Coercion to Love (14 page)

Carlo Valenti was used to sophisticated women, women who knew how to play the game according to its sophisticated rules. Sabrina Reducci was one of those women, and, she forced herself to add, so had been her sister. Carlo had to know that Cass was not one of that worldly breed. So what was his ultimate motive?

He wanted his daughter, she answered herself. And if it meant seducing the aunt to get the child, then perhaps he was capable of being that ruthless. His treatment of Liz confirmed he could be, and the way he had pursued them over the last year said he could be relentless when set on achieving his goal.

And there it was, she concluded heavily during one of her long soul-searching exercises, the reason why she just didn't dare let herself fall into the magical web he was so cleverly weaving about them both: Carlo's motives just could not be trusted.

One week slid busily by, then the next. But, while Cass was finding it harder and harder to hold herself aloof from Carlo's sexual allure, Terri's defences remained strongly erected against him. Oh, she wanted to give in. Everyone who watched her with him had to be aware of it. They only had to see the long, wistful looks she sent him when she thought he wasn't looking, or note the way she was constantly finding excuses to touch him, to be close to him, to realise that she was really quite desperate to love him openly.

Cass understood what the poor child was going through because she was suffering from the selfsame struggles herself. But, whereas Cass had good and valid reasons for fighting Carlo's charm, on the face of it, Terri did not.

Yet still she held back.

'Aw, Cass, come on; you're dragging too far behind!'

Cass sent her niece a glowering look, then took a tighter grip on the reins as the big beast beneath her swayed too precariously for her peace of mind. 'I think this is a stupid way of getting about,' she complained, turning the glower on the man who was sitting so elegantly astride his own fabulous horse, cruelly laughing at her discomfort.

'You will get used to it, Cassandra.' Turning his mount, he trotted back to her side, his horse lightly picking its way over the loose stones by the side of the river. 'It is because you are having to use muscles you have rarely used before.'

'Tell me something I don't know.' Carefully she lifted one well-rubbed thigh away from the horse's flank. 'Did we have to come this far on my first real ride?'

Unlike with Terri, who had taken to horse-riding like a duck to water, it had taken Carlo more than a week to coax a very wary Cass into the saddle. She was a city girl, born and bred, and horses were alien beings as far as she was concerned.

'Another week, and you will be riding as though born to it, mia cara,' Carlo said soothingly as he came alongside her.

Another week, Cass thought bleakly, and I won't be here.

She gave a small sigh, her bright head turning wistfully up to the sun. She had come to love this place. Its warmth, its beauty, and its alluring tranquillity.

'You are tired.' Misreading the sigh, his amusement changed to an immediate concern. Carlo reached across the gap between them to cover her hands with one of his own, his dark gaze fixed solicitously on her.

'Yes,' she admitted, refusing to look at him—as always when he was close, much too physically aware of him. 'I think it may be better if I lead my horse back on foot while you and Teresa-----'

'No.' The hand holding hers moved, long fingers taking the reins from her so that he could lead her over to where Teresa waited impatiently. 'Here, mia cuore,' he said to his daughter. 'Take your aunt's reins for me while I-----' he passed the reins to Terri '—bring her up to sit with me!'

'What are you doing?' Cass cried out as suddenly she found herself plucked from her saddle as though she weighed no more than his daughter, and dumped efficiently across his lap.

'I am making you more comfortable, cara,' he murmured suavely. 'Now, sit still so we can finish this journey the romantic way.'

'Romantic?' she snorted, refusing to let her senses respond to the high, tensile ripple of his muscled thighs. I see nothing even vaguely romantic in every bone in my body aching!'

'Mi amore, this is the most romantic encounter you and I have had in many days.'

'Weeks,' she corrected without thinking, then caught her lower lip between her teeth as the colour spread along her cheeks. If she hadn't been so dauntingly aware of the height she was now seated at on his big horse, she would have been leaping right off again, just to escape from that very telling stupid remark!

'Why can't Cass sit with me?' a petulant voice piped up.

Carlo glanced down at his daughter's disapproving face. 'Because your little pony will not take Cassandra's added weight,' he explained, 'and because we have been thoughtless enough to expect too much of her too soon. So now I make amends by pampering her a little, si?’ he requested his daughter's approval, and received it with a dubious nod of her curly black head, and a pout that said she was still not happy with the situation.

She was jealous, of course, which was just another facet of the emotional struggle she was having with herself. She might not be ready to claim Carlo as her father, but neither did she like anyone else to get too close to him.

'Now, Teresa,' he instructed the child, 'you will have to lead the way back while I bring up the rear with Cassandra's mount. Can you manage that, do you think?'

Diverted by this bit of responsibility she was being given, Teresa tossed her head and prompted Lucia into movement. 'Of course I can,' she stated scornfully. 'You just take care of my aunt Cass!'

'Aunt Cass—Aunt Cass,' he mocked the child wearily as she moved away, her little body swaying to the pony's ambling gait. 'She is forever displaying her protective love of her precious aunt Cass! But when will she show the same regard for her papa?' His sigh was short and heavy. 'My mother and even Maria receive that same open display of love. It seems that she is prepared to love anyone so long as it is not me!'

'You know as well as I do that she virtually worships the very ground you walk upon!' Cass refused to offer him any sympathy. 'It really is only a matter of time before her defences come tumbling down.'

'Time is something which is quickly running out for me,' Carlo pointed out. 'No, Cassandra,' he sighed, as he prompted the horse into movement, 'it is obvious that she is never going to commit herself to me while she believes I hold only a temporary place in her life. We have to talk about it,' he decided grimly. 'Come to some decision about what we are going to do.'

Cass sighed, accepting that he was probably right, and a serious talk was inevitable, but she felt intensely reluctant to begin it, knowing that, once they did start talking, the halcyon world she had been existing in recently was going to topple down around her.

'But not today,' Carlo said briskly, as if he too was reluctant to spoil the easy rapport they had built up over the last two weeks. Tomorrow I take you on our promised cruise. The day after that should be soon enough to come down to earth.'

Happy to go along with that, Cass let her body relax into his. He smelled of fresh, clean air, the pale green shirt he was wearing open at the throat all the way down to the cluster of crisp dark hair at his chest, and she rested her head into the hollow of his shoulder, sighing the small sigh of the contented as his lips came down to brush her temple.

'Just think,' he murmured after a while, 'with Guido joining us for the cruise, you will be able to pay me back for all that flirting I have done with Sabrina over this last fortnight. I only hope,' he intoned pensively, 'that I will be able to control the urge to throw him overboard, as you have controlled the urge to scratch Sabrina's eyes out each time she's been here.'

'I have nothing against Sabrina!' Cass denied, not willing to admit to being that jealous, not for all the tea in China! This man was conceited enough as it was without her adding to it. 'I like Sabrina. It's just that she seems to have taken an immediate dislike to me.'

'Liar,' he drawled. 'You hate seeing her hanging on my arm all the time, monopolising me, kissing me...'

'You Italians throw your kisses around like raindrops,' Cass casually dismissed that one.

'And Sabrina certainly knows how to kiss a man,' he inserted teasingly.

'Have you no discretion?' Cass turned to glare up at him. 'Kisses for hello, kisses for goodbye—kisses in between for any excuse you can think of!' She affected a disapproving sigh. 'It's a wonder you know real passion when it hits you—or perhaps you don't,' she then decided. 'You Italians are known for your caprice, falling in and out of love at the drop of a hat.'

'Love is for the lovers, cara,' he chanted lightly, 'kisses are for friends.'

'I don't see the difference.'

'You don't?' His black brows arched in mock amazement. "Then perhaps this will help you to understand.'

There was a weird sense of unreality in being thoroughly kissed while riding a horse on the lap of a man, she decided as his mouth came warmly down on to hers and parted her lips without really having to coax them much. The sun beat warmly down on their two heads, and the smell of horse, heat and man all culminated to hold her encapsulated in the sheer pleasure of the kiss.

'You know, cam,' he murmured thoughtfully as his mouth drew slowly away from hers, 'there is one solution open to us which would solve all our problems. You could marry me, Cassandra, and make this your permanent home from now on.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jarred violently out of her sensual haze, Cass just stared at Carlo. 'W-what did you say?' she whispered breathlessly.

'You heard me, caro,' he mocked her stunned expression. 'I am asking you to marry me.'

'But th-that's ridiculous!' she gasped, jerking stiffly upright on his lap when something inside her began to flutter desperately. 'What kind of solution is that?' she added shrilly.

'The ideal one to soothe Teresa's feelings of insecurity,' he murmured quietly, beginning to frown at her obvious agitation.

'By swapping one set of problems for another set?' she cried, then shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'The idea is absolutely not on. As I said—it's ridiculous.'

'Why is it?' he demanded, grimly pulling the horse to a halt so that he could give her his full attention. 'We— care something for one another, Cassandra—no! You cannot deny it!' he insisted when she went to do just that. 'Physically we are perfect for each other—something else you cannot deny!' he put in before she tried to deny that one as well. 'We both want the same things where Teresa is concerned—her happiness and our own peace of mind that we are giving her the best love and care life can offer her. Why should the idea of you and I marrying to give her that seem so ridiculous to you?'

'Why?' she repeated distractedly. God, was the man totally insensitive where she was concerned? Couldn't he see—didn't he know that it was herself she was trying to protect here, and not Teresa? She was in love with him—dammit! Madly, stupidly, inconsolably in love with the father of her sister's child! With the man who had offered Elizabeth nothing—none of this!

She shook her head again, the guilty torment going on inside her showing in the stark white tension in her face, and Carlo sighed in angry exasperation. 'Oh, come on, Cassandra,' he muttered impatiently. 'I can't believe you are this shocked. What do you think I have been leading up to during the last two weeks? Of course the obvious answer has always been that you and I marry to give Teresa the stability she needs in her life!'

Further shock because he had actually been planning this all along had her eyes widening in her pale face. Then she was breaking free from his grasp, pushing his detaining arm away from her with trembling fingers, and braving the daunting height she was seated at to scramble down from the horse's back. They were only a few hundred yards away from the house. Terri was already there; Cass could see one of Carlo's men helping the child out of the saddle, their light-hearted voices filtering towards her on the sultry air. Icy cold with reaction, she walked the few yards which brought her to the edge of the river.

It was a moment or two before he came to stand beside her, the horses set free to graze on the grassy bank behind them.

'I must assume by your response,' he drawled, 'that the idea does not appeal to you.'

He sounded very mocking, but Cass caught the sarcasm in his voice and knew she had probably stunned him with her reaction as much as he had stunned her with his proposal.

He must have been very sure of himself—very sure of her.

And why not? she thought bleakly. He is everything a man should be: tall, dark and undeniably handsome.

The deep brown colour of his eyes made her melt inside, the allure of his too, too sensual mouth was a constant torment to her. He was a good father—she had already seen the evidence of that in the quiet, firm, loving way he treated Terri. He would be a loyal husband, too. The way he spoke of his first wife showed he possessed a deep sense of responsibility towards those he cared for.

And as a lover?

She quivered, weak feelings of need almost overwhelming her. He was offering her his body and Teresa's happiness. But what about love? One night in his arms and any defences she had left against him would come tumbling down, making her his slave for life, while she was—what to him? The loving aunt and surrogate mother to his child? The woman he would treat with the respect a wife deserved, but little else?

No, it wasn't enough, and she refused to let herself be drawn into making that ultimate sacrifice. Not for him. Not even for Terri.

'I can't marry you, Carlo,' she stated flatly.

He let out an impatient sigh. "Then what other solution do you see that will answer this dilemma we are now in?' he demanded.

‘Are you perhaps intending separating the child from all who love her here by taking her back to England with you next week? And, if so, how will you explain to her why you are doing such a cruel thing? How?' He took hold of her by the shoulders to bring her in front of him. He was angry, his mouth, so recently softened by hers, tight now and hard. 'How will you explain to her, caro, that on finding a father who loves her she now has to say goodbye to him?'