Veretti’s Dark Vengeance

CHAPTER TEN

‘HOW did you get away so soon?’ she murmured. ‘I thought it would take you much longer.’

‘One of my aunts took pity on me and told me to clear off because I was useless.’

They were lying in the dark. It was almost dawn and they had loved each other to exhaustion. Now they simply lay together, naked, resting.

‘I’ll have to go back soon,’ he groaned, ‘and spend today being a host. But the last of them will leave early tomorrow, and then I’ll come straight here. I want to be alone with you.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘But is it possible to be alone in Venice?’

‘It is where I’m going to take you.’

‘Where’s that?’

He grinned. ‘Wait and see. All I’ll tell you is-wear sensible clothes.’

‘Define sensible.’

‘Shirt and trousers.’

Reluctantly he got out of bed and began picking up his clothes from the floor. When he’d finished dressing he sat on the bed and took her hand, gazing down at it.

‘What I said about “your cut,”’ he said awkwardly. ‘You know I-’

‘I know,’ she said gently.

‘I’d have said anything to hurt you. I’m afraid I’m like that.’

‘So am I,’ she admitted.

‘I don’t believe that. But sometimes a cruel devil comes over me and I give in to it.’

She sat up and rested her cheek against his shoulder.

‘Sometimes the urge to make a dramatic effect is just too strong,’ she offered.

‘Thank you. That’s very generous.’

She chuckled. ‘Let me give you a tip about making an effect. When you get home, don’t creep in. Make sure everyone knows that you were away for hours.’

He stared at her, his eyes gleaming.

‘You mean-?’

‘Then those eager young lads will know that you achieved what they couldn’t,’ she finished triumphantly.

‘You’re a wicked, wicked woman,’ he said fervently, kissing her.

‘I know. Isn’t it fun? Now be off. I need lots of sleep before I can be wicked again.’

She spent most of that day dozing in perfect contentment. Next morning there was a message from Salvatore to be ready on the dot of ten. He was there promptly, driving a large white motor boat. His eyebrows rose when he saw her attire.

‘You said trousers,’ she defended herself.

‘I also said sensible, not trousers that hug your waist and hips so tightly that-well-’

‘They’re the only ones I have.’

‘Yes, I suppose they are. Get in, and I’ll try to keep my mind on my driving. It won’t be easy but I’ll try.’

It was a glorious day, full of the sparkling delight of early summer. As the boat headed out over the lagoon she stood beside him, rejoicing in the feel of the wind in her hair.

‘Where are we going?’ she yelled above the noise of the engine.

‘To one of the islands.’

She knew there were about a dozen small islands in the lagoon, places so small that nobody lived there, and as they went further out she guessed they were heading for one of these. Even so she had a surprise when Salvatore finally drew into a tiny cove. There was a small landing stage and a post with a metal ring to which he tethered the boat.

‘It’s so tiny,’ she said, astonished. ‘At least, what I can see of it is tiny.’

‘That’s right. It’s about half a mile in one direction, and three quarters of a mile in another. When we’ve gone through those trees at the edge of the beach you’ll be able to see the whole place.’

The ground sloped up so that as they emerged from the trees Helena found that she did indeed have a perfect view of the tiny island, including how the shore curved away on each side, until it enclosed the island in the distance. Looking around, she discovered that she could just make out Venice far away across the lagoon.

She stood for a moment, revelling in the perfect peace of this little place, where the only sound was birdsong, and the soft lapping of the waves.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured. ‘Is it yours?’

‘Yes. It used to belong to my mother. She brought me here when I was a child, and promised that one day it would be mine. She said it was a place of refuge when the world became too much. And she was right.’

‘I can’t imagine you ever finding the world too much,’ Helena said. But she spoke without antagonism.

‘Of course. That’s the idea of a place like this. You can hide your weaknesses here, then emerge stronger, to confront people.’

It was as though he’d opened a tiny window into himself, giving her a glimpse of a different man. But he closed it again at once, saying, ‘Let me show you the house. You can just see it there beyond that clump of trees.’

She hadn’t even noticed it before, so modest was the building. No grandeur here, just a comfortable-looking bungalow with a couple of outhouses.

As they walked towards it he took her hand. It seemed a casual gesture, yet there was something pleasing about the warmth and firmness of his clasp.

‘Careful,’ he said, indicating a large stone in her path and steadying her as she crossed it. ‘We’re nearly there.’

Hand in hand they walked on to the house. Despite its isolation she found that it had everything necessary for comfort, including running water, light and warmth from its own generator.

‘So you can run a main-line computer,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet you do your best work here.’

‘No computer,’ he said. ‘I have a cell-phone so that I can be reached in case of emergencies, and a small radio, but apart from that, nothing.’

With delight she saw that it was a place where a man could retreat from the world and be alone with himself. Or perhaps one other.

He showed her the kitchen, the freezer stocked with food. Then he unpacked a large bag he’d brought with him on the boat, revealing fresh bread, potatoes, steak and salad.

‘Wait until you taste my cooking,’ he said.

‘A man who lives in a palazzo knows how to cook? I don’t believe it.’

‘Is that a challenge?’

‘If you care to take it that way.’

He got to work while she looked around the bungalow, which was modestly appointed with two bedrooms, one living room and a place that seemed like a small library. The furniture was sparse, little more than necessities, and she wondered if he preferred this after the luxury in which he normally lived. It almost suggested that the man who felt at home here must be a monk.

But that wasn’t so, she mused, remembering last night.

They ate on the terrace overlooking the sea. Far off she could just make out the shore of Venice, merely a thin line of buildings.

‘It’s good to get away before things start being noisy again,’ Salvatore observed.

‘Why are they going to get noisy?’

‘I’ve got a new line of glass coming out and it’ll be unveiled in a few days.’

‘Oh, yes, mine’s a bit later. Emilio’s getting excited about it.’

‘A lot of store buyers come down and half your sales will be made in that first week. You’ll be all right. Your line is good.’

‘I won’t ask how you know,’ she said wryly. ‘I haven’t forgotten how you walk in and out of Larezzo as though you own it.’

‘Walked, past tense. I wouldn’t dare do it now.’

‘Hm!’

He laughed. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you?’

‘Can we discuss this another time? I’m enjoying myself and I don’t want to spoil it.’

‘You’re right. Business should be kept well away from this place.’

‘I think it’s lovely, a perfect little world apart.’

Salvatore nodded.

‘I sit here some evenings and look over there where the lights are winking,’ he said. ‘It looks so close, it’s hard to believe it’s really so far away. And I can hear the bell in the campanile booming all the way over here. It’s like being alone and yet being in Venice at the same time.’

‘Living your life from within, and standing back to see yourself as other people do, all in one moment,’ she murmured.

He looked at her quickly. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to say, but you put it better. And I suppose you know more than anyone about seeing yourself through other people’s eyes.’

His tone was friendly, without the defensive edge that usually tinged it, even in their lighter moments, and she nodded, happy to relax with him.

‘You’re right. Sometimes I feel as though there are fifty versions of me, and none of them are really me. Yet I suppose something of those terrible women must be inside me, or how did they grow?’

‘Why do you call them terrible when they’re known for their beauty?’ he asked. ‘Is beauty terrible?’

‘It can be, when people look at you and see nothing else. It can be a curse.’ Then she made a sound of impatience with herself. ‘Oh, listen to me! There are millions of women who’d give the earth to have what I have. My life’s easy compared to what a lot of them have to put up with. It’s just that sometimes-sometimes I think of their nice ordinary lives with children and men who work at unexciting jobs and come home every day, and love them for their own selves, not because of their looks, and I think how lucky they are.’

He didn’t speak, but took her hand, caressing it softly with his own. Dreamily she wondered if this gentle, peaceful man could be the same one who enjoyed tormenting her to climax.

But he too had many faces, as she was discovering, and the knowledge bred in her a longing to explore further and discover the others.

‘You must sense it too,’ she said. ‘People who think they know you, but actually they haven’t the first idea.’

‘True, but I can’t blame them. I show them what I want them to see, and if they believe it, well and good.’

‘But where does that leave you?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Safe, I suppose.’

‘But what price are you paying?’

‘Perhaps the same as you.’

‘Is it worth it?’ she asked curiously.

‘Sometimes it is. There are times when I know I’ve done the right thing in standing guard over myself. At others…’ He shrugged again.

‘But why do you have to stand guard? Would the world come to an end if you eased up, trusted people a little?’

‘I’ve seen other people’s worlds come to an end like that,’ he said slowly, ‘because they trusted, and then found that their fate wasn’t in their own hands. That’s something I’ll never let happen to me. My fate will be in my hands and nobody else’s, as long as I live.’

He spread his hands out before him, as though seeing them for the first time. They were large and powerful, but something made Helena take one of them in hers and hold it gently. He became suddenly still and she had the feeling that she’d taken him by surprise.

She too was surprised. Her own fingers were delicate compared to his, yet his hand lay in hers, unresisting, as though, just for a moment, all the power was with her.

Memories of their times together came back to her as she turned his hand over. So fierce, yet so gentle, imprisoning her, caressing her, doing whatever he pleased but making sure it pleased her too.

On impulse she tightened her fingers on his.

‘Come with me,’ she said.

He rose to his feet and let her lead him inside, to the larger bedroom.

They undressed quickly and fell onto the bed together. In contrast with last time he now seemed almost hesitant.

She put her arms above her head and stretched out blissfully, with a sigh that might have been contentment or expectation. At once he reached out, laying one hand between her breasts, and resting it there as though awaiting her reaction. Her pulse quickened but she stayed still.

Very slowly his fingers moved, inching their way towards her right breast, pausing, venturing further, pausing again. Helena smiled, daring him. Further, further, until his fingertips reached one nipple, already reacting, and teased it until it grew harder still.

‘Do you want me?’ he asked softly.

‘Do you think I do?’

‘Little tease. Answer me.’

She laughed. ‘Don’t tell me a man as experienced as you needs to ask.’

He shifted his hand to the other breast.

‘A woman can say one thing with her body and another with her lips,’ he remarked. ‘She does it deliberately to confuse a man.’

‘Then, since my lips can’t be trusted, you don’t need to hear from them,’ she pointed out.

It was hard to speak through her rapid breathing, but she was enjoying this too much to let it go.

‘True, I have another use for them,’ he said before his mouth came down on hers.

His kiss was long and had a soft urgency that thrilled her. She yearned against him, inviting him to go on, but he seemed reluctant to do that, touching her softly with his mouth, then retreating at once, refusing to deepen the kiss with his tongue.

She felt his lips against her neck, just below her ear, where he knew she was especially sensitive, and shivered with delight. The sensation moved slowly down her neck to the little hollow at the base of her throat. There he lingered, now using the tip of his tongue to torment her deliciously.

‘Aaaa-aaah!’ The soft cry broke from her. ‘Don’t stop.’

‘I’m not going to stop,’ he whispered against her skin. ‘I’m going to kiss you all over. Then perhaps I’ll stop-or perhaps I won’t.’

She could almost hear him smiling as he spoke, and her own smile seemed to rise from deep within her.

Now he’d moved on to one breast, concentrating intently as he kissed it, now here, now there, now with his lips, then with his tongue. A fire was glowing within her, mounting slowly until she feared that she would climax too soon, but he never let that happen, always drawing back just before she was overwhelmed, then renewing the soft assault. It was a kind of torture, but one that left her dizzy with exquisite delight.

‘Don’t make me wait too long,’ she gasped.

‘Be patient,’ he commanded.

‘I can’t be patient.’

‘Then I must make you.’

He drew back to survey her with a slightly mocking smile on his lips.

‘You devil,’ she whispered, reaching for him and trying to pull him over her.

It was useless. He resisted her easily, while the amused pleasure in his eyes made her wonder if he really was a devil.

Desperate with frustration, she reached down, seeking him, finding him hard and ready. But he thwarted her, seizing her hand, then finding her other hand and drawing them both up above her head, holding them down on the pillow while she writhed helplessly.

‘Let me go,’ she said, outraged.

‘No, I feel safer like this. Who knows what damage you might do me if I let you go?’

‘I know what I’d like to do,’ she growled.

‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ he murmured. ‘The best is yet to come.’

He freed her hands but before she could fight him he flipped her over onto her stomach, and began work again on the back of her neck. Here too she was especially sensitive and tremors of pleasure went through her, driving her previous annoyance away to a far place where she would think about it later. Maybe.

‘Grrr!’ she murmured.

‘Shall I stop?’

‘You do and you’re dead.’

He laughed, and his breath whispered along her spine, making her gasp. Now her whole back seemed defenceless so that every kiss was a soft attack for which she was completely unprepared. There was no protection against what he was doing to her, demonstrating his power to drive her wild with caresses that teased, hinted, promised, but never fulfilled.

Protest was useless. She was his as long as he could melt her in the heat of frustrated desire, and he knew exactly what he was doing, drifting slowly down her spine until he reached her waist. And there, like any good general who knew that the battle was going his way, he brought in reinforcements. Without removing his lips from her spine he increased the assault with his hands, moving them over the flare of her hips, her behind, tracing soft lines that criss-crossed each other.

She thought of those hands, so large and powerful. Who would have dreamed that the fingers could be so sensitive? They moved here and there, never anywhere for long, yet seeming to be everywhere at once.

‘Let me turn over,’ she demanded.

‘When I’m ready.’

She thumped the pillow. ‘Damn you!’

He gave a rich laugh, observing lazily, ‘That’s been said to me before but never under these-precise-circumstances.’

She would have died rather than let him know how glad she was to hear this. Instead she peered at him over her shoulder, with narrowed eyes. He understood her message, grinned and pulled back. Seizing her chance, Helena writhed over onto her back, grabbed him fiercely and pulled him over her. Now he came easily, sliding between her parted legs and thrusting deep inside.

She drove back against him fiercely, feeling her desperation explode in the fulfilment she found at last. She’d wanted this until she was half out of her mind, and that, of course, was what he’d meant to happen.

He’d won again and she didn’t care, she didn’t care, SHE DIDN’T CARE!

Let him win. Let him have everything as long as she could hold him inside her and feel that he was hers. While that was true she cared about nothing else.

Helena had half expected to find herself alone when she awoke, thinking that Salvatore would retreat from intimacy as soon as he had what he wanted. Yet he surprised her by being there, sitting on the bed, his eyes fixed on her, a thoughtful look on his face.

True, he looked away quickly, as though caught off guard, but she’d seen his expression before he could hide it, and she reached up her hand to touch his arm, making him look back.

‘You’re awake early,’ he said. ‘It’s barely dawn.’

‘Well, I can always go back to sleep,’ she murmured in a sated, luxurious voice.

Smiling, he drew back the sheet, surveying her nakedness.

‘If I let you,’ he said.

The words might sound commanding but instinct told her otherwise. His desire for her was undiminished, just as she’d meant it to be. That meant the honours were even.

She saw him looking down on her with a half-smile and waited with beating heart for what he would say next.

But his cell-phone shrilled, smashing the atmosphere.

‘Why didn’t I think to turn it off?’ he groaned, but added at once, ‘Because you gave me something else to think of.’

They smiled at each other, but his smile faded as soon as he answered.

‘What? But how can they-? I made it perfectly clear-To hell with them, I can’t come now-’ Then he groaned. ‘All right, I suppose I’ll have to-’

Helena slid off the bed and searched for her clothes. The magic time was over, but she had known it, against all the odds, and it would come again. That was enough for now.

When the call ended Salvatore was scowling.

‘Damnation! I should have turned the phone off and left it off for days.’

‘Days? Were we going to be here for days?’ she enquired.

His scowl gave way to a wry smile. ‘Who knows what might have happened?’

‘Who knows indeed? But not now.’

‘Now I have to get back to Venice and go to Switzerland for a meeting tonight. Some clown has made a mess of an important set of figures and if I don’t sort it out it’ll get worse.’

‘Switzerland?’ she echoed, halting her dressing in her dismay. ‘For long?’

‘Certainly a few days. Maybe a week. But think what evildoings you can get up to when I’m gone. I’ll probably return to find you’ve put me out of business.’

‘Not at all,’ she said at once. ‘I fight fair. I’ll wait until you return, then I’ll put you out of business.’

He grinned and leaned over to drop a light kiss on her mouth. ‘I’m really going to hate being away from you. Especially now.’

She nodded. There was no need for words. They understood each other.

In a few minutes they were in the motor boat, heading back across the lagoon. Gradually the Piazza San Marco came into view, the bells ringing from its distinctive tower, and as they neared Salvatore slowed down the boat.

‘I’m in no hurry to get there,’ he explained. ‘Once we’ve landed we go back to being who we were.’

‘But when you come back…’ she ventured.

‘Yes, when I come back there’s a lot to be said. Until then-I’ll just tell you this; you’re the first person I’ve ever taken to the island.’ His voice became deeper, quieter. ‘And that makes me very glad. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘I understand.’

‘Then we understand each other,’ he said, slipping an arm about her shoulders and drawing her close.

It wasn’t a fierce or predatory kiss, but neither was it as gentle as the ones they’d exchanged on the island. He was telling her to remember how he could make her feel, how she could make him feel. He was telling her not to forget that he was coming back to claim her.

‘Someone will see us,’ she said, laughing through her delight.

‘How? We’re still out in the lagoon.’

But as if to prove him wrong a boat sped past so close that their own boat rocked with the waves, making them cling together.

‘We’d better get home,’ Salvatore said unsteadily.

He delivered her to the hotel, said a sedate goodbye and drove away without kissing her. Helena had expected nothing else. What was growing between them wasn’t for the eyes of strangers.

It was the time of year when glass makers set out their new collections. Helena surveyed the new pieces that Larezzo had produced, and knew she could be proud. But what she could not do was rest on her laurels.

‘We need a new oven,’ she said, ‘like the one Salvatore has.’

‘It’ll cost,’ Emilio warned her.

‘I know. I’ve posed for a few pictures but to raise that much I’m going to have to accept some serious assignments. But that will mean going back to England, at least for a while.’

‘And you don’t want to leave Venice,’ Emilio said knowingly.

‘I guess I don’t,’ she sighed. ‘But neither do I want to give in. I’m still fighting him-in one way.’

‘Even if not in another?’ Emilio said, grinning.

‘Well-just keep that to yourself. I’m not going to confuse the personal and professional.’

It was easy to say that now. What was between herself and Salvatore was something she couldn’t name, but it brought her happiness, and it was easy to believe that things would work out somehow.

That was before she picked up the newspaper, and everything changed.

She stared a long time at the huge colour picture, trying to understand its meaning, but resisting it too because the real meaning was terrible.

The paper had gone to town featuring the new lines of the glass factories. Today it was Perroni’s turn, and the spotlight was on a glass figure. It was beautiful, the most glorious piece Perroni had ever made, everyone said.

There was no detail, but the outlines were sculpted so skilfully that little was left to the imagination. The naked woman, created from glass that was almost clear but for a faint pearly tinge, stretched languorously back, her arms above her head so that the swell of her breasts was emphasised. Her face was featureless, but her hair flowed gloriously over her shoulders, and almost down to her waist.

Somehow the artist had caught her true nature, enticing, fiercely sexual, outrageously tempting, knowing her own allure, enjoying it.

The photographer had taken her from several angles, and every picture was there in the newspaper. Underneath the headline read, Helen of Troy.

The paper had made the most of the story, strongly hinting that it was no coincidence that Salvatore’s factory had produced this piece so closely following his association with the woman known as Helen of Troy.

The first Helen of Troy came down to us from history as the face that launched a thousand ships,

the writer burbled.

And the people of Venice have recently seen this very thing for themselves at the Festa della Sensa.

Advance orders for this daring work of art are said to top anything in Perroni’s previous collections, meaning that the factory’s fortunes are riding high again this year.

Helena read the piece through several times in dead silence. Then she took a long breath.

‘Fool!’ she breathed at last. ‘Is there a bigger fool in the world than me? So easy, so obvious, and I fell for it. All the time he’s been laughing-jeering at me-’

Now she too was laughing, shaken with bitter mirth that grew more violent until her whole body ached.

At last she calmed down and made her way slowly to a chair by the window, overlooking the water. She almost collapsed into it as though the strength had drained from her, and leaned back, her face stony.

Certain things came back to her, things that had been puzzling at the time but whose meaning was now brilliantly, horribly clear. Only the day before she’d bumped into Carla, apparently by chance, except that there’d been a mysterious significance in Carla’s manner. While babbling innocently she’d studied Helena’s face, as if searching for something. And her questions had been double-edged-did Helena know when Salvatore was returning to Venice? Had she heard about his line in glassware?

‘She was trying to find out if I knew,’ Helena mused. ‘She must have known-everyone must have known-and they’ve been watching me to see the moment when I realised.’

This was what Salvatore had done to her; not only used her for profit, but also made her the laughing stock of Venice.

When she was sure she had herself under perfect control she returned to the newspaper and read the story through from the start. It was cleverly written, suggesting only that Salvatore had been romantically inspired by her. There was no hint of the cold-blooded calculation that actually lay behind it.

‘They wouldn’t dare,’ she thought. ‘They might think it, but only I will say it, because I know it’s true.’

Cold-blooded. The words created a strange sensation in her, calling back the times when he’d been anything but cold, when the heat of his touch had inspired an even more fervent heat inside her, so that she had found a passion she’d never before known existed.

After years of being a figure of ice she’d discovered herself to be a deeply sexual woman, and all because a deceitful man had played her for a sucker. He’d warned her, but she’d refused to believe him, because at the same time something had been flowering in her that had nothing to do with the body, and everything to do with the heart.

Love. She hadn’t dared give it a name but now it seemed to dance mockingly before her. The warmth and tenderness that had been growing in her, the moment when she had instinctively defended him to Carla, she’d thought this was love.

And all the time he’d been standing back, studying her to discover the best way to make use of her. Something caught in her throat when she remembered waking up to find him watching her, tenderly, as she’d thought; but actually calculating how much money he could make from putting her on the market.

How fiercely he’d seemed to worship her body! And all the time he’d been taking notes, for profit.

Antonio’s photograph was looking at her from the bedside table, his face kind and cynical.

‘You warned me what he was like,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t listen. But those days are over.’

She rose to her feet, her expression grim.

‘Now I know what to do.’