One sceptical eyebrow arched. The grief ruthlessly quashed.
‘Really? You have not done an internet search on me?’
‘No,’ she murmured, hoping he wouldn’t ask her the reason why. Because her desire to find out more about him fromhim, instead of a bunch of news headlines, would probably convince him she was impossibly sentimental, even naïve.
‘She overdosed one night, by accident. The staff found her in the morning,’ he said so dispassionately, she shivered.
‘I’m… I’m so sorry, Dario,’ she said, tears stinging her eyes.
He brushed away the single drop which escaped with his thumb. The puzzled expression on his face was worse, though, than the thought of him as a boy, losing his mother so needlessly.
‘Do not cry, it was a long time ago.’ His gaze became shuttered, before his thumb traced the line of her collarbone. ‘This is hardly conversation for our wedding night,’ he murmured.
Except it’s not really our wedding night, because this isn’t supposed to be a real marriage.
It’s what she should have said, but then he dipped his thumb under the sheet, to circle her nipple, and she lost her train of thought. Heat arrowed down to her core as the swollen peak hardened.
He leaned closer to place his mouth on the pulse point in her neck. He suckled the sensitive skin, while his hand sank further beneath the sheet to flatten over her belly then drag her to him, until his erection brushed her thigh.
‘Can you take me again?’ he asked, the gruff demand making her sex clench and release, already desperate to be filled.
‘Yes.’She clasped his cheeks, to drag his head up and kiss him. She explored his mouth, as he shifted her weight, until he was wedged between her thighs again, probing at her entrance.
He impaled her in one punishing thrust, taking her breath away, even as her misguided heart battered her rib cage.
Why did this feel like so much more than it should?
But as he established a rhythm, angling her pelvis to drive deeper still, the coil of need clenched tight, thrusting her back towards that vicious edge with startling speed… She gave herself up to the shattering pleasure, desperate to ignore the demands of her eager heart—and the yearning to have him need her, for more than sex.
But as she lay in his arms afterwards, his fingers skimming her breast, his heart thumping against her ear, the bubble of hope expanded again.
Because it wasn’t just the sex which felt earth-shattering anymore, it was the knowledge that however wary Dario was of intimacy, however desperate not to let himself care too much for anyone again—afterbothof his parents had hurt him—this demanding, taciturn man had trusted her enough tonight to show her why he guarded his heart so fiercely.
And if he could trust her with that much…was it foolish to think that one day, he might be able to trust her with more?
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later
‘THE ROOF REPAIRSwill be finished by next week, the slate loss wasn’t as bad as they thought. And the interior decorators are starting on Monday. They wanted to run a few things by you about the cornices in the East Wing ballroom.’
‘That’s fabulous, thanks, Ellie. Send me the details and I’ll take a look.’ Tali beamed at her acting estate manager through the video link. ‘You’re doing an amazing job, and I really appreciate the daily updates.’
‘And I really enjoy you making sure I’m not mucking anything up.’ Ellie grinned. ‘How’s the honeymoon going? It’s all so romantic. I still can’t believe you married him so quickly. It’s so exciting. And he’s so handsome.’
Tali felt her face heat—at the memory of their lovemaking that morning. After two weeks, her sexual connection with Dario had only got hotter. But more than that, Dario had turned out to be a surprisingly attentive and involved fake husband, out of bed, too.
Each day—after they’d both checked in with their work—he had some new excursion to suggest. They’d been snorkelling in the villa’s lagoon and taken out his sailboat most days—as he tried, and comprehensively failed, to teach her how to sail. He’d insisted on escorting her on a couple of day trips to Ana Capri, a delightful and surprisingly quiet town less than a mile away, where they had whiled away hours exploring the shops or lunching at the local trattorias, binging on homemade pasta—before they drove home on his motorbike to binge on each other again. He enjoyed her company, as well as the sex. And she adored discovering all the reasons why he loved this place so much. And if her attempts to explain why she felt the same way about Westwick hadn’t exactly persuaded him, it was all good, because whenever the subject of the Wiltshire estate came up, he usually insisted on diverting the conversation with mind-blowing sex.
She’d come close a couple of those times to blurting out how long she’d lived at Westwick, because she wanted him to know she understood his reluctance to return to the estate, that she knew how hard those months had been for him after the accident. But she’d stopped herself, deciding it felt like poking at a wound she had no right to poke at.
He hadn’t shared more about himself, about his thoughts and feelings, since their conversation on their first night here. In fact, he’d kind of avoided talking about anything deep with the same diligence and determination with which he made love to her… But she refused to worry about it. They were getting on so well, it felt like more than enough—for now.
‘Will you guys be living at Westwick once the honeymoon’s over?’ Ellie’s enthusiastic question cut through Tali’s latest revelry…
She cleared her throat. It wasn’t the first time Ellie had asked the question—no doubt her assistant thought it was beyond odd Tali was still keeping her position as Westwick’s estate manager when she was now supposedly married to the owner. But this time the standard reply she’d been giving Ellie, and everyone else—that nothing had been confirmed yet—got stuck in her throat. She hated lying to her staff about the relationship, perhaps because their marriage had begun to feel like more than a fake arrangement to her, too.
Every time Dario touched her with that hot glint in his eyes that told her he needed her. Each time he clasped her hand in his while they were sightseeing, or shopping, or simply lying on the estate’s private beach enjoying the sunset. Whenever he praised her faltering Italian or kissed her with enough passion and purpose to make her yearn for the hard drive of his body into hers. Every time he insisted on showing her some new place, or looked at her as if she fascinated him, or pressed his lips to her knuckles while teasing her, the tender gesture in sharp contrast to the fierce intensity with which they always ended up making love… She became that little bit more invested, that little bit more convinced that something real was happening between them.
