‘Let’s just chalk it up to experience,’ she continued, swallowing down the lump in her throat. ‘We were just two people trying to do the right thing. It just didn’t work out.’
A thoughtful look shadowed his face. ‘But there’s no reason why that should stop us having sex right now, since it’s what we both want,’ he murmured. ‘Isn’t that so?’
Nicole shook her head, trying to fight the sudden desire provoked by the velvety caress of his words. ‘That’s not going to happen, Rocco.’
‘Do you want to tell me why?’
‘You know why. Because it would feel...wrong. And I’m pretty certain it would invalidate our two years of separation and take even longer to get a divorce.’
‘Ah, yes. Your precious divorce,’ he mused.
‘My ticket to freedom, you mean? Yours, too.’
His smile was mocking. ‘At least you’ve answered one question for me,’ he observed.
She looked at him. ‘Oh? What question is that?’
‘Back in England, I asked if there was another man waiting in the wings and you didn’t give me a satisfactory answer. But now I’d be prepared to bet my entire fortune there isn’t.’
‘I thought you said mind-reading wasn’t one of your skills.’
‘It’s not. It doesn’t need to be. It’s written all over your face, Nicole.’
‘What is?’ she said, even though on some level she was aware she might be walking straight into a trap.
‘You’re so horny,’ he answered throatily. ‘Hornier than any woman would be if she’d been having sex on a regular basis. Yet you were able to pull back, despite being so close to coming. Such steely resolve.’ He gave a soft laugh. ‘And I admire that quality in you, Nicole—even if I’m the one who ultimately missed out.’
His words wrong-footed her because they sounded like a compliment and just like the next woman, Nicole was a sucker for a compliment. Had he said it to lull her into a false sense of complacency before moving in for the big seduction? She wondered how many other women had stood here, like this, their clothes all rumpled and their blood pulsing as they went willingly to the Sicilian billionaire’s bed. Well, she wasn’t going to be one of them.
‘I’m ending this conversation as of now,’ she said. ‘And now I need to find myself a separate bedroom because this is a pretend reconciliation, not a real one. We don’t share rooms and we don’t make out.’
Rocco saw the determined way she pulled back her shoulders and recognised she was serious. A flicker of disquiet edged his growing frustration. If it had been any other woman he could have persuaded her with a kiss. A kiss which this time she would find impossible to stop, because if Rocco Barberi was hell-bent on something, or someone, he always got it. But the steadfast expression flattening his estranged wife’s soft lips was unfamiliar and suddenly he realised he didn’t know this new Nicole at all.
When he’d gone to see her in England sex had been the last thing on his mind. He’d gone there to punish her and to use her, not to make love to her, yet something had changed his mind. That kiss they’d just shared had started out as nothing more than a challenge—a demonstration of his own power in the light of her resistance—and yet she had responded in a way which had sent his desire soaring.
And yet she had pushed him away.
His heart pounded, because now he was determined to have her one last time and nothing was going to stop him. But for once he realised that he was going to have to work for it. Maybe he should give her enough space to realise what she was missing, instead of pushing his own agenda. How long before she decided that denying her hunger for him was simply not sustainable—and slipped into his arms again?
So he nodded his head and gave her a cool smile. ‘If that’s what you want, then that’s what you shall have. Take any bedroom you want—there are plenty to choose from,’ he said, enjoying the confusion which had suddenly clouded her emerald eyes. ‘Just make sure you’re ready for the screening and dinner tonight. The car will be here just before eight.’
He ran his gaze over the unruly dark curls and the mismatched silver necklaces and a rogue glimmer of amusement found its way into his voice. ‘No doubt you’ve brought something deeply unsuitable to wear?’
Unexpectedly, her eyes danced in response. ‘You think I’m going to turn up looking like this?’
He shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I offered to buy you some suitable clothes for this trip but you turned down my offer.’
‘Because we tried that once before and it didn’t work. Remember? You were so eager to make me into what you thought a Barberi wife should be that I felt like some kind of dress-up doll.’
He frowned. ‘I was trying to make you feel more comfortable.’
‘What, by employing that expensive stylist who put me in those horrible starchy dresses which didn’t suit me? Or the fancy hairdresser who decided to chop off all my hair so I ended up looking like a shorn lion?’
‘That was a mistake,’ he conceded.
She looked at him uncertainly, clearly taken aback by what for him almost passed as an apology, and the fleeting vulnerability on her face stirred something deep inside him, reminding him what had attracted him to her in the first place. Well, that and her killer body.
‘But not any more. Tonight I’m going to wear my hair and clothes exactly as I like them,’ she continued airily. ‘And if you’re worried I’m going to disgrace you with my appearance, Rocco—you shouldn’t be.’
‘Oh?’ He was curious now.
‘If people criticise my less than conventional appearance at least it will reinforce why our last-minute attempt at reconciliation didn’t work. If they see us together and think “chalk and cheese”, they’ll wonder why we ever got married in the first place.’ She slanted him a challenging look. ‘Because although opposites attract—they can also repel. We both know that.’
With that she turned her back on him and left the terrace with a sway of her denim-covered bottom, which Rocco found almost unbearably provocative.
And after she’d gone, he felt restless—a feeling kick-started by the echo of her final words. Were they better off without each other? Not right now they weren’t. The fingertip he ran over his dry lips only added to his frustration as he breathed in the earthy aroma of her sex. By now she should have been in his bed—eagerly opening her legs so they could lose themselves in sweet oblivion, not leaving him here aching and frustrated.
Looking out to sea, he scowled. When his PA had called to say Nicole had arrived at his Monaco home he had been unprepared for the primitive rush of satisfaction he’d experienced, knowing she was here. Back in the marriage she had walked away from. It had never happened to him before—a woman telling him she was going, and meaning it. Only the stark note lying on top of an unmade bed had made clear her wishes.
Please don’t follow me, or try to contact me. It’s better this way, Rocco. I’m sorry.
And that had been it. A few words signalling the end. Yet he hadn’t seen it coming and shock was something he didn’t handle well. Maybe the only thing he didn’t handle well—not surprising given his history. He remembered the blood draining from his face as he’d crumpled the note in his fist and had proceeded to do something completely alien. Taking himself off to the bar in the nearby village, he had got himself very, very drunk. Groups of the local Sicilian men had looked surprised because Rocco Barberi was not known as a drinker. He remembered smashing his fist down hard on the counter and shattering a glass and hearing the old men’s voices raised in alarm. Someone must have made a phone call