Innocent of His Claim Read online

  “You hated me just as much or more,” she said.

  He moved toward her with predatory grace, eyes locked with hers. She tried to make her shaky legs move but they got the message late, managing to do no more than shuffle back a fraction, his advancing steps besting her retreating ones.

  “I tried to but I could not,” he said, the scratch in his usually controlled voice catching her by surprise. “What about you, cara? Do you hate me still?”

  Her back slammed against the wall, the stones cool and hard against her spine, his gaze hot and probing hers. That familiar tingling danced over her heart, her belly, before settling low between her legs. She clenched her muscles, willing the needy sensations away, but that only made the ache more intense, more demanding.

  The woodsy scent that was uniquely his enveloped her. He was far too close. Far too powerful. Far too tantalizing.

  “I have no feelings toward you at all.”

  “Not even desire?” he asked.

  “No, none,” she said with surprising nonchalance. His gaze drilled into her and she squirmed, her insides twisting and her heart hammered against her ribs. “You’re lying, cara. The rapid pulse in your throat tells me your heart is racing. Your eyes are dilated with your need and your nipples are peaking through your shirt. If I put my hand between your legs would you be wet for me too?”

  Damn him! Was she that transparent? “I’m here to do a job, Marco. Get that through your head. Nothing more.”

  He smiled but that left her more uneasy. “You do realize you cannot escape the inevitable,” he said, a note of amusement ringing in his voice that echoed in the cavernous keeping room.

  She was realizing far too much being alone with him. Feeling far too natural with him. It was bad enough her body betrayed her, weeping for his touch, throbbing for the press of his steely length against her.

  But to think the past could have easily gone a different route terrified her.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said. “Us.”

  “There is no us,” she said, her upthrust palms warning him to back off.

  Marco filled her vision, filled her world. His gaze probed so deeply she shivered as his intimate touch whispered over her heart, her soul.

  He planted both palms on the wall behind her, forcing her to draw her hands in to her breasts to keep from touching his oh-so-admirable chest. How easily he caged her in, towering over her, standing so close she could see the tiny flecks of gold light his dark eyes with a sensuous glow that made her body cry for him.

  Marco was everything she had always wanted and everything she should avoid in a man.

  That was never more evident than now. So why did her body refuse to listen?

  “Yes, there is an us,” he said, stroking his thumb along her jaw and smiling when she surrendered to a shiver. “There will always be us.”

  She shook her head and crushed her fists against her traitorous heart. Pride kept her from admitting he was right, and right now pride was all she had to cling to.

  He pushed away and extended his hand to her, his gaze challenging. “Come. Our table is waiting.”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.” Delanie smoothly ducked beneath his arm and strode toward the door, determined to walk the distance. To run if she must.

  Marco allowed a small smile and enjoyed the enticing sway of her hips. “Where are you going?”

  “To Montiforte.”

  “I’ll drive you,” he said, catching up with her easily before she’d made it halfway across the entryway.

  “Thanks, but your housekeeper assured me it wasn’t a long walk.”

  “I will take you.”

  That stopped her, as if his order had strings to pull her up short. She glanced back at him, body stiffened, not fully turning. But it gave him a clear view of the ripe fullness of her breasts pushing against her top.

  A rosy flush kissed her neck and cheeks—from desire? Anger? Perhaps a bit of both over the way he bested her every attempt to avoid him.

  The harder he pushed the more she pulled away, like magnets fighting an invisible force. But he wasn’t about to back off.

  He wanted her in his arms, in his bed where she belonged. At least for as long as she was here. Maybe this time when they parted he would be able to pluck her from his memory.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” Delanie asked.

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” he said, exchanging a nod with his astute PA standing in the shadows who instantly disappeared to rearrange his schedule.

  Her eyes, a clear blue that rivaled a Tuscan summer sky, met his and he found it difficult to draw a decent breath. The indecision reflected in her gaze clutched at his gut.

  “Well, I do have things to do, mainly getting a wedding planned in short order,” she said.

  “You can begin after lunch,” he said.

  Her mouth thinned and for a moment he feared she would refuse. “Fine. We will eat and then I will get to work.”

  She resumed her rapid walk toward the door. He tarried a moment, enjoying the view of her firm bottom cupped in tight black denim.

  Marco suffered the heaviness in his groin and strode after her. Outside he pressed his palm to the luscious small of her back and escorted her to his red Bugatti.

  In moments he guided the sleek sports car down the hill toward Montiforte. “You won’t find a room in the village.”

  “That’s what your housekeeper told me.”

  “You don’t believe her.”

  A beat of silence pinged between them. He could be a gentleman and remove himself from his house, giving her the privacy she sought—the distancing from him.

  But he wanted her. Wanted? No he had to have her again. And he would have her, he vowed, allowing a smile.

  Delanie looked through the window at the workers in the fields and heaved a sigh, her insides a jumble. “I know your housekeeper is probably right about the accommodations in Montiforte but I need to check.”

  “Then do, but know that even if you find a flat, you’re better off staying at my villa.”

  “Better for whom?” she asked, shooting his arresting profile a glare. Why did he have to be so damned sexy?

  His lips quirked in a half smile. “As I said earlier you are only prolonging the inevitable.”

  There it was again, that assurance that she would fall into his bed. Her faced heated, her breath quickening, her body so tightly wound with need she could scream. She couldn’t ignore the pulse of need between her thighs any more than she could deny the emptiness in her arms. The longing for his lips on hers.

  This was hell, and heaven would be found in his arms. But a romance with him would lead nowhere.

  It couldn’t, because she would not let herself slip under a man’s control again. And yet she still wanted that carnal connection. Craved it. She still yearned for the crush of his powerful body on hers and the pinnacle of pleasure when he thrust into her, when passion took them to the beyond.

  Sex. That was all Marco wanted from her. And—if anything—that was all she would allow herself with him, she swore on a shiver, knowing it would be glorious, fabulous sex.

  “Your arrogance knows no bounds.” She looked down at the hem of her top and cringed to find she’d wadded it in her fists. “Love was never part of the equation for you, was it?”

  He snorted, his fingers tightening on the wheel, the muscle in his cheek ticking frantically. “Love. Woman do their damnedest to get men to give their hearts to them and men know that the fastest way to get a woman into bed is professing such devotion. I was not one of them. Ever.”

  “No. That was never a promise made and broken by you.”

  He sliced her a look so intense she felt her skin grow moist. “Are we back to doubting the other’s word?”

  “When did we ever fully trust the other?” she said.

  His silence was answer enough.

  He was her weakness. Her addiction. Her damnation?
Time would tell on that one.

  She had craved his love, wanted him, but had been too young at the time to realize that he wouldn’t change. That love was an emotion he wouldn’t or couldn’t feel.

  And still knowing all that she couldn’t banish him from her thoughts. Couldn’t stop comparing every man she met to Marco Vincienta and finding them all lacking.

  She’d memorized every moment she’d been with Marco—the salty tang of his skin, the husk in his laugh, the electric golden gleam in his dark eyes when they were one, a heartbeat away from reaching nirvana.

  Ten years was an awfully long drought to endure, even for a woman who’d only known one man. Too long.

  “You’re too quiet,” he said. “Angry?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m resigned to the fact that you’re a vital man and are used to getting what you want.”

  “Not always.”

  His right hand rested easy on the steering wheel, his control unmistakable, yet his big body was relaxed, almost as if he were one with the car, a powerful, pulsating thrust of energy that caught her up in his midst.

  “That’s hard to believe,” she said.

  “I didn’t get you, cara,” he said bluntly, and her thoughts ground to a jarring halt again.

  “We were lovers.”

  He shrugged. “Briefly. I wanted more.” He slid her a knowing look. “We were good together.”

  She’d thought so too. She’d spent endless nights dreaming of a future around this man.

  “What we had is over,” she said, needing to make that clear.

  “Not necessarily.”

  He offered a cold proposition yet it stirred something hot inside her. Emotion and need shifted like tectonic plates in an angry sea, stirring up a tempest of sensual awareness that she hadn’t felt in years.

  This was what she’d blocked from her thoughts, tossed away like something to fear. This aching, gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach told her something exciting was about to happen. That was the cause of the flush of heat and tingle of skin that swept over a woman when she was attracted to a man and was ready to act on that desire.

  And she was attracted to Marco.

  She would be lying if she said otherwise. The first instant she’d laid eyes on him she’d been lost, swept away to distant shores and silken sheets with just a caress, just a look. One kiss and she’d been lost.

  He was her Prince Charming, her critical judge and the lover she carried in her heart. Now she had the chance to relive that glorious time with him one more time.

  Dare she?

  “It’s over,” she said, and hoped that it was so. “We’re not the same people we were then.”

  “Perhaps that is for the best.”

  She chewed her lower lip, wishing she could be sure. There was simply no way to know the type of man Marco had become in so short a time.

  And where did that leave her?

  The lush, hilly scenery passed by in a blur, the patchwork of olive groves and vineyards lost in a dark haze much like the picture she saw of her future. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to dream big, to think in terms of just herself.

  To be selfish.

  Acting on her deepest desires now would be selfish. Dare she take what she wanted, even though she would likely leave Italy and him with a broken heart?

  Too soon Marco zipped through an arched gatehouse flanked by a lane of rugged brick buildings. Green-, red- and maize-painted shutters hung at the tall windows, most open in midafternoon.

  Clusters of potted plants sat by doorways and on crowded iron fire escapes that clung to the old buildings, their flowers sparse now. The brick-lined street narrowed and rose, slanting up against the buildings to the next level dominated by a piazza and fountain positioned right in the middle.

  A moment later he wheeled the sports car under an arched portico covered with golden vines decorated with crimson leaves. He climbed out with fluid grace and opened her door, his hand firm and possessive as he helped her extract herself from the low-slung car.

  Large white umbrellas shaded the street-side tables covered with white linens, the entire perimeter ringed with massive pots holding bushes, trees and a few flowers too stubborn to take their annual rest. “This doesn’t look like a bistro to me.”

  “They have expanded the past year,” he said, his hand at her back guiding her inside where a smiling maître d’ greeted them.

  “I have your table ready, Signore Vincienta,” the man said. “Follow me.”

  She managed a glimpse of exquisite murals hanging on exposed brick walls as they were led up a narrow flight of stairs to a private room. A cozy table for two sat before the tall windows, its linen cloth fluttering in the warm breeze.

  Her stomach was doing much the same, thanks to Marco’s hand still pressed to the small of her back. Their table was off in a nook, quite private. A perfect table for lovers, she thought as they took their seats.

  He snapped his linen napkin open and flung it on his lap as the waiter appeared at his elbow. “Orvieto to start with antipasto,” he told the waiter, but his gaze flicked to hers as he added, “It’s a semisweet white, renowned in Umbria.”

  “That would be lovely,” she said, fussing with her open napkin.

  “Tagliolini al tartufo bianco for two,” he told the waiter, his gaze still on hers.

  She nodded her agreement for she really didn’t care. It would be pure luck if she could manage a meal with her insides in such a twist.

  He frowned, studying her closely. Her narrow shoulders were set in a tense line. Her smile looked strained. But she wasn’t running, wasn’t rebelling. Patience, he told himself.

  “Relax,” he said after he waved the maître d’ on with a wine order.

  If only she could …

  She cleared her throat and took in the breathtaking vista of rolling hills beyond the aged walled village, but the thought that had taken root in her mind left her too giddy with nerves to appreciate its raw beauty. “I’ve given much thought about—us,” she settled on, still hesitant to put a cold label on his proposition.

  “Have you?” he asked, leaning back in his chair so he could admire her. “What have you decided?”

  She met his gaze with the practised smile she’d used countless times in the course of entertaining her father’s potential clients and affected her most cosmopolitan tone, hoping it would mask the riot of emotions running rampant inside her. “We’re adults now. If we have an affair it must be discreet and brief, lasting no longer than my stay in Italy. It also must be safe for both of us.”

  The bold proposition had no sooner left her mouth than the waiter strode in and went straight to Marco, decanting a bottle of wine and pouring a suitable splash in his glass. His gaze narrowed on her for a taut moment but that was the only sign her words had had any effect on him and not necessarily a good one.

  As was expected, he tasted the wine with a precision that had not been so defined years ago. A nod gave the waiter permission to pour and leave.

  Marco leaned back in his chair, his wineglass cradled in one hand, his eyes locked on hers. Perspiration beaded her brow and dotted her bare shoulders.

  “I agree. No strings. No surprises,” he said at last, raising his glass. “A toast.”

  Face heated and body trembling with uncertainty, she dug deep for control and slipped her fingers around the heavy stem of her wineglass. She raised it and forced a calm smile that she certainly didn’t feel.

  “To?” she dared to ask, heart pounding and mouth desert dry.

  He rocked forward, the movement as fluidly predatory as a jungle cat’s. “To our affair.”

  With the clink of crystal and dueling of intense dark eyes with her own wide ones, her fate for a few weeks was sealed.

  Marco drank, the bronzed column of his throat working, his gaze hot and fixed on hers. A flush stole over her skin, as intimate as a caress.

  It was done. They would be lovers, and knowing Marco it would
be soon. Perhaps even tonight.

  She brought the glass to her lips with a hand that trembled, and took a drink, swallowing more than the ladylike sip she’d intended. A surge of heat swept over her as much from the alcohol as from the man and the need he stirred in her.

  Already his essence was threading through her. And they had done no more than kiss once. She didn’t want to guess how deeply embedded it would be after they made love.

  “You still don’t trust me,” he said, and that brought her gaze snapping up to his again.

  She didn’t deny it. “That goes both ways.”

  He swirled his wine and smiled, a relaxed gesture that belied his power. “Cara, must I remind you that I have trusted you to arrange my sister’s wedding?”

  Good grief, but he was serious. “Yes, you trust me so much so you are living in the house with me, watching my every step.”

  His smile widened as he leaned forward, a glint in his eyes that stirred memories of them together, entwined. “I am living in the same house with you because I want you in my bed every night. Every free chance we have. There is no other reason.”

  The waiter bustled in with plates of food, his flurry of movement a welcome distraction for her to gain some semblance of calm. Not that she could with Marco staring at her with such intensity. Not that she could have formed a coherent sentence at that point.

  Her body shook from the promise in his words, the hungry look in his eyes. It had come down to this, or maybe this had been his plan all along.

  Force her here. Seduce her. Then walk out of her life again, this time forever.

  She set her glass down and stared at her plate, knowing her nervous stomach wouldn’t tolerate food. Still she sampled it, more to keep her hands busy and her gaze off Marco.

  It was her choice. She could continue to fight her magnetic attraction to him and suffer a stressful, miserable stay in Italy or surrender to this raging desire and spend the next two weeks in his arms.

  Either way her heart would break when they said their final good-byes and she returned to London, but by becoming his lover again there would be no regret. She would have had one last sizzling fling with Marco.