Moth to the Flame (28 page)

fashion house. She smiled across the hall at Juliet, as if that last

painful confrontation had never taken place.

'Julie, my sweet!' She lifted a hand in greeting, and Juliet saw the

massive diamond that gleamed there. Even in that moment she

could still feel relief that Santino had not bestowed the ring he had

given her, the ring she had left in her room before her departure,

upon her sister.

'Hello, Jan.' Juliet spoke steadily. She felt as if she was bleeding to

death inside, but that didn't matter just as long as she didn't give

herself away. 'I hear felicitations are in order.'

Jan's smile widened. 'Indeed they are,' she drawled. 'And not before

time, you might think.' She bestowed a careless kiss on her mother's

cheek. 'Poor Mim! But all is forgiven, now that I'm married, isn't

that so?'

Mrs Laurence turned silently and went back into the sitting room

leaving the sisters facing one another. There was a long silence,

then Jan said, 'Aren't you coming in? We've been waiting to have

tea—and my husband wants to say hello to you.'

'That,' Juliet said very carefully, 'is a pleasure I'm going to have to

forgo. Please tell him I hope you'll both be very happy.'

She turned away and made for the stairs. Santino's voice saying,

'Giulietta!' very sharply brought her up dead in her tracks, the colour

draining from her face, her legs shaking.

'Oh, no!' she appealed to some unseen deity. 'Oh please, no!' She

forced herself to move forward. This was her mother's house.

Upstairs was her room—sanctuary.

His hand was hard on her shoulder, turning her to face him. He said

in a voice throbbing with anger, 'You don't run away from me again,

Giulietta.'

'Take your hands off me,' she whispered. 'If you've no consideration

for me, then have some for your wife!'

She wrenched herself free and started up the stairs, her heart

beating so hard she thought it would suffocate her. He was beside

her, bending to scoop her off her trembling legs, carrying her up the

stairs.

'Put me down!' Shame and rage battled for precedence within her.

'Don't you dare ...'

'I dare,' he said tautly. 'Once before. I let you walk away from me

up some stairs. I shall not make that mistake again. Which is your

room?' He halted on the landing, with her in his arms. He looked

down at her and the expression in his tawny eyes made her feel

weak. 'Tell .me, damn you!'

'It's the door at the end,' she whispered, and began to cry. He swore

under his breath and strode down the landing with her. When the

door was closed behind them he set her without gentleness on her

feet.

'What are you doing?' she cried, scrubbing furiously at her wet

cheeks with her fists like a child. 'You have no right to do this.

Your
wife's
downstairs. What is she going to think? And my

mother?'

He rested his hands on his hips. His glance raked her from head to

foot.

'Your mother's opinion may perhaps be of concern to me,' he said.

'But I have no wife.'

'What are you saying?' She pressed her hands against her face,

staring at him.

'I am saying I am not married.
Dio,
Giulietta, how many times must

I say it?'

'But Jan's married. Mim said she was—to an Italian. She told me

her husband was waiting to say hello.'

'And you assumed it must be me.' He smiled without mirth. 'No,

Giulietta. Your sister has found a husband— one Pietro Rizziani,

whom I think I have mentioned to you once before.' She gazed up at

him, her lips parting soundlessly, and he gave a sardonic nod.

'Si cara
—that Rizziani.'

'But—I thought he was—married already,' she faltered.

'So he was—then, but he has suffered a tragic bereavement.'

Santino's lips twisted cynically. 'Your sister's pregnancy persuaded

him to forgo the usual decent interval before remarrying. That and

the handsome dowry she was able to bring with her.'

'But Jan has no money -' she began, her voice tailing off suddenly as

she realised what he had done.

He nodded. 'I do not begrudge it,
cara
,' he said. 'After all, she is

almost a member of my family.'

'You mean—because she was going to marry your brother,' she

said. She seemed to be having the greatest difficulty in breathing

normally.

'No,' he shook his head. 'Because I am going to marry you,
amore.'

'No.' She turned away from him towards the window.

'Oh, but yes,' he said softly. 'I have not travelled all this way to be

rejected,
mia
.' He turned her to face him. For a long moment he

looked down at her, and then his mouth came down on hers, harsh

and bruising with a need, she realised dazedly, as great as her own.

The world spun around her as she clung to him, exchanging kiss for

kiss without reserve. He was murmuring endearments in his own

language against her lips, his hands caressing her body, arousing

and demanding but with a new and thrilling tenderness.

At last he lifted his head. His eyes were gleaming with triumph, but

she did not begrudge him his victory.

'Now tell me you don't want me,' he said huskily.

'I thought you didn't want me.' The colour rose in her face.

'When did I ever not want you,
mia?'
he demanded. He smiled a

little. 'Even when we first met, when I tried not to like you very

much, I wanted you. Didn't you know it? You were everything I

despised, and yet there you were, under my skin. Didn't you ever

ask yourself why I took you to dinner that night? It wasn't at all

what I intended.'

'Then what did you intend?' She let herself be drawn back against

the hard warmth of his body, glorying in his response to her.

'I intended to make you give up Mario—by fair means or foul,' he

told her frankly. 'I'd sent you the roses to make sure you were the

right girl, and I had made my plans to take you away to the
castello

if you wouldn't see reason. What I hadn't planned was the

innocence I seemed to see in your eyes. All my preconceptions

went for nothing. 1 should have guessed then that Janina Laurence,

in spite of all her pathetic stories, had a sister.'

'So you sent those roses—and I signed for them. The same name,

the same initial.' She gave a little sigh. 'No wonder I couldn't

convince you that I wasn't Jan.'

'And yet I should have known,' he said roughly. 'The first time I

touched you—kissed you—should have told me. After all, I had

sworn I would destroy you, and instead I found myself wanting to

protect you. I didn't know whether to be angry with you or with

myself.'

'But I still don't understand.' Her eyes searched his face. 'When you

did find the truth—you made me pretend to be engaged to

you—and then you were so cruel, so uncaring.'

'Cruel perhaps,
carissima
,' he said softly. 'But never uncaring.' His

lips explored the line of her throat, and she heard him laugh

delightedly at her instinctive quiver of response. 'That pretence

engagement was all I could think of to keep you near me. I knew I

had frightened you—perhaps even repelled you. I wanted a

reprieve—time for us to get to know one another. I told myself to

rush you into marriage would not be fair to you, but in the fullness

of time I meant to tell you that the engagement was for real. As I

should have done,' he added frowningly, 'but for your sister and her

mischief-making.'

'I thought you were falling in love with her,' she confessed. 'At least,

I thought you wanted her. I thought that was why you had taken her

to Rome with you.'

He gave her an incredulous look. 'I took her to Rome to meet

Rizziani,' he said. 'On one of my business trips I'd heard he had

become a widower. Their first meeting was not quite the success I

had hoped for, which was why I had to bring her back to the

castello
with me.'

'But she said—she made me think ...'

'I know what she made you think,
cara
,' he said grimly. 'Just as she

made me think you were yearning to return to England to the arms

of someone called Barry.'

'Oh, no, she can't have done!' Juliet stared up at him appalled. 'I

mean, there was never anything—and anyway, she didn't even
know

about Barry,' she added rather incoherently.

He smiled. 'It seems your mother must have mentioned him in one

of her letters.'

'But why should she tell you such a thing?'

He shrugged. 'Perhaps she thought still that I was a better

matrimonial bet than Rizziani,' he said sardonically. 'I soon

disabused her mind of that notion.'

'But doesn't Signor Rizziani—mind about the baby?' she asked half

disbelievingly.

'Why should he?' Santino grinned faintly. 'I have it on the best

authority that it is probably his.'

She stared up at him. 'But who says that?'

His grin-widened. 'He does,
cara,
and so does your sister. So it

must be possible, to say the least. But enough of them.'

He drew her close to him. 'When will you marry me, Giulietta?

Don't make me wait too long. These past weeks have been agony.'

'And for me.' She put her hand up and stroked his cheek.

'So I should hope,' he said outrageously. 'It has been my only

consolation to know that you were suffering as much as I was.'

She pulled a face at him. 'Then why didn't you come sooner?'

'For a number of reasons. I had my business to see to. I have

neglected it lately, which is bad. And for a time I believed what

your sister had said—that you preferred this Barry, and could not

wait to get back to him.' He grimaced. 'I should have listened to my

mother instead. She told me that you were unhappy when you

walked out on me that day, and she told me why. It was then I

realised what the
bella
Janina had been up to, and I bullied the truth

out of her about you and this Barry.' He shook his head. 'It was

then, I think, that she decided her safest course was to settle for

Rizziani.'

'Your mother.' Juliet was troubled. 'Does she know—that you've

come to ask me to marry you?'

'Of course she knows,' he said impatiently. 'She is waiting to

welcome you as her
nuora.
Mario and Francesca are to be married

at the end of the month and she hopes that you will attend the

wedding in any case.'

'I should love to.' Juliet's eyes lit up. 'That is if I can get the time off

from school,' she added. 'And I shall have to give my notice in right

away if I want to leave at Christmas.'

'What is this notice?' Santino was suddenly at his most arrogant. 'I

want you with me now,
cara,
not when some employer gives you

leave. Leave it to me. I shall arrange everything.'

'I wish I could,' she said ruefully. 'But I shall have to leave in the

proper manner. I have the children to consider —and the other staff.

I can't leave them in the lurch.' She ventured a look at him and saw

he was frowning. 'Don't you understand?'

'I understand,' he said a little bleakly. 'I understand that I must learn

patience,
mia cara,
which will not be an easy lesson for me. But no

matter.' The frown lifted and the tawny eyes slid over her,

shadowed with desire. 'I shall use the time of waiting to plan some

lessons of my own to teach you, my beautiful one,' he murmured.

'You have taught me to love you.
Bene.
I shall teach you how to

receive love. I'll teach you to want me as much as I want you.'

'I've learned that already,' she whispered, lifting her face for his

kiss, trembling as he drew her closer still against him.

'And if I asked you to prove it?' he said almost roughly, then swore

under his breath. 'No—forgive me,
cara,
I've said that I'll be

patient. Perhaps it would be easier and safer if we were to get out

of this bedroom and go downstairs to drink your mother's tea. But

first'—he reached into his pocket—'we'll put this back where it

belongs.' ,

Gently he slid the emerald ring on to her finger, then raised her

hand to his lips.

'No pretence this time,
cara,'
he told her huskily. 'No pretence ever

again. This'—his arms went around her, demandingly,

possessively—'this is the only reality, and it is ours for the rest of

our lives.'