A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [54]
And why should it surprise him that the answer was yes? Wasn’t it the case that from the moment he had introduced Paolo to Terrie, he had openly envied the little boy’s unrestrained ease and uncomplicated friendship with the beautiful blonde?
Face it, he told himself. He was frankly jealous of Terrie’s relationship with every member of his family.
She had charmed the entire Cardella clan, effortlessly winning over first his stepfather and then his mother. And even Gio’s half-brother Cesare was entranced by her, while Cesare’s wife Megan had taken to the newcomer as if they had been sisters separated at birth.
And what made matters so much worse was the fact that since he had brought Teresa to Sicily she had stuck rigidly to her ‘hands off’ policy. In fact, from the time that he had arrived at her flat to collect her on the start of their journey to Italy, she seemed to have changed into some other woman entirely. A cool-voiced, cool-eyed, cool-natured creature, who forced him to doubt whether the hotly responsive, passionate lover he had taken to bed on their first—their only—night together had ever truly existed or was just a figment of his imagination.
But then as he watched, Terrie reached the far end of the swimming pool, lifted Paolo out, and then hoisted herself onto the white tiled edge beside him. With unconscious grace she tossed back her soaking hair, stretching lightly in the sun, and immediately his senses kicked into overdrive, need clawing at him cruelly.
A week in the warmth of Sicily had brought a light, golden tone to her skin, drawing out silvery highlights in the blonde of her hair. And the simple, beautifully cut, deep turquoise swimming costume clung in all the right places, smoothing and enhancing the sleek curves of her body and exposing long, long legs and elegantly slender arms. When she bent down to rub at Paolo’s hair with the white towel the sight of the delicate line of her neck and shoulder caught on something raw deep inside him, making him clamp his teeth down hard into his bottom lip to hold back the groan of animal response that almost escaped him.
Dannazione, but he was finding this ‘hands off’ rule impossible to live with!
A week ago it had been a matter of pride for Gio to stick with it absolutely, never once even laying a finger on her. She would come to him, he had vowed. She would break before he did. And he had taken a sort of perverse pleasure in making sure he followed the ruling to the limit. At least as far as his hands were concerned.
His arms might brush against hers, his leg came close to the length of her thigh when they sat together. He made sure that he kissed her at each meeting or parting, and his body often brushed against her when they met in a corridor or had to pass in a doorway. But, in all the time since they had left her flat on the journey here, never once had any part of his hands touched any part of her body.
‘Papa!’
Paolo had caught sight of him, wriggling free from Terrie’s gentle restraint and running towards his father, smile wide and brilliant, arms outstretched.
‘Papa! Papa!’
‘Ciao, bambino!’
Gio caught the sturdy little body in both hands, lifting his son and swinging him high in the air, his smile as bright as Paolo’s as he looked up into the small, laughing face.
‘And how is my little one today? What have you been up to?’
‘I swim!’ Paolo crowed jubilantly. ‘Papa, I swim with Treeza!’
‘You sweem?’ Gio echoed, laughter bubbling up in his voice as he echoed his son’s imperfect English pronunciation. ‘Did you indeed? Are you sure you swam…?’
To Terrie’s total consternation his gleaming dark eyes slid to her face in a swift, amusement-filled glance that brought her into a joking conspiracy with him, the gesture so warm, so intimate that it made her heart lurch in instant response.
‘Because when I saw you it was Teresa who was doing all the sweeming, and you were having a ride!’
‘Papa—no!’
In his flurry of protest, all Paolo’s English deserted him and he subjected his father to a tirade in chirpy Italian that only made Gio’s smile