THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE Page 4

  And yet, instead of recognising her good fortune,

  she was actually daring to take it upon herself to lecture

  him! Well, she was no loss to him. She wouldn’t

  have lasted a day, not even twelve hours once

  Caterina had got her claws into her, and he was a fool

  to have wasted his time on her in the first place. He

  could drive down to the coast and find a dozen

  women within one hour who would jump at the opportunity

  she had turned down.

  "Fine," he snapped, turning his back on Jodie as he

  strode back towards the Ferrari.

  He was leaving her here? He couldn’t — he

  wouldn’t! Jodie’s eyes widened in mute shock as she

  watched him walk away from her.

  "No, wait!" she called out, as she stumbled anxiously

  after him, gasping at the pain in her weak leg,

  her anger giving way to a fear that was only slightly

  alleviated when he eventually stopped and turned

  round. "I need to get in touch with the car hire firm

  and let them know what’s happened."

  "They won’t be very happy about the fact that you

  have damaged their vehicle. I hope you have brought

  plenty of money with you," Lorenzo warned her

  coldly.

  "I’m insured," Jodie protested, but a cold, hard knot

  of anxiety gripped her stomach as she remembered

  her cousin warning her about the problems she would

  face if she were to be involved in an accident.

  "I doubt that will benefit you, especially when I

  inform the authorities that you were driving on a private

  road, and in doing so that you endangered not

  just your own life but mine as well. You are going to

  need a very good solicitor, and that will be very expensive."

  "But that’s not true!" she protested. "You weren’t

  even here when…"

  Her voice trailed away as she saw the look in

  his eyes.

  "You’re trying to frighten me and — and blackmail

  me!" she accused him.

  He shrugged and continued to walk back to his car.

  She watched helplessly as he opened the door, whilst

  her emotions raged in impotent fury. He was the most

  hateful, horrible man she had ever met — arrogant, selfish,

  and the very last kind of man she would have

  wanted to marry for any kind of reason. But a logical,

  practical voice inside her head was pointing out that

  it was late at night and she was miles from anywhere

  down a private road, wholly dependent on the goodwill

  of the man now about to leave her here.

  He had started the engine and was pulling out to

  drive past her. Panic filled her. She started to run towards

  the car, gasping at the pain in her weak leg as

  she flung herself at the driver’s door and banged on

  it.

  Expressionlessly, Lorenzo opened the window.

  "All right, I’ll do it," she told him recklessly. "I’ll

  marry you."

  He was staring at her so impassively that she wondered

  if he had changed his mind. Her heart started

  hammering uncomfortably fast, making her feel

  slightly sick.

  "You’re agreeing to marry me?"

  Jodie nodded her head, and then exhaled shakily in

  relief as he pushed open the passenger door of the car

  and said brusquely, "Give me your keys and wait here

  whilst I get your things."

  It was a warm night, but anxiety and exhaustion

  were making her shiver slightly, so that her fingers

  trembled against the impersonal hand he had stretched

  out for her car keys. A prickle of unwanted sensation

  raced up her arm, causing her to recoil from her physical

  contact from him. He had long, elegant hands,

  with lean, strong fingers — unlike John, who had had

  somewhat plump hands with short fingers. The

  knowledge that the stroke of those hands against a

  woman"s body would deliver a dangerous level of

  sensual pleasure pierced the thin skin of her defences,

  making her emotional recoil from it even more intense

  than her physical recoil from his touch.

  Lorenzo frowned as he got out of the Ferrari and

  strode over to Jodie’s hire car, unlocking the boot.

  Her recoil from him had the hallmark of a kind of

  sexual inexperience he had imagined no longer existed.

  In fact, the last time he had seen a grown

  woman recoil like that from a man"s casual touch had

  been the last time he had visited his grandmother,

  when he had sat with her watching one of the old

  fashioned black and white films she’d loved so much.

  He lived in a world peopled by the sophisticated, the

  blase., the experienced, the rich and the aristocratic: a

  world driven by cynicism and greed, by self-interest

  and envy. Power did not go hand in hand with goodness,

  as he had every reason to know. Jodie Oliver

  wouldn’t survive a month in that world.

  He shrugged away his thoughts. Her survival was

  not his concern. He had other matters, another kind

  of survival, to worry about, and she was merely the

  instrument by which he would achieve that. Had he

  genuinely wanted to marry her… His frown deepened.

  What kind of thought was that? He had no desire

  to marry anyone, much less a thin, wan-faced

  young woman who had "broken heart" written all over

  her.

  He glanced down at the small case he had removed

  from the boot of the car, and then went to check the

  interior of the car itself.

  "How long did you say you intended to stay away

  from your home for?" he asked Jodie wryly as he

  carried her things back to the Ferrari.

  Jodie flushed at the implication she could hear in

  his voice. "I have enough with me for my needs," she

  told him defensively, adding with angry dignity, "And

  there are such things as laundries, you know." She

  wasn’t going to tell him that she had chosen her small

  trolley case specifically because it was light enough

  for her to lift, and that the last thing she had felt like

  when she was packing had been bringing with her all

  the pretty things she had bought for her honeymoon.

  She felt the increase in weight of the car as Lorenzo

  got back into the driver’s seat. There was a disconcerting

  intimacy about being in a machine like this

  one with a man who was so very much a man.

  The scent of expensive leather reminded her poignantly

  of an afternoon she had spent with John,

  when he had gone to buy a new car and taken her

  with him. They had visited showroom after showroom

  as he admiringly inspected their top-of-the-range vehicles.

  But none of them, no matter how expensive,

  had come anywhere near being as luxurious as this

  car, she thought now, her senses suddenly picking up

  on the cool, subtle woody scent of male cologne

  mixed with the very sensual smell of living, breathing

  male flesh.

  By the time she had finished absorbing the messages

  with which her senses were bombarding her,

/>   Lorenzo had reversed the Ferrari and turned it round.

  "Where are we going?" she demanded uncertainly.

  "To the Castillo."

  The Castillo. It sounded impossibly grand. But five

  minutes later, when she saw its steep escarpments rising

  sharply up out of the rock face, she decided that

  it was more barbaric than grand — like something left

  over from another less civilised age. An age where

  might was more valued than right; an age where a

  man could take what he wanted simply because he

  chose to do so. An age surely well suited to the man

  seated next to her, she decided a little sourly.

  They drove into the Castillo through a narrow

  arched entrance, so evocative of the Middle Ages that

  Jodie had to blink to dismiss her mental images of

  chainmailed men at arms and heralds announcing

  their arrival.

  The empty courtyard was lit by the flames from

  large metal sconces that threw moving shadows

  against the imposing stone walls with their watching

  narrow slit windows.

  "What an extraordinary place," Jodie heard herself

  saying apprehensively.

  "The Castillo is a relic left over from a time when

  men built fortresses rather than homes. I warn you, it

  is every bit as inhospitable inside as it is out."

  "You live here?" She couldn’t keep the dismay out

  of her voice.

  "I Don’t, but my grandmother did."

  "So where…?" Jodie began, and then stopped uncertainly

  as she saw the way his mouth was compressing.

  It was obvious that he did not like her asking

  so many questions. He had opened the door of

  the car and she wrinkled her nose as she caught the

  pungent smell of something burning. "Something’s on

  fire," she told him.

  Lorenzo shook his head. "It is merely the mixture

  of wood and pitch that is used in the sconces. After

  a while you will grow so accustomed to it that you

  won’t even notice it," he added in a matter-of-fact

  voice.

  After a while? Did that mean that she was to live

  here? Without electricity?

  As though he had read her mind, Lorenzo informed

  her, "My grandmother preferred the old-fashioned

  way of life. Fortunately I was able to persuade her to

  have a generator installed to provide electricity inside

  the Castillo."

  When one thought of an Italian castle one thought

  of something out of a fairy tale, but this place was

  nothing like that. Bleak and brooding, it made her

  shudder just to look up at the granite walls.

  "Come…"

  Sitting in the Ferrari had caused her weak leg to

  stiffen and seize up. Jodie could feel her face burning

  as Lorenzo waited impatiently for her to get out of

  her seat whilst he held the door open for her. The

  agonising pain that shot through her leg as she finally

  managed to do so made her bite down hard on her

  bottom lip to stop herself from betraying what she

  was feeling. John had hated anything that drew attention

  to her infirmity, insisting that she always wore

  jeans or trousers to hide the thinness of her leg with

  its tell-tale scars.

  "If you wear trousers no one is going to know that

  there’s anything wrong with you," he had told her

  more than once. Jodie could feel her throat closing

  with painful tears. She had wanted so desperately to

  hear him say to her that he didn’t care what she wore,

  because he loved her so very much that every part of

  her was equally precious to him. But, of course, men

  were not like that. Louise had said as much when she

  had explained to Jodie just why John preferred her.

  "The trouble is, sweetie, that men Don’t like all that

  disfigurement stuff. It makes them feel uncomfortable.

  Plus, they want a woman they can show off—

  not one they’ve got to apologise for."

  "You mean some men Don’t," Jodie had corrected

  her, with as much dignity as she could muster.

  "Most men," Louise had insisted, before adding

  bluntly, "After all, how many men besides John have

  actually wanted so much as a date with you, Jodie?

  Think about it. And let’s not forget," she had added,

  pressing home her advantage, "any man is bound to

  worry about what he’s going to have to face in the

  future, with a wife who’s got health problems, from

  a financial point of view alone."

  "I haven’t got health problems," Jodie had objected.

  "The hospital has given me a complete all-clear—"

  "Because they can’t do any more for you. You told

  me that yourself. Your leg is never going to be as it

  was, is it? You get tired if you have to walk any

  distance now — imagine how awful it would be for

  poor John if in, say, ten years you needed to be in a

  wheelchair. How would he cope? With the business

  booming the way it is, John needs a wife who is a

  social asset to him, not one who is going to be a

  handicap. You really mustn’t be so selfish, Jodie.

  John and I are trying to make this as easy for you as

  we can."

  It was the "John and I" that had done it, igniting

  Jodie’s temper so that she had exploded and told her

  one-time friend in no uncertain terms exactly what

  she thought of both her and of John, ending up with,

  "And, personally, the last kind of man I would want

  to commit to is one so shallow that all he sees is what

  lies on the surface. To be honest with you, Louise,

  you’ve done me a big favour. If it hadn’t been for

  you I might have gone ahead and married John with

  out knowing how weak and unreliable he is. You obviously

  aren’t as fussy in that regard as I am." She

  had finished pointedly, "But I should be careful, if I

  were you. After all, you won’t be young and glamorous

  for ever, will you? And, since you’ve said yourself

  that looks are so immensely important to John,

  You’re going to have to live with the knowledge that

  ultimately he may dump you for someone younger

  and prettier."

  She had been shaking from head to foot as she

  walked away from Louise. And when John had turned

  up on her doorstep less than an hour later, accusing

  her of upsetting Louise, she hadn’t known whether to

  laugh or to cry. In the end she had laughed. Somehow

  it had seemed the better option.

  It was then she had gone out and bought herself

  the shortest denim miniskirt she could find. The accident

  had not been her parents" fault, and she had

  fought long and hard to be able to overcome her own

  injuries. From now on, she had decided, she was going

  to wear her scars with pride, and no man was

  ever, ever again going to tell her to cover up her legs

  because of them.

  For ease of travelling, though, right now she was

  wearing a pair of jeans — an old, faded pair of jeans

  that made her look totally out of place next to

  Lo
renzo in his beautifully tailored suit, she thought,

  as he propelled her across the courtyard and into a

  cavernous baronial hall, his hand resting firmly on the

  middle of her back.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE room they entered was furnished with several

  pieces of intricately carved dark wooden furniture. A

  coat of arms had been cut into the stone lintel above

  the huge fireplace. The carpet on the stone floor beneath

  her feet looked worn and shabby, and she could

  see where the film of dust on a table in the middle of

  the room had been disturbed by something thrown

  down on it with such force that it had skidded through

  it.

  A door in the far wall was thrown open, and a

  woman stood there, framed in the opening. Immediately

  Jodie forgot her surroundings as she focused on

  her. Tall and soigne.e, she was everything one imagined

  a wealthy and elegant Italian woman should be.

  Her dark hair was pulled back in a smooth knot to

  reveal the perfect bone structure of her face. Dark

  eyes flashed a look of triumphant possessive mockery

  towards Lorenzo — the same kind of predatory female

  look Jodie had seen in Louise’s eyes when she had

  looked at John. The other woman hadn’t even seen

  her, hidden as she was in the shadows. Who was she?

  A sense of disquiet started to seep through her; an

  awareness of deep and dark waters driven by dangerous

  unseen currents that could suck her down into

  their icy depths if she wasn’t careful. Instinctively

  Jodie sensed that Louise and this woman were two of

  a kind, and that knowledge was enough to rub against

  the still painfully raw emotional nerves inside herself.

  She looked at Lorenzo. He looked relaxed, but she

  could feel his tension in the sudden increased pressure

  of his fingers, where they were splayed across her

  back. Something was going on here that she wasn’t

  privy to — but what? So many unanswered questions,

  and they were destined to remain unanswered, Jodie

  guessed, as she watched the full mouth thin, crimson

  with carefully applied lipgloss, and the delicate nostrils

  flare. A huge diamond flashed blindingly as the

  woman raised one hand to touch the deep vee neckline

  of the expensive black dress she was wearing in

  a deliberate gesture of enticement. What man could

  resist following with his gaze the scarlet glisten of the

  long nails as they rested briefly in the valley between