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‘What were you trying to prove?’
She looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I’ve noticed you have a habit of using sex when you want to avoid intimacy.’
She pulled her chin back in derision. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘What sort of pop psychology is that? Isn’t sex all about intimacy?’
‘Physical, maybe, but not emotional,’ he said. ‘Emotional intimacy takes it to a whole different level.’
‘That’s way too deep for me,’ she said, with an airy toss of her head. ‘I like sex. I like the rush of it. I don’t need anything else.’
‘You don’t want anything else because you’re running away from who you really are,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you’re a great big world expert on emotional intimacy,’ she said with a scathing curl of her lip. ‘You’ve had five different lovers in the last year.’
‘So you have been counting.’
She stalked to the other side of the room. ‘The Texan heiress was way too young for you,’ she said. ‘She looked like she was barely out of the schoolroom.’
‘I didn’t sleep with her.’
She gave a scoffing laugh. ‘No, I can imagine you didn’t. You would’ve kept her up way past her bedtime with your silver-tongued charm.’
Angelo ground his teeth in search of patience. ‘I’m not going to wait for ever for you, Natalie,’ he said. ‘I have an empire that needs an heir. I’ve felt the pressure of that since I was twenty-one years old. If you can’t commit to that, then I’ll have to find someone else who will.’
She gave him a stony look. ‘That’s why you forced me into this farce of a marriage, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t just about revenge or nostalgic past feelings. It’s a convenient way to get what you want. My brother played right into your hands.’
‘This has nothing to do with your brother,’ he said. ‘This is between us. It’s always been between us.’
Her slate-blue eyes were hard and cynical. ‘Tell me something, Angelo,’ she said. ‘Would you have done it? Would you really have sent my brother to prison?’
He returned her look with ruthless determination. ‘You’re still the only person standing between your brother and years behind bars,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever forget that, Natalie. His future is in your hands.’
She put up her chin, her eyes flashing their blue fire of defiance at him. ‘I could call your bluff on that.’
He nailed her with his gaze. ‘You do that, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘And see how far it gets you.’
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_0df27e87-859b-5b10-b17c-dd91d6ed0d97)
NATALIE walked out in the moonlit gardens when sleep became impossible. She had tossed and fretted for the past couple of hours, but there was no way she could close her eyes without images of the past flickering through her brain like old film footage.
Tomorrow was the anniversary of her baby brother’s death.
The hours leading up to it were always mental torture. Was that why she had practically thrown herself at Angelo, in an attempt to block it from her mind? She hadn’t seen him since he had stalked out on her after delivering his spine-chilling threat.
She wanted to test him.
She wanted to see if he really was as ruthless as he claimed to be but it was too risky. Lachlan would have to pay the price.
She couldn’t do it.
He had a future—the future that had been taken from Liam. Lachlan didn’t just have his own life to live; he had that of his baby brother, too. No wonder he was buckling under the pressure. Who could ever live up to such a thing? Lachlan was his own person. He had his own goals and aspirations. But for years he had suppressed them in order to keep their parents happy. He had no interest in the family business. Natalie could see that, but their father could not or would not. Their mother couldn’t see further than the label on the next bottle of liquor.
She gave a thorny sigh and turned to look at the shimmering surface of the pool that had appeared as if by magic in front of her. She generally avoided swimming pools.
Too many memories.
Even the smell of chlorine was enough to set the nerves in her stomach into a prickling panic. Before Liam’s death she had loved the water. She had spent many a happy hour in the pool at Armitage Manor, practising what she had learned with Granny and Grandad at the beach at Crail. But after Liam had died the pool had been bulldozed and made into a tennis court.
She had never once picked up a tennis racket.
She looked at the moonlit water; a tiny breeze teased the surface. It was like a crinkled bolt of silver silk.
Had she come out here in a subconscious attempt to find some peace at last? Would she ever find peace? Forgiveness? Redemption?
A footfall behind her had her spinning around so quickly she almost fell into the water behind her.
‘Couldn’t you at least have said something before sneaking up on me like that?’ she asked clutching at her thumping chest as Angelo stepped into the circle of light from one of the garden lamps.
‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
She rubbed at her arms even though it was still warm. ‘It’s not all that late,’ she said.
‘It’s three a.m.’
She frowned. ‘Is it?’
‘I’ve been watching you for the last hour.’
She narrowed her gaze. ‘Don’t you mean spying?’
‘I was worried about you.’
She raised a brow mockingly. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘You thought I might do something drastic rather than face the prospect of being tied to you for the rest of my life?’
‘I was concerned you might go for a swim.’
Her eyebrow arched even higher. ‘Do I have to ask your permission?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, frowning. ‘I was just worried you mightn’t realise the danger of swimming alone late at night.’
A hysterical bubble of laughter almost choked her. ‘Yeah, right—like I don’t already know that,’ she said with bitter irony.
His frown gave him a dark and forbidding look. ‘You said you weren’t a strong swimmer. I thought I should be with you if you fancied a dip to cool off.’
Natalie hid behind the smokescreen of her sarcasm. ‘What were you going to do if I got into trouble?’ she asked. ‘Give me mouth to mouth?’
The atmosphere changed as if someone had flicked a switch.
His eyes smouldered as they tussled with hers. ‘What a good idea,’ he said, grasping her by the arms and bringing her roughly against him, covering her mouth with his.
His mouth tasted of brandy and hot male frustration. He was angry with her, but she could cope much better with his anger than his tenderness. He disarmed her with his concern and understanding.
She wanted him mad at her.
She wanted him wild with her.
She could handle that. She could pull against his push. She could survive the onslaught of his sensual touch if she could compartmentalise it as a simple battle of wills, not as a strategic war against her very soul.
His lips ground against hers as his hands gripped her upper arms, his fingers biting into her flesh. She relished the discomfort. She was in the mood for pain. She kissed him back, with her teeth and her tongue taking turns. She felt him flinch as her teeth drew blood, and he punished her by driving his tongue all the harder against hers until she finally submitted.
She let him have his way for a few breathless seconds before she tried a counter-attack. She took his lower lip between her teeth and held on.
He spun her around, so her back was facing the pool, and with no more warning than the sound of his feet moving against the flagstones he tangled his legs with hers so she lost her footing. She opened her mouth on a startled gasp, fell backwards and disappeared under the water, taking him with her.
She came up coughing and spluttering; panic was like a madman inside her chest, fighting its way out any way it could. She felt the sickening hammer blows of her heart. She felt the acrid sting of chlorine in her eyes. She was choking against the water she had swallowed. It burned the back of her throat like acid.
‘You … you bastard!’ she screamed at him like a virago.
He pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and laughed. ‘You asked for it.’
She came at him then. Hands in fists and teeth bared, she fell upon him, not caring if she drew blood or worse. She called him every foul name she could think of, the words pouring out of her like a vitriolic flood.
He simply held her aloft, and none of her blows and kicks came to anything but impotent splashes against and below the water.
Suddenly it was all too much.
The fight went out of her. She felt the dismantling of her spirit like starch being rinsed out of a piece of fabric. She went as limp as a rag doll.
‘Do you give up?’ he asked, with a victorious glint in his dark eyes.
‘I give up …’
His brows moved together and his smile faded. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Can I get out now? I—I’m getting cold.’
‘Sure,’ he said, releasing her, his gaze watchful.
Natalie waded to the edge of the pool. She didn’t bother searching for the steps. She gripped the side and hauled herself out in an ungainly fashion. She stood well back from the side and wrung her hair out like a rope, and pushed it back over her shoulder. It wasn’t cold, but she was shivering as if she had been immersed for hours in the Black Sea.
Angelo elevated himself out of the pool with a lot more athletic grace than she had. He came and stood in front of her, his hand capturing her juddering chin so he could hold her gaze. ‘You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’ he asked.
She flashed him a resentful look. ‘It would be your fault if I had.’
‘I would never have pushed you in if I didn’t think it was safe,’ he said. ‘The water is deepest this end.’
She wrenched her chin out of his grasp and rubbed at it furiously. ‘What if it had been the other end?’ she asked. ‘I could’ve been knocked out or even killed.’
‘I would never deliberately hurt you, cara.’
‘Not physically, maybe,’ she said, throwing him a speaking glance.
A little smiled pulled up the corners of his mouth. ‘So you’re feeling a little threatened emotionally?’ he asked.
She glowered at him. ‘Not at all.’
His smile tilted further. ‘It’s the sex, cara,’ he said. ‘Did you know that the oxytocin released at orgasm is known as the bonding hormone? It makes people fall in love.’
She gave him a disparaging look. ‘If that’s true then why haven’t you been in love with anyone since we were together? It’s not as if you haven’t been having loads and loads of sex.’
His eyes held hers in a toe-curling lock. ‘Ah, but there is sex and there is sex.’ His gaze flicked to her mouth, pausing there for a heartbeat before coming back to make love with her eyes.
Natalie felt her hips and spine soften. She felt the stirring of her pulse, the tap-tap-tap of her blood as it coursed through her veins. It sent a primal message to the innermost heart of her femininity, making it contract tightly with need.
‘But you’re not in love with me,’ she said, testing him. ‘You just want revenge.’
He stroked a light, teasing fingertip down the length of her bare arm, right to the back of her hand, before he captured her fingers in his and brought her close to his body. She felt the shock of touching him thigh to thigh like a stun gun. It sent a wave of craving through her that almost knocked her off her feet.
‘I love what you do to me,’ he said. ‘I love how you make me feel.’
She could barely think with his erection pressing so enticingly against her. Her body seeped with need. She felt the humid dew of it between her thighs. She looked up in time to see his mouth come down. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to his devastatingly sensual kiss.
His lips moved with hot urgency against hers, drawing from her a response that was just as fiery. Her tongue met his and duelled with it, danced with it, mated with it. Shivers of reaction washed over her body. She pressed herself closer, wanting that thrill of the flesh to block out the pain of the past.
But suddenly he put her from him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not falling for that again.’
Natalie looked at him in confusion. ‘You don’t want to …?’
He gave her a wry look. ‘Of course I want to,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going to until you tell me why you were out here, wandering about like a sleepwalker.’
Her gaze slipped out of the range of his. ‘I wasn’t doing any such thing.’
He pushed her chin up with a finger and thumb. ‘Yes, you were,’ he said, his gaze determined as it pinned hers. ‘And I want to know why.’
Natalie felt her stomach churning and her shivering turned to shuddering. ‘I told you. I often have trouble sleeping,’ she said.
His eyes continued to delve into hers. ‘What plays on your mind so much that you can’t settle?’
She licked her dry lips. ‘Nothing.’
His brow lifted sceptically. ‘I want the truth, Natalie. You owe me that, don’t you think?’
‘I owe you nothing,’ she said, with a flash of her gaze.
His eyes tussled with hers. ‘If you won’t tell me then I’ll have to find someone who will,’ he said. ‘And I have a feeling it won’t take too much digging.’
Natalie swallowed in panic. If he went looking for answers it might stir up a press fest. She could just imagine the way the papers would run with it. She would have to relive every heartbreaking moment of that fateful trip. Her mother would be devastated to have her terrible loss splashed all over the headlines. Her father had managed to keep things quiet all those years ago, but it would be fair game now, in today’s tell-all climate.
