By the time Valente rolled her under him she was so excited that her every skin cell yearned for the next step. He pushed a pillow under her hips to raise her. ‘You’re very small, and I’m shockingly excited, tesoro mia.’

She was more than ready for the hard, hot probe of his separating the tight wet walls of her most tender flesh. Instinct made her arch back and his passage eased. He sank into her in a long, deep surge of power, and there was a sharp flash of pain which made her tense up and bite her lip. But even that didn’t stop her glorying in the strong feel of him inside her, didn’t stop her tightening her inner muscles and watching his beautiful dark golden eyes semi-close with sexual pleasure.

‘Okay?’ he prompted anxiously.

‘Better than,’ she told him shakily. ‘I like it.’

‘I hope so,’ Valente traded with an erotic smile. ‘I have high hopes of persuading you to repeat this pleasure over and over again.’

And, while she was more than satisfied at the wondrous intimacy of his possession, she was thoroughly stunned by the delight of what happened to her when he began to glide in and out of her eager body. Excitement blazed a trail through her and she clung, surrendering to the hot, drugging pleasure of his every thrust. She cried out at the passionate peak of the orgasm which sent her shooting to the stars.

‘I want to pack you in my suitcase to take back to England,’ Caroline confessed dizzily.

Valente laughed out loud and leant over her to kiss her, smoothing her tumbled hair off her damp brow. ‘I hope that was a compliment, because I found you amazing, belleza mia.’

With every fibre of her being she wanted to hug him and kiss him and express her emotions, but she rigorously suppressed those promptings because they could only embarrass her. There was going to be no more of that nonsense! No more emotional outpourings calculated to stroke his ego!

‘You were amazing too-but then that’s only to be expected with all the experience you’ve had,’ Caroline replied carelessly. ‘At least I don’t need to be afraid of sex any more, and we can have as much fun in bed as you like. After all, it has to be the only thing we have in common.’

Valente was not quite sure how to take that assurance, but he didn’t like the tone of it. ‘We are married,’ he reminded her seriously.

‘Sexually speaking,’ Caroline added. ‘How long will it be before you get bored with me?’

Valente sat up and sent her a flashing glance of censure. ‘I’m not going to get bored with you. You’re my wife!’

‘Does that mean you’re going to be the only lover I ever have?’ Caroline enquired, in a forlorn tone of disappointment.

‘Yes, it bloody well does!’ Valente raked back explosively, and thrust back the bedding to get up. ‘What’s got into you?’

A ferocious desire to wind him up, she might have admitted, had she been in a sympathetic mood-but she wasn’t. ‘You’re the one who told me not to bring sentiment into our marriage.’

‘There’s a fine line between candour and bad taste,’ he spelt out coolly.

‘Would it be bad taste for me to ask who the turquoise wrap at the Villa belonged to?’

His bold bronzed profile tensed. ‘Si, and inappropriate.’

‘Well, I thought it was tacky that the evidence of her occupation wasn’t removed before I arrived,’ Caroline traded.

‘Point taken,’ Valente breathed with sardonic bite. ‘May we now close the subject?’

Caroline slid out of bed. ‘I have packing to do.’

‘Your maid can take care of that-I need you to take care of me,’ Valente murmured huskily.

Caroline, already conscious of the slight ache of discomfort at the heart of her, thought that a repeat bout of lovemaking would be unwise. With a rueful smile she vanished into the bathroom, reflecting that Valente, with his high-voltage energy and powerful libido, would take a good deal of taking care of in the sex department, so it was hardly a source of surprise that women like the turquoise wrap lady featured in his life. Whether it was reasonable or otherwise, Caroline could not help wishing that he had never had a need for other women. She also hoped that, unlike Matthew, Valente did not suffer from an ongoing desire for sexual variety and fresh conquests to satisfy his ego. She was in a marriage where she could afford to take nothing for granted.

She used the rest of the day, with the help of the staff, to set up her workshop in an allocated room at the back of the house. She sorted out her stock, and checked her mail for the first time in a couple of weeks. The little ornamental cats she had once collected sparkled in their gorgeous jewel colours on the windowsill, and she began to wonder how she could design a new line of jewellery with Murano glass. It took her a couple of hours to package the orders from her website and organise their dispatch. It was a wrench to leave the workshop without making anything, for she loved the creative thrill of designing a new piece, but by then it was time for her to get changed for her flight.

Shortly before her departure, Valente discovered her in her workshop. He smiled at the cat ornaments, most of which he had given her, and lingered to take a keen look at the jewellery. He was very impressed, recognising the artistry and design in the well-crafted pieces. With a frown he switched off his mobile phone when it began its insistent ring.

‘You’re always so busy,’ she murmured tautly, tense at the prospect of leaving him, but thinking that with the long work hours he maintained she would hardly be missed.

‘I took almost a month off to be with you in Tuscany,’ he reminded her, framing her cheekbones with long graceful fingers, locking her in stasis by the simple act of focusing his brilliant dark eyes on her. ‘During that time I delegated, and blunders were made. This is pay-back time, belezza mia.’

Her eyes slid shut as he captured her mouth in an intoxicating kiss and suckled her swollen lips with devouring sensuality. Heat curled through her defenceless body, rousing a languorous throb of response in tender places. She couldn’t breathe for longing as he dipped his tongue in a moist sweep of her tender mouth.

‘Enough,’ Valente growled thickly, easing out onto the landing outside the room. Splaying a hand to her spine, he directed her down the magnificent staircase which gave access to his offices from the ground floor.

Her slender body all of a quiver, after that bone-melting kiss that had encouraged her to cling rather than walk away, Caroline negotiated the stairs slowly, for her legs felt as if they didn’t quite belong to the rest of her. There was a woman at the foot of the stairs-a gorgeous redhead with a luscious leggy figure revealed rather than concealed by the neat fit of the white linen dress she wore.

His lean, powerful frame tensing against Caroline’s, Valente turned to say something to his wife as they stepped down into the outrageously grand foyer. Before he could speak, however, the woman neatly stepped between the two of them. Kissing Valente on both cheeks, she addressed him in a flood of Italian before finally sparing a rather mocking glance in Caroline’s direction. ‘I’m Agnese Brunetti, an old friend of Valente’s. Dios mio! You are really tiny! Do you speak Italian?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Of course Valente and I both speak to each other in Veneziano, the local dialect,’ Agnese shared, shooting Valente a rueful chummy smile. ‘We’re members of a very exclusive club. Every year there are fewer and fewer of us able to converse in the old way.’

Caroline was chilled to find herself looking up at the statuesque redhead. Matthew had betrayed her with other women too often for her to be anything other than suspicious of such a bold beauty. She knew instantly, in that strange way a woman could, that she was meeting the owner of the flamboyant silk robe left behind at the Tuscan villa. Still inconsequentially chattering in a mixture of what Caroline could only assume was Veneziano and English, Agnese touched Valente’s sleeve once and his lapel in a second, more lingering demonstration of physical ease, making no attempt to conceal her familiarity with him. On hyper-alert, Caroline picked up on the other woman’s every move and change of expression.

‘I’m sorry, but Caroline has a flight to catch,’ Valente breathed coolly, extracting them at speed from the encounter. He signalled one of his hovering staff and asked him to take Agnese Brunetti up to his office. ‘I’ll be with you shortly,’ he told her.

‘I’ve known Agnese for a long time,’ he added casually as he helped Caroline into the waiting motor launch tied up at the splendid front doors of the palazzo.

In a horizontal manner of speaking, Caroline affixed with an inner shudder of recoil. Agnese was his mistress. Past or present? All the way to the airport Caroline tormented herself with unwise comparisons. The beautiful redhead’s voluptuous curves had reminded her of Matthew’s preferences and made her feel inadequate. Suddenly it was a relief to be travelling back to England, to escape the pressure of her marriage and the humiliation of unrequited love and concentrate instead on her father’s health and her mother’s worries on the same issue.


Joe and Isabel Hales were still staying in a hotel, and Winterwood was in control of the builders, as work on both house and apartment proceeded at a rapid pace.

Having first inspected the impressive renovations taking place at Winterwood, Caroline checked into the same hotel as her parents and accompanied them to the hospital for her father’s admittance. Isabel was beside herself with concern that her husband might die on the operating table, and she needed her daughter to keep her calm.

Joe was in surgery for three hours, but the operation was pronounced a success. And, although her father was weak afterwards, within a few days Caroline could see his strength beginning to return. Valente had already had the brochures of several luxurious convalescent homes sent to Isabel, so that she could choose where she and her husband would stay after Joe was released from hospital. Once that move was made, Caroline began to feel rather superfluous to requirements.