rough and ready, bellezza mia,’ Angelo groaned, studying her with melting tawny eyes that were slightly dazed.
Gwenna gave a delighted little shimmy beneath him and hugged him tight. If that was rough and ready, she could only look forward to refined.
Angelo tipped up her face. ‘I mean it. That was more of a quick snack than the banquet I planned.’
Noting that the bruises were fading fast from his temples and cheekbone and feeling incredibly tender towards him, Gwenna grinned up at him. ‘You are always so ambitious—’
‘I wanted you to know how much I—’
‘Missed me?’ she slotted in buoyantly.
‘How much I appreciate you,’ Angelo contradicted a shade stiffly, beautiful eyes guarded, for it felt like a major statement to him.
Smothering a yawn, Gwenna let her eyelids drift down. ‘I’m so sleepy.’
Angelo stared down at her in frustration. ‘I really appreciate you…’
‘Whatever,’ she mumbled, drowsily unimpressed.
GWENNA threw a stick for Piglet to fetch as she walked along the beach. Four weeks of perfect relaxation and contentment in Sardinia had put a healthy glow in her cheeks and a spring into her step. She had got her peace of mind back and the silliest things made her smile, she reflected cheerfully.
Angelo had shamelessly bribed his way into Piglet’s affections with chocolate treats. It had amused her that Angelo, so hopelessly competitive in every way, would not settle for mere tolerance from her pet. Piglet now adored Angelo and one of his favourite spots to sleep was below Angelo’s desk. Unfortunately Angelo did not appreciate Piglet’s amazingly loud snores.
Gwenna thought about the fact that she adored Angelo just as much as her pet. She was very happy, but occasionally a cold chill would run over her when she considered the inevitable end of the affair. Nothing lasted for ever and she knew it. He was sure to get bored with her. She couldn’t believe that she had what it took to hold his attention much longer. But she was determined to live for the moment…
And the moments that every fresh day brought were wonderful. Sometimes they were very active and she had been sailing, windsurfing and scuba-diving, not to mention dancing all night at a couple of exclusive clubs and at a much less exclusive street carnival. She had cheered at a horse race and had got embarrassingly tipsy at a peach festival, an instant of mistaken judgement that Angelo was prone to mentioning more than she liked. They had eaten out in tiny restaurants in inland villages where tourists were still rare and she had fallen madly in love with cheese and honey pastries. Occasionally, however, they had gone no further than their bedroom or the beach, and she had fallen asleep in his arms and wakened still in them for Angelo no longer left her to sleep in a bed of his own.
Slowly but surely she had come to recognise that he was truly making an effort to please and entertain her. He seemed gloriously unaware of the reality that she found just being with him a joy. He gave her flowers. He bestowed a jewelled collar and toys on Piglet. He ordered the food she liked best when they stayed in. He had said, rather touchingly, that he hoped it would be all right to buy her diamonds for her birthday. As that was still two months away she had been secretly overjoyed by that evidence of forward planning and stability…
The newspapers had been delivered at nine and, from the instant that Angelo saw the first headline, he was flooded by negative uneasy feelings. Blanking them out, he finally threw the papers aside and went outside to take some much-needed fresh air. He used binoculars to locate Gwenna, checking the shrubberies first and smiling at the reflection that his gardeners had been very more active since her arrival.
On this occasion, however, she was on the beach larking about with Piglet like a kid. Dressed in blue polka-dot shorts and a lemon sun top, she looked delectable. His shapely mouth compressed. She was solid gold. Unspoilt, honest and kind, as well as being the first woman to value him more than his wealth. Of course there was that guy, Toby, but Angelo had noticed that references to him had become a rarity. In any case he resolutely avoided recalling that awkward angle because, in every way that mattered, Gwenna Massey Hamilton was his. Possession was nine-tenths of the law, he reminded himself staunchly.
But sometimes as now, when disquiet put him into a more contemplative mood, Angelo was seriously spooked by what he had done to Gwenna. Once or twice he had endeavoured to get himself to the point of discussing his attitude to her when they had first met, but he had not known what he could possibly say. He knew that what he had done was unpardonable and he was just as aware that she had a lot of heart and not a spiteful bone in her beautiful body. Unfortunately, he was equally conscious of her principles, her outlook on the world, her essential trusting innocence. How could she forgive betrayal? Or cruelty? How could she ever understand a desire for revenge that had got out of hand?
He couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. It wasn’t his fault that his family tree was full of gangsters. But it was his fault that he had acted like one. He did not feel it would be wise to admit that he was haunted by the fear that there was such a thing as bad blood and that he had inherited it in his genes. After all, he had treated her badly and, put in possession of those facts, might she not understandably decide that he was a total bastard? And even if he was a total bastard, he reasoned fiercely, there was no reason why she should ever have to know. A leopard could change his spots—at least into the stripes of a tiger.
Gwenna noticed that Angelo was unusually quiet over dinner. There was a distant aspect to his lustrous dark eyes. Although he rarely touched alcohol, he took a brandy out onto the veranda without inviting her to join him. So, he was having an off-day, acting human, maybe even keen to escape the incessant chatter she occasionally directed at him, she reasoned ruefully. She was annoyed that she was being so over-sensitive and when he went down to the beach she resisted the urge to follow him. To occupy herself she lifted the newspaper he had been studying. It was a lengthy article about the life of a Mafia don who had died in South America. She took it to bed with her and ended up reading every word of the ghastly riveting stuff.
‘What are you reading?’
Startled, Gwenna looked up and focused on the tall dark male poised beyond the circle of the lamplight. ‘Angelo…where have you been?’
‘You sound like a wife.’ His dark voice was slightly slurred.
‘If I was your wife, I’d have phoned you and asked you where you were and exactly when you would be back,’ Gwenna admitted without hesitation.
Angelo flung back his cropped dark head and laughed with raw amusement. ‘I like your candour, cara mia.’
In a black designer shirt and jeans, with his masculine beauty enhanced by stubble, Angelo looked mean, moody and magnificent. Her heartbeat speeded up. He threw himself down on the bed beside her and tapped the paper she had cast down. ‘So, you’re reading about Carmelo Zanetti…’
‘He was so wicked and yet he never went to prison for his crimes—’
‘But he died in exile, alone and sick and despised.’
Gwenna blinked because she wasn’t accustomed to Angelo showing a more sensitive side unless he could make a joke of it. ‘There is that…’ Glancing back at the article, she pulled a face. ‘He was very good-looking when
