It Started With A Proposition: Blackmailed into the Italian's Bed / Contract with Consequences / The Passion Price

CHAPTER FIVE

GINO found himself humming as he watched the tub fill, the bath gel having turned the water a pale green as well as providing some fragrant bubbles.

For the first time in years he felt light-hearted. And happy.

All because he’d found Jordan again.

It was as if the last ten years had been wiped away. He felt young again, and invincible. Jordan was still his woman—had been since the first day he’d set eyes on her.

She’d been working as a waitress back then, at an Italian restaurant not far from Sydney University, just across the road from the building site where Gino had been employed.

Although he’d been trying to opt out of everything Italian at that particular time in his life, the mouthwatering smell of his favourite pasta dishes had kept beckoning, and he’d finally given in to temptation and gone there for an evening meal.

Fate had sat him down at one of Jordan’s tables.

The sexual chemistry between them had been instant and electric. He’d stayed on, eating more than he needed, just so he could keep talking to the beautiful blonde waitress who hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him any more than he could her. He’d openly flirted with her, and she’d served him with a degree of attention which Gino had found both telling and seductive.

When she’d confided over his third cup of coffee that her flatmate had decided to drop out of university and go back home to live, leaving her to find the rent alone, Gino had grabbed the opportunity, saying he’d been looking for a place to live and asking would she consider having him as her flatmate?

His eyes must have told her that he wanted to be more than just her flatmate. So when she’d agreed to his moving in the next day, Gino had been a serious state of arousal even before he’d set foot in the place. He hadn’t lasted more than half an hour before he had kissed her. One thing had quickly led to another, with Gino thanking his lucky stars that he’d come into that restaurant.

His discovering that Jordan was only nineteen—and a virgin—had been a huge shock. But subsequently a huge delight.

She’d become his perfect fantasy lover—her youth and inexperience allowing him to live out his own fantasy role as the masterful older male. He’d been thrilled by her falling for him despite thinking he was just a labourer, wallowing in her acceptance of him as a man in his own right. He’d revelled in the sexual power he’d held over her. What man wouldn’t have? She was an incredibly beautiful girl, with a brilliant mind and a strength of character which was formidable.

Yet, in his arms, she was all sensual submission.

Not passive, though; Jordan was too passionate for passive.

He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her back then, quickly becoming addicted to the primal feelings she’d evoked in him. It seemed that hadn’t changed. He could not wait to carry her into this bath and for their lovemaking to begin again.

A loud rapping on the bathroom door had Gino whirling round, his heart lurching with instant worry.

He snapped off the taps, then wrenched open the door. There she stood, the object of his desire, her lovely face coldly furious, her hands jammed into the pockets of the white towelling robe.

‘I know I agreed that explanations could wait till the morning,’ she snapped. ‘But that was before I saw this.’

Gino’s stomach rolled over when she pulled her right hand from the robe pocket and held out his slightly crumpled plane ticket.

He’d forgotten that he’d left it on that damned desk, having emptied his suit pockets before changing clothes late this afternoon.

‘This ticket is for tomorrow morning,’ she swept on before he could say a word. ‘Very early tomorrow morning. Which rather puts paid to your claim that you’re up here for the weekend.’

‘I wasn’t going to take that flight, Jordan. Not after I ran into you. I was going to ring up and change it to Sunday.’

‘You still lied to me, Gino.’

‘I just twisted the truth a little.’

‘Twisted the truth?’ she repeated, with a caustic gleam in her eyes. ‘And how would you describe giving someone a false name? Because this ticket is made out to a Mr Gino Bortelli.’

‘Jordan, I—’

‘I take it that’s your real name?’ she interrupted savagely. ‘Bortelli? Not Salieri, like you told me ten years ago?’

Gino tried to keep calm, but a very true panic hovered in the wings of his mind. ‘Salieri is my mother’s maiden name. I took it temporarily when I came to Sydney for reasons of privacy.’

‘Reasons of privacy?’ she repeated scathingly. ‘Like, people might recognise you as what, exactly? A rock star in hiding?’

‘No, as Gino Bortelli.’

‘Sorry, Gino. But I’m none the wiser.’

‘My family are rather big in the construction business. I didn’t want any special favours when I first came to Sydney. I’d not long finished an engineering degree at university in Rome, and I—’

‘Excuse me?’ she snapped. ‘Are you telling me you’re a qualified engineer? I thought you were a labourer.’

‘That’s what I was working as when I first met you.’

Jordan looked totally bewildered. ‘But why? That would be like me still working as a waitress instead of a lawyer.’

Gino sighed, then reached for the other bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. There seemed little point in staying naked. The erotic night he’d been planning was well and truly over.

‘Could we go out into the other room?’ he suggested, after he drew the robe on and tied the sash around his waist. ‘I could do with a drink.’

He strode past her out into the hotel room proper, heading for the mini-bar.

‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ he asked, glancing over his shoulder at Jordan as she reluctantly followed him. ‘There’s a half-bottle of red here which isn’t too bad.’

‘No, thanks,’ she returned crisply. ‘What I want to know is why you lied to me about so many things.’

‘Perhaps you should sit down?’ he suggested, indicating the sofa opposite the television.

She didn’t sit down, moving past the sofa to stand in front of the window, with her arms crossed and her eyes still sceptical.

Gino poured himself a full glass of wine, taking a decent swallow before turning to face her across the room.

‘I was tired after studying for years. Tired of being pushed by my parents to be an over-achiever. It’s a common enough phenomenon in Italian families. I demanded a year off, to just be myself and not my father’s only son. I wanted to earn my own money. Be totally independent. Live a simpler, less stressful life. That was why I decided to work with my hands, and why I changed my name. Because I didn’t want my employer recognising the Bortelli name and treating me differently.’

Jordan frowned. ‘People would recognise the Bortelli name even out here in Australia?’

This was the moment Gino had been dreading. But the truth had to come out—especially if he wanted to continue seeing Jordan. And he did, very much.

‘I think you might have misunderstood something about me all those years ago,’ he began carefully. ‘I didn’t exactly come to Sydney straight from Rome. After I finished my degree I went home to my family first.’

‘So where in Italy does your family live?’

‘My family doesn’t live in Italy, Jordan. They migrated to Melbourne not long after I was born. That’s where they live. Melbourne.’

She stared at him with stunned blue eyes. ‘You’re saying you’re Australian?’

‘I hold dual citizenship. Both Italian and Australian.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this ten years ago?’

‘I wish now that I had. But back then I was also tired of being Italian. I needed a change. I needed to find myself. Then, after I met you, Jordan, I just needed you.’

She stared at him, her eyes going cold again. ‘Only till your family needed you, Gino. Then you dropped me like a hot cake.’

Gino sighed. She didn’t understand. She could never understand what it was like to be the only son in an Italian household.

‘If anything happens to me, Gino,’ his father used to say all the time, ‘then it is your job to look after the family. Your mother and your sisters. And the business, of course.’

‘And what about this weekend, Gino?’ Jordan threw at him. ‘Was it to be more of the same? You needed a change so you came to Sydney? Because Sydney is full of silly girls only too willing to give you sex?’

‘I came to Sydney on business,’ Gino pointed out, his sense of honour totally offended by her accusations. ‘I was going to fly back to Melbourne tomorrow, remember?’

‘Sorry,’ she quipped sarcastically. ‘I momentarily forgot under the pressure of all these amazing revelations. So you ran into me, and you thought, Wow, there’s good old Jordan—the dumb bird who let me screw her every which way. I’ll bet she’s good for another go. I’ll just give her a line of bull. She’d believe anything I tell her. And presto—you were right. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker.’

‘Jordan, stop it!’ Gino said, appalled at the way things were going.

‘Stop what?’ she snapped, her blue eyes blazing at him. ‘Stop telling you how it really is? Don’t the ladies do that to you down in Melbourne? No, of course they don’t. You’re a bigshot down there. They probably crawl to you on their hands and knees. Do you have a girlfriend, Gino? Do you make her go without panties? Do you do it to her all the time, the way you used to do it to me?’

Gino felt his own temper begin to rise. He’d tried to be patient with her. Tried to explain. But she seemed determined to twist everything in her mind, to make everything they’d once shared sound ugly and sordid.

‘What in hell’s wrong with you?’ he snarled. ‘Why are you trying to spoil everything? Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth back then. But I did have my reasons. And I’m sorry I left you the way I did. But I had my reasons for that as well. My father was dying, damn it. I had to go home.’

‘Then why didn’t you come back? After your father died? Tell me that. You obviously had the resources to. Yet you chose not to. What kind of love was that, Gino?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘Yes. I really want to know.’

Gino could see that all was lost. So what did it matter if he told her that last unpalatable truth?

‘I didn’t come back because you weren’t Italian.’

Her mouth fell open. But no words came out.

‘I promised my father on his deathbed that when I married I would marry an Italian girl.’

‘You have to be kidding,’ she blurted out.

‘Unfortunately, no.’ He knew only too well that he had been afraid that if he came back to Jordan he would forget his promise and marry her.

She shook her head at him, her eyes dropping limply to her sides. ‘And have you?’ she asked in a dull, flat voice. ‘Married an Italian girl?’

‘You think I would lie about something like that?’

‘I have no idea what you would lie about, Gino. I don’t know you. I never did. The man I lived with—and fell in love with—wasn’t real. He was a pretend man. A fantasy lover. The real Gino is a stranger to me. So I’m asking you again. Are you married?’

‘I told you. I’m not married.’

‘But you do have a girlfriend, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ he bit out. ‘I do.’

‘So you’re a cheat as well as a liar!’

Gino sucked in sharply. No one had spoken to him like this in his whole life.

His shock deepened when she suddenly unsashed her robe and pushed it back off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. For a long moment she stood there, totally naked, her chin tipped up as she watched him devour every beautiful inch of her.

When his flesh automatically responded, Gino’s fingers tightened defensively around his wine glass. He didn’t know what she was up to, but he suspected that if he made any move to touch her she would scream the place down.

‘You like what you see, Gino?’ she said at last, in a challenging fashion.

Gino’s teeth clenched down hard in his jaw. The Jordan he’d known ten years ago had never been a bitch. The Jordan standing before him now was doing a very good imitation of one.

Perversely, it made him want her all the more.

‘Take a good long look, because you’re never going to see me like this again. Not that you’d overly care,’ she went on savagely, as she moved over to snatch up her clothes. ‘You’ll fly home to your girlfriend and you won’t give this little interlude a second thought. You won’t even feel guilty.’

She couldn’t have been more wrong. He’d never be able to put tonight—or her—out of his mind. And guilt was going to be his constant companion from now on.

As for Claudia…Gino could see that he would have to break off their relationship. She was a very nice girl, but she wanted to get married.

After this, marriage was permanently off Gino’s agenda. If he couldn’t marry Jordan, then he wouldn’t marry anyone.

In an amazingly short period of time Jordan was fully dressed, looking exactly as she had when he’d first seen her tonight. Except for her hair. As she hooked her bag over her shoulder she tossed her head at him, flicking her hair back from her face.

‘I never forgot you, you know,’ she threw at him. ‘Never. A girlfriend of mine said it was because you were unfinished business. She said it was a pity I couldn’t look you up, so that I could see you weren’t as fantastic as I thought you were. And she was right. You’re not. Oh, you’re still great at sex—I’ll give you that. You know exactly how to turn a girl on. But that’s a small talent in the wider scheme of things. I want a man who knows what he wants and goes after it. Who doesn’t let anything stand in his way. You’re obviously not that kind of man.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know,’ she said, with a curl of her top lip. ‘Actions speak a lot louder than words, Gino.’

‘You’re making a big mistake,’ he said as she headed for the door.

She reached for the doorknob, then stopped to cast a cold glance over her shoulder. ‘No, I’m ending a big mistake. You’re finished business now,’ she said, then wrenched open the door. ‘Ciao.’

CHAPTER SIX

JORDAN managed to make it home without shedding a tear. Pride prevented her from breaking down in the hotel, or during the taxi ride home. But the moment she was alone, with her door safely locked behind her, everything came crashing in around her.

Her legs suddenly buckled and she sank to the floor where she stood. Her knees hit the tiled foyer first, and her cry was not one of physical pain but of emotional distress.

‘Oh, Gino,’ she sobbed as her head tipped forward into her hands.

And there she stayed, as if she was in prayer.

But she wasn’t praying, she was weeping. And despairing.

For there were no illusions left for her now.

All these years she’d thought that her memory of Gino had been spoiling her relationships with men. And maybe that was true. But it had been a bittersweet memory, because she’d always believed Gino had loved her.

But he hadn’t loved her. He’d merely wanted her, the way he’d wanted her tonight. Not for anything lasting, just for sex.

That discovery had been bad enough. Finding out that his whole persona had been an illusion was even worse. He wasn’t some struggling Italian immigrant, trying to make a good life for himself through hard work. He was a silver-tail, slumming it for a while up here in Sydney. Roughing it—with her.

Tonight had just been a shorter version of what he’d done ten years ago.

Okay, so he probably had been going to change his flight till Sunday. But his motive had still been totally selfish. After all, why look a gift-horse in the mouth?

And, brother, what a gift-horse she was where he was concerned. Fifteen miserable minutes and she’d been up there in his room, ready and willing to take her clothes off. Ready for just about anything.

If she hadn’t found that plane ticket he would have had his wicked way with her for the whole weekend, then flown off back to Melbourne, to his real life and his real girlfriend.

Thinking about that had Jordan sitting back on her heels and wiping the tears from the cheeks. What on earth was she doing, crying over such a man? He was a bastard through and through.

Scooping in a gathering breath, Jordan got to her feet and walked quickly to her bedroom. No more was she going to let Gino Betolli spoil things for her. No more. When Chad rang her in the morning she would accept his proposal of marriage, and she would do her level best not to think of Gino ever again.

But such resolves were easy to make, Jordan came to realise, once she’d stripped off and stepped into the shower. Living them was not so easy.

Her body—especially her naked body—kept reminding her of Gino, the after-effects of his torrid lovemaking conspiring to keep him in her mind. Just moving the soapy sponge lightly between her legs made her belly tighten and her breath catch.

This was what had happened to her when she’d lived with Gino. She’d been in a perpetual state of arousal. Her flesh had craved his constantly, craved release from the sexual tension he created in her.

It craved release now…

Jordan dropped the sponge, then slowly slid her back down the wet tiles till she was sitting on the shower floor. Her arms lifted to wrap around her drawn-up knees, her head dropping forward as she surrendered once more to tears.

‘Oh, Gino,’ she cried. ‘Gino…’

The phone woke her, its persistent ringing getting through the blissful oblivion which had finally descended on Jordan last night, courtesy of the painkillers she’d taken—strong ones she used when she had a migraine. Unfortunately, they had to tendency to leave her a little groggy the next day.

Rolling over with a groan, she picked up the extension near her bed and shoved it between her ear and the pillow.

‘Yes?’ Not exactly a breezy hello.

‘Jordan? Is that you?’

The sound of Chad’s voice had her sitting up and pushing her tangled hair out of her eyes. A glance at the bedside clock shocked her. It was nearly ten.