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He said nothing, merely inclining his head as she turned away, let herself into the cobbled inner courtyard, shut the heavy outer door behind her.
She heard the throaty growl of his car as he moved off. On shaky legs she went up to her apartment, and only when inside its sanctuary did she feel able to breathe again.
* * *
Cesare strolled to the window of his Rome apartment and gazed unseeing out over the familiar roofline. The large plate glass window of the modern designed space was glaringly different from the richly historical interiors of his other properties, and it gave a wide view over the city even at this midnight hour. He did not step out onto the large adjoining balcony; instead he merely continued to stand, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, legs slightly astride.
Was he being wise? That was the question that was imposing itself upon him. Was it wise to pursue what had been, after all, only the impulse of a moment—following through on a momentary glimpse of the woman who had caught his eye? Following through sufficiently to decide that it was worth spending an evening of his life in her company. Worth considering, as he was now considering, whether to pursue a liaison with her.
There were many reasons to do so. Uppermost, of course, was the intensity of his physical response to her. Unconsciously he shifted position restlessly, his body aware that a single kiss had only whetted the appetite that he could feel coursing through his blood. It was an intensity that had, he acknowledged, taken him by surprise. But was that reason enough to do what he knew his body wanted him to do?
Before he could answer, he knew from long experience that there was another question he must answer first.
Will she understand the terms of our liaison?
The terms that governed his life just as they’d governed all who had borne his ancient name and title. Had been hammered into him by his own dictatorial father who’d constantly impressed upon him his heritage, and yet who’d regarded him as favouring too much the mother whose outward serenity Cesare was sure had concealed an unvoiced regret.
Her husband had objected to her having any interests outside her responsibilities as his contessa, and she had confined her life to being the perfect chatelaine, the mother of his heir. His father had taken his son’s sympathy for his mother as a reluctance to respect the demands of his heritage, and after his mother’s premature death from heart disease, when Cesare was only nineteen, the rift between them had widened without her presence as peacemaker.
But when his father had died, some eight years later, he’d been determined not to neglect any aspect of his inheritance, dedicating himself to its preservation. If his father could see him now, half a dozen years on, perhaps his harsh judgement would be set aside.
The words that he had uttered only that evening, in front of the Luciezo painting of his sixteenth-century forebear, floated in his head.
‘Pride in his family, his lineage, his honour—all that he owes his house...’
With the echo of those words his thoughts came full circle back to the woman to whom he had spoken them. Did she understand why he had said what he had about his ancestor—about himself? It was essential that she did. Essential that she understood that, for him, one thing could never change.
In his mind’s eye two images formed—the other portraits in the triptych, the Count’s wife and his mistress. Separate for ever, coming from different worlds that could never meet.
Four centuries and more might distance him from Count Alessandro and the women who made up the triptych, but for himself, too, his countess would need to share his own background. Not because of any heraldic quarterings she possessed, but because only a woman from the same heritage as himself could truly understand the responsibilities of such a heritage. That was what his father had instilled into him. He had even identified for him the very woman who would make him the perfect next Contessa...
His expression changed and he stared out over the roofs of this most ancient city into whose roots his own ancestry reached. The lineage of a patrician of Ancient Rome was still traceable in his bloodline.
The woman who would be his Countess was well known to him—and she was not, nor ever could be, a woman such as the one he had embraced a brief hour ago, fuelling in him a desire for satiation that he must not yield to.
Not unless—until—he could be sure she accepted what could be between them. And what could not.
As, too, must he. That, also, was essential...
CHAPTER THREE
CARLA STARED AT her screen. She still had six hundred more words to write for her article, and she was making heavy weather of it. She knew exactly why.
Cesare di Mondave.
He was in her headspace—had been totally dominating it, consuming every last morsel of it, since she’d made it into her apartment the night before, senses firing, aflame.
All through her sleepless night she’d replayed every moment of the evening over and over again—right up to that final devastating moment.
Cesare kissing her...
No! She must not let herself remember it again! Must not replay it sensuously, seductively, in her head. Must instead force herself to finish her article, send it into the impatiently waiting sub-editor at her office.
But even when she had she was unbearably restless, her heart beating agitatedly.
Will he phone me? Ask me out again? Or—a little chill went through her—has he decided he does not want me after all?
Face set, she made herself some coffee. She should not be like this—waiting for a man to phone her! She should be above such vulnerability. She was a strong-minded, independent woman of twenty-seven, with a good career, as many dates as she cared to go on should she want to, and there was no reason—no good reason!—for her to be straining to hear the phone ring. To hear the dark, aristocratic tones of Cesare di Mondave’s deep voice.
And yet that was just what she was doing.
The expression in her eyes changed. As she sipped her coffee, leaning moodily against the marble work surface in her immaculate kitchen, more thoughts entered her head. If last night’s dinner with Cesare was all there was to be between them she should be relieved. A man like that—so overwhelming to her senses—it was not wise to become involved with. She’d known that from the moment he’d first spoken to her, declared his interest.
But where was wisdom, caution, when she needed them? She felt her pulse quicken again as the memory of that kiss replayed itself yet again.
With a groan, she pulled her memory away. She shouldn’t be waiting for Cesare di Mondave to phone her! Not just because she should never be waiting around for a man to phone her! But because she should, she knew, phone her mother—reply to her latest complaint about her sister-in-law’s disapproving attitude towards her.
She gave a sigh. Her mother—never popular with Guido’s younger brother Enrico and his wife, Lucia—had become markedly less popular after her husband’s death, when it had become known that the childless Guido, rather than leaving his half of the Viscari Hotels Group shares to his nephew, Vito, had instead left them to his widow, Marlene. They had been outraged by the decision, and when Enrico had suddenly died, barely a year later, his premature death had been blamed on the stress of worrying about Marlene’s ownership of the shares. Since then, Vito had sought repeatedly to buy them from Marlene, but Carla’s mother had continually refused to sell.
To Carla, it was straightforward. Her mother should sell her shareholding to Vito—after all, it was Vito who was the true heir to the Viscari dynasty, and he should control the inheritance completely. But Carla knew why her mother was refusing to do so—her ownership of those critical shares gave her mother status and influence within the Viscari family, resented though it was by her sister-in-law.
Carla’s mouth tightened in familiar annoyance. It also continued to feed her mother’s other obsession. One that she had voiced when Carla was a teenager and had repeated intermittently ever since—despite Carla’s strong objection. An objection she still gave—would always give.
‘Mum—forget it! Just stop going on about it! It’s never going to happen! I get on well enough with Vito, but please, please, just accept there is absolutely no way whatsoever that I would ever want to do what you keep on about!’
No way whatsoever that she would ever consider marrying her step-cousin...
Vito Viscari—incredibly handsome with his Latin film star looks—might well be one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors, but to Carla he was simply her step-cousin, and of no romantic interest to her in the slightest. Nor was she to him. Vito was well known for liking leggy blondes—he ran a string of them, and always had one in tow, it seemed to her—and he was welcome to them. He held no appeal for her at all.
A shiver went through her. She remembered the man who did...who’d made every cell in her body searingly aware of her physicality. Who’d cast his eye upon her and then scooped her up into his sleek, powerful car effortlessly.
She felt the heat flush in her body, her pulse quicken. Heard her phone ring on her desk.
She dived on it, breathless. ‘Pronto?’
It was Cesare.
* * *
‘But this is charming! Absolutely lovely!’
Carla’s gaze took in the small but beautifully proportioned miniature Palladian-style villa, sheltered by poplars and slender cypresses, in front of which Cesare was now drawing up. It was set in its own grounds in the lush countryside of Lazio, less than an hour’s drive beyond Rome, and its formal eighteenth-century gardens ideally suited the house.
She looked around her in delight as she stepped gracefully out of the low-slung car, conscious of the quietness all around her, the birdsong, the mild warmth of the late-afternoon sun slanting across the gardens—and conscious, above all, of the man coming to stand beside her.
‘My home out of town...what is the term in English? Ah, yes...my bolthole.’ He smiled.
He ushered her inside, and Carla stepped into a marble-floored, rococo-style hallway, its decor in white, pale blue and gold.
Into her head came a description for the house that was not the one Cesare had just given.
Love nest...
A half-caustic, half-amused smile tugged at her mouth. Well, why not a love nest? It was a conveniently short distance from Rome, and so very charming. An ideal place for romantic dalliance.
Because that was what she was embarking on. She knew it—accepted it. Had accepted it the moment she’d heard Cesare’s deep tones on the phone earlier that afternoon, informing her that he would be with her shortly. Taking for granted what her answer would be.
Was she being reckless, to come here with him like this? Of course she was! She knew it, but didn’t care. All her life she’d been careful—never one to rush into passionate affairs, never making herself the centre of any gossip. Yet now, a little less than twenty-four hours since she had stood in front of that Luciezo portrait of Count Alessandro, she was going to do just that.
And she would revel in it! For once in her life she would follow the hectic beating of her heart, the hot pulse of her blood, and respond to a man who, like no other she had ever met, could call such a response from her merely by a flickering glance from his dark, hooded eyes. However brief their liaison was to prove—and she knew perfectly well that it could never lead to anything—she would enjoy it to the full until the passion between them burnt itself out, until her desire was quenched.
A man in late middle age was emerging, greeting the Count with respectful familiarity.
‘Ah, Lorenzo,’ Cesare answered, in a reciprocal tone that told Carla he showed full appreciation of his staff. ‘Will you show Signorina Charteris where she may refresh herself?’
Carla was escorted upstairs, shown into a pretty, feminine bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom that had once, she presumed, been a dressing room. As she looked at herself in the glass, checking the careful perfection of her hair and make-up, retouching the rich colour of her lips, for just a second she felt a qualm go through her.
Should I really go ahead with this? Plunge headlong into an affair with a man like this? An affair that can come to nothing?
But that, surely, was why she was doing it! Because it could come to nothing! There could be no future with a man for whom marriage to her could never be an option, and therefore love could never be a possibility—never a danger. She would not follow in her mother’s footsteps, imagining love could come from an affair.
And that is all it will be—an affair. Nothing more than indulging in the overpowering effect he has on me, such as I have never, never known before.
She could see the pulse beating at her throat, the heightened colour in her cheeks, the quickening shallowness of her breathing. All telling her one thing and one thing only. That it was far too late for any qualms now.
With a quick spritz of scent from her handbag, she headed back downstairs. A pair of double doors stood open now, leading through to a beautifully appointed drawing room with French windows. Beyond, she could see Cesare.
Waiting for her.
At her approach, he smiled, his eyes washing over her with satisfaction.
Yes—he had been right to make the decision he had. This would go well, this affair with this enticing, alluring woman. He had no doubts about it. Everything about her confirmed it. Oh, not just her sensual allure and her responsiveness to him—powerful as it was—but any lingering reservations he might have had about her suitability for such a liaison were evaporating with every moment.
All his conversations with her so far had been reassuring on that score. Though she was Guido Viscari’s stepdaughter, she made no special claims on the relationship, which indicated that she would make no claims on the relationship that he and she would share.
Her cool, English air of reserve met with his approval—like him, she would seek to avoid gossip and speculation and would draw no undue attention to her role in his life while their affair lasted—or afterwards. She had a career of her own to occupy her—one that was compatible with some of his own interests—and intelligent conversation with her was showing him that she was a woman whose company he could enjoy both out of bed and in.
She will enjoy what we have together and will have no impossible expectations. And when the affair has run its course we shall part gracefully and in a civilised manner. There will be no trouble in parting from her.
Parting with her...
But all that was for later—much later. For now, the entirely enticing prospect of their first night together beckoned.
His smile deepened. ‘Come,’ he said, as she walked towards him.
A little way along the terrace an ironwork table was set with two chairs, and there was a stand on which an opened bottle of champagne nestled in its bed of ice. But Carla’s eyes were not for that—nor for Cesare. They were on the vista beyond the terrace.
Once more a pleased exclamation was on her lips, a smile of delight lighting her features.
‘Oh, how absolutely perfect!’
Beyond the terrace, set at the rear of the villa, a large walled garden enclosed not just a pretty pair of parterres, one either side, but in the central space a swimming pool—designed, she could see at once, as if it were a Roman bath, lined with mosaic tiles and glittering in the sun. Ornamental bay trees marched either side of the paving around the pool, and there was a sunlit bench at the far end, espaliered fruit trees adorning the mossed walls.
Cesare came to stand beside her as she gazed, enraptured.
‘We shall try out the pool later,’ he said. ‘But for now...’
He turned to pour each of them a glass of softly foaming champagne. As she took hers Carla felt the faint brush of his fingers, and the glass trembled in her hand. She gazed up at him, feeling suddenly breathless.
His dark gaze poured down into hers as he lifted his glass. ‘To our time together,’ he murmured.
She lifted her glass, touching it to his. Then drank deeply from it.
As she would drink deeply from her time with this most compelling of men...
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