A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [38]
‘She’s…’ she tried again and heard him draw in his breath in a rough-edged hiss between his teeth.
‘Dear God, Teresa, no, not that. I did not mean that she had died since that night.’
The rush of relief almost destroyed what little was left of Teresa’s already precarious self-control. She hadn’t been able to bear even considering the possibility that Gio’s wife might have died since the night they had spent together in the hotel. Her already uncomfortable conscience couldn’t have coped with the thought that they had betrayed the poor woman in the last days of her life.
That Gio had betrayed her, she corrected fiercely. He had been the guilty party. The liar, the manipulator, the deceiver.
‘Then what did you mean?’
She would have thought that it was impossible for Gio’s eyes to grow any darker, for the ebony pools to take her any deeper into his soul. But the shadows that had now surfaced in his gaze clouded their brilliance, dulling it and taking the edge off its clarity.
‘I think you should sit down…’
His tone held nothing but concern, almost shocking in its unexpected gentleness, as he guided her carefully towards a chair.
Too late, she realised what he had done; how he had manipulated her yet again. The slam of the door closing behind him told its own tale—of how Gio had seized his opportunity, taking advantage of the way that she was totally distracted, knocked off balance by his shocking statement. He had ignored her obvious determination not to let him into her flat, and had moved forward, coming into the room on the pretext of taking care of her, gaining his own objective without any trouble.
‘I don’t want to sit down. And I think that you should explain!’
He was making a real mess of this, Gio reflected grimly. He had never meant to blurt out the truth about Lucia in quite that way, but when it had come to the point there had been no other way. He wanted Terrie to know the truth, but actually saying the words ‘My wife is dead’ was still so difficult, so painful, that his throat had almost closed over the words, blocking them off. In the end he had had either to force them out, rough and devastatingly blunt as they were, or play the coward and leave them unsaid once more.
And he had vowed to himself that he would never do that.
‘I’ll explain,’ he growled roughly. ‘Just tell me what you want to know.’
‘I want to know everything…’
As she spoke she twisted away from his grasp and he didn’t know whether he was glad to let her go or if what he really wanted was to hold her tighter, pull her closer to him, feel her warmth and the scent of her skin enclose him once more. The loss of the physical contact felt as though something vital had been ripped away from him, and yet at the same time it was a relief to be freed from the temptation that her body offered.
For the past week without her he had been trying to convince himself that it had all been a delusion. That the night he had spent with her had been a fleeting sexual pleasure, nothing more. He had told himself that no woman could have had such an effect on him, that he couldn’t have been so instantly smitten by her. That he was exaggerating the concentrated, mind-blowing effect she had had on him.
It was only his hunger remembering, he had told himself. The hunger that was the result of two years’ abstinence, two years’ celibacy since he had lost Lucia. She couldn’t have been so devastating. So unforgettable. So irresistible.
But now that he was here with her, he knew that by denying the effect she had on him he had been deceiving himself. She was everything he remembered—and more. When she had opened the door to him, just the sight of her had had an effect like a blow in his face, making his thoughts reel in instant response. His body had tightened, hardened, clamoured in protest at the restraint he had had to impose on himself. And now, being in the same room with her and not touching her, not kissing her…and more was a physical torment that made his yearning senses scream in agonising demand.