THE sound of her bedroom door opening and the rattle
of crockery brought Jodie out of a complicated dream
in which she had been forced to watch as John walked
down the aisle towards his waiting bride. But when
he reached her it wasn’t John who was marrying
someone else but Lorenzo. Bizarrely, instead of feeling
relieved, she had actually felt searingly jealous.
"Buongiorno," Maria greeted her cheerfully as she
put down the tray she was carrying and then walked
over to the windows to draw back the heavy curtains.
Sunshine immediately flooded the room, followed by
deliciously soft warm air as Maria opened the windows
to reveal a small balcony.
The smell of fresh coffee and the sight of rolls and
fruit made Jodie salivate with hunger.
"Grazie, Maria." She thanked the elderly maid with
a warm smile, pushing back the bedclothes as Maria
turned to leave the room.
She hadn’t realised her room had a balcony, and
when she hurried over to investigate it she discovered
that it looked out onto an enclosed courtyard garden
that was almost Moorish in style. Fretted archways
were swathed with tumbling masses of pink roses, and
from her vantage point above them she could look
down into the heart of the garden to a fish pond,
where an ornate fountain sent sprays of water jetting
upwards before they fell back to dimple the surface
of the pond, disturbing the fat goldfish basking in the
morning sunshine.
Returning to the bedroom, Jodie poured herself a
cup of coffee and then headed back to the balcony.
It was wide enough to hold a small wrought-iron table
and two chairs, and she was just about to sit down on
one of them when her bedroom door opened a second
time. Thinking that Maria had come back, she looked
up with a smile that faded as she saw that it was not
Maria who had come in but Lorenzo.
"Bene, you are awake. Alfredo has telephoned to
say that he is on his way and will be here within the
hour. I trust you slept well, with no return of your
cramp?"
"No — I mean, yes — I did sleep well, and, no, the
cramp didn’t come back." It hadn’t come back, but
the faint tingle in her flesh where he had massaged it
had kept her awake for a long time after he had gone.
Unlike her, Lorenzo was fully dressed, making her
feel acutely conscious of the brevity of her nightshirt.
Not that he was looking at her. Instead he was frowning
as he stared at something on the floor beside her
bed, next to the case she had been too tired to unpack
last night.
Striding over to it, he leaned down and retrieved
the basque she had forgotten to put back in the case,
holding it up between his thumb and forefingers and
looking at her with a query in his scowl.
"What is this?"
"What does it look like?" Jodie challenged him
crossly
"It looks like something a certain type of showgirl
might wear."
"It…it was part of my trousseau," Jodie told him
reluctantly. She certainly didn’t want him thinking it
was something she had brought with her to wear on
holiday. "It got into my case by…by mistake."
"Your trousseau? You mean you were going to
wear this as a means of enticing your husband to
make love to you? What was he? Some kind of bondage
fetishist?"
It took several seconds for his meaning to hit her
defences.
"It’s a chainstore basque, that’s all," she told him
furiously. "If you want to give it some kind of sleazy,
sordid interpretation, then that’s up to you." She was
perilously close to angry tears of humiliation as she
remembered the shy uncertainty with which she had
purchased the boned and lace-tied item of underwear,
hoping that it might tempt John to behave more passionately
towards her. "Right now They’re a fashion
item. Some women even wear them as outerwear."
"Yes, I have seen them. They display their breasts
as crudely as whores, offering up their wares for any
man who feels like examining them."
Whores? Was he suggesting…? "I suppose the way
you like your women dressed is—" Jodie began angrily,
only to have Lorenzo interrupt her.
"The way I like to see a woman dressed is in something
that hints subtly at her sexuality instead of
flaunting it, and in fabrics as sensual as her skin. Not
clothes that make her look like either a child or a
whore," he told her and he dropped her basque onto
the bed.
A child? Was he referring to her nightshirt?
"How is your leg this morning?" he added calmly,
as he helped himself to a cup of coffee and walked
over to the balcony to join her.
Suddenly what had seemed like a pleasant spot to
enjoy the morning air had become an intensely intimate
and very small space. Had he deliberately referred
to her leg now because he guessed how sensitively
aware she was that its weakness made her less
desirable as a woman? If she hadn’t already sworn
off men and love for ever, Jodie decided bitterly, then
surely Lorenzo would have been enough to make her
do so.
"It’s fine. Anyone can get cramp, you know," she
told him defensively. "Even someone with two perfectly
normal legs."
"Which you think yours are not? There are many
places in the world where people, often children, subjected
to the injustice of wars they Don’t understand,
have been left with injuries, including the loss of
limbs, that make a mere weakness such as yours
something they would welcome."
Jodie listened to him in disbelieving fury. Was he
actually daring to preach at her? When he lived the
kind of privileged life isolated from reality he obviously
did?
"What would you know about other people"s suffering?"
she demanded scornfully. "I bet the closest
you have ever been to witnessing the ravages of war
is in a newspaper or on a television screen."
She put her cup down on the small table with a
small angry movement and made to walk past him
back into the bedroom. But Lorenzo, who had become
engrossed in looking down into the garden, put his
hand on her arm to stop her.
"Caterina is watching us from the garden," he told
Jodie quietly.
"So?"
Putting down his own cup, he turned towards her,
saying softly, "So this…"
He was closing the distance between them and
there was nowhere for her to go. His arms locked
round her, imprisoning her, their warmth pressing
through the thin fabric of her nightshirt. His hands
spread against her back, curving her into his own
body as though she were completely formless and
malleable, his to do with as he chose. One hand remained
flat against the small of her back, arching her
against him — draping her against him, she recognised
dizzily — whilst the other slid up to her neck, his fingers
burrowing into the soft thickness of her hair, tangling
in it so that he could draw her head back and
lift her face towards his own.
Trembling from head to foot with furious outrage,
Jodie glared up at him.
His head blotted out the sunlight as he lowered it
so that his mouth could take possession of hers. Jodi
stiffened defensively, not daring to move. His lips felt
cool and firm against her own. She could smell the
fresh scent of soap and clean linen. Stubbornly she
refused to return his kiss. The pad of his thumb
stroked caressingly behind her ear and against the vulnerable
flesh of her neck, and a small betraying shudder
of reaction galvanised her whole body.
His lips brushed hers, the silver-grey eyes glinting
with a knowledge that made her whole body burn as
he demanded silkily, "Don’t you even know how to
kiss properly? And you were betrothed! Open your
mouth."
Faced with a choice of being branded as a woman
so sexually inept that she couldn’t even kiss, or giving
in to his arrogant demand, Jodie chose female pride
over anger. Her lips softened and parted, the golden
shimmer of her gaze meshing recklessly with the hypnotic
silver of Lorenzo’s as though it were a lodestone
luring her to a destiny she couldn’t escape. Her mouth
clung to his and her arms lifted to wrap around his
neck. She could feel the warmth of the sun on her
back, but it was the heat of Lorenzo’s touch that her
flesh was responding to, the sensation of his hand
spread flat against the bare skin of her back beneath
her nightshirt, whilst she stood on tiptoe, arched
against him, kissing him with a sensual intimacy that
would normally have shocked her.
She could feel his hand shaping her waist and then
moving upwards to cup her bare breast beneath the
nightshirt, his thumb-pad brushing with deliberate
emphasis against her suddenly tight nipple, making it
and her quiver as readily as a bow drawn by an expert
archer. His other hand was massaging the base of her
spine and then moving lower, pushing aside her briefs
so that he could stroke the naked rounded curve of
her bottom.
The sudden fierce sexual thrust of Lorenzo’s
tongue against her own brought her up intimately
against him, her breath escaping on a soft, shivered
rush of pleasure. "What is it?" Lorenzo whispered.
"Do you want me to stroke your breasts? To kiss them
and caress them? Do you want me to take your nipple
into my mouth and bring it and you to the highest
pinnacle of pleasure? Is that what you are asking me
for with that wanton thrust of your hips against
mine?" As he was whispering to her Lorenzo’s hand
moved round to caress the soft swell of her sex.
This was what she had longed for so much from
John — desire, intimacy, sensuality — and she absorbed
it into herself with each and every one of her senses,
lost in a private world of erotic pleasure.
It was the sound of angry footsteps crunching
across the gravel beneath the balcony that brought her
back to reality, her body stiffening in outraged rebuttal
as she wrenched her mouth from beneath
Lorenzo’s.
"You had no right to do that," she told him angrily.
"So why didn’t you stop me?" Lorenzo shrugged,
infuriatingly matter-of-fact.
She hadn’t stopped him because she had been enjoying
what was happening too much to want to,
Jodie realised guiltily. "You said there would be
no…no intimacy between us," she retorted, sidestepping
Lorenzo’s charge.
"That wasn’t intimacy," Lorenzo informed her. "If
I’d wanted intimacy with you, I’d have taken you
somewhere where we couldn’t be overheard, and right
now, instead of standing here glowering at me, you’d
be lying under me, and the only words you’d be uttering
would be your eager pleas for my possession.
As I warned you, I was simply demonstrating for
Caterina’s benefit the fact that you and I are to marry.
Or is that glower you are giving me because you are
not lying beneath me right now, while I show that
virginal body of yours what sex is all about?"
"I am not—"
"You are not a virgin? Is that what you were going
to tell me?"
"I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say that
I’m not interested in having sex with you."
"So you are a virgin?"
"What if I am? Is it a crime?"
"In law, no. Against nature, yes. Where is the plea-
sure in a closed book that has never been read? A
song that that never been sung? A scent that has never
filled the air with its fragrance or a woman who has
never cried out her fulfilment to the lover who has
taken her to it?"
Beneath them the golden silence of the morning
was suddenly broken by the sound of a car arriving
in the adjacent courtyard.
"That will be Alfredo," Lorenzo told her, suddenly
businesslike. "Come through into my office as soon
as you are dressed. Alfredo will want to go through
all the necessary paperwork for our marriage."
As she watched him leave, Jodie wanted very badly
to tell him that she had changed her mind; to break
through his arrogance and to pierce his pride the way
he had pierced hers. How could she possibly have
reacted to him as she had? How could she have let
her guard down so far that she had actually physically
responded to him? Now he obviously thought that he
could use her own vulnerability against her to make
her do anything he wanted her to do. Anything. Every
word he had just said to her, every look he had given
her, had said quite plainly that he now believed she
was his for the taking.
But she wasn’t, and she never, ever would be. She
knew that, and she was going to make sure that he
knew it as well. And if she couldn’t? How much did
she really want to bolster her pride and appear at John
and Louise’s wedding with her own brand-new husband?
Enough to take that risk?
More than enough, Jodie decided with renewed determination
as she gathered up some clean clothes and
headed for the shower. Especially since she already
knew that, no matter what Lorenzo said or did, or
even fleetingly made her feel, nothing could alter the
fact that she simply did not want an intimate one-toone
emotional or physical relationship with a man
ever again. John had shown her that she could not
trust his sex, and if John could not be trusted to mean
it when he said that he loved her and wanted to marry
her, then she certainly wasn’t going to risk trusting a
man like Lorenzo!
Fifteen minutes later, showered and dressed, and with
her still damp hair caught back off her face, Jodie
hesitated outside the door to the study-cum-office
Lorenzo had shown her the previous night.
She could have sworn she hadn’t betrayed her presence
by the smallest sound, much less even raised her
hand to knock politely on the door, but somehow
Lorenzo must have divined it, because before she
could do so he was opening the door and taking her
by the arm to draw her into the room. Taking her by
the arm or imprisoning her? Certainly to any onlooker
the way the strong, lean fingers were curling round
her wrist might look both protective and possessive—
the hold of a lover wanting to establish the exclusivity
of a relationship — but she, of course, knew better.
"I was just beginning to wonder what was keeping
you," he told her.
"I’ve only been half an hour," Jodie protested defensively.
"A lifetime for us to be apart," he told her softly,
giving her a look of such sexually explicit hunger that
her own eyes widened and darkened before she could
stop herself from reacting to it. She was awed by the
impact of a look that somehow managed to convey a
desire to strip every item of clothing from her body
and explore and pleasure it in the most intimate way
possible, but at the same time made it fiercely clear
that he also wanted to wrap that same body in the
protection of his love and adoration, to keep it and
her for himself alone. What on earth must it be like
to be truly loved and desired by a man who looked
at one like that? A man who was not either afraid of
or embarrassed to show his feelings? But Lorenzo had
no feelings for her, she reminded herself, and nor did
she want him to.
"Alfredo, come and let me introduce you to my
wife-to-be."
Lorenzo’s lawyer was about the same age as
Lorenzo himself, but nothing like so tall or so awesomely
good-looking, Jodie thought. He did, though,
have very nice, warm brown twinkling eyes, and a
kind smile.
"Lorenzo has just been telling me about you. I
thought he must be exaggerating, in that deranged
way that lovers have, but now I see that he was not
doing you justice," Alfredo complimented Jodie
warmly.
Lorenzo’s lawyer was just being courteous, that
was clear, albeit in a flattering, slightly over-the-top
way. Jodie knew that, but she still couldn’t help dimpling
him a laughing smile, immediately feeling at
ease with him.
"No wonder you are so anxious to rush her to the
altar, Lorenzo," Alfredo continued. "In your shoes—"
"But you are not in my shoes, are you?" Lorenzo
pointed out, with what Jodie thought was almost insufferable
arrogance.
The lawyer, though, did not seem to be offended.
Instead he laughed and said, "There is no need to be
jealous, my friend. I can see that Jodie only has eyes
for you." Whilst Jodie was still digesting this untruth,
he continued, "I was just asking Lorenzo where you
met. I assume it must have been when he was out of
the country, in the aftermath of that dreadful earthquake.
I know that Lorenzo was there in his capacity
of adviser to those government officials who run our
own aid programmes. Which reminds me, Lorenzo—
I have, as you instructed, ensured that sufficient
money has been put aside to cover the medical fees
of the children who are to join the prosthetic limb
replacement programme." Alfredo turned to Jodie and
gave her a charming smile accompanied by a small
rueful shrug. "You will already know that your husband-
to-be has a soft heart and digs deep into his
pockets to help those in need. Did you meet him
through his charitable work?"
Jodie could feel her face starting to burn as she
remembered her earlier accusatory comments to
Lorenzo. And she couldn’t even allow herself the satisfaction
of inwardly believing that Lorenzo had
primed his lawyer to speak as he had. One look at
Lorenzo’s grim expression was enough to make it
plain that Alfredo’s unwitting revelations had not
pleased him.
"Jodie does not work in any capacity for any of the
aid programmes, Alfredo." Lorenzo stopped him. "As
it happens I met her some time ago, when I was in
England. I had planned to bring her here to meet my
grandmother, but unfortunately Nonna died before I
could do so…which brings me to the matter of my
late cousin’s widow, Caterina."
"She can have no claim on the Castillo once you
have complied with the terms of your grandmother’s
will and are married," Alfredo assured Lorenzo immediately.
"No claim on the Castillo, no, but it seems that
Caterina feels she has the right to make a claim on
me," Lorenzo told him cynically.
Alfredo started to frown. "But that is impossible."
"Indeed. But Caterina, as we both know, is somewhat
prone to exaggeration. Ridiculously, she has
even suggested that my grandmother wished me to
marry her! Having run through Gino’s money, and
dragged his name in the gutter, it seems she desires
to do the same with mine."
"There has been gossip about her," Alfredo agreed
uncomfortably.
"Indeed. And I do not wish there to be any about
my marriage or my future wife, so perhaps a few
words in the right ears to warn them to ignore anything
Caterina might have to say?" Lorenzo suggested
smoothly.
"An excellent idea," Alfredo agreed, whilst Jodie
listened and silently digested the suavely subtle, lethal
way in which Lorenzo was dismantling Caterina’s
power base. When it came to getting what he wanted,
Lorenzo was obviously a ruthless opponent. A ruthless,
arrogant, dangerous man — who voluntarily gave
both his time and his wealth to help the young victims
of far-off wars and disasters. That wasn’t just one
man, it was two very different men inside the same
skin — like Janus, the double-faced Roman god of beginnings
and endings, from whom the month of
January took its name. Lorenzo was an enigma of a
man, and the polar differences within himself made
him toxically dangerous. But not to her. No man
would ever again be a danger to her.
"I have brought with me all the various documents
you will both need to sign in preparation for your
marriage. The Cardinal was most helpful. He suggested
the Church of the Madonna in Florence for the
service, and he has undertaken to arrange for the
banns to be read from this Sunday. Since the law is
that they must be read on two consecutive Sundays
before the marriage can be conducted, that means that
you can be married just over two weeks from today."
Banns? And a church service? Their marriage was
to be just a temporary business arrangement: it didn’t
need to be celebrated in church. A simple civil ceremony
was all that was necessary. Jodie started to step
forward, but somehow Lorenzo had managed to get
between her and Alfredo. She could feel his fingers
curling determinedly around her wrist, and she could
see the warning in his eyes as he lifted her now tightly
clenched palm towards his lips.
"You have done well, Alfredo," he said approvingly,
without shifting his gaze from Jodie. "Hasn’t
he, cara?"
His lips were caressing her knuckles, each individual
one in turn, until, helplessly, she could feel her
fingers uncurling from her palm, as though eager for
more.
"I have also prepared the necessary papers for you
both to sign with regard to the financial agreement.
There is one for you to sign, Jodie, renouncing any
future financial claim you might have against Lorenzo
in the event of a divorce, and the other which you
asked me to draw up, Lorenzo, stating that in the
event of the marriage breaking down within twelve
months of the ceremony you will pay Jodie one mil-
lion pounds sterling, plus a further million pounds for
every year after that that you remain married."
"I’ll sign the papers renouncing any future claim I
might have against Lorenzo, but I Don’t want his
money." The words were spoken before Jodie could
stop herself. She could see that Alfredo looked both
rueful and slightly embarrassed.
"Of course it is unpleasant to have to talk about
such things now, before you are even married, but—"
"I Don’t want the money," Jodie repeated.
"This is something we can discuss in private later,"
Lorenzo informed her in a warning tone, before turning
to smile at Alfredo and telling him, "You have a
long journey back to Rome, so the sooner we get all
the paperwork dealt with, the better."
"Why do we have to have a church service instead of
just a civil ceremony?"
It was over an hour since Alfredo had left, but
Jodie’s system was still in full adrenalin-producing
mode as she confronted Lorenzo across the width of
his desk.
"Why should we not? It is customary within my
family, and will be expected."
"You should have told me before. I thought we
would just be having a civil wedding. Being married
in church will make it seem so real…"
Lorenzo was frowning now.
"Our marriage will be real," he informed her. "That
is the whole point of undertaking it. It has to be
"real", as you put it, in order for me to fulfil the
terms of my grandmother’s will. Or at least, "real"
in the sense that it will be conducted as a real wedding.
We shall not, of course, be consummating it."
"No, we most certainly won’t," Jodie agreed vehemently.
"I’m beginning to wish that I had never got
involved in any of this."
"It is too late for that now, and besides, you will
be well remunerated."
"I’ve already told you I Don’t want your money.
All I want is for you to attend John and Louise’s
wedding with me."
"I could hardly have that put in the marriage contract.
As it is, there is bound to be some degree of
gossip and speculation about our relationship. You
have Alfredo on your side, though. He was obviously
afraid that your feelings had been hurt by the necessity
of legalising the financial aspects of our marriage."
"You could never hurt my feelings. You aren’t important
enough to me, and I intend to make sure that
no man ever is from now on."
"You intend to die a virgin?"
He was mocking her, Jodie knew.
"And if I do? There are more important things in
life than sex!"
"How would you know? By your own admission,
you have never truly experienced it."
Jodie had had enough.
"A woman does not need to have penetration in
order to experience sexual pleasure. Nor does she
need a man," she told him frankly.
"Is that the only way you feel able to allow yourself
to reach fulfilment? Either by your own hand or
through the use of some battery-driven device that
cannot—?"
"No! I wasn’t talking about me. I just meant… I’m
not listening to any more of this." Jodie could feel her
face burning with self-conscious colour as she covered
her ears with her hands.
"I am simply making the point that you are rejecting
something without having experienced it."
"What about you? You’re rejecting marriage, aren’t
you — at least a proper marriage? And you haven’t
been married, have you?"
"I haven’t been married myself, but I have witnessed
the marriages of others and seen what a destructive
sham the state of marriage is — how it is used
to cover greed and selfishness, and how children born
into it are left to deal with the fall-out from their
parents" deceit."
"That isn’t true of all marriages. Some Don’t work
out, yes, but there are happy marriages. My cousin
and his wife love one another very deeply, and my
parents were happy together…"
"Really? So how come this wonderful gene that has
enabled them to achieve the rare state of bliss bypassed
you?"
"It’s all down to having the ability to pick the right
partner. I realised with John that I Don’t have that
ability, and that is why I never intend to let myself
fall in love again. But that doesn’t mean I Don’t believe
marriage can work or that some people — other
people — have the ability to make the right partner
choice and to share commitment."
"Only a fool believes that sexual love can be permanent,"
Lorenzo told her challengingly, as though
he expected her to disagree with him. But Jodie was
wary of getting involved in any more arguments that
featured sex. Every time she did, a funny little sensation
deep inside her sprang into life and pulsed in
such an intimate and demanding way that she could
barely concentrate on what she was saying because
of it.
"Oh, and by the way," Lorenzo continued, "Don’t
think that I was taken in by that artful comment of
yours about not wanting the million pounds. What are
you hoping? That if you refuse it now then later,
when we divorce, you will be in a much stronger
position to claim far more? If that is the case, let me
warn you—"
Jodie had had enough. "No, let me warn you that
the only reason I am marrying you is so that I can
show John he isn’t the only man in the world, and so
that I can hold my head up high at home, instead of
being pitied. It’s my pride that’s motivating me, not
any desire for money. I do not want your money! And
I certainly Don’t want your…your sexual expertise,
either!"
"that’s just as well, because you aren’t going to be
offered it," Lorenzo said unkindly. "It amazes me that
still in this modern day the myth persists that adult,
sexually mature men have a secret yearning for the
untutored body of a virgin. Personally I can think of
nothing more unenticing. Maybe that was why your
ex-fiance. chose someone else over you. Have you
thought of that?"
Had she thought of it? There had been endless
nights and days when she had thought of nothing else
in those early weeks. Nights when she had lain in bed,
feverishly wondering how she might suddenly transform
herself from a virgin into an alluringly experienced
woman who could seduce him away from
Louise just as Louise had seduced John away from
her. But that had been in the maddening furnace of
new rejection, and those fires, with their dangerous,
damaging compulsion to prove herself as a woman,
had now cooled. And they certainly weren’t going to
be re-ignited by a man like Lorenzo — a man who
looked and behaved as though he knew everything
there was to know about a woman"s sensuality and a
man"s ability to rouse and enjoy it.
The pulsing inside her body suddenly became
sharply intense. Not just a pulse now, but a deep-
seated ache as well.