Within hours, Cristo received an emailed copy of the article that was to be published in a leading tabloid newspaper the following day.
‘You’ve been immortalised in print!’ Cristo growled from the doorway of the bedroom where Belle was putting a pile of fashion magazines in place for her younger sister, Lucia. A dark flush had overlaid his hard cheekbones and his eyes were bright with anger.
Belle whirled round to study him the instant she glimpsed the papers that he was angrily burnishing. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Her heart in her mouth, she stared down at the email he’d printed out, spread flat on the table beside her. The headline ‘Ravelli’s Secret Irish Family’ spelt out the facts and shock reverberated through Belle when she saw the number of photos in the spread, not least the one of her clad in her wedding gown, which looked rather as though it might have been taken by a camera phone outside the chapel on the day. The main picture, however, was of her pregnant mother and her siblings taken at a local fair shortly before Franco’s birth. There was even a small snap of her grandmother.
‘So, the story really is going to be printed… I’m so sorry. I know how you felt about this,’ Belle breathed heavily.
‘But how dare they publish a photo of you?’ Cristo demanded in a raw undertone, stabbing the offending item with a blunt forefinger. ‘Smearing you with Gaetano’s sleaze as if you had anything to do with your mother’s choices!’
Disconcerted by the focus of his rage, Belle swallowed hard. ‘Who was it who talked to the press?’
‘Gaetano’s former driver.’
Belle was hurriedly reading the article, noting with relief that her grandmother was referred to as ‘well-respected’ and that she was merely mentioned as Mary’s ‘recently married’ daughter. ‘Luckily nobody seems to have made the connection that I got married to a Ravelli,’ she remarked in astonishment. ‘In fact there’s no reference to you at all—’
‘Isn’t there?’ Frowning in surprise at that news, Cristo bent to scan the blurred newsprint. ‘Well, that’s something at least.’
‘And it doesn’t say anything that isn’t true. I mean, Gaetano was married throughout most of their affair and my mother wasn’t the only woman in his life at the time.’ Belle breathed in deep, colliding head-on with his burnished gaze and feeling her tummy flip in response. ‘You know, I think the article could have been a lot nastier in tone than this is.’
‘I just don’t like you being soiled with Gaetano’s sleaze,’ Cristo admitted in a roughened undertone while he ran an admiring finger along the softened line of her generous mouth. ‘But I suppose you’re right and if Zarif can handle the fallout, we certainly can.’
Almost of their own volition her lips parted and she laved his fingertip with the tip of her tongue. His lashes lowered, his semi-screened eyes flashing burning gold and scorchingly light against his bronzed skin as he hauled her into his arms and covered her mouth hungrily with his own. Excitement flared through Belle’s slender body like a storm warning and the instant surge of desire stirred a sharp ache between her thighs.
‘I want you,’ Cristo ground out against her swollen lips, arching her into him with an imprisoning hand splayed across her hips, ensuring that she was fully aware of his arousal.
Belle lifted an unsteady hand to his lean dark face and her fingertips traced a hard masculine cheekbone in a helpless caress. ‘Well, I’m not doing anything else…’ she whispered teasingly, hot as an inferno inside her own skin and literally weak with longing.
He took that invitation with a thoroughness she could only appreciate. Lifting her in his arms, he took her back to their bedroom. Her heated bare skin revelled in the brush of the cool, crisp linen on the bed when he tossed the sheets back. She was excited by the crushing weight of her lover and his forcefulness as he stretched her arms above her head, her wrists gripped between the fingers of one strong hand, and ravished her mouth erotically with his own. Between the sheets, Cristo was dominant and she rejoiced in that aspect of him. Her heart thundered in her ears as he stroked and teased the tender tissue between her thighs, her slender spine arching in helpless delight as he took advantage of the welcome offered by the honeyed dampness of her sensitive flesh.
When Cristo flipped her over onto her knees, a sound of surprise was wrenched from her and then, before she could say or do anything, he was driving into her hard and fast, stretching her with shocking fullness, every entry and withdrawal perfectly timed to deliver the maximum possible pleasure. Insane excitement roared through Belle like a hungry fire, burning up every thought in the heat of the flames. She was out of control, lost in sensation, a slave to the delight. Her body raced to the climax it craved and she cried out in pure ecstasy, hearing his answering groan. Afterwards she collapsed in a heap on the bed, her muscles like jelly, her breath still hissing in and out of her gasping throat as she struggled to reason and speak again.
‘Did I ever tell you how fantastic you are in bed, bella mia?’ Cristo husked, pulling her back against his hard, damp body, his broad chest still heaving from the exertion of their encounter.
‘Maybe you’ve mentioned it once or twice.’ A smile as old as Eve curved Belle’s reddened mouth because it made her feel good that he could think that even in the light of his much greater sexual experience.
Black hair wildly tousled, Cristo rubbed a stubbled jaw across a slim, smooth shoulder and murmured earthily, ‘I can’t keep my hands off you…you’re killing me.’
Belle laughed softly and curved round him, every possessive urge in her body thrumming on full charge. She was happy, so happy that the horrible newspaper article hadn’t rocked their relationship as she’d once feared, but still a sense of unease niggled in the back of her mind. The moment she looked for it, that tiny little seed of doubt about Cristo and Betsy refused to stay buried any longer. She wanted, no, she needed to know the truth, which she was convinced would be entirely non-threatening in reality.
‘Why do you carry a photo of your brother’s wife in your wallet?’ Belle lifted her head to ask, the question as bold and instinctive on her lips as it was in her mind.
CHAPTER TEN
CRISTO’S BIG, POWERFUL fra
me froze and, that fast, Belle knew she had made a fatal mistake in assuming that she had nothing to worry about.
Dark blood rose in a revealing banner across Cristo’s cheekbones. His spectacular bone structure had hardened into taut angles and hollows overlaid with the rigidity of fierce self-control while his dark golden eyes remained carefully shielded. ‘What are you talking about?’
No longer warm and relaxed in the intimate circle of his arms, Belle rolled away and sat up against the tumbled pillows, tugging the sheet up to cover her breasts with hands that now felt clumsy. ‘Franco got hold of your wallet one day and the photo fell out of it. I wasn’t snooping, I swear I wasn’t, but naturally I wondered why you had it.’
‘Franco,’ Cristo groaned, raking the long fingers of one tanned hand through his black hair and sitting up while he played for time and considered his options. That blasted photo, which he had forgotten he still had! He could lie, of course he could lie to her, but the memory of Gaetano’s frequent lies and deceptions had left his son with an ineradicable desire never to follow in the older man’s footsteps. Besides, lying was not only a weakness but also an act of deceit. Belle was his wife and she was entitled to the truth, he reasoned grimly, even if it was a truth he was in no hurry to share or recall. But where there was honesty, he believed there would be no future misunderstandings or grey areas.
He breathed in deep and slow and then released his breath again in an impatient hiss, his handsome mouth compressing. ‘Betsy turned to me for support after her marriage to Nik broke down…for a while I thought I’d fallen in love with her…’
Belle was already in the grip of mental turmoil because his visible reaction to her question had immediately betrayed that she had stumbled onto a sensitive issue. Her head ached with the ferocity of her tension and her conflicting thoughts and incipient panic made her a poor listener. I fell in love with her was all Belle took from that fractured speech and his confession had the same impact on her as the announcement of a sudden death. I fell for her. Her mouth ran dry, her heartbeat accelerated and her tummy performed a sick somersault. I fell for her. She could feel the blood draining from her face, the clawing clench of her fingertips on the edge of the sheet and the resulting ache in her knuckle bones. For a truly dreadful moment she was scared she might throw up where she sat, and then mercifully the tide of sickness receded while her brain kicked feverishly back into action.