The Platinum Collection. Maisey Yates

      Jess loved to plunge Cesario into that rich well of sensuality where she held sway. It was a power-play, a runaway triumph for a woman who had been a virgin a mere six weeks earlier and pretty ignorant of what it took to be an equal bed partner. But that aside, touching Cesario, making love with Cesario, just being with Cesario was also the biggest source of pleasure Jess had ever known. Telling herself that it should not be that way hadn’t worked as a defence against feeling things she knew she shouldn’t be feeling with him. Only in the realm of sex and physical expression could she let her barriers down, freely showering him with the physical hunger he ignited and sealing her mouth and her mind shut on the thoughts and the emotions that accompanied the desire.

      Sharon Martin had spoken wisely when she’d warned her daughter that it wouldn’t be easy to live with a man without her emotions getting involved. But Jess didn’t blame herself for failing to maintain her defences, she blamed Cesario for transforming himself into the perfect new husband, a fabulous lover and all-round fantastic companion, whom pretty much any woman would have found irresistible.

      In the aftermath of yet another session of hot, satisfying sex, Jess lay with her heart racing and her body aching in the circle of Cesario’s arms. He was still holding her, stroking her spine, his mouth gently brushing her temples. He was doing that fake caring thing again and part of her wanted to slap him for it. She had tumbled headlong in love with him but she still had her brain and she didn’t need the pretences, didn’t want them. It was just sex they shared and she could handle that reality—she had never been a coward when it came to the hard realities of life!

      ‘Sex with you sizzles every time,’ Cesario told her appreciatively. ‘You could make me monogamous.’

      Her grey eyes flashed silver and she lifted her head. ‘If I thought for one minute that you would stray while I was still living with you, I would probably kill you!’ she swore shakily, passion betraying her.

      Cesario stretched back against the pillows with predatory grace and no small amount of male satisfaction at what he took as a compliment. ‘I do believe you would, moglie mia. You’re not the sort of woman any man would dare to take for granted.’

      ‘I’m not a proper wife…don’t talk as though I am!’ Jess warned him waspishly. ‘A proper wife wouldn’t drag you off to a bedroom in the middle of the day and shag you half to death…’

      Cesario shifted again and grinned wickedly like the cat who’d got the cream while he curved a strong arm round her to hold her close. ‘The wife of my dreams certainly would…’

      ‘I’m not the wife of your dreams either.’ Her fingers spreading defensively across his hair-roughened pectorals as she lay against him, Jess could hear the flat note in her delivery and prayed that he couldn’t.

      Jess was fully convinced that Alice, the beautiful American former fashion model married to Stefano, would have been the true wife of Cesario’s dreams. Alice and Stefano and their two gorgeous little boys lived only a few miles away from Collina Verde and they were regular visitors. While the men had happily talked politics, business and the intricacies of producing award-winning wines, Jess and Alice had got to know each other. Jess genuinely liked Alice and admired her talent as an amateur artist. But she was also always painfully aware of Alice’s extensive list of appealing traits. Alice was gentle and kind, a shining example of a woman who was as lovely on the inside as she was on the outside, and Jess was convinced that no man who had lost a woman of Alice’s worth could have easily recovered from the experience and moved on. She was not surprised that Cesario had once loved Alice or that Alice and Cesario remained very close. Jess had yet to see anything she could object to in their behaviour but in their presence she was always conscious of how well they knew each other and of how new her own relationship with Cesario truly was. It was a struggle not to be jealous of his bond with the other woman.

      As Jess shifted her hand down to his flat, hard stomach Cesario closed his fingers over hers and his thumb smoothed gently and consideringly over the scar on her hand, his lean, powerful body tensing in response. ‘Tell me who did this to you,’ he urged tautly. ‘I need to know what happened to you.’

      After a moment of silence, Jess slowly released her breath in a rueful sigh. ‘I attracted the attentions of a stalker in my first year at university. An unemployed loner whom, as far as I know, I’d never actually met or even spoken to,’ she explained reluctantly. ‘When the police showed me his photo after the attack it was a challenge to even recognise him—’

      ‘A stalker?’ Cesario was already frowning. ‘I assumed you’d been the victim of some random robbery.’

      ‘There was nothing random about it and no theft involved. I began getting cards and little gifts in my accommodation mailbox and I had no idea who they were from. At first I actually thought it was romantic…all that love-from-afar-stuff girls hear about!’ she breathed with sudden bitterness.

      His arm tightened its grip. ‘You weren’t to know it was an abnormal interest.’

      ‘Well, I found out soon enough when my stalker saw me out and about with a male friend he assumed to be a boyfriend. That’s when his interest took a creepy turn: the cards turned abusive, calling me a whore…and a slut…and a whole lot of other dirty…’ Jess was trembling and her voice was shaking.

      ‘It must’ve been very frightening for you.’ Cesario wrapped both his arms securely round her slight body to comfort her and tugged her into full contact with him. ‘Clearly he had problems. Did you go to the police?’

      ‘The cards didn’t threaten me with violence, so he wasn’t committing an offence. The law’s been changed since, but back then a woman had very little protection from that sort of thing,’ Jess told him heavily. ‘I got really scared because it was obvious that he was spying on me. But hardly anyone saw him as a serious threat. In fact my friends tried to make a joke about his fixation on me. One evening I came back from class to the flat I shared, laden with books and shopping…’

      ‘And he was waiting for you?’ Cesario prompted darkly, his nostrils flaring.

      Jess was pale but the words were flowing more freely now. ‘He just appeared round the corner of the landing and there was something weird about the way he looked at me. I just knew it had to be him and I ran back to the stairs. I dropped my bags but I wasn’t quick enough. When I saw the knife I put up my hands to protect my face and I don’t remember anything else but screaming. A neighbour came out and interrupted him and my attacker fled. He ran out into the road and got hit by a car. He died…he died and I wasn’t sorry,’ she admitted sickly. ‘But I would have lived in fear for ever more if he had survived.’

      Cesario held her until the deep trembling slivering through her slim frame had subsided and she was breathing evenly again. ‘I’m sorry you had such a terrifying experience. I just needed to know what had happened,’ he volunteered wryly. ‘But I understand now why you’ve always played down your looks…’

      ‘After the attack I just couldn’t be comfortable wearing clothes that might attract male attention. Before that I was a normal teenager and I wore miniskirts and all the rest of it,’ Jess admitted ruefully. ‘It’s not that I think every man might have it in him to be violent, it’s more the way a woman’s looks can encourage a man to objectify her and see the outside without seeing that there’s a real living, breathing, feeling person underneath.’

      ‘I’ve been guilty of that miscalculation many times, bella mia,’ Cesario admitted with a grimace as he acknowledged the fact.

      Jess lifted her curly head to send him a significant look that brought a frown to his lean, hard-boned face. ‘I should think so too with your reputation.’

      ‘If you’re basing your opinion on what’s been printed about me, keep in mind that the British press only began depicting me as a wild, promiscuous playboy after I dared to dump their darling, Gilly Carlton.’

      His reference to one of the most popular soap stars on British television made her raise her brows. ‘I didn’t even know that you