Modern Romance April 2020 Books 1-4

‘I th-thought...’ Brooke stammered, peering in awe at him over the top of the duvet, striving to grab up some bad-girl sass from somewhere down deep inside her, so deep she couldn’t find it. She felt like a woman who had never been in a man’s bed in her life and that was unsettling her more and increasing her nerves.

‘Great minds think alike,’ Lorenzo quoted, all smooth and dark in tone like the finest chocolate laced with that delicious accent of his.

And he smiled at her, he actually smiled, and the charisma of that smile set her heartbeat racing and released butterflies in her tummy. In an abrupt movement, Brooke pushed back the duvet with valiant hands and sat up against the pillows, the worst of her nerves conquered by the suspicion that she could have looked as though she was hiding in his bed like a little kid. A deep heat assailed her face when she registered that he was naked, absolutely naked, all bronzed and hair-roughened and aroused naked, and her mouth ran dry.

‘So,’ she breathed shakily. ‘You’re not going to throw me out?’

Lorenzo tilted his tousled and damp dark head to one side and sent her a smouldering appraisal from dark glittering eyes that speared her where she sat. ‘You want me?’

Unnerved a bit by the change in his attitude, Brooke nodded jerkily like a marionette.

‘Say it,’ Lorenzo commanded, needing to hear the words because he knew she didn’t remember being with him before and that for her this was her first time with him.

‘I want you,’ Brooke practically whispered, so hard was it to get sufficient oxygen into her struggling lungs.

‘Dannazione... No, I’m not going to throw you out,’ Lorenzo told her thickly.

‘I want us to have a normal marriage,’ she muttered tightly.

‘It’s been a long time since we had normal,’ Lorenzo admitted.

‘But why is that?’ she pressed.

‘That’s not something we want to get into at this moment,’ Lorenzo growled, tossing aside the towel still clutched in one lean brown hand and climbing into the bed.

Brooke felt almost as if she couldn’t breathe with Lorenzo that close, the heat of his body warming hers even before he touched her, and then his wide sensual mouth crashed down on hers and breathing began to seem a much overrated pursuit as every sense she possessed flew off on a wild and wonderful trail of discovery. The very scent of him, soap, designer cologne and clean male, overwhelmed her and the minty taste of him against her tongue was delicious. As for the actual feel of that long, lean, hot, heavy body pressing against hers, it invoked a delirious wriggle closer from her hips while she pushed her breasts against the hard wall of his chest.

Great minds think alike.

She loved that phrase, which suggested that he had been waiting for her. Maybe this had always been their way—she came to him—and the idea no longer bothered her because he was pushing the welcome mat out with irrefutable enthusiasm.

Think about what you’re doing.

The words sounded somewhere in Lorenzo’s brain like an alarm bell but he suppressed them fast. He was way past caring how Brooke had contrived to make him want her again. He was fed up with being sensible when she drew him now on a very primitive level that kept him awake at night, wondering, fantasising about a woman who only eighteen months earlier he could not wait to kick out of his life. He stressed too much about making mistakes, he told himself impatiently. For once he would just go with the flow and do what seemed entirely natural.

Without ceremony he stripped off the nightdress and her breath caught in her throat again as she looked up at him. He had such beautiful eyes, lustrous gold in the lower lighting and framed by dense black lashes that curled up at the ends. Breathless, she lay there entranced until his warm, sensual mouth sealed to hers and a great swoosh of heat rushed up through her as a large masculine hand curved round a plump breast, the thumb rubbing at the sensitive tip until she gasped. Instantaneously she wanted more and when he utilised his mouth instead to suck at the swollen bud, she marvelled that even amnesia could make her forget such distinct sensations.

The tug on her nipple set alight the burn between her thighs, the pulsing liquidity that turned her to mush. She pushed against him in helpless need and he laughed softly, even that sound surging through her like an added aphrodisiac. She ran her hands down his sleek, satiny back with new confidence, smoothing over a lean flank, mentally recalling the book that had specified ‘firm, assured’ as the most desirable touch and wondering how on earth she could’ve forgotten something so basic as how to make love to her husband. However, when she touched him, he froze, and she jerked her fingers away again in swift retreat from that daring.

‘No...no, don’t back off,’ Lorenzo positively purred in her ear, returning her small fingers to their former destination and revelling in her enthusiasm. ‘I like being touched.’

Confidence renewed, Brooke stroked her hand along that smooth velvety skin, fascination powering her in her exploration of all that made them different. But a little of her attention seemed to go a long way and, before she got very far, Lorenzo was spreading her across the mattress like a starfish and she was a little nervous of that position until he began to work his path down her splayed body employing both his mouth and his hands to investigate her curves. The warm damp feeling at her core increased exponentially, leaving her craving his touch to an extent that was almost unbearable to her straining body.

‘You’ve been driving me crazy with hunger for weeks,’ Lorenzo growled, kissing a deeply intimate trail up her inner thigh, reducing her to uneasy little twists and jerks of a curious but self-conscious nature.

‘Have I?’ she pressed, half an octave higher, the words strangling in her throat as he ran his tongue over her most sensitive area, and her hands snapped into fists of restraint because she wanted to sink her fingers into that tousled dark hair of his.

‘Every time I look at you, I want you,’ Lorenzo grated, stringing a line of kisses across her quivering belly.

‘Doesn’t show!’ she gasped, ridiculously grateful that she had gone leaping into his bed and weak with relief because Lorenzo didn’t show things, didn’t usually talk like this to her. Evidently, he needed a certain level of intimacy to get comfortable enough to share such truths.

He dallied between her thighs, making moves that drove her to the outer edge of hunger, and every nerve ending was screaming for release and then it happened, in a magical great whoosh that exploded through her being like a shooting star, a drowning absolute pleasure that drenched every limb and left her with a sense of shock that anything could feel that physically good.

That achieved, Lorenzo shifted over her with an intense look of hunger in his dark glittering eyes and it made her feel like a million dollars and as if every path in her life were paved with solid gold. Her heart clenched because the more she found out about him, the more she wanted him, and it was a heady moment that made her eyes prickle with tears, making her blink and turn her head away as his hands slid beneath her hips to tilt her up to him.

And in the next moment, he surged into her ready body, although her body didn’t react as though it had been ready for that masculine invasion. It hurt, it hurt a lot and almost startled Brooke into crying out, but she mercifully managed to hold onto the cry that almost parted her lips because she was sure that that would have spoilt everything. He would have blamed himself for causing her pain when surely the only reason she had suffered pain lay in the reality that it had been well over a year since she had had sex. And that wasn’t anybody’s fault, she conceded ruefully.

It was a relief when the discomfort ebbed entirely, and she was able to lose herself again in the intimacy. Her heart began to pound with every lithe thrust of his body over and inside hers, excitement climbing, breathlessness ensured as she wrapped her legs round his lean hips and savoured the sweet throbbing pleasure engulfing her. The hunger came back, urging her body to shift up to his, and little sounds escaped her without her true awareness since it was a passion beyond anything she thought she could ever have felt. The excitement was overwhelming, all-consuming and she wanted more and more until she rose against him on a feverish wave of wild pleasure and another orgasm took her in a rush of high-wire energy.

‘Wow,’ she whispered in the aftermath, flaking out back against the pillows, limp and drained but secretly triumphant as well because she had achieved exactly what she had set out to do.

‘Incredible,’ Lorenzo commented, collapsing down beside her out of breath while he dimly wondered how sex could possibly be so different with her that even her behaviour had changed, and he felt as though he was with a different woman. Yes, he was definitely going to see Mr Selby for the question and answer session that he badly needed. Although he doubted if he would mention their new intimacy because that was private...wasn’t it? Was anything between them private now? he asked himself in disbelief at the concept.

‘I’m not on the pill,’ Brooke murmured with a sudden stab of anxiety, for she suspected that the very last thing they dared risk in a marriage that appeared to need rebuilding would be a child. ‘Did you—?’

‘You have an IUD,’ Lorenzo assured her while it dawned on him that, even so, he should have taken precautions because she had been with other men. On the other hand, while in medical care she had been saturated with every antibiotic known to man.

His contraceptive omission, however, was another concern that he was in no mood to deal with. It was, after all, a reminder of the true state of play between them and he suppressed the thought of it because if he thought about it too much, it would drive him crazy. The entire situation was already driving him crazy, he acknowledged as he questioned the secrecy he had been urged to embrace for her benefit.

But was it for her benefit?

Would she have slept with him were she herself?

And without warning, Lorenzo was snatched back into a black and white world with no forgiving shades of grey again. Brooke had hated him when he demanded a divorce and hadn’t once spoken a civil word to him during their time apart when he had been forced out of his own house by her infidelity into a city apartment he had hated.

‘We shouldn’t have done this!’ Lorenzo exclaimed with startling abruptness, feeling as though he had taken unfair advantage of her even though she was the one who had issued the invitation. ‘You’re not yourself...you don’t know what you’re doing.’

Brooke was galvanised out of her comfortable relaxation while thinking how weird it was that he had known she was on birth control when she did not. Even so, it was something she could live with until he said what he did, which filled her with a sensation very close to panic because she did not want him regretting what they had just shared. ‘No, no, it’s not like that!’ she argued fervently.

‘It is exactly like that,’ Lorenzo contradicted gravely. ‘I don’t like that it feels like that but facts are facts.’

‘No! You’re not allowed to think like that now!’ Brooke told him almost fiercely as she scrambled up and literally perched on top of him like a naked nymph, he reasoned in wonderment as arousal kicked in again for him with shocking immediacy.

‘Why not?’ Lorenzo breathed almost bitterly. ‘I took advantage of you.’

‘No, you didn’t!’ Brooke protested, leaning over him, her hands planted either side of his head on the pillows, the twin peaks of her luscious breasts brushing his chest. ‘I got into your bed, for goodness’ sake! I wanted you and we had a great time and that’s all there is to it!’

Lorenzo blinked at that hail of keen protest and gazed up into vivid violet eyes and a flawless heart-shaped face surrounded by a tangle of platinum curls. His hands went up before he even knew it himself and he tasted her pouting pink lips like a man starving for that particular flavour. Need surged through him stronger than ever, a bone-deep driving need that threatened to unnerve him.

‘I think I’m falling in love with you again, Lorenzo,’ Brooke declared.

Lorenzo froze as though she had paralysed him. It was an interesting response from a husband in receipt of such a proclamation, she acknowledged unhappily.

‘You can’t love me...you don’t know me,’ he told her levelly.

‘I beg to differ. It’s almost three months since I came out of that coma and throughout that time you have been my biggest and best support team,’ Brooke countered strongly. ‘I have got to know you. I have got to see how you put me and my needs first every time. I have been here while you lived through a profoundly challenging situation with me and still took nothing for yourself. So please don’t tell me that I can’t love you because I don’t know you. I do know what I’ve seen and how it makes me feel. I’m definitely falling for you.’

Lorenzo took a deep breath and parted his lips as if he was about to say something. But then he closed his mouth again and tugged her back down to him. ‘Whatever,’ he breathed, urgently conscious of her curvy body moving over his groin. ‘I still want you.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Brooke assured him, her colour rising headily as he gazed up at her full of blatant sexual intent.

‘Dio...cara mia,’ Lorenzo ground out, all self-discipline beaten down, even that affectionate label extracted from him by the encouraging feel of her in his arms. ‘So, I’m free to live out my every fantasy, then?’

‘Pretty much,’ she whispered, barely recognising herself from the shy, uncertain woman she had been a mere hour earlier.

‘I have quite an appetite built up,’ he warned her thickly.

‘It seems I have too,’ Brooke whispered, recognising the hot tight sensation in her pelvis for the desire that it was this time around and ever so slightly proud of herself for no longer feeling either so ignorant or insecure about her own body. Lorenzo wanted her; indeed he had said that every time he looked at her, he wanted her. Why hadn’t she had the perception to see that for herself in the man she had married? Why was her brain so dense where he was concerned? Why wasn’t there even a glimmer of natural insight?

Stashing away her increasing frustration with her inability to remember what she needed to remember, Brooke fell into Lorenzo’s blazingly sexual kiss, every concern about her ability to be sexy laid to rest. She was enough for him and really, at that moment, that was all that mattered to her or seemed the least bit important. He settled her down over him and raised her hips and, seconds later, she realised that it was all beginning again as he eased into her slow and sure, controlling her every movement in an innately dominant way while touching her in a way that sent her flying off the planet again within minutes. Exhausted then, she rested her head down on a smooth brown muscular shoulder and smiled dizzily.

Lorenzo surveyed his wife over breakfast with a faintly dazed light new to his shrewd dark gaze. There she was, curled up in a chair being all affectionate, playful and teasing while munching on toast and feeding Topsy pieces of crust. Brooke didn’t eat carbohydrates; Brooke treated carbs like poison. He had never known her to be affectionate or playful either, even before he had married her. Within the hour, he was meeting with her psychiatrist in search of advice.

‘Yes, I think it’s perfectly possible that she could be a very different person without that celebrity frame of reference that was once so crucial to her self-image,’ the older man declared with confidence. ‘There are documented examples of cases of this nature but I’m afraid I can’t tell you how to proceed. That is your decision, but I suspect it may soon be time to tell her that you were pursuing a divorce before the accident.’

Lorenzo mulled that challenging suggestion over on the way to the Tassini Bank for a board meeting and he grimaced. Last night they had had sex. Today he admits they’re in the midst of a divorce? He breathed in slow and deep and groaned. That wouldn’t work. He would sense the right moment to tell her when it arrived, he reasoned, recognising that he didn’t want to rock the boat or cause her distress. It was still his role to be supportive, not destructive.

On the other hand, he was equally aware that he would never consider staying married to Brooke—he could not pardon either her lies or her infidelity. And that acknowledgement plunged him straight back into the same, ‘damned if he did’ and ‘damned if he didn’t’ scenario...

Quite unaware of Lorenzo’s thorny dilemma, Brooke was getting dressed to go out, which was something of a challenge given the glitzy nature of the contents of her dressing room. She knew that she didn’t have to wear black to offer condolences, but it seemed a matter of respect for her to wear something other than a party outfit. She chose a navy pencil skirt and a silk striped top but she couldn’t get the skirt to zip up and had to take it off again and accept with a wince that she had evidently put on weight. A pair of loose dark palazzo pants replaced the skirt. As she left the house for the first time since her arrival, she felt stronger and braver and relieved that she had finally got the gumption to do what she felt she had to do to lay her accident to rest in her own mind.

Lorenzo’s PA at the bank had sounded surprised when Brooke phoned her but had been happy to pass on the address and the details she knew about the driver and the passenger who had died in the crash. Brooke bent her head out of view when she saw the cluster of paparazzi at the foot of the drive. Lorenzo’s disdain for their interest in his wife had been palpable and she marvelled that she had married a man who cherished his privacy when her own interests had clearly pushed her in a very different direction.

The driver’s mother was delighted with her gift of flowers and pleased to have the chance to talk about her late son. She referred several times to the substantial tips that Brooke had regularly given her son and Brooke smiled, relieved to hear that she had been generous. Visiting Milly Taylor’s grave, however, put her in a more sombre mood. Although enquiries had been made, only the young woman’s former employer had claimed to know her, and that café would be Brooke’s final destination.

The gravestone was simple. Brooke set down her floral offering and sighed, wondering if the woman had been a friend. It would make sense that she had had one friend, wouldn’t it? But would she have made friends with someone from such a very different background? What would they have had in common?

The café was within walking distance of the cemetery and she had asked her driver to pick her up in half an hour. On the way there she passed a newsstand on the pavement and something caught her eye on a front page. She paused to lift the magazine. It was her face and across it was splashed: Divorce or Reconciliation?

‘You need to buy it to read it,’ the vendor told her irritably and she dug into her purse for the cash, her face heating.

She stood in the street reading the article inside and shock went crashing through her in wave after wave. Her tummy succumbed to a queasy lurch and she felt dizzy. Suddenly everything she had believed she knew about Lorenzo was being turned on its head! And equally, everything she had believed she knew about herself was being torn to shreds. Rumours of affairs? Yes, she had seen those photos of her in nightclubs with other men, but she had assumed those men were work contacts or social connections, had never dreamt that...?

And Lorenzo had a business trip to Italy, for which he was leaving that very evening, and he would be away for a week. If she wanted the chance to speak to him, she couldn’t afford to wait, no, she needed to see him immediately...

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOUR WIFE’S HERE to see you,’ Lorenzo was informed an hour later at the bank.

Taken aback by that unexpected announcement, because Brooke had never once in all the time he had known her come to see him at the bank, Lorenzo rose from behind his desk.

Brooke entered and the instant he saw her face he knew that something was badly wrong. Her eyes had a sort of glazed look and she was very pale, her stance as she paused uncertainly halfway towards him stiff and unnatural.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked quietly. ‘Although possibly I should be asking you what’s right. This is the first time you’ve emerged from the house since you left the clinic.’

‘I shouldn’t have come here...er...where you work,’ Brooke muttered in belated appreciation of what she had done in her distraught frame of mind. ‘I should’ve waited until you came home, so I’m going to just do that and we can talk before you leave for the airport.’

Lorenzo hauled out a chair from the wall before she could leave again. ‘No, sit down. I can see that you’re troubled about something. Tea? Coffee?’

‘A coffee would be good,’ she conceded flatly, hoping the caffeine would cut a path through the tangled turmoil of her emotions and miraculously settle her down at a moment when she felt as though the floor beneath her feet had fallen away.

She was too dependent on Lorenzo, she acknowledged with a sinking heart. Lorenzo was irreversibly stitched into everything she had thought and done and worried about since she had first wakened from the coma. Since awakening, she had built an entire life around him, and the idea that their marriage was simply a cruel mirage cut her off at the knees and left her drowning in a sea of insecurity and regrets.

The coffee arrived in record time and she was relieved to have something to occupy her hands as she cradled the bone-china cup and marvelled that it was a cup instead of a beaker. That random thought brought a wry smile to her lips. In truth, she recognised, she was eager to think about anything other than the giant chasm that had opened up beneath her feet.

‘I went to see Paul Jennings’s mother this morning,’ she revealed as an opening.

Lorenzo leant back fluidly against the side of his desk, embracing informality for her benefit while both his exquisitely tailored dark suit and her surroundings screamed huge influential office and very powerful occupant. He was gorgeous, she conceded rather numbly, and it was hardly surprising that she had become attached to the idea that he was hers. Any woman in her circumstances would’ve done the same thing, she told herself bracingly. Not only was he gorgeous and sexy and terrific in bed, he had been a rock for her through every step of her recovery process. Whatever the truth of their marriage was, she still owed him gratitude for his generosity.

‘Yes, my PA mentioned your plans. I thought it was great that you were finally emerging from the house,’ Lorenzo commented. ‘So, what went wrong?’

‘Oh...nothing went wrong,’ Brooke assured him tautly. ‘I bought a magazine because I saw my face on the cover.’

‘Dio...’ Lorenzo bit out, tensing. ‘I should’ve foreseen that you might do something like that.’

Quite deliberately, Brooke lifted her chin, her violet eyes clear and level, giving no hint of the turmoil inside her. ‘You can’t protect me from everything, Lorenzo...and you shouldn’t be trying to protect me from the truth,’ she told him tightly. ‘If it’s true that we were getting divorced before the accident, you should’ve told me weeks ago.’