sickness….
The wave of nausea now made her stumble. Hot, sweating, she recovered, thrust her hand through her hair and plunged blindly on. She’d gotten to the bank. Nearly up to the bridge, the café, the haven that lay inside.
By the time she crested the old bridge she was out of breath and could feel his presence close behind her like an evil force. Suddenly her legs lost their ability to move and her feet just gave up. She hung on to the parapet wall and looked down at her legs in bewilderment, willing them to obey her. Failing.
“Ciao, Tina,” Giovanni murmured, so softly, so slowly it could break a woman’s heart. “Ciao.”
Small flurries of nerves rippled right down to her bare and wriggling toes. The punch of pure delight had knocked her brain away and left space for her sensuality to flow unheeded. Her small hands screwed into tight hurting balls, because the old magic was still there despite everything he’d done, and her whole emotional inner world had roared into life. Tina gritted her teeth against the long-forgotten ability of her brain and physical body to melt when his voice caressed her in that sexy indolent way. It was nothing but a memory quirk. A cruel reflex action.
“Arrivederci!” she flung behind her shakily.
“Turn around, Tina. Allora, turn to me.”
The warm, languid and silken voice slid over her shoulder, shivering up her sensitive neck and then crawling over every inch of her body. And the memories flooded back like the remorseless tide, washing away all her flimsy barriers and leaving her stranded, high and dry, with only one focus. Giovanni.
Weakly she lifted her face to the early-morning warmth of the sun, and she could almost feel his firm dreamy mouth on hers, teaching her how to kiss, how to enjoy her body without shame. Dark with anger, her eyes narrowed. Of course he’d taught her that! Look what he’d gotten in return!
“I don’t want to see you. Or speak to you,” she said huskily. “I’m on my way to the café.” She was afraid, unwilling to look him in the eye. This was the man she’d loved, ached for. Betrayed.
“You might as well face me,” he drawled. “You can’t run from your mistakes forever.”
Stunned, she whirled around, every inch of her quivering with the injustice of his remark, her Irish temper flaring as she tasted in her throat the bitterness of her error in giving her love to a sham.
“You were my mistake, Gio! You were a mistake!” she cried incoherently. “It was a mistake that you were ever born!” With that, her hand swept up and connected with his sardonic mocking face in a resounding crack that went right through her, shuddering down into her bones. She uttered one strangled broken cry of horrified remorse and turned, planning to run, her mind reeling from the terrible image of Giovanni’s savage mouth, his malefic eyes, her fingers tingling from the electric sensation when they’d connected with warm satin skin clothing the rock of his jaw.
A huge hand closed on her slender arm, stopping her with its crushing force before she’d taken one faltering step. “That slap, Tina,” he said with a dangerous softness, “was your mistake.”
“Take your hand off me!” she said jerkily. Being touched by him was a shock. They were joined again, the tension between them firing her with a sensation of uncontainable volcanic energy. Appalled, she tugged at his hand, but it only tightened, drawing her closer, and she knew with sinking heart that she’d have to look in his accusing eyes again and face the situation.
She could deal with this. She wasn’t a guileless teenager any longer. She had a track record of dealing with trouble. Anyone who could handle unwanted pregnancies, knife fights and anxious parents could pull herself together and show a bit of cool in a crisis.
This was nothing, she told herself, but knew she lied, because she was emotionally involved and it wasn’t the same at all.
“I won’t release you yet. First, I have something for you, Tina,” he muttered. And he twisted her around, impaling her with his black, black eyes.
The white imprint of her hand flared accusingly against the dark gold of his skin, and she stared at the mark of her contempt as if hypnotized by it.
“You have nothing for me,” she said in a low tone.
He had changed. Bigger, harder, with a hatred that lay cold as ice in the cruel eyes. Yet whatever the hardships he’d suffered, there was still that stomach-clenching impact of stunning good looks. Blond hair on a dark-skinned Sicilian had thrown a curve at women of all tastes and ages, and she’d never been immune. Her mouth trembled with a soft exhalation.
“I have,” he murmured. “More than you think.”
“Only memories, Giovanni,” she replied quietly.
The songs they’d sung on clambakes, the trips down the Sussex River in a flat-bottomed boat, the lazy days building sand castles on Neck Beck. The laughter. The affection. Licking each other’s sticky fingers—and then the doughnut sugar off Giovanni’s lips…
Tina drew in a quick breath, her expression guilty because she’d become aware that she was being watched by a pair of melting eyes that gleamed like deep shaded water—black, still and fathomless—and the mark on his face had grown into an angry red. His expression chilled her to the bone.
“Done all the checking you’re going to do?” he murmured sardonically. “Have I changed so much?”
She shrugged and pretended that was what she was still doing, quite surprised at his sophistication and casually elegant clothes. Yet in the rawness of his wicked eyes lay hints of that exciting rough edge of danger, which also touched his carnal mouth and made her think carnal thoughts.
“Little change,” she said huskily. “You still have the arrogance to imagine women will come whenever you call.” Her head lifted in defiance. “Let me go, or I’m going to scream.”
His eyes narrowed. The steady pull of his hand brought her close enough to feel his hot breath flaming her hot skin. His finger had delicately scooped up a bead of sweat from her forehead and transferred it to his tongue before she could blink. But the effect devastated her; all the sensual pleasures they’d enjoyed had turned her into a voluptuary, and that one small gesture filled her body with a terrible ache. He smiled with triumph when she remained mute, nursing her desolation.
“I need five minutes of your time,” he said, his black eyes unreadable. “Nothing more. Yet.”
Five minutes. She could survive that and wipe him from her life again. “What do you want?” she demanded shortly.
The extravagant mouth eased into a cynical smile. “You left these behind just now. They’re yours. Multiply them by ten,” he drawled, “and you get thirty pieces of silver.”
And before she knew what he intended, he’d reached out and pulled forward the neck of her thin T-shirt with a disdainful thumb and forefinger, audaciously dumping the three dimes into the gap. They lay stuck to her sweating breasts and stomach, dust and dirt and bits of clamshell and all.
“You brute!” she gasped in red-faced outrage as he calmly dusted off his hands and wiped them on an immaculate navy silk handkerchief. “You’ve made me feel dirty inside!”
The corners of his mouth swooped downward in scorn and he tucked the handkerchief
