Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Passionate Revenge

‘You forget I have a bad back,’ he reminded her. ‘I mustn’t do anything that would tire me.’

‘Hah!’

‘But I admit I like the harem idea.’ He grinned. ‘So get on with your work and pleasure me, wench.’

‘To hear is to obey, master.’

She applied herself to the task with a will, watching his face where she could clearly see that he was fighting the temptation to reach for her. They were laughing as they contended with each other, each balancing seduction with control, struggling for supremacy in the battle that gave spice to their relationship.

He partly yielded, stretching out his hands in the direction of her breasts, but she teased him by staying just out of reach.

‘Not…fair,’ he complained in a gasp.

‘All right, I always fight fair,’ she said, leaning forward just enough for his fingertips to caress her nipples and almost shouting aloud as the electric tremors went through her, seeming to pulverise her, making her fight for control. To her delight she managed to hold her own, still the one in charge-just.

‘You’re cheating,’ he groaned.

‘How? Did you like that?’

‘Yes, do it again!’

‘How am I cheating?’

‘Taking advantage of an injured man. I could really hurt myself, moving too much.’

She muttered a soft curse at herself for being so carried away that she’d forgotten that. Leaning down, she lay against him and promptly found herself tossed on to her back and her legs parted by a determined knee. Then he was inside her, moving powerfully, sending through her a searing excitement that almost made her explode with pleasure.

She just managed to find the strength to gasp, ‘Cheat! Liar!’

‘Of course. I always win, no matter what I have to do, and you should have known that by now.’

She made a wild sound as he drove into her, then again. She tightened her arms around his neck lest he should have any insane idea of getting free, thrusting back against him with all her might.

‘Do you hate me?’ he muttered in her ear. He was laughing.

‘Yes-yes, I do-don’t stop.’

He increased his power, taking what he wanted without gentleness or consideration or good manners. It was shocking, but it carried her into a new universe, and she forgave him, she forgave him-oh, how she forgave him!

Much later, as they lay together, exhausted, she said, teasing, ‘So much for being ministered to.’

‘I’ll tell you this,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘if a potentate had you in his harem he’d dismiss all the others.’

‘So I should hope,’ she said, sighing blissfully.

WHEN the bell rang the following evening the last person Elise expected to find standing there was Mary Connish-Fontain. Since the day she had confronted her at Ben’s funeral Elise had barely given her another thought. When there was no news of a DNA test she’d shrugged and forgotten it.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ Mary demanded as Elise gazed at her, nonplussed.

She stood back for Mary to saunter past her, moving slowly to give herself time to take in her extravagant surroundings.

‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Very nice. And to think you tried to plead poverty. Oh, you’re here, are you?’

She’d noticed Vincente, stretched out on the sofa. He gave her a relaxed grin, but his eyes were alert.

‘What do you want?’ Elise said.

‘You know what I want. My fair share.’

‘Weren’t you going to have a test done? Where are the results?’

‘Oh, tests, what do they prove?’ Mary said with an attempt at a laugh.

‘Everything if they’re positive,’ Vincente observed. ‘Yours wouldn’t have been, which is why you decided not to have it. Very wise.’

‘Test, test! Who cares about that? Ben always said he’d see me right. I’m only here to get justice.’ Her tone became wheedling. ‘We both suffered from Ben’s little ways. We’re both women, surely we can find a way to help each other?’

Elise was beginning to feel light-headed. This conversation was rapidly becoming surreal.

‘Each other?’ she queried. ‘You see us becoming bosom pals?’

‘We haven’t all been as lucky as you,’ Mary snapped. ‘You’ve followed the money wherever it led, haven’t you? And you’ve ended up here. But what about me? Ben promised to marry me.’

‘That would have been a little difficult,’ Vincente observed mildly.

‘Oh, it’s easy to see whose side you’re on,’ Mary snapped. ‘It didn’t take her long to bring you to heel, did it? That’s how she is with men.’

‘It’s certainly how she was with me,’ Vincente agreed, giving Elise a wicked look that almost made her burst out laughing.

‘I think you should leave now,’ he added. ‘And don’t bother this lady ever again.’

‘I’ve got my rights,’ Mary shouted. ‘She should have divorced him.’

‘So I would have done, with pleasure, if he’d let me,’ Elise told her. ‘But he wouldn’t. Ben let you down the way he let everyone down. Do you think anything you can say will trouble me?’

‘It might, if it was printed in a magazine. I’ve had offers-’

‘Then take them,’ Elise said promptly. ‘Take the money, say what you like. As if I care!’

‘You’ll care when I tell them what he used to say about you-that you were a cold-hearted bitch who didn’t bother who you hurt as long as you got what you wanted.’

‘I dare say he was right,’ Elise said coolly. ‘I’m a cold-hearted bitch, which means you haven’t a hope of moving me. You’d better go now.’

‘Ben told me a lot more than you think, all about that Italian boy you were supposed to love, but you dropped him fast enough when you smelled Ben’s money. He stood under your window and screamed for you not to betray him, and you just laughed at him. He’d been useful, hadn’t he? You used him to make Ben jealous, and you didn’t care what happened to him when-’

She stopped, suddenly scared by what she saw in Elise’s eyes.

‘Get out,’ Elise said softly. ‘Get out, now.’

Mary fled.

Elise folded her arms across her chest as if holding on to something.

Vincente reached for her but she pulled away.

‘You’re shaking,’ he said. ‘Tell me about it.’

She shook her head urgently. Just as before, she wanted to tell him about Angelo, but somehow she couldn’t get the words out. It was a sacred subject, not to be raised with the man who’d stolen her heart away from her young love.

‘Nothing…nothing…’

‘It can’t be nothing if it upsets you like this. What was she talking about? Who was that young man?’

‘I can’t…I can’t…’

‘I wish you trusted me enough to tell me,’ he said sombrely.

She looked into his face, longing to take this final step. Instead of urging her with words he kissed her gently, then again.

‘What’s so terrible that you can’t talk about it?’ he asked.

‘I can never talk about it,’ she said violently.

‘Even with me? Is there nothing between us but what we do in bed?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said wistfully. ‘Sometimes I’ve thought so, but those times are so beautiful I forget everything else.’

He nodded. ‘It’s the same for me, but when I try to reach out to you I’ve often had the feeling that you’re drawing away, as though you want to keep me separate from the things that really matter to you.’

‘Don’t reproach me-there are things I can’t tell even to you.’

He didn’t answer in words, but he gave her a look of such unutterable sadness that her heart ached.

‘I’ve never talked to anyone about it,’ she begged.

‘Did you love him very much?’ he persisted. ‘Should I be jealous?’

‘It was a long time ago. I was another person. At eighteen you love differently, with all of yourself. You haven’t learned about caution.’

‘And you’ll never love like that again. That’s what you’re warning me, isn’t it?’

‘I guess so. I loved Angelo more than my life, and he loved me. We wanted to be together for ever, but I had to leave him for Ben. We only had three months before Ben dragged me away. Ever since then I’ve heard his voice in my head, crying to me not to leave him.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He died. I don’t know how, but when I tried to call him a woman answered and screamed that he was dead. I can’t find out any more.’

‘Why didn’t you want to come back to Rome? I’d have thought you’d have been glad to.’

‘I couldn’t face him,’ she said simply.

‘Face him? But he’s dead.’

‘Not for me. Sometimes it’s as though he didn’t die at all, but he’s waiting for me somewhere. I know that’s partly because we were at a great distance, and I know nothing of the details. It’s almost as though his death had no reality, and I was afraid to challenge that.’

‘You were trying to keep him alive?’

‘Maybe it’s something of the kind. Although, when I went back to Trastevere and found everything destroyed, a woman said what had been there was gone for ever, and I knew it was true.

‘I tried to learn more about how it happened. I studied the death certificates for that time, but there was nothing in the name of Angelo Caroni, and I don’t understand that. Vincente? Vincente?’

Something strange had come over him. He was still holding her, but it was as though he’d turned to stone and she wondered if he could hear her.

‘Vincente?’

He seemed to come out of a dream and his manner was forced. ‘You may not have been looking in the right place.’

She gave a wan smile. ‘Maybe I’ve never looked for Angelo in the right place. Perhaps there is no right place, and no man could be as I remember him.’

‘Then perhaps you should let him go.’

‘I try, but it’s as though I’m waiting for something to happen. I don’t know what, but I’ll know when it does.’ She kissed him. ‘Thank you for listening. I should have told you before.’

‘It’s late. We should go to bed,’ he said quietly.

Once in bed he held her and gave her a gentle kiss, but didn’t try to make love to her. Elise wondered if perhaps she should have kept the story to herself. Was it possible that he was jealous?

She looked up, but he pressed her head against his shoulder.

‘Go to sleep,’ he said.

He was glad she couldn’t see him clearly at this moment, in case his eyes were too revealing. Elise had told him the secret that tormented her, but his own secret was becoming too burdensome to hide.

Next day Vincente left for good and the apartment felt bleak and empty. Half an hour of wandering around it alone was enough to bring Elise to a decision and send her out to pick up a cab. She was away for several hours and arrived back with her arms full of folders.

A text from Vincente announced that he would pick her up at eight that evening, belatedly adding, ‘if that’s all right.’

He looked surprised when he arrived at the apartment.

‘I thought you’d be dressed up and ready to go out.’

‘Sorry. I meant to be, but I got reading and forgot the time.’

‘It must have been fascinating.’

‘It was. Look.’ She showed him the folders. ‘They’re from the place I was studying fashion when I was here before. I’m going back.’

‘You mean as a pupil?’

‘Yes. The current term will finish next week but they’re going to let me join the lessons, just to see if I can still fit in. Then I’ll enroll properly for next term.’

Vincente browsed through the papers while she hurried to get dressed. When she returned he was frowning, but he said nothing until they were settled in a restaurant in the next street.

‘You don’t need to do this now,’ he said.

‘But I want to. I can’t live a useless life. I need to be busy. I’m going to see the estate agent and insist that he makes a real push to sell the apartment, so that I can find something smaller. Then I can have some sort of life of my own.’

‘Are you going to have any time for me?’ he asked satirically.

‘I’ll make a little time,’ she teased. ‘If you’re good.’

‘Good?’

‘I meant virtuous.’

‘Oh, you meant that, did you?’ he demanded sardonically.

‘Now, what else could I possibly have meant?’

‘Eat up, you little shrew.’

Afterwards they strolled back to the apartment, but at the street door he said thoughtfully, ‘I suppose this is the moment when I kiss you virtuously goodnight and go home.’

‘You do and you’re dead.’

Laughing, they went up together. The love-making was delightful and satisfying, but she thought she detected in him a kind of wariness.

‘Why do you keep looking at me like that?’ she asked.

‘I keep wondering what you’re thinking of. Me, or your new career?’

‘Anyone would think you were jealous.’

‘Let’s say I’m possessive. I want you to myself. Jealousy is for people too weak to do anything about it. Don’t ever expect me to behave like a gentleman and bow out. Because, I warn you, I’m no gentleman. Never try to brush me aside.’