But along with the sweet, sharp kick of desire came the reminder of all the things he’d told himself he wasn’t going to do. He’d messed up enough in his life. He’d failed to save his mother. He’d ruptured his relationship with his twin brother. In business he’d achieved outstanding success, but his personal relationships were not the same. Everything he touched turned to dust. He was incapable of experiencing the emotions which other men seemed to feel. And even though Willow Hamilton had allowed her stupid fantasies to manipulate events... Even though she had dragged him into her fantasy and made it impossible for him to walk away from her—that gave him no right to hurt her.
It would be too easy to take her innocence. To be the first man to claim her body for his own. To introduce her to the powerful but ultimately fleeting pleasures of sex. He closed his eyes because imagining her sweet tightness encasing him was almost too much to bear. He thought about easing into her molten heat, with his mouth clamped to one of her tiny nipples. He thought about how good it would feel to be able to come inside her. To pump his seed into her until he was empty and replete. To kiss her and kiss her until she fell asleep in his arms.
But a woman’s virginity was a big deal, and someone who had suffered as Willow had suffered deserved more than he could ever give her. Because he was programmed not to trust and never to stay. He would take pleasure and give pleasure and then close the door and leave without a backwards glance.
Dragging his mouth away from hers and dropping his hand from her breast as if it was on fire, he stepped away, trying to quieten down the fierce sexual hunger which was burning inside him. But when he saw the confusion clouding her beautiful eyes, he felt a moment of unfamiliar doubt which he couldn’t seem to block out.
His mouth twisted.
‘I meant what I said back in England,’ he gritted. ‘You aren’t somebody I intend to get intimate with, Willow. Did you think that because I’ve just told you something about my deeply troubled past...’ His voice took on a harsh and mocking tone. ‘That I would want you? Did you think any of this was for real? Because if you do, you’re making a big mistake. For the sake of my grandfather and his romantic ideals, we will play the part of the happily engaged couple whenever we find ourselves in his company. But when we’re alone, the reality will be very different. Just so you know, I’ll be sleeping on the couch.’ He gave a tight smile. ‘And I’ll do my best not to disturb you.’
THE DARK SHAPE was moving almost silently around the room but it was enough to disturb Willow from her troubled sleep. Pushing the hair back from her face, she sat up in bed and snapped on the light to see Dante standing fully dressed, his face shadowed and unfriendly.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
‘Going out for a drive.’
‘But it’s only...’ She picked up her watch and blinked at it. ‘Just after five in the morning!’
‘I know what the time is,’ he growled back as he grabbed a clutch of car keys.
‘So...why?’ Her voice was full of bewilderment as she looked at him. ‘Why in heaven’s name are you going out before the sun is even up?’
‘Why do you think?’ He turned to look at her properly and all his dark and restless energy seemed to wash over her. ‘Because I can’t sleep.’
Willow swallowed. ‘That couch does look very uncomfortable,’ she agreed carefully. ‘It can’t be doing your back any good.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with the damned couch, Willow, and we both know it.’
She leaned back against the pillows, wishing that he would stop snapping at her, and just end this impasse. Wishing he’d just take off those jeans and that stupid jacket and come and get in bed with her and do what was almost driving her out of her mind with longing. How many nights had they spent here now? And still her virginity was intact. Nothing had changed—at least, not in him—though her desire for him was as strong as ever. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to hold him. Yet he acted as if she was contaminated.
‘It was a mistake to come to this damned cottage,’ he bit out. ‘And an even bigger mistake to agree to stay on until after Natalia’s opening.’
‘So why did you agree to it?’
‘You know damned well why,’ he growled. ‘Because you managed to make yourself completely irresistible to my grandfather, didn’t you? So that I could hardly refuse his suggestion that we hang around for a few more days.’ His fingers tightened around his car keys as he glared at her. ‘Was this just more of the same kind of behaviour you demonstrated so perfectly at your sister’s wedding? Manipulating events so they’d turn out the way you wanted them to?’
‘That is an outrageous thing to say,’ she retorted, wrapping the duvet more tightly around herself and trying very hard to keep the sight of her tightening nipples away from his accusing eyes. ‘Unless you’re suggesting that I deliberately went out of my way to be nice to your grandfather, just because I had some sort of hidden agenda to trap you in this cottage?’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘Because, believe me, no one would deliberately angle to have more time alone with you, when you’re in this kind of mood!’
His eyes narrowed. ‘I guess not,’ he said.
‘And to be honest, I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this,’ she said. ‘Maintaining this crazy fiction of presenting ourselves as the happy couple whenever we’re with Giovanni or Natalia—and yet the moment we’re alone, we’re...we’re...’
Dante stilled as he heard the unmistakable break in her voice, which only added to his growing sense of confusion and frustration. Because he hated it when she acted vulnerable—something which was surprisingly rare. When her voice wobbled or she got that puppy-dog look in her eyes, it started making all kinds of unwanted ideas flood into his head. Was it possible that duplicity didn’t come as easily to her as he’d originally thought? That the sweet and uncomplicated Willow he’d seen here in his Long Island home—being endlessly patient with his grandfather and lovely towards his sister—was actually the real Willow? His mouth hardened. Or was she trying and managing very successfully to twist him around her little finger?
‘We what, Willow?’ he questioned silkily.
‘We circle each other like two wary animals whenever we’re together!’
‘Well, let me ease the burden by going out and making sure we’re alone for as little time as possible,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’m going out for a drive. I’ll see you later.’
Walking across the room, he clicked the door shut behind him, and as Willow listened to the sound of his retreating footsteps, she slumped dejectedly back into the pillows.
A heavy sigh escaped from her lips. She was living in a prison. A gilded prison where everything she wanted was right in front of her. The only man she’d ever wanted was constantly within touching distance—only she wasn’t allowed to touch. And the fiction of the happy front they presented to the outside world was cancelled out by the spiralling tension whenever they were alone together.
She’d thought she’d been getting close to him. She had been getting close to him. On the day they’d