Still Falling (12 page)

“Thank you,” she whispered, looking down
at her hands in her lap.

“For what?”

“For helping earlier.”

Silently Marco slowed the boat to
navigate the islands small marina.
 
After
docking and securing the boat, he sat back and looked at her.
 
The Sun was just coming up over the horizon
and the first fingers of light were caressing the now very loose locks of hair,
turning them to brilliant copper.
 
Her
face was still down turned and looking strained.
 
Leaving the captains swivel chair, he knelt
before her, lifting her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes.

“I should have done this a long time
ago.”
 
He said leaning forward to kiss
her gently.
 
Her lips were soft and warm
despite the cold early morning air.
 
He
couldn’t be certain if it was the cold morning air or reaction to his touch,
but she shivered ever so slightly.
 
He
pulled back just far enough to take in her face.
 
To give her a chance to
protest.
 
Her dark lips were
parted slightly and her breath escaped in small wintery wisps.
 
Serena leaned forward just a fraction, her
eyes covered by their delicate framed lids.
 
The invitation was more than he could take.
 
Pulling her thin frame into his arms he
buried his face against her neck, breathing in the faint fragrance of
Jasmine.
 
His lips sought out the soft
hollow where her heart fluttered its frantic pulse just below the skin.
 
His hands gently opened the front of the
Tuxedo jacket he had lent her, and slid a hand through and around to caress the
bare skin on her back.

Serena lifted her face to the cloudless
sky.
 
His warm breath was like velvet in
contrast to the crisp air and her skin came alive under his lips.
 
Her hands left the safety of her lap and
began to explore.
 
She wound her fingers
through his thick short hair, whishing it were long enough for her to grasp
properly and was pleased to hear him gasp in response.
 
Her only thoughts were of here and now.
 
Of the assault on her
senses.
 
Her skin tingled where
his fingers softly stroked her back the length of her spine whilst his other
hand held her head in place.
 
His jaw
scraped against her skin as his lips traced her neck from her ear lobe down to
her collar bone, the mix of soft and prickly causing a myriad of
sensation.
 
In the briefest of moments he
pulled her down onto his lap, so they were both on the floor, trapped in the
walkway between the pilot and co-pilots swivel seats.
 

His fingers deftly loosened the rest of
her hair which tumbled around her shoulders like a silk veil and grasping a
handful he tilted her head back and claimed her mouth as his.
 
Her lips parted at his insistence and her
tongue met his feverishly, drawing the kiss ever deeper.
 
Still on his knees and holding her hips on
his lap with one strong arm he shifted slightly, pushing his arousal gently
against her side.
 
They both groaned as
one.

Her arousal was fierce and burning her
up inside, made even all the more sweet at the knowledge that she was having
the same effect on him.

“Serena,” he gasped, coming up for
air.
 
“Why did you run?”

He felt her stiffen under his hands a
moment before she pushed herself off his lap, stumbled out the boat and took
off like a frightened deer to the car park.
 
His question had brought her cruelly to her senses, reminding her who
she was dealing with.
 
She didn’t get far
before she realised there was nowhere to go.
 
Her car was on the main land as was the jeep and she couldn’t walk the
entire length of the island in the delicate, heeled sandals she was
wearing.
 
So angry and frustrated and
still panting hard, Serena waited quietly by the car park entrance.
 
Marco pulled up along side Serena a minute or
two later.
 
He said nothing to her as he
handed her his helmet and waited for her to fasten it.
 
She then climbed onto the back of the cream
BMW R1200C motorcycle.
 

He still said nothing when she preferred
to lean back and grasp a metal support behind her instead of wrapping her arms
around his waist.
 
Marco rode back to the
estate slowly to keep the cold wind down and pulled right up to the door of the
cottage.
 
Neither of them had said a word
since she flew off the boat and Serena refused to even look at him.
  
She now muttered
a quiet
thanks, before bounding into the cottage and closing the door firmly behind
her.

Thankfully Serena wasn’t given much time
to deal with her riotous emotions as nausea distracted her again.
 
Marco on the other hand wished desperately
that he could find distraction.
 

He parked the motorcycle, which never
left the island, in a set of garages next to his father’s Phantom, and his own
pride and joy, a black 1954, Mercedes 300 SL.
 
He paused to admire the sleek classic lines of the two
door
, two seat, sports car before moving onto the
Phantom.
 
His father had loved the two door
convertible and his mother had bought it for her husband as an anniversary
present shortly before he became ill.
 
Its
large typical Rolls Royce front grille and over lavish
interior was not his style, but like his father’s study, he just couldn’t bring
himself to part with it.
 
Switching off
the garage lights he strode purposely upstairs to shower.
 

His intension had been to settle down
and check through some financial reports that his accountants had sent over
yesterday.
 
Drying
himself
briskly and pulling on an old pair of really worn jeans he made himself a
coffee and settled down in his study.
 
He
had read through five pages before he realised that he had no idea what he had
just read.
 
Brushing his hands through
his hair he swung his swivel chair round to face the window.
 
The mid autumn morning sun cast bright light
over the garden and the flawless azure sky stretched out for ever.
 
Just beyond the cliffs edge the dark Mediterranean
Sea spread out into the distance.
 
A pattern of small white caps dancing in the sun for eternity.
  

He picked up his coffee and headed out a
small French door that leads directly onto the expanse of garden.
 
Still barefoot, the damp dew covered grass
was cold between his toes and the sun wasn’t high enough to combat the cool
breeze.
 
Goose flesh covered his bare
arms and torso.
 
He ignored the cold
discomfort and strode across the lawn to the rock platform overlooking the
cove.
 
He needed to clear his head!

Back in the cottage, Serena had finally
left the bathroom.
 
She had changed from
her evening wear into a T-shirt and leggings and was leaning out her open
bedroom window, taking deep cleansing breaths to steady her stomach and her
soul.
 
Feeling a little better, she
wondered if she could handle a walk to the beach while it was still quiet.
 
That was when she saw Marco.
 

My
God that infuriating man is heaven on legs.
 

Hypnotised by the sight of him she
didn’t even notice her own breathing step up a pace or the rhythm of her heart
pounding in her ears.
 
He was not a muscle
bound athlete who spent hours in the gym.
 
He was slender but well defined.
 
In the winter he spent a lot of time skiing in the Alps
and in the summer kayaking, equally at home on flat placid lake waters as he
was in rushing white water, rivers.
 
This
alone kept him fit.
 
She blushed as she
wondered if either activity did much for his stamina, juggling three women at a
time like the media suggested.
 

He was still tanned from the summer and
with his back to the morning sun he glowed like a bronze statue.
 
Her eyes gazed at the way his broad, strong
shoulders tapered down to his narrow waist and then his hips, small love
handles visible just above his low slung, white jeans.
 
Remembering how the gentle curves and dips of
his muscles had felt as they rippled beneath her fingers.
 
The rest of him was obscured by garden
foliage but it didn’t stop her mind from filling in the blanks from either
memory or imagination.
 

She remembered seeing him like this the
morning of her graduation party.
 
She had
woken up early in excitement and was leaning out her bedroom window, testing
the air.
 
She had spotted Marco standing
on that same spot, looking out to sea with his coffee.
 
Then too, he had worn nothing but a pair of
faded old jeans.
 
Possibly
the same jeans.
 
He wore his hair
much longer then and it fell over the top of his ears and down his neck in soft
thick waves.
 
He never let it get to his
shoulders though.
 
On that morning there
had been a soft breeze.
 
Too far away to
see details, Serena had imagined the breeze fanning the loose locks of hair on
his forehead, playing with it the way she wanted to.
   

She so wished it was Marco she was
taking as her date to the party that night, but she didn’t think Marco would
want to spend his afternoon with a bunch of public school kids when he had
finished his own school career six years earlier.
 
Besides, why would he want to go anywhere
with her?
 
She was still just a teenager
finishing school and he was all grown up and running
a
internationally renowned fashion house.
 
So when one of her class mates, an Austrian
exchange student called Franz had asked her to be his date, she had
agreed.
 
Franz was alright.
 
He was funny and popular with the rest of the
class.
 
They both knew it would be
nothing more than a friendly date for the evening as Franz would be returning
to Austria
now that the school year was over.

Watching him now she found herself
wondering when last he had smiled.
 
Not
the polite smiles to the cameras when out in public.
 
The ones she regularly saw in print.
 
No, she wondered when last he had smiled
properly.
 
Like the carefree, spirited
Marco she had known before his parents died.
 
She wished she could understand how she had thought back then that there
might ever be something between them.
 

Had she been so blindly in love that she
couldn’t see and kindness, sharing or assumed closeness was just Marco being
polite?
 
Was it really
because she was the daughter of the hired help, or was she really just a
conquest that didn’t live up to standard.
 
His whole family had always been very
generous and friendly to her and her mother.
 
To all the staff actually.
 
She never thought of them to be the type that
would think of the staff as just ‘hired help’.
 

Marco finally turned to walk back to the
house, his head low and his stride slow but purposeful.
 
Serena quietly closed her window and went in
search of her mother.

Three weeks had passed since the charity
auction and Serena was due to have her last Chemo session this morning.
 
She had gained a little weight but more
thanks to the additional medication the doctor had her on than anything she had
been eating.
 

Tony was due to pick her up in an hour
and Serena’s mother was making a huge fuss over Serena’s lack of appetite for
breakfast.
 
Standing now at the kitchen
window, Serena’s eyes were drawn across the lawns to the main house.
 
Marco had not been there since that fateful
early morning when they had returned from the Auction.
 
Her mother told her he had gone to Milan and then London
to attend to business and would be gone several months.
 

Why then was there a car in the
drive?
  
She had begun to enjoy knowing
she could come and go without him watching and questioning her every move.
 
Serena turned from the window and froze.
 
Slowing turning back she stared in horror at
the scene playing out before her.
 
On the balcony of one of the upstairs bedrooms, stood Michelle.
 
Grasping the handrail, face turned up in
obvious bliss and not a trace of clothing.
 
Slightly obscured behind her with one arm around her waist and his dark
head bent over her shoulder to nuzzle her neck was Marco!