Second-Time Bride (9 page)

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Authors: Lynne Graham

BOOK: Second-Time Bride
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He switched off the water and minutely examined her goose-fleshed thighs for patches of scalded pink. ‘Do you feel any heat anywhere?' he finally enquired.
‘Are you joking?'
‘It could have been a lot worse.' It was quite beyond Alessio to admit that he had overreacted.
He lifted her out of the bath and hunkered lithely down to pat her trembling legs as gently and carefully dry as if she were a baby. Daisy submitted, suddenly so choked up by tears that she was undyingly grateful that it was her skinny thighs that had all his attention. Below the discreet cover of the hip-length towel, her wet pants were tugged smoothly down. She didn't notice, for beneath the overhead light Alessio's black hair had the extraordinary iridescent sheen and lure of pure silk and involuntarily Daisy was entrapped by that compulsive view. She wanted to touch those gleaming strands so badly that her fingers tingled and she had to fold her arms tightly because, for a split second, she really didn't trust herself not to surrender to temptation.
It didn't even occur to her to wonder why Alessio was making her stand on one foot and then the other as the damp scrap of lingerie was deftly wafted away, for Daisy was by then in a hot-cheeked fever of self-loathing. Shame was flaming through her in punitive waves. She despised her physical weakness in Alessio's vicinity. What had been excusable at a sexually naive and besotted seventeen was in no way allowable in a grown woman of thirty. Raw resentment suddenly filled her to overflowing. She couldn't understand how she could still be so disgustingly susceptible. One attack of Alessio ought to have conferred lifelong immunity.
And how dared he come into her home and upbraid her for
her
failings? He had given up on their relationship first, hadn't he? What possible future could he have envisaged for their marriage when he had already been consoling himself with Sophia? Why hadn't she faced him with that fact? But she knew why, didn't she? She couldn't have mentioned that final betrayal without revealing just how deeply she had been hurt by it. And, thirteen years on, she was too proud to expose herself to that extent.
Secure in the belief that she was ignorant of his extramarital activities, Alessio was aggressively determined to load her down with so much guilt that she wouldn't dare to fight back. And why had she not yet said a word about that insane proposition he had made? Marry Alessio again? Always honest with herself, Daisy could think of several things Alessio might be able to persuade her to do in a weak moment, but a second trip to hell and back was definitely not one of them.
‘You should be in bed too,' Alessio said very quietly. ‘You're exhausted.'
Banging his head against a brick wall...she reflected furiously. Just how much affronted dignity could one effectively portray standing naked in a towel with intimate items of apparel scattered round one's feet? Particularly one intimate item that she didn't even recall being removed! She could almost feel Alessio consciously tempering his powerful emotions to the constraints of the situation. If she hadn't been hurt, she knew he would have been laughing uproariously at what had happened. Instead he was practising tact. She hated him for that even more.
‘Tell me you weren't crazy enough to say that we should get married again,' she begged, hugging the towel round herself as if it were a suit of armour.
‘We'll discuss that tomorrow.'
‘But there's nothing to discuss,' Daisy returned flatly.
‘Don't be silly.'
‘There
isn't
!' Stalking out of the bathroom, Daisy returned to the lounge and plonked herself down. Why was she now thinking that for the very first time Alessio had taken off her clothes and failed to make the smallest pass? she asked herself. Was there something wrong with her brain? Was she becoming obsessed with sex? He had been very impersonal about it, too, but teeth-clenchingly considerate. He had averted his attention from her naked body. Why had that only made her squirm more? Why did her ego suddenly feel as if it had been weekending in a concrete mixer?
‘Daisy...' Alessio breathed tautly.
Daisy rigorously studied the wall to the left of him, and when he moved into that space found another section of wall. ‘If you've got something you feel you
have
to say, say it now and get it over with. I have no intention of making myself available tomorrow.'
‘Your towel's slipping...'
Her cheeks burning, Daisy snatched the towel higher over the embarrassingly full thrust of her breasts. She fixed accusing violet eyes on him. ‘I want you to know that until this evening I truly believed that there was no sacrifice I would not make for my daughter's benefit. But there is one. I would give her every last drop of blood in my body, but I would throw myself under a bus before I would marry her father again!'
‘You haven't even taken time to consider the idea,' Alessio returned very drily.
‘Time? You think I need time? Are you out of your mind?' Daisy gasped with unhidden incredulity. ‘I couldn't face being married to you again!'
A dark surge of blood had risen over Alessio's savagely high cheekbones. He breathed in deep.
‘You always did have the sensitivity of a stone,' Daisy condemned shakily, her temper suddenly engulfed by a violent tide of debilitating memory. Slowly she shook her silver head. ‘I would be a very wicked woman to deserve that much misery twice in one lifetime. Most people who sin have to die to go to hell but I got my punishment while I was still breathing.'
‘That is not very funny, Daisy.'
‘It wasn't meant to be.' Daisy stole a reluctant, fleeting glance at him.
Alessio was broodingly still, eyes of aristocratic ice fixed to her with chilling intensity. The temperature had dropped to freezing point.
‘I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just being frank,' she protested, intimidated more than she wanted to admit by the chill in the air but determined that he should realise that he had suggested an act of sheer insanity which it would be a complete waste of time to discuss in any greater depth. ‘I suppose you feel that if you're willing to make a huge sacrifice for Tara I should be too... and that most women would take one look at you and your bank balance and flatten you in the rush to the altar... but—'
‘Not you,' Alessio slotted in grittily.
‘Well, been there, done that... grateful to have got out alive,' Daisy said helplessly.
As the heavy silence stretched unbearably, she suddenly scrambled up again. Walking out fast into the hall, she prayed that he would take the hint and leave without argument. ‘The next time you collect Tara, maybe you could just honk the horn... and I'd really appreciate it if you could keep any conversations you feel we must have to the phone—'
‘When you bolt from reality,
piccola mia
, you literally streak. And it is done with such a complete lack of shame, it takes my breath away,' Alessio drawled with lethal emphasis.
Her face as hot as hell-fire, Daisy dragged open the front door. ‘Goodbye, Alessio.'
CHAPTER FIVE
D
AISY slammed the door, shot every bolt home and sagged, until she heard movement in Tara's bedroom. Creeping into her own room, she dropped the towel, grabbed up her nightdress, hauled it over her head and dived at supersonic speed into bed.
The door creaked open. ‘Mum...?'
Daisy shut her eyes tight and played dead.
‘I won't stay long...' Tara promised, making Daisy feel a total heel. ‘I just can't sleep.'
Daisy surrendered. ‘So what did you think of...Alessio?'
‘He's terrific. We talked about just
everything
!' Tara bounced down on the end of the bed and stuck her feet in below the duvet. ‘I even asked him about his girlfriend for you!'
‘You did what?' Daisy moaned in horror.
‘I knew you were dying to know if it was serious. Relax. We don't need to worry about her. Dad's finished with her.'
‘Has he? It's none of my business,' Daisy said, but not quite quickly enough.
‘Well, I thought it was very much
our
business,' Tara returned with a meaningful look. ‘You should see the way women eye him up when you're out with him...it would frighten the life out of you! He's not going to be alone for long and you haven't got time to play hard to get if you want him back. You need to get in there quick!'
Daisy was aghast. ‘Tara—'
‘Mum, I know you still fancy him like mad! That's why you have that photo of him in your purse and read the
Financial Times
and look tragic when I mention him,' Tara reeled off with overflowing sympathy in her eyes. ‘But don't worry—I didn't even drop a
hint
to him! I did ask him what he thought of you, though.'
Daisy rolled over and sank anguished teeth into the pillow.
‘Well, I mean, if Dad didn't still fancy you even a bit, I thought we should know about it now. Mum, he's still single and he hasn't got anyone either! Don't you think that kind of means he's meant to be ours?' Tara pressed, as if she were talking about a stray dog in need of a loving home.
‘No, I don't think that,' Daisy mumbled, but she had a terrifyingly inappropriate urge to giggle.
‘Dad
said
you would never have got divorced if he'd known about me. He
said
he really loved you but he wasn't much good at being a husband when he was a teenager. He looked dead guilty too,' Tara revealed with a satisfaction she couldn't hide. ‘I think you should have told him about me when I was born. If I'd been you, I wouldn't have let him go! It was his
duty
to be with us and he would have got used to being married eventually.'
That was definitely a self-centred Leopardi talking. Daisy's blood was now running cold in her veins. Tara had already decided that she didn't want Alessio as a part-time father and she was far too possessive to want to share him with any woman other than her mother. ‘Very open,' Alessio had said of his daughter. Did that mean he had read Tara like a book? Very probably, Daisy conceded.
Alessio was as sharp as a knife. He was also a Leopardi, born to go from cradle to grave in the belief that he had a hotline to heaven and knew the wisest, smartest move in every situation. Had Tara let Alessio see exactly what she wanted from him? Had Alessio's blood run cold too? Had he then appreciated that Tara could be a real, manipulative handful? Was that why he had said they should remarry? If he was that impressionable, Tara would run rings round him.
Tara got off the bed and sent Daisy a cheeky grin. ‘I know you're gasping to hear what he said. Dad thinks you're still gorgeous...and I think he'd be doing really well for himself getting a second chance with you—'
‘It's not going to happen, Tara,' Daisy said as gently and firmly as she could.
‘I don't see why not.' Her daughter looked distinctly smug and gave her mother a warm and approving appraisal. ‘Lots of men go for you. Why shouldn't he?'
 
That revealing and explosive dialogue haunted Daisy throughout the next morning. She couldn't keep her mind on her work and found herself drifting off into thoughts of what life might have been like if she hadn't divorced Alessio. Would he have changed after she had had the baby? Would he have wanted her again then? Would he have dumped Sophia and become a faithful husband? Daisy looked out of the window in cynical search of a flying pig or a blue moon.
‘You know, there's something different about you this week,' Barry commented, watching her doodle interlocking triangles on her pad. ‘You're much more approachable.'
‘Barry—'
‘Have dinner with me tonight,' he urged, dropping down athletically into a crouch in front of her swivel chair so that they could meet eye to eye. ‘I won't lay a finger on you...I promise!'
‘Give over, Barry,' Daisy groaned.
‘So I used to show off a little when I first started here but that was
three
years ago,' Barry stressed with a winning smile as he reached for her hands. ‘I've grown up since then. I don't boast about my one-night stands any more. I know you're not impressed by how fast I drive my Porsche. I think I could even be faithful for you'
Daisy studied him and experienced a very, very faint stab of remorse. Deep down inside, she had always known why she had loathed Barry on sight. In build, colouring and brash confidence, he reminded her just a little of Alessio as a teenager. Poor Barry. He had been chasing her for so long that it was a running office joke. ‘Sorry—' she began.
‘Daisy...'
Releasing her fingers, Barry vaulted upright. Daisy might have got whiplash if Alessio hadn't spun her chair round so fast that she saw whirling lights instead.
‘Lunch,' Alessio drawled with definite aggression.
‘I'm not hungry,' Daisy muttered out of the corner of her mouth as she turned her chair back to her desk. ‘Go away...'
‘Mr Leopardi?' Barry cleared his throat after a lengthy pause. ‘We spoke on the phone last week—'
‘You may inform your superior that Miss Thornton won't be returning to work here,' Alessio interposed, smooth as glass. ‘She'll be far too busy roasting in the fires of eternity as my wife.'
‘Your... your
wife
?' Barry spluttered incredulously.
Ignoring him, Alessio lifted Daisy's slim handbag from the desk and studied it with scepticism. ‘Where's all the rest of the junk?'
‘Junk?' Daisy's voice fractured as she rose jerkily upright, unable to believe that he had made such an announcement in front of the entire office.
‘Daisy, you couldn't get through one day with a purse this tiny. This is for show. Somewhere else there has to be a holding tank for the hundred and one things you have to keep within reach.
Ah
...' With unhidden satisfaction, Alessio reached below the desk and lifted the large, battered leather holdall he had espied. ‘Yours? How often do you feed the purse? Hourly? Half-hourly?'
‘I'll be back after lunch, Barry,' Daisy said frigidly, striving to regain control of the situation but quite shattered by the manner in which Alessio was behaving. Barry simply gaped at her.
‘You won't be,' Alessio drawled, running at speed through the drawers of her desk, extracting a small teddy bear, a single shoe, three fat romantic novels, two hairbrushes and several packets of tights. He stuffed the lot into the leather holdall. ‘Have you a coat? One? Two?'
‘I'll see to that.' Joyce giggled into the resounding silence and crossed the room to a cupboard, to emerge with two umbrellas, a coat, a jacket and a pair of red stiletto-heeled ankle-boots which had sent Barry into such paroxysms of lust that Daisy had stopped wearing them out of pity.
‘I'll be back,' Daisy said defiantly.
‘You're not the Terminator,' Alessio dropped in with gentle satire as he curved a hand round her elbow and marched her out into the fresh air, Joyce following in their wake. ‘Didn't the toy boy ever figure out how to derail you? Take you by surprise and you're as helpless as a tortoise turned on its back,
cara
.'
‘Was it love at first sight?' Joyce prompted with dreamily intent eyes as she passed Daisy's possessions over to the chauffeur.
‘Is that when you feel like you've been run over by a tank?' Alessio enquired with a deeply reflective air. ‘That magical but gut-wrenching moment when you realise that nothing is ever going to be the same again? It was more like having a very large rock dropped on me from a height. The earth may have moved but I wasn't fast enough on my feet.'
Daisy studied him in disbelief.
‘I suppose men feel they have to fight it,' Joyce sighed philosophically. ‘But you didn't fight for long, did you?'
‘I don't think you want the answer to that one,' Alessio murmured, pressing Daisy into the limousine and tossing her bag in after her.
‘How could you embarrass me like that?' Daisy demanded as the car drew away from the kerb. ‘How am I supposed to explain all that nonsense you talked?'
‘You won't have to. When I said you weren't setting foot in there again I was not joking. I have already acquired a special licence. We can get married on Saturday morning before Tara goes off on her school trip to France,' Alessio explained with immovable calm.
Her lashes fluttered over incredulous violet eyes. ‘A special licence? S-Saturday?' she stammered. ‘Are you crazy? We're divorced and staying that way!'
‘Are you prepared to lose Tara?' Astute golden eyes rested on her enquiringly.
Daisy stiffened. ‘Are you threatening me?'
‘It was a warning. I'm telling you what may well happen if we
don't
get married and present a united front,' Alessio pronounced with deflating cool. ‘You chose to bring Tara up outside the society in which she belongs and her life is now about to change out of all recognition. She is not in any way prepared for that transformation and my family will try to spoil her as much as they spoiled me.'
Daisy dropped her head in surprise at that admission.
‘Everything Tara wants, she will receive. You couldn't possibly compete from a distance, any more than you can continue to deny who she is. She's a Leopardi and one day she will be an extremely wealthy young woman. She will have to make major adjustments.'
‘I could help her—'
‘How could you help if you weren't there? And how quick would you be to blame me if anything went wrong? Tara will need more backup than I can give her. She will need her mother's full support. When she realises how much she has missed out on, you won't find it easy to stay in control when she's abroad and you're still here in London,' Alessio pointed out drily.
He had spelt out realities about Tara's future that Daisy did not want to hear. Her daughter would indeed find the Leopardi lifestyle shockingly seductive. Her grandparents would undoubtedly greet her with open arms. Tara was, after all, one of
them
. All that money and attention might turn the head of even the most stable adult, so what effect might they have on an impressionable teenager? She remembered the Ferrari, Alessio's eighteenth-birthday present, and her stomach turned over sickly.
‘You're talking as if Tara's likely to be spending a lot of time in Italy.'
‘You won't have much choice about that, Daisy. My father is moving into semi-retirement. While he will retain a consultative position within the bank, I'm taking over our main office in Rome next month,' Alessio imparted. ‘I'll only be back in London on business trips after that—'
‘But you were looking for a house
here
,' Daisy said involuntarily, struggling to conceal her growing dismay at what he was telling her.
‘I was viewing the house on my parents' behalf, not my own. They're looking for a base in London.'
A base, Daisy reflected dizzily. Only a Leopardi could refer to a house that big and expensive as a base. She surveyed Alessio with dazed eyes. It was a welcome escape from the daunting facts he was hammering her with. He looked gorgeous—undeniably and infuriatingly gorgeous. No sleepless shadows beneath
his
eyes and, remarkably, not even a hint of yesterday's strain. His superbly tailored charcoal-grey suit was a spectacular showcase for his lean, vibrantly male physique, but even so Daisy found that she was experiencing a deep craving to see him in a pair of faded, tight jeans again...
Daisy stopped herself dead, guiltily squashing that train of thought. Why should she get all worked up about the fact that Alessio still attracted her? Wasn't that immature and narrow-minded? It was only her hormones which were at fault—natural female promptings accentuated by silly, sentimental memories. Alessio was incredibly sexy...that was all. Her body was tempted but her intelligence was safely in control.

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