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Valente grimaced. ‘I’m obstinate. I’m very proud. At many times when my life has been difficult those were the strengths that carried me through,’ he explained. ‘But I should have had more faith in you. That is what finished us-my lack of faith. I was convinced you had wronged me, that your family had persuaded you to just leave me at the church. I blamed you for it all.’
Caroline wanted to cry. She wondered how she could have expected him to have faith in such circumstances, when so many people in his life had hurt him. ‘I believed you had received my message before you went to the church. Matthew lied about that. He threw the truth at me after we were married, when he was annoyed with me, and admitted that he had made no attempt to get in touch with you.’
‘As you learned too late, Matthew had a mean side,’ Valente quipped.
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I always had a ruthless streak,’ Valente contradicted. ‘I wouldn’t have survived or prospered in my world without it. The only person I ever allowed to see me without that armour was you.’
The tears overflowed from Caroline’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Valente came down on the side of the bed and reached for her. She slapped away his hand in rejection. ‘No, don’t you dare touch me! How could you not read even one of my letters? How could you be dumb enough to see that as a test of how tough you could be?’ she wailed at him furiously.
Valente gazed back at her with dark, strained eyes. ‘It was that macho streak you don’t like. You made me vulnerable and I didn’t like it. This time around I wanted everything to be different.’
‘And it certainly was that,’ Caroline agreed, sliding off the far side of the bed and smoothing down her crumpled linen dress. ‘You blackmailed me into bed with you.’
‘And you blackmailed me into marriage,’ Valente traded with amusement. ‘Having worked out that I wanted you at any price, you then came up with the highest price you could think of. The biter was bitten.’
Caroline shifted uncomfortably. ‘That wasn’t how I saw it. I knew that once you found out I was frigid you’d ditch me and forget all your promises.’
Valente lifted a sardonic brow. ‘Isn’t it strange that I stuck by you instead of going for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation?’ he prompted. ‘Why do you think that was?’
Caroline wore an uncertain look. ‘Because you would have found that an embarrassing way to end our marriage?’
‘My reputation is such that it would not have caused me embarrassment. I wanted more than your body, even if I wasn’t prepared to admit that to myself at the time.’
‘Well, you did a very good job of convincing me that all you wanted was sex,’ Caroline told him, unimpressed.
Valente stood up. Lean, darkly handsome face intent, dark eyes brilliant, he strolled towards her. ‘Don’t you get the slightest vibe when a man loves you? You know I spent years plotting to get you back. You know I married you even though that wasn’t part of my plan. You know I stayed with you even though it didn’t immediately work out in the bedroom. Can’t you see what all that has to add up to?’
‘Are you trying to say that you love me-even though you rejected my love?’ Caroline shot at him in disbelief.
‘I was doing that macho thing. But I’ve taken off the armour again. Tonight I finally appreciated that I love you more than anything in my life…even business,’ Valente confided. ‘And I know that’s not a romantic comparison, but business is very important to me.’
‘And I’m even more important?’ Caroline felt out of breath, as though she had just run up a hill too fast.
‘The very centre of my world, cara mia. Without you, my life would have no true meaning.’
Valente closed his arms round her slight figure with caution, for she was tense and wide-eyed, everything about her stance suggesting indecision. ‘I held on to my memories of you long after I should have done, and unfortunately I held on to my bitterness as well. I love you very, very much,’ he breathed softly. ‘I was never able to forget you or replace you.’
Sheer excitement made her heart feel as if it was jumping for joy inside her chest. ‘And you already know how I feel about you.’
‘I didn’t believe you when you said you loved me. I didn’t believe you for a second,’ Valente hastened to explain. ‘I thought you were just using words to try and soften me up.’
As his beautiful, sensual mouth drifted downward in the direction of hers, Caroline took a hasty step back from him. ‘I may love you, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive you for setting up Bomark Logistics and blackmailing me into your bed.’
‘Even though I promise that I will never do anything like that again?’
‘Easy to say, when you know you don’t need blackmail any more in the bedroom,’ Caroline replied squarely.
‘As proof of my good intentions, we could be celibate for a while,’ Valente suggested silkily.
Caroline stiffened at that deeply unattractive prospect and, catching the raw gleam of mockery in his wicked gaze, was very nearly provoked into slapping him for his sense of humour. ‘I think you know very well that you’re in too much demand now to be required to make that sacrifice,’ she said in a starchy tone.
‘It would be a huge sacrifice,’ Valente confessed, impelling her to him and then hoisting her slight body up against him with strong, impatient hands.
‘Forget it, then.’ She revelled in the driving urgency of his kiss as though she had been waiting for it all her life. Her body came alive in his arms and hunger stirred in a hollow ache inside her pelvis. ‘But how could you have dared to demand that I give you a child as well?’
‘It gave me the best prospect of holding on to you long-term, tesoro mia,’ Valente explained. ‘I realised that if you were even half as fond of our baby as you are of your cat I would soon have you on a permanent basis, and that struck me as a very attractive option.’
