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Maya sent him a glance that suggested that he was in some way strange and sort of shrugged, not interested enough in clothes, it seemed, to enquire any further. Raffaele stepped back out again and within minutes she emerged, none of the lengthy feminine preparation for his company that he was used to receiving apparent in her appearance. She had combed her wet hair, hadn’t bothered to dry it, only braid it, and yetstillshe drew his gaze like a magnet. Something about that slender, leggy, graceful figure, those delicate features or that unexpectedly luscious pink mouth exuded radical appeal.
Maya focused on Raffaele, a sort of creeping shyness briefly enfolding her as she allowed herself to finally recall that experience in the bed with him. Transcendent, earth-shattering, she mused with a little inner quiver she could not suppress. She had never dreamt that sex might be addictive like that. Was it only because she had been withhim? Or was something deeper involved? Was she starting to feel more than she should for him? Surely not? She was not stupid. And yet the pull he exerted over her was extreme, her eyes constantly needing to stray back to him.
That seemed to be what that physical chemistry could deliver, and she should accept a blessing where she could find one in their business marriage, she told herself urgently. At least, trying to get pregnant wasn’t going to be a disgusting ordeal. She really should only deal with Raffaele with logic. All the emotion she was fighting around him could be a disaster in the making, she reasoned worriedly, terrified of getting attached to him in any way. She wouldn’tallowherself to feel anything for him and that would keep her safe from hurt or disillusionment.
The launch carved a sure passage through the deep blue Mediterranean Sea to the small island that lay ahead. It was an exhilarating ride and all Maya could see of the island was a pale sand beach fringed by trees with a glimpse of a low roof somewhere behind them. Honeymoon, she mused uneasily—it hadn’t occurred to her that he would take such a conventional path to his objective.
Raffaele gazed stonily ahead, refusing to acknowledge the nightmare glimmers of his memories. He wasn’t a sensitive guy, he didn’t look back to the past and dwell unhealthily on it, no, he put it behind him, which was why he had chosen to bring Maya there to this superficially very beautiful little islet, which was both convenient and suitable for purpose.
Even so, when he swept a laughing Maya up into his arms and brought her down on the soft pale sand he had often played on as a child, his stomach still churned sickly when he too stepped out of the launch.
‘The path’s up here,’ he murmured, moving ahead of her as guide, refusing to surrender to that queasiness in his gut because only the frightened, traumatised child he had once been would react that way.
‘You’ve been here before?’
‘It’s one of my late mother’s many properties, like the villa where we held the wedding. I used the villa because Aldo isn’t able to travel far now and I’m using Aoussa—as it’s called—because...because it makes sense to use it.’
As they walked beneath the palm trees lining the walkway, something in that uncharacteristic hesitation in his dark deep drawl furrowed her brow and filled her with a sense of unease. ‘Did you grow up here?’
‘No, Julieta used it for summer breaks or simply when she was in the mood to be alone...aside of the staff,’ he told her curtly. ‘She brought all her new husbands here, her lovers. Aoussa was one of her favourite places.’
‘Did you lose your mother recently?’ Maya prompted, seeking an explanation for the tension he couldn’t hide. It was etched in the taut lines and hollows forming across his strong bone structure.
‘Julieta has been gone ten years. I was in my final year at boarding school when she died.’ Raffaele strode on, determined to overcome the reactions assailing him because he was not weak or vulnerable any longer, he was a man, astrongman.
‘You didn’t call her Mother?’
‘No. She didn’t like to be called that,’ Raffaele admitted gruffly.
An unexpectedly large building lay beyond the trees. It was all on one level, probably ultra-modern in its day with its many windows looking out over the ornamental gardens or towards the sea and shore exposed on the other side of the island. ‘It is beautiful and clearly well maintained,’ Maya commented. ‘How long is it since your last visit?’
Raffaele thrust open the front door. ‘Twenty-odd years,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘Julieta went off it.’
In silence, Maya raised a brow, walking off on her own through big airy rooms, furnished in timeless style. She couldn’t even begin to imagine owning a house that she hadn’t visited in two decades or the level of wealth that could allow such lavish behaviour. She peered out into an interior courtyard and opened the door, turning her head to see where Raffaele was and immediately realising that something was wrong.
He was poised by the full-length windows staring out into the courtyard, his lean hands coiled into fists and trembling by his side, a sheen of perspiration gleaming on his bronzed face. Every muscle in his body was rigid.
‘Raffaele...?’ she began uncertainly.
‘I’m not sure Icanstay here,’ he muttered raggedly, lifting a shaking hand to rake it through his luxuriant black hair. ‘I had a flashback. I haven’t had one in many years. It happened out there before breakfast.’
Compassion stirred in Maya; her gentle heart touched because that Raffaele could be vulnerable in his own hidden way had not once occurred to her. Instantly she was dismayed by the one-dimensional view she had taken of him. ‘A flashback of what?’ she pressed, moving across to him, one slender hand closing over one of his, her arm curving round the base of his spine in an effort to urge him towards the seating area to the left of them.
‘Of Julieta killing my dogs,’ he mumbled sickly.
CHAPTER SIX
REELINGWITHSHOCKat that revelation as they sank down, Maya looked up into haunted dark golden eyes and her heart clenched as though someone had squeezed it. ‘Why on earth would your mother have done something so dreadful?’
And he told her about Julieta then, and the day she had pulled out a gun over breakfast while he was playing with his childhood pets, how she had accused him of loving the dogs more than he loved her. In her adolescence, his mother had suffered a serious head injury and brain damage in a car accident, and it was after the crash that her mental health issues had developed. Although she had received many different diagnoses and had endured an ever-changing regime of medication, no treatment and no therapy had ever given her peace or normality.
‘She can’t be held responsible for anything wrong that she did. She was rarely in rational control of herself,’ Raffaele pointed out with creditable loyalty. ‘Unfortunately for me, her wealth and her lawyers protected her from outside interference.’
‘You were eight years old, Raffaele.Whowas looking after you?’
‘The domestic staff generally took care of my physical needs, but they couldn’t protect me from her because she sacked them immediately if they tried to intervene,’ Raffaele admitted curtly.
‘And your father?’
