Marriage Made of Secrets

Pain tightened in his chest before he forcefully hardened his emotions. He wasn’t in the mood to enlighten Celine that he and wife couldn’t be further apart if they tried. ‘I appreciate what you did for Roberto, just as I appreciate what you’re doing for my fam—for me. Ciao, Celine.’ He quickly ended the call and threw the phone on his desk.

His jaw tightened against the helplessness that dogged him and he had the feeling Fate wasn’t done with him yet.

Closing his eyes, he tried to clear his head but there was no erasing his mind’s fixation on a particular woman. A woman with hair the colour of a glorious Tuscany sunset, peach-perfect skin dusted with freckles as countless as the stars. Emerald-green eyes that sucked him into seductive pools in which he wanted to happily drown.

The arousal that had plagued him since she returned throbbed to life, an insistent beat of desire that pounded through his system like a relentless drumbeat.

It would all go away. He just needed the right focus. One call on Monday to his lawyers to set divorce proceedings underway and this feeling would go away.

Satisfied that he’d regained some control, he left the study.

Lucia was laying out the breakfast things and turned at his approach. The usually stern face of the woman who’d been part of his household for longer than he could remember relaxed into a smile as she regaled him with Annabelle’s antics of the day before.

Cesare had noted the change in his household since his daughter’s return. The household staff who normally went out of their way to avoid him now smiled openly and even exchanged greetings instead of hurrying away when they saw him coming.

As he poured himself a coffee, he admitted to the lightness in his own heart since Annabelle’s return. But there was also a stab of pain so acute his hand shook. He’d almost lost her once. He had no intention of doing so again.

She was the only child he would bear; she would one day inherit the di Goia fortune. Which meant she had to be prepared. And, for starters, a daughter who spoke more English than Italian was simply unacceptable.

‘You look like you’re plotting world domination.’

Ava stood framed in the terrace doorway, dressed in a short white sundress. The sight of her long bare legs sent volcanic heat surging through his veins.

Sunlight flamed hair brightened by the Balinese sun. Her fair skin never browned enough to tan, but it glowed with a healthy hue and shimmered as if she’d smoothed a special lotion over it.

He watched her glide on bare feet towards him. In all the time he’d known Ava, he’d only seen her wear shoes when they went out and, even then, at the earliest opportunity she kicked them off. Instruments of torture, she called them. He’d never objected because he found her unadorned feet extremely sexy. He’d never have imagined he had a foot fetish before he met her.

But then he was equally fascinated with her fingers, with her lips, with the delicate bones of her clavicle and the sweet temptation of her round, supple breasts.

Madre di Dio! he cursed as his insane desire for her rose to torment him again.

Hips swaying beneath the soft, clingy material, she reached the table, chose the chair next to him and folded herself into it. Immediately the subtle scent of her perfume hit his nostrils, sending desire surging higher.

‘Should I be afraid?’ Her voice was a husky rasp in his ears. He had to concentrate hard to remember what she’d said.

He forced a smile. ‘I am plotting, cara, but not world domination. What I desire is much smaller, but no less important.’

Unease entered her eyes but she tried to mask it. When she looked away and poured her tea, he couldn’t resist the irrational urge to tease her, to pay her back for the suffering he endured. Hell, he knew it wasn’t her fault that he found her so alluring, so damned beautiful that all he wanted to do was bury the stiff, pulsing part of himself inside her, but he felt rattled enough not to heed caution’s voice.

‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’ he asked softly.

The teapot shook and she set it down. That small betrayal was quickly masked because when she glanced at him the deep endless pools of her eyes were clear and calm. But they still drew him in like a siren’s call.

‘Not particularly, but I get the feeling you’re in a sharing mood.’

He smiled. ‘I am indeed. Annabelle doesn’t speak any Italian.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘My daughter does not speak Italian.’

Her eyes flashed. ‘And whose fault is that? English is my first language, not Italian.’