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He knew where she was. Halfway through the meeting, he’d seen the distant figure of his temporary wife on the path that led to the private beach, wearing something long and floaty that he imagined himself removing. His groin was still heavy from the testosterone-charged surge he had been helpless to control.
Helplessness was not normally a feeling he suffered, but there were exceptions. A specific one came to mind, along with an image of him lying helpless while Tilda, her clever little hands and even cleverer mouth slowly seduced him.
He’d married Matilda and he’d got Tilda, and Tilda, with her green eyes and sharp tongue, didn’t let him get away with a thing—she challenged him on everything, sometimes he suspected just for the hell of it.
The thought should not have made him smile but it did...she had clearly spent the last four years disapproving of him and now she didn’t have to hide it. His little puritan with the hungry eyes... She was a mass of contradictions.
Seeing himself through those eyes was not the most comfortable feeling in the world for someone who didn’t care about the opinion of others.
His phone bleeped. It was head of Sam’s academy, asking if he’d agree to be involved with a fund raiser, and the hell of it was he heard himself agreeing.
Three weeks married and he had probably reduced the salary of half the hacks on the continent, he decided, self-mockery tugging one corner of his mouth upwards.
Tilda pulled the silk kaftan over her head and laid it on top of the bag containing her towel before she kicked off her flat woven sandals. The sand was hot under foot as she ran down to the water’s edge and stood for a few moments, training her senses to the sound of the waves and trying to shut out the chaos in her head.
After taking the pregnancy test, the initial relief had worn off and she was aware of a troubling sadness that she couldn’t shake. Obviouslynotbeing pregnant was a good thing, but there was a small part of her that felt... Oh God, she didn’t know how she was feeling—not panic, at least, which was how she’d been feeling all week.
She was just late, not pregnant, and she didn’t have to tell Ezio, who was always so incredibly careful with her in that way.
‘It’s a good thing!’ she yelled at the ocean.
But not a happy ending. There could be no happy endings for a woman who had fallen in love with Ezio, she had finally accepted that. She wanted to be the mother to babies Ezio didn’t want...not with her, at least.
Unless that woman’s idea of happiness was seeing the man she loved lose interest, cheat or move on.
Her chin firmed. It would be hard to feel sympathy for a woman with such self-destructive impulses, she concluded as she waded in deeper until the warm water lapped around her waist before she dove into and under the first wave.
She thought back to how her dad had taught her to swim on their Cornwall summer holidays. His‘water baby mermaid’, he had called her. The water she swam through now bore no resemblance to the icy, toe-numbing Atlantic dips of her childhood. She enjoyed the embrace of the warmth as, head-down, she struck out.
She paused when she reached a point that was not too far out and began to swim parallel to the shore. Coming to the end of an imaginary lane line, she duck-dived, as sleek as a seal, and swam back. The monotony of the action slowly emptied her mind and finally the strength in her legs.
Flipping over onto her back, she lay there, arms spread, just giving the occasional kick to stay afloat. Eyes closed, she could still see the filtered sun overhead through the paper-thin covering of her eyelids, a hazy glow.
It was tempting to stay that way, but she knew the dangers of exposing herself to the midday sun. She flipped back and, treading water, pushed the hanks of saturated hair from her face.
The villa probably didn’t have a bad angle, but the view of the white marble walls from this vantage point was pretty spectacular; the modern, sea-facing lower level that led out to the gorgeously groomed terraces and the spectacular infinity pool was probably seen at its best from the ocean.
The only person who had a better view than her at that moment was the person on the small red sailing boat she could see on the horizon. She waved, even though she knew he couldn’t see her, and struck out for the shore.
If Ezio had been in his office in the square tower, he’d have been able to see her. The thought made her lose her rhythm and go under. Swallowing a mouthful of salt water, she surfaced, coughing. If she was honest with herself, the reason she often chose the sea for her swim in preference to the infinity pool was the excellent view of it Ezio had from his eyrie. She liked the idea of him watching her. She loved the idea of him not being able to take his eyes off her...while it lasted.
No, she would not go there. She was determined to extract every last second of pleasure from being with him, and she already had a lot of memories stored away to look back on and probably cry over later.
By the time she walked out of the shallows, her legs were shaking. She was reflecting on her levels of fitness, or at least lack of them, as she walked up the sand to the spot where she had left her bag. She gathered her hair in her fist and, deftly twisting it into a rope, squeezed out some of the excess moisture.
Dropping on her knees beside the towel, she slung her hair back and automatically tightened the clip, holding one earring in and then going to the other.
‘Oh, God!’ she cried, desperately patting her bare ear as though it could materialise.
From where he stood watching, at the point where the cypress trees met the sand, Ezio watched her increasingly frenzied fingertip-search of the immediate area.
By the time he reached her she was walking, head bent, trying to follow her own footprints in the sand that were fast disappearing as it dried.
‘What is wrong?’
She straightened on the sea edge and spun round. Ezio was standing there looking gorgeous. She felt a surge of irrational relief, as if him just being there could make things all right.
She watched as a sudden breeze caused the strands of well-cut dark hair to blow flat against his skull, and the hem of the black T-shirt he was wearing flutter and lift, revealing a slice of flat brown belly. Then, as the wind direction shifted, it was pulled tight against his body, revealing the sinewy strength of his powerful shoulders. Had she wanted to trace the corrugated ridge of muscles across his washboard-flat belly, she could have.
