Carol Marinelli – Her Passionate Italian: The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain (страница 10)
Each time she paused for breath someone placed a long, fluted glass in her fingers and bid her a toast that demanded she sip. Her cheeks had discovered a permanent rosy hue and her eyes sparkled beneath the overhead lights. Angelo was being treated to the same kind of attention. They would whirl by each other occasionally and share a laughing comment, but that was all they were allowed.
It was as if there was a conspiracy afoot to keep the two lovers apart until the bewitching hour and when she challenged one of her partners with the suspicion he laughed and whirled her away. No one would know from observing this glitter-bright gaiety that the whole thing was about to shatter with the same spectacular force you would get if one of the huge chandeliers suddenly dropped to the floor.
Francesca was taking a moment to catch her breath when she happened to see Sonya quietly slipping away behind one of the gold-embossed curtains that had been drawn across a wall of French windows that led outside. Her antennae began to sing, sending her eyes flickering quickly around the room to see if anyone was going to follow her out.
It had to be her misfortune that her eyes clashed with those belonging to Carlo Carlucci. He was still holding court by the salon doors, standing with his dark head slightly tilted to one side as he listened to whatever the person with him was saying to him.
But his dark eyes were fixed on her.
That prickling sensation arrived, scoring tight
Sonya had left one of the doors slightly ajar. Slipping quietly through the gap, she walked across the wide marble terrace towards the stone balustrade beyond which the garden began to drop in a series of stylised tiers. It was cold out here, the late-spring chill in the air sending her hands up to rub at her bare arms as she paused to scan the darkened gardens in search of Sonya and her new man.
She heard them before she saw them, her slender body twisting towards the sound of scuffling feet and hushed voices filtering up from the terrace below. They were standing by the lower balustrade, and she was surprised to see that it was Angelo who was gripping one of Sonya’s arms while she was trying to tug herself free.
‘Let go of me!’ she heard Sonya hiss out angrily.
‘No,’ Angelo rasped. ‘I won’t let you ruin this, Sonya—’
‘I’m still going to tell her,’ Sonya lashed back. ‘She deserves to know the truth before this charade goes any further. I will be doing her a favour.’
She was threatening to confess her affair to her lover’s wife! Oh, dear God, Francesca thought. She couldn’t let her do that! She was about to move towards the steps to go down there to add her own pleas to Angelo’s—when Angelo’s harsh reply stalled her feet.
‘You think she will be grateful to you for your big confession, heh,
And that was the point where everything shattered, sprinkling around her like fine crystal shards that lacerated her flesh as they fell.
CHAPTER FOUR
FRANCESCA began to shake so badly she could barely stay upright, even her heart trembling, clawing at the walls of her chest as if it was trying to escape from what she was being made to face. She struggled to believe it, didn’t
But there was no misunderstanding, Sonya’s next shrill claim made it too sickeningly clear. ‘You don’t want her! You don’t even like her that much!’
‘What I want and I what I am to have are two different issues.’
‘Money,’ Sonya sliced at him. ‘As if the Batistes haven’t got enough of it locked up in this place, you’re willing to marry a woman you have no feelings for just to lay your hands on the Gianni fortune! It’s disgusting. ‘
‘And none of your damn business,’ Angelo rasped.
‘While you can’t keep your hands off me, it’s my damn business.’
There was a groan—an agonised groan that brought Francesca’s eyelids flickering upwards to watch as Angelo pulled Sonya against him then buried his mouth in her throat. ‘I cannot get you out of my head,’ he muttered. ‘I close my eyes and all I see is you, naked, on top of me.’
‘When your little heiress is naked on top of you, will you close your eyes and think of me then?’
The vile taunt brought Angelo’s head up, set his hands moving in a tense, urgent, restless sweep over Sonya’s slippery blue satin dress. ‘Yes,’ he said thickly.
Francesca swayed, her whole world tilting sideways as if it was trying to tip her off. A pair of arms came around her from behind and covered her shivering arms where they still folded like clamps across her front. Long brown fingers closed over her icy fingers, a solid male torso became a supporting wall to her trembling back. A dark head lowered, a pair of lips came to rest on her ear.
‘Heard enough?’ Carlo asked in a soft, rough voice that scraped over her cold flesh like sand across silk.
She wasn’t even surprised that it was him who was holding her. In some mad, tortuous way it seemed fitting that he would be the one to witness this—as if the two of them had been building towards this devastating moment for days.
She was about to attempt a nod in answer to his question when Angelo uttered a thick groan and took fierce possession of Sonya’s lips. Sonya didn’t even try to stop him. The way they kissed, open-mouthed, deep and frantic, their two blond heads locked together. The way they touched, hands moving over each other in hot, tight, convulsive movements that stripped clean to the bone any lingering doubts she might have had that they’d done this many times before. A long, silken thigh was exposed to the hip bone, a small, pale breast was uncovered to receive the hungry clamp of Angelo’s mouth. It only took eyes to see that Sonya was wearing nothing at all beneath the skimpy scrap of silk. She’d come prepared for this, despite all the angry threats and protests she’d just uttered, she’d had no intention of missing out on the sex.
Sickened, Francesca began to shudder. Carlo responded with a swiftness that caught her breath. The soft hiss of his anger stung her icy, quivering face as he twisted her around then tugged her against him and held her there for a moment while she shivered and shook.
Then Angelo’s voice came, raw with pleasure. ‘Yes, do that again,’ he groaned.
For a horrible moment Francesca thought she was going to faint. Carlo Carlucci must have thought so too because the next thing she knew one of his arms had hit the backs of her knees and she was being lifted off the ground.
‘I’m all right,’ she choked.
His lips arrived at her ear again to utter the harsh rasp, ‘Be quiet or they will hear you.’
The very thought of that happening had her curling into him. He started moving, long, swift strides taking them the full length of that side of the villa. A stunning silence arrived as they turned the corner and it was only then Francesca realised that the whole ugly thing had taken place to a background of music and laughter filtering out from the house.
He kept on going further and further down this wing, which housed the more private apartments that were not being used for the party tonight. All the windows were shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the hazed moon hanging in the night sky. He pulled to a stop beside yet another set of French doors. The villa was ringed with them; elegantly styled and evenly spaced, they gave every room on the ground floor its own access onto the wide terraces that flanked all four sides of the house.
She felt tensile muscles flex as he reached down to try a handle. A door slid open and he swung her inside. It was dark in here too, but she did manage to register that he’d brought her to Mr Batiste’s private study with its heavy, dark pieces of furniture that didn’t blend in with the rest of the house.
Then she was being dumped on a leather chair by the fireplace with logs neatly laid in the grate ready to light. Still shivering, she instantly wrapped her arms back round her body as Carlo moved to close the door they’d just used. She heard a key turn and quivered, though she didn’t know why she did. Then he was moving swiftly in the other direction and a second later another key turned in the door leading out to the hall.
‘Don’t,’ she said when she saw him raise a hand towards the light switch.
The hand dropped to his side and she tried to relax some of the screaming tension from her body. It didn’t happen. Too many muscles had locked and knotted and she’d never felt so cold in her entire life.
Still without comment he began to move again. He was nothing more than a shifting shadow in the darkness, and right now she was happy to keep him like that. She didn’t want to see his face—she didn’t want him to look into her own. She felt stripped and raped and bruised and battered.