A Tainted Beauty

It was about as complicated as it could get.

She stared at the diamond sparkle of the sea and the brooding silhouette of Mount Vesuvius in the distance. Did he really find it uncomplicated to maintain the illusion that they were a pair of blissful newlyweds, when nothing could be further from the truth?

That was the trouble. Yes, he did. Ciro had a skill which seemed sadly lacking in her. It seemed that he could compartmentalise everything with an ease which would have been almost admirable if it hadn’t been so breathtakingly cold. And he could do it so well that at times she’d almost been sucked into believing it herself. Like when he introduced her to people she hadn’t met before and his hand would stray to rest protectively at the small of her back—as if he were finding it difficult to refrain from touching her. And Lily’s heart would crash like crazy as his fingers massaged the knotted tension in her spine, wondering if he’d forgiven her. But then she would look up into his dark eyes and see nothing but coldness there.

Which either meant that her husband was a brilliant actor who could successfully hide his feelings from the world—or just that he didn’t have any feelings for her any more. That the supposed ‘lightning flash’ he’d once felt had been extinguished by her deception.

The morning after their wedding, he had cancelled their honeymoon yacht trip along the Amalfi coastline and Lily had tried telling herself that was a good thing. Because could there be anything worse than being stuck on a boat with a man who was simmeringly angry with you? Yet inside she had been heartbroken—like a child whose birthday party had been called off at the last minute.

So they’d come back to Ciro’s apartment and Lily had tried telling herself that surely it couldn’t be that difficult to maintain their fiction of a relationship—especially as her husband had gone straight back to work instead of taking a planned sabbatical. She was here in Naples, surrounded by beauty and culture and—even if her marriage was a disaster—this was an opportunity she’d never have again. She was determined to put a brave face on it. To keep smiling, no matter what. To keep praying that maybe her husband’s anger might fade away and that he might let her close enough to love him…

But her prayers went unanswered. The only time he let her close was when he was having sex with her—and she liked that far too much to tell him not to do it, no matter how much her battered pride urged her to push him away.

She turned to face him now as the silver moonlight cast indigo shadows on his sculpted features and the sight of him in his dark evening clothes still had the power to make her quiver with lust. ‘Of course I enjoyed the evening,’ she said. ‘The opera was magnificent.’

‘I know it was.’ There was a pause as he drifted his gaze over her. ‘Everyone was commenting on how beautiful you looked.’

She looked up into his dark eyes. ‘And what did you say?’

Ciro reached out to frame her cheek with the palm of his hand, feeling the familiar thunder of his pulse. ‘Oh, I agreed with them. Because nobody has ever denied your beauty, Lily,’ he said softly. ‘Least of all me.’

‘Ciro—’

But he silenced her breathless whisper with his lips, acknowledging the sweet power of sex to blot out his misgivings, as he pulled her into his arms. Because sometimes when she looked at him with those big blue eyes she made him want to melt. She made him feel almost… vulnerable—just as he’d done when he’d made his wedding vows in that music-filled and fragrant church. When he’d felt as if he was poised on the brink of something momentous—only to discover that he was marrying a woman he didn’t really know. Who had taken his half-formed dreams and smashed them beneath her perfect little feet until they lay shattered and unrecognisable.

Ciro had been angry with Lily for her deception, yes, he had. But once his anger had died away, he had been almost grateful to her. Because it had felt wonderfully familiar to lose himself in the old, familiar coldness—to feel that iciness encase his heart once more. It had put him back in the emotional driving seat, where nothing or no one could touch him. Or hurt him.

In the darkness of the Neapolitan night, he slipped his hand inside the bodice of her dress and heard the rush of her breath as his fingers encountered the silken feel of her bare skin. ‘Bed, I think,’ he said unsteadily and led her unresisting inside, where he proceeded to strip off her clothes with ruthless efficiency.

His skin was hot against hers and by the time he entered her, she pulled him to her with a fierce hunger, as if she couldn’t get enough of him. Her lips sought his and she moaned as he crushed his mouth onto hers, moving inside her body in a way which soon had her shuddering helplessly in his arms. Afterwards she clung to him, her hands clasped behind his neck—only loosening their grip when sleep crept over her and she lolled against the bank of pillows. Deliberately, Ciro rolled over to the other side of the bed—as far from the soft temptation of her body as it was possible to be. He had been doing this more often of late—rationing the time she spent in his arms and telling himself that he needed to get used to solitude again. Because soon his beautiful, duplicitous bride would be heading back to England and he would be left alone.

He slept restlessly, with dreams which left him feeling spooked, and when he awoke, it was to find Lily gone—just like in the dream. For a moment he lay there, staring up at the streaks of sunlight which were dancing across the ceiling—and a terrible sense of darkness invaded his soul.

He showered and dressed, then walked out onto the terrace to find her sitting drinking coffee—her eyes concealed behind her large sunglasses as she automatically bent to pour him a cup. She was wearing a pale, silken robe which had been part of her trousseau and it was easy to see that she was naked underneath.

‘So what are you planning to do today?’ he asked, a flicker of desire shimmering over him as he began knotting his tie.

From behind the concealment of her shades, Lily watched him. His black hair glittered with tiny drops of water and his skin was still glowing from the shower. He radiated energy and vitality from every pore and, even though he looked cool and businesslike in his lightweight suit, her instinctive feeling was one of pure lust.

Guilt, too. She mustn’t forget her ever-present sense of guilt, must she? She remembered the way she’d been last night, in his arms. The way she’d moaned his name out loud as she climaxed—the way she always did. It was all too easy to close her mind to her nagging uncertainties when he was deep inside her like that. She’d just lain right back and enjoyed every second of his love-making and afterwards she had… had…

‘Blushing, Lily?’ he murmured as he gave his tie one final tug and reached down for his coffee. ‘My, my—it’s a long time since I’ve seen you blush.’

She heard the censure in his voice and bristled. ‘Perhaps you think only women with intact hymens should be permitted to blush?’

‘Isn’t that a little crude?’ he murmured.

‘Which you never are, of course?’

His black eyes glittered. ‘You didn’t seem to be complaining about my crudity last night.’

‘I doubt whether you’ve ever had any complaints in that particular department, Ciro.’

Feeling another jerk of desire, he walked over to the edge of the terrace, as if he just wanted to get a better look at the bay. It was a view he’d grown up with and yet which now seemed subtly altered—as everything familiar in his life had been altered.

Had he thought that this charade of a marriage would be easy? That he would pleasure himself with Lily for six, short months and that each time he did he would find himself growing a little more distant from her? Yes, he had. Of course he had. Because that was what he had wanted to happen and Ciro was a man who always made things happen.

He had expected his anger to remain constant, while his passion declined—the way it always did when a relationship with a woman was on the wane. The only trouble was that it hadn’t worked out like that. A welcome immunity towards her simply hadn’t happened and he was no closer to feeling indifferent towards her. In bed and out, he wanted her now as much as he’d always wanted her.