In seemingly silent mutual agreement they put away the picnic and folded the rug to start back to the car. She had barely seen the garden but it no longer had the power to dominate her thoughts. Her entire focus was now centred on Vitale. Was this what an infatuation felt like? Or was it something more? Was he a man she could fall in love with? How did she know? Was she crazy to wonder such a thing? Julian had been her first love but he had never had the power to make her feel the way Vitale did. Sadly she had been too young at eighteen to understand that there should be more said and more felt in a relationship with a future.
Just before she climbed back into the car, a gardener working at a border across the front lawn raised a hand to acknowledge Vitale. Of course, his uncle’s employees would know him. She watched him incline his head in acknowledgement. Her fingers had messed up his black hair and as he turned his handsome dark head, stunning golden eyes locking to her as if there were no other person in the world, she felt a fierce pride in his acknowledgement and refused to think beyond that.
As he drove her back to his house she was in a pensive mood and slightly dreamy from the heat, the wine and the passion.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he murmured.
‘I thought you would like that.’
In a graceful gesture he linked his fingers briefly with hers. ‘No. I miss the chatter, angelina mia.’
Zara thought crazily then that engagements could be broken and weddings could be cancelled. That possibility momentarily put paid to the guilt and assuaged her conscience. It had never been her intention to deceive either man but now it was too late to tell Vitale the truth, that she was supposed to be getting married. She shifted uncomfortably at the knowledge that an honest and decent woman would have spoken up much sooner and certainly before the first kiss. Now she could not bear the idea that Vitale might think badly of her and she hugged her secret to herself in silence.
Not surprisingly, with her unusually optimistic mood interspersed by anxious spasms of fear about the future controlling her, the journey back to the farmhouse seemed very short because she was so lost in her thoughts.
She wandered into the sunny hallway. ‘I didn’t even explore Edith’s garden properly,’ she remarked with regret.
‘Someday I’ll take you back to see it,’ Vitale promised and then he frowned.
‘I’m leaving in the morning,’ she reminded him helplessly.
His beautiful dark deep-set eyes lingered on her anxious face and he lifted a hand, brushing her delicate jawbone with his knuckle in an unexpected caress. ‘Let your hair down,’ he whispered.
The look of anticipation gleaming in his eyes made her heart race and the blood surge hotly through her body. ‘Why?’ she asked baldly.
‘I love your hair … the colour of it, the feel of it,’ he confessed huskily.
And like a woman in a dream, Zara lifted her hand and undid the clip. Vitale need no further invitation, angling his proud dark head down as he studied her and used his hands to deftly fluff her rumpled hair round her shoulders. ‘I even like the smell of it,’ he admitted, a bemused frown tugging at his ebony brows even as his nostrils flared in recognition at the vanilla scent of her.
He was gorgeous, Zara thought dizzily, the most gorgeous guy she had ever met and he seemed equally drawn to her. It was a heady thought, and not her style, but she was basking in the hot golden glow of his appreciative appraisal. It was the work of a moment to mentally douse the sparks of caution at the back of her mind and instead stretch up on tiptoe as if she were free as a bird to do whatever she liked and taste that remarkably beautiful mouth of his again. He lifted her up in his arms and began to carry her upstairs.
ZARA surfaced from that kiss to discover that she was on a bed in an unfamiliar room.
It was a larger, more masculine version of her room with bedding the colour of parchment. Unfortunately the last time that Zara had been alone in a bedroom with a man she had been handcuffed half naked to a metal headboard and it was thanks to that terrifying experience that she remained a virgin at the age of twenty-two. Momentarily transfixed by that chilling recollection she turned pale as milk and studied Vitale, reminding herself that she had kissed him, and encouraged him entirely of her own free will. She was not under the influence of alcohol this time around either.
‘What’s wrong?’ His shirt already half unbuttoned to display a dark, hair-roughened wedge of muscular torso, Vitale regarded her with observant eyes, reading her tension and her pallor and wondering at her mood.
He was too clever by half to miss her nervous tension, Zara registered in dismay. A blush of discomfiture warmed her face as she struggled to suppress the apprehension that was a direct result of the betrayal she had suffered. Vitale wasn’t a blackmailer, she told herself urgently. He wasn’t going to whip out a camera either … at least she hoped not. He was a wealthy successful man in his own right with no need to target her as a potential source of profit.
‘It’s all right … it’s not you,’ she told him awkwardly. ‘I had a bad experience once …’
Vitale spread his hands in a fluid soothing movement. ‘If you want to change your mind I’ll understand.’
Her wide eyes prickled with tears at that considerate offer because she knew it could not have been easy for him to make. He was not selfishly putting his own needs first, he cared how she felt and that meant a great deal to Zara. After all, in spite of all his protestations Julian had never cared about her, he had only seen her as a means to an end, a convenient conduit to her father’s bank account. Her chin came up and she kicked off her shoes in a statement of intent. It was time she shook off the shadows cast over her life by Julian Hurst; it was time that she accepted that not every man was a user or an abuser.
‘I’m staying,’ Zara informed him unevenly, fighting her nerves with all her might. Twenty-two and a virgin—no, she absolutely was not going to share that embarrassing truth with him. She had read somewhere that men couldn’t tell the difference so he would never guess the level of her inexperience unless she made it obvious by parading her insecurity.
Vitale wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t regret sharing his bed but he was no hypocrite and he knew that she would. But what was another one-night stand to a woman with her level of experience? Unhappily for him, however, nothing seemed as cut and dried as it had before and he was suffering stabs of indecision directly in conflict with his usual rock-solid assurance and resolute focus. When and how had the business of avenging his sister contrived to become a guilty pleasure?
How could a little pixie-like blonde threaten to come between him and his wits? Vitale always knew what he was doing and controlled his own fate every step of the way. Time after time in his life he had made tough choices and he had never flinched from them. He might loathe the fact but he wanted Monty Blake’s daughter much more than he had ever dreamt possible. Even knowing that she was engaged to another man and a heartless little cheat didn’t kill his desire for her. Did it matter how he felt though? Surely all that mattered was that he took revenge for his sister’s pitiful death at the hands of a filthy coward? And the woman on his bed was the magic key to that much desired objective.
‘Take the shorts off,’ he urged huskily.
Tensing, Zara was very still for a moment before she scrambled off the bed. It was a modest request, she told herself. He hadn’t asked her to take off everything. But she was all fingers and thumbs as she undid the button at the waistband of her shorts and shook her slim hips clear of the garment, finally stepping out of them to reveal a pair of high cut blue satin knickers.
There was something wrong. What, Vitale didn’t know, but his instincts were good and he sensed it. Her face was pink, her eyes