Second Marriage

He opened his eyes slowly, straightening in the chair as he did so, but then his eyes caught and held hers in the way they had done once or twice before, their glit­tering depths mesmerising. He didn't say a word as he stood up, and neither did she, but as he walked across to her, his steps quiet and controlled like a predatory wild animal, she began to tremble very slightly.

'You are cold.' He had seen the tremors she couldn't hide and mistaken them for the chilling effects of the water, but she still couldn't speak, sensing what was to come but unable to stop it. 'Let me warm you.'

And then she was in his arms, and as she felt the hard, male mouth take hers she knew she had known this would happen from the first moment of meeting him. It had been inevitable, like the tide coming in and going out, the sun setting and the moon rising, spring following winter…

As her hands moved upwards to the broad, muscled shoulders her body curved into him all by itself, and his kiss penetrated the soft contours of her mouth in a way that caused pleasure to shoot like a white-hot flame through her limbs.

He was good. He was too good. He must have had hundreds of women to be able to kiss like this, and he was sophisticated, cosmopolitan. This wouldn't mean a thing to him… The thoughts were there but they couldn't compete with what his hands and mouth were doing to her.

'Claire, Claire, so warm and soft.' He was murmuring against her throat now, his kisses burning her skin and causing desire to mount in her like some unstoppable primeval force that was gathering her up and taking her into a world of wild light and exquisite sensation. 'This is crazy, crazy…'

And then his mouth took possession of hers again, hungry, searching, and she clung to him, returning kiss for kiss with a passion that matched his.

She could feel his arousal now through the thin barrier of clothes that separated their flesh, and she knew she ought to feel frightened, apprehensive of its alien power; she had never allowed Jeff full intimacy, and since he had finished with her she had never looked at another man, but somehow, somehow it was a fierce exultation that gripped her senses. He wanted her.

His hands had been moving up and down her body on top of the soft towelling, and now, with a little im­patient groan of need, he let them slip inside and brush over her breasts, causing her to quiver with awareness. She could feel her flesh swelling as the sensual explo­ration continued, but then, just as his hands moved downwards past her waist, the movement caused the belt on the robe to loosen and begin to open.

'No!' It was instinctive and fierce, the memory of

Jeff's rejection, his disgust and revulsion at her injuries suddenly hot and caustic in her head, and before the robe could open fully and betray her she had jerked away with a violence that spoke of panic and fright, turning to one side and pulling the belt tight round her waist. 'No, I—I don't want this,' she stammered frantically. 'I'm not… I can't do this.'

'It's all right. Shush, it is all right.' As Romano took a step towards her she shrank involuntarily, her arms crossed protectively round her middle now and her face white.

'Don't…don't touch me,' she whispered faintly. 'I want to go back to Casa Pontina, please. I want to go now.'

'Don't look at me like that. I am not going to hurt you, Claire.' His voice was curiously expressionless, as though he was exercising an iron control that was taking every ounce of his will. 'I did not intend for this to happen any more than you did. It was just one of those things.'

'It was not "one of those things".' She had to get away, stop this. He might think she was desirable now but he didn't know, and when he did…

'Claire—'

'I mean it—I don't want this. I don't want you.' She was lashing out in terrified self-protection and fear, hardly aware of what she was saying. 'I'm not like you. I don't have affairs, sleep around—'

'Now just a minute,' he said grimly, his whole coun­tenance darkening. 'What the hell have you been hear­ing?'

'I want to go back.' How could she have encouraged him to kiss her, touch her so intimately? she asked her­self. Where were the standards she had lived by all her life? She had only met the man twice, twice, and she had allowed…

Oh, she must have been mad, and she couldn't even say it was her moral principles that had made her draw back in the final analysis. It had been panic—panic and fear that he might notice the scars on her stomach and be repulsed by them after all the raging beauties he had had. What was she turning into? It was the wine—the wine and the accident with the coffee. But even as she grabbed at excuses in her mind she knew she was fooling herself. It wasn't the wine or the incident with the coffee. It was Romano Bellini.

'I asked you a question, little English girl.' His voice was cold now, icy, his eyes jet-black gimlets of stone. 'Who has been filling your mind with stories about the big bad wolf?'

'I… No one…no one's said anything.' Now the physi­cal danger was past the look on his face was frightening her. 'I…I saw the photos.'

'Photos?' he growled tightly. 'What the hell are you talking about? What photos?'

'In the albums.' Oh, this was awful. Why hadn't she kept quiet? All she'd done now was make a bad situation ten times worse, she thought miserably.

'I have never had an excess of patience, and the little I possess is fast running out,' he ground out through clenched teeth. 'Now will you please explain what you mean about photographs? Where are they and of whom?'

'At Grace's.' She took a deep breath—her voice had been humiliatingly shaky—and continued, 'And they are of you and Donato and…women, before you both got married.'

'Before…' His voice trailed away incredulously. 'Let me get this straight, Claire. You see photographs of Donato and I when we are young and you assume I am some sort of sexual deviant, is that it?'

'No—'

'But, yes. I think, yes. You are saying I slept with all the women I dated before I got married, is that it? That I had one affair after another, one-night stands, that I— how do you say it?—put it around, sì?' His accent was very marked now, his rage making him grind out the words slowly, with a force that was intimidating. 'And possibly you think that once I was single again I reverted to my old habits, like a dog returning to its vomit—'

'I didn't—I didn't say that,' she broke in quickly, the harsh analogy shocking her into speech.