Free The Perfect Lover by Penny Jordan Page B

sun and the even more welcome peaceful solitude.
    The first intimation she had that Giovanni was there was when she heard his liquid voice asking if she would like him to put some suntan oil on her bare back.
    Startled by his presence, she immediately turned over, and realised her mistake when she saw the way ,j)e was staring appreciatively at her naked breasts.
    Immediately she reached for her bikini top, telling him at the same time that his aunt was not there and that he had better leave.
    'I know she is not here, cara ,' he told her crooningly. 'But that is why I am here. So that we can have some time together alone. I have wanted to be alone with you for a very long time, and I know that it is the same for you. Your eyes have told me so,' he teased her.
    His own eyes were liquid with something that Louise judged had been ignited more by physical lust than tender emotion, but either way she was simply not interested.
    'Giovanni...' she began warningly as she scrambled to stand up, but either he had misread the tone of her voice or he had decided to ignore it, because instead of giving her some distance he made a grab for her.
    Thoroughly outraged, Louise tried to break free of his hold, but he was a strongly built young man, much taller than her and much, much heavier, and it suddenly struck her with a sharp thrill of fear that if he should choose to do so he could quite easily physically overpower her.
    'Giovanni,' she began again, but this time, as she was all too uncomfortably aware, her voice sounded rather more hesitantly pleading than firmly assertive.
    'Louise...what's going on?'
    Never had she thought she would be so grateful to see Gareth Simmonds, Louise admitted as Giovanni immediately released her and started to say something to Gareth that she felt too shaky to catch.
    Her hands, as she reached down for the skimpy top of her bikini, were trembling so much that it was impossible for her to fasten it, and instead she could only hold tight to it while wrapping her arms protectively across her naked breasts as Gareth told Giovanni curtly that he wanted him to leave.
    'You do realise what could have happened, don't you?' he asked Louise sharply, once the noise of Giovanni's battered Vespa had died away.Both his expression and his tone of voice immediately set Louise's back up. He was behaving as though he were her father, or her brother, as though he had a right to tell her what to do, to bully and correct her.
    'Yes, I do,' she answered, her voice shaking as she added, completely untruthfully, 'And, for your information, I wanted Giovanni to make love to me...'
    'To do what?' Gareth's voice dripped with cynical contempt. 'I doubt that love had very much to do with what he'd got in mind...' he told her derisively.
    Louise's chin tilted dangerously.
    'So he wanted to have sex with me. Is that so wrong?' she challenged him, tossing her head. 'After all, I've got to lose my virginity somehow, become the woman you're so keen to tell me I'm not. And since, as I'm sure you're now very well aware, thanks to my cousin and my loving, loyal sister, I can never share that experience with the one man...the only man I...'
    Pausing, Louise bit down hard on her bottom lip. Why on earth had she got involved in this conversation, embroiled in this situation? Just thinking about Saul had made her heart ache, and filled her eyes with treacherous tears. Fiercely she fought to suppress them.
    'It doesn't matter to me who the hell it is—who he is any longer.' Louise virtually spat at him. 'I just don't care...'
    She had said more, far more than she had ever intended to say. Much more...too much, she acknowledged shakily. But instead of taunting her for her immaturity, instead of talking down to her as he had been doing all these last unbearably long weeks, she heard him saying in a voice that shook almost as much with anger as her own had done, 'Are you crazy ? Have you any idea just what you're saying? Of course it damn well