Awoken by Revenge, page 14
She stilled, flooding with heat. The thought of him and her, bodies slick against one another. Then reality bit.
‘People might see.’
‘There’s no one around. My staff have the afternoon off. If you don’t want to, I’ll just take a quick swim and we can do something else.’
He unbuckled his belt, undid his shorts and pushed them down. She’d almost hoped he’d be naked but he wore black swimming trunks underneath.
She nodded to him. ‘That seems hardly fair.’
He laughed. ‘Life’s not fair, Lulu.’
He strolled to a panel on the wall and pushed a button. Louvres of the pavilion ceiling closed halfway. ‘The sun’s bright. I don’t want you to burn.’
His thoughtfulness, it almost undid her. She could dissolve on the spot, right here. Matteo didn’t seem to be aware of how he affected her. He turned and dived into the gleaming water. Swimming a lap of the pool under the surface before coming up at the other end then swimming back to her in freestyle, powerful strokes slicing through the water. When he reached the end he stood, water to his waist. Dripping from him like diamonds. Shook his head then ran his hands through his hair.
‘Coming in?’
She looked out into the secluded garden. She caught a glimpse of the lake from here, but it was mainly hidden by shrubs. Nobody would see her other than him. Her heart thumped a skittish rhythm, something like nerves. He’d seen her naked before, and after the things they’d done she wasn’t sure why nerves should hit her as if she were an innocent all over again. But she’d promised herself that she’d be open to these new experiences. Her hair was in a long plait today, so she didn’t have to worry about it getting knotted. There were really no excuses other than her own fears, so she took a deep breath, kicked off her shoes, grabbed her dress and pulled it over her head.
His wicked smile fell away. His mouth, partly open. A look crossed his face then, something far more intense and focussed. Desire written all over him. Her nipples beaded. All of her flushing under his admiring gaze.
‘The stairs are right there.’
His voice ran rough across his skin as he pointed to the side of the pool. She unclipped her pretty lace bra. Wriggled out of her matching panties. Walked to the water’s edge and put her toes in, the water cool against her overheated skin. Then she stepped ankle deep, down further to knee deep, then to mid-thigh.
Matteo held out both of his hands as she hesitated, trying to recall the few times she’d ever been in a pool before, experiencing the mix of joy at the feel of the water against her skin with the terror of what would happen if she went under.
‘I won’t let you go.’
‘I know.’
She took both his hands as he walked backwards, and she stepped off. It wasn’t deep here, yet her mother’s voice kept whispering in her ear. ‘What if you drown?’
She tried to shut out the words. Matteo wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘How do you know I’m thinking anything at all?’
‘You get a tiny frown, here.’ He stroked a finger in the middle of her forehead. A tiny drop of water fell on her face from his fingers. He gently swiped it away.
‘My mother told me not to swim. She always asked what would happen if she wasn’t there and I drowned.’
Matteo grunted. ‘That woman shouldn’t invade any of your thinking time. She never cared about what was best for you. I’m prepared to work diligently to make sure you forget what she’s said to you.’
He drew her towards him, arms around her. His mouth descending on hers in a slow luxurious kiss she fell into, pressed against his body. The heat of him, the cool of the water. Delicious, conflicting sensations. Pressed together, she sensed him harden against her.
He pulled away, his breath coming hard and fast matching her own.
‘I said I’d teach you to swim.’
‘You did.’
‘Let me take you deeper.’
She was already in way over her head. She tried not to think about what all of this meant. It probably meant nothing at all. She hadn’t ever expected to have any kind of relationship. Love equalled loss, a dark and tangled web where those two things were inextricably entwined.
Though why she should be thinking about love right in this very moment, she wasn’t sure. Love had no place here. He’d been clear he didn’t want it, and neither did she. This, sex, it was enough.
He walked back and back, cradling her in his arms.
‘Okay?’
She nodded.
‘I did some research,’ he said.
The idea that he’d investigated teaching her how to swim, spending time she’d not known about, planning this for her, struck her as more than considerate. It showed that he cared. That he was beginning to understand what she needed.
‘What did you find out?’
‘That you need to learn how to float first. How about you lie on your back, and I’ll support you?’
He helped her ease back in the water, his hands gentle against her body. Even though she knew he’d keep her safe, her breaths came a little too fast.
‘I’ll keep hold of you. Put your arms out. Try to relax,’ he said and she did, looking up into slivers of blue sky through the louvres in the pavilion roof as she floated. The water caressing her naked skin as Matteo moved slowly about the shallow end. She shut her eyes for a moment, sound muffled by the water. Simply drifting on trust as he supported her.
‘I’m going to let you go for a moment,’ he said. ‘I’ll always be here, but you can do this on your own.’
His hands left her body for a few seconds, and she lay still in the water. No panic. No fear. Only trust that nothing would happen to her if Matteo was by her side. She didn’t know how long she lay there, till his hands returned under her shoulders. Louisa opened her eyes, meeting with Matteo’s own. He bent down, brushing his lips against hers.
‘There was a terrible flaw in my plan,’ he said. Shifting to lift her from the water up against him.
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re naked, and I want you.’
His arms snaked around her, pulling her flush against him. She wrapped her arms round his neck, her legs round his waist. He supported her as his lips met hers and they kissed. Deep and lush. She notched against his body, hard and ready. The friction delicious.
‘I should be a better man,’ he said as she tried to catch her breath.
‘You are that man. I don’t know why you don’t realise it.’
He dropped his head to hers. ‘There are things you shouldn’t forget, Lulu. I didn’t get to where I am without getting everything I wanted. Every time. Nothing stood in my way.’
But she was sure he hadn’t found everything he wanted. He was looking for his birth family and hadn’t found them. Had accepted he never would. She suspected he wanted a real family despite his denials. He didn’t have that either. Matteo struck her as a man who was searching, and she wondered if he even realised what he was looking for.
‘You can have what you want from me. I’m not standing in your way.’
His nostrils flared. Of course, she was talking about sex, but it was fun for a moment to be held here and believe that the possibilities were endless.
‘Be careful what you offer me. You might find I take it, and I don’t have much to offer you in return.’
She wished he could see just how much he had. How kind he’d been to her. And yet she didn’t think he’d want to hear it, when it was clear there were things he couldn’t accept about himself.
She flexed against him, and his eyes darkened to the richest of warm chocolates.
‘You have exactly what I need right here, right now.’
He groaned and crashed his lips onto hers once more as she lost herself in the rhythm of his kiss.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LOUISA SAT IN the warm morning sunshine on a sheltered patio overlooking the lake. She closed her eyes, relishing Matteo’s gentle touch. The way his fingers threaded through her damp hair, separating the strands so they could dry.
‘We should go inside soon; I don’t want you to burn.’
‘Just a little while longer,’ she said, breathing in the scent of lavender that drifted on the breeze, which she’d always now remember as the smell of summer. Relaxing further as he stroked down her back. If she were a cat, she might start purring.
‘It’s like silk on fire,’ he murmured as if to himself. ‘Magnificent.’
‘My family were hoping for the Bainbridge blonde.’
Matteo grunted. ‘What have I told you about anything they had to say?’
Louisa opened her eyes. Stared out across the lake, like a well of blue ink on the landscape.
‘To forget them. I do, mostly...’
Some days, the voice in her head could be persistent. Though around Matteo, the negative chatter had less power. His praise and his words tended to drown them out till they held no more irritation than a gnat she could swat away.
‘Mostly should become always. They didn’t deserve you.’
His grip on her hair gently tightened. Drawing her head back as she smiled. Goosebumps shimmered over her as his mouth descended on hers.
She opened for him. Their tongues touching, the kiss deepening. Each day seemed like a kind of miracle. A dream she didn’t want to wake from. This was far better than any reality she’d ever lived in. And Louisa knew reality would have to intrude eventually, but she had time. There were no pressing deadlines. She could continue to drift in this warm, sunshine-filled fantasy for a while longer.
Matteo’s phone vibrated on the table close by, drawing her from the moment. An interruption from the world that wasn’t polite enough to stop for them. She drew away.
‘Take it. I know you have a business to run. I’ll be here when you get back.’
He smiled and it was warmer than any sunshine she might be sitting in. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said as he grabbed the phone and wandered into the house.
She stood and strolled to the railings of the patio overlooking Lake Como. Little boats skipping across its surface. Louisa had never thought she could love anywhere as much as Easton Hall and its surrounds, but this came close. In the UK, everything was about the safe and familiar. Here? She wondered whether she’d love it without Matteo. Because everything about the villa was bound up in him. This patio, where they had a breakfast under the dappled shade of enormous potted olive trees. Their days filled with exploration of the lake and its surrounds. Nights filled with exploration of each other. A sense of no end date. Just a future with a person not a place...
No, that couldn’t be right. No futures had been discussed. Except he had offered to show her the world, his hotels, his retreats. His other houses. That was a future of sorts. And their nights, his whispered words in the darkness, of being unable to get enough. Of more, more, more. What was that, if not a future? Her heart fluttered against her ribs. Not a sensation of dread but one of excitement, of possibility.
The sun brightened, warmer as the morning aged. Matteo would worry if she burned, so she moved to a large cantilever umbrella he’d had set up here, so she could sit under cover whilst looking out over the lake. That care, that kindness. It meant something, didn’t it?
Movement at the door drew her from her introspection. A liquid heat flooded her veins as Matteo stalked through. She couldn’t get enough of him. His power. Strength. It all made her feel safe, protected. Wanted. She might never get enough of him. Except...
The look on his face. Jaw hard. Eyes narrow. His body not lax and loose but strung tense like a bow. Obviously, business was not going well.
‘Problem?’ she asked.
‘The family seek to challenge the will.’
It was as if her heart forgot to beat. Like everything, the breeze, the birds, all...stopped.
‘Can they do that?’ She could barely get out the words. That they would try to take it all away...
‘They’ve been rattling their sabres. Seems they’re finally ready for war.’ His fists clenched. Released. Looking as if he was priming for battle. He gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘I expected it. They can try. But there’s no doubt they’ll fail.’
He strode to the balcony, planted his hands on the carved marble balustrade. Looking out over the lake, he reminded Louisa of a king, surveying his domain.
She stood, walked over to him. Her legs almost unable to support her weight. Her insides twisting in painful knots. What if they were successful? She’d lose her home. She’d lose everything.
This, here, Matteo’s house on Como. She loved it, but it wasn’t home. She’d be happy to travel, but there was a place of her own she always wanted to know she could come back to. Easton Hall. In that moment, she wanted to return. Ground her feet on the cool green grass, walk through the gardens, by the chalk stream with him. Make a home there, with Matteo. They could still travel together but they’d always have a place. It was then it hit her with a blinding strike of realisation, the endless possibility. How she...
How she loved him.
She could be his family. They could be a family.
‘What if—?’
‘No. This is the chance to truly destroy them.’ He turned his head towards her, his eyes bright. Almost fevered with a zeal she’d never seen before. ‘I own Easton Hall and they’ll never get it. It will become part of my company’s property portfolio. Generations will be able to enjoy it but none of them will be a Bainbridge ever again. It will be lost to the family for ever.’
Did he forget? He was a Bainbridge. Her mother had been one too. And there was the not so small matter of her inheritance.
‘But...what about me?’
‘What about you?’
The words hit her like a slap. She almost reared back. He wasn’t thinking of her at all. Hadn’t she figured as part of his plan for a future, for anything?
‘Easton Hall is my home.’
He snorted. ‘You can live anywhere in the world. Pick a place. My hotels, my retreats, they’re all available to you, free. Easton Hall is nothing but a crumbling symbol of a family that needs to be shown for what it is. Not paragons of virtue, but fake to the core. A façade for liars and cheats. You should have no interest in it, at all.’
‘And yet, Easton Hall is all you can think about. You’re obsessed with it.’
He wheeled round to stare down at her, nothing on his face other than the hard clutch of fury. ‘Obsessed? I want to destroy what it represents. You should too after what was done to you.’
He still couldn’t see. This between them was worth fighting for, revenge wasn’t. It could only destroy, yet she finally saw a future and understood that love, the right kind of love, could build.
‘Don’t you see, Matteo? You say you don’t care about place, don’t care about a home, but you do.’
‘You think you know me so well. You know nothing.’
She shook her head. He truly couldn’t see, so blinded by hatred of a family that wasn’t worthy of his time, it obliterated everything else.
‘You said my mother shouldn’t invade any of my thinking time, yet you’re not taking your own advice. Forget the family.’
‘Forget them?’ His eyes were wide, incredulous. A sneer of disbelief on his face. Yet he couldn’t see what she could. Louisa needed to make him listen.
‘Everything about you yearns to find your place. You’ve been searching for your birth parents. Discovered Italian heritage so bought a house here. What is all of that if not a need to find where you belong in the world?’
She hated the way her voice was so small, lost. Almost pleading. As though she had no agency here, when she did. She had the right to stay in the home till she decided to leave it permanently, or marry...
Marriage. She realised that with Matteo she wanted everything. Louisa reached out, settled her hand on his arm, the whole of him tense, as if one wrong move and he’d shatter. It was a surprise that he didn’t pull away from her, but she had to make him see.
‘You don’t just want it. You crave it. Your safe place. Somewhere to call your own...’
Louisa took a deep breath to conquer her fear. To be brave and make her greatest pitch. To the man before her, to the boy he’d once been. To Matty. To the universe. To crack open her chest and hand him her heart. Hoping with every beat that he’d take what she was offering him.
* * *
Matteo pulled back, began to pace. How couldn’t she see? This was his chance. The final hammer blow, and she thought he wouldn’t take it? That some nebulous idea like ‘home’ could stop him? He’d never stop. Not until he got what he had planned for.
‘I’ve told you. I don’t need any of that.’
Louisa held out her hands, as if imploring him.
‘You’re lying to yourself. You own retreats. Boutique hotels. Escapes, sure. But they’re still places where people live, for a while at least. Ask yourself why that’s the business you chose. Why you’re so successful. Your company is called Arcadia. I looked up what that means. A place of rustic idyll. Of innocence and pleasure. What does that tell you?’
He shook his head. She was looking for signs that didn’t exist.
‘It tells me nothing other than it’s a lucrative business and I excel at it. My company’s motto isn’t “Beyond home, your ultimate haven” for nothing.’
She looked to the heavens, almost like asking for divine guidance. ‘For a reason. Matty, can’t you see? That just proves my point. You’re searching and searching for your place, because you’re lost. And now you’re trying to take away the only home I want. Where I’ve always been safe. The home I believed I’d live in for the rest of my life.’
She didn’t feel safe with him? Her words were like a knife to the gut. Louisa couldn’t see. She was still trapped by her past.
