‘We now go to the great Amphitheatre; today we still build a sports stadium in much the same design. Nothing changes. The only new inventions since the wheel are the new power sources, new ways to kill each other—’
‘Very true, Luigi,’ Jake interrupted the old man. ‘But my wife has had enough for one day—the heat.’
‘I see, I see. It is lunch time.’ Luigi smiled, his dark eyes sliding over Jake with his protective arm around Lexi. ‘Also, I think you enjoy a siesta, no?’ His black eyes sought Jake’s and he started to laugh. ‘As I say, nothing changes. You marry, you make love, you make babies.’ Jake’s responsive chuckle mingled with the older man’s laughter as Luigi led them speedily to the exit.
Lexi looked at Luigi, and then sideways at Jake. His eyes were crinkled at the corners in amusement, his firm mouth relaxed in a singularly masculine grin; he looked carefree, happy and vitally male.
‘A siesta sounds good to me, sweetheart,’ Jake drawled turning his glittering blue eyes down to capture hers.
It was at that moment it hit her like a thunderbolt. She loved Jake. Luigi was right, ‘you marry, you make love, you make babies’, and she realised, staring at Jake, that that was exactly what she wanted, had probably always been what she wanted with this man. She blinked and tore her gaze away from his handsome face, unable to answer the sensual message in Jake’s eyes, too afraid she would give herself away completely. ‘Whatever you say,’ she murmured, and didn’t see the flash of anger darken his bright eyes at her dull response.
In the car, Lexi laid her head back against the head-rest and closed her eyes. Jake had paid Luigi handsomely and promised they would return, and she had smilingly accepted the old man’s congratulations on having such a handsome and generous husband. But now, in the close confines of the car with Jake’s strong body only inches from her own, his attractive face set in a look of determined concentration as he urged the car along the treacherous winding coast-road, avoiding the wild antics of most of the Italian drivers, she was left to her own thoughts, and they were anything but pleasant.
She could not believe her own stupidity. When Jake had blackmailed his way back into her life, she had told herself she hated him, and burnt with resentment at the ease with which he could tumble her into his bed. But at the same time she congratulated herself on being more than a match for him. She was quite capable of meeting him on the same sophisticated sexual level as the rest of his friends, Lorraine in particular. Now she recognised the depths of her own self-deception.
Married or not, five years’ celibacy should have told her something. She was not the type to sleep with a man without love—not that Jake slept with her, the hurtful thought flashed in her mind; he made a point of leaving her bed and returning to his own... She had pretended to herself she didn’t care, when in reality she cared far too much. She had loved him as a teenager and she still did. For years she had deceived herself into believing she hated him when in fact it had simply been the only way she could get through life without him, a way of masking the deep pain his betrayal had caused her.
‘Do you want to stop for lunch?’ Jake’s voice interrupted her reverie, her eyes flashed open and she looked at Jake, then just as quickly away again.
‘No, thank you. I’m not hungry,’ she said flatly. She just wanted to get back to the villa and lock herself in her bedroom. The thought of sitting in a restaurant making polite conversation with Jake was an added strain she could do without. It was bad enough realising she still loved him. She needed to be on her own for a while, time to sort out her emotions, decide where she went from here.
A growing sense of despair settled in her heart as, with a grinding of gears, the car speeded up. After Jake’s revelation about the baby they had lost, they had seemed to reach a new understanding this morning. But now, with the fear of revealing her love for him uppermost in her mind, they had slid back into the familiar tension-packed atmosphere of the past few days. Lexi didn’t know what she could do about it.
Without speaking they drove through Sorrento and along Amalfi Drive. She chanced a swift sidelong glance at Jake. He was frowning, his dark eyes narrowed against the sun, his mouth a grim straight line; her laughing companion of the morning had changed into a darkly brooding, dangerous man.
She looked down at her clasped hands folded neatly in her lap, and was lost again in her own painful thoughts. Jake wanted her but he didn’t love her. How could she live the rest of her life with a man who did not love her and whom she did not trust? It was hopeless...
Jake, bringing the car to a screeching halt outside the front door of the villa, made her sit up and take notice. But, before Lexi had managed to unfasten her safety-belt, Jake was out of the car and had the passenger door open and was reaching in to help her; his hand closed firmly over her upper arm and he almost dragged her from the car.
‘Move it,’ he snapped and his voice sounded rough. He led her into the house and up the wide staircase, his anger a tangible force in the still air.
‘Where’s the fire?’ she tried to joke but, as her eyes clashed with his, she had her answer—it was in the glistening depths of Jake’s eyes. Her pulse raced, a sudden heat igniting in her lower stomach.
‘You know...’ One dark brow arched cynically as he pushed her before him into his bedroom, his fingers gripping the flesh of her arm. He shut the door behind him and leant back against it, roughly pulling her into the hard heat of his long body.
‘Luigi was right, nothing changes,’ he rasped savagely, and she caught her breath as his lips moved against hers. ‘You’re running away from me again, and I won’t tolerate it.’
Lexi, running away! With his long arms like bands of steel around her waist, she knew she had to be hearing things. She leant back and raised puzzled eyes to his, taking in the hard planes of his ruggedly chiselled features. ‘Unless I’m dreaming, I am very much here.’ She quipped, trying to sound casual, to defuse the tension cracking around them.
‘Physically, yes. But mentally you ran away ages ago, as we left Pompeii.’ His eyes narrowed fractionally, and she sensed the anger lying beneath the surface of his control. ‘You did it in London, listened and agreed with me, and then vanished. Those innocent eyes haze with purple and it’s as if a curtain has drawn across your mind, shutting out anything and anyone.’ His warm breath fanned her temple. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to let you get away with it again.’
‘Why?’ she said simply. ‘You told me days ago it was my body alone that interested you.’
‘I’ve changed my mind; it’s not solely a woman’s prerogative.’ Jake taunted and his hands pulled her close so that she was made all too conscious of his arousal. ‘I want to know your every thought.’
‘Taking me in anger is hardly likely to make me bare my soul to you—’ Lexi drew an unsteady breath ‘—even if I wanted to.’ And she did want to; she ached to tell him she loved him, let go of her emotions completely, but she dared not. He had hurt her too much in the past. Suddenly the thought sneaked into her head: surely it was a step in the right direction if Jake actually did want to know her better, deepen the relationship. She loved him, and if their marriage was to have any chance at all it was up to her to try and make it work, to try and win Jake’s love. That was always supposing he was capable of such an emotion, she thought wryly.
‘I sometimes doubt you have a soul,’ Jake snarled. ‘The only way to reach you is this,’ he muttered with menacing softness against her lips, just before his mouth ground down on hers.
She sighed, her breath mingling with his. Their tongues touched, danced, writhed, and she felt herself falling, down, down, down once more into the depths of desire, a passionate flood of need only Jake could arouse.
Suddenly he moved, thrusting her away from him. ‘Get undressed, Lexi,’ he said deliberately, swiftly pulling his shirt over his head, his hands going to the fastening of his shorts. ‘Come on...!’ A hard dark gleam sprang alive in his eyes. ‘I’m in no mood for patience...’
She stood transfixed, her eyes roaming over his naked chest, the dark whorls of body hair glistening in the hot afternoon sun. A strange languor hung in the air and, as if in a dream, Lexi did as he said, whisking her simple sundress over her head, but all the time she watched as he slid his bermudas down his thighs along with his briefs. Even when he stepped towards her, his fingers digging into the skin of her shoulders as he pulled her close, she could not tear her gaze away from his strongly muscled, virile frame. She knew she should be afraid, there was a menacing calculation about his movements, but oddly she wasn’t. She loved him, and she wanted him...
Lexi sucked in her breath and raised her eyes to his, and when she met his darkly unyielding expression she trembled, but something gave her the courage to try and deflect his anger.
‘Why hurry, Jake?’ she asked flirtatiously. Lowering her long lashes half over her eyes, she reached out a finger and trailed it lightly down the hard column of his throat. ‘We can take Luigi’s advice, and have a siesta,’ she declared huskily.