Her Mediterranean Playboy Page 8

  ‘I’m ready for you,’ she panted back, feeling the dew of desire between her legs.

  He reached down and explored her intimately with his fingers, stroking, caressing, delving gently until she was crying out with the need for fulfilment. ‘You are hot and warm for me, cara, but I must protect you,’ he said, and reached across to search through his bedside drawer for a condom.

  She watched in wide-eyed fascination as he applied it, his body so engorged and ready for hers she wondered if her small form would be able to stretch enough to accommodate him. Nerves fluttered like tiny moths in her belly as he resettled between her legs, one of his curled over one of hers to make his entry as smooth and deep as possible.

  He took his time, nudging, retreating, thrusting a little deeper, until her slim form accepted his smooth thickness. She whimpered in delight. His body felt as if it was made for her. Every stroke and sensuous glide set off fizzing nerves of reaction right through her lower limbs, concentrating in the moist core of her, where every part of her seemed to be gathered in finely tuned focus for the final plunge into paradise.

  ‘Relax and move with me, cara,’ he coaxed. ‘Do not hold back. Let yourself go.’

  Ally was expecting some resistance, but apart from a tiny twinge at first there was none. He filled her to the hilt, moving slowly, tantalisingly at first, before he increased his pace. She was crying out at the sheer delight of feeling him inside her, the position he had adopted maximising her pleasure. She could feel it building, bit by bit; it was if she was ascending a steep precipice until finally the wondrous view was in sight. She hovered there for a moment, suspended in a world of wonder at all she had missed out on before. All she had to do was allow herself to finally tip over…

  Vittorio heard her suddenly sucked-in breath, and then her breathless cries of release, and he felt something unlike he had ever felt before as she clutched at him in trusting submission. His body was bursting and burning to let go, but he wanted to savour this moment as long as he could. He had never had such a mind-and body-altering experience. In the past sex had been just sex. It was physical. He never allowed emotions to get involved. And yet this time…

  She arched her slender spine and moved against him again, and his release began to pump out of him. He tried to hold back, but it was impossible with her body still convulsing in tight little aftershocks around him.

  He lay on top of her, breathless, valiantly trying to garner some sense of the control he was so used to executing in situations like this. But he was at a loss.

  He had not in his entire experience been told it could be like this. He had not understood how body and mind could be so inextricably linked, so that what she felt made him feel not so much a conqueror but an equal in every way possible.

  And yet they were not equals, he reminded himself as he eased his weight off her slim form. He looked down and saw the slight stain of blood between her legs, where he had torn through what had appeared to be her innocence, and a blade of guilt assailed him. Although he had teased her about her shyness, he had not truly factored in the possibility that she was still a virgin. It made him feel as if he had exploited her in a way he had never intended.

  He waited for her breathing to return to normal before he got off the bed and handed her a soft wad of tissues. ‘Is there something you need to tell me, Ally?’ he asked gently.

  Ally scrambled to cover herself beneath the sheets. ‘Such as what?’ she asked, trying to sound casual and unaffected about what had just happened between them.

  ‘You are bleeding. Is that your period, or something else you need to tell me? Did I hurt you?’

  The question was delivered in such a tender and totally disarming way that Ally felt like confessing everything there and then. He was supposed to be a use-them-discard-them playboy, and yet he was concerned about the spot of blood that had stained his sheets and the possibility he had hurt her. It didn’t quite fit her image of him as a ruthless playboy, but she didn’t want to examine her feelings too closely again until she was alone.

  ‘No…’ she said softly, still keeping her eyes away from his penetrating ones. ‘I’m having a period. I’m sorry…perhaps I should have told you.’

  Vittorio narrowed his gaze as he studied her bent head and delicately flushed cheeks. ‘My family is joining us for dinner later this evening. Will I send Ghita up to help you dress, or would you prefer to be alone?’

  Ally forced her gaze to connect with his. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, trying to affect a smile but falling a little short. ‘I don’t like to be fussed over. Ghita means well, but right now I would like to have some time alone if you don’t mind.’

  Vittorio lifted her chin, his thumb moving back and forth over the fullness of her bottom lip. ‘You intrigue me, Ally. Call it male ego, if you like, but I cannot believe you are the same person my brother-in-law described. Either he is lying, or there is more to this situation than either of you are letting on.’

  Ally moistened her lips. ‘There is more to this, but…but I’m not sure what it is.’ She swallowed painfully and continued, ‘You see, I—’

  His gaze intensified, making his pupils disappear into the blackness of his eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘’Vittorio…there is something I need to tell you about Rocco and—’ she swallowed ‘—me.’

  ‘Let us talk later, when we will not be interrupted,’ he said, as the noise of people arriving sounded from downstairs. ‘My family is here.’ He bent forward and kissed her forehead. ‘I will leave you to prepare for dinner. Do not worry about my relatives. My older sister Justina is desperate for me to settle down, so you will be welcomed with open arms.’

  ‘Is Rocco’s wife Chiara going to be there?’ Ally asked, trying to disguise her dread about meeting any of his family—much less the woman her sister had inadvertently betrayed by sleeping with her husband.

  ‘No, she is under doctor’s orders to stay put at our villa in Positano, but she is looking forward to meeting you as soon as she is well enough,’ he said. ‘Thankfully she is now assured that the rumours were nothing but a case of mistaken identity. She is convinced you and I are an item, and that Rocco is completely innocent.’

  Mistaken identity, Ally thought on the back end of a sigh as the door closed behind Vittorio’s exit.

  Yeah, well, that was exactly her problem—wasn’t it?

  When Ally came downstairs she was a little disorientated, and found herself in one of the smaller reception rooms. It wasn’t vacant, as she had first presumed, and before she could back out and find where the rest of the family had gathered she heard the clink of crystal, and saw a tall figure pouring a pre-dinner aperitif from a cabinet fitted into an antique wall unit. At first she thought it was Vittorio standing there, until the figure turned around and faced her.

  She knew it was Rocco Montano, for even though his likeness to Vittorio was uncanny, considering they were not blood relatives, Rocco’s lips were thinner, and right now were lifted in a snarl as he came towards her. The fumes of brandy on his breath wafted unpleasantly over her face the closer he got.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are playing at?’ he gritted out harshly. ‘I told you never to contact me or my family again.’

  Ally knew she would have to tread very carefully to get the information she needed. He was a man who had been intimately involved with her twin sister, and it would take all of what little acting ability she possessed to pull this off without him seeing through the part she was playing.

  ‘How much more do you want from me?’ he asked, with aggression carving every word to dagger points. ‘I gave you what I could. What else do you want, you greedy little bitch?’

  ‘What do you think I want from you?’ she asked, watching every nuance of his expression as closely as she dared.

  ‘For God’s sake, Alex, you were supposed to go away,’ he said, raking a hand through his thick black hair, his eyes shooting all over the place apart from anywhere near hers. ‘That is what all the
others have done in the past. Why not you?’

  Ally planted a hand on her hip and gave him a gimlet stare. ‘You should have told me the truth at the start. You owed me that at the very least.’

  He let out an exasperated sigh and began to pace the room. ‘I should have told you I was married when we met that night in London,’ he said. ‘I should also have told you I will never leave my wife. She is the reason Vittorio gave me a position in the company. Do you think I would walk away from that for a common tramp like you?’

  Ally could barely stomach what she was hearing. People’s lives—two young women’s lives and happiness—had been bandied about like dollar chips on a poker table. It sickened her. It made her so angry she had trouble maintaining her disguise. ‘So I was just a temporary fill-in? Someone to warm your bed while your devoted and trusting wife was back at home, loving and missing you?’ she asked with caustic bite.

  He sent his hand through his hair again. ‘Did you do as I told you to do?’ he asked.

  Ally tried to read his expression, but it remained cold and distant. ‘You should know me well enough by now to know I don’t like being told what to do, Rocco,’ she said, testing the water.

  His eyes flared with anger, and something else Ally thought looked a little like panic. ‘I told you to disappear,’ he bit out. ‘I gave you enough money to do so, for God’s sake. What the hell are you doing here, in Vittorio’s house?’

  The door of the room opened behind them, and Vittorio’s deep commanding voice cut the through the air like a knife. ‘She is here because I want her to be here,’ he said. ‘And she will stay for as long as I want her to stay.’

  Rocco swung around to face him. ‘You cannot be serious!’ he said. ‘What has come over you? I told you she is mad. She keyed your brand-new car, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I am not mad,’ Ally said, with steely emphasis.

  Rocco turned back to Vittorio. ‘Dio mio! You were supposed to pay her off!’ he ranted. ‘Not sleep with her yourself!’

  ‘I am at liberty to choose my own lovers,’ Vittorio said. ‘Unlike you, I am not yet married.’

  Rocco threw his hands in the air in a frustrated gesture. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ he asked. ‘Chiara was warned to take things easy during her pregnancy. Alex was more than available. She practically threw herself at me, like the slut she is.’

  Ally snorted in disgust before she could stop herself. ‘You low-life bastard!’

  ‘So you chose a convenient lover to fill in for you, not for a moment thinking of the consequences?’ Vittorio said, pointedly ignoring Ally’s vehement outburst.

  Rocco briefly met Ally’s blistering gaze and hastily turned away. ‘I thought Alex was a woman of the world. She told me she had been married and divorced. I figured she would be agreeable to a short-term affair. I did not for a moment think she would want anything long term. Nor did I expect her to toss in her job and follow me to Rome.’

  Ally decided to remain silent. She didn’t know enough about her sister’s motivation to relocate to Italy. In fact she knew so little she was starting to think she had made the biggest error of judgement in her life. Exchanging places with her twin when they were ten years old as a mischievous prank was one thing; doing it when she was twenty-five was another thing entirely. This was certainly not child’s play, and as each moment passed she felt she was sinking in even further over her head.

  ‘It is of no importance now,’ Vittorio was saying. ‘The problem has been solved. Ally and I are intimately involved, and that is all the press and the rest of our family needs to know right now.’

  Rocco sent Vittorio a penetrating look and switched to Italian. ‘You are being straight with me, are you not, Vito? You do not have to pretend with me, remember? I asked you to solve this problem, not to take my place and sleep with her yourself.’

  ‘But what did you ask her to do?’ Vittorio asked with a searing look. ‘Or should I take a wild guess?’

  Rocco’s eyes flicked to Ally and back again. ‘She set me up, Vito,’ he said in an undertone. ‘The bitch tried to trap me. What else was I supposed to do?’

  Vittorio had to fight hard to disguise his reaction. His gut clenched as if a powerful fist had grabbed at his intestines and cruelly squeezed. He felt his hands go to fists at his sides; although not a violent man by nature, he wanted to smash his brother-in-law’s face against the nearest hard surface.

  ‘You told me she stole that money from you,’ he said, the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place. ‘But that is not what happened, is it, Rocco? You gave it to her, did you not? You gave it to her so she could—’

  ‘Excuse me…’ Ally inserted testily. ‘But do you mind speaking in English when I am in the room? I find it rather disconcerting to be left out of the conversation, since I suppose the discussion has everything to do with me.’

  Rocco curled his lip. ‘You told him about the abortion, didn’t you?’ His cold gaze dipped to her flat stomach. ‘I assume you had it performed, as I insisted? I gave you enough money—more than enough, if the truth be known.’

  Ally felt her belly contract in fear. Oh, dear God, she thought in anguish. Don’t tell me this is what Alex has been through! No wonder she had been so emotionally fragile, so close to the edge, as if nothing mattered any more—not even life itself. No wonder she had made such an unexpected attempt on her life.

  ‘No…’ Her voice came out on a strangled whisper. ‘No…oh, please…no,’ she said, the colour draining from her face. ‘How could you have asked that of…of…?’ She swayed and almost fell, her legs buckling beneath her.

  Vittorio sprang to support her to the nearest chair, settling her into it and handing her a glass of water before he sent his brother-in-law a searing black glare that would have cut through a wall of diamonds. ‘Do you have any idea of what you have done, Rocco?’ he barked.

  ‘I gave her the money to get rid of it,’ Rocco said with no hint of remorse. ‘I was going to pay it back to the company. How could I have a pregnant mistress while my wife was giving every indication she was about to lose our baby? It was the only thing I could do, but this money-hungry bitch refused to comply. She threatened to go to the press and tell them about our “love-child”. I had to put a stop to it.’

  Vittorio’s expression was livid. ‘So you told her to get rid of the child and get out of your life? How did you convince her to do it, Rocco? Or shall I make another calculated guess?’

  Rocco wiped his brow again, his throat moving up and down as his eyes flicked in Ally’s direction once again. ‘I…’ He paused. ‘I told her if she did not have the abortion then she would find herself in danger of getting hurt. I did not for a moment mean to follow through on the threat, but I was getting desperate.’

  Ally’s head was still spinning. She could barely keep all her thoughts in some sort of order. They were like laser lights, randomly flashing off inside her head, making her feel sick to her stomach.

  From the little she could string together, her sister had been coerced into having a termination. Ally knew her twin would have done anything to keep the man she loved—especially if she had been off her mood-stabilising medication. She wouldn’t have stopped to think of the consequences, or at least not until it was far too late to turn back the clock. And once she had realised there was no future in her relationship with Rocco, the enormity of what she had been forced to do had probably caused her mental breakdown. It all made sickening sense. Her sister had hinted at the terrible guilt that plagued her, but Ally hadn’t liked to delve too deeply until Alex was well enough to have a heart-to-heart with her face to face.

  ‘You have been a complete fool, Rocco,’ Vittorio said. ‘For the last ten minutes you have not even noticed you have been vilifying the wrong person.’

  Rocco frowned in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look at her,’ Vittorio commanded. ‘Look at her closely.’

  Ally felt herself shrink into the French chair she
was sitting on as both men turned their brown gazes on her stricken face.

  ‘I do not know what you are talking about,’ Rocco said, yet again wiping the beads of perspiration from his brow with his pocket handkerchief. ‘I can assure you that is Alexandra Sharpe. You only have to look at her passport to confirm it.’

  ‘That is exactly what I did do,’ Vittorio said, in a voice that sent a lightning bolt of shock through Ally.

  He knew!

  She sat up straighter in the chair, her eyes like saucers.

  When had he found out?

  Her heart clenched as she thought of the intimacy they had shared such a short time ago.

  Why hadn’t he said anything?

  She sat there, stunned. Perhaps not as stunned as Rocco, but certainly close. And she felt angry too. Furiously angry. Obviously Vittorio had been playing with her. For how long she didn’t know, but just an hour ago he had slept with her, knowing she wasn’t the person she had said she was.

  Wasn’t that taking things way too far?

  ‘She…’ Rocco swallowed convulsively as he stared at Ally, bug-eyed. ‘She has a double?’

  ‘A twin sister,’ Vittorio informed him. ‘Alex is currently recovering in a Swiss clinic from a suicide attempt no doubt brought on by your disgusting demands on her. As it happens, Justina’s husband Sandro works with the doctor who treated her. Due to patient confidentiality there will be no leak to the press, so you can go home to Chiara before I feel tempted to do what I should have done a year ago and tell her what a two-faced creep you really are.’

  Their conversation had slipped back into Italian; Ally couldn’t understand much of it even if she had wanted to. She felt an overwhelming need to get out of the palazzo and as far away from Vittorio Vassallo as she could. All she needed was her passport and she would be gone.

  Ironically, it was Rocco who gave her the opportunity, by suddenly launching at Vittorio in a tirade of angry abuse. Thankfully neither of them noticed her slipping silently from the room.