, daring her to react.

Every line of him was beautiful. His skin was smooth and golden, yet lighter from a point above his groin to the tops of his thighs. Inanely, she thought he must spend a lot of time outside without a shirt.

Her eyes skimmed downward, hardly believing what she was seeing and yet unable to look away at the same time. His penis thrust out from his body proudly. She understood enough about male anatomy to know what an erect penis meant. But why? That part she didn’t understand. How could he be aroused? They’d been arguing, for pity’s sake!

Another, more frightening thought occurred to her: should she be scared of him? They were alone here, just the two of them and a storm outside.

He was bigger than she was, stronger. It was in his blood to hate her, just as it was in hers to hate him. Would he use his size and strength against her, take what he wanted by force? No one would come to her rescue if she screamed.

Her mind cast about frantically for solutions, ways in which she could fight him off if he attacked her.

“Want to help?” he said, his voice a sensual purr as he slowly reached for the clothing he’d tossed onto the bed.

Antonella drew in a shaky breath. No, she did not think he would force himself on her. He’d soothed her in the taxi when he could have ignored her. She kept telling herself that for comfort as she turned away very deliberately, very carefully. She couldn’t let him know she was flustered—or frightened. She couldn’t give him that kind of power.

Somehow she made her legs work. She returned to the slipper chair, sank down on it and picked up the magazine she’d been thumbing through. Thought better of flipping pages when she realized her hands were shaking. She laid the magazine on her lap and opened it to a random page, pretended to study what was there.

Cristiano hadn’t moved to follow her, yet he was still naked. Still aroused. Fear seeped away, replaced by heat and the pain of her own desire. Odd. She’d never realized sexual arousal could hurt.

Her heartbeat pounded in her chest, her neck, her wrists. She wanted to go into the bathroom and sink down into the cold water she’d filled the tub with. Perhaps then the heat would go away.

“I take it that’s a no,” Cristiano said.

Her cheeks were already on fire, but that didn’t stop the heat of a fresh blush. She’d forgotten he’d spoken to her, had asked her a question. She’d been so flustered by his body, by her own thoughts, that she’d blanked.

Did he know? Should she answer him now, or play it cool?

She saw movement in her periphery, but refused to look up. A flash of something pale. Clothing, she hoped. Please God, let him cover that body up before she made a bigger fool of herself. Before he realized she was a stammering virgin seeing her first naked man. Somehow, she knew that would diminish her in his eyes. He would pity her then. She couldn’t take his pity again today. Didn’t want it.

“Too bad, Antonella,” he said. The sound of a zipper going up nearly made her breathe a very audible sigh of relief. “The time would pass so pleasantly. Before you know it, we’d be leaving again.”

“Oh yes,” she forced out. Without looking up, of course. “We’d be leaving. And you’d waste no time informing everyone you could think of that you’d bedded me.”

“I never kiss and tell, Principessa.”

“Of course not,” she said, letting him know with her tone that she didn’t believe a word of it.

“But if I want to claim we’ve been lovers, what’s to stop me?”

Her head snapped back as her eyes met his. He was wearing another pair of khaki shorts and a navy T-shirt that molded the shape of his chest and abdomen. He was clothed, and yet her pulse still zipped along like an express train.

“You wouldn’t. Besides, I would deny it.”

Cristiano laughed. “Who would believe you, bellissima? You have a reputation, shall we say?”

Antonella’s cheeks burned. Oh, yes, she had a reputation—gained when men had lied about her, as this one threatened to do. It made her angry. She flipped a page in the magazine, ripping the paper as she did so. Damn him.

But maybe she could fight back. She arched an eyebrow, affected as chilly a look as she could manage. “Perhaps they would believe it when I claimed you were not so good as your reputation? I could say you were a selfish and hasty—” she emphasized the word “—lover.”

Cristiano’s laugh was louder this time. Then he swept her with hot eyes. “You are welcome to try.”

Antonella slapped the magazine closed irritably. “This is ridiculous, Cristiano. We could be in very real danger, and yet you keep insulting me and making jokes.”

His expression grew serious. “Do you know what I think?”

“No, but I know you will tell me.”

He came over to where she sat, towered above her until he dropped to one knee and reached for her. Her heart stopped, simply stopped, as she tried to imagine what he was about to do. He picked up the magazine, turned it and set it back down.

“I think you want me very much, Antonella.”

She forced herself to speak past the giant lump in her throat. “You are deluded,” she managed.

“Am I?” He stood and moved away without waiting for a reply.

Antonella watched numbly as he disappeared through the door that connected the bedroom with the rest of the house. Then she looked down. And realized that he’d turned the magazine the correct way.

She’d been staring at it upside down the entire time.

By the time Cristiano returned a short while later, she’d managed to calm her racing heart and jangled nerves. She’d tried reading a book, but the power had blinked a few times and then snapped out, leaving her in the dark. She’d fumbled for the candle she’d placed on the table nearby, cursing softly when it rolled away and fell.

Before she could get down on her hands and knees to find it, Cristiano was there, shining a flashlight into the darkness. He retrieved one of the candles from the stash at the foot of the bed and lit it, then switched off the light. A second later, he was stretched out on the bed, leaning against the headboard with his hands behind his head. The pose molded the shirt to his chest, bulged the muscles in his arms. Made him seem so delicious and sexy.

Antonella crossed her arms over her body protectively and concentrated on the flickering candle where he’d set it on the bedside table. Anything except look at him.

“It will be a very long night if we ignore each other,” Cristiano finally said.

She forced herself to gaze at him evenly. “It’s already been a long day. Interminable.”

“Yes.”

Her pride pricked at the idea that he found her company tiresome. Why? Wasn’t that what she’d just intimated about him?

“Tell me about Monteverde,” he said, and her jaw threatened to fall to the floor.

“Why?” she asked a moment later, suspicion curling around the edges of her awareness.

“Because we are alone, the night is long, and it’s a good topic.”

“Why not tell me about Monterosso?”

He shrugged. “If you wish.”

For the next twenty minutes, he told her about his country—about the green mountains, the black cliffs, and the azure ocean. She found herself listening intently, nodding from time to time as she realized how much Monterosso sounded like Monterverde. When he talked of cool forests and bubbling mountain streams, she could picture them perfectly. When he spoke of the dryness along the coast, the cacti and aloe plants, she felt as if she’d stood beside him and looked upon the same things.

“It’s amazing,” she said when he finished.

“I think so, yes.”

Antonella shook her head. “No, I mean it sounds exactly like Monteverde.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You are surprised? We were a single country once.”

“And you would wish it so again,” she said, inflecting her words with steel.

“Have I said that?”

“You didn’t have to. It’s what your people have wanted for years.”

“Is this your opinion, or what you’ve been told by your father and brother?” His voice was diamond-edged.

“If it’s not what Monterosso wants, why must we defend our border? Why are your tanks and guns there? Your soldiers?”

“Because yours are.”

My God, men were insane. Was this the sort of circular logic that had caused so many lives to be lost over the years? While the solution seemed obvious, she knew it wasn’t. “Then why don’t we both turn around and go home?”

“Because we don’t trust each other, Antonella.”

She sat up straighter in her chair. “But we could sign treaties, pledge to cooperate—”

His laughter startled her. “Do you not think this has been tried?”

“It hasn’t been tried since Dante became King. We have only the ceasefire—”

“How would this change anything? He is a Romanelli.”

“What is that supposed to mean? That he is untrustworthy? That we are not as good as the di Savarés?”

“It means that your word and your treaties have not been enough thus far. Why should we believe your brother any different from your father?”

She ached to tell him. And yet she couldn’t. Because it was unexplainable. And private. No, what she and Dante had endured wouldn’t convince this man. And there was every danger it would only reinforce his beliefs. Abuse often turned out abusers. For all Cristiano knew, Dante could be just like his predecessor.

“He simply is,” she said firmly.

“Yes,” Cristiano sneered, “this is quite enough to convince me of Monteverdian sincerity.”

“You have yet to prove you are any better. If you would turn your tanks around, pull back your soldiers—”

“And let you bomb innocent civilians?” Rage suddenly seemed to roll from him in a giant wave. It was so palpable she thought it would crush her. His expression was dark, hard.

Intimidating.

Her voice came out in a whisper in spite of her best effort to make it otherwise. “We don’t use bombs against civilians. We only defend ourselves against Monterossan hostility—”

His laughter was so sharp and bitter it sliced her off in mid-sentence. She stared at him, at his jaw that had turned to granite. At the bleakness he failed to hide.

A moment later, he shoved both hands through his hair, blew out a hard breath. “You are quite wrong about that,” he said, his voice so utterly controlled it chilled her. He’d gone from hot rage to cold hatred in the space of a breath.

“I-I don’t believe you.” But her heart pounded in her throat. Could it be true? Her father had been capable of ordering such cruelty. More than capable. She thought of Dante’s pet gerbil, swallowed. No, don’t let me cry again. Not now.

“It is quite true, I assure you,” he said, his demeanor smooth. She had the impression he’d just fought a battle with himself and won. A dark, cold battle that she didn’t understand.

“How do you know this? How can you prove it?”

“I don’t have to prove it. I carry the results in my heart every day of my life.”

“You were…hurt?” She couldn’t imagine it. His body, as much as she’d seen of it, was perfect. If he’d been hurt, surely there would be signs of it. Or had he lost someone?

“My wife, Principessa. She was killed on an aid mission to the border. A roadside bomb blew up under the truck she was riding in.”

Her chest squeezed tight as her lungs refused to work properly. “I’m sorry,” she managed. She’d known his wife died shortly after their marriage, but she’d never known how it happened. She’d only had true freedom of information for a few months now. Before that, her father had tightly controlled the news she’d been exposed to.

A bomb. My God, how horrible. The poor woman.

Poor Cristiano.

Could her father have supported such a thing? Known about it? Ordered it? The thought made her shiver.

“Of course you are.” The words were perfunctory, yet each felt like a physical blow.

“I am sorry, Cristiano,” she insisted. “I’ve lost loved ones too.”

Her mother, her aunt Maria. Leni, her first dog.

“Have you?” His voice was still so cold. “Yet you always manage to find someone new to replace the old.”

Her heart hurt. It simply hurt. He believed her the worst kind of monster. The kind of woman who cared for no one but herself, who was unaffected by the pain of others. Why that bothered her, she wasn’t certain. But it did.

The tears she’d been holding back threatened to consume her. No, she would not cry. She would not give him the satisfaction. His opinion meant nothing.

She got to her feet, her arms wrapped around her body to ward off the ice that hung in the air despite the tropical heat. He wanted to lash out—she understood that. Understood the need to hurt someone when you were hurting.

Yet how did that make him any different from other men she had known? From her father?

It didn’t. Cristiano hit with words instead of fists. And the pain was worse in some ways. Psychological pain had repercussions beyond the physical that stayed with you forever. She’d learned that lesson long ago. Hell, she was still learning it. Dante’s gerbil was a prime example.

And she was far too tired of it to suffer a moment’s more abuse at his, or anyone’s, hands.

“Where are you going?” he demanded as she crossed to the bedroom door.

She turned, her head held high, tears in check for the moment. “It doesn’t seem to matter where I stay, does it, Cristiano? There is danger for me in every room of this house. So I think I will take my chances in another room for a while.”

Cristiano bowed his head and concentrated on breathing evenly. He should not have spoken of Julianne’s death to her. But he’d felt the darkness settling over him when she’d accused Monterosso of prolonging the hostilities, and he’d been unable to keep it at bay. He’d wanted to wound, just like he’d been wounded by the guilt of causing an innocent woman to die. A woman whose only crime had been to marry him.

He had to go after Antonella. He couldn’t let her wander through the house with the storm intensifying. A tree could crash down on them. Windows could shatter. He could be wrong about the depth of the ocean and a storm surge could sweep into the house and drag her away.

Death lay over the structure like a coiled serpent, simply waiting for an opportunity to strike.

And he couldn’t let that happen. He needed her if he wanted to put an end to the violence.

No.

He tilted his head back on the headboard and sighed. It was more than that. She was a person, and though he might not trust her or like her very much, she didn’t deserve anything less than his best care for her safety while they endured this storm.

It had gotten out of control so fast.

He’d only meant to find out a bit more about her, but he should have known the conversation would head down a road he did not want to go. Could a Monteverdian and a Monterossan truly spend time together and not fight about the problems between their countries? If it were possible, perhaps there would be peace already.

Still, he was here to make sure it happened. He had to control his emotions and he had to deal with Antonella like a rational man, not a wounded lion.

He pushed away from the bed, grabbing the flashlight, and headed through the door. Outside, the wind howled and moaned. Tree branches scraped across the terracotta roof with an eerie sound like fingernails against a chalkboard. The walls groaned and creaked.

“Antonella!”

She didn’t answer, so he passed through the hall and into the living room. She wasn’t there. Next, he went into the kitchen. The temperature in the house was starting to climb now that the power had gone out. He would have to open a window soon, though he did not want to for fear of the wind being so strong. But they would need fresh air. Sweat beaded on his skin as he moved through the structure.

“Antonella!” She couldn’t have gone far, but she probably couldn’t hear him over the wind. He went into the first bedroom, shone the light. Nothing. The second also yielded nothing.

The third time, as the beam swept across the room, he hit the jackpot. She lay on the bed, curled into a ball, a pillow hugged tight to her body. The sight shafted an arrow of regret straight through his chest.

She looked like a child, vulnerable and helpless, and his protective instincts were kicking into gear. Dio, he had to remember who she was. What she was. They’d been here a handful of hours and he was already going soft.

“Antonella,” he said over the wind and rain pelting the roof.

“Go away.”

“It’s not safe in here. We have to return to the master bedroom.”

She bolted into an upright position, her hair wild as she shoved it out of her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “It’s not safe in there either,” she shot back. “I’ll take my chances here.”

“Don’t be stupid. We’re going back.”

He started forward and she scrambled against the headboard, folding her knees against her body as if to ward him off.

“It won’t work, Principessa,” he said, exasperation and fury surging through him in twin waves. His instincts were sounding an alarm inside his head, telling him to get her and get out, no matter how hard she fought. The skin at the back of his neck prickled as the wind surged against the house, banging the shutters. He’d closed them, but they were old and somewhat loose in places. “I’m bigger and stronger; I will win.”

Her eyes widened as he reached for her. She looked a little scared at his intensity, but he had no time to play nice. He had to get them back to safety. As if to punctuate the point, there was a loud snap outside. The wind howled even louder.

He grabbed her foot and yanked her toward him. She screamed.

But he ignored her feminine hysterics and dragged her up into his grasp. She twisted like a cat. “No!”

Cristiano gripped her shoulders hard and shook her. “Stop fighting me,” he ordered. “We have to go.”

But she didn’t seem to be listening. She twisted again, fell to the bed as he lost his hold on her. He lunged for her, furious—and more than a little concerned at the crackling sound coming from above their heads.

“We have to go,” he repeated. “Now.”

Instead of cooperating, she flinched and covered her head as if he were about to strike her. The sight gave him pause. He’d never hit a woman in his life. Never had a woman cower from him as if he were about to do so. Did she really think…?

Why?

Why?

Another sharp crack outside dragged his attention up. A moment later, the roof split open. Terracotta and splintered wood crumbled through the opening, showering down around them.

No time left.

Acting on a surge of adrenaline and pure instinct, Cristiano grabbed Antonella and hauled her from the bed. There was just enough time to roll her beneath him before the wall opened under the weight of the tree like a zipper dragging downward.