Disconcerted by that spontaneous counter-attack, Santino breathed slowly, ‘My shame?’
‘I was your wife. Age doesn’t come into it. You married me. You made promises to me. You broke them!’ Frankie enumerated with raw bite. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful because you stooped to marrying me in the first place? Well, I’m not grateful. In fact, I blame you for that most of all. You gave me expectations I would never have had otherwise. You allowed me to believe that I had rights when I had no rights! That was cruel and unfair and very short-sighted. How was I supposed to recover from my infatuation when I thought of you as my husband?’
Her outspoken censure provoked an incredulous flash in Santino’s hard scrutiny. Satisfaction filled Frankie. He was a self-righteous rat, blind to his own errors of judgement. Marrying her hadn’t been a kindness or a damagelimitation exercise. It had been sheer madness to encourage her love and dependency with a wedding ring.
She lifted her fiery head high, the burden of the past lightening, for she had finally got to put her own point of view and pride had been redeemed. Taking advantage of Santino’s charged stillness, she crossed with a sinuous twist of her hips through a gap in the prickly pear boundary to the rough pasture land beyond. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she announced.
A long while later, she sank down on a sun-baked rock to stare down at the farmhouse, stubborn resolution etched in every line of her lovely face. At last she felt free of that shadowy teenage self who had been relentlessly haunting her. And she had rediscovered the fighting backbone she needed to deal with Santino. Once he had put her through an emotional wringer, but she would never give him the power to hurt her like that again.
Matt—whom she absolutely had to phone, she reminded herself in exasperation—well, Matt had suggested that this trip might be therapeutic. And, astonishingly, he had hit a bull’s-eye with that forecast. It was time to move on. It was time she got Santino out of her system. And, since she had always been wildly attracted to Santino, wasn’t it ridiculously old-fashioned to be ashamed of the fact? Everything that drew her to Santino had to have its roots in that physical hunger.
They would have a passionate affair and nobody would ever know about it. Then they would part and, most importantly, she would be over him. Santino’s indifference had once smashed her ego. That was why she had never been able to put him behind her, where he belonged. That was undoubtedly why she was still so strongly drawn to him. Human nature was perverse. Didn’t people always want what they thought they couldn’t have?
When curiosity was satisfied, surely she would be completely cured of this hangover from her past? Convincing herself of that cheered Frankie up immensely.
‘I’ve started a meal. I thought you might like a drink,’ Frankie said breezily as she strolled into the room across from the lounge which Santino had always used as an office.
Santino spun round in surprise from the computer, brilliant eyes reflecting the sunlight and momentarily stilling her. Smiling brightly, Frankie set the glass of wine down on the desk, struggling not to cringe at the sight of the large bridal photograph of herself that she had placed on that same desk five years earlier, and which still sat there, an embarrassing rave from the grave.
‘Heavens, does nobody ever dump anything around here?’ she complained, lifting the frame and treating it to a disparaging glance before she dropped it with a gentle crash down into the waste-paper bin. ‘Sorry, but it’s really creepy seeing stuff like that still sitting about.’
Relishing the slight frown drawing Santino’s winged ebony brows together, Frankie walked back to the door, secure in the knowledge that her behaviour was disconcerting him. ‘Dinner won’t be ready for ages yet. I thought I should make this a special occasion,’ she murmured sweetly, casting her dancing eyes down. ‘What a pity you didn’t lay in some champagne...’
Ten minutes later she was standing beneath the bathroom shower, deciding to wear her bathing pareu and possibly her most abbreviated top in which to dine. Santino wanted to see her in a skirt again? She was feeling generous. Santino wanted revenge? Well, Santino was in for a disappointment there. Frankie was the person planning to be empowered by the night ahead. She was going to wash that man right out of her hair and walk away, strengthened and renewed by the experience.
Ironically, Santino had greatly revived her self-image with the astonishing confession that he had found her an almost unbearable temptati
on at sixteen. Before she’d got her slight overbite corrected, before she’d got dress sense, before she’d become an independent and surely far more interesting adult woman...
So he ought to be a push-over for seduction. And she might be inexperienced but she knew all the mechanics, could hardly fail to be aware of them. The British media surfeit of articles on sensual experimentation was thrust at women from every printed page. And surely knowledge was power in the bedroom?
Downstairs in the lounge she lifted the phone and belatedly tried to ring Matt, but her business partner was out. She left a brief message on the answering machine at the apartment, explaining that so far she had been unable to reach agreement with the owner of the villas. Strictly true, not a lie, she thought ruefully.
The fridge in the kitchen was crammed with fresh food and the cupboards were fully stocked. Her great-aunts had been wonderfully thorough. Frankie hummed as she baked carta da musica bread, checked the selection of antipasti appetisers and the clear soup she had already prepared and went on to make an asparagus salad, gnocchetti alla sarda for a main course and a pecorino-based cheesecake to be served with Sard bitter honey.
Gastronomically, Santino would be as putty in her ruthless hands. She had a second glass of wine to fortify herself. Tonight there would be none of last night’s craven uncertainty. Tonight she would hold centre stage and she would be in control. When she had the table prepared, she called him.
Santino stilled one step inside the dining room. Brilliant dark eyes raked with infuriating impassivity over the candlelit intimacy of the beautifully set table and then lodged on Frankie, where she positively posed, the colourful pareu knotted at her slender waist and arranged to reveal a discreet stretch of one long, fabulous leg. His intent gaze roamed over her flowing mane of vibrant hair and the strappy green T-shirt which revealed rather more than it concealed of her high, full breasts.
Frankie held her breath, heartbeat crashing like warning thunder in her eardrums. Her own attention was all for him. In a dinner jacket and close-fitting black trousers, with a white dress shirt heightening the exotic effect of his black hair and golden skin, he looked alien and yet alarmingly, wonderfully spectacular. A tingle ran down her responsive spine.
‘Are you planning to poison me during the first course?’ Santino enquired lethally.
Frankie stiffened incredulously. ‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’
‘I know you’re temperamental, but this scenario is unbelievable. “Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly...’”
Feeling foolish, Frankie tilted her chin in challenge. ‘Why shouldn’t I amuse myself by cooking up a storm when I’ve got nothing better to do?’
Santino’s sensual mouth slanted with unsettling sardonic amusement. ‘A complete volte-face within the space of hours? Naturally I’m suspicious.’
‘Just sit down and eat!’ Frankie stalked back out to the kitchen.
She poured herself another glass of wine with an angry hand. So Santino refused to be impressed. Damn him for having the power to play his cards so close to his chest, not to mention the dismaying ability to look at her, in spite of all her efforts, as he might have looked at a stone statue.
‘You could ravish a saint in that outfit,’ Santino drawled with silken mockery from the doorway. ‘You look gorgeous from top to toe. Happy now? But when you stood there patently expecting me to compliment you something in me refused to give you what you wanted.’
Frankie focused on him with mortified resentment. He made her sound so naive, so obvious. Sidestepping him, she returned to the table. ‘That’s because you’re devious and stubborn, Santino...you always were. I used to not see that, but now I do,’ she confided with driven honesty.