Jenny shook her head. ‘He’s dying, Lucia. I won’t have much time with him.’
‘It should be my time. I wish he hadn’t found you. I wish you were dead like your parents.’
‘Lucia!’
Dante’s voice thundered across the room as the blood drained from Jenny’s face. Bella was dead…was dead…had been dead these past six months. She had no right to be here, taking up time that a real grand-daughter should have.
‘Don’t think you can order me to leave, Dante!’ his cousin yelled, the harsh decibels in her voice hurting Jenny’s ears. ‘This villa isn’t yours yet! I have as much right as you to say and do whatever I like.’
‘If abusing people is your style, do it to an empty room. I won’t have Bella subjected to your spite.’ He strode over to Jenny, hauled her up from her chair, tucking her protectively to his side, a strong arm around her shoulders.
‘Right! Run off together!’ Lucia jeered. ‘I’ve always been alone anyway. Nothing new there.’
‘Try thinking of others instead of how everything affects you, and you might have a different result. Wishing Bella dead because it would suit you better is beyond contempt.’
The lash of his voice brought scarlet flags to Lucia’s cheeks. ‘I wish you were dead, too,’ she said venomously.
‘You always have. But you know what, Lucia? I’ve never once complained to Nonno about the malicious traps you’ve set for me. But try it on with Bella and I will tell him what a nasty piece of work you are. He doesn’t have much tolerance for wrong-doing. He banished his own son so completely, we didn’t even know of his existence until a week ago.’
The power of that threat hung in the silence that followed it—a silence loaded with violent emotion, barely held in check. Dante swept Jenny out of the room, her legs feeling as wooden as a marionette’s, her mind pummelled by a dreadful sense of wrong-doing. She should never have agreed to this deception. There were too many repercussions to it. Dante had tunnel vision if he thought it was as simple as granting a deathbed wish. Nothing about it was simple.
‘Don’t fold on me now,’ Dante muttered fiercely, sensing the turbulence weakening her earlier commitment to staying on here, almost carrying her down the long corridor to their bedroom suites, enveloping her with his own strength of purpose so she couldn’t break away.
Once inside her room he locked the door against any possible intrusion, but he didn’t release his hold on her. Before Jenny could say a word, she found herself locked in his embrace, her head gently pressed onto his broad shoulder, his hand stroking through her hair with soothing intent, his mouth warmly brushing her ear, his breath wafting over it as he spoke, his voice a deep rumble that rolled through her, making her feel even more shaky.
‘There’s no turning back. Whatever Lucia said to you, it makes no difference.’
She should be fighting the dominating power he was exerting, yet she couldn’t summon the strength to do it. There was comfort in being held so tightly, being stroked, feeling his caring about the stress she’d been put through. Tears spilled into her eyes. Tears of weakness. She didn’t want to stand alone. Her whole body craved this seductive togetherness with him. Though part of her torn mind insisted that his caring was centred on protecting his own interests, wanting her to keep doing what he wanted.
She swallowed hard, blinked back the tears and forced herself to say, ‘Yes, it does. It does make it different. I’m taking time away from her. Time that shouldn’t be mine. And since I was the one who created this situation, I should take the blame for it. I’ll tell your grandfather and Lucia I deceived you about being Bella. That won’t bring you down in their eyes, Dante.’
It didn’t matter what happened to her. Not meaning to do any harm did not excuse the wrong she’d done. She was filled with guilty shame and didn’t want to live with it any longer.
His fingers entwined themselves in her hair, gently tugging her head up from his shoulder. She wanted to keep her eyes closed but the need to let him see she’d spoken the truth forced her to open them, to meet his dark questing gaze without any wavering.
He stared at her. For long, nerve-wracking moments, his eyes burned into hers as though they were scorching a path to her innermost soul. She was suddenly acutely conscious of the tension in his body, the pressure of his thighs against hers, the arm around her waist holding her firmly pinned to him, her breasts crushed against the hard hot wall of his chest.
Her heart started hammering.
The expression in his eyes changed to a glitter of satisfaction as though he sensed the loss of focus in her concentration on the deception issue and liked the physical awareness of him much better. ‘I don’t want to let you go, and you don’t want me to, either,’ he said with arrogant certainty.
He kissed her.
And she let him do it, knowing it was foolish, yet overwhelmingly tempted to feel whatever he could make her feel, before she returned to her own life. She’d never known a man like him, never would again. Only extraordinary circumstances had brought about this connection and it had to end, but she could take one night with him away with her.
Recklessly abandoning any sense of caution, she kissed him back, wanting to incite the explosion of passion that had blown her mind earlier today. He tasted her surrender, revelled in it, his mouth plundering hers for more and more of her giving, as though he couldn’t get enough of it, and the wild intoxication of his need drove her own for more of him.
Excitement pumped through her body. His was moving sensuously against hers, making her aware of the excitement pulsing through him, making her crave the power of his sexuality. She wanted to be taken by him. He stirred something terribly primitive in her, a rampant desire to possess the essence of the man, to hold him in her power, if only for a little time.
Her arms were still by her sides. Her hands dragged up and down his hard muscular thighs, blindly transmitting the need that was clawing through her. A convulsive little thrill ran down her spine as his fingers burrowed through her hair to the zipper at the back of the designer dress and drew it down, baring her skin to his touch.
His mouth broke from hers, muttering something in Italian. His face wore a look of urgent intensity, his eyes blazing a command for her to remain exactly where she was while his hands worked quickly at stripping her of the fine feathers he’d clothed her in.
Yes, Jenny thought fiercely, wanting to be shed of the designer image, which was all part and parcel of the deception, wanting to feel free of everything, just be the woman she was, naked with nothing, and still being desired by Dante Rossini. His hands and mouth assured her this was true…long, shivery caresses down her back, over her buttocks, hot intimate caresses, kisses drawing her breasts into throbbing peaks, kisses on her stomach, her thighs. She was awash with exciting sensation.