The Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife Page 8

  Barton, good host that he was, made much of his guests, calling for toasts and rounds of applause. Leo joined in the applause for Selena and raised his glass to her. She raised hers back.

  As everyone broke into another boisterous dance he made his way through the crowd to her and saw that her eyes were shining.

  ‘I feel so good,’ she said happily. ‘Oh, Leo, if you only knew how good I feel!’

  ‘That’s great,’ he said tenderly. ‘That’s how I always want you to feel.’

  ‘I’ve just been interviewed by the local paper about my “successes”-both of them.’

  After being narrowly beaten in the first barrel race, she’d won on the following day, and achieved another second on the day after. On the final day there had been a big event for the best ten competitors from the previous races. And she’d stormed to victory.

  ‘Do you know how much money I’ve got now?’ she asked in wonder.

  ‘Yes, I do. You told me. And take care of it.’

  ‘It’s more than I’ve ever had before at one time.’

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘Enter more events. This could see me through my next six months.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘By then I should have enough for the next year. I’m on my way.’

  Which didn’t sound much as if she was planning to pine for him.

  He chinked glasses with her, then walked away to sweep Carrie into the mêlée. They danced until they were both breathless and laughing, then went into the waltz together.

  ‘Did you manage it?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘It?’

  ‘Selena. Is she as nuts about you as you are about her?’ Since the day Leo had appealed to her in the discussion about bull riding she’d settled into the role of the understanding sister.

  ‘She sure isn’t nuts about me.’

  ‘But you are about her.’

  ‘Carrie, please!’

  ‘OK. Only I think I saw her looking for you, and I was planning to melt tactfully away, but if-’

  ‘You’re a darling.’

  He kissed her cheek and turned to find Selena eyeing him with a curious little smile on her lips.

  ‘You haven’t danced with me yet,’ she said.

  Carrie melted, as promised, only taking a quick look back to see Leo and Selena go into each other’s arms like two halves of a whole.

  They danced in silence for a while, each thinking that by this time tomorrow they would have gone their separate ways.

  Selena was full of confusion. She’d said goodbyes before, but never like this. She tried to be practical. All she had to do was hold out until he’d gone, and then forget him. It should be easy forgetting a man half a world away. But her heart was telling her that he would never be far away from her again, because she would carry him with her every moment, for the rest of her life.

  The music changed. Suddenly a lone violin was playing a melancholy strain of longing and farewell. She would never see him again. She held him close and her heart ached.

  With her eyes closed, she didn’t see where he was taking her. She only knew that they were dancing, circling, circling, while the sounds faded. She danced on in a dream where there was only herself and him, circling around and around.

  ‘Selena…’

  His voice whispering her name made her open her eyes to find his face close to hers.

  ‘Selena,’ he said again, his breath brushing her face, and her murmured, ‘Yes,’ was so swift that their breath intermingled.

  Then his mouth was on hers, and he was kissing her with a fierceness born out of desperation. She was slipping through his fingers, and holding her was like trying to hold onto quicksilver.

  She answered him with the same fierceness. From the moment they’d met something had been bound to happen between them, and it had taken too long. Now she wouldn’t let it go. She would have her hour, whatever it cost, and live in its glory all her days.

  Her life had taught her little about love and tenderness. What she knew she’d discovered for herself. Something was happening inside her now that was totally new. She hadn’t known before that just being in a man’s arms could make her ache with joy and sadness together, so that she didn’t know which one was the greater. Nor did it matter. She was alive to feelings and sensations that she would never regret, no matter how much pain they might cost her. And there would be pain. Life had taught her that much.

  She’d kissed other men, but none like this. He was a man whom, she guessed, had lived a full life with women, yet his touch had a curious innocence about it, as though he too was experiencing something for the first time. Through the driving urgency she could still feel the tenderness, as though caring for her mattered more to him than any other satisfaction.

  Yet he wanted her to the point where it was driving him crazy. She could sense that through the trembling of his great, powerful body, the rise and fall of his chest. It excited her to know that she affected him so much. She wanted him as much in thrall to her as she was to him, and she teased him with her lips, urging him on to the point where they would meet.

  It was he who ended the kiss, seizing her shoulders and pushing her back a few inches, so that he could look into her face. His own was wild.

  ‘We picked one heckuva time,’ he gasped. ‘Maybe we should-’

  ‘Maybe we should what? Be sensible? Who wants to be sensible?’

  ‘Well I sure don’t, but you-Selena, tomorrow-’ He stopped. The words of cool wisdom hung in the air and died unspoken.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes-’

  From somewhere in the background a sound was growing closer. Cheering, laughing, singing, cheerful guests in the last yell of enjoyment before the party began to break up. Leo looked desperately to where light and noise were streaming towards him, engulfing him.

  ‘Hey, look who’s hiding himself under the trees!’

  ‘Who is she, Leo?’

  He laughed loudly, trying to brush it off. Someone pressed a drink on him and he took it. Everyone was kissing everyone.

  When he looked around for Selena she had gone.

  It seemed an age before the goodnights were said, but at last the place was quiet and Leo could draw a long breath. Perhaps they could still have a moment alone together, and answer some of the questions that had been raised under the trees.

  But there was no sign of Selena. So many promises in her kiss, and she’d just left him.

  He made his way up to bed, frowning, trying to see a way through the confusion. Hell would freeze over before he would go knocking on her door. The next move had to be hers.

  So he told himself. But he still went to her door and knocked softly. It was that or spend the rest of his life wondering. Getting no reply he knocked a little louder, and waited. Still no reply.

  He went to his own room. At the window he looked out on the dark landscape, knowing it had been foolish to indulge in dreams when he was leaving tomorrow. Whatever happened now was too late. He stood there, telling himself it was best to be sensible, and trying to believe it.

  He didn’t know what made him aware that he wasn’t alone in the room. It wasn’t even as definite as the sound of breathing, but something changed in the atmosphere, and when he stretched out his hand to the lamp a voice in the darkness whispered, ‘Don’t put on the light.’

  ‘Where are you?’ he said.

  She didn’t answer, but the next moment two soft arms were around his neck, and a slim, naked body was pressed against his.

  ‘You were here all the time?’ he asked. ‘I just got back from-’

  ‘I know, I heard you.’ Her chuckle delighted him.

  He’d remembered her from the first day as a gazelle, a nymph, so delicately built was she. Now in the darkness his hands discovered what his eyes had known, and found the beauty he’d dreamed of since that moment.

  Her fingers were working on his shirt, opening the buttons, finding his chest, the slight rise and fal
l of his muscles, sliding her palms over them.

  ‘If you don’t mean to follow through, you’re doing something very dangerous,’ Leo groaned.

  ‘I never start what I don’t mean to finish,’ she murmured so that her breath fanned his face.

  She was easing his shirt down his arms as she spoke, inch by inch until he couldn’t stand it any more and wrenched it off. Then he could pull her against him, revelling in the feel of her soft skin against his own. He closed his eyes, wondering how anything could feel so good and still leave him standing.

  He stripped off the rest of his clothes as fast as he could. This had been too long in coming to waste any time. Holding onto each other they made their way to the bed and collapsed on it so that he fell on his back with her on top of him.

  ‘Remember when we were like this before?’ she asked.

  ‘The first day-I got you out of the bath-how can I forget?’

  ‘We didn’t end up like this though.’

  ‘We would have done if I’d had anything to do with it,’ he growled.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘As soon as that?’

  ‘As soon as that.’

  She was laughing like a siren who’d finally enticed her prey into her circle, and that was fine by him. He’d happily be the prey, or anything, as long it led to this.

  His hands were all over her, enjoying her lithe strength, her fluid movements, and what she was doing to him.

  ‘I thought you were stiff and bruised,’ she teased.

  ‘My energy’s coming back by the minute.’

  She began covering him with kisses. She seemed to know him already, understanding by instinct the little caresses that drove him wild. When Leo slowly sat up, holding her in his lap, her fingers immediately found the place on the back of his neck where the lightest touch could reduce him to shivers. From there it was just a matter of time before she discovered how vulnerable his spine was as well.

  ‘Witch,’ he growled.

  ‘Hmm!’

  Suddenly he could stand it no longer. With a deep laugh he rolled over, tossing her onto her back with him on top of her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about this until I nearly went crazy,’ he groaned.

  Her whisper went through him like electricity. ‘Why did we waste so much time?’

  ‘Who cares?’ he said. ‘As long as we don’t waste any more.’

  He kissed her everywhere, celebrating her breasts, her tiny waist, her long, slim legs. She was quickly ready for him, telling him wordlessly of her eagerness, and when he entered her she gave a sigh of fulfilment.

  His loving was like himself, robust and full-hearted, short on subtlety but long on warmth and generosity, giving more than he took. His slow movements increased her pleasure, driving it forward, harder, more intense, beautiful, ecstatic. He had the control to hold back, giving her every last moment before letting himself go.

  And then it was like nothing in the world had ever been or ever would be again. Just for a few moments. Not long enough. She wanted so much more, and she would never stop wanting him. She knew, even as she felt her heartbeat slow to contentment, that he could start it racing again with a word.

  They shared a glance, eyes gleaming in the dark, and suddenly they clutched each other, not in passion this time but in joyous mirth. For it was the biggest and most exhilarating joke in the whole world. Arms about each other’s necks, they roared with laughter, knowing the joke was on them.

  And then it wasn’t funny any more, but only beautiful and fulfilling, and they were no longer themselves, but something entirely different called ‘us’.

  And tomorrow they were saying goodbye.

  She’d known that Leo was a dangerously lovable man, but she was never more sure of it than when sex was over and he turned towards her, enfolding her in his arms and resting his face against her warm flesh, as though he needed more from her than physical pleasure.

  That was a real dirty trick, she thought. How was a girl supposed to keep her independence of spirit with a man who behaved like that?

  But when she was quite sure he was asleep she put her own arms around him, as far as she could, and stroked his hair, and kissed him again and again in a passion of tenderness and farewell.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  T HE worst thing about airports was having to arrive early, so that the goodbyes stretched out painfully. It was worse, Selena thought, if you were waiting for the other person to say something and you weren’t sure what. And whatever it was, he didn’t say it.

  She drove him to Dallas Airport. They checked the time of the Atlanta flight, sent his luggage on its way, and found a coffee bar. But suddenly Leo jumped up and said, ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as he grasped her hand and hurried her away.

  ‘I want to buy you a present before I go, and I’ve just realised what it should be.’

  He led her to a shop that sold mobile phones. ‘Anyone who moves around as much as you needs one of these,’ he said.

  ‘Couldn’t afford it before.’ She was briefly happy at this sign that he wanted to keep in touch. But no happiness could survive the reflection that he was going away, and she might never see him again.

  They chose the phone together, and he bought the first thirty hours. She scribbled the number on a small piece of paper and watched as he tucked it away in his wallet.

  ‘Time I was going through Passport Control.’

  ‘Not just yet,’ she said quickly. ‘We’ve got time for another coffee.’

  She had a terrifying feeling that everything was rushing to the edge of a precipice. She was the only one who could stop it, but she didn’t know how. She couldn’t manage the words, had never spoken them, barely knew them.

  She’d done all she could to show him how she felt the night before. Now her heart was breaking, and she could only wonder that he seemed oblivious.

  She spent the last few minutes drinking in the sight of him, trying to remember every line, every intonation of his voice.

  He was going away. He would forget her.

  She had never smiled so brightly.

  ‘Will passengers-?’

  ‘I guess that’s it,’ Leo said, getting to his feet.

  She came with him almost to the gate. He stopped and touched her face gently.

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ she said lightly, and aimed a punch at his arm. ‘You’ll forget me as soon as the hostess flutters her eyelashes at you.’

  But he didn’t smile back. ‘I’ll never forget you, Selena.’

  His face seemed to constrict and she thought for a moment that he would say something more. She waited, her heart beating with wild hope, but he only leaned down and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Don’t you forget me,’ he said.

  ‘Better call that number and make sure I don’t.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  He kissed her again before walking off. Try as she might she couldn’t find in those kisses any echo of the night before when he’d kissed her in a very different way. Then he’d been a man thinking only of a woman, absorbed only in her, giving and receiving pleasure, and not only pleasure: tenderness and affection. Now he was a man who wanted to go home.

  At the gate he turned and waved to her. She waved back, keeping a smile on her face by sheer force of will.

  Then he was gone.

  She didn’t leave at once, as she’d meant to. Instead she waited by the window until the flight took off, and watched until the sky swallowed it up.

  Then she walked back to the parking lot and got behind the wheel, talking to herself like a Dutch uncle.

  What the heck! They were ships that passed in the night, and they’d passed. That was all. Ahead of her stretched a brighter future than she’d ever known. That was what she should be thinking of.

  She slammed her hand down on the wheel. She’d never told herself pretty lies before.

 
But now she needed a comforting lie to get her over this moment.

  ‘I should have said something,’ she raged. ‘Said anything, so he’d know. Then he might even have asked me to go with him. Oh, who am I fooling? He could have asked me to go, but he never thought of it. He won’t call. That phone was a goodbye present. Stop being a fool Selena. You can’t cry in a parking lot.’

  The Atlanta/Pisa flight seemed to go on for ever, into not just another day, but another dimension, another world. Leo tried to sleep but couldn’t. He left the aircraft, dazed with weariness and yawned his way through Passport Control and customs. It felt strange to be back in his own country.

  He headed for the taxi rank, so absorbed in calculating how long it would take him to get home that he had no attention for the sounds of someone behind him. He didn’t see what hit him, or how many of them there were, although witnesses later attested to four. He only knew that suddenly he was on the ground, being swarmed over by strangers.

  Shouts, the sound of running. He sat up, feeling his head, wondering why there were so many policemen around. Hands helped him stagger to his feet.

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  ‘You were robbed, signore.’

  He groaned and felt for the place where his wallet should have been. It was empty. His head was aching too much for him to think any further than this. Somebody called an ambulance and he was taken to the local hospital.

  He awoke next morning to find a policeman by his bed, holding the missing wallet.

  ‘We found it in an alley,’ he said.

  As expected, the wallet was empty. Money, credit cards were all gone. But what really appalled Leo was the fact that the slip of paper with Selena’s number had also vanished.

  Renzo, his overseer, collected him from the hospital and drove him the fifty miles home to Bella Podena. As soon as he found himself among the rolling hills of Tuscany Leo began to relax. Whatever the surface turmoil of his life, his instincts were telling him that what really mattered was to be home, where his vines grew and his fields of wheat lay under a benevolent sun.