The Italian's Perfect Lover (20 page)

How could she live without this?

Her finger traced his lips. His teeth nipped
it as his hands gathered her body to him.

They lay looking at each other in
uncharacteristic silence, their fingers and hands tracing each
other’s outlines, their skin, their bones, their muscle and sinew.
She, determined to commit to memory every inch of him; he, sensing
her removal, her distancing and trying to reduce it by his
touch.

But she held herself mentally aloof—she had
to—even while their bodies touched, even when he, gently, oh so
gently, slipped inside of her and filled her body with such
sensations that should have eclipsed her thoughts, dominated her
mind. But she couldn’t let him go there. She needed somewhere
safe.

They came with a flood of warmth and quiet
that filled her with more longing. But she knew she could never
fill that void. It was something she had to live with. Always.

Much later she sat and watched him. His face,
so gentle and relaxed in repose. She loved the way he awoke. There
was no transition period. It was a direct route from deep sleep to
wide awake. Within the space of a minute he’d awoken and swung
himself out of bed, reaching for his robe as he drew back the
curtains. He narrowed his eyes as he surveyed her and her packed
bag.

“You’re leaving.”

It was a flat statement. Succinct. A world
lay within those words and yet they both knew that nothing further
could be said.

“I’ve done as much as I can do here. You’ve
other plans. I’m leaving for Cambridge today.”

He grabbed hold of her hand. “No you’re
not.”

“Alessandro!” She tried to pull her hand away
but he held it too firmly.

“Leave me, if you must. But you will not
break your contract. I need you.”

“You don’t need me.”

“I want the mosaic finished, Emily. I won’t
release you until it’s done.”

He let go of her then and she walked
backwards away from him, unable to believe that he would hold her
to the contract after all they’d been to each other. In the doorway
she hesitated.

“Alessandro. You can’t mean this. I need to
go. You must let me.”

He shook his head. “If you leave the estate
I’ll sue you and your university. You are to finish the dig in
accordance with your initial brief—no more, no less. And you must
complete the mosaic.”

Something died inside of her then. She felt
it viscerally, pop, burst and disintegrate, without leaving a trace
of emotion. She had nothing left now. She shook her head in
disbelief and turned and left without a word.

Alessandro checked his cell phone one more
time, snapped it shut and sent it sliding across the desk. No
message from Emily. He raked his fingers through his hair, and
stood up, hands thrust into his pockets and glared across the
bright bay.

Not a word from Emily, in any shape or form,
for three months. And he refused to make contact with her. It was
she
who had left him. It was
she
who wanted more than
he could give. All he could do was make sure she hadn’t gone far
and he was paying the price for his heavy-handed measures. She
would have nothing further to do with him.

He’d known she was leaving for good. He could
see it in her eyes, he could feel it in her body and he could sense
it in her mind.

And worse than that, he knew why. Because
he’d told her to go if she wasn’t satisfied with what he could
offer her—the here and now, no future, no promises. So she’d left
and it had been his fault.

After the events of five years ago, he’d set
his life on a course that had allowed him to manage his pain until
he hardly felt a thing. And then she’d come along and opened him up
to feeling again.

And he’d run and not had a moment’s peace
since.

He missed her. He wanted her more than he
wanted to blot out the pain and guilt of the past. He wanted her
more than anything else.

He turned away from the brilliant colors of
the bay, not even noticing them. Life was drained of color for him
since she’d left. There was nothing real to him about his
surroundings without her. She brought life to his life. He had only
one thought on waking and one on sleeping. Emily.

The dig was nearly complete. His waiting time
was over. If he didn’t go to her soon he’d have no further excuse
to keep her.

He flicked a look at his watch and grabbed
his car keys.

It was late afternoon when he arrived at the
estate.

The place was now teeming with not just
archaeologists but also the surveyors and builders who were
clearing the site and marking out where the new buildings would be
erected. It was late and they were packing up for the night.

He looked over and saw the remains of the
archaeology team resting in the shade of the huge trees. The team
had dwindled down to three, including Emily. But there was no sign
of her.

“Where’s Emily?”

The boy and the girl exchanged looks. They
hesitated and he pushed his glasses to the top of his head so that
they could see with whom they were dealing.

The girl shrugged. “Try the mosaic. She
spends most of her time there now.”

He nodded. “You’ve finished here for
today.”

“No, not yet.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

He waited until everyone had gone and walked
slowly through the site. It was almost unrecognizable from five
months before.

Despite the storm, or perhaps because of it,
huge progress had been made. The site had been cleared and now made
sense. It looked just as he’d imagined it would look when he’d
instructed his designers to revise the plans in line with Emily’s
vision. He’d been right to make the changes. It would prove a
significant point of difference—a huge selling point—for his
exclusive resort.

Then he walked along the now uncovered mosaic
that led to the Aphrodite Mosaic. He stopped in the shadows of a
fig tree. Emily was standing, unmoving before the mosaic. He hadn’t
seen her in months and was shocked by the changes he saw in
her.

She was thinner, much thinner, and full of
nervous agitation. Her brows were compressed in a deep frown as she
stood looking at the mosaic. Her fists clenched repeatedly around
whatever she was holding before she suddenly turned and paced away.
Then she paused once more in front of the mosaic, impatient fingers
plucking at the shapeless shirt that hung down from shoulders tight
with tension.

His heart pounded and his hand clenched a
branch of the tree, oblivious to the thorns digging into his skin,
in an attempt to stop himself from going to her immediately.
Something terrible had happened.

She turned as she heard the others leaving
across the estate. Shouts of goodbye, laughs receding, cars revving
and then silence.

She dropped the pieces of tesserae she’d held
in her hands, grunted with frustration and drove rigid fingers
through hair that was already disheveled, revealing the turmoil
that raged within. Then she slumped down onto the ground and sat
staring at the incomplete mosaic.

Dio! What had he done?

He’d told her he’d look after her. And he
hadn’t.

He took a deep breath and was about to step
forward when she arched her back and winced. Her stomach pushed
out, clearly revealing that she was pregnant.

Stunned, he stepped back further under the
shelter of the tree, pressing himself against its trunk. Pregnant!
But how? Then he remembered the one time when they’d made love
unprotected when she’d turned up at the party to make a point,
revealing her bare shoulders. He’d been angry with her and it had
come to this? Of all the times they’d made love, that time was not
the one he wanted to remember. But now he was forced to face up to
the consequences. But could he?

He sank down to the ground and continued to
look at her, looking at the mosaic.

He’d avoided facing up to his past for years.
And that was fine because the only person he was hurting was
himself. But now? It wasn’t about him any more. It was about the
strong, independent woman who now looked desperate and despairing.
She needed him and he could no more turn around and leave her than
not breathe.

He stepped forward and cleared his
throat.

Her reaction was instantaneous. She jumped up
and swung to face him, pulling out her shirt once more to hide her
stomach. Clearly she didn’t want him to know. And he’d wait for her
to tell him.

“What do you want?”

He felt the depth of anger and frustration in
her words but they were no match for his own.

He stepped towards her and stood, close but
not touching.

“To see you.”

“You’ve seen me now so you can go.”

He reached out and tried to lift her chin to
force her to look at him. But she stepped back and looked away,
firm and resisting. But this close he could see just how changed
she was. The last of the light caught the planes of her face,
creating shadows beneath her eyes and cheekbones where there was no
longer any softness.

“You’ve been ill. Are you going to tell me
about it?”

A cynical smile rested on her otherwise
impassive face and she shook her head in one jerky movement of
denial which told him more than words.

With a faint grimace on her face she bobbed
down and picked up some trowels, banging them together to rid them
of dirt, her face unsmiling now. It seemed to him that he’d never
seen her without a smile, without some kind of animated expression
on her face.

“I’m fine.” She cleared her throat, as if she
hadn’t spoken to anyone for a while. “Never better. Come to see the
progress?”

He stepped away, instinctively, as if hit. He
could feel the chill of her words as if they were solid objects
pelting his body.

He looked away from her then. “Progress?”

“Is it to your satisfaction?”

He wanted to cradle her in his arms, to shake
her, to make love to her, to turn her back into the woman whom he…
He stopped himself there because he knew no word to finish the
sentence. All he knew was that he wanted her old self back.

He forced himself to approach the mosaic.

“It’s incomplete.” He paused. What could he
do to jolt her back into his Emily again? He had to be hard. If she
wouldn’t take his caresses, then he had to force her into a corner
where she had to come out fighting. “That’s not what I’m paying you
for.”

What he hadn’t expected was for the jolt he
wanted his words to make on her, to have the same effect on him. He
knew he had to continue but felt the pain he was inflicting on her,
on himself also.

She turned away. Her hurt was palpable. But
he had to reach her so he continued.

“You have all the missing pieces. It simply
has to be reconstructed. What’s stopping you? We need it for the
centre-piece of the building.”

“So I understand.” Her voice nearly broke him
up. It had a light-hearted quality as she tried to distance herself
from her pain.

“Well then?”

She cleared her throat. “You need to get
yourself a new archaeologist.”

“You’re the best.”

She turned to him then and for the first time
he saw her eyes—made huge by her now delicate face—and caught a
glimpse of what lay behind that agitated, brittle exterior. The
look of despair cut him to his heart. “I
was
the best.”

“What’s changed?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. Me, I guess. It’s
just not working.” She looked at him again with those eyes that
could conceal nothing from him. “You need passion for this job. And
I’ve lost mine.”

He shook his head, more from a need to deny
her loss than to contradict her. “Not you. You’ve more passion than
anyone I know.” Again the bleak look. “How did this happen? Tell
me, Emily.” She looked so devastated that he began to think there
was something more. Fear entered his heart then. “Is there
something else? Tell me!” He could hear his voice shouting but he
didn’t care. “Were you scared of Marcus?”

She turned and began to walk away and he
followed her, desperation taking over.

“You shouldn’t have been,” he continued. “He
died two years ago. I checked.”

She stopped instantly. Slowly she turned
around. It was as he hoped: the desperation had given way to anger.
“You checked and you didn’t tell me?” Her voice vibrated with
barely concealed anger.

“The proof didn’t arrive until after you
left. I’m sorry. But if that’s what’s getting to you, there’s no
reason for further concern. I’d made sure your team moved in with
you when I wasn’t there. I made sure you were OK.”

“How could you?”

He shook his head and tried to gather her
hands into his. “How could I what? Tell me.”

“No!” She shook his hands away. “No,
Alessandro. It wasn’t Marcus. He was a ghost but a ghost that you
drove away. That isn’t the reason that I’m…”

“You’re what Emily? Is it the
development?”

“Not even that. You were right. It’s not
going to be so devastating. I was being precious. It will be fine.
Not exactly as I wanted, but with the changes you’ve made, it will
be fine.”

The trowel slipped from her hands and landed
with a metallic clang as it hit the mosaic.

He looked into her eyes for a moment, testing
her. But he had to go further, haul her out of the depths of
despair into which she’d sunk.

“Mind the mosaic.”

“You bastard!” That was better. “You mind the
bloody mosaic. It’s you who’s after perfection, it’s you who wants
to use it to impress, to sell, to fund your future project. You
mind it.”

“It’s your job and you haven’t completed it
to my satisfaction.” He walked over to the Aphrodite Mosaic and
crouched down beside it. “Why isn’t it finished?” He shot her a
quick look, trying to gauge her reaction. At least anger was an
improvement on the despair that was too devastating to
contemplate.