holding it up between his thumb and forefingers and
looking at her with a query in his scowl.
'What is this?'
'What does it look like?' Jodie challenged him
crossly
'It looks like something a certain type of showgirl
might wear.'
'It…it was part of my trousseau,' Jodie told him
reluctantly. She certainly didn’t want him thinking it
was something she had brought with her to wear on
holiday. 'It got into my case by…by mistake.'
'Your trousseau? You mean you were going to
wear this as a means of enticing your husband to
make love to you? What was he? Some kind of bondage
fetishist?'
It took several seconds for his meaning to hit her
defences.
'It’s a chainstore basque, that’s all,' she told him
furiously. 'If you want to give it some kind of sleazy,
sordid interpretation, then that’s up to you.' She was
perilously close to angry tears of humiliation as she
remembered the shy uncertainty with which she had
purchased the boned and lace-tied item of underwear,
hoping that it might tempt John to behave more passionately
towards her. 'Right now They’re a fashion
item. Some women even wear them as outerwear.'
'Yes, I have seen them. They display their breasts
as crudely as whores, offering up their wares for any
man who feels like examining them.'
Whores? Was he suggesting…? 'I suppose the way
you like your women dressed is—' Jodie began angrily,
only to have Lorenzo interrupt her.
'The way I like to see a woman dressed is in something
that hints subtly at her sexuality instead of
flaunting it, and in fabrics as sensual as her skin. Not
clothes that make her look like either a child or a
whore,' he told her and he dropped her basque onto
the bed.
A child? Was he referring to her nightshirt?
'How is your leg this morning?' he added calmly,
as he helped himself to a cup of coffee and walked
over to the balcony to join her.
Suddenly what had seemed like a pleasant spot to
enjoy the morning air had become an intensely intimate
and very small space. Had he deliberately referred
to her leg now because he guessed how sensitively
aware she was that its weakness made her less
desirable as a woman? If she hadn’t already sworn
off men and love for ever, Jodie decided bitterly, then
surely Lorenzo would have been enough to make her
do so.
'It’s fine. Anyone can get cramp, you know,' she
told him defensively. 'Even someone with two perfectly
normal legs.'
'Which you think yours are not? There are many
places in the world where people, often children, subjected
to the injustice of wars they Don’t understand,
have been left with injuries, including the loss of
limbs, that make a mere weakness such as yours
something they would welcome.'
Jodie listened to him in disbelieving fury. Was he
actually daring to preach at her? When he lived the
kind of privileged life isolated from reality he obviously
did?
'What would you know about other people's suffering?'
she demanded scornfully. 'I bet the closest
you have ever been to witnessing the ravages of war
is in a newspaper or on a television screen.'
She put her cup down on the small table with a
small angry movement and made to walk past him
back into the bedroom. But Lorenzo, who had become
engrossed in looking down into the garden, put his
hand on her arm to stop her.
'Caterina is watching us from the garden,' he told
Jodie quietly.
'So?'
Putting down his own cup, he turned towards her,
saying softly, 'So this…'
He was closing the distance between them and
there was nowhere for her to go. His arms locked
round her, imprisoning her, their warmth pressing
through the thin fabric of her nightshirt. His hands
spread against her back, curving her into his own
body as though she were completely formless and
malleable, his to do with as he chose. One hand remained
flat against the small of her back, arching her
against him — draping her against him, she recognised
dizzily — whilst the other slid up to her neck, his fingers
burrowing into the soft thickness of her hair, tangling
in it so that he could draw her head back and
lift her face towards his own.
Trembling from head to foot with furious outrage,
Jodie glared up at him.
His head blotted out the sunlight as he lowered it
so that his mouth could take possession of hers. Jodi
stiffened defensively, not daring to move. His lips felt
cool and firm against her own. She could smell the
fresh scent of soap and clean linen. Stubbornly she
refused to return his kiss. The pad of his thumb
