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The craft disappeared, the chug of its engines replaced by the slap of water against the foundations as air curled around her legs and his fingers eased the silk of her gown higher to find the cleft between her legs and slide one long finger along that sensitive seam, teasing with just a whisper of a touch, making her nerve endings scream with impatience.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered against her throat, his teeth grazing her skin, his finger delving deeper, and it was all she could do to keep her knees locked in place and not sag boneless to the balcony floor.
Unfair, she thought on a whimper as she felt herself being angled over the balustrade, felt the delicious press of his hardness at her very core, that he could do this to her, reduce her to a mass of tangled nerve endings that spoke the same message—need. Pure and simple, unadulterated need.
For she needed him inside her just as she needed the oxygen in her lungs. Needed him inside her and all around her just as she needed the sun and moon and sky.
He gave her what she needed, pressing into her in one fluid stroke that filled her in all the places that ached but one. Because there was no filling the ache in her heart.
For in a few short days she was leaving. And she couldn’t bear the thought of it.
Couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Luca.
God help me, she thought, as he moved inside her, taking her once again to that amazing place, a tear sliding unbidden down her cheek, but this was more than just need.
I love him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HER period arrived midway through the next day and Tina couldn’t suppress a bubble of disappointment. Now there was a way to celebrate their final few days together.
Not.
But there was an upside of course, she reasoned, because at least it meant that this time she wouldn’t be going home with any surprises.
And why that thought didn’t please her more than it did made no sense at all.
She rested her head against the bathroom mirror, feeling the familiar ache deep inside, a niggling question she’d been avoiding all the time she’d been in Venice now gnawing at her to be noticed.
Should she tell Luca about their lost baby?
It had been so easy to avoid the question at first, when she’d thought she’d never see him again. It had been easy when she’d arrived in Venice, and when mutual resentment and a deal the devil would have been proud of had been the thing that bound them together. It had been so easy to ask herself what would be the point of rehashing the past by telling him? What purpose would it serve? It wasn’t as if she owed him after what he had done.
But now, after these last weeks with him, she wondered how long she could avoid telling him—that there was a headstone on a grave in Australia with his child’s name on it.
How could she not tell him?
Wouldn’t she want to know if their positions were reversed?
Wouldn’t she have a right to know?
She peeled herself away from the bathroom mirror and drifted through the bedroom. Strange, she mused, how love could change your view on the world.
Because suddenly there were no more reasons to avoid the truth. She wanted Luca to know everything.
And even though the news would no doubt come as a shock and he would be entitled to be angry at her for not telling him earlier, she didn’t want secrets between them.
Not any more.
She’d lived with this secret too long.
As for her love? Well, that would hardly be welcome news either—for had Luca once tried to talk her out of booking her flight home?
That was one secret she could keep.
Besides which, she would have more than enough trouble working out how to tell him the first.
* * *
Luca scanned the papers and swore out loud. His assistant came running. ‘I thought you said you’d checked these signatures!’ he yelled. ‘Didn’t you notice there was one missing?’
The assistant dithered and flapped and promised to fix whatever was wrong right away and Luca swept his offer aside and snatched up the papers himself. ‘I’ll do it!’ he growled. He could do with a walk. He’d been in a hell of a mood all day and he couldn’t really put his finger on why.
Yes, he could!
He didn’t want her to damned well go, that was why. She’d melted into his arms last night on the balcony as if she’d been made of honey, golden and sweet, and he’d never wanted to let her go.
But he had to. He had no choice. There was no other choice.
