immediate simmer. The significance of what he had just done had hit him with full force.
From feeling as if he would explode, his only concern had been that she was okay, to soothe her, to wipe away the discomfort he knew that first thrust had given her.
Her response had been mind-blowing. Slowly, shyly, she had come alive in his arms.
‘Did I hurt you?’
She shrugged. ‘A little.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Sorrier than he could ever express.
Another shrug.
‘If you’d told me, I would have been gentle.’
Something softened in her gaze before she looked away and said quietly, ‘You were gentle.’
‘I would have been gentle from the outset.’ He took a drink from his coffee. ‘I’m not going to lie to you, you are a very sexy woman. I haven’t been with anyone in four years...’
Her eyes snapped back to him.
‘...and I was like an over-eager panther. You should have told me.’ He shook his head, still incredulous. ‘Why?’
The softening of her features hardened again. ‘Why was I a virgin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Honestly? If I’d had my way I would have remained a virgin until I died. Men are pigs and I knew I would never meet one who didn’t conform to that opinion.’
He winced, wishing he could stick up for his gender but knowing he was in no position to offer a defence, not after he’d effectively blackmailed her into giving her virginity to him.
She drained her coffee and pushed her plate to one side. ‘For all that, I do need to thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For showing me that just because a man is a pig out of the bedroom doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of tenderness in it. I should have told you but I didn’t think it would make any difference to how you treated me. I can see now that I was wrong.’ The faintest trace of colour covered her cheeks but she carried on. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.’
Something swelled inside him that, for once, wasn’t in his groin. ‘Are you paying me a compliment?’
A smile ghosted her lips. ‘Let’s not get carried away. You can call it faint praise.’
‘Then this afternoon it will be my mission to move on from faint praise to full-blown applause.’ He didn’t add that right at that moment he would happily pull her onto his lap and take her again.
Elena being a virgin put a whole new level of complexity on their physical relationship and he had to respect that sex and everything that went with it was new for her.
A thrill raced through him to think that he would be the one to teach her the art of pleasure.
‘This afternoon?’ Her eyes flashed. ‘Won’t we be travelling?’
‘Our flight is scheduled for two p.m. We’ll have ten whole hours to keep ourselves amused before we land in Florence.’
‘I’ll be sure to bring a good book with me, then,’ she said with a husky catch in her voice.
The temptation to just pull her into his arms and take her grew stronger but he tempered it.
‘We’ll be leaving in an hour,’ he said. ‘Will you be ready?’
She nodded.
‘Good. We’re making a detour on the way to the airport.’
‘Oh?’
‘We’re going to visit my mother. It’s time for her to meet her new daughter-in-law.’
* * *
Elena gazed at the sprawling white ranch-type house on the fringe of New Jersey’s Somerset County.
‘What a pretty house,’ she said, stepping out of the car and shielding her eyes from the brilliance of the sun. After the bustle of Manhattan the silence was stark. ‘Did you live here?’
He nodded. ‘My parents bought it when we first emigrated.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Ten.’
‘What was that like for you? Was it hard moving to a new country?’ The gravelled pathway crunched beneath her leather Roman-style sandals.
‘It was fun.’ He grinned but the apprehension that had lined his face on the long car journey was still there. ‘My parents made it into a big adventure for me.’
They’d reached the steps to the front porch. Gabriele paused before climbing them. ‘You remember I told you my mother has dementia?’
She nodded warily. She hadn’t broached the subject on the drive over because she still smarted that he held her partly responsible for his mother’s condition.
There was no way to prove a negative and, with his opinion of her so deeply entrenched, she knew that mere words would never convince him of her innocence.
In Gabriele’s eyes, his father was Snow White to her father’s Evil Queen.
‘Just...’ He sighed, shook his head and opened the door. ‘Hello?’ he called out, walking through a large reception room.
A large woman wearing jeans and a plain white top came out of a door. She beamed to see him.
‘Gabriele, how lovely to see you,’ she said in Italian. She looked at Elena, who was trying to hide behind him. ‘And this must be your wife.’
There was a quizzical expression on her face that told Elena this woman knew exactly who she was.
‘She is,’ he said, stepping aside and taking Elena’s hand. ‘This is Elena. Elena, this is Loretta, my mother’s nurse. How is she today?’
‘Not too bad. I’d say this is a medium day.’ Loretta opened a door for them and walked up a wide corridor with stained-wood flooring.
They were taken into a spacious and airy living room. Sitting in a reclining chair by the window watching television sat a frail-looking woman with white hair.
Loretta went to her and crouched down. ‘Silvia, look, you have guests.’
The white hair turned slowly and a pale wrinkled face stared at them blankly.
Elena swallowed back her shock. She knew Gabriele’s mother could be no older than mid-sixties but she looked decades older.
Then a spark of recognition flashed on the too-old face and Silvia got to her feet.
Loretta was there to take her arm and assist as she shuffled over to them.
