‘Papa feels very guilty about your mother. He was concerned that there was a possibility of domestic abuse in your parents’ marriage...’ Vitale volunteered very quietly after their plates had been cleared away.
Jazz turned sheet white and her fingers curled into the tablecloth, scrunching it. ‘There was,’ she conceded, thrown back in time to a period she rarely revisited. ‘My father was violent when life didn’t go his way and he took it out on us.’
Vitale was appalled and then shocked that he was appalled because he had heard of such situations, but then he had never personally known anyone who confessed to being a victim of domestic abuse. ‘You...as well as your mother?’
‘On several occasions when I tried to protect Mum. Poor Mum got the worst of it,’ Jazz conceded heavily. ‘Dad was hooked on online gambling and when he lost money he took it out on his family with his fists.’
A very real stab of anger coursed through Vitale at that news. He was remembering Jazz as a tiny child and a skinny teen and realising that she knew what it was to live in fear within a violent home where she should have been safe. His strong jawline was rigid. ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that experience.’
Jazz pursed her lips and sighed. ‘I think that was why Mum ran off with her second husband, Jeff. He was supposed to be her escape but he was more of a dead end. He wasn’t violent, just dishonest. But you know, the older I get, the more I realise that many people have had bad experiences when they were young,’ she told him in an upbeat tone. ‘It doesn’t have to define you and it doesn’t have to hold you back and make you distrust everyone you meet. You can move beyond it. I know I have.’
Vitale stretched out a hand and squeezed hers to make her release the tablecloth and she laughed and let go of it when she appreciated what she had been doing, her lack of self-pity and her strength delighting him.
‘I have the mother from hell,’ he confessed unexpectedly. ‘Controlling, domineering, very nasty. If she has a heart, I’ve never seen it. All she cares about is the Lerovian throne and all the pomp and ceremony that go with it.’
Jazz smiled, pleased that he trusted her enough to admit that. ‘You’re very lucky to have such a pleasant father, then,’ she pointed out.
‘Sì...’ Vitale confirmed, startled that he had spoken ill of his mother for the first time ever and quite unable to explain where those disloyal words had come from. There was something odd about Jazz that provoked him into acting against his own nature, he decided darkly. Maybe it was simply the fact that she was so relaxed in his company that she broke through his reserve. Was that why he was acting out of character?
As for the problem that was his mother, he had only told the truth, he reasoned ruefully. Sofia Castiglione was feared even by the royal household. It was not disloyalty to tell the truth, he acknowledged then, while marvelling that in admitting that salient fact to Jazz he felt some of his tension drop away.
Outside the restaurant, the limousine awaited them, two security guards forcing a man with a camera to back off. The flash of a photo being taken momentarily blinded her as Vitale guided her at speed back into the limo.
‘Who is she?’ another voice shouted.
‘Who am I?’ she teased Vitale with amusement as she settled back into her seat.
‘A mystery redhead. I will not give out your name. I have no intention of doing the work of the paparazzi for them,’ Vitale supplied, his attention locked to her small, vivid face, so pale against the backdrop of that mass of vibrant hair, fine freckles scattered across her diminutive nose. Hands off, he reminded himself doggedly even as he ached.
‘Do you want a drink?’ he enquired as they entered the house.
‘No, thanks. I’m sort of tired,’ she admitted, because she had had little sleep the night before, but she was not about to allude to that reality when Vitale was behaving like a perfect gentleman who had never once touched her. ‘Goodnight.’ She kicked off her shoes inside her room, feeling oddly lonely, and wriggled down the zip on her dress to peel it off and hang it up with the care demanded by a superior garment. She stripped and freshened up before reaching for the silky robe she had taken from the clothes selection earlier that day and that was when someone rapped on the door and it opened almost simultaneously.
Vitale strode in, leant back against the door to close it again and said thickly, ‘I don’t want to say goodnight...’
Surprised in the act of frantically tying the sash on her robe closed, Jazz literally stopped breathing. Smouldering dark golden eyes assailed hers in an almost physical assault and her heart started banging inside her chest like a drum. ‘But we—’
‘We are both single, free to do whatever we like,’ Vitale incised, suppressing every thought he had had, every decision he had made only hours earlier in favour of surrendering to the hunger that had flamed up inside him the instant she’d tried to walk away from him.
Air bubbled back into her lungs and she snatched in a sudden deep breath. ‘But,’ she started afresh, inexplicably feeling that she had to be the voice of reason.
Vitale prowled forward with the grace of a jungle cat. ‘Is there anyone else in your life?’
‘Of course not. If there had been, last night wouldn’t have happened,’ she protested.
‘Then I don’t see a problem, bellezza mia,’ Vitale proclaimed in a roughened undertone as he teased loose the knot in the sash in a very slow way. ‘Let’s keep it simple.’
Simple? But it wasn’t simple, she wanted to scream while knowing that he was taking his time with the sash to give her the opportunity to say no if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to say no, didn’t want him to leave her again and that disturbing awareness shook her up. Her heart was thumping so hard she could’ve been in the last stage of running a marathon and all she could see was Vitale ahead of her, those scorching dark golden eyes with a black fringe of gold-tipped lush lashes that a supermodel would have envied. Somehow, he was her finishing line and she couldn’t fight that, didn’t have that amount of resistance when he was right there in front of her, wanting her, needing her, Jazmine Dickens, against all the odds...
He eased the robe off her slight shoulders and let it drop and when her hands whipped up to cover herself, he groaned and forestalled her, trapping her small hands in his. ‘I want to see you, all of you.’
Her hands fell away, green eyes wide with uncertainty, and he lifted her up, threw back the covers on the bed and laid her down.
‘You’re wearing too many clothes,’ she told him shakily.
Vitale dealt her a slanting grin that lit up his lean, darkly handsome features like the sunrise. He undressed with almost military precision, stowing cuff links by the bed, stacking his suit on a chair, peeling off snug black briefs that could barely contain his urgent arousal. A slow burn ignited in her pelvis, her nipples tinging into tight buds, a melting sensation warming between her thighs.
It was only sex, she bargained fiercely with the troubled thoughts she was refusing to acknowledge, only sex and lots of people had sex simply for fun. She could be the same, she swore to herself, she would not make the mistake of believing that what they had was anything more serious than a casual affair. That was what Vitale had meant when he said, ‘Let’s keep it simple...’
He joined her on the bed, all hair-roughened brown skin and rippling muscle, so wonderfully, fundamentally different from hers, the sexual allure of his body calling to her as much as her body seemed to call to him. He kissed her and the fireworks started inside her, heat and longing rising exponentially with every searing dip of his tongue inside the moist interior of her mouth.
Her entire body felt sensitised, on an edge of unbearable anticipation.
‘I want to show you the way it should have been last night,’ Vitale husked. ‘Last night was rough and ready.’
‘But it worked,’ she mumbled unevenly, running a forefinger along the wide sensual line of his lips, revelling in the freedom to do so.
‘You deserve more
,’ Vitale insisted, bending his arrogant dark head to catch a swollen pink nipple in his mouth and tease it. ‘Much more...’
And much more was very much what she got as Vitale worked a purposeful passage down over her slender length, pausing in places she hadn’t even known had nerve endings and dallying there until she was writhing in abandonment, before finally settling between her spread thighs and addressing his attention to the most sensitive place of all.
Self-consciousness was drowned by excitement, sheer physical excitement that she could not restrain. He used his mouth on her, circling, flicking, working her body as though it were an instrument and her pleasure grew by tormentingly sweet degrees until the tightness banding her pelvis became a formless, overwhelming need she could no longer withstand. When he traced the entrance to her lush opening, her spine arched and she cried out as a drowning flood of pleasure surged through her slight body and left her limp.
‘Much better,’ Vitale pronounced hoarsely, staring down at her enraptured expression with satisfaction. ‘That’s how it should have been the first time and if you’d warned me—’
‘You probably wouldn’t have continued,’ Jazz interrupted, tying him back down to earth again with that frank assessment.
‘You don’t know that,’ Vitale argued fierily, pushing back her slim thighs and sliding between them, the urgency in his lean, strong body unashamed.
Jazz looked up at him, wondering how she knew it, but know it she did even though it wasn’t very diplomatic to drop it on him like that when he was so hopeless at grasping the way his own mind worked. ‘I suspected it,’ she admitted.
‘Nothing short of an earthquake would have stopped me last night!’ Vitale swore vehemently, finally surging into her moist, tender sheath with a bone-deep groan of appreciation. ‘You feel glorious, bellezza mia...’
And the powerful surge of his thick, rigid length into her sensitive core felt equally glorious to Jazz, stretching the inner walls, filling her tight. Her eyes closed and her head rolled back on the pillow as she let the pulsing pleasure consume her. Ripples of delight quivered through her and she arched up her hips, helpless in the grip of her need. Nothing had ever felt so right or so necessary to her. He ground his body into hers and she saw stars behind her lowered eyelids. She began to move against him, hot and frenzied as he slammed into her, primal excitement seizing her with his heart thundering over hers. And then she reached a ravishing peak and rhythmic convulsions clenched her womb as he shuddered over her with an uninhibited shout of satisfaction. A rush of sensation washed her away in the aftermath of lingering pleasure.
‘It’s amazing with you,’ Vitale gritted breathlessly, releasing her from his weight.
Jazz stretched out her arms and tried to snatch him back. ‘Don’t move away.’
‘I’m not into hugging.’
‘Tough,’ Jazz told him, snuggling up to him regardless. ‘I need hugs.’
Vitale’s big body literally froze, tested out of his comfort zone.
‘It’s called compromise and we are all capable of it,’ Jazz muttered drowsily against his chest, one arm anchoring round him like an imprisoning chain. ‘I’m not telling you I love you because I don’t. I’m just fond of you, so don’t make a fuss about nothing.’
In a quandary, Vitale, who had been planning to return to his own room, lay staring up at the ceiling. He had to stretch away from her to switch off the light, but she hooked him back with the efficiency of a retriever picking up game even though from the sound of her even breathing he knew she was definitely asleep.
She was so blunt, he reflected helplessly, wondering if he should simply push her away to make it back to his own bed. He was relieved that she had no evident illusions about their relationship and wasn’t thinking along the lines of love because he didn’t want to hurt her. Seducing a virgin was a dangerous game, he acknowledged, wondering why she had still been untouched, wondering why he was even interested because his interest in his lovers was usually very superficial. He didn’t quite know how he had ended up having sex with her again and wondered if it mattered. He decided it didn’t and if he slept with her, he could have her again in the morning, so staying put made very good sense...
* * *
‘Could we just rough it for a night?’ Jazz asked hopefully a week later.
Vitale frowned. ‘Rough it?’
‘Instead of going to some very fancy restaurant, we could go to a supper club I know that does ethnic dishes. It’s cheap but the food’s great.’ Studying his unenthusiastic expression, Jazz grimaced. ‘Vitale, just for once can we go off the official map?’
‘I don’t follow an official map,’ Vitale argued, meeting hopeful eyes and simply wanting to see the liveliness return to her lovely face, which was telegraphing her conviction that he would refuse her suggestion. ‘All right, just this once but if either of us get food poisoning, you’re dead!’
‘We’re not going to get food poisoning,’ she assured him with a confident grin.
They ate a delicious and surprisingly elaborate five-course meal in a private city garden and Vitale drank out of a bottle without complaint and watched Jazz sparkle across the table. He was more relaxed than he could ever remember being with a woman. She had so much verve and personality he couldn’t take his eyes off her and the awareness that he was taking her home to bed gave him a supreme high of satisfaction.
A week later she dragged him out to the flower market on Columbia Road and he took a photograph of her, her slender figure almost lost in the giant armful of flowers he had bought her. They walked along the South Bank and he watched street performers entertain for the first time ever, laughing when she called him a stuffed shirt for admitting that.
‘You can’t always have been so sensible, so careful about everything you do and say,’ she remarked with a frown.
‘I learned to consider everything I did and said when I was very young,’ Vitale confided. ‘As a child, I was always trying to please my mother but eventually I gave up. I don’t think she much likes children...or maybe it was only me.’
Jazz was shocked. ‘You don’t think she liked you even as a child?’
Vitale frowned. ‘If being a queen hadn’t demanded that she produce an heir I don’t think she would ever have had children. I was a typical little boy—noisy, dirty and always asking inconvenient questions. She often cut short the time she was supposed to spend with me because I irritated her.’
‘But you were only being a normal kid,’ Jazz contended feelingly, catching his taut fingers in hers to squeeze them and gazing up at his shadowed features. ‘That wasn’t about you, it was about her and her flaws, not yours. Obviously she didn’t enjoy being a mother but that wasn’t your problem and you shouldn’t let it make you feel guilty or responsible. You’re an adult now and you don’t need her the same way.’
That was certainly true, Vitale conceded, thinking back to his cold, distant relationship with his mother and his once childish efforts to improve it and win her approval. But as an adult he knew Sofia Castiglione now and he no longer expected her to change or tried to please her. Maturity had taught him that he was tough enough to get by on his own.
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ he told Jazz, ‘but I do get embarrassed when she treats people badly. When you’re born into a privileged life like ours, you can’t take it for granted and you can’t afford to forget that you rule, not just by right of birth but only with the agreement and the support of the people.’
He was a deeper thinker than she had ever acknowledged and she was impressed by that distinction that he made. By the sound of it, his mother was a right old horror, she thought ruefully, annoyed that Vitale had clearly been so damaged by the wretched woman’s inability to love her son. That night she lay awake for a long time, secure in the circle of Vitale’s arms, thinking with warm appreciation of how tender he could be with her even though he had evidently had very little tenderness shown to him. He was so much more than he seemed on the outside...
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* * *
‘But I can’t be... I’m flying to Italy tomorrow,’ Jazz framed without comprehension because what she had been told had come as such a gigantic shock that every scrap of natural colour had drained from her rigid face.
‘You’re pregnant, around six weeks along,’ the brisk female doctor repeated quietly.
‘But I’m on the pill!’ Jazz exclaimed shakily. ‘How can I be pregnant?’
The doctor consulted her computer screen. ‘I see you’ve been taking the mini pill for menstrual irregularity. Have you been careful to take it at the same time every day? It can be a little less effective as birth control than other methods. For contraceptive purposes, I would have recommended an implant.’
‘The same time every day?’ Jazz gasped in dismay.
‘That information would’ve been in the instruction leaflet with the tablets.’
Jazz winced, acknowledging an own goal. ‘I didn’t read it.’
The doctor gave her a résumé of the various conditions that could make the birth-control pill less reliable and then added that nothing was one hundred per cent guaranteed to prevent pregnancy and that there was always a tiny proportion of women who still conceived regardless.
Jazz was in so much shock that she collided with someone as she left the surgery and spluttered an apology before she wandered aimlessly down the street into a café to sit with a cup of tea and contemplate her predicament. Vitale would go spare, that was all she could initially think. He might even think she had done it deliberately and had lied about being on the pill. Vitale was a naturally suspicious man when it came to women.