The Passionate Italian 11 DECEMBER EPUB (9 page)

For he had been there and watched her performance from the manager’s office where he couldn’t be seen and where enough money had secured the manager’s silence.
 

He cared for her all right, but he’d learnt his lesson two years ago: one, that his overpowering jealousy had killed their relationship and two, if he revealed the depths of his love for her, she would only run away once more. She’d been born a free spirit and her unbalanced mother had turned her into an independent one by necessity. It had been his fault—all of it. But he’d given her time, he tried to show her that his jealousy was under control but even his new-found control had limits. And he’d just reached them. He was still determined to keep his distance emotionally, but he sure as hell was going to keep close to her physically. There was going to be no repeat of tonight.

Impossible.

It was the only word she could think of to describe the past few weeks. They’d been together—Giovanni had made sure she was always close by—but separate. It was as if a massive, invisible wall had grown between them overnight. They’d been overly polite to each other. Going out of their way not to touch, or to brush past. At least she’d made progress on her work.

Alberto was as guilty as sin. All she had to do was prove it. And it wouldn’t take too much longer. So absorbed was she that Rose didn’t hear Simon enter until he coughed politely.

“Signora Rose, Signore Visconti has requested that you leave your work for today and join him.”

Rose frowned and continued to scroll through sheets of company accounts. “Thank you Simon. However, I can imagine that Signore Visconti used different words and that you’ve kindly translated it into polite English.”

He pursed his lips ruefully. The twinkle in his eyes said it all.

“Tell Signore that I’m not hungry and that I’ve work to do.”

Simon raised his eyebrow, questioning the wisdom of her reply.

She looked up at him. “I know, I know. But I can’t get away, I’m on to something here.”

“Of course. I will relay your message to Signore Visconti.” He inclined his head respectfully and closed the door quietly behind him.

And besides, she muttered under her breath, she couldn’t take spending every minute of her down time with a man whose clothes she wanted to rip off and who was patently not interested in her. He wanted business; he would have business. Being so close to him while he was so constantly cool with her, was driving her insane.

If he only wanted her to work, then why the hell was he intent on dominating her entire life?

Wherever she went, he was there.
 

The past few weeks had been murder. He’d insisted on cozy little lunch catch-ups; on formal dinners and now he was insisting on her attending a high-society charity party. He was treating her with all the respect and distance of a work colleague: nothing more, nothing less. But making sure she attended every social event on his calendar. Well she damn well wasn’t going to be treated like a work colleague. She was his wife and lover. Former lover, she amended.

The door swung open sharply making her jump. She knew who it was but refused to turn around.

“Get changed and then meet me in the drawing room.”

“I’m busy.”

“It was not a request.”

“Hey, I’m on to something and the sooner I get it tied up, the sooner I can go. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“What have you found?”

She noticed that he hadn’t answered her question.

“Some discrepancies unaccounted for.”

“There are always discrepancies.”

“Not as big and not as regular as these. Besides the same name keeps popping up.”

“Alberto.”

She looked up at him suddenly. “You knew all along didn’t you?”

“I suspected.”

“Well, it looks as though your suspicions are correct.” She narrowed her gaze. “Anyway, why did you need me? You could have simply dealt with Alberto yourself.”

“I need proof. Suspicions weren’t sufficient. My brother and I are not close, as you know. My mother would simply refuse to believe any allegations I make without evidence.”

She turned away from Giovanni and pressed her eyes tight shut. She knew well. The two were opposites with a pile of emotional issues thrown into the mix for good measure. Their relationship had always been a minefield ready to explode. She’d made sure that she wasn’t the touch paper two years ago. But it looked as though Giovanni wanted her to provide the match now.

“I can’t give you the proof yet. But I’m close.” She swung around to face him. “Giovanni. Are you sure you want to do this? The amounts involved are nothing compared to the company’s turnover. You’re going to blow the family apart.”

“The family was blown apart many years ago by my mother’s infidelities and my father’s violence. And my brother has wasted his life.”

“And continues to do so at some resort or other.”

And boy, was she relieved. She didn’t know where he was and she didn’t want to know. So long as he was nowhere near her and not expected any time soon, that was good enough for her.

“You miss him?” Giovanni’s voice was a whisper.

She looked at him in disbelief. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

“I received the distinct impression that you like him. A lot.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know where you got that idea from—probably Alberto.” She raised her eyebrows. “The concept of a woman not attracted to Alberto is foreign to him.”

It was as if she’d struck a match, lit a light in his eyes. For the first time in the weeks since she’d returned, Rose saw the old familiar spark of heat, of passion, of humor once more in his eyes. It warmed her like nothing else, attracting her to its flame.

She rose and stepped closer.

“Your family has a lot to answer for Giovanni.” More than he would ever know. “But it’s your father you blame most, isn’t it?”

“What he did tore our family apart. Tore me apart,” he added softly. “And made my mother’s philandering even worse. Without his violence she would have been less unhappy.”

“And spent more time with you and your brother. Loved you more.”

“She loved my brother enough. For myself, it isn’t important. No, it was my father’s weakness that I despise. My mother,” he shrugged, “she knew no better.”

Rose’s eyes shot open. “Your mother never gave you what you needed most. She abandoned you.” She touched his arm.

He looked down at her hand in dull puzzlement.

“As did you, Rose.”
 

She snatched back her hand as if he’d scalded her.

“I had no choice, Giovanni. You don’t understand.”

“If you’d tried to explain, I may have understood. You obviously didn’t believe I would and you could have been right. But the time for explanations is gone—I’m no longer interested in them.”

“Then why am I here!” she blazed. “Why drag me across the other side of the world where I was happy.”

“You weren’t happy. You
existed
merely.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I
know
you—with or without explanations, with or without logic—I
know
you. I know you on a level that you will never understand.”

“Know me perhaps, but want me no longer.”

“Why do you think I do not want you?”

He moved closer to her, his head tilted to one side, his expression curious. She stood tall, trying to hold her own under his scrutiny.

“Because apart from that night on the plane you haven’t touched me.”

“And you would welcome my touch?”

His hands were firmly pushed into the pockets of his trousers but he stepped closer to her again until she could sense the comfort of his body so close.

“I, I didn’t say that.”

“But you implied it.”

She shook her head as if to shake herself out of the hole that she’d just created. She tried to step around him but he was too quick and blocked her way.

“Answer my question.”

“I don’t intend to. A minute ago you wanted me to get ready for a charity ball. Well, let me go and get dressed.”

“No.” He lazily drew a hand from his pocket and let one finger drift down her cheek and around her chin, holding it there briefly before tilting it up so that she had no choice but to look him in the eye. “Not yet. You want me to touch you, well I am touching you. How does that make you feel?”

There was no way in this world she was about to tell him of the electrical storm his touch ignited in her body.

She shrugged in what she hoped was a nonchalant way. “OK I suppose.”

His beautiful lips quirked briefly into a smile.

“OK? I will have to work on that, obviously.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She tried to shake her head free.

“But I do.”

“You haven’t up to now. We’ve been together for three weeks now and nothing—no sign of interest. What’s changed?”

“Simple cara. You’ve just answered my second question.”

He dropped his hand from her face, smiled at her obvious confusion and walked away.

“What question? What was it?”

“Don’t be late. We’re leaving in one hour.”

He didn’t even bother to turn around.

She followed him out of the room and watched him retreat to his suite of rooms.

CHAPTER SIX

It was still possible.

It was all she could think as, in a daze, she walked to her room and flicked on the shower and undressed automatically. As she stepped out of her clothes, a cool evening breeze, fresh from the mountains, blew through the open window and a blast of air hit her skin, sensitizing her body.
 

It was still possible that he wanted her.

Whatever question she’d inadvertently answered had triggered a response she’d feared was dead.

As she stepped into the shower, the harsh spray of water stung her body and the kaleidoscope of her memories collapsed, flashing one after another, forming a new image.

His no holds barred passion during their brief marriage together; his choice of words when he found her again in New Zealand—“you are mine still”—after he kissed her; and his constant presence over the previous few weeks.

They added up to a picture of someone whose formidable pride had forced him to bury his feelings for her deep, but not so deep that she couldn’t unearth them again.
 

She had to leave in a few weeks anyway, before Alberto returned. She needed Giovanni to know what she felt for him, she wanted to experience his love before she left. Besides there was always the possibility that Alberto might disappear, might simply go away—seduced by a young brunette, or an older one—go far away, where Giovanni’s rage at what Alberto had done to Rose wouldn’t have the fatal consequences she feared.

If he still wanted her—even a little—there was still hope. And hope was a potent thing: it extended boundaries, knocked down walls, protected and nurtured the tiniest of seeds.

As if reinforcing the power of her emotional shift she was slammed back physically into her life by the sensory force of the shower, registering each touch, sight, smell with abnormal vividness. Hope blossomed further in this sensory overdrive where sensation layered upon sensation, awaking memories of Giovanni touching her, making love to her.
 

Hope and sensation—it was a heady mix.

She felt the steamy velvetiness of the glass doors, soaked in steam, upon her palms and breathed in deeply the scents from the cosmetics on the shelf and from the flowers that filled the window box on her balcony, letting the power of the water blast away the shadows that haunted her. Shadows that had to be forced into the light. Because only there would they do no harm.

She had to tell Giovanni the truth. Had to tell him everything.

She lathered her hands and ran them down the length of her body, relishing the feel of her skin under the silky soap. She closed her eyes and saw Giovanni, his eyes, looking into hers as he explored her body. Heat shimmered deep inside her.

She turned the shower to cold and let the fierce shock slam into her gnawing need for him. She had to have him once more.

She smiled as her thoughts took shape.

After applying her lipstick, Rose stood back from the mirror, knowing what she would see because she knew what she was feeling. But it was still a shock.
 

Gone was the cool, controlled businesswoman and gone was the recluse she’d become in New Zealand. The tension between the two images was resolved in the sophisticated and sensual woman who looked back at her from the mirror.

Her hair, for once, was untouched by the straightening iron. It fell around her shoulders, framing her face in abandon of wild curls, tickling her bare back and skimming her breasts, keeping them in a state of acute awareness.

The vintage grey sheath of a dress fell in drapes over her body—sheer, leaving nothing to the imagination. It was amongst the wardrobe of clothes he’d bought for her all those years ago. It was a blatantly sexual dress and that’s what she wanted now.

She wore no underwear to spoil the line. The deep V at the front, the shoestring straps, the plunging back, combined with the skim of satin over her skin to send a clear message.

She would never have worn such a dress before Giovanni—or even during their marriage. She’d always dressed very properly, from instinct and from concern that she’d arouse his jealousy. But that was before she’d lost him. And now she’d found him again and she wanted him to see what she’d become: what he’d made her.
 

She wanted him as she’d never wanted a man before. She was no virgin besotted with her man as she had been three years before. She was a grown woman who’d experienced the joy of giving and receiving love and the pain of denying love—both to herself and her lover. She was not the same girl Giovanni had married. And she intended to show him the difference tonight.

Giovanni stepped into the waiting limo after her and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“Why are you wearing that dress?”

Rose looked down at the dress that revealed so much.

“This dress?” She smoothed a non-existent wrinkle over her thighs.

“
That
dress.”