Escape for Easter
‘What are you thinking?’ Cesare probed as the silence stretched and he struggled to hide his growing impatience. It frustrated him that he could not see her face.
‘You usually seem to know.’ Sam chewed on her lower lip and thought that sometimes he knew what she was thinking before she did. ‘Who is Paolo?’
‘Paolo is my driver and sometimes bodyguard should the need arise.’ Irritated by the diversion, Cesare added, ‘We are not discussing Paolo.’
‘And has it ever arisen?’ Sam found the idea that Cesare would ever be in a position where he needed someone to watch his back alarming.
‘Will you stop changing the subject?’
‘I was interested.’ She didn’t add that anything about him interested her. It might give him the wrong idea—or the right idea?
‘And I was thinking that if I’d not seen that article and I’d decided not to tell you about the baby and anything happened…’
‘Happened?’
‘Well, things do.’ She heaved a sigh and studied the pattern on the rug beneath her knees as she settled back onto her heels with a frown. It was a depressing thought and not one she, as a natural optimist, thought about often, but she couldn’t escape facts. Cesare’s comments had simply brought worries she already had into sharper focus. ‘People get run over and killed crossing the road every day of the week.’
The prosaic observation caused a bone-deep chill to settle over Cesare as his imagination provided flashing images of pools of blood on a road, a warm body growing cold and stiff… A choking sound dragged from some place deep inside him.
The strange noise sent a chill down Sam’s spine and brought her head up with a snap. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, deeply alarmed by the grey tinge to his normally vibrant skin. The Stygian blackness of his unseeing stare as he looked back at her suggested the things he was seeing in his head were not pretty.
‘Oh, you’re thinking the baby would have ended up in care,’ she said, seizing on what she believed was the cause of his visible distress. ‘Don’t worry, my brother and his wife would never let that happen.’
‘Madre dio, woman, will you focus and stop prattling?’ He raised a hand to his head; the pressure in his skull had grown to an explosive level as the truth he had been trying hard to avoid stared back at him.
Sam’s eyes flashed; she was offended by the snarling brusqueness of his tone. ‘I suppose when you make a decision you draw up a chart, work out statistical probabilities, weigh up the pros and cons all very scientifically,’ she retorted sarcastically.
‘Actually I am a great believer in following my gut instinct.’
And Cesare’s gut instinct was telling him right now to kiss her. Open her mouth and taste the sweetness that was on offer within.
He followed up the throaty statement so quickly that Sam had no hint of his intention until his fingers curled around her chin. She didn’t think of resistance as he tilted her face to one side to allow himself full access to her mouth. She just thought, Please—please kiss me!
Then he did. His mouth was on hers and his lips were moving with slow, sensual expertise that raised the feverish temperature of her overheated blood to a bubbling simmer.
He drew back fractionally, breathing hard—or was that her…? Sam struggled to separate herself from him, not just physically, but emotionally too, and failed.
Intense-sounding words of Italian fell harshly from his lips as he bent his head and kissed her again with a driving possessive hunger she felt all the way down to her toes. Like a firework display, desire exploded inside her, driving the last shred of resistance or sense to the farthest foggiest recesses of her lust-soaked brain.
The kiss ended and her heavy lids half lifted, a sigh of sheer longing snagging in her aching throat as she traced his lean dark face.
They were so close she could see the fine texture of his skin, the lines radiating from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his sensual mouth, the scar on his forehead that disappeared into his thick, glossily dark hairline.
She lifted a hand to trace the physical evidence of the accident that had robbed him cruelly of his sight. She felt as if a hand had reached into her chest, icy fingers tightening around her heart as she thought of him hurting, waking up alone and in the dark.
His long, tapering fingers skimmed her face, drawing it up to his as he breathed, ‘Open your mouth for me, cara.’
And she did, a little growl vibrating in her throat as she drew herself up onto her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. She met his tongue with her own, breathing in the scent of him, the taste of him as her breasts were crushed against the hardness of his chest and her fingers slid over muscles that were hard and perfectly formed.
It was Cesare who drew back so abruptly that Sam fell back, only just stopping herself from tumbling onto her bottom with her hands.
She stared at him, eyes round, her pupils still hugely dilated, panting as she tried to suck air into her lungs.
She was filled with shame. ‘That was…that shouldn’t have happened.’
‘But you knew it would, we both knew it would…’
She opened her mouth to deny this ludicrous claim and stopped. She pulled herself up onto her heels and sighed.
Cesare spoke. ‘You know, if we’re going to keep on ripping each other’s clothes off every time we’re in the same room I think we should get married.’
Embarrassed colour flared in Sam’s cheeks as she smoothed down her top. ‘I have my clothes on,’ she replied with dignity. And so did he, she thought as her glance drifted to the V of golden skin visible where the top button of his shirt was unfastened. Her stomach quivered.
‘That situation can be changed.’
She sucked in an audible outraged breath, which seemed a bit crazy considering that he knew every inch of her body intimately… She tried not to think about how intimately. He was obviously of the same opinion as his rumble of laughter was wicked and warm.
‘You’re blushing, aren’t you?’
Her eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’
‘You have a very eloquent range of gasps and I can feel the changes in your body temperature from here.’ Without warning he reached out and placed his open hand against her chest. ‘From here it is easier—I can feel your heart trying to beat its way out. It’s ironic—I’m blind and I’ve never come across a woman who is easier to read than you. How do you go through life showing so much?’
Sam stared mesmerised at his fingers splayed against her breast and shook her head. Sometimes the truth was the worst thing to say and this was one of those times. She knew it yet still she said it.
‘It’s only with you.’
His eyes darkened as he rasped, ‘Come here.’
Sam’s heart was hammering so loud it blocked out everything else as without thinking she raised herself up on her knees and leaned in to him until their faces were almost touching.
His fingers speared deep into her bright hair as he inhaled the fragrance that came from the silky skein. ‘This is a side to the arrangement which would be most pleasurable for us both, cara,’ he husked, resting his nose beside hers.
‘The kissing…?’
His expression was solemn but his eyes fierce as he explained, ‘Obligatory for married people.’ He kissed the side of her mouth before dropping his head to trail a line of delicious damp kisses down her neck.
‘Oh, God!’ she groaned. ‘I don’t know why you can do this to me.’
‘That makes two of us, but who cares?’
Sam couldn’t approve of this reckless attitude and she said so, but he didn’t seem to take her seriously—possibly because she was already unfastening the buttons of his shirt with shaking but determined fingers.
A deep sigh of pleasure escaped her throat as the material parted and his gleaming torso was revealed to her greedy gaze. ‘You are just so beautiful… What?’ she asked suddenly in hoarse protest as he grabbed both her wrists and lifted her hands from his warm skin.
‘Marry me, Samantha.’
Her disbelief was tinged with indignation. ‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’
‘You mean will I withhold my favours if you don’t say I do?’ He laughed, but underneath the laughter the tension that pulled the skin taut against the magnificent bone structure of his face was visible. ‘Good idea, cara,’ he admitted. ‘Only one problem—I’m really not endowed with that sort of self-denial.’ Not where she was concerned anyway.
‘I don’t even like you,’ she whispered against his mouth.
‘Liking has nothing to do with it,’ he rasped, tracing the shape of her full upper lip with his tongue before sliding it deep inside her mouth. A groan was wrenched from Sam’s chest as she opened her mouth to increase the sensual penetration. ‘Why fight it?’
Sam wasn’t. Fighting was the very last thing she wanted to do. ‘Is this supposed to be the clincher? You think you can kiss me into agreeing to marry you? Cesare, you’re really not that good.’
But he was!
She found her fingers in his hair and kissed him on the mouth, the pent-up hunger she had been carrying around for weeks finding some release, but not enough.
‘There are more powerful, primitive instincts at work here. We have a sexual connection.’
‘I don’t want a sexual connection!’ she wailed.
His lips curved into a fleeting smile, but his expression remained intent as, with his heavy lids half closed, his fingers slid under her top.
‘But you do want this, don’t you?’ he slurred, lifting the cotton top she wore and skating lightly across the smooth skin of her midriff before moving to cup one breast through the thin light lace covering of her bra. His thumb moved across her nipple; the seductive motion of his lips on her neck made her head spin. She felt on fire, out of control and loved it.
She watched him as he peeled the top over her head and flung it to one side.
He bent his head and, with one arm wrapped around her narrow ribcage, applied his mouth first to one straining breast, pulling the nipple into his mouth, and then administering the same exquisite torture to the other. Sam clung to him, her fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders as her head fell back.
Fingers splayed across her spine, he brought her upright until their faces were almost touching. There was a fine mist of sweat over his skin and he was breathing as hard as she was. ‘Marry me,’ he said thickly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAM lifted a hand and ran it down the hard curve of Cesare’s jaw.
‘Couldn’t we just go to bed?’ she suggested hopefully.
One corner of his mouth lifted in a wolfish smile as he ran a finger slowly down the curve of her cheek. ‘You’re offering me some sympathy sex, cara?’
‘I’m offering you me.’
He gasped, and she could feel a shudder run through his hard lean frame.
‘I don’t seem to have any pride where you’re concerned. I’m utterly shameless.’ She had never imagined that she could surrender herself so unconditionally to any man, let alone a man like Cesare.
She was totally unselfconscious but at the same time more aware of her femininity than she had ever been in her life. Everything about this man was a contradiction and so were her feelings for him. The antagonism and attraction she felt for him bled into one confusing, powerful, all-consuming entity.
‘You’re utterly delicious,’ he contradicted thickly. ‘I have been thinking about being inside you.’
The erotic image his words created in her head made the ache low in her pelvis intensify. She stared into his eyes, she saw her reflection, saw the predatory glow and felt an equally primal response clutch like a tight fist deep inside her. Reckless desire tugged like a silken thread at Sam’s senses as she watched her bra go the same way as her top. She shivered as the cool air touched her overheated skin.
‘Then do it,’ she whispered.
‘Marry me.’
‘Will you stop saying that? People don’t make decisions just like that,’ she protested, pressing her lips to his throat and tasting the salt of his skin.
‘Forget people. We’re not people, we’re us. We made a baby, Samantha. He needs us.’
He made a compelling argument. Feelings struggled and warred inside her; her sex-soaked brain wouldn’t work. On one level what he was saying made sense and it was attractive, on another it terrified her witless!
‘What about me? Doesn’t it matter what I need?’
‘You need me.’ And right now he needed her. The hunger roared in his blood like a furnace, drowning out the nagging edge of guilt over his manipulation of the situation.
‘A paper arrangement, you said?’
A slow smile of male triumph spread across his face. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Right now I think we should finish this in the comfort of a bed. You do have a bed?’
‘Yes, I have a bed.’
He fitted his hand in hers. ‘Then lead the way, cara,’ he said, rising to his feet and pulling her with him.
‘I didn’t say yes.’
‘Of course you did,’ he said with smug male complacence before he kissed her and made her feel as though she’d say anything he wanted her to.
It was two days later that Cesare accompanied her on her visit for her first scan.
The plush offices of the Harley Street clinic were a million miles from the NHS department she had expected to be attending.
Watching her budget was too deeply ingrained in Sam for her not to feel a flicker of guilt at her luxurious surroundings, but, having seen Cesare’s expression when he’d spoken of the safety and health of his unborn child, she had recognised that this was not a point that he was prepared to be flexible on. It seemed better to save her energy for battles she could win.
Besides, she couldn’t see Cesare standing patiently in an NHS-clinic queue—he would probably behave so badly they would be asked to leave.
‘What are you smiling at?’
Sam turned her head, astonished. ‘How do you know I’m smiling?’
He shook his head, looked briefly perplexed by the question himself, and said, ‘But you are?’
‘I was thinking about you behaving badly.’
His voice dropped to the seductive purr that always made her stomach muscles quiver. ‘I thought you liked it when I behaved badly, cara?’ he observed with a pretty feeble display of innocent surprise.
‘I wasn’t thinking of the bedroom.’
His grin deepened. ‘I rarely think of any place else.’ He didn’t need to be psychic then to know she was blushing.
A few minutes later Sam knew Cesare’s thoughts were not in the bedroom.
She turned her face briefly from the screen and the look she caught on his face tore at her heart. She had been too excited and enthralled by what she had seen to give a thought to how Cesare would feel hearing the doctor describing the images of their baby—images he could not see of a child he would never see.
Swept away on a wave of painful empathy, she caught his big strong hand between two of hers, for once not caring of his ultra sensitivity to any form of sympathy. To hell with his pride! His skin felt cold as she brought his hand to her chest; she felt the raw pain in his face as a physical ache.
Her expression grew determined. She could not make him see but she could share.
‘You can see his head and his heart beating and that…’ She threw a questioning glance towards the medic. ‘The spinal cord?’
Cesare swallowed, the muscles in his brown throat working hard as his fingers tightened around her own.
‘You say he?’
‘Do you want to know the sex, Cesare?’
There was a pause before Cesare responded. ‘I do not care about the sex so long as he, she, is strong and healthy.’
‘Well, the way he she is moving around there seems very little problem there.’ She glanced towards the doctor to seek confirmation and he nodded.
‘I’m happy to say everything is as it should be.’
‘In a few weeks you’ll be able to feel him move, kick… I just need to make some measurements to confirm your dates.’
‘Oh, there is no mistake about those,’ she said without thinking.
‘Indeed, a night to remember,’ Cesare agreed blandly.
‘I’m not blushing,’ Sam lied, not looking at the doctor.
‘You are,’ Cesare replied, a smile in his voice.
She blushed again when the medic confirmed that her dates were spot on before wiping the gel off her stomach and leaving them alone.
‘Thank you for that.’
Sam finished readjusting her clothes and got to her feet. ‘For what?’ Sam asked, avoiding those dark eyes and wishing she could avoid the intensity of her own feelings as easily.
‘Thank you for letting me see our child through your eyes, Samantha.’
A warm glow spread through Sam as she savoured the intimacy of the moment. Her throat clogged with emotion as she replied, ‘You’re welcome. He is, after all, the one thing we have in common. We should be able to share that much at least.’
He appeared about to speak but then stopped and instead reached out and took her chin between his fingers. His ability to be able to place her in a room always astonished Sam. ‘So you will let me see our baby through your beautiful blue eyes.’
‘They are blue,’ she admitted.
‘Tim got quite lyrical when he described the colour to me—like violets, he tells me. This is the point where you remind me you have freckles.’
‘And what do you do?’
‘I kiss you,’ he said, and did.
Eight days after the scan the day of the wedding dawned—no point in hanging around, Cesare had said—and Sam had been suffering panic attacks on a daily basis. It was as if the thing had gathered momentum like a snowball and run away from her.
She could have stopped the snowball effect with one word but she hadn’t—because the alternative would mean a lot of things, including spending her nights alone.
They’d spent every night together except the two that Cesare had stayed over in Rome for business, and the previous night when Sam had returned to her bedsit for the last time. During the nights of passion she had no doubts; it was when daylight dawned that she started wondering about her sanity.
Maybe morning had a similar effect on Cesare, maybe he woke up wondering what he was doing? After earlier that day it seemed a distinct possibility. Why else did a man ring the woman he was marrying ten hours later that day at five-thirty in the morning?
He had rung off after ten minutes and the why was no clearer. But she had been left with the nagging impression that he had wanted to say something—possibly to call the whole thing off—and had changed his mind.
She had picked up the phone to ring him back several times but had lacked the guts to follow through.
She was still wondering about what he had intended to say when the car arrived to take her to the register office.
‘It’s not too late,’ she told her pale reflection. But it was and she knew she was committed. This was the best thing for the baby. The best thing for her wasn’t going to happen—it couldn’t. Cesare didn’t love her.
The discovery that she loved him had not come to her in a blinding flash.
She wasn’t even sure at what point during the last week she had actually realised the truth.
When he had slid the big sapphire on her finger and she had had to turn away to hide the rush of hot emotional tears?
When she had come across the snapshot of him clinging to a vertical rock wall above a dizzying drop and realised that it was only one of the things that had been snatched from him? That he faced every day with a bravery and lack of self-pity that filled her with admiration?
She thought of the day she had walked into a room an hour before he was flying off to Rome and he had been sitting at a desk staring into space, looking so remote as he’d turned his head in her direction that a shiver of apprehension had chased its way down her spine.
What did you expect? the voice in her head had asked. The man doesn’t love you, he isn’t going to tell you he’s counting the minutes until he sees you again. He isn’t going to say he will feel lonely when you’re not there… But she would. Had it been then that she’d realised her love for him?
It was all of those times and none of them because she knew that deep down it was something she had always known but had denied to herself. She was in love. Cesare Brunelli, brave, stubborn, and totally impossible, was the love of her life.
Today should have been the happiest of her life but instead as the car arrived at her destination all she felt was a profound sadness. The sadness that hung about her like a dark cloud had nothing to do with the fact there were no guests—it had been Sam’s decision not to tell her family or friends.
Her misery arose, not from the absence of guests or an elaborate wedding, but because of the absence of the one thing her heart craved—to have her love returned. But it just wasn’t going to happen.
Cesare didn’t love her. He would care for her and he would, she believed, respect the vows he made because she had learnt that, unlike the person portrayed in the tabloids, he was actually a deeply honourable man. But she would never have that place in his heart she so longed for.
Was she greedy, Sam wondered, to want it so badly when she had so much?
And what would happen if one day he met someone he did love the way he had loved Candice? Did he still love the beautiful blonde? Sam couldn’t stop torturing herself with the thoughts that he might have been thinking of the other woman when they made love.
The thoughts, when they intruded, made her feel sick to her stomach and they had spoilt more than one perfect moment for her, and Cesare, with his uncanny perception, always seemed to pick up on her unease.
When he asked her what was wrong, she never told him, of course. She said nothing, but he knew she was lying and the lie lay like a wall between them. It dissolved when their passions flared and ignited, but later when they cooled it was still there.
Sam knew that if this marriage was going to stand any chance of working she had to overcome her insecurities and accept that Cesare could not give her what she wanted—what he did give her was more than most women ever had.
She would make it work, she said to herself as she lifted her skirts and left the car.
Tim, looking nervous as though he were the groom, was waiting for her in the foyer of the old town hall building.
‘You look beautiful,’ he gasped, his eyes widening in shock when he saw Sam.
Sam touched the white skirt of her oyster satin gown with a self-conscious hand. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit over the top?’
Sam’s original intention had been to wear the suit she had worn for her brother’s wedding. It had after all cost a small fortune and only been worn once.
It was not a suggestion that had found favour with Cesare, who, ignoring her protest that she hated posh shops, had rung ahead to some exclusive store and arranged for it to open out of hours for her to choose something suitably fitting for the bride of a billionaire.
She had not entered the place with any intention of purchasing anything approaching a traditional wedding gown. A suit or something simple had been her vague instruction to the helpful assistant—people became very helpful when unlimited funds were involved, Sam had realised cynically.
Maybe she hadn’t been very specific because the first thing they had produced had been a dress, the one she was now wearing.
It was the simplicity that had immediately attracted her. Cut in simple strapless sheath design, the shimmering fabric kicked out slightly at the calf-length hem, but hugged her waist and hips.
She had been a little unsure about baring her shoulders and revealing so much cleavage—the boned bodice had an uplifting quality, but the staff had reassured her it was perfect.
Of course, the way they had raved might have had something to do with the cost—this was not the sort of store that had anything as tasteless as price tags—but, seeing her reflection in the mirror-lined cubicle, Sam had had to admit she didn’t look too bad.