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‘I don’t need to stand here and take this!’
Try moving, his eyes challenged. ‘Drink your juice,’ he prodded, saw the anger flare, saw the eyes change to warning bright diamonds, and was bracing himself for action even before the glass went sailing past his shoulder…
She couldn’t believe she had just done that! Natalia stood staring in horrified amazement as the glass of juice went flying past his shoulder and smashed against the opposite set of wall units.
Trying to blink away the sense of shock, she ended up focusing on Giancarlo—then immediately wished she hadn’t when she saw the expression his face was now wearing.
Retaliation was coming, she saw with a telling little quiver that had nothing to do with alarm. ‘You asked for that,’ she murmured unsteadily, feeding water onto burning oil when all he did was start striding towards her. ‘Have you any idea how arrogant you sound? How self—’ he reached her; in height and breadth and dangerous attitude he really intimidated enough to make her swallow nervously before she could carry on ‘—s-self-opinionated and just downright pompous?’
‘Pompous,’ he repeated, softly, smoothly, so succinctly she felt her fingernails digging into the underside of the unit top.
She nodded, swallowed again when his hand came up to rest on her shoulder, and stubbornly pretended that it wasn’t there. ‘Nobody th-these days goes around s-spouting such old-fashioned r-rubbish!’
‘Rubbish,’ he repeated that word also. And the hand moved from her shoulder to her nape. Natalia straightened her spine ever so warily. ‘You think it is both rubbish and pompous to show a respect for family values?’
Values like his, she did, when she knew for an absolute fact that if he ever discovered her little secret he would soon forget those same family values. For there was no way that he would want to make her a part of his Sicilian family with or without his child inside her!
A point that didn’t do her any favours at all because just thinking about it brought the sting of tears to the back of her eyes. ‘You might pay my wages, Giancarlo—that does not give you the right to run my life!’
‘No?’ he said, and the hand at her nape tightened perceptibly, sending warning signals tingling down her spine. ‘What about sex, then? Will the great sex be a big enough incentive to make you live with me?’
Live? That’s a joke! she scoffed silently. He just wanted a convenient live-in sexual convenience! ‘What, more studding for the prize bull?’ she taunted. ‘I thought that scenario offended your ego.’
‘Well, let’s just see, shall we?’ he drawled lazily. And using his hand as a brace to lift her mouth up to his, his own swooped down and took…
Took without mercy, took by storm—took her shooting off to a place she didn’t want to go to then never wanted to come back from.
Took her right there in the ultra-modern kitchen, with her clothes gaping and her skirt ruched up around her waist and the rest removed by very quick fingers.
And he took her with his mouth, nothing else. He took her lips and her tongue and made him their master. He took her breasts and teased and sucked until she cried out in exquisite agony, and he took her down a dark, sensuous road she had never ever dared to visit before when he bent to her thighs and took the ultimate intimacy of all.
Which was when he took her will to fight him, right there in the kitchen with her fingers laced into his hair and her mind lost in a swirling sea of sensation.
‘Giancarlo,’ she begged. ‘I’ll do anything you say, but, no more—please. I’ll stay—I’ll stay, but please make love to me properly…’
And that was the point where she took something from him. It was in his eyes when he rose, then picked her up to carry her to the bedroom. She saw pain and remorse for the tactic he’d used to gain her surrender. Then she saw him begin a terrible battle with himself that she feared he was actually going to win.
But he didn’t. And, strangely, their lovemaking then was the sweetest, gentlest, most deeply felt experience they had shared to date.
Later, he dropped her off at her house with the promise to be back in an hour to collect her. ‘You won’t come in and wait?’ she asked.
He looked at the house, then shook his dark head. ‘No, I won’t come in,’ he answered. ‘I—have things to do,’ he excused himself. But the way he said it hurt her somehow, though she didn’t know why it did.
Once inside, the little house felt different. As if the soul had been taken out of it. Eve
n her telephone didn’t seem to be working, she discovered, hearing only a constant high-pitched beep when she picked it up. Neither did the answering machine show any new messages since the last time she’d been here, which led her to suspect that the phone had been out of order for quite a while.
Frowning, she made a mental note to call the phone company to get them to see to it, as soon as she got back to the apartment. Then went off to pack for a long stay with her new lover.
Strange, she thought, even after what they’d shared, those words didn’t seem real…
Giancarlo pulled up outside the small Chelsea townhouse, right on the appointed hour, and was relieved to see the door already standing open and her cases stacked neatly in the opening.
With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t need to go inside. He had no wish to see inside Edward’s love-nest. In fact he harboured a deep abhorrence for going near anything Edward and Natalia had shared.
As he got out of the car she appeared in the doorway. He found a smile from somewhere but it was hard. He was still involved in a struggle with himself where one part of him stubbornly justified his tactics this morning and another derided them as a man’s reaction to another man pacing around his territory.
Walking across the path, he leant over to kiss her before bending to lift the cases. ‘Is this it?’ he asked, and noticed that she already had her coat on.
