Why the hell was his temper feeling so damned frayed?
He knew why. The evidence was right there before his eyes. Nicole, wearing a close-fitting scarlet dress—a colour he’d never seen her in before—which apparently she’d made herself, just as she’d made the white sundress he’d torn from her body earlier that day. A Nicole who once again had everyone eating out of her hand with a sunny display which was in marked contrast to her distinctly cool mood once they’d left their hotel room.
Had she been angry with him for being so frank with her this afternoon? Her chilly attitude towards him had seemed to suggest as much. As soon as they’d arrived back at his house she had excused herself, saying she needed to get ready—and during the drive here she’d spent the whole time playing with her mobile phone, and acting as if he weren’t there.
Yet the moment they’d set foot on his yacht she had blossomed into the vivacious beauty who was drawing the eye of everyone at the party. Heads turned as she walked by and he found himself wondering if people could detect her natural sensuality, as if what they’d been doing straight after lunch was manifesting itself in her glowing appearance. His fingers tightened around the rail, because now he was bitterly regretting having told her things. Things about his parents. About not knowing about love. Things she didn’t need to know.
Annelise Dupois was tapping him on the arm. ‘Oh, but she is so charmant,’ she said, her gaze following the direction of his to where Nicole was standing, her mahogany curls illuminated by a soft golden light overhead so that she looked like a dark angel. ‘My husband and I were just saying what a lucky man you are, Rocco.’
And for once in his life, Rocco couldn’t think of a thing to say. Was it lucky that Nicole had somehow acquired the power to make him feel stuff he had no desire to feel? His mouth hardened.
‘I un
derstand you and your wife have been estranged?’ Javier Estrada chose just that moment to break into his thoughts—the Argentine’s apparently innocent question belied by the spark of interest in his black eyes, which was setting Rocco’s teeth on edge. He knew the South American tycoon’s reputation as a ruthless womaniser and had no intention of giving him the green light where Nicole was concerned. Things might be almost over for them, but he was damned if he would stand by and let a man like Estrada salivate all over her.
‘Not any more. We are in the process of reconciliation,’ Rocco answered coldly, not caring that it was a lie.
‘Pity,’ murmured Estrada, and it was as much as Rocco could do not to have him ejected from the boat. Better still, to heave him into the dark waters himself!
But he strode away from him just as a pretty waitress extended her tray of champagne and Rocco waved an impatient hand. He didn’t want food, or drink, or to dance to the sound of the string quartet which was entertaining people at the far end of the vast deck. All he seemed capable of doing was thinking about the woman he had married and wondering if he’d taken a temporary leave of his senses when he’d demanded she accompany him this weekend.
He hadn’t expected her to be so...
He shook his head. That was the trouble. He had entertained zero expectations where Nicole was concerned. Even when he’d discovered that his desire for her was as potent as before, he’d thought some long-overdue sex was all he needed. It had seemed a simple solution to vent his frustration and get the wife who had deserted him out of his system—all in one neat swoop. His mouth twisted. It just didn’t seem to be working out that way. He wondered how he could have made such a bad call and how this whole weekend could have turned into something else. Something he hadn’t bargained for. He felt as if Nicole was stripping away layers of himself, leaving him raw and revealing a side he’d always kept hidden. How had that even happened? he asked himself furiously. But really, he knew.
He stared at the dark rippling waves of the sea. It was because Nicole had changed. She was no longer that uncertain woman who gazed at him with reproachful eyes and was prepared to take whatever he dished out. This new version was more sure of herself. Confident and self-assured, she was behaving as if leaving their marriage had given her the courage to be herself. As if he had been holding her back.
His mouth hardened. Well, let her think whatever she wanted to think. Soon she would be gone and out of his mind. In the morning he would put her on a flight back to England and sign the divorce papers and that would be it.
The end.
He watched as Anna Rivers walked by in a strappy little silver gown—the actress slanting him a slow and lazy smile over her shoulder as she passed. Despite having discovered his marital status, the invitation in her eyes was unmistakable but Rocco wasn’t interested. He scowled. He’d had enough of women for the time being. Once Nicole had gone and the dust had settled he would resume the life he’d had before she’d tumbled into it. He would operate on a level he was comfortable with. Casual affairs with women who knew the score. Women with careers and lives of their own, who he could take or leave as it suited him. Not women who tried to burrow underneath his skin and stay there.
As soon as they left the cocktail party he would say goodnight and in the morning he would have left for the office long before she awoke. And despite the fact that she was undoubtedly the sexiest woman at the party, he would not share her bed or her body tonight. It was too disquieting. Too...intense. That way she had of cooing in his ear when he was deep inside her. The soft wrap of her thighs around his back while he rode her. He felt the warm wash of hunger heating his blood but, deliberately, he dampened it down. Bringing her here had been a mistake, he conceded grimly. A mistake he would not compound by being intimate with her again.
The phone in his pocket began to vibrate and he glanced at it, his senses instantly on alert when he saw it was a missed call from Sicily. And it was late. Was it his grandfather? he wondered, his heart clenching with instinctive dread as he followed the sway of Anna River’s bottom towards the lower deck. But once there, he bypassed the actress’s footsteps to turn left, heading for the sanctuary of his on-board office before putting a call through to the Barberi complex, just outside Palermo.
Maria answered the phone on the first ring—not a good sign—and Rocco automatically slipped into dialect to speak to the family’s housekeeper.
‘Nonno?’ he demanded.
‘Your grandfather is sick,’ said Maria.
‘How sick?’
‘He has a fever. Some kind of infection, the doctor says. We called him straight away.’
Rocco’s fingers tightened around the phone. ‘And what’s happening now?’
‘He is on medication and we have hired a nurse. She’s with him now. So am I.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you coming home, Rocco?’
‘Of course I’m coming home!’
There was another pause and this time Rocco was certain he could hear the voice of his grandfather in the background—weaker than he’d ever heard him speak before. ‘Is that Nonno?’ he demanded. ‘What’s he saying?’
Maria’s next words were tentative. ‘He wants to know if you are reconciled with your wife.’
Rocco narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’