The Helen Bianchin And The Regency Scoundrels And Scandals Collections. Louise Allen
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‘Ramon is anxious to meet Nicki,’ Marcello informed as he touched the rim of his goblet to her own in a silent salute. ‘How do you feel about tomorrow?’
‘Perhaps it could be delayed by a day?’ Shannay countered. ‘Nicki has had to absorb a lot in the past week, followed by a long flight.’ She made a sweeping gesture with her hand to indicate his home. ‘All of this.’
‘I’ll make arrangements.’
It was happening, the increase in Marcello’s control to the detriment of her own.
Ramon she could cope with … even look forward to reconnecting with the generous elderly man.
Ramon’s daughter, Penè, however, was a different matter.
Ramon’s son, Marcello and Sandro’s father, had been killed instantly in a car crash when Marcello had been in his late teens.
Nicki was the bonus … the one bright star in the Martinez firmament. No one, not even Penè, would be permitted to say a word out of place in Nicki’s hearing.
Shannay sampled the starter, and insisted on a small portion of paella. She’d grown unused to eating so late, and she merely sipped her wine, choosing instead to drink chilled water, and declined dessert or coffee.
‘Finish your wine.’
She met his faintly hooded gaze with equanimity. ‘I prefer to have a clear head.’
Marcello sank back in his chair and regarded her with interest. ‘To indulge in verbal warfare?’
‘You doubt it?’ She barely hid an edge of bitterness in her voice. ‘I specifically requested our own accommodation.’
‘Yet I have provided accommodation, have I not?’ he offered reasonably.
Far more luxurious than the most expensive hotel. ‘That isn’t the point.’
‘What is the point?’
‘You could have asked for my approval.’
One eyebrow lifted in silent mockery. ‘And your answer would have been?’
‘Not in this lifetime!’
He spread his hands wide. ‘Precisely.’
She wanted to throw something at him. Anything to disrupt his chilling air of calm. ‘Doesn’t it matter that I don’t want to be here?’
‘In Madrid? This house? Or with me?’
‘All of that … and more!’ The words tumbled out with vehement ire.
‘Querida.’ His faintly accented drawl curled round her heart and tugged a little. ‘Perhaps you should have given thought to informing me of Nicki’s existence from the beginning, instead of hoping fate and distance would continue to keep me in ignorance.’
‘Don’t … call me that.’
‘Darling? Lover?’ He offered a faint smile. ‘But you are both, yes?’
‘Not any more. And never again,’ Shannay added with angry intent, and attempted to tamp down the vivid images that immediately flooded her mind.
In his bed, theirs, she corrected. Naked, beneath him, her thighs wrapped around his waist, urging him on, pleading, begging for the release only he could give … the heat and the passion. Loving him with her heart and her soul. His … only his.
‘Careful, amada. I could view that as a challenge.’
‘In a pig’s eye,’ she managed fiercely, hating his silky indolence. Not to mention the instinctive feeling he was deliberately toying with her.
He regarded her carefully. ‘Had I known you were pregnant, I’d have taken the next flight to Perth and dragged you back here.’
As he had done now, she perceived. ‘It wouldn’t have changed my decision to file for divorce.’
His pause was deliberately significant. ‘Yet you failed to do so until very recently.’
‘It was my choice to avoid all contact with you,’ Shannay offered coolly. ‘Even via legal channels.’ She waited a beat, and aimed the figurative dart. ‘Reciprocal, obviously.’
‘Yet circumstances have changed.’
Suspicion clouded her eyes. ‘What are you implying?’
‘There will be no divorce.’
‘The hell there won’t!’
He shrugged in an expressive negligent gesture. ‘Why bother with legalities?’
‘It might suit you to conveniently have a wife in another country, but I don’t want a husband!’
‘Not even the faithful John waiting patiently in the background?’
‘He’s my boss and a friend. Nothing more.’
‘No?’ Marcello arched silkily, and watched her temper flare into vibrant life.
‘Damn you, no.’
His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Almost four years, Shannay, and you haven’t welcomed another man into your bed?’
She wanted to pick something up and throw it at him.
‘Don’t,’ Marcello warned softly. ‘I might seek retribution.’
‘Bite me.’
‘What an interesting concept.’ His lazy drawl held amusement … and something else.
‘Go to hell.’ She hated the faint shakiness in her voice.
She wanted to leave … the room, this house, him.
Yet leaving would amount to an admission of sorts, and she refused to give Marcello the satisfaction.
Besides, there was Nicki. And for her daughter, she’d lay down her life. Without askance, or question.
‘Not a very comfortable place to be, wouldn’t you agree?’
Shannay closed her eyes, then opened them again as she flashed him a look of gold-flecked enmity. ‘Let’s balance the scales, shall we?’ Her voice held a darkness she didn’t know she possessed. ‘Or is the list of willing women anxious to share your bed too extensive to recall?’
‘You have a vivid imagination, mi mujer.’
My wife. She didn’t need or want the reminder. ‘With just cause.’
‘Something, if you remember,’ he drawled, ‘I refuted at the time.’
Her gaze remained steady. ‘You were very credible, Marcello, in light of the facts.’
One eyebrow rose in a gesture of distaste. ‘The fabrication of a disturbed woman?’
‘We’ve been there, done that,’ Shannay said in a dismissive tone. ‘It’s old ground.’
‘Consign it to the too hard basket, and not seek a resolution?’
‘There’s nothing to resolve.’
‘Yet it had a drastic effect on our lives and eroded what we once shared.’
Destroyed it, she wanted to fling at him … and knew she lied. The sensual pull was as strong now as it had ever been. Almost as if her soul reached out to his in a pagan call as old as time.
She could feel it, sense it deep inside, stirring to life in damning recognition.
Why? she demanded silently. And why now?
Tension. Stress. Jet lag.
A lethal combination which attacked her vulnerability, she justified without conviction.
‘I’m