He had to be, around you, a small voice inside her own head grimly taunted. She sighed, the dark, weighty truth of that sitting heavily on her narrow shoulders.
Then he was back without warning, striding through the door he had disappeared through a few minutes earlier, and instantly any feelings of guilt or remorse she might have been experiencing towards him left, because she was suddenly feeling that inner sun-burst of pleasure begin to erupt all over again, holding her captive; she was mesmerised by the sheer animal sexuality of the man.
His jacket had gone, and his tie; the top button to his pale blue shirt had been yanked impatiently open at his taut brown throat, the sleeves rolled up his hair-peppered arms.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Do this for me.’
She blinked, trying to clear the hypnotic effect he was having on her, her darkened eyes lowering to the snowy white towel he now held to his injured hand.
‘It needs covering until it stops bleeding,’ he explained, holding out a band of sticking plaster to her.
But he was much too close, much too vibrantly, aggressively, electrifyingly real. So real she could feel his body heat, could smell the subtle tangy scent of him. Her fingers fluttered, her nails scraping against the sides of her skirt, lungs beginning to fill her chest as memories swam up from the depths of nowhere, memories of how it had felt to be held against his warm, tight, very masculine body. And she wanted him. She closed her eyes, almost groaned out loud. How badly she wanted to feel this man against her, around her, deep, deep inside her!
‘Joanna!’ His voice was tight, it was angry, and it showed how completely he misunderstood the reason why she was standing here white-faced and quivering like this. ‘I am asking you to place a small plaster on my hand—not take all your damned clothes off!’ Offence shuddered through him on a wave of personal resentment that stiffened his muscles and hardened his face. ‘I will do it myself!’ he raked at her harshly.
‘No!’ she protested, her emotions hitting an all-time high of helpless confusion ‘No,’ she repeated huskily. ‘I’ll do it.’
Quickly she took the dressing from him, plucking it with a snap from his fingers and ripping away its protective paper casing.
In hot, acid silence, he let her remove the covering towel and inspect the damage, her trembling fingertips carefully checking for tiny shards of glass while her teeth clamped hard into her tense bottom lip because his eyes were boring into the top of her bent head with such bitter antipathy.
‘Can you feel anything in that?’ she asked, pressing gently either side of the open cut.
‘No.’
‘It isn’t as bad as it could have been,’ she remarked, as casually as she could. ‘It was a stupid thing to do, Sandro.’
‘Believing me capable of ignoring your sister’s death was stupid.’
Joanna grimaced. It was true, and she had been stupid. Stupid with shock, stupid with grief, stupid in so many ways that at this precise moment she didn’t dare let herself think about most of them.
‘So, tell me how it happened,’ he requested quietly.
Her fingers stilled in the act of smoothing the plaster across his grazed knuckle, then, almost unknowingly, they straightened, stretching out along the length of his. Only Sandro’s fingers were longer than her own, stronger, but beautifully sculptured, the short nails well kept and neatly rounded, his skin warm to the touch.
‘She was on her way to college,’ she murmured in a voice devoid of emotion. ‘Standing at the bus stop when a car ploughed into her. Its breaks had failed,’ she explained. ‘The driver lost control... Molly wasn’t the only one to be killed outright,’ she said flatly. ‘Three more people died and another three were seriously injured. It was in all the newspapers at the time,’ she added huskily. ‘Names printed. Addresses...’ Which was why she had been so sure that Sandro had to have heard what had happened. Even if he’d missed her phone call, he couldn’t have possibly missed the press coverage.
And quite suddenly she began to shake with those wretched violent spasms that had been catching her out when she least needed them. Sandro muttered something in Italian and the next thing Joanna knew she was being folded against him and held there fast by determined arms.
‘Weep on me if you want to,’ he invited thickly. ‘You never know, I may even join you!’
A joke? No, he wasn’t joking; the situation was just too wretched to turn into a joke. But she didn’t weep. She hadn’t wept in years, couldn’t weep—wouldn’t weep.
Why? Because she knew that if she so much as gave in to the smallest sob, then the floodgates would open wide and the whole lot would come pouring out.
Everything—everything.
So instead she just stood there, letting him hold her, gaining some small measure of comfort from his all-encompassing embrace. But she needed to cry—she knew that, in some deep, dark place in her; she knew she was teetering right on the very edge of a complete mental collapse if she didn’t release some of the monsters lurking inside her.
‘I am sorry I wasn’t here for you, cara,’ he murmured.
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she mumbled into his warm brown throat.
It was the wrong thing to say, obviously, because he was suddenly angry again. ‘Of course it damned well matters!’ he rasped, pulling away from her to leave her standing alone, feeling cold and deserted, having to fight a desperate urge to throw herself against him again. ‘You make a cry to me for help for the first time ever—and I do not answer you!’ His sigh was harsh as he abruptly spun his back towards her. ‘Of course it bloody well matters,’ he repeated gruffly.
And here I am, thought Joanna, one year later, and making another cry for help. Only this time it’s money I want, not commiseration.
No comparison.