One Night: Red-Hot Secrets

‘Yes, he really is,’ Louise confirmed for the umpteenth time.

‘And now we’re going to live here and you are going to get married?’

‘Yes, but only if that’s what you want.’

Louise still felt it would be far better to give Oliver more time to adjust to the fact that Caesar was his father and to get to know him more before any future commitments were made, but Oliver, it seemed, shared his father’s views on the subject of them immediately forming a legal family bond—as he had made very plain to her.

‘You and Dad will get married soon and we’ll all live together here like a proper family, won’t we?’ he pressed her.

‘Yes,’ Louise agreed hollowly, before reminding him, ‘It will mean a big change for you, Ollie. You’ve got your schoolfriends in London, and …’

‘I’d rather be here with Dad and you. Besides, they were always asking me why I didn’t know who my father was and making jokes about me. I’m glad that I look like him. Billy’s dad said so when he saw us together. I look more like him than I do you. Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I was waiting until you were older, Ollie.’

‘Because you’d quarrelled and he didn’t know about me?’

‘Yes.’

Watching him stifle a yawn, Louise could see that the events of the day were catching up with him. Switching off the lamp, she walked out onto the small balcony, closing the door behind her to give Oliver time to fall asleep.

Watching Ollie with Caesar earlier, she’d had to admit against her will how alike they were—not just in looks but somehow in temperament and mannerisms as well. It was as though being with his father had brought to life that proud lordly Sicilian male inheritance that was so much a part of Caesar’s personality. No one seeing them together earlier could have doubted that they were father and son. But what had surprised her most of all, when it had been time for them to part, had been the unexpected but totally natural way in which Caesar had hugged his son, and Ollie, who was normally so wary of being touched even by her, had hugged him back.

For a handful of seconds watching them together she had actually felt shut out and excluded. Afraid that Ollie would form such a strong bond with his father that he would resent and blame her if she tried to delay things. Ollie was too young to understand that all she wanted to do was to protect him from any possible future hurt.

But Ollie wasn’t the only one Caesar had embraced before he left.

It was a warm balmy evening, and there was no real need for her to give that small shudder as she walked out onto the balcony—unless of course it was because her flesh was remembering the way in which Caesar had turned to her after he had hugged Ollie goodnight, his hands curling round her upper arms, bare beneath the cream wrap she had worn over a plain cream dress. She didn’t have many formal clothes. There was no need, given her almost non-existent social life, and the dress was only a simple linen shift—nowhere near as glamorous as some of the outfits she had seen other hotel guests wearing. It was three years old, and she had noticed that it was hanging a little loosely on her, but then that was surely only natural with the upset both she and Ollie had suffered with the death of her grandfather.

What surely wasn’t natural, though, was the way in which her own hands had now moved to the place where Caesar’s had held her upper arms before he had leaned towards her in the privacy of the corridor after he had escorted them both to their room, the height and muscular leanness of his body blotting out the light. She could feel the self-conscious burn of angry embarrassment heating her skin even though she was alone on the balcony. How stupid it had been of her to close her eyes like that—as though … as though in anticipation of his kiss. What she had really wanted to do was blot out his image, just as given the chance she would like to blot Caesar himself out of their lives completely.

A fresh shudder ripped through her as she relived the sensation of Caesar’s warm breath against her face, the unexpected smoothing movement of the pads of his thumbs against the vulnerable flesh of her arms, her awareness in every pore of her physical proximity to him and how once she would have given anything and everything for that proximity. And that was the reason—the only possible reason—why she had felt that telltale unstoppable rush of overpowering female awareness of him as a man rushing through her body. It was a reaction that belonged to her past. It meant nothing now. It certainly could not be allowed to mean anything.

The shudder that gripped her was one of self-revulsion. And fear? No! She had nothing to fear in any kind of reaction she might have to Caesar Falconari. And that ache that had permeated her body so treacherously? A delusion. Nothing more, brought on by her sensitivity to Ollie’s obvious and naturally immature longing for his parents to be ‘happy’ together. For a second, because of their closeness, her body had read her son’s wish and translated it—briefly—into physical reality. That meant nothing. She would not allow it to mean anything.

Their marriage was to be a business arrangement, a pact between them that they had made and would keep for Ollie’s sake. There was nothing personal in their relationship for her, and nor did she want there to be.

In the library of the castello Caesar frowned as he looked down at the papers on his desk. They had been faxed to him earlier in the evening by the team of very discreet investigators he had commissioned to report to him on every aspect of Louise’s life—past and present. She was the mother of his child and it was only natural that he should want to know everything there was to know about her—especially in view of what he already did know about her—for the sake of their son.

It had been obvious to him from the minute he had seen her in the churchyard that there had been a profound change in her from the girl she had been to the woman she now was. He had been prepared for the reports to confirm that change. What he had not been prepared for had been to see laid bare, in economical words that somehow made the revelation all the more unpalatable and shocking, the reality of what the child Louise had had to endure at the hands of both her parents but specifically those of her father.

The report simply stated facts; it did not make judgements. What it had said, what it had revealed, was that even before her birth Louise had been rejected by the father who had seen her only as an obstacle to his own ambitions. He had in effect blamed Louise for her own conception, and had gone on blaming her and rejecting her throughout the whole of their relationship whilst she had tried desperately to win his love.

To have the reality of what she had suffered laid bare before him in a form that he couldn’t ignore or reject filled Caesar with a mix of anger, pity and guilt. Anger against the father who had treated his own child in such a way, pity for that child herself and guilt for his own part in Louise’s shaming and humiliation. Why had he not taken the time to look more deeply, to question more closely and see what he should have seen instead of closing his eyes to it? Did he really need to ask himself that question? Wasn’t the answer that it had been because he had been too wrapped up in his own fury against himself for wanting someone he had considered unworthy of his desire?

She had come to him wanting a connection, the bond she had been denied by her father, but he had not allowed himself to see that. Instead he had dismissed her, because selfishly he had been afraid of the intensity of his longing for her and the emotions she had aroused in him. He hadn’t taken the time to look beneath the surface. Just like everyone else in her life apart from her grandparents he had dismissed her and her feelings as unimportant. Caesar swallowed hard against the bitter taste of his own regret. He prided himself on his care of his people, on taking the time to listen to them and help them with their problems, on having wisdom and compassion and seeing beyond the obvious. He prided himself on extending all of those things to others but he had withheld them from Louise, who had probably had more need of them than anyone else.

Because he had desired her. Because somehow she had touched a place within him that made him burn for her. That had made him feel humiliated, so he had punished her for that and for his own vulnerability.

His behaviour had been unforgivable. Unforgivable and shameful. It was no wonder Louise was so hostile towards him.

But the reality was that between them they had created a child—their child, his son. Oliver whom they both loved. He looked at the report again. What courage and strength it must have taken for a girl hurt and rejected, humiliated and shamed as Louise had been, to deliberately and willingly subject herself to the most intense kind of professional soul-bearing and to come through that experience, to rise from it as she had done. He admired her for that. He admired her and she despised him. But she would marry him—for Oliver’s sake.

CHAPTER SIX

‘I NOW pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.’

Louise tensed as Caesar leaned towards her to kiss her formally and briefly on the lips. The second kiss to seal their marriage, since they had already gone through the formal service once in Italian before it had been repeated in English.

The ceremony was taking place in the private chapel of the Falconari castello itself. The Bishop, a second cousin of Caesar’s, had travelled from Rome to marry them, and to Louise’s surprise the wedding was being attended by several local dignitaries and by Caesar’s older cousin and her family—her husband and their three sons, the youngest of whom was only eighteen months older than Oliver.

Anna Maria and her family had arrived within three days of Caesar’s formal announcement of their marriage, and unexpectedly—indeed reluctantly at first—Louise had quickly discovered that she genuinely liked the no-airs-or-graces Anna Maria, who never used her title and whose husband was an untitled businessman. She had even found herself agreeing to Oliver accompanying Anna Maria and her family on the sightseeing trips they had planned during their visit. She’d agreed because she had seen how much Oliver enjoyed their company, however, rather than because, as Anna Maria had suggested, she and Caesar needed time together on their own. Time alone with Caesar was the last thing she wanted.

Louise knew that Anna Maria had been given Caesar’s official version of their past relationship, because whilst thankfully Anna Maria hadn’t asked her any difficult questions she had made it very plain that she fully accepted and welcomed both Ollie and Louise herself into the family.

It was only now, with the full weight of the formality of what marrying a man in Caesar’s position actually meant upon her, that Louise was able to admit just how daunting she might have found the rush of events and the traditional hoops to be jumped through prior to the ceremony if it hadn’t been for the fact that Anna Maria had been on hand to answer her questions and support her when she had needed support.

Louise had wanted the ceremony to be little more than a brief legal formality, and at first had balked at Caesar’s plans for something grander, but he had insisted that this was necessary—unless she wanted it to look as though he was ashamed of her and thus give rise to gossip that she might have used Oliver to push him into a marriage he didn’t really want. That suggestion had incensed her so much that she had angrily reminded Caesar that he was the one who was pushing her into marriage, and not the other way around.

Somehow in the ashes of the heat of the argument that had followed she had discovered that Caesar was to have his way after all, and that their marriage would have all the pomp and circumstance that Caesar felt necessary in order to show his pride in his newly discovered son and his wish to honour the woman who had borne that son—as he had put it to her. He had even arranged for there to be a public proclamation to that effect, something which had delighted Oliver, who was slotting into life at the castello with an ease that sometimes made Louise feel just a little bit shut out from a side of her son’s personality that she could see now came entirely from his father.

Caesar was still holding her hand. He had taken possession of it when he had leaned forward to give her the formal ceremonial kiss. Louise could feel herself starting to tremble. A natural reaction to the stress of what was a very demanding day, that was all, she reassured herself. It had nothing to do with the fact that the hand cradling her own belonged to Caesar. Cradling? Her hand? Caesar, who had humiliated her so publicly and who only wanted her as his wife because she was the mother of his son?

Watching the small diamonds and pearls that picked out the family arms on the heavy lace veil Louise was wearing tremble slightly as she stood apparently motionless at his side, Caesar frowned. There was nothing in Louise’s poised calmness to suggest that she felt apprehensive or vulnerable, nothing in anything she had said or done to suggest that for any reason at all she might need his support, and yet that small tremor made him instinctively want to move closer to her. Because she was now his wife, and it was his duty as her husband to be her protector at all times and in all things. That was part of the code of his family.

His frown deepened as he looked more closely at her whilst the Bishop spoke some final family prayers. Her choice of a very plain, dull wedding gown from the selection that had been sent at his request from Italy’s couture houses was both discreet and appropriate. High-necked, cream and not white, long-sleeved, it should perhaps have looked plain on her, but instead it looked regal and elegant. That she should also have chosen to wear the long intricately embroidered wedding veil, with its mingling of the arms and emblems of his heritage, stitched for his mother by the nuns of the convent her family had endowed for generations, had been a decision that initially he had put down to his cousin’s influence. But she had soon corrected him, telling him that although at first Louise had been reluctant to wear something so obviously expensive and fragile, she had changed her mind, saying that she wanted Oliver to be able to look back and remember that she had worn things that were memories of both his paternal grandmother and his maternal great-grandmother, whose pretty little blue enamelled brooch Oliver had told him his mother was also wearing.

In Caesar’s opinion it would have been better if she had agreed to wear the family tiara he had offered her to secure the veil, and if she had not insisted on refusing the expensive engagement ring he had shown her. But he had been unable to persuade her to change her stance on that issue, and now, he decided, the reason he was rubbing his forefinger over the plain band of gold he had so recently placed on Louise’s hand was because he felt it was wrong that it should be worn alone.

Her skin felt soft and smooth, her fingers long and slender, her nails were discreetly varnished with a soft pink polish. Out of nowhere his memory conjured up an image from the past of her hands. It wasn’t, however, the image of those same nails painted dark purple that was causing heat to flood his lower body, along with an abrupt, powerful coiling of raw male desire. It was too late now to banish the memory searing his body: the sensation of those slender fingers curling round his erection, accompanied by the sound of her indrawn gasp of breath. Her hand had trembled, he remembered, and then so had her body as she had leaned over him, touching him as though she had never touched a man before, making him feel that he himself had never been touched so intimately before, as hot dangerous desire had wrenched him away from his self-control.

He tried to stop the unwanted tide of memories but already his body was reacting to them, reminding him—if he needed any reminder—of how hard and fully he had swollen and stiffened to her touch, of how maddened he had been by what had surely been her deliberately provocative, too delicate, almost hesitant touch. She must have known what she was doing to him and how his flesh had craved her. How angry it had made him to be tormented by her like that. How intensely that torment had increased his desire for her. How driven he had been then to take her and possess her, to punish her for her torment of him. His desire for her had been so hot, so reckless, that it had created the life of their child.

Caesar’s touch on her flesh was sending sharp prickles of an awareness Louise did not want jolting like lightning from that point of contact. Lightning. She had always been terrified of storms, ever since her father had lost his temper with her when she’d run to him for comfort during one. The power of such storms to destroy, and her own fear of that power, had never left her—no matter how hard she had tried to rationalise to herself that it had been her father’s anger and abandonment of her that she really feared and not the forces of nature.

So what was she afraid of now? What made her treacherously use a mental simile that was linked so strongly to her own vulnerability and fear? Nothing, she assured herself. But she still jerked her hand away from Caesar’s touch, tucking it down at her side to conceal its betraying tremble. She had trembled that night when Oliver had been conceived—with need, with longing, with the shock of the intensity of her own female arousal. But most of all later, with the humiliation that Caesar had heaped on her. That would never, ever happen again. The past was over.

Louise forced herself to concentrate on the present. The private chapel was filled with the dignitaries Caesar had insisted must be invited to witness their marriage if it was to be accepted as he wanted it to be, and the air was heavy with the scent of incense as a great peal of triumphant choral music rang out from the organ, signalling that it was time for them to walk down the aisle together as man and wife.

The only reason she was still trembling was because it had been such a busy morning that she had skipped a proper breakfast, and had then had a glass of champagne before the ceremony at Anna Maria’s insistence, Louise told herself. It had nothing to do with the fact that the lack of width of the aisle meant that she and Caesar had to walk so close together.

Not that her ordeal was over yet. There was still the formal reception to get through, which was being held in the castello’s grandly elegant baroque reception rooms, a long corridor’s walk away from the chapel in the older part of the building.

‘You’re a duchess now, Mum.’

Oliver’s wide smile as he came up to her was all Louise needed to see to know how her son was reacting to their marriage. These last few days had brought him out of himself so much, and had given him a confidence and a joy in life that lifted her heart every time she looked at him. For that alone any sacrifice she might have to make was more than worth it—even if there were times when she felt a little hurt by the strength of the bond that was developing between father and son. And that was something on which she couldn’t fault Caesar. She had been afraid both that he would over-indulge Oliver and also that he might be too formal and distant with him, but to her surprise—and a little to her chagrin—he seemed somehow to know instinctively how to relate to Ollie.

But now, as she watched her son race off to join Anna Maria’s boys, Louise acknowledged that she felt very alone. If only she had her grandparents to turn to. Later in the week there was to be a formal ceremony to inter her grandparents’ ashes at the church of Santa Maria.

Louise felt her body tense as she realised that the most senior member of her grandparents’ village was heading towards her. It was as headman that Aldo Barado had told Caesar he must not see her again. His had been the loudest and harshest of the voices raised against her by the community all those years ago, and Louise could see that he wasn’t exactly enjoying the prospect of paying his respects to her as the wife of his Duca. He must be in his late sixties now, Louise reflected.

Although he was supposed to be listening to one of his advisers, trying to persuade him that he had already spent enough on building new schools for his people, Caesar recognised that his attention was wandering, and that moreover his gaze was constantly drifting in the direction of his new wife.

Why? Because he felt protective of her as her husband? Because he now understood just how much she had suffered growing up and felt guilty that he too—however briefly—had been a part of that judgemental group? Because as the mother of his son she should have his public support? Because he was proud to call her his wife, knowing how strong and brave she had been?

Because of all of those facts, and because deep down inside him there was still an ache of desire for her. Perhaps all those years ago a part of his psyche had somehow recognised what his logical nature and his upbringing had rejected: namely that she was not the person she had been made out to be.

Louise seemed to know instinctively how to relate to others, Caesar acknowledged as he watched her mixing with their guests, always listening to them with interest, never hurrying them to finish whatever it was they wanted to say, and when she did move on leaving them with an approving smile on their faces. Such a wife could only be an asset to a man in his position. The gauche eighteen-year-old he remembered, determined to kick against authority and cause controversy, had obviously risen like a phoenix from her past to become a beautiful, confident woman.

Now, as he watched Aldo Barado approaching her, Caesar excused himself to his companion and made a determined path towards them. It was his responsibility, his inbuilt duty, to protect his wife and his son, and he certainly wasn’t going to let her down as her father had done.

Was she actually foolish enough to feel relief because Caesar had suddenly materialised at her side seconds ahead of Aldo? Louise derided herself. If so, she was making a big mistake. Caesar and Aldo had been on the same side all those years ago, and that side hadn’t been hers, had it?

Her relief quickly turned to a sharp surge of anxiety and agitation when Caesar put his arm around her to draw her close, his unexpected movement taking her completely off guard. Even worse, her instinctive defensive attempt to keep her body from actually touching his somehow resulted in the pressure of his arm actually causing her to sway into him, just as though she was a weak and adoring fool who actually wanted his embrace. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had blackmailed her into this wholly false pretence of a marriage without him heaping even more deceit on her by looking for all the world as though he adored her and they were the only two people in the room?

She hated herself for not being able to break the eye contact he was inflicting on her, and for allowing him to make her a party to this sideshow of husbandly affection. What was even worse was that, given that she knew he was doing it to deceive onlookers, because his own pride could not bear the thought of anyone knowing that he had been forced to marry her in order to be a proper father to his son, her own senses were somehow falling into the trap of actually responding to the fake look of male longing only restrained for the sake of propriety that Caesar was giving her.

It shocked her to her core to feel tiny darts of female heat leaping from nerve-ending to nerve-ending in tiny but devastatingly effective points of fiery awareness. And what shocked her even more was the sudden knowledge that this wasn’t the first time she had felt that sensation. Louise could feel self-protective alarm and denial racing down her spine, but it was too late. She was eighteen again, and standing with her grandparents in the village square, watching whilst Caesar strode around it, talking to his people, her attention for the first time in her life focused wholly on a man who wasn’t her father and who was affecting her in a totally unfamiliar way.

It was impossible for her to suppress her small betraying gasp. She had buried that moment as deeply as though it had never happened. She wished desperately that it had not happened. But the truth was there in the open now, confronting and shocking her. So she had momentarily felt the young woman’s reckless thrill of sensual reaction to a good-looking man? What did that mean except that she was human? Nothing. She had soon learned that Caesar was no romantic hero for a naive girl to put on a pedestal and adore.

‘My lovely wife.’

The sound of Caesar’s voice dragged her back to the present, her body tensing instinctively and immediately when he reached out and drew her towards him, his arm around her waist. He was simply playing a role. She knew that. If she felt acutely aware of him then it was simply because she didn’t like the deception she was being forced to share. Nothing to do with the fact that she was acutely aware of the hard male strength of his arm around her in its parody of protection. She certainly wasn’t in the least bit vulnerable to the image Caesar was creating, and nor was she vulnerable to those quivers of sensation springing from the contact between their bodies. Even if that contact between them was making her tremble from head to foot.

Caesar could clearly see Louise’s rejection of her body’s helpless response to him in her gaze. All those years ago she had trembled just as she was doing now—but back then she had made no attempt to conceal her body’s reaction to his simplest movement, as though she had been powerless to control her sensual response to him, openly delighting in it instead, as her eager yearning movements towards him had urged him to take what she was offering. Guilt shadowed his own body’s automatic response to this unwanted betrayal of her reaction to him. Why did it so affect him to see that, though she was so obviously hostile to that reaction, she was incapable of controlling it? What was the matter with him? He wasn’t a naive boy to be driven by a need he couldn’t control simply because a woman trembled with sensual awareness of him. He had far more important matters on which he needed to focus. It was Oliver who mattered now. Oliver and his future. Oliver’s acceptance by his people and with that Louise’s acceptance as well.

‘You will have to forgive me, Aldo,’ he told the village headman. ‘I confess I can hardly bear to let Louise out of my sight now that we have found one another again after so many years apart.’ As he said the words Caesar recognised how much truth they held. Because if he let Louise out of his sight she was likely to leave and take Oliver with her.

Caesar’s voice was warm and soft, his look for her tender and rueful, his hold on her that of a man who had no intention of letting her go—all very much in keeping with the attitude expected from a newly married man reunited with an old and lost love, Louise recognised, but of course none of it meant anything. And did she want it to? No, of course not. She only had to think of the past and the way in which Caesar had treated her and hurt her to know that.

But if that past didn’t stand between them, if she was meeting him now for the first time, with no preconceptions to overshadow them …? Hah—that was good, when the only reason she was here was because of a very important conception indeed: that of their son. Without Ollie there would be no reason for Caesar to want her in his life, no reason for him to pretend he cared about her, and certainly no reason for him to marry her.

‘I can’t say that this isn’t a surprise,’ Aldo Barado responded, before acknowledging grudgingly, ‘Although there is no question that the boy has to be yours.’

‘No question at all,’ Caesar agreed, the hard note of steel in his voice causing Louise’s heart to flip over, as though it really was foolish enough to believe that Caesar genuinely wanted to protect her.

‘My duchess has been generous indeed in giving me the chance to make up for my past errors of judgement,’ Caesar continued. ‘And, given the understanding I have discovered in her nature, I am sure she will be prepared to extend the same generosity to others as well.’

Louise’s eyes widened slightly as she listened to this exchange. She was under no illusions where Aldo Barado was concerned. He was the one who had kept the gossip flowing and who had stirred up more trouble for her in their community in London. She didn’t need her degree to know that he had not been heading for her because he wanted to apologise for the past—far from it.

‘I am a very lucky man,’ Caesar went on. ‘A man who is proud to say how honoured he is to have such a wife, and to have the gift of a son.’

‘A son is indeed a great gift,’ Aldo Barado agreed.

‘Later this week the ashes of my wife’s grandparents will be interred at the church of Santa Maria. It will be fitting and respectful for those from the village where they grew up to attend that event. I shall donate a new stained-glass window to replace the one that was broken by last year’s storms in honour of their memory.’

Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said.

Louise knew how the community worked. Caesar had given an instruction and Aldo Barado would carry it out. The people of her grandparents’ home village would attend the interment of their ashes, and in doing so grant them the respect her grandfather had always wanted. With just a handful of words Caesar had achieved what she could never have made happen. Such was his power. Once he had used that power against her. Now he was using it for the benefit of her grandparents. Because Oliver was his son. That was what mattered to Caesar. Nothing and no one else. Certainly not her. Well, that was fine by her. She didn’t want to matter to Caesar. Not one little bit. He certainly didn’t matter to her.