PENNY JORDAN - Pride - Captive At The Sicilian Billionaire's Command

The sight of the villa materialising virtually out of the darkness, its honey-coloured walls illuminated by the large wrought-iron flambeaux that threw a soft flickering light not just over the building but also over the setting that housed it, brought Julie a merciful release from her anxiety.

Who could not look at something so stunningly architecturally beautiful and not be entranced by the sight of it?

‘It’s almost too perfect to be real.’ Julie couldn’t keep the awe from her voice as she stared up at the high portal, where what she assumed must be the Leopardi coat of arms was illuminated by the light of the flambeaux.

‘It is real, I assure you,’ Rocco drawled. ‘It was built in the eighteenth century, originally as a summer retreat from the heat of the city. Caspar Leopardi designed it himself, and brought the very best craftsmen of the day here to work on it. He wanted to combine in the architecture all those things that were Leopardi—thus the front of the villa you see here is built on the classical lines of the eighteenth century, with reference to Greek and Roman architecture and thus the Greek and Roman influence on Sicily, whilst the enclosed courtyard around which the villa is built echoes the Arab influence on the island and on the Leopardi family.

‘The flambeaux you can see here on the walls were especially commissioned on the island. Each one embraces a different part of our history via an heraldic design, and the gardens are of the Italianate style that was so popular amongst the English who travelled to Italy in the eighteenth century.’

As he spoke Rocco was driving them through the portal to a formal courtyard dominated by an imposing marble stairway.

‘The marble was quarried in Carrera,’ Rocco told Julie, ‘and the stairs lead up to the piano nobile —that is to say the main floor into the formal reception rooms of the villa.’

Julie’s face burned with angry pride.

‘I do know what piano nobile means,’ she informed him sharply, but even if he realised he had offended her he certainly wasn’t going to apologise, she recognised.

The emotional switchback she had been riding since he had stopped her in the street outside her flat, culminating as it just had with a surge of terror followed by an equally powerful release of that tension, was beginning to take effect on her body, Julie recognised muzzily. She had gone through too much, climbed too far too fast and fallen back too quickly, to maintain any equilibrium. She felt distinctly odd—weak, breathless, trembling inside, whilst her heart raced and thudded.

Rocco had brought the car to a halt in front of the double flight of stone stairs. His arrogant, ‘I will take the child,’ as he got out of the driver’s seat, had Julie rushing feverishly to remove Josh from the baby seat, determined not to let him do so. She held her nephew tightly.

Instead of calming her, the sensation of the night air on her face made her feel slightly sick and dizzy. Holding on to Josh, she looked towards the flight of steps. So many of them, and she felt so very odd and weak—not like herself at all. Way above the porticoed entrance up at the top of the villa the carved stone heads of gargoyles and mystical animals stared down at her. All her growing doubts rushed in on her.

Why had she allowed him to persuade her to come here? Just as soon as she could she was going to demand some proper reassurances and explanations—and a lawyer to hear them, she told herself fiercely as she started to climb the stone steps.

She was halfway up them when it happened—her foot somehow slipping on the wet stone so that she half stumbled forward, with Josh in her arms.

Before she had time to cry out strong arms were gripping them, holding them both safe. She could smell male flesh—alien, and yet at the same time recognised by senses already attuned to him. She could feel male warmth, and had to fight to stop herself from simply wanting to relax into it, to give in to the weakness that had invaded her. She wanted to lie here against him, protected by him, never to have to leave that protection. She wanted his arms to close round her and stay closed round her. She ached almost desperately for a man like this one—a totally male, totally strong man—to lift the burdens she was carrying from her heart and heal the hurt inside her.

What was she thinking? The only man she had ever wanted—the only man she would ever want—was dead.

How long had passed? How many minutes had she been lying against him, her heart thumping sickly, too weak to move, whilst shocked tears of reaction and remorse blurred her vision? Too long.

If he hadn’t been close enough and quick enough—if she had dropped Josh on the steps—if he had been hurt because of her .

‘Give me the child. Unless, of course, you want to risk hurting him.’

He knew how to hurt her, she recognised. How to sense her weaknesses and use them against her.

Numbly, Julie handed the still-sleeping baby over to him.

It was Josh he wanted—just as it was for Josh’s sake that he had saved her, not her own. And now that he had Josh he was striding up the stairs away from her, leaving her to follow on her own.

Out of nowhere a terrible lethargy rolled over her, accompanied by a bizarre longing to lie down and close her eyes. She looked up to the portico, her heart thumping ever harder. She could not climb the steps. She could not climb even one of them. But she must. Somehow, leaning against the stair wall for support, she managed to drag herself up one step and then another, closing her mind against the ache of pain in her legs.

Rocco took the steps two at a time, driven by the savage bite of his anger. Of all the stupid, irresponsible things to do.

She was a woman with pride.

What if he hadn’t caught her in time?

She had defied him.

She had lain against him like a trapped fawn, too exhausted to flee its hunter, her heartbeat shaking her whole body.

She had risked the child’s safety.

She had looked at the child with such anguish in her eyes that it was as though she had bared her whole heart.

She was a good-time girl—an easy lay who had no appeal for him.

She was a devoted mother who touched some chord deep within him that overran the settings of his moral criteria of what he found desirable in a woman.

Something frightening was overwhelming her. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The ache in her legs that had become so familiar to her over the last couple of weeks had intensified to such a pitch that it made her want to cry out.

Her heart was thudding so much it frightened her. She desperately wanted to sit—no, to lie down, Julie corrected herself tiredly, even as her fingers curled round the metal handrail, so that she could pull herself up the final few stairs and follow Rocco into the villa.

Normally she would have been entranced by the hallway, with its frescoes and its magnificent return staircase to the upper floors, its walls filled with paintings which Julie suspected were each worth a prince’s ransom. Normally she would have been thrilled by the opportunity to enjoy such a feast of artworks. But right now she longed so much to lie down that she couldn’t think of anything else. She was actually grateful that Rocco was holding Josh.

Rocco was talking to a plump woman whose dark hair was streaked with grey, and who Julie assumed from her demeanour must be the housekeeper. He was handing Josh over to her and she was beaming down at him.

Rocco was turning back to her.

‘A room has been prepared for you,’ he told Julie. ‘Maria will show you to it.’

Julie nodded her head and made to follow Maria, who was already walking up the stairs.