Androletti's Mistress

CHAPTER THREE

NIKKI spent the happiest six days of her life in Massimo’s company. She stalwartly refused to think about her wedding on Saturday. It was as if by not thinking about it she could really be the person Massimo believed her to be. She was a young carefree woman in love for the first time, relishing every moment of being truly adored and treated like a princess.

She knew it would have to end when the week was up, but she tried not to dwell on it too much. She comforted herself that Massimo was a man of the world. He would forget about her as soon as he boarded the plane back to Italy; his brief fling with the tall, blonde Australian girl would no doubt be a distant memory as soon as the first drink was served on the flight back home.

They explored the sights of Melbourne together, walking through the Bourke Street Mall to window shop, dining at some of the restaurants along the Southbank complex, and even spending some time at the world-famous Crown Casino where Nikki watched in awe as Massimo won a small fortune at one of the black-jack tables.

Later in the week they hired a car and visited the beautiful Yarra Valley, notorious for its picturesque vineyards, where the rolling green hills and valleys they passed prompted Massimo to say how much it reminded him of Sicily.

‘I would love to show you my homeland,’ he said as they drove back after spending a wonderful afternoon at Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary. ‘We do not have koalas and kangaroos and wombats, of course, but there are many wonderful historic buildings and artifacts.’

‘I would love to travel the world one day,’ Nikki said dreamily, looking out of the window as the verdant fields went by. ‘I’ve only ever been to…’ She stopped, her heart thumping at how close she had been to revealing how she had lied about where she had originally come from.

‘You were saying?’

‘Er…I’ve only ever lived in Australia,’ she said. ‘I know it’s a big and diverse continent, but I haven’t seen much of it really…’

He sent her a smile. ‘You have no need to be ashamed, cara,’ he said. ‘You are young. You have plenty of time to see the world.’

On the last day Massimo arranged to meet her after he had his meeting in the city. As soon as she saw him walking towards her outside the art gallery, where she had spent the morning filling in time, she knew things had not gone well for him. His handsome face looked pinched and his mouth tight.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, touching him on the arm.

He placed his hand over hers and gave it a tiny squeeze. ‘I do not want to spoil our last afternoon and evening together talking about my business. Suffice to say things did not go according to plan.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

He gave her a strained smile. ‘I will just have to wait a little longer to achieve what I want, but then the best things in life are worth waiting for, no?’

‘I guess…’ she answered, looking down at their linked hands.

They walked past the Shrine of Remembrance through to the Botanic Gardens, stopping to have afternoon tea at the café overlooking the lake, where ducks waddled in search of crumbs and cheeky sparrows darted in amongst the chairs and tables in spite of the shooing actions of the staff.

Massimo smiled indulgently as she surreptitiously bent down to scatter some crumbs from the coconut cake he’d bought her. ‘You are not supposed to encourage them,’ he said, indicating the DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS sign nearby.

‘I know, but I can’t help feeling sorry for them,’ she said, a fleeting shadow of sadness moving across her face. ‘They’ve probably got little babies to feed.’

He reached across the table for her hand and brought it up to his mouth, kissing each fingertip in turn, his intense gaze holding hers. ‘You have such a kind and tender heart,’ he said in a deep, gravelly tone. ‘I have waited a long time to meet someone as sensitive to the needs of others as you are.’

Nikki gently pulled her hand out of his, her whole body tingling with awareness. As each day had passed, she’d found it harder and harder to resist him. He had not pressured her to sleep with him, which surprised her. She had assumed, like many men with his jet-setting lifestyle, that he would have leaped at the chance of a one-week fling with a woman he had singled out for his attention. His kisses had been passionate and tender, enthralling and tantalising, and yet each time their mouths had touched he seemed to be keeping himself in check.

‘You are feeling nervous and uncertain, cara?’ he asked into the little silence.

‘W-what do you mean?’

He reached for her hand again and began stroking the sensitive skin on the underside of her wrist in slow, sensual movements that sent a riot of sensation to her toes and back. ‘I want you,’ he stated bluntly. ‘I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you but something about you made me realise you are not a one-night stand sort of girl. I deeply respect that about you.’

Somehow she found her voice in time to croak out, ‘T-thank you.’

‘I have a bit of a reputation for working hard and playing harder,’ he confessed. ‘I can assure you, it is highly unusual for me to have spent more than three dates with a woman before bedding her.’

Nikki swallowed.

He smiled at the twin flags of colour on her cheeks. ‘You are a virgin, yes?’

Her eyes fell away from his. ‘No,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I wish I still was. My first and only time was horrible…’

He frowned, and his hand encircling her wrist tightened protectively. ‘You were…’ he paused over the word ‘…raped?’

Her eyes came back to his, her colour still high. ‘No, I just didn’t realise it would be so…so one-sided, if you know what I mean.’

His fingers began their sensual magic against the satin surface of her skin. ‘You did not experience pleasure, Nikki?’

‘Not really.’ She gave a little wry grimace and added, ‘Not at all, actually.’

His eyes darkened with tenderness as he pulled her to her feet. ‘We have one night left, cara,’ he said, linking her arm through his. ‘I want to make it as memorable as possible.’

Nikki had not dreamt how truly memorable it would be. They went back to the hotel hand in hand, the silence that hung between them heavy and pulsing with promise.

She felt it all through their last dinner together in the hotel restaurant. Each time his eyes caught and held hers, she sensed the sexual tension building in him. She could feel it thrumming in her own body, a deep and low pulse that begged to be assuaged.

She felt it in the lift as they silently climbed the floors to his room, each number showing above their heads like a countdown to paradise.

And she felt it in the thudding pulse in his fingers as they tilted her face to receive his kiss, the self-control he had been reining in all week finally slipping as the door of his room closed behind them.

‘I should not be doing this,’ he said, pressing hot kisses to the side of her neck as he lifted her hair out of the way. ‘I told myself I would wait until I return from Sicily, but I want you so much I am burning inside and out with it.’

Nikki raised her face for more of his drugging kisses. ‘I want you too,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘I want you to make love to me. I want to feel pleasure…Your pleasure as well as mine.’

He held her from him, looking deeply into her eyes. ‘Are you absolutely sure, cara? I can wait for you. I will make myself wait for you if you do not feel ready to take this step.’

She pulled his mouth back down to hers. ‘Don’t make me wait,’ she pleaded desperately. ‘I don’t want to wait another minute.’

He undressed her, the slow movements of his hands belying the true state of his arousal. She felt it against her, the hard surge of his body and how he fought to control it in order to prepare her properly for his passionate possession. His mouth was on hers, and then on each of her breasts, sucking gently at first, and then harder until her back arched with intense longing.

He laid her carefully on the king-sized bed, trailing a hot blaze of kisses all over her body, her mouth, her neck, her breasts and the tiny cave of her belly button before moving lower. She totally melted under the sweep and stroke of his tongue as it separated her feminine folds, the sensation of such an intimate caress sending her pulse skyrocketing. Her body began to convulse, the earth-shattering release beyond anything she had ever imagined.

He waited until she was calm once more before reaching for a condom. She watched with wide eyes as he came back to her, taking his time again in kissing and caressing her, until she was begging him to fill her. ‘Oh, please…oh please…’

‘You are getting impatient, Nikki,’ he said playfully, kissing her lingeringly, the sexy saltiness of her own body on his lips inciting her to grab at him greedily, her pelvis rising to meet the downward thrust of his.

Nikki heard his deep groan of pleasure as the small, tight sheath of her body grasped at him, the honeyed warmth enveloping him totally. He tried to control his thrusts to keep them slow and not too deep, but she was having none of it. She clung to him, her fingers digging into the tautness of his buttocks to keep him where she wanted him.

She felt herself begin to climb the mountain again, the pinnacle getting closer and closer with each surging movement of his body within hers.

The overwhelming power of his release surprised her, as did her own. It was like an earthquake rumbling between them, rocking them back and forth, shaking them, shattering them into a thousand tiny pieces.

She held him against her as his breathing gradually came back to normal, the skin of his back raised in tiny goose-bumps, under the soft pads of her fingertips.

He lifted himself up on his elbows to look at her, his dark eyes full of wonder. ‘Do you realise what you have just done, Nikki?’ he asked.

‘W-what?’ she asked, a shadow of uncertainty flitting across her face.

‘You have made me fall in love with you,’ he said. ‘For ever.’

Nikki felt her throat tighten. Oh God! What had she done? This should not have happened. She should not have let it happen. She had no right to sleep with a man to whom she could offer nothing but a one-night stand, for that was all it could ever be.

He reached past her to take something out of the bedside drawer. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

Nikki tensed as he retrieved the small package. Throughout the week he had bought her gifts—not expensive ones, which had made it easy for her to accept them, with perhaps not an entirely clear conscience, but she’d reasoned she wanted something to keep as a reminder of what she could have had if life had dealt her a different hand of cards.

She took the tiny package from him, her fingers beginning to tremble slightly as she felt the cushioning of velvet beneath the tissue wrapping. ‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice sounding rusty.

‘Open it and see,’ he said, smiling at her.

She began to undo the tiny silk ribbon, each movement of her fingers meticulously slow. The tissue fell away, and the red velvet box lay in her hand like a square of blood. She knew what was in it before she opened it, knew too that she should have handed it straight back and told him the truth, but instead she slowly lifted the lid.

A diamond solitaire ring gleamed up at her, its sheer brilliance taking her breath away.

‘Put it on,’ he said into the silence.

Nikki had never hated herself more than at that moment. The shame of her past was nothing to what she was experiencing now. But as if her fingers had a mind of their own they lifted the ring from its velvet home, and slid it on her ring finger where Joseph Ferliani’s ring was supposed to be. But, unlike the heavy, cumbersome cluster Joseph had insisted she wear, Massimo’s ring was exquisitely delicate, suiting her slim hand perfectly.

‘Will you marry me, Nikki?’ Massimo asked as he took her hand in his. ‘I know this is terribly rushed, but I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

Nikki bit her lip in anguish, tears springing in a crystal stream from her eyes as she met his. ‘I don’t know what to say…’ she began. ‘It’s been so sudden…so totally unexpected.’

He brought her closer to the warmth of his body and, holding her hand to his heart, smiled down at her. ‘It looks like I will have to be patient and wait for your answer on my return,’ he said. ‘That will give you time to talk it over with your family. I am forgetting how very young you are. I am nine years older than you, so it is reasonable to expect you to be feeling a bit overwhelmed—especially now, after we have made love for the very first time.’

She was overwhelmed, but with guilt. It prodded and poked at her from every angle like a thousand pointed daggers. How could she have let things get to this stage? What had she been thinking? She should have known from the beginning that a man like Massimo Androletti would want more than a quick fling. She should have had one drink with him that first night and left, then he would not have had to suffer the pain of rejection, and she would not have known what it felt like to be truly in love, only to have to walk away because of circumstances beyond her control.

‘Massimo, there’s something I need to tell you…’

He bent his head to press a soft kiss to her mouth. ‘No, cara,’ he said. ‘Do not give me your answer until we meet again. I am flying to Palermo on Sunday. I am sorry I cannot spend the day with you tomorrow, but I have an engagement to attend which I cannot get out of.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, inwardly blowing out a breath of relief. ‘I have something on as well.’

He held her close, his arms strong and protective around her. ‘I will miss you, Nikki. Every day we are apart I will miss you.’

‘Me too,’ she whispered, her heart breaking into a million pieces.

He put her from him. ‘I will not say goodbye, but vederla presto.’

She looked up at him in puzzlement. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means “see you soon”,’ he said, and sealed his promise with a burning kiss.

CHAPTER FOUR

NIKKI arrived at the church in her stiff-as-meringue dress, the lace itching her all over as she walked up the aisle, her bouquet feeling as heavy as her heart in her hands. She didn’t recognise any of the faces, but then it wasn’t as if she had a large circle of friends to invite. Ever since she’d moved from Perth with Jayden, there hadn’t been time to socialise even if she had felt inclined to do so. Holding down a job in order to pay for her brother’s care had taken up every bit of available time.

She just wanted this bit to be over so she could help her younger brother get the extra support he needed. Joseph had offered her a large sum of money in exchange for her hand in marriage. He had told her he needed a trophy wife, and was prepared to pay her a wage on top of the amount he’d promised for as long as she lived with him. He had assured her he was not interested in consummating the union due to his health problems, which he’d insisted no one was to know about. To all intents and purposes, their marriage was to appear normal, and Nikki had only agreed because she knew it would be worth it to see Jayden settled into Rosedale House where he would receive the twenty-four-hour care he so desperately needed.

Finally the vows were over, the register signed and the organ playing as they came out of the church to a cloud of confetti.

It was only then that Nikki saw him.

She stumbled in her tracks, her hand digging into Joseph’s arm to steady herself as Massimo Androletti stepped from the crowd to stand in front of them, his black gaze glittering with a rage so intense she felt as if her skin was going to peel away layer by sensitive layer under its scorching heat.

‘I would like to be introduced to your new wife,’ he said, addressing Joseph in a seemingly polite tone, although the way he said the word ‘wife’ made it sound more like an insult.

‘Nikki,’ Joseph said, ‘this is my stepson, Massimo Androletti, who has graced us with his presence this afternoon, after telling me for weeks he wouldn’t be seen dead at any wedding of mine. Massimo, this is Nikki, my new wife.’

‘Il piacere è tutto mio,’ Massimo said, and with a sardonic curl of his lip translated, ‘The pleasure is all mine.’

Nikki felt the heat of his fingers as he took her hand, the hint of steel in them as they brought it up to his mouth sending a tremor of terror through her body. She knew her face was every shade of red, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had never dreamed that such a fateful coincidence could occur, but, thinking back over the last week, she realised there had been a hundred clues if she had taken the time to reflect on them. But then she hadn’t wanted to think about anything, but that precious time with Massimo, for she’d known it had to end.

‘So you decided to come after all,’ Joseph said to Massimo. ‘What changed your mind?’

‘I had heard you were marrying your new secretary,’ Massimo said, swinging his hardened gaze to Nikki, running it up and down her body insultingly. ‘But I had no idea she was so very young and beautiful.’

Joseph’s arm came around Nikki’s waist in a territorial manner. ‘She is to be the new face of the Ferliani Fashions advertising campaign. She is delightful, is she not?’

‘Exquisite,’ Massimo drawled insolently. ‘But then you always want the best, and do whatever you can to get it.’

Joseph gave him an imperious smile. ‘Get over it, Massimo. This is one time you are not going to win. I have it all—a beautiful wife, a business that is thriving, and money to play with.’

‘What a pity none of it is really yours,’ Massimo ground out, his eyes flashing. ‘Even your angelic-looking wife is a slut. Why don’t you ask her what she was doing all last week?’

Nikki felt the colour of her shame brand her from head to foot. She wanted to sink to the ground at their feet, but a last vestige of pride made her hold her head high.

‘Nikki was having a well-earned rest before the wedding,’ Joseph said, but even she could see the doubt in his hazel eyes as they came to rest on her. ‘Weren’t you, Nikki?’

‘T-that’s right,’ she answered, lowering her gaze slightly.

‘Yes, well, she certainly spent a lot of time relaxing,’ Massimo said with another venomous glance in her direction. ‘But perhaps you had better ask her whose bed she was in last night.’

‘I think it might be time for you to leave,’ Joseph said, indicating for one of his burly staff members to come forward. ‘Gino, please show Signore Androletti the way out.’

‘You lying little whore,’ Massimo said to Nikki as he brushed off the man’s hands as if they were pieces of lint. ‘I will make you pay for this. I will not rest until I have you begging for my mercy, I swear to God.’

Nikki swallowed convulsively as he stalked out of the church grounds, the tolling of the bells ringing in her ears like an omen for the future…

The car coming to a halt jolted Nikki out of the past. She felt Massimo’s burning gaze still pressing against her in accusation. ‘You knew who I was that first night, didn’t you, Nikki? It was all a game to you, to make me appear a lovesick fool, while you were busily planning your marriage to another man—the one man I hated more than any other.’

‘You are entitled to your opinion, but I can assure you it is wrong. Anyway, it was a long time ago,’ she said with carefully measured calm. ‘It can hardly have any relevance to here and now.’

‘It has everything to do with here and now,’ he returned with chilling determination. ‘You see, Nikki, the time has come for my revenge.’

Nikki refused to allow him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words frightened her. She sat casually in her seat, one finely arched brow lifting in scorn. ‘This is the twenty-first century, in case you hadn’t noticed. The days of an eye for an eye, and what have you, have long gone.’

‘We will see,’ he said, and unfolded himself from the car. He turned to offer her a hand, but she ignored it as she too exited the vehicle on legs that were not as steady as she would have liked.

She looked up at the imposing mansion before throwing him a questioning glance. ‘I take it this is your house?’ she said.

‘It is.’ He turned to the driver. ‘Ricardo, you can take the next couple of hours off. Mrs Ferliani and I have business to discuss. I will call you when I need you.’

‘Right, boss.’

Nikki pulled her mouth tight as the limousine drove away.

‘I have no desire to discuss anything with you,’ she said. ‘I have things to see to at home, in any case.’

His dark brows lifted expressively. ‘Home?’ he asked. ‘Now, which home are you referring to, I wonder?’

She ground her teeth. ‘Even if what you say is true, that the house is now yours, by law I don’t have to move out with out notice.’

‘On the contrary, as the new owner I can evict you at a moment’s notice,’ he said. ‘You have already been living there for several months rent-free—or did your husband not inform you of that?’

Nikki swallowed against the solid lump of dread in her throat. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, her heart stumbling in her chest.

He gave her a cool smile. ‘Your husband approached me for financial help in the months before he died. He begged me to dig him out of trouble—but of course I refused.’

‘You unfeeling bastard,’ she bit out. ‘How could you twist the knife like that in a dying man?’

‘As you know, I had a score to settle,’ he said. ‘He took it very well, all things considered. He handed me everything—the house, the cars, the business, and…’ He paused deliberately, his gaze locking meaningfully with hers.

Don’t ask, Nikki told herself firmly. You already know the answer, so what would be the point?

‘You do not want to know what else your husband put up for purchase?’ he asked.

She met his sardonic gaze with a flare of resentment in hers. ‘If by any chance you are presuming to lump me in with the goods and chattels, then forget it—I am not for sale.’

His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes as he came to stand right in front of her. ‘He paid you to marry him,’ he said. ‘He even told me how much. You put quite a high price on yourself, did you not?’

Nikki ran her tongue over her dry lips as his eyes burned into hers. She refused to answer out of a mixture of pride and anger. Let him think what he liked. What did it matter now? Joseph was dead, and if what Massimo had said was true she was going to have to find a way to scrape what she could together to keep Jayden in care. She’d been down on her luck before and pulled herself out of it. It would be hard, but she’d damn well do it for her brother’s sake.

‘Of course, I will be very generous in my payment for your services,’ he said. ‘Very generous, indeed.’

She clenched her fists at her sides, her chest heaving against the tide of anger raging within her. ‘I am not going to sleep with you,’ she said. ‘Not for any price.’

The look he gave her was full of icy disdain. ‘You are very convincing, but I know what you are up to, Nikki. You are used to a high standard of living. You want to make sure it continues, do you not?’