Idly, he wondered whether it might be possible to make love to her in the boat while waiting for the fish to bite.
As though reading his mind, Lana turned her smile to a laugh.
‘No—don’t even think of it!’ she warned. ‘I do not want to end up in that freezing cold water because we’ve rocked the boat too much! Wait till we get back to shore!’
‘How do you know what I was thinking?’ he asked with an answering laugh.
Her eyes glinted. ‘Female intuition,’ she said.
He slid his hand around her bare foot, lifting it to drop a light kiss on the slender arch. Even her feet were the most beautiful he’d ever seen.
Everything about her is the most beautiful! Everything...
Including, most of all, the way she had given herself to him. Given in to what had been between them from the first. To what was now flourishing like a glorious flower opening to the warmth of the sun...
He let his lashes dip down over his eyes as he released her foot, which once again rested on his thigh. It was a dangerous place for it to rest, and he told her so.
‘You might find I suddenly lose interest in fishing,’ he warned her.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ she teased. ‘Me versus fishing...hmm, tough call...’
‘No competition,’ he informed her. ‘It’s fishing every time.’
It was a lie. A blatant lie. And she knew it. It would have been impossible for her not to. In the remoteness of the log cabin they could do as they pleased, when they pleased—and it pleased him very much to demonstrate, comprehensively, just how much he desired her.
She was all that he had thought she would be, had known she would be. And more.
Much more.
Had he ever known a woman like her? It was a stupid question—one that had only one answer. An answer he did not need to give even to himself.
All he had to give himself was what there was between them. Now, here in this lakeside idyll, and way beyond. At the palazzo, in Rome, on business trips—it didn’t matter. Lana would be with him by day and, of absolute certainty, by night. In his arms. His bed.
Just as he had wanted from the first. Married or not married—nothing would change that.
Lana glanced around her bedroom. It seemed strange to come back to the palazzo after their lakeside idyll. More complicated. Outwardly, nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. Self-consciousness burned in her, as though all the household staff could see how very different things were now between her and Salvatore. But the only real change was that the communicating door between her bedroom and Salvatore’s was now unlocked.
Yet for all that had changed between them since their stay at the lakeside chalet, one thing had not. Whenever a member of staff addressed her as signora, treating her as though she were mistress here, she still felt a fake. A fraud. Here under false pretences.
Her expression flickered as she stood looking out over the wide, beautiful gardens. Salvatore had said it was simple, their desire for each other—a desire they consummated night after night. But how could it be simple when the world thought their marriage real? When they themselves knew the truth? Knew that it was not designed to mean what marriage should mean—that it was not to last...was to end, before next spring turned to summer, in a divorce planned from the very outset.
She turned away from the window, her thoughts still troubled. And they would be more troubled yet, she knew. Today they were driving back to Rome. There were social engagements to attend, work meetings for Salvatore. Their honeymoon was over.
Except that it was never a honeymoon at all—because I am not a real wife to Salvatore. We are having an affair, that is all—whatever the world thinks, whatever his household here thinks, whatever his friends in Rome think.
She picked up her handbag, went downstairs. Salvatore was already in the car, waiting for her. She got in and he kissed her softly, eyes smiling.
‘Looking forward to Rome?’ he asked.
She bit her lip, unwilling to answer.
He started the engine and the car crunched slowly over the gravel towards the gilded gates beyond, now opening to let him pass.
‘It will be easier for you this time,’ he told her.
The expression in his eyes told her why he thought so. She wished she could agree with him. But it was impossible to do so.
So she said nothing. It seemed the easiest thing to do.