And somehow the ball of guilt had been landed right back into Mina’s court. Yet what had she done? At twenty she had told Steve that she didn’t love him enough to marry him, and in recent years she had honestly believed that he had moved on from her, learned to accept her as a friend and nothing more. But the instant Cesare had physically entered the picture again Steve had gone haywire, behaving as though Cesare were some rival who had supplanted him when he was well aware that she hadn’t even met Cesare when they’d broken up. Men! Who needs them? Mina thought miserably.
What hurt the most was Cesare’s belief that she was capable of flitting from his bed into Steve’s. It was a savage irony that she had never been very attracted to Steve. She had liked him, laughed with him and enjoyed his company but the day Steve not unnaturally demanded a little more intimacy from the girl he loved had been the same day that Mina had finally accepted that she didn’t love him in the same way that he loved her. If it hadn’t been for Roger and Winona, her relationship with Steve would have died years sooner than it actually had. The pressure to make the happy twosome into an even happier foursome had been intense.
How could Cesare even think that she had casually shared those same intimacies with another man? Making love was so…so intensely personal. Or at least it had been on Mina’s side. But then she loved Cesare. He did not love her. Love made a difference, she decided wretchedly. What was special to her was not that special to him. Presumably, he had not been celibate for the past four years. As soon as that thought occurred to her she buried it again because it hurt terribly to think of him in another woman’s arms, and after what he had done to her tonight that vulnerability made her loathe herself.
Face it, she told herself painfully, in Cesare’s eyes, you’re a tramp. Why? He got you into bed the first time he kissed you, came back four years later, and within twenty-four hours, in spite of every insult, threat and accusation, you succumbed a second time. No wonder he thinks you’re easy; no wonder he doesn’t respect you; no wonder he seems to think you’re the next best thing to a raving nymphomaniac.
Hadn’t she behaved like one? Admittedly she had been a late starter at twenty-two, but Cesare appeared to believe that one night with him had turned her into a maneater, which was painfully ironic when he was the only man alive who brought out that wanton side of her nature. Shamefacedly, Mina surveyed the barricaded door. Was it to keep him out or to prevent her from surrendering to temptation?
A sound that she instinctively recognised as that of a door opening jerked her head round in search of the source of such an impossibility. She flew up into a sitting position, her heartbeat racing madly as she incredulously surveyed a section of the dark wall-panelling swinging out.
For a split-second she was frozen until she recalled her own nudity. In horror, a stifled gasp of sheer fright escaping her, she grabbed frantically at the silky spread beneath her, clawing the folds up and over her as best she could. ‘Dear God…’ she began weakly.
Cesare appeared in the dark mouth of a doorway which she had not even suspected existed. Clad only in a short black silk robe, he stood there for a timeless moment, undeniably enthralled by the picture Mina made, her golden hair tumbling round her hectically flushed face, violet eyes gleaming as bright as jewels, her slender body scantily wrapped in the rainbow hues of the bedspread.
Colliding with that smouldering golden gaze, Mina went rigid. ‘You rat!’ she suddenly exploded. ‘There was a secret door!’
‘A secret what?’ Cesare breathed, ebony brows drawing together as he frowned at her with what she considered to be a spurious air of incomprehension.
‘Nothing like hedging your bets!’ Mina condemned furiously, fit to be tied at having being surprised in such a situation, curled up on the bed stark naked behind a ridiculously barricaded door when all the time all he had had to do was walk through another door!
‘What are you talking about?’ With visible difficulty, Cesare trailed his hot gaze from her and closed the door behind him. ‘A secret door?’ he queried, his hand lingering for an expressive moment on the wooden handle which a closer scrutiny of the panelled wall would have revealed. ‘What is secret about it? It links our bedrooms.’
‘I don’t want a link between our bedrooms!’ Mina shot at him angrily. ‘Get out!’
But Cesare’s attention had strayed, not surprisingly, to the furniture blocking the other entrance to the bedroom. For a full five seconds he simply stared and then he threw back his dark head and roared with laughter. ‘You put up barricades?’ he questioned with incredulous amusement.
Mina froze into a small graven image as unamused as Queen Victoria might have been but her cheeks burned hotter than ever. Never in her life had she felt more ridiculous.
‘And such large barricades,’ Cesare remarked in a strained voice, flicking the massive chest of drawers a deeply appreciative glance before looking back at her with mocking respect at her achievement. ‘And all that considerable effort wasted, it would seem…I do hope you haven’t exhausted yourself.’
Mina unfroze and clawed up more of the bedspread. ‘Get out of here, Cesare!’
‘But this is our wedding night, cara.’
Mina’s teeth clenched. She wanted to leap off the bed and thump him but she was afraid that the bedspread would fall off. ‘The answer is no!’
A winged ebony brow elevated. ‘Did I ask a question?’
‘You need it spelt out to you?’ Mina intoned, quivering with fury. ‘OK. I am not prepared to share a bed with a man who thinks I’m a gold-digging, dishonest tramp!’
‘Why not?’ Cesare enquired softly. ‘If I’m prepared to sacrifice my principles——’
‘Yours?’ Mina flared in disbelief.
‘Who else’s? If I could keep my hands off you, don’t you think I would?’ Cesare murmured with grim satire. ‘Do you really think that it was my secret ambition to take a wife who could be described as a gold-digging, dishonest tramp?’
‘How dare you?’ Mina spat.
‘You brought the subject up first, and, if you want the reality to extend to the bedroom, so be it,’ Cesare decreed with ruthless bite, a hard, purposeful twist to his expressive mouth. ‘But know it now and accept it—you are going to change. Sooner or later you will tire of hiding behind your pathetic lies and you will tell the truth about what you did four years ago——’
‘I didn’t bloody well do anything!’ Mina screamed at him in a tempestuous surge of fury. ‘And if you fondly imagine that I’m going to hang my head in shame over something I didn’t do——’
‘No remorse…no forgiveness.’ Brilliant golden eyes rested on her with incipient threat. ‘Don’t say you weren’t warned.’
‘You are out of your mind,’ Mina whispered, helplessly intimidated. ‘I did nothing——’
‘You betrayed my trust,’ Cesare condemned, a dark anger shimmering suddenly into the heavy atmosphere. ‘You betrayed me.’