The Helen Bianchin Collection

‘Not at all, because that’s exactly what it is.’

‘You’re just saying that to make me feel good.’

He placed a hand over his heart. ‘I swear.’

She began to laugh, and he smiled down at her. ‘Why not me, cara?’ he queried softly, and hugged her close. ‘I’d treat you like the finest porcelain.’

‘I know,’ she said gently, and with a degree of very real regret.

‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Only to me,’ he assured her quietly. ‘I just hope Carlo knows how fortunate he is to have you.’

‘He does.’

Aysha heard that deep musing drawl, glimpsed the latent darkness in his eyes, and gently extricated herself from Bruno’s grasp. ‘I was admiring Bruno’s sculpture.’

Carlo cast her a glittering look that set her nerves on edge. How dared he look at her like that when he’d been playing up close and personal with Nina?

‘Don’t play games, cara,’ Carlo warned as soon as Bruno was out of earshot.

‘Practise what you preach, darling,’ she said sweetly. ‘And please get me a drink. It’ll give Nina another opportunity to waylay you.’

He bit off a husky oath. ‘We can leave peaceably, or not,’ he said with deceptive quietness. ‘Your choice.’ He meant every word.

‘Bruno will be disappointed.’

‘He’ll get over it.’

‘I could make a scene,’ Aysha threatened, and his expression hardened.

‘It wouldn’t make any difference.’

It would, however, give Nina the utmost pleasure to witness their dissension. ‘I guess we get to say goodnight,’ she capitulated with minimum grace.

Ten minutes later she was seated in the Mercedes as it purred across the Harbour Bridge towards suburban Clontarf.

She didn’t utter a word during the drive, and she reached for the door-clasp the instant Carlo drew the car to a halt. It would be fruitless to tell him not to follow her indoors, so she didn’t even try.

‘Bruno is a friend A good friend,’ she qualified, enraged at his high-handedness. ‘Which is more than I can say for Nina.’

‘Neither Bruno nor Nina are an issue.’

Her chin tilted as she glared up at him. ‘Then what the hell is the issue?’

‘We are,’ he vouchsafed succinctly.

‘Well, now,’ Aysha declared. ‘There’s the thing. Nina is quite happy for you to marry me, just as long as she gets to remain your mistress.’

His eyes filled with chilling intensity. ‘Nina has one hell of an imagination.’

She’d had enough. ‘Go home, Carlo.’ Her eyes blazed with fury. ‘If you don’t, I’ll be tempted to do something I might regret.’

She wasn’t prepared for the restrained savagery evident as his mouth fastened on hers, forcing it open and controlling it as his tongue pillaged the inner sweetness. It was a deliberate ravishment of her senses. Claim-staking, punishing. She lost all sensation of time as one hand slid through her hair to hold fast her head, while the other curved low down her back.

Then the pressure eased, and the punishing quality changed to passion, gradually dissipating to a sensuous gentleness that curled round her inner core and tugged at her emotions, seducing until she was weak-willed and malleable.

From somewhere deep inside she dredged sufficient strength to tear her mouth free, and her body trembled as he traced the edge of his thumb across the swollen contours of her lips.

‘Nina is nothing to me, do you understand? She never has been. Never will be.’

She didn’t say a word. She just looked at him, glimpsed the faint edge of regret, and was incapable of moving.

He pulled her close and buried her head in the curve of his shoulder, then he pressed his lips to her hair.

Aysha could feel the power in that large body, the strength, and she felt strangely ambivalent. ‘I don’t want you to stay.’

‘Because you’ll only hate me in the morning?’

She drew a shaky breath. ‘I’ll hate myself even more.’

All he had to do was kiss her, and she’d change her mind. Part of her wanted him so much it was an impossible ache. Yet if she succumbed she’d be lost, and that wouldn’t achieve a thing.

He held her for what seemed an age, then he turned her face to his and brushed his lips across her own, lingered at one corner and angled his mouth into hers in a kiss that was so incredibly evocative it dispensed with almost all her doubts.

Almost, but not quite. He sensed die faint barrier, and gently put her at arm’s length.

‘I’ll pick you up at seven, OK?’

It was easy to simply nod her head, and she watched as he turned and walked to the door. Seconds later she heard his car’s engine start, and she checked the lock, then activated security before crossing to her room.

Sleep seemed a distant entity, and she switched on the television in the hope of discovering something which would occupy her interest Except channel-hopping provided nothing she wanted to watch, and she retired to her bedroom, then lay staring at the ceiling for what seemed hours before finally slipping into a restless slumber in which vivid dreams assumed nightmarish proportion as Nina took the role of vamp.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_98f33489-1ec3-5faf-b4a4-1581cf1890cf)

AYSHA woke early, padded barefoot to the kitchen, poured herself some fresh orange juice, then headed outdoors to swim several laps of the pool.

After fifteen minutes or so she emerged, towelled off the excess moisture, then retreated indoors to change and make breakfast.

The ambivalence of the previous evening had disappeared, and in the clear light of day it seemed advantageous for she and Carlo to spend the weekend apart.

With that thought in mind she crossed to the phone and punched in his number. The answering machine picked up, and she replaced the receiver down onto the handset.

He was probably in the shower, or, she determined with a glance at her watch, he could easily have left. She keyed in the digits that connected with his mobile, and got voicemail.

Damn. It would have been less confrontational to cancel via the phone than deal with him in person.