She would become Rafe’s bride and the new Princess of Montvelatte in less than two weeks. Rafe certainly wasn’t wasting any time inducting her into the family firm or in waiting for her to make up her own mind. Neither was he wasting any time keeping her informed.
But, then, why would he? He still hadn’t asked her to marry him. Simply taken it for granted that she would fall in with his plans.
And, damn it, why the hell should she? She was pregnant with his babies, but that was where his interest in having her as his wife began and ended. She’d never been on that list of potential wives Sebastiano had been scouting, and she never would have been considered but for one unprotected moment and an unplanned pregnancy that had resulted.
And until he’d discovered her condition, he’d been prepared to let her leave the island so he could resume his search for a princess. He’d made it clear that he was willing to bed her and that was all.
She’d only been promoted to the top by default. By an accident. A mistake.
It wasn’t good enough.
It wasn’t enough.
Sienna let her hands drop into her lap and squeezed her eyes shut. What was she thinking—that this marriage might work, that if she and Rafe got to know each other properly, they might make a go of it? Because she could marry him and still end up with nothing. There were no guarantees. And babies simply weren’t enough to hold a marriage together. She was living proof of that. Only love could cement a marriage together—love on both sides.
Once upon a time, in a bed in what seemed for ever ago, she thought she’d found those first magical stirrings of love. But she’d been wrong. Her sense of wonder at a wave of new-found feelings had been misplaced. Apparently it had only ever been about the sex.
And when she’d arrived on the island and was prevented from leaving, that had all been about the sex as well. Rafe had wanted to use her—and discard her—all over again.
And soon, unless she found another solution, they would be married, and still love had nothing to do with it.
Marriage. How could she do it? How could she marry a man she didn’t love and who didn’t love her, a man who saw her as either his personal sex toy or his personal incubator and to hell with her career, a career he was only too happy to throw on the trash heap in his pursuit of his own goals? A man who lied to her and who gave her no choice?
How could it ever work?
‘Sebastiano said you wanted to see me.’
Sienna jumped, so deep in thought that she hadn’t heard Rafe’s approach. He obviously hadn’t been back long. He was tugging at his tie, still wearing a dark suit and crisp white shirt that accentuated his olive skin. A five o’clock shadow that made designer stubble look contrived dusted his strong jawline and gave him an almost piratical appearance. How could anyone look so good no matter what they wore?
Or didn’t wear, for that matter.
She dropped her eyes, trying to focus on the invitation in her hands, and why she’d been so angry, instead of the thought of the skin under that suit, skin she’d be seeing a lot more of if this damned marriage took place as planned. And that thought didn’t help her burning face one bit.
Sienna stood and waved the paper in her hand, hoping he would assume that it was the reason for the heightened colour in her cheeks. ‘You told me I had a month to decide what I was doing.’
‘Did I?’
‘You know you did. At that dinner the night of the scan. You said we had a month to get to know each other.’
‘And your problem is?’
‘Today I find this!’ She thrust the invitation under his face so he had no choice but to take it, giving it a brief glance.
‘You’re not happy with the invitations?’
‘I’m not happy with the date! Look at it. You said we had a month to get to know each other, a month to make up my mind before any date was set, but this says we are to be married in less than two weeks. You lied to me!’
‘No! I never said you had a month to make up anything of the sort. I asked you if a month was enough to get to know each other and you said it was. Which was fortunate, as the wedding date had already been set.’
Blood pounded at her temples. ‘You knew the date had been set and you didn’t tell me? When you knew I thought I had a month to make up my mind?’
‘And haven’t we been doing that, Sienna?’ he said, coming closer until there was only a hands breadth between them, and fielding her question with one of his own. ‘Haven’t we been getting to know each other? I thought you’d enjoyed our evenings out together?’
She could feel the heat emanating from him, but it was the scent of him that threatened to scramble her brain. A scent she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed these last three days. With a strength of will fuelled by her anger, she spun away, out of range.
‘That’s not the point. You led me to believe that I could make up my own mind, that it would be my decision. And it will be my decision. I will not be railroaded into marrying you. I want these invitations stopped.’
‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that. Sebastiano informs me that they’ve already gone out.’
‘But I haven’t said I’ll marry you.’
He shrugged. ‘And now you don’t have to.’
‘How dare you!’ She was sick of his arrogance. Sick of his attitude, sick of having all her reservations thrust aside as if they counted for nothing. ‘And what of my life? I’m a helicopter pilot, Rafe, not a princess!’
‘In less than two weeks, you will be both.’
She scoffed. ‘And you would have me believe I can keep my job?’
He slammed the invitation down on the table. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t have my wife running joy flights around the Mediterranean. You will have work here. As Montvelatte’s Princess. As mother of our children.’
‘I worked hard to become a pilot! I worked damned hard to get to where I am now and not by flying joy flights. How can you expect me to throw it all away to fall in with your plans?’
Rafe sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. ‘But don’t you see, you have no alternative. Your flying career crunched to a halt the minute you became pregnant with twins.’
‘And who damn well got me pregnant!’
‘Guilty,’ he acceded, making his way to a sideboard and pouring himself a healthy slug of Scotch that he held up in mock toast to her. ‘And for my sins I will marry you. Surely you can’t ask for more than that.’ He threw the glass back, draining half the contents. ‘Now, if that was all? I do have some work to attend to.’
He was already turning to go when she stepped forward and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Don’t dismiss me like some minion with a petty grievance.’
His eyes glittered with an icy cold ferocity as his eyes scanned upwards from the hand on his forearm to her face. ‘Clearly, that would be a mistake on my part. But let me make one thing patently clear. We are getting married on the date printed on that invitation, whether you like it or not.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then I will throw you over my shoulder and carry you to the altar, if that’s what it takes.’
‘Why not just club me over the head and drag me there and prove to the world what a beast you really are?’
A muscle popped in his jaw, the fires in his eyes growing even colder. ‘What a tempting prospect. I must keep that in mind. But rest assured, this wedding will happen. Whether or not you embrace the concept is entirely up to you.’ What was her problem? Rafe pulled off his tie and tugged at the buttons at his neck as he strode into his bookshelf-lined study. Couldn’t Sienna see it was the only way? Merda, it solved everybody’s problems in one neat package.
He threw himself into the high-back leather chair behind his desk, took one look at the untidy pile of reports and files sitting on his desk waiting for his attention and swung around to stare out the windows over the neat lines of the courtyard garden and to the azure sea beyond the cliff walls instead. He gaz
ed out of the window, unseeing, knowing he should be tackling the paperwork. With the question of continuing the Lombardi line so neatly wrapped up, he should have been able to spend more time on the more pressing financial problems that threatened to undermine Montvelatte’s economy, and helping with unravelling the intricate web of companies, dummy companies and trusts that his half-brothers had established in an attempt to ensure that the ultimate beneficiaries of the stolen casino funds would never be discovered.
They had been, but with the mess they had left behind, it would take time to get Montvelatte back on a sound financial footing.
But instead of spending time on the problem, he’d had to pander to Sienna’s wishes, spending evenings with her, making her think he was going along with her wish to get to know him better. It hadn’t been that onerous, surprisingly enough, the woman he’d chosen because she was pregnant with his babies, and because of how she could pleasure him in bed, turning out to be an unexpected success with the crowds.
So what was her problem? She’d enjoyed their time together, and he’d had no doubt that a month would be all it would take to convince her that marriage did not have to be the disaster she coloured it.
It had been going so well until she had spotted that invitation. How the hell had she got hold of that?
But what was worse, he’d told her that he’d carry her to the altar if she refused to marry him, and at the time he’d meant every word. Although with the cameras and the guests and the world watching, that was never on the cards. He needed her to walk down that aisle of her own free will.
Christo, but he wanted her there. Over the last few days in Rome he’d missed her more than he’d expected, and the idea of returning to her had held more and more appeal. She might not come with the pedigree that Sebastiano was so hopeful of securing for Montvelatte’s Princess, but her fresh beauty could only give the monarchy a boost, and in terms of a partner, he was much happier to have someone he knew he was compatible with in bed than the pick of some highly strung finishing school graduates. Dio, but how he was looking forward to renewing that part of their relationship.
He swore under his breath as his thoughts turned to rock-hard reality. He had work to do, and the last thing he needed was to feel that familiar tightening in his groin.
He swivelled around in the chair and let his eyes slide over the piles of paperwork requiring his attention before this evening’s dinner meeting with Montvelatte’s Minister of Finance.
And then he remembered the wounded look in Sienna’s hazel eyes as he’d stormed out of the room and instantly his priorities changed. For as much as she liked to call him the Beast of Iseo, he needed her to walk up that aisle willingly …
Rafe found her sitting on the side of the pool, her filmy floral skirt hiked up above her knees as she dipped her calves in the water. She looked beautiful like that, leaning back on her hands and making circles with her feet that spun with light through the water. Beautiful and yet, oh, so sad.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
Sienna glanced briefly in his direction and then away. ‘I thought you had work to do,’ she said, but not before he’d caught the flash of surprise. Surprise and something else that had skated across the surface of her eyes too quickly to pin down, but enough to encourage him. She was angry, but there was something else there as well. That was a start.
‘Work can wait. I needed some fresh air and thought, now that it’s approaching evening, a walk on the cliff path would be good. Have you done that yet?’
She shook her head, sitting straight up now and sweeping her hands clean.
‘Would you like to?’
She blinked once, suspiciously, and then again less so, and finally she gave the briefest of nods. ‘Thank you.’ She swung her legs out of the pool and reached for a towel, but he was already there with it. Their hands met as he passed it to her, and she jerked away, as quickly and gracefully as a startled gazelle.
‘Come,’he said, once she’d slipped on her sandals. ‘This way.’
It was still warm, but the sun was dipping lower in the sky and the scent of a thousand wild herbs and flowers played on the fresh sea air as he led her, neither of them speaking, around the Castello wall and onto the narrow path that wended its way around the headland. Low scrubby bush hugged the sides of the path, tiny pink flowers jostling with each other in the light early-evening breeze.
In the distance the shard of rock that was Iseo’s Pyramid thrust savagely into the sky, with its ever-changing cloud of sea birds wheeling and circling its heights, and from this angle it looked even more dangerous, as if slicing through the water like an enormous black fin. They stopped to look at it at one point, where an enormous chair had been carved out of ancient rock.
‘Tell me about the legend,’ Sienna asked, standing in front of it, hugging her arms around herself as she looked across the sea to the rocky islet.
Rafe studied her face—the blandness of her expression, the tightness around her eyes. There was a vulnerability about her this evening that he hadn’t seen before, almost as if she’d lost her fight and had become resigned to her fate.
He didn’t like it. He liked her passive even less than he did when she argued with him. At least then she showed the passion for which he knew she was capable.
She turned her head then, her eyes questioning, and reluctantly he turned his eyes away and towards the chunk of rock she seemed to find so fascinating. ‘It was the making of Montvelatte,’ he told her. ‘The waters are treacherous around the Pyramid; many ships have come to grief in trying to negotiate a passage between the mainland and the island. Blown off course, the pyramid was almost a magnet. Many went down. Many men died.’
‘And the beast? How did that story come about?’
‘There were always stories, always a suggestion that there was more to the dangers of the Pyramid than an iceberg carved from rock. And then, on a night with no moon and a savage storm, legend has it that a vessel carrying riches from the east to Genoa was blown onto the rocks and sliced in two. One man miraculously survived, only to witness the breaking apart of his vessel and the deaths of all those he’d sailed with. It was he who first saw the beast when lightning lit up the sky. The beast was standing atop the Pyramid and howling into the storm, the bloodied remains of one of his fellow sailors in its maw. That man was Iseo.’
Alongside him she shivered, and he would have reached out an arm to bring her close, but he knew she wasn’t shivering with the cold, and he sensed his arm around her shoulders would not be welcome. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He clung to some debris and made it here. Eventually he went mad, if he weren’t already. But not before everyone had heard the story. And believed it.’
‘What a horrible story.’
‘Though fortunate for Montvelatte.’
She looked up at him. ‘How so?’
He shrugged. ‘Some enterprising pirate decided it was easier to make a living by exacting a toll from passing ships to guarantee them safe passage past the Beast, rather than bother with attacking them. It was only the ones who refused to pay that he was forced to attack.’
‘Oh, my,’ she said, with what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. ‘Very entrepreneurial.’
And he laughed at her unexpected response, suddenly glad he’d swapped a mountain of work on his desk for a walk in the fresh air with a woman who continued to surprise him at every turn.
A woman already pregnant with his seed.
A woman who would soon be his wife.
And once again the beast inside him swelled like it had been fed. This would work, he knew in his gut that this marriage would work. One way or another. He just had to make her see it.
A noise interrupted them, and Rafe cursed himself for not turning off his cell phone. No doubt Sebastiano was checking up on him, his schedule thrown by Rafe’s spur-of-the-moment change of plans. The caller ID confirmed his suspicions before Sebastiano’s gently chiding voice reminded him of a meeting he hadn�
��t forgotten at all. Simply wished he could.
Rafe pretended to listen while he watched Sienna turn her focus on the ancient stone seat, running her hands over the weathered contours of the rock. He followed their progress, watching her fingers trailing across the surface, hit with the sudden memory of how those same fingers had felt dancing across his skin, her nails biting into his flesh when he’d turned his attentions to a place that had made her gasp and curl her fingers deeper.
And suddenly his body ached to feel the curl and bite of them in his flesh again.
He watched her move, absorbing the gentle sway of her hips and the sweet curve of her neck into his being as one absorbed sunshine.
How long would he have to wait? Until their marriage night? The doctor had told him there was no reason they should not resume a normal sex life, but he’d been assuming they’d had a normal sex life, when all they’d shared had been just one night. Definitely not normal. And definitely not enough.
And while he intended to remedy that the first chance he got, right now was hardly the best time.
One step at a time. He wouldn’t rush her or she’d consider it just another ploy. As much as he preferred her passion to the passive sadness he’d witnessed in her most recently, the last thing he needed to give her was another reason to fight him before the wedding. That wasn’t the kind of passion he wanted. Once she was legally his, there would be plenty of opportunity for passion.
But the best part of two more weeks? It would be agony.
Sebastiano’s voice had long died away when she looked up and caught his gaze on her, her hands halting their exploration as her eyes widened in surprise. She swept her hands away from the rock, as if embarrassed. ‘The stone is so beautiful.’
‘It’s called Vincenzo’s throne,’ he said, drawing up so close behind her that the breeze, so usually filled with the perfume of wild flowers and aromatic leaves, was laced with the warm scent of her. ‘After the first Prince of Montvelatte. Nobody knows who carved the seat or when, but it was right here that Montvelatte first became a Principality.’
The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011 Page 10
