position to claim far more? If that is the case, let me

warn you—"

Jodie had had enough. "No, let me warn you that

the only reason I am marrying you is so that I can

show John he isn’t the only man in the world, and so

that I can hold my head up high at home, instead of

being pitied. It’s my pride that’s motivating me, not

any desire for money. I do not want your money! And

I certainly Don’t want your…your sexual expertise,

either!"

"that’s just as well, because you aren’t going to be

offered it," Lorenzo said unkindly. "It amazes me that

still in this modern day the myth persists that adult,

sexually mature men have a secret yearning for the

untutored body of a virgin. Personally I can think of

nothing more unenticing. Maybe that was why your

ex-fiance. chose someone else over you. Have you

thought of that?"

Had she thought of it? There had been endless

nights and days when she had thought of nothing else

in those early weeks. Nights when she had lain in bed,

feverishly wondering how she might suddenly transform

herself from a virgin into an alluringly experienced

woman who could seduce him away from

Louise just as Louise had seduced John away from

her. But that had been in the maddening furnace of

new rejection, and those fires, with their dangerous,

damaging compulsion to prove herself as a woman,

had now cooled. And they certainly weren’t going to

be re-ignited by a man like Lorenzo — a man who

looked and behaved as though he knew everything

there was to know about a woman"s sensuality and a

man"s ability to rouse and enjoy it.

The pulsing inside her body suddenly became

sharply intense. Not just a pulse now, but a deep-

seated ache as well.

"THERE is something I want to say to you."

Caterina stood in front of Jodie, blocking her exit

from the pretty garden she had left her room to explore.

"Alfredo was here earlier. Why?"

"isn’t that something you should be asking

Lorenzo, not me?" Jodie tried to head her off.

"He doesn’t want to marry you really. It’s me he

wants. he’s always wanted me and he always will.

Always and for ever. I was his first woman and I shall

be his last. But, because I chose to marry his cousin,

Lorenzo feels he has to punish me, and to show me

that he no longer cares. But he does. He still wants

me, and I can prove it any time I like."

Jodie could feel herself wanting to reject the intimacy

of the information being forced on her, along

with the shockingly graphic images that were already

forming inside her head. She was no voyeur, she told

herself angrily, and the last thing she wanted to imagine

was Lorenzo making love to Caterina.

"Whatever he may have told you, the only reason

he’s marrying you is because his own stubborn pride

makes him believe that he has to resist his feelings

for me to prove how strong he is. The truth is that

Lorenzo is afraid of his need for me," Caterina

boasted, adding mockingly, "When he beds you it will

be me he is imagining he is holding, and me he secretly

wishes he were holding." She gave Jodie a con

temptuous look, the same kind of look that Louise

had given her. Her heart seemed to miss a beat, and

she could feel what must surely only be an echo of

remembered pain and rejection stealing away her self-

confidence and hard-won self-belief.

"You and Lorenzo may once have been lovers—"

she began bravely.

"May? There is no ""may"" about it. We were."

Caterina stopped her. "He adored me, worshipped me.

He could not resist me."

Jodie’s stomach rolled queasily. Inside her head she

could hear Louise saying triumphantly to her, "John

can’t resist me."

"There was a quarrel — a misunderstanding. Lorenzo

was young and hot-headed. I could not allow him to

treat me thus, so to teach him a lesson I left him."

Jodie could well imagine how Lorenzo must have

reacted to that kind of treatment. His pride would certainly

have been outraged. But surely true love was

stronger than pride?

"He is only marrying you because he does not have

any feelings for you. Lorenzo is afraid of his feelings

for me and that makes him fight against them. But he

will not fight them for ever. He cannot. His desire for

me is too strong."

"that’s ridiculous," Jodie forced herself to protest.

"After all, there is nothing to stop him marrying you

if he wanted to do so."

"It is his mother who is to blame for his ridiculous

refusal to marry me," Caterina insisted angrily. "It is

because of her that he fears to publicly acknowledge

his love for me. Because of her he tries to deny and

reject it. But I can still make him want me."

"isn’t his mother dead?" Jodie pointed out.

"Lorenzo has never forgiven his mother for betraying

his father and leaving them both when she went

off with her lover." Caterina gave a small, almost contemptuous

shrug. "Such a fuss about nothing. He was

a child of seven, with a father rich enough to provide

him with all the care he needed. But, no, that was not

good enough for Lorenzo. He wanted his mother to

come back…he even pleaded with her to come back.

Gino told me. He adored her. They both did—

Lorenzo and his father. She could do no wrong. To

them she was a madonna. I have told Lorenzo many

times that it is crazy for him to still brood now on

what happened when he was a child. Women leave

their husbands and their children all the time, and

Lorenzo will leave your bed for mine if you are fool

enough to marry him," she warned Jodie. "I shall

make sure of it. And I promise you, when I do, he

will not be able to resist me."

Just as John had not been able to resist Louise.

What was it about women like Louise and Caterina

that made men so vulnerable to them and so impervious

to their selfishness?

For a woman who professed to love Lorenzo as

much as Caterina was doing, Jodie reflected, she

didn’t seem to have very much sympathy with him.

For a seven-year-old boy to lose the mother he loved

as intensely as Caterina had said Lorenzo did must

have had a deeply psychological effect on him. And

if he had actually loved Caterina, her marriage to his

cousin must surely have intensified his belief that

women were not to be trusted, and that they were

amoral, shallow and selfish cheats.

What am I doing? Jodie asked herself wryly. Surely

she wasn’t actually feeling sympathy for Lorenzo?

As she watched Caterina walk away, Jodie told herself

that it was a good job she was not marrying

Lorenzo for love.

Jodie turned to look at the granite hulk of the Castillo

walls. She was alone in the garden now, Caterina apparently

having grown tired of issuing her dark warnings.

She would not have entered an unwanted marriage

in order to possess such a place, Jodie thought

wryly, but she was not Lorenzo. It must be a matter

of family pride to him that he was its master.

She tensed as she heard footsteps on the gravel,

recognising them immediately as Lorenzo’s. A tiny

feathering of sensation started to uncurl slowly inside

her: a potent blend of danger, excitement, and challenge

pumped intoxicatingly throughout her whole

body by the jerky, speeded-up bursts of her heartbeat.

It was reassuring to compare what she was feeling