It made her doubly conscious of her own body. She wore a more modest bikini in a pretty apple green, a Zimmerman design featuring feminine little frills on the side of the bra and across her hipline, bought by Dante but chosen by her. She felt comfortable in it, except when his gaze roved over her. Several times she was driven back into the pool to reduce the heat of wanting this man too much.
She knew it wasn’t sensible.
But the sexuality he’d stirred in her had a life of its own, pulsing a constant rebellion against any common sense.
When would she ever meet a man like him again—a man who could make her feel like this?
Most probably never.
As long as she kept in her head, there would be no happy-ever-after with him, why not take whatever he gave of himself? She wanted it, more than anything she had ever wanted. If he came to her tonight…but that was hours away and she had to keep cool in front of Lucia. Cool to him, too, because she didn’t want him to know how besotted she was becoming with him.
The three of them had a leisurely lunch beside the pool. Jenny concentrated hard on enjoying the food—delicious Atlantic salmon served with a scrumptious side salad containing wedges of sweet orange and roasted pecan nuts. Fresh fruit was served afterwards; little balls of different melons and pineapple sprinkled with mint. They drank a lovely refreshing white Italian wine which was so pleasant to the palate, she drank too much of it, ending up feeling so drowsy, she was glad when Dante announced it was time for a siesta.
He accompanied her back to her suite, maintaining a relaxed manner as they walked along. Jenny was careful not to reveal any sexual tension, asking questions about Italy and showing interest in his answers. He left her at her door, casually moving on to his own suite, and she wondered if he had decided not to get too entangled with her.
Had the portrait suggested to him a risk of emotional attachment that might cause problems for him further down the line, problems he didn’t want to deal with?
It was no use worrying about it, Jenny told herself. She’d done her best to tell him she knew the score where their relationship was concerned. What Dante chose to do about it was beyond her control. He was the controller, of every sphere in his life. It was so imbued in his character, Jenny couldn’t imagine him any other way.
She took a long, cool shower to reduce her body heat, decided not to wash her hair until after siesta, and had just wrapped herself in a towel when she heard a knock on the door that linked their suites. For a few moments she dithered over answering it. Should she pretend to be already asleep? Had he heard her shower running? What did he want?
Her heart was suddenly pounding in her chest, thundering in her ears. She was acutely conscious of her nakedness under the towel—less naked than in her bikini, yet more instantly available if sex was on his mind. Her body felt like a mass of zinging nerve ends, urging her to go to the door, open it, find out where she was with him.
She did.
He, too, wore only a towel. It was tucked around his waist. She stared at his bare, beautifully muscled chest, the satin-smooth olive skin stretched tightly over it, her hands itching to touch, to feel him as she had felt him last night. It took an act of will to lift her gaze to his and project an innocent inquiry.
The dark eyes blazed raw desire at her. ‘Do you want to be alone?’ he asked.
A simple question but they both knew it wasn’t simple.
It carried an undertow of danger which could sweep them away from any safe ground.
She knew he would force himself to clamp down on his rampant sexual need to have her again if she said yes. The determined restraint he was holding screamed of almost unbearable tension, and something deeply primitive in her revelled in the fact that he had been driven to this door, probably against his better judgement.
The decision was hers to make.
Her mind had already made it.
‘No,’ she said.
And didn’t care where it led for her…further down the track. Regardless of what pain it might bring, she would take the pleasure now.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SIX weeks passed…. For Jenny, the days blurred into each other, the pattern of them only broken by visits from Uncle Roberto and Aunt Sophia each weekend, both of whom accepted her as Bella without question. Their curiosity about her was easily satisfied and they weren’t the least bit concerned about having a late addition to the family getting attention from their father.
Regret was expressed over Antonio’s unfortunate death. They would have liked to meet him again. ‘He was a terrible scallywag in his youth,’ Sophia remarked, which Roberto had hastily discounted with, ‘No, no, he was a darling boy,’ smiling kindly at his new niece. As far as they were concerned, if it pleased Papa to have her here, it was good that she had come.
Perhaps it also took some emotional pressure off them. They were uncomfortable in the face of Marco’s physical decline. Sophia’s rather brittle personality was prone to gushing tears over her father. Roberto would set out to amuse—too anxiously—then fall into a glum silence. Jenny felt Marco suffered their visits, trying to soothe their distress when they were with him.
They looked to Dante to take care of everything. There was certainly no resentment of his designated position as the future head of the family. It was obvious they had no wish to carry the load, and Jenny noted that Dante treated them gently, like fretful children whom he knew were incapable of coping with any heavy responsibility.
He was The Man.
In every respect, Jenny thought, having long lost her resentment over his dominating strength of mind and purpose. Not many people had the force of will to do what had to be done, and he didn’t use his power without any sense of caring. She’d seen the caring in action, felt it for herself, and understood why his grandfather had placed so much confidence in him.
Only with Dante was Marco completely relaxed. Lucia he more or less indulgently tolerated because she never showed any sign of being unhappy about his dying. As for herself, Marco indulged himself with her, reliving memories that encompassed his whole life, not just the part that was centred on his lost son.
Conversations with him were not the strain she had expected them to be, particularly whenever he insisted that Dante or Lucia leave them alone together. He didn’t question her about Antonio’s life in Australia which she would have found difficult, and she enjoyed listening to his memories: his boyhood and family background, meeting his Isabella and the life they’d had together, how he’d built up his huge business empire, the hotels, the forums, the pride he took in them, the pride he took in Dante, who would carry what he’d built into the future, not waste it.