Kitabı oku: «Dante's Twins»

CHAPTER ONE

THEY made love on the third day, less than seventy-two hours after they met. “Come with me,” he said urgently.

Without hesitation she took the hand he held out in invitation. “Yes.”

And just that easily, while others in the group dozed through the worst of the afternoon heat or swam desultory lengths up and down the pool, he spirited her away up one of the trails leading to the middle of the island.

She knew what the outcome of their clandestine rendez-vous would be. It wasn’t a question of right or wrong, of imprudence or immorality; it was a matter of destiny. She’d belonged to him from the moment he’d set eyes on her that first night and the only miracle was that they’d waited this long to consummate their union.

Fingers linked tightly in his, she followed him, stepping nimbly to avoid the lush jungle growth that impeded the way and hid their escape from speculative or hostile observers at the plantation house. Eventually they came to a place beside a spring bubbling out from beneath a slab of rock, where the earth was tufted with moss and sweet-smelling flowers swayed from vines strung overhead like a canopy.

Turning to face her, he spoke her name, “Leila...?” but it was not the voice of a CEO addressing his employee. It was thick and husky with passion, a lover’s voice.

“I’m here,” she said.

At that, he drew her to him until not the most slender beam of sunlight could come between them, and lowered his lips to hers.

How could she possibly have grown into womanhood and not known that a huge part of her life lay untouched by real passions? Or deluded herself into thinking she knew what being kissed by a man was all about?

His mouth seduced her completely in less time than other men had taken to ask her out to dinner. The person she’d been, the one she thought she knew, exploded in a series of tiny detonations that started where his lips touched hers and rippled throughout her body until not a part of her remained unmoved.

She might have looked the same to the untutored eye but, in that instant, the womanly pattern of her changed forever. Her focus altered, her instincts grew sharper. A more primitive awareness shaped her intelligence. And her heart...oh, it had ceased to be hers to control three days before.

Lifting his head, he broke the kiss just long enough to ask, “Are you sure?”

Did the sun rise in the east? Soft and moist and willing, she swayed in his embrace and surrendered her soul. “Never more sure, Dante. I will follow wherever you lead.”

He gathered a fistful of her hair and tugged her closer to let her learn how much he desired her. “I’ll never give you cause for regret, my love,” he vowed, and renewed the kiss, more deeply this time.

She opened her lips and let her tongue mate with his in an eager, pulsing rhythm that even she, virgin that she was, recognized as bold acceptance of his invitation to share the greatest intimacy a woman could know with a man.

His hands touched her, eager to discover her flesh. She did not remember sinking to the mossy ground or how she came to be naked or when he threw aside his own clothes. Like everything else about her life that had gone before, it did not matter. The ordinary world narrowed, too pale an entity to compete with the paradise he invoked.

His heavy-lidded gaze devoured her, blazing a trail for his tongue to follow down her throat and along her collarbone to her breasts where he lingered, stirring her to aching unfamiliar pleasure. His hand dipped to her abdomen, the fingers splaying wide to seek the angled crease of her thigh where it joined her torso, then probing her most secret part and...oh!

Sensing the sudden quiver of shock that fluttered within her, he paused and lifted his head. “This is your first time, isn’t it?” he said on a note of wonder.

At her nod, he blew out a steadying breath and, turning on his side, he curved his hands around her and stroked the length of her spine, quieting her fears. “Don’t be afraid, Leila,” he said. “I’ll never hurt you.”

Of course he wouldn’t. He was the man she’d been waiting for all her life, the one with whom she’d share eternity. She had nothing to fear.

Wanting to please him as he pleased her, she pressed her lips to his chest and left a warm, damp imprint there to let him know her moment of panic had passed. Beneath her mouth his heart jerked a response, rapid, uneven.

This time when he touched her, her vision narrowed, isolating her in a space just short of heaven and leaving her reaching... trembling... wanting....

Disembodied, her voice called to him, begging for something she couldn’t begin to define. “Dante, please...help me...”

At her words, he lowered his head and found her with his tongue, and she forgot to be shocked or modest or restrained. She simply melted like honey.

The tension within her coiled unbearably until, with one last powerful wrench, it burst free of itself, and all she could do was dig her nails into Dante’s shoulders and pray that she would not drop off the edge of the earth and lose him forever.

For a moment he crushed her to him, anchoring her to reality. Then, eyes half closed and chest heaving, he rose above her, all proud masculine strength. Firmly, he nudged apart her knees with one of his own.

He has stolen my soul. I cannot give him more, she thought helplessly.

And was wrong. Because she had not begun to give; she had only received and mistakenly believed that to be the greatest pleasure a woman could experience. But her body knew differently, expanding to accept him and closing around him, sleek and tight with welcome.

The rhythm began again, frenzied and untamed It possessed her, seizing the air in her lungs, paralyzing her heart, and summoning a devastation that would have terrified her had he not held her so securely.

She cried out his name again, wept into his shoulder, struggled to soar with him and suddenly felt herself explode into a million fragments. And through it all he rode with her, welding her with his heat until she was whole again and flooding her with his loving.

For long minutes after that, she heard only the burbling of the spring. Felt only the spongy resilience of the moss beneath her and the weight of him above her. Saw behind her closed eyelids only the muted brightness of the sun spearing through the trees.

Finally, he spoke. “You are beautiful,” he said, in the same passion-charged voice he’d used before. “Beautiful through and through. And you are mine.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I love you, Dante.”

It never occurred to her to doubt the truth of her statement, any more than it occurred to her to question the truth of his. He was her soul mate. He would never lie to her, nor she to him.

“I remember when I used to be assigned to this end of the house. Those were the old days, before the company started going to hell in a handcart.”

With night having fallen swiftly, as it did in the tropics, the only light outside came from the kerosene torches in the courtyard below. But she didn’t need to see the face belonging to the voice to recognize the speaker as Carl Newbury.

For one startled moment after she stepped out of the bathroom, she thought he was actually in her suite and speaking to her. In fact, he was leaning on the veranda railing next door, his words directed at someone in the room behind.

Uncomfortable at finding herself unwitting eavesdropper, Leila crossed to the slatted French doors, intending either to close them or make her presence known, when he spoke again.

“The last person I expected would be taken in by such a blatant come-on is Dante Rossi. I thought he had more smarts than that, but I guess when sex enters the picture...”

“It’s gone that far?” another male voice exclaimed.

“You witnessed the way they went sneaking off after lunch today,” Newbury sneered, pausing to slurp noisily at whatever he was drinking. “And you saw them come back, and the furtive way she scurried around to the back entrance while he strolled along the front terrace, bold as brass, so you tell me.”

Aghast to realize she and Dante were the subject of so unsavory an exchange, Leila froze on the threshold of her own veranda, hidden by the gauzy white curtains fluttering in the breeze from the ceiling fan.

“They were holding hands,” the unseen other party replied, and although she couldn’t identify him, the fact that, like her, he’d been assigned to the back wing of the house suggested he didn’t rate Carl Newbury’s executive status. “Still, to assume that means he got her in the sack within a couple of days of meeting her is a bit far-fetched, surely? Dante’s a good-looking man and women obviously find him attractive, but he doesn’t strike me as a playboy.”

“Normally he isn‘t—at least not when he’s dealing with ladies. But let’s face it, pal, Leila Connors-Lee is no lady, for all her fancy airs. She got herself hired in the first place by flashing her legs and batting her long eyelashes at Gavin Black. But he’s married and old enough to be her father, so she looked around for bigger fish to land and it looks as if she’s hooked Dante.”

“But he never mixes business with pleasure. His private life is just that. Private.”

“It used to be.” Ice clattered against crystal, followed by the gurgle of liquid being poured. “But I’ve thought for a while that his judgment’s been off, and I guess this proves it.”

“He’s got too many brains to be taken in by a pretty face.”

Newbury’s laugh made Leila’s skin crawl. “We both know a man’s brain isn’t what drives him when sex enters the picture, especially not when it’s handed to him on a plate.”

“Ah!” Afraid she might be sick, Leila pressed the palm of her hand to her mouth. She knew she’d alienated Carl Newbury the first week she’d been hired, and she knew it went beyond her having taken over a position he’d earmarked for one of his friends, so she didn’t expect him to regard her with particular favor. But that he was prepared to carry the grudge this far left her reeling.

“Well, there’s not much we can do about it.” To his credit, the other man sounded ill at ease with the tone of the conversation. “It’s up to Dante to put a stop to it if he doesn’t like it.”

“Which he’ll do only if he realizes the mistake he’s making, and I’m not so sure he will. I rather think we’re going to have to save him from himself, Johnny, my man.”

“Save him from himself? Uh...how?” Johnny, whoever he was, sounded more nervous than ever. “Dante’s treated me pretty well, Carl. Not that I don’t appreciate having you in my corner and all, but I’d just as soon not give him reason to regret having taken me on when I needed a job.”

“Relax. I’ve got a vested interest in keeping on his good side, too. We just have to be ready to run interference when the opportunity presents itself, that’s all. Which it will, sooner rather than later, and then you’ll be where you belong—wearing the shoes she was never meant to fill.”

“You seem pretty sure of that.”

“I am. Drink up, pal, it’s getting late. And mark my words. We won’t have to put up with Lady Connors-Lee much longer. She’ll be as stale as yesterday’s news and just as forgettable once Dante’s back on his home turf. Any affair that starts with a bang like this, practically before the introductions are over, tends to burn itself out just as fast. In the meantime, a few well-placed words...” Newbury’s voice faded as he heaved himself away from the railing and ambled back inside the room next door.

Long after the conversation ended and the door slammed behind the two men, Leila stood rooted to the spot, her face flaming. Oh, it was all very well to say that, compared to how she felt about Dante, what other people might think or say didn’t count, but the plain fact was that it did. It hurt to learn that her reputation was being dragged through the mud, and it hurt even more realizing that Dante’s was keeping it company.

And yet, hadn’t she known all along that there would be talk in the ranks? Backing away from the window, she sank onto a wicker chaise, recalling her first meeting with him just three evenings before and the conjecture it had aroused.

She’d been among the last to come down to the cocktail party. Most of the other employees and their spouses were gathered already in small, sociable groups, the women in their elegant bare-backed dresses outshining the flower arrangements, the men unusually formal in bow ties and dinner jackets.

Yet for all that the wide flagged terrace held a near-capacity crowd, he was the one who stood out from the rest. On the horizon, a breathtaking sweep of jungle-clad mountains soared to bare volcanic peaks. Between them and the island, the setting sun cast a flaming swath on a sea of rippled silk. But none of it could steal his thunder.

Close by, a woman had let out a subdued shriek of dismay as someone accidentally spattered a drink down the skirt of her dress. Offshore, a school of bottle-nosed dolphins leaped in graceful arcs to the delight of the audience on the terrace. Still, he’d continued to dominate the scene.

She hadn’t needed an introduction to know who he was. Even in a crowd of sixty, there was no mistaking Dante Rossi. He stood taller than the other men, larger than life.

As if they knew he was different, special, his dinner jacket clung more possessively to his shoulders, his starched shirt gleamed whiter against the warm olive of his skin.

He stood beside the balustrade separating the terrace from the beach, engaged in conversation with Carl Newbury, one of his vice presidents. But as Leila came down the steps from the main house and attempted to merge inconspicuously with everyone else, Dante had lifted his head and lanced her with such a stare that she stopped, as paralyzed as if she’d been caught in the act of stealing the jewels hanging around the neck of the woman standing nearest to her. And just like that, it had begun.

With a dismissive gesture, he cut off Carl Newbury in midsentence. Leila saw his mouth move, could almost lip-read his question Who’s she?

The vice president turned to look. When he saw who it was his boss had expressed interest in, he allowed his face to settle into lines of holier-than-thou disapproval and mouthed, “That’s her!”

Dante’s observation had grown more acute, fastening on her features with an intensity from which she could not detach herself. But the hostility she braced herself to withstand hadn’t materialized. Instead, another kind of awareness knifed through the atmosphere, strange, electric, thrilling. It rippled over her and whether or not she wished to, Leila found herself staring back at him, transfixed.

Where moments before she’d been surrounded by a blaze of color and movement and noise, suddenly Leila felt encased in silence and solitude. Carl Newbury melted into insignificance, too minor a player to merit notice. The women’s gorgeous designer dresses paled. The animated buzz of conversation ebbed to the quiet murmur of waves lapping a distant shore.

In all the world there were only the two of them: Dante and she, potentially opposed from a professional standpoint, but at the same time, trapped in an inexplicable harmony that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with primitive sexual knowledge. A modern Adam and Eve, their association already poisoned by the serpent of resentment which had coiled around her from the moment she’d been hired to replace the ailing Mark Hasborough.

Dante had recovered first and moved, breaking the spell. Without taking his attention from her face, he lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. A waiter bearing a tray of pineapple-garnished drinks had appeared at his side. Indicating to his vice president to take two glasses and follow, Dante had moved with sinuous grace among the throng of employees and spouses to where she waited. Carl Newbury minced along at his heels, as eager to corner her as a mongoose about to dispose of a snake.

“Dante,” he’d bleated, rocking on the balls of his feet and smirking, “allow me to introduce Mark’s replacement and the newest buyer to come on board at Classic Collections. This is—”

“Leila Connors-Lee.” Dante’s voice, as potent in its impact as everything else about him, had washed over her, eliminating Newbury in its undertow. He had unusual, beautiful eyes, their blue-green depths rivaling the clarity of fine aquamarines, and he had learned to use them to powerful effect. Framed in lush black lashes, they assessed her brazenly from head to toe, a cool sweep of appraisal that left her feeling stripped to the bone. “Of course,” he said, relieving Newbury of both drinks and passing one to her. “You couldn’t possibly be anyone else.”

A more naive woman might have thought he was referring to the fact that she didn’t fit the blond corporate wives’ image, but Leila hadn’t been fooled. He’d heard the gossip, the innuendos. Why else was he subjecting her to such thorough observation?

Vibrantly conscious of the electricity sparking between them and wreaking devastation on her composure, Leila had struggled to project an air of professional detachment. Refusing to crane her neck to meet his gaze, she’d addressed his mouth instead and murmured coolly, “How do you do, Mr. Rossi? I’m very honored to be here. Poinciana Island is beautiful.”

In all fairness, he tried to match her aloofness. “We both know you’re very lucky to be here,” he corrected her, his handsome lips enunciating the word quite distinctly.

She’d lifted her chin a fraction. “You’re referring, no doubt, to the fact that it’s rare for such a very new member of the company to earn a place at its annual retreat.”

“Among other things,” he replied, taking her elbow and steering her toward a quiet corner where their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.

None of the others had tried to join them but they noticed that he’d singled her out and they watched, some with slightly malicious anticipation and a few—mostly the women who’d befriended her—with sympathy and encouragement

“So,” he said, swirling his glass of rum punch and raising it in a brief salute, “how did you manage it?”

“What?” she’d replied, deciding two could play at being obtuse. “Getting myself hired by Classic Collections Limited?”

“We can begin with that, if you like.”

He’d spoken as if it was immaterial to him how she answered; as if he didn’t really give a rap who she was or how she’d managed to wheedle her way into this select gathering, and that he was merely going through the motions of pretending an interest in her.

But the tension in his tall frame had betrayed him for all that he lounged so casually against the terrace balustrade and declined to look at her, choosing instead to stare out to sea. Behind that veneer of indifference he was as conscious of her as was she of him.

The intense awareness that had sprung to life the moment their eyes met continued to writhe between them, its threat not if it would strike, but when. It left her heart pulsating unevenly and the palms of her hands clammy with foreboding.

But if some parts of her had shrunk from the danger of him, other parts had thrilled to it Underneath her clothing, in places no man had ever seen let alone touched, her flesh grew warm and alive. For the first time in her life she had found herself in thrall to an attraction so uncontrollable, it left her breathless.

He was the most compelling, the most exciting man she’d ever met. That she should have leaped to such a momentous conclusion in a matter of minutes had made not a whit of difference. She simply knew, as surely as she knew her own name. He was her destiny.

“I came across your company ad in a trade magazine and decided to apply for the job,” she’d said, somehow managing to disguise her inner commotion with a calm that was as superficial as the smile shaping her mouth.

“Why?”

Money and the debts she’d undertaken to honor were too squalid a topic to mention when magic swirled in the air. “Because,” she said lightly, “it sounded interesting and I was ready for a change.”

He favored her with a slow, engaging grin. “You must also like a challenge. From what I understand, you’ve not had much experience in the Canadian import business.”

“No,” she admitted, warmed to the soul by his smile, “but I’m willing to learn. I do speak Mandarin fluently, and I’m intimately acquainted with the way business is done in the Orient.”

“Intimately?” He’d purred the word with such a wealth of meaning that, fleetingly, she wondered if she’d misread his interest in her. She knew that some of her male colleagues, in particular Carl Newbury, believed it had taken more than talent for her to come by her job.

“I was born and raised in Singapore and have traveled extensively through the Far East,” she’d said rather stiffly. “How would you describe that?”

He’d brushed his fingers up her arm, the way one might soothe a nervous animal. “What does it matter? The important thing is, you made the move to Vancouver and you’re here now. Why did you, by the way—leave Singapore, that is? It’s a beautiful city.”

“My mother wanted to return home after my father’s death.”

“She’s Canadian?”

“Yes.”

“And your father?”

“Was half English and half Sri Lankan.” But the pride she’d once taken in speaking about her father had been swallowed up in disappointment. As had become her habit since his death, she veered the conversation elsewhere. “Is there some point to all these personal questions?”

“I like to know about the people who work for me. If I’d been present at the time of your final interview, I’d have asked you then.”

“Your partner seemed more than satisfied that I could handle the job, Mr. Rossi.”

“He was obviously right. And the name, by the way, is Dante.”

“But you’re still not entirely sure he made the right decision in hiring me?”

His gaze had drifted over her again. “I wouldn’t go that far. The simple fact is, I’m intrigued by you, Leila Connors-Lee. Women seldom perform so well on foreign assignments, especially not their first. They find the travel too demanding, intimidating even. Their ambitions lie closer to home as a rule.”

He’d made ambition sound like a dirty word. “Is there something wrong with a person wanting to succeed?”

He’d shrugged, an elegant shifting of his shoulders beneath the exquisite Armani jacket. “The degree of wanting might be a problem.”

“Why should it be, as long as the company benefits?”

“Theoretically, it shouldn’t,” he’d said, his glance taking inventory of the blush-pink Thai silk of her dress, the Sri Lankan sapphires at her ears, “but if other factors enter the picture....”

For a moment, her poise had almost shattered. Was he really telling her that he paid attention to the sort of innuendo Carl Newbury apparently was not above spreading around, or did a more subtle text underlie his words: one which acknowledged the sexual attraction pulsing between the two of them and, at the same time, that he rebelled against it?

“Other factors being the objections voiced by some of your executives at my appointment?” she’d said, and when he once again shrugged dismissively and turned away, went on, “Well, Mr. Rossi—Dante—I’d like to voice a few objections of my own, most specifically to your judging me on the strength of idle gossip. I know what’s being said and I find it only a little less insulting than your willingness to accept as truth something which has absolutely no basis in fact. Frankly I expected a more enlightened attitude from a man of your presumed intelligence.”

That had cured him of his urge to study the incoming tide! “The day I come to depend on the office grapevine in order to form an accurate assessment of any employee will be the day I retire from business,” he said sharply, swinging back to face her. “I’m not sure who’s been talking or what’s been implied, Leila, but let’s get one thing clear from the start I consider myself a good enough judge of character to arrive at my own conclusions without relying on input from other people.”

She’d been very firmly put in her place, no doubt about it, but before she could respond, one of the native Caribbean houseboys had appeared at the top of the steps leading into the house and banged a dinner gong. Its tones had rolled over the guests, cutting melodiously through the noise and laughter.

Barely able to contain his resentment at being excluded from his employer’s conversation with the upstart newcomer, Carl Newbury didn’t waste a second of the opportunity to intrude. Like a trained Rottweiler out to protect its master, he’d insinuated himself between her and Dante. “We should move inside, Dante. Nobody else is going to sit down to eat until you do,” he’d brayed, all false amiability. “So sorry to interrupt your little chat with the boss, Leila.”

“Don’t be,” she said, ignoring him and staring at Dante. “Mr. Rossi and I have finished everything we have to say to each other, haven’t we?”

Dante had flicked a minute speck of lint from his otherwise immaculate jacket cuff and shot her a glance from beneath the sweep of his lashes. “Not quite, Leila,” he’d said ambiguously, “but it will have to do for now.”

The same dinner gong which had brought that first conversation to an end echoed through the old plantation house again, now summoning stragglers to that night’s formal banquet and reminding her that almost an hour had passed since she’d stepped out of the shower. Dante would be waiting, wondering what was keeping her.

Yet how could she go down to meet him as planned, knowing that to do so would be adding fuel to the gossip already spreading like wildfire? He deserved better.

On the other hand, to remain in hiding suggested a guilt neither of them had reason to feel. They were consenting adults, free to pursue a relationship if they chose.

Granted, it would have been easier, wiser even, had they not been employer and employee. But love didn’t acknowledge such trivial obstacles. Still, perhaps they should wait until they returned to Canada. Unlike Poinciana, the city of Vancouver was large enough that they could conduct their love affair away from the prying eyes that followed their every move here on this tiny island.

The sudden shrill of the telephone brought an end to her indecision. “Leila, what’s keeping you?” Dante asked when she answered.

“I was...daydreaming,” she said, for want of a better word.

“I’ve done a bit of that myself in the last hour or two.” Even from a distance, his voice made her ache with longing to see him again, to be possessed by him. “Hurry down, sweetheart. The cocktail hour’s over and the banquet about to begin.”

“I’m afraid I’ll be a few more minutes,” she said, searching through a drawer for fresh lingerie. “Don’t wait for me.”

“I’ll keep a seat at the head table.”

And set the tongues to wagging more furiously? “No!”

“Leila?” An edge decidedly more suited to a CEO sharpened his tone. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she repeated more moderately. “But singling me out that way will raise more than a few eyebrows.”

“I can handle raised eyebrows.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she said. “Not quite yet.”

“Our being seen together isn’t hurting anyone, Leila. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m new here and....”

And there are some in the company who’ve made it pretty clear they think I’m prepared to sleep my way to the top. But if she told him that, he’d insist on names and he’d act on the information. And she’d got off to a bad enough start with some of her colleagues without making matters worse.

A moment of silence hummed along the line before Dante said, “Okay, we’ll do it your way for now. Come down as soon as you can. If I can’t sit next to you, at least let me be able to look at you.”

“Of course,” she said, her fears somewhat allayed.

Who was she going to listen to, after all: the man to whom she’d given herself in love and trust—or Carl Newbury and his misplaced moral indignation?