Sins of the Past (11 page)

They barely touched on that subject at all.

‘How long is it since you’ve been on a date, Riva?’

Over her chicken salad, she eyed him warily. He outstripped every other man in the restaurant, she thought, with that air of ruthless confidence, those incredible looks, and that animal restlessness about him that even the dark designer suit couldn’t quit tame. ‘Is this what this is? A date?’

‘No,’ he said categorically, making her feel like a fool. ‘Of course, if you’re hankering after one with me …’

‘Most definitely not!’

He laughed softly at the flush staining her cheeks, her staunch denial of wanting any intimate involvement with him. ‘How long has it been?’ he persisted.

She shrugged. ‘Who cares? I don’t. And I can’t say I’ve lost much sleep trying to keep a record.’

‘Has there been anyone since Ben’s father?’

She stiffened, but said casually, ‘Not really.’ What the heck did it matter if he knew she didn’t date? she thought broodingly, noticing the complacency in the firming of that far too sexy mouth. Why should it concern her if he derived some sort of warped satisfaction from knowing that?

‘Were you planning to marry him?’

‘No.’

‘And yet you had a child.’

She looked down at her plate to hide the tension that was suddenly gripping her.

‘Wasn’t that rather irresponsible?’ he remarked.

‘This is the twenty-first century, Damiano. Believe it or not, women actually choose whether they want to marry or not!’

‘So you chose not?’

‘There isn’t a law against it, is there?’ she snapped, wishing he would drop the subject.

‘I just wondered what you do when you have to go away.’

She had often worried about the same thing, but all she said was, ‘It hasn’t happened yet?’

‘But with your job it’s likely. Exhibitions. Further training courses. The possibility of working further afield. Supposing a client required you to shoot off to New York or Paris or …?’ Those long hands were turned outwards as he shook his head, searching for words. ‘Some other such place to assess a particular product he wanted?’

Riva’s heart did a double-flip. What was he suggesting? ‘Are you saying that would be a problem? That my having a child somehow adversely affects my capabilities and the possibility of who engages me or not?’ So Olivia had been right. He
did
frown on the fact that his design manager was a single mother.

He’s yours, you bastard!

She wanted to fling it at him, watch his scandalously attractive and arrogant face change when she hit him with it. She had to protect herself, though, from the shame and humiliation of his ever finding out. And Ben. Most of all she had to protect Ben.

Feigning an air of calm, she told him, ‘If I could take him with me, I would. If I couldn’t, then I simply wouldn’t go. If, however, it was absolutely imperative, and I could see no other way to avoid it, then Kate would look after him.’

‘Kate?’

‘She’s Ben’s childminder. She’s also my friend.’

That angular jaw hardened as he picked up his glass, swallowed the remains of his wine. ‘So you’d farm him out?’ He set his glass back on the table. ‘It doesn’t seem the most satisfactory way to bring up a child.’

‘I’m not
farming him out,
as you put it!’ Riva countered defensively, feeling the bars of two cages of guilt closing around her now. ‘Just because you were privileged, you think life’s just as hunky-dory for everybody else! Well, it isn’t, Damiano. Some of us have to struggle. The rest of us manage as best we can!’

Surprisingly, she was near to tears and, noticing that, Damiano felt a reluctant softening towards her.

It would be so easy to let this lovely young woman get under his skin, he accepted grimly. But that didn’t alter the fact that together she and her mother would have stitched up Marcello for every penny he had—he was still certain of that; probably stitched him up too if he had been foolish enough to let himself fall victim to this beautiful redhead’s charms. Because he could have done so—and easily—had she but known it.

‘I was merely trying to establish how you run your life, Riva,’ he expressed quietly, allowing that moment of weakness to pass.

Having put down her knife and fork, not hungry any more, absently she stroked the rim of her plate with her forefinger. ‘I didn’t know Mum was going to die.’ Her chest swelled painfully beneath the white smock top she had teamed with fitted black jeans. ‘Naturally it was easier when she was around.’

‘Of course.’ His tone was surprisingly subdued, even when he went on to remark, ‘But somehow I don’t see the woman I remember slipping easily into that role.’

Riva’s head came up in a bright blaze of colour. ‘Because you’re so prejudiced towards her. You always were. But she did,’ she informed him emphatically, and then, with a greater degree of passion, ‘When she was still happy and healthy enough to enjoy it.’

Of course, Damiano thought, feeling the censure that was coming off her in waves. She blamed
him
for bringing about the woman’s tragic demise.

Having finished his own meal some time ago, he leaned forward with his arms folded on the table. ‘What actually happened, Riva?’

That surprisingly sympathetic note made her look at him enquiringly. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her sadness was so palpable he could almost touch it.

Lowering her gaze, because his was so direct and probing,

Riva took a deep breath. ‘She’d always been prone to depression.’ There. She had said it. She felt as though a huge weight had suddenly slipped from her shoulders with the acceptance that her mother’s own make-up had been self-destructive—even if it did make her feel as though she was letting him off the hook a little by saying it, she thought. But at that moment she was too lost in her regrets to care. ‘When I had Ben she seemed better for a while, but then she stopped eating properly—didn’t want to get up in the mornings. She also started drinking,’ she murmured, so quietly that above the other sounds in the restaurant Damiano could only just make out what she said.

‘That must have been hard.’

‘Yes, it was.’

She couldn’t believe she was opening up to him like this, but perhaps, she considered, it was because he listened. Whatever else he had done, how unscrupulous he was, he
listened,
while often other people were too busy thinking about what they were going to say next to take any real interest in what was being said to them. It was one of the most admirable things she had loved about him—and, as it turned out, the most treacherous.

‘She was like my sister rather than my mother, yet she always did what was best for me,’ she enlarged fervently, determined that he should know. ‘She pushed me every step of the way—with my interests, my education—sacrificing dates, relationships, her own life, so that I could make the most of mine. She was strong in lots of ways, but in others she was … so vulnerable …’ She tried to swallow the lump that seemed lodged in her throat. She would never—ever—let him see her cry. ‘When she read that Marcello had died, it seemed to push her over the edge.’ Painfully, she thought of her once effervescent, impetuous and often girlish parent, comparing her with the despairing wreck of a creature she’d become. ‘She loved him,’ she concluded fervently, meeting his eyes
with such candid opposition that it seemed to bounce back at her from the fiercely intent impact of his.

Emotions were running high. Hers. His. But there were too many harboured passions to be vented over a public table; too many pulsing frustrations that were throbbing for release.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Damiano rasped, getting up and tossing notes down on the table. Catching her hand, he tugged her unceremoniously to her feet.

He didn’t speak as he drove the Porsche with uncustomary speed into the open countryside, his mouth a grim line of determination, his hard jaw cast in stone.

He brought the car to a standstill in a quiet copse some way off the main highway.

What are you doing?

She didn’t say it. She already knew. They had unleashed a demon back there in that restaurant, and she had been the one who had turned the lock on its dark, incarcerating cell.

As he leaned across her she knew that he was going to kiss her—knew that she couldn’t have prevented it even if she had wanted to.

As his arms came around her and his mouth covered hers she was caught up in a furore of feelings she hadn’t known she was capable of.

The rasp of his jaw against hers ignited a fire in her blood; his masculine scent and the hard warmth of his body were things she had known and craved in the darkest corners of her dreams, which now brought her wriggling against him for even closer contact with him.

She didn’t want to fight him! Only in the way she knew she could win—or at least reach some amnesty with him—in a mutual enslavement of the senses. Even though it would demean and devastate her—because it would devastate him too, bend him to her femininity, subjugate him in his need for her, and because—dear heaven!—she wanted him to need her! Wanted him to want her as much as she wanted him!

With a betraying sob in her throat, she gave into those
darkest desires, her mouth moving hungrily beneath his, her fingers catching in the thick hair that skimmed his collar to pull him closer to her, holding him there while her eager tongue explored and blended with his.

At her abandoned response he shifted his position slightly, to make it more comfortable for them both, his fingers making short shrift of the few buttons of her top.

A small gasp escaped her as his hand slid inside it and his long warm fingers closed around her breast beneath its lacy cup.

‘Damiano …’

One who subdues and tames.

The phrase leaped into her consciousness but she didn’t care, because this was what she wanted—what she had always wanted, she accepted now—as he slipped an arm under her slender back to raise the burgeoning tip of one breast to his swooping mouth.

His hot suckling action sent spears of need piercing down through her body, setting her on fire with their sizzling heat and making that most secret part of her slick with honeyed moistness.

He had hurt her the first time, but he wouldn’t hurt her now, she thought wildly, her mind racing with the thought of him entering her—possessing her—until she was filled with him: his need, his desire, the pulsing heat of that most intimate part of his body.

But they were in his car.

She gave a raw gasp as his fingers found her other breast, teasing the pale orb at its centre into excruciating sensitivity.

‘Damiano, please …’

His soft laughter fanned the upper swell of the smooth pale mound he was fondling. ‘Damiano, yes? Or Damiano, stop?’

He didn’t, though, and Riva closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the pure pleasure he was creating for her—a
man she shouldn’t even have been talking to, and yet whose lovemaking she craved with every weak, betraying cell in her body.

‘I hate you,’ she breathed laboriously.

‘I know.’ There was no regret or smugness in his voice, just pure acceptance of how things were.

The sharp, guttural sound she made mocked her defiant little statement as his hand moved across her abdomen, applying gentle pressure as it rested there. Her uncontrolled arousal was a throbbing he could surely feel, she thought hectically, feeling it herself as a tight, tense contracting in her loins, right down to the pulsing ache between her thighs.

His experienced fingers moved across her pubic bone, cupping her femininity, their warmth burning even through her jeans to the small throbbing bud beneath her briefs.

As his mouth closed over hers again she jerked convulsively against him, her legs moving restlessly, her body aching for the ultimate pleasure she craved.

But there were other ways to attain it. He knew it, and he was making it happen for her. Already she could feel the uncontrollable sensations starting to build.

Moving wildly against that sinfully skilled hand, she turned her face into his immaculate collar to stop herself crying out as wave after wave of sensation poured out of her, leaving her hot and gasping and utterly, utterly ashamed.

She couldn’t look at him as she moved back to her own side of the car, swiftly began buttoning up her blouse.

‘A strange thing, is it not? he commented wryly. ‘Hate.’

Apart from a flush across his cheeks he looked coolly immaculate, unaffected in comparison, his white shirt-cuff a stark contrast against the long tanned hand that had pleasured her as he sat there, idly adjusting his rearview mirror.

Perhaps that was why he had parked here and not taken her back to the Old Coach House, she thought suddenly. Because this way he could still retain his command over her—still remain in control.

She despised him in that moment only marginally more than she despised herself.

‘I want to go home,’ she said stiffly.

Walking to his car from a meeting with his board that evening, Damiano was looking forward to his game of squash.

It had been a long meeting, with some constructive issues thrashed out, but it had been an even longer, seemingly endless afternoon since he had dropped Riva back at the Old Coach House and watched her race indignantly away in her little car.

She professed to hate him, and yet she couldn’t stop this thing that was happening between them any more than he could. It had always been there, he thought, if he was honest with himself. This chemistry, or whatever it was that still drove him along avenues he shouldn’t even have been exploring. Such was her hold over him—because it
was
a hold, even though he was trying to stay ahead of the game, remain impervious to her particular appeal. And it was an appeal such as he had never known with a member of her sex before. And heaven knew he had known enough!

But there was a naïveté about her, he decided, that seemed at odds with someone who had been involved in relationships—or one at least—and who was also a mother and a very determined career woman. He had to face it. She was an enigma from start to finish.

He had been surprised, too, by the things she had related to him about her mother, painting a picture of someone remarkably different from the money-grabbing blonde who had tried to snare Marcello.