was watching her, his eyes hooded, looking smoky. Seated, Cat kept her eyes firmly on her bare toes. He could spout opinions all night but that didn’t mean she needed take the slightest notice of them.
But her heart was beating uncomfortably fast as he raised his arms and laced his hands behind his head and told her, ‘I have nothing against arranged marriages, all things being equal. Up until now I’ve been too busy to consider marrying. I confess to never having been in love, and unlike most of my compatriots,’ he added drily, ‘I consider the condition to be vastly overrated. It dresses the basic human need to procreate in romantic flummery.’
Cat’s eyes shot up from the anodyne contemplation of her toes to lock with his. ‘So you don’t believe in love,’ she challenged. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Bully for you! I bet you a dime to a king’s ransom the right woman could teach you differently!’
Brilliant dark eyes sparked with pinpricks of golden light at her husky outburst but his voice was cool when he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a serious matter. An heir is necessary. Any wife I choose would have to be intelligent, good to look at, have her feet firmly on the ground—no girlish claims to be madly in love with me because such emotional demands would merely make life difficult. Besides all this, I would need her to bring something of substance to the marriage. Family honour as well as sound financial sense demands that much.’ He brought his hands down, his beautifully cut jacket settling back against his upper body with exquisite, unruffled elegance. ‘I think you qualify on all counts.’
‘Especially Grandfather’s shares,’ she said on a dry snap. ‘Couldn’t you offer to buy them off him—twist his arm or something? You could save yourself a whole heap of trouble.’ If what he’d been saying was supposed to be a proposal then it was the coldest, most calculating one any woman was ever likely to hear. It deserved her utmost contempt. It showed in the green glitter of her eyes, in the tight downturn of her generous mouth.
Water off a duck’s back as far as Aldo was concerned, apparently. He expanded his argument fluidly. ‘Perhaps Domenico would agree to sell; perhaps not. But I have no intention of going down that road. Why should I when I can kill three birds with one stone? One,’ he ticked off on his long, tanned fingers, ‘I secure those possibly rogue shares for the family, where they belong. Two, I get a beautiful and intelligent wife, and three, I get an heir. And as far as you’re concerned, you get a pampered lifestyle, more financial security than you’ve ever dreamed of—’
‘I don’t need it!’ Distraught, Cat shot to her feet, her breasts heaving. Listening to this man—this…this sex-on-legs—talking of marriage as if it were a cold business arrangement was the last thing she wanted. ‘I don’t want your empty wealthy lifestyle—I want my own life, warts and all. I’m a big girl, signor; I can stand on my own feet, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Oh, I noticed,’ he countered, smooth as cream. He rose to his feet and sauntered towards her and she gritted her teeth. He had too much style. He was too much altogether. And this close she could see those intriguing golden lights deep within his eyes, breathe in the elusive male scent of him, and her mouth fell open on a trembling gasp as he whispered seductively, ‘You truly are a big girl.’ His eyes slid down and lingered on her breasts, which annoyingly responded to this devastating no-touching slide of seduction. ‘But only, I assure you, in all the most enticing places.’
‘Don’t!’ Cat’s command came out on a tortured whisper. When he turned on the sex, flooded his voice with it, she went to pieces.
He was lethal!
‘Why not? It’s a bonus.’ Another movement, a step closer.
His black eyes looked drugged as he lifted them slowly from her shamelessly peaking breasts and fastened them on her softly trembling mouth as she muttered defensively, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
‘Yes, you do.’
The tension was making her shake, making the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. The sheer sexual power of the man overwhelmed her. She wanted to fight it but didn’t know how.
‘A wife who would excite me in bed would be a bonus. Yes?’ The soft huskiness of his voice was an unbearable intimacy; it made the blood pound in her ears and her whole body burn. He was much too close. She stared at him wildly. She had to put more space between them. At any moment she could find herself grabbing him, pulling his head down to discover if the promise of that so sensual mouth was capable of delivery.
Cat tried to move but her legs were so weak she could only sway. Aldo’s hand slid to her shoulder to steady her and an electric storm fizzled through every cell in her body and her eyelids closed helplessly as his knowing fingers stroked the heated skin of her naked shoulder before it brushed with wicked intimacy over the tingling peaks of her aching breasts.
‘And you would be excited, too. We would be dynamite together. I feel it and so do you. Yes?’ His hands curved over her hips as he gently tugged the span of her against the hardness of him and the shattering excitement that flooded her produced a ragged sound, halfway between a gasp and a moan. As he lowered his sleek dark head to stifle the sound at source, her arms snaked around his neck, and her last coherent, triumphant thought as he plundered her avidly responsive mouth was a repetition of what she’d said to him earlier—I bet you a dime to a king’s ransom the right woman could teach you differently!
The sounds of a muted commotion in the courtyard far below brought Cat out of her thoughts of the past. Blinking the film of moisture from her eyes, she peered down. At the sight of Aldo’s silver Ferrari her heart leapt and twisted like a landed fish then dropped with heavy lifelessness to the soles of her bare feet as he exited, and walked round to the passenger side to hand out his mistress.
Three members of staff were milling around in excited welcome at their beloved master’s unexpected arrival. Cat willed him to look up to where she was standing, to appear remotely interested in her whereabouts. But he didn’t glance towards the villa. His attention was all for Iolanda Cardinale, who was clinging to his arm, her sleek, elegantly clothed body leaning possessively into his, her ripe lips parted with sultry promise.
Fighting nausea, Cat forced herself to creep down the spiral staircase to her suite of rooms. She was going to have to act her socks off if she was going to be able to pretend she could accept the situation.
Pride wouldn’t allow her to let either of them see how desperate she was. Love and sexual fidelity hadn’t been part of the bargain on his part, had it?
As her English grandmother would have said, ‘You’ve made your bed, girl. Now you must lie on it.’
CHAPTER TWO
REACHING her rooms and closing the bedroom door behind her, Cat leaned back weakly against the carved wood. She was going to have to face him. Them.
Why had he chosen to arrive unannounced? Why had he brought Iolanda Cardinale with him?
Because he was cruel.
Or simply because this sort of thing went on in the elevated circles in which he moved and he didn’t consider it to be even slightly unusual?
And how long were they staying? Overnight? Would he share this room with her?
Grimly, she thought not. He hadn’t bothered to visit during her exile and he hadn’t so much as touched her since she’d told him—dewy-eyed and stupid with love for him—of the confirmation of her pregnancy.
