The Proud Wife (11 page)

And that gave her a chance, Marina saw. It freed her to slide sideways towards the edge of the bed, moving as slowly and carefully as she could manage so as not to wake the sleeping man beside her. She inched her way carefully off the mattress and to the spot where she could lower her feet to the floor, silent and soft as her bare soles hit the polished wood.

Her clothes were wildly scattered all over the floor, her blouse in one corner of the room, the cotton trousers in another, her bra tossed wildly away in the heat and rush of the passion that had overwhelmed them.

No! She didn't want to think of that, didn't want to remember a single moment of what had gone before. It would destroy her, just as it would finish her to look towards the man who still lay on his stomach in the bed.

Memory told her what she would see. The image of it was etched on her mind as clearly as if she had seen it just yesterday instead of nearly two long, lonely years ago. The long, straight back, the heavily muscled shoulders, the narrow waist and tight, firm buttocks at the top of long, long legs. All of it covered in the smooth golden skin that made her fingers itch to touch, to stroke, to caress it…

‘No!'

This time he only said the word in a desperately hissed whisper, though it had enough force to distract her. She couldn't delay; she had to get dressed and get out of here just as quickly as she possibly could before Pietro stirred and…

‘And what the hell do you think you are doing?'

The words were tossed at her in a lazy drawl that was threaded through with dark amusement, a hint of cynical mockery that brought her up sharp, making her freeze where she stood.

‘Just where do you think you're going?'

I
T WAS
the chill that had woken him. The sudden coolness of his body where there had once been the warm softness of Marina's smooth curves curled against him, underneath him. Now there was a waft of colder air that followed the cautious movement she had made from the bed.

Oh, she had tried to be as careful as possible. She had made every effort not to disturb him and had eased herself, inch by painful inch, away from him and out into the room. And it had been her very care, her obvious determination not to wake him, that had penetrated the indolent haze into which he had drifted after the storm of sensuality had peaked in the wild ecstasy of orgasm.

She would only be taking such care if she was trying to hide her actions from him. The way she had crept from his bed, her obvious need to be gone and not to be seen leaving, caught on his nerves, tugging him wide awake in a second.

Not that he'd showed it. He wanted to be able to watch and observe, to see just what she was planning, before he reacted at all.

So he had opened one eye. Turned his head slightly. Opened the other.

She was up to something; that much was obvious. No one who wasn't trying to hide her actions took quite so
much care, made so much effort, not to make a sound. She was creeping about the room, picking up her clothes, gathering them together…

While her back was turned, Pietro adjusted his position slightly, rolling on to his side so that he could observe more closely.

It was no hardship. The slender lines of her naked body, the grace of her movements, were easy to watch and the shape of her long legs and pert behind had him hardening and aching in the blink of an eye. But the burn of desire was soon pushed aside when he saw how, she was creeping towards the door with her clothes in her hands, evidently intending to leave without a word. Just as she had walked out of their marriage almost two years before.

He was not about to let that happen again.

‘And what the hell do you think you are doing?'

She froze, keeping her head averted, staring straight ahead of her.

‘Just where do you think you're going?'

She didn't turn, didn't even glance back. He saw the way the muscles in her arms tightened as she held on to her clothes, clutching them against her.

‘Home,' she said stiffly.

Her tone made him frown. This was not how it was meant to be; he had been anticipating a very different sort of awakening.

From the moment Marina had responded to him in his lawyer's office, the way she had opened up to his kiss, he had known he wasn't ready to let this woman go. The sexual hunger she woke in him had not died in the time they had been apart but had simply lain dormant. One sight of her, one touch, one kiss, and it had broken through the surface of his control like lava from a volcano. Now there was no holding it back any more.

One night would not appease it. One time in his bed would not satiate the need, drive it away. He wanted more. So much more.

And, until the moment he had woken to see her on her way out, he had thought that that was what she wanted too.

‘Home?' he echoed cynically. ‘You think that after what just happened here you are going to turn and walk out?'

For a second he thought she was just going to keep on walking straight out of the door. She made an odd little movement of her head, dipping it for a second then lifting it again, higher than before, and she turned and flung a burning look in his direction over her shoulder.

‘And why not?' she questioned sharply. ‘We're finished here.'

‘Finished?'

Pietro pulled himself up until he was leaning against the pillows and regarded her in frank disbelief.

‘We are very far from finished.'

‘What makes you think that? You got what you wanted. It's over—done.'

‘It is not
done
. And do not play the “you got what you wanted” card. You wanted it too. Every bit as much as I did.'

‘Perhaps I did.'

At last she turned to face him, her green eyes a blaze of emerald in a disturbingly white face, no trace of colour along the fine cheekbones. Her mouth was drawn thin and taut, as if to let nothing at all escape from it. The clothes she had picked up from the floor were held before her like a protective shield, meant to hide the beauty of her body from his eyes.

She couldn't know that she succeeded and failed totally in the same moment. She might cover the intimate,
most female parts of her form under the protective padding of the clothes, but that only covered the central section of her body. On either side, the naked parts of her skin, smooth and voluptuously creamy, curved beyond the shield of the clothes. The elegant lines of her neck rose above the rounded shoulders that swept down into long, graceful arms. Just the faintest hint of the enticing breasts he had caressed such a short time ago could be seen at the side of her ribcage, pushed closer and out by the pressure of the clothes she held against her. He could still taste the skin of those breasts on his lips, the delicate bud of her nipples as if it lingered against his tongue.

Lower down, where the turquoise material of her top hung like a pleated sash to one side, the white of her trousers to the other, the slim lines of her hips could just be seen. The way the clothing ended just below the juncture of her thighs seemed to hint at the promise of secret delights that were just out of sight, tantalising in a way that was far more provocative than any blatant nudity. Fighting down a groan of sexual response as his body roused from the peace of fulfilment and started to clamour once again for the pleasure it had known, Pietro pushed himself up and off the bed, reaching for his trousers. He wouldn't be capable of carrying on any sort of coherent conversation with his most primitive reactions to this woman so blatantly on show. And it seemed they had to have some sort of discussion—at least for now.

‘Perhaps I did want it—you—then,' Marina continued. ‘But that was then and this is now. It's over—done. Finished.'

‘Finished?'

Pietro almost laughed it in her face. His dark head went back, the muscles in the long tanned throat tightening in rejection of her declaration.

‘There is no way this is finished,
belleza
. Quite the opposite. It has only just begun.'

‘No!'

Her tone was sharp, apparently definite. But he knew her well enough to catch the faint tremor on the word, to note the way her eyes did not quite meet his, could not meet his and declare to his face that this was really over. It was no more over for her than it was for him but she was not going to admit that fact easily. She would fight him, all the way on this.

And really that was fine with him, Pietro acknowledged, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the wall. He could handle a fight. If truth be told, he could even look forward to it. He had missed sparring with his spitfire of a wife. Whatever else their brief, ill-starred marriage had been, it had never been dull. The spats and battles had always stimulated him almost beyond endurance—and the release of the tension afterward in the heat of their bed had been like lighting the blue touch paper of the sort of blazing firework display that traditionally exploded across the world at the first strokes of midnight to welcome in a brand-new year.

But later, after the baby, she had lost all that fight. She had just turned away from him. He had never been able to reach her, to break through the wall she had built around herself. So now he was quite enjoying the prospect of waiting, building up to it again. He knew it would be worth waiting for. At least she was fighting back this time.

‘Nothing has begun,' Marina was saying. ‘We had sex, that was all. It was just an itch that had to be scratched.'

‘It was more than that and you know it. You are running scared again.'

‘I'm refusing to admit nothing. And I'm not running!'

‘No? Isn't that the way you usually deal with things?'

Something had changed in her face. Something that tightened the muscles around her jaw, brought her chin up even higher. Now, at last, she was actually looking at him, burning green eyes meeting his assessing stare with the sort of defiance that was new—and curiously unsettling.

‘If you want to know what that was, then I'll tell you—but, I warn you, you won't like what I have to say.'

This was a new Marina—
another
new Marina—Pietro acknowledged, recognising the fact that from the moment she had walked into Matteo's office she had been constantly surprising him with the new facets of her personality. He thought he had discovered the most unexpected side in the way she had flung the divorce papers in his face. But that was nothing to the warrior princess who stood before him now, tall and proud, her burnished hair tumbling in a copper-coloured mane around her fine face, the faint flush of rebelliousness scoring her high cheekbones, even her nostrils flaring in defiance.

Damn, but he had never wanted her so badly. And never wanted to hold back so much, because if ever there was a time that sex was not the answer to anything then that time was now. Pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers in order to keep himself from reaching for her, he forced his demanding libido back under brutal control.

So what was it that had put that fight back into her? Was it this Stuart, even though she denied it? Or was it…?

Suddenly, disturbingly, pieces of the jigsaw started to fall into place inside his mind, and the picture they formed was not quite the one he expected. It was also one that shocked him to the core.

‘Tell me,' he commanded, his thoughts making his voice harsh.

‘You might at least give me a chance to get dressed!' Marina protested.

‘Am I stopping you? You have your clothes.'

If he believed she was going to put them down in order to actually dress in them, he couldn't be more wrong, Marina thought. She was already so desperately on the wrong foot. There was no way she was going to make things even worse by standing here stark naked while he observed her struggle to get dressed with those cold, unemotional eyes.

And it seemed that Pietro wasn't prepared to wait for her to even try, anyway.

‘Tell me the truth. Just what,
por Dio
, was that?'

There was no way she was going to answer that with the truth, Marina acknowledged. She already felt far too vulnerable, standing here with her only covering the crumpled clothes she had clutched to her chest. He might only have pulled on his trousers, barely zipping them up, belt unbuckled and hanging loose around his narrow waist, but there was no way he could ever look as naked as she felt. And that wide expanse of bronzed, hair-hazed chest would always look imposing, never as exposed and unprotected as she felt.

The only defence she had was her words and she wielded them like a sword, determined to guard herself as best she could.

‘Marina…' Pietro said on a note of warning.

‘A—a goodbye,' she hazarded. ‘It was f-farewell sex. One for—for the road, if you like.'

She saw the way his eyes narrowed; the steely assessing glare he turned on her face made her feel even more exposed.

‘I do not like,' Pietro assured her coldly. ‘In fact, there is nothing I could possibly like less.'

‘I wanted you, you wanted me. That's what you wished me to say, isn't it? Well, that's the way it was—and now it's over.'

‘Nothing is over.'

Pietro moved towards her with the menacing prowl of a hunting cat. Marina could almost feel his approach in the shivers that feathered over her skin, making the tiny hairs stand up in instant response.

‘Of course it is—you summoned me here to arrange our divorce. You had the papers all ready for me to sign.'

‘Perhaps I've changed my mind.'

Did he know how that would hurt? How it would slash a brutal knife down the already wounded length of her heart—the thought that now, at last, and in this very basic way only, he had decided he wanted her again? He was reinforcing the way it had always been with him.

‘It's too late,' she flung at him and saw him shake his dark head slowly, those pale icy eyes watching her intently.

‘Nothing is too late—we haven't signed any documents. We are still together legally and we can take our time to get this out of our systems.'

‘You make it sound like some particularly nasty disease! I don't want to
get it out of my system
. It's already out—over and done with! Once was enough. More than enough.'

She watched his mouth open. She knew the accusation of lying that was coming and she rushed to forestall it, knowing she couldn't refute it.

‘And besides, it was always too late—way before I ever arrived on Sicily. Before you ever sent that letter. Our marriage was over.'

‘Ah, so now we really come to it. Can I remind you that you were the one who gave up on the marriage—the one who walked out, ran away? The way you dealt with all the things that had gone wrong in our marriage.'

‘I had lost…'

‘I know.' Pietro flung up his hands in a gesture of something that could have been resignation, despair—or sheer blind defeat. She had never seen his eyes so dark, his skin so tightly drawn across the slashing cheekbones. He had stopped just a metre or so away from her, but never before had such a short distance seemed so wide, so gaping, so unbridgeable. There wasn't a trace of warmth anywhere in his face.

‘You had lost the baby. I
know
!'

‘I couldn't run away from that!'

‘No, but you could run away from me. Which you did.'

‘I was unhappy! I wanted to—'

‘You were desolate—how could you not be?—but you wanted nothing from me! You wouldn't let me touch you.'

‘I didn't want you near me!'

She had been terrified he would just seduce her out of her mood, denying her fears and putting only sex in their place. And she had wanted to hide her misery from him, to weep in privacy and then somehow manage to put on a braver face when she had to be in public, when she had to come down and face him. She hadn't felt able to bridge the chasm that had opened up between them. She hadn't delivered the precious heir, and then there had been nothing keeping them together any more.