Veretti’s Dark Vengeance (12 page)

‘Of course,’ she said politely. ‘I shall be very pleased to meet Antonio’s family.’
A silence fell between them. She leaned back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun on her face, and he watched her, wondering what she was thinking.
‘Helena…’
She looked up, meeting his gaze, meeting his thoughts, discovering them to be the same as her own. So intense was the experience that she could almost feel his hands on her body, touching it as it had never been touched before, as she’d never allowed it to be touched before.
Suddenly she was angry. How dared he make time and space disappear and take her into a new dimension just by looking at her? Who the hell did he think he was?
‘Helena-’
‘Yes?’ she asked glacially.
‘I’d like…’ He seemed to be having difficulty getting the words out. ‘I’d like to show you my boat, and explain something of what will happen at the festa. Perhaps tomorrow.’
‘I’m afraid it will have to be another day,’ she said. ‘I have people coming to the factory and-you know how it is…’
She fell silent.
‘Another time, then,’ he agreed.
‘In fact I should be getting back. I have a mass of work to do. I look forward to the festa.’
She rose, gave him a brilliant smile, and walked away.
He watched her go, wondering at the ease with which she could tangle his thoughts and sap his will. She’d just informed him that the next move would be hers, and she would make him wait for it.
Another new experience.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR two days it was a stand-off, both knowing what the next move of the game must be, both wondering who would crack first.
Going through the hotel lobby one morning, Helena was hailed by the young man at the information desk.
‘You joined the tourist trip to Larezzo, signora. I thought you might be interested in the trip to Perroni. It will depart in ten minutes.’
She’d been about to head for Murano anyway. Now an imp of mischief prompted her to say, ‘This is Wednesday, isn’t it? Hm!’
‘Does that make a difference, signora?’
It did. She knew that Salvatore was always at the factory on Wednesdays.
‘No, not at all,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’d like to join the trip.’
She called Emilio, explaining that she wouldn’t be there today, and went out to join the others on the boat. She was smiling as they sped across the lagoon.
She had to admit that Salvatore’s factory was impressive. Larger than Larezzo, it had all the most modern equipment, so their guide assured them.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a couple of the workmen nudge each other, staring in her direction. Salvatore would know of her presence within a few minutes.
‘This is the new oven, delivered only two months ago,’ the guide declared. ‘It’s state-of-the-art, and none of our competitors has one.’
‘But I dare say Larezzo will have one by tomorrow,’ said a voice behind Helena.
She turned and saw Salvatore, looking amused.
‘Doing a little industrial spying?’ he asked, taking her arm. ‘You should have told me. I’d have arranged to give you a personal guided tour.’
‘It seemed better to do it in secret,’ she said demurely. ‘I thought if I came on Wednesday you’d never know.’
His cynical glance told her that he wasn’t fooled.
‘As a secret agent you have a lot to learn,’ he observed. ‘Come with me.’
For the next two hours he gave her the grand tour, taking her to every part of the factory, explaining everything in detail. He didn’t seem worried that she might steal his professional secrets, and when she saw the advanced state of his machinery she could understand why.
Emilio had explained that Larezzo had lacked investment during the last few years. Without actually saying that Antonio had wasted the profits self-indulgently he’d told her enough to make it clear. The factory had survived so far because its product was the best, but it needed more money lavished on it. As things stood, Salvatore had nothing to fear from Larezzo, and she had no doubt that he knew that.
But that was going to change, she resolved.
‘Thank you,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve learned a lot. Now I must go away and think.’
‘Found any useful ideas to steal?’ he asked lightly.
She laughed. ‘Any ideas worth stealing are well locked away from my prying eyes,’ she observed. ‘Do you think I didn’t know that?’
‘No, I never underestimate you.’
‘I’ve seen one or two things I could improve on.’
‘Only one or two?’ he asked in a tone of shock. ‘Surely you can do better than that? Have dinner with me tonight, and we can talk some more. And give me your cell-phone number. You’re turning into such a dangerous character that I may need to keep tabs on you.’
‘Likewise.’
They exchanged numbers and he named the restaurant, the same one where they had eaten last time.
‘I’ll meet you there,’ Helena said thoughtfully. ‘There are too many gossips in the hotel.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I must be going.’
‘I’m afraid your party has left without you. I’ll call for a boat.’
‘No. Since I’m here in Murano I’ll drop in on my own factory-just to make sure it hasn’t crumbled yet,’ she finished satirically.
She walked the short distance to Larezzo, sunk in thought. Her employees saw her coming and scuttled out of the way, since it was obvious that she noticed nothing but what was in her head. When she came back to the real world she was in her office and Emilio was looking at her anxiously.
‘I’ve come to a decision,’ she said. ‘First I must make an urgent phone call, and then-’ she chuckled ‘-then I’ll tell you all about it.’
Salvatore went to the restaurant prepared for fireworks, and intrigued to know what form they would take. Life without Helena was intolerably dull, and he was ready for anything. When she was late he began to suspect. Even so, she managed to surprise him.
The text message that reached his cell phone was simple.
‘Regret can’t make it. Work calls. Will be in office. Helen of Troy.’
Salvatore regarded the words with a wry smile, feeling both intrigued and entertained. She might simply have signed it ‘Helena.’ That she’d chosen Helen of Troy conveyed a message, one that was reinforced by her statement that she would be in her office. There was no need for her to tell him that, unless…
He made a quick call home to make sure that his motor boat was ready, and almost ran back to the palazzo. Ten minutes later he was speeding across the lagoon to Murano.
There was a light on upstairs and he found a door open at the back. Slipping inside, he followed the light above, until he heard something that made him pause.
A man was talking.
He’d expected to find her alone. Now he wondered if she really was working after all, perhaps entertaining business clients. Entertaining how?
Moving very quietly, he crossed the floor to the open staircase that led up to the next level. At the turn in the stairs he paused, hearing the man’s voice come closer. Standing in the shadows, he could observe unseen.
Then the owner of the voice appeared and Salvatore grew very still.
He was a young man, no more than thirty, with curly hair and a strikingly handsome face. From here Salvatore could just make out that he was smiling mischievously.
‘Come on, darling,’ he was saying. ‘Don’t give me a hard time.’
Then Helena’s voice, filled with laughter.
‘I’m not being difficult Jack, honestly. I’m just not used to doing it this way.’
‘Well, let me show you.’
He vanished, but Salvatore still heard his voice from a distance.
‘Come on, do it like I showed you before. Put your arms over your head and lean back-that’s better. You’re still a bit overdressed. Can’t you take something off?’
‘No, this is as far as I’m prepared to go. Hurry up and take me.’
‘But if you-’
‘Just take me-like that, yes-and again…’
Salvatore’s hand tightened on the rail until the knuckles were white. What he might have done next he never knew, for something intervened-a sound that shook him, made him stare.
It was the clicking and whirring of a camera, then Jack’s voice saying, ‘OK, OK, great, do that again-look at me-’
‘Take me like this,’ came Helena’s voice.
‘Yes, yes-like that-lovely!’
‘Well, that should be everything. I wonder if-Salvatore!’
She came towards him, arms outstretched, a smile of welcome on her face. He returned it, taking her in his arms.
‘I knew you’d be working, but I didn’t know it would be this hard,’ he said.
‘It’s all right everyone, you can pack up and go,’ Helena called.
There was a general laugh, and for the first time Salvatore realised that there were several other people in the room, all female. Two of them were holding arc lights to illuminate Helena, and the third was the photographer’s assistant.
Helena herself was dressed for photography, in a long white dress of thin silk, slit high at the sides, while the top plunged to the waist. From where he was standing it seemed to Salvatore that she wore nothing underneath, but, try as he might, he couldn’t be quite certain.
The crew were packing up fast, but the photographer she’d addressed as Jack said, ‘I’d like to have another look around, to see if there are any more good settings-’
‘Another time,’ Salvatore told him.
‘But this would be the perfect-’
‘Out!’ Salvatore commanded, handing him a wad of notes. ‘Now.’
They vanished.
‘So you prefer their company to mine,’ he observed.
‘No, but I’m going to earn money with those shots.’
‘In this place?’ He looked around at the room, a bare wooden structure without decoration.
‘They’re not going to be looking at the place, just me, draping myself over it.’ She went to a large beam, aslant from floor to ceiling, leaned on it and let her arms glide up slowly over her head.
‘Like this,’ she purred. ‘And like this.’ She raised one knee so that the silk fell away on either side, giving him a grandstand view of the most perfect, elegant leg he’d ever seen.
‘And how much will they pay to see you like that?’ he asked, moving closer and reaching up to trap her wrists.
‘It depends how well the pictures sell. A lot, I hope.’
He drew her wrists towards him and over his shoulders, then took her by the waist, pulling her closer.
‘Do you really not mind men looking at you, for money?’ he asked.
‘They’re only pictures. Who cares if they look at me-as long as I’m not there to know about it? It doesn’t matter what they’re thinking.’
‘But I’m here,’ he murmured, dropping his lips to her neck. ‘Does it matter what I’m thinking?’
‘As long as you’re thinking the right thing,’ she whispered.
‘I want to take you to bed and make love to you until we’re both crazy. I want you to make love to me so that I know I’m the man you need. Is that the right thing?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she growled. ‘That’s very much the right thing.’
Her knee was still raised, so that it was easy for her to hook her ankle behind him in a gesture whose significance he couldn’t miss.
‘Strega,’ he said fervently. Witch.
‘Of course I am,’ she murmured. ‘I stir my cauldron night after night, thinking up spells to lure you in.’
His hands were finding their way through the slits at the side of her long skirt, seeking the top of her legs where she wore a lacy thong, so frail that it almost didn’t exist. He grasped her hips, feeling around to the back, the swell of her behind, almost naked as the thong vanished in the centre. Moving carefully, he hooked his thumbs through the delicate material and, with a swift wrench, demolished it, dropping the shredded remains onto the floor.
Now there was nothing between her and his fingers, seeking and finding what he’d expected, the hot moisture that said she was ready for him. Helena gasped, almost overcome there and then by his skilled exploration.
‘Now,’ she urged breathlessly. ‘I don’t want to wait-now!’
She sensed vaguely that he was tearing at his own clothes until he too was half-naked, and then entering her with a swift, decisive vigour that sent pleasure screaming through her so violently that she grasped him to her, curling both her legs up and around him as if she would enclose him within her forever.
Forever. No end to the sheer physical joy that made the rest of life seem irrelevant. There was this and only this, and it must be made to last because she was yielding herself to it with a lack of caution that would normally have alarmed her.
But not now. She was strong enough for anything, even to look him in the eye when they had both climaxed, and say, ‘Don’t you dare stop.’
There was a couch in the office next door. He carried her in and they finished stripping each other before dropping down onto the narrow space that was barely big enough.
Her flesh seemed to have acquired a memory of its own, that had nothing to do with her head. Their first loving had left her with an intimate knowledge of him, so that her hands directed themselves to the places where a touch could drive him wild, and, once there, a kind of devil magic inspired them to caress and caress until he was beyond his own control.
He entered her with one fierce movement, seizing, claiming, conquering without subtlety. But then his hold on her changed, grew easier, less intense. Now he could draw back and look into her face as he moved inside her, still demanding but gentle.
‘Look at me,’ he murmured and saw her eyes open wide as though in amazement. He didn’t understand.
‘Tell me,’ he whispered, ‘tell me.’
But she couldn’t speak. She could only look up at him, suddenly defenceless in a way that tore his heart.
‘Tell me,’ he pleaded again.
But their excitement was mounting again, driving him to move faster, harder until she cried out, clasping him to her as though she would hold him there forever. And he found himself wishing that she would do that.
As the world grew peaceful again he lay with his head against her, wondering at the web in which he was caught. She’d spoken of luring him in with spells, but her strongest spell was one she exercised unknowingly.
She could make him want to protect her. She could make him laugh. She was the most dangerous woman he’d ever known.
‘Strega,’ he murmured again.
She thumped him lightly on the shoulder. ‘You’re repeating yourself.’
‘I know. But it’s the right word. There’s nothing else to say.’
She chuckled, and the feel of her body shaking against him filled him with delight. She followed it with a long, contented sigh that almost destroyed his control, enough to make him take her again at that very moment, no nonsense, no preliminaries, no manners.
Her fingertips were feather-light against his face.
‘I wonder who won this time,’ she said drowsily.
You did, he thought. You snapped your fingers and I came running like a desperate schoolboy, because I’ve spent the last week haunted by you, sleepless because of you, angry with you because you wouldn’t go away even though you weren’t there.