Veronique must have been off duty because Rocco unlocked the door himself and the absence of servants made their homecoming seem curiously normal. Only it wasn’t normal, Nicole reminded herself fiercely. That was just another figment of her overactive imagination.
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight, Rocco.’
‘Goodnight, Nicole.’ He didn’t try to stop her.
Had she thought he might?
Of course she had. Her body was in such a heightened state of desire that she felt almost deflated when she pushed open the door to the bedroom suite she had chosen—as far away from Rocco as possible—and clicked it shut behind her.
Stripping off the black jersey dress and letting the worthless gems spool into a green heap on one of the modern glass tables, Nicole gathered her hair up beneath a voluminous plastic cap and went to stand beneath the gushing shower. But rubbing soap over breasts which were already aroused and imagining it was Rocco’s dark fingers sliding between her thighs instead of her own was not the relaxing experience she’d been anticipating. In fact, when she turned off the jets of water, she felt even more churned up than she had done in the limousine.
She dried her skin and raked a wide-toothed comb through her curls but she was feeling much too edgy to think about sleeping. The moon was so bright that it was flooding the room with silver light and, pulling on a baggy T-shirt and slipping on a clean pair of panties, she walked across the room towards the terrace and stepped outside, the tiles cool beneath her bare feet. Above her the dark sky was punctured by the bright glitter of stars and the moon was huge as she leaned her elbows against the wrought-iron railings and stared out at the inky gleam of the sea.
Had she been crazy to come here?
Probably.
She realised it was going to be hard to forget Rocco after this and it had nothing to do with the fancy house, or cars, or the yacht he’d casually mentioned was moored in the harbour. It was being in his company again. She’d forgotten how charismatic he was and what a powerful magnetism he exerted over everyone, but especially over her. She’d forgotten because it had been in her best interests to forget and she had been trying to move on. But now she was confused and aching. He hadn’t kissed her tonight—he hadn’t even touched her—and yet it was as if he’d started a slow blaze inside her. A drift of wind lifted the curls from the back of her neck and she sighed, realising that sleep wasn’t going to come easily. Still, nobody ever died from a lack of sleep, did they? She would just stand there and watch the moonlight glinting on the water and wait until her eyelids started growing heavy.
She heard the click of the bedroom door as it opened but she didn’t turn round. She didn’t need to. Nobody else would walk into her bedroom uninvited. Nobody else would dare. But even if a hundred people had pushed open that door, she would have known it was Rocco from a hundred paces. Was she so sensitive to his presence that she could detect him—like some animal who had sniffed out her natural mate in the wild? Was that why her nipples had started puckering so that she wanted to open her mouth to cry out that they were craving his touch?
He was moving across the room and the only other sound she could hear was the amplified pounding of her heart above his approaching footsteps.
Tell him to go, she thought.
Beg him to stay.
‘Nicole?’
Like rich velvet, his voice filtered through the warm air and Nicole shivered as he stepped out onto the terrace behind her. Had she thought the spoken word would shatter the spell he’d managed to weave without even being in her eyeline? Because if so, she had completely misread the situation.
‘What?’ she said, in what was surely the most pointless question of all time.
‘Turn around,’ he said.
She told herself she was going to resist—but how could she? She felt herself turning in response to his sultry command and suddenly realised it wasn’t resentment she felt, but relief. Yes, relief. Because wasn’t this shimmering feeling of excitement better than the half-dead way she’d felt at the end of their marriage? Wasn’t it good to feel properly alive again in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time? ‘What do you want, Rocco?’
‘You know damned well what I want.’ His lips twisted into a predatory smile. ‘I want you.’
And, oh, the feeling was mutual. She wanted him to take away this terrible aching and the deep well of loneliness inside her but it was a risk—and a big one. What if having sex only increased her desire for him instead of killing it? Restlessly she shifted beneath his shadowed gaze, knowing it was a risk she was prepared to take because the thought of sending him away was intolerable. One more night, that was all. One night to finally rid herself of these lingering demons. All she needed to remember was to be on her guard against unwanted emotion because it had no place in what was about to happen. Rocco was programmed to want sex and she was programmed to want something deeper—because that was what women did. And love was something she would never get from Rocco Barberi.
So she stood beneath the silver spotlight of the moon and wondered if her expression gave away the hunger which was snaring her with its silken tendrils. He was wearing nothing but jeans—the top button undone so that dark hair arrowed down towards the ridge-like bulge pushing against his crotch. His chest was glowing and an arrogant smile was curving his lips as if he was already anticipating her surrender. And Nicole knew then that if she did this, it was going to have to be on her own terms.
She needed to remember they were equals. He wasn’t her boss and soon he wouldn’t even be her husband. This was physical, that was all. It was what grown-ups did. They had carefully considered sex which they could walk away from with nothing but a glow of satisfaction. She tried to iron out the emotion from her voice but she could hear an underlying tremble as she answered him. ‘So what are we going to do about it?’
‘I think you know the answer to that.’ In the moonlight his eyes glittered. ‘Get undressed,’ he said softly.
THE CONTROL IN Rocco’s voice threatened to destroy the sensual mood which had ensnared her and Nicole stared at him resentfully. Did he think she was the same grateful virgin he’d first seduced, who would do whatever it was he demanded?
She held his gaze, her chin tilting as he studied her with cool calculation. ‘What did you say?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘You heard.’
‘I want you to repeat it, Rocco.’
There was a pause. ‘I told you to get undressed.’
‘To perform a striptease for you, you mean?’
He shrugged. ‘If you like.’
‘Well, I don’t like,’ she said. ‘Not any more. I’ve changed, Rocco—haven’t you?’
His eyes gleamed but he didn’t answer her question directly. ‘So why don’t you tell me what you do like?’
And despite everything she knew and everything she had learnt, Nicole found herself wishing for the impossible. Wanting him to say something romantic. To tell her he’d missed her and his life hadn’t been the same since she’d gone. Wouldn’t a few tender words enhance what was about to happen, even if he didn’t mean them? So that for a while she could pretend he cared, as she’d pretended so often in the past. But that would be a pointless thing to do because grown-ups didn’t demand hypocritical words. They accepted things exactly the way