to-be has a soft heart and digs deep into his
pockets to help those in need. Did you meet him
through his charitable work?"
Jodie could feel her face starting to burn as she
remembered her earlier accusatory comments to
Lorenzo. And she couldn’t even allow herself the satisfaction
of inwardly believing that Lorenzo had
primed his lawyer to speak as he had. One look at
Lorenzo’s grim expression was enough to make it
plain that Alfredo’s unwitting revelations had not
pleased him.
"Jodie does not work in any capacity for any of the
aid programmes, Alfredo." Lorenzo stopped him. "As
it happens I met her some time ago, when I was in
England. I had planned to bring her here to meet my
grandmother, but unfortunately Nonna died before I
could do so…which brings me to the matter of my
late cousin’s widow, Caterina."
"She can have no claim on the Castillo once you
have complied with the terms of your grandmother’s
will and are married," Alfredo assured Lorenzo immediately.
"No claim on the Castillo, no, but it seems that
Caterina feels she has the right to make a claim on
me," Lorenzo told him cynically.
Alfredo started to frown. "But that is impossible."
"Indeed. But Caterina, as we both know, is somewhat
prone to exaggeration. Ridiculously, she has
even suggested that my grandmother wished me to
marry her! Having run through Gino’s money, and
dragged his name in the gutter, it seems she desires
to do the same with mine."
"There has been gossip about her," Alfredo agreed
uncomfortably.
"Indeed. And I do not wish there to be any about
my marriage or my future wife, so perhaps a few
words in the right ears to warn them to ignore anything
Caterina might have to say?" Lorenzo suggested
smoothly.
"An excellent idea," Alfredo agreed, whilst Jodie
listened and silently digested the suavely subtle, lethal
way in which Lorenzo was dismantling Caterina’s
power base. When it came to getting what he wanted,
Lorenzo was obviously a ruthless opponent. A ruthless,
arrogant, dangerous man — who voluntarily gave
both his time and his wealth to help the young victims
of far-off wars and disasters. That wasn’t just one
man, it was two very different men inside the same
skin — like Janus, the double-faced Roman god of beginnings
and endings, from whom the month of
January took its name. Lorenzo was an enigma of a
man, and the polar differences within himself made
him toxically dangerous. But not to her. No man
would ever again be a danger to her.
"I have brought with me all the various documents
you will both need to sign in preparation for your
marriage. The Cardinal was most helpful. He suggested
the Church of the Madonna in Florence for the
service, and he has undertaken to arrange for the
banns to be read from this Sunday. Since the law is
that they must be read on two consecutive Sundays
before the marriage can be conducted, that means that
you can be married just over two weeks from today."
Banns? And a church service? Their marriage was
to be just a temporary business arrangement: it didn’t
need to be celebrated in church. A simple civil ceremony
was all that was necessary. Jodie started to step
forward, but somehow Lorenzo had managed to get
between her and Alfredo. She could feel his fingers
curling determinedly around her wrist, and she could
see the warning in his eyes as he lifted her now tightly
clenched palm towards his lips.
"You have done well, Alfredo," he said approvingly,
without shifting his gaze from Jodie. "Hasn’t
he, cara?"
His lips were caressing her knuckles, each individual
one in turn, until, helplessly, she could feel her
fingers uncurling from her palm, as though eager for
more.
"I have also prepared the necessary papers for you
both to sign with regard to the financial agreement.
There is one for you to sign, Jodie, renouncing any
future financial claim you might have against Lorenzo
in the event of a divorce, and the other which you
asked me to draw up, Lorenzo, stating that in the
event of the marriage breaking down within twelve
months of the ceremony you will pay Jodie one mil-
lion pounds sterling, plus a further million pounds for
every year after that that you remain married."
"I’ll sign the papers renouncing any future claim I
might have against Lorenzo, but I Don’t want his
money." The words were spoken before Jodie could
stop herself. She could see that Alfredo looked both
rueful and slightly embarrassed.
"Of course it is unpleasant to have to talk about
such things now, before you are even married, but—"
"I Don’t want the money," Jodie repeated.
"This is something we can discuss in private later,"
Lorenzo informed her in a warning tone, before turning
to smile at Alfredo and telling him, "You have a
long journey back to Rome, so the sooner we get all
the paperwork dealt with, the better."
"Why do we have to have a church service instead of
just a civil ceremony?"
It was over an hour since Alfredo had left, but
Jodie’s system was still in full adrenalin-producing
mode as she confronted Lorenzo across the width of
his desk.
"Why should we not? It is customary within my
family, and will be expected."
"You should have told me before. I thought we
would just be having a civil wedding. Being married
in church will make it seem so real…"
Lorenzo was frowning now.
"Our marriage will be real," he informed her. "That
is the whole point of undertaking it. It has to be
"real", as you put it, in order for me to fulfil the
terms of my grandmother’s will. Or at least, "real"
in the sense that it will be conducted as a real wedding.
We shall not, of course, be consummating it."
"No, we most certainly won’t," Jodie agreed vehemently.
"I’m beginning to wish that I had never got
involved in any of this."
"It is too late for that now, and besides, you will
be well remunerated."
"I’ve already told you I Don’t want your money.
All I want is for you to attend John and Louise’s
wedding with me."
"I could hardly have that put in the marriage contract.
As it is, there is bound to be some degree of
gossip and speculation about our relationship. You
have Alfredo on your side, though. He was obviously
afraid that your feelings had been hurt by the necessity
of legalising the financial aspects of our marriage."
"You could never hurt my feelings. You aren’t important
enough to me, and I intend to make sure that
no man ever is from now on."
"Yo
u intend to die a virgin?"
He was mocking her, Jodie knew.
"And if I do? There are more important things in
life than sex!"
"How would you know? By your own admission,
you have never truly experienced it."
Jodie had had enough.
"A woman does not need to have penetration in
order to experience sexual pleasure. Nor does she
need a man," she told him frankly.
"Is that the only way you feel able to allow yourself
to reach fulfilment? Either by your own hand or
through the use of some battery-driven device that
cannot—?"
"No! I wasn’t talking about me. I just meant… I’m
not listening to any more of this." Jodie could feel her
face burning with self-conscious colour as she covered
her ears with her hands.
"I am simply making the point that you are rejecting
something without having experienced it."
"What about you? You’re rejecting marriage, aren’t
you — at least a proper marriage? And you haven’t
been married, have you?"
"I haven’t been married myself, but I have witnessed
the marriages of others and seen what a destructive
sham the state of marriage is — how it is used
to cover greed and selfishness, and how children born
into it are left to deal with the fall-out from their
parents" deceit."
"That isn’t true of all marriages. Some Don’t work
out, yes, but there are happy marriages. My cousin
and his wife love one another very deeply, and my
parents were happy together…"
"Really? So how come this wonderful gene that has
enabled them to achieve the rare state of bliss bypassed
you?"
"It’s all down to having the ability to pick the right
partner. I realised with John that I Don’t have that
ability, and that is why I never intend to let myself
fall in love again. But that doesn’t mean I Don’t believe
marriage can work or that some people — other
people — have the ability to make the right partner
choice and to share commitment."
"Only a fool believes that sexual love can be permanent,"
Lorenzo told her challengingly, as though
he expected her to disagree with him. But Jodie was
wary of getting involved in any more arguments that
featured sex. Every time she did, a funny little sensation
deep inside her sprang into life and pulsed in
such an intimate and demanding way that she could
barely concentrate on what she was saying because
of it.
"Oh, and by the way," Lorenzo continued, "Don’t
think that I was taken in by that artful comment of
yours about not wanting the million pounds. What are
you hoping? That if you refuse it now then later,
when we divorce, you will be in a much stronger
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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"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
&nb
sp; 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
THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE Page 8
