and…
'No!'
The harshness of Lorenzo’s refusal sent a shock
through her. Confusion and disappointment darkened
her gaze as it met his, and then returned to cling to
his now openly pulsing stiffness.
If he let her place her lips against him now, he
wouldn’t be able to control himself, Lorenzo knew.
She had already aroused him well beyond his own
personal safety limit. If he let her caress him so intimately,
he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from
taking her.
'Why not?' Jodie protested.
'We can’t have full sex,' he answered her curtly.
With her own arousal an unsatisfied ache that physically
hurt, Jodie persisted doggedly, 'Why not?'
'I Don’t have any condoms, and there’s no way I
intend to fall into the trap of fathering a child I Don’t
want and which ultimately I would have to pay for,'
he told her harshly.
'wouldn’t it have been better to have thought of
that earlier?' Jodie asked him pointedly as she moved
away from him and got off the bed, retrieving her
clothes and redressing with clumsy haste.
No way was she going to let him guess how much
his rejection of her reminded her of John’s, or how
much it and he had hurt her. And she certainly didn’t
want him to know how shamingly and how very, very
much she was aching deep inside herself for what he
was not going to give her.
How foolish she had been to think that she was in
control of his desire. In this relationship she wasn’t
in control of anything, she decided bitterly, as she
almost ran for the door, desperate for the sanctuary
of her own bedroom.
CHAPTER TEN
JODIE tensed as she heard the sound she had been
lying awake waiting for. The now familiar click of
Lorenzo’s bedroom door being opened very quietly,
and then closed again equally secretively.
In two days' time they would be getting married,
but on no less than four occasions now Jodie had been
aware of Lorenzo leaving his bedroom late at night
and not returning to it for at least an hour. And
Caterina was still living at the Castillo, in Lorenzo’s
late grandmother’s rooms. If Caterina had made good
her threat to get Lorenzo back into her bed, then
surely she had a right to know about it? Even though
she was only going to be a temporary wife.
Getting out of bed, Jodie pulled on her robe and
slipped her feet into a pair of soft-soled shoes. She
was determined to confront Lorenzo with her suspicions.
Being a business arrangement wife was one
thing, but being the unwanted wife of a man who had
a mistress was very definitely another. And the kind
of humiliating situation she had no intention of allowing
Lorenzo to put her in.
She hurried along the landing to the top of the
stairs, and as she looked anxiously down them she
saw Lorenzo’s shadow moving swiftly along the hallway
below. Determinedly she hurried after him, wondering
why he had not simply used the upper corridor
that led to Caterina’s apartments.
Several narrow passageways led off the hallway
which linked the old part of the Castillo to this newer
wing, which had been added in the seventeenth century.
Which passage had Lorenzo taken? There was
a light burning on the stairs that led down to a lower
level. Exhaling nervously, Jodie turned down them.
The stairs were directly under Caterina’s apartment,
so perhaps—
She gave a small shocked scream as suddenly, out
of the shadows, a hand curled round her wrist.
'What the hell do you think You’re doing?'
'Lorenzo!'
He must have realised that she was following him
and waited to trap her.
'I wanted to know where you were going. This is
the fourth time I’ve heard you leave your room late
at night,' she told him boldly, lifting her chin.
'You were spying on me?'
The narrow-eyed look he was giving her was making
her feel acutely uncomfortable, but she wasn’t
going to let him see that.
'If I’m going to marry you then I have a right to
know if You’re having sex with Caterina.'
'What?'
'I won’t marry you if you are,' Jodie told him
fiercely. 'And I mean that.'
'You mean You’re snooping around following me
because you thought you were going to find me in
Caterina’s bed?'
Put that way, he made it sound as though her behaviour
was verging on the bunny-boiling, Jodie realised
