Captive in His Castle(21)

‘Of course you won’t lose it.’ He turned her towards the mirror and she caught her breath at the sight of the diamonds sparkling with fiery brilliance against her skin.

‘I feel like I’ve stepped into the pages of a fairy tale,’ she whispered, staring at the reflection of the beautiful woman whom she hardly recognised as herself, and the dark, dangerously attractive man standing behind her. She gave another shiver when Drago bent his head and trailed his lips down the length of her slender white neck. In the mirror she watched his eyes glitter with a look she knew so well, and his hunger for her made her insides melt.

He turned her to face him, but instead of kissing her, as she longed for him to do, he stepped away from her and ran a hand through his hair.

‘Jess…we need to talk.’

Puzzled that he seemed uncharacteristically ill at ease, she said quietly, ‘What about?’

He cursed at the sound of a knock on the door, and strode across the room to open it. After a brief conversation with the butler he glanced back at her, his frustration that they had been interrupted revealed in his taut voice. ‘Francesco says that some of the guests have arrived. We had better go down and greet them.’

Her foster-mother had had a habit of quoting proverbs, and one in particular—You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear—had never seemed more appropriate, Jess brooded later in the evening. Thanks to the haute couture dress she was wearing she did not look out of place among the glamorous women party guests. But it had quickly become apparent that she did not fit into Drago’s rarefied world of the sophisticated super-rich.

Dinner had been a nightmare; she hadn’t known which cutlery to use for each course, and she’d managed to knock over a glass of wine belonging to the guest sitting next to her. One of the waiters had calmly mopped up the mess, but she’d felt everyone’s eyes on her and wanted to die of embarrassment.

The fact that she did not speak Italian had not proved a problem, as most of the guests spoke English, but while they’d discussed a range of subjects including politics, current affairs and the arts, Jess had struggled to find something to say. She knew nothing about opera, she had never skied in Aspen—or anywhere else for that matter—and enquiries about her chosen career were met with surprise followed by an awkward silence when she revealed that she ran a decorating company.

It would have been better if Drago had hosted the party on his own, she thought dismally. And from the way he had avoided her all evening it seemed he thought so too. While cocktails had been served he had mingled with his guests and hardly spoken a word to her. Now, during dinner, although he was sitting opposite her, he focused his attention on the two beautiful women seated on either side of him and paid her scant attention. As coffee and petit-fours were served he lapsed into a brooding silence, and his grim expression deterred anyone from approaching him.

‘Of course I’m not surprised that our host looks so dour,’ the woman sitting next to Jess commented in an undertone.

‘What do you mean?’ She cast a sideways glance towards the elegant wife of Drago’s chief financial officer, who had introduced herself as Theresa Petronelli.

‘I imagine any man would find it hard to see pictures of his ex-fiancée, her husband and two children looking the epitome of the perfect family on the front page of a top-selling magazine. It must be a kick in the teeth for Drago—and a painful reminder of what he lost.’

Shock ran though Jess. ‘Are you saying he was once engaged to be married?’

‘To the lovely Vittoria—who I have to say looks simply stunning in this week’s edition of Vita magazine,’ Theresa confirmed. ‘Drago was engaged to her years ago, and Vittoria’s parents’ organised a lavish wedding. Then out of the blue the relationship ended. There were rumours that Vittoria was rushed into hospital, but no one from the family would say what was wrong with her, or whether her illness had anything to do with the ending of their relationship. The paparazzi hounded Drago for his side of the story but he remained tight-lipped about what had happened.

‘I’ve often wondered if he was more upset by the split than he let on,’ Theresa confided. ‘Vittoria’s father is a count. She is very beautiful and gracious, and would have been the perfect wife for Drago, but a couple of years ago she married a Swiss banker and she has just given birth to their second child.’

It was Vita magazine that had fallen out of her bag earlier, Jess thought. She hadn’t understood why Drago had seemed in such a bad mood when he had flicked through the pages, but from what Theresa had said he had clearly been dismayed to see pictures of his exfiancée who was now happily married to someone else.

Presumably Vittoria was the woman he had once been in love with. Was he still in love with her? she wondered. For some strange reason the thought caused a sharp pain in her chest, as if she had been stabbed in the heart. Her eyes were drawn across the table to him, and she stiffened when she discovered that he was watching her with a curious intensity.

He leaned forward suddenly, his dark gaze trapping hers. ‘Are you enjoying the party?’

Hurt by his indifference towards her all evening, she saw no reason why she should be tactful. ‘Not really. I feel out of my depth among all these posh people. The kind of party I’m used to is a barbecue in the rain, burnt sausages and my team of workmen having a competition to see how much beer they can drink. I don’t belong here.’ She looked away from him, cursing the silly tears that stung her eyes as she added silently, with you.

Drago frowned. ‘That’s not true. Of course you belong here. You are my guest.’

‘I’m your prisoner, suspected of something I have not done,’ Jess said fiercely, thankful that Theresa Petronelli was chatting to another guest and not listening to her conversation with Drago.

He gave her a sardonic look. ‘I’m sure that someone as resourceful as you could have left Italy if you had really wanted to. Which makes me think that perhaps you wanted to stay with me,’ he drawled.

‘Of course I wanted to leave,’ she snapped, outraged by his suggestion. ‘But thanks to you my passport is at the bottom of the canal.’

‘Thanks to me? I had nothing to do with your crazy climb down from a second-floor balcony—except to save you when you fell. You’re kidding yourself, cara. You stayed because you love the way I make you feel,’ he stated, in his deep, sexy voice that caressed her senses like crushed velvet.

She stared at him and felt her stomach dip. He looked incredibly handsome in a dinner suit and white silk shirt. The candles on the table cast a flickering light that accentuated the hard angles and planes of his chiselled features, and his dark hair had fallen onto his brow. Jess longed to run her fingers through it.

She’d stayed because she had fallen in love with him.

Jess swallowed as the shocking realisation hit her and quickly lowered her eyelashes, terrified that he might be able to read her thoughts. She cautiously examined the idea and gave a silent groan at her stupidity. Images flashed into her mind of walking hand in hand with him through the streets of Venice, of the candlelit dinners they’d had at Trattoria Marisa, where he was always able to relax after a hectic day at work and they’d talk about nothing in particular, in the way that lovers do. And underlying their easy companionship was the simmering sexual attraction which ignited the moment he took her in his arms and always culminated in him making love to her with hungry passion and an unexpected tenderness that somehow eased the loneliness inside her.

To her relief one of the guests stood up and proposed a toast to Cassa di Cassari’s chairman. This apparently signified the end of the party, and Jess took advantage of the bustle of people getting up from the table and preparing to leave to slip upstairs. Out of habit she went straight to Drago’s suite, but as she walked into his bedroom she stopped and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked lovely in the fairy-tale dress, but she didn’t look like the Jess Harper who ran a decorating business and was more used to wearing painting overalls. It was time to end the madness. She had thought she could have an affair with Drago without her emotions getting involved, but now that she had committed the ultimate folly of falling for him she had to end her relationship with him.

The headache that had started earlier had developed into a thudding sensation in her skull and she felt nauseous again. Maybe she had picked up a virus and that was why she had felt sapped of energy for the last few days. Releasing her hair from the chignon lessened the pain in her head a little, and after running a brush through her hair she unfastened the diamond necklace, wondering where she should put it. It must be worth a fortune. She guessed Drago probably stored it in a safe, but for now she decided to slip it into his bedside drawer.

His passport was lying on top of some papers. She carefully placed the necklace in the drawer, her attention still on the passport—which, to her surprise, was an English one, not an Italian passport. Curiosity got the better of her. After a moment’s hesitation she opened it—and a bolt of shock ran though her. It was impossible! Her passport had been in the rucksack that was now at the bottom of the canal. Staring at the photo of herself, she felt utterly confused.