Rumours: The Secret Billionaires

The bikini top she wore with white shorts made looking at the view beyond their open-to-the-beach villa impossible. His eyes traced the fullness of her breasts and her slender waist, partly concealed by the shorts, but, as his gaze drank her in, Antonio could sense her mistrust. Had he hurt her that much?

Her glossed lips parted and he fought the urge to pull her to him and kiss her in a way that would make the marriage real. Very real. As desire crashed over him like a stormy sea seeking to claim the sand of the beach she turned from him and laughed.

Her light laughter reminded him of champagne and surprised him so much he couldn’t say anything. All he could do was watch her as she brought her fingers to her lips and tried to control the laughter.

‘You could never live a normal life, Antonio.’ Her voice was light and playful, the heady attraction which had been escalating between them since arriving on this paradise island defused by her very real amusement. ‘The house you grew up in made me realise...’

She paused, holding back her words and refocusing her attention on the blue water of the ocean. He waited, but she said nothing more, the lightness of moments ago lost.

‘Realise what, Sadie?’ he demanded, annoyed at the loss of fun from their discussion.

She turned to look up at him, her green eyes swimming with not only desire but emotions he didn’t want to encounter, emotions he just couldn’t have in his life. Not when they weakened him and left him exposed. He couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by anything other than desire for the woman he’d made his wife. Only passion and desire had a place in his life.

‘I realised that we were so far apart in life—even before that was made very clear to me by your parents.’ Sadie’s voice dragged him back and he knew that, whatever had happened, he and Sadie had to move forward for Leo’s sake—together.

He was determined to bring Sadie emotionally closer to him, just as they had been during those few days when his son had been conceived. ‘Leo is my heir and that house and everything which goes with the Di Marcello name will one day be his. My parents need to accept that as much as you do.’

‘I will do anything for Leo. I already have—marrying you.’ The spark of fire and indignation in her voice was clear. He was losing that closeness, that powerful awareness of each other. It drew them together in a way nothing else could.

He took her hand again in his, feeling the band of gold on her finger that now joined them in a way he’d never wanted to be joined with a woman again. Not after the disaster of his first marriage. But at least he knew he and Sadie could be truly man and wife, if only she’d let him past the wall she’d erected around herself.

She didn’t pull away and he looked into the softness of her eyes and saw the confusion in them. He reached up and brushed her hair back from her face, his fingers touching her skin, sending a jolt of awareness through him. Her lashes lowered slowly, as if she wanted to give in to the sensation of his touch and close her eyes but was fighting it. As her eyes closed he lowered his lips to hers, lightly teasing the plumpness, tasting the lip gloss which made them look so kissable.

A volcano of desire surged upwards through him and all he could think about was pulling her against him, pressing her curves to his body and plunging into the erotic desire of kissing her deeply.

Softly she sighed, her lips caressing his, and for a brief moment she moved towards him, driven by the same desire raging within him. He wrapped his arms around her back, the warmth of her bare skin intensifying the need to make her his again.

Just as he fought to rein in the need to sweep her into his arms and take her back into the villa, to the large bed with ocean views, and claim her truly as his wife, she pushed against him, breaking the fizz of attraction.

‘I can’t do this.’ She struggled to free herself from his arms and, rather than fight her, he let her go. She stepped backwards, each step unsteady as her feet sank in the softness of the sand, her green eyes darkened with desire, contradicting every move she made and every word she spoke.

‘Kiss me or give in to the attraction?’ He tried to keep his voice neutral but couldn’t stem the huskiness which made each word thick and unsteady. His whole body was on fire with need for her—his wife.

‘It’s not right,’ she said in a husky whisper. Did she really believe that?

‘We are man and wife, Sadie. Leo is our son, a child created with a passion so intensely hot it still scalds me. I want you, Sadie, just as you want me.’

He cursed himself silently for bringing Leo into this, for mentioning that weekend when he’d made her his, a weekend which should have been nothing more than a passing affair. He sensed Sadie withdraw emotionally, quickly reinstating the barriers he’d almost broken through.

* * *

Sadie blinked at that last remark and tried to ignore the ripple of awareness which skittered down her spine and unfurled deep inside her. She had no idea why she couldn’t do this, why she couldn’t surrender to his kisses. All she knew was that to do so would change everything. It would make their marriage something it could never be and she couldn’t let that happen, not when he didn’t have any kind of feelings towards her.

‘I can’t do this because of Leo. He will be here at any moment.’ She struggled for composure, struggled to calm her racing heartbeat.

‘I have just seen him and the nanny. I instructed her to bring him to us at lunchtime.’

‘Why?’ The word rushed from her and she stood defensively glaring at him. How dare he change the plans she’d made for herself and Leo.

He moved closer to her again and, just as it had earlier, her heart leapt and her skin tingled with anticipation of his touch. Only this time she knew how warm his hands were, knew what they felt like against the bare skin of her back. If she hadn’t just stopped things, where would they be now? What would she be doing?

The image of them in the large bed rushed into her mind, intensifying the heady desire this man could evoke with just one glance. No, she’d done the right thing. This marriage wasn’t about sex or lust. This marriage was about giving Leo a family—a real family. But if she gave in to the love and desire which was forcing its way back to the surface within her, wouldn’t that be more like a loving family? No—the word slammed into her. Antonio didn’t have any feelings of love towards her. Four years ago she’d made the mistake of confusing lust with love. She couldn’t do that again. She just couldn’t.

‘Walk with me, mia bella.’ Antonio’s accent was heavier than she’d ever heard it as he moved towards her again, reaching for her hand. Or was it because her senses were so tuned into him? Either way, a walk would be for the best. At least nothing could happen then and she knew she was in danger of forgetting everything at this moment.

‘I’d like that.’ She smiled at him, suddenly shy beneath the intensity of his dark watchful eyes, a blush colouring her cheeks at what had nearly happened. She might have had his child, but she was still as innocent as the day he’d walked away from her.

He didn’t say anything and neither did a smile touch the corners of his lips. Lips she had just been kissing. As her hand became wrapped within his, the tension which had sparked to life with the kiss reared up once more, knocking the breath from her body.

The silence between them lengthened as they walked hand in hand towards the ocean. The sun was sparkling on the sea like jewels and the warm breeze lifted her hair back from her face. Nothing but white sands lapped by clear blue water and fringed with palm trees stretched before them. It was paradise. The perfect location for a honeymoon. Except this wasn’t a real honeymoon, not when they slept at opposite ends of the luxurious villa, the distance between them greater than the ocean surrounding the island. She didn’t want that—not tonight. She wanted to forget his threats, his distance, and find the man she’d fallen in love with on that first night.

Finally Antonio broke the silence. ‘The papers in Italy are full of speculation about you and Leo.’

She paused and stopped to look at him, the sunlight illuminating the black of his hair, but the mention of what they’d escaped, the fear that Leo would be dragged into the ring of the media circus, halted any foolhardy notions of wanting to be with Antonio all night.

‘Why are they so interested in us, Antonio? What is it about your first marriage that makes them so curious about us?’ Sadie sensed this was more than just press intrusion. Every now and then she’d catch a glimpse of deep anxiety within Antonio, as if he was torn apart emotionally, but then she’d blink and it was gone, replaced by cool, hard control.

He turned from her and she followed his lead and began to walk along the beach again, her hand still in his. To anyone watching they would have looked like any other newly married couple. Except they weren’t.

‘Eloisa and I had grown up with each other, knowing that one day our parents wanted us to marry. They wanted two old families of Milan to unite, to bring together wealth and history.’

He paused as if holding something more back and looked out across the moving mass of blue water, the soft rush of the waves the only sound. She looked at his profile and knew he was regretting something. Was it all the women he’d allegedly dated so soon after he’d married his childhood sweetheart?

‘Had you always loved her?’ The question slipped all too easily from her; she didn’t really want to hear the answer, but she had to know.

‘We were friends, nothing more. We had never thought of each other as anything else.’ His voice was silky soft and persuasive.

‘So why did you get married?’

He sighed and turned to walk further along the beach until she thought they’d reached the end. He took her into the trees and onto a well-trodden path and just a few moments later they emerged again into a small sandy cove. He stepped down onto the sand and turned back to help her down the large step.

Briefly his gaze locked with hers and a frisson of something indefinable slipped between them, as if drawing her closer to him. She shuddered and walked away from him and out of the shade of the trees and back into the welcome warmth of the sun. Did she really want to know all about his first marriage?

‘I married for duty. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. I was the only heir of one of Italy’s oldest families and, added to that, I had no inclination to marry for such a sentimental reason as love. A marriage out of duty wasn’t a hardship.’

Was that why he’d married her? Duty to his son? Suspicion filled her mind. Wouldn’t that have meant going against his family’s wishes? His mother had made it more than plain that she could never be anyone to a man like Antonio Di Marcello.

‘I’m guessing Eloisa didn’t like the fact that you still wanted to live the life of a single man.’ She couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice—or the fear that he would do the same again, that as soon as he returned to Rome he’d be pictured with the glamorous models and actresses of the world he moved in. He had, after all, married her out of a sense of duty to his son. To think of their marriage as anything else would be futile. She was deluding herself if she thought he was going to slip into the role of father and husband.

‘That was all part of protecting Eloisa from the press. You’ve seen what they are like.’

She frowned and looked up at him. What had he been protecting Eloisa from? Everything he was saying only added to the mistrust she felt towards him. He’d hidden behind a disguise to spy on her and now this revelation. What next?

* * *

‘I will promise to keep you and Leo out of the media spotlight.’ Antonio heard himself making yet another promise to a woman, a promise that once again he would be honour-bound to keep. He’d kept Eloisa’s secret, but could he continue to do so and protect Sadie and Leo? Why had he nearly told Sadie the truth of it all? What was it about Sadie that undid everything, stripped him back to the man he really was, the man beneath the cold hardness which life had made him adopt?

‘If Leo and I went to England, that would make it easier.’ The hope in Sadie’s voice cut deep into the emotions he was trying to ignore. His feelings for Sadie were becoming more complicated with each day and, worse, they were exactly the kind of feelings he’d never wanted to succumb to.

‘No. That will not happen, Sadie. I want my son in my life; I don’t want to just send a card on his birthday and make the odd visit. I want him in my life all the time.’ He couldn’t stem the words. ‘I want to make up for not seeing his first steps, for not hearing his first word. I want to be there for him, Sadie—every day.’

‘Then whatever it is the press are digging for, why not give it to them, tell them what they want to know, then they might leave us alone.’ She kept her focus on the water as she skimmed her toes over the surface of the gentle waves. It made her look vulnerable and innocent, the complete opposite of Eloisa, but, even so, he couldn’t do as she suggested. Not when he’d made a promise to his first wife to keep her secret.

‘That wouldn’t help.’ He spoke far more firmly than he should have and softened his tone. ‘We shall stay here for two or three weeks, like any couple on honeymoon, and the storm will have eased when we return to Rome.’

She looked up at him and the expression in her eyes was so alluringly innocent all he wanted to do was kiss her. Without any warning, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. This time she didn’t fight him, didn’t fight the attraction which grew with each passing second.

‘Besides, I want to be here with you, I want to enjoy every moment of my honeymoon and right now I want to kiss you.’

Instead of fighting him, of pushing against him, she moved closer, her eyes wide open as she lifted her chin to his kiss. As his lips met hers, he watched her eyes flutter closed, the power of the moment forcing his to do the same.

Around their feet the waves slipped in and out, heightening the spinning sensation as he kissed her harder and deeper than he’d ever kissed any woman, the burning need within him demanding satisfaction. She pressed her body against his, the same fire within her, and he was lost to the moment.

‘I want you, Sadie, I want to truly make you my wife. I want it to be as it was when we first met.’

Her eyes flew wide with alarm and she looked up at him, shaking her head, as her body began to tremble with desire. ‘What about Leo?’

‘One of the staff in the cottages has a little boy and they are there now, making friends, laying the groundwork for a sleepover—I think that is what it is called in England.’

She smiled teasingly up at him—the Sadie he’d first met finally back. ‘You wicked man. You planned this all along.’

He brushed his lips to hers. ‘We are honeymooners, so it’s only natural the staff want to give us privacy to be just that. How can I resist that kindness?’

A blush spread over her face as she slipped from his embrace. ‘I’m not sure—maybe Leo won’t go.’

‘You can’t hide from me, Sadie. You are my wife and I intend to make you exactly that, mia bella.’

CHAPTER NINE

NERVES SPIRALLED THROUGH Sadie as she stood on the beach, looking out at the setting sun with Antonio. All through the candlelit dinner they’d shared, the simmering tension and awareness had been palpable. As if they both knew where the night would lead—and both wanting exactly that.

It was obvious what Antonio’s intentions were. Why else would he have engineered for Leo to be elsewhere if not to give them time alone? Time to become a married couple in the true sense of the word.

She shouldn’t want it. Shouldn’t want Antonio, but she did. She couldn’t help herself. She’d only ever been his and to share a night of passion with him again was all she wanted right now.

He put his arm around her, drawing her close, and she trembled at his touch, trembled at his closeness and the thought of being his once more.

‘You are cold,’ he stated calmly, as in control as he always was.

If she hadn’t been so consumed with desire for him, she might have said he was cold, but such notions were well and truly being buried now. Each desire-laden look, each touch, broke down her resistance and now all she wanted was one more night in his arms. Was that so wrong? To want her husband?

Shyly she looked up at him. ‘No, I’m not cold.’

Did he know that just being close to him did untold things to her, that his touch made her tremble with desire? He smiled at her and even in the dimming light of the sunset she knew he was well aware of how he made her feel.

‘We can return to the villa,’ he said, the heavy silkiness of his voice caressing her senses. ‘If you are cold.’

‘Not just yet. I’d like to see the sunset first. Remember it for a painting one day.’ She focused her attention on the orange orb sinking lower into the sky, not daring to look at him, trying anything to distract herself, but the effort was too much and she turned to him, all thought of everything else gone.

‘First?’ He looked at her, his brows raised in the deliciously sexy and mischievous way she’d fallen for the first time she’d met him, and she wondered how she’d never noticed it when he’d been in the disguise of an ordinary mechanic. ‘Before what, mia bella?’

She asked herself the same question and the same answer she’d had all evening came back at her. Before she gave herself to him, became completely his for ever. There would be no half measures for her, she knew that much. Just as she knew deep down she would always be his.

‘It is almost gone,’ she whispered as the sun sank lower, but the anticipation between them rose rapidly until it all but sparked in the warm air around them.

She turned again to face him, aware of the movement of the inky-dark waters as the sky rapidly darkened now the sun had slipped below the horizon. She wanted him to kiss her, wanted him to hold her. She’d been resisting him since he’d revealed his true identity, but now the fight was finally slipping from her. Was it the unfamiliar but luxurious surroundings or was she falling for him all over again? Right now she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel his lips on hers.

‘You look beautiful this evening, mia bella.’ His words, husky and deep, only intensified the fire of desire within her, making it leap wildly, seeking release.

She blushed, wondering if he knew the effort she’d taken this evening or how many dresses she’d discarded before settling on the brilliant red halter-neck maxi dress, the soft silk printed with a white pattern perfect for an evening of dining on the beach on this exotic paradise island.

‘It’s very easy to feel beautiful in a place as lovely as this.’ Silently she added, Especially when you look at me with such open desire and adoration.

Ever since he’d stepped out of the shadow of being Toni Adessi, she’d been trying to be cautious, trying to keep her distance, but right now, here on this island so far from reality, she didn’t care about the past—or the future. All she wanted was this moment and to be truly his wife.

He slid his hand up her back, pressing her against him as she placed her palm against his chest, seeking his strength and power. With his free hand he brushed her hair back over her shoulder and she closed her eyes briefly as his fingers touched her bare shoulders. When she opened them again, the smouldering intensity in his eyes left her in no doubt as to how this evening would end.

Boldly she rose up on her bare toes and touched her lips to his. Every limb of her body trembled as she waited for his reaction, his response.

When it came, it was hard and demanding, words of Italian came in an almost feral growl and his arms locked her against the hardness of his body until she had no doubt that he wanted her.

‘Antonio.’ His name slipped all too willingly from her lips, but anything else was smothered as he kissed her. The hardness of his kiss took her breath away and suddenly she didn’t care about the moon and stars she’d seen slowly brightening in the night sky because all around her there was an explosion of sparkling lights.

The need she’d been denying, need for the man she’d once fallen in love with, burst into life deep inside her and she knew that this time there wouldn’t be any way of stopping.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her breasts against him, feeling the heat of his body through the silk of her dress. His hand on her bare back burnt her, scalded her, but when he moved from her lips to kiss down her throat she almost couldn’t breathe.

She arched herself against him, the length of her loose hair falling away from her shoulders as he kissed a line of fire across one. Then, just as she thought she might fall to the sand, he swept her up into his arms.

She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, rugged and dominant, unlocking more memories from that one delicious weekend together. This was the only man she’d ever wanted and nothing had changed.

* * *

Antonio carried Sadie back across the sand, his bare feet sinking as he walked, but he wasn’t going to put her down. Not until he could lay her on the bed and kiss her until all she wanted was him.

‘Tonight, mia bella, belongs to us.’

He strode into the villa, the sounds of the waves following them in, the exotic scents of the island enveloping them. Was it the location that had relaxed him, made him more able to accept that whatever it was between him and Sadie was far from over?

‘Just tonight,’ she stipulated, still resisting him, still denying the love she’d once had for him. Then the desire of the moment took the edge from her words, making them sound deliciously husky.

He looked at her as he set her on her feet by the large bed, designed for lovers but she’d slept alone in it since their arrival on the island.

Tonight would be different. But would tonight be enough to quench this thirst, this unbelievable fire he had for her? Deep down he knew it would never be quenched, that he would always want her with a hot passionate need.

‘That may be difficult, mia bella.’ He stroked the back of his fingers across her cheek, satisfied to see her eyes flutter closed.

‘We had a deal, Antonio. This isn’t a real marriage.’ Her voice was soft and sexy and as she opened her eyes to look up at him he could see the same intensity of desire he felt in her eyes, making a lie of her words.

‘But not a deal we have to keep, no?’ He trailed his fingers down her throat, briefly pausing at the fabric which was tied at the back of her neck in a bow. One tug and the whole thing would be unfastened. Had she selected this dress for the cool comfort on a hot evening or to torment him?

‘No,’ she whispered as he lowered his head to brush his lips over hers, testing, tasting. ‘No, we don’t.’

She’d tasted as sweet the night he’d first kissed her and taken her to his bed four years ago. She’d been a virgin then, although she hadn’t told him until it was too late, until he’d been driven wild with need for her. Those few nights they’d shared had been hot and passionate, but tonight he wanted it to be different. This wasn’t a quick affair—this was the night he claimed her truly as his wife.

The palms of her hands spread over his chest, the heat from them scorching his muscles, forcing him to bite down on the urge to push her back onto the bed. If she was going to take the lead, to set the pace, then he would have to use all the control he had to hold back. He wanted this to be a special night for her, one to remember.

His fingers delved deep into the silky softness of her hair, and as she began to undo the buttons of his shirt, his heart rate accelerated like a racing car off the starting grid. Every nerve cell in his body was on high alert, wanting her, needing her. She slid her hands inside his shirt, exploring his body, and a feral growl sounded in his throat. A wicked gleam in her eyes left him in no doubt she was enjoying torturing him like this.