In The Count's Bed: The Count's Blackmail Bargain / The French Count's Pregnant Bride / The Italian Count's Baby. Catherine Spencer

his tone amused—rueful. ‘But you cannot blame me for trying.’

      ‘But I do blame you,’ she flung back at him. ‘And so would Paolo, if I decided to make trouble and tell him.’ She swallowed. ‘Do you think he’d be pleased to know you were—going behind his back like this?’

      He shrugged. ‘Paolo’s feelings were never a consideration, I confess. I was far more concerned with my own pleasure, bella mia.’ He smiled. ‘And with yours,’ he added softly.

      She felt betraying colour swamp her face, but stood her ground. ‘You still seem very sure of yourself, signore. I find that extraordinary.’

      ‘Losing a battle,’ he said, ‘does not always alter the course of the war.’ He paused. ‘And you called me Alessio just now—while you were waiting for me to kiss you.’

      Her flush deepened at this all-too-accurate assessment. She said through gritted teeth, ‘The war, as you call it, is over. I shall tell Paolo I want to go back to England immediately. As soon as my flight can be rearranged.’

      ‘And he may even agree,’ he said. ‘As long as it does not interfere with his own plans. But if there are difficulties, do not hesitate to ask for my help.’ He added silkily, ‘I have some influence with the airline.’

      Ignoring her outraged gasp, he walked across to his lounger, picked up the towel and began to dry himself with total unconcern. Laura snatched up her own things and headed for the steps.

      ‘Arrivederci.’ His voice followed her. ‘Until later, bellissima.

      ’ ‘Until hell freezes over,’ she threw back breathlessly, over her shoulder, then forced her shaking legs to carry her up the steps and out of the sight and sound of him.

      Alessio watched her go, caught between exultancy and irritation, with a heaped measure of sexual frustration thrown in.

      He ached, he thought sombrely, like a moonstruck adolescent.

      Stretching out on the lounger, he gazed up at the sky, questions rotating in his mind.

      Why, in the name of God, had he let her walk away like that? He’d felt her trembling when he’d touched her. Why hadn’t he pressed home his advantage—thrown the cushions on the ground, and drawn her down there with him, peeling the damp swimsuit from her body, and silencing her protests with kisses as he’d taken her, swiftly and simply?

      Winning her as his woman, he thought, while he appeased the hunger that was tearing him apart.

      Afterwards, he would have sent her to pack her things while he enjoyed another kind of satisfaction—the moment when he told Paolo, and his damnable mother, that he was taking Laura away with him. His mission accomplished in the best possible way.

      Then, off to Sorrento to make plans—but for what? The rest of their lives? He frowned swiftly. He had never thought of any woman in those terms. But certainly the weeks to follow—maybe even the months.

      At some point, they would have to return to Rome. It would be best, he decided, if he rented an apartment for her. A place without resonances, containing a bed that he’d shared with no one else.

      But what was the point of thinking like this, he derided himself, when none of it had happened? When she’d rejected him, using Paolo’s name like a shield, as she always did. And he’d let her go…

      Dio, he could still taste the cool silkiness of her skin.

      And now she wished to leave altogether—to go back to London. Well, so she might, and the sooner the better. Because he would follow.

      In England, he could pursue her on his own terms, he thought. He’d have the freedom to date and spoil her exactly as he wished, until her resistance crumbled. And there would be no Zia Lucrezia to poison the well.

      Yes, he thought with a sigh of anticipation. London was the perfect answer.

      Unless… He sat up suddenly, mind and body reeling as if he’d been punched in the gut. Was it—could it be possible that he’d misjudged the situation completely? Might it be that she was genuinely in love with his weasel of a cousin after all? The idea made him nauseous.

      Yet she’d wanted him very badly to kiss her. His experience with women left him in no doubt about that, while her own female instinct must have told her that, once she was in his arms, it would not stop at kissing.

      She’d allowed Paolo to kiss her, of course, and all the other intimacies he dared not even contemplate, because they filled him with such blind, impotent rage that he longed to go up to the house, take his cousin from his sick bed, and put him in hospital instead.

      He looked down at the book beside him, his mouth hardening. Ah, Francesco, he thought. Was that the image that haunted you every night—your Laura in her husband’s arms?

      He supposed in some twisted way he should be grateful to his aunt for persuading her malingering son that he was far more sick than he really was, and keeping the lovers apart. At least he didn’t have the torment of knowing they were together under his roof.

      Santa Madonna, he thought. Anyone might think I was jealous. But I have never been so in my whole life.

      And I do not propose to start now, he added grimly.

      No, he thought. He would not accept that Laura had any serious feelings for Paolo. Women in love carried their own protection like a heat-shield. No one existed in their private radiant universe but the beloved. Yet he’d been able to feel her awareness of him just as surely as if she’d put out her hand and touched his body.

      So, maybe she really believed that, with Paolo, she would be marrying money—or at least where money was. The thought made him wince, but it now had to be faced and dealt with. Because it was clear that, living in one room and working in a bar, she was struggling near the bottom of the ladder.

      And, if he was right, he thought cynically, then he would have to convince her that he would be a far more generous proposition than his cousin. That, financially, she would do much better as his mistress than as Paolo’s wife.

      A much pleasanter task, he resolved, would be to set himself to create for her such an intensity of physical delight that she would forget all other men in his arms. It occurred to him, wryly, that it was the least she deserved.

      But what do I deserve? he asked himself quietly. And could find no answer.

      ‘What is this? What are you saying?’ Paolo’s face was mottled with annoyance.

      ‘I want to go home,’ Laura repeated levelly. ‘I—I’m totally in the way here, and it’s becoming a serious embarrassment for me.’

      ‘An embarrassment for which you will be well paid,’ he snapped. He paused. ‘But what you ask is not possible. My mother will become suspicious if you go home alone—think that we have quarrelled.’

      ‘I fail to see how,’ Laura said coldly. ‘We haven’t spent enough time together to have a row.’

      He waved an impatient hand. ‘I have worked too hard to convince her to fail now.’ He thought for a moment. ‘But we could leave earlier than planned, if we go together—in two or three days, perhaps.’

      ‘Will you be well enough to travel?’ Laura asked acidly, but her sarcasm was wasted.

      He shrugged. ‘We must hope. And Mamma intends me to take a little trip with her very soon, so we shall see.’

      She said quietly, ‘Paolo, I’m deadly serious about this, and I don’t intend to wait indefinitely. In twenty-four hours, I’m looking for another flight.’

      I can survive that long, she thought bleakly as she went to her room to change for dinner. But this time, I’ll be the one adopting the avoidance tactics.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      NOTHING happened. Nothing happened. The