One Last Night (4 page)

She had never wanted to be cast adrift.

She had done that herself.

But now the rules had been changed. She was back, but only temporarily. Giorgio wanted her to pretend things were back to normal and she could do that for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two. The chances were her pregnancy would disappear down the drain of despair, just like the others had done. All she had to do was keep it a secret until Giorgio's game of pretend was over.

There was no point in getting his hopes up as well as hers, or anyone else's for that matter.

Maya's heart ached at the thought of Salvatore dying. He was such a vitally alive man. He was the last of the great patriarchs. He liked the authority his position warranted as the elder of the tribe. She had learned a lot watching the family dynamics over the past five years. The meshing of different personalities, the way each son was cast from the same mould but still so very different. Giorgio was more like his grandfather than anyone. She suspected that was why Salvatore had told him about his illness first. Salvatore knew Giorgio would have the strength to carry the rest of the family through such a difficult time. He would watch over the family finances, he would steer a steady course instead of wavering about in panic. He would grieve certainly, but in private. He would not need anyone to support him.

He never had.

Giorgio led her to say their goodbyes to his grandfather and his mother. There were more congratulatory comments, more camera flashes and an even bigger smile from Salvatore as he gripped his eldest grandson's hand in his. 'You have made me a very happy man, Giorgio. I hoped and prayed you would not give up on your marriage. I knew you would win her back once you put your mind to it.'

Maya stretched her lips into a smile as Salvatore turned his attention to her.

'Maya, you are good for my grandson. You bring out the human, more softer side of him. Don't give up on him, mio piccolo. You remind me of my adored wife, Maria. She was so strong, even though like you she looked so petite and fragile. Just like her, you have backbone. I knew it from the first moment I met you.'

'I hope you enjoy the rest of your party,' Maya said, leaning forward to kiss him on both cheeks.

She brushed at the tears that had sprung from her eyes and added, 'I love you.'

Salvatore smiled indulgently as she stood back with Giorgio's arm looping around her waist. 'I have never doubted it,' he said. 'Now, go home with your husband and convince him of the same.'

'WE CAN'T possibly live together in this small flat,' Maya said as she opened the villa door a short time later.

Gonzo was bouncing up and down, his tail going like a metronome on twelve eight time, not unlike the rate of Maya's heartbeat.

Giorgio closed the door after waving off a car that had tailed the limousine that had brought them home. He turned and scratched behind Gonzo's ears before straightening to face her. 'Why not?'

he asked. 'It has a bed, does it not?'

Maya felt her stomach flip over. 'Y…yes, but only the one.'

He gave an up and down lift of his brows that sent another shockwave through her belly. 'Then we will have to share it.'

She took a step backwards, her hands going up to ward him off. 'No way,' she said. 'There is no way I am sharing my bed with you. You can sleep on the sofa.'

He glanced at the cheap sofa she had picked up in a second-hand sale in one of her staunch attempts to move away from the wealth he took for granted, having had it all of his life. His lip curled in disdain, as she knew it would. 'I wouldn't let Gonzo sleep on that,' he said. 'Anyway, how do you expect to fit the whole six foot four of me on that thing?'

Maya gave her head a little toss and began to move away. 'Not my problem.'

One of his hands captured her like a cobra striking out at its prey. One minute she was free, the next she was standing up against the hard wall of his body, his dark eyes burning like embers as they held hers. 'I think you might have missed something in our conversation earlier, Maya,' he said in a deep silky voice. 'This reconciliation of ours is not just a show for the press.'

Maya felt her eyes widen and her heart gave another uncoordinated sprint. 'What do you mean?'

She swallowed a tight knot of panic in her throat. 'You surely don't want to…to…' She swallowed again when she saw the way his eyes darkened even further.

Oh, dear God, he did.

One of his hands began stroking the length of her forearm, back and forth in a mesmerising movement that was loaded with erotic sensuality. Her skin leapt at his touch, her spine went to water and her inner core contracted as if he were already driving through her hot moistness to brand her as his.

'We might as well make the most of the situation,' he said into the throbbing silence. 'What do you say? Shall we see if we can still do it like we did the night of Luca and Bronte's wedding?'

Maya tried to pull out of his hold but it was like trying to disengage from a steel trap. 'Th…this is not what I agreed to…' she said, trying to keep her voice steady and controlled. 'I thought we were just acting, you know…out in public. Not in private. Not when we're alone.'

His fingers had found her pulse at her wrist and his caress slowed to a drugging pace that made her brain turn the rational and sensible switch to irrational and impulsive. She was in danger of betraying everything she had worked so hard over the last six months to achieve: independence, confidence and immunity. She wasn't immune and that was the biggest shock of all. She had never quite got there in terms of invulnerability and quite possibly never would. He only had to look at her in that brooding all male way of his and she felt her whole body turn into a wanton needy mess.

He pulled her even closer against him, letting her feel the heat of his arousal. 'You know we could never share a flat or villa, no matter how big or small, without it coming to this,' he said in that spine-tingling gravel-rough tone he always used when he wanted sex. Not pre-planned sex, not sex with a jar or to a meticulous timetable, but sex when everything that their bodies wanted and craved was paramount.

Like at his brother's wedding.

Like now…

Maya had to scramble mentally to regain lost ground. She was in a vulnerable period of this surprise pregnancy. All the medical advice she had received in the past was no sex until the three-month mark, just to be safe. Not that she had ever got there-the three-month mark, that was. Giorgio had been so good about it-perhaps too good about it. It had often made her wonder if he had simply taken his needs elsewhere when she had been unavailable. Maya knew about his father's well documented affairs in the early years of his marriage to Giovanna. Of course, since his untimely death he had been enshrined as a saint but, according to what Maya had heard, he had been anything but. Was it a case of like father like son? Luca was a bit of an unknown to her, but Nic was certainly everything a playboy should be, just as Giorgio had been before they had married.

'I don't want to sleep with you, Giorgio,' Maya said with as much firmness as she could muster. It wasn't much: a bit like a Chihuahua trying to round up a herd of wildebeest, she thought.

'You know you don't mean that,' he said, his warm coffee-scented breath caressing her face just as sensually as his thumb was now doing over her leaping pulse.

'I…I do,' she said, gulping over another tight swallow.

His expression hardened, as if his blood supply had suddenly released a shot of cynicism into his veins. 'Herbert wouldn't approve of a bit of ex-sex?' he taunted.

Maya cringed all over again at how stupid she had been to use that poor lonely man as a payback for Giorgio's sexual exploits. 'Howard,' she said through gritted teeth. 'His name is Howard and I didn't sleep with him.'

Giorgio laughed but his thumb didn't stop on her wrist. 'Poor Howard. He probably didn't get much time for sleeping. Not with you in his bed.'

Maya glared at him. 'What about your lingerie model? Did you manage to get any sleep while you were with her?'

'I did, actually,' he said, bending down to nibble at one of her ears. 'She bored me to tears.'

Maya angled her head away, arching so much she felt a pain in her back and, before she could stop it, let out a little sharp cry. 'Ow!'

Giorgio released his hold, just using his hands to keep her upright. 'Cara, what's wrong? Did I hurt you?' he asked, frowning with dark seriousness.

She shook her head and eased out of his loose hold, rubbing at her lower back. 'It's nothing,' she said, not quite meeting his eyes. 'I think I may have overstretched myself in my yoga class.'

'Let me massage it for you,' he offered.

Oh, no, Maya thought. That would be asking for more trouble than she needed right now. 'I'm fine, really. I just need a hot bath or something.'

'Where's the bathroom?' he said. 'I'll run it for you.'

Maya looked at him with suspicion. 'What's with the loving husband routine?' she asked. 'No one's watching, Giorgio. There are no paparazzi cameras peering through the windows.' Thank God, she added mentally.

His mouth tightened around the edges. 'Must you always misread my motives? I am merely doing what I would do for anyone.'

Maya gave him a scornful look. 'Oh, yes, anyone you were trying to seduce into your bed, that is.'

He muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like a very rude word but she didn't stay around to confirm it. She stalked through to the kitchen, opening and then banging the cupboard door shut as she got out a glass for water. She turned on the tap and filled the glass and, once it was full, turned and leaned back against the sink to steady her shaking legs.

Giorgio followed her into the room which, prior to this moment, had seemed of a reasonable size. Now, with him standing there within touching distance, Maya instantly downgraded it to a kitchenette.

'You sound jealous, Maya,' he said, leaning against the opposite counter, his feet crossed over at the ankles in an indolent manner.

Maya drained her glass and set it on the sink with a little clatter. 'Why should I be jealous?' she asked. 'We were officially separated for six months. We were both free agents. You could sleep with whomever you liked. So could I.'

Her answer appeared to annoy him, as that tiny hammer of tension began beating beneath the skin at the edge of his mouth. 'Exactly how many times did you see this Hugh?' he asked.

'Howard.' Maya rolled her eyes in annoyance. 'H.O.W.A.R.D. Howard.'

'You didn't answer my question.'

'And I am not going to,' she said, pushing herself away from the sink. 'Firstly, it's none of your business and, secondly, I don't want all the details of who you've been seeing, that is, of course, assuming you haven't lost count by now.'

'You, of all people, should know you can't take what is written in the press as gospel,' he said.

She gave him an ironic arch of her brows. 'Funny that you don't adhere to your own philosophy on that issue, isn't it? But then, there is always one rule for you and another one for everyone else.'

'Maya, this is getting us nowhere,' he said, uncrossing his ankles and straightening. He expelled his breath on a sigh and sent one of his hands through his hair. 'You are exhausted. You look as if a sneeze from me would send you through that wall there to the next room. Why don't you go to bed? I will make do on the sofa.'

Maya hesitated. He would not get a wink of sleep on that sofa and they both knew it. Why he was being so chivalrous about it was beyond her. The old Giorgio would have had her flat on her back by now, sending her to paradise for the second, if not the third or fourth, time. Just thinking about it brought hot colour to her cheeks. Her body was so aware of him; each time he moved, another part of her would register it and respond. How she wanted to close that small distance between them and throw herself into his arms, begging him to take her back, to love her, even if she couldn't ever provide him with an heir. But that small distance of a few cracked and faded tiles might as well have been a canyon.

'It's just for tonight,' Giorgio said. 'I don't think I could bear any longer than that in this dump.

What were you thinking, renting something like this?'

Maya folded her arms and looked at him drolly. 'I am surprised you can speak so clearly with all those silver spoons sticking out of your mouth.'

He laughed again, but this time it wasn't mocking like before. It was the sort of laugh she had heard so rarely from him over the past five years. The sort of laugh that made her spine fizz, as if a fairy was tiptoeing its way over each of her vertebrae to dance amongst the tiny hairs at the back of her neck.

'Maya,' he said, his expression suddenly turning serious once more, 'I know the difference in our upbringings has always been an issue for you. I can do nothing to change that. It is just what is.

You should be grateful I can provide for you. So many women suffer financially as a result of a divorce. Once our marriage is finally over you will be richer than you could ever have been as a teacher, even if you ended up at the top of the academic ladder.'

Maya felt her heart sink at the when-not-if approach he was taking to the divorce. She knew she only had herself to blame-she had been the one to instigate the separation, but still…

He closed the distance before she could move away, his hand coming down on the top of one of her shoulders before moving to the sensitive nape of her neck. 'Tomorrow we will move back into my villa,' he said. 'It doesn't matter if the curtains are not quite finished and the paint not quite dry. At least we will have more space and privacy there.'

Maya tried not to be affected by his touch but it was impossible to ignore the way her body was automatically leaning towards him like a compass point. How long before she would betray herself all over again? If he kissed her now it would be so hard to resist him. Her lips ached for the press of his. She had to bit her tongue to stop it sweeping out to deposit a layer of moisture to them in case he saw how much she wanted him to reach for her.

'What about the household staff?' she asked, thinking of the veritable droves of people who hovered about, waiting upon every need. It was yet another one of the things that had driven her crazy towards the end. The constant speculative glances at her belly and then the raised brows whenever she and Giorgio exchanged a few heated words, as any normal married couple did at times. The trouble was, they hadn't lived a normal married life. They had lived in a fish bowl-a very expensive fish bowl that, over five years, had become an oversized, overstaffed, overstocked aquarium.

Giorgio's hand dropped from her nape and he thrust it, along with his other one, into his trouser pocket. 'I have simplified my life a bit,' he said. 'I took on board what you said in one of our arguments towards the end. The villa was starting to feel more like a Sabbatini hotel than a home. I had grown up with servants so it seemed normal to me, but I can see now how you would find it intrusive. After all, you spent far more time there than me, due to my work commitments.'

Maya could barely believe her ears. She looked at him for a long moment, her forehead wrinkling as she thought about how his life would surely soon slip back into billionaire-with-everyone-at-his-beck-and-call mode.

He smiled crookedly. 'You don't believe me, do you, cara? What's the problem? Can't you picture me doing my own cooking?'

'I can see you doing the celebrity chef thing in the kitchen,' she said. 'But, as for pushing a vacuum cleaner or a mop about the place, not to mention doing the laundry, well, no, quite frankly, I can't.'

'I haven't quite offloaded all the housework,' he said with a lingering smile. 'But Carita, my new housekeeper, only comes in twice a week and only for half a day.'