To Wear His Ring Again (7 page)

While her mind had once again been focused on the past, she had forgotten the danger of her present situation. When had Constantin unclamped his fingers from her wrist and slid his arm around her waist? Her breath rushed from her lungs as he tugged her against him, making her agonisingly aware of every hard muscle and sinew on his whipcord body as he locked his other arm around her. Her eyes flew to his face, but her demand for him to release her died in her throat as his mouth came down on hers and he made demands of his own, his kiss hot and potent and utterly ruthless in its mastery.

He moved one hand down to clasp her bottom, jerking her pelvis into burning contact with the solid ridge of his arousal. She found his dominance shamefully thrilling. Beneath his civilised façade Constantin was all primitive, passionate male. It had been so long since she had felt him inside her. The thought weakened her resolve to resist him and when he slipped his hand beneath the hem of her shirt and stroked his fingers over her stomach and ribcage, she held her breath and silently willed him to move his hand higher and touch her breasts.

He had always had the ability to read her mind, and when he brushed his thumb pad across one swollen nipple she gave a choked cry. He took advantage of her parted lips to push his tongue into her mouth. Isobel's senses were swamped by him. The scent of his cologne was achingly familiar. She remembered the first time he had made love to her; she had been overwhelmed by the responses he had drawn from her untutored body, and afterwards she had pressed her face into his neck and tasted salt on his sweat-sheened skin.

He transferred his hand to her other breast and rolled her nipple between his fingers, causing a shaft of exquisite sensation to shoot through her. With a soft moan she melted against him and tipped her head back as he traced his lips down her throat. Constantin pushed the neck of the too-big tee shirt over her shoulder and trailed kisses along her collarbone.

‘Mio Dio!'
His savage imprecation shattered the sensual mist as he stared at the livid red mark he had uncovered. ‘What happened to your shoulder?'

Isobel had noticed the beginnings of the bruise while she had been undressing for bed, but when Constantin had kissed her she had forgotten everything but her need for him. ‘He...the stalker caught hold of me as I ran for the lift, but I managed to get away from him.' She shivered as her mind flashed back to those terrifying moments before the lift doors had closed, when she had turned and seen David's face contorted with fury. She had tried to convince herself that he had meant her no harm, but the memory of his wild-eyed expression was stuck in her mind.

Constantin glimpsed the fear in Isobel's hazel eyes and felt a surge of anger at the stalker, but also at himself.
She had run to him for safety.
He choked back a mirthless laugh. The bitter truth was that, far from being safe with him, she was innocently unaware of the danger he posed to her. His—as it turned out—unfounded jealousy of Ryan Fellows was proof that he had inherited a dark side to his nature from his father. The monster that had been inside Franco De Severino also lived within Constantin and the only way to control the beast was to avoid awakening it.

So what the hell was he doing coming on to Isobel?

He stepped away from her and raked an unsteady hand through his hair. ‘I'm going to stay here tonight,' he said roughly. She could argue all she liked, but the welt on her shoulder was a stark reminder of the terror she must have felt when the stalker had confronted her outside her flat.

He frowned as he remembered something she had said after the attack. ‘What did you mean when you said that the stalker gave you funeral flowers?'

‘Oh, the white lilies.' Isobel wondered if she had overreacted when the stalker had presented her with the flowers, and she felt silly that she'd mentioned them to Constantin. ‘I don't suppose David meant anything sinister, but I've always hated lilies since my brother's funeral. The church was filled with them. My strongest memory of that awful day was the sickly perfume of lilies.' She shuddered. ‘Since then I've always considered it the scent of death.'

‘I had no idea you disliked them,' Constantin said slowly. He remembered that he had taken a bouquet of lilies to Isobel in the hospital after she'd had the miscarriage. Of course, giving her flowers had been a totally inadequate gesture when she had lost their baby, but he hadn't known what else to do. He had felt helpless to comfort her in her grief. Standing outside her room listening to her sobbing had ripped his heart to shreds. But from boyhood he had learned from his father to suppress his emotions. He had been unable to respond to Isobel the way she had needed him to, and was incapable of voicing his own devastation at the loss of their baby girl.

When he had found the bouquet of lilies had been stuffed into the rubbish bin he had taken it as a sign that Isobel blamed him for the miscarriage. The trip to Italy had been his idea, but it had been disastrous for so many reasons, he remembered grimly. She had rejected the flowers and it had felt as though she were rejecting him. But now it occurred to him that perhaps she had thrown the lilies away because she'd been unable to cope with the sad memories they evoked of her brother.

He glanced at her pale face and then at his watch, shocked to see that it was two a.m. ‘You'd better try and get some sleep. You're safe, and no one can hurt you tonight.'

Isobel stifled a bitter laugh. Was Constantin unaware that his abrupt rejection a few moments ago was a hundred times more painful than the injury the stalker had inflicted on her? His chiselled features revealed no emotion. Clearly he had been unaffected when he had kissed her and maybe had even been amused by her eager response to him.

She flushed, remembering how her body had betrayed her, and an idea crept into her mind that perhaps he had deliberately set out to humiliate her. Suddenly it was all too much.
He
was too much. She did not want him here in her flat, but she knew him well enough to realise that she would be wasting her breath if she asked him to leave. ‘You'll find a spare pillow and blanket in the hall cupboard,' she told him, proud that her steady voice did not reveal her inner turmoil.

Without sparing him another glance, she walked down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door, wishing that she could lock it. But the likelihood that Constantin would enter her bedroom was zero, she reminded herself, thinking of how he had pulled back from making love to her. Reaction to the night's events was setting in and she felt bone weary. Her last thought as she lay back on the pillows was that it was too late to recapture the fleeting happiness they had once shared.

* * *

Isobel's sofa was probably very comfortable as a sofa, but as a makeshift bed for a man of six feet four it failed to provide a good night's sleep. But perhaps his restless night could not be entirely blamed on the sofa, Constantin acknowledged fairly as he stood up and ran a hand over the dark stubble covering his jaw. The insistent throb of his arousal had kept him awake and his mind had been active as he had replayed the events of the previous night.

Wearily he slid his hand from his jaw and rubbed the back of his neck. There had been some truth in Isobel's accusation that he hadn't understood how she had sought comfort from her grief in music and song writing. He had been jealous that she had turned to the company of her friends from the band, but his inability to express his own feelings about the loss of their baby meant that he had failed to support her when she had needed him.

He glanced at the photos on the wall of the Stone Ladies performing at various venues around the world. Despite the tensions in their marriage he had not expected her to leave him. Isobel had made a new life for herself, and the pictures seemed to mock him with the message that she did not need him—financially, emotionally or any other way.

But she had needed him last night, Constantin mused. It was significant that when she had escaped from the stalker, she hadn't asked the concierge to call the police, but instead had run straight to
him
for help. When he had driven her home from the party she had been adamant that their marriage was over, but after her terrifying confrontation with the stalker she had rushed into
his
arms, desperate for his protection.

The way she had responded to him when he had kissed her was further proof that she was not immune to him as she would like him to think.

Constantin's jaw hardened. His uncle's threat to hand the role of Chairman of DSE to his cousin Maurio was nothing short of blackmail, but to claim his birthright he knew he had no option but to play Alonso's game. The hard truth was that he needed to show his uncle that he was reconciled with his wife. The incident with the stalker had given him an ideal opportunity to get close to Isobel and persuade her to give their marriage another chance. Only he would know that the reconciliation would be temporary, he thought grimly.

CHAPTER SIX

M
EMORIES
OF
THE
previous evening snapped into Isobel's mind the second she opened her eyes. Amazingly, she had slept soundly and not dreamed about the stalker, but now that she was awake she remembered David's strange air of nervy excitement, which had quickly turned to anger when she had refused to go away with him.

She rolled over in bed and squinted against the bright sunshine pouring in through the open curtains, feeling puzzled because she distinctly remembered pulling them shut last night.

‘I apologise for waking you.' Constantin's deep voice spoke from the doorway and Isobel's heart performed a somersault as she watched him walk towards the bed. He placed the cup of tea he had made her on the bedside table. It was unfair that even after spending the night sleeping on the sofa he still looked as if he had stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine, she thought wryly as she studied his superbly tailored light grey suit, expensive white shirt and blue tie that matched the vivid blue of his eyes.

She ran a hand through her tousled hair, feeling self-conscious that her face was scrubbed of make-up and flushed with sleep. ‘That's okay. It's time I was up anyway.' The clock showed that it was nine-thirty. ‘I don't usually sleep in this late.'

He shrugged. ‘You had an eventful night.'

The glint in his gaze made Isobel think that he was remembering, as she was, the passion that had flared between them when he had kissed her. He could have taken her to bed last night, she acknowledged, embarrassed to recall how eagerly she had responded to him. Hell, he could have tumbled her down onto the sofa and possessed her fast and hard with no foreplay and she would have let him. But he hadn't taken what she had offered so freely, and that made his next words all the more surprising.

‘I have to go to the New York office today. I would cancel, but a problem has arisen which requires my personal attention. I want you to come with me. The stalker is still at large,' he continued, predicting her question
why
before she voiced it. ‘The police don't have much to go on to help them find the man, but until they do I don't think you should be alone.'

He sat down on the edge of the bed, and his nearness immediately sent Isobel's pulse-rate soaring. He had obviously taken a shower in her small bathroom, and the distinctive spicy fragrance of his aftershave teased her senses. Her breath became trapped in her throat when he lifted a strand of her hair and coiled it around his finger.

‘My concern for your safety is not the only reason I would like you to accompany me to the States,' he murmured. ‘How about us starting over, Isabella? Once my business is finished in New York we could spend a few days in the city and get to know each other again.'

His sexy smile was almost Isobel's undoing. Her heart had leapt at his words, and there was a part of her that desperately wanted to agree to his suggestion. But she had noticed that he did not smile with his eyes, and she sensed an air of reserve beneath his charming manner that chilled her. Something about his sudden U-turn over the divorce made her suspicious, and her voice was cool when she answered him.

‘Why?'

Constantin was thrown by the question. It occurred to him that this new, more self-assured Isobel was no longer besotted with him as she had been when he had married her. If he was to stand any chance of persuading her to agree to a reconciliation he would have to be more open with her.

‘I accept that many of the problems which led to us separating were due to my reluctance to talk about my feelings, and in particular about losing our baby.' He visualised Arianna, so tiny and perfect, so still and lifeless, and his heart clenched. ‘As a child, I was not encouraged to show my emotions, and the habit carried through into my adult life,' he said gruffly.

Isobel bit her lip as she recalled her feeling of desolation after the miscarriage. ‘Your attitude towards me changed after I lost the baby,' she said huskily. ‘I couldn't get close to you, and you never wanted to talk about what had happened. I couldn't understand why. At the beginning of our marriage we were happy. We spent time together, and not only in bed,' she said quickly when his eyes glinted.

She took a steadying breath. ‘Losing our baby was devastating. But things had changed—you had changed—
before
I had the miscarriage. In Italy, when we stayed at Casa Celeste, you...you were suddenly not the man I had married.'

Her mind flew to the exquisite villa on the shores of Lake Albano, close to Castel Gandolfo—the Pope's summer residence. Casa Celeste had been the De Severino family's ancestral home for four hundred years, but Constantin preferred to live in a modern penthouse apartment in the centre of Rome, or, when he was in London, the house in Grosvenor Square.

When Isobel had first visited Casa Celeste she had felt overawed by its elegant façade, and its myriad bedrooms and bathrooms and grand reception rooms with their sumptuous frescoed walls and ceilings. She had commented that the house seemed like a museum, and Constantin had explained that his father had been an avid collector of art and antiques.

Studying the portrait of the previous Marchese De Severino, Isobel had seen no warmth in Constantin's father's eyes and she had wondered what kind of parent he had been to his only son. Constantin's tight-lipped expression when she asked about his father made her think that they had not been close. The wood-panelled entrance hall of Casa Celeste was lined with portraits of Constantin's aristocratic ancestors, and Isobel had been struck by the realisation that the child she was carrying was the next generation in the noble lineage of the De Severino family. Looking at the haughty faces of her baby's predecessors, she had felt out of her depth, and she had wondered if Constantin was secretly disappointed that the mother of his heir had been a miner's daughter before he had made her his Marchesa.

‘I had the feeling when we stayed at Casa Celeste that you thought our marriage was a mistake. I didn't fit into your sophisticated lifestyle and I wasn't a glamorous socialite like the women you were used to. I...I sensed that you were ashamed of me,' she said huskily.

He looked genuinely surprised. ‘That's nonsense.'

‘Is it? Then explain why you turned into a stranger on that trip, and why you became cold and distant.'

Constantin frowned. ‘Nothing changed. You imagined things.'

‘You slept in another bedroom—at the opposite end of the house.'

‘I moved into another room because you felt uncomfortable as your pregnancy advanced and you were too hot when we shared a bed.'

Isobel was unconvinced, especially when she remembered how well the villa's air-conditioning system worked. The only reason she'd been able to think of for why Constantin had insisted on separate bedrooms was that he had found the visible signs of her pregnancy unattractive. She had loved her rounded belly, but when she had excitedly placed Constantin's hand on her stomach so that he could feel the faint fluttering as their baby moved he had tensed and quickly stepped away from her.

His reaction had been all the more surprising because a few days before they had gone to Italy he had accompanied her to her second antenatal scan, and his hard features had softened when he had seen the image of their baby girl on the screen. Arianna had been perfectly formed and appeared to be healthy. Her little heart had been beating strongly. There had been no reason to think that her pregnancy would not continue, Isobel thought emotively, no indication of the terrible events that had followed days after she and Constantin had arrived at Casa Celeste.

‘You were unsettled at the villa,' she insisted, recalling how he had seemed permanently on edge. They had gone to Italy because he had needed to attend a board meeting at DSE's head office in Rome, but in August Isobel had found the scorching temperature in the city too much, and so they had transferred to Casa Celeste, where it was cooler by the lake. The moment they had walked through the front door she had sensed a change in Constantin, and she had been puzzled by his reluctance to spend time at his childhood home.

On their first night at the villa she had been woken by him crying out in his sleep, but he had dismissed his nightmare as a result of drinking too much red wine and told her he couldn't remember what he had dreamed about. From then on he had slept in a different bedroom, but Isobel knew that his nights had been disturbed.

‘You had nightmares. I heard you shouting in your sleep.'

He shrugged. ‘I seem to recall that I had a dream the night we arrived. I also remember that the wine I'd drunk that evening hadn't tasted right. I suspect it had gone bad, which probably accounted for my disturbed sleep.'

‘No.' Isobel held her ground. ‘You had nightmares on other nights.' She shivered. ‘Your cries were...ungodly—like an animal in terrible pain. You must have dreamed about something truly horrific.'

Constantin stiffened. ‘How could you have heard me? My room was far away from yours and the walls of Casa Celeste are too thick for sound to carry any distance.'

‘I...' She flushed, and wished she had not started the thread of conversation, but it was too late to backtrack. ‘I was standing outside your bedroom door one night and I heard you shouting. Your words didn't make sense. You kept saying, “He meant to do it, he meant to kill her.” I had no idea what you meant and I guessed you were dreaming.'

Constantin knew exactly what his shouts had meant and what his dream had revealed, but he had no intention of giving Isobel an explanation.

‘Why did you come to my room?' His curiosity deepened as he watched rosy colour flare along her cheekbones. ‘Had you felt unwell, or been concerned about the baby?' His voice became terse as a thought struck him. ‘Did you have warning signs that something was wrong with your pregnancy which led to the miscarriage a few days later?'

‘No...it was nothing like that.' She sighed. ‘If you must know, I went to your room because I...I wanted you to make love to me.'

She glimpsed a flash of some indefinable emotion in his eyes. As his mouth curved into an arrogantly satisfied smile she fought the urge to cover her hot face with her hands. ‘Why is that so surprising?' she said defensively. ‘Up until that trip to Italy we had enjoyed a passionate love life.'

‘Yes, you certainly disproved the theory that pregnancy can have a negative effect on a woman's libido,' he drawled.

Constantin visualised Isobel in the second trimester of her pregnancy. The morning sickness she'd suffered in the early months had disappeared and her skin had glowed, her hair had been glossy and her body had developed lush curves that he had found intensely desirable. When they had first met, their passion for one another had been mind-blowing, and to his pleasure pregnancy had heightened her enjoyment of sex.

Before the trip to Italy they had made love every night, but the return of his nightmares had been a grim reminder that he should never have got involved with her.

‘I'm not ashamed to admit that I missed having sex when you decided that we should have separate bedrooms,' Isobel said tautly.

They had only slept apart at the villa for a handful of nights before she'd lost the baby, and life had never been the same again, Constantin remembered. When they had returned to London he had attempted to comfort her, but she had been inconsolable and he had told himself he deserved her rejection.

He glanced at her lovely face and her mass of honey-gold hair tumbling around her shoulders, and felt a tightening in his groin.

‘Why
didn't
you come into my room when we were at Casa Celeste and tell me you wanted to make love?'

Isobel shrugged. ‘I couldn't.' She did not want to admit that she had been afraid he'd been turned off by her pregnant shape and might have rejected her. ‘When I realised you were having a nightmare I wondered if I should wake you, but then you stopped shouting and I thought it best not to disturb you.'

Her voice trembled. ‘Two days later I lost the baby, and there was no reason for us to stay together. You told me last week that you had only married me because I was pregnant,' she reminded him. ‘That's why I'm surprised by your suggestion that we could start again.'

She watched Constantin's eyes narrow, and sensed he was trying to think of a reason that would convince her to give their marriage another chance. It was lucky she had not expected him to make a declaration that he loved her, she thought drily.

‘Anyway, I can't jet off to New York. I've been writing songs for the Stone Ladies' next album and I'll be working with the band in the recording studio this week.'

‘Couldn't you put the recording session off until another time?'

His casual tone riled her. ‘No, I can't. A lot of other people are involved, sound engineers, studio technicians. We are professional musicians,' she told him curtly. ‘My career is as important to me as DSE is to you.'

Constantin struggled to hide the anger in his voice. ‘I'm well aware that your career with the Stone Ladies is your top priority, but for heaven's sake, Isobel, the stalker hurt you last night when he tried to grab you. Surely you take the issue of your safety seriously?'

‘Of course I do, and I appreciate your concern. But it's unnecessary. I sent a text message to Ryan last night telling him about the stalker, and he invited me to stay with him and Emily for a few days.' She glanced at the clock again. ‘As a matter of fact, they'll be here at any minute to collect me. Ryan said he'll ring the doorbell twice so that I know it's him.'

Constantin felt the acid burn of jealousy in his stomach at the thought of pretty-boy Fellows rushing to Isobel's rescue like a proverbial knight in shining armour. The guitarist was engaged to his girlfriend, he reminded himself. In his mind he heard the voice of his father's second wife.