What else did he know? Had he…found out?
Oh, please. The world began to blur again, and she clutched the flimsy piece of silk she was holding. Please don’t let him know.
Skin icing and heart beginning to pound, Alexa could feel the palms of her hands growing damp, and she put down the silk T-shirt she had been folding with shaking fingers. No wealthy customer would part with cash for an over-priced item if it was covered in splodges of her sweat. She licked her dry lips, telling herself it was insanity to try to second-guess the situation. Just see what he has to say and play it cool—surely you can do that, considering what’s at stake?
The shop door pinged, and she looked straight at him as he walked in, fixing a smile to her lips which she hoped was just the right mixture of formal politeness and mild curiosity. The kind of smile that any estranged wife would give to a husband who had given the dictionary a new definition for ‘unreasonable behaviour’.
‘H-hello, Giovanni,’ she said, but she heard her voice tremble, and he heard it too, for she saw the black eyes briefly narrow as he tried to interpret its origin. ‘This is a—’
‘What?’ he questioned, deadly as a snake.
‘Surprise.’ She swallowed, feeling her throat constrict on the word.
‘Ah! Such understatement, cara mia!’ he murmured ‘Did you really expect to go through the rest of your life without ever seeing me again?’
‘I hadn’t really given it much thought.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said softly, and his eyes flicked her a mocking look. Not think about him? The moon would fail to rise in the heavens before that should happen! ‘All women who have known me are obsessed with me—and in many ways you have known me better than most, for you are the only woman I ever married.’
But Giovanni knew that it had been more than just the legal tie of their marriage which made her knowledge of so unique—a marriage which had been far stronger and less easy to shrug off than he had anticipated. It was because Alexa had seen him with his guard down—she had witnessed Giovanni veering towards the vulnerable—and she had taught him a lesson that he should have known all along: women were never to be trusted.
Alexa’s fixed smile became a grotesque kind of grimace. ‘Did you…did you want to speak to me?’
Jet-black brows were raised in arrogant query. ‘The alternative being that I want you to sell me some women’s clothes—perhaps shopping here for one of my mistresses? What do you think?’
If only he knew! If only he had an inkling about the crazed thoughts which were swirling around in her mind like an out-of-control whirlwind. Because you know that what you have done to this man is wrong?
She willed the voice of her conscience to cease—dampening down its clamour with a reminder of the harsh and bitter words he had spoken to her. Everything she had done, she had done for a reason. ‘I can’t talk now. I’m working.’
‘So I see.’ He glanced around the shop’s interior, affecting interest—but in reality it was to allow the beating of his heart to steady. He was taken aback by its thunderous pounding—for he had underestimated her impact on his senses. Or maybe he had simply forgotten.
Hungrily, he let his eyes feast on her. Her bright hair was caught back in one of those severe French plaits you rarely saw these days, and she was wearing a black pencil skirt and white blouse—presumably some kind of uniform for working. Yet it didn’t look anything like a uniform when she was wearing it. With the slim skirt skimming the gentle curve of her hips and the silky shirt caressing the swell of her breasts, she looked like a favourite male fantasy—buttoned-up, yet red-hot and hungry underneath. Giovanni swallowed. Later.
‘Still a shop assistant?’ he questioned sardonically. ‘Isn’t this where you came in—unless you own the place, of course?’
‘No, I don’t own it.’
So there had been no sudden change in her fortunes. No lover to lavish his wealth on her, having been reeled in with that unique blend of supposedly innocent sensuality. Those pale green eyes which could range from serene to feisty and a hundred expressions in between. She had the kind of body you wanted to cover in diamonds—and then slowly remove them, one by one.
Had it surprised him that she had not approached him for a hefty divorce settlement? He supposed it had—but maybe her lawyers had advised her that a mere three-month marriage would not yield much in the way of alimony.
‘Hardly what you’d call rapid promotion, is it?’ he mused. ‘Shop assistant in some small backwater of a place you grew up in.’
How effortlessly fluent was his English—and how brutally accurate was his contempt for her situation! Alexa gave him a non-committal smile. ‘Well, we can’t all be captains of industry,’ she said quietly. ‘Listen, Giovanni—no one was ever going to be in any doubt that you were the achiever in our relationship, but I really don’t have time to stand around and chat.’ Especially about something as painful and as potentially explosive as their past.
He glanced around the empty shop. ‘But you don’t have any customers!’ he observed caustically. ‘If this were my place then I’d give it a dramatic overhaul.’
‘Well, fortunately for me, it isn’t. So what is it that you want, Giovanni?’ She blinked up at him, wondering if he could hear the slight crack of pain in her voice—because sometimes emotions just crept up on you, whether you liked it or not.
What if he had come to tell her that he wanted his freedom? That he had met someone new and fallen in love—only this time it was the real thing, not some youthful cocktail of lust and unrealistic expectations. ‘You can tell me quickly.’
Giovanni heard the note of hope in her voice and gave a slow smile. ‘You think I’ve travelled from Italy to tell you quickly?’ he echoed silkily.
He had her senses spinning and she wanted it to stop. She wanted the rapid hammering of her heart and the feeling of faintness to pass, along with the regret and all the other things he had stirred up inside her within the space of a few minutes.
Alexa drew a deep breath. ‘You should have warned me you were coming,’ she said, in a low voice. And how would she have reacted if he had? Run away until she was certain the coast was clear, taking Paolo with her? But you couldn’t keep running away all your life. Suddenly, an intimation of terror began to whisper its way over her skin. ‘You should have warned me,’ she repeated, more urgently now.
Giovanni looked at her trembling lips. Not for a moment had he thought she might have grown immune to him—but Alexa’s reaction was very interesting.
She was edgier than he might have expected in the circumstances. And why was that? he wondered. Because she’d realised what she had thrown away? Or because she wanted him to take her into his arms and kiss her—to press his hard heat against the pliant softness of her body and drive his throbbing hardness deep inside her until she begged for release?
Giovanni’s sensual lips curved into a cruel smile as he felt the rush of heat to his groin and the powerful beat of anticipation—yet he experienced slight dismay, too and the faint prickle of anger, because the feelings she provoked in him defied all logic.
Memories of betrayal and deceit washed over him when he looked at the pale oval of her face, and yet there was lust, too—a fierce sexual hunger which he had never completely satisfied. Surely that must account for the sudden strange lurching of his heart?
The agenda which had brought him here today was simple: the invitation burning a hole in his pocket and a desire that his wife accede to his wishes. And yet there had been curiosity, too. A sense of something never quite completed, nor put to rest—a question that everyone whose marriage had failed must ask: what if?
Giovanni’s