‘It’s good to see you, too,’ Torre said evenly. ‘Cousin Claudio and his family have arrived on a surprise visit, and as the other guest rooms at Villa Romano are being used, I told Giuseppe that you and Orla can stay at my house in Ravello.’
‘No.’ Orla flushed when she realised that she had spoken out loud. ‘What I meant is thank you for your offer, but there won’t be room for both of us to stay at your little cottage. I’ll go to a local hotel.’
The idea of returning to the place where she had lost her virginity to Torre was unbearable. She did not want to be reminded of how he had undressed her in the moonlight before laying her down on his bed. The night she had spent in his arms had felt like a beautiful dream but the next morning it had turned into a nightmare.
In her mind she heard the icy condemnation in his voice as he had demanded to know why she hadn’t told him that she was the daughter of his father’s whore. ‘Were you hoping to persuade me to marry you, in the same way that Kimberly connived to get my father to take leave of his good sense and marry her? I can see the attraction of mother and daughter both getting their greedy hands on the Romano fortune.’ His cold contempt had sliced through Orla’s heart.
He had looked cynical when she’d frantically denied that she had deliberately kept her identity a secret from him. Her stumbling explanation that she had her father’s surname, Brogan, but Kimberly used the name of another of her ex-husbands had made Torre even more furious. He had ripped away the sheet that she had wrapped around her, and his eyes had blazed with fury as he’d stared at her naked body and the tell-tale red marks on her breasts and thighs caused by the rough stubble of his beard.
‘You sacrificed your innocence in vain, cara,’ he had told her. ‘My father has made himself a laughing stock by marrying an obvious gold-digger, but I have no intention of making the same mistake.’
Orla was jolted from her painful memories when Torre spoke again. ‘I demolished the old cottage a few years ago and built a much larger house in its place. There is plenty of room at Casa Elisabetta. I doubt you’ll find that any of the hotels on the Amalfi Coast have vacant rooms at the height of the summer season.’
‘That’s true,’ Jules said. ‘It’s always busy here at this time of year.’ He smiled at Orla. ‘You’ll like Ravello. It’s a pretty little town and the views over the bay are fantastic.’
There was nothing she could do but agree to the new sleeping arrangements with quiet dignity, even though she wanted to stamp her feet like a toddler having a tantrum and refuse to go within a million miles of Torre’s home. Even if she could find a hotel room, she would not be able to afford it, Orla acknowledged dismally. She was at the top of her overdraft limit and had maxed out her credit cards, paying for flights between London and Chicago to visit her mother.
‘Good, that’s settled.’ Torre lifted his wrist to look at his watch and Orla’s eyes were drawn to the black hairs that covered his muscular forearms. He was intensely masculine and so gorgeous that her stomach muscles clenched. She could not help wondering what would have happened if Jules had not interrupted them a few minutes ago. She was sure that Torre had been about to kiss her, and she tried to reassure herself that her common sense would have prevailed, and she would not have let him. Her eyes met his and she felt embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him. He gave her a mocking smile. ‘We should go and find Giuseppe. Lunch is being served on the terrace.’
He walked behind her and Jules as they made their way along the gravel path that curved around the side of the house. Orla felt Torre’s eyes burning into her back and she was suddenly conscious of how her dress clung to her bottom a little too lovingly. She had never noticed until now how the silky material felt sensuous against her thighs when she moved. Warmth curled through her and she was mortified when she felt a molten sensation between her legs.
She pulled away from Jules so that his arm fell from her shoulders. ‘I’m not used to this heat,’ she muttered as an excuse. ‘I’m burning up.’
The path led round to the rear of the villa where a wide terrace was roofed by a wooden pergola covered in vines. The leaves formed a green canopy that provided shade from the fierce heat of the midday sun, and the vines were covered with clusters of green grapes that were starting to turn purple in colour as they began to ripen.
Orla counted twelve people sitting at the long trestle table. Giuseppe stood up to greet her. ‘Benvenuto, Orla. Welcome to Villa Romano. It has been too long since you last visited,’ he said as he kissed her on both cheeks. He turned to Jules. ‘Why have you waited so long to bring Orla back to Amalfi?’
Giuseppe began to introduce Orla to the members of his extended family. She smiled politely as she shook hands with his various relatives, but she was puzzled by his comment. Why had he expected Jules to bring her to Villa Romano before now? Giuseppe knew that she and Jules were friends but she felt an inexplicable sense of disquiet as she recalled the strangely secretive look that had passed between the two men. It was as if a situation was unfolding that she knew nothing about and yet she was in some way involved.
Her new sunglasses were pinching the bridge of her nose and she took them off and slipped them into her handbag before pulling off her straw hat so that her hair tumbled down her back. From behind her she heard a muffled growl and when she turned her head, her glance crashed into Torre’s hard-as-steel gaze. Once again something tugged in the pit of her stomach. She felt dizzy. But this time she could not blame the bright intensity of the sun for the scalding heat that raced like molten lava through her veins.
She tore her eyes from him, but not before she’d seen his sardonic expression as he watched Jules put his hand on her waist to usher her over to two vacant seats at the table.
Forget Torre, Orla commanded herself. But it was impossible when he walked around to the other side of the table and sat down directly opposite her. A waiter offered her a choice of wine to drink with the meal but she opted for water instead. She had picked up an unpleasant vomiting virus a few days before coming to Amalfi and although the sickness had thankfully stopped, her stomach still felt delicate. In fact, she rarely drank alcohol but she ruefully acknowledged that the idea of slipping into a drunken stupor where she would not notice Torre, much less imagine his darkly tanned hands on her body, seemed infinitely preferable to staring at the tablecloth.
Memories from eight years ago crowded her mind. Her mother had acted like a newly crowned queen following her secret wedding to Giuseppe, Orla remembered. At the party the guest list had mainly comprised Giuseppe’s cosmopolitan friends from across Europe. Most people had spoken English, and Orla had overheard their mocking comments speculating that Kimberly had married one of the richest men in Italy for his money. She had felt embarrassed but thankfully no one had taken any notice of her or seemed aware that she was Kimberly Connaught’s daughter.
Kimberly had spent the evening clinging to her new husband and hadn’t bothered to introduce Orla to any of the other guests. Orla had been about to return to her room, knowing that no one would miss her presence at the party, certainly not her mother. But she’d felt an odd, prickling sensation between her shoulder-blades that had compelled her to turn her head and look across the room.
Her eyes had been riveted on the man who had taken her breath away earlier in the day when she had arrived at Villa Romano with some of her mother’s girlfriends from London. As she’d climbed out of the taxi her attention had been drawn to the swimming pool that could be seen from the driveway, and she had watched the gorgeous hunk who had stepped out of the pool and raked his hands through his wet hair. His honed, muscular body had not gone unnoticed by her mother’s friends, but Orla hadn’t admitted to them that she was sexually inexperienced and had not understood most of their lewd comments as they’d speculated on his prowess as a lover.
‘He’s Giuseppe’s son,’ Kimberly had explained when she’d sauntered down the steps