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She’d read a book on pregnancy, cover to cover, when she’d first learned of her condition, and it had spoken of pregnancy insomnia—a hormonal condition, not related to the size of the baby so much as the fact it was there, super-charging a woman’s blood and body so that sleep became chemically impossible.
She told herself that was the culprit even when she knew, deep down, that it had so much more to do with Matteo’s kiss. She sucked in a breath, lifting her fingers to her lips and touching the trembling flesh there.
It had been over in a moment. Just a quick reminder of how he could reduce her to ash and smoke with no effort at all. He had stood afterwards, apparently completely unaffected, and he’d left her alone to eat. To brood. To stew.
And, despite the fact he’d changed his schedule so that he could keep an eye on her throughout the day, she’d barely seen him. He’d been close by at all times, but not in her space.
A fact she should have appreciated...but didn’t.
The kiss had stirred something up inside her.
A desire that she had presumed had died with their marriage. A desire that was unwelcome, unwanted and utterly confusing.
Another warm breeze ran across her flesh, spreading goose-bumps with it.
Sleep seemed impossible to grasp and attempting to do so made no sense. On the spur of the moment, she moved across her room quietly, pulling the door inward gently. She paused, listening for a moment. The house was quiet. Was he asleep?
The image was striking.
He slept naked.
Always naked.
Her heart throbbed inside her chest as her eyes ran down the hallway towards his bedroom—the bedroom they’d shared.
Was he in there now, naked, tanned, virile...? Was he in there, thinking about her?
She forced herself to look away. She had no intention of giving in to her body’s physical needs. She wasn’t that stupid, or that weak.
She turned in the opposite direction and made her way along the corridor, her eyes skimming over the impressive collection of art—some of it Renaissance, much of it more modern—until she reached the wide stairs inlaid with mosaics. They were as they’d been when the home had first been built, and Skye had always felt a little disrespectful when she’d walked on the practical artwork. She moved upwards with care to the next level of the house, which boasted guest rooms and an impressive library, not stopping to remove a book from the shelves that she’d come to love.
When she’d first arrived in Venice, a newly-wed who’d believed that all the happiness of the world was before her, she’d decided she’d read her way through the books, starting at the top left and moving all the way across, then sliding down a shelf. She’d decided that it didn’t matter what she read—history, romance, fiction, non-fiction—they were all stories and she was hungry for them to become a part of her.
She’d read sixteen books. She remembered quite clearly where she was up to on the shelf. She’d had the last book in her handbag the day she’d gone to Matteo’s office. The day she’d read the contracts and started to wonder at the phrasing. The day the penny had finally started to drop.
She’d never finished the story and didn’t plan to.
With a determined tilt of her chin, she moved upwards. The staircase narrowed once she turned the corner, and a small window let in a sharp blade of moonlight. She skipped past it quickly, almost surprised that it didn’t slice through her with its bright intensity. At the top of the stairs, a narrow door stood closed. She rested her palm against it for a second, steeling herself for what she knew lay beyond.
Even on this side, at the top of the ancient staircase surrounded by darkness, she could picture the rooftop garden. The bougainvillea that seemed to have a life all of its own, clambering across the timber beams, forming a sort of green room. It would be covered in an extravagant blanket of purple flowers, so vibrant that they had always reminded Skye of plums cast from paper. But the bougainvillea didn’t have full autonomy amongst the scrambling vines. There was wisteria too, fragrant and heavy with the grape-shaped blooms. They were disarray in the midst of order, greenery and earth in a city shaped by the sea. She had loved the juxtaposition of their wildness against the plain blue sky. She had sat beneath them, reading, sipping iced tea and dreaming of Matteo, feeling the sun on her legs as though it were his hands or his mouth.
There was the plunge pool, tiled and neat, with views over the ocean towards the mainland. She had dipped her body into it whenever the heat had become too much, refreshing herself in its soothing water, propped against the pool coping and staring at the view with a deep sense of gratitude and a very full heart.
It was here that they’d first made love, and it was impossible not to carry that memory with her as she finally pushed the door open and moved onto the terrace. The night had been so perfect; every time she’d been on the terrace its memory had wrapped around her, filling her with a sense of complete disbelief. How had she been so lucky? To have met and fallen in love with a man like Matteo—it was more than she’d ever believed possible. And that had been a good way to feel. It wasn’t possible. His love had been a fraud. A fake.
The terrace was dimly lit—only a single lamp now illuminating the ghostly outline of her favourite vines, giving them an ethereal, slightly eerie feel. The stars shone as though heaven had been blanketed by diamonds and there was a splashing noise that drew her reluctant gaze.
Reluctant, because she k
new immediately who was creating the noise.
Who else could it be?
This was Matteo’s private sanctuary, where he came to escape the hectic speed of the real world. And he’d let her, and no one else, in to enjoy it. At the time, that had flattered her. Now? It was a very cheap price to pay for the hotel he had hoped to steal.
Colour danced along her cheek bones. Angry colour.
How dared he be so beautiful? The moon seemed to caress his flesh, spreading diamond dust over his shoulders and back as he stared out at the view she had loved so much. Droplets of water shivered from his dark pelt of hair, glancing his broad shoulders before slipping lower, over his arms.
