he said softly, ‘why mention the matter at all?’
She said defiantly, ‘I was simply letting you know what a hypocritical farce I find this entire arrangement. And that I won’t play games in public just to satisfy some convention.’
‘How principled,’ he said, and shifted his position, moving deliberately closer to her. ‘But we are no longer in public now, mia cara. We are in total privacy. So there is no one else to see or care what I ask from you.’
She swallowed. ‘You—promised that you—wouldn’t ask.’ Her voice was thin. ‘So I’d really like you to go—please.’
‘In a moment,’ he said. ‘When I have what I came for.’
‘I—I don’t understand.’
‘It is quite simple,’ he said. ‘I wish to kiss you goodnight, Maria Lisa. To take from your lovely mouth what you denied me this morning—nothing more.’
She stared at him. ‘You said you’d wait …’
‘And I will.’ He leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. ‘But I think—don’t you?—that when you come to me as my wife it will be easier for both of us if you have become even a little accustomed to my touch, and learned not to dread being in my arms.’
‘What are you saying, signore?’ Her voice sounded very young and breathless. ‘That I’m going to find your kisses so irresistible that I’ll want more and more of them? That eventually I’ll want you?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s not going to happen. Because you can dress up what you’ve done any way you like, but the fact is you bought me. Anything you do to me will be little more than legalised rape.’
There was a terrible silence, then Renzo said, too quietly, too evenly, ‘You will never use such a word to me again, Maria Lisa. Do you understand? I told you I would not force myself on you and I meant it. But you would be unwise to try my patience twice in twenty-four hours.’
She threw back her head. ‘Your loss of temper doesn’t seem much to set against the ruin of my life, Signor Santangeli. Whatever—I have no intention of kissing you. So please leave. Now.’
‘And I think not.’ Renzo took her by the shoulders, pulling her towards him, his purpose evident in his set face.
‘Let me go.’ She began to struggle against the strength of the hands that held her, scared now, but still determined. ‘I won’t do this—I won’t.’
She pushed against his chest, fists clenched, her face averted.
‘Mia cara, this is silly.’ He spoke more gently, but there was a note in his voice that was almost amusement. ‘Such a fuss about so little. One kiss and I’ll go, I swear it.’
‘You’ll go to hell.’ As she tried to wrench herself free one of the ribbon straps on her nightgown suddenly snapped, and the flimsy bodice slipped down, baring one rounded rose-tipped breast.
She froze in horror, and realised that Renzo too was very still, his dark face changing with a new and disturbing intensity as he looked at her. His hand slid slowly down from her shoulder to a more intimate objective, cupping her breast in lean fingers that shook a little. He brushed her nipple softly with the ball of his thumb, and as it hardened beneath his touch she felt sensation scorch through her like a naked flame against her flesh. Frightening her in a way she had never known before.
‘No.’ Her voice cracked wildly on the word. ‘Don’t touch me. Oh, God, you bastard.’
She flailed out wildly with her fists, and felt the jolt as one of them slammed into his face.
He gave a gasp of pain and reared back away from her, his hand going up to his eye. Then there was another silence.
She thought, the breath catching in her throat, Oh, God, what have I done? And, even worse, what is he going to do?
She tried to speak, to say his name—anything. To tell him she hadn’t meant to hit him—or at least not as hard.
Only she didn’t get the chance. Because he was lifting himself off the bed and striding away from her across the room without looking back. And as Marisa sank back, covering her own face with her hands, she heard first the slam of the dressing room door and then, like an echo, the bang of his own door closing.
And knew with total certainty that for tonight at least he would not be returning.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVEN after all this time Marisa found that the memory still had the power to crucify her.
I’d never behaved like that before in my entire life, she thought, shuddering. Because I’m really not the violent type—or I thought I wasn’t until that moment. Then—pow! Suddenly, the eagle landed. Only it wasn’t funny.
So completely not funny, in fact, that she’d immediately burst into a storm of tears, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the sobs that shook her entire body. Not that he could have heard her, of course. The dressing room and two intervening doors had made sure of that.
But why was I crying? she asked herself, moving restively across the mattress, trying to get comfortable. After all, it was an appalling thing to do, and I freely admit as much, but it got him out of my bedroom, which was exactly what I wanted to happen.
And he never came back. Not even after …
She swallowed, closing her eyes, wishing she could blank out all the inner visions that still tormented her. That remained there at the forefront of her mind, harsh and inescapable. Forcing her once again to recall everything that had happened that night—and, even more shamingly, on the day that had followed….
Once she was quite sure that he’d gone, her first priority was to wash the tearstains from her pale face and exchange her torn nightgown for a fresh one—although that, she soon discovered, did nothing to erase the remembered shock of his touch on her bare breast.
So much for his promise to leave her alone until she was ready, she thought, biting her lip savagely.
The way he’d looked at her, the delicate graze of his hand on her flesh, proved how little his word could be trusted.
Yet at the same time it had brought home to her with almost terrifying force how fatally easy it would be to allow her untutored senses to take control, and to forget the real reason—the only reason—they were together.
She’d agreed to this marriage only to repay a mountainous debt and to make life easier for a sick man who’d been good to her. Nothing else.
Lorenzo had accepted the arrangement solely out of duty to his family. And to keep a promise to a dying woman. That was all, too.
‘Oh, Godmother,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘How could you do this to me? To both of us?’
She’d assumed Renzo’s offer to postpone the consummation of their marriage was a sign of his basic indifference. Now she didn’t now what to think.
Because it seemed that
