Cruel Angel
Cruel Angel
Sharon Kendrik
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.“Your job, or your marriage…”Having never felt as if she belonged, and convinced her husband no longer loved her, it had been an easy decision for actress Cressida to make. Stefano di Camilla had been the master of her heart, but she had to face that her marriage was over.Until Stefano storms back into her life as the financial backer of her latest West End play. As powerful and darkly brooding as ever, the old attraction immediately flares between them. But Cressida must resist Stefano, or risk losing her heart to her husband once again!
DEAR READER LETTER
By Sharon Kendrick
Dear Reader (#ulink_1dfd93bd-26f0-5762-8622-d14a2315460d),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
“Such a disappointing greeting for your husband,”
he murmured.“I had hoped for something a little more—familiar.”
The way he said the word made it sound like an insult, and yet the lilting Italian accent sent a shiver of graphic remembrance through her in spite of herself.“You are my husband in name only,” she stated.“We have been separated for over two years, and legally that means I am now free to seek a divorce. Surely you realize that, Stefano?”
There was a spark of anger in the dark, glittering eyes, but it was gone in seconds.“I realize it only too well, cara,” he said.“But as you know, divorce means nothing to me. In the eyes of the church, and in—” he dropped his voice to a velvety whisper “—my eyes, we will always be man and wife, with all the endless and delightful possibilities that the state of matrimony offers.”
Cruel Angel
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Cover (#u42fc7208-b030-5633-9c8c-547d9cee88c9)
Dear Reader (#ulink_33d9163d-ec6b-5893-8682-f7f58c100d89)
About the Author (#u3419d9e6-0ec9-5c0f-9a0c-cf4c31431850)
Title Page (#ueee7f143-45af-51d0-9af5-ca14d0365d85)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3291948f-bcca-543f-89af-1a2292c6927b)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_6507e1c7-2d37-535d-9bbe-87ab7c9e2a59)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e57adb12-972f-514a-bcb9-34c8bbc73273)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_a017d2d9-de88-5a82-a370-36a03ba12fcd)
‘TWO minutes, Miss Carter.’
Cressida nervously smoothed clammy palms down her naked thighs, wishing that she could dispel her nerves.
Her costume didn’t help, of course. The play was set in the late nineteen-fifties, the action taking place in a beach house, and for a large chunk of the time Cressida wore a swimsuit. True, with its ruched skirt, and its fairly innocuous wired bodice, it was hardly shocking, and, compared to some of the outfits you saw on the high street, positively innocent. But Cressida knew that there was something about seeing a partially clad woman on stage which drew far more attention than someone wearing something scanty in the street. It had been one of the first things she’d learnt at drama school—how the stage exaggerated, and gave emphasis—not just to emotions, but to costumes and scenery, too.
‘You’re on, Miss Carter.’
Her pulses were weak and flying, her heart hammering in her chest. She was paralysed. She would never move again from this spot. And then she heard her cue line, and she ran lightly on to stage right.
It was the pivotal moment of the play . . . the one where she discovered her husband’s infidelity. Adrian, the actor playing her husband, was engrossed in a letter, but the sound of her footsteps disturbed him. He was to turn to her, and their eyes were to meet, and her expression was meant to convey the sudden realisation of the extent of his betrayal.
It was a difficult scene at the best of times, but today, in this stiflingly tense atmosphere, it needed every ounce of her professional skills to inject all the meaning which the playwright demanded. Just what was this tension? she wondered. She could almost smell it in the air, could feel it surrounding her like a heavy cloud, reminiscent of the charged, expectant air just before a storm broke.
It was unusual enough two weeks before opening to have a full dress rehearsal, and on stage instead of in the rehearsal rooms. Most of the cast had muttered about it, but Cressida had just put it down to one of the director’s little foibles.
She briefly looked down towards the back of the house, to where Justin, the director, sat in his customary chair, but today, to her surprise, he was not alone. She could see the shadowy form of a man beside him.
She began speaking her lines, uttering them in the anguished way which was still comparatively easy for her to do. For who better could convey the despair and the loneliness of a marriage in its final death throes?
But she found the words unbearably difficult this afternoon. The atmosphere in the theatre was affecting her in a tangible way. She whirled to pick up the champagne glass to hurl at Adrian, and as she did her eye was caught by a movement next to the director. She stared into eyes that glittered like jet, and the plastic glass slipped out of her hand to bounce harmlessly at her feet. Her head bowed forward as if it were too heavy for her slender neck to support.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said weakly, and passed out.
When Cressida came round a few seconds later, it was to uproar all around, with Justin, the director, on his feet. ‘What’s going on?’ he was shouting. ‘See to her, someone!’ then, holding his hands helplessly up in the air, as he turned to the tall black-haired man who stood beside him.
‘I’m sorry about this; I don’t know what’s got into her. She must be ill.’
Cressida heard a horribly familiar voice—deep, with the slightest foreign inflexion.
‘Ill?’ The voice mocked. ‘Indeed?’
With a monumental effort she forced her eyes open to find herself surrounded by her fellow actors—Jenna holding a glass of water and Adrian proffering a cool cloth. She pushed them away, determinedly getting to her feet, smiling at Adrian to indicate that she wished to continue with the scene.
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. It had been an illusion, she thought desperately. It must have been. A flashback brought on by the content of the play. ‘Fine. Honestly!’ She straightened her back as she stood up, giving her familiar wide-mouthed smile, which shrivelled and died like a scorched leaf when she saw that it had been no illusion. The man had risen, along with Justin, but he made the director fade into insignificance. He was staring at her intently, but the theatre was too dark to interpret the expression on his face. Not, she thought bitterly, that it had ever been a face which wore its feelings openly.
Her eyelids felt as if they had been weighted with lead, fluttering to cover the huge eyes, and when she opened them again he had gone.
She was unable to carry on. It had never happened before, and she was close to tears. She had always been a professional, through and through, and now here she was, a quivering wreck, her hands shaking as if she had seen a ghost.
But you have seen a ghost, tormented a voice in her head. The ghost of your past. You had never thought to see him again; not now—after all this time. Hadn’t she prayed for that, night after night, once her initial heartbreak was over?
Justin scrambled up on to the stage. He held out his hands and grasped hers tightly. ‘Don’t worry, lovie.’ He smiled. ‘Is it nerves, or are you ill?’
She gave a pale smile. ‘Headache,’ she said lamely. ‘I’m sorry, Justin.’
Justin fished a peppermint out of his pocket and began to crunch. ‘Go home,’ he said firmly. ‘And rest. You’re my favourite actress, and you’ve never pulled a stunt like this before. We’ll rehearse tomorrow instead. Now go! Quick! Before I change my mind!’
She wanted to ask him about the man sitting with him, about what he wanted with him. Or with her? But to ask that would be to acknowledge that she knew him, and that was the last thing she wanted. That was an area of her life which she had carefully concealed—a definite no-go area, and far too painful to resurrect.
She stumbled back to her dressing-room, collapsing into the chair in front of the mirror, her green eyes looking huge in her unnaturally white face, the full lips a ghastly slash of trembling scarlet.
Had she dreamed it? Could she just have imagined it? An over-active imagination conjuring up an image of him? She shook her head, the hairspray-stiffened fifties hairstyle scarcely moving. That had been no dream. That had been Stefano, in the warm, living flesh.
And then it dawned on her. The letter from her solicitor had gone to his in Rome just a couple of months ago, requesting a divorce after two years of separation. And it had gone unanswered. Stefano had ignored it. ‘Leave it for a while,’ her solicitor had reassured her. ‘There’s often a hiccup at this stage. Cold feet, perhaps. Your husband may have decided he doesn’t want a divorce, after all.’
Like hell, thought Cressida bitterly. An ultimatum delivered coldly, followed by absolute silence for two years. No further evidence was needed to convince her that Stefano wanted her out of his life.
She could remember the words he had used as if it had been yesterday. ‘I will not have you remaining in England to work, while I am in Italy. A wife’s place is by her husband’s side, and if you take this job then our marriage is over.’ But there had been no choice—she had to take it—that way lay sanity, at least. And what alternative had he offered her? A marriage growing worse by the minute with a cold, distant husband who seemed only to want her when she was in his bed?
Cressida stared sightlessly into the lighted mirror of her dressing-table, sitting as mute and as still as a statue. And in her heart she knew that she was waiting, so that when the knock came she didn’t even start, but moved slowly towards the door as if she had been put on automatic pilot.
It could, of course, have been anyone—a member of the cast, the director, or the prompt: all legitimate visitors to see how she was feeling after her unexpected collapse. But she knew without a doubt that it was none of these. Even the knock at the door was typical of the man—not loud and insistent, but soft and firm, the trademark of a man who did not have to yell and bluster to get what he wanted. Oh, yes, she thought, that was Stefano to a T—used to getting exactly what he wanted in that quietly determined way of his.
She pulled the door open, carefully composing her face, knowing that polite disinterest would be her most effective weapon. ‘Hello, Stefano,’ she said coolly.
Black eyebrows arched arrogantly. ‘Such a disappointing greeting for your husband,’ he murmured. ‘I had hoped for something a little more—familiar.’
The way he said the word made it sound like an insult, and yet the lilting Italian accent sent a shiver of graphic remembrance through her in spite of herself. She prayed for the right, dispassionate response. ‘You are my husband in name only,’ she stated. ‘We have been separated for over two years and legally that means I am now free to seek a divorce. Surely you realise that, Stefano?’
She had a reaction at last. There was a spark of anger in the dark, glittering eyes, but it was gone in seconds. ‘I realise it only too well, cara,’ he said, in a voice which was soft with menace. ‘But, as you know, divorce means nothing to me. In the eyes of the church—and in—’ he dropped his voice to a velvety whisper ‘—my eyes, we will always be man and wife, with all the endless and delightful possibilities that the state of matrimony offers.’
He stood, lounging in the narrow doorway, as though he had every right to be there, his stance relaxed, though she knew him well enough to know that the muscles beneath the smooth brown skin were flexed and alert.
Outwardly, she thought, he had changed little. Perhaps the features were slightly more fined down, but not dramatically so. Even as a relatively young man, his face had held none of the softness of youth. The eyes, even then, had been hard, glittering and farseeing, the beautiful mouth always distorted by its habitual cynical smile. She had never been able to imagine him as a happy and carefree little boy—always as the curt, calm man who knew exactly what he wanted. She looked into the implacable brown eyes, searching for some hint of why he was here, but she saw nothing, bar a flash of the only emotion she had allowed herself to remember. Desire.
She forced herself to remain calm. They were, after all, in the middle of a busy English city, in a theatre full of her colleagues. He might have succeeded in making her feel as though she were trapped in some derelict Italian mountain hut, miles away from civilisation, but she patently wasn’t. Why, she had only to raise her voice, and any number of people would come running to her aid. And Stefano was a powerful and successful businessman—it wouldn’t augur well for his professional or personal reputation if she started screaming her head off and the Press got hold of it. She could just imagine the field-day the newspapers would have with something like that.
The only problem being that he hadn’t done anything which wasn’t in any way totally above board. And he knew it. He was regarding her now with a look of infuriating amusement.
‘You look so angry,’ he mused. His tongue curved briefly over the perfect teeth which looked so brilliantly white against the olive skin. ‘I love that look,’ he whispered. ‘Sometimes you used to look just like that before we . . . ’
Her cheeks flared, and it was as much as she could do not to slap her hands over her ears. ‘Shut up!’ she spat at him, terrified that his words would make her picture what he had been about to describe. If she remembered that, she would no longer be in control. ‘Whether or not you consider we are separated is your problem. It’s a fact. We are. By English law.’
She steeled herself to ask him, ‘Why are you here, Stefano?’ She looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing.
The silence grew as the dark eyes swept slowly and deliberately down every inch of her body, at first dispassionately, but then they lingered on her breasts, at the soft swell which was emphasised by the pushed-up wire foundations of the swimsuit. The gaze moved down—she saw it alight with interest on the still flat line of her belly—and further down, dark eyes glinting as they stared very deliberately at the soft curves of her bare thighs.
Her cheeks stung with fire as she registered the insolence of the inspection. She responded with the kind of flip comment she knew he would detest. ‘Seen enough?’ she taunted.
The cynical mouth curved. ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen nearly enough. But these others . . . these . . . ’ Here he spat out a word in Italian, a word she had never heard before.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Sorry?’ she said haughtily. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps you would call them voyeurs,’ he hissed.
‘Voyeurs?’ she interrupted scornfully. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The audience,’ he spat out. ‘The ones who come to feast their eyes on you.’
She laughed aloud. ‘Oh, come, come, Stefano—I’m hardly indecently clad.’
‘Do you like it?’ he asked suddenly, his voice dangerously soft.
Bewildered, she stared at him. ‘Like what?’
‘These men, in the audience—the ones who watch you, who look at you, who want you in their beds at night. Does it excite you? Does it?’
She made as if to turn away, but he stopped her with a light touch of her forearm which didn’t fool her for a moment—she could feel the steely strength behind it.
‘Does it?’ he persisted. ‘Do you like them to look at your . . . breasts?’ She gasped as he reached out and almost idly moved his hand down to encircle and to cup one breast, moving it skilfully over the nipple, knowing through years of experience, and the instinct he had always possessed when it came to touching her body, how to imprison it there through pleasure alone. Her knees sagged, as the spirals of pleasure shot through her body like flames. It had been so long. So long . . .
He was not speaking now, as if he sensed that words would make reality intrude, his fingers speaking for him as they moved with sweet accuracy over the thin material of the swimsuit. He bent his head to kiss her neck, slowly and luxuriously, moving to suck gently and erotically on the lobe of her ear, and then at last possessing her mouth in such a way as to make her fleetingly, incredulously think that his need was as fierce as her own. And even while she despised her weakness, she gave herself up to that kiss, returning it with a long-suppressed hunger as though it were the last true thing in the world.
Even during the bad times—and there had been many of those—even the very worst times, he had always been able to do this to her—to extract this response from her. He had been her teacher, her tutor, her master. He had schooled her in the art of love, and he, only he, could do this to her.
He had begun speaking again. ‘And here.’ He moved his hand down to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. ‘Do you like them looking at you here?’ He moved his mouth to hers, speaking against it, so that she could feel the warm sweetness of his breath. He was deliberately insulting her, and yet he was making her so dizzy with longing that she had to grip on to the taut line of his shoulders, afraid that she might collapse into a heap at his feet. ‘Do you think they would like to do what I am going to do to you? Do you?’ And he slipped his fingers inside the swimsuit, to find her honeyed moistness, and she gave a strangled moan and flung her arms tightly around his neck.
‘Stefano!’ she cried brokenly into his shoulder, every vestige of reason gone, unable to relinquish one second of the sweet joy he was inflicting on her, her lips burying themselves helplessly into the soft shaft of his neck. ‘Stefano—no! We mustn’t. You know we mustn’t.’ It was a pathetic, half-hearted plea, and they both knew it.
He ceased the insistent movement of his hand, she was pushed away with a cool firmness, and she watched in total disbelief as he calmly walked over to the mirror above the washbasin, adjusted his tie, glanced at the expensive gold wristwatch and then at her, his eyes coolly mocking. ‘Most assuredly we mustn’t,’ he agreed. ‘I have a business meeting to attend to. A very important meeting—and one which gives precedence over what I believe you English call a ‘‘quickie’’.’
There was a second of shocked silence while her mind tried to assimilate what he had just said to her, and when she did her temper, fuelled by a deep self-loathing, erupted with a vengeance. With a cry she launched herself at him, her small hands beating ineffectually at the solid muscular wall of his chest.
‘How dare you?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you do that?’
‘What?’ he asked softly.
‘To come in here like that, and to—to—’
‘To touch you?’ he mocked. ‘To kiss you? To make you move beneath my fingers—your body telling me how much you still want me, even now?’
‘Why, you animal!’ she cried. ‘You low-down, no-good . . . ’
He was laughing, soft mirth lighting his eyes, as he caught her hands and looked down at her as though she were a very naughty little girl. ‘Ssh, cara,’ he murmured. ‘You should not call your husband all these names . . . ’
‘You won’t be my husband very soon!’ she howled in frustration. ‘I keep telling you!’
‘Tch, tch.’ He made a clicking noise with his teeth. ‘So stubborn. Stop worrying your beautiful little head. There is nothing wrong with wanting me to make love to you. It is perfectly natural.’
‘I’d rather burn in hell!’
He continued calmly, as if she hadn’t spoken, still with that confident smile on his mouth, the same spark of anticipation in the cold, glittering eyes. ‘I know you want me, and I want you. But not now. Or here. I don’t want it to be on the floor of your dressing-room, after so long. I want there to be a bed—a small bed will do, but a bed, most assuredly. And it will be all night. I’m going to make love to you all night.’
In a minute she would wake up, but while the nightmare was in progress she might as well have her say. ‘You are not going to make love to me! Get that into your conceited head, Stefano. You are not going to come anywhere near me, ever again. We are finished. Kaput. Finito.’
He looked at her with resignation, then shrugged his shoulders in that typically Latin way that she’d once found so impossibly endearing. ‘I still want you,’ he said.
‘Well, tough!’ she retorted, remembering, as if clutching on to a lifeline, his curiously old-fashioned loathing of slang.
‘And—’ another shrug ‘—you know me well enough, cara, to know that I always get what I want.’
She wondered fleetingly what kind of sentence she’d get for murder with this amount of provocation. ‘Not this time, you rat!’
His eyes widened. ‘I had forgotten just how much you could infuriate me. And, as I recall, there was only one sure way in which I could subdue your wildness.’
He made as if to move towards her, and she leapt back as if he were about to thrust a knife in her. If he touched her she would be lost.
‘Get out of here!’ she screamed, when there was a knock at the door. She closed her eyes in horror, then grabbed her kimono, pulling it over the bathing-suit and knotting the cummerbund tightly around her tiny waist. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she hissed.
An expression of sardonic amusement lit the dark eyes as he witnessed her obvious discomfiture, and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Surely you have had men in your dressing-room before now?’ he mocked.
Cressida directed her blackest and filthiest look at him as she pulled open the door. It was Alexia, Harvey’s—the producer’s—secretary, her expression of irritated surprise fading immediately into a dazzling smile directed at Stefano.
‘I thought I saw you come in here,’ she pouted.
‘Mr di Camilla just—er—wanted my—autograph,’ butted in Cressida, knowing, even as she said it, just how ridiculous it sounded.
And Alexia’s expression said it all—this man was not a stage-door johnny, hardly the type who would hang around asking actresses for their autographs. She turned china-blue eyes on him. ‘Justin’s waiting for you in the foyer,’ she said, putting her head to one side slightly so that a wing of golden hair fell alluringly over one eye.
‘Thank you,’ said Stefano formally, and then inclined his head in Cressida’s direction. ‘And thank you so much for giving me your . . . time, and your—er—autograph.’
He had managed to make a simple sentence sound positively indecent, she thought furiously. ‘Goodbye,’ snapped Cressida.
‘Addio,’ he murmured.
‘I’ll take you to Justin now,’ gushed Alexia eagerly, but he shook his head.
‘There is no need,’ he said firmly. ‘I know the way, and I am certain that you must have better things to do than to act as my guide.’ He smiled.
As if he didn’t know, thought Cressida, with an oddly painful pang, that Alexia would have stuck to his side all day like a parasite if he’d let her.
Both women watched as he moved away, the superbly cut loose Italian suit only emphasising the remarkably muscular body which it covered.
Alexia stared at Cressida curiously. ‘Did he really want your autograph?’ she asked disbelievingly.
‘Yes,’ muttered Cressida abruptly, thinking angrily that she still didn’t know why he’d been here. And what business did he have with Justin?
The older girl had mischief in her voice. ‘Strange then,’ she said innocently, ‘that you’ve got lipstick smudged all over your mouth!’
Giving a yelp of rage, Cressida grabbed a handful of tissues covered in cold cream and wiped her lips bare. She turned to Alexia reluctantly. ‘Better?’
‘Better. I take it you approve of our new angel?’
There was a long pause, and, not getting the expected response, she looked at Cressida enquiringly. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes,’ said Cressida slowly, ‘I heard.’ She had been thinking what an appropriate description of Stefano that was—yes, he had the face of an angel, a dark, mysterious angel. A cruel angel. But then the true meaning of the word sank in, with all its likely repercussions. ‘Angel’ was theatre slang for the financial backer of a play, with all the power and influence which that position merited.
She stared at Alexia in disbelief.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alexia chattily. ‘I thought that you hadn’t taken it in. He’s been having hush-hush talks with Justin for weeks now—because the other backers are dropping out. He’s a hugely rich Italian businessman, I gather—or perhaps you knew that already?’ she fished.
‘Why should I?’ asked Cressida guilelessly, amazed at the ease of her lie and hating herself for it, and yet not seeing any alternative.
Why? she thought helplessly. Why is he doing it? Stefano had never been involved in the arts before—the very opposite, in fact. She asked herself the question without really wishing to know the answer.
She wasn’t aware of the journey back to the flat, only of the taxi driver’s startled expression when he took in her half-made-up face and the stiff, lacquered hair-do. He looked as if he was about to make a joke, but something in her expression must have stopped him, and the journey home was completed in silence.
All she knew was that she found herself lying on her bed, tears staining the thick foundation on to the cotton pillow, her dinner date with David forgotten.
Crying, not because fate had brought Stefano back into her life, but because he represented a happier time, the time of her life, and she was reminded with heart-rending clarity of how it had once been between them, such a long time ago . . .
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_eeb5c7e2-5509-564d-a3c5-7da48f22609c)
IT HAD been the second hottest summer that century, and England seemed to have caved to a standstill. Everywhere the atmosphere was still and heavy as lead. Even breathing seemed to take the most enormous effort, thought Cressida, as she sucked the hot air down into her lungs.
She was walking towards the park, having arranged to meet Judy her flatmate from the drama school at which they were both final-year students. No one went into the canteen or to cafés in weather like this—they sought the shelter of the frazzled trees, or the light breeze which they prayed they might find near the large pond.
Cressida saw Judy in the distance, gave a languid wave, and walked towards her. Her dark red hair was already damp around her temples, the thin material of her cotton dress limp with the heat and clinging to her body like a second skin. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat—not, as so many of her peers did, for effect, but because it protected the fair skin which had remained pale all summer.
She reached Judy, who was lying on a beach towel spread out on the grass. She sat up and smiled as Cressida approached.
‘Hiya, Cress!’ she called. ‘Come and eat—I’ve made heaps of sandwiches. Ham and tomato, egg and cress. Cress! Get it?!’
Cressida’s shaded eyes were raised heavenwards. ‘Original sort of person, aren’t you?’ she teased, and shook away the foil-wrapped packages which her friend offered, wrinkling her nose at them. ‘No, thanks. I couldn’t face them. I don’t know how you can eat in this sort of weather.’
‘Oh, you just want to be thin, thin, thin,’ teased Judy as she flapped her hand in the air. ‘Go away!’ She swiped again. ‘Bother these wasps—there’s millions of them.’
‘Well, if you buy jam doughnuts, what do you expect?’ asked Cressida drily, and sank down on to the grass, pulling off the straw hat, so that her hair tumbled down the sides of her face.
Judy’s sandwich froze in mid-air. ‘Wow!’ she breathed. ‘Hot!’
‘Too much mustard?’ enquired Cressida mildly.
‘Hotter than that. I’m in love!’
‘Where?’
‘Over there. Don’t look now. Oh, Cressida—now he’ll see!’
And Cressida saw him.
He was sitting across the grass from them, but his face was clearly visible. The thing that struck her first was how cool he looked, and how surprising that was in view of the fact that he was wearing more clothes than almost anyone else. Not for him the ubiquitous uniform of singlet and shorts—a lot of them worn by pot-bellied men who should have known better. This man was wearing a lightweight suit of cream, against which his olive skin contrasted superbly well. She found herself studying him closely, which in itself was unusual, thinking to herself that he, of all people, would have looked superb in some of the sawn-off denims which were all the rage that summer. The man had loosened his tie, and that was his sole concession to the day.
Dark brown velvet eyes met hers, and held them in a mocking gaze, one eyebrow raised in question, and she hurriedly looked away, taking a mouthful of the warm lemon barley beside her.
‘I didn’t get a look-in,’ said Judy in mock disgust. ‘He was too busy ogling you.’
Cressida blushed. ‘He wasn’t really.’
‘Yes, he was.’ Judy finished the last of her sandwich and rolled over on to her stomach. ‘Oh, well—I might as well tan the back of my legs. Do you want some cream?’
Cressida shook her head from side to side, trying to create some moving air, but it was no good. There was simply no cool to be found. ‘No, thanks—I’ll burn. I want some shade. I’ll wander down towards the lake.’ She stood up, in a fluid movement which was testimony to the years of ballet training. She tucked her copy of Antony and Cleopatra under her arm, and slowly walked across the fried earth.
She had found the welcome green umbrella of a horse-chestnut, when she heard a loud buzzing and a wasp danced infuriatingly around her face. She waved it away. ‘Off! Off!’
But the wasp was persistent, straying so dangerously close to her eye that her wild swipe at it sent her off balance, causing her to trip forward, one foot catching the jagged edge of an exposed tree root.
Down she tumbled to sit on the grass, seeing the sudden appearance of blood on her foot. The pain brought tears to her eyes, and as a shadow moved over her she looked up with over-bright eyes at the man in the suit.
‘Do not cry,’ he said gently, and she noticed that his voice had the slightest foreign inflexion. ‘Here. Let me see.’
And, before she could stop him, he had crouched beside her, gently removing her sandal and putting it aside, and then he was cradling her foot in the palm of his hands, examining it with long fingers which were both cool and firm. Bizarrely, she felt an electric tingling at the curiously intimate sensation of his skin touching hers, and in an automatic reflex she tried to withdraw the foot.
‘No, please . . . ’ she protested without conviction, her normal savoir-faire deserting her. She was transformed instead into a creature who was gazing up at him as if he could take the pain away by magic.
‘Yes,’ he insisted quietly. ‘I will dress it for you.’
She watched as he retreated to the tree where he’d been sitting to pick up a bottle of mineral water. He saw her bemused expression as he returned. ‘Not fizzy,’ he smiled. ‘Still water. And Italian—so it’s only the best, naturally, for such an exquisite foot!’
Involuntarily, she gave a slight shiver at the compliment he paid her, watching as he tipped the mineral water over a fine piece of linen which he produced from his jacket. He squeezed it out with strong hands and then, very firmly, tied it around her narrow foot.
The coolness of the makeshift bandage provided instant relief, but, perversely, she missed that contact with his hand as he had touched her bare flesh. She found herself looking at the line of his mouth, at the slightly mocking upward curve at each side—and began to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him.
She shook her head to make the thoughts go away. Crazy thoughts! Summer madness. Heat-stroke. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
To her surprise he made no demur. He nodded. ‘Of course.’ And with the same delicate touch he slipped her bare foot back into the sandal, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as they looked at her with concern. Prince Charming, she thought suddenly, as he fastened the strap.
He sprang like a panther to his feet and, looking down at her, extended his hands.
She found herself reaching up her hands, and when he had grasped them he swung her up lightly so that she stood in front of him, looking up expectantly into his face. For a moment he frowned. He was very close. She could hear the humming of bees, and the longed-for breeze had just started. Her lips instinctively parted, and her green eyes were huge in her face.
And suddenly, he became very formal. ‘Can you walk?’ he asked courteously.
She felt as though she had snapped out of a dream. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, very shaken, though less by the accident than by the realisation that she had been standing waiting to be kissed by a man who was a total stranger to her. And thank God, she thought, that he had not responded. She tried to move away, but he caught her by the elbow.
‘Let me help you,’ he insisted, in that mocking, accented voice, and slid his arm around her slender waist to walk her back to Judy.
And she allowed him to hold her in that familiar way, relaxing naturally against his strength. The short journey was heaven, but, too soon, they’d arrived. She saw Judy roll over from her prone position, rubbing her eyes, her expression of curiosity showing that she’d seen nothing of the incident. ‘I—tripped,’ Cressida explained, still weak from the effect that this man was having on her.
His hand dropped from her waist. ‘It will cause you pain for no more than a few hours, I think.’ He smiled. And then he looked down at a mute Cressida, cupping her chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘Ciao,’ he said softly, so softly that only she could hear, and then he walked away over the brown grass, the brilliant sunlight glancing off the dark hair.
There was silence for a moment. Judy’s eyes were like saucers.
‘Who was he?’ she demanded. ‘Close-up he’s even more of a hunk!’
It sounded absurd, even to Cressida. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
‘What do you mean—you don’t know?’ quizzed Judy.
‘Just what I say,’ replied Cressida, a touch querulously. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life, and all I know is that he tended to my foot.’ Her eye was caught by the linen handkerchief.
‘But did you see the way he was looking at you? Did you give him your phone number?’
‘He didn’t ask,’ said Cressida, trying, and failing, to sound annoyed at the implication that she might give out her phone number to a person she had just met. Because if she were perfectly honest, she would have given it—willingly.
Judy was looking at his retreating back-view just visible in the distance. ‘Well, that’s that, then. London’s a big place—you’ll never see him again.’
And that was what Cressida had thought, too, after a week of spinning ‘What if?’ fantasies.
What if he went there for lunch every day? Would it look too obvious if she went back there? And why should it? she reasoned—for all he knew it might be her regular lunchtime venue. Which might have been all very well in theory, had the weather not broken with a series of alarming thunderstorms which prevented her from re-visiting the park.
What if he worked near the drama school? Along with half a million others, she thought wryly. If he did work near by, she never saw him, even though she spent too much of her meagre grant on frequenting the many swish new sandwich bars in the vicinity, thinking she might spot him.
No, she decided, as she pushed the fine linen handkerchief she had carefully laundered and ironed to the back of her underwear drawer—it had just been a strange, one-off encounter, and she should take comfort from the fact that she had reacted so strongly to him, stranger or not, because hadn’t it worried her for long enough that she had seemed to share none of her peers’ urges for sexual experimentation? Hadn’t there been shrugs and whispered comments because she showed not the slightest inclination to disappear at parties—unlike the other girls, who were seen leaving the room with their current flames, usually in the direction of the bedroom.
A week went by, and, if not exactly forgetting about the man, then at least Cressida had put him out of her mind as she concentrated for the end-of-term production, in which she was playing Cleopatra.
It was a gruelling rehearsal, and she was glad enough to finish, sitting in the cramped dressing-room cleaning her face and trying to decide whether or not to go to her speech coach’s party that night. But she was strangely reluctant. And let’s face it, she thought, as she dragged the brush through her thick red hair—it’ll be the same old faces, the same old jokes. No one will notice if you aren’t there.
A long bath, a cool drink on the plant-filled patio and the flat to herself seemed an infinitely preferable option.
It was a warm, balmy night, with the setting sun gilding the clouds pink as she walked the short distance to the flat. She had been lucky to have hit it off with Judy so well in their first few weeks of term, and had been delighted to be asked to share the flat with her. Judy’s parents were rich. Rich, rich, rich, as she cheerfully admitted herself. And they loved indulging their only daughter—thus the spacious flat in a prestigious area of London. Otherwise, Cressida—with her elderly aunt her only relation in England—would have been living in some grotty little flat, goodness knew where.
Her only bone of contention was that Judy had refused point-blank to accept any rent money. ‘My parents have already paid for it,’ she had pointed out. The only way round this was for Cressida to buy new things for the flat—so that every month a new vase, pretty dishes or colourful scatter cushions were introduced into their home.
Cressida had her bath, and pulled on a filmy wrap patterned in soft shades of green. Her hair dried into a cloud of fragrant dark waves shot with fire. She had just poured herself a glass of weak Pimm’s and added lemon and a sprig of mint when there was a ring at the doorbell.
It must be Judy, she thought, back early and disenchanted by the party, but she opened the door to find the man from the park there, silently watching her, not a flicker of emotion on the implacable olive-skinned face.
She opened her mouth to say all the things which she knew one should say in such circumstances, from, ‘What are you doing here?’ to, ‘How did you find out where I lived?’ But she said none of these, just stood regarding him with the same intense interest as she saw reflected in his own eyes.
There was a mocking look in the quizzical way in which he surveyed her, one dark eyebrow arched, the trace of a smile touching the firm mouth. ‘You knew I would come.’
She looked into those dark velvety eyes and was lost. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, dry-mouthed, recognising the truth in his words immediately. ‘I knew.’ And, without another word, he had taken her in his arms and begun to kiss her.
Cressida groaned as she turned her head away from the pillow and lay staring at the wall. She had been so young, so naïve. Anyone who had ever doubted the veracity of the phrase ‘she was like putty in his hands’ had only to look at her relationship with Stefano.
She sat up, her hand going to her hair and encountering the thick lacquer which clogged it, her eyes going to the small clock on the rickety bedside table. It was gone seven, and David was due here at eight—and she hadn’t even cleaned her face properly. If she didn’t remove the heavy stage make-up soon, there would be hell to pay with her skin. Her head had begun to throb alarmingly. The last thing she felt like doing was going out to dinner, being forced to make polite conversation—even with someone as charming as David—not when her mind was spinning round like a Ferris wheel gone crazy.
She dialled his number with a shaky hand, and to her relief it was answered on the second ring. At least he hadn’t already left.
‘Hello, David—it’s me, Cressida!’
‘Well—hello to my favourite actress!’ came the cheery reply. ‘Are we still on for tonight?’
‘I wondered,’ she said apologetically, ‘if I could take a rain-check?’
The cultured voice sounded anxious. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’
She liked him—she owed him more than a flimsy excuse, but not the truth; she couldn’t face that. ‘No, I’m not ill. It was just a—hard day. Tough rehearsal—you know.’
The anxiousness in his voice was magnified. ‘Everything going all right with the play, I hope?’
She hastened to reassure him. ‘The play’s fine—you know it is. Hasn’t everyone said that you’re the best playwright since—?’
‘I know. Since Shakespeare. Just not so prolific, nor so acclaimed.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been looking forward to a date with my favourite actress all week, and now she’s turning me down for no reason other than it’s been a long day. I’ve had a long day, too, you know.’
‘Oh, David—don’t make me feel bad. It isn’t that I don’t want to see you—just that I don’t feel up to going out for dinner.’
‘Then we won’t!’ he said, sounding triumphant. ‘And if Cressida won’t go out to the restaurant then the restaurant must come to Cressida. We could eat a take-away—no problem. What do you fancy? Indian? Chinese? Pizza?’
‘Oh, no—honestly. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ he insisted.
She was fighting a losing battle here. ‘But I’m not feeling very good company tonight.’
‘You’re always good company to me, Cressida,’ he said quietly.
And after that declaration, she found it impossible to say no to him, agreeing that she would see him at eight-thirty, and that they would choose what they wanted from a local restaurant, and he’d go out to buy the meal.
As she replaced the receiver, she thought how ironic it was that David should make his first hint at something approaching seriousness at precisely the wrong time. They had been dating now for almost four months, and he was the first man she’d seen regularly since Stefano. The only man, apart from Stefano, she realised.
It had taken a long time for her to even consider going out with another man after the breakup of her marriage, but David had seemed the perfect partner, the balm she needed to soothe her troubled spirit. He was everything she liked and respected in a man—and everything that Stefano was not. They liked the same things—primarily the theatre, but they also liked loading up their bicycles on to the roof-rack of David’s estate car and escaping from the rat race into the country, where Cressida would sit quietly reading, while David indulged his hobby of photographing birds. Most importantly for her, everything they did did not end up with them in bed together. Her face flamed, and a pulse began to throb insistently as she recalled Stefano’s idea of recreation. David was a gentleman. He was prepared to wait. But then a memory intruded—jarred and disturbed her—because so, too, had Stefano—at the beginning . . .
His kiss was like nothing she had ever experienced, on or off the stage. There had been no one special in her life—and at just nineteen that hadn’t been so very unusual. And even the on-stage embraces, where the current breed of up-and-coming actors prided themselves on simulating realism, kissing you with an intimacy that Cressida had found slightly repugnant and definitely unnecessary—none of them had even remotely resembled what this man was now doing to her.
His mouth cajoled her into instant response, so that she found herself somehow knowing that he wanted their tongues to lace together in erotic dance—the result of which sent her heart-rate soaring, and made her insides melt. She felt a tingling awareness in the tips of her breasts, a growing warmth in her groin. She found that she wanted to explore the substance of his taut, muscular body, so that when he pushed her up against the wall and ground his hips into hers, like a man who was out of control, she did not cry out her protest, but urged him on with a slurred and exultant, ‘Yes, oh, yes,’ and his answer was to lightly brush his hands over her breasts, gently stroking each one in turn until he had her almost collapsing against him in agonised arousal, which was replaced with an equally agonised frustration when he suddenly stopped, his hands leaving her, but he himself not moving, just surveying her with dark eyes in whose depths were sparks she could not fathom.
He did not speak for a moment. Months later, he was to tell her that it was the first time in his life he had ever been rendered speechless. And when he did speak, it was with a rigid control which astounded her.
‘Not now.’ He shook his head. ‘And not in such a way. If you had not been wearing such a garment—’ he shrugged in the direction of the filmy green wrap ‘—then I should not have lost my head.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When I collect you tomorrow—at eight—you will wear something more—’ he seemed to muse for a second, and then he smiled, a smile which transformed the handsome, stern face into someone she knew she would die for ‘—suitable. Cover up a little, yes? Or I will not be responsible for my actions, cara. But not trousers. Promise me you will never cover up your legs with trousers?’
It was preposterous, but she found herself agreeing in delight, loving the mastery in his voice as he spoke. Had she been older, wiser, surely she would have steered clear of a man who, even at that early stage, had shown such a strong inclination to control her?
He was turning to leave, his hand on the door-handle, when something shocking had occurred to her. ‘Your—your name?’ she stammered. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
He gave her a long, unbelievably sexy smile, before leaning forward to plant on her mouth a slow kiss of such unbearably sweet promise that she trembled again. ‘Names are not important,’ he murmured. ‘But it is Stefano. Stefano di Camilla.’
She liked it, loved the way he said it. It had an imperious ring to it. Her green eyes widened as she replied, almost shyly—and this in itself was strange, for she was never shy as a rule. ‘And I’m Cressida,’ she said. ‘Cressida Carter.’
‘I know.’ His voice was soft. ‘You see, I know everything about you.’
Cressida closed her eyes as she stood beneath the piercingly cold jets of the shower, remembering how flattered she had been by his research. It seemed that he had gone to a great deal of trouble to find out about her. Somehow, he had tracked down where she lived, and with whom, and where she studied—and what. He had even discovered that her parents had followed the dictates of the late sixties, and had ‘dropped out’—living in splendid if somewhat basic isolation on the Balearic Island of Ibiza. She remembered running her fingers wonderingly through the thick, springy hair, and asking him how he had learnt so much about her in such a short time, but he had shrugged nonchalantly, and kissed away her questions, telling her that things like that were of no consequence to her.
What he had meant, of course, she thought grimly as she massaged more shampoo into her scalp to attempt to remove the stubborn lacquer, what he had meant was that she shouldn’t bother her pretty little head about things which didn’t concern her. For wasn’t that one of the maxims by which the di Camilla family lived—that women should just sit quietly and beautifully in the background, providing comfort and satisfaction for their men?
Cressida shook her wet hair as she stepped out of the shower and began to rub herself dry, her pale skin glowing with the friction of the rough towel. She pulled on a short cream satin dressing-gown and sat in front of the mirror at her dressing-table, the hairdrier blowing the dark red waves into angry fronds which echoed her mood, when there was a loud shrilling of the doorbell. Her brow creased momentarily. David, of course. He was early. Well, he would just have to wait in the sitting-room while she changed.
She ran lightly to the door, and pulled it open, the welcoming expression on her face dying immediately when she saw who it was who stood there.
‘No,’ she whispered disbelievingly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he contradicted softly, and then his eyes moved down, lingering slowly on the satin of her wrap, as he surveyed the fullness of her breasts which were tingling uncomfortably under his gaze—she could feel the taut peaks pushing against the silky material, and she automatically crossed her arms around her chest, shielding her betraying body from his gaze. And the movement caused the hard line of his mouth to twist in derision.
‘I see you still answer the door as alluringly as possible,’ he said harshly.
As he stared directly into her eyes, her imagination stupidly led her to think that she saw a flash of some deeper emotion than plain desire, a softening of the harsh mouth, but it was gone before she remembered that it had been a common fault of hers—crediting him with feelings which he did not possess. She hugged herself tighter as she looked down at the carpet, a lump in her throat, willing the idiotic tears not to spring to life.
‘Tell me, do you always dress to please, Cressida?’
His words were a grim challenge and her eyes were drawn unwillingly to his face. Sometimes she had wondered if he was made of flesh and blood as she was, and now she wondered anew. How could a face which could move with such animation, which could dissolve so sweetly with passion—how could such a face remain now as cold and as unreadable as a blank book? And yet she could still look on it and remember how much she had loved him.
The sharp reminder of her lost love pierced her heart like a sabre cut and, afraid that he would see and taunt her moment of weakness, she moved a step away. ‘You’ve got no right to come in here and criticise me—and you’ll have to go,’ she said desperately. ‘I’m expecting—’ she made her voice linger fondly ‘—someone.’
That did it. She saw his muscles tense and a pulse at his temple begin an ominous throbbing.
‘And who is the lucky man?’ he ground out. ‘Do you always greet him like—this?’ His hand moved disdainfully as he gestured at the skimpy garment which covered her body. ‘Is it the dear David—the man who writes these plays which no one can understand?’
‘His plays are wonderful!’ she defended shrilly, and she saw his mocking smile and knew that she had fallen into some kind of trap. She leaned forward angrily. ‘And how did you know that I was seeing David? I suppose you’ve had all your nasty little spies out, haven’t you? I forget that you have a whole network of information gatherers to do your dirty work for you.’
He returned her angry look with one of infuriating calmness, which did not fool her for a minute. ‘From what I have seen of him, he does not look man enough to share your bed,’ he goaded.
Knowing that she had a weapon which would wound his pride more than anything—she used it. ‘He’s man enough,’ she retaliated.
For a moment she thought she had gone too far. She honestly thought that he was going to hit her—Stefano, who had never hit a person in his life before. She felt like shrinking away from the clenched fists at his side, their knuckles white with the restraint he was obviously exercising. She must have been mad to suggest to him that David was her lover, when he was due to arrive at any minute, and knowing Stefano’s fiercely possessive pride. She couldn’t repress a small shudder as she imagined an angry confrontation. And then, surprisingly, she saw his stance relax, and he walked straight past her to stroll into the sitting-room. She followed him in frustration.
When he turned round, all traces of his anger had disappeared, to be replaced with an expression of disdain. He stared incredulously at the small room, at the shabby furniture, the clean but well-worn curtains. ‘You live like this?’ he said scornfully. ‘Is this what you broke up our marriage for—to live like this! Like a—pauper?’
‘I like this flat,’ she defended. ‘And at least it’s mine. Paid for by me.’
‘It is not a suitable place for my wife to live,’ he said flatly.
Her temper was on the verge of eruption. ‘How many times do I have to tell you before you get it into your stubborn head? I am your wife in name only—and not for very much longer, thank God!’
‘We will see how much of a wife you are.’ He smiled infuriatingly.
That sounded ominously like a threat, she thought, but even if it was he no longer had a hold on her. ‘We could stand here scrapping all night, Stefano, but it won’t change anything,’ she told him with a studiedly cool assurance she was far from feeling. ‘Why don’t we just accept the fact of our incompatibility, and put it down to experience?’
‘Experience?’ he echoed softly. ‘Is that what life is all about to you, Cressida, mmmm? A series of experiences to be lived through? To be discarded when it falls short of perfection? Is that why you ran away? In search of pastures new? Different and better—’ his voice was harsh ‘‘‘—experiences’’?’
Her anger and her indignation were swallowed up by an inexorable sorrow. She had carefully and deliberately closed off that section of her life, had refused to dwell on the heartache he had inflicted on her when he had told her to go. And now it was as if he had ripped open her carefully healed wound, left her heart exposed and helpless.
She swallowed convulsively. ‘We both know why I left.’ She forced a quiet dignity into her voice. ‘And I don’t intend discussing it now. Just tell me one thing. Why have you come here?’ She felt in urgent need of a good, strong drink, but she didn’t dare get herself one. Stefano, a man never in need of any artificial stimuli, might interpret that as yet another weakness in her resolve, and hadn’t she already betrayed enough weakness before him today to last a lifetime? ‘Why have you come back?’ she repeated.
He smiled enigmatically. ‘There are a number of reasons.’
She felt as though she were playing a game of poker. ‘Such as?’
‘Perhaps I have revised my opinion of the arts—’
‘Don’t give me that!’ she interrupted hotly. ‘Why change the habits of a lifetime?’
‘Or perhaps,’ he continued, unperturbed, ‘I see the play as a good investment.’
She let out a pent-up sigh. Of course! As easy as that. Profit. She should have guessed. He had riches to rival Croesus, but still it wasn’t enough. In business, as in life, Stefano had a killer instinct. Life to him was just a series of deals to be made, possessions to acquire, then lock away. She’d been one herself, hadn’t she? And thank God she’d got out in time. She looked at him with scorn. ‘You’re backing the play even though you’ve openly admitted you don’t like it!’ she accused.
‘It is not to my taste.’ He shrugged. ‘But perhaps audiences are not quite so discerning.’
She found herself in the strange position of acting as David’s champion. If only Stefano knew of the fundamental innocence of their relationship! ‘The audiences are going to lap it up—because it comes from the heart. David believes integrity to be more important than profit,’ she said coldly. ‘Although it’s a word I doubt whether you’d find in your vocabulary.’
He made a small sound of disgust underneath his breath. ‘Integrity does not buy bread.’
Cressida suddenly felt very tired. This conversation was going precisely nowhere. When Stefano was in this kind of mood there was no arguing with him, and besides, David would be here at any moment, and the last thing she wanted was a confrontation. ‘Will you please go now?’
In direct opposition to her request, he seated himself in one of the over-stuffed armchairs.
‘Don’t bother making yourself comfortable,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know why you’re here, Stefano—all I do know is that I want to be left in peace to get on with my life. And I want you out of here. Is that clear?’
He ignored her question. ‘And the company—do they know of their leading lady’s relationship with their new backer? ‘‘Angel’’, I think you say.’
Fear dried her mouth. ‘Of course they don’t. No one knows . . . ’
‘No one knows we are married.’ His voice was distorted with anger. ‘Of that I am only too aware. Cressida wishes to be single again and dunque!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Her wish shall be granted. This is a society where the vows of matrimony can be shrugged aside as casually as if they were of no consequence.’
‘That isn’t true!’ she flared. ‘There are reasons why I’m divorcing you—perfectly legitimate ones. And what is more I don’t want anyone—anyone—knowing of my past relationship with you.’
The dark eyes glinted. ‘Oh? And why is that?’
Her temper erupted. ‘Oh, don’t pretend to be so naïve, Stefano! My position would be intolerable! If any of them knew I’d been your wife, I’d be viewed with suspicion. I’d no longer be treated as an equal, would I?’
His mouth twisted. ‘And yet you do not mind it being known that you are dating the playwright?’
‘That’s different, and you know it!’ she exploded. ‘You’re backing it—you’re providing the money. And money is power—as you are perfectly well aware.’
He had got to his feet in a single, light movement, the grace of which only emphasised the powerful strength of his tall frame. He stood studying her through hooded eyes which told her nothing. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will agree to keep our liaison quiet—on the condition that you have dinner with me tonight.’
Cressida felt like pinching herself to check that this was really happening. ‘I can’t have dinner with you. I’ve already told you—I’m expecting David.’
He gave a ruthless smile. ‘Then we will take him, too.’
An involuntary shiver ran up her spine. Stefano sounding reasonable like this was Stefano at his most dangerous. ‘What are you saying?’ she demanded, her voice breaking on the question. ‘What do you want?’
He shrugged. ‘That is the thing to do in this country, is it not? The ‘‘civilised’’ thing? The husband and the wife who have once shared their lives to sit having dinner with the new partner. Did you not once tell me that you wanted it to be an amicable divorce?’
She looked at him helplessly, remembering the stumbling letter she had written to him after six months of separation—another letter he had ignored. Had she really been so naïve as to say that to him? ‘What do you want?’ she repeated weakly.
‘I told you. Have dinner with me tonight, and our little secret will remain just that.’
The doorbell pealed, not as loudly as when he had pressed it, but loud enough to shatter the fraught silence.
Stefano smiled, his eyes roving in a lazy line from her bare toes to the curve of her hips where the satin clung. ‘It is your choice, my beauty—so choose.’
She was trapped, she realised, as her wide green eyes stared at his implacable face. She should just tell him to go to hell and be done with it. But Stefano was not the kind of man to heed such a demand. And, apart from compromising her neutral position as one of the players in a very tight-knit company, if word of her marriage to Stefano got out, could she really bear the gossip, the surmising, the endless questions? If her marriage was laid bare for general analysis, then wouldn’t it just force her to confront its failure herself? To remind her with heart-rending poignancy just how destroyed she had felt at its end?
The doorbell rang again.
‘Well, beauty,’ he murmured softly, ‘have you decided?’
‘Yes, damn you. Yes. The answer’s yes.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8a8738b1-63ac-5c65-ad07-a8cd05332508)
THE instant she had made her decision, Cressida began to regret it. As she opened the door to David, she wondered what possible motive Stefano could have for wanting to meet the man she was sharing her life with. David stood smiling on the doorstep, looking casual and windswept, dressed in blue jeans, a matching denim shirt and a rather old tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbow. The scent of the pipe tobacco he sometimes smoked hung around him as he stepped forward to drop a light kiss on Cressida’s mouth.
‘Hello, love,’ he said.
A cold voice rang out. ‘Hadn’t you better go and change, Cressida?’ And there stood Stefano in the doorway, the thin smile on his mouth not echoed by the dark eyes.
‘Hello,’ said David interestedly, and Cressida saw Stefano’s mouth curl in derision at the younger man’s attitude.
It had been one of the things she had first admired about David—his easygoing nature, and his optimism. Even now, with an atmosphere which was as chilly as a winter’s afternoon, with the forbidding stance of the handsome stranger who stood in her flat, and she, herself, clad in a short dressing-gown, it was plain to see that David was merely curious to know who Stefano was. And for some obscure reason, this irked her. If the situation had been reversed . . . She couldn’t suppress a small shudder as she tried to imagine what Stefano’s reaction would be if he had found her, only half dressed, with a strange man in her flat.
She stepped forward awkwardly to make the introductions. ‘David Chalmers—this is Stefano di Camilla.’
David frowned, and, crossing his arms, he scratched the end of his nose in a thoughtful gesture. Cressida could see his mind working overtime.
‘Di Camilla,’ he said slowly. ‘Haven’t I heard—?’
‘You may have heard my name being mentioned,’ said Stefano smoothly, with scarcely a trace of the Italian accent which was so dominant when he was angry, or excited. ‘I have the honour of providing some measure of support to the superb play of yours which Cressida is starring in.’
Hypocritical swine, thought Cressida, glaring at him, but meeting no answering response. How could he lay it on like that, after the nasty little asides he’d made about David’s work?
David had stepped forward and grasped Stefano’s hand eagerly. ‘How do you do, Mr di Camilla?’ he said eagerly. ‘I’d heard Justin mention you, of course. We were getting worried—our other sponsors were threatening to pull out. You know, of course, how bad things are in this economic climate? I had no idea that events had progressed so far down the line. Justin might have told me,’ he added, as an aggrieved afterthought.
‘One of the conditions of my support was the need for confidentiality until the deal was certain,’ said Stefano blandly.
‘Oh, of course, of course—I quite understand!’ said David eagerly.
He was just like a bouncing little puppy, thought Cressida, trotting up to some wild creature eight times the size. Don’t trust him an inch, she willed, wondering whether she would be strong enough to follow her own advice.
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Sharon Kendrik
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.“Your job, or your marriage…”Having never felt as if she belonged, and convinced her husband no longer loved her, it had been an easy decision for actress Cressida to make. Stefano di Camilla had been the master of her heart, but she had to face that her marriage was over.Until Stefano storms back into her life as the financial backer of her latest West End play. As powerful and darkly brooding as ever, the old attraction immediately flares between them. But Cressida must resist Stefano, or risk losing her heart to her husband once again!
DEAR READER LETTER
By Sharon Kendrick
Dear Reader (#ulink_1dfd93bd-26f0-5762-8622-d14a2315460d),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
“Such a disappointing greeting for your husband,”
he murmured.“I had hoped for something a little more—familiar.”
The way he said the word made it sound like an insult, and yet the lilting Italian accent sent a shiver of graphic remembrance through her in spite of herself.“You are my husband in name only,” she stated.“We have been separated for over two years, and legally that means I am now free to seek a divorce. Surely you realize that, Stefano?”
There was a spark of anger in the dark, glittering eyes, but it was gone in seconds.“I realize it only too well, cara,” he said.“But as you know, divorce means nothing to me. In the eyes of the church, and in—” he dropped his voice to a velvety whisper “—my eyes, we will always be man and wife, with all the endless and delightful possibilities that the state of matrimony offers.”
Cruel Angel
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
Cover (#u42fc7208-b030-5633-9c8c-547d9cee88c9)
Dear Reader (#ulink_33d9163d-ec6b-5893-8682-f7f58c100d89)
About the Author (#u3419d9e6-0ec9-5c0f-9a0c-cf4c31431850)
Title Page (#ueee7f143-45af-51d0-9af5-ca14d0365d85)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3291948f-bcca-543f-89af-1a2292c6927b)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_6507e1c7-2d37-535d-9bbe-87ab7c9e2a59)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e57adb12-972f-514a-bcb9-34c8bbc73273)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_a017d2d9-de88-5a82-a370-36a03ba12fcd)
‘TWO minutes, Miss Carter.’
Cressida nervously smoothed clammy palms down her naked thighs, wishing that she could dispel her nerves.
Her costume didn’t help, of course. The play was set in the late nineteen-fifties, the action taking place in a beach house, and for a large chunk of the time Cressida wore a swimsuit. True, with its ruched skirt, and its fairly innocuous wired bodice, it was hardly shocking, and, compared to some of the outfits you saw on the high street, positively innocent. But Cressida knew that there was something about seeing a partially clad woman on stage which drew far more attention than someone wearing something scanty in the street. It had been one of the first things she’d learnt at drama school—how the stage exaggerated, and gave emphasis—not just to emotions, but to costumes and scenery, too.
‘You’re on, Miss Carter.’
Her pulses were weak and flying, her heart hammering in her chest. She was paralysed. She would never move again from this spot. And then she heard her cue line, and she ran lightly on to stage right.
It was the pivotal moment of the play . . . the one where she discovered her husband’s infidelity. Adrian, the actor playing her husband, was engrossed in a letter, but the sound of her footsteps disturbed him. He was to turn to her, and their eyes were to meet, and her expression was meant to convey the sudden realisation of the extent of his betrayal.
It was a difficult scene at the best of times, but today, in this stiflingly tense atmosphere, it needed every ounce of her professional skills to inject all the meaning which the playwright demanded. Just what was this tension? she wondered. She could almost smell it in the air, could feel it surrounding her like a heavy cloud, reminiscent of the charged, expectant air just before a storm broke.
It was unusual enough two weeks before opening to have a full dress rehearsal, and on stage instead of in the rehearsal rooms. Most of the cast had muttered about it, but Cressida had just put it down to one of the director’s little foibles.
She briefly looked down towards the back of the house, to where Justin, the director, sat in his customary chair, but today, to her surprise, he was not alone. She could see the shadowy form of a man beside him.
She began speaking her lines, uttering them in the anguished way which was still comparatively easy for her to do. For who better could convey the despair and the loneliness of a marriage in its final death throes?
But she found the words unbearably difficult this afternoon. The atmosphere in the theatre was affecting her in a tangible way. She whirled to pick up the champagne glass to hurl at Adrian, and as she did her eye was caught by a movement next to the director. She stared into eyes that glittered like jet, and the plastic glass slipped out of her hand to bounce harmlessly at her feet. Her head bowed forward as if it were too heavy for her slender neck to support.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said weakly, and passed out.
When Cressida came round a few seconds later, it was to uproar all around, with Justin, the director, on his feet. ‘What’s going on?’ he was shouting. ‘See to her, someone!’ then, holding his hands helplessly up in the air, as he turned to the tall black-haired man who stood beside him.
‘I’m sorry about this; I don’t know what’s got into her. She must be ill.’
Cressida heard a horribly familiar voice—deep, with the slightest foreign inflexion.
‘Ill?’ The voice mocked. ‘Indeed?’
With a monumental effort she forced her eyes open to find herself surrounded by her fellow actors—Jenna holding a glass of water and Adrian proffering a cool cloth. She pushed them away, determinedly getting to her feet, smiling at Adrian to indicate that she wished to continue with the scene.
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted. It had been an illusion, she thought desperately. It must have been. A flashback brought on by the content of the play. ‘Fine. Honestly!’ She straightened her back as she stood up, giving her familiar wide-mouthed smile, which shrivelled and died like a scorched leaf when she saw that it had been no illusion. The man had risen, along with Justin, but he made the director fade into insignificance. He was staring at her intently, but the theatre was too dark to interpret the expression on his face. Not, she thought bitterly, that it had ever been a face which wore its feelings openly.
Her eyelids felt as if they had been weighted with lead, fluttering to cover the huge eyes, and when she opened them again he had gone.
She was unable to carry on. It had never happened before, and she was close to tears. She had always been a professional, through and through, and now here she was, a quivering wreck, her hands shaking as if she had seen a ghost.
But you have seen a ghost, tormented a voice in her head. The ghost of your past. You had never thought to see him again; not now—after all this time. Hadn’t she prayed for that, night after night, once her initial heartbreak was over?
Justin scrambled up on to the stage. He held out his hands and grasped hers tightly. ‘Don’t worry, lovie.’ He smiled. ‘Is it nerves, or are you ill?’
She gave a pale smile. ‘Headache,’ she said lamely. ‘I’m sorry, Justin.’
Justin fished a peppermint out of his pocket and began to crunch. ‘Go home,’ he said firmly. ‘And rest. You’re my favourite actress, and you’ve never pulled a stunt like this before. We’ll rehearse tomorrow instead. Now go! Quick! Before I change my mind!’
She wanted to ask him about the man sitting with him, about what he wanted with him. Or with her? But to ask that would be to acknowledge that she knew him, and that was the last thing she wanted. That was an area of her life which she had carefully concealed—a definite no-go area, and far too painful to resurrect.
She stumbled back to her dressing-room, collapsing into the chair in front of the mirror, her green eyes looking huge in her unnaturally white face, the full lips a ghastly slash of trembling scarlet.
Had she dreamed it? Could she just have imagined it? An over-active imagination conjuring up an image of him? She shook her head, the hairspray-stiffened fifties hairstyle scarcely moving. That had been no dream. That had been Stefano, in the warm, living flesh.
And then it dawned on her. The letter from her solicitor had gone to his in Rome just a couple of months ago, requesting a divorce after two years of separation. And it had gone unanswered. Stefano had ignored it. ‘Leave it for a while,’ her solicitor had reassured her. ‘There’s often a hiccup at this stage. Cold feet, perhaps. Your husband may have decided he doesn’t want a divorce, after all.’
Like hell, thought Cressida bitterly. An ultimatum delivered coldly, followed by absolute silence for two years. No further evidence was needed to convince her that Stefano wanted her out of his life.
She could remember the words he had used as if it had been yesterday. ‘I will not have you remaining in England to work, while I am in Italy. A wife’s place is by her husband’s side, and if you take this job then our marriage is over.’ But there had been no choice—she had to take it—that way lay sanity, at least. And what alternative had he offered her? A marriage growing worse by the minute with a cold, distant husband who seemed only to want her when she was in his bed?
Cressida stared sightlessly into the lighted mirror of her dressing-table, sitting as mute and as still as a statue. And in her heart she knew that she was waiting, so that when the knock came she didn’t even start, but moved slowly towards the door as if she had been put on automatic pilot.
It could, of course, have been anyone—a member of the cast, the director, or the prompt: all legitimate visitors to see how she was feeling after her unexpected collapse. But she knew without a doubt that it was none of these. Even the knock at the door was typical of the man—not loud and insistent, but soft and firm, the trademark of a man who did not have to yell and bluster to get what he wanted. Oh, yes, she thought, that was Stefano to a T—used to getting exactly what he wanted in that quietly determined way of his.
She pulled the door open, carefully composing her face, knowing that polite disinterest would be her most effective weapon. ‘Hello, Stefano,’ she said coolly.
Black eyebrows arched arrogantly. ‘Such a disappointing greeting for your husband,’ he murmured. ‘I had hoped for something a little more—familiar.’
The way he said the word made it sound like an insult, and yet the lilting Italian accent sent a shiver of graphic remembrance through her in spite of herself. She prayed for the right, dispassionate response. ‘You are my husband in name only,’ she stated. ‘We have been separated for over two years and legally that means I am now free to seek a divorce. Surely you realise that, Stefano?’
She had a reaction at last. There was a spark of anger in the dark, glittering eyes, but it was gone in seconds. ‘I realise it only too well, cara,’ he said, in a voice which was soft with menace. ‘But, as you know, divorce means nothing to me. In the eyes of the church—and in—’ he dropped his voice to a velvety whisper ‘—my eyes, we will always be man and wife, with all the endless and delightful possibilities that the state of matrimony offers.’
He stood, lounging in the narrow doorway, as though he had every right to be there, his stance relaxed, though she knew him well enough to know that the muscles beneath the smooth brown skin were flexed and alert.
Outwardly, she thought, he had changed little. Perhaps the features were slightly more fined down, but not dramatically so. Even as a relatively young man, his face had held none of the softness of youth. The eyes, even then, had been hard, glittering and farseeing, the beautiful mouth always distorted by its habitual cynical smile. She had never been able to imagine him as a happy and carefree little boy—always as the curt, calm man who knew exactly what he wanted. She looked into the implacable brown eyes, searching for some hint of why he was here, but she saw nothing, bar a flash of the only emotion she had allowed herself to remember. Desire.
She forced herself to remain calm. They were, after all, in the middle of a busy English city, in a theatre full of her colleagues. He might have succeeded in making her feel as though she were trapped in some derelict Italian mountain hut, miles away from civilisation, but she patently wasn’t. Why, she had only to raise her voice, and any number of people would come running to her aid. And Stefano was a powerful and successful businessman—it wouldn’t augur well for his professional or personal reputation if she started screaming her head off and the Press got hold of it. She could just imagine the field-day the newspapers would have with something like that.
The only problem being that he hadn’t done anything which wasn’t in any way totally above board. And he knew it. He was regarding her now with a look of infuriating amusement.
‘You look so angry,’ he mused. His tongue curved briefly over the perfect teeth which looked so brilliantly white against the olive skin. ‘I love that look,’ he whispered. ‘Sometimes you used to look just like that before we . . . ’
Her cheeks flared, and it was as much as she could do not to slap her hands over her ears. ‘Shut up!’ she spat at him, terrified that his words would make her picture what he had been about to describe. If she remembered that, she would no longer be in control. ‘Whether or not you consider we are separated is your problem. It’s a fact. We are. By English law.’
She steeled herself to ask him, ‘Why are you here, Stefano?’ She looked at him expectantly, but he said nothing.
The silence grew as the dark eyes swept slowly and deliberately down every inch of her body, at first dispassionately, but then they lingered on her breasts, at the soft swell which was emphasised by the pushed-up wire foundations of the swimsuit. The gaze moved down—she saw it alight with interest on the still flat line of her belly—and further down, dark eyes glinting as they stared very deliberately at the soft curves of her bare thighs.
Her cheeks stung with fire as she registered the insolence of the inspection. She responded with the kind of flip comment she knew he would detest. ‘Seen enough?’ she taunted.
The cynical mouth curved. ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen nearly enough. But these others . . . these . . . ’ Here he spat out a word in Italian, a word she had never heard before.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Sorry?’ she said haughtily. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps you would call them voyeurs,’ he hissed.
‘Voyeurs?’ she interrupted scornfully. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The audience,’ he spat out. ‘The ones who come to feast their eyes on you.’
She laughed aloud. ‘Oh, come, come, Stefano—I’m hardly indecently clad.’
‘Do you like it?’ he asked suddenly, his voice dangerously soft.
Bewildered, she stared at him. ‘Like what?’
‘These men, in the audience—the ones who watch you, who look at you, who want you in their beds at night. Does it excite you? Does it?’
She made as if to turn away, but he stopped her with a light touch of her forearm which didn’t fool her for a moment—she could feel the steely strength behind it.
‘Does it?’ he persisted. ‘Do you like them to look at your . . . breasts?’ She gasped as he reached out and almost idly moved his hand down to encircle and to cup one breast, moving it skilfully over the nipple, knowing through years of experience, and the instinct he had always possessed when it came to touching her body, how to imprison it there through pleasure alone. Her knees sagged, as the spirals of pleasure shot through her body like flames. It had been so long. So long . . .
He was not speaking now, as if he sensed that words would make reality intrude, his fingers speaking for him as they moved with sweet accuracy over the thin material of the swimsuit. He bent his head to kiss her neck, slowly and luxuriously, moving to suck gently and erotically on the lobe of her ear, and then at last possessing her mouth in such a way as to make her fleetingly, incredulously think that his need was as fierce as her own. And even while she despised her weakness, she gave herself up to that kiss, returning it with a long-suppressed hunger as though it were the last true thing in the world.
Even during the bad times—and there had been many of those—even the very worst times, he had always been able to do this to her—to extract this response from her. He had been her teacher, her tutor, her master. He had schooled her in the art of love, and he, only he, could do this to her.
He had begun speaking again. ‘And here.’ He moved his hand down to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. ‘Do you like them looking at you here?’ He moved his mouth to hers, speaking against it, so that she could feel the warm sweetness of his breath. He was deliberately insulting her, and yet he was making her so dizzy with longing that she had to grip on to the taut line of his shoulders, afraid that she might collapse into a heap at his feet. ‘Do you think they would like to do what I am going to do to you? Do you?’ And he slipped his fingers inside the swimsuit, to find her honeyed moistness, and she gave a strangled moan and flung her arms tightly around his neck.
‘Stefano!’ she cried brokenly into his shoulder, every vestige of reason gone, unable to relinquish one second of the sweet joy he was inflicting on her, her lips burying themselves helplessly into the soft shaft of his neck. ‘Stefano—no! We mustn’t. You know we mustn’t.’ It was a pathetic, half-hearted plea, and they both knew it.
He ceased the insistent movement of his hand, she was pushed away with a cool firmness, and she watched in total disbelief as he calmly walked over to the mirror above the washbasin, adjusted his tie, glanced at the expensive gold wristwatch and then at her, his eyes coolly mocking. ‘Most assuredly we mustn’t,’ he agreed. ‘I have a business meeting to attend to. A very important meeting—and one which gives precedence over what I believe you English call a ‘‘quickie’’.’
There was a second of shocked silence while her mind tried to assimilate what he had just said to her, and when she did her temper, fuelled by a deep self-loathing, erupted with a vengeance. With a cry she launched herself at him, her small hands beating ineffectually at the solid muscular wall of his chest.
‘How dare you?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you do that?’
‘What?’ he asked softly.
‘To come in here like that, and to—to—’
‘To touch you?’ he mocked. ‘To kiss you? To make you move beneath my fingers—your body telling me how much you still want me, even now?’
‘Why, you animal!’ she cried. ‘You low-down, no-good . . . ’
He was laughing, soft mirth lighting his eyes, as he caught her hands and looked down at her as though she were a very naughty little girl. ‘Ssh, cara,’ he murmured. ‘You should not call your husband all these names . . . ’
‘You won’t be my husband very soon!’ she howled in frustration. ‘I keep telling you!’
‘Tch, tch.’ He made a clicking noise with his teeth. ‘So stubborn. Stop worrying your beautiful little head. There is nothing wrong with wanting me to make love to you. It is perfectly natural.’
‘I’d rather burn in hell!’
He continued calmly, as if she hadn’t spoken, still with that confident smile on his mouth, the same spark of anticipation in the cold, glittering eyes. ‘I know you want me, and I want you. But not now. Or here. I don’t want it to be on the floor of your dressing-room, after so long. I want there to be a bed—a small bed will do, but a bed, most assuredly. And it will be all night. I’m going to make love to you all night.’
In a minute she would wake up, but while the nightmare was in progress she might as well have her say. ‘You are not going to make love to me! Get that into your conceited head, Stefano. You are not going to come anywhere near me, ever again. We are finished. Kaput. Finito.’
He looked at her with resignation, then shrugged his shoulders in that typically Latin way that she’d once found so impossibly endearing. ‘I still want you,’ he said.
‘Well, tough!’ she retorted, remembering, as if clutching on to a lifeline, his curiously old-fashioned loathing of slang.
‘And—’ another shrug ‘—you know me well enough, cara, to know that I always get what I want.’
She wondered fleetingly what kind of sentence she’d get for murder with this amount of provocation. ‘Not this time, you rat!’
His eyes widened. ‘I had forgotten just how much you could infuriate me. And, as I recall, there was only one sure way in which I could subdue your wildness.’
He made as if to move towards her, and she leapt back as if he were about to thrust a knife in her. If he touched her she would be lost.
‘Get out of here!’ she screamed, when there was a knock at the door. She closed her eyes in horror, then grabbed her kimono, pulling it over the bathing-suit and knotting the cummerbund tightly around her tiny waist. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she hissed.
An expression of sardonic amusement lit the dark eyes as he witnessed her obvious discomfiture, and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Surely you have had men in your dressing-room before now?’ he mocked.
Cressida directed her blackest and filthiest look at him as she pulled open the door. It was Alexia, Harvey’s—the producer’s—secretary, her expression of irritated surprise fading immediately into a dazzling smile directed at Stefano.
‘I thought I saw you come in here,’ she pouted.
‘Mr di Camilla just—er—wanted my—autograph,’ butted in Cressida, knowing, even as she said it, just how ridiculous it sounded.
And Alexia’s expression said it all—this man was not a stage-door johnny, hardly the type who would hang around asking actresses for their autographs. She turned china-blue eyes on him. ‘Justin’s waiting for you in the foyer,’ she said, putting her head to one side slightly so that a wing of golden hair fell alluringly over one eye.
‘Thank you,’ said Stefano formally, and then inclined his head in Cressida’s direction. ‘And thank you so much for giving me your . . . time, and your—er—autograph.’
He had managed to make a simple sentence sound positively indecent, she thought furiously. ‘Goodbye,’ snapped Cressida.
‘Addio,’ he murmured.
‘I’ll take you to Justin now,’ gushed Alexia eagerly, but he shook his head.
‘There is no need,’ he said firmly. ‘I know the way, and I am certain that you must have better things to do than to act as my guide.’ He smiled.
As if he didn’t know, thought Cressida, with an oddly painful pang, that Alexia would have stuck to his side all day like a parasite if he’d let her.
Both women watched as he moved away, the superbly cut loose Italian suit only emphasising the remarkably muscular body which it covered.
Alexia stared at Cressida curiously. ‘Did he really want your autograph?’ she asked disbelievingly.
‘Yes,’ muttered Cressida abruptly, thinking angrily that she still didn’t know why he’d been here. And what business did he have with Justin?
The older girl had mischief in her voice. ‘Strange then,’ she said innocently, ‘that you’ve got lipstick smudged all over your mouth!’
Giving a yelp of rage, Cressida grabbed a handful of tissues covered in cold cream and wiped her lips bare. She turned to Alexia reluctantly. ‘Better?’
‘Better. I take it you approve of our new angel?’
There was a long pause, and, not getting the expected response, she looked at Cressida enquiringly. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes,’ said Cressida slowly, ‘I heard.’ She had been thinking what an appropriate description of Stefano that was—yes, he had the face of an angel, a dark, mysterious angel. A cruel angel. But then the true meaning of the word sank in, with all its likely repercussions. ‘Angel’ was theatre slang for the financial backer of a play, with all the power and influence which that position merited.
She stared at Alexia in disbelief.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Alexia chattily. ‘I thought that you hadn’t taken it in. He’s been having hush-hush talks with Justin for weeks now—because the other backers are dropping out. He’s a hugely rich Italian businessman, I gather—or perhaps you knew that already?’ she fished.
‘Why should I?’ asked Cressida guilelessly, amazed at the ease of her lie and hating herself for it, and yet not seeing any alternative.
Why? she thought helplessly. Why is he doing it? Stefano had never been involved in the arts before—the very opposite, in fact. She asked herself the question without really wishing to know the answer.
She wasn’t aware of the journey back to the flat, only of the taxi driver’s startled expression when he took in her half-made-up face and the stiff, lacquered hair-do. He looked as if he was about to make a joke, but something in her expression must have stopped him, and the journey home was completed in silence.
All she knew was that she found herself lying on her bed, tears staining the thick foundation on to the cotton pillow, her dinner date with David forgotten.
Crying, not because fate had brought Stefano back into her life, but because he represented a happier time, the time of her life, and she was reminded with heart-rending clarity of how it had once been between them, such a long time ago . . .
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_eeb5c7e2-5509-564d-a3c5-7da48f22609c)
IT HAD been the second hottest summer that century, and England seemed to have caved to a standstill. Everywhere the atmosphere was still and heavy as lead. Even breathing seemed to take the most enormous effort, thought Cressida, as she sucked the hot air down into her lungs.
She was walking towards the park, having arranged to meet Judy her flatmate from the drama school at which they were both final-year students. No one went into the canteen or to cafés in weather like this—they sought the shelter of the frazzled trees, or the light breeze which they prayed they might find near the large pond.
Cressida saw Judy in the distance, gave a languid wave, and walked towards her. Her dark red hair was already damp around her temples, the thin material of her cotton dress limp with the heat and clinging to her body like a second skin. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat—not, as so many of her peers did, for effect, but because it protected the fair skin which had remained pale all summer.
She reached Judy, who was lying on a beach towel spread out on the grass. She sat up and smiled as Cressida approached.
‘Hiya, Cress!’ she called. ‘Come and eat—I’ve made heaps of sandwiches. Ham and tomato, egg and cress. Cress! Get it?!’
Cressida’s shaded eyes were raised heavenwards. ‘Original sort of person, aren’t you?’ she teased, and shook away the foil-wrapped packages which her friend offered, wrinkling her nose at them. ‘No, thanks. I couldn’t face them. I don’t know how you can eat in this sort of weather.’
‘Oh, you just want to be thin, thin, thin,’ teased Judy as she flapped her hand in the air. ‘Go away!’ She swiped again. ‘Bother these wasps—there’s millions of them.’
‘Well, if you buy jam doughnuts, what do you expect?’ asked Cressida drily, and sank down on to the grass, pulling off the straw hat, so that her hair tumbled down the sides of her face.
Judy’s sandwich froze in mid-air. ‘Wow!’ she breathed. ‘Hot!’
‘Too much mustard?’ enquired Cressida mildly.
‘Hotter than that. I’m in love!’
‘Where?’
‘Over there. Don’t look now. Oh, Cressida—now he’ll see!’
And Cressida saw him.
He was sitting across the grass from them, but his face was clearly visible. The thing that struck her first was how cool he looked, and how surprising that was in view of the fact that he was wearing more clothes than almost anyone else. Not for him the ubiquitous uniform of singlet and shorts—a lot of them worn by pot-bellied men who should have known better. This man was wearing a lightweight suit of cream, against which his olive skin contrasted superbly well. She found herself studying him closely, which in itself was unusual, thinking to herself that he, of all people, would have looked superb in some of the sawn-off denims which were all the rage that summer. The man had loosened his tie, and that was his sole concession to the day.
Dark brown velvet eyes met hers, and held them in a mocking gaze, one eyebrow raised in question, and she hurriedly looked away, taking a mouthful of the warm lemon barley beside her.
‘I didn’t get a look-in,’ said Judy in mock disgust. ‘He was too busy ogling you.’
Cressida blushed. ‘He wasn’t really.’
‘Yes, he was.’ Judy finished the last of her sandwich and rolled over on to her stomach. ‘Oh, well—I might as well tan the back of my legs. Do you want some cream?’
Cressida shook her head from side to side, trying to create some moving air, but it was no good. There was simply no cool to be found. ‘No, thanks—I’ll burn. I want some shade. I’ll wander down towards the lake.’ She stood up, in a fluid movement which was testimony to the years of ballet training. She tucked her copy of Antony and Cleopatra under her arm, and slowly walked across the fried earth.
She had found the welcome green umbrella of a horse-chestnut, when she heard a loud buzzing and a wasp danced infuriatingly around her face. She waved it away. ‘Off! Off!’
But the wasp was persistent, straying so dangerously close to her eye that her wild swipe at it sent her off balance, causing her to trip forward, one foot catching the jagged edge of an exposed tree root.
Down she tumbled to sit on the grass, seeing the sudden appearance of blood on her foot. The pain brought tears to her eyes, and as a shadow moved over her she looked up with over-bright eyes at the man in the suit.
‘Do not cry,’ he said gently, and she noticed that his voice had the slightest foreign inflexion. ‘Here. Let me see.’
And, before she could stop him, he had crouched beside her, gently removing her sandal and putting it aside, and then he was cradling her foot in the palm of his hands, examining it with long fingers which were both cool and firm. Bizarrely, she felt an electric tingling at the curiously intimate sensation of his skin touching hers, and in an automatic reflex she tried to withdraw the foot.
‘No, please . . . ’ she protested without conviction, her normal savoir-faire deserting her. She was transformed instead into a creature who was gazing up at him as if he could take the pain away by magic.
‘Yes,’ he insisted quietly. ‘I will dress it for you.’
She watched as he retreated to the tree where he’d been sitting to pick up a bottle of mineral water. He saw her bemused expression as he returned. ‘Not fizzy,’ he smiled. ‘Still water. And Italian—so it’s only the best, naturally, for such an exquisite foot!’
Involuntarily, she gave a slight shiver at the compliment he paid her, watching as he tipped the mineral water over a fine piece of linen which he produced from his jacket. He squeezed it out with strong hands and then, very firmly, tied it around her narrow foot.
The coolness of the makeshift bandage provided instant relief, but, perversely, she missed that contact with his hand as he had touched her bare flesh. She found herself looking at the line of his mouth, at the slightly mocking upward curve at each side—and began to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him.
She shook her head to make the thoughts go away. Crazy thoughts! Summer madness. Heat-stroke. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
To her surprise he made no demur. He nodded. ‘Of course.’ And with the same delicate touch he slipped her bare foot back into the sandal, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as they looked at her with concern. Prince Charming, she thought suddenly, as he fastened the strap.
He sprang like a panther to his feet and, looking down at her, extended his hands.
She found herself reaching up her hands, and when he had grasped them he swung her up lightly so that she stood in front of him, looking up expectantly into his face. For a moment he frowned. He was very close. She could hear the humming of bees, and the longed-for breeze had just started. Her lips instinctively parted, and her green eyes were huge in her face.
And suddenly, he became very formal. ‘Can you walk?’ he asked courteously.
She felt as though she had snapped out of a dream. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, very shaken, though less by the accident than by the realisation that she had been standing waiting to be kissed by a man who was a total stranger to her. And thank God, she thought, that he had not responded. She tried to move away, but he caught her by the elbow.
‘Let me help you,’ he insisted, in that mocking, accented voice, and slid his arm around her slender waist to walk her back to Judy.
And she allowed him to hold her in that familiar way, relaxing naturally against his strength. The short journey was heaven, but, too soon, they’d arrived. She saw Judy roll over from her prone position, rubbing her eyes, her expression of curiosity showing that she’d seen nothing of the incident. ‘I—tripped,’ Cressida explained, still weak from the effect that this man was having on her.
His hand dropped from her waist. ‘It will cause you pain for no more than a few hours, I think.’ He smiled. And then he looked down at a mute Cressida, cupping her chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘Ciao,’ he said softly, so softly that only she could hear, and then he walked away over the brown grass, the brilliant sunlight glancing off the dark hair.
There was silence for a moment. Judy’s eyes were like saucers.
‘Who was he?’ she demanded. ‘Close-up he’s even more of a hunk!’
It sounded absurd, even to Cressida. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
‘What do you mean—you don’t know?’ quizzed Judy.
‘Just what I say,’ replied Cressida, a touch querulously. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life, and all I know is that he tended to my foot.’ Her eye was caught by the linen handkerchief.
‘But did you see the way he was looking at you? Did you give him your phone number?’
‘He didn’t ask,’ said Cressida, trying, and failing, to sound annoyed at the implication that she might give out her phone number to a person she had just met. Because if she were perfectly honest, she would have given it—willingly.
Judy was looking at his retreating back-view just visible in the distance. ‘Well, that’s that, then. London’s a big place—you’ll never see him again.’
And that was what Cressida had thought, too, after a week of spinning ‘What if?’ fantasies.
What if he went there for lunch every day? Would it look too obvious if she went back there? And why should it? she reasoned—for all he knew it might be her regular lunchtime venue. Which might have been all very well in theory, had the weather not broken with a series of alarming thunderstorms which prevented her from re-visiting the park.
What if he worked near the drama school? Along with half a million others, she thought wryly. If he did work near by, she never saw him, even though she spent too much of her meagre grant on frequenting the many swish new sandwich bars in the vicinity, thinking she might spot him.
No, she decided, as she pushed the fine linen handkerchief she had carefully laundered and ironed to the back of her underwear drawer—it had just been a strange, one-off encounter, and she should take comfort from the fact that she had reacted so strongly to him, stranger or not, because hadn’t it worried her for long enough that she had seemed to share none of her peers’ urges for sexual experimentation? Hadn’t there been shrugs and whispered comments because she showed not the slightest inclination to disappear at parties—unlike the other girls, who were seen leaving the room with their current flames, usually in the direction of the bedroom.
A week went by, and, if not exactly forgetting about the man, then at least Cressida had put him out of her mind as she concentrated for the end-of-term production, in which she was playing Cleopatra.
It was a gruelling rehearsal, and she was glad enough to finish, sitting in the cramped dressing-room cleaning her face and trying to decide whether or not to go to her speech coach’s party that night. But she was strangely reluctant. And let’s face it, she thought, as she dragged the brush through her thick red hair—it’ll be the same old faces, the same old jokes. No one will notice if you aren’t there.
A long bath, a cool drink on the plant-filled patio and the flat to herself seemed an infinitely preferable option.
It was a warm, balmy night, with the setting sun gilding the clouds pink as she walked the short distance to the flat. She had been lucky to have hit it off with Judy so well in their first few weeks of term, and had been delighted to be asked to share the flat with her. Judy’s parents were rich. Rich, rich, rich, as she cheerfully admitted herself. And they loved indulging their only daughter—thus the spacious flat in a prestigious area of London. Otherwise, Cressida—with her elderly aunt her only relation in England—would have been living in some grotty little flat, goodness knew where.
Her only bone of contention was that Judy had refused point-blank to accept any rent money. ‘My parents have already paid for it,’ she had pointed out. The only way round this was for Cressida to buy new things for the flat—so that every month a new vase, pretty dishes or colourful scatter cushions were introduced into their home.
Cressida had her bath, and pulled on a filmy wrap patterned in soft shades of green. Her hair dried into a cloud of fragrant dark waves shot with fire. She had just poured herself a glass of weak Pimm’s and added lemon and a sprig of mint when there was a ring at the doorbell.
It must be Judy, she thought, back early and disenchanted by the party, but she opened the door to find the man from the park there, silently watching her, not a flicker of emotion on the implacable olive-skinned face.
She opened her mouth to say all the things which she knew one should say in such circumstances, from, ‘What are you doing here?’ to, ‘How did you find out where I lived?’ But she said none of these, just stood regarding him with the same intense interest as she saw reflected in his own eyes.
There was a mocking look in the quizzical way in which he surveyed her, one dark eyebrow arched, the trace of a smile touching the firm mouth. ‘You knew I would come.’
She looked into those dark velvety eyes and was lost. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, dry-mouthed, recognising the truth in his words immediately. ‘I knew.’ And, without another word, he had taken her in his arms and begun to kiss her.
Cressida groaned as she turned her head away from the pillow and lay staring at the wall. She had been so young, so naïve. Anyone who had ever doubted the veracity of the phrase ‘she was like putty in his hands’ had only to look at her relationship with Stefano.
She sat up, her hand going to her hair and encountering the thick lacquer which clogged it, her eyes going to the small clock on the rickety bedside table. It was gone seven, and David was due here at eight—and she hadn’t even cleaned her face properly. If she didn’t remove the heavy stage make-up soon, there would be hell to pay with her skin. Her head had begun to throb alarmingly. The last thing she felt like doing was going out to dinner, being forced to make polite conversation—even with someone as charming as David—not when her mind was spinning round like a Ferris wheel gone crazy.
She dialled his number with a shaky hand, and to her relief it was answered on the second ring. At least he hadn’t already left.
‘Hello, David—it’s me, Cressida!’
‘Well—hello to my favourite actress!’ came the cheery reply. ‘Are we still on for tonight?’
‘I wondered,’ she said apologetically, ‘if I could take a rain-check?’
The cultured voice sounded anxious. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’
She liked him—she owed him more than a flimsy excuse, but not the truth; she couldn’t face that. ‘No, I’m not ill. It was just a—hard day. Tough rehearsal—you know.’
The anxiousness in his voice was magnified. ‘Everything going all right with the play, I hope?’
She hastened to reassure him. ‘The play’s fine—you know it is. Hasn’t everyone said that you’re the best playwright since—?’
‘I know. Since Shakespeare. Just not so prolific, nor so acclaimed.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been looking forward to a date with my favourite actress all week, and now she’s turning me down for no reason other than it’s been a long day. I’ve had a long day, too, you know.’
‘Oh, David—don’t make me feel bad. It isn’t that I don’t want to see you—just that I don’t feel up to going out for dinner.’
‘Then we won’t!’ he said, sounding triumphant. ‘And if Cressida won’t go out to the restaurant then the restaurant must come to Cressida. We could eat a take-away—no problem. What do you fancy? Indian? Chinese? Pizza?’
‘Oh, no—honestly. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ he insisted.
She was fighting a losing battle here. ‘But I’m not feeling very good company tonight.’
‘You’re always good company to me, Cressida,’ he said quietly.
And after that declaration, she found it impossible to say no to him, agreeing that she would see him at eight-thirty, and that they would choose what they wanted from a local restaurant, and he’d go out to buy the meal.
As she replaced the receiver, she thought how ironic it was that David should make his first hint at something approaching seriousness at precisely the wrong time. They had been dating now for almost four months, and he was the first man she’d seen regularly since Stefano. The only man, apart from Stefano, she realised.
It had taken a long time for her to even consider going out with another man after the breakup of her marriage, but David had seemed the perfect partner, the balm she needed to soothe her troubled spirit. He was everything she liked and respected in a man—and everything that Stefano was not. They liked the same things—primarily the theatre, but they also liked loading up their bicycles on to the roof-rack of David’s estate car and escaping from the rat race into the country, where Cressida would sit quietly reading, while David indulged his hobby of photographing birds. Most importantly for her, everything they did did not end up with them in bed together. Her face flamed, and a pulse began to throb insistently as she recalled Stefano’s idea of recreation. David was a gentleman. He was prepared to wait. But then a memory intruded—jarred and disturbed her—because so, too, had Stefano—at the beginning . . .
His kiss was like nothing she had ever experienced, on or off the stage. There had been no one special in her life—and at just nineteen that hadn’t been so very unusual. And even the on-stage embraces, where the current breed of up-and-coming actors prided themselves on simulating realism, kissing you with an intimacy that Cressida had found slightly repugnant and definitely unnecessary—none of them had even remotely resembled what this man was now doing to her.
His mouth cajoled her into instant response, so that she found herself somehow knowing that he wanted their tongues to lace together in erotic dance—the result of which sent her heart-rate soaring, and made her insides melt. She felt a tingling awareness in the tips of her breasts, a growing warmth in her groin. She found that she wanted to explore the substance of his taut, muscular body, so that when he pushed her up against the wall and ground his hips into hers, like a man who was out of control, she did not cry out her protest, but urged him on with a slurred and exultant, ‘Yes, oh, yes,’ and his answer was to lightly brush his hands over her breasts, gently stroking each one in turn until he had her almost collapsing against him in agonised arousal, which was replaced with an equally agonised frustration when he suddenly stopped, his hands leaving her, but he himself not moving, just surveying her with dark eyes in whose depths were sparks she could not fathom.
He did not speak for a moment. Months later, he was to tell her that it was the first time in his life he had ever been rendered speechless. And when he did speak, it was with a rigid control which astounded her.
‘Not now.’ He shook his head. ‘And not in such a way. If you had not been wearing such a garment—’ he shrugged in the direction of the filmy green wrap ‘—then I should not have lost my head.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When I collect you tomorrow—at eight—you will wear something more—’ he seemed to muse for a second, and then he smiled, a smile which transformed the handsome, stern face into someone she knew she would die for ‘—suitable. Cover up a little, yes? Or I will not be responsible for my actions, cara. But not trousers. Promise me you will never cover up your legs with trousers?’
It was preposterous, but she found herself agreeing in delight, loving the mastery in his voice as he spoke. Had she been older, wiser, surely she would have steered clear of a man who, even at that early stage, had shown such a strong inclination to control her?
He was turning to leave, his hand on the door-handle, when something shocking had occurred to her. ‘Your—your name?’ she stammered. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
He gave her a long, unbelievably sexy smile, before leaning forward to plant on her mouth a slow kiss of such unbearably sweet promise that she trembled again. ‘Names are not important,’ he murmured. ‘But it is Stefano. Stefano di Camilla.’
She liked it, loved the way he said it. It had an imperious ring to it. Her green eyes widened as she replied, almost shyly—and this in itself was strange, for she was never shy as a rule. ‘And I’m Cressida,’ she said. ‘Cressida Carter.’
‘I know.’ His voice was soft. ‘You see, I know everything about you.’
Cressida closed her eyes as she stood beneath the piercingly cold jets of the shower, remembering how flattered she had been by his research. It seemed that he had gone to a great deal of trouble to find out about her. Somehow, he had tracked down where she lived, and with whom, and where she studied—and what. He had even discovered that her parents had followed the dictates of the late sixties, and had ‘dropped out’—living in splendid if somewhat basic isolation on the Balearic Island of Ibiza. She remembered running her fingers wonderingly through the thick, springy hair, and asking him how he had learnt so much about her in such a short time, but he had shrugged nonchalantly, and kissed away her questions, telling her that things like that were of no consequence to her.
What he had meant, of course, she thought grimly as she massaged more shampoo into her scalp to attempt to remove the stubborn lacquer, what he had meant was that she shouldn’t bother her pretty little head about things which didn’t concern her. For wasn’t that one of the maxims by which the di Camilla family lived—that women should just sit quietly and beautifully in the background, providing comfort and satisfaction for their men?
Cressida shook her wet hair as she stepped out of the shower and began to rub herself dry, her pale skin glowing with the friction of the rough towel. She pulled on a short cream satin dressing-gown and sat in front of the mirror at her dressing-table, the hairdrier blowing the dark red waves into angry fronds which echoed her mood, when there was a loud shrilling of the doorbell. Her brow creased momentarily. David, of course. He was early. Well, he would just have to wait in the sitting-room while she changed.
She ran lightly to the door, and pulled it open, the welcoming expression on her face dying immediately when she saw who it was who stood there.
‘No,’ she whispered disbelievingly.
‘Oh, yes,’ he contradicted softly, and then his eyes moved down, lingering slowly on the satin of her wrap, as he surveyed the fullness of her breasts which were tingling uncomfortably under his gaze—she could feel the taut peaks pushing against the silky material, and she automatically crossed her arms around her chest, shielding her betraying body from his gaze. And the movement caused the hard line of his mouth to twist in derision.
‘I see you still answer the door as alluringly as possible,’ he said harshly.
As he stared directly into her eyes, her imagination stupidly led her to think that she saw a flash of some deeper emotion than plain desire, a softening of the harsh mouth, but it was gone before she remembered that it had been a common fault of hers—crediting him with feelings which he did not possess. She hugged herself tighter as she looked down at the carpet, a lump in her throat, willing the idiotic tears not to spring to life.
‘Tell me, do you always dress to please, Cressida?’
His words were a grim challenge and her eyes were drawn unwillingly to his face. Sometimes she had wondered if he was made of flesh and blood as she was, and now she wondered anew. How could a face which could move with such animation, which could dissolve so sweetly with passion—how could such a face remain now as cold and as unreadable as a blank book? And yet she could still look on it and remember how much she had loved him.
The sharp reminder of her lost love pierced her heart like a sabre cut and, afraid that he would see and taunt her moment of weakness, she moved a step away. ‘You’ve got no right to come in here and criticise me—and you’ll have to go,’ she said desperately. ‘I’m expecting—’ she made her voice linger fondly ‘—someone.’
That did it. She saw his muscles tense and a pulse at his temple begin an ominous throbbing.
‘And who is the lucky man?’ he ground out. ‘Do you always greet him like—this?’ His hand moved disdainfully as he gestured at the skimpy garment which covered her body. ‘Is it the dear David—the man who writes these plays which no one can understand?’
‘His plays are wonderful!’ she defended shrilly, and she saw his mocking smile and knew that she had fallen into some kind of trap. She leaned forward angrily. ‘And how did you know that I was seeing David? I suppose you’ve had all your nasty little spies out, haven’t you? I forget that you have a whole network of information gatherers to do your dirty work for you.’
He returned her angry look with one of infuriating calmness, which did not fool her for a minute. ‘From what I have seen of him, he does not look man enough to share your bed,’ he goaded.
Knowing that she had a weapon which would wound his pride more than anything—she used it. ‘He’s man enough,’ she retaliated.
For a moment she thought she had gone too far. She honestly thought that he was going to hit her—Stefano, who had never hit a person in his life before. She felt like shrinking away from the clenched fists at his side, their knuckles white with the restraint he was obviously exercising. She must have been mad to suggest to him that David was her lover, when he was due to arrive at any minute, and knowing Stefano’s fiercely possessive pride. She couldn’t repress a small shudder as she imagined an angry confrontation. And then, surprisingly, she saw his stance relax, and he walked straight past her to stroll into the sitting-room. She followed him in frustration.
When he turned round, all traces of his anger had disappeared, to be replaced with an expression of disdain. He stared incredulously at the small room, at the shabby furniture, the clean but well-worn curtains. ‘You live like this?’ he said scornfully. ‘Is this what you broke up our marriage for—to live like this! Like a—pauper?’
‘I like this flat,’ she defended. ‘And at least it’s mine. Paid for by me.’
‘It is not a suitable place for my wife to live,’ he said flatly.
Her temper was on the verge of eruption. ‘How many times do I have to tell you before you get it into your stubborn head? I am your wife in name only—and not for very much longer, thank God!’
‘We will see how much of a wife you are.’ He smiled infuriatingly.
That sounded ominously like a threat, she thought, but even if it was he no longer had a hold on her. ‘We could stand here scrapping all night, Stefano, but it won’t change anything,’ she told him with a studiedly cool assurance she was far from feeling. ‘Why don’t we just accept the fact of our incompatibility, and put it down to experience?’
‘Experience?’ he echoed softly. ‘Is that what life is all about to you, Cressida, mmmm? A series of experiences to be lived through? To be discarded when it falls short of perfection? Is that why you ran away? In search of pastures new? Different and better—’ his voice was harsh ‘‘‘—experiences’’?’
Her anger and her indignation were swallowed up by an inexorable sorrow. She had carefully and deliberately closed off that section of her life, had refused to dwell on the heartache he had inflicted on her when he had told her to go. And now it was as if he had ripped open her carefully healed wound, left her heart exposed and helpless.
She swallowed convulsively. ‘We both know why I left.’ She forced a quiet dignity into her voice. ‘And I don’t intend discussing it now. Just tell me one thing. Why have you come here?’ She felt in urgent need of a good, strong drink, but she didn’t dare get herself one. Stefano, a man never in need of any artificial stimuli, might interpret that as yet another weakness in her resolve, and hadn’t she already betrayed enough weakness before him today to last a lifetime? ‘Why have you come back?’ she repeated.
He smiled enigmatically. ‘There are a number of reasons.’
She felt as though she were playing a game of poker. ‘Such as?’
‘Perhaps I have revised my opinion of the arts—’
‘Don’t give me that!’ she interrupted hotly. ‘Why change the habits of a lifetime?’
‘Or perhaps,’ he continued, unperturbed, ‘I see the play as a good investment.’
She let out a pent-up sigh. Of course! As easy as that. Profit. She should have guessed. He had riches to rival Croesus, but still it wasn’t enough. In business, as in life, Stefano had a killer instinct. Life to him was just a series of deals to be made, possessions to acquire, then lock away. She’d been one herself, hadn’t she? And thank God she’d got out in time. She looked at him with scorn. ‘You’re backing the play even though you’ve openly admitted you don’t like it!’ she accused.
‘It is not to my taste.’ He shrugged. ‘But perhaps audiences are not quite so discerning.’
She found herself in the strange position of acting as David’s champion. If only Stefano knew of the fundamental innocence of their relationship! ‘The audiences are going to lap it up—because it comes from the heart. David believes integrity to be more important than profit,’ she said coldly. ‘Although it’s a word I doubt whether you’d find in your vocabulary.’
He made a small sound of disgust underneath his breath. ‘Integrity does not buy bread.’
Cressida suddenly felt very tired. This conversation was going precisely nowhere. When Stefano was in this kind of mood there was no arguing with him, and besides, David would be here at any moment, and the last thing she wanted was a confrontation. ‘Will you please go now?’
In direct opposition to her request, he seated himself in one of the over-stuffed armchairs.
‘Don’t bother making yourself comfortable,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know why you’re here, Stefano—all I do know is that I want to be left in peace to get on with my life. And I want you out of here. Is that clear?’
He ignored her question. ‘And the company—do they know of their leading lady’s relationship with their new backer? ‘‘Angel’’, I think you say.’
Fear dried her mouth. ‘Of course they don’t. No one knows . . . ’
‘No one knows we are married.’ His voice was distorted with anger. ‘Of that I am only too aware. Cressida wishes to be single again and dunque!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Her wish shall be granted. This is a society where the vows of matrimony can be shrugged aside as casually as if they were of no consequence.’
‘That isn’t true!’ she flared. ‘There are reasons why I’m divorcing you—perfectly legitimate ones. And what is more I don’t want anyone—anyone—knowing of my past relationship with you.’
The dark eyes glinted. ‘Oh? And why is that?’
Her temper erupted. ‘Oh, don’t pretend to be so naïve, Stefano! My position would be intolerable! If any of them knew I’d been your wife, I’d be viewed with suspicion. I’d no longer be treated as an equal, would I?’
His mouth twisted. ‘And yet you do not mind it being known that you are dating the playwright?’
‘That’s different, and you know it!’ she exploded. ‘You’re backing it—you’re providing the money. And money is power—as you are perfectly well aware.’
He had got to his feet in a single, light movement, the grace of which only emphasised the powerful strength of his tall frame. He stood studying her through hooded eyes which told her nothing. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will agree to keep our liaison quiet—on the condition that you have dinner with me tonight.’
Cressida felt like pinching herself to check that this was really happening. ‘I can’t have dinner with you. I’ve already told you—I’m expecting David.’
He gave a ruthless smile. ‘Then we will take him, too.’
An involuntary shiver ran up her spine. Stefano sounding reasonable like this was Stefano at his most dangerous. ‘What are you saying?’ she demanded, her voice breaking on the question. ‘What do you want?’
He shrugged. ‘That is the thing to do in this country, is it not? The ‘‘civilised’’ thing? The husband and the wife who have once shared their lives to sit having dinner with the new partner. Did you not once tell me that you wanted it to be an amicable divorce?’
She looked at him helplessly, remembering the stumbling letter she had written to him after six months of separation—another letter he had ignored. Had she really been so naïve as to say that to him? ‘What do you want?’ she repeated weakly.
‘I told you. Have dinner with me tonight, and our little secret will remain just that.’
The doorbell pealed, not as loudly as when he had pressed it, but loud enough to shatter the fraught silence.
Stefano smiled, his eyes roving in a lazy line from her bare toes to the curve of her hips where the satin clung. ‘It is your choice, my beauty—so choose.’
She was trapped, she realised, as her wide green eyes stared at his implacable face. She should just tell him to go to hell and be done with it. But Stefano was not the kind of man to heed such a demand. And, apart from compromising her neutral position as one of the players in a very tight-knit company, if word of her marriage to Stefano got out, could she really bear the gossip, the surmising, the endless questions? If her marriage was laid bare for general analysis, then wouldn’t it just force her to confront its failure herself? To remind her with heart-rending poignancy just how destroyed she had felt at its end?
The doorbell rang again.
‘Well, beauty,’ he murmured softly, ‘have you decided?’
‘Yes, damn you. Yes. The answer’s yes.’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8a8738b1-63ac-5c65-ad07-a8cd05332508)
THE instant she had made her decision, Cressida began to regret it. As she opened the door to David, she wondered what possible motive Stefano could have for wanting to meet the man she was sharing her life with. David stood smiling on the doorstep, looking casual and windswept, dressed in blue jeans, a matching denim shirt and a rather old tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbow. The scent of the pipe tobacco he sometimes smoked hung around him as he stepped forward to drop a light kiss on Cressida’s mouth.
‘Hello, love,’ he said.
A cold voice rang out. ‘Hadn’t you better go and change, Cressida?’ And there stood Stefano in the doorway, the thin smile on his mouth not echoed by the dark eyes.
‘Hello,’ said David interestedly, and Cressida saw Stefano’s mouth curl in derision at the younger man’s attitude.
It had been one of the things she had first admired about David—his easygoing nature, and his optimism. Even now, with an atmosphere which was as chilly as a winter’s afternoon, with the forbidding stance of the handsome stranger who stood in her flat, and she, herself, clad in a short dressing-gown, it was plain to see that David was merely curious to know who Stefano was. And for some obscure reason, this irked her. If the situation had been reversed . . . She couldn’t suppress a small shudder as she tried to imagine what Stefano’s reaction would be if he had found her, only half dressed, with a strange man in her flat.
She stepped forward awkwardly to make the introductions. ‘David Chalmers—this is Stefano di Camilla.’
David frowned, and, crossing his arms, he scratched the end of his nose in a thoughtful gesture. Cressida could see his mind working overtime.
‘Di Camilla,’ he said slowly. ‘Haven’t I heard—?’
‘You may have heard my name being mentioned,’ said Stefano smoothly, with scarcely a trace of the Italian accent which was so dominant when he was angry, or excited. ‘I have the honour of providing some measure of support to the superb play of yours which Cressida is starring in.’
Hypocritical swine, thought Cressida, glaring at him, but meeting no answering response. How could he lay it on like that, after the nasty little asides he’d made about David’s work?
David had stepped forward and grasped Stefano’s hand eagerly. ‘How do you do, Mr di Camilla?’ he said eagerly. ‘I’d heard Justin mention you, of course. We were getting worried—our other sponsors were threatening to pull out. You know, of course, how bad things are in this economic climate? I had no idea that events had progressed so far down the line. Justin might have told me,’ he added, as an aggrieved afterthought.
‘One of the conditions of my support was the need for confidentiality until the deal was certain,’ said Stefano blandly.
‘Oh, of course, of course—I quite understand!’ said David eagerly.
He was just like a bouncing little puppy, thought Cressida, trotting up to some wild creature eight times the size. Don’t trust him an inch, she willed, wondering whether she would be strong enough to follow her own advice.
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Шэрон Кендрик
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.“Your job, or your marriage…”Having never felt as if she belonged, and convinced her husband no longer loved her, it had been an easy decision for actress Cressida to make. Stefano di Camilla had been the master of her heart, but she had to face that her marriage was over.Until Stefano storms back into her life as the financial backer of her latest West End play. As powerful and darkly brooding as ever, the old attraction immediately flares between them. But Cressida must resist Stefano, or risk losing her heart to her husband once again!