Desire Has No Mercy by Violet Winspear Read Free Book Online Page A

dear?'
    He looked into her eyes and she gave him back a cool look. 'Whatever you say, Rome. I know Italian husbands like to have their opinions supported and their instructions obeyed. It oils their ego and makes them smooth, I expect.'
    The stewardess looked as if she didn't know whether to disapprove of the remark or smile at it. Her eyes went automatically to Rome, as if to take a lead from him.
    'My wife has a droll sense of humour.' His expression was sardonic. 'She's also a little shy and likes to hide her feelings from people. I'm the only one permitted to know exactly what she thinks of me.'
    'I'm sure she thinks you're—' The girl broke off, blushing. 'If you want more coffee, or anything,
signore
, just give me a call. I'll be only too happy to oblige you.'
    'I'm sure she would,' Julia laughed softly when the stewardess moved away to attend to her other passengers. 'That girl would love to be sitting here cuddled up real close to you. She thinks you're a charmer, with loads of machismo and such perfect manners. You really know how to put on a good act, don't you, Rome? With your talent for charm and your dashing looks you should have gone to Hollywood and taken over where Tyrone Power left off.'
    'You're such a sweet-faced bitch, Julia.' He said it with a smile, and bending over her put a kiss against her cheekbone. 'For the benefit of the stewardess,' he murmured. 'She's determined to believe we're a very romantic couple.'
    'If I'm a bitch, Rome, then take the credit for it.' Julia gave him a cool look, but his lips had left their warmth against her skin, reminding her of other kisses he had made her accept, of being helpless in a pair of arms whose bronzed strength could still send shivers up and down her spine. Her eyes dwelt on his shoulders in the grey suiting that was tailored smoothly to their power. Alone at the villa with him she would have little defence against whatever he desired of her, and neither her reluctance nor her lack of affection would prevent him from having his way with her, no more than they had done at the casino.
    Julia looked into his eyes and saw the devil fires burning there, lit long ago from his boyhood rage and now a hundred times more inflammable in the adult Rome Demario. She tried to remember the boy he had been, but the memory was lost in the man he had become.
    'Will you really enjoy being married to a woman who hates you?' she asked, with a cool politeness.
    'It could prove to be a fascinating experience,' he rejoined. 'It will provide me with the task of taming you, won't it, my lovely? After all, what fun is there in having a filly who accepts the bridle without kicking up her heels? And what kind of challenge is there in a sea without unpredictable currents and high tides? You know me for a gambler, Julia. I enjoy staking my bet on an outside chance.'
    'And do you always win?' she enquired.
    'Some of the time.' He drew his fingers down the smoothness of her hair. 'To think Rome Demario can do this to the little girl who always looked so neat and prim! There were times when I longed to take you into the back streets where I played so I could bring you back to your grandmother with street dirt on your face and tangles in your well-combed hair, and maybe a hole in your white socks.'
    Julia jerked her head away from his touch. 'Eventually you managed to drag me through the dirt,' she said coldly. 'Had my grandmother been still alive she'd have had you bullwhipped.'
    'You mean you'd have told her?' He quirked a black eyebrow. 'Somehow that doesn't sound like you, Julia, When you left me that morning in Naples you meant to bury the memory of me deep as a stone dropped into the Long Island sound. You wouldn't have told a soul about that night. You just wanted to wipe it out as if it had never been. What did you do when you realised you had a memento from the bad-mannered Italian boy? Did you burst into tears, or toss your hairbrush through a window?'
    'I cursed the very thought of