“Sweet,” he murmured, “as sweet as I knew it would be.” He smiled into her eyes. “Kiss me, cara. Just give me one kiss.”
One kiss, she thought, while the floor tilted under her feet. One kiss…
His mouth caught hers again, and this time the tip of his tongue stole across her lips. She made a little sound in the back of her throat.
“Caroline,” he whispered. “Caroline, bellissima… Open your mouth to me, cara. Let me taste you.”
He lowered his head slowly to hers. She watched as his eyes darkened, as his lashes fell to his cheeks. Her heart was thundering as his lips touched hers. This wasn’t supposed to happen—but then, nothing today had happened as it had been supposed to. She had been so certain she’d known all there was to know about the man in her arms—but she hadn’t. She hadn’t known him at all.
“Caroline. Kiss me back, cara. You know it is what you want.” He bit lightly at her lower lip. “Give yourself to the night—and to me.”
A sob burst from her throat, and she clutched at him fiercely, dragged his head down to hers.
“Nico,” she whispered against his mouth, “Nico, please…”
The door swung open behind her, and they slipped into the darkness of her bedroom.
“Yes, cara. I am here. Tell me what you want and I will do it.”
What did she want? His kisses? His caress? Or something more?
She shook her head, buried her face against his shoulder. “I don’t—Nico, I don’t know. I—”
“Then let me show you,” he said in a fierce whisper. His hand slid inside the bodice of her dress. “Is it this?” Her breath caught as his fingers moved against the rise of her breasts. “Or this?” She fell back against the wall as he lifted her skirt. His fingers brushed the soft, inner flesh of her thighs, then traced the lace trim on her panties and slid beneath them.
A long, drawn out breath escaped her lungs. “Oh,” she whispered, “oh…”
She lifted her head blindly and kissed him, her hands clasping the back of his head. She held nothing back, not her passion, not her need, not her desire.
“Oh, please,” she whispered, “please, please, please…”
He laughed in triumph. “Yes,” he said, “that is right, bellissima. Beg me. I want to hear you plead for my touch, for my possession.”
That was what she wanted; he was what she wanted. From the beginning, from that electrifying moment when she’d felt him watching her at the Fabbiano showing, she’d wanted his kisses, wanted the thrust of his body into hers. She had done everything to deny the truth, but how could she deny it now, when she was burning under his touch?
Nicolo moved against her. She felt his heat, his hardness, and her bones turned to liquid. She knew that if he took her now, against this wall, she would not stop him.
She lifted herself, caught his face in her hands. “Nico…”
“Yes,” he whispered fiercely, “oh, yes.” His arms tightened around her and he laughed softly. “I knew I was right. You are not made of ice. You burn like a flame.”
It was as if the windows had flown open and all the winds of winter had suddenly come sweeping into the room. She went still in his arms.
Of course. That was what this was all about. It was what the entire day had been about. His charm, his little anecdotes, even this scene played in the velvet darkness—all of it had been to answer the challenge she’d so foolishly set before him.
“I’m impervious to your charm,” she’d said—and he, the great Prince Sabatini had had no choice but to prove her wrong.
Caroline shuddered with revulsion. The light switch. Dammit, it was here somewhere… Yes! Her hand closed on it, and light flooded the room.
Nicolo blinked in the sudden glare. “Cara?”
“Don’t ‘cara’ me, you—you…” Her hands balled into fists. “Get out of here!”
“Caroline.” He was staring at her, confusion in his eyes. “What is it?”
“Get out or so help me, I’ll yell so loud that I’ll wake the whole house! I’ll wake your ancestors! I’ll wake half of Rome!”
Nicolo’s smile faded, became a snarl of rage. His hands tightened on her until she thought she would cry out. But she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. Instead, she stood facing him, her head flung back, her eyes steady on his.
“Women like you play a dangerous game, cara.”
“You don’t know a damned thing about women like me!”
“You are the same as Arianna,” he growled. “That’s all I have to know!”
He turned, pulled open the door, and vanished into the darkness.
CHAPTER NINE
CAROLINE PACED her bedroom, her furious steps taking her from one end of the handsome room to the other. Back and forth, back and forth she walked, like a caged tigress.
It was early morning; the sun was streaming in the windows and below, in the garden, a bird sang a happy greeting to the day, but Caroline was oblivious to it. All she could think about was what had happened in this room last night—what had almost happened, what, undoubtedly, would have happened—if Nicolo hadn’t made the mistake of revealing his true intentions.
The smug, insolent bastard! If he’d been able to keep from gloating, she’d have ended up in his bed, which was what he’d intended right from the beginning.
Caroline’s mouth twisted. Instead, she’d become a member of what had to be a rather exclusive club.
“You are the same as Arianna,” he’d said with disgust, but it was actually a compliment! Apparently, she and Arianna were members—for all she knew, the only members—of the “I Refused to Sleep with Nicolo Sabatini Sorority.”
Whatever else the mysterious Arianna might be, she was clearly a woman of taste.
Caroline strode to the windows and plumped her hands down on the sill. She had never been this angry in her life. Never, not even when some aroused, overweight, ugly Casanova had tried to paw her. At least men like that had been upfront about what they wanted, they hadn’t schemed and plotted with Machiavellian determination.
But that was what Nicolo had done. That was what yesterday afternoon and evening had been all about. The little jokes, the smiles, the anecdotes about his childhood, about his city, had been nothing but clever prelude to her seduction but the worst of it was that she’d been so damnably easy to seduce. She’d made an absolute fool of herself. Nothing, nothing, could compensate for that.
Caroline sank down on to the edge of the bed and shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out the humiliating scene, but it was impossible. Her whispers of abandonment seemed to echo in the air of the bedroom.
“Nico,” she could hear herself saying, “Nico, please, please, please…”
A shudder went through her. She’d behaved like a wanton, and why? She’d always known what he was, and she—she was no silly eighteen-year-old who’d never known a man’s touch. She was a woman, and, even if she was hardly the sophisticate Nicolo imagined her to be, at least she knew what passion was.
She rose and stalked across the room, snatched her brush from the vanity table and dragged it through her hair with harsh, angry strokes. But she was vulnerable, and the great Prince Sabatini knew it. She was in a strange coun-try, with no friends, no family, and only the barest grasp of the language…
“Damn the man!” Caroline whispered fiercely as she dropped the brush to the top of the vanity unit.
Caroline looked into the mirror and her grim reflection looked back at her. How she hated him! She was already counting the minutes until she’d march out the front door of the Palazzo Sabatini, secure in the knowledge that she’d never again have to see that self-satisfied patrician face. If it hadn’t been for Anna, she’d have been gone at sunrise.
But she couldn’t just walk out of the old woman’s life, not without preparing her first. An explanation was easy enough.
“I’m homesick for the States, Anna,” she’d say.
And then, in a day or two, she’d say the homesickness
was getting worse, that she was terribly sorry but she was going to have to leave Rome.
She owed the Princess that much. Hell, it wasn’t her fault she had a scoundrel for a grandson.
As for Nicolo—Caroline grimaced. “The palazzo was enormous; they could avoid each other easily, and, unless she was altogether crazy, he’d be as happy about that as she was.
Caroline took another look at the mirror. “All you have to do is hang in for a couple of days,” she told herself.
And if Nicolo tried to make an issue of the fact that he’d bought out her contract so she could work for him, he could stuff it!
To hell with him, and the contract, both. Just another couple of days, and it would be, “Arrivederci, Roma!”
* * *
HE WAS ALREADY GONE when she came down to breakfast, which didn’t surprise her at all. Anna chattered on and on, explaining that Nicolo had been called away early on business.
“Did you enjoy yourself yesterday, my dear?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” Caroline said, but as soon as she could, she changed the subject.
It was midmorning when Nicolo called. Lucia brought Anna the phone.
“Nicolo,” Anna said happily, “che cosa fa?”
Caroline closed her ears to the conversation, not that she could understand the swift, musical Italian. It was time to begin hinting at her departure; she’d put it off as long as she could, but it had to be done.