Bedded For Revenge

The air had been unnaturally still and the lane dusty, but the sky had been the clearest blue imaginable—with birds singing their little hearts out—and suddenly Sorcha had felt glad to be home, even if she was slightly apprehensive about the future.

Up until that moment everything had been safely mapped out for her—but with the freedom which came from leaving school came uncertainty too. Still, she had worked hard, and she’d been offered a place at one of the best universities in the country if her exam results were as good as had been predicted.

She’d approached the house by the long drive—the honey-coloured mansion where Whittakers had lived since her great-great-grandfather had first got the bright idea of marketing his wife’s delicious home-made sauce. From humble terraced house beginnings, her great-great-grandma’s unique recipe had become a national institution, and soon enough money had poured in to enable him to satisfy his land-owning longings and buy himself a real-life stately home.

But of course that had been in the days before a croissant or a bowl of muesli had become staple breakfast fare—in the days when a full fry-up with Whittaker Sauce had been the only way to start the day. The slow, gradual decline in the family fortunes had soon begun, but it had been so slow that you didn’t really notice it, and it was much easier to ignore something if it just crept up on you.

Sorcha had given a small sigh of satisfaction as she’d looked towards the house, because in that moment it hadn’t looked stately, it had just looked like home. From this far away you didn’t really notice that the walls were crumbling and the roof needed replacing, and of course in the summer months it really came into its own.

Come winter and there would be so much frost on the inside of the windows you could write your initials in it and see the steam of your breath as it rushed out against the cold air. Anyone else might have capitalised on the house’s assets and sold it, but not Sorcha’s mother, who was hanging on to it with grim determination.

‘It’s a huge asset,’ MrsWhittaker always pronounced, and no one could argue with that. Rural it might look—but a few miles beyond its expansive grounds lay a road which took you straight into London in less than an hour.

Pushing open the oak front door, Sorcha had gone inside to an echoing silence, where dust motes had danced in the beams of sunlight which flooded in through the stained glass. She’d seen a man’s cashmere sweater lying on one of the chairs—beautiful and soft in palest grey—and raised her eyebrows. A bit classy for Rupert! Her brother must have given himself a pay rise.

The house had been empty—so she’d gone up to her bedroom, with its schoolgirl echoes of prizes—rosettes won at horseriding and shiny silver cups for swimming.

From there she could see the pool, and to her astonishment she’d seen that it had been cleared—instead of turgid green water with leaves floating on it like dead lilies it was a perfectly clear rectangle of inviting aquamarine.

Pulling open a drawer, she’d found a swimsuit and squeezed herself into it—she must have grown a lot since last year. Overnight, she’d seemed to go from being a beanpole of an adolescent to having the curvy shape of a real woman. She was going to have to go shopping.

The water had felt completely delicious as she’d dived in and begun to swim, length after length of slicing crawl, each stroke taking her further and further into a daydream. She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the man who was standing there until she had come up for breath, exhausted, sucking in the warm summer air as the water streamed down her hair in rivulets.

Sorcha had started. For a moment all she’d registered was jet-dark hair and silken olive skin, but as she’d blinked the water out of her eyes she’d seen that it was a stranger—and a disturbingly handsome stranger, to boot.

In a pair of faded jeans and an old black T-shirt, he’d looked like one of the gardeners her mother employed to try and make a dent in the overgrowth at the beginning of every season. Unfortunately, he’d also had the arrogant and mocking air of a man who was supremely sexy and who knew it. His black eyes had gleamed and suddenly Sorcha had felt unaccountably shy.

‘Who…are you?’ she questioned.

She rose out of the water like a nymph and Cesare froze, his mouth drying as he saw the firm flesh, green eyes and the lush, perfect curve of her breasts. Madre di Dio—but she was exquisite.

‘My name is Cesare di Arcangelo,’ he murmured, in a velvety-soft accent which matched his exotic looks.

‘You’re Italian?’

‘I am.’

‘And…Well…’ She didn’t want to be rude, but really he could be anyone. And he was so dangerously gorgeous that she felt…peculiar. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Take a guess, signorina.’

‘You’ve come to clean the pool?’

He had never been mistaken for a worker before! Cesare’s mouth curved into a smile.

He guessed who she must be. Her hair was too wet to see its real colour, but her eyes were green with flecks of gold—a bigger, wider version of her brother’s. He knew deep down that there was a long-established rule that you treated your friends’ sisters as if they were ice-queens, but it was a rule he found himself suddenly wanting to break.

‘Do you want me to?’ he drawled. ‘Looks pretty clean to me. Anyway, I don’t want to interrupt your swim.’

Sorcha shook her wet hair, but something about his hard, lean body was making her pulse race. ‘No, that’s fine. Don’t worry—I’ve finished now.’

There was a long pause while they stared at one another, and the teasing became something else, while something unknown shimmered on the air.

‘So, why don’t you get out?’

Did he guess that she was scared to? Because she could feel the tight tingle of desire which was rucking her swimsuit across her breasts and making the tips feel so hard that they hurt?

‘I will in a minute.’

‘Do you mind if I get in and join you?’ He put his hand to the first button on his jeans and shot her a questioning look, but the sight of her dark-eyed confusion made him relent just as Rupert came round the corner.

‘Cesare! There you are! Oh, I see you’ve met Sorcha. Hello, little sister—how are you?’

‘Very well,’ she said, biting her lip and dipping down into the water in the hope that its coolness might get rid of her embarrassed flush. ‘Considering that no one came to meet me at the station.’ But she was angry with herself, and with the black-eyed Italian for having made her feel…what?

Desire?

Longing?

She frosted him a look—which wasn’t easy on a boiling hot day when your hair was plastered to your head and your heart was racing so much that it felt as if it was going to leap out of your chest. ‘Cesare?’ she questioned acidly, wondering why the name sounded familiar.

‘Cesare di Arcangelo,’ he said. ‘Rupert and I were at school together.’

‘Remember I told you about the Italian who bowled women down like ninepins?’ laughed Rupert. ‘Owns banks and department stores all over Italy?’

‘No,’ answered Sorcha in a voice of icy repression. ‘I don’t believe I do. Rupert, would you mind handing me my towel?’

‘Please, allow me.’ Cesare had picked up the rather worn beachtowel and was handing it towards her, holding her gaze with his black eyes. Her coolness intrigued him, for he had never experienced it from a woman before, and her lack of eagerness hinted at a pride and self-possession which was all too rare.

‘Forgive me,’ he murmured as he held the towel out. ‘But I couldn’t resist teasing you.’ Yet his mockery had been deliberately sensual, and it had been wrong. He had noted her reluctant, embarrassed response—and now he could have kicked himself for subjecting a beautiful young woman to such an onslaught.

He sighed. Her mouth looked as if it were composed of two folded fragrant rose petals which he would have travelled the world to kiss. And he had behaved like some impacciato idiot.

And she is the sister of your friend—she is out of bounds.

‘Will you forgive me?’ he persisted.

He sounded as if it mattered, and Sorcha found she couldn’t hold out against what seemed to be genuine contrition in his eyes.

‘I might,’ she said tartly. ‘But you’ll have to make it up to me.’

He gave a low laugh. ‘And how will I go about doing that? Any ideas?’ he questioned innocently, and something passed between them at that moment which he had never felt before. The rocket. The thunderbolt. Colpo di fulmine. Some random and overwhelming outside force—a kind of unspoken understanding—which took the universe into the palm of a gigantic hand and began to spin it out of control.

‘I’ll…I’ll think of something,’ said Sorcha breathlessly.

‘Anything,’ he murmured, and at that moment he meant it. ‘And it’s yours.’

There was an odd kind of silence and then Sorcha hauled herself out of the pool in one fluid movement, water streaming down her long legs. Never had she been so conscious of her body as in the presence of this Italian.