Rumours: The Secret Billionaires. Дженнифер Хейворд
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of kissing her deeply.
Softly she sighed, her lips caressing his, and for a brief moment she moved towards him, driven by the same desire raging within him. He wrapped his arms around her back, the warmth of her bare skin intensifying the need to make her his again.
Just as he fought to rein in the need to sweep her into his arms and take her back into the villa, to the large bed with ocean views, and claim her truly as his wife, she pushed against him, breaking the fizz of attraction.
‘I can’t do this.’ She struggled to free herself from his arms and, rather than fight her, he let her go. She stepped backwards, each step unsteady as her feet sank in the softness of the sand, her green eyes darkened with desire, contradicting every move she made and every word she spoke.
‘Kiss me or give in to the attraction?’ He tried to keep his voice neutral but couldn’t stem the huskiness which made each word thick and unsteady. His whole body was on fire with need for her—his wife.
‘It’s not right,’ she said in a husky whisper. Did she really believe that?
‘We are man and wife, Sadie. Leo is our son, a child created with a passion so intensely hot it still scalds me. I want you, Sadie, just as you want me.’
He cursed himself silently for bringing Leo into this, for mentioning that weekend when he’d made her his, a weekend which should have been nothing more than a passing affair. He sensed Sadie withdraw emotionally, quickly reinstating the barriers he’d almost broken through.
* * *
Sadie blinked at that last remark and tried to ignore the ripple of awareness which skittered down her spine and unfurled deep inside her. She had no idea why she couldn’t do this, why she couldn’t surrender to his kisses. All she knew was that to do so would change everything. It would make their marriage something it could never be and she couldn’t let that happen, not when he didn’t have any kind of feelings towards her.
‘I can’t do this because of Leo. He will be here at any moment.’ She struggled for composure, struggled to calm her racing heartbeat.
‘I have just seen him and the nanny. I instructed her to bring him to us at lunchtime.’
‘Why?’ The word rushed from her and she stood defensively glaring at him. How dare he change the plans she’d made for herself and Leo.
He moved closer to her again and, just as it had earlier, her heart leapt and her skin tingled with anticipation of his touch. Only this time she knew how warm his hands were, knew what they felt like against the bare skin of her back. If she hadn’t just stopped things, where would they be now? What would she be doing?
The image of them in the large bed rushed into her mind, intensifying the heady desire this man could evoke with just one glance. No, she’d done the right thing. This marriage wasn’t about sex or lust. This marriage was about giving Leo a family—a real family. But if she gave in to the love and desire which was forcing its way back to the surface within her, wouldn’t that be more like a loving family? No—the word slammed into her. Antonio didn’t have any feelings of love towards her. Four years ago she’d made the mistake of confusing lust with love. She couldn’t do that again. She just couldn’t.
‘Walk with me, mia bella.’ Antonio’s accent was heavier than she’d ever heard it as he moved towards her again, reaching for her hand. Or was it because her senses were so tuned into him? Either way, a walk would be for the best. At least nothing could happen then and she knew she was in danger of forgetting everything at this moment.
‘I’d like that.’ She smiled at him, suddenly shy beneath the intensity of his dark watchful eyes, a blush colouring her cheeks at what had nearly happened. She might have had his child, but she was still as innocent as the day he’d walked away from her.
He didn’t say anything and neither did a smile touch the corners of his lips. Lips she had just been kissing. As her hand became wrapped within his, the tension which had sparked to life with the kiss reared up once more, knocking the breath from her body.
The silence between them lengthened as they walked hand in hand towards the ocean. The sun was sparkling on the sea like jewels and the warm breeze lifted her hair back from her face. Nothing but white sands lapped by clear blue water and fringed with palm trees stretched before them. It was paradise. The perfect location for a honeymoon. Except this wasn’t a real honeymoon, not when they slept at opposite ends of the luxurious villa, the distance between them greater than the ocean surrounding the island. She didn’t want that—not tonight. She wanted to forget his threats, his distance, and find the man she’d fallen in love with on that first night.
Finally Antonio broke the silence. ‘The papers in Italy are full of speculation about you and Leo.’
She paused and stopped to look at him, the sunlight illuminating the black of his hair, but the mention of what they’d escaped, the fear that Leo would be dragged into the ring of the media circus, halted any foolhardy notions of wanting to be with Antonio all night.
‘Why are they so interested in us, Antonio? What is it about your first marriage that makes them so curious about us?’ Sadie sensed this was more than just press intrusion. Every now and then she’d catch a glimpse of deep anxiety within Antonio, as if he was torn apart emotionally, but then she’d blink and it was gone, replaced by cool, hard control.
He turned from her and she followed his lead and began to walk along the beach again, her hand still in his. To anyone watching they would have looked like any other newly married couple. Except they weren’t.
‘Eloisa and I had grown up with each other, knowing that one day our parents wanted us to marry. They wanted two old families of Milan to unite, to bring together wealth and history.’
He paused as if holding something more back and looked out across the moving mass of blue water, the soft rush of the waves the only sound. She looked at his profile and knew he was regretting something. Was it all the women he’d allegedly dated so soon after he’d married his childhood sweetheart?
‘Had you always loved her?’ The question slipped all too easily from her; she didn’t really want to hear the answer, but she had to know.
‘We were friends, nothing more. We had never thought of each other as anything else.’ His voice was silky soft and persuasive.
‘So why did you get married?’
He sighed and turned to walk further along the beach until she thought they’d reached the end. He took her into the trees and onto a well-trodden path and just a few moments later they emerged again into a small sandy cove. He stepped down onto the sand and turned back to help her down the large step.
Briefly his gaze locked with hers and a frisson of something indefinable slipped between them, as if drawing her closer to him. She shuddered and walked away from him and out of the shade of the trees and back into the welcome warmth of the sun. Did she really want to know all about his first marriage?
‘I married for duty. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. I was the only heir of one of Italy’s oldest families and, added to that, I had no inclination to marry for such a sentimental reason as love. A marriage out of duty wasn’t a hardship.’
Was that why he’d married her? Duty to his son? Suspicion filled her mind. Wouldn’t that have meant going against his family’s wishes? His mother had made it more than plain that she could never be anyone to a man like Antonio Di Marcello.
‘I’m guessing Eloisa didn’t like the fact that you still wanted to live the life of a single man.’ She couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice—or the fear that he would do the same again, that as soon as he returned to Rome he’d be pictured with the glamorous models and actresses of the world he moved in. He had, after all, married her out of a sense of duty to his son. To think of their marriage as anything else would be futile. She was deluding herself if she thought he was going to slip into the role of father and husband.
‘That was all part of protecting Eloisa from the