Secret Heirs And A Forever Family

But she realised she’d completely overlooked the fact that proximity might make her careless. Might make her tongue slip and give something away—something which would naturally repulse him. Renzo had told her that one of the things he liked about her was that she didn’t besiege him with questions, or try to dig deep to try to understand him better. But that had been a two-way street and the fact he didn’t ask about her past had suited her just fine. More than fine. She didn’t want to tell any lies but she knew she could never tell him the truth. Because there was no point. There was no future in this liaison of theirs, so why tell him about the junkie mother who had given birth to her? Why endure the pain of seeing his lips curve with shock and contempt as had happened so often in the past? In a world where everyone was striving for perfection and judging you, it hadn’t taken her long to realise that the best way to get on in life was to bury all the darkness just as deep as she could.

But thoughts of her mother stabbed at her conscience, prompting her to address something which had been bothering her on the flight over.

‘You know the money I saved on my airfare and clothes?’ she began.

‘Yes, Darcy. I know. You were making a point.’ He shot her a glance, his lips curving into a sardonic smile. ‘Rich man with too much money shown by poor girl just how much he could save if he bothered to shop around. I get the picture.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Renzo,’ she said stiffly. ‘I want you to have it back. I’ve put most of it in an envelope in my handbag.’

‘But I don’t want it back. When are you going to get the message? I have more than enough money. And if it makes you feel better, I admire your resourcefulness and refusal to be seduced by my wealth. It’s rare.’

For a moment there was silence. ‘I think we both know it wasn’t your wealth which seduced me, Renzo.’

She hadn’t meant to say it but her quiet words reverberated around the car in an honest explanation of what had first drawn her to him. Not his money, nor his power—but him. The most charismatic and compelling man she’d ever met. She heard him suck in an unsteady breath.

‘Madonna mia,’ he said softly. ‘Are you trying to tempt me into taking the next turning and finding the nearest layby so that I can do what I have been longing to do to you since last I saw you?’

‘Renzo—’

‘I don’t want the damned money you saved! I want you to put your hand in my lap and feel how hard I am for you.’

‘Not while you’re driving,’ said Darcy and although she was disappointed he had turned the emotional into the sexual, she didn’t show it. Because that was the kind of man he was, she reminded herself. He was never emotional and always sexual. She didn’t need to touch him to know he was aroused—a quick glance and she could see for herself the hard ridge outlined beneath the dark trousers. Suddenly her lips grew dry in response and she licked them, wishing they could have sex right then. Because sex stopped you longing for things you were never going to have. Things other women took for granted—like a man promising to love and protect you. Things which seemed as distant as those faraway mountains. With an effort she dragged her attention back to the present. ‘Tell me about this place we’re going to instead.’

‘You think talking about property is a suitable substitute for discovering what you’re wearing underneath that pretty little dress?’

‘I think it’s absolutely vital if you intend keeping your mind on the road, which is probably the most sensible option if you happen to be driving a car.’

‘Oh, Darcy.’ He gave a soft laugh. ‘Did I ever tell you that one of the things I admire about you is your ability to always come up with a smart answer?’

‘The house, Renzo. I want to talk about the house.’

‘Okay. The house. It’s old,’ he said as he overtook a lorry laden with a towering pile of watermelons. ‘And it stands against a backdrop that Leonardo should have painted, instead of that village south of Piacenza which is not nearly as beautiful. It has orchards and vineyards and olive groves—in fact, we produce superb wines from the Sangiovese grape and enough olive oil to sell to some of the more upmarket stores in London and Paris.’

The few facts he’d recited could have been lifted straight from the pages of an estate agent’s website and Darcy felt oddly disappointed. ‘It sounds gorgeous,’ she said dutifully.

‘It is.’

‘So…why are you selling it?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s time.’

‘Because?’

Too late, she realised she had asked one question too many. His face grew dark, as if the sun had just dipped behind a cloud and his shadowed jaw set itself into a hard and obdurate line.

‘Isn’t one of the reasons for our unique chemistry that you don’t plague me with questions?’

She heard the sudden darkness underpinning his question. ‘I was only—’

‘Well, don’t. Don’t pry. Why change what up until now has been a winning formula?’ His voice had harshened as he cut through her words, his hands tensing as a discreet sign appeared among the tangle of greenery which feathered the roadside. ‘And anyway. We’re here. This is Vallombrosa.’

But his face was still dark as the car began to ascend a tree-lined track towards an imposing pair of dark wrought-iron gates which looked like the gates of heaven.

Or the gates of hell, Darcy thought with a sudden flash of foreboding.

CHAPTER THREE

‘HOW ON EARTH am I going to converse with everyone?’ questioned Darcy as she stepped out onto the sunny courtyard. ‘Since my Italian is limited to the few words I learnt from the phrasebook on the plane and that phrase about the lightning strike?’

‘All my staff are bilingual,’ Renzo said, his show of bad temper in the car now seemingly forgotten. ‘And perfectly comfortable with speaking your mother tongue.’

The words mocked her and Darcy chewed on her lip as she looked away. Mother tongue? Her own mother had taught her to say very little—other than things which could probably have had her prosecuted if she’d repeated them to the authorities.

‘Pass Mummy that needle, darling.’

‘Pass Mummy those matches.’

‘If the policewoman asks if you’ve met that man before, tell her no.’

But she smiled brightly as she entered the shaded villa and shook hands with Gisella, the elderly housekeeper, and her weather-beaten husband, Pasquale, who was one of the estate’s gardeners. A lovely young woman with dark hair helped Gisella around the house and Darcy saw her blush when Renzo introduced her as Stefania. There was also a chef called Donato, who apparently flew in from Rome whenever Renzo was in residence. Donato was tanned, athletic, amazingly good-looking and almost certainly gay.

‘Lunch will be in an hour,’ he told them. ‘But sooner if you’re hungry?’

‘Oh, I think we can wait,’ said Renzo. He turned to Darcy. ‘Why don’t we take a quick look around while our bags are taken to our room?’

Darcy nodded, thinking how weird it felt to be deferred to like that—and to be introduced to his staff just like a real girlfriend. But then she reminded herself that this was only going to work if she didn’t allow herself to get carried away. She followed him outside, blinking a little as she took in the vastness of his estate and, although she was seeing only a fraction of it, her senses were instantly overloaded by the beauty of Vallombrosa. Honeybees flitted over purple spears of lavender, vying for space with brightly coloured butterflies. Little lizards basked on baked grey stone. The high walls surrounding the ancient house were covered with scrambling pink roses and stone arches framed the blue-green layers of the distant mountains beyond. Darcy wondered what it must be like growing up somewhere like here, instead of the greyness of the institution in the north of England, which had been the only place she’d ever really called home.

‘Like it?’ he questioned.

‘How could I not? It’s beautiful.’

‘You know, you’re pretty beautiful yourself,’ he said softly as he turned his head to look at her.

Remembering the way he’d snapped at her in the car, she wanted to resist him, but the light touch of his hand on her hip and brush of his fingers against her thighs made resistance impossible and Darcy was shaking with longing by the time they reached the shuttered dimness of his bedroom. It was a vast wood-beamed room but there was no time to take in her surroundings because he was pulling her into his arms, his lips brushing hungrily over hers and his fingers tangling themselves in her curls.

‘Renzo,’ she said unsteadily.

‘What?’

She licked her lips. ‘You know what.’

‘I think I do.’ His lips curved into a hard smile. ‘You want this?’

Sliding down the zip of her cotton dress, he peeled it away from her and she felt the rush of air against her skin as it pooled to the ground around her ankles. ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘That’s what I want.’

‘Do you know,’ he questioned as he unclipped her lacy bra and it joined the discarded dress, ‘how much I have been fantasising about you? About this?’

She nodded. ‘Me, too,’ she said softly, because the newness of the environment and the situation in which she found herself was making her feel almost shy in his presence.

But not for long. The beat of her heart and the heat of her blood soon overwhelmed her and had her fumbling for his belt, her fingers trembling with need. Very quickly she was naked and so was he—soft, shuttered light shading their bodies as he pushed her down onto the bed and levered his powerful form over hers. She gripped at the silken musculature of his broad shoulders as he slowly stroked his thumb over her clitoris. And she came right then—so quickly it was almost embarrassing. He laughed softly and eased himself into her wet heat and for a moment he was perfectly still.

‘Do you know how good that feels?’ he said as he began to move inside her.

She swallowed. ‘I’ve…I’ve got a pretty good idea.’

‘Oh, Darcy. It’s you,’ he groaned, his eyes closing. ‘Only you.’

He said the words like a ragged prayer or maybe a curse—but Darcy didn’t read anything into them because she knew exactly what he meant. She was the first and only woman with whom he hadn’t needed to wear a condom, because her virginity had elevated her to a different status from his other lovers—he’d told her that himself. He told her she was truly pure. He’d been fascinated to find a woman of twenty-four who’d never had a lover before and by her fervent reply when he’d asked if she ever wanted children.

‘Never!’

Her response must have been heartfelt enough to convince him because in a rare moment of confidence he told her he felt exactly the same. Soon afterwards he had casually suggested she might want to go on the pill and Darcy had eagerly agreed. She remembered the first time they’d left the condom off and how it had felt to have his naked skin against hers instead of ‘that damned rubber’—again, his words—between them. It had been…delicious. She had felt dangerously close to him and had needed to give herself a stern talking-to afterwards. She’d told herself that the powerful feelings she was experiencing were purely physical. Of course sex felt better without a condom—but it didn’t mean anything.

But now, in the dimness of his Tuscan bedroom, he was deep inside her. He was filling her and thrusting into her body and kissing her mouth until it throbbed and it felt so amazing that she could have cried. Did her low, moaning sigh break his rhythm? Was that why, with a deft movement, he turned her over so that she was on top of him, his black eyes capturing hers?

‘Ride me, cara,’ he murmured. ‘Ride me until you come again.’

She nodded as she tensed her thighs against his narrow hips because she liked this position. It gave her a rare feeling of power, to see Renzo lying underneath her—his eyes half-closed and his lips parted as she rocked back and forth.

She heard his groan and bent her head to kiss it quiet, though she was fairly sure that the walls of this ancient house were deep enough to absorb the age-old sounds of sex. He tangled his hands in her hair, digging his fingers into the wayward curls until pleasure—intense and unalterable—started spiralling up inside her. She came just before he did, gasping as he clasped her hips tightly and hearing him utter something urgent in Italian as his body bucked beneath her. She bent her head to his neck, hot breath panting against his skin until she’d recovered enough to peel herself away from him, before falling back against the mattress.

She looked at the dark beams above her head and the engraved glass lampshade, which looked as if it was as old as the house itself. Someone had put a small vase of scented roses by the window—the same roses which had been scrambling over the walls outside—and all the light in that shadowy room seemed to be centred on those pale pink petals.

‘Well,’ she said eventually. ‘That was some welcome.’

Deliberately, Renzo kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady because he didn’t want to talk. Not right now. He didn’t need to be told how good it was—that was a given—not when his mind was busy with the inevitable clamour of his thoughts.

He’d felt a complex mixture of stuff as he’d driven towards the house, knowing soon it would be under different ownership. A house which had been in his mother’s family for generations and which had had more than its fair share of heartbreak. Other people might have offloaded it years ago but pride had made him hold on to it, determined to replace bad memories with good ones, and to a large extent he’d succeeded. But you couldn’t live in the past. It was time to let the place go—to say goodbye to the last clinging fragments of yesterday.

He looked across the bed, where Darcy was lying with her eyes closed, her bright red hair spread all over the white pillow. He thought about her going to Norfolk when they got back to London and tried to imagine what it might be like sleeping with someone else when she was no longer around, but the idea of some slender-hipped brunette lying amid his tumbled sheets was failing to excite him. Instinctively he flattened his palm over her bare thigh.

‘And was it the perfect welcome?’ he questioned at last.

‘You know it was.’ Her voice was sleepy. ‘Though I should go and pick my dress up. It’s the first time I’ve worn it.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll have Gisella launder it for you.’

‘There’s no need for that.’ Her voice was suddenly sharp as her eyes snapped open. ‘I can do my own washing. I can easily rinse it out in the sink and hang it out to dry in that glorious sunshine.’

‘And if I told you I’d rather you didn’t?’

‘Too bad.’

‘Why are you so damned stubborn, Darcy?’

‘I thought you liked my stubbornness.’

‘When appropriate, I do.’

‘You mean, when it suits you?’

‘Esattamente.’

She lay back and looked up at the ceiling. How could she explain that she’d felt his housekeeper looking at her and seeing exactly who she was—a servant, just as Gisella was. Like Gisella, she waited tables and cleared up around people who had far more money than she had. That was who she was. She didn’t want to look as if she’d suddenly acquired airs and graces by asking to have her clothes laundered. She wasn’t going to try to be someone she wasn’t—someone who would find it impossible to settle back into her humble world when she got back to England and her billionaire lover was nothing but a distant memory.

But she shouldn’t take it out on Renzo, because he was just being Renzo. She’d never objected to his high-handedness before. If the truth were known, she’d always found it a turn-on—and in a way, his arrogance had provided a natural barrier. It had stopped her falling completely under his spell, forcing her to be realistic rather than dreamy. She leaned over and brushed her mouth against his. ‘So tell me what you’ve got planned for us.’

His fingers slid between the tops of her thighs. ‘Plans? What plans? The sight of your body seems to have completely short-circuited my brain.’

Halting his hand before it got any further, Darcy enjoyed her brief feeling of power. ‘Tell me something about Vallombrosa—and I’m not talking olive or wine production this time. Did you live here when you were a little boy?’

His shuttered features grew wary. ‘Why the sudden interest?’

‘Because you told me we’d be having dinner with the man who’s buying the place. It’s going to look a bit odd if I don’t know anything about your connection with it. Did you grow up here?’

‘No, I grew up in Rome. Vallombrosa was our holiday home.’

‘And?’ she prompted.

‘And it had been in my mother’s family for generations. We used it to escape the summer heat of the city. She and I used to come here for the entire vacation and my father would travel down at weekends.’

Darcy nodded because she knew that, like her, he was an only child and that both his parents were dead. And that was pretty much all she knew.

She circled a finger over the hardness of his flat belly. ‘So what did you do when you were here?’

He pushed her hand in the direction of his groin. ‘My father taught me to hunt and to fish, while my mother socialised and entertained. Sometimes friends came to visit and my mother’s school friend Mariella always seemed to be a constant fixture. We were happy, or so I thought.’

Darcy held her breath as something dark and steely entered his voice. ‘But you weren’t?’

‘No. We weren’t.’ He turned his head to look at her, a hard expression suddenly distorting his features. ‘Haven’t you realised by now that so few people are?’

‘I guess,’ she said stiffly. But she’d thought…

What? That other people were strangers to the pain she’d suffered? That someone as successful and as powerful as Renzo had never known emotional deprivation? Was that why he was so distant sometimes—so shuttered and cold? ‘Did something happen?’

‘You could say that. They got divorced when I was seven.’

‘And was it…acrimonious?’

He shot her an unfathomable look. ‘Aren’t all divorces acrimonious?’

She shrugged. ‘I guess.’

‘Especially when you discover that your mother’s best “friend” has been having an affair with your father for years,’ he added, his voice bitter. ‘It makes you realise that when the chips are down, women can never be trusted.’

Darcy chewed on her lip. ‘So what happened?’

‘After the divorce, my father married his mistress but my mother never really recovered. It was a double betrayal and her only weapon was me.’

‘Weapon?’ she echoed.

He nodded. ‘She did everything in her power to keep my father out of my life. She was depressed.’ His jaw tightened. ‘And believe me, there isn’t much a child can do if his mother is depressed. He is—quite literally—helpless. I used to sit in the corner of the room, quietly making houses out of little plastic bricks while she sobbed her heart out and raged against the world. By the end of that first summer, I’d constructed an entire city.’

She nodded in sudden understanding. Had his need to control been born out of that helplessness? Had the tiny plastic city he’d made been the beginnings of his brilliant architectural career? ‘Oh, Renzo—that’s…terrible,’ she said.

He curled his fingers over one breast. ‘What an innocent you are, Darcy,’ he observed softly.

Darcy felt guilt wash over her. He thought she was a goody-goody because she suspected he was one of those men who divided women into two types—Madonna or whore. Her virginity had guaranteed her Madonna status but it wasn’t that simple and if he knew why she had kept herself pure he would be shocked. Married men having affairs was hardly ground-breaking stuff, even if they chose to do it with their wife’s best friend—but she could tell him things about her life which would make his own story sound like something you could read to a child at bedtime.

And he wasn’t asking about her past, was he? He wasn’t interested—and maybe she ought to be grateful for that. There was no point in dragging out her dark secrets at this late stage in their relationship and ruining their last few days together. ‘So what made you decide to sell the estate?’

There was a pause. ‘My stepmother died last year,’ he said flatly. ‘She’d always wanted this house and I suppose I was making sure she never got her hands on it. But now she’s gone—they’ve all gone—and somehow my desire to hang on to it died with her. The estate is too big for a single man to maintain. It needs a family.’

‘And you don’t want one?’

‘I thought we’d already established that,’ he said and now his voice had grown cool. ‘I saw enough lying and deceit to put me off marriage for a lifetime. Surely you can understand that?’

Darcy nodded. Oh, yes, she understood all right. Just as she recognised that his words were a warning. A warning not to get too close. That just because she was here with him in the unfamiliar role of girlfriend, nothing had really changed. The smile she produced wasn’t as bright as usual, but it was good enough to convince him she didn’t care. ‘Shouldn’t we think about getting ready for lunch?’ she questioned, her voice growing a little unsteady as his hand moved from her breast to the dip of her belly. ‘Didn’t…didn’t Donato say it would be ready in an hour?’

The touch of her bare skin drove all thoughts from Renzo’s mind until he was left with only one kind of hunger. The best kind. The kind which obliterated everything except pleasure. He’d told her more than he usually told anyone and he put that down to the fact that usually she didn’t ask. But she needed to know that there would be no more confidences from now on. She needed to know that there was only one reason she was here—and the glint of expectation in her eyes told him that she was getting the message loud and clear. He felt his erection grow exquisitely hard as he looked at the little waitress who somehow knew how to handle him better than any other woman.

‘I employ Donato to work to my time frame, not his,’ he said arrogantly, bending his head and sucking at her nipple.

‘Oh, Renzo.’ Her eyes closed as she fell back against the pillow.

‘Renzo, what?’ he taunted.

‘Don’t make me beg.’

He slid his finger over her knee. ‘But I like it when you beg.’

‘I know you do.’

‘So?’

She groaned as her hips lifted hungrily towards his straying finger. ‘Please…’

‘That’s better.’ He gave a low and triumphant laugh as he pulled her towards him. ‘Lunch can wait,’ he added roughly, parting her thighs and positioning himself between them once more. ‘I’m afraid this can’t.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THIS?’ DARCY HELD up a glimmering black sheath, then immediately waved a flouncy turquoise dress in front of it. ‘Or this?’

‘The black,’ Renzo said, flicking her a swift glance before continuing to button up his shirt.

Her skin now tanned a delicate shade of gold, Darcy slithered into the black dress, aware that Renzo was watching her reflection in the glass in the way a hungry dog might look at a butcher, but she didn’t care. She found herself wishing she had the ability to freeze time and that the weekend wasn’t drawing to a close because it had been the best few days of her life.

They’d explored his vast estate, scrambling up hilly roads to be rewarded with spectacular views of blue-green mountains and the terracotta smudge of tiny villages. Her hiking boots had come in useful after all! He’d taken her to a beautiful village called Panicale, where they’d drunk coffee in the cobbled square with church bells chiming in stereophonic all around them. And even though Renzo had assured her that May temperatures were too cold for swimming, Darcy wasn’t having any of it. She’d never been anywhere with a private pool before—let alone a pool as vast and inviting as the one at Vallombrosa.

Initially a little shy about appearing in her tiny bikini, she’d been quickly reassured by the darkening response in his eyes—though she’d been surprised when he’d changed his mind and decided to join her in the pool after all. And Renzo in sleek black swim shorts, olive skin gleaming as he shook water from his hair, was a vision which made her heart race. She could have spent all afternoon watching his powerful body ploughing through the silky water. But he’d brought her lazy swim to a swift conclusion with some explicit suggestions whispered in her ear and they had returned to his bedroom for sex which had felt even more incredible than usual.