There hadn’t been an ounce of forgiveness in her body during that taxing journey. The housekeeper, Maria, had helped her to get into bed when they’d finally arrived at the vast building on the Grand Canal, the mechanics of having to get there across all that water having merely exacerbated her misery. She’d lain there in the shaded room, the pain blinding every other sense, until a softly spoken doctor had arrived in Valente’s unusually unobtrusive company. The doctor had given her an injection that had sent her to sleep, and the last thing she’d recalled was the comforting feel of Koko’s soft trusting furry warmth nestled against her, and the realisation that her pet had finally triumphed over the bedroom ban.

By the following morning Caroline was fine again. Maria informed her that Valente had embarked on his day’s work in the offices on the floor below at seven, and Caroline breakfasted solitarily on a big stone balcony overlooking the world’s most famous waterway.

Early on a bright new day, that glorious, vibrant, unforgettable view of the city stole her heart. The magnificent buildings set against an azure-blue sky and lapped by the canal were rescued from picture-perfect beauty and brought to vivid life by the busy surge of water traffic and the milling crowds in the campo on the opposite bank.

Valente strolled out to join her, Maria bobbing in his wake to pour him coffee. Caroline snatched in a slow steadying breath. As always he looked amazing, sleek and dark and breathtakingly beautiful in a dove-grey designer suit, cut to a perfect fit for his strong, muscular body.

Cradling a cup of black coffee in one hand, he leant back against the ancient stone balustrade, trained liquid dark eyes on her and murmured lazily, ‘Feeling better?’

‘Back to normal, thankfully.’ Even as she looked at him, Caroline was disturbed by an ill-timed recollection of the mind-boggling pleasure he had given her the afternoon before. A dulled ache stirred between her thighs and she shifted uneasily in her seat, her face colouring as agonising awareness washed over her.

‘If you want me to, I will come to England with you, gattina mia,’ Valente informed her smoothly.

Caroline shifted her attention from him to the elegant china on the marble-topped table. Was he taking pity on his pathetic lovelorn wife, who could hardly be looking forward to doing without his divine presence for a few days, or was he just basking in the ego-boosting knowledge that he was adored? Her teeth gritted. She could still barely credit her stupidity in gushing out her love and inviting such humiliation.

‘I’ll be so taken up with Mum and Dad that it would be a waste of your time,’ she declared briskly.

An attractive brunette PA in a business suit put in a contrite appearance, holding a phone. With an apology Valente took the call, spoke at speed in Italian too fast for Caroline to follow, and tossed the phone down on the table.

‘Do you like the view?’ he enquired teasingly, evidently untouched by her assurance that his presence was not required in England.

‘Yes. Now I know why you once told me that you could never live anywhere else in the world but Venice. All this-’ Caroline raised small expressive hands, her appreciation sincere ‘-would be impossible to match.’

Just as she was without match, Valente conceded reluctantly, watching the sunshine gleam over the silvery pale long hair pooling in silken loops over her slight shoulders and then highlight her flawless skin, sparkling eyes and soft pink mouth. Seeing her in his home felt surreal. But such thoughts spooked him, since he was a very practical man. Somewhere-possibly even within the beloved city of his birth, he assured himself-there might well be another woman equally beautiful and possessed of Caroline’s special appeal. That imaginary woman might even be less complex than the woman he had married, and a great deal more entertaining, he told himself in emphatic addition. No woman was irreplaceable or irresistible. Nor had any woman ever been necessary to his comfort and peace of mind. He didn’t need Caroline; no matter how hard she tried to entangle him in her sentimental promises she would fail-because he would never allow a woman to have that much power over him again.

Yet, in spite of those reassuringly cautious reflections, Valente could not stop studying his wife’s attractions, nor seeking to pinpoint the source of them. She did that looking-up-through-the-eyelashes thing that all women did to flirt, yet in spite of her essential innocence there was a curiously sultry gleam of promise in her misty grey gaze that made the fit of Valente’s well-cut trousers uncomfortably tight. He regarded her broodingly from below luxuriant lashes, resenting the fate that would remove her from his bed when he most wanted her there, despising the ache at his groin. It would do him good to cool off without her for a few days.

Her body was already reacting without her volition to the growing heat of Valente’s appraisal. Her nipples were pushing against her green lace bra, her breasts felt constricted in the cups, and her heart was racing. And, angry though she still was with him, she could neither stifle that physical tumult of response nor break the hot connection with his gaze.

Valente reached a sudden decision. There would be plenty of time for him to cool off while she was in England with her family! She was his wife. He didn’t need to practice self-denial now. Who was he trying to impress? He swept up the phone to cancel all his appointments, unmoved by his senior PA’s astonishment at his instruction because business always came first with Valente. But if there had ever been a good excuse for breaking the rules it was Caroline, sitting there, huge pearl-grey eyes pinned to him, a silk top lovingly moulded to her delicate curves, a short floral skirt revealing her long slender legs.

He extended a lean long-fingered hand to her. ‘Come here…’

His charisma proved stronger than her antagonism or her wariness. Quivering with tension, she took his hand and he pulled her close. She buried her head in his shoulder and drank in the gloriously familiar scent of him before she let him walk her back into the palazzo-through the grand drawing room, with its superb Murano glass chandeliers adorned with flowers and cupids, and up the stairs to the remarkable master bedroom suite, with its hand-painted murals of frolicking gods and goddesses.

‘Take off your jacket,’ she told him, standing dead centre of the room.

Amusement gave a dazzling edge to his handsome smile. The jacket was cast aside with a flourish. Caroline undid his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt. Although she was absolutely determined to be a full partner, her hands were a little shaky, and he yanked his shirt out in the same moment that he bent his arrogant dark head and kissed her, long and hard and hungrily, one hand meshed in her hair to hold her still and deepen the penetration of her tongue. Liquid lightning travelled through her, firing up every skin cell with anticipation.

With a hungry groan and a dangerous light in his scorching golden eyes, Valente freed her and stepped back from her. ‘I’m sorry, I must be scaring you, gattina mia. I’m too fired up to be gentle. Perhaps this is not a good idea.’

Caroline stretched her taut shoulders before moving forward, confidence fizzing through her veins like a shot of adrenalin. She wanted to be the same as every other woman. She didn’t want him to hold back and handle her with kid gloves, as if she was precious glass he might crack. She didn’t want him to protect her from his passion. He had already taught her that all cats were not grey in the dark. She had gone way beyond the stage of expecting Valente to hurt her or scare her, as Matthew had once done.

‘I’m not scared any more,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I liked that kiss. I like the feeling that you’re on the edge…’

His burning gaze made her blush, and he urged her back to him with impatient hands, covering her ripe mouth with his while he backed her down on the bed. ‘I’m always on the edge with you,’ he admitted roughly. ‘But if you’re still virgo intacta, I can’t promise that this won’t hurt a little. I don’t know. You’re my first virgin.’

Caroline wanted to be his one and only, his last. But desire and the need to experience what other women took for granted had a headier hold on Caroline than the emotions that had brought her hurt and humiliation only the day before. Her body still humming from the erotic mastery of that kiss, she whispered tautly, ‘I want you, and I don’t want to wait any longer.’

It was all the encouragement that Valente needed. Between kisses he extracted her from her fine silk top, pausing to admire the rigid pink buds already poking through the lace of her bra. His hunger at a tormenting high, he bent her back and suckled those ripe buds through the delicate lace, shifting between one and the other while she gasped and jerked. He pushed up her skirt, parted her thighs, scored his finger down over the taut seam of fabric and felt the dampness there with an earthy groan of satisfaction.

‘I used to dream of having you dressed up in the most expensive lingerie,’ he confided with dark amusement as he released the fastener on her bra. ‘But now I’ve got you in it, I just want to rip it off you again.’

He stripped her naked with very little regard for the longevity of the items, but she didn’t care because he was kissing her in hungry, breathless bursts that made her tingle all over. He addressed his attention to her rose-tipped breasts, sucking on the distended tips until she was almost unbearably aroused. And then, when she thought she could take no more, when she was crying out to be touched, he traced the tender damp folds of her womanhood and parted them to discover her narrow channel. His thumb rubbed the swollen pouting bud below her mound, and from that moment on she was writhing and drowning in sensation so intense it was an exquisite torment.