Her Last Night of Innocence (14 page)

And then she was pulling away from him, stepping backwards, ducking her head so that her hair swung forward, hiding her face.

‘Alexander. I need to find him,’ she said in a choked voice, grabbing his coat and boots from the back of the car. And then she was gone.

Kate walked down the beach with rapid, furious strides, welcoming the roar of the waves in her head and the bitter sting of the wind against her cheeks.

Maybe it might bring her to her senses.

Of all the stupid, self-destructive, irresponsible things to do, kissing Cristiano in the car park had to be just about the most spectacular. Or letting him kiss her, she thought with an inward groan of misery and despair. To him, something as trivial as a kiss meant
nothing
—an image flashed into her mind of the girls she had seen at the Monaco Grand Prix four years ago, in their hotpants and bikini tops, draping themselves over the drivers—whereas to her…

To her it was oxygen to a flame that she was trying to extinguish, fuel for a fire that would consume her if she let it take hold again. He made her lose sight of reality. Of what was important.
Of Alexander
.

She would never make that mistake again.

Alexander was up ahead, running down towards the sea, occasionally wheeling back on himself to look at something on the sand or leaping over a rock. The tide was half out, and Kate’s heart turned over, aching with love as she watched his slender legs pounding the hard sand, his dark hair ruffled by the wind. She should have brought a hat for him, she thought anxiously. He’d get earache, or…

‘He looks pretty happy.’

Automatically she stiffened, steeling herself against the sexiness of that husky Italian drawl.

‘He looks cold.’

‘So do you.’

And the next thing she knew he had draped his coat over her shoulders, was taking off the whisper-soft cashmere scarf he was wearing. Hooking it around her neck, he pulled the ends of it so she was drawn closer to him, wrapping it around her. His narrow, slightly almond-shaped eyes were as warm and dark as an espresso. The heat of his body enfolded her, the scent of him filling her head.

‘You’re so busy looking after Alexander you forget to look after yourself.’

It was true, she realised. She had been so preoccupied with Alexander not wearing a coat that she’d forgotten to put hers on. The kiss hadn’t helped her think about practicalities like that either.

She closed her eyes. Oh, God, it was so hard, this staying strong, and she was so tired. So tired of waiting for the next disaster, being on high alert for the next life-threatening danger. So tired of fighting her feelings for him all the time.

‘Look, a
huge
jellyfish!’

Alexander’s voice reached her distantly, over the roar of the wind and waves. Instantly her eyes snapped open. ‘Don’t touch it!’ she called back, but Cristiano was already walking across to him, covering the sand quickly with his long strides. For a moment she watched him, mesmerised by the way the wind caught his hair and flattened his shirt against him, outlining the hard contours of the body she knew so well.

The body that had brought her such pleasure…In the pool at Monaco in the warm darkness of the Côte D’Azur night, and in the snowy silence of the Alpine chalet…Each time different, but every one so intense and exquisite that her body trembled just at her remembering…

Guiltily she jerked herself out of her mini-fantasy, and was about to follow when something stopped her. Cristiano and Alexander were both bending over the jellyfish on the sand, their faces wearing identical expressions of absorbed fascination. Cristiano had Alexander’s hand in his, imperceptibly
holding him back in case he should decide to try to pick it up…

And in that moment it struck her that for the first time in four years she wasn’t solely responsible for her son’s safety, or his happiness.

That, for now at least, she had someone to share the load.

The relief was almost overwhelming.

T
HE
tide came in, gradually covering the expanse of flat, smooth sand on which Cristiano and Alexander played chase and looked for driftwood and flat stones to skim into the waves. In the absence of a bucket and spade to build a sand-castle they had constructed an island, hollowing out a moat around it. Cristiano had been hugely amused when Alexander suggested that they put a racetrack on it, and they had become deeply involved in planning the perfect layout of straights and corners.

Straightening up, Cristiano was surprised to see how close the sea was, and to realise that the clouds had come in, covering the sun. He smiled wryly to himself. He was someone who measured out his life, his success, in thousandths of a second, and yet he’d been so fascinated by seeing the world through this little boy’s eyes that he’d completely lost track of time.

‘I think it’s time we went back to your
mamma
, don’t you?’

They began to walk back to where Kate was sitting in the shelter of the cliffs. He had been aware of her all the time, wrapped in his coat, her knees tucked up and her chin resting on them as she looked out to sea.

But since he’d been aware of her all the time he’d been away, he guessed that was hardly surprising. Even thousands of miles apart he’d found it impossible to stop wondering how she was, what she was doing.

At the far end of the beach a cluster of tiny greystone cottages huddled against the cliffs, as if cowering there from the pounding waves. Behind them the moors unfolded into the distance, a lonely expanse of green dotted with sheep and criss-crossed by uneven stone walls.

It was hardly the Amalfi coast, he thought sardonically, and yet there was something wild and beautiful about it. A quietness that caught you deep inside and made you want to come back. You could spend your life here and not get tired of watching the sea change colour and the shadows move across the hills.

His lips curved into a sudden self-mocking smile as he realised he wasn’t actually thinking of the landscape at all.

Alexander stopped suddenly, tugging on Cristiano’s arm as he bent to pick something up from the sand. It was a flat piece of grey rock, sharp and jagged, like slate.

‘Maybe a fossil?’ Alexander asked hopefully.

Cristiano turned it over in his hands, pretending to consider the possibility. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I take it to Mummy, just in case,’ Alexander said firmly, letting go of his hand and running forward.

‘Mummy! Quick, Mummy—look at this!’ he shouted as he got closer.

Kate raised her head quickly, an expression of alarm on her face as she stumbled to her feet. Too late Cristiano realised that she’d been asleep. There was a red mark on her cheek where it had been resting on her knees.

‘What?’

The anxiety was there again, sharpening her tone. Cristiano stepped forward, taking hold of her shoulders as she swayed slightly, holding her steady. ‘It’s fine. Just a stone, that’s all’.

He felt her relax then, becoming pliant beneath his hands. The concern that he was increasingly feeling for her instantly flared into something far less noble.

‘Maybe a fossil, Mummy,’ Alexander repeated importantly.
Oblivious to the sudden crackle of tension in the air, he held it out to her, his expression grave. ‘You check.’

Twisting from Cristiano’s grip, Kate took the stone, stumbling away from him to the rocks beneath the cliffs. Her heart was pounding, partly from the momentary panic she’d felt when she’d woken up and heard Alexander calling her like that, but mostly from Cristiano’s touch. She could just about cope with it when she was prepared, when the barriers were in place, but he’d caught her off guard just then, hazy with sleep, her head still filled with the images of him playing on the sand with Alexander.

She’d watched them for a long time before she’d closed her eyes, her heart aching as she’d seen the joy on her son’s face at having someone to play with him—
really
play, with the kind of carefree wholeheartedness that it seemed she was always too preoccupied to properly achieve. And seeing Cristiano—as beautiful as a sun-kissed god who had fallen to earth in the wrong place—standing with Alexander at the edge of the sea, the two of them outlined against the vastness of the ocean, had taken her breath away.

Gathering herself, she tapped the stone sharply against a rock until she felt it give a little, and then peeled it apart.

‘You’re right—look, there it is.’

She held it out. There on the dull grey surface was the faint but unmistakable outline of a leaf.

‘Yes!’ Alexander cried in triumph, running off again. ‘Now I find another one!’

Left alone, Cristiano came towards her, shaking his head ruefully. He was different here, she thought with a tug of wistful longing. The diamond-hard, competitive edge that defined and drove him had softened. The icy reserve he used to keep people at a distance had melted.

‘I admire him for not saying
I told you so
. I thought there was no way he could be right. It just looked like a lump of stone to me.’

Kate dropped her gaze. ‘Different’ also meant harder to resist.

She had been so determined to resist him, because she’d thought she was doing the best thing for Alexander. During those interminable hours when she had sat beside him in the hospital she had promised that she would never put herself, her own interests, first again.

But suddenly everything looked very different. Suddenly it felt as if this was the best thing for Alexander. The three of them—together.

‘There are lots of fossils down here.’ Her voice was slightly breathless, as if she’d spent the afternoon running on the beach too. ‘We find them every time we come.’

‘Really?’

She nodded, pulling his coat around her. ‘I bet you could find one within reach of where you’re standing.’

‘I never turn down a challenge.’

He bent and picked up a piece of jagged slate that was sticking up through the sand. ‘OK—let’s see if you’re right.’

He brought it over to her. Their fingers brushed as she took it from him, and Cristiano felt the tremor that ran through her body. It shook him like an earthquake. Quickly she hit the slate on the rock, and he watched her long, clever fingers work into the seams, opening it up like a book.

‘There—look.’ She held it out to him, her voice a low murmur. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Is there one?’ he said hoarsely. ‘I don’t see it.’

‘That’s because you’re not looking.’

Fixed on his, her eyes gleamed. There was a note of laughter in her voice that he hadn’t heard for a long time. It sounded good. It made him feel good to know that he had put it there, for a moment chasing away the shadows and the sharpness and the fear. A slow smile spread across his face.

‘I’m looking at something far more beautiful.’

They were standing in a hollow in the cliff face, sheltered from the wind and from the rest of the wide, empty beach. Impulsively, putting his hands flat against the rockface behind her, he made a prisoner of her, lowering his mouth to the angle of her jaw, sighing against the warmth of her skin.

‘Cristiano, we can’t…’

‘Can’t what?’ He spoke against her neck. ‘If you mean I can’t strip off those incredibly sexy jeans and make love to you right here on the sand, then I’d have to agree. We are, after all, parents, and although I’m pretty new at that I have an idea that would be pushing it too far. However, if you’re saying I can’t do this…’

He moved his lips along to her earlobe, biting it gently, breathing out a gentle sigh that made her gasp and giggle.

‘Stop. What about Alexander…?’

‘It will do him the greatest good to see his mother happy for a change. Almost as much good as it’ll do me to make you happy.’ He pressed a line of kisses along her jaw. ‘
Dio
, Kate, I want you. I spent every minute, every mile of that drive from Courchevel to Yorkshire wanting you. It’s all I could think of.’

Kate felt her resistance crumble, eroded away like the cliffs against her back by a force that was simply too great to withstand. With a whimpering sigh she let her head fall back, opening her mouth to him and bringing her hands up to grasp the collar of his shirt, her fists closing around it, twisting the fabric, pulling him closer as his lips worked their magic. His hands were cupping her face now, infinitely tender, warming her skin just as the strength of her longing was warming her from the inside. The noise of the wind was drowned out by the roaring of the blood in her ears, the pounding waves lost beneath the crashing of her heart as a tide of hot, slick desire swept through her.

‘Mummy, I got one!’

Alexander’s shout was like a bucket of cold water. Gasping, Kate pulled away just as Alexander came running around the jut of rock that had hidden them.

‘I got one—look!’

Cristiano regained his composure instantly, stepping forward to take the piece of stone from him, shielding Kate with his body long enough for her to gather herself.

‘
Fantastico
,’ he said gravely, looking down at the small
fragment of slate and tracing his fingertip over the delicate spiral imprint on its surface in a way that almost made Kate envy the long-extinct creature whose outline it was. He held it out to Alexander again. ‘Well done, fossil hunter. That’s the best one yet.’

‘It’s for you,’ Alexander said easily, stretching his arms out as he attempted to balance on one leg. ‘If you keep it in your pocket it will bring you good luck.’

‘
Grazie
.’

Alexander toppled over, landing with a bump in the soft sand. ‘What does
gratsy
mean?’

Cristiano went to sit beside him. His bare feet looked very tanned against the pale sand, but Kate noticed that they were just a couple of shades darker than Alexander’s. ‘It’s Italian for thank you.’

Alexander looked up at him, his brown eyes filled with curiosity. ‘Are you ’Talian?’

Cristiano met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘Yes.’

Oh, God. Kate felt as if invisible hands were closing around her throat as she looked on, knowing that the moment she had thought about, dreamed of, wished for and dreaded for four long years was bearing down on her like a giant tidal wave. She swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing as Alexander turned to her.

‘Mummy, am
I ’Talian?’

She met his artless chocolate-brown gaze directly. ‘You’re half-Italian,’ she said evenly, ‘and half British. Because I am British and—’

But Alexander had stopped listening. ‘Yippee—I’m same as you!’ he yelled, getting up in a shower of sand and throwing his arms around Cristiano’s neck. ‘Is it teatime soon? I’m hungry.’

Cristiano stood up in one effortless movement, Alexander clinging to him like a little monkey. Over his shoulder, Cristiano’s eyes met Kate’s.

‘So am I,’ he said softly. ‘Absolutely starving.’

They stopped at a little pub on the coast road, overlooking the stretch of grey sea to Whitby Abbey in the distance. It was too early for the main crowd of evening drinkers, but the flagstoned bar was already filling up with walkers and tourists who had read about the pub’s reputation for excellent food in one of the many restaurant guides. Even so, the landlord—who had seen the Campano turning into the car park and was a huge motor racing fan—showed Cristiano and Kate to the best table in the bay window, near to a glowing log fire. Alexander sat between them, his sandy legs swinging as he held a huge glass of Coca Cola in both hands.

‘He’ll still be bouncing off the walls at midnight if he drinks all that,’ Kate said with wry softness over his head.

‘
Dio
, really?’ Cristiano held her gaze for a long moment, the expression on his face changing from one of amused horror to something altogether more serious and intense. Then he bent his head to Alexander’s and whispered, ‘Your drink looks much nicer than mine. Could I share some?’

They ordered plates of fresh lobster and a bowl of thick golden chips, taking it in turns to pass bits of succulent pink meat to Alexander. Sipping ice-cold white wine in the warmth of the fire, Kate was aware that her cheeks were flushed and glowing.

But it was nothing compared to the way she felt inside, she acknowledged with a thud of helpless desire.

With Alexander between them, she and Cristiano didn’t touch at all, but she was painfully aware of his presence—the long fingers tearing into the pink flesh of the lobster, the length of his thigh on the velvet seat next to Alexander’s. Every now and then their eyes met over the top of their son’s head, and Kate was impaled with a longing so sharp she had to bite her lip to stop herself gasping out loud. Her mind raced ahead, counting the minutes until they could be alone.

Eventually, as Alexander was scraping the very last traces of chocolate ice-cream from his bowl, Cristiano got up to pay. Hazy with wine and warmth and need, Kate watched him walk across to the bar, ducking his head to avoid the beams,
her mouth going dry as she watched him pull his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans.

‘I like Cristiano,’ said Alexander wistfully beside her.

‘So do I,’ Kate said softly, gathering him up into her arms and holding him very tightly. ‘So do I.’

None of them spoke on the way home. The magic of the day hung like a fragile spell over them all.

Sitting beside Cristiano in the passenger seat, Kate felt her whole body screaming out for his touch. Unconsciously she seemed to gravitate towards him, so that as he changed gear his hand brushed her knee, making lust explode inside her like a meteor shower bright enough to light up the black moors spread out all around them. She didn’t dare glance across at his perfect profile, outlined by the lights of passing cars. Already she was hanging onto control by a thread.

Alexander’s head was drooping with tiredness, but he snapped back into full consciousness as Cristiano pulled up outside the house. Blinking, he looked around him.

‘Home?’

‘Yes, home,’ Kate said, undoing her seatbelt and trying desperately to sound normal. ‘And it’s bedtime for you. Come on, let’s get you inside and brush your teeth.’

As she leaned awkwardly into the back of the car to undo the straps on his car seat her fingers tangled with Cristiano’s, leaning in from the other side to scoop him up and carry him inside. Electricity crackled between them.