The Italian's Final Redemption - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,33

the moment as she’d explored the villa, to never think about anything else. Yet it gradually became clear to her as the day went on that she wasn’t just exploring the villa. She was also looking for him. Wanting to see him, talk to him. Ask him how he knew that she didn’t want him, because she wasn’t sure that was the case.

She didn’t think it was the case now as he held her hand to his powerful chest, the inky black of his gaze holding hers. She wanted... She didn’t know what she wanted. Not love, that was for sure. In fact, she’d never want that, but sex? Maybe.

Sex wasn’t a mystery to anyone with an internet connection and she’d looked up various things. It had all looked faintly ridiculous and like nothing she’d ever want to participate in, but what she’d seen on her computer screen had nothing to do with the reality of Vincenzo de Santi, half-naked, in the middle of the night in a villa on Capri, watching her with heat in those black eyes.

There was nothing ridiculous about him. Nothing ridiculous about the heat inside her either.

Why isn’t he simply taking you?

A good question. Powerful men took what they wanted, as she knew all too well, but he wasn’t taking her. He hadn’t the night before either, even though she’d offered herself to him. In fact, he’d got up and left rather than reach for her, and that only added a layer to the complex puzzle he was turning out to be.

An incorruptible man, yet not a man without hungers. A man with a strong moral code who stuck by that morality regardless of what he might want for himself.

He is not your father. You don’t have to be afraid of him.

Lucy swallowed, her mouth dry. It was true. He wasn’t anything like her dad. And she wasn’t anything like her mum. Once she’d been fearless like her. Brave and inquisitive and curious, too. But that had been before those things had led to her mother’s death, so these days she locked them away. Fear kept her safe, after all.

Yet last night she’d realised that she was tired of being afraid, and now she realised something else. She was tired of being afraid of Vincenzo. The frightened little girl she’d spent so many years being wanted to pull her hand away and run to the safety of her bedroom. But the woman who’d spent a day near the sea, who’d smelled the salt and watched the boats, who’d opened her robe and offered herself to a dangerous man, didn’t want to leave. Right now there was a fascinating and beautiful panther in front of her. And she was ruffling his fur and nothing bad was happening. He wasn’t being violent. He wasn’t hurting her. He was only holding her hand to his chest. And she was so very curious about what would happen if she stroked him...

You’re not afraid of him. You’re afraid of yourself, of what you want...

She took a breath, feeling something shift and turn inside her, a hunger of her own that she’d ignored. A hunger that there was no way of satisfying, held prisoner as she was in her father’s house. So she’d ignored it, shoved it away. Forced it down.

But it was still there. And it was strong. And yes, it scared her.

‘Yes,’ she whispered and she felt him tense, the expression in his eyes changing, as if that wasn’t the answer he wanted. ‘Does it matter?’

A muscle in his jaw leapt. ‘Of course it matters.’

‘Why? Isn’t my being afraid what you want?’

His hold remained gentle on her hand, but his gaze was not gentle in the slightest. ‘No. You’ve been afraid for too long, civetta, and I don’t want that for you. Not now. Not here. Not with me.’

She wanted to ask him what made now different. But that was a rabbit hole she didn’t want to go down, not with her hand on his warm chest and the hunger inside that kept on getting wider, getting deeper. That she was afraid of, because it felt bottomless. It felt as if it would swallow her whole.

‘I don’t think it’s you,’ she said. ‘I think...I’m afraid of myself.’

‘Oh?’ His thumb moved on the back of her hand, a gentle caress that sent sparks glittering all over her skin.

‘I’m afraid of what I want.’ A shake was beginning in the pit of her stomach, a tremor like a small earthquake. ‘I