‘You don’t have to be a queen anywhere but behind closed doors in our private apartments. I’m not expecting you to do anything in public unless you decide that you want to do so...which eventually you might do when you realise that the job’s not quite as intimidating as it seems,’ he assured her smoothly. ‘But here, now at thebeginning, I would expect nothing from you beyond being my wife and Freddy’s mother.’
‘OK,’ she said hoarsely, that assent falling from her lips before she could even think better of it. ‘Let’s go for it...we can only try, there’s nothing wrong with trying.’
And she stood there in a total daze of incredulity but deciding reallywasthat simple, that fast, because for two long years she had been kidding herself that she had got over him and it had all been a lie to save face. She had thought that he had rejected her but now it seemed as though she must have got that wrong. Only, what if they got together again and their marriage fell apart for a second time? It happened, didn’t it? People found that good intentions were insufficient to keep a relationship afloat.
Even so, wouldn’t trying to be a couple again be the braver option? At least giving both of them a chance to prove that they could be together? What if Gaetano changed his mind again? What if she got hurt again?
But why was she even thinking such thoughts when he had voiced words that might have described her own feelings?
Not a single happy moment...
CHAPTER SIX
ASENSEOFintense relief ran through Gaetano and crashed over him like a wave: he had got Lara back. He could do it; he could fakeanythingfor the sake of the three of them!
And even though he had decidedly fudged the truth, he had not told any direct lies, he reasoned, determined as he was not to see himself as a deceiver or a liar. He would do everything within his power to make her happy and he would offer her every possible support. Above all, the best feature of Lara was that what you saw was what you got. She had none of the unscrupulous personality twists that evenherejoiced in. In addition, she had a very small ego in comparison to most people he met. She couldn’t lie to save her life and she trusted him. In every way he would prove worthy of that trust, he reassured himself.
While Gaetano was engaged in intense self-examination, Lara was in a dizzy whirl of happiness. Gaetano hadmissedher. He had looked back and accepted howgoodthey were together, had evidently only seen that value when it was too late to keep her by his side. In the spirit of newly rediscovered confidence, reminiscent of the Lara she had been with Gaetano two years earlier before his changed attitude had stripped her of such assurance, Lara closed the distance between them and stretched up to wind two slender arms round his neck.
Momentarily, Gaetano was stunned by that forward move on her part but just as quickly, his body reacting with instant visceral hunger, he was on board with the invitation. He stared down at her with scorching dark golden eyes and covered her mouth with his in a breathtakingly urgent kiss. His desire was that immediate, that driven by need. Lara gasped under that onslaught of passion, feeling the instinctive response of her body to his just as she had on that office desk the day before. But now, everything was different, she thought fondly, slender fingers stretching up into his luxuriant hair with that wicked, wanton possessiveness it had taken so long for her to shed after leaving him. She wasn’t about to think about the other women he would have been with since, shewasn’t! New book, clean page, she urged herself.
Without hesitation, Gaetano bent down and swept her up fully into his arms and her slip-on shoes fell off.
As he lifted his mouth from hers to thrust open a door, Lara giggled. ‘So, I’m getting the fullGone with the Windexperience, am I?’
‘No,’ Gaetano retorted with a sudden slanting grin of amused appreciation that few Mosvakians would have realised their serious king was even capable of. ‘The very last thing I’m about to say right now is,Frankly, I don’t give a damn—’
‘I didn’t even realise you were a movie buff...you didn’t recogniseDr Zhivagowhen we first met.’
‘I’m not but my former sister-in-law, Giulia, is, and as a teenager I watched her favourites with her many times.’
‘Former?Don’t you count her as family any more now that she’s a widow?’ Lara queried.
‘She’s remarried and living in Italy now. I’m happy that she’s found love with someone new. Her union with my brother was more a marriage of convenience.’
‘Oh.’ As Gaetano had laid her down on a big bed and was in the process of stripping her with an indecent haste that was insanely seductive, Lara’s ability to make rational comments was on the retreat.
Her boots, socks and jeans were gone in a moment, and she sat up to remove her own sweatshirt, marvelling at how her whole world had changed focus since her arrival at the mansion. ‘This...us, doesn’t quite feel real yet.’
Gaetano stared at her sitting there in an unmatched bra and pants of the most ordinary kind of white unadorned lingerie. She was slender and yet just curvy enough in all the right places. Her skin gleamed like a pearl in moonlight while her beautiful hair glowed like the dawn in the wintry shadows of the bedroom. She had the most extraordinary effect on the way he thought, he acknowledged absently, lost in sensual appreciation.
‘You look incredibly sexy,’ he murmured hoarsely, one hand reaching round his back to haul off the casual shirt he had teamed with designer jeans.
In many ways, the mysterious workings of Gaetano’s mind had always been a closed book to Lara. She could see nothing sexy in herself, only flaws like her skinny legs and the faint stretchmarks on her stomach. She glanced down uncomfortably at her serviceable bra and knickers and marvelled that a man of his experience and wealth could still find her so desirable. And she knew that he wasn’t saying it for effect when that admiration was openly etched onto his lean darkly handsome face. Yet it was he, Gaetano di Santis, who totally tookherbreath away, poised there, his chest bare, smooth dark olive-tinted shoulders, washboard delineated abs and lean hips on display. He was gorgeous. She wasnot. Even before she’d discovered that he was royalty there had, for her, always been a credibility gap attached to their love and marriage. She had struggled to believe that he could genuinely love her as much as she loved him. With a dexterous wriggle she slid beneath the duvet, hiding her imperfect self.
He peeled off his jeans and boxers with the same careless speed, pushing back the bedding to reach for her. ‘I can barely believe that I’m with you again.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ she whispered before his mouth found hers again and that wild, seething sense of excitement started to climb inside her like an unquenchable flame.
Gaetano still wanted her more than any other woman. That was a miraculous fact to Lara and the knowledge strengthened her. She ran her hands down over his chest, loving the feel of the smooth brown skin and the curling black hair smattering the centre of his broad chest.
‘Don’t stop,’ Gaetano groaned, throwing his dark head back on the pillows and resting back like a very willing sacrifice.
She found him with her roaming fingers, already long and thick and pulsing with desire. She shimmied down the bed, the tip of her tongue tracing her path, and his fingers laced tautly into her hair. It was as if some magical clock had turned back time. As she traced that velvety smooth tip, his hips angled up to her and a hoarse sound of pleasure was wrenched from him.
So she was surprised when he stopped her, hauling her back up to him to kiss her with ferocious hunger, rolling her over and tugging off her remaining garments with scant ceremony. ‘I’m not likely to last very long,’ he warned her gruffly.
‘I’ll survive,’ Lara muttered, amazed that he should worry about something she considered unimportant. She didn’t need or expect perfect after so much time had passed, she simply longed for that irreplaceable physical closeness to be renewed.