Modern Romance April 2020 Books 1-4

Lorenzo informed Jacopo and led her upstairs. ‘Sofia likes a schedule to work to. She’s a great cook.’

‘Did I ever cook for you?’ Brooke enquired.

‘Never.’

Her brows lifted in surprise. ‘I wonder why not. I like reading recipes, which makes me think that I must’ve enjoyed cooking at some stage of my life,’ she told him, walking into a breathtaking bedroom as complete in charm and appeal as the ground-floor reception areas. Turning round, her head tilted back to appreciate the vaulted ceiling above, she sped through the door into the corner turret room to laugh in delight when her suspicions proved correct and she discovered a deftly arranged circular bathroom. ‘It’s a wonderful house, Lorenzo. Was it a wreck when you found it?’

‘A complete ruin,’ he confirmed. ‘I loved the views and the old courtyard out the back, which was completely overgrown. I didn’t really appreciate how much potential the house itself had or, indeed, how large it was. We certainly don’t require the half-dozen bedrooms we have here.’

The doors had been secured back on a balcony on the opposite wall and she strolled out, relieved the ironwork was thick enough to prevent a nosy little dog from sliding between bars and falling, because there was no use pretending, she thought fondly, Topsy wasn’t the brightest or most cautious spark on the planet. Seconds later she was so enthralled by the view of the Tuscan landscape, she simply stared.

A hint of early morning mist still hung over the picturesque walled stone village on a nearby hilltop and somehow it almost magically enhanced the lush green of the vines and fruit orchards in the valley below. Ancient spreading chestnut trees marked the boundary of the garden, the turning colour of their leaves hinting that autumn was on its way. ‘It’s really beautiful,’ she sighed.

The only outstandingly beautiful object in his vision at that moment, Lorenzo acknowledged abstractedly, was her, a foam of curls falling naturally across her bare shoulders in a white-blonde mass, the pretty, surprisingly simple blue dress only adding to the fragile femininity that she exuded and the slender, shapely legs on view. Hunger stabbed through him as sharp and immediate in its penetration as a knife and he strode forward.

Brooke relaxed back into the warmth of his lean powerful frame as his hand came down on her shoulder, a roaring readiness within her taut body to do whatever it took to ensure that their relationship had a fighting chance of survival. His sensual mouth dropped a kiss down on her other shoulder and she trembled, her body coming alive as though he had pressed a magic switch, and by the time he shifted his lips to the considerably more sensitive flesh of the slope leading up to her neck, her hips were pushing back against his in helpless response.

The zip of her dress eased slowly down and he spread the parted edges to run his mouth down over her slender back and she wriggled and jerked, learning that she had tender spots she had not known she possessed. The snap of her bra being released unnerved her when she was standing out in the fresh air, in public, as she saw it, even though it was a very rural area. She spun in his arms.

‘I don’t want anyone to see me,’ she mumbled nervously, suddenly wondering if that reaction was a passion killer as he looked down at her in seeming surprise at her inhibitions. ‘I mean, there might be...er...workers in the vines or something.’

Lorenzo laughed soft and low and swept her up into his arms as if she were a lightweight, when she knew she was not, and carried her over to the bed. He skimmed off her bra with almost daunting expertise. Her violet eyes shot up to lock to his lean bronzed face. ‘You must’ve been with an awful lot of women,’ she heard herself say, and five seconds later cringed at that revealing observation, her face burning as hot as hellfire.

Taken aback, Lorenzo looked down at her in surprise. ‘The usual number before we married,’ he conceded.

‘And not...er...since?’ Brooke prompted, unable to stifle that question. ‘I mean...we were separated...and then I was in a coma for well over a year...’

‘I haven’t been with anyone else since the day I married you,’ Lorenzo spelt out with a level of precision that disconcerted her even more. ‘I don’t break my promises.’

A controversial topic, she recognised uneasily, but she was impressed nonetheless by that steadfast fidelity that many men would surely have forsaken during a legal separation. It was one more gift to appreciate, wasn’t it? In one statement he had both surprised and delighted her, affirming her conviction that they might still have a marriage worth saving. He had not turned to another woman for either sex or consolation and that said so much about the sort of guy he was. She wanted to tell him that she loved him again, but she swallowed the words, which would strike him as empty when she didn’t have the luxury of even recalling their past relationship.

‘We’re getting too serious,’ Lorenzo told her with a sudden flashing smile that didn’t quite reach his gorgeous eyes.

‘Blame me,’ she muttered ruefully. ‘I was the one asking awkward questions.’

‘You should feel free to say whatever you like to me,’ Lorenzo told her, backing away from the bed to slam the door shut and shed his jacket, his tie and his shoes in rapid succession.

Brooke swallowed hard, wondering why she always felt so shy with him, wondering why she wanted to cover her bared breasts from view. She had to be accustomed to such intimacy. That she could be innately shy in the bedroom, after all, went against everything she had so far learned about herself. Women who were shy or modest about showing their bodies didn’t wear teeny-tiny shorts and incredibly short skirts, she reminded herself impatiently.

There was nothing shy about Lorenzo either, she acknowledged as he strolled, buck naked, back to the bed like a very, very sexy bronzed predator, all lean, rippling muscle and hair-roughened thighs. Just looking at Lorenzo almost overwhelmed her because she still experienced a deep, abiding sense of wonder that such a rich, powerful and important man had married her. Yet where did that low self-esteem come from? She was supposed to be so confident, a woman in possession of a trust fund, both prosperous and successful in her own right. Had she always been scared on the inside and confident on the outside?

‘Dio... I can’t wait to get inside you,’ Lorenzo growled.

That graphic assurance sent a flush running right up over her breasts into her face and that out-of-her-depth sensation that had grabbed her on the only night she had so far spent with him returned.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lorenzo scanned the rapid changing expressions on her taut face. ‘And why have you turned red?’

‘I don’t know,’ Brooke gabbled, suddenly snaking free of the dress round her hips and kicking off her shoes to scramble below the sheets, desperate to be doing something rather than freezing guiltily beneath that far too shrewd and clever gaze of his. He picked up on her insecurities and it was not only embarrassing but also unnerving because it stripped away what little poise she retained.

‘You’re blushing!’ Lorenzo laughed in apparent appreciation of that achievement.

‘Did you have to mention it?’ Brooke groaned. ‘To me, being with you like this still feels very new. I know that’s silly but that’s how it is.’

‘No, it’s not silly. I’m being insensitive,’ Lorenzo sliced in with lingering incomprehension at the concept of Brooke being embarrassed about anything on the planet. But he could see that, as far as she was concerned, she was telling him the truth and once again he marvelled at the transparency of her expressions.

‘I’m the one out of step here with the norm, not you.’ Brooke stretched up a hand to grasp his, trying to bridge the gap between them.

Lorenzo ceased trying to wrap his head around the inexplicable and came down on the bed to rub an appreciative hand over a succulent pink nipple and close his mouth there instead. When had she got so serious? When had he begun to behave as though what was only a temporary identity were the real Brooke? She was driving him insane again, only it was in a very different way from the first time around, he conceded fiercely. Here he was craving his almost ex-wife like an addictive drug. For the first time since the crash he wanted to walk away...and then her fingers tightened round his and she looked up at him and she smiled, and his thoughts evaporated as though they had never existed.

She stretched up, clumsily gripping his arm for support, and settled her ripe pink lips against his and the scent of her, the sweet delicious taste of her as her tongue darted against his, turned Lorenzo on so hard and fast, he flattened her down to the bed with two strong hands, his dominant nature taking over with all the passion he had once had to restrain in the marital bed. But there were no curbs now and he could not resist that lure of being himself for the first time with her or the temptation of not being with a woman who lay back like a goddess inviting worship and never touched him.

Brooke felt the change in him and welcomed his passion, realising that she had almost frightened him off with her insecurities. Her fingers delved into his luxuriant black hair and smoothed down his high cheekbones to the roughened blue shadow of stubble that highlighted his wide sensual mouth. She gasped as he dipped his head over her breasts and seized a swollen pink crest and grazed it with the edge of his teeth. She was so sensitive there that her back arched and then his skilled hands were travelling lower, tracing the damp cleft between her thighs, probing the tight entrance, making her hips rock up and a low-pitched cry part her lips.

‘You’re so ready for me,’ Lorenzo husked in satisfaction, shifting position to roll her over and up onto her knees.

Her whole body clenched in sensual shock as he drove into her hard and fast. It was electrifying, every skin cell and nerve ending in her body powering the excitement that made her heart race and her breath catch in her throat. Every sleek, powerful thrust of his body sent sensation tumbling and cascading in seismic waves through her quivering body and heightened the tight clenching low in her pelvis. Her internal muscles contracted and sent her careening with a cry into a climax that detonated like a bomb of sheer pleasure inside her trembling body. It felt so good tears of reaction burned her eyes and she blinked rapidly. But he wasn’t finished, no, far from it, and as the pressure began to build and tighten unbearably inside her again, it only took one expert touch at the most sensitive spot in her body for another orgasm to fly through her in a violent storm.

Shattered, she collapsed down on the bed, while he groaned in satisfaction and his arms tightened round her, flipping her round so that his wicked mouth could tease her parted lips and then slide between, sending a quivering tremor through her drained length.

‘Not moving for anything ever again,’ she swore limply.

‘The helicopter’s picking me up at two but I’ll be back by nine this evening,’ Lorenzo intoned, brilliant dark eyes connecting with hers. ‘Sleep this afternoon because you won’t be getting much sleep tonight, cara mia.’

‘Promises, promises,’ Brooke teased, feeling wonderfully relaxed. ‘You could be absolutely exhausted.’

Lorenzo smoothed her tumbled curls off her pale brow and curled her slight length close. ‘I won’t be too tired for you,’ he intoned huskily, purposely closing off every logical thought and living in the moment. She was doing that and if he wasn’t prepared to let her go yet, so must he.

Four weeks later, after Lorenzo had repeatedly extended their stay, Brooke stood back to study the table she had laid on the terrace at the side of the house. She was humming under her breath as she walked back into the kitchen to check the bubbling pots. Tonight, she was cooking because Sofia was away visiting her daughter but she wasn’t quite as adept a cook as she had hoped when she first came up with the idea of providing dinner. Sofia, however, had given her some useful tips and some even more useful shortcuts and, with a little preparation and help behind the scenes beforehand, Brooke had felt able to tackle a simple menu.

She glanced at the tiny half-knitted garment that Sofia had left lying on the dresser. The older woman was knitting a cardigan for her first grandchild. Brooke picked it up, unable to explain why it had attracted her attention in the first place as she found herself scanning the intricate pattern, and then registered that she could name every one of the stitches used and even identify a mistake. She blinked and something tugged almost painfully deep within her brain. She shook her head again in surprise. So, she knew how to knit, like lots of other people, she acknowledged dismissively, and rubbed her brow until the tightness there began to evaporate.

As she walked back out to the terrace, a bout of unnerving dizziness made her head swim and her legs falter and she swiftly took a seat, lowered her head and breathed in deep and slow. She didn’t know what was amiss with her and already planned to visit a doctor when they flew back to London the following day. She didn’t think that the faintness or the headache were linked to her head injury, any more than the nausea that had assailed her at odd moments in recent days, but she thought it was time that she had herself checked out all the same. Perhaps she was coming down with some virus, she thought ruefully.

A slim figure in white cropped jeans and a vest top, she stood up again and studied the view of the tranquil patchwork of vines and orchards and fields that spread out beyond the garden boundaries. She had never dreamt that they would end up staying an entire month in Italy and the time had fairly raced past. Lorenzo had flown off to loads of business meetings but every other day he was at home, either working or taking her out somewhere, and their peaceful stay had done wonders for her state of mind.

Regrettably, she had experienced no further flashbacks, which was a considerable disappointment to her, but, on the balance side, she was sleeping well, eating well and generally felt much stronger. A lot of that related to her improved relationship with Lorenzo though, she conceded. He hadn’t promised to make a special effort when he had said that they would see how their marriage went but he had definitely been trying.

Regardless of how busy he was, he had made time for her. She had drunk a glass of the local wine in the Piazza Grande in Montepulciano, strolled under the trees by the walls of Lucca, explored the labyrinth of underground caves in Pitigliano and wandered silent in appreciation through the gardens of Garzoni in Collodi. There had been dinners out as well in wonderful restaurants in Florence, but she had enjoyed the picnic in the orange orchard below the house even more because Lorenzo had surprised her with a sapphire pendant that took her breath away and had then made passionate love to her.

She had never felt so close to anyone as she felt to Lorenzo, and sometimes it scared her because she knew that she wasn’t in a safe or settled marriage and that, at any time, Lorenzo could again decide that he wanted a divorce. When she allowed herself to think along those lines, her nervous tension went sky-high and so she tried to enjoy what they currently had without thinking too far ahead into the future. She didn’t tell him she loved him now, no longer dared to be that confiding. Had she known the true state of their marriage, she would never have said it in the first place. She didn’t want Lorenzo to feel trapped or that he couldn’t tell her the truth, and her telling him that she loved him could only make him feel uncomfortable.

By the time the helicopter landed, Brooke had laid out the first course on the table and she stood back, smiling, as Lorenzo strode up the slope towards her, eye-catchingly gorgeous in his exquisitely tailored dove-grey suit, his luxuriant black hair ruffled, his spectacular dark golden eyes locked to her.

And, truth to tell, there was not a single cloud on Lorenzo’s horizon at that moment and his lean, dark, serious face flashed into a smile at the sight of her waiting for him. It probably made him a four-letter word of a guy but he enjoyed the knowledge that his wife’s world seemed to revolve entirely around him. She was a slender but curvy figure dressed entirely in white, her cloud of curls framing her piquant features, eyes purple as violets.

‘I made dinner,’ Brooke announced. ‘But you have to sit down now.’

Lorenzo tensed. ‘I was heading for a shower first—’

‘You can’t...if you do that the main course will be ready too soon and it will spoil,’ Brooke told him earnestly. ‘If you want to eat, it’s now or never.’

Lorenzo grinned. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you. I sit down now to eat, and you join me in the shower afterwards...’

‘That’s a deal.’ Brooke went pink and sank down at the other side of the table. ‘Dig in. It’s quite a simple meal but this timing thing is complicated.’

‘I can’t believe you’ve made a meal for us,’ Lorenzo confided truthfully.

‘It may not win any awards but I think I should be able to make a decent meal,’ Brooke contended seriously. ‘It’s a basic skill.’

‘How are you feeling about returning to London tomorrow?’ he prompted.

‘Kind of sad,’ she confided, laying down her fork to finger the sapphire gleaming below her collarbone. ‘I love it here and I’ve relaxed a lot more but we can’t live cut off from the rest of the world for ever.’

‘No, we can’t,’ Lorenzo agreed and, as he pushed his plate away to indicate that he was finished, he lounged back in his chair and spread his hands. ‘Why did you go to all this trouble for a meal? We could’ve eaten out. That’s what I usually do when Sofia takes a night off.’

‘It’s our last night here.’ Brooke shrugged in an effort to be casual and pushed back her chair to return to the kitchen. There she drained pans, whisked the sauce again and put the main course together on delicate china plates to take them out to the table.

‘It looks great,’ Lorenzo said softly.

‘Wait and see how it tastes,’ she urged.

He ate in deliberate silence, cleared the plate and then sent her a wicked grin of appreciation. ‘That’s it. You’re on kitchen duty every night that I can spare you.’

‘And how often would you spare me?’ she enquired as she pushed her own plate away and went to fetch dessert.

‘Not very often,’ Lorenzo confessed, following her into the kitchen to tug her back against his lean, hard frame, his hands smoothing down over her hip bones to lace across her flat stomach. ‘You have a much more important role to fulfil, cara mia.’

Insanely aware that he was aroused, she instinctively pressed back into him, loving the sudden fracture in his breathing and the way his fingers instantly slid up to the waistband of her jeans to release the button and delve down over her quivering tummy to the heart of her. ‘And what would that role entail?’ she prompted shakily, suspecting that he wasn’t likely to let her make it as far as dessert.

Interpreting the damp welcome below her silk knickers, not to mention the encouraging gasp parting her lips, Lorenzo laughed appreciatively. ‘I think you already know, gatita mia.’

‘Well, you have to make a choice. Me...’ Brooke told him, battling her hunger for him to gently step away and fasten her jeans, ‘or the last course.’

Lorenzo snatched her back to him. ‘I’m Italian...the woman wins every time.’

‘Maybe if you’re really, really good,’ Brooke teased, ‘I’ll bring you dessert in bed.’

In answer, Lorenzo spun her round and kissed her with voracious hunger, his mouth crushing hers, one hand anchored in her mass of curls. Beneath that onslaught, she gasped and he wasted no time in bending down to scoop her up and head for the stairs. ‘Bossy...much?’ she taunted.

‘You know you like it,’ Lorenzo breathed with inherent dark sensuality, dropping her down on the bed and following her there to pluck off her shoes and divest her of the rest of her clothes.

‘No, you undress first,’ Brooke instructed, feeling daring as she pushed his jacket off his broad shoulders and yanked at his tie, her fingers deft on his shirt buttons. Pushing the fabric back, she spread her hands over the warm hair-roughened musculature of his chest.

Lorenzo vaulted off the bed to remove the rest of his clothes. ‘Off with the jeans and the top,’ he commanded impatiently.

Brooke made a production of shimmying out of her tight jeans, sliding out one slender bare leg, then the next. Bending back, she released the hooks on her top and peeled it off over her head, her teeth tightening at the over-sensitivity of her engorged nipples as the air stung them. Her breasts had felt weird for several days, tender and swollen, and she had thought that had to be a sign of her menstrual cycle kicking in. Although she had had periods while she was still in the clinic, she had not had one since she left medical care and she knew that she would have to mention that to the doctor when she saw him as well. Possibly that IUD Lorenzo had mentioned was causing her problems, she reasoned wryly, and perhaps she would have to consider another method of birth control.

Lorenzo feasted his eyes on her with unashamed appreciation, his attention lingering on the luscious swell of her breasts. She must’ve put on weight and it really, really suited her, he acknowledged hungrily. ‘I’m burning up for you—’

‘Since when? You woke me up at six this morning,’ Brooke reminded him helplessly, as always, almost astonished by his constant desire for her.

Lorenzo grinned and came down beside her. ‘That was this morning and it was a lifetime ago, bellezza mia.’

‘Will we still be like this when we go home?’ Brooke heard herself ask in sudden fear that their new intimacy would somehow vanish when they left Italy.

‘You’re moving into my bedroom,’ Lorenzo asserted.

‘Am I?’ Brooke smiled like a cat that had got the cream, reassured by that statement, that change in attitude that signified togetherness rather than separation.

‘Are you thinking of arguing about that?’ Lorenzo husked against her reddened mouth.

Her fingers speared into his black hair to draw him down to her, the same intense hunger firing through every atom of her being. ‘No.’

A long while later, she lay in perfect peace in his arms and drifted off to sleep in a happy daze, which made the dream that followed all the more frightening because she wasn’t prepared for it, couldn’t ever have been prepared for the images that went flashing through her brain and made her scream so loud in the dark that she hurt her throat.

She saw the crash. She saw Brooke as she reached for her and failed to catch her hand, experienced the agony of knowing she had failed to save her sister, her only living relative. And in the shaken aftermath, when she must have regained consciousness for a split second, reliving that unimaginable pain and primal fear, she saw her knitting needles strewn in the smoking wreckage of the car...

‘It’s OK...it’s OK...’ Lorenzo soothed as she sat bolt upright in the bed, rocking back and forth, her head down on her raised knees as she sobbed. ‘You had a nightmare. It’s not real, none of it’s real. Dio, you screamed so loudly I thought we were being attacked!’

But it was real, it was very real, Milly recognised, her frantic thoughts tangled and befogged by layer after layer of shock and growing disbelief. Somehow she had got her memory back, the memory she had once been so desperate to retrieve. Her true self had slipped back without fanfare into place during that nightmare, clarifying everything that had previously been a complete blank. But, disturbingly, reclaiming her memory and her knowledge of who she was had plunged her into an even more frightening world.