Tempted By Desire. Carole Mortimer

      ‘VIDAL MARTINO?’ Suzanne echoed weakly.

      ‘Mmm—lovely name, isn’t it? And so is the man. I think Celeste Martino sounds quite distinctive, don’t you?’

      Suzanne felt physically sick. Oh, God! Not Vidal Martino! Why couldn’t it be anyone else but him? And Celeste had said she was meeting him tomorrow. Oh, how could he, when he had already arranged to meet her this evening! Her distress must have shown on her face, because Celeste looked quite concerned.

      ‘Are you all right, Suzanne?’ She touched her arm. ‘You’ve gone terribly pale.’

      ‘Oh, I—I’m fine. I felt rather faint for a moment, but I’m all right now,’ Suzanne lied. How could she feel fine when she was dying inside? In the space of an hour she had fallen in love for the first time in her life, and now it was completely shattered by a few short words. Celeste meant to marry Vidal Martino, and knowing Celeste that was exactly what she would do.

      ‘It is rather warm in here,’ Celeste agreed. ‘Why don’t you go out into the garden for a while?’

      ‘Yes. Yes!’ Suzanne said jerkily, rising unsteadily to her feet. ‘It is rather stuffy, isn’t it? I won’t be long.’

      Celeste sat back lazily. ‘Take your time, darling. I may just wait here on the off chance that Vidal returns earlier than expected.’

      ‘Oh, oh, I see,’ Suzanne said dully. She had to escape from here, be on her own for a while to sort out her thoughts.

      The garden was definitely cooler than the hotel dining-room, although the hotel was air-conditioned. The fragrance of the many flowers out here was exquisite.

      She had escaped here many times during the last few days, when she couldn’t stand Celeste’s overbearing attitude any longer. And now this! For the first time in her life she had found someone she was sure she could love, and he was destined for Celeste! She was certainly no competition for the beautiful redhead, and she might as well give up any hope of keeping a man like Vidal Martino interested in someone as plain as herself when Celeste wanted him.

      It was a bitter blow and one she had faced once before in her life—and both of them dealt by Celeste. First her father and now Vidal Martino. She should hate Celeste, but she didn’t. At times Celeste showed a gentler side of her character, a facet of her nature she took great pains to hide. And she mostly succeeded.

      She said Vidal had arranged to meet her tomorrow—he couldn’t have wasted much time after leaving Suzanne this afternoon. This knowledge hurt her somehow, and she wasn’t feeling particularly friendly towards him when she saw him walking across the garden towards her.

      ‘Suzanne,’ he put out his hands to her, drawing her close to him. ‘You were not waiting in the lounge,’ he scolded gently. ‘Luckily I spotted your hair in the darkness.’

      ‘I see,’ she said huskily, unable to draw her gaze away from those warm compelling brown eyes. ‘My stepmother was in the lounge.’

      ‘Ah, I see,’ he nodded understandingly. ‘You did not want to meet me in front of her. Well, I think she must have gone to bed because the lounge was deserted when I came through just now.’

      Suzanne felt angry at his casual dismissal of Celeste, and yet excited too. Celeste hadn’t made such a big impression on Vidal that he didn’t want to see her again. ‘Oh,’ she licked her lips nervously. ‘Did you—Did you have a nice evening?’

      Vidal Martino grimaced. ‘As pleasant as one could when visiting a grandmother. When Cesare’s mother married our father her mother moved in too. She now lives in her own home in England and complains that we neglect her. She does not think that it would have been better for all of us if she had stayed at the Palazzo like any other grandmother would. And of course Cesare visits her regularly when he is here.’ Again that harshness entered his voice when talking of his brother. ‘But I must not bore you with my family. Shall we go in and have that drink now?’

      Why not? Celeste wasn’t in the lounge, and by the look of things she would have to make the most of this meeting with Vidal Martino, tomorrow Celeste would take over. She nodded her head, renewed eagerness entering her eyes. ‘I’d love to.’

      He grinned at her. ‘Good.’

      As he had said, the lounge was deserted, and within minutes they were ensconced at a corner table with two drinks on the table in front of them.

      ‘So,’ Vidal turned on the bench seat they were both sitting on, his knee touching hers intimately before it was politely withdrawn. But he was still sitting very close to her and she found she liked his closeness, liked the fresh male tangy smell that his body exuded and the expensive aftershave that she had come to realise he wore exclusively. ‘Tell me a little about yourself, Suzanne.’

      ‘There isn’t much to tell, and I’m not being trite when I say that, there really isn’t much to tell. I’m a student, training to be a teacher, eventually.’

      ‘If the job is available,’ he put it mildly. ‘There seems to be an abundance of unemployed teachers in this country at the moment. I can sympathise with you.’

      ‘Mm, it could all be wasted effort when I’ve finished.’

      ‘And do you live on your own?’ He offered her a cigarette, lighting one for himself at her refusal.

      ‘In a bed-sitter? I certainly hope so, there’s hardly room for me, let alone anyone else.’

      ‘And you have a boy-friend?’

      She looked at him sharply, but could see only mild curiosity in his clear brown eyes. ‘I have male friends,’ she said carefully. ‘But none that I feel serious about.’

      ‘But one who feels that way about you,’ he guessed shrewdly. ‘If he feels this way why has he allowed you to come to London without him?’

      ‘I don’t feel that way about him, it’s as simple as that.’

      ‘It is a good enough reason—and I for one am glad of it. I would not like to think I was—cutting in is, I believe, the right expression.’

      Suzanne laughed. ‘Mmm, but you aren’t—or at least, you wouldn’t be if you intended—–’ she broke off confusedly.

      His dark brows lowered with concern. ‘My age worries you, perhaps?’

      She looked startled. It certainly wasn’t his age she was worried about, it was Celeste, beautiful Celeste with her lethal charm. She shook her head wordlessly.

      ‘I am thirty-two. Is that much older than you?’

      Suzanne had to laugh at his earnestness. As if a little thing like age mattered where someone of his looks and charm was involved. ‘You shouldn’t ask a lady her age, Vidal,’ she rebuked him teasingly.

      His dark eyes twinkled back at her. ‘I know, but you are not a lady—I mean, you aren’t—–Oh, dear, I am wording this badly. My English is not as fluent as I would wish it to be. What I meant was that you are a beautiful young girl and have no reason to hide your age.’

      ‘You had me worried for a moment.’ She couldn’t hold back a grin. Wow! When he smiled at her like that…! ‘I’m nineteen—just,’ she supplied.

      ‘You have been on your own since you were sixteen?’

      ‘Just about. But I was on my own long before that really. Daddy and my stepmother lived out of the country most of the time, and so I was left in boarding school.’

      ‘At least I cannot say that. Cesare always cared for me when I was a child. I was fifteen when our father died and Cesare was forced to take up the responsibilities of being the head of the family. I am afraid I was not always a well-behaved child, far from it in fact.’

      ‘I can believe it.’ And she could too. He still had the look of an impish child when he teased her and she felt sure the Conte Cesare Martino