Kitabı oku: «Blackmailed For Her Baby», sayfa 3

‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’ Anger blanched the skin around his taut upper lip. ‘Unless you’d rather be thrown.’

Feeling the technician’s body tightening up behind her, Libby sucked in a breath. The last thing she wanted to witness was a brawl. But one step forward from the man who was taller, broader and light-years ahead in the fitness stakes than the inebriated Steve Cullum had the technician instantly backing off.

‘OK, mate. OK. Keep your shirt on.’ Hands held up in acquiescence to the other man’s dominant will, he moved grudgingly away, while the others, bottles in hand, their eyes fixed on Romano, also started filing out, muttering their goodnights to Libby as they yielded to an authority they recognised as one not to be tested.

‘Still denying it?’ Fran grimaced as she moved past Libby.

Denying what? Libby asked herself, quietly fuming. That Romano Vincenzo was her lover? Because he was certainly acting like one, she thought angrily, her aching head throbbing even more from the thought of being alone with him; from imagining the scene she didn’t want, but which she knew would inevitably follow.

‘Are you going to be all right?’ the lingering Fran whispered protectively to her.

Libby darted a glance towards Luca’s brother. His sheer physical presence and that dark charisma sent something like untapped electricity crackling across her nerve-endings.

‘Of course,’ she croaked, not at all sure she would be before Fran, too, went the same way as the others and the front door banged loudly behind them all.

An interminable silence filled the flat as Libby faced hard, unrelenting features across the carpeted space of her sitting room.

‘What the devil did you think you were doing?’ Her voice shook with her own hot emotion. ‘What gave you the right to come in here and speak to my guests so rudely?’ Hardly guests! she thought with a mental grimace, immensely relieved that he had driven them away, even if she didn’t approve of the way he had done it.

‘Forgive me if I broke up such a wildly enjoyable party.’ The deep tones were anything but contrite. ‘I would have thought even you would have had the decency to skip the good time when you’ve just been informed of how much your child needs you. Obviously it means far less to you than entertaining your precious friends!’

‘They aren’t my friends!’

His head cocked to one side. ‘No?’

‘Well, only one of them is and—’

‘Evidently!’

Libby stifled a small, despairing sigh. It was clear he meant the man who had been forcing his attentions upon her.

‘Steve Cullum was drunk,’ she emphasised, as though that would somehow vindicate her. ‘And they came here uninvited!’

‘But it didn’t take you long to get into the swing of things!’

Which is what it would have looked like, Libby realised, especially if he had heard Steve shouting to everyone that she wanted to dance, which he probably had!

‘I was going to ring you,’ she said.

‘When? Tonight?’ His eyes were steel-hard, his voice sounding blatantly unconvinced. ‘Or tomorrow—after the hangover?’

Well, of course, he would think that, Libby despaired.

He looked like an avenging angel, from the flawless sheen on his coat to the striking force in his unrelenting features. There were raindrops glistening on his black hair, she noticed now, watching, mesmerized, as one fell from the thick strands to meet the startling contrast of his immaculately white collar.

She opened her mouth to speak, to assure him that not a drop of alcohol had passed her lips, but he cut across her protest, saying smoothly, ‘You forget. I know you, Libby.’ There was a cruel reminder in his softly spoken words. ‘Perhaps even better than Luca did.’

‘That’s what you think,’ she argued bitterly, and from the way his mouth pulled down one side knew exactly what he was remembering. Hadn’t he stumbled upon her here in England, five months pregnant, supposedly caring for her father, but instead living it up with friends in his father’s country club? He hadn’t listened to her excuses then, so she didn’t see any reason why he would listen to them now. ‘What did you want anyway?’ she asked wearily, turning her back on him.

He watched her clearing up glasses, stoop to pick up a cushion, toss it onto a chair.

He’d come back to apologise, he reflected with self-chastening mockery. To apologise for the way he had spoken to her today. It had been unwarranted, he’d decided afterwards, especially offering to pay her to accompany him back to Italy. Knowing the manager of the hotel where she was supposed to be tonight, he had tried to ring her there, and been relieved to learn that she hadn’t attended the party after all. She had gone up a few notches in his estimation then and, as he’d made his way to her apartment, he’d been doubly ashamed of his behaviour, but his desire to make amends, he realised grimly now, had been far too premature!

The wide scoop-neck of her top had been pulled down on one side—probably by that inebriated lout who had been manhandling her, he thought—while her hair lay like a twist of fire against the pale silken slope of her shoulder. He felt a kick in his gut from watching the sway of her marginally curved hips as she went through into the kitchen, his eyes resting on her small, tight denim-clad bottom, his teeth clamping together from the host of temptations that he knew had once ensnared his brother.

‘We parted on a rather unfortunate note,’ he answered her from the kitchen doorway. ‘It was my intention to rectify that.’ After all, he could hardly persuade her to go back with him with threats and insults, he’d assured himself earlier, but that was before he had come up here, seen first-hand what little feeling this girl really had. ‘In the circumstances,’ he breathed, his anger with her spilling over from mere disillusionment into something hot and irrationally possessive, ‘it seems all I have to apologise for is spoiling your fun!’

That it had even occurred to him to apologise for anything was unimaginable to Libby. The great Romano Vincenzo contrite? Even the thought of it was laughable.

A bitter little smile touched her mouth as, finding his proximity in the doorway of her small kitchen too unsettling, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

She wanted to move away from him back into the larger room, but one darkly clad sleeve was stretched across the doorway, effectively blocking her way out.

Libby swallowed. ‘C-could you let me pass, please?’

His eyes, probing into the wary depths of hers were far, far too disturbing. ‘Of course.’ She caught a waft of his cologne as he dropped his arm and she inhaled sharply, every nerve cell honing to his scent, his warmth, the closeness of his strong, hard body. But he didn’t move and without looking at him she made to brush past him, stifling a small startled cry as his arm came up unexpectedly again, trapping her there against the doorjamb.

‘Let me go!’

He laughed softly at her proud, indignant features. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was holding you.’ His other hand came to rest disconcertingly just above her other shoulder.

Breath locking in her lungs, Libby darted a cautious glance up at him. Her heart was pumping as fast as if she had been running hard. ‘You’ve got nothing to gain from this.’

She didn’t know why she said it, every nerve tingling with apprehension and something far more complex as he turned her towards him, surveying her with a twist of cruel mockery on his lips.

‘On the contrary,’ he murmured, gazing down into her flushed and guarded features, ‘I think I’ve got a great deal to gain.’

His thumb moved caressingly over the bared, heated flesh of her shoulder, his touch so light—just a whisper of sensation—that she might have been imagining it if it hadn’t been for the way her breasts ached from her sick reaction to it, or for the shaming impulses that seemed to be causing implosions throughout her body, weakening her bones from a dark and shattering desire.

She wondered what it would be like to be pressed against his hard warmth, feel that devastating mouth—all that she could focus on now—clamped over hers; the startling realisation that he was drawing her towards him causing her mouth to part on a small gasp, her head to drop back in involuntary invitation to him so that his face went out of focus as he dipped his head and her wild and reckless craving became reality.

Sensation piled upon sensation as his mouth came down hard over hers, hostility meeting desire in one sizzling cauldron of hot, ungovernable expression.

He hadn’t shaved since this morning and the angry graze of his jaw was a delicious friction against her soft skin as his mouth plundered hers with punishing thoroughness.

Libby groaned into his mouth, her mind despairing even as her body welcomed it, welcomed the arms that were suddenly tightening like steel bands around her, bringing her shockingly alive to the whipcord strength of him beneath his impeccable clothes and to the startling awareness of just how turned on he was.

Her errant, adolescent dreams about him, she realised, hadn’t prepared her for this! Nor had she imagined she could know such…wanting…

With another small groan—induced only by desire now—she leaned into him, mind and body yielding together in some crazy sacrifice to an irrational need.

She hated him—and yet she wanted him!

Her limbs weakening with that acceptance, she clutched at his broad shoulders like someone clinging to a precipice, her red-tipped nails curling desperately against the dark, damp fabric of his raincoat.

Driven by her response, Romano felt his body hardening with an urge that made it almost hurt. It would be so easy to forget himself; to take her and all that her gloriously feminine body promised. He had wanted this girl for far longer than he cared to remember; wanted her so much she was the only woman who had ever made him disgusted with himself for entertaining such thoughts about her, especially while she was married to his brother. While he had had to bear it in silence, ignore the way her big doe eyes swept coyly away from him like some shy little virgin’s whenever he spoke to her on some occasions, while on others they had seemed to challenge his with a sophistication well beyond her years!

But now there was no reason for restraint.

He jerked her against him, catching the small, stifled cry she uttered as though she was fighting her own battle between rejection and desire. But the thought of Luca and the mercenary way this girl had behaved was already cooling his ardour. Was he being extremely unwise even considering taking her back with him?

Confusion registered in her emerald eyes as he steeled himself to draw away from her. What was he thinking of? Could he not do without this added complication right now?

‘Since it was your clear intention to wind up in someone’s bed tonight,’ he none the less felt compelled to taunt softly, ‘perhaps you should make it mine? I can give you pleasure if that’s what you’re so hungry for, Libby. And I think I can guarantee you more satisfaction than you’d have found in the arms of that drunken lout who was here just now.’

Libby couldn’t move—couldn’t think—aware only of one long, tanned finger making light, sensuous circles over her bare shoulder and the tap, dribbling into the sink, that someone must have used and neglected to turn off properly.

All she could focus on was what Romano—her late husband’s brother and the man she despised—was suggesting, while her brain made unwilling comparisons with the man who had been there earlier. Romano Vincenzo wouldn’t force himself on a woman the way Steve Cullum had. He wouldn’t need to. He would be subtle, using his voice and his lips and hands with such articulated skill…

Reminding herself again of just who he was, head dropping back against the doorjamb, she was determined not to let him see how much his suggestion had fazed her. Heart pounding in her breast, her temples throbbing from her headache and her outlandish response to him, somehow she managed to query pointedly, ‘Are you propositioning me?’

His smile was without warmth. ‘And wind up in the same bitter-sweet trap as my brother?’

So he wasn’t. He was only playing with her, she realised. Weighing her reactions—which had probably been behind the reason for that kiss—just to see how easily he could get his brother’s scheming little widow into his bed! And she had fallen into his trap! Even if he had been more than a little out of control himself. Those black eyes still glinted with hot primal desire, yet behind it burned open hostility too.

With a surprising degree of force she pushed at the arm that was blocking the doorway and got herself out of his disturbing sphere, catching his soft laughter as she wrestled with the fact that even touching him like that gave her a whole host of unwelcome responses to deal with.

‘We’ll leave the day after tomorrow.’

His change of subject was so abrupt that it unbalanced her for a moment, shaken as she was from the shaming way she had responded in his arms.

‘What?’ Swinging to face him, she couldn’t stop herself wondering what woman wouldn’t fall victim to his dark attraction. Even now his stark masculinity was making her stomach muscles curl like brittle leaves.

‘I gathered from that comment you made about ringing me that you have decided to heed my request and come back with me. Or am I being naïve in presuming that you’ve even allowed it any headroom with so much else going on in your life?’

An angry retort sprang to her lips, but wisely she bit it back. It would have been futile anyway, she told herself on a frustrated little sigh.

Wearily she said, ‘Yes, I’m coming.’

‘Good.’ He strode away from her, turning in the doorway to assess her; her bright, dishevelled hair, the dark half-moons under her emotion-strained eyes and her cheeks, which she knew were flushed from more than just a pounding headache. ‘Get a couple of good nights’ sleep. I wouldn’t want my nephew to see any remaining traces of the good-time girl in his mother.’

Tight-lipped, Libby swung away from him, her arms clutched tensely around herself to stem the urge to hit him rather than take any more of his jibes.

‘And cara…’ the endearment was so out of character at that moment and so sexily soft, she thought she was imagining it as she turned round with her arms still locked around her and met the cruel mockery on his lips. ‘…turn off that tap.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT have you got in here?’ Romano grimaced a couple of days later at the airport when he was hauling her suitcase out of the boot of the large chauffeur-driven saloon. ‘Next spring’s whole fashion collection?’

Libby dragged in a breath. Naturally he would think that, she thought waspishly, her tone brittle as she answered in the only way she knew he would expect her to. ‘Bang on the nail!’

He sliced her a glance as he slammed the boot closed, hitting it twice to indicate to their driver that he could pull away. ‘Thinking of partying while you’re staying out there with us in Italy?’

‘I could be,’ she responded, keeping pace with his stride as he guided her towards the busy terminal. Nothing was further from her mind, however, and, deciding that she was carrying this charade a little too far, she added in defence of herself, ‘Well, I wasn’t quite sure what to bring or…how long I’d be staying.’ A ton weight seemed to press down on her chest as she said that. ‘I’ve also brought a few things for Giorgio.’

Like what? Romano thought. Things to soften him up to make up for the years she hadn’t been around? What was she hoping to do? Buy her way into the kid’s affections?

With features cast of stone he considered how easily she had given him up—as women like her could—without a backward glance, without a second thought as to how he would feel all the time he was growing up. Whether he was well. Being kindly treated. Happy.

As he held back for her to precede him through the automatic door into the terminal, he wondered if perhaps he was being too hard on his brother’s widow. After all, she had agreed to come, which was more than he had expected, he conceded with a grim compression of his mouth, and she would naturally want to try to win Giorgio’s trust in the only way she probably knew how.

The journey in the private jet was a far from relaxed one for Libby, sitting there uncomfortably aware of Luca’s darkly brooding older brother in the seat opposite.

He had made small talk with her at first about inconsequential things, controlling the conversation, taking the lead. Then he spent the rest of the time working on his laptop on the narrow table in front of him, his ebony head bent, his mind anywhere but with Libby, who sat gazing at the rain streaming down the small round window beside her, listening to those deft, dark fingers moving with surprisingly alacrity over the keys.

‘Do you want anything?’ he asked when a pretty stewardess came and enquired if she could bring them some refreshment, glancing up at Libby in a way that made her stomach flip.

Only for these nerves to stop plaguing me! she prayed silently, shaking her head. She couldn’t eat or drink. Not now. Not when she was only a couple of hours away from seeing her baby again.

‘It might be some time before you get another chance.’ Romano’s expression held a surprising degree of concern. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Libby replied tightly, but couldn’t tell him that she was too knotted up inside to swallow a thing.

What would Giorgi look like? she wondered, fearful of being rejected. He wouldn’t remember her, but would there be a bond there? A tug of something he’d recognise? Would he take to her? Or would she just be a total stranger walking into his life?

A cold, sick fear trickled through her as she considered the alternative. It would be his birthday in less than three weeks. Was he old enough yet to have begun to despise her for what she had done? And if he was, would he ever forgive her? Judge her less harshly if he knew how much she had wanted to see him? How hard she had tried—and how many times—only to be denied access on every occasion?

Once when she had been in Italy, modelling a new fashion collection, she’d read somewhere that the Vincenzos were there in Milan. She’d found out where they were staying and lingered outside the palatial hotel until she’d caught a glimpse of Luca’s mother coming out of the main entrance, tugging the reluctant little two-year-old after her. She’d caught snatches of his baby chatter but had scarcely understood a word of it. He was a totally Italian child, lost to her even before the waiting limousine had swallowed him up and the vehicle sped away. It had taken her months to get over it. It had been like giving him up all over again.

‘Here.’ A plate of delicately prepared sandwiches was being thrust in front of her. In a half-daze, Libby took it, looking down at them. Smoked salmon and soft cheese, garnished with a twist of lemon and tomato. Tempting in other circumstances.

‘I didn’t…’

‘I know.’ A firm masculine hand insisted when she made to pass the unwanted meal back to him. It will make you feel better, his eyes, dark and sagacious, conveyed.

Had he guessed how she was feeling? Libby wondered. Was he aware of the turmoil going on inside of her? Of her fear and apprehension—her overriding guilt? If he was, then he was probably thinking that it was no more than she deserved, she thought chillingly, biting into one of the soft white sandwiches, if he really believed that she’d handed over her baby just because the price was right.

She was glad when the flight was over, though her nervousness only increased when another luxury saloon that had been waiting for them when they touched down brought them finally to the small hilltop castle where she had been so unhappy during her brief marriage. It was late in the afternoon and the sun struck gold from its crenellated roof, from its ancient ochre stone walls.

Memories crowded in around her as Romano ushered her through its familiar shaded courtyard with its lichen-clad fountain—surrounded now by tubs of bright geraniums—and into its imposing interior, their footsteps resounding intrusively across the great hall.

‘I’m scared,’ Libby admitted before she had realised it. Scared of those memories. Of the reception she might receive from a woman who had never failed to show her dislike of her. But most of all, of Giorgio’s reaction to meeting her.

‘Don’t be,’ Romano advised succinctly, and then, failing to understand entirely, ‘He’s just a kid who’s trying to make sense of why his mother hasn’t been around for the past six years. Now, let Angelica show you to your rooms,’ he recommended as the elderly housekeeper, whom Libby remembered as the only friendly face other than Luca’s, appeared to greet them. ‘You’ll find me in the drawing room when you’re ready.’

Which didn’t help, Libby thought, but said nothing. After all, there was no excuse for what she had done—as far as he was concerned. She was glad to leave him and take a few minutes to gather her composure as she followed the stooped and chatty little figure of Angelica up the stairs. She was even more relieved to discover that her suite of rooms—decorated in warm, natural hues against richly pattered soft furnishings—was in the opposite wing from the one she had occupied with Luca.

In fact, the place had had a considerable face-lift since she had walked out of here—alone and devastated after the loss of her husband and then the handing over of her baby—and quite recently if the smell of fresh paint, which she’d noticed as soon as she’d entered the house, was anything to go by. The place was generally brighter all round and less oppressive than it had been when both Romano’s parents were alive. The odd extension had been added too, she noted, glancing out across the beautiful Italianate walled garden, which now boasted a pergola on the other side of the glittering blue oval of the pool. She had always loved the grounds, an oasis above the wooded valley. She remembered them being slightly more unkempt, but from the extent of new planting, abundant sculptures and unfamiliar, already established trees, she guessed that Romano had probably had a free hand for some time.

The only thing that looked the same was the drawing room. Or perhaps she failed to notice any changes, she would consider later, because all she was aware of when she entered was Romano Vincenzo, jacket and tie discarded, standing there alone beside the huge fireplace, looking every bit the lord of the manor amongst the familiar backdrop of original paintings, priceless antiques and rich tapestries.

Looking at a folded newspaper, he tossed it down on a side-table when he saw her come in.

Libby sent an anxious glance around her.

‘Where is he?’ Nerves, coupled with the effect he was having on her, made it sound almost like an accusation because she was trying not to fill her eyes with the whipcord power of his body, or that black hair, which fell tantalisingly over the back of his collar, mirroring that virile sprinkling of hair in the open ‘V’ of his shirt beneath the dark corded strength of his throat. ‘Where’s my son?’

An elevated eyebrow seemed to question her right even to use the term, but all he said in those deep calm tones of his was, ‘Patience, mia cara. I have told them that you’re here.’

Them? Of course, Libby reasoned, her head swimming with apprehension. Sophia Vincenzo was still very much in residence here.

Her stomach muscles tightened, making her feel almost sick, and suddenly, as her gaze strayed reluctantly over Romano’s long, lean body, all the years fell away and she was that overawed eighteen-year-old bride again, afraid of making a bad impression, hoping against hope for the acceptance that had never come.

Then she had had Luca’s protection, she remembered, and instantly ridiculed herself for using such a dramatic word. What did she need protection from? She was here only because of Giorgio—because her little boy needed her. Yet her mind refused to discard the memory of that kiss in her apartment two nights ago, the sensations that had shamed her still leaping into life in the tingling of her breasts and the deep throb in her lower body whenever she thought about them.

‘What are you thinking?’ Romano asked, and there was menace in his slow stride as he approached her with that same intimidating aura of self-assured arrogance, that pulsing sexuality that brought goosepimples out on her flesh. ‘Are you thinking what I am? That in all this there’s a remarkable sense of déjà vu?’

Libby’s tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth. ‘No,’ she lied, because even the way he was looking at her was making her feel as stripped and exposed as it had done seven years ago. ‘Things are different now, Romano,’ she reminded him, drawing herself up to her full, remarkable height in her staunch determination that they would be.

‘Indeed they are,’ he whispered, those glittering eyes appraising her figure beneath the white sleeveless T-shirt and soft blue trousers she had worn on the plane with a mocking sensuality that made her senses quiver. His voice, though, held only contempt, each word cruelly barbed as he tagged on, ‘Now you no longer have the…inconvenience of a wedding ring.’

Eyes darting to his, Libby made to deliver an angry retort, her heart pounding from the speculation of exactly what he had meant by that. But the door opened at that moment and Sophia Vincenzo came in, older and yet as graceful still as Libby remembered her with her elegant clothes and her beautifully coiffured greying hair, but it was to the little boy with the impish black eyes—Luca’s eyes—under a mop of unruly brown hair that Libby’s urgent gaze flew.

Giorgi!

‘Zio!’ Those eyes lighting up, the boy would have run towards his uncle if Sophia hadn’t stopped him. A restraining hand on his young shoulder, she was stooping to issue a low instruction in her own language.

‘How do you do?’ Giorgio said to Libby in a small, stilted voice, his formality—his accent—so much a part of these people that something seemed to wrench the connective tissues of her heart.

Dropping down to his level, she wanted to reach out and clasp him to her. Bury her lips in the soft sable of his hair and sob out how much she had missed him—loved him! How every minute that she had been parted from him had been a private hell. But she didn’t want to do anything that would make Giorgio withdraw from her; alienate him before she had even stepped onto the first rung on this very fragile ladder. Besides, Sophia Vincenzo’s gnarled fingers were planted possessively on each little shoulder. Like an eagle’s talons, Libby thought distractedly. An eagle refusing to relinquish a prized and coveted little lamb.

‘I’m very well,’ she restrained herself by saying in a voice she couldn’t keep from trembling as, uncomfortably aware of Romano standing above her now, she took the small hand that was being offered. ‘And you?’

The little boy stared at her for a moment before tilting his head right back to glance up at his grandmother.

‘Nonna told me to say that,’ he confessed somewhat sheepishly, before sending a rather troubled look towards his uncle.

Libby saw a surprisingly gentle smile touch Romano’s mouth. He said something softly to the boy in Italian, which she roughly interpreted from the classes she had forced herself to take in the eternal hope of seeing her son again one day as encouragement for Giorgio to say whatever he felt comfortable saying.

The little boy’s forehead puckered as he turned to Libby again and asked after a few moments, ‘Are you really my mamma?’ At Romano’s prompting he was much more relaxed, all formality and artifice gone.

‘Yes, Georgio.’ Achingly dry-mouthed, Libby held her breath, wondering where that admission on her part was going to lead.

Surveying her with a far more sombre expression, his young head tilted to one side, seriously he enquired, ‘Are you going to be here for my birthday?’

Libby gave a tremulous little laugh—not expecting that at all—and heard Romano chuckle; his mother’s terse response, correcting her grandson.

Of course, she thought, smiling through the tears she was fighting to keep under control. Such things were vastly important to a child.

‘You bet!’ she breathed, her hand softly shaping his face, not caring what Romano or his mother thought. She wasn’t going to miss another of his birthdays if they tried to drag her out of this house screaming.

Giorgio gave her a semi-toothless smile where already his second teeth were pushing through, little pointers that even now were marking the road towards manhood. Reality chilled her, causing every cell to ache with the knowledge of just how much of his little life she had already missed.

‘Oh, buono! Zio Romano says he’s going to buy me a new bicycle. I wanted a bigger one, but Zio says I can’t have one of those until I’m a year older. Zio says he will teach me to ride it when the time comes!’

And clearly Zio Romano was the be-all and end-all! Libby decided resentfully. ‘You speak very good English,’ she uttered to Giorgio, nevertheless amazed.

‘My son has always insisted his nephew acknowledge both sides of his heritage,’ Sophia supplied in that same chilling tone for which Libby had always remembered her, although as those familiar golden eyes raked over her Libby suspected that Sophia Vincenzo wasn’t entirely in agreement with Romano’s decision.

‘I speak Italian as well!’ Suddenly a little hand was reaching out to touch the fiery swathe that fell like burnished silk across Libby’s shoulder. Rather more coyly the little boy said, ‘I like your hair.’