Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

Cara had known the minute he came into the room. She’d even, much to her chagrin, sensed somehow when he got up. He walked in barefoot and stood in front of her. She looked up, and a flame raced through her body. He towered above her, six feet something of potent masculine male, bare-chested and with his jeans button open, drawing her eye to the line of dark silky hair that led down… Cara swallowed past a dry throat.

When he’d fallen asleep holding her she’d been so tempted just to give in and sleep too. But the awful acrid fear had risen up that she would wake and find him sitting in a chair across the room, looking at her with that same stony visage she’d woken to in London. She couldn’t cope with that again—ever. That was what had driven her from his bed last night, and also in Rome, the night of the marriage.

‘What’s going on, Cara?’ he asked equably, but she could hear the thread of impatience in his voice.

She looked back down to the papers. ‘I’m working on this.’

He bent down and extended a hand. Cara had no choice but to take it or appear silly. She took it, and ignored the dart of pleasure as their skin connected.

She pulled her hand from his and moved back, ignoring the flash of something dark across his face. Cara took a deep breath and waited, tense.

‘Cara, I don’t expect you to keep working on it. It’s under control now.’ His mouth twisted and he looked slightly shamefaced. It threw her. ‘I let you help that night to test you—to see how much you knew of Cormac’s dealings…’

That was nothing new to Cara. She crossed her arms. ‘But the fact is, Vicenzo…’ Cara stalled for a second. She had a vivid flashback of calling him Enzo last night, and how she’d entreated him. And the fact that she had done that… Her insides roiled. If he touched her again he’d know exactly how awfully vulnerable she was to him.

Vicenzo arched a brow. ‘The fact is?’

She recovered herself and forced her mind away from what it had meant to call him Enzo. ‘The fact is that I’m still responsible for my brother’s actions—’

He made a slashing movement of his hand. Utter rejection of her claim rose up within Vicenzo, surprising him with its force when only days ago he would have agreed. ‘Don’t be silly, Cara. Your brother did this, not you.’

‘Yes. But I’m ashamed of what he did. I’m not going to let you deal with this. Not while I’m here.’ She hitched up her chin. ‘And there’s also the debt that’s still to be paid. If I can start with this, perhaps at some point we can come to some arrangement where I look for work again so that I can pay you back properly. If you could give me a reference based on my work here, it would help me to find a job.’

Vicenzo ran a hand through his hair. Why was she being so contrary? He’d caught a glimpse of another woman last night. The woman he’d seen in London. The woman he wanted to see more of. Sweet, innocent, sexy, open… But now it was as if last night hadn’t happened. He vacillated between wanting to shake her and kiss her.

Vicenzo didn’t believe in any way any more that Cara was responsible for Cormac’s debt, but something goaded him to say, ‘That debt would take years to pay off.’

He saw how Cara paled in an instant. ‘I know,’ she said quietly, avoiding his eye. ‘That’s all that lies between us, and between me and my freedom.’ She looked at him then. ‘While you’re keeping me here I want to work on untangling what Cormac did. It’s the least I can do.’

Galvanised by an anger Vicenzo didn’t understand at her words, at the explicit implication that she was no more than his prisoner, he bridged the gap between them, stepping

carelessly on papers as he did so. ‘The debt isn’t the only thing between us, Cara.’

Her head reared back, and he could see the pupils of her eyes dilate even as she said, ‘I won’t be sleeping with you again, Vicenzo.’

‘Oh, no?’ And with devastating precision he pulled her in close, ignoring her hands against his chest that tried to push him away. He kissed her. She tried to twist her head away, but in the end it was no use. When she wouldn’t offer him her lips he just feathered light, tantalising kisses along her rigid jaw, and then at the corners of hers eyes and temples. Finally, undone with the effort it was taking to deny him, she parted her lips…

As Vicenzo kissed her, stoking the flames of their lust higher and higher, Cara knew the worst had happened. Without the cushion of Vicenzo’s misconceptions and prejudices keeping him from touching her, she was laid bare in her desire for him. He would know exactly how badly she hungered for him. And that would give him a power more potent over her than the debt, or the fact that she was still his virtual prisoner. The fact was she’d always been a prisoner—except her prison didn’t have walls or a lock and key.

Two weeks later Cara breathed easy for the first time since she and Vicenzo had started sleeping together again. And the only reason for that was because he’d gone to Rome for an emergency meeting at his head office. She was trying so hard to resist him on every level, but when he touched her…she just couldn’t. During the days she ensured they maintained a distance. But at night it was as if all the distance and excessive politeness during the day exploded around them and they became insatiable in their desire.

As soon as Vicenzo went to sleep Cara would get up and leave, go back to her own bed. She knew it angered him. She’d seen it in the line of his jaw in the morning, seen the challenge in his eyes. And last night, when she’d thought he was sleeping, as she’d tried to leave he’d snaked out a hard arm and pulled her back, whispering huskily, ‘No escape tonight.’

Cara had lain there for a long time, but just as the dawn had been rising in the sky outside she’d managed to wriggle free without waking him. It was a hollow victory, but his face before he’d left for Rome, the look in his eyes, had told her she wouldn’t escape again—and that was why she had to persuade him to let her leave now.

She was determined that when Vicenzo came back she would make him see that he couldn’t keep her here. With each day that went by she was falling more and more in love with the place—Silvio…Doppo. Vicenzo.

Silvio had been giving her lessons in Italian, and Lucia had been showing her some traditional Italian recipes. Her heart ached at the seductive pull to slip into a ready-made family, and it was far too dangerous for her to indulge in any more. Her life wasn’t about that. Vicenzo’s life wasn’t about that. That white villa came back to her in all its cold glory.

She needed to move on and get her life back together. And while, thanks to Cormac’s debt, she’d never really have the absolute freedom she craved, perhaps once this farcical marriage was over and she was home again and had found a job she’d feel a measure of peace. Ultimately what had brought them together was loss, misunderstanding and grief. And debt. All she had to do now was convince Vicenzo to let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE tiredness Vicenzo had been feeling since he’d got on the plane from Rome back to Sardinia magically melted away when he drove in through the gates of the villa. He was already anticipating seeing Cara. Perhaps she was by the pool…or messing about in the sea with Doppo.

Or maybe she was taking a siesta from the heat. That thought made the heat from the sun fade as his own body heat zoomed up. He looked at his watch as he strode to the front door, yanking his tie free as he went, feeling constricted. But when he walked in something told him she wasn’t there. Some sixth sense.

Just then the nurse looking after his father came into the hall. She was a maternal woman in her fifties. Vicenzo had to quell his irritation that she wasn’t Cara. ‘Ah, Signore Valentini, if you’re looking for your wife she went out…’ She gave a little laugh. ‘It was quite dramatic, actually.’