Again, it wasn’t a question, but Tali found herself nodding. What was it about this woman that made it so hard to lie to her?
‘I guess I do. Which is nuts… I’ve known him for precisely two weeks, and he hasn’t exactly been easy to deal with. But he fascinates me. He wants to appear cold and in control all the time, but I really don’t think that’s who he is… But how could I possibly know that? I’m sure it’s just a delusion brought about by the sexual tension incinerating my brain cells.’ It was Tali’s turn to start babbling.
‘Except it isnotyour brain which makes these decisions, Tali,’ Mia said softly. ‘It is your heart. And you are right about my brother…’ she added.
‘I—I am?’ Tali asked.
‘Yes,’ Mia said, with complete certainty.
And for the first time since Tali had offered to stay with Dario, and he had shut her out, she felt less vulnerable, less insecure. ‘How am I right?’ Tali pressed, needing to know now if there was really more to the connection she had begun to sense with Dario, or if it had all been in her own head.
‘You are right that he is not as cold or controlled as he wants to pretend,’ Mia said gently. ‘When we were children in Capri, he always protected me. Our mother was beautiful and wild. She loved us, but she did not know how to look after us. When we came to England, our father tried to force all the wildness out of Dario. But to do that, he had to also force out all the joy. And he succeeded, when he turned Dario against Sante. The accident, and the way it crushed Dario’s spirit, even more than his body, did the rest. But you are the first person I know who has seen the boy he once was, beneath the surface of that unhappy man. And only in a few weeks. Perhaps…’ Mia paused. ‘Perhaps if you give in to the desire you both feel, you might discover more of that boy?’
Tali’s heart lifted, and the fierce desire surged… But she wasn’t sure anymore if it was the hunger which had tormented her for weeks demanding to be satisfied, or the yearning to make that lonely, bedridden boy smile which was driving her desire to know Dario better now.
The only thing she did know was that she wasn’t convinced she could resist it any longer.
‘Signora Lorenti…’A young woman shouted across the courtyard, then rushed towards them, looking flustered. ‘You must come. Signora Chiara is concerned there will not be enough time to get your hair styled.’
Mia jumped up and replied in Italian, looking flustered, too, but also incandescently happy, her excitement giving her face a golden glow in the dying sunlight. But before she could follow the young assistant to prepare for her wedding, she turned back to Tali.
‘Do not give up on my brother, Tali. He has always needed someone who won’t put up with his bullshit… And, although I do not like to think about my brother this way, if nothing else, good sex can be its own reward.’
Before Tali could reply, her unruly heart bobbing into her throat, Mia had disappeared into the palazzo.
But as Tali walked back, through the outdoor kitchen, past trays of delicious hors d’oeuvres being laid out on silver platters, her mind kept snagging on all the things Mia had told her about Dario and his past…
Surely, Mia’s input proved one thing at least—that therewasa fascinatingly complex man lurking behind the façade of the ruthlessly controlled autocrat.
Would it really be so wrong to try to find that man? Especially now she had finally admitted to herself, as well as Mia, she was tired of fighting the hunger which had tormented them both ever since that damn kiss.
Chapter Nine
DARIO STOOD ATthe edge of the festivities, watching his sister dance with her new husband in the moonlight. The wine had flowed after the ceremony, during the banquet of local delicacies served on white linen and gold-rimmed plates in the open air. And now the two hundred guests were partying into the night, enjoying the fragrant air, redolent with the scent of orange blossom and jasmine.
He’d expected a more formal and extravagant event for a man of Sante’s wealth and status, but Mia’s influence had been everywhere—her energy, her passion and her lust for life—in all those thoughtful, personalised touches which had made her wedding so relaxed and enjoyable.
For everyone but him…
He’d walked her down the aisle of flowers and fairy lights in the orchard, as he’d promised, aware of his halting steps beside hers and the delighted smile on her face which made him feel like a fraud.
When she’d leapt into Sante’s arms after they’d declared their vows, he couldn’t quite control the stab of bitterness which remained—towards his old friend. Not because he still believed what his father had told him all those years ago, but because that anger, that resentment had helped sustain him for so long. And now, he felt hollow inside, without the familiar anger to keep the knowledge there was something fundamental missing from his life at bay.
Mia had included many familiar Capresi delicacies in her wedding feast. And watching her dance, getting into the groove of an old disco hit in her flowing ivory silk gown while Sante twirled her in his arms, reminded him of their mother—always wild, always beautiful, but unlike Mia, always searching for a high which had eluded her.
‘She looks stunning, and so happy,’ Tallulah whispered beside him.
He turned to find her watching him, her blue eyes shiny with emotion—no doubt seeing things he did not wish her to see.
Lust charged through his system though, when his gaze raked over her figure. The satin gown matched the deep turquoise of her irises, its simple lines clinging to her curves, the peaks of her breasts pressing against the fabric. His mouth watered, as the familiar hunger speared into his gut.
What was he waiting for? When giving in to this devastating chemistry would be the perfect way to forget all these pointless memories that were reminding him of the boy he’d once been—naïve and scared because so much of his life was outside his control—and not the man he had worked so hard to become, immune to the flaws that had once made his mother so weak.
Clasping her hip, he tugged her towards him and leaned down to press his lips to her neck. Her vicious shudder was a seductive payback as he whispered in her ear.
‘You are stunning too, Tallulah.’
She stiffened, the flare of desire in her transparent expression like a flaming wand igniting his already volatile senses. But when he bit softly into her earlobe, then traced the delicate shell with his tongue, she planted her palms against the cotton of his shirt and gave him a gentle shove.
