Page 197 of Modern Romance Collection May 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER SIX

ANOTHERNIGHT,ANOTHERCHARADE.

They were attending the opening of a new restaurant overlooking the Grand Canal and being in such close proximity to Rae again, Domenico was once more struggling to keep control of himself.

In a fitted blue dress paired with open-toed stilettoes and a black leather jacket draped across her shoulders as there was a chill to the evening air and they were seated outside, Rae looked sensational. His heart had struck up a restless beat the moment he’d locked eyes on her back at the palazzo, a dizzying cocktail of heat and need moving through his blood and making his heart race and it hadn’t stopped since. In the pearlescent glow from the low candles forming the centrepiece of the table, the alluring power of her vivid blue eyes was impossible to avoid and the fever stirring in his blood was only intensifying and there seemed to be nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to stop the sultry memories from cascading through his mind, one after the other, each more arousing than the last. Nothing to stop him thinking about how close he had been to charging into her suite and taking her in his arms the last time they’d been together and how he wasn’t sure he had it in him to resist again.

In the days since their last public outing Domenico had barely seen her, not because of any special effort on his part but because his normal daily routine was so demanding. He rose early for a punishing workout before heading to his office, where it was customary to spend up to twelve hours, but, with the final pieces of a major deal still being worked out, those hours had been running closer and closer to midnight. By the time he returned to the palazzo most nights Rae had eaten dinner alone and was secluded in her suite, and though that lack of interaction had not been by design, Domenico was relieved by it.

Because he didn’t trust himself around her at all. All it took was for him to catch her scent in the air and need unfurled within him like a fast-flowing river, and he hated the thought of being so tempted by her that he abandoned his good sense. That he forgot the lessons he’d paid so dearly to learn.

All he needed was her presence, her cooperation—for her to stick around for the next six months so he could retain ownership of what was already rightfully his. He required nothing else, not from her.

But even knowing that, even having told himself that every day since Rae had been back in Venice, he could not keep his eyes from devouring her or his thoughts from dwelling with heightened awareness on all the ways she was so very different from the woman he had married.

There was an aura of self-possession to her now that had been absent before. He could see it just by looking at her, in the way her shoulders were thrown back, her head held high. She refused to be intimidated by anyone or anything, and had proven that at the ball a few nights previously, when she’d handled Luisa’s catty remarks with a cutting comeback of her own. Luisa had thoroughly deserved it and seeing her slammed back into her box had been satisfying, but it had startled him to hear Rae being so sharp with her words. But an even greater source of consternation was that Rae had felt she’d had to respond in such a way. Because her reaction had made it obvious that she’d suffered Luisa’s unpleasantness in the past too, and that she had been wounded by it, and he had never known.

And he should have.

He should have noticed and taken action to protect her. Rae was his wife. He had brought her into his life and his world and it had been his responsibility to take care of and defend her. Only he clearly hadn’t, and because of that failing Rae had been forced to act out of character, and that was not sitting well with him at all.

Not that he didn’t appreciate her newfound strength and confidence. That flare of fire in her eyes when she’d refused to back down, and the steely determination to get her own way, even when up against his powerful will, were definitely intriguing new facets of her, but where those changes had sprung from and why she’d felt the need to change were questions running on a loop in his mind. Testing and troubling him. Driving him to question if he had paid enough attention, if he’d worked hard enough to discover exactly what had been swirling beneath the serene façade she had presented to him. After all, he hadn’t known about her unease around Luisa, or how sensitive she’d been to the cruel society gossip. What else had he been unaware of? What else had he missed?

‘How’s your food?’ Rae asked, seeing that he wasn’t eating as his thoughts wandered.

He reached for his wine glass, taking a sip of the rich merlot to moisten his bone-dry mouth, and loosen the intensity of his single-track thoughts. ‘It’s good. You’ll like it. Here, try a little.’

Domenico held out his fork to her, knowing it painted the picture of a devoted husband, but as her lips tightened around the fork and it slid between her mouth, he realised his mistake, realised that he had just poured oil on the fire simmering in his blood and, right on cue, he felt it, that sudden violent strain against his trousers. And as he imagined those perfectly ripe lips clamped around his throbbing length, sucking him deeper into the warm wetness of her mouth, his erection only grew more solid. More excruciating.

Heat raced along his veins, his skin suddenly too tight for his body as he worked to block out the erotic image in order to block the feelings it conjured, but it was too vivid, too potent. Hard as he tried, Domenico couldn’t loosen the fixed image from his mind and, far from steadying himself, a wild, reckless abandon was mounting in him, urging him to take Rae’s hand, slide it beneath the table and onto his crotch. Nothing in that moment seemed more urgent than letting her feel exactly what she did to him, and reminding her what powerful pleasure he could offer her in return.

Knowing he needed to change the direction of his thoughts andfast—before he did something he would majorly regret later—he searched desperately through his hazy mind for a safe topic of conversation.

‘You were speaking with Imogen earlier?’ Rae had been speaking to her on the phone when he’d returned home to the palazzo. ‘How is she?’

Rae stared back at him, her slim eyebrows halfway up her forehead.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Because you hardly ever ask after my sisters,’ Rae replied with her newly acquired bluntness.

‘That’s not true. I’ve asked about your sisters many times,’ he insisted shortly, feeling defensive about the accusation because of course he’d asked about her sisters in the past.Hadn’t he?‘And even if I didn’t, I’m asking now.’

Rae softened her gaze and swallowed her small mouthful of food. ‘She’s good. She’d been at the library, studying for most of the day.’

‘How is she getting on with her studies? Has she been enjoying her course?’

‘Yes. She’s doing really well.’ Rae smiled, her pride in her youngest sister evident. ‘Her classes finish at the end of the month. Then she has a few final assignments, but after that she’ll focus on her dissertation. I want to try to coax her out here for a few weekends, get her away for a few days or she’ll just work non-stop.’

Domenico watched her, seeing what she wasn’t admitting in the pull of her lips and the concern momentarily clouding her beautiful eyes.

‘You’re worried about her?’ Rae was always worried about Imogen and Maggie, but this was something else. ‘Are you concerned she’s pushing herself too much with her studies?’

‘No. Well, yes, but it’s not just that.’ She offered no more, dropping her gaze and digging her fork back into her dish.

‘We can’t just sit here in silence, Rae. We need to talk about something. Imogen is a neutral topic at least,’ he pointed out with cool pragmatism.

With a look that said she knew he had a point, she relented. ‘Imogen got involved with someone last summer. I don’t know who he was, I never met him and neither did Maggie. But she got in pretty deep with him pretty fast. And then he just walked away with barely more than a goodbye. Maggie and I didn’t know about any of this until after it had happened, but it hit Ims hard. She became quiet, withdrawn. If she hadn’t had her classes, I’m not sure she would have got out of bed.’ Her forehead creased with a concerned frown. ‘She’s better now, a lot better, but I’m not sure she’s completely over it.’

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