Caught on the raw, she drew in a deep breath. ‘I agreed to stay and help Sophia because I wanted to. No one put a gun to my head. I’m not saying that. But it wouldn’t be right for me to stay on once Sophia is married. You will want to get on with your life, and I intend to get on with mine.’
‘And if I want you to stay? What then?’
She gazed at him stonily. She was glad he was so angry. It was helping her say what needed to be said. ‘I am not going to be a notch on you bedpost, Vittorio. I’ve made that clear all along.’
‘So you a
re running away back to England and perhaps to this Liam? Is he the reason you do not want to stay with me? Maybe you are hoping he will invite you back into his bed?’
Now she was as angry as he was. After all she had told him, all she’d shared, he dared to say that? ‘I was never in his bed,’ she said icily. ‘I’ve never been in anyone’s bed, and I am certainly not going to start with you—so why don’t you just click your fingers and get one of the women who I’m sure are lining up to take their turn?’
He searched her face, and then shook his head in what looked like bewilderment. ‘Why are we arguing?’ He reached forward, taking her hand before she could snatch it away. ‘It has been good, these last weeks, has it not? And it could be better. I want you, mia piccola. I have never wanted a woman more or waited for one so long, believe me.’
She believed him about the waiting. She could imagine most women fell into his arms like ripe plums and considered themselves fortunate to be there. She took another deep breath and let it out evenly. She doubted she could make him understand, but she had to try. ‘It has to be about more than wanting for me, Vittorio,’ she said quietly, her anger doused by the knowledge that they really were worlds apart.
He stared at her. ‘But you do want me.’ It was a statement, not a question, but she answered it anyway.
‘Yes, I want you,’ she said, even more quietly. ‘But not just for a week or a month or even a year or two.’ There—she had said it. Caterina’s words were ringing in her ears—he might think she was trying to ensnare him, as so many other women had done—but she couldn’t help that. ‘And I know you don’t want that,’ she added quickly. ‘Not with me. Perhaps not with anyone.’
‘You do not trust me? You do not think I would be good to you?’
She gently extricated her hand from his warm fingers. ‘You know what I am saying, Vittorio, but for the record I do trust you. I trust that you are honest in your dealings with women, with me. You made no promises, guaranteed nothing.’
‘This is not true.’ Suddenly he was angry again. ‘I said I would wait until you were ready, did I not? We both know I could have taken you many times over the last weeks if that was all I wanted.’
‘But you wouldn’t have done that because you are a man, not an animal—a good man.’ She was trembling inside, her face tense. She hadn’t wanted it to end like this. Perhaps she should just have quietly slipped away the morning after the wedding and left a letter explaining why? But that would have been cowardly, and whatever else she was, she was not a coward. ‘And, like you just said, you knew I wasn’t ready for a brief affair before we both moved on. I’ll never be ready because I wouldn’t be able to give myself without it meaning the world. That’s how I’m made.’
‘You are saying you are going to walk away without giving us a chance?’ He leaned back in his chair, dark red colour slashing his cheekbones. ‘Then I do not consider this feeling you say you have for me worth anything.’
It was below the belt, and it hurt, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with not facing facts. ‘The “feeling” is love, Vittorio, whether you believe in it or not, and chance doesn’t come into it. If I stayed it would be for ever for me, whether we remained together or whether we parted. I would always be yours, in here.’ She touched her chest above her heart. ‘The difference is if I leave now I will be able to get on with my life and still function. One day this might even seem like a beautiful dream. If I stayed you would destroy me. I’m not prepared to sacrifice myself, I guess, or let what’s between us now become messy and tangled and dark. Me always wanting more and knowing you’re incapable of giving it. You feeling hemmed in—trapped, even. And then the parting. In a few months, a year, whatever. Me…’ She shook her head, unable to find words as to how she’d feel. ‘And you—guilty, angry, ashamed. Because, like I said, you are a good man.’
‘And so you are going to leave? Just like that?’
His expression was dumbfounded. Cherry got the feeling that women didn’t walk away from Vittorio Carella. It was always the other way round.
She couldn’t do this any more. ‘Just like that,’ she agreed softly. As though it wouldn’t be the hardest thing she had ever done.
When she rose to her feet she half expected he would try to stop her, by word or action, but there was nothing—no reaction on his part. He simply watched her with dark brooding eyes as she walked out of the room.
She had just opened the door to her room when he bounded up the stairs. She turned to face him, her heart pounding.
‘If I said I would marry you, what then?’ he ground out as he reached her.
For a moment hope flared. But only for a moment. In all her wildest fantasies—and she had fantasised about Vittorio asking her to marry him many times, fool that she was—she had never imagined the proposal would be in the form of a challenge, flung at her as though he were throwing down the gauntlet to an adversary.
She looked at him. A long, straight look. ‘Then I would tell you to think again,’ she said coolly.
He frowned, crossing his arms. ‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning such a marriage would be a disaster. A piece of paper and a wedding band doesn’t make a marriage, Vittorio. Nothing would be different to what I said downstairs except you would feel trapped earlier rather than later—don’t you see? Don’t you understand anything of what I’ve been saying? I want what you can’t give. Not just your body. I want it all. Love, togetherness, children, grandchildren. I want someone who will love me when my body isn’t so young any more, who will stand shoulder to shoulder with me against the rest of the world if necessary, who will face joy and sorrow and whatever comes our way holding my hand—’ She stopped, breathless and on the verge of tears, telling herself she was not going to cry. It would be the final humiliation.
He swore softly. ‘Why can’t you be like other women?’ he growled. ‘Why do you have to make this so complicated?’
He pulled her into his arms before she could protest, crushing her against his hard frame with her hands imprisoned against his chest. As his lips fastened on hers they held a fierce hunger that was stronger than ever before, made up of desire and anger. The intensity of it took her aback, and she stiffened in his embrace before the heat of his passion kindled the inevitable response and she relaxed against him with a low moan.
As he felt her yield he made a sound deep in his throat of satisfaction, his tongue searching the sweetness of her mouth, and, unable to resist, she allowed him to penetrate its inner depths. His hands curved round her waist, moulding her against him so closely she could scarcely breathe. His lips were doing indescribable things to her senses, and a slow sweet throb was beginning in the core of her that had her pressing against him even as her mind was screaming at her to stop.
His hands slid down the length of her body to cup her buttocks and he began to move her against his hardness, firmly, slowly, erotically, with a languorous rhythm that made her ache.