Too late she realised that she should have heeded her instincts on the journey to Villa Romano and asked Jules to turn the car around. But she was not the awestruck girl who had once believed in fairy-tales and seen Torre as her Prince Charming who would rescue her and keep her safe. She had learned the hard way that the only person who could protect her was herself and she was pleased that her voice sounded cool and crisp when she spoke.
‘Hello, Torre. Jules said it was you who overtook us on the Amalfi road, driving like a lunatic.’
He smiled, revealing a flash of white teeth in his darkly tanned face. Orla felt heat unfurl in the pit of her stomach and with a sense of shock she recognised the coiling sensation low in her pelvis as desire. It had been so long since she had felt the heady sensation of sexual attraction. She’d believed that David had destroyed those feelings in the same way he had destroyed her pride and self-respect. It was disconcerting to discover that her libido was alive and fully functioning, and a disaster that it was Torre who had set her pulse hammering.
Memories pushed into her mind of his mouth on hers. The wild sweetness of their first kiss was etched indelibly on her soul. Eight years ago he had taken everything that she had offered him with a naivety that—looking back—made her want to weep. He had taken her innocence and then he’d crushed her as if she were an insect that he had ground beneath his heel.
‘I admit I was driving fast but I know every twist and bend of the Amalfi road like the back of my hand,’ Torre drawled as he strolled towards her. ‘Besides, everyone needs a little danger to add spice to their life.’ His grey eyes gleamed like polished steel. He halted in front of her, so close that Orla was afraid he would notice the erratic thud of the pulse at the base of her throat, and she instinctively lifted her hand and played nervously with the gold chain she wore around her neck.
‘I don’t. I think it’s stupid to take unnecessary risks.’ She raised her chin so that she could look directly at his face and discovered that he was taller than she had remembered. Even though she was wearing three-inch heels, Torre towered over her. She wondered why she felt a need to challenge him when to do so was dangerous. It would be far more sensible to walk away from him. But she couldn’t seem to move. Her feet refused to follow the command sent by her brain and she was so utterly mesmerised by him that she froze when he stretched his hand towards her and took off her sunglasses.
‘Your eyes are the exact colour I remember them. Hazel, with flecks of olive-green,’ he murmured.
She heard the uneven sound of her shallow breaths and was sure he must hear the loud thunder of her heart. For the past month, since she had accepted the invitation to Giuseppe’s birthday party, Orla had prepared herself for the inevitable meeting with Torre. In her mind the scene had played out with her being cool and dismissive, while Torre was contrite and regretful that he had rejected her years ago.
But her body wasn’t following the script. She felt dizzy and light-headed—which could be a reaction to the heat, she hastened to assure herself. More difficult to explain was the heaviness in her breasts and the tingling sensation of her nipples tightening into hard peaks that she prayed were not visible beneath her dress.
‘Do you mind?’ She welcomed her flare of temper as she snatched her sunglasses from his hand and slipped them back on. She felt safer with her eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. ‘I’m surprised you remember the colour of my eyes. I remember very little about you from eight years ago.’
To her annoyance he did not appear to be bothered by her sharp retort and his smile widened into a grin that made Orla catch her breath. ‘Then it is fortunate that we have this opportunity to become reacquainted,’ he murmured.
‘Why?’ she asked bluntly. ‘I do remember that you couldn’t wait to see the back of me after we had spent the night together.’
Torre did not seem to hear her, and the dark intensity of his stare caused the coiling sensation inside her to tug harder, sharper so that she wanted to give in to a crazy impulse to step closer to him and press her pelvis up against his.
She licked her dry lips and the darting movement of her tongue seemed to fascinate him. His smile faded and something almost feral sharpened his features. ‘You were lovely when you were eighteen,’ he said in a harsh tone. ‘But now... Dio—’ his voice thickened ‘—you are astonishingly beautiful.’
Orla stared right back at him, unable to move, barely able to breathe. He filled her vision and she was as blinded by him as if she had looked directly at the sun. He looked like a fallen angel or maybe the devil incarnate. Either way, he exuded a simmering sex appeal that made her tremble deep inside.
In the years since she had last seen Torre, his so-perfect-he-could-have-been-airbrushed features had become harder and more rugged. The sculpted angles and planes of his face were softened slightly by the sensual curve of his lips. Orla guessed that the dark stubble on his square jaw would feel abrasive beneath her fingertips, but his almost black hair would, she was sure, feel like silk if she ran her hands through its thickness.
Around them the air was hot and still, thick with a fierce tension that threatened Orla’s composure. She could not look away from Torre, from his mouth that was somehow much too close to hers, although she hadn’t noticed him move.
‘People can change,’ he muttered half under his breath.
‘What do you mean?’ She wondered if she had misheard him or misunderstood what he’d said. Her brain wasn’t functioning properly.
He stepped closer to her and her senses were immediately swamped by the heat that emanated from him. The spicy scent of his aftershave was evocatively familiar and she felt dizzy and strangely disconnected from reality.
‘Orla,’ Torre said in a low, urgent voice that rolled through her like thunder and created a storm inside her. Nothing had prepared her for the lightning bolt of sexual awareness that flared between them. She felt drawn to him as if there was an invisible cord around them that wound tighter and tighter, and her heart pounded as Torre angled his mouth over hers and his warm breath grazed her lips.
‘I THOUGHT YOU were going to meet me inside, Orla.’
The sound of Jules’s voice catapulted Orla back to her senses and with a gasp she jerked away from Torre. So much for her plan to act cool around him, she thought derisively. Within moments of meeting him again she had practically thrown herself at him. Thankfully Jules’s interruption had stopped her from making a fool of herself.
‘I couldn’t find the housekeeper to ask where we will be sleeping so I left our cases in the guest cloakroom for now,’ Jules said. ‘Hello, Torre.’ He shook hands with his stepbrother. ‘It’s good to see you.’
To Orla’s surprise, Jules draped his arm around her shoulders. She knew it was nothing more than a friendly gesture, yet there was something oddly possessive about the way he drew her close against his side. She glanced at Torre and saw that his eyes had narrowed and his mouth had flattened into a thin line. For a few seconds his expression was unguarded, but perhaps she imagined that he looked furious because he smiled at Jules.
‘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