Coercion to Love (21 page)

They both watched her go, her steps so light she was almost floating. Then Mrs Valenti turned to leave Cass with a rueful look. 'She has been like that ever since Carlo announced your plans this morning.'

'Mrs Valenti-----' Cass tried to get a hold on herself

'-I...'

'You must call me Mamma now, my dear,' she was ordered, then the old lady let out a sigh and lowered herself into the chair beside Cass's bed. 'I am so pleased for you both. And I have not seen my son looking so happy in many a long year—thank you for that, Cassandra,' she said sincerely.

God in heaven, Cass thought frantically, this thing is literally galloping away from me! 'Where is Carlo, Mrs— M-mamma?' she corrected awkwardly. 'I must speak to him.'

The old lady shook her head. 'I am sorry, but he is not here. He received an urgent call this morning, and has had to fly out to Rome.'

Rome? He sets this place by its ears by making an announcement like that, then casually flies off to Rome?

'He expects to be gone about three days,' his mother informed her. "There's an irritating problem with one of his managers who has taken ill. He would have explained this to you himself, of course, only you were still sleeping like a baby when he received the call, so he just carried you back to your own room, and decided to let you rest...'

The heat of embarrassment flooded Cass's face again, and she just sat there staring at the older lady while the latter stared right back, her eyes saying what her words had not, and that was that, as far as anyone here was concerned, she and Carlo were effectively married already.

On a groan of defeat, Cass sank back against the pillows, and closed her eyes.

'Do not be embarrassed, Cassandra,' his mother soothed. 'I am a sophisticated woman of the world after all. Not always tied to this valley by my walking sticks,' she added ruefully. 'And I was well aware that you and my son have been moving towards a closer relationship ever since you arrived here. The fact that you have-pre-empted your marriage vows is not something I condone, of course, but I do understand both your feelings, especially after that terrible ordeal where you almost lost each other...'

'I have to speak to him,' Cass whispered thickly, feeling an intolerable pressure begin to build in her chest.

'And you shall,' his mother assured, 'just as soon as he—ah.' The distinctive sound of rattling china put a stop on their conversation. And Cass stared through what seemed a long, dark tunnel of shock at Teresa, skipping happily along beside Maria, as they came into the room with her breakfast.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and breakfast a second time, and still Cass had not been given the opportunity to speak to the man who had placed her in this mess. And in the end the full three days went by without her hearing a single word from him. Three days that were filled with the ever-tightening coil of Carlo's arrogant announcement as his mother threw them all into a bewildering whirl of activity in the form of wedding plans. Invitations to write out. Dresses to choose and have made. Flowers to decide upon. Music—church music, reception music—"The valley will be ringing in celebration two weeks from now!' she laughed. And Cass wanted to hit someone, Carlo Valenti preferably, if the conniving devil hadn't effectively disappeared off the face of the earth!

Her emotions became raw, her nerves ragged. She jumped when anyone so much as spoke to her, and continually had to bite down hard on her tongue to stop herself screaming in hysterical protest. She couldn't sleep, but spent the next two nights tossing in her bed in restless torment, and when she did eventually fall into an exhausted slumber it was only to be visited by a tall, dark man who set her senses pounding with the magical touch of his hands.

He arrived back mid-afternoon of the third day. Cass watched dully the sun bounce off the white Ferrari as it snaked its way down the side of the valley. She was sitting in the clearing on the hill behind the house, having escaped the mad preparations before she did actually give in and start screaming.

She didn't make any attempt to go down and meet him, but just sat there, picking absently at the short dry grass with her fingers, her chin resting on her up-drawn knees, eyes following the Ferrari's passage into the valley and across the little bridge until it became blocked from view by the house.

A few minutes went by before she saw him appear again, striding around the side of the house to pause by the wall which kept the horses contained in their pasture. He was wearing a white shirt, his powerful legs encased in dark cloth.

A buzz of awareness began to hum inside her, centring itself in the low pit of her stomach, from where it sent shock waves rippling out to every part of her. She watched him turn in a slow, searching circle, waited for his gaze to come her way. She was wearing a simple beige cotton skirt and a coffee-coloured blouse. Nothing remarkable, but she knew, without her having to do a single thing, that he would find her. It was as if there was a telepathic homing device set between the two of them.

He did, and for a long moment he just stood there gazing up through the long terraces of fruit trees, the jet-black smoothness of his hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. Then he moved, began striding down the path which would bring him to her, and Cass allowed herself a small sigh while she waited for him to climb the hill to where she was.

'You look like a poor trapped deer, sitting there,' his voice drawled lazily from behind her. 'Viewing your fenced-in territory from its most unequivocal point.'

'Hog-tied and tethered is the most appropriate phrase which comes to mind,' she threw back dully.

He laughed softly, and walked forwards to drop down on the grass beside her. She was instantly made aware of him, of his long, lean powerful body just an inch away from her own, the clean scent of him, his dark good looks, and now his potent sexuality. Her heart fluttered in her breast, and she set her teeth together behind her lips.

'Why did you do it?'

'Make love to you?' he deliberately misunderstood. 'You all but begged me to, caro. I am man enough to be swayed by such—enchanting persuasion.'

The colour crept up her cheeks, the guilty mark of truth. She didn't look at him—hadn't done so since he appeared in the clearing—but she could feel his gaze fixed intently on her, knew he was as alive to the feelings buzzing between them as she was.

Her eyes blurred with tears—why, she wasn't sure, but something desperate was weeping inside her heart. He reached up to gently brush her hair away from the side of her face, his fingertips lingering on her soft, warm cheek.

'You were innocent, mi amante,' he murmured huskily, 'and yet you gave that innocence to me with such sweet, sweet passion. Will it hurt you so much to give the rest of yourself to me?'

‘T-to you I'm just a means to a neat and tidy end!' She turned to look at him, the torment in her eyes deepening at the sheer nerve-wrenching beauty of him. 'What happens when you really fall in love with someone?' she whispered bleakly. 'Where do we go then?'

His eyes were grave on her anxious face. 'If anyone is likely to fall in love, caro, then it will be you, not me.' On a restless jerk, he plucked a dry stem of grass from its root, sighing as he leaned forwards to rest his forearms on his bent knees. 'You are young and beautiful, enchanting to be with. Have you no idea how rare you are—twenty-five years old and never been touched?' he muttered, giving an impatient shake of his sleek, dark head. 'Barely kissed from what I have discovered about you!' he tagged on harshly. His eyes flashed her a condemning look, and Cass looked away, hurt by what she heard as his mockery.

'I can't marry you, Carlo,' she told him.

'And why not?' he demanded. 'If you honestly believe, Cassandra, that after making love to you I will let you just walk away from me, then you can think again!'

'But I don't love you!' she cried, biting hard on her trembling bottom lip because that lie had rent at her soul.

His head shot around, eyes so black that she felt as though she could drown in them. 'You love Teresa-why can't you love her father also?'

'Liz!' she cried out wretchedly.

'Ah, yes, your poor lost sister and the mother of my child,' he drawled. 'I wondered when we should get to her. What do you want to know, caro?’ he questioned bitterly. 'Whether she lost her heart to her Italian lover only to have it thrown right back when he had finished with it?' She flinched at his cynicism, and Carlo let out a short, hard laugh. 'Perhaps, Cassandra, it may please you to know that you are not the first Marlow I have offered marriage to.'

No, it didn't please her. It hurt like hell. Was that all she was to him, an acceptable substitute for her dead sister? 'You were in love with her,' she breathed, wondering painfully if she was destined always to have her own identity lost in the intricate tangle of her sister's life.

'Love? No.' He shook his head. 'I—admired her. Desired her. But love never came into what Elizabeth and I shared during those few short weeks we were together.' He grimaced, showing by his expression that he did not like what that confession made him.

Neither did Cass, and she went to get up, not wanting to just sit here quietly beside him while he thoroughly shattered her every illusion. But Carlo stopped her by reaching out to grasp her wrist, firmly anchoring her back on the hard, tufted grass.

'Stay,' he instructed. 'The truth must come out if we are ever to move forwards in our relationship.'

What relationship? One where she played substitute to Liz with both her child and her lover? Bitterness welled up inside Cass, all the more acid because it was aimed almost exclusively at a sister whom she had always loved so unreservedly.

'When Elizabeth and I came together as lovers here in San Remo, we both did so with the understanding that we would part when the promotion she was working on for my motels was finished,' he told Cass frankly. 'Neither she nor I wanted any emotional entanglements. I was still recovering from the loss of my wife and son, and she enjoyed the freedom both her career and her single status offered her too much to want to give it up.'

Of course, Cass had suspected Liz wasn't celibate exactly. She had been a mature and very sophisticated woman. And beautiful—too beautiful not to have had some love-affairs in her life. But could she have been as life-hardened as Carlo was making her out to be?

'We parted as friends,' he went on, 'and with no plans to come together again in some other time or place.'

'Like take like,' she compared bitterly, then shook her head, lowering it so that her hair fell like a glistening curtain to hide the distaste written on her face.

Carlo just shrugged. 'Yes, I suppose you could call it that—not a nice view for someone with your own high moral principles, I acknowledge,' he admitted, 'but the truth, even though it casts both myself and your sister in a poor light.'

Above them the sky was a pure azure blue, all around them the tangy scent of citrus filled the air, birds were trilling out their perpetual melodies, and the odd buzz of a bee sawed lazily by. The valley spread out like a lush green paradise all around them, and Cass felt like weeping.

'She went back to London,' he continued flatly, his fingers absently smoothing across the satin skin of her wrist, setting the pulse there racing, 'and we had no contact at all for the next two months. Then a mutual friend of ours—another model,' he explained, 'called me to tell me Elizabeth was pregnant with my child.'

'So you wrote to her and advised her to get an abortion.'

'No.' He turned to glare at her. 'You are always— always jumping to the worst conclusions about me!' he said harshly. 'Why has it not hit you yet that it was Elizabeth who wanted that abortion?'

'Because Terri is here to prove otherwise!' she cried.

Carlo nodded. 'And my opinion of your sister lifted out from the gutter it had sunk into the moment I found out she had not actually carried out what she had told me she had already done!'

'Oh, I see,' she drawled, 'so it's all Liz's fault, and you didn't provide that fat cheque along with a letter warning her never to contact you again!' She snatched her wrist away from him, and he sighed impatiently as he watched the way she rubbed angrily where his fingers had just caressed.

'Listen to me, you aggravating little witch!' he bit out suddenly, moving so quickly that she didn't have time to defend herself as he came over her, sending her falling back against the grass with his hard body pinning her there. 'Dio, Cassandra, I had already lost one son,' he reminded her rawly. 'Do you honestly think I am so heartless that I could condone the loss of another child?'

'Oh, God,' she choked, hating herself for forcing him to have to say that. She knew he was telling her the truth. It was just her own reluctance to listen which made her hit out at him.                 .

'I flew out immediately to London with the express purpose of asking her to marry me! Don't misunderstand me,' he put in grimly, 'I was no more in love with your sister than she was with me, but I did see where my duty lay, and it was with the mother of my future child!' he rasped. 'In the end, my—grand gesture meant nothing. Elizabeth was appalled to see me. No,' he muttered then, shaking his head on the bitter memories of five years ago, 'she was more than that. She was terrified. She had already made arrangements for an abortion, and she was frightened I was going to make

her change her mind. We argued-----' he grimaced '—but slowly I began to reach her conscience, and in the end she reluctantly agreed to keep the child and marry me.'

'You bullied her, you mean,' Cass accused. 'Yes,' he sighed. 'I bullied her. I spent the next few days in London making arrangements for our marriage, then had to fly back here to clear up some urgent business I had left pending. A few days later,' he went on hoarsely, 'I received a letter from her telling me she had changed her mind, and that it was no use me trying to do anything about it because she had already had an abortion.' Cass stiffened beneath him. 'But why should she tell you that when it was so patently untrue?' she demanded. 'Still doubting my word, caro' he drawled cynically.