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“Ever,” she confirmed, the word like steel.
Perhaps she’d expected another reaction, but Raf’s first feeling was relief. He didn’t remember much about his time with his parents – he had only been three when Gianfelice had taken custody of them – but he remembered the emotions. The feeling of rejection. Of pain. Of loss. Of a broken heart. At three he was too young to put it into words, to make sense of those emotions, but he understood now: his parents’ rejection had put him on guard, and taught him that any deep emotional commitment was best to be avoided. The emptiness of hurt had never left him.
His voice gave little of that turmoil away, his tone remained impassive. “Then it’s just as well I’m not asking you to date me, Lauren. Think of me as a relationship-free zone.”
Her teeth sunk into her lower lip again, causing desire to riot inside of him. “What does that mean?”
It meant he wanted to sleep with her, as he did with women generally. It meant that he wanted to make her his, physically, for as long as it suited them both, and then walk away, as he always did. Untethered, free, unhurt, whole, safe. It meant he had no temptation, in even a small part, of getting involved with anyone, let alone a woman who made an art form of pushing people away.
He leaned closer, conscious that if he didn’t move his body they’d be in view of his family. He stood, bringing himself over her chair so she was shielded from view. He didn’t touch her, but he kept his mouth close to her ear so that she could feel his breath against her cheek.
“It means that I want to make you mine. It means that I want to rip those clothes off your body and cup your breasts with my hands, running my fingers over your nipples before lifting you against a wall and taking you again and again until you’re screaming my name, until my name is the only Goddamned word you know.” He felt her shuddering, tight breath. “It means I see the way you stare at me, as though you’re trying to remember what I look like without clothes, as I was the night we met. It means I want you to do what you will to my body. And then, when it’s over, you can go back to pretending you don’t notice me. How does that sound?”
Chapter Four
SLEEP HAD EVADED HER for hours. And was it any wonder? Every time she’d closed her eyes, Rafaello’s words had rushed through her, his face clouding her mind, so all she had to do was breathe in and she could taste him on the tip of her tongue. Her fingertips tingled with an ache to reach out and grab him, just as they’d done earlier that day.
She’d wanted, more than anything, to lift her hands to his shoulders and grab on, to angle her face closer to his and beg him to kiss her.
A fierce sense of disloyalty had made that impossible. Thom. Her husband. It didn’t matter that he’d died years ago, the pledge she’d made to him still gripped her heart, making it impossible to think of anyone else making love to her.
So she’d shaken her head and told him it wasn’t possible, and then she’d asked him to leave her alone. He’d stared into her eyes for several seconds before grinning – a grin that said he understood how conflicted she was – and he’d left. She’d drunk the damned glass of wine in about ten seconds flat, needing something to quell the flood of nerves overtaking her system.
It was worse than that, because Yaya was busy with family today, so Lauren didn’t even have the distraction of her work to keep busy. She’d finished Persuasion – her favourite Austen by a mile – then gone for a long walk around the property, exploring all the little gardens and walks she had been too busy to enjoy. There was a large potager full of vegetables and bordered by fruit trees, a citrus grove, and beyond that rolling hills filled with vines.
But vines reminded her of wine, particularly the beautiful red wine she’d used to calm her nerves after Rafaello had left her in peace, so she’d immediately turned around and gone back into the Villa.
A quick check on Yaya had shown her engaged with Fiero and Elodie, a smile on all their faces as Yaya flipped through an old photo album Lauren had seen many times – her wedding photos.
Seeing Yaya on her wedding day had been hard for Lauren, but she’d pushed her own feelings aside to indulge the older woman’s fond recollections, listening patiently as she’d talked about what it had been like to marry someone like Gianfelice. All the while, Lauren stayed quiet, not responding with how she knew exactly what it was like to walk down the aisle towards the man you loved, and wanted to spend your life with.
She was restless, and it had nothing to do with work and everything to do with Rafaello. More specifically, the offer he’d made.
It means I want to make you mine.
A frisson of excitement ran down her spine as she contemplated exactly what that meant, and how it would feel to be possessed by him. She imagined his tanned hands curling around her hips, holding her still so he could lose himself inside of her and every bone in her body turned to mush. With a soft groan, she pushed back the duvet and stood, padding towards the door. She was wearing grey track pants and a singlet top, but in a concession to modesty, despite the hour, she paused to grab her white cotton robe, wrapping it around her midsection and cinching the waist tightly.
It was another perfect summer night, the moon cutting across the countryside so a slice of silver danced in the air. Lauren paused to stare at it as she moved downstairs, and before she could fathom where she was going, her feet moved one in front of the other, carrying her towards the salon the family had gathered in that afternoon. She pushed the door inwards, so distracted by her thoughts that at first she didn’t hear it.
But a moment after entering the room, when it was too late to leave again, music breathed courage into her soul, so that it danced inside her.
Rafaello.
She heard his name like the beating of a drum, over and over, imperative and urgent.
He was sitting at a piano she hadn’t even noticed earlier that day, his fingers running deftly over the keys, the moonlight drifting across him casting him in a light that was magical and ethereal and which seemed to have its own gravitational force. She was drawn to him, just as she had been that afternoon.
She had to leave while she could!
Too late.
He looked up, his eyes pinning hers, and his fingers slowed, then stopped, the music coming to an abrupt halt. Except she could still hear it, the notes replaying over and over, her body responding, her blood dancing through her veins.
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nbsp; He closed the lid softly, his eyes hunting hers, and he remained silent, waiting for her to speak. To stay or go. Waiting for her to choose. The weight of that decision was like bricks against her belly – right and wrong. Want and need versus her heart’s fidelity.
It was too hard to decide, too hard to know what to do and so she cleared her throat, pushing an awkward smile to her face. “I didn’t know you play.”
