Damiano's Return

But, prior to his disappearance, Damiano had given her no cause to believe that he was being unfaithful, she reminded herself urgently. Now she had this one last chance. Maybe she had run out of chances. But he was worth the effort. She tiptoed back to the bedroom doorway and feasted her fraught eyes upon him. Oh, yes, he was still worth a major effort and in just a few hours he would be gone for ever!

Wrinkling her nose, she up-ended the glass and drank deep. Then she stripped off her clothes. She put on perfume, made careful use of her small stock of cosmetics and fussed endlessly with the blonde hair that tumbled round her shoulders in no particular style. As she usually wore her hair up, she had got lazy about getting it cut. She wondered if old vodka went off in strength and decided she had better drink some more. She was going to be everything Damiano had ever wanted just once. Not that prude he had left on the sofa. To prove that to herself, she walked naked out to the hall storage cupboard to dig out a box of keepsakes she had chosen not to leave behind in the town house.

Damiano had sent her a box of gorgeous silk lingerie the day before their wedding. The upfront guy spelling out his expectations, fantasies, hopes. No doubt, he had not appreciated just how outright intimidated she had been by that gesture or how deeply shocked her late father had been by the sight of such an intimate gift, for naturally the older man had demanded to know what had been in that wretched box and she had just cringed.

Eden slid into whisper-thin lilac panties and a matching low-cut bra. Better than being naked, she decided, bracing herself. She was beginning to feel a little strange…kind of skittish, enervated, gripped by the most ridiculous desire to dance. Damiano wasn’t going to know what had hit him, she told herself, psyching herself up into her new and more adventurous persona.

Damiano was now lying on his back in a diagonal sprawl across the divan. Late afternoon sunshine was filtering through the thin cotton curtains at the window. From the foot of the bed, she eased up into the space left by the wall. She studied Damiano. The piratical dark stubble accentuating his strong jawline and beautifully moulded mouth, the riot of dark, curling hair hazing his powerful pectorals, the smooth golden skin wrapped round his sleek, strong muscles.

Just the thought of touching him made her tingle. Awkwardly, she edged further up the bed, ludicrously fearful of awakening him. She bent over him, mesmerised by the slow rise and fall of his chest, the soft rush of his breathing and finally by the vibrance of him even asleep. She lifted her hand and rested her fingers very lightly on his arm. He shifted, muscles flexing beneath her hand. She tensed but the need to express how much she loved him in the only way that seemed left was more powerful.

Lowering her head, Eden pressed her lips to his taut, flat stomach and ran the tip of her tongue over his skin. The taste of him made her shiver. Heat flooded her own trembling body, stirring her breasts, pinching her nipples into straining buds. The scent of him was an unbelievable aphrodisiac to senses starved for so long. Her hand settled to a powerful male thigh to balance herself and, breathing in deep, she began to ease back the sheet.

But with a slumbrous growl, Damiano shifted, startling her. He laced his fingers into her hair to draw her up to him. Eden had barely grasped that he was wakening and that control was no longer hers before he had claimed her mouth in a devouring and hungry kiss. Raw need raced through every fibre of her shaken body in response. Settling strong hands to her waist, he lifted her over him, long fingers splaying to her slender hips to urge her into potent contact with the virile force of his arousal.

The heat he ignited fired an almost painful ache deep in her pelvis. Eden quivered, a helpless moan of reaction escaping her. Almost instantaneously, Damiano stilled. His hands whipping up to her forearms, he held her back from him.

Stunned dark as night eyes clashed with hers. ‘Eden?’ he faltered in apparent disbelief. ‘Che cos’ hai?’

It was one of those ghastly moments when time hung still and she would have done anything to move it on. As she registered that Damiano had automatically responded to her caresses before he was even properly awake, a burning tide of red skimmed up her throat to scorch her discomfited face. She watched in a state of stricken paralysis as his attention zeroed in on the scanty bra and brief set she wore. He blinked. Then he looked again with the kind of fixed attention which only accentuated his shock.

‘Per amor di Dio…what on earth are you playing at?’

Prior to getting into the bed, Eden had nourished a comforting vision of Damiano waking up to snatch her to him with keen hands and mercifully silent enthusiasm. Instead, Damiano had pulled back from her to reassert control and was now asking what had to be the craziest question he had ever asked her.

‘And why are you dressed like that?’ Damiano enunciated with a level of incredulity which only seemed to be increasing with every second that passed. He now focused on the high-heeled shoes which she had put on and kept on.

‘I…I don’t know what you expect me to say…’ Her admission emerged hopelessly slurred, the words tumbling together, provoking an even deeper frown between Damiano’s winged ebony brows.

‘Have you been drinking?’ Damiano questioned rawly.

‘Well, er…a bit—’

‘So…’ Damiano framed in a wrathful, low-pitched growl, black eyes blazing to gold as he scanned her guilt-stricken face. ‘You had to hit the bottle to get back into bed with me?’

‘Yes… I mean no!’ she gasped, floundering in dismay and confusion at the anger he was revealing.

‘So drunk you get into bed with your shoes on,’ Damiano said thickly, fabulous bone-structure rigid as he swept her from him and dumped her back down on the mattress. ‘I left behind a shy, uptight wife and now you’re coming on to me tarted up like some high-class hooker!’

Aghast at that condemnation and utterly at a loss in the situation developing, Eden began to crawl backwards off the bed. ‘No…no, it’s not like that—’

‘So who was it?’ Damiano shot at her, his lean, dark features flushed with black fury, his dark drawl fracturing, long fingers snapping like handcuffs round her wrist before she could get out of reach. ‘Who was it who worked this miraculous transformation while I was away? Don’t you think I have the right to know who’s been sleeping with my wife when I couldn’t do anything about it?’

Her feverish colour had now ebbed to leave her pale. She stared back at him with shocked eyes. The savage tension churning up the atmosphere tore cruelly at her already frayed nerves. Damiano snatched in a starkly audible breath, lashes lowering on his smouldering gaze as he abruptly released her from his hold.

Eden scrambled off the bed and snatched up the dressing gown lying on the chair, pulling it on with shaking hands. ‘Like some high-class hooker?’ Was that how she had seemed to him? Mortification and shame churned up her stomach. He didn’t want her…why had she imagined he would? Why had she got the crazy idea that five years on she might make good where she had failed before? Too little, too late. And now, thanks to her own foolishness, a nightmare seemed to be erupting around her: Damiano was already accusing her of having slept with some other man.

‘Mark, I suppose…’ Damiano gritted unevenly, his hands curling into fierce fists. ‘Sneaking, smooth little jerk just waiting his chance!’

For a split second Eden froze and then she backed out the door and fled into the bathroom. She thrust home the bolt on the door. So panicked by that final comment she could barely get air back into her lungs, she fought to get a hold of herself again. Did Damiano know, after all? Why else would he have mentioned Mark? Had someone already told him about those filthy lies printed about her by the tabloid press within months of his disappearance? What else was she supposed to think? Why else would he be thinking such a thing of her?

Damiano tried the handle. He rapped on the door. ‘Open up, Eden. I’ve calmed down and we have to talk.’

But Eden retreated from the door and stared at the barrier, imagining herself growing old and grey behind it.

Her brain felt like mush. She couldn’t cope with this right now, couldn’t cope with Damiano. Shedding the dressing gown, she tore off the scanty bra and briefs and thrust them into the waste bin with a shudder of chagrin. She kicked off the shoes and hauled on the dressing gown again, her face stiff with distress. Everything had gone horribly wrong; everything always seemed to go horribly wrong for her with Damiano.

‘Eden…I’m going to break down this door if you don’t come out.’

But she knew he wouldn’t do anything like that. It wouldn’t be cool. But then there had been nothing cool about the manner in which those accusations had come flying out of nowhere at her. ‘You’re leaving me anyway. Why am I letting you upset me? I’m not coming out!’ she sobbed with sudden ferocious bitterness.

With a thunderous crash the door smashed open and banged off the wall behind it. Her compressed lips fell open in shock. Pale as parchment, she surveyed Damiano. He had pulled on his jeans but, bare-chested and in need of a shave, his black hair tousled and his brilliant eyes shimmering like starlight, he was an intimidating sight.

‘Relax…’ he urged in an evident attempt to soothe her.

Eden was closer to collapse than relaxation. She stared back at him with huge, shaken eyes. He had lost his temper with her. He had smashed open the door without hesitation. For that split second in her bewilderment at such unfamiliar behaviour, she was incapable of response.

Damiano strode forward and just reached for her. He pulled her unresisting body close. His own heart was hammering as fast as her own. He urged her back into the sitting room. Her legs felt as weak as cotton wool beneath her. She was shaking like a leaf.

‘Why are you accusing me of leaving you?’ Damiano chided, evidently not having taken that accusation seriously. ‘Why can’t you just fly back to London with me? It will only be for a couple of days. As soon as I get these meetings over with, we’re flying out to Italy.’

‘Italy?’ Finally, it dawned on Eden that she had misunderstood his intentions earlier. He might be leaving her apartment but he was not planning to leave her behind as well. Sheer relief washed over her in such a gigantic wave that she felt dizzy.

‘One of the first things my brother told me was that Nonna died over four years ago.’