Captivated by Her Innocence

‘So why are you here, Cesare?’

He loosed a hoarse laugh. ‘Why the hell do you think I’m here? I arrived back at Killaran to find you had run away.’ With eyes that shone like the beaten silver bracelet she wore he pinned her with a fierce, hungry, soul-searing stare.

‘I came to bring you back.’

Aware that her interpretation was coloured by her deep longing, against all her screaming instincts she adopted a breathless ‘wait and see’ policy and didn’t react to this raw pronouncement. It did not mean that she had any control over the surge of tingling heat that washed over her skin, or the butterflies that were rioting in her stomach.

The man had followed her—that had to mean something, right?

Cesare clenched his teeth in frustration when his words had no visible effect on her. He refused to acknowledge the doom-laden voice in his head that was telling him he’d blown it. Instead he took her wrist and pulled it against his chest. ‘Come home with me.’

‘This isn’t the way home,’ she gasped as she struggled to keep up with him while he virtually dragged her out through the revolving glass doors of the terminal building.

‘This is the way to the company jet. How did you think I got here, cara?’ he asked in response to her wide-eyed stare. ‘We cannot have a conversation in that glass bowl.’

Anna squeezed her eyes half closed to cut down on the glare. She rubbed her skin where his fingers had cut into the flesh. A spasm of pain crossed his features as he watched her.

‘I hurt you.’ With pain in his eyes he lifted her hand and pressed her wrist to his lips.

Anna pulled her hand back, but not before that light contact had sent a surge like lightning along her receptive nerve endings.

‘You come out fighting. I sometimes forget what a delicate little thing you are.’ This time she followed of her own volition, lengthening her stride to stay by his side as he walked towards the shade of a palm tree. Even under it the heat rising from the paved area beneath her feet was stifling. ‘I came here to bring you home and I am not leaving without you. If making that happen means I have to crawl and grovel, I will.’

The solemn declaration brought tears to her eyes. ‘I don’t want you to crawl or grovel, Cesare. I just want you to...’ She shook her head, aware that she wanted the impossible. Cesare might have discovered he still wanted her in his bed and once that would have been enough, but not now. She shouldn’t settle; she deserved more.

‘Love you?’ he supplied gently when her voice faded.

She nodded, looking at him through her tears. ‘I thought sex would be enough but it isn’t. I want more.’

‘So do I.’ He expelled a long gusty sigh. With the sense of release came a bemusement. It was easy to say. Why had he made it such a massive thing?

Anna’s mouth opened and stayed that way until he nudged her jaw closed with his thumb. ‘The past leaves its mark on us all.’ He raised an interrogative brow, inviting her comment.

Anna nodded.

‘I have always had a warped view of relationships,’ he admitted, with a frankness he would have struggled with in the not so distant past. ‘My parents’ marriage was a disaster. I despised my father for loving my mother even after she left him. Love destroyed him and in my mind I equated love with weakness, and my mother...!’ His shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug as he vented a hard laugh. ‘What can you say about her, except all that glitters is not gold? I think she has something missing. Do you know what I mean?’ He angled an enquiring look down at her.

‘I think so.’ Her heart bursting with empathic tenderness she was wary of expressing, Anna reached a tentative hand to touch his arm, half expecting him to shrug her off. Her throat tightened when he smiled down at her.

‘She never fails to disappoint. She lacks a conscience and even a basic sense of morality. Combined with her charm and an utterly hedonistic, selfish outlook on life, she leaves a trail of disaster in her wake.’

‘I think you’re allowed a few trust issues.’

The comment drew a laugh from Cesare.

‘I trust you with my life, Anna.’

Anna went totally still.

‘The question is do you trust me?’

Anna looked at the hand he held out to her and without hesitation put her own hand in it.

Cesare smiled and dug his free hand into his pocket. Anna glimpsed red velvet and shook her head. ‘I don’t want the bracelet.’

‘This is not a bracelet.’