A Reputation to Uphold (15 page)

‘Yes. There’s no need to feel guilty. It wasn’t your fault.’

Guilt. Yes, that was what he felt. Guilt. Fault. Because it
was
entirely his fault.

Wasn’t it?

Maledizione
! A lightning bolt shot down and every muscle in his body coiled with murderous intent.

‘
Cristo
, that bastard told me he’d had you six ways till Sunday.’ Lies. Lies. Lies Dante had believed.

Eva’s head snapped around. ‘Who? Who told you that?’

Dante thrust his fingers through his hair. ‘I cannot have this conversation with you naked.’ Except for the bra. There was something...something not quite right about that bra and he couldn’t work out what.

And
hell
, all he wanted to do was get in that bath. He’d be lucky if she ever shared one word with him again, never mind water. And just the thought of never touching her again, tasting the sweet delicacy of her skin, devouring her lush mouth.
Cristo
, what was wrong with him? He was losing control, dammit! ‘Ten minutes. Then I will be back.’

‘
What
? You can’t drop that bombshell and then leave me. Dante, wait!’

Ignoring her sassy mouth that said if he walked out he wouldn’t get back in again, Dante stormed to his bedroom, showered, donned some black lounge trousers and stalked back to her room. Half-expecting it to be locked.

The door was ajar; he eased it open, his chest clenching as he found her standing in front of the dark wood dressing table, tearing her hair out with a soft paddle brush. ‘The only reason you’re back in here is because I want the truth. I deserve it. Then you can leave.’

Slap
went the brush to the dresser as she turned to face him, sparks firing from her eyes, swamped in a fluffy white robe, arms crossed tight over her breasts in self-defence.

Dante cleared his throat. ‘Are you sore? Do you need painkillers?’

‘I’m absolutely fine. I want to know who said that about me.’

Raking his hand round the back of his neck, he said, ‘Van Horn. The night of your mother’s funeral. After you and I...parted in the pool-house.’

Silence seeped into every crack, every fibre, except the corners of his mind, where he could still hear Van Horn’s vile words. Still feel the blistering fury that had almost smashed the other man from Kent to kingdom come.

Expecting her temper to flare, instead he found the green depths of her eyes swimming in hurt. ‘And you...you
believed
him?’

Truth. Always truth. ‘
Sì
. Every word. He told me you’d been an item for weeks.’

‘Weeks?’ she said. ‘
Weeks, Dante?
You actually believed that I’d had the time or the desire or even the inclination to have secret trysts and slum it in his seedy hotel rooms on tour when my mother was ill? When I’d put my life on hold to look after her night and day?’

He nodded, well aware that, for the first time in years, he was feeling something close to shame. ‘I never thought of it that way. I was angry.’

‘I don’t care how angry you were. How could you think that of me? I asked you to spend the night with me. I—’ Stricken eyes flaring with dismay, her arms fell to her sides. ‘Oh, my God. You must’ve thought I wanted one night with you, just so I could go on sleeping with him too. That...that’s sick. Disgusting. Please tell me you didn’t think me capable of that?’

‘I thought exactly that, Eva.’

Crushing her lips together, her thick eyelashes fluttered closed, brow pinching.

Within seconds he was padding across the mahogany floor towards her, swerving round the foot of the bed...when she snapped out of her sombre state and held one palm flat, breaking his stride a couple of feet from her.

‘Why? Why did you think the worst of me? Or is every woman a conniving wretch?’

Dante faltered. He didn’t suppose he’d had the greatest example of women from the start. His mother could never have been termed a paragon of virtue and admittedly his father gave him little chance to forget it. Toss in a glut of women who had their third eye focused on the scintillating lure of his billions and his cynicism had been nailed. Of course, as she’d rightly pointed out earlier, Eva had come along before he’d made his fortune. And since the moment he’d first seen her till the night he’d walked away he’d truly believed she was an angel. So why?
Because just looking at her scared the hell out of you
, his conscience whispered.

Locking on to her gaze, he said, ‘I saw no reason for him to lie.’ As the past unfolded in his mind, he felt a stab of retaliation. ‘And don’t you
dare
play the innocent with me, Eva. At the time I didn’t think you knew your own grief-stricken mind. You were Finn’s little sister, for Christ’s sake. I came back to explain why you and I could
never
happen and what do I find? You and Van Horn locked tight in the garden, bringing new meaning to mouth-to-mouth. Before I left he took great pleasure in extolling your sexual escapades. So, from where I stood, you were quite happy to seduce another in my place.’

Her robe, so soft, so white, rose and fell on shuddering breaths and she stumbled back a step as if he’d slapped her with the sins of the past.

The usual lush green of her eyes turned bleak and she nodded. ‘He found me in the maze. I was so upset. You just...disappeared. He hugged me. And yes, he kissed me.’ The inner torment scouring his soul must’ve shown on his face because she reached out, her hand quivering in mid-air. ‘But when I realised what I was doing, I pushed him away. Told him no. So I can’t understand why he lied to you.’

‘Come now, Eva. Can you not? The man obviously wanted you for himself. Let us not forget you were then pictured with him continuously during the year that followed.’

With one hand, she reached up and gripped both sides of the robe, closing the small gap—knuckles bleaching—hiding the thin sliver of almond skin.

‘We hung around in the same crowd. Parties. Concerts. Perfectly oblivious. He persisted...hounded. Was relentless in trying to get me into bed.’ Chin dipping, she looked to the floor, where she flexed her foot, rubbed her toes on the rug. ‘Pity I wasn’t worth the effort.’

Flinching on another swift kick to the guts, he tried to speak through the fiery knots in his throat. ‘Things developed between you?’

Backing up another pace, widening the gap, she leaned against the wide panoramic window. The soothing rouge hues of sunset cast her in an ethereal light, picking up the golden strands of her beautiful long caramel hair, outlining her lush body to stunning effect.

‘About a year after I last saw you...’ Which would have been around the time he’d got married, he was sure. And why could she not look him in the eye? ‘I decided it was time and I tried.’

‘
Tried
being the operative word,
tesoro.
Because, right then—’ he said, pointing to the rumpled sheets with an unsteady hand, ‘you were still just as innocent as when I first laid eyes on you.’ And hadn’t it always been there? A whisper of purity that called to him—a man who had seen the darkest, most tainted, debauched side of life.

‘I struggled. He said I was...’ Closing her eyes, her brow creased and she banged her head gently off the glass.

Crack went his knuckles as his fists screamed bloody murder. ‘Eeeva?’

‘Sexless. He found it quite amusing that men drooled over me. Over my chest.’ Cheeks pinking with a heart-wrenching embarrassment, her attempt at a small smile bordered on apologetic. ‘Problem is, I don’t like them being touched. I didn’t realise how strongly I felt until that night. So, as you can imagine, it was a disaster. But, looking back, I agreed to sleep with him for all the wrong reasons. I didn’t want him. I wanted...’

‘Wanted what,
cara mia
?’

‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

Frustration snaked through his chest. The need to push her for more coiling in his throat. But she was closing in on herself, withdrawing. Pain pleating her brow. Making him wonder if this was the first time she’d relived it.

‘Speak to me,
please, tesoro.
’

Rubbing her temple, she said, ‘It was my fault, Dante. Everything he said was right. That I was a tease. I didn’t mean to be. I was just messed up. He said I was frigid and his face, my God, he was so angry and nasty and—’

Black and thick, fury poured through him. ‘Did he touch you? Hurt you? Make you cry?’ Teeth bared, he let out a low growl, struggling to leash his temper as he sorted through words, let loose a few Italian expletives. ‘That bastard. I’ll kill him.’ Not even close. Doubting there was a vile enough word in the Dante vocabulary that could come close to satisfying the noxious mixture of frustration and rage that churned through his veins.

Eva’s eyes flared wide and she pushed off the window with her bottom, laid her hand on his upper arm. ‘No, no, hey, you can’t do that! He just said nasty things. That’s all. In all fairness, Dante, it was true. He couldn’t even—’ She looked down at his crotch. Seemed to stay there a while. ‘You know.’

‘He couldn’t get it up, right?’

Tipping his head to one side, he snagged her attention from the thick ridge in his trousers. ‘Let me make one thing abundantly clear, Eva. That excuse of a man was probably so high on drink and drugs that he could not stand up, never mind get
it
up.’

Insanely, he was grateful. She would’ve felt cheap giving herself to such a man. And, though it was a contemptible thing to admit, he wanted her only for him. To not have been touched, defiled by others. He knew what that made him—a hypocrite of the highest order. But she was his, dammit!

Whoa... His
? No, she wasn’t his. What the hell was wrong with him?

‘So why did you stop?’ she asked faintly. ‘That night. In the pool-house. Didn’t I disappoint you too?’

Dante raked his palm over the hard ridges of his aching stomach. ‘You think you disappointed me?’

Cristo
, what would that have done to her confidence? Then, after him, Van Horn. ‘No,
cara.
No. You were grieving, it was not right.’

Disappoint him?
Maledizione
, she couldn’t be further from the truth.

He wanted her to be confident in her body. Not for him. Only for her. All that passion seemed to be restrained by vulnerability and a lack of self-confidence he had engendered. Well, he was damn well fixing it. Right now. Her purity was gone and the devil would dance in heaven before he allowed her only memory of this night to be one of pain.

Dante slowly backed her up against the glass wall, unravelling the sash on her gown, unwrapping her provocative body to his eyes, unveiling a plain white bra and matching panties—which drove him crazier than any G-string or crotchless slip he’d
ever
seen.

‘Did it look like I was disappointed,
cara
? Does this,’ he said, curving his hands around her small waist, delving lower to cup her lush, round cheeks and hauling her against his pelvis, ‘does
this
feel like you don’t turn me on?’

A little shiver. A little shake of her head.

‘You are the
sexiest
woman alive. I am no virgin, Eva, and I can tell you right now I have never
ever
been so desperate to get inside someone as I am you,
capisci
?’

She nodded. Chest rising and falling. Soft skin spilling from her bra.

‘I want this lethal, gorgeous body naked,’ he said, voice thick and husky with want. ‘It is a constant craving. Like a ticking time bomb, one touch to detonate, one thrust to explode. And I am going to watch you explode time and time again until you cannot think of what that useless bastard said to you. Only what I am doing to you. With my fingers, my mouth, my wicked tongue and my painfully hard...’ Brushing up the side of her face, knowing it drove her wild, he whispered the word in her ear—the dirty variation he knew would flip her trigger—and he felt her stomach scrunch, her spine hit the glass.

Resting his brow against hers, he luxuriated in the heat seeping from her body, oozing into his. ‘Do you pleasure yourself, Eva?’

He heard her audible gulp. Knew that was the only answer she was capable of.

One hand still holding her mind-blowing curvaceous derrière, Dante caught hold of her left hand, raised it to his mouth and nipped and sucked her ring finger from tip to base, watching her cheeks flush and her thick hazel lashes grow heavy.

As he twisted her hand this way and that, her yellow diamond caught fire and that possessiveness was back with a vengeance, pervading his chest until his ribs cracked at the thought of her taking it off to walk away, to leave him.
It’s only because you’re her first; it will wane. It must.
‘And do you wear my ring, Eva? Do you think of me while you touch?’

Body visibly seething with desire, she could barely breathe. ‘Yes.’

He felt her knees give way and he thrust his thigh up between her legs to stop her fall. Within seconds, she was rocking against him. And,
Cristo
, he could feel her hot, wet heat at his thigh, scorching his skin.

The notion he may lose it flashed through his mind, yet he discarded it just as quickly. This time he’d take it slow. Replace every imperfect memory of earlier with a night she would never forget. The first time she deserved.

Eva gripped his shoulders, fingered his hair. ‘I need...’

‘What?’ he said, licking across her bottom lip, kissing the corner of her full mouth. ‘Tell me exactly what you need, what you want. I will give you everything you have ever desired of me.’

Chin dipping, Eva glanced at her bra. He caught her meaning instantly.

Why dislike being touched there? An inkling that it pertained to her mother slithered into his mind and his stomach fisted. But now was not the time. He would fix it. Later.

‘So we take it one step at a time,’ he said. ‘First time we leave it on and I will touch you everywhere but your breasts.
Sì
?’

‘You can do that?’ she asked, her eyes flicking up to his, striking green pools connecting to his like powerful magnets.