Enemies at the Altar (11 page)

He gave her cheek a light brush with his fingertip, his eyes dark and intense as they held hers. ‘Have you really only had two partners?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Sienna said. ‘I know the press have always made me out to be a sensual hedonist but, to tell you the truth, I felt awkward and uncomfortable having sex. I just wanted to get it over with. I didn’t feel anything much at all.’

‘That’s probably because you weren’t in tune with the other person physically,’ he said. ‘The first few times you have sex you shouldn’t rush it. You need time to get to know your body’s needs and rhythm. I rushed things last night because I thought you were more experienced. It will be different the next time. I’ll make sure of it.’

Sienna felt her insides tremble with anticipation. Could she risk everything to indulge in a red-hot fling with him? It would be a sensuous feast she could sustain herself with for the rest of her life. But could she keep her feelings well clear of it?

It was a gamble she felt more and more tempted to take.

‘You sound pretty certain there’s going to be a next time,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that a little arrogant of you?’

‘There’s a difference between arrogance and confidence,’ he said. ‘I’m confident we’re going to be dynamite together, but I’m not so arrogant to assume it’s going to last.’

It wasn’t quite the answer Sienna was looking for.
It seemed to suggest he had only a passing interest in her. She was more of a novelty to him than a person of any lasting value. ‘Does any woman hold your interest longer than a month or two?’ she asked.

‘Some more than others.’

‘What about Portia Briscoe?’ she asked. ‘You were going to marry her. What were you going to do once you got bored? Have a little affair on the side, just like your father did?’

A flicker of heat passed through his gaze. ‘My father made promises to my mother he later broke,’ he said. ‘I made no such promises to Portia. She knew what I wanted in a wife and she was prepared to provide it.’

‘She’s not the right person for you, Andreas,’ Sienna said. ‘Your housekeeper Elena thinks so and, quite frankly, so do I.’

His top lip curled. ‘I suppose you think you’re a much better candidate, do you?’

‘No, but obviously your father thought so,’ Sienna said. ‘I can’t see why else he would have done this. He must’ve wanted you to stop and think about what you were doing. Perhaps he didn’t want you to lock yourself into a loveless marriage for the rest of your life.’

Andreas’s eyes clashed with hers. ‘So he locked me into a hate-filled one with you?’

‘Only for six months,’ she reminded him.

He looked at her for a long moment. ‘You know, it was a whole lot easier hating you when I thought you were a money-hungry trollop,’ he said. ‘Now I know more about you, it seems rather unfair to maintain such negative feelings.’

‘What are you saying, Andreas?’ Sienna asked with
a deliberately goading smile. ‘That you’re falling a tiny bit in love with me?’

‘I’m no more in love with you than you are with me,’ he said, his expression locking down like a shutter over a window. ‘What we feel for each other is lust. There’s no other fancy way of putting it. And, in my opinion, the sooner it burns itself out the better.’ And, without another word, he left, clipping the door shut behind him.

Later that day Sienna was coming back from photographing the lavender fields when she saw Andreas in the distance. He was walking through the vineyard, inspecting the vines as he went along the rows.

She raised her camera and zoomed in to frame him in a series of shots. She captured him deep in thought. She captured him squinting against the late afternoon sun. She captured him picking a leaf from a vine and running it through his fingers, his brow furrowed in a frown. And then, as if he suddenly became aware of being watched, he turned and looked directly at her.

Sienna lowered the camera as he walked towards her. She watched as his long legs ate up the distance, the muscles of his thighs bunching with every step. Her belly gave an excited little quiver. He looked so arrantly male, dressed in dark blue denim jeans and a close-fitting white T-shirt. Every honed and toned muscle stretched against the fabric, reminding her of the potent power of his body. She had felt that hard male body move inside hers.

She wanted to feel it again.

He came and stood right in front of her, his towering height almost blocking the sun from her view. ‘Are you going to let me see what you’ve been up to?’ he asked.

Sienna positioned herself beside him and pressed the buttons on her camera to recall the shots. ‘You make a good study when you’re not aware of the camera,’ she said. ‘But that’s like most people. It’s hard to get a natural shot of someone when they know they’re being watched.’

His eyes met hers. ‘These are good,’ he said. ‘How long have you been doing this?’

Sienna shrugged dismissively as she turned off the camera. ‘A while.’

He took the camera from her and turned it back on, scrolling through the archive of pictures she had loaded. ‘You’ve got a good eye,’ he said, looking at her again. ‘Is this a hobby or is it what you want to do? To pursue a career in photography?’

Sienna took the camera from him, her fingers briefly coming in contact with his. ‘I lost my office job when Brian died,’ she said. ‘His family didn’t want me working in the business. It made me think about being my own boss instead of being at the mercy of other people all the time. Of course it will take me a while to build up the business, but I’d like to have a go at it. I could never afford decent equipment before. I’d need a much better camera for official portraits and wedding photography and I’d need to rent a studio. I couldn’t afford to do that before. But after this six months is over … well, I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank, won’t I?’

His expression was deeply thoughtful. ‘So why did you encourage me to think you only wanted the money for a layabout holiday and endless partying?’ he asked.

She shifted her gaze from his as she put the camera back inside its vinyl case. ‘I might not make it as a photographer,’ she said. ‘There’s pretty stiff competition
out there. I’m under no illusions that I’m any more talented than anyone else.’

‘Where would you like to base yourself?’ he asked.

‘London,’ Sienna said. ‘But I could travel to other places on assignment. It’d be fun travelling around to take pictures all over the world. I could even do a book, you know, like one of those super-glam coffee table ones.’ She flashed him a little smile. ‘You could tell everyone you knew me before I was famous.’

‘I’m sure you’ll do very well,’ he said, a small frown forming between his eyes. ‘You seem to have rather a knack for falling on your feet.’

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear that the light breeze had been playing with. ‘What will you do with this place once you inherit it?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to base yourself here or Florence, or travel between the two?’

His eyes held hers in a brooding little lockdown. ‘It is not yet certain that I will inherit it,’ he said. ‘It would be foolish of me to make plans at this stage. I’ll take a wait and see approach.’

Sienna frowned at him. ‘You don’t trust me, do you?’

‘This is a valuable property,’ he said. ‘It surely can’t have escaped your notice that it’s worth five or six times what you will get in the pay-out. Why should I trust you?’

‘No, indeed,’ she said, throwing him a blistering look. ‘Why should you?’

He let out a breath of irritation. ‘Sienna, I realise I’ve made some errors of judgement with you in the past, but I would be a fool to take it for granted that you’ll abide by the terms of the will. We haven’t been married a week. How do you know what you’ll feel in six weeks from now, let alone six months?’

‘I know exactly what I’ll feel,’ she said, glaring at him. ‘I’ll still hate you.’

‘Best you keep on doing that,’ he said, turning to walk back towards the vineyard. ‘It will make the end much easier for both of us.’

‘Why are we leaving so soon?’ Sienna asked as Andreas loaded their bags in the car later that evening. He had given her very little notice. He had sent a message via Simone, telling her to pack as they were leaving to catch the next available flight. ‘I thought you said we were staying for two or three days.’

‘I’ve seen what I came here to see,’ he said as he snapped the boot shut and came around to open her door for her. ‘The Perraults are managing things just fine. I have other things I need to see to in Florence. I have a business to run.’

‘Aren’t you worried what the press will think of you cutting short your honeymoon?’ she asked once they were on their way.

He sent her a brief unreadable glance. ‘I thought you were desperate to get back to your feral dog?’

‘So you’re doing this for me?’ Sienna asked with a sceptical look. ‘Somehow, I don’t think so.’

‘I’m doing it for both of us,’ he said and put his foot down on the accelerator.

Sienna didn’t see much of Andreas after they got back from France. Each day he left early in the morning and returned well after she had gone to bed. It annoyed her that he had just left her to her own devices, not even having the decency to communicate with her, other than via the housekeeper or a short text. It made her feel like
an uninvited guest who was being tolerated, rather than welcomed.

But then, that was exactly what she was. Andreas had planned his life with meticulous precision. She had never been a part of it. She was the last woman he would ever have considered marrying. But his father’s will had changed everything. So, too, had that brief moment of intimacy. Yet ever since that night Andreas had kept his distance.

Her heart gave a funny little spasm. He could easily find someone else. He might have already recruited someone to satisfy his needs. There were hundreds of women who would do anything to be his mistress. Would she have to pretend not to notice for the rest of the time they were stuck together in this arrangement? Was he doing it to make her default on the will? After all, she was the one with the most to lose. All he had to do was wait it out and he could claim what was rightly his. Her lack of experience was probably the biggest turn-off for someone with his level of expertise. He probably couldn’t wait to get rid of her now she was of no further use to him.

Sienna was sure Elena was well aware that Andreas didn’t share a bed with his new wife, but the housekeeper was either too discreet or polite to mention it in any of her interactions with her.

Elena had mentioned something about a furniture design collection Andreas was working on, commissioned by a wealthy American businessman, and how it was taking up a lot of his time. ‘He barely sleeps when he is working on a special project,’ she said. ‘He spends hours and hours at his office. Once it is finished he will be able to relax a little,
sì
? Maybe he will take
you away somewhere special for a proper honeymoon. It is lonely here all day on your own.’

‘I’m not lonely,’ Sienna insisted. ‘I have Scraps to keep me company.’

Elena gave her an indulgent smile. ‘It will be easier when you have a
bambino
or two to keep you busy,
sì
?’

Sienna pushed the thought of a dark-haired hazel-eyed chubby baby out of her mind. She thought instead of a home of her own in London, a luxury home with a studio and a garden and money in the bank—lots and lots of money.

That was her goal, not marriage and babies.

When Sienna came downstairs for dinner towards the end of the week Andreas was in the
salone
sipping an aperitif. His gaze skimmed over her coffee-coloured dress before meshing with hers. ‘I was expecting you to send word via Elena that you wouldn’t be joining me for dinner,’ he said.

Sienna held her head at an imperious angle. ‘I considered it, but then I thought that would be letting you off the hook,’ she said. ‘I’d much rather annoy you with my presence since you seemed to be actively avoiding it for the past week.’

A half-smile kicked up one side of his mouth. ‘Feeling neglected, are we?’

She took the glass of wine he had poured for her, giving him a hardened look. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I just can’t help wondering what your housekeeper thinks of our relationship, with you spending every minute you can at work while I’m stuck here twiddling my thumbs.’

‘She is employed to keep order in the villa, not to speculate on my private life,’ he said. ‘She knows she
would be fired immediately if she spoke out of turn. Anyway, if you’re bored, why not take the car out I bought you?’

‘I’m not bored,’ Sienna said. ‘I’ve got plenty to do; it’s just I don’t like having to pretend things are normal between us when they’re not.’

‘There’s one way to change that,’ he said with a glinting look in his eyes. ‘We can make them normal. You can move into my bed tonight.’

Sienna felt her stomach do a flip turn. ‘How can you be so clinical about this?’ she asked. ‘We don’t even like each other.’

‘Liking one another has nothing to do with it,’ he said. ‘Physical compatibility is what matters. I’ve had lovers I didn’t like much at all, but they were perfectly fine as sexual partners.’

‘Have you ever been in love?’ Sienna asked.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe it exists. I’ve seen it and admire it in others. I just haven’t felt that level of attachment.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘What about you?’

‘I think my twin got all the love genes instead of me,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more in love than Gisele and Emilio. Their wedding is in three weeks. You haven’t forgotten, have you? I called your secretary to put it in your diary. I’m going to go a couple of days before to help with things. I’ll meet you at the hotel.’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting them both, particularly your sister.’

‘We’re nothing alike,’ Sienna said. ‘Well, apart from looks, I mean.’

‘You must have more in common than looks,’ he said.

‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I adore her. She’s so sweet and caring I can’t help but love her. But because we haven’t shared the same parents, or the same experiences, we want different things for our lives. I wonder if it would have been different if we had grown up together. I guess we’ll never know now.’