Unguarded Moment (12 page)

At first, his mouth brushed hers gently as a butterfly's wing, as tantalising as a summer breeze, and it was not enough—she wanted more as she swayed forward until the tips of her breasts touched the hard muscular wall of his body in an almost intolerable friction.

Liam must have been aware of her arousal, yet he made no apparent attempt to deepen his caresses, at least not at first. Instead, he laid a trail of little kisses on her eyelids, her temples, the corners of her mouth, and the soft throbbing pulse in her throat before returning once more to her mouth, his tongue stroking gently and sensually along the swollen fullness of her lower lip.

His hand lifted slowly to cradle the nape of her neck, his fingers opening a path of bewitchment from the lobe of her ear, down the curve of her throat to her shoulder.

Alix was trembling, her breathing suddenly shallow and erratic as she fought to retain some semblance of sanity. She had been kissed before, but never with this slow, insidious beguilement which was transforming her shaking body into one long ache of yearning. She was confused too. She wanted the evidence that the passion he was rousing in her was reciprocated. She wanted his arms to hold her tightly, the pressure of his mouth to deepen, she wanted to venture into realms which as yet existed only in her imagination, she wanted to unlock for him all the treasures of the innocent kingdom she had hitherto guarded with such care—guarded, she realised now, just for this moment, and this man.

She arched herself blindly towards him, lifting her arms up round his neck. She heard the huskiness of her own voice as she whispered, 'Love me.'

And felt unbelievably him step away from her. Her dinging arms were detached, and she was set at a distance—a small one, it was true, but no less chilling for that.

Her eyes flew open in shock and met his. He was smiling rather oddly, and his voice was cool as he said, 'An enlightening interlude—for both of us, I'd say. What a pity it has to end so soon.'

Alix thought she would die of shame. The tenderness she had imagined in his kiss, in his touch had vanished, and only mockery remained. She lifted her hands and pressed them against her burning cheeks, as she registered the implications of what had happened. An interlude, he had said. That was all. He wasn't a fool. He had picked up her physical awareness of him, and decided to indulge it for a while—as .if she was a child to be placated with sweets, because she wasn't old enough for more adult enjoyments.

She said, 'On the contrary, it was a pity it ever began.'

His mouth twisted. 'That's an attitude that belongs with a crinoline, darling, and not with the few square inches of material that you're wearing. Haven't you realised that our rather dubious privacy is about to be invaded?'

She hadn't realised anything of the sort, she thought miserably, because she'd been aware of nothing but him. She could hear the voices and the approaching footsteps —now, of course. She only wished she had heard them minutes before, and that she had been the one to step back, before she allowed herself to utter that disastrous and humiliating plea.

She went past him and picked up her towel, trying to conceal the fact that she was still shaking.

Carlo said genially, 'So here you are, my friends. Tell me, Miss Coulter—no, I cannot call you that—so cold, so formal. I shall call you Alix, is it not so? Did you enjoy your swim?'

'It was wonderful,' Alix managed to inject a note of false enthusiasm into her voice. 'Just what I needed.' She didn't even glance at Liam. Instead her gaze was riveted on the girl who had accompanied Carlo. Long blonde hair and violet silk made her instantly recognisable. What Alix hadn't fully appreciated from the car was her beauty. Her skin was the colour of honey, and her eyes were golden brown fringed by long lashes artificially darkened. She had a small straight nose, and a smiling, voluptuously curved mouth.

'
This is my little Paola,' Carlo announced.
'
I know that you two will be friends.'

Alix doubted it. Paola's smile was perfectly amiable as she greeted Alix, and murmured that it was a pleasure to meet her, but that was as far as it went. Paola was a man's woman, and every sidelong look from those amazing eyes, every movement of that perfectly curved body proclaimed the fact, to her own evident satisfaction.

She replied to Paola's civil questions on whether this was her first visit to Italy with equal politeness and popped in a question of her own.

'Did you enjoy your sightseeing this afternoon?'

For a moment Paola looked blank, and then she laughed. 'Ah—the village. That church.' She gave a charming shrug. 'Perhaps—but one church is like another. It is Liam who is interested in such things, not I.' Smiling, she drifted towards Liam and kissed him on the cheek. '
Ciao, caro
.'

Alix found herself saying stiltedly, 'If you'll excuse me, I must go and get dressed. Bianca will be wondering where I am.'

'I don't think so. Miss Montgomery has arrived and is with her. I have asked Giovanni to bring drinks down to the pool. We are going to swim now. Stay with us,' Carlo urged.

'No, really.' Alix shook her head. 'If—if Monty is here, that means the luggage is here too, and I should unpack—retrieve my own swimwear,' she added rather wildly.

Carlo's smile widened. 'Why, when the one you have chosen is so suitable and so becoming? But if you insist, then we must let you go. Maria Battista will bring your iced tea to your room. Ring when you are ready for it.'

Alix thanked him, and hurriedly fetched her clothes from the changing room, wrapping the towel round her like a sarong while she made her way indoors.

When she reached her room, she found that her case had already been unpacked, and her belongings stowed -in the row of fitted wardrobes which filled one wall, while her toiletries had been bestowed in the pink and ivory bathroom which opened off the bedroom. Early in her career as Bianca's secretary, she had learned that it was part of her duties to travel lightly, and that it was her aunt who was always surrounded by a complete set of matched luggage.

Consequently, the few clothes she had brought with her looked rather lost in all that space.

And that's just as it should be, Alix thought forlornly, as she stripped off the bikini with something like loathing, and wrapped herself in her cotton housecoat. Because she herself felt lost and utterly alone.

A cool shower and the promised iced tea revived her a little. She chose a dress to wear to dinner, then put it back and picked another one at random, tossing it on to the bed. It wasn't as in any way becoming as her first choice, but that was all to the good. She was here to work, which was something she had lost sight of for a while.

She had come disastrously close to making a complete fool of herself in Liam's arms. He had been right when he said it had been enlightening. It had enlightened Alix as to how dangerously lacking in sophistication she was. His jibe about the crinoline had been well founded, she thought, flushing. Her every reaction had been Victorian, and it was no excuse to blame the devastating and unexpected effect he had had on her senses and emotions. She had behaved like a naive schoolgirl, when all Liam had wanted was a few moments' amusement before his girlfriend showed up.

It was little wonder he couldn't wait to get her out of his arms, and no wonder at all that his antennae had been so finely tuned to the others' approach. He had been expecting them.

How embarrassed he must have been when she threw herself at him, Alix thought, deliberately mortifying himself. The last thing he wanted was her clinging to him when Paola was only a few yards away. She was probably like a tigress when her jealousy and anger were aroused.

She had shampooed her hair while she was in the shower, and now she sat on the dressing stool near the open window, blowing the soft strands dry with a hairdryer she had discovered in one of the bathroom cupboards. She found the action soothing, but at the same time she could not help despising herself. New washed hair, however soft and shining, was no competition for Paola's dazzling blonde beauty.

But she wasn't competing, anyway, she reminded herself forcefully. From the moment she had met Liam, she had been attracted and disturbed by him, but she had to face the fact that the attraction was all on her side. He had kissed her probably because she had signalled so unmistakably that she wanted to be kissed, she acknowledged wryly, and because she had been next door to naked. But it had been the impulse of a moment with him, and certainly not a sign that he wanted any deeper kind of relationship with her.

She switched off the hairdryer and laid it down, wondering as she do so how Liam had kissed Bianca. Had his mouth moved over her face in the same gentle sensuous exploration, or with a surging passion which would have demanded and obtained an equal response?

She shivered, catching the softness of her lower lip fiercely between her teeth. There was no place in her life for such speculation, when it brought this kind of pain in its wake. It was none of her business what Liam did with Bianca. He was a man of the world, and presumably took his pleasure where he found it without commitment. In this, he and Bianca were two of a kind. All the same, Alix couldn't guarantee that her mercurial aunt would accept with equanimity his reappearance in her life with a much younger and equally glamorous girlfriend in tow.

A line from an old Hollywood film she had seen on television and enjoyed came forcibly into her mind. '
Fasten your seat-belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride
.'

She brushed her hair so that it swung in a shining curve around her face, and applied her usual minimal makeup with maximum care and attention, highlighting her eyes and cheekbones.

Her dress was russet brown in a soft crepe material with a full skirt and long sleeves edged by deep cuffs in cream broderie anglaise, with a matching collar at the high neck. It dated from her demure period, but was none the worse for that, Alix thought with a little sigh. Demureness was easier to handle than provocation any day. Besides, she didn't want to add to what was threatening to turn into an explosive situation by aggravating Bianca.

And that's not cowardice, she told herself with a kind of desperate gaiety, it's self-preservation.

Giovanni was waiting in the hall when she went down the stairs and he showed her into a large
salotto
where cocktails were waiting, he told her.

It was a beautiful room, Alix thought approvingly. One wall seemed composed entirely of glass, with windows which opened on to the terrace. Its focal point was a raised fireplace in the centre of the room, unlit at this time of year, with a dramatic copper canopy above it. Further drama was supplied by the pictures which hung on the plain cream walls. Most of them were modern and abstract, but among them Alix thought she recognised a Cezanne.

Apart from Giovanni, expertly mixing her the dry Martini she had asked for, the only other occupant of the room was Leon, sitting on one of the low silk-covered sofas and gazing into a gin and tonic as if it was a crystal ball with bad news.

She felt sorry for him. Leon was a business man first and last. He had handled Bianca's career and contracts with flair, but he had little idea how to cope with her on a personal level, Alix had often suspected. He was a happily married man who enjoyed sailing and golf with his family at weekends, and Alix had often thought that Bianca's way of living her life shocked him, and outraged his conventional sense of morality. He would be totally baffled by the undercurrents at the villa.