by Abby Green
He shook his head. ‘Not ridiculous at all. Very practical, actually. Like I said, I’m in need of a wife, and as you deprived me of one so memorably two years ago, you can step up now and honour the commitment you made when you agreed to marry me in the first place.’
Vainly scrabbling around for something—anything to make sense of Ciro’s crazy suggestion, Lara asked, ‘Why do you need a wife so badly?’
‘The circles I’m moving in... Let’s just say things would be better for me if I had an appearance of stability. Settling down. Conforming to societal norms of what people expect of a man my age.’
‘An appearance... So this would just be a sham...a fake marriage?’
‘Call it a marriage of convenience.’
‘But it’ll mean nothing.’
Ciro’s lip curled. ‘As if that was a concern in your first marriage... As if you cared about Winterborne.’
Lara had to hide her flinch at that.
Ciro continued, ‘It’ll be a lesson in learning that your actions have consequences.’
She took a step backwards, surprised that her legs were still working. ‘This is beyond crazy. If marriage is so important to your image then I’m sure there are many more suitable women who would be happy to become your wife.’
Like any of the hundreds of women she’d seen on his arm over the past twenty-four months, for a start.
‘I don’t want any of them. I want you.’
Ciro was finding it hard to maintain his composure. Lara was right—there were plenty of women he knew who would jump at the opportunity to become his wife. He’d found himself seeking out women who were the antithesis of this woman’s cool blonde looks, but none of them had made his blood run hot as she could, just by standing in front of him.
For two years his bed had been lonely and he had been frustrated. Not that the world would believe it. But he hadn’t wanted any of them. He wanted Lara. And now, after two years of a kind of purgatory, hating her and wanting her, she was finally within reach again.
He would be the first to admit that his pride had suffered a huge blow when she’d walked away from him and from their marriage commitment. He was, after all, descended from a long line of proud Sicilians.
She’d accused him of only wanting to marry her to further his ambitions for social acceptance and he hadn’t been able to deny it. But it hadn’t been as much to the forefront of his desire to marry her as he’d let her believe. However, he had to admit that it had always been in the back of his mind...her strategic connections.
But, more than that, he hadn’t been done with her. When she’d told him she was a virgin—most likely a lie—Ciro had been stunned. To think that she was untouched...a rare novelty in his jaded world, had been, surprisingly, and seriously, erotic. The prospect that he would be her first lover had tipped Ciro over the edge of his restraint where Lara was concerned.
He’d always been traditional and Sicilian enough to envisage taking an innocent wife some day, but also cynical and experienced enough to know that it was next to impossible in this modern world. And yet there had been Lara, with her huge innocent blue eyes that had looked at him sometimes as if he was a hungry wolf, and her body with its slender lines and lush curves, telling him that she was this rare thing. An innocent in a world of cynics.
She’d led him a merry dance. Convincing him that she had something he’d never seen before in his life: an intoxicating naivety. But it had all been an act. For her own amusement. Because she’d been bored. Or as jaded as him.
Lara stood in front of him now, tall in her heels, but she’d still only reach his shoulder. For a second something inside him faltered.
Had her eyes always been so blue and so huge? She was pale now, her cheeks and lips almost bloodless. Because she was disgusted by his proposal? Good.
Ciro had to forcibly curb the urge to clamp his hands around her face, angle it up towards him and plunder that mouth until she was flushed and her mouth was throbbing with blood.
No other woman had ever had the same effect on him. Instantaneous. Elemental. He vowed right then that she would never see how easily she pushed him to the edge of his control.
He took a step back. Lara had denied him before but she wouldn’t deny him now. She owed him. Owed him her body and the connections a marriage to her would bring him.
‘Well, Lara?’
‘This is the day of my husband’s funeral...have you no sense of decency?’
Ciro could have laughed at her dogged refusal to stop acting. ‘Are you telling me you really cared about the old man?
The thought that she might actually be grieving for her husband slid into his mind for a second before he brutally quashed it. Impossible.
She flushed. With guilt. Ciro didn’t like the rush of relief he felt. ‘Save your energy, cara. Your acting skills are wasted on me.’
‘Stop calling me that. I’m not your cara.’
Her hands were balled into fists by her sides and her eyes were bright blue.
Ciro uncrossed his arms. ‘You never minded it before... If I remember correctly you used to love it.’ He mimicked her breathless voice, ‘“Ciro, what does it mean...? Am I really your cara?”’
‘That was before.’ Lara’s cheeks had lost their colour again.
‘Yes,’ Ciro said harshly, angry that he noticed so much about this woman. Every little tic. ‘That was when you were only too happy to court infamy by becoming engaged to me to alleviate your boredom. What I can’t quite understand, though, is the virginal act? That was a touch of authenticity that deprived us both of mutual pleasure.’
It was excruciating to Lara that Ciro remembered how ardently she’d loved him. How much she’d wanted him.
Without thinking about it, just needing to wound him as he was wounding her, she let words tumble out of her mouth. ‘I never wanted you.’
As soon as she’d said the words she realised her mistake. Colour scored Ciro’s cheekbones, making the scar stand out even more lividly. His eyes burned a dark brown, almost black. She was mesmerised by the fierce pride she could see in his expression. He was every inch the bristling Sicilian male now.
‘Little liar,’ he breathed. ‘You wanted me as much as I wanted you. More.’
He came towards her, closing the gap. Lara’s feet were frozen to the floor. He reached for her, hands wrapping around her waist, pulling her towards him, until she could feel the taut and unforgiving musculature of his body. But not even that could break her out of this dangerous stasis. She was filled with a kind of excitement she’d only ever felt with this man.
She’d thought she’d never feel it again, and something exultant was moving through her, washing aside all her reservations and the sane voices screaming at her to wake up. Pull back.
Ciro’s hands tightened on her waist and his head came down, blocking out the room, blocking out everything but him. Lara’s breath was caught in her throat, nerves tingling as she waited for that firm mouth to touch hers. It was so torturous she made a small sound of pleading...
Ciro heard the tiny sound come from Lara’s mouth. He knew this was the moment when he should pull back. He’d already proved his point. She was practically begging him to kiss her... But his body wouldn’t follow the dictates of his mind. She was like a quivering flame under his hands. So achingly familiar and yet utterly new.
He could feel the press of her high firm breasts, the flare of her hips, the cradle of her pelvis. He burned for her. He’d been such a fool to believe in her innocence. He’d held back from indulging in her treacherous body. But no longer.
Ciro gave in to the wild pulsing beat of desire in his body and claimed Lara’s mouth with his. For a second he couldn’t move—the physical sensation of his mouth on hers was too mind-blowing. And then hunger took over. He could feel her breath, sharp and choppy, and he deepened the kiss, taking it from chaste
to sexual in seconds.
Lara was wrapped in Ciro’s arms, and for a moment she happily gave up any attempt to bring back reality. His touch and his kiss, that masterful way he had of touching her and bringing her alive—she’d dreamed of this so often.
His taste was heady and all-consuming. She barely noticed his hands moving up her body, cupping her face so he could angle it better and take the kiss deeper, make it even more explicit. She craved him. Pressed herself even tighter against him.
The knot at the back of her head loosened and the sensation of her hair falling around her shoulders finally broke through enough for her to falter for a moment. And a moment was all she needed to allow enough air back into her oxygen-starved brain to recall what Ciro had called her. Little liar. And she’d just proved him right.
She stiffened and pushed against Ciro. He let her go and stood back, but it was no comfort. Lara already ached for him. The glitter of triumph in his eyes only added salt to the wound she’d opened.
She felt totally dishevelled and unsteady on her feet. Her cheeks were hot and her mouth felt swollen. She’d just humiliated herself spectacularly.
She lifted a shaking hand to her mouth. ‘You had no right to—’
‘To what?’ he said silkily. ‘To demonstrate that our chemistry is still very much mutual and alive?’
It wasn’t much of a consolation that Ciro didn’t look overly thrilled about that fact.
He shook his head, his dark hair gleaming. ‘In this at least you can’t hide your true nature.’
He started to walk around her and Lara’s skin prickled. Her pulse was still pounding. She felt raw.
‘How could you do it?’ he asked from close behind her. ‘How could you take that man into your bed every night and let him—?’
Lara whirled around, bile rising. ‘Stop it! I won’t discuss my dead husband. Not on the day of his funeral. It’s...immoral.’
Ciro emitted a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Immoral, is it? More immoral than promising yourself to a man only to leave him by the wayside as soon as you realise how close you’ve come to sullying the perfect Templeton family line with a brood of half-Sicilians?’
Lara’s heart squeezed painfully. At one time she had fantasised about the children she would have with Ciro, wondering if they’d inherit their father’s dark good looks and vital charisma. The fantasy mocked her now. She’d been so deluded.
Her voice trembling slightly, she said, ‘You accuse me of being immoral, but you admitted that your motive for marriage was nothing but a cold calculation to improve your social standing.’
Ciro stood back and his dark gaze narrowed on her. She immediately felt exposed.
‘There was nothing immoral about seeking out a union that would benefit us both. You really didn’t have to go so far as to feign feelings for me, cara. It was entertaining, but unnecessary.’
Lara smarted as she recalled yet again how naive she’d been. Because it wasn’t as if he’d led her on—he hadn’t professed any feelings for her. Instead she’d pathetically read too much into every tiny gesture and word, building up a very flimsy belief that he was falling for her too.
Ciro continued. ‘Why didn’t you try to secure your future by giving Winterborne an heir? Is that why he left you with nothing? Because you didn’t fulfil your wifely duty?’
Lara shook her head to negate what he’d said. She couldn’t seem to formulate words. Memories were rushing at her in a jangled kaleidoscope of images—Ciro proposing, down on one knee in the middle of a piazza in Florence, with everyone looking on and clapping, the pure joy she’d felt in that moment.
And then another memory—the awful dark, dank smell of fear as she’d been jostled in the back of that van with a hood over her head. Ciro’s arms had been around her and she’d clung to him with a death grip...
‘I don’t... I never wanted to marry—’
‘Me,’ Ciro interjected. ‘Yes, I know.’
Lara swallowed. He’d misunderstood her. She’d wanted to marry Ciro so desperately that she was afraid if she opened her mouth now it might all spill out and then he would tear her to shreds.
She couldn’t imagine—didn’t want to—what he would do if he ever found out that her uncle had been behind the kidnapping in an elaborate bid to show Lara the lengths to which he would go to ensure she married someone ‘suitable’.
She had to regain control of this situation and of her fraying emotions. She injected all the froideur she could muster into her voice. ‘You’ve proved your point, Ciro. You haven’t forgiven me for leaving you. But if it’s a wife you need I suggest you look elsewhere. I’m not available.’
She turned away to leave, but before she could take a step her arm was taken by a firm hand. She stopped, every part of her body tense against the inevitable effect Ciro had on her.
He drew her back around to face him. ‘Please do tell me what it is you’re so busy with now that you’re a free woman again?’
He dropped her arm, but the imprint of his fingers lingered. She rubbed it distractedly. She looked at him, but the truth was that she was busy with nothing, because she literally had nothing—as he well knew.
She had just enough money in her account to see her through a week, maybe, in an inexpensive hostel. And that was it. She had nowhere to go. No one to go to.
The stark reality of just how isolated she was hit her like a body-blow.
‘The fact is you’re not busy—isn’t that the truth, Lara?’
It was as if Ciro was delving casually into her mind and pulling out her innermost humiliation for inspection.
She tipped up her chin. ‘I’ll keep myself busy finding a job, somewhere to live.’
Ciro snorted. ‘A job? You wouldn’t know a job if it jumped up and bit you. I doubt an art history degree gets you very far these days. You were bred to fulfil a role in society, Lara. Anything else is beneath you.’
Hurt hit Lara squarely in the chest. She’d once confided in Ciro about wanting to do more than what was expected of her. No doubt he thought she’d been lying.
She lashed out. ‘You mean like marrying you? We went through this once before—do you really want to be humiliated again, Ciro?’
This was the Lara that Ciro remembered. Showing her true haughty colours. He could recall only too easily how two years ago she’d morphed in front of his eyes into someone distant and calculating. Utterly without remorse.
It had shocked him. And yet it shouldn’t have. Because it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already learnt how beautiful women operated at the hands of his brittle, self-absorbed mother. She’d made a fool of his father over and over again in her bid for desperate validation that she was desired.
His father had put up with it because he’d loved her, and Ciro had believed from an early age that if that was what love meant, he wanted none of its ritual humiliation.
And yet Lara had sneaked under his defences before he’d known what was happening.
His first image of her was still etched into his memory, no matter how much he’d tried to excise it. She’d been standing just a few steps from Ciro on a busy street in Florence, a hand up to her face, shading her eyes, seemingly entranced by an ornate building. She’d been like a vision of a Valkyrie princess against the ancient Florentine backdrop. Long bright blonde hair falling to the middle of her back... Acres of pale skin...
She’d been oblivious to the attention she was drawing. Or so Ciro had believed. But now he knew she must have been aware of exactly what she was doing, with that face of an angel and the body of a siren.
Suddenly someone had jostled her from the pavement and she’d stumbled into the busy road. She would have been hit by a car if not for Ciro grabbing her and pulling her to safety. She’d landed against him, all soft lithe curves. Silky hair under his hands. And her scent...lemon and roses. Huge shocked blue eyes had stared up into his
and he’d fallen into instant lust, for the first and only time in his life. Captivated.
But memories were for fools and he would never be such a fool again. He knew who—what—Lara was now. He would make use of her and then discard her, exactly as she had done with him when he’d literally been at his lowest point.
‘You’re really not in a position to bargain, Lara. You have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. You wouldn’t survive half an hour outside that door.’
Lara clenched her hands into fists. The only thing stopping her making a vociferous defence was the fact that Ciro was speaking her fears out loud. What skills did she have? What meaningful education? Where would an interesting but useless degree get her in this new digital age? Some menial job in an art gallery if she was lucky? She could probably plan and host a diplomatic function for fifty people, but in reality domestic cleaners were more highly qualified than she was.
Taking advantage of her silence, Ciro said, ‘This is what I’m proposing. We will get married in Rome, exactly as we planned two years ago. I think a year of marriage should suffice, but we can review it after six months. During our marriage you will perform social duties as my faithful and loyal wife. You will open doors for me that have remained resolutely shut. And once we agree to a divorce settlement I will make you a very rich woman.’
Lara was incredulous. ‘You’re serious.’
‘Deadly.’
He looked at his watch then, as nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just made such a preposterous suggestion. ‘My driver will take you back to your apartment, where you will pack up your things, and then you will return here to me. We leave for Rome this evening.’
Lara’s head was spinning. Too much had happened in such a short space of time. Her husband dying. Ciro reappearing in her life. His crazy proposal, which made a mockery of his first proposal. The prospect of having to learn how to survive on her own. And now the opportunity for something else entirely.
Something ridiculous. Gargantuan. Impossible.
