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Carrying His Scandalous Heir
Julia James
Pregnant with the Italian’s childAristocratically arrogant Cesare di Mondave dazzled Carla Charteris when he swept into her life. It wasn’t long before the brooding Italian stole her innocence, and her heart. Realising she’d never be more than a mistress was devastating, but Carla couldn’t deny herself one last night in Cesare’s arms…When Cesare discovers the shocking consequences, a thrill of possession runs through him. To claim his heir, it’s imperative Carla accepts his proposal—but she defiantly refuses! Now Cesare must use every sinfully seductive skill he has to convince Carla he wants her in the bedroom and at the altar!
Pregnant with the Italian’s child
Aristocratically arrogant Cesare di Mondave dazzled Carla Charteris when he swept into her life. It wasn’t long before the brooding Italian stole her innocence, and her heart. Realizing she’d never be more than a mistress was devastating, but Carla couldn’t deny herself one last night in Cesare’s arms...
When Cesare discovers the shocking consequences, a thrill of possession runs through him. To claim his heir, it’s imperative Carla accepts his proposal—but she defiantly refuses! Now Cesare must use every sinfully seductive skill he has to convince Carla he wants her in the bedroom and at the altar!
‘After such a “lovely evening…”’ Cesare’s amusement was deeper now, his accented English doing even more to make her breathless ‘…there is only one way to end it, no?’
For an instant he held Carla’s gaze in the dim light, daring her to accept, to concede, to do what he wanted her to do—what he’d wanted from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘Like this,’ he said.
He stretched his hand out, long fingers tilting up her face to his as his mouth lowered to hers. Slowly, sensuously, savouring. With skill, with expertise, with a lifetime of experience in how to let his lips glide over hers, to let his mouth open hers to his, to taste the sweetness within. As soft, as sensual as silk velvet.
She drowned in it. A thousand nerve-endings fired as he made free with her mouth, his long fingers still holding her. And when he had done he released her, drew back his hand, let it curve around the driving wheel.
He smiled. ‘Buone notte,’ he said softly.
From Mistress to Wife (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
From the bedroom—to the altar!
Eloise and Carla have never expected irresistible
passion—until they meet the powerful alpha
billionaires who will steal their innocence. But nights
of passion can have unexpected consequences…
When Eloise Dean falls at Vito Viscari’s feet,
they are both overcome with a desire
they can neither resist nor deny!
Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child
Carla Charteris knows falling for the enigmatic
Count of Mantegna will only bring heartache, but
what will happen when temptation proves irresistible?
Carrying His Scandalous Heir
Available now!
You won’t want to miss this passionately sexy duet
from Julia James!
Carrying His Scandalous Heir
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters… What more could lovers want?’
Books by Julia James
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
A Cinderella for the Greek
A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With
Captivated by the Greek
The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo
Securing the Greek’s Legacy
Painted the Other Woman
The Dark Side of Desire
From Dirt to Diamonds
Forbidden or For Bedding?
Penniless and Purchased
The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain
Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife
Mistress to Wife
Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child
Visit the Author Profile page at
millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For Kathryn—thank you for all your hard work!
Contents
Cover (#u86089edb-d9c3-52c4-ab6d-6d5aebfcc379)
Back Cover Text (#u08bad650-3d85-5f13-a7da-b4700d98fe71)
Introduction (#u7dbde3a6-79b2-5107-801f-c2b42d43b001)
From Mistress to Wife (#ue73a81dd-6851-5322-adfb-f83c0eee954e)
Title Page (#uc787b04d-840a-587a-8c1f-dec56d361b3f)
About the Author (#u46579130-6993-581e-a2f0-5f862c75e358)
Dedication (#u70364137-4da3-52b6-87ee-6139ed65937e)
CHAPTER ONE (#u4e261ceb-edc4-5860-b5a7-2646e667542c)
CHAPTER TWO (#uc1da6eaf-b757-539c-9c3e-32fa0cd2abd4)
CHAPTER THREE (#uca9eebaa-f809-51b2-9bde-a537b3429ab0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uc4dbb4a2-0d79-54a2-9ac4-17f202752761)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CARLA LOOKED AT her watch for the umpteenth time, glancing out across the crowded restaurant towards the entrance. Where was he? Anxiety bit at her, and an emotion more powerful than that—one she had never felt before. Had never thought to feel about the man she was waiting for.
She had thought only to feel what she had felt the first time she had set eyes on him. And she so desperately wanted to set eyes on him again now—walking in, striding with his effortlessly assured gait, tall and commanding, with that inbuilt assumption that he could go wherever he liked, that there would always be a place for him, that people would move aside to let him through, that no one would ever dream of turning him down or saying no to him—not about anything at all.
She had not turned him down. She had denied him nothing—granted him everything. Everything he’d ever wanted of her...
Memory, hot and fervid, scorched within her. From the very first moment those hooded night-dark eyes had rested on her, assessing her, desiring her, she had been lost. Utterly lost! She had yielded to him with the absolute conviction that he was the only man who could ever have such an impact on her. That moment was imprinted on her—on her memory, on her suddenly heating body...on her heart.
Memory scorched again now, burning through her veins...
* * *
The art gallery was crowded with Rome’s wealthy, fashionable set, and champagne and canapés were circling as Carla threaded her way among them, murmuring words of greeting here and there.
Reaching for a glass of gently foaming champagne, Carla knew that she herself could be counted as one of them. Oh, not by birth or breeding, but as the stepdaughter of multi-millionaire Guido Viscari she could move in circles such as these and hold her own and look the part.
Her cocktail dress in a deep blue raw silk had come from one of the currently favoured fashion houses, and it hugged a figure that easily passed muster amongst all the couture-clad females there. Her face, too, as she well knew, also passed muster. Her features veered towards the dramatic, with eyes that could flash with fire and full lips that gave a hint of inner sensuousness.
It was a face that drew male eyes, and she could sense them now—especially since she was there on her own. Unlike many of the other guests, she had a genuine reason for attending this private viewing other than simply being there to while away an hour or so before dining.
But she’d long got used to the constant perusal that Italian men habitually bestowed upon females. It had shocked and discomfited her ten years ago, when she’d been a raw English teenager new to Italian life, but since then she’d grown inured to it. Now she hardly ever noticed the looks that came her way.
Except—She stilled suddenly, the champagne glass halfway to her lips. Someone was looking at her. Someone whose gaze she could feel on her like a physical touch. Her eyes shifted their line of sight. Someone who was making her the centre of his observations.
And then, as her gaze moved, she saw him.
He’d just come into the gallery. The receptionist at the welcome desk was still smiling up at him, but he was ignoring her, instead glancing out across the room. Carla felt a little thrill go through her, as though somewhere deep inside her a seismic shock were taking place, and she noticed his gaze was focussing on her.
She felt her breath catch, seize in her throat. She felt a sudden flush of heat go through her. For the man making her the object of his scrutiny was the most devastating male she had ever seen.
He was tall, powerfully built with broad shoulders, his features strong...compelling. With a blade of a nose, night-dark hair, night-dark eyes, and a mobile mouth with a twist to it that did strange things to her.
Unknown things...
Things she had never experienced before.
The flush of heat in her body intensified. She felt pinned—as though movement were impossible, as though she had just been caught in a noose—captured.
Captivated.
For how long he went on subjecting her to that measuring, assessing scrutiny she could not tell—knew only that it seemed to be timeless.
She felt her lungs grow parched of oxygen... Then, suddenly, she was released. Someone had come up to him—another man, greeting him effusively—and his eyes relinquished hers, his face turning away from her.
She took a lungful of air, feeling shaken.
What had just happened?
The question seared within her...and burned. How could a single glance do that to her? Have such an effect on her?
Jerkily, she took a mouthful of champagne, needing its chill to cool the heat flushing through her. She stepped away, averting her body, making herself do what she had come there to do—study the portraits that were the subject of the exhibition.
Her eyes lifted to the one opposite her.
And as they did so another shock went through her. She was staring—yet again—into a pair of night-dark eyes. The same eyes...the very same.
Night-dark, hooded, sensuous...
That little thrill went through her again, that flush of heat moved in her body. The portrait’s eyes seemed to be subjecting her to the same kind of measuring scrutiny that the man by the door had focussed on her.
She tore her eyes away from the face that looked out at her from the portrait. Moved them down to the brass plate at the side of the frame. She hardly needed to read it—she knew perfectly well who the artist was.
Andrea Luciezo, who, along with Titian, was one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. His ability to capture the essence of those who had sat for him—the rich, the powerful, the men who had controlled the Italy of the sixteenth century, the women who had adorned them—had brought them vividly, vibrantly, to life. Luciezo—whose dark, glowing oils, lustrous and lambent, infused each subject with a richly potent glamour.
Her eyes went from the name of the artist to that of his subject. She gave a slow, accepting nod. Yes, of course.
Her gaze went back to the man in the portrait. He looked out at all those who gazed at him with dark, hooded, assessing eyes. She looked at the powerful features, the raven hair, worn long to the nape of the strong neck, his jaw bearded in the fashion of the time, yet leaving unhidden the sensuous line of his mouth, the unbearably rich velvet of his black doublet, the stark pleated white of his deep collar, the glint of precious gold at his broad, powerful chest.
He was a man whom the artist knew considered his own worth high, whose portrait told all who gazed upon it that here was no ordinary mortal, cut from the common herd. Arrogance was in that hooded gaze, in the angle of his head, the set of his shoulders. He was a man for whom the world would do his bidding—whatever he bade them do...
A voice spoke behind her. Deep, resonant. With a timbre to it that set off yet again that low, internal seismic tremor.
‘So,’ he said, as she stood immobile in front of the portrait, ‘what do you think of my ancestor, Count Alessandro?’
She turned, lifted her face, let her eyes meet the living version of the dark, hooded gaze that had transfixed her across the centuries—the living version that had transfixed her only moments ago and was now transfixing her again.
Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
The owner of this priceless Luciezo portrait of his ancestor, and of vast wealth besides. A man whose reputation went before him—a reputation for living in the same fashion as his illustrious forebears: as if the whole world belonged to him. To whom no one would say no—and to whom any woman upon whom he looked with favour would want to say only one thing.
Yes.
And as Carla met his gaze, felt its impact, its power and potency, she knew with a hollow sense of fatalism that it was the only word she would ever want to use.
‘Well?’
The deep voice came again and Carla realised that she needed to speak—had been commanded to answer him. For this was a man who was obeyed.
But she would not obey immediately. She would defy him in that, at least.
Deliberately she looked back at the Luciezo, making him wait. ‘A man of his time,’ she answered finally.
As you are not a man of your time.
The words formed in her head silently, powerfully. No, the current Conte di Mantegna was not a man of the twenty-first century! She could see it in every austere line of his body. He carried his own ancient ancestry in the unconscious lift of his chin at her reply, in his dark brows drawing together.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Again, the question demanded an immediate answer.
Carla looked back at the portrait, gathering her reasons for the reply she had made him.
‘His hand is on the pommel of his sword,’ she essayed. ‘He will slay any man who offers him insult. He subjects himself to the scrutiny of one who can never be his equal, however much genius Luciezo possesses, simply in order that his illustrious image can be displayed. His arrogance is in every line, every stroke of the brush.’
She turned back to the man who had commanded her to speak. Her answer had displeased him, as she had known it would.
There was a dark flash in his eyes, as he riposted, ‘You mistake arrogance for pride. Pride not in himself but in his family, his lineage, his honour. An honour he would defend with his life, with his sword—that he must defend because he has no choice but to do so. The artist’s scrutiny is to be endured because he must be ever mindful of what he owes his house—which is to protect it and preserve it. His portrait will be his persona in his own absence—it will persist for posterity when he himself is dust.’
The night-dark eyes went to those in the portrait. As if, Carla thought, the two men were communing with each other.
Her brow furrowed for an instant. How strange to think that a man of the present could look into the eyes of his own ancestor... That, in itself, made il Conte entirely different from all those who—like herself—were simply cut from the common herd of humanity...who had no knowledge of their ancestors from so many centuries ago.
Her expression changed, becoming drawn for a moment. She didn’t even know of her own more immediate forebears. Her father was little more than a name to her—a name reluctantly bestowed upon her when her mother’s pregnancy had required that he marry her, only for him to be killed in a car crash when she was a small child. His widow had been unwelcome to her in-laws, and Carla had been raised by her mother alone until her remarriage to Guido Viscari when Carla was a young teenager.
I know more about my stepfather’s family than I do about my own father’s!
To a man like il Conte that very ignorance about her paternal forebears must seem incomprehensible, for he would know the identity of every one of his entire collection of ancestors for centuries—each of them doubtless from families as aristocratic as his own.
With such a heritage she could not be surprised by his immediate retort. Yet she had one of her own.
‘Then it is entirely to the credit of Luciezo’s mastery that he can convey all that with his portrait,’ she replied, making her voice even. ‘Without his genius to record it your ancestor is merely dust.’
There was defiance in her voice—and an open assertion that, however many heraldic quarterings the illustrious Conte di Mantegna was possessed of, none could compare with the incomparable genius of a great master such as Luciezo.
That dark flash came again in the depths of the Conte’s eyes. ‘Will we not all be dust in years to come?’ he murmured. ‘But until that time comes...’
Something changed in his voice—something that suddenly made the heat flush in her blood once more, as it had done when she had realised his gaze was upon her.
‘Should we not carpe diem?’
‘Seize the day?’ Carla heard her voice answering. But inside her head she was registering that sudden change in the Count’s voice, the smoothing of that low timbre. She could see, now, the change in his eyes. He was looking at her. Approving of what he saw. Sending that flush of heat through her again.
‘Or, indeed, seize the evening,’ he murmured again, with the slightest husk in his voice.
And now there was no mistaking the message in his voice. None at all. Those dark, long-lashed hooded eyes were resting on her, and the message in them was as old as time.
She pleased him. Her appearance, at any rate, even if her words did not. But their exchange had merely been the mechanism by which he had approached her—had given him the opening he desired, by which he would obtain the end he sought.
The end he now stated openly.
‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
It was as simple as that. As straightforward. His dark, expressive eyes were resting on her, and Carla felt their impact—knew their message. Knew what reply she should make to this powerful, sensual man, who was displaying every obvious sign of his intent.
Her habit had always been to say no—the few relationships she’d had over the years had never been with Italians, nor conducted in Rome under the avidly speculative glare of the circles in which she moved. And never had she fancied herself to be deeply emotionally involved. It had been only friendship and compatibility that attracted her—no more than that. It was safer that way. Safer than yielding to any overriding sensual attraction that might ignite a passion that would be hard to quench.
After all, no one knew better than she what that might lead to. Hadn’t it happened to her own mother? Falling for a man who, when he’d been faced with unintended pregnancy, had not wished to commit to her?
Although his father had cracked the financial whip and forced a marriage, there had been no happy ending. Her father had chafed at marriage, chafed at fatherhood—and had been on the point of leaving her mother when he was killed. Was it any wonder, Carla asked herself, that she was wary of making such a mistake herself?
So, for every reason of good sense, there was only one reply for her to make to this arrogant, sensual man who possessed the power to disturb her senses.
Yet she could not say the words. Could only find the means to give a slight, fleeting, demurring half-smile, and a self-protective sweeping down of her eyelashes to hide the all too revealing response in her eyes as she made an evasive reply.
‘So...have you loaned any other paintings to the exhibition?’ she asked.
Her voice sounded abrupt, even breathless, but she did not care. She met his gaze head-on, keeping hers quite limpid, though the effort was great—the more so since in his eyes was a look of knowingness that told her he had understood immediately why she had not answered him.
But to her relief he followed her diversion.
‘Indeed,’ he murmured, still with that semi-amused look in his eyes that was so disturbing to her. ‘The Luciezo is, in fact, part of a triptych. The other two portraits are on display across the gallery.’
There was a discernible tinge of annoyance in his voice at the curator’s decision as he indicated across the width of the gallery, towards an alcove in which Carla could make out two portraits.
‘Shall we?’
The cool voice held assumption, and Carla found herself being guided forward. He halted, lifting his hand to the portraits they were now in front of.
‘What do you make of them?’
Carla’s trained eyes went to the portraits, immediately seeing the skill and artistry in them, seeing in them all the hallmarks of a master. Her eyes narrowed very slightly. But not Luciezo.
‘Caradino?’ she ventured.
She felt rather than saw the glance the Count threw at her. Surprise—and approval.
‘Caradino,’ he confirmed. He paused. ‘Many attribute his few surviving works to Luciezo.’
She gave a slight shake of her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There is a discernible difference.’
Her eyes ran over the portraits, taking in the brushwork, the lighting, the shadows. Her gaze went from appraising the technicalities of the portraits to the subjects themselves. And then, for the first time, her eyes widened as her gaze rested on their faces.
So unalike. So very, very unalike.
One so fair and pale. A married woman, clearly, as illustrated by the tokens in the painting—her pearl earring, the sprig of myrtle in her lap, the dish of quinces on the little table at her side—and yet there was about her, Carla could see, an air almost of virginity...as if with different garments and accoutrements she might have modelled for a painting of the Virgin Mary.
A crucifix was in her hands, glinting between her long, pale fingers. Carla looked at the woman’s eyes.
Sadness. As if, like the Virgin Mary, she had in her gaze a foretelling of the great sorrows that were to come.
She pulled her gaze away. Let it rest on the other woman’s face.
Another young woman. In this portrait the subject’s hair was a lush chestnut-brown, lavishly unbound and snaking down over one bare shoulder. Her gown was a sumptuous red, not a celestial blue, and cut low across her generous bosom to reveal an expansive amount of soft, creamy skin. She held red roses in her hands, rubies gleamed at her throat and on her fingers, and her hands rested on her abdomen—its slight swell discreet, but undeniable.
Carla drew her eyes away from the telltale curve of the young woman’s figure, moved them back up to scrutinise her face. Beautiful, in a sensuous way, framed by her rich tresses, her cheeks flushed, lips full and with a sensual cast to them. Carla’s eyes went to the woman’s eyes and held them for a long moment—held the unseeing gaze that looked out over the centuries between the two of them.
‘Who are they?’
Her own voice cut short her perusal, and she drew her gaze away to look back at il Conte, standing at her side.
‘Can you not tell?’ he asked. He glanced back to the portrait of his ancestor, across the room, then back to Carla. ‘His wife—and his mistress. He had them painted at the same time, by the same hand. Caradino stayed at my castello and painted them both—one after the other.’
Carla’s face stilled. ‘How nice for them,’ she said drily. ‘It seems your ancestor kept his mistress...handy.’
But the Count did not rise to her sardonic comment. ‘It was quite normal in those times. Nothing exceptional. Both women knew and understood the situation.’
Carla’s lips pressed together. ‘Knowing and understanding are not the same thing as tolerating and agreeing,’ she riposted.
The dark, hooded eyes were veiled. ‘Women had no power in those times. And after all,’ he went on, ‘my ancestor’s mistress was very lavishly looked after.’
‘She’s carrying his child,’ Carla retorted.
She could feel an emotion rising up in her—one she did not want to feel, but it was coming all the same.
‘An excellent way to secure the Count’s protection,’ agreed Cesare. ‘I believe they had several children, over the years. He was very faithful to her, you know. Surprisingly so for the times.’
Automatically Carla’s eyes went not to the mistress of the former Count but to his wife. No sign of fertility there—and in the eyes only that haunting sadness.
Thoughts ran through her head, unstoppable.
How did she feel? How did she cope? Knowing her husband was having children, openly, with his mistress? Yet presumably she, too, must have had an heir, at least, or the line would have died out—which it obviously hasn’t?
‘But enough of my ancestors—have you seen the other paintings displayed here yet?’
The voice of the man at her side drew her back to the present. She turned towards him. Saw him with fresh eyes, it seemed. Her gaze went past him to the portrait of Count Alessandro, who had been so unconcerned as to have his wife and mistress painted simultaneously.
A shaft of female indignation went through her, as she brought her gaze back to the current Count.
‘Not all of them yet, no,’ she said. She made her voice purposeful. ‘And I really must. I have fifteen hundred words to write up about the exhibition.’
She named the arts magazine she wrote for, as if she was aware that by stressing her professional interest she would diminish her personal one.
‘And I must do my duty by all the paintings here!’
She spoke lightly but deliberately. She smiled. An equally deliberate smile. One that completely ignored the question he had asked her only a few minutes ago, making no reference to it.
‘Thank you so much, Signor il Conte, for showing me these fascinating portraits, and for giving me such insight into them. It’s always enhancing to learn the origins and the circumstances of a portrait’s creation—it brings it so to life! And especially since the artist Caradino is so seldom exhibited.’
She smiled again—the same social smile—signalling closure. For closure, surely, was essential. Anything else would be...
Her mind veered away, not wanting to think of the path she had not taken. The yielding she had not made.
Instead she gave the slightest nod of her head in parting and walked away. Her high heels clicked on the parquet flooring and as she walked she was intensely conscious of his following gaze, of how her shapely figure was outlined by the vivid tailored dress she was wearing. Intensely conscious of the urge overwhelming her to get away. Just...away.
As she walked, she sipped at her champagne again. She felt the need of it. Her colour was heightened, she knew—knew it from the hectic beating of her heart.
He desires me—the Conte di Mantegna has looked at me and found me pleasing to him...
Into her head sprang an image, immediate and vivid, conjured out of her ready imagination. That woman in the portrait—the brunette—working, perhaps, in her father’s shop, or sweeping floors, or even toiling out in the fields in sixteenth-century Italy... Il Conte passing by, seeing her, liking her beauty, taking a fancy to her. Finding her pleasing to him. Lifting her with one beckoning of his lordly, aristocratic hand out of her hard, poverty-stricken life to dress her in a silk gown and place roses in her hands and jewels around her throat, and take her to his bed...
She felt the pull of it—the allure. Had to force herself to remember all that would have gone with it. The price that woman would have paid.
To know that her place in his life was only ever to be his inamorata—never to aspire to be his wife.
And as for the Count—oh, he would have had everything he wanted. His pale, subservient wife—his compliant, obliging mistress.
Having it all.
She dragged her mind away, making herself inspect the other paintings, consult her catalogue, interview the exhibition’s curator, and then get a few words from the gallery’s director, who greeted her warmly, both in her professional capacity and as the stepdaughter of the late chairman of a global hotel chain—a generous patron of the arts himself.
It had been her stepfather who’d first noticed her interest in art as a teenager, and it was thanks to him that she’d studied history of art at prestigious universities both in England and Italy. He’d encouraged her in her journalistic career. It was a career she found immensely satisfying, and she knew herself to be extremely fortunate in it.
Now, with all her notes taken, she was ready to leave. She’d spend the evening going through them, drawing up the article she would write.
As she made her farewells she found herself glancing around. She knew who it was she was trying to glimpse. And knew why she should not be. Cesare di Mondave was far too disturbing to her peace of mind to allow herself to have anything more to do with him.
He was not to be seen anyway, and she told herself she was glad. Relieved. Because to further her acquaintance with Cesare di Mondave would not be good sense at all.
Involuntarily her eyes went to the portrait of his ancestor—Count Alessandro, regarding the world in all his High Renaissance splendour, his dark gaze compelling, arrogant. In her mind’s eye she saw his wife and his mistress. Two women, rivals for ever, their destinies yoked to the man who had commissioned their portraits.
Had they both loved him? Or neither?
The question hovered in her head, its answer long consumed by the centuries that had passed. All she could know, with a kind of ironic certainty, was that it would not be wise for any woman to have anything to do with the man in whose veins ran the blood of Luciezo’s Count Alessandro.
It didn’t matter that his descendant could have an impact on her that she had never encountered before. That his dark lidded eyes could raise her pulse in an instant...that her eyes had wanted only to cling helplessly, hopelessly, to his sculpted, powerful features, that her hand had yearned to reach towards him, graze the tanned skin of his jaw, brush the sensual swell of his mouth... It didn’t matter at all.
Because letting herself get embroiled with the arrogant, oh-so-aristocratic Count of Mantegna would be folly indeed!
She was not, and never would be, like the lush beauty in the Caradino portrait, haplessly dependent upon the Count’s continuing desire for her, fearing its demise. Her lips thinned slightly. Nor could she ever be like the woman in the other portrait—oh, she might move in Roman high society, but the Viscaris were hoteliers: rich, but with no trace of aristocratic blood. Carla knew without flinching that when il Conte chose a wife, it would be a woman from his own background, with an ancestry to match his.
I would be nothing more than an...an interlude for him.
She walked out onto the pavement and into the warm evening air of Rome in late summer. A low, lean, open-topped car was hovering at the kerb, blatantly ignoring the road signs forbidding such parking. Its powerful engine was throbbing with a throaty husk, its scarlet paintwork was gleaming, and the rearing stallion on the long bonnet caught the light, glinting gold like the crested signet ring on the hand curved around the wheel.
The man at the wheel turned his head. Let his dark, lidded gaze rest on Carla.
‘What kept you?’ asked Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
CHAPTER TWO (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CESARE’S HAND RESTED on the leather curve of the steering wheel. Impatience was humming in him. He appreciated that she had a job to do—this woman his eyes had lit upon, drawn without conscious intent to her dramatic beauty, her voluptuous figure, the extraordinarily dark blue eyes that had a hint of violet in them—but for all that he did not care to be kept waiting.
He’d known who she was before he’d made the decision to approach her—he’d seen her about previously in society, even though the aristocratic circles he moved in overlapped only loosely with those of the Viscaris. The Viscaris were, to him, ‘new money’—it was a mere handful of generations since the global hotel group that bore the family name had been founded at the end of the nineteenth century. They were newcomers compared to the immense antiquity of his family—and Cesare felt the weight of that antiquity upon him each and every day.
It was a weight that both upheld him and imposed upon him responsibilities to his ancestry that others could not understand. A duty that reached far back into the Middle Ages, stretching across all his estates from the high Apennine lands leased as a national park, to forests and vineyards, agricultural land and olive groves, and across all his many properties. Every palazzo was a historic monument, including the magnificent baroque Palazzo Mantegna here in Rome, now on loan to the nation and housing a museum of antiquities. And all those estates and properties came with tenants and employees whose livelihood he guaranteed—just as his ancestors had.
Yet at the heart of it all was the ancient Castello Mantegna, the heart of his patrimony. Within its mighty walls, built to withstand medieval warfare, he had spent his childhood, roaming the forests and pasturelands that one day would be his.
Was that something anyone not born to such a heritage could truly understand? The weight of inheritance upon him?
Or did they merely see il Conte—a wealthy, titled man who moved in the uppermost echelons of society, with a cachet that many would only envy? And which women would eagerly seek to bask in...
His dark eyes glinted. There had been no such eagerness in Carla Charteris, though he’d made clear his interest in her. He was glad of it—but not deterred by it. For his long experience of woman had told him immediately that the first flare of her violet-hued eyes as he’d addressed her had showed that she was responsive to him. That was all he’d needed to know—their barbed exchange thereafter had merely confirmed it. All that was required now was for her to acknowledge it.
He leant across to open the passenger side door. ‘Prego,’ he invited in a pleasant voice.
He’d surprised her—he could tell. Had she really believed that walking away from him would discourage him?
He went on in a dry voice, ‘It would gratify me if you complied without delay, for the traffic warden over there—’ he nodded carelessly along the street to where such an individual had recently turned the corner ‘—would so very much enjoy booking me.’ He gave a brief sigh. ‘I find that officials take particular pleasure in exercising their petty authority when their target is driving a car like this one.’
He smiled. He could see the conflict in her eyes—in those amazingly dark violet-blue eyes of hers—but above all he could see that same flare of awareness, of desire, which had been in them when he’d first approached her. That told him all he needed to know.
His expression changed again. ‘Carpe diem,’ he said softly. His eyes held hers. Tellingly, unambiguously. ‘Let us seize all that we may have of this fleeting life,’ he murmured, ‘before we are dust ourselves.’
His casual reference to her own comment in front of the Luciezo was accompanied by an exaggerated gesture of his hand as he again indicated the seat beside him.
His lashes dipped over his eyes. ‘What is so difficult,’ he murmured, ‘about accepting an invitation to dinner?’ His gaze lifted to hers again, and in his eyes was everything that was not in his words.
Carla, her expression immediately urgently schooled, stopped in her tracks on the pavement, felt again that incredible frisson go through her whole body—that shimmer of glittering awareness of the physical impact he made on her.
All around her the city of Rome buzzed with its familiar vitality. The warmth of the early evening enveloped her, and she could hear the noise of the traffic, the buzz of endless Vespas scooting past. The pavement was hot beneath the thin soles of her high heels. While in front of her, in that outrageously expensive car—as exclusive and prestigious as its driver so undoubtedly considered himself to be—the oh-so-aristocratic Conte invited her to join him.
As she had before, in the gallery, she felt the overwhelming impact of the man. Felt even more powerfully the impulse within her to give him the answer that he was waiting for.
Thoughts—fragmented, incoherent—raced through her.
What is happening to me? Why now—why this man of all men? This arrogant, lordly man who is scooping me up as if I were no more than that woman in the portrait—scooping me up to serve his pleasure...
Yet it would be for her pleasure too—she knew that with every shimmer in her body as she stood, poised on the pavement, feeling the weight of his lidded gaze upon her. That was the devil of it—that was the allure. That was the reason, Carla knew with a kind of sinking in her heart, that was keeping her here, hovering, just as he was keeping that monstrous, powerful car of his hovering, its power leashed, but ready to be let forth.
His words, mocking her, echoed in her head. ‘What is so difficult about accepting an invitation to dinner?’
His voice—deep, amused—cut across her tormented cogitations. ‘You really will need to decide swiftly—the warden is nearly upon us.’
The uniformed official was, indeed, closing fast. But Carla’s eyes only sparked deep blue. ‘And you couldn’t possibly afford the fine, could you?’ she retorted.
‘Alas, it is a question of my pride,’ Cesare murmured, the glint in his eye accentuated. ‘It would never do for il Conte to put himself in the power of a petty bureaucrat...’
Was he mocking himself? Carla had the suspicion he was not...
For a moment longer every objection she had made when he’d first invited her to dinner flared like phosphorus in her head. Every reason why she should give exactly the same kind of answer as she had then—evasive, avoiding the invitation—then walk briskly away, back to the comfortable, predictable evening she’d planned for herself in her own apartment. Making herself dinner, going through her notes in preparation for writing her article. An evening that had nothing, nothing to do with the man now waiting for her answer...
And yet—
Her own thought replayed itself in her head. How dangerous might it be to light a passion that could not be quenched?
But other thoughts pushed their way into her head. Thoughts she did not want to silence. Could not silence... Desire and passion will burn themselves out! They cannot last for ever.
Neither desire nor passion was love.
Yet both were powerful—alluring—speaking to her of what might be between them.
Passion and desire.
The same tremor went through her, the same flush in her skin as when he had first made his desire for her plain, calling from her an answering awareness. No other man had ever drawn from her such an overpowering response.
For a second longer she hesitated, hung between two opposing instincts.
To resist that response—or to yield to it.
The dark, lidded eyes rested on her—holding hers.
With a sudden impulse, impelling her way below the level of conscious decision, she felt her muscles move as if of their own volition. She got into the car, slamming the door shut.
Instantly, as if preventing her from rescinding her decision as much as avoiding the attentions of the parking official, Cesare opened the throttle, pulled the car away from the kerb—and Carla reached for her seat belt, consciousness rushing back upon her in all its impact.
Oh, dear God, what the hell had she just done?
I got into his damn car just to save his damn aristocratic pride! So he wouldn’t have to endure the ignominy of getting a parking ticket! How insane is that?
Completely insane. As insane as letting Cesare di Mondave drive off with her like this—the lordly signor scooping up the peasant girl.
Her chin lifted. Well, she was no peasant girl! She was no poor, hapless female like the one in the portrait, trapped within the punishing limitations of her time in history. No, if she went along with what this impossible, arrogant man had in mind for her—if, she emphasised mentally to herself—then it would be what she wanted too! Her free and deliberate choice to enjoy the enticing interlude he clearly had planned.
But would she make that choice? That was the only question that mattered now. Whether to do what every ounce of her good sense was telling her she should not do—and what every heat-flushed cell in her body was urging her to do. To resist it—or yield to it. She turned her head towards him, drawn by that same impetuous urge to let her eyes feast on him. He was focussing only on the appalling evening traffic in Rome, which, she allowed, did need total focus. She let him concentrate, let herself enjoy the rush that came simply from looking at his profile.
Sweet heaven, but it was impossible not to gaze at him! A modern version of that Luciezo portrait, updated for the twenty-first century. Indelibly graced with features that made her eyes cling to him, from the strong blade of his nose to the chiselled line of his jaw, the sensual curve of his mouth. She felt her hands clench over her bag. Weakness drenched her body. What she was doing was insane—and yet she was doing it.
She felt her pulse leap, and a heady sense of excitement filled her. A searing knowledge of her own commitment. Far too late now to change her mind.
And she did not want to—that was the crux of it. Oh, the lordly Count might have scooped her up just as arrogantly as his ancestor had scooped up the peasant girl who would become his mistress, but it had been her choice to let herself be so scooped.
Rebelliousness soared within her—a sense of recklessness and adventure.
I don’t care if this is folly! All I know is that from the moment he looked at me I wanted him more than I have ever wanted any man—and I will not deny that desire. I will fulfil it...
Fulfil it with all the ardour in her body, every tremor in her limbs. It was folly—reckless folly—but she would ignite that passion and burn it to the core.
* * *
‘Take the next left here,’ Carla said, indicating the narrow road in the Centro Storico that led down to her apartment, part of an eighteenth-century house. It was a quiet haven for her to write in, and to be well away not just from the buzz of the city but also from the tensions running across the Viscari clan.
Her mother, she knew, would have preferred her to stay on in Guido Viscari’s opulent villa, but thanks to her stepfather’s generosity in his will Carla had been able to buy her own small but beautiful apartment, taking intense pleasure in decorating it and furnishing it in an elegant but comfortable and very personal style.
However, her thoughts now were neither on the ongoing tensions in the Viscari clan nor on her apartment. There was only one dominating, all-encompassing consciousness in her head...
Cesare.
Cesare—with whom she had just dined, with whom she had conducted, she knew, a conversation that had taken place at two levels. One had seen him being the perfect escort, the perfect dinner companion, conversing with her about her job, about the arts, about the Italian landscape—of which he owned a significant proportion—and about any other such topics that two people making each other’s acquaintance might choose to converse about.
He’d asked her a little about herself—neither too little to be indifferent, nor too much to be intrusive. He’d known who she was, but she was not surprised—she’d known who he was, though they’d never chanced to meet before.
But there’d been another conversation taking place as they’d sat there over a lingering dinner in the small, ferociously exclusive restaurant Cesare had taken her to—where he had immediately been given the best table in the house, and where they had been waited on attentively, discreetly, unobtrusively but with absolute expertise.
He had nodded at one or two other patrons, and her presence had caused the lift of an eyebrow from one group of women, and a penetrating glance, but no more than that. She had been acquainted with no one there, and was glad of it. Glad there had been no one she knew to witness the second level of the conversation taking place between herself and Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
The conversation that had taken place powerfully, silently and seductively—oh-so-seductively—between him and her, with every exchange of glances, every half-smile, every sensual curve of his mouth, every lift of his hand with those long, aristocratic fingers.
The light had reflected off the gold of his signet ring, impressed with his family crest—the same lion couchant that his ancestor had displayed on his own ring in the Luciezo portrait—and Carla had found herself wondering if it could be the very same ring.
Eventually Cesare’s hand had crushed the white damask napkin and dropped it on the table to signal the end of their meal, and they’d got to their feet and made their way towards the exit.
Nothing so crude as a bill had been offered by the maître d’—nothing more than a respectful inclination of the head at their departure, a gracious murmur of appreciation from the Count, a smile of thanks from herself as they left, stepping out onto the pavement, where his car had been waiting for them.
Now, as they drew up at the kerb by her apartment, he cut the engine and turned and looked at her, an enigmatic expression visible in the dim street light.
Her consciousness of his raw physical presence seared in her again. She smiled at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for a lovely evening.’ Her voice was bright, and oh-so-civil.
She realised she’d spoken in English. They’d gone in and out of Italian and English all evening, for the Count’s English was as fluent as her Italian had become in the ten years she’d lived in Rome, though surely no Englishman could make his native language as seductive, as sensual as an Italian male could make it sound?
But English was the right language for this moment. Crisp, bright and utterly unseductive. The polite, anodyne description of something that had been so much more. She reached out her hand for the door release, her body still turned towards him.
A smile curved his mouth, long lashes dropping over his lidded eyes. ‘Indeed,’ he agreed.
She could hear the amusement in his voice, feel it catch at her, making her breathless, her pulse quicken.
‘And after such a “lovely evening”...’ his amusement was deeper now, his accented English doing even more to make her breathless ‘...there is only one way to end it, no?’
For an instant he held her gaze in the dim light, daring her to accept, to concede, to do what he wanted her to do—what he’d wanted of her from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘Like this,’ he said.
His hand stretched out, long fingers tilting up her face to his as his mouth lowered to hers. Slowly, sensuously, savouring. With skill, with expertise, with a lifetime of experience in how to let his lips glide over hers, his mouth to open hers to his, to taste the sweetness within. As soft, as sensual as silk velvet.
She drowned in it. A thousand nerve endings fired as he made free with her mouth, his long fingers still holding her. And when he had done he released her, drew back his hand, let it curve around the driving wheel.
He smiled. ‘Buone notte,’ he said softly.
For a moment—just a moment—she was motionless, as if all the shimmering pleasure he’d aroused in her with only a single kiss had made it impossible for her to move. She could do nothing except meet that amused, lidded gaze resting on her like a tangible pressure.
Then, with a little jolt, she pushed open the car door. Swallowed. In a daze she got out, fumbled for her keys, found them and shakily inserted them into the lock of the outer door of her apartment building. Then she made herself turn to look back at him. Bade him goodnight in a voice that was no longer bright and crisp.
He said nothing, merely inclining his head as she turned away, let herself into the cobbled inner courtyard, shut the heavy outer door behind her.
She heard the throaty growl of his car as he moved off. On shaky legs she went up to her apartment, and only when inside its sanctuary did she feel able to breathe again.
* * *
Cesare strolled to the window of his Rome apartment and gazed unseeing out over the familiar roofline. The large plate glass window of the modern designed space was glaringly different from the richly historical interiors of his other properties, and it gave a wide view over the city even at this midnight hour. He did not step out onto the large adjoining balcony; instead he merely continued to stand, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, legs slightly astride.
Was he being wise? That was the question that was imposing itself upon him. Was it wise to pursue what had been, after all, only the impulse of a moment—following through on a momentary glimpse of the woman who had caught his eye? Following through sufficiently to decide that it was worth spending an evening of his life in her company. Worth considering, as he was now considering, whether to pursue a liaison with her.
There were many reasons to do so. Uppermost, of course, was the intensity of his physical response to her. Unconsciously he shifted position restlessly, his body aware that a single kiss had only whetted the appetite that he could feel coursing through his blood. It was an intensity that had, he acknowledged, taken him by surprise. But was that reason enough to do what he knew his body wanted him to do?
Before he could answer, he knew from long experience that there was another question he must answer first.
Will she understand the terms of our liaison?
The terms that governed his life just as they’d governed all who had borne his ancient name and title. Had been hammered into him by his own dictatorial father who’d constantly impressed upon him his heritage, and yet who’d regarded him as favouring too much the mother whose outward serenity Cesare was sure had concealed an unvoiced regret.
Her husband had objected to her having any interests outside her responsibilities as his contessa, and she had confined her life to being the perfect chatelaine, the mother of his heir. His father had taken his son’s sympathy for his mother as a reluctance to respect the demands of his heritage, and after his mother’s premature death from heart disease, when Cesare was only nineteen, the rift between them had widened without her presence as peacemaker.
But when his father had died, some eight years later, he’d been determined not to neglect any aspect of his inheritance, dedicating himself to its preservation. If his father could see him now, half a dozen years on, perhaps his harsh judgement would be set aside.
The words that he had uttered only that evening, in front of the Luciezo painting of his sixteenth-century forebear, floated in his head.
‘Pride in his family, his lineage, his honour—all that he owes his house...’
With the echo of those words his thoughts came full circle back to the woman to whom he had spoken them. Did she understand why he had said what he had about his ancestor—about himself? It was essential that she did. Essential that she understood that, for him, one thing could never change.
In his mind’s eye two images formed—the other portraits in the triptych, the Count’s wife and his mistress. Separate for ever, coming from different worlds that could never meet.
Four centuries and more might distance him from Count Alessandro and the women who made up the triptych, but for himself, too, his countess would need to share his own background. Not because of any heraldic quarterings she possessed, but because only a woman from the same heritage as himself could truly understand the responsibilities of such a heritage. That was what his father had instilled into him. He had even identified for him the very woman who would make him the perfect next Contessa...
His expression changed and he stared out over the roofs of this most ancient city into whose roots his own ancestry reached. The lineage of a patrician of Ancient Rome was still traceable in his bloodline.
The woman who would be his Countess was well known to him—and she was not, nor ever could be, a woman such as the one he had embraced a brief hour ago, fuelling in him a desire for satiation that he must not yield to.
Not unless—until—he could be sure she accepted what could be between them. And what could not.
As, too, must he. That, also, was essential...
CHAPTER THREE (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CARLA STARED AT her screen. She still had six hundred more words to write for her article, and she was making heavy weather of it. She knew exactly why.
Cesare di Mondave.
He was in her headspace—had been totally dominating it, consuming every last morsel of it, since she’d made it into her apartment the night before, senses firing, aflame.
All through her sleepless night she’d replayed every moment of the evening over and over again—right up to that final devastating moment.
Cesare kissing her...
No! She must not let herself remember it again! Must not replay it sensuously, seductively, in her head. Must instead force herself to finish her article, send it into the impatiently waiting sub-editor at her office.
But even when she had she was unbearably restless, her heart beating agitatedly.
Will he phone me? Ask me out again? Or—a little chill went through her—has he decided he does not want me after all?
Face set, she made herself some coffee. She should not be like this—waiting for a man to phone her! She should be above such vulnerability. She was a strong-minded, independent woman of twenty-seven, with a good career, as many dates as she cared to go on should she want to, and there was no reason—no good reason!—for her to be straining to hear the phone ring. To hear the dark, aristocratic tones of Cesare di Mondave’s deep voice.
And yet that was just what she was doing.
The expression in her eyes changed. As she sipped her coffee, leaning moodily against the marble work surface in her immaculate kitchen, more thoughts entered her head. If last night’s dinner with Cesare was all there was to be between them she should be relieved. A man like that—so overwhelming to her senses—it was not wise to become involved with. She’d known that from the moment he’d first spoken to her, declared his interest.
But where was wisdom, caution, when she needed them? She felt her pulse quicken again as the memory of that kiss replayed itself yet again.
With a groan, she pulled her memory away. She shouldn’t be waiting for Cesare di Mondave to phone her! Not just because she should never be waiting around for a man to phone her! But because she should, she knew, phone her mother—reply to her latest complaint about her sister-in-law’s disapproving attitude towards her.
She gave a sigh. Her mother—never popular with Guido’s younger brother Enrico and his wife, Lucia—had become markedly less popular after her husband’s death, when it had become known that the childless Guido, rather than leaving his half of the Viscari Hotels Group shares to his nephew, Vito, had instead left them to his widow, Marlene. They had been outraged by the decision, and when Enrico had suddenly died, barely a year later, his premature death had been blamed on the stress of worrying about Marlene’s ownership of the shares. Since then, Vito had sought repeatedly to buy them from Marlene, but Carla’s mother had continually refused to sell.
To Carla, it was straightforward. Her mother should sell her shareholding to Vito—after all, it was Vito who was the true heir to the Viscari dynasty, and he should control the inheritance completely. But Carla knew why her mother was refusing to do so—her ownership of those critical shares gave her mother status and influence within the Viscari family, resented though it was by her sister-in-law.
Carla’s mouth tightened in familiar annoyance. It also continued to feed her mother’s other obsession. One that she had voiced when Carla was a teenager and had repeated intermittently ever since—despite Carla’s strong objection. An objection she still gave—would always give.
‘Mum—forget it! Just stop going on about it! It’s never going to happen! I get on well enough with Vito, but please, please, just accept there is absolutely no way whatsoever that I would ever want to do what you keep on about!’
No way whatsoever that she would ever consider marrying her step-cousin...
Vito Viscari—incredibly handsome with his Latin film star looks—might well be one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors, but to Carla he was simply her step-cousin, and of no romantic interest to her in the slightest. Nor was she to him. Vito was well known for liking leggy blondes—he ran a string of them, and always had one in tow, it seemed to her—and he was welcome to them. He held no appeal for her at all.
A shiver went through her. She remembered the man who did...who’d made every cell in her body searingly aware of her physicality. Who’d cast his eye upon her and then scooped her up into his sleek, powerful car effortlessly.
She felt the heat flush in her body, her pulse quicken. Heard her phone ring on her desk.
She dived on it, breathless. ‘Pronto?’
It was Cesare.
* * *
‘But this is charming! Absolutely lovely!’
Carla’s gaze took in the small but beautifully proportioned miniature Palladian-style villa, sheltered by poplars and slender cypresses, in front of which Cesare was now drawing up. It was set in its own grounds in the lush countryside of Lazio, less than an hour’s drive beyond Rome, and its formal eighteenth-century gardens ideally suited the house.
She looked around her in delight as she stepped gracefully out of the low-slung car, conscious of the quietness all around her, the birdsong, the mild warmth of the late-afternoon sun slanting across the gardens—and conscious, above all, of the man coming to stand beside her.
‘My home out of town...what is the term in English? Ah, yes...my bolthole.’ He smiled.
He ushered her inside, and Carla stepped into a marble-floored, rococo-style hallway, its decor in white, pale blue and gold.
Into her head came a description for the house that was not the one Cesare had just given.
Love nest...
A half-caustic, half-amused smile tugged at her mouth. Well, why not a love nest? It was a conveniently short distance from Rome, and so very charming. An ideal place for romantic dalliance.
Because that was what she was embarking on. She knew it—accepted it. Had accepted it the moment she’d heard Cesare’s deep tones on the phone earlier that afternoon, informing her that he would be with her shortly. Taking for granted what her answer would be.
Was she being reckless, to come here with him like this? Of course she was! She knew it, but didn’t care. All her life she’d been careful—never one to rush into passionate affairs, never making herself the centre of any gossip. Yet now, a little less than twenty-four hours since she had stood in front of that Luciezo portrait of Count Alessandro, she was going to do just that.
And she would revel in it! For once in her life she would follow the hectic beating of her heart, the hot pulse of her blood, and respond to a man who, like no other she had ever met, could call such a response from her merely by a flickering glance from his dark, hooded eyes. However brief their liaison was to prove—and she knew perfectly well that it could never lead to anything—she would enjoy it to the full until the passion between them burnt itself out, until her desire was quenched.
A man in late middle age was emerging, greeting the Count with respectful familiarity.
‘Ah, Lorenzo,’ Cesare answered, in a reciprocal tone that told Carla he showed full appreciation of his staff. ‘Will you show Signorina Charteris where she may refresh herself?’
Carla was escorted upstairs, shown into a pretty, feminine bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom that had once, she presumed, been a dressing room. As she looked at herself in the glass, checking the careful perfection of her hair and make-up, retouching the rich colour of her lips, for just a second she felt a qualm go through her.
Should I really go ahead with this? Plunge headlong into an affair with a man like this? An affair that can come to nothing?
But that, surely, was why she was doing it! Because it could come to nothing! There could be no future with a man for whom marriage to her could never be an option, and therefore love could never be a possibility—never a danger. She would not follow in her mother’s footsteps, imagining love could come from an affair.
And that is all it will be—an affair. Nothing more than indulging in the overpowering effect he has on me, such as I have never, never known before.
She could see the pulse beating at her throat, the heightened colour in her cheeks, the quickening shallowness of her breathing. All telling her one thing and one thing only. That it was far too late for any qualms now.
With a quick spritz of scent from her handbag, she headed back downstairs. A pair of double doors stood open now, leading through to a beautifully appointed drawing room with French windows. Beyond, she could see Cesare.
Waiting for her.
At her approach, he smiled, his eyes washing over her with satisfaction.
Yes—he had been right to make the decision he had. This would go well, this affair with this enticing, alluring woman. He had no doubts about it. Everything about her confirmed it. Oh, not just her sensual allure and her responsiveness to him—powerful as it was—but any lingering reservations he might have had about her suitability for such a liaison were evaporating with every moment.
All his conversations with her so far had been reassuring on that score. Though she was Guido Viscari’s stepdaughter, she made no special claims on the relationship, which indicated that she would make no claims on the relationship that he and she would share.
Her cool, English air of reserve met with his approval—like him, she would seek to avoid gossip and speculation and would draw no undue attention to her role in his life while their affair lasted—or afterwards. She had a career of her own to occupy her—one that was compatible with some of his own interests—and intelligent conversation with her was showing him that she was a woman whose company he could enjoy both out of bed and in.
She will enjoy what we have together and will have no impossible expectations. And when the affair has run its course we shall part gracefully and in a civilised manner. There will be no trouble in parting from her.
Parting with her...
But all that was for later—much later. For now, the entirely enticing prospect of their first night together beckoned.
His smile deepened. ‘Come,’ he said, as she walked towards him.
A little way along the terrace an ironwork table was set with two chairs, and there was a stand on which an opened bottle of champagne nestled in its bed of ice. But Carla’s eyes were not for that—nor for Cesare. They were on the vista beyond the terrace.
Once more a pleased exclamation was on her lips, a smile of delight lighting her features.
‘Oh, how absolutely perfect!’
Beyond the terrace, set at the rear of the villa, a large walled garden enclosed not just a pretty pair of parterres, one either side, but in the central space a swimming pool—designed, she could see at once, as if it were a Roman bath, lined with mosaic tiles and glittering in the sun. Ornamental bay trees marched either side of the paving around the pool, and there was a sunlit bench at the far end, espaliered fruit trees adorning the mossed walls.
Cesare came to stand beside her as she gazed, enraptured.
‘We shall try out the pool later,’ he said. ‘But for now...’
He turned to pour each of them a glass of softly foaming champagne. As she took hers Carla felt the faint brush of his fingers, and the glass trembled in her hand. She gazed up at him, feeling suddenly breathless.
His dark gaze poured down into hers as he lifted his glass. ‘To our time together,’ he murmured.
She lifted her glass, touching it to his. Then drank deeply from it.
As she would drink deeply from her time with this most compelling of men...
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
THE FIRE WAS burning low in the grate. The long, heavy silk drapes were drawn across the tall windows, cocooning them in the drawing room. Cesare’s long legs extended with careless proprietorship towards the hearth from where he sat on the elegant sofa.
The evening had been long and leisurely. Champagne on the terrace, watching the sunset, followed by an exquisitely prepared dinner, discreetly served by Lorenzo in the rococo-style dining room.
Conversation had been easy—wide-ranging and eclectic—and Carla had found it both mentally stimulating and enjoyable, as it had been in the restaurant the night before. As it continued to be now, as she sat, legs slanting towards him, on a silk-covered fauteuil, sipping at a liqueur. Coffee was set on the ormolu table at her side...candles glowed on the mantel above the fire. An intimate, low-lit ambience enclosed them.
Their conversation wove on, both in English and Italian, melding Carla’s expertise on High Renaissance art with Cesare’s greater knowledge of the politics and economics of the time. And then at some point—she could not quite tell when—the conversation seemed to drain away, and she could not think of one more question to ask him.
Her liqueur was consumed, she realised, and she reached to place the empty glass on the low table at her side. As she released it Cesare stretched out his own hand. Let his fingers slide around her wrist.
It was the first physical contact between them that evening, and it electrified her.
Her eyes went to his, widening at the ripple of sensation that his long, cool fingers circling her wrist engendered. His eyes were on her, heavy and lidded.
Wordlessly, he drew her to her feet. Wordlessly, she let him. Still holding her wrist loosely, he lifted his other hand to her face. Those long, graceful fingers traced the outline of her cheek, her jaw. Faintness drummed in her veins and she felt her body sway, as if no longer able to keep itself upright.
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Julia James
Pregnant with the Italian’s childAristocratically arrogant Cesare di Mondave dazzled Carla Charteris when he swept into her life. It wasn’t long before the brooding Italian stole her innocence, and her heart. Realising she’d never be more than a mistress was devastating, but Carla couldn’t deny herself one last night in Cesare’s arms…When Cesare discovers the shocking consequences, a thrill of possession runs through him. To claim his heir, it’s imperative Carla accepts his proposal—but she defiantly refuses! Now Cesare must use every sinfully seductive skill he has to convince Carla he wants her in the bedroom and at the altar!
Pregnant with the Italian’s child
Aristocratically arrogant Cesare di Mondave dazzled Carla Charteris when he swept into her life. It wasn’t long before the brooding Italian stole her innocence, and her heart. Realizing she’d never be more than a mistress was devastating, but Carla couldn’t deny herself one last night in Cesare’s arms...
When Cesare discovers the shocking consequences, a thrill of possession runs through him. To claim his heir, it’s imperative Carla accepts his proposal—but she defiantly refuses! Now Cesare must use every sinfully seductive skill he has to convince Carla he wants her in the bedroom and at the altar!
‘After such a “lovely evening…”’ Cesare’s amusement was deeper now, his accented English doing even more to make her breathless ‘…there is only one way to end it, no?’
For an instant he held Carla’s gaze in the dim light, daring her to accept, to concede, to do what he wanted her to do—what he’d wanted from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘Like this,’ he said.
He stretched his hand out, long fingers tilting up her face to his as his mouth lowered to hers. Slowly, sensuously, savouring. With skill, with expertise, with a lifetime of experience in how to let his lips glide over hers, to let his mouth open hers to his, to taste the sweetness within. As soft, as sensual as silk velvet.
She drowned in it. A thousand nerve-endings fired as he made free with her mouth, his long fingers still holding her. And when he had done he released her, drew back his hand, let it curve around the driving wheel.
He smiled. ‘Buone notte,’ he said softly.
From Mistress to Wife (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
From the bedroom—to the altar!
Eloise and Carla have never expected irresistible
passion—until they meet the powerful alpha
billionaires who will steal their innocence. But nights
of passion can have unexpected consequences…
When Eloise Dean falls at Vito Viscari’s feet,
they are both overcome with a desire
they can neither resist nor deny!
Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child
Carla Charteris knows falling for the enigmatic
Count of Mantegna will only bring heartache, but
what will happen when temptation proves irresistible?
Carrying His Scandalous Heir
Available now!
You won’t want to miss this passionately sexy duet
from Julia James!
Carrying His Scandalous Heir
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters… What more could lovers want?’
Books by Julia James
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
A Cinderella for the Greek
A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With
Captivated by the Greek
The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo
Securing the Greek’s Legacy
Painted the Other Woman
The Dark Side of Desire
From Dirt to Diamonds
Forbidden or For Bedding?
Penniless and Purchased
The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain
Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife
Mistress to Wife
Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child
Visit the Author Profile page at
millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For Kathryn—thank you for all your hard work!
Contents
Cover (#u86089edb-d9c3-52c4-ab6d-6d5aebfcc379)
Back Cover Text (#u08bad650-3d85-5f13-a7da-b4700d98fe71)
Introduction (#u7dbde3a6-79b2-5107-801f-c2b42d43b001)
From Mistress to Wife (#ue73a81dd-6851-5322-adfb-f83c0eee954e)
Title Page (#uc787b04d-840a-587a-8c1f-dec56d361b3f)
About the Author (#u46579130-6993-581e-a2f0-5f862c75e358)
Dedication (#u70364137-4da3-52b6-87ee-6139ed65937e)
CHAPTER ONE (#u4e261ceb-edc4-5860-b5a7-2646e667542c)
CHAPTER TWO (#uc1da6eaf-b757-539c-9c3e-32fa0cd2abd4)
CHAPTER THREE (#uca9eebaa-f809-51b2-9bde-a537b3429ab0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uc4dbb4a2-0d79-54a2-9ac4-17f202752761)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CARLA LOOKED AT her watch for the umpteenth time, glancing out across the crowded restaurant towards the entrance. Where was he? Anxiety bit at her, and an emotion more powerful than that—one she had never felt before. Had never thought to feel about the man she was waiting for.
She had thought only to feel what she had felt the first time she had set eyes on him. And she so desperately wanted to set eyes on him again now—walking in, striding with his effortlessly assured gait, tall and commanding, with that inbuilt assumption that he could go wherever he liked, that there would always be a place for him, that people would move aside to let him through, that no one would ever dream of turning him down or saying no to him—not about anything at all.
She had not turned him down. She had denied him nothing—granted him everything. Everything he’d ever wanted of her...
Memory, hot and fervid, scorched within her. From the very first moment those hooded night-dark eyes had rested on her, assessing her, desiring her, she had been lost. Utterly lost! She had yielded to him with the absolute conviction that he was the only man who could ever have such an impact on her. That moment was imprinted on her—on her memory, on her suddenly heating body...on her heart.
Memory scorched again now, burning through her veins...
* * *
The art gallery was crowded with Rome’s wealthy, fashionable set, and champagne and canapés were circling as Carla threaded her way among them, murmuring words of greeting here and there.
Reaching for a glass of gently foaming champagne, Carla knew that she herself could be counted as one of them. Oh, not by birth or breeding, but as the stepdaughter of multi-millionaire Guido Viscari she could move in circles such as these and hold her own and look the part.
Her cocktail dress in a deep blue raw silk had come from one of the currently favoured fashion houses, and it hugged a figure that easily passed muster amongst all the couture-clad females there. Her face, too, as she well knew, also passed muster. Her features veered towards the dramatic, with eyes that could flash with fire and full lips that gave a hint of inner sensuousness.
It was a face that drew male eyes, and she could sense them now—especially since she was there on her own. Unlike many of the other guests, she had a genuine reason for attending this private viewing other than simply being there to while away an hour or so before dining.
But she’d long got used to the constant perusal that Italian men habitually bestowed upon females. It had shocked and discomfited her ten years ago, when she’d been a raw English teenager new to Italian life, but since then she’d grown inured to it. Now she hardly ever noticed the looks that came her way.
Except—She stilled suddenly, the champagne glass halfway to her lips. Someone was looking at her. Someone whose gaze she could feel on her like a physical touch. Her eyes shifted their line of sight. Someone who was making her the centre of his observations.
And then, as her gaze moved, she saw him.
He’d just come into the gallery. The receptionist at the welcome desk was still smiling up at him, but he was ignoring her, instead glancing out across the room. Carla felt a little thrill go through her, as though somewhere deep inside her a seismic shock were taking place, and she noticed his gaze was focussing on her.
She felt her breath catch, seize in her throat. She felt a sudden flush of heat go through her. For the man making her the object of his scrutiny was the most devastating male she had ever seen.
He was tall, powerfully built with broad shoulders, his features strong...compelling. With a blade of a nose, night-dark hair, night-dark eyes, and a mobile mouth with a twist to it that did strange things to her.
Unknown things...
Things she had never experienced before.
The flush of heat in her body intensified. She felt pinned—as though movement were impossible, as though she had just been caught in a noose—captured.
Captivated.
For how long he went on subjecting her to that measuring, assessing scrutiny she could not tell—knew only that it seemed to be timeless.
She felt her lungs grow parched of oxygen... Then, suddenly, she was released. Someone had come up to him—another man, greeting him effusively—and his eyes relinquished hers, his face turning away from her.
She took a lungful of air, feeling shaken.
What had just happened?
The question seared within her...and burned. How could a single glance do that to her? Have such an effect on her?
Jerkily, she took a mouthful of champagne, needing its chill to cool the heat flushing through her. She stepped away, averting her body, making herself do what she had come there to do—study the portraits that were the subject of the exhibition.
Her eyes lifted to the one opposite her.
And as they did so another shock went through her. She was staring—yet again—into a pair of night-dark eyes. The same eyes...the very same.
Night-dark, hooded, sensuous...
That little thrill went through her again, that flush of heat moved in her body. The portrait’s eyes seemed to be subjecting her to the same kind of measuring scrutiny that the man by the door had focussed on her.
She tore her eyes away from the face that looked out at her from the portrait. Moved them down to the brass plate at the side of the frame. She hardly needed to read it—she knew perfectly well who the artist was.
Andrea Luciezo, who, along with Titian, was one of the great masters of the High Renaissance. His ability to capture the essence of those who had sat for him—the rich, the powerful, the men who had controlled the Italy of the sixteenth century, the women who had adorned them—had brought them vividly, vibrantly, to life. Luciezo—whose dark, glowing oils, lustrous and lambent, infused each subject with a richly potent glamour.
Her eyes went from the name of the artist to that of his subject. She gave a slow, accepting nod. Yes, of course.
Her gaze went back to the man in the portrait. He looked out at all those who gazed at him with dark, hooded, assessing eyes. She looked at the powerful features, the raven hair, worn long to the nape of the strong neck, his jaw bearded in the fashion of the time, yet leaving unhidden the sensuous line of his mouth, the unbearably rich velvet of his black doublet, the stark pleated white of his deep collar, the glint of precious gold at his broad, powerful chest.
He was a man whom the artist knew considered his own worth high, whose portrait told all who gazed upon it that here was no ordinary mortal, cut from the common herd. Arrogance was in that hooded gaze, in the angle of his head, the set of his shoulders. He was a man for whom the world would do his bidding—whatever he bade them do...
A voice spoke behind her. Deep, resonant. With a timbre to it that set off yet again that low, internal seismic tremor.
‘So,’ he said, as she stood immobile in front of the portrait, ‘what do you think of my ancestor, Count Alessandro?’
She turned, lifted her face, let her eyes meet the living version of the dark, hooded gaze that had transfixed her across the centuries—the living version that had transfixed her only moments ago and was now transfixing her again.
Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
The owner of this priceless Luciezo portrait of his ancestor, and of vast wealth besides. A man whose reputation went before him—a reputation for living in the same fashion as his illustrious forebears: as if the whole world belonged to him. To whom no one would say no—and to whom any woman upon whom he looked with favour would want to say only one thing.
Yes.
And as Carla met his gaze, felt its impact, its power and potency, she knew with a hollow sense of fatalism that it was the only word she would ever want to use.
‘Well?’
The deep voice came again and Carla realised that she needed to speak—had been commanded to answer him. For this was a man who was obeyed.
But she would not obey immediately. She would defy him in that, at least.
Deliberately she looked back at the Luciezo, making him wait. ‘A man of his time,’ she answered finally.
As you are not a man of your time.
The words formed in her head silently, powerfully. No, the current Conte di Mantegna was not a man of the twenty-first century! She could see it in every austere line of his body. He carried his own ancient ancestry in the unconscious lift of his chin at her reply, in his dark brows drawing together.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Again, the question demanded an immediate answer.
Carla looked back at the portrait, gathering her reasons for the reply she had made him.
‘His hand is on the pommel of his sword,’ she essayed. ‘He will slay any man who offers him insult. He subjects himself to the scrutiny of one who can never be his equal, however much genius Luciezo possesses, simply in order that his illustrious image can be displayed. His arrogance is in every line, every stroke of the brush.’
She turned back to the man who had commanded her to speak. Her answer had displeased him, as she had known it would.
There was a dark flash in his eyes, as he riposted, ‘You mistake arrogance for pride. Pride not in himself but in his family, his lineage, his honour. An honour he would defend with his life, with his sword—that he must defend because he has no choice but to do so. The artist’s scrutiny is to be endured because he must be ever mindful of what he owes his house—which is to protect it and preserve it. His portrait will be his persona in his own absence—it will persist for posterity when he himself is dust.’
The night-dark eyes went to those in the portrait. As if, Carla thought, the two men were communing with each other.
Her brow furrowed for an instant. How strange to think that a man of the present could look into the eyes of his own ancestor... That, in itself, made il Conte entirely different from all those who—like herself—were simply cut from the common herd of humanity...who had no knowledge of their ancestors from so many centuries ago.
Her expression changed, becoming drawn for a moment. She didn’t even know of her own more immediate forebears. Her father was little more than a name to her—a name reluctantly bestowed upon her when her mother’s pregnancy had required that he marry her, only for him to be killed in a car crash when she was a small child. His widow had been unwelcome to her in-laws, and Carla had been raised by her mother alone until her remarriage to Guido Viscari when Carla was a young teenager.
I know more about my stepfather’s family than I do about my own father’s!
To a man like il Conte that very ignorance about her paternal forebears must seem incomprehensible, for he would know the identity of every one of his entire collection of ancestors for centuries—each of them doubtless from families as aristocratic as his own.
With such a heritage she could not be surprised by his immediate retort. Yet she had one of her own.
‘Then it is entirely to the credit of Luciezo’s mastery that he can convey all that with his portrait,’ she replied, making her voice even. ‘Without his genius to record it your ancestor is merely dust.’
There was defiance in her voice—and an open assertion that, however many heraldic quarterings the illustrious Conte di Mantegna was possessed of, none could compare with the incomparable genius of a great master such as Luciezo.
That dark flash came again in the depths of the Conte’s eyes. ‘Will we not all be dust in years to come?’ he murmured. ‘But until that time comes...’
Something changed in his voice—something that suddenly made the heat flush in her blood once more, as it had done when she had realised his gaze was upon her.
‘Should we not carpe diem?’
‘Seize the day?’ Carla heard her voice answering. But inside her head she was registering that sudden change in the Count’s voice, the smoothing of that low timbre. She could see, now, the change in his eyes. He was looking at her. Approving of what he saw. Sending that flush of heat through her again.
‘Or, indeed, seize the evening,’ he murmured again, with the slightest husk in his voice.
And now there was no mistaking the message in his voice. None at all. Those dark, long-lashed hooded eyes were resting on her, and the message in them was as old as time.
She pleased him. Her appearance, at any rate, even if her words did not. But their exchange had merely been the mechanism by which he had approached her—had given him the opening he desired, by which he would obtain the end he sought.
The end he now stated openly.
‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
It was as simple as that. As straightforward. His dark, expressive eyes were resting on her, and Carla felt their impact—knew their message. Knew what reply she should make to this powerful, sensual man, who was displaying every obvious sign of his intent.
Her habit had always been to say no—the few relationships she’d had over the years had never been with Italians, nor conducted in Rome under the avidly speculative glare of the circles in which she moved. And never had she fancied herself to be deeply emotionally involved. It had been only friendship and compatibility that attracted her—no more than that. It was safer that way. Safer than yielding to any overriding sensual attraction that might ignite a passion that would be hard to quench.
After all, no one knew better than she what that might lead to. Hadn’t it happened to her own mother? Falling for a man who, when he’d been faced with unintended pregnancy, had not wished to commit to her?
Although his father had cracked the financial whip and forced a marriage, there had been no happy ending. Her father had chafed at marriage, chafed at fatherhood—and had been on the point of leaving her mother when he was killed. Was it any wonder, Carla asked herself, that she was wary of making such a mistake herself?
So, for every reason of good sense, there was only one reply for her to make to this arrogant, sensual man who possessed the power to disturb her senses.
Yet she could not say the words. Could only find the means to give a slight, fleeting, demurring half-smile, and a self-protective sweeping down of her eyelashes to hide the all too revealing response in her eyes as she made an evasive reply.
‘So...have you loaned any other paintings to the exhibition?’ she asked.
Her voice sounded abrupt, even breathless, but she did not care. She met his gaze head-on, keeping hers quite limpid, though the effort was great—the more so since in his eyes was a look of knowingness that told her he had understood immediately why she had not answered him.
But to her relief he followed her diversion.
‘Indeed,’ he murmured, still with that semi-amused look in his eyes that was so disturbing to her. ‘The Luciezo is, in fact, part of a triptych. The other two portraits are on display across the gallery.’
There was a discernible tinge of annoyance in his voice at the curator’s decision as he indicated across the width of the gallery, towards an alcove in which Carla could make out two portraits.
‘Shall we?’
The cool voice held assumption, and Carla found herself being guided forward. He halted, lifting his hand to the portraits they were now in front of.
‘What do you make of them?’
Carla’s trained eyes went to the portraits, immediately seeing the skill and artistry in them, seeing in them all the hallmarks of a master. Her eyes narrowed very slightly. But not Luciezo.
‘Caradino?’ she ventured.
She felt rather than saw the glance the Count threw at her. Surprise—and approval.
‘Caradino,’ he confirmed. He paused. ‘Many attribute his few surviving works to Luciezo.’
She gave a slight shake of her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There is a discernible difference.’
Her eyes ran over the portraits, taking in the brushwork, the lighting, the shadows. Her gaze went from appraising the technicalities of the portraits to the subjects themselves. And then, for the first time, her eyes widened as her gaze rested on their faces.
So unalike. So very, very unalike.
One so fair and pale. A married woman, clearly, as illustrated by the tokens in the painting—her pearl earring, the sprig of myrtle in her lap, the dish of quinces on the little table at her side—and yet there was about her, Carla could see, an air almost of virginity...as if with different garments and accoutrements she might have modelled for a painting of the Virgin Mary.
A crucifix was in her hands, glinting between her long, pale fingers. Carla looked at the woman’s eyes.
Sadness. As if, like the Virgin Mary, she had in her gaze a foretelling of the great sorrows that were to come.
She pulled her gaze away. Let it rest on the other woman’s face.
Another young woman. In this portrait the subject’s hair was a lush chestnut-brown, lavishly unbound and snaking down over one bare shoulder. Her gown was a sumptuous red, not a celestial blue, and cut low across her generous bosom to reveal an expansive amount of soft, creamy skin. She held red roses in her hands, rubies gleamed at her throat and on her fingers, and her hands rested on her abdomen—its slight swell discreet, but undeniable.
Carla drew her eyes away from the telltale curve of the young woman’s figure, moved them back up to scrutinise her face. Beautiful, in a sensuous way, framed by her rich tresses, her cheeks flushed, lips full and with a sensual cast to them. Carla’s eyes went to the woman’s eyes and held them for a long moment—held the unseeing gaze that looked out over the centuries between the two of them.
‘Who are they?’
Her own voice cut short her perusal, and she drew her gaze away to look back at il Conte, standing at her side.
‘Can you not tell?’ he asked. He glanced back to the portrait of his ancestor, across the room, then back to Carla. ‘His wife—and his mistress. He had them painted at the same time, by the same hand. Caradino stayed at my castello and painted them both—one after the other.’
Carla’s face stilled. ‘How nice for them,’ she said drily. ‘It seems your ancestor kept his mistress...handy.’
But the Count did not rise to her sardonic comment. ‘It was quite normal in those times. Nothing exceptional. Both women knew and understood the situation.’
Carla’s lips pressed together. ‘Knowing and understanding are not the same thing as tolerating and agreeing,’ she riposted.
The dark, hooded eyes were veiled. ‘Women had no power in those times. And after all,’ he went on, ‘my ancestor’s mistress was very lavishly looked after.’
‘She’s carrying his child,’ Carla retorted.
She could feel an emotion rising up in her—one she did not want to feel, but it was coming all the same.
‘An excellent way to secure the Count’s protection,’ agreed Cesare. ‘I believe they had several children, over the years. He was very faithful to her, you know. Surprisingly so for the times.’
Automatically Carla’s eyes went not to the mistress of the former Count but to his wife. No sign of fertility there—and in the eyes only that haunting sadness.
Thoughts ran through her head, unstoppable.
How did she feel? How did she cope? Knowing her husband was having children, openly, with his mistress? Yet presumably she, too, must have had an heir, at least, or the line would have died out—which it obviously hasn’t?
‘But enough of my ancestors—have you seen the other paintings displayed here yet?’
The voice of the man at her side drew her back to the present. She turned towards him. Saw him with fresh eyes, it seemed. Her gaze went past him to the portrait of Count Alessandro, who had been so unconcerned as to have his wife and mistress painted simultaneously.
A shaft of female indignation went through her, as she brought her gaze back to the current Count.
‘Not all of them yet, no,’ she said. She made her voice purposeful. ‘And I really must. I have fifteen hundred words to write up about the exhibition.’
She named the arts magazine she wrote for, as if she was aware that by stressing her professional interest she would diminish her personal one.
‘And I must do my duty by all the paintings here!’
She spoke lightly but deliberately. She smiled. An equally deliberate smile. One that completely ignored the question he had asked her only a few minutes ago, making no reference to it.
‘Thank you so much, Signor il Conte, for showing me these fascinating portraits, and for giving me such insight into them. It’s always enhancing to learn the origins and the circumstances of a portrait’s creation—it brings it so to life! And especially since the artist Caradino is so seldom exhibited.’
She smiled again—the same social smile—signalling closure. For closure, surely, was essential. Anything else would be...
Her mind veered away, not wanting to think of the path she had not taken. The yielding she had not made.
Instead she gave the slightest nod of her head in parting and walked away. Her high heels clicked on the parquet flooring and as she walked she was intensely conscious of his following gaze, of how her shapely figure was outlined by the vivid tailored dress she was wearing. Intensely conscious of the urge overwhelming her to get away. Just...away.
As she walked, she sipped at her champagne again. She felt the need of it. Her colour was heightened, she knew—knew it from the hectic beating of her heart.
He desires me—the Conte di Mantegna has looked at me and found me pleasing to him...
Into her head sprang an image, immediate and vivid, conjured out of her ready imagination. That woman in the portrait—the brunette—working, perhaps, in her father’s shop, or sweeping floors, or even toiling out in the fields in sixteenth-century Italy... Il Conte passing by, seeing her, liking her beauty, taking a fancy to her. Finding her pleasing to him. Lifting her with one beckoning of his lordly, aristocratic hand out of her hard, poverty-stricken life to dress her in a silk gown and place roses in her hands and jewels around her throat, and take her to his bed...
She felt the pull of it—the allure. Had to force herself to remember all that would have gone with it. The price that woman would have paid.
To know that her place in his life was only ever to be his inamorata—never to aspire to be his wife.
And as for the Count—oh, he would have had everything he wanted. His pale, subservient wife—his compliant, obliging mistress.
Having it all.
She dragged her mind away, making herself inspect the other paintings, consult her catalogue, interview the exhibition’s curator, and then get a few words from the gallery’s director, who greeted her warmly, both in her professional capacity and as the stepdaughter of the late chairman of a global hotel chain—a generous patron of the arts himself.
It had been her stepfather who’d first noticed her interest in art as a teenager, and it was thanks to him that she’d studied history of art at prestigious universities both in England and Italy. He’d encouraged her in her journalistic career. It was a career she found immensely satisfying, and she knew herself to be extremely fortunate in it.
Now, with all her notes taken, she was ready to leave. She’d spend the evening going through them, drawing up the article she would write.
As she made her farewells she found herself glancing around. She knew who it was she was trying to glimpse. And knew why she should not be. Cesare di Mondave was far too disturbing to her peace of mind to allow herself to have anything more to do with him.
He was not to be seen anyway, and she told herself she was glad. Relieved. Because to further her acquaintance with Cesare di Mondave would not be good sense at all.
Involuntarily her eyes went to the portrait of his ancestor—Count Alessandro, regarding the world in all his High Renaissance splendour, his dark gaze compelling, arrogant. In her mind’s eye she saw his wife and his mistress. Two women, rivals for ever, their destinies yoked to the man who had commissioned their portraits.
Had they both loved him? Or neither?
The question hovered in her head, its answer long consumed by the centuries that had passed. All she could know, with a kind of ironic certainty, was that it would not be wise for any woman to have anything to do with the man in whose veins ran the blood of Luciezo’s Count Alessandro.
It didn’t matter that his descendant could have an impact on her that she had never encountered before. That his dark lidded eyes could raise her pulse in an instant...that her eyes had wanted only to cling helplessly, hopelessly, to his sculpted, powerful features, that her hand had yearned to reach towards him, graze the tanned skin of his jaw, brush the sensual swell of his mouth... It didn’t matter at all.
Because letting herself get embroiled with the arrogant, oh-so-aristocratic Count of Mantegna would be folly indeed!
She was not, and never would be, like the lush beauty in the Caradino portrait, haplessly dependent upon the Count’s continuing desire for her, fearing its demise. Her lips thinned slightly. Nor could she ever be like the woman in the other portrait—oh, she might move in Roman high society, but the Viscaris were hoteliers: rich, but with no trace of aristocratic blood. Carla knew without flinching that when il Conte chose a wife, it would be a woman from his own background, with an ancestry to match his.
I would be nothing more than an...an interlude for him.
She walked out onto the pavement and into the warm evening air of Rome in late summer. A low, lean, open-topped car was hovering at the kerb, blatantly ignoring the road signs forbidding such parking. Its powerful engine was throbbing with a throaty husk, its scarlet paintwork was gleaming, and the rearing stallion on the long bonnet caught the light, glinting gold like the crested signet ring on the hand curved around the wheel.
The man at the wheel turned his head. Let his dark, lidded gaze rest on Carla.
‘What kept you?’ asked Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
CHAPTER TWO (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CESARE’S HAND RESTED on the leather curve of the steering wheel. Impatience was humming in him. He appreciated that she had a job to do—this woman his eyes had lit upon, drawn without conscious intent to her dramatic beauty, her voluptuous figure, the extraordinarily dark blue eyes that had a hint of violet in them—but for all that he did not care to be kept waiting.
He’d known who she was before he’d made the decision to approach her—he’d seen her about previously in society, even though the aristocratic circles he moved in overlapped only loosely with those of the Viscaris. The Viscaris were, to him, ‘new money’—it was a mere handful of generations since the global hotel group that bore the family name had been founded at the end of the nineteenth century. They were newcomers compared to the immense antiquity of his family—and Cesare felt the weight of that antiquity upon him each and every day.
It was a weight that both upheld him and imposed upon him responsibilities to his ancestry that others could not understand. A duty that reached far back into the Middle Ages, stretching across all his estates from the high Apennine lands leased as a national park, to forests and vineyards, agricultural land and olive groves, and across all his many properties. Every palazzo was a historic monument, including the magnificent baroque Palazzo Mantegna here in Rome, now on loan to the nation and housing a museum of antiquities. And all those estates and properties came with tenants and employees whose livelihood he guaranteed—just as his ancestors had.
Yet at the heart of it all was the ancient Castello Mantegna, the heart of his patrimony. Within its mighty walls, built to withstand medieval warfare, he had spent his childhood, roaming the forests and pasturelands that one day would be his.
Was that something anyone not born to such a heritage could truly understand? The weight of inheritance upon him?
Or did they merely see il Conte—a wealthy, titled man who moved in the uppermost echelons of society, with a cachet that many would only envy? And which women would eagerly seek to bask in...
His dark eyes glinted. There had been no such eagerness in Carla Charteris, though he’d made clear his interest in her. He was glad of it—but not deterred by it. For his long experience of woman had told him immediately that the first flare of her violet-hued eyes as he’d addressed her had showed that she was responsive to him. That was all he’d needed to know—their barbed exchange thereafter had merely confirmed it. All that was required now was for her to acknowledge it.
He leant across to open the passenger side door. ‘Prego,’ he invited in a pleasant voice.
He’d surprised her—he could tell. Had she really believed that walking away from him would discourage him?
He went on in a dry voice, ‘It would gratify me if you complied without delay, for the traffic warden over there—’ he nodded carelessly along the street to where such an individual had recently turned the corner ‘—would so very much enjoy booking me.’ He gave a brief sigh. ‘I find that officials take particular pleasure in exercising their petty authority when their target is driving a car like this one.’
He smiled. He could see the conflict in her eyes—in those amazingly dark violet-blue eyes of hers—but above all he could see that same flare of awareness, of desire, which had been in them when he’d first approached her. That told him all he needed to know.
His expression changed again. ‘Carpe diem,’ he said softly. His eyes held hers. Tellingly, unambiguously. ‘Let us seize all that we may have of this fleeting life,’ he murmured, ‘before we are dust ourselves.’
His casual reference to her own comment in front of the Luciezo was accompanied by an exaggerated gesture of his hand as he again indicated the seat beside him.
His lashes dipped over his eyes. ‘What is so difficult,’ he murmured, ‘about accepting an invitation to dinner?’ His gaze lifted to hers again, and in his eyes was everything that was not in his words.
Carla, her expression immediately urgently schooled, stopped in her tracks on the pavement, felt again that incredible frisson go through her whole body—that shimmer of glittering awareness of the physical impact he made on her.
All around her the city of Rome buzzed with its familiar vitality. The warmth of the early evening enveloped her, and she could hear the noise of the traffic, the buzz of endless Vespas scooting past. The pavement was hot beneath the thin soles of her high heels. While in front of her, in that outrageously expensive car—as exclusive and prestigious as its driver so undoubtedly considered himself to be—the oh-so-aristocratic Conte invited her to join him.
As she had before, in the gallery, she felt the overwhelming impact of the man. Felt even more powerfully the impulse within her to give him the answer that he was waiting for.
Thoughts—fragmented, incoherent—raced through her.
What is happening to me? Why now—why this man of all men? This arrogant, lordly man who is scooping me up as if I were no more than that woman in the portrait—scooping me up to serve his pleasure...
Yet it would be for her pleasure too—she knew that with every shimmer in her body as she stood, poised on the pavement, feeling the weight of his lidded gaze upon her. That was the devil of it—that was the allure. That was the reason, Carla knew with a kind of sinking in her heart, that was keeping her here, hovering, just as he was keeping that monstrous, powerful car of his hovering, its power leashed, but ready to be let forth.
His words, mocking her, echoed in her head. ‘What is so difficult about accepting an invitation to dinner?’
His voice—deep, amused—cut across her tormented cogitations. ‘You really will need to decide swiftly—the warden is nearly upon us.’
The uniformed official was, indeed, closing fast. But Carla’s eyes only sparked deep blue. ‘And you couldn’t possibly afford the fine, could you?’ she retorted.
‘Alas, it is a question of my pride,’ Cesare murmured, the glint in his eye accentuated. ‘It would never do for il Conte to put himself in the power of a petty bureaucrat...’
Was he mocking himself? Carla had the suspicion he was not...
For a moment longer every objection she had made when he’d first invited her to dinner flared like phosphorus in her head. Every reason why she should give exactly the same kind of answer as she had then—evasive, avoiding the invitation—then walk briskly away, back to the comfortable, predictable evening she’d planned for herself in her own apartment. Making herself dinner, going through her notes in preparation for writing her article. An evening that had nothing, nothing to do with the man now waiting for her answer...
And yet—
Her own thought replayed itself in her head. How dangerous might it be to light a passion that could not be quenched?
But other thoughts pushed their way into her head. Thoughts she did not want to silence. Could not silence... Desire and passion will burn themselves out! They cannot last for ever.
Neither desire nor passion was love.
Yet both were powerful—alluring—speaking to her of what might be between them.
Passion and desire.
The same tremor went through her, the same flush in her skin as when he had first made his desire for her plain, calling from her an answering awareness. No other man had ever drawn from her such an overpowering response.
For a second longer she hesitated, hung between two opposing instincts.
To resist that response—or to yield to it.
The dark, lidded eyes rested on her—holding hers.
With a sudden impulse, impelling her way below the level of conscious decision, she felt her muscles move as if of their own volition. She got into the car, slamming the door shut.
Instantly, as if preventing her from rescinding her decision as much as avoiding the attentions of the parking official, Cesare opened the throttle, pulled the car away from the kerb—and Carla reached for her seat belt, consciousness rushing back upon her in all its impact.
Oh, dear God, what the hell had she just done?
I got into his damn car just to save his damn aristocratic pride! So he wouldn’t have to endure the ignominy of getting a parking ticket! How insane is that?
Completely insane. As insane as letting Cesare di Mondave drive off with her like this—the lordly signor scooping up the peasant girl.
Her chin lifted. Well, she was no peasant girl! She was no poor, hapless female like the one in the portrait, trapped within the punishing limitations of her time in history. No, if she went along with what this impossible, arrogant man had in mind for her—if, she emphasised mentally to herself—then it would be what she wanted too! Her free and deliberate choice to enjoy the enticing interlude he clearly had planned.
But would she make that choice? That was the only question that mattered now. Whether to do what every ounce of her good sense was telling her she should not do—and what every heat-flushed cell in her body was urging her to do. To resist it—or yield to it. She turned her head towards him, drawn by that same impetuous urge to let her eyes feast on him. He was focussing only on the appalling evening traffic in Rome, which, she allowed, did need total focus. She let him concentrate, let herself enjoy the rush that came simply from looking at his profile.
Sweet heaven, but it was impossible not to gaze at him! A modern version of that Luciezo portrait, updated for the twenty-first century. Indelibly graced with features that made her eyes cling to him, from the strong blade of his nose to the chiselled line of his jaw, the sensual curve of his mouth. She felt her hands clench over her bag. Weakness drenched her body. What she was doing was insane—and yet she was doing it.
She felt her pulse leap, and a heady sense of excitement filled her. A searing knowledge of her own commitment. Far too late now to change her mind.
And she did not want to—that was the crux of it. Oh, the lordly Count might have scooped her up just as arrogantly as his ancestor had scooped up the peasant girl who would become his mistress, but it had been her choice to let herself be so scooped.
Rebelliousness soared within her—a sense of recklessness and adventure.
I don’t care if this is folly! All I know is that from the moment he looked at me I wanted him more than I have ever wanted any man—and I will not deny that desire. I will fulfil it...
Fulfil it with all the ardour in her body, every tremor in her limbs. It was folly—reckless folly—but she would ignite that passion and burn it to the core.
* * *
‘Take the next left here,’ Carla said, indicating the narrow road in the Centro Storico that led down to her apartment, part of an eighteenth-century house. It was a quiet haven for her to write in, and to be well away not just from the buzz of the city but also from the tensions running across the Viscari clan.
Her mother, she knew, would have preferred her to stay on in Guido Viscari’s opulent villa, but thanks to her stepfather’s generosity in his will Carla had been able to buy her own small but beautiful apartment, taking intense pleasure in decorating it and furnishing it in an elegant but comfortable and very personal style.
However, her thoughts now were neither on the ongoing tensions in the Viscari clan nor on her apartment. There was only one dominating, all-encompassing consciousness in her head...
Cesare.
Cesare—with whom she had just dined, with whom she had conducted, she knew, a conversation that had taken place at two levels. One had seen him being the perfect escort, the perfect dinner companion, conversing with her about her job, about the arts, about the Italian landscape—of which he owned a significant proportion—and about any other such topics that two people making each other’s acquaintance might choose to converse about.
He’d asked her a little about herself—neither too little to be indifferent, nor too much to be intrusive. He’d known who she was, but she was not surprised—she’d known who he was, though they’d never chanced to meet before.
But there’d been another conversation taking place as they’d sat there over a lingering dinner in the small, ferociously exclusive restaurant Cesare had taken her to—where he had immediately been given the best table in the house, and where they had been waited on attentively, discreetly, unobtrusively but with absolute expertise.
He had nodded at one or two other patrons, and her presence had caused the lift of an eyebrow from one group of women, and a penetrating glance, but no more than that. She had been acquainted with no one there, and was glad of it. Glad there had been no one she knew to witness the second level of the conversation taking place between herself and Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna.
The conversation that had taken place powerfully, silently and seductively—oh-so-seductively—between him and her, with every exchange of glances, every half-smile, every sensual curve of his mouth, every lift of his hand with those long, aristocratic fingers.
The light had reflected off the gold of his signet ring, impressed with his family crest—the same lion couchant that his ancestor had displayed on his own ring in the Luciezo portrait—and Carla had found herself wondering if it could be the very same ring.
Eventually Cesare’s hand had crushed the white damask napkin and dropped it on the table to signal the end of their meal, and they’d got to their feet and made their way towards the exit.
Nothing so crude as a bill had been offered by the maître d’—nothing more than a respectful inclination of the head at their departure, a gracious murmur of appreciation from the Count, a smile of thanks from herself as they left, stepping out onto the pavement, where his car had been waiting for them.
Now, as they drew up at the kerb by her apartment, he cut the engine and turned and looked at her, an enigmatic expression visible in the dim street light.
Her consciousness of his raw physical presence seared in her again. She smiled at him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for a lovely evening.’ Her voice was bright, and oh-so-civil.
She realised she’d spoken in English. They’d gone in and out of Italian and English all evening, for the Count’s English was as fluent as her Italian had become in the ten years she’d lived in Rome, though surely no Englishman could make his native language as seductive, as sensual as an Italian male could make it sound?
But English was the right language for this moment. Crisp, bright and utterly unseductive. The polite, anodyne description of something that had been so much more. She reached out her hand for the door release, her body still turned towards him.
A smile curved his mouth, long lashes dropping over his lidded eyes. ‘Indeed,’ he agreed.
She could hear the amusement in his voice, feel it catch at her, making her breathless, her pulse quicken.
‘And after such a “lovely evening”...’ his amusement was deeper now, his accented English doing even more to make her breathless ‘...there is only one way to end it, no?’
For an instant he held her gaze in the dim light, daring her to accept, to concede, to do what he wanted her to do—what he’d wanted of her from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.
‘Like this,’ he said.
His hand stretched out, long fingers tilting up her face to his as his mouth lowered to hers. Slowly, sensuously, savouring. With skill, with expertise, with a lifetime of experience in how to let his lips glide over hers, his mouth to open hers to his, to taste the sweetness within. As soft, as sensual as silk velvet.
She drowned in it. A thousand nerve endings fired as he made free with her mouth, his long fingers still holding her. And when he had done he released her, drew back his hand, let it curve around the driving wheel.
He smiled. ‘Buone notte,’ he said softly.
For a moment—just a moment—she was motionless, as if all the shimmering pleasure he’d aroused in her with only a single kiss had made it impossible for her to move. She could do nothing except meet that amused, lidded gaze resting on her like a tangible pressure.
Then, with a little jolt, she pushed open the car door. Swallowed. In a daze she got out, fumbled for her keys, found them and shakily inserted them into the lock of the outer door of her apartment building. Then she made herself turn to look back at him. Bade him goodnight in a voice that was no longer bright and crisp.
He said nothing, merely inclining his head as she turned away, let herself into the cobbled inner courtyard, shut the heavy outer door behind her.
She heard the throaty growl of his car as he moved off. On shaky legs she went up to her apartment, and only when inside its sanctuary did she feel able to breathe again.
* * *
Cesare strolled to the window of his Rome apartment and gazed unseeing out over the familiar roofline. The large plate glass window of the modern designed space was glaringly different from the richly historical interiors of his other properties, and it gave a wide view over the city even at this midnight hour. He did not step out onto the large adjoining balcony; instead he merely continued to stand, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, legs slightly astride.
Was he being wise? That was the question that was imposing itself upon him. Was it wise to pursue what had been, after all, only the impulse of a moment—following through on a momentary glimpse of the woman who had caught his eye? Following through sufficiently to decide that it was worth spending an evening of his life in her company. Worth considering, as he was now considering, whether to pursue a liaison with her.
There were many reasons to do so. Uppermost, of course, was the intensity of his physical response to her. Unconsciously he shifted position restlessly, his body aware that a single kiss had only whetted the appetite that he could feel coursing through his blood. It was an intensity that had, he acknowledged, taken him by surprise. But was that reason enough to do what he knew his body wanted him to do?
Before he could answer, he knew from long experience that there was another question he must answer first.
Will she understand the terms of our liaison?
The terms that governed his life just as they’d governed all who had borne his ancient name and title. Had been hammered into him by his own dictatorial father who’d constantly impressed upon him his heritage, and yet who’d regarded him as favouring too much the mother whose outward serenity Cesare was sure had concealed an unvoiced regret.
Her husband had objected to her having any interests outside her responsibilities as his contessa, and she had confined her life to being the perfect chatelaine, the mother of his heir. His father had taken his son’s sympathy for his mother as a reluctance to respect the demands of his heritage, and after his mother’s premature death from heart disease, when Cesare was only nineteen, the rift between them had widened without her presence as peacemaker.
But when his father had died, some eight years later, he’d been determined not to neglect any aspect of his inheritance, dedicating himself to its preservation. If his father could see him now, half a dozen years on, perhaps his harsh judgement would be set aside.
The words that he had uttered only that evening, in front of the Luciezo painting of his sixteenth-century forebear, floated in his head.
‘Pride in his family, his lineage, his honour—all that he owes his house...’
With the echo of those words his thoughts came full circle back to the woman to whom he had spoken them. Did she understand why he had said what he had about his ancestor—about himself? It was essential that she did. Essential that she understood that, for him, one thing could never change.
In his mind’s eye two images formed—the other portraits in the triptych, the Count’s wife and his mistress. Separate for ever, coming from different worlds that could never meet.
Four centuries and more might distance him from Count Alessandro and the women who made up the triptych, but for himself, too, his countess would need to share his own background. Not because of any heraldic quarterings she possessed, but because only a woman from the same heritage as himself could truly understand the responsibilities of such a heritage. That was what his father had instilled into him. He had even identified for him the very woman who would make him the perfect next Contessa...
His expression changed and he stared out over the roofs of this most ancient city into whose roots his own ancestry reached. The lineage of a patrician of Ancient Rome was still traceable in his bloodline.
The woman who would be his Countess was well known to him—and she was not, nor ever could be, a woman such as the one he had embraced a brief hour ago, fuelling in him a desire for satiation that he must not yield to.
Not unless—until—he could be sure she accepted what could be between them. And what could not.
As, too, must he. That, also, was essential...
CHAPTER THREE (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
CARLA STARED AT her screen. She still had six hundred more words to write for her article, and she was making heavy weather of it. She knew exactly why.
Cesare di Mondave.
He was in her headspace—had been totally dominating it, consuming every last morsel of it, since she’d made it into her apartment the night before, senses firing, aflame.
All through her sleepless night she’d replayed every moment of the evening over and over again—right up to that final devastating moment.
Cesare kissing her...
No! She must not let herself remember it again! Must not replay it sensuously, seductively, in her head. Must instead force herself to finish her article, send it into the impatiently waiting sub-editor at her office.
But even when she had she was unbearably restless, her heart beating agitatedly.
Will he phone me? Ask me out again? Or—a little chill went through her—has he decided he does not want me after all?
Face set, she made herself some coffee. She should not be like this—waiting for a man to phone her! She should be above such vulnerability. She was a strong-minded, independent woman of twenty-seven, with a good career, as many dates as she cared to go on should she want to, and there was no reason—no good reason!—for her to be straining to hear the phone ring. To hear the dark, aristocratic tones of Cesare di Mondave’s deep voice.
And yet that was just what she was doing.
The expression in her eyes changed. As she sipped her coffee, leaning moodily against the marble work surface in her immaculate kitchen, more thoughts entered her head. If last night’s dinner with Cesare was all there was to be between them she should be relieved. A man like that—so overwhelming to her senses—it was not wise to become involved with. She’d known that from the moment he’d first spoken to her, declared his interest.
But where was wisdom, caution, when she needed them? She felt her pulse quicken again as the memory of that kiss replayed itself yet again.
With a groan, she pulled her memory away. She shouldn’t be waiting for Cesare di Mondave to phone her! Not just because she should never be waiting around for a man to phone her! But because she should, she knew, phone her mother—reply to her latest complaint about her sister-in-law’s disapproving attitude towards her.
She gave a sigh. Her mother—never popular with Guido’s younger brother Enrico and his wife, Lucia—had become markedly less popular after her husband’s death, when it had become known that the childless Guido, rather than leaving his half of the Viscari Hotels Group shares to his nephew, Vito, had instead left them to his widow, Marlene. They had been outraged by the decision, and when Enrico had suddenly died, barely a year later, his premature death had been blamed on the stress of worrying about Marlene’s ownership of the shares. Since then, Vito had sought repeatedly to buy them from Marlene, but Carla’s mother had continually refused to sell.
To Carla, it was straightforward. Her mother should sell her shareholding to Vito—after all, it was Vito who was the true heir to the Viscari dynasty, and he should control the inheritance completely. But Carla knew why her mother was refusing to do so—her ownership of those critical shares gave her mother status and influence within the Viscari family, resented though it was by her sister-in-law.
Carla’s mouth tightened in familiar annoyance. It also continued to feed her mother’s other obsession. One that she had voiced when Carla was a teenager and had repeated intermittently ever since—despite Carla’s strong objection. An objection she still gave—would always give.
‘Mum—forget it! Just stop going on about it! It’s never going to happen! I get on well enough with Vito, but please, please, just accept there is absolutely no way whatsoever that I would ever want to do what you keep on about!’
No way whatsoever that she would ever consider marrying her step-cousin...
Vito Viscari—incredibly handsome with his Latin film star looks—might well be one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors, but to Carla he was simply her step-cousin, and of no romantic interest to her in the slightest. Nor was she to him. Vito was well known for liking leggy blondes—he ran a string of them, and always had one in tow, it seemed to her—and he was welcome to them. He held no appeal for her at all.
A shiver went through her. She remembered the man who did...who’d made every cell in her body searingly aware of her physicality. Who’d cast his eye upon her and then scooped her up into his sleek, powerful car effortlessly.
She felt the heat flush in her body, her pulse quicken. Heard her phone ring on her desk.
She dived on it, breathless. ‘Pronto?’
It was Cesare.
* * *
‘But this is charming! Absolutely lovely!’
Carla’s gaze took in the small but beautifully proportioned miniature Palladian-style villa, sheltered by poplars and slender cypresses, in front of which Cesare was now drawing up. It was set in its own grounds in the lush countryside of Lazio, less than an hour’s drive beyond Rome, and its formal eighteenth-century gardens ideally suited the house.
She looked around her in delight as she stepped gracefully out of the low-slung car, conscious of the quietness all around her, the birdsong, the mild warmth of the late-afternoon sun slanting across the gardens—and conscious, above all, of the man coming to stand beside her.
‘My home out of town...what is the term in English? Ah, yes...my bolthole.’ He smiled.
He ushered her inside, and Carla stepped into a marble-floored, rococo-style hallway, its decor in white, pale blue and gold.
Into her head came a description for the house that was not the one Cesare had just given.
Love nest...
A half-caustic, half-amused smile tugged at her mouth. Well, why not a love nest? It was a conveniently short distance from Rome, and so very charming. An ideal place for romantic dalliance.
Because that was what she was embarking on. She knew it—accepted it. Had accepted it the moment she’d heard Cesare’s deep tones on the phone earlier that afternoon, informing her that he would be with her shortly. Taking for granted what her answer would be.
Was she being reckless, to come here with him like this? Of course she was! She knew it, but didn’t care. All her life she’d been careful—never one to rush into passionate affairs, never making herself the centre of any gossip. Yet now, a little less than twenty-four hours since she had stood in front of that Luciezo portrait of Count Alessandro, she was going to do just that.
And she would revel in it! For once in her life she would follow the hectic beating of her heart, the hot pulse of her blood, and respond to a man who, like no other she had ever met, could call such a response from her merely by a flickering glance from his dark, hooded eyes. However brief their liaison was to prove—and she knew perfectly well that it could never lead to anything—she would enjoy it to the full until the passion between them burnt itself out, until her desire was quenched.
A man in late middle age was emerging, greeting the Count with respectful familiarity.
‘Ah, Lorenzo,’ Cesare answered, in a reciprocal tone that told Carla he showed full appreciation of his staff. ‘Will you show Signorina Charteris where she may refresh herself?’
Carla was escorted upstairs, shown into a pretty, feminine bedroom, with an en-suite bathroom that had once, she presumed, been a dressing room. As she looked at herself in the glass, checking the careful perfection of her hair and make-up, retouching the rich colour of her lips, for just a second she felt a qualm go through her.
Should I really go ahead with this? Plunge headlong into an affair with a man like this? An affair that can come to nothing?
But that, surely, was why she was doing it! Because it could come to nothing! There could be no future with a man for whom marriage to her could never be an option, and therefore love could never be a possibility—never a danger. She would not follow in her mother’s footsteps, imagining love could come from an affair.
And that is all it will be—an affair. Nothing more than indulging in the overpowering effect he has on me, such as I have never, never known before.
She could see the pulse beating at her throat, the heightened colour in her cheeks, the quickening shallowness of her breathing. All telling her one thing and one thing only. That it was far too late for any qualms now.
With a quick spritz of scent from her handbag, she headed back downstairs. A pair of double doors stood open now, leading through to a beautifully appointed drawing room with French windows. Beyond, she could see Cesare.
Waiting for her.
At her approach, he smiled, his eyes washing over her with satisfaction.
Yes—he had been right to make the decision he had. This would go well, this affair with this enticing, alluring woman. He had no doubts about it. Everything about her confirmed it. Oh, not just her sensual allure and her responsiveness to him—powerful as it was—but any lingering reservations he might have had about her suitability for such a liaison were evaporating with every moment.
All his conversations with her so far had been reassuring on that score. Though she was Guido Viscari’s stepdaughter, she made no special claims on the relationship, which indicated that she would make no claims on the relationship that he and she would share.
Her cool, English air of reserve met with his approval—like him, she would seek to avoid gossip and speculation and would draw no undue attention to her role in his life while their affair lasted—or afterwards. She had a career of her own to occupy her—one that was compatible with some of his own interests—and intelligent conversation with her was showing him that she was a woman whose company he could enjoy both out of bed and in.
She will enjoy what we have together and will have no impossible expectations. And when the affair has run its course we shall part gracefully and in a civilised manner. There will be no trouble in parting from her.
Parting with her...
But all that was for later—much later. For now, the entirely enticing prospect of their first night together beckoned.
His smile deepened. ‘Come,’ he said, as she walked towards him.
A little way along the terrace an ironwork table was set with two chairs, and there was a stand on which an opened bottle of champagne nestled in its bed of ice. But Carla’s eyes were not for that—nor for Cesare. They were on the vista beyond the terrace.
Once more a pleased exclamation was on her lips, a smile of delight lighting her features.
‘Oh, how absolutely perfect!’
Beyond the terrace, set at the rear of the villa, a large walled garden enclosed not just a pretty pair of parterres, one either side, but in the central space a swimming pool—designed, she could see at once, as if it were a Roman bath, lined with mosaic tiles and glittering in the sun. Ornamental bay trees marched either side of the paving around the pool, and there was a sunlit bench at the far end, espaliered fruit trees adorning the mossed walls.
Cesare came to stand beside her as she gazed, enraptured.
‘We shall try out the pool later,’ he said. ‘But for now...’
He turned to pour each of them a glass of softly foaming champagne. As she took hers Carla felt the faint brush of his fingers, and the glass trembled in her hand. She gazed up at him, feeling suddenly breathless.
His dark gaze poured down into hers as he lifted his glass. ‘To our time together,’ he murmured.
She lifted her glass, touching it to his. Then drank deeply from it.
As she would drink deeply from her time with this most compelling of men...
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3632fb60-d0aa-542e-9407-7ec2d7e87724)
THE FIRE WAS burning low in the grate. The long, heavy silk drapes were drawn across the tall windows, cocooning them in the drawing room. Cesare’s long legs extended with careless proprietorship towards the hearth from where he sat on the elegant sofa.
The evening had been long and leisurely. Champagne on the terrace, watching the sunset, followed by an exquisitely prepared dinner, discreetly served by Lorenzo in the rococo-style dining room.
Conversation had been easy—wide-ranging and eclectic—and Carla had found it both mentally stimulating and enjoyable, as it had been in the restaurant the night before. As it continued to be now, as she sat, legs slanting towards him, on a silk-covered fauteuil, sipping at a liqueur. Coffee was set on the ormolu table at her side...candles glowed on the mantel above the fire. An intimate, low-lit ambience enclosed them.
Their conversation wove on, both in English and Italian, melding Carla’s expertise on High Renaissance art with Cesare’s greater knowledge of the politics and economics of the time. And then at some point—she could not quite tell when—the conversation seemed to drain away, and she could not think of one more question to ask him.
Her liqueur was consumed, she realised, and she reached to place the empty glass on the low table at her side. As she released it Cesare stretched out his own hand. Let his fingers slide around her wrist.
It was the first physical contact between them that evening, and it electrified her.
Her eyes went to his, widening at the ripple of sensation that his long, cool fingers circling her wrist engendered. His eyes were on her, heavy and lidded.
Wordlessly, he drew her to her feet. Wordlessly, she let him. Still holding her wrist loosely, he lifted his other hand to her face. Those long, graceful fingers traced the outline of her cheek, her jaw. Faintness drummed in her veins and she felt her body sway, as if no longer able to keep itself upright.
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