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CHAPTER FIVE

FROM the far end of the terrace, Cristiano watched the exchange between his wife and his brother. The child in his arms said something to him and he answered automatically before lowering her to the ground and encouraging her to play with her friends. His mind was wrapped up in Laurel.

During the wedding he’d been determined to ignore her. Not to allow his own private hell to intrude on his sister’s special day. It was only when Santo had nudged him that he’d caught the expression on her face and known instantly that her mind was in the same place as his. He’d seen the betraying glisten of moisture on her cheeks and it had stunned him because in all the time they’d been together, at no time during their intense, crazy love affair had he ever seen her shed a tear. She was the toughest, strongest woman he’d ever met.

‘Go after her.’ Santo was by his side, smooth and in control, somehow managing to be the perfect host while talking to his brother in a low voice. ‘Go now, because she’ll be out of here in minutes.’

‘She’s complicated.’

‘All women are complicated. I don’t pretend to understand any of them but I do know one thing—’ Santo scooped a glass of champagne from a passing waitress ‘—if there is such a thing as love, then that woman loves you. Move. I’ll cover for you.’

Cristiano stood in frozen silence, remembering the look on her face during the photographs.

Longing. And intense sadness, as if the situation was sucking her down and drowning her.

And that didn’t make sense.

Why would she be sad if this was what she wanted? If she no longer had feelings for him, why did she find all this so stressful?

It came to him in a single blinding flash of comprehension and he pressed his fingers to his forehead, his hand unsteady, the shock of it rocking his composure.

No matter how vehement her denials, it was obvious now that she did love him. It was also obvious that loving him was scaring her to death. She was running because she was afraid of giving in to those feelings. She didn’t want to forgive him because she was afraid to forgive him. Afraid to trust him again.

Behind him he heard the music start, whoops of laughter and knew that soon there’d be dancing.

Propelled by an anger directed towards himself as well as her, Cristiano strode into the villa with the subtlety of the police carrying out an armed raid. The door crashed shut behind him and Laurel flew from the bedroom, eyes wide.

‘What’s happened?’

Just in time, Cristiano thought grimly, noticing the small suitcase lying at the foot of the enormous bed. Santo had been right. A few minutes later and she would have been gone.

Driven by a burning determination to unveil the truth, he didn’t pause in his stride. Instead he just walked right up to her and backed her into the wall, planting his arms either side of her so that she was caged and completely at his mercy.

Now try and run. Now try and get out of that, my beauty.

The intensity of the rage building inside him was shocking and she must have seen something in his face because her eyes widened.

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

She squirmed against him but he pressed her back, using just enough of his superior strength to stop her running. She was like an animal caught in a trap, twisting and panting as she struggled to free herself, sobbing with frustration when his only response was to hold her tighter.

‘You’re not going anywhere.’ He fisted his hand into her hair, feeling the dark mass dislodge itself and tumble over his wrist. So silky, so soft. ‘You’re not leaving this room until you’ve admitted how you feel.’

‘Right now? Tired of being around you.’

‘You’re lying. You want this as much as I do—’ He brought his mouth down to hers because he couldn’t help himself, all the anger, the desperation, the raw emotion transmitting itself in that one physical act. He kissed her as if he’d never touched her before and never would again, as if she was the air he had to breathe to stay alive, the blood that kept his heart pumping. Her mouth was warm and sweet, the taste of her going straight to his head and pouring through his senses. Like a dangerous drug, she seeped through him, turning anger to another equally potent emotion.

He was dimly aware that she’d stopped thumping him and was now clutching him, her slim fingers locked in his shirt as her mouth opened under the pressure of his. Heat ripped through the two of them, searing the last of his control, and he scooped her up without thought or hesitation and carried her the few strides to the enormous bed that overlooked the private pool and, beyond that, the gentle curve of the beach. It was possibly the most idyllic setting on earth but neither saw it. Their focus was on each other as they devoured each other.

His trousers hit the floor, swiftly followed by her silk dress, and then he rolled her onto her back, her loosened hair melting over the silk sheets like dark chocolate pouring over whipped cream. A thin strip of lace was all that protected her from him and he ripped it away, exposing her, dizzy with his need for her. This time she was hiding nothing, he vowed. Not one single part of herself. He covered her with his body, prepared to use his weight to keep her still but her arms were round his neck and she met him halfway, her mouth lifting to his as his head descended. Like a starving man he feasted and she did the same, making little noises in her throat as she sank her fingers into his hair and demanded as much as she gave. His tongue was in her mouth, one hand cupping the softness of her cheek while the other found the tempting curve of her breast.

Details blurred as they tasted, touched and teased. It was wild, bordering on violent and at one point he wasn’t sure if she was fighting him or urging him on as they rolled in a tangle of limbs and slick flesh, animalistic in their need for each other. He sank his teeth into her shoulder and she scraped her nails down his back, her sob turning to a gasp as he moved his hand between her legs. His fingers slid into her slick softness and he felt her writhe with the pleasure, that creamy, taut body shifting restlessly against the sheets as she tried to relieve the nagging ache in her pelvis. He touched her the way he knew she needed to be touched and her response confirmed everything he’d suspected. She was as crazy about him as he was about her. Here, in the most intimate situation of all, she couldn’t hide from him.

And he couldn’t hide from the truth.

He didn’t want a divorce.

He wanted his wife. Here. Now.

Forever.

With a low growl Cristiano moved down her body and used his mouth on her, demanding every last secret from this woman who had haunted every part of his life since he’d met her. He licked in tiny tortuous circles, feeling her velvety softness tighten around his fingers, hearing her sob his name as she shattered into a million pieces.

Temptation, sensation—he considered himself a controlled man but there was no control in this room, not with her naked beneath him. Merciless and unrelenting, he sent her rushing towards her peak again and again until finally she sobbed his name and he levered himself over her and entered her with a smooth purposeful thrust of pure possession that brought a groan to the back of his throat.

She was his, and she’d always been his.

The searing heat was incredible.

His eyes closed.

As her body tightened around his he felt his mind blank and his heart split. It had always been like this between them. So much more than just sex. A joining that was far beyond the physical. No matter what had been wrong, this had always made it right. Oblivious to everything except the moment, he surged into her, each hard, deliberate stroke driving them higher. He made her his in every possible way, drawing every last drop of response from her until she was sobbing with the sheer overload of physical pleasure. The explosion was a culmination of two years of deprivation and denial. Like a deadly storm it came crashing down on them, a destructive force shattering their differences and drowning them in agonizing pleasure. Again and again it rolled over them and his mouth was on hers as his body experienced something close to sexual meltdown.

Dimly aware that she was crying, he tried to haul himself out of the grip of passion but he was weakened by the shocking impact of what they’d shared, powerless to stop the tears pouring down her cheeks as she sobbed something incoherent against his mouth.

Trying to understand what she was saying, he dragged his mouth from hers and just about made out his name and then the words, ‘I can’t do this again—’

The emotion caught him full in the chest and he felt his own throat close. With a rough curse he held her tightly, crushing her against him in a possessive gesture as they both slowly recovered.

She trembled and sobbed against him until his chest was damp, strands of her hair caught between the two of them. Two years ago he would have been appalled if someone had told him he’d be pleased to see her crying. But in a savage, primitive way he was pleased. In fact he was close to exultant because Laurel so rarely showed her emotions. For her to do so now was an indication of what she was feeling and he knew that if there was ever a time to persuade her to talk to him then it was now, while she was weakened and vulnerable.

Cruel? Maybe. She’d already accused him of that, hadn’t she?

He’d never been one to back down when there was something that needed doing.

Stroking her damp hair out of her eyes, he dried her tears, ruthlessly closing down that side of him that retreated from the prospect of upsetting her further. She breathed with a hitch and a judder, everything uneven, but there was no sign of an impending asthma attack. Which was a relief because nothing, not volcanic eruption or earthquake, nor the sharp sting of his conscience was going to interrupt this conversation.

Her eyes were reddened and swollen, her mouth bruised from his kisses. His kisses.

His resolve turned to steel and he stared down at her, knowing that he couldn’t allow her time to put those barriers up again. He was still inside her. Still hard, he realised as he ruefully acknowledged the effect she had on him.

It didn’t get any more intimate than this, he thought grimly, and he wanted intimate.

He wanted it all.

Everything they’d lost, and more.

Holding her still, trapping her with his strength, he took her chin in his hand and turned her tear-streaked face to his. ‘Now tell me you’re not in love with me.’

Laurel lay in shock, wrung out from the deluge of emotion and the mind-blowing sex. Emotionally and physically spent, she just wanted to roll over and bury her head in the pillow but he lay in a position of domination, the muscles of his sleek, powerful shoulders bunched as he protected her from his weight, waiting for her response to his all male command. She tried to pull herself back, to separate herself, but they were entwined in every way possible. She could still feel him, hard and heavy, and her body tensed around him, drawing a soft curse from his lips.

‘Don’t move—’

‘You move then—’

‘I’m not going anywhere until you admit the way you feel—’ His voice was a thickened growl and she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t going to back off until she’d spoken the words he wanted to hear.

And she had no intention of doing that. ‘You’re heavy. I can’t breathe properly.’

The connection was sweet and terrifying at the same time and her hips moved without her consent, the unconsciously sensuous movement dragging another curse from his lips.

Drawing in a long breath, he closed one strong hand over her hip, holding her still while he struggled for control. ‘I said don’t move.’

‘I need fresh air.’ ‘Coward.’

Was she a coward? No, she wasn’t. She was strong. She’d survived an upbringing that would have wrecked many people but the grim, cold reality of her early life had taught her one important lesson: that life was about choices. And she’d been fiercely determined to make the best choices she could.

So what was she doing back in Cristiano’s bed?

Bad choice, she thought desperately, but then remembered that the length of time he’d allowed her to make that choice could have been measured in milliseconds.

‘You’re a very attractive guy, Cristiano, no woman is likely to dispute that. So we just had sex.’

‘I noticed.’ His mouth curved into a satisfied masculine smile and he shifted his body just enough to make her gasp. ‘So what does that make you?’

‘Stupid.’

Despite the fact she wasn’t saying the words he wanted to hear, he was still smiling, but this time there were hints of the sardonic about the curve of his mouth. ‘You’re not stupid, but you are a liar, tesoro. And you are in love with me.’

‘You’re so arrogant. The world does not begin and end with you.’

‘It does to you. Admit it.’ He held her trapped and she squirmed beneath him and then stilled as she felt him grow harder.

‘Get off me or I’m going to have to hurt you.’

‘You’re strong, but I’m stronger.’ He spoke through his teeth, clearly as affected by their physical connection as she was. ‘Tell me why you walked out on us. Why didn’t you just yell at me and fix it?’

‘Because I didn’t want to fix it.’ She wasn’t used to feeling helpless and he made her feel helpless. ‘You’re a selfish bastard and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you. We’re not good together.’

‘No, you’re right. We’re terrible together.’ His mouth was right up against hers, his words blending with her lips, his breath warm and seductive. ‘I may be a selfish bastard but I love you.’

Her heart melted. He always did this. He always knew exactly what to say to thrust her off balance. ‘You’ll get over it.’

Choices, she reminded herself. It was all about choices.

His low laugh was accompanied by the slow, sneaky brush of his mouth against hers. ‘Just for the record, how many men do you scream underneath in an average week?’

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘I’m honest. And maybe a touch possessive,’ he conceded, ‘but I have no problems with you being the same. I happen to believe what we have is worth fighting hard to protect, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’ Strong fingers caught her chin and the humour died in his eyes. ‘Say it. Say I love you.’

‘Because we just had sex? Your superior technique was supposed to have the same effect as a mind wipe? It was a physical act, Cristiano. It had no emotional meaning.’

He swore under his breath and finally shifted his weight. Rolling onto his back, he jabbed his fingers into his hair in a gesture of frustration. ‘You drive me insane, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Likewise.’ She’d wanted him to let her go, but now that he had she felt the loss of it keenly.

That was the way they’d always slept, she remembered, holding onto each other. She’d never depended on anyone, ever, but the way she’d slept with Cristiano had been the nearest she’d come to relaxing that rule.

It had made night her favourite time.

She felt herself weaken.

She was about to turn to him when he rose from the bed, gloriously indifferent to the fact he was naked. He was completely comfortable with himself. His ego had been nurtured by an adoring family and fattened by the admiration of all who came into contact with him. He was the golden boy. The Prince.

The muscles of his torso rippled as he moved and she felt her instant response, although how she could even contemplate more sex after what they’d just shared she had no idea.

Even so, everything inside her softened and melted and when he turned his dark, proud head to look at her she felt the same connection that had drawn them together the first time they’d met.

‘Why do women always turn everything into a major drama?’ His exasperated question was so unexpected that Laurel froze.

‘Sorry?’

‘So I made a mistake—’ He spread his hands in what she assumed was intended as a gesture of apology. ‘I should have been there, but I wasn’t. Why does this have to become an insurmountable barrier between us? Yes, it was unfortunate, but you would throw everything away because of one day when I made a bad decision?’

Unfortunate?

The blurring in her brain cleared. Everything that had softened, hardened again. ‘At least you’re agreeing you made a bad decision,’ she said shakily. ‘I suppose that’s a start.’

He eyed her with extreme caution, as if she were a bomb he didn’t quite know how to defuse. ‘If I’d known how upset you were going to be, then obviously I would have chosen differently, but the negotiations on the Caribbean deal were at an extremely delicate stage.’

Delicate? Laurel thought of herself, alone in the hospital bed, being told the news. He had no idea, she thought numbly. No idea what she’d been through and she hadn’t even bothered telling him because it had been irrelevant. ‘So you’re saying that it was only a bad decision because of my reaction. If I’d been a tolerant Sicilian wife then prioritising your work over everything else would have been acceptable.’

‘That hotel has been our most successful. Had I not shown up that day we would have lost the bid.’

‘So what you’re actually saying is that the business was more important than me and you don’t actually regret it because it’s making you a nice profit.’

‘Once again you are twisting everything I say!’

‘Nothing is twisted. Everything is straight in my head.’

‘It is done, now. Finished. I don’t see the point in looking back.’

‘Well, it’s nice to know you’re not beating yourself up over it,’ Laurel said stiffly. ‘I’d hate to think your guilty conscience was keeping you awake at night.’

His eyes glinted. ‘I’m just saying that it is a useless waste of energy to dwell on the past. It can never be changed.’

‘True, but it can be used as a useful indicator of how to behave in the future. It’s called learning from mistakes. Something you’re not so good at, presumably because your ego blocks the view.’ Galvanised into action by his total lack of self-awareness, Laurel jumped out of bed and stumbled over to her suitcase, which lay abandoned on the floor.

Shocked and horrified by how close she’d come to allowing herself to be seduced right back to where they’d come from, she yanked at the zip, aware that he was watching her with incredulity.

‘What the hell are you doing now?’

‘Getting out of here. It’s what I was trying to do before you barged through that door and used sex as a weapon.’

‘I did not use sex as a weapon.’ His jaw hardened and his eyes turned a dangerous shade of black. ‘Unless you count using it to try and crack that tough outer shell of yours.’

‘I have that tough outer shell to protect myself from people like you.’

‘I loved you. I still love you.’ His voice thickened as he exposed his soul. ‘I made the ultimate commitment, but apparently that meant nothing to you. And still means nothing to you.’

‘You never loved me, Cristiano. You loved the challenge, the chase—’ She flung open the case. ‘Maybe you loved the fact I was the only woman who didn’t stare when you walked past, that I wasn’t impressed by the money and the status. I don’t know—but I do know it wasn’t love. The only thing you love is your work. That comes first for you. Nothing turns you on like winning a deal.’

His jaw was rigid. ‘I loved you. But you were afraid of that. Your problem is that you can’t let yourself need someone.’

‘And that drives you mad, doesn’t it? You can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t need you. You don’t want an equal, you want a dependent because it makes you feel big and macho.’ They were fighting and both of them knew that the reason the emotion was so agonisingly raw was because they cared so much. ‘You made me need you. You pushed and you pushed until you made holes in the armour I’ve spent all my life creating and then you walked off and left me exposed and I hate you for that.’ She tugged a T-shirt out of the case.

‘Then why didn’t you tell me instead of just walking out? That was cowardly.’

‘It was survival.’

‘I arrived home after that trip, ready to offer you support and you sat there in silence. You said virtually nothing except, “I’m leaving you.”‘

She’d had no words to communicate what she’d been feeling. She’d been swallowed up by emotions so huge and terrifying that she’d barely been able to function.

‘There was nothing to say.’ Laurel was pulling on her clothes. Not the silky bridesmaid dress that still lay abandoned where he’d dropped it so carelessly, but the skinny jeans she’d jammed into her suitcase moments before he’d crashed his way into the room. ‘This conversation is over. My flight leaves in an hour.’

‘Then they’re leaving with one less passenger.’ His rough, raw tone would have stopped a lesser woman in her tracks but Laurel jammed her feet into her shoes.

‘I’m going to be on that flight and if you dare try and stop me I’ll call the police.’ She ignored the fact that the Chief of Police regularly dined with the Ferraras. ‘The divorce is already going ahead. I saw Carlo this morning and signed everything you wanted me to sign.’

‘That’s irrelevant now.’

‘What do you mean, irrelevant?’ She zipped her jeans and freed the long sweep of her hair from the neck of her scarlet shirt. His eyes followed the movement and she tried not to remember how many times he’d buried his fingers in her hair as he’d kissed her.

‘Italian law expressly declares that a separation must be physical to be valid. A couple has to be formally separated for three years before a decree can be issued.’ His eyes slid from her hair to her mouth, his intimate and deliberate gaze reminding her of what they’d just done.

As the meaning behind his statement slowly sank in she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Had she inadvertently sent the clock back to the beginning? No. Not that. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Even if we hadn’t just proved that we can’t be apart for that length of time, there is no way I’d be giving you a divorce now.’ His voice was like steel and she was suddenly aware of her heart hammering against her chest.

‘There’s no one you can’t influence. You could arrange it if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Yes, you do! You hate me for leaving you.’ Desperately she tried to stoke his anger but he was maddeningly cool.

‘And you hate me for going into one more meeting when I should have flown home to be with you. We both made mistakes. Being married is about fixing them and moving forwards. That’s what we’re doing.’

He was so smug, she thought desperately as she zipped the suitcase shut and grabbed the handle. So arrogantly sure that all he had to do was snap his fingers and whatever he wanted to happen would happen. So confident that he could wipe away the past.

‘You think we can move forward, but you have no idea what happened on that day.’ She was shaking with the stress of thinking about it. ‘You don’t know how I felt.’

His icy exterior splintered. ‘So tell me how you felt. Tell me now. Don’t hold anything back.’

The suitcase landed on the floor with a dull thump. ‘It started with a pain, low in my stomach.’ Her voice was remarkably steady given the fact that this was the conversation she’d thought she’d never have. ‘I thought to myself, This isn’t right. I called you, but your PA told me that you couldn’t be disturbed.’

His jaw tightened, like a fighter bracing himself for a punch. Clearly these weren’t the feelings he wanted to hear.

‘Laurel—’

‘I don’t hold that against you.’ She didn’t give him time to speak. It was her turn now and she intended to use it. ‘The first message didn’t get through but that was her fault, not yours. And my fault for not being more forceful about needing to speak to you. I called the doctor and he told me to take painkillers and go back to bed and rest for a while, so I did that and the pain grew worse. I knew no one else in Sicily. Your mother was staying with her sister in Rome, Santo was with you in the Caribbean. I was alone. And frightened.’ Her emphasis on that word triggered an indefinable change in him. ‘I called you again. This time I was forceful. I insisted on speaking to you and she put me through—’ Her heart rate doubled and she was back in that room; back with the pain and the panic. She remembered again the terrifying sense of isolation. ‘You asked me if I was bleeding and when I said I wasn’t you spoke to the doctor and between you, you decided that I was a neurotic woman.’

‘That is not true. At no point did I accuse you of neuroses.’ He sprang to his own defence but Laurel wasn’t in the mood to listen.

‘You were always labouring the fact that I found it hard to tell you how I was feeling. “Trust me,” you said in that same seductive voice you always use when you’re determined to get your own way. So I did. On that day, I put all my trust in you. I told you I thought something was badly wrong and that I didn’t trust the doctor. I told you I was scared. That’s the first and only time I’ve admitted that to anyone. For the first time in our relationship I put my trust in you and your response to that enormous risk on my part was to dismiss my concerns as less valid than the doctor’s and return to your meeting. With your phone switched off.’

She saw the exact moment he recognised the impact of that decision.

His breathing turned shallow. His bronzed handsome face lost some of its colour. ‘It was a particularly bad moment—’

‘It was a particularly bad moment for me, too.’ This time she wasn’t letting him off the hook. ‘When you said, “I have to go now, but I’ll call you later. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” how did you think I’d feel?’

‘I was trying to reassure you.’

‘No, you were trying to reassure yourself. You needed to convince yourself I’d be fine in order to justify staying there and not immediately flying home. You made the judgement that I was overreacting. You didn’t once think about the fact I had never asked you for anything before. You didn’t think of me at all, so don’t talk to me about love. Even if I hadn’t lost the baby, the fact that I’d asked for your help when I’d never, ever called you at work before should have been enough.’ The words poured out of her along with her feelings and there was nothing she could do to stop it now because her control had been swept away by the violent force of her emotions. ‘You say that I killed our marriage by walking out but it was your empty, useless verbal pat on the head that did that. It was the first time in my life I’d asked another human being for help. And you dismissed me. And because I was panicking, because I couldn’t actually believe that you’d done that, I phoned you one more time, only to discover that you’d turned your phone off.’

He stood immobile, as if every shot she’d fired had gone straight into his brain. ‘You didn’t tell me that you felt that way.’

‘Well, I’m telling you now. And do you know the worst thing?’ It had been hard to open up but now that she had, the hard part was stopping. ‘Because I had allowed myself to trust you, depend on you, for one horrible minute I actually thought that I couldn’t handle the situation without your help. I actually had to remind myself that before you came along and insisted on being the macho protector, I did perfectly well by myself. Once I’d reminded myself of that fact, I calmed down and took myself to hospital.’ She emphasized the word ‘myself’ but it was the word ‘hospital’ that drew his attention and had his brows meeting in a deep frown.

‘You went to the hospital? Why was that necessary?’

‘Because neither my doctor nor my husband believed anything was wrong. Fortunately I knew differently.’ She watched the tension spread across those wide, powerful shoulders.

Standing there naked, he should have looked vulnerable but Cristiano didn’t know how to look vulnerable. Even in this most sensitive of situations, he was the one in command.

‘I had no idea you went to hospital. You should have told me.’

‘When? When was I supposed to tell you? I tried telling you but you had switched your phone off to avoid the inconvenience of talking to your neurotic wife. By the time you finally fitted me into your demanding schedule, I’d coped with it by myself. There was no point in telling you.’

‘Now you’re being childish.’

The accusation robbed her of breath. ‘I asked for your help, you didn’t give it. I told you I was scared, you didn’t come. Did you really think I was going to carry on begging for attention? I did what I’ve always done. I sorted it. That isn’t childish, Cristiano. It’s adult behaviour.’

‘Adults don’t walk away from a difficult situation.’ A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘Even given the difficult circumstances, there was no excuse for sulking.’

‘Sulking?’ Her voice shook and she could barely say the words that needed to be said. To steady herself, she took a slow, deep breath. ‘God, you have no idea. I don’t know why I’m even wasting my breath having this conversation. You say I don’t talk but the biggest problem is that you don’t listen. I say, “I’m in trouble” and you hear, She’s neurotic; she’ll be fine. If that’s love, then I don’t want it or need it.’ Dragging her phone from her bag, Laurel punched in a number and ordered a taxi in shaky Italian, shocked by the powerful and utterly alien urge to leap on him and do him physical harm.

Watching her through eyes glittering with frustration, Cristiano dragged in a driven breath. ‘You will not leave this room until we’ve finished talking.’