‘Didn’t I?’ She turned to face Luca and her heart jolted in her chest. Didn’t I?
He reached out, putting his hand on her knee, a question in his eyes. She looked away. Questions were all she could feel now, questions about her choices, her feelings, and, most importantly, her desires. Because knowing their marriage was coming to an end felt like the slow dropping of an executioner’s blade, and she desperately wanted to slow it, or to stop it altogether. She could barely breathe.
‘No! This is for the money, isn’t it? Oh, Libby. Why didn’t you talk to me about this? We could have worked something out.’
Olivia compressed her lips. She’d shielded Sienna from the worst of their financial situation, protecting her sister from the truth of just how bad things had been for them, but the truth was they’d have been ruined if she hadn’t gone through with this.
‘Let’s discuss it when I’m home.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘Two weeks. A little less.’ Her heart splintered, her lungs burned.
‘And will your husband be coming?’ She layered the word with cynical disapproval and the bite of disapproval from kind-hearted Sienna hurt like hell—almost as much as the realisation that Luca wouldn’t be joining her on that trip, or any other, once their brief arranged marriage was at an end.
‘No. I’ll come alone.’ Her voice cracked a little. She swallowed to clear the hoarse feeling in her throat. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Sisi.’
She disconnected the call and pasted a determinedly bright smile on her face. ‘Well, that went about as well as could be expected.’
‘You didn’t tell her about any of this?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I didn’t think she would approve, and if anyone can talk me out of anything, it’s my sister.’
Olivia placed the phone down and stared straight ahead, at the wall across the room.
‘And were you right? Does she not approve?’
‘It doesn’t sound like it.’ She pleated the sheet between her forefinger and thumb. ‘Sienna is the kindest person you’ll ever meet, but I’ve tried very hard to keep her from understanding the ins and outs of our family’s financial predicament.’
‘So you alone have borne this worry?’
Olivia tilted him a steady look. ‘I’m the oldest.’
Disapproval marred his features. ‘Your parents have failed you.’
She pulled a face. ‘Look who’s talking.’
‘Perhaps that’s why I can recognise the signs so easily.’ He reached out, drawing her down to him then bringing his body over hers. ‘You deserved so much better, Olivia.’
Their eyes met and understanding passed between them, a fierce sense of agreement, and then his head lowered, his mouth seeking hers, gently at first, as if to reassure her through his kiss, and then with urgency, passion overtaking them. Already naked, he simply pushed aside the sheet between them, and drove into her, so Olivia cried out with pleasure at his immediate, urgent possession, his arousal filling her, moving fast, deep, his rhythm demanding, explicit, exactly what she needed.
‘It is not always like this,’ he promised against her mouth, reminding her of their earlier conversation. ‘I find I cannot get enough of you.’
Pleasure curled through her as his words mixed with the physical sensations he was arousing with such need, until she was incandescent with heat and fever, building to an unavoidable release, perfectly coinciding with his own explosion.
‘I can’t get enough of you either,’ she admitted, when their breathing had slowed and he’d rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, so her head lay on his chest. His heart thumped heavily beneath her. I can’t get enough of you, but, eventually, this will have to be enough. Their marriage would come to an end, and, while she was regretting that, there was a part of Olivia that was also glad. There was a danger here she hadn’t appreciated at first, a danger of wanting so much more from Luca than she’d originally anticipated—and he was just the kind of man who would swallow her whole.
Olivia knew that love was a very dangerous force, and she’d always sworn she would avoid it, rather than turn into the kind of woman her mother had become, in the service of love. She just hadn’t appreciated that love was a force all of its own, that it could chase after you when you had no intention of being caught, that it could bombard you and threaten to wrap around you unless you were ever, ever vigilant. And being vigilant while in the arms and bed of Luca Giovanardi was proving almost impossible.
Soon, it would be over, and she’d be able to breathe again. Wouldn’t she?
‘My grandmother has asked us to visit her for a night or two. Do you have any objections?’
Olivia met Luca’s questioning gaze as she stepped out of the shower. He stood draped against the bathroom door jamb, his presence not an invasion so much as a sign of the intimacy she’d begun to accept as totally normal. In the back of her mind, a warning bell was almost constantly sounding, the small incursions something she knew she should fight back against. After all, she’d always sworn she’d maintain her independence and autonomy, but with Luca all her barriers were being eroded—and she didn’t seem to mind. But there was no threat here. No danger. They knew when and how their relationship would end. She would never turn into her mother, no matter how much she surrendered to him, and this.