Читать книгу Hot-Blooded Italians - Sharon Kendrick - Страница 15

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS the journey from hell.

Despite the quietly opulent luxury of Vincenzo’s chauffeur-driven car, Emma sat bolt upright on the soft leather seat as if she were facing a firing squad. Yet that was exactly how it felt—only she happened to be facing the lethal weapons of his words rather than the cold metal of a gun.

But if she stopped to think about it—what had she really expected to happen? She knew what kind of man Vincenzo was—had she really imagined that he would just calmly accept such a momentous piece of information from her? Perhaps that he would just nod sagely and give her a divorce and then politely ask when it might be convenient for him to visit his son? As if.

What a fool she had been not to have anticipated this.

But at least this way it would soon be all over and there would be no awful delay to endure. No feeling threatened while she waited anxiously to see just what he would do next. Vincenzo would soon set eyes on Gino and would know instantly that the baby had sprung from his loins. Emma knotted her fingers together. And of course that would bring up problems all of its own—but at least she would have done the right thing, and after the initial anger had subsided, surely they were mature enough to work out some kind of effective compromise.

‘So who has been looking after him today?’

The question shot at her from out of the gloom and somehow her estranged husband had managed to turn it into an accusation. ‘My friend Joanna.’

‘I see.’ In the dim light Vincenzo’s mouth twisted, but Emma noticed, as no doubt he had intended her to do. ‘She is experienced in the care of children?’

‘She’s got a little boy about the same age,’ Emma put in hastily, hating the fact that she felt the need to defend herself and yet wanting to impress on him that she was a good mother. ‘And she’s brilliant with him. This evening she’s left her son with her husband so that she could put mine to bed in his own home.’

A long finger drummed a slightly menacing little beat on the taut surface of one tensile thigh. ‘So tell me, Emma—how often do you leave your child with someone else while you go off to London to have casual sex?’

It was a bitter and damning allegation and Emma felt her body begin to shake with the injustice of it. She shook her head and stared up into his face, unable to help the indignant tremble of her lips. ‘How dare you say something like that?’

‘You mean, that the way you behaved today with me isn’t the way you usually behave with men?’

‘You know damned well it isn’t!

Yes, deep down he knew that. It had been evident in the hungry way she had responded to him today—and in the general and conflicting air of untouchability which she had always possessed. Hadn’t it been that very quality which had first so ensnared him and which had made him lose control more times than he cared to remember?

But Vincenzo was a Sicilian man—and that carried with it a whole lot of complex issues about how women should and shouldn’t behave when it came to sex. Back there in the Vinoly suite, Emma had behaved with the wild abandon of a mistress—not a young mother who had left her baby for the day with someone who wasn’t family! And although he had revelled in the experience they had just shared, there was a part of him which also despised it.

Vincenzo turned his head to stare at the darkened English countryside which was rushing past the window, watching as the car slowed and then passed through a surprisingly impressive entrance gate, before making its way up a wide, tree-lined drive. On the far horizon, he could see an imposing-looking house which stood in an elevated position, all lit up and glowing golden.

‘You live here?’ he demanded.

For one moment, Emma was so tempted to tell him that, yes, she did. That really she was simply pretending to be hard-up as some kind of diversion in order to amuse herself!

‘Hardly,’ she said drily. ‘I rent a cottage in the grounds. It’s over there. Can you tell the chauffeur to turn to the right and then travel straight on past the lake?’

Vincenzo clicked on the intercom and spoke to the driver in rapid Italian as the limousine changed direction. It purred its way to a smooth halt in front of March Cottage and he found his eyes narrowing in surprise, for this was not what he had been expecting, either.

It was tiny; one of those cute little houses which always seemed to feature on the front of postcards—with its stone walls and some sort of leafy thing scrambling around the front door, over which hung an old-fashioned lantern.

Although a gust of cold wind whirled round them as they stepped from the car, Emma’s palms were clammy with sweat as she turned to him, wondering what was going on behind that forbidding profile as he stared up at the front of the cottage. ‘I’d better go in first and warn—’

‘No.’ The word silenced her just as much as the hand placed lightly on her forearm, his fingers curling briefly around her tiny wrist. He saw her blue eyes darken, and widen. His voice dipped to a silky threat. ‘You do not need to warn anyone, caramia. Come, I will accompany you.’

Emma felt trapped—but presumably that was what he had intended—and yet why on earth should she feel trapped? This was her territory now, not his. He was only here because he wanted to convince himself that the baby was not his. Well, you are in for the shock of a lifetime, Signor Cardini, she thought fiercely.

‘Hello!’ she called, pushing open the door, and saw a light coming from the sitting room.

Joanna was lying on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket and watching TV—a banana skin and an empty coffee cup on the floor beside her. ‘It’s bloody freezing,’ she complained as Emma walked in and then her face froze into a look of utter disbelief when she registered the rugged olive face of the man who was following her.

Pushing the blanket off, she sat up immediately. ‘Ooh! Good grief! You must be—’

‘This is Vincenzo Cardini,’ said Emma without any further explanation, giving Joanna an I’ll-tell-youeverything-later look. ‘How’s he been?’

Joanna appeared to judge the look correctly, though Emma saw her shooting curious glances at the tall, dark man who stood dominating the small space with a moody look. ‘Oh, no trouble really,’ she said. ‘Though he didn’t really want to settle—missing his mum, I guess. But he ate an enormous tea and afterwards I gave him a bath—though you really ought to see about getting Andrew to install a heater in the bathroom, Emma.’

‘Andrew?’ questioned Vincenzo dangerously. ‘And just who is Andrew?’

‘Andrew is my landlord,’ said Emma quickly.

Black eyes bored into her. ‘Oh, is he?’

She wanted to say that Andrew’s identity was none of his business, but she had made it his business, in a way—first by allowing herself to be intimate with him, and then by announcing that he was the father of her child. Given Vincenzo’s track record with jealousy and possession, was it any wonder that he looked like a volcano just about to erupt?

Joanna jumped up. ‘Look, I’d better get off home.’

Emma nodded and flashed her friend a grateful smile. ‘Thanks, Jo—I really appreciate it and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

There was an uncomfortable kind of silence while Joanna picked up her coat and bag and went to reach for the discarded banana skin.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Emma quickly.

‘I’ll let myself out, then,’ said Joanna.

But Emma barely heard her go. She felt rooted to the spot—not knowing what the hell she should do next—but it seemed that Vincenzo had no such problems with indecision.

‘Where is he?’ he demanded.

‘In…in there.’ She pointed at the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, noticing almost dispassionately that her finger was shaking. ‘Please don’t wake him.’

Vincenzo’s mouth twisted into a mocking parody of a smile. ‘I have no desire to wake him. Believe me when I tell you that this is simply to put my mind at rest. One look and I’m out of here. Just show me the child.’

It was the most bizarre of all situations, creeping into Gino’s bedroom, her heart frozen with fear and love, trying to see him as Vincenzo would be seeing him—as if for the first time in the soft glow of the night-light. And, no matter what lay ahead, Emma felt the sharp rush of maternal pride as she gazed down on her son.

He was lying on his back, little fisted arms bunched up alongside his head—as if he were spoiling for a fight. As usual, he had managed to kick off his covers and automatically Emma moved forward to pull it back over him.

‘No.’ Vincenzo’s word stopped her. ‘Leave it.’

‘But—’

‘I said, leave it.’

Her breath caught in her throat, Emma watched as Vincenzo walked slowly to the side of the cot, ducking his dark head and only narrowly avoiding missing the animal mobile which was swirling madly around above it.

For a moment Vincenzo just stood there, staring down—as motionless and as formidable as a statue constructed from some cold, dark ebony.

Emma felt her fingernails digging into her palms, wanting to break the spell of this terrible and uneasy situation, but somehow not daring to. This was his right, she realised—to take as long as he liked.

With a fast-beating heart, Vincenzo committed the scene to memory. The riot of dark curls and the rather petulant curl of the sleeping mouth, which was so like the one which stared back at him from the mirror each morning when he was shaving. Though the light was dim, nothing could disguise the unmistakably goldenolive glow of the child’s perfect skin—nor the hint of height and strength lying dormant in his baby frame.

Vincenzo expelled a long breath of air—the harsh sound penetrating the stillness in the room like an over-pumped tyre which had just been punctured. And then, without any kind of warning, he turned and walked from the room.

Emma fussed around, straightening the covers and feathering her fingertips through the silken mop of Gino’s hair—almost as if she were willing him to wake up. But he was deeply asleep—worn out, no doubt—and she could not continue to hide here like some kind of fugitive, just to escape Vincenzo’s wrath.

And you haven’t done anything wrong, she told herself.

She walked back into the sitting room, where Vincenzo was standing waiting for her with the grim body language of an executioner, his black eyes filled with a cold look of rage.

His mouth twisted as the word was wrenched from him like bitter and deadly poison. ‘Puttanesca!’

As an insult it happened to be grossly inaccurate—but Emma knew that it was the macho insult of choice whenever a woman was considered to have wronged.

‘I am not a whore,’ she answered quietly. ‘You know that. That’s a cheap slur to make.’

His voice was equally quiet. ‘Maybe I knew it was the only one you would understand.’

Their eyes met in the most honest moment of communication they’d had all day and Emma could have wept at the way he was trying to hurt her. This whole scenario had been intended as a solution—and yet it seemed to have spawned a rash of unsightly problems of its own along the way, and she couldn’t for the life of her work out how they were going to come to some sort of compromise.

Vincenzo had dragged his gaze from her white face and was looking around him now, as if barely able to believe the surroundings in which he found himself. The faded sofa with a faint white frill where some of the stuffing was spilling out. The tired paintwork and the pale rectangles on the wall where pictures must once have hung and then been removed. The overriding sense that this was simply somewhere temporary—a place for life’s losers.

‘You…dare to bring my son up in a place like this?’ he questioned unsteadily. ‘To condemn him to a life of poverty.’

So he had not disputed the paternity claim! Relief washed over her but was quickly replaced with fear. And curiosity.

‘So you accept that he’s yours?’

Vincenzo chose his words carefully. He had expected to walk into the nursery and to see a baby—and to feel nothing more than he would feel for any baby. And perhaps there would have been a flare of jealousy, too—at being forced to confront the physical evidence that the woman he had married had been intimate with another man.

But it had not been like that. In fact, it had been like nothing he could ever have imagined. Because he had known immediately. On some subliminal level it had been instant—as if he had been programmed to recognise this little boy. He had seen photos of himself as a baby—and the similarity between himself and this infant was undeniable. But it was more than that. Something unknown had whipped at his heart as he’d looked down at that sleeping infant. Some primeval recognition. Some bond stretching back through the ages, as well as a blood line to take him into the unknown future.

‘What is his name?’ he demanded as he realised he didn’t even know his son’s name.

‘Gino.’

‘Gino,’ he repeated softly. ‘Gino.’

He said it quite differently from the way she did—pronounced it as it was probably intended to be pronounced—but the expression on his face belied the slight sense of wonder in his tone. There was something so forbiddingly unfamiliar about the way he was looking at her—something so icy cold and critical as his gaze swept over her. And Emma knew that she had to be strong—hadn’t she told herself that first thing this morning, at the beginning of a day which seemed to have stretched on for an eternity? She must not let him intimidate her.

‘So where do we go from here?’ she asked.

His eyes narrowed. She was still wearing her coat. So was he—but only a fool would remove it in these sub-zero temperatures. Was his son warm enough? Gino. This time he tried the word out in his mind and a dark swirl of unknown emotion began to weave distorting patterns around his heart.

Suddenly he stepped forward, his hand snaking out to bring her up close and hard into the heat of his body, her fragility sending his senses into overdrive. His free hand roved over her bottom, feeling its faint curve beneath the soft wool, splaying his fingers there as his heart began to pound, his arousal soaring as he ground its hard heat against her. ‘Feel how much I want you?’ he grated.

‘Vincenzo!’

There was a bleak and glittering look of finality in the black eyes before he drove his mouth down on hers and this time his kiss was punishing; angry. If kisses were supposed to be demonstrations of love, then this was their very antithesis. But that didn’t stop her responding to it—Emma couldn’t seem to prevent herself, no matter how much the voice of reason screamed in her ears to try.

And wasn’t there some primeval sense that the man who held her was the acknowledged father of her child? Now that he had seen Gino, seen him and accepted him—hadn’t that somehow forged some kind of unbreakable bond between the three of them? Some ancient, golden trinity which had been completed by Gino’s birth. Oh, you fool, Emma, she told herself. Inventing fantasies because they’ll make you feel better about doing…this…

‘Vincenzo!’ she moaned, opening her mouth beneath his—feeling his masculine heat and sensing the urgent tang of his desire. He had started to unbutton her coat now, and she was letting him. Just letting him push the fabric aside and skim his palms down over her hips. And now he was rucking her dress up, brushing his way negligently up to the apex of her thighs, and Emma felt herself wriggle impatiently, scraping her own hands across the broad reach of his shoulders, wanting to rip the coat away from him. Wishing that all their clothes could disappear, as if by magic. ‘Vincenzo,’ she said, again—more urgently this time.

He felt the plunder of his mouth on hers, the fierce thunder of his heart—his body so hard that he felt he might die if he didn’t plunge deep inside her molten softness. For a second he responded to her. Circled his hips against hers in a provocative and primitive enticement as old as time, and she swayed against him, as if he were sucking her towards him with some magnetic and irresistible force. He could rip her panties off as she liked them to be ripped, could straddle her until she screamed and bucked beneath him.

And then, as abruptly as he had caught her close to him, Vincenzo dropped his hands and let her go—not reacting when he saw her knees buckle, her hand reach out to grasp the arm of the sofa, to steady herself.

‘What am I thinking of?’ he questioned, as if speaking to himself, his voice distorted by the sound of self-disgust. Hadn’t he been tempted just then to do it to her one more time—despite the fact that she had kept his son hidden from him? To maybe dismiss the driver and take her to bed for the night and wake up in the morning to the sound of his son?

But wouldn’t that weaken his bargaining position if she sapped his appetite with her sweet sexuality tonight? And if he left her now, he would leave her aching, and wondering… For Vincenzo knew that surprise was the most effective element of all when you were bargaining hard for something.

‘Ah, Emma,’ he said in a voice of molten steel. ‘Too many times I have listened to my body where you are concerned, mia bella. Too many times have you used your pale sorcery to ensnare my body and to make me so hungry with need that I cannot think straight, but not now. For this is too important. Now I need to think with my head, instead of with my…’

His mouth twisted as a quick, downward glance indicated the source of his discomfort and he saw the flush of colour which flared along her cheekbones. How could she still blush like an innocent virgin, even while she had just been writhing in his arms like a red-hot alley cat? He stepped back from her, further away from her temptation, his face growing shuttered. ‘I shall return here tomorrow morning, at nine.’

Something in his voice alerted her to trouble. Real trouble. ‘Return for what, exactly?’ questioned Emma, trying to keep her own voice calm.

He raked his hand back through his tousled black hair. Wouldn’t she just love to know what was going on in his mind? ‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ he declared softly.