Gabriel’s gaze narrowed on the pale oval of her face in the moonlight, her chin raised in challenge, that same challenge reflected in the deep purple of her eyes.
‘Don’t come any closer, Gabriel!’ she warned as he took a step towards her.
A warning Gabriel chose to ignore as he came to stand only inches away from her, his eyes glittering darkly as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her, and his hands clenched at his sides as he obviously fought the urge to reach out and shake her until her teeth rattled.
Bella felt her own anger starting to fade as she instead found herself fascinated by the nerve that pulsed beside that livid scar on Gabriel’s tautly clenched left cheek.
He looked so gloriously handsome with his long hair slightly tousled onto his shoulders, the black silk shirt and tailored trousers only adding to that darkness, his eyes also appearing a glittering black in the moonlight.
Bella had never known another man with the grace and beauty of Gabriel. Had never been as physically aware of another man in the way she was Gabriel. Had never wanted another man in the way she constantly seemed to want Gabriel.
As, God help her, she wanted him even now…!
She swallowed hard. ‘You’re right, Gabriel, it’s been a long and tiring day. Far too long and tiring for this conversation,’she said huskily. ‘I—I’ll wish you a goodnight.’
His mouth twisted self-derisively. ‘I very much doubt that it will be that!’
Bella looked at him searchingly for several seconds before shaking her head ruefully. ‘We really must try to find a way to stop insulting each other, Gabriel.’
He winced. ‘The only time we manage to do that is when we are making love together, but…’ He shrugged. ‘Goodnight, Isabella. I will try not to wake you when I come to bed.’
Bella was frowning as she turned and walked slowly back inside the villa, too utterly weary to fight him any more concerning their sleeping arrangements. Especially as Gabriel had already made it plain she would lose!
She very much doubted that she would be able to fall
asleep when she knew that at any moment Gabriel would be coming to share what was now
their
bed.
Very much doubted that she would be able to sleep at all with Gabriel in bed beside her…
‘D
O YOU
know how to scuba-dive, Isabella?’
‘No.’ Bella looked up from eating her piece of toast as she and Gabriel sat outside on the veranda eating their breakfast. ‘Do you?’
As Bella had already guessed, it had not been a restful night’s sleep, and she had still been awake but pretending not to be when Gabriel had joined her in the bedroom half an hour or so after she had gone to bed. That Gabriel had fallen asleep within minutes of his head resting on the pillow had made absolutely no difference to her own feelings of tension, and Bella had lain awake for hours after the even tenor of Gabriel’s breathing told her he remained fast asleep beside her.
Bella’s only consolation was that Gabriel was already up and making breakfast when she finally woke up shortly after nine o’clock. But her eyes still felt gritty from lack of sleep, and all she really felt like doing was going back to bed!
‘I would hardly have asked otherwise,’ Gabriel pointed out before taking a sip of his coffee. ‘Would you like to learn?’
He looked disgustingly well rested this morning in a white short-sleeved shirt and white trousers, Bella noted, disgruntled. Much more relaxed than he had a right to be, as far as she was concerned.
‘I suppose I could try,’ she agreed irritably. ‘As long as you aren’t one of those awful teachers who gets cross with their student.’
‘I have no doubts you will be a very attentive pupil, Isabella,’ Gabriel teased, knowing by the heavy look to her eyes and the weary droop of her mouth that she hadn’t slept well.
Gabriel had known she was still awake when he joined her in the bed the night before, her back firmly turned towards him as she had tried to give every appearance of being asleep. A deception Gabriel had allowed her to keep; it was enough for the moment that she accepted that they would be sharing a bed in future.
She gave him a sharp glance. ‘I sincerely hope you were referring to scuba-diving!’
‘What else?’ he taunted.
Bella continued to eye him suspiciously for several long seconds, and then she gave a dismissive shrug. ‘Why not? I obviously have nothing else to do today.’ She stood up suddenly.
Gabriel looked up at her searchingly. ‘Perhaps you would have preferred to go somewhere a little more…entertaining…for our honeymoon?’
Bella raked him with a scathing glance. ‘Oh, I think this is entertaining enough, don’t you?’
He laughed softly. ‘Let us hope so.’
Bella refused to meet the challenge in his gaze. ‘I’ll go and get changed.’
Although she wasn’t too sure about that once she saw the skimpiness of the bikinis that Claudia, obviously in on the secret of their honeymoon destination, had packed for her!
There were two of them. A black one that consisted of two very small scraps of material that barely covered anything, top or bottom. And a pink one, which admittedly had a little more material in the bottom half, but unfortunately the top plunged deeply at the front, meaning that when she put it on her breasts spilled over it revealingly.
Quite what Claudia had been thinking of when she chose them, Bella had no idea—but she could take a good guess.
Bella forgot her own self-consciousness in the pink bikini the instant she came out onto the terrace and saw that Gabriel was wearing the briefest—and sexiest—pair of black swimming trunks she had ever seen!
Fitting low down on his hips, the material barely covered that revealing bulge in the front of the trunks. A bulge Bella found it difficult to look away from…
Gabriel looked up from checking the scuba gear, his expression hardening as he saw the way Bella was staring at him. ‘Do my scars bother you, after all?’ he ground out harshly.
‘Scars?’she repeated vaguely, trying to concentrate on something other than those skimpy bathing trunks. ‘Oh. Those scars.’ She nodded as she took in the revealing criss-cross of scars that marked his chest and back, several deeper marks that looked like surgical incisions on his left leg, both below and above the knee. ‘I’ve already told you they don’t bother me, Gabriel,’ she said with a frown.
‘That was before you had seen the full extent of them,’ he said stiltedly. ‘Some women would be bothered by their unsightliness.’
Some women
would
? Or they already
had
? Perhaps Janine Childe, for instance…?
Bella stepped outside. ‘We all have scars, Gabriel. It’s just that some of us have them on the inside rather than the outside. Besides,’ she continued as he would have spoken, ‘what does it matter to you how I feel about them?’
Gabriel’s eyes were narrowed to dark slits. ‘You are the woman who will have to look at them for the rest of your life.’
The rest of her life?
She took a deep breath as she realised she hadn’t actually thought about her marriage to Gabriel with exactly that time-frame in mind before…
She suddenly realised she hadn’t said anything and Gabriel was still waiting…‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Gabriel. All men look the same in the dark—’ She broke off as Gabriel’s hands suddenly closed firmly about her upper arms. ‘Let go of me!’ she gasped.
His grasp didn’t relax in the slightest. ‘I am not interested in what you think of other men, Isabella. In the dark or otherwise!’ He shook her slightly, his expression now distinctly dangerous.
Bella stared up at him, unable to see anything but the darkness of his anger as he glared down at her. ‘Your scars don’t bother me, Gabriel, and that’s the truth,’ she finally said evenly.
His gaze remained dark and stormy on her face for several more seconds before he released her so suddenly
that Bella stumbled slightly. ‘I will be several more minutes checking the scuba equipment, so perhaps you would like to go for a swim while you are waiting,’ he suggested abruptly.
Bella gave one last, lingering glance at the stiffness of his scarred back before turning away to walk in the direction of the beach.
Another day in paradise…
‘That was the most wonderful experience of my life!’ Bella gasped excitedly once she had waded out of the sea and removed her breathing mask.
‘The
most
wonderful?’ Gabriel arched mocking brows as he removed his own scuba gear before sitting down on the blanket spread on the white-gold sand, the long darkness of his hair pushed back from his face, rivulets of sea-water dripping enticingly down his shoulders and back.
‘Well…one of them,’ Bella corrected hastily. ‘Holding Toby in my arms seconds after he was born was probably the most wonderful,’ she added huskily.
A frown darkened Gabriel’s brow. ‘I would have liked to have shared that experience with you.’
‘It’s been a lovely day, Gabriel, let’s not spoil it with another argument.’ Bella sighed as she dropped down onto the blanket beside him before slipping her arms out of the straps of the scuba gear and dropping it back on the sand behind them. She pushed the dampness of her hair back over her shoulders and sat forward to clasp her arms about her knees and rest her chin on her bent knees. ‘Besides, I very much doubt even you would have been allowed into the delivery-room.’
Gabriel arched one dark brow. ‘Even me…?’
She nodded. ‘Not even the Danti name would have got you in there,’ she teased. ‘There was a bit of a scare at the last moment,’ she explained as Gabriel continued to look at her enquiringly. ‘My blood pressure went off the scale, Toby became distressed, and they had to rush me off to Theatre to deliver Toby by Caesarean section.’
Gabriel tensed. ‘Your life was in danger?’
‘I think both our lives were in danger for a while,’ Bella admitted. ‘But luckily it all turned out okay in the end.’
The frown between Gabriel’s eyes didn’t lessen. ‘Is that likely to happen with a second pregnancy?’
Bella gave him a surprised glance. ‘I don’t know. It never occurred to me to ask. Gabriel?’ She stared at him as he stood up abruptly to walk the short distance to the water’s edge. ‘Gabriel, what’s wrong?’
Gabriel’s hands clenched at his sides. Bella could ask him that, when she might have lost her life giving birth to Toby? When they might both have lost their lives and he, Gabriel, Bella’s lover and Toby’s father, would not have even known!
‘The way I see it, both you and I have almost died and have the scars to prove it—’ Bella broke off abruptly as Gabriel turned, his expression fierce. ‘I was only trying to make light of the situation, Gabriel,’ she reasoned.
His eyes narrowed to steely slits. ‘You think the risk to your life is a subject for humour?’
She grimaced. ‘I think it’s something that happened four and a half years ago. It’s nothing but history now. We’re all still here, after all.’
Gabriel knew that Bella was right, but having just learnt that she might have died giving birth to Toby made him wonder—fear?—that a second pregnancy might be as dangerous…
‘May I see your scar?’
Bella looked up at Gabriel warily as he loomed over her and blocked out the sun, his face darkly intense.
He wanted to see her scar from the Caesarean section? Her below-the-bikini-line scar?
She swallowed hard. ‘Can’t you just take my word for it that it’s there?’
There was a slight easing of the tension in his expression. ‘No.’
‘Oh.’ Bella chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I would really rather not.’ Her arms tightened protectively about her knees.
‘Why not?’
Because it was far too intimate, that was why! Because she already felt totally exposed, vulnerable, in the brief bikini, without baring any more flesh!
‘Maybe later,’ she said, turning away.
‘Now.’
Bella frowned her irritation as she looked back at him. ‘Gabriel, we don’t have to literally bare all of ourselves to each other in the first few days of marriage!’
He gave a hard smile. ‘You have seen
my
scars, now I would like to see yours.’
‘I would rather not,’ she came back crossly.
‘Men and women all look alike in the daylight, too, Isabella,’ Gabriel murmured throatily.
No, they didn’t!
There was simply no other man like Gabriel. No
other man with his broodingly dark good looks. No other man with the power to make Bella’s knees tremble with just a glance from the warmth of those chocolatebrown eyes. No other man who made her feel so desirable. No other man who could make her totally lose control at the merest touch of his hand…
There just was no other man as far as Bella was concerned.
Oh, God!
Bella felt her cheeks pale even as she stared up at Gabriel with a feeling of helplessness. She loved him. Loved Gabriel.
Had she
ever
really stopped loving him?
Probably not, Bella acknowledged with a feeling akin to panic. She had fallen in love with Gabriel that night five years ago, and even though she had never seen him again she had continued to love him.
That was the reason she had never been interested in even going out with another man for all these years.
That was the reason she had never felt even remotely attracted to another man in that time.
Because she was already in love with Gabriel Danti, and always would be!
And now she was married to him. Married to the man she loved, would always love, and yet could never tell him of that love because it wasn’t what Gabriel wanted from her. It had never been what Gabriel wanted from her, and even less so now. All Gabriel wanted was his son; Bella just happened to come along with the package.
She stood up abruptly. ‘I think not, thank you, Gabriel,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I’m tired. I’ll go back to the villa and take a nap before dinner.’
Gabriel remained on the beach, his gaze narrowed in thought as he watched Bella walk into the trees and up towards the villa, her hair a black silky cloud down the slenderness of her back, the gentle sway of her hips wholly enticing.
What had happened just now?
One minute Bella had been challenging him as she always did, just as he had been enjoying that challenge as he always did, and the next it seemed she had completely shut down all her emotions.
Perhaps that was as well when Gabriel knew he daren’t risk another pregnancy for Bella until he was sure she would be in no danger…
‘Tell me what happened five years ago, Gabriel.’
‘As in…?’ Gabriel’s expression was guarded as he looked across the dinner table at Bella.
‘As in the accident, of course,’ she said impatiently.
‘Ah.’ Gabriel sat back to take a sip of the white wine that he had opened to accompany the lobster and salad they had prepared together and just eaten.
Bella frowned. ‘What did you think I meant?’
Gabriel looked at Bella beneath lowered lids as he admired her and thought how lovely she looked in her simple black knee-length gown. Its thin shoulder straps and the bareness of her arms revealed the light tan she had attained at the beach earlier, the heavy cloud of her dark hair cascaded loosely over that golden hue, and her face was bare of make-up except a pale peach lip gloss.
Bella had never looked more beautiful. Or more desirable.
‘What did I think that you meant?’ Gabriel repeated slowly. ‘The night we spent together, perhaps?’
‘I think we’re both already well aware of what happened that night!’ Bella pointed out tartly. ‘Impressionable student meets sexy racing-car driver,’ she enlarged as Gabriel raised questioning brows. ‘And the rest is history, as they say!’
‘What do
you
say, Bella?’
What should Bella say?
She could say that she had behaved like a complete idiot five years ago. She could say that she should have had more sense than to fall for all that rakish charm and spent that one glorious night in his arms. She could say that she should never have committed the complete folly of falling in love with a man like Gabriel Danti!
‘Oh, no, you don’t, Gabriel.’ Her smile was tight. ‘You’re not going to distract me from my original question by annoying me.’
‘I’m not?’
‘No, you’re not!’
He quirked dark brows. ‘I am curious as to why our talking about the night we spent together five years ago should cause annoyance.’
‘Gabriel!’ she protested.