The Italian Millionaire’s Marriage

‘I am not your woman.’

‘You are-’ he checked himself, then went on. ‘You are as far as people here are concerned. They think of us as a couple, but you think that means being “jolly good friends” as though a man and a woman were a pair of neuters. And only the English think like that.’

His face was like that of a stranger, watching her. ‘What is it? Can’t you bear the truth?’

‘It isn’t the truth,’ she cried.

‘It is the truth and you know it. You take refuge in a dead world because the living are too much for you. Your heart is fixed on the past where nothing matters and nothing can hurt. What do you know of pride, or love or passion? They’re just words to you.’

‘It was just carelessness,’ she cried. ‘It had nothing to do with love or passion-’

‘But everything to do with pride,’ he said bitingly. ‘My pride, that you humiliated in front of everyone. What were you talking about all that time?’

‘What do I ever talk about? Antiques. And you knew I was going to make a beeline for him, because I told you. You even said you’d help me get past his front door.’

‘You can forget that. You’re not setting foot in that man’s house.’

‘Are you giving me more orders?’

‘Let’s say I’m pointing out certain realities. He makes trouble between us. Knowing that, it’s inconceivable that you should seek his company.’

‘It’s not his company I want. It’s his art treasures.’

‘You won’t understand, will you? Then let me put it plainly. I forbid you to go to his house.’

‘You forbid-? You lay down the law from on high and I’m supposed to say, “Yes sir, no sir.” Boy, did you pick the wrong person! All right, I was away too long, and I’m sorry. It was inconsiderate of me. But everyone there tonight knows that this engagement was arranged. We’ve put on a good pretence, but there are no secrets in Rome, you told me that yourself. And if you’re going to talk about pride, what about mine? There was hardly a woman there tonight who didn’t-how can I put this delicately?-know you better than I do.’

‘Are you saying that was a kind of revenge?’ Marco asked, his eyes kindling dangerously.

‘No, of course not. But nobody thinks we really mean anything to each other-’

‘Mean anything to each other?’ he mocked. ‘What trouble you have with the word “love”.’

‘Love has nothing to do with this,’ she said angrily. ‘You can’t just change the terms when it suits you.’

‘The terms always included making things look convincing, and you broke them tonight. I want your promise that you won’t see him again whether I’m there or not.’

‘I’ll see him if I want to,’ she cried. ‘And the only promise I’ll make is that there’ll be no promises.’

‘I’m warning you-’

‘Don’t warn me. I’m not impressed.’

‘You won’t see him again, Harriet, I mean it.’

‘Or else what?’

‘You’ll find yourself on the first plane back to England.’

‘In your dreams. You may be able to throw me out of this house, but would you like to bet against my moving into an hotel and visiting Manelli every day?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t do that. It would be an unwise move, I promise you.’

‘Threats now!’

‘It’s not a threat, it’s a promise. Do I make myself clear.’

‘Perfectly, and now let me make myself clear.’ She pulled off the ring and held it out to him. ‘Is that clear enough?’

‘Be damned to you!’ With a swift movement he snatched the ring from her and hurled it away, not looking to see where it fell.

Stunned, she stared at him, realising how close he was to losing all control.

‘Marco, I want you to leave now.’

She turned away but his hands were on her shoulders, forcing her back to face him. ‘I haven’t finished.’ She tried to wrench herself free but he kept his hands in place until she gave up.

‘Let me go this minute,’ she said.

‘Perhaps you should take some of your own advice. Don’t give an order you can’t enforce. Unless you think you’re strong enough to fight me.’

She didn’t answer, just glared up at him from glittering, fury-filled eyes. Her struggles had caused some of her hair to fall and her cheeks were flushed. He looked her over slowly, and her wild appearance seemed to strike him, for he drew in a breath and began to pull her towards him, moving as in a trance.

‘Don’t you dare,’ she breathed. ‘Our engagement is over.’

‘No,’ he said, lowering his mouth. ‘It isn’t.’

She tried to resist but he slipped his hands down her arms, imprisoning them, giving her no choice but to accept his kiss. She’d teased him about insisting on his own way, but he was insisting now, and it was no laughing matter. This was dangerous because he had the power, which no other man had possessed, to excite her body until it turned against her, sapping her will, making her anger irrelevant.

He kissed her like a man whose knowledge of her was already so intimate that he could do as he liked. The devil himself might have kissed like that, his tongue driving into her mouth without warning, shocking, thrilling.

He knew how to use his tongue to tease and excite her, flickering it skilfully against the tender inside of her mouth, sending shivers of delight through her, then slowing, leashing himself back and her too, to her frustration.

‘How dare you!’ she said in a shaking voice. She was furiously angry with him for forcing this on her, and even angrier that he had stopped when her pleasure was building.

He didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure he’d even heard her. His face was dark, troubled, his eyes fixed on her as though asking some question that she didn’t understand. One hand moved slowly up her arm to her shoulder, her neck, the fingers entwining into her hair before he dropped his head to renew the assault.

Now her arms were free, and she could push him away, except that she lacked the will. His mouth drifted over her face, bestowing teasing kisses everywhere until he reached the tender place just beneath her ear, almost as though he knew that she was unbearably sensitive just there. She took a shuddering breath at the sweet, whispering sensation that trailed down her neck to her throat, then further to the swell of her breasts.

There was no chance to pretend now. He would sense the mad beating of her heart beneath his lips. He’d challenged her to fight him but she couldn’t fight the need of her own flesh that made her raise her hands, not to fend him off, but to clasp them about his head, drawing it closer. She was afire, craving more sensations that she’d never felt before with such totality. For perhaps the first time in her life she was living brilliantly, urgently in the present, and it was electrifying. A moan broke from her and she arched against him.

She felt him stiffen and become totally still. He raised his head, shaking it a little, as though wondering what was happening, then fixed his gaze on her face. She almost cried out at his expression. There was no triumph, as she’d expected, only a kind of torment.

‘Marco-’

‘If I ever catch you doing this with any other man,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I’ll-I’ll-’

She waited for him to finish, hearing his urgent, rasping breath and the thunder of her own heart. This was a new and bewildering Marco, tortured by some violent emotion that was close to destroying him.

‘You’ll do what?’ she whispered at last.

A shudder went through him. ‘No matter.’ His grip slackened and the blazing look went out of his eyes, leaving them strangely dead.

She clung to the furniture, feeling the world still rocking beneath her. ‘Perhaps it does matter,’ she suggested.

‘It does not,’ he said harshly, ‘because this is now closed. I apologise for alarming you.’

‘Marco-’

‘You have my word that it won’t happen again.’

‘Marco!’

She was looking at a closed door.