tight scar tissue itself. For some odd reason Jodie discovered
that she badly wanted to cry. No one had ever
touched her scars with anything other than clinical
detachment. The long months in hospital had inured
her to physical examinations, to doctors discussing
her as though she were a piece of broken equipment
they were trying to piece together again and put in
working order. Which, of course, to them, was exactly
what she had been. She was grateful to them for everything
they had done for her how could she not
be? but at the same time
At the same time what? Secretly, she had craved a
more personal touch, a comforting, knowing touch
that neither flinched from her scars nor made a dramatic
fuss about them.
But not a touch that made her feel the way
Lorenzos touch was making her feel!
"No. My leg is always going to be weak, but it has
healed properly now," she blurted out, then bit her lip,
not wanting to remember those horrifying days when
the doctors had feared they might have to amputate.
"Thank you. You can stop now. The cramp has gone,"
she told him as she forced herself to concentrate on
something anything other than on the smooth gliding
something anything other than on the smooth gliding
stroke of his fingers against her skin. No lover
could have No lover? Now what was she thinking?
She rolled over so that she could face him, all too
conscious of the warm weight of his hand where it
still lay across her bare thigh, her eyes widening as
she took in what she hadnt realised before: namely
that all he was wearing was a towel, wrapped low on
his hips, and that the body it revealed was enough to
make any right-thinking woman go weak with female
appreciation. But from now on she was not going to
allow herself to want any man, she reminded herself
fiercely, and certainly not a man like this one. Every
instinct she possessed told her he was far too dangerous.
He was an autocratic alpha male who was
determined to get what he wanted, no matter who he
had to use in order to do so, and it was that she ought
to be concentrating her attention on not the taut
muscles of his flat belly, or the distracting maleness
of the body hair that arrowed downwards to where
his towel had slipped slightly to reveal where it began
thickening out. Jodie touched her tongue-tip to her
lips and sucked in a shaky gulp of air.
Lorenzo removed his hand from her thigh and
straightened, pausing in the act of resecuring his towel
to watch as Jodie focused on the movement of his
hands, her breathing accelerating.
"If you keep on looking at me like that," he began
in a warning tone, "Im going to think"
"What do you mean?" Jodie protested, her face
burning.
"You were looking at me like a girl looking at her
first man," Lorenzo said mockingly. "Which leads me
to wonder what kind of woman you are that you look
at me like that and what kind of man this ex-fiance.
of yours was to give you that need."
"I wasnt looking at you like anything," Jodie argued
frantically. "Youre imagining it. No modern
woman needs to wonder what a man"s body looks
like."
"So it wouldnt bother you, then, if I werent wearing
this?" Lorenzo suggested, his fingers resting
against the top of his towel.
Jodie made a valiant attempt at a small nonchalant
shrug. "No why should it? One naked male body is
much like any other."
"Was your ex-fiance. circumcised?"
Jodie opened her mouth and then closed it again,
her face slowly turning a deep shade of pink whilst
her heart skidded and bounced around inside her chest
cavity as though seeking the same invisible escape
route as her thoughts. Was he asking her that because
he had guessed that she simply didnt know? Because
he wanted to humiliate her by making her admit how
limited her sexual experience really was?
"Erwhy do you ask?"
"Why Dont you answer?"
"Im not questioning you about your past sex life.
And if we"re going to get married"
"If? There is no if about it. Ive already contacted
my lawyer. He"ll be here in the morning."
"It will take quite a long time to go through all the
legal formalities, I expect."
"Not for us. Once we have seen Alfredo we shall
be leaving for Florence."
"Florence?"
"I have some business to attend to there, and you
will want to buy a wedding outfit."
"A wedding outfit?"
The dark eyebrows lifted. "I take it that you didnt
bring your bridal gown with you when you ran
away?"
Jodie looked away from him. "No, I didnt," she
agreed quietly. Her wedding dress was still hanging
up in the shop where she had bought it, paid for but
never collected.
Lorenzo watched her impassively. "There are any
number of designer shops in Florence. You are bound
to find something in one of them."
Designer shops? Finding something would be the
easy bit, Jodie reflected; paying for it at designer shop
prices with her limited budget would be the hard part.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
"What if? What if Ive changed my mind?"
"I shant let you."
"But you cant stop me."
The way he was looking at her brought it home to
her that she was trapped here in this ancient stronghold,
where no doubt his ancestors had once held their
prisoners captive in the depths of its dank dungeons.
"What is it exactly that you are so afraid of?" he
asked.
"Im not afraid of anything or anyone," Jodie lied.
"So there is no reason why we should not be married,
then, is there? It is an arrangement from which
we both stand to gain something of importance to us.
When is this ex-fiance. of yours to marry?"
"The middle of next month."
"Bene. We will be married ourselves by then, so
you will have the pleasure of introducing me to him
as your husband. Now, it is late, and tomorrow there
is much to be done."
"Why Dont you want to marry Caterina?"
Immediately his face hardened. "That is no concern
of yours," he told her dauntingly. "I shall leave you
now to sleep. With any luck the cramp will not return."
In other words, mind your own business, Jodie reflected
ruefully as she watched him leave.
CHAPTER SIX
THE sound of her bedroom door opening and the rattle
of crockery brought Jodie out of a complicated dream
in which she had been forced to watch as John walked
down the aisle towards his waiting bride. But when
he reached her it wasnt John who was marrying
someone else but Lorenzo. Bizarrely, instead of feeling
relieved, she had actually felt searingly jealous.
"Buongiorno," Maria greeted her cheerfully as she
put down the tray she was carrying and then walked
over to the windows to draw back the heavy curtains.
Sunshine immediately flooded the room, followed by
deliciously soft warm air as Maria opened the windows
to reveal a small balcony.
The smell of fresh coffee and the sight of rolls and
fruit made Jodie salivate with hunger.
"Grazie, Maria." She thanked the elderly maid with
a warm smile, pushing back the bedclothes as Maria
turned to leave the room.
She hadnt realised her room had a balcony, and
when she hurried over to investigate it she discovered
that it looked out onto an enclosed courtyard garden
that was almost Moorish in style. Fretted archways
were swathed with tumbling masses of pink roses, and
from her vantage point above them she could look
down into the heart of the garden to a fish pond,
where an ornate fountain sent sprays of water jetting
upwards before they fell back to dimple the surface
of the pond, disturbing the fat goldfish basking in the
morning sunshine.
Returning to the bedroom, Jodie poured herself a
cup of coffee and then headed back to the balcony.
cup of coffee and then headed back to the balcony.
It was wide enough to hold a small wrought-iron table
and two chairs, and she was just about to sit down on
one of them when her bedroom door opened a second
time. Thinking that Maria had come back, she looked
up with a smile that faded as she saw that it was not
Maria who had come in but Lorenzo.
"Bene, you are awake. Alfredo has telephoned to
say that he is on his way and will be here within the
hour. I trust you slept well, with no return of your
cramp?"
"No I mean, yes I did sleep well, and, no, the
cramp didnt come back." It hadnt come back, but
the faint tingle in her flesh where he had massaged it
had kept her awake for a long time after he had gone.
Unlike her, Lorenzo was fully dressed, making her
feel acutely conscious of the brevity of her nightshirt.
Not that he was looking at her. Instead he was frowning
as he stared at something on the floor beside her
bed, next to the case she had been too tired to unpack
last night.
Striding over to it, he leaned down and retrieved
the basque she had forgotten to put back in the case,
holding it up between his thumb and forefingers and
looking at her with a query in his scowl.
"What is this?"
"What does it look like?" Jodie challenged him
crossly
"It looks like something a certain type of showgirl
might wear."
"Itit was part of my trousseau," Jodie told him
reluctantly. She certainly didnt want him thinking it
was something she had brought with her to wear on
holiday. "It got into my case byby mistake."
"Your trousseau? You mean you were going to
wear this as a means of enticing your husband to
make love to you? What was he? Some kind of bondage
fetishist?"
It took several seconds for his meaning to hit her
defences.
"Its a chainstore basque, thats all," she told him
furiously. "If you want to give it some kind of sleazy,
sordid interpretation, then thats up to you." She was
perilously close to angry tears of humiliation as she
remembered the shy uncertainty with which she had
purchased the boned and lace-tied item of underwear,
hoping that it might tempt John to behave more passionately
towards her. "Right now Theyre a fashion
item. Some women even wear them as outerwear."
"Yes, I have seen them. They display their breasts
as crudely as whores, offering up their wares for any
man who feels like examining them."
Whores? Was he suggesting? "I suppose the way
you like your women dressed is" Jodie began angrily,
only to have Lorenzo interrupt her.
"The way I like to see a woman dressed is in something
that hints subtly at her sexuality instead of
flaunting it, and in fabrics as sensual as her skin. Not
clothes that make her look like either a child or a
whore," he told her and he dropped her basque onto
the bed.
A child? Was he referring to her nightshirt?