the maid dealt speedily with the contents of her case Flora opened the balcony doors and went outside. Below her was a tangle of trees, the silvery shimmer of olives punctuated by the deep green of cypresses standing like tall sentinels, and she could see amongst them the paler line of a track going down towards the sea.
The air was warm, and heavy with the scent of flowers and the hum of insects. Slowly, Flora felt herself begin to relax.
When you’re out of your depth—float, she told herself.
So when Marco came to stand behind her, and slid his arms round her waist, she leaned back in his embrace, smiling as his lips found the leaping pulse in her throat.
‘Do you think you can like it here?’ he whispered against her ear.
‘It’s really heaven on earth,’ Flora returned softly. ‘How can you bear to be away from it?’
‘We all have work—other duties.’ He paused. ‘Sometimes they take us to places where we would rather not be.’
She pointed. ‘Is that the path you used to take to the beach—you and Vittoria?’
‘You remember that?’ He sounded faintly surprised.
‘Of course.’ I remember, she thought, every word you’ve ever said to me. ‘Will you show it to me?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you everywhere and everything. But later, mia cara.’ His hands lifted, cupping her breasts. ‘At the moment I have—other priorities.’
He drew her back into the shaded quiet of the room and she went unresistingly, raising her mouth to his.
As their lips met everything changed. Suddenly his kiss was a hunger—the fierce, driving need of a starving man. Gasping, Flora responded, her senses going wild under the onslaught.
They swayed together, as if caught in a storm wind. She felt his hands seeking her, running over her breasts, hips and thighs with a kind of desperation through the thin layer of clothing as his kiss deepened almost savagely.
At last he lifted his head, staring down into her flushed face, his eyes glittering like emeralds.
She heard herself say his name on a husky, aching sigh of pure longing.
Roughly Marco pushed the jacket from her shoulders, tugged at the zip of her skirt, dragging the loosened cloth down over her hips, lifting her free of it.
There was no sound in the room but the hoarse raggedness of their breathing and the rustle of clothing ruthlessly pulled apart and discarded.
Marco sank down to the floor, taking her with him. As he moved over her, her body opened for him in a demand as fierce as his own.
It was not a gentle mating. Their mutual desire was too wild—too urgent for that. Their hands and mouths clung, tore, ravaged, as their bodies fought their way to the waiting glory.
It was upon them almost before they knew it. Flora cried out half in exhilaration, half in fear as she felt herself wrenched apart in a pleasure so dark and soaring that she thought she might die.
Almost fainting, she heard Marco crying out in an anguish of delight as he reached his own climax.
Afterwards she lay, supine, feeling the beloved weight of his head on her breasts, his arm across her body, his hand curved possessively round her hip. Lay very still, incapable of movement, speech or even thought.
Eventually it was Marco who stirred first. He raised himself and looked down at her, a sheen of moisture still clinging to his skin, his eyes remorseful.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he whispered. ‘Tell me the truth, my sweet one, my heart.’
She smiled up at him, slowly, languorously, her lashes veiling her eyes. ‘I don’t remember,’ she told him softly, her arms lifting to draw him down again. ‘And I certainly don’t care,’ she added as her lips parted for his kiss.
After a while she said, ‘Won’t everyone be wondering where we are?’
‘They are not paid to wonder,’ Marco said lazily, his hand stroking her arm.
She gasped. ‘Aren’t you the autocrat? You just take all this for granted—don’t you?’
‘No, mia bella. I take nothing for granted. But I agree we cannot spend the rest of our lives here on the floor.’ He got to his feet, pulling her up with him. ‘We’ll take a shower, then I’ll show you the way down to the beach.’
‘What about our clothes?’ Flora looked with dismay at the crumpled garments strewn across the carpet.
‘Leave them. They will be attended to.’ Marco swept her briskly into the bathroom.
It seemed strange to share the shower with him. To see her toiletries set out on the marble top beside his. To know that her clothes were hanging beside his and laid away in drawers in his dressing room.
She had never known this level of intimacy with anyone before, she realised blankly.
Even when she’d shared a flat with two other girls she’d had her own room. Up to now she’d kept her space inviolate—in more ways than one, she thought wryly, remembering the pristine white bedroom in London.
And then Marco had invaded her life, overturning all the careful structures and beliefs that she’d built up. Taking her to another dimension. But only on a temporary basis, she reminded herself, pulling on a black bikini and covering it with a black and white voile shirt.
And, she thought, thrusting sun oil and dark glasses into her pale straw shoulder bag, she must never let herself forget that.
The grounds of the castello were a riot of blossom. As they made their way down the path Flora was assailed by scent and colour on all sides. Roses hung in a lovely tangle over stone walls and the stumps of trees, studded by the paler shades of camellias. Terracotta urns, heavy with pelargoniums, marked each bend in the track, which occasionally became shallow stone steps.
At one point their way was blocked by a tall wrought-iron gate.
‘My grandfather had it put there when I was a small child,’ Marco explained, releasing the catch. ‘He wanted to make sure I never went down to the beach to swim unsupervised.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘And did it work?’
‘No.’ He slanted a grin at her, and for a moment she glimpsed the boy he’d once been. Her heart twisted inside her.
The cove was bigger than she’d expected. At one end there was a boathouse, and a small landing stage, at the other, separated by a crescent of pale sand, was a platform of flat rock.
‘You can dive from that rock,’ Marco said. ‘The beach shelves quickly and very deeply. It is easy to get out of one’s depth.’
She thought, I’m out of my depth now—and drowning.
Aloud, she said, ‘Then I’ll have to be careful.’
There
