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Luca made an indeterminate sound and carried on, and Serena tried not to fool herself that he’d asked out of any genuine concern.
As they walked the heat progressed and intensified to almost suffocating proportions. When they stopped briefly by a small stream in the afternoon Serena almost wept with relief to be able to throw some cool water over her face and head. She soaked a cloth handkerchief and tied it around her neck.
It was only a short reprieve. Luca picked up the punishing pace again, not even looking to see if Serena was behind him. Irritation rose up inside her. Would he even notice if she was suddenly pulled by some animal into the undergrowth? He’d probably just shrug and carry on.
After another hour any feeling of relief from the stream was a distant memory and sweat dripped down her face, neck and back. Her limbs were aching, her feet numb again. Luca strode on, though, like some kind of robot, and suddenly Serena felt an urge to provoke him, needle him. Force him to stop and face her. Acknowledge that she had done well to last this far. Acknowledge that she might be telling the truth about the drugs.
She called out, ‘So, are you prepared to admit that I might be innocent after all?’
She got her wish. Luca stopped dead in his tracks and then, after a long second, slowly turned around. His eyes were so dark they looked black. He covered the space between them so fast and silently that Serena took an involuntary step backwards, hating herself for the reflexive action.
He looked infinitely dangerous, and yet perversely Serena didn’t feel scared. She felt something far more ambiguous and hotter, deep in her pelvis.
‘To be quite frank, I don’t think I even care any more whether or not you did it. The fact is that my involvement with you made things so much worse. You were enough to turn the incident into front-page news and put certainty into people’s minds about my guilt—because they all believed that you did drugs, and that I was either covering for you or dealing to you. So, innocent bystander or not—as you might have been—I still got punished.’
Serena swallowed down a sudden and very unwelcome lump in her throat. She recognised uncomfortably that the need for this man to know she was innocent was futile or worse. ‘You’ll never forgive me for it, will you?’
His jaw clenched, and just then a huge drop of water landed on her face—so large that it splashed.
Luca looked up and cursed out loud.
‘What? What is it?’ Serena asked, her tension dissolving to be replaced by a tendril of fear.
Luca looked around them and bit out, ‘Rain. Damn. I’d hoped to make the village first. We’ll have to shelter. Come on.’
Even before he’d begun striding away again the rain was starting in earnest, those huge drops cascading from the sky above the canopy. Serena hurried after him to try and keep up. Within seconds, though, it was almost impossible to see a few feet in front of her nose. Genuine panic spiked. She couldn’t see Luca any more. And then he reappeared, taking her hand, keeping her close.
The rain was majestic, awesome. Deafening. But Serena was only aware of her hand in Luca’s. He was leading them through the trees, off the path to a small clearing. The ground was slightly higher here. He let her go and she saw him unrolling a tarpaulin. Catching on quickly, she took one end and tied it off to a nearby sapling while Luca did the same on the other side, creating a shelter a few feet off the ground.
He laid out another piece of tarpaulin under the one they’d tied off and shouted over the roar of the rain, ‘Get underneath!’
Serena slipped off her pack and did so. Luca joined her seconds later. They were drenched. Steam was rising off their clothes. But they were out of the worst of the downpour. Serena was still taken aback at how quickly it had come down.
They sat like that, their breaths evening out, for long minutes. Eventually she asked, ‘How long will it last?’
Luca craned his neck to look out, his arms around his knees. He shrugged one wide shoulder. ‘Could be minutes—could be hours. Either way, we’ll have to camp out again tonight. The village is only a couple of hours away, but it’ll be getting dark soon—too risky.’
At the thought of another night in the tent with Luca, flutters gripped Serena’s abdomen. He was pulling something out of a pocket and handed her another protein bar. Serena reached for it with her palm facing up, but before she could take it Luca had grabbed her wrist and was frowning.
She was distracted by his touch for a moment—all she felt was heat—and then he was saying, ‘What are those marks? Did you get them here?’
He was inspecting her palm and pulling her other hand towards him to look at that, too. Far too belatedly Serena panicked, and tried to pull them back, but he wouldn’t let her, clearly concerned that it had happened recently.
She saw what he saw: the tiny criss-cross of old, silvery scars that laced her palms.
As if coming to that realisation, he said, ‘They’re old.’ He looked at her, stern. ‘How old?’
Serena tried to jerk her hands away but he held them fast. Her breath was choppy now, with a surge of emotion. And with anger that he was quizzing her as if she’d done something wrong.
She said reluctantly, ‘They’re twenty-two years old.’
Luca looked at her, turning towards her. ‘Deus, what are they?’
Serena was caught by his eyes. They blazed into hers, seeking out some kind of truth and justice—which she was coming to realise was integral to this man’s nature. It made him see the world in black and white, good and bad. And she was firmly in the bad category as far as he was concerned.
But just for once, Serena didn’t want to be. She felt tired. Her throat ached with repressed emotions, with all the horrific images she held within her head, known only to her and her father. And he’d done his best to eradicate them.
A very weak and rogue part of her wanted to tell Luca the truth—much like last night—in some bid to make him see that perhaps things weren’t so black and white. And even though an inner voice told her to protect herself from his derision, she heard the words spill out.
‘They’re the marks of a bamboo switch. My father favoured physical punishment.’
Luca’s hands tightened around hers and she held back a wince. His voice was low. ‘How old were you?’
Serena swallowed. ‘Five—nearly six.’
‘What the hell....?’
Luca’s eyes burned so fiercely for a moment that Serena quivered inwardly. She took advantage of the moment to pull her hands back, clasping them together, hiding the permanent stain of her father’s vindictiveness.
Serena could understand Luca’s shock. Her therapist had been shocked when she’d told her.
She shrugged. ‘He was a violent man. If I stepped out of line, or if Siena misbehaved, I’d be punished.’
‘You were a child.’
Serena looked at Luca and felt acutely exposed, recalling just how her childhood had been so spectacularly snatched away from her, by far worse than a few scars on her palms.
She noticed something then, and seized on it weakly. ‘The rain—it’s stopped.’
Luca just looked at her for a long moment, as if he hadn’t ever seen her before. It made Serena nervous and jittery.
Eventually he said, ‘We’ll make camp here. Let’s set it up.’
Serena scrambled inelegantly out from under their makeshift shelter. The jungle around them was steaming from the onslaught of precipitation. It was unbearably humid...and uncomfortably sultry.
As she watched, Luca uncoiled himself, and for a moment Serena was mesmerised by his sheer masculine grace. He looked at her too quickly for her to look away.
He frowned. ‘What is it?’
Serena swallowed as heat climbed up her chest. She blurted out the first thing she could think of. ‘Thirsty—I’m just thirsty.’
Luca glanced around them and then strode to a nearby tree and tested the leaves. ‘Come here.’
Not sure what to expect, Serena walked over. Luca put a hand on her arm and it seemed to burn right through the material.
He manoeuvred her under the leaf and said, ‘Tip your head back—open your mouth.’
Serena looked at him and something dark lit his eyes, making her belly contract.
‘Come on. It won’t bite.’
So she did, and Luca tipped the leaf so that a cascade of water fell into her mouth, cold and more refreshing than anything she’d ever tasted in her life. She coughed slightly when it went down the wrong way, but couldn’t stop her mouth opening for more. The water trickled over her face, cooling the heat that had nothing to do with the humid temperature.
When there were only a few drops left, she straightened up again. Luca was watching her. They were close—close enough that all Serena would have to do would be to step forward and they’d be touching.
And then, as if reading her mind and rejecting her line of thought, Luca stepped back, letting her arm go. ‘We need to change into dry clothes.’
He walked away and Serena felt ridiculously exposed and shaky. What was wrong with her?
Luca was taking clothes out of his pack. He straightened up and his hands went to his shirt, undoing the buttons with long fingers. A sliver of dark muscled chest was revealed, the shadow of chest hair. And Serena was welded to the spot. She couldn’t breathe.
Finally sense returned. Her face hot with embarrassment, she hurried to her own bag and concentrated on digging out her own change of clothes. The last thing she needed was to let Luca Fonseca into the deepest recesses of her psyche. But, much to her irritation, she couldn’t forget the way he’d looked when he’d held her hands out for inspection, or the look in his eyes just now, when she fancied she’d seen something carnal in their depths, only for him to mock her for her fanciful imagination.
* * *
Luca was feeling more and more disorientated as he pulled on fresh clothes with rough hands. Deus. He’d almost backed Serena into the tree just now and covered her open mouth with his, jealous of the rainwater trickling between those plump lips.
And what about those scars on her hands? The silvery marks criss-crossing the delicate pale skin? He hadn’t been prepared for the surge of panic when he’d seen them—afraid she’d been marked by something on the trail—or the feeling of rage when she’d told him so flatly who had done it.
He’d met her father once or twice at social events and had never liked the man. He had cold, dead dark eyes, and the superior air of someone used to having everything he wanted.
He didn’t like to admit it, but the knowledge that he’d been violent didn’t surprise Luca. He could picture the man being vindictive. Malevolent. But to his own daughters? The blonde, blue-eyed heiresses everyone had envied?
Luca knew Serena was changing behind him. He could hear the soft sounds of clothes being taken off and dropped. And then there was silence for a long moment. Telling himself it was concern, but knowing that it stemmed from a much deeper desire, Luca turned around.
Her back was to him and her legs were revealed in all their long shapely glory as she stripped off her trousers. High-cut pants showed off a toned length of thigh. Firm but curvy buttocks. When she stripped down to her bra he wanted to go over and undo it, slip his hands around her front to cup the generous swells and feel her arch into him.
He was rewarded with a burgeoning erection within seconds—no better than a pre-teen ogling a woman dressing in a changing room.
The snap of her belt around her hips broke Luca out of his trance and, angry with himself, he turned away and pulled on his own trousers. The light was falling rapidly now, and Luca had been so fixated on Serena that he was risking not having the camp set up in time.
But when he turned around again, about to issue a curt command, the words died on his lips. To his surprise Serena was already unrolling the tent and staking it out, her long ponytail swinging over her shoulder.
He cursed her silently, because he was losing his footing with this woman—fast.
* * *
Serena was sitting on a log on the opposite side of the fire to Luca a short time later, after they’d eaten their meagre meal. The tent stood close by, and she couldn’t stop a surge of ridiculous pride that she’d put it up herself. He’d expected her to flee back to civilisation at the slightest hint of work or danger, but here she was, day two and surviving—if not thriving. The feeling was heady, and it made her relish her newfound independence even more.
However, none of that could block out the mortification when she thought of earlier and how close she’d come to betraying her desire for him...
She caught Luca’s eye across the flickering light of the fire and he asked, ‘What’s the tattoo on your back?’
She went still. He must have seen the small tattoo that sat just above her left shoulderblade earlier, when she’d been changing. The thought of him looking at her made her feel hot.
The tattoo was so personal to her, she didn’t want to tell him. Reluctantly, she finally said, ‘It’s a swallow. The bird.’
‘Any significance?’
Serena almost laughed. As if she’d divulge that to him! He’d definitely fall off his log laughing.
She shrugged. ‘It’s my favourite bird. I got it done a few years ago.’ The day she’d walked out of the rehab clinic, to be precise.
She avoided Luca’s gaze. Swallows represented resurrection and rebirth... Luca would hardly look that deeply into its significance, but still... She had the uncanny sense that he might and she didn’t like it.
She really wanted to avoid any more probing into her life or her head. She stood up abruptly, making Luca look up, his dark gaze narrowing on her. ‘I’m going to turn in now.’ She sounded too husky. Even now her body trembled with awareness, just from looking at his large rangy form relaxed.
Luca stirred the fire, oblivious to her heated imaginings. ‘I’ll let you get settled.’
Serena turned away and crawled into the tent, pulling off her boots, but leaving her clothes on. Then she felt silly. Luca hadn’t given her the slightest hint that he felt any desire for her whatsoever, and she longed to feel cooler. She took off her shirt and stripped down to her panties, and pulled the sleeping bag around her.
She prayed that sleep would come as it had last night, like a dark blanket of oblivion, so she wouldn’t have to hear Luca come in and deal with the reality that he slept just inches away from her and probably resented every moment.
* * *
Luca willed his body to cool down. He didn’t like how off-centre Serena was pushing him. Making him desire her; wonder about her. Wanting to know more. She was surprising him.
He’d been exposed to the inherent selfishness of his mother and women in general from a very early age, so it was not a welcome sensation thinking that he might have misjudged her.
Lovers provided him with physical relief and an escort when he needed it. But his life was not about women, or settling down. He had too much to do to undo all the harm his father and grandfather had caused. He had set himself a mammoth task when his father had died ten years ago: to reverse the negative impact of the name Fonseca in Brazil, which up till then had been synonymous with corruption, greed and destruction.
The allegations of his drug-taking had come at the worst possible time for Luca—just when people had been beginning to sit up and trust that perhaps he was different and genuine about making a change. It was only now that he was back in that place.
And the person who could reverse all his good work was only feet away from him. He had to remember that. Remember who she was and what she had the power to do to him. Even if she was innocent, any association with her would incite all that speculation again.
Only when Luca felt sure that Serena must be asleep did he turn in himself, doing his best to ignore the curled-up shape inside the sleeping bag that was far too close to his for comfort. He’d really not expected to have to share this tent with anyone, and certainly not with Serena DePiero for a second night in a row.
But as he lay down beside her he had to acknowledge uncomfortably that there was no evidence of the spoilt ex-wild-child. There wasn’t one other woman he could think of, apart from those whose life’s work it was to study the Amazon, who would have fared better than her over the past couple of days. And even some of those would have run screaming long before now, back to the safety of a research lab, or similar.
He thought of her putting up the tent, her tongue caught between her teeth as she exerted herself, sweat dripping down her neck and disappearing into the tantalising vee of her shirt. Gritting his jaw tightly, Luca sighed and closed his eyes. He’d accused her of not lasting in the jungle, but it was he who craved the order of civilisation again—anything to dilute this fire in his blood and put an end to the questions Serena kept throwing up.
* * *
A couple of hours later Luca woke, instantly alert and tensed, waiting to hear a sound outside. But it came from inside the tent. Serena. Moaning in her sleep in Italian.
‘Papa...no, per favore, non che... Siena, aiutami.’
Luca translated the last word: help me. There was something gutturally raw about her words, and they were full of pain and emotion. Her voice cracked then, and Luca’s chest squeezed when he heard her crying.
Acting on instinct, Luca reached over and touched her shoulder.
Almost instantly she woke up and turned her head. ‘Ché cosa?’
Something about the fact that she was still speaking Italian made his chest tighten more. ‘You were dreaming.’ He felt as if he’d invaded her privacy.
Serena went as tense as a board. He could see the bright glitter of those blue eyes in the gloom.
‘Sorry for waking you.’
