The Italian's Virgin Bride

by Morey, Trish

  ‘Maybe there’s a chance I will accept your conditions then,’ he said.

  ‘You will?’ She sat down again.

  ‘But only on one proviso,’ he added.

  He followed the bump in her neck as it moved, the gentle rise and fall of her throat, as she swallowed back her nervousness.

  ‘And that proviso is…?’

  ‘It’s quite simple,’ he started, ‘and no doubt something we can both benefit from. You’ll get the white knight you need to bail out your business and I’ll get an interest in a six-star hotel chain that has much to offer.’

  She looked lost for a while, her features searching for the answer. ‘But…how is this different from the offer I made you before?’

  ‘Quite simply, I will pay what you require and accept a forty-nine per cent share of the business. Something, I must point out, a Silvagni has never done. You only have to agree to do one thing.’

  ‘And…and what would that be?’

  He looked her squarely in the eyes. ‘Marry me, Opal Clemenger. I will invest in your hotel chain, on your terms, if you will agree to become my wife.’

  Chapter 4

  ‘Your wife! You have to be kidding. Why the hell would I want to agree to that?’ Opal noticed the turned heads, remembered where she was and sucked in a deep breath. ‘I think it might be a sensible idea to conclude this matter in my office.’

  In truth it was an attempt to gain breathing space. As soon as she had him in the office she was telling him where to well and truly get off. It would not be a prolonged conversation.

  He followed her, too close, unnecessarily close, so that his expensive cologne taunted her, even though it was she who led the way to her modestly sized but well-appointed office.

  Dammit—it wasn’t his cologne taunting her. It was him. He projected an aura of power and control that filled the small space of her office and made her wish she’d thought of somewhere roomier, maybe the boardroom, for this confrontation. There was nowhere here to get away from Domenic Silvagni, and right now she wanted to be as far away from him as she could get. But first, she had to put paid to his ridiculous suggestion.

  Standing with her back to the wall, she crossed her arms, all too aware of the heart hammering away inside her chest. ‘My offer of a share in Clemengers,’ she said, with all the calmness she could muster, ‘is a serious one. I’d appreciate it if you treated it accordingly.’

  He smiled from his position near the closed door, tilting his head to one side and sliding his hands casually into his pockets. Her eyes followed the movement, the fine shirt exposed, the perfect fit of his clothes all but screaming the firmness of the body beneath. She swallowed and dragged her eyes back to his face, where the smile slid away and his eyes took on a predatory gleam.

  ‘I’m perfectly serious. You agree to marry me and I’ll rescue your precious hotels. It’s quite simple.’

  ‘It’s quite ridiculous!’

  ‘And expecting me to come away from this deal with only a minor partner’s share is not?’ His hands flew from his pockets, sweeping through the air in a potent Mediterranean gesture as he moved closer to the desk between them. ‘Surely you didn’t expect me to agree to your demands so easily. Surely you would have expected me to have counter-demands.’

  ‘But marriage? You must have some ego if you think I would be falling over myself to agree to that!’

  ‘You would prefer, perhaps, to become my mistress?’

  The shock must have been all too obvious on her face and he seemed to take a sadistic pleasure from it. ‘The idea is not without its attraction…’ He paused, studying her closely, his gaze searing a trail along the length of her, while he stroked his chin, as if seriously considering the idea. ‘But no, I think my parents would be happier if I was finally to put a ring on a woman’s finger.’

  ‘I will be neither your mistress nor your wife.’

  ‘You think marriage to me would be such an imposition?’ He moved closer, hands on hips, until less than a metre separated them. ‘You are a very beautiful woman. I see the fire in your eyes, even though you try to pretend it’s not there. I think we could be very good together.’

  ‘You seem to think, Signor Silvagni,’ she whispered in almost a snarl, determined not to let him intimidate her by his proximity, ‘I have some interest in you as a man. Let me put it to you straight, so there are no more misunderstandings. This is a business transaction, pure and simple. I’m not interested in your body—just your money.’

  Eyebrows raised, he looked down at her, and lifted one hand, gently tracing the pad of his thumb across her lips. ‘Are you entirely sure about that?’

  ‘Oh, quite sure,’ she said, when the thumping in her heart had quietened enough for her to speak. ‘I never put sex before business.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘that’s because you never had the opportunity.’

  She shoved herself away from the wall and past him, remembering how he’d trapped her in the lift and not wanting to give him the opportunity again. Only when she was safely on the other side of the small office did she turn to face him. ‘Why on earth would I see marrying you as some sort of opportunity. I don’t. Can’t you see there are all sorts of reasons why your proposal would never work?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We’re practically strangers! We barely know each other.’And what I do know about you, she added mentally, I don’t like.

  Shrugging, he leaned against the desk. ‘This is no problem. My mother and father were introduced on their wedding-day. And they are still married almost fifty years later. Of course it can work, if you want it to.’

  Opal sniffed. No doubt his mother had no choice but to stay married, if Domenic’s father was anything like his son. ‘So maybe they suited each other. But I’m not even your type.’

  ‘Tell me, what exactly is “my type”?’

  Opal thought back to the photographs and the women adorning Domenic’s arm. ‘At a guess, I’d say young, blonde, thin. Maybe even simpering, if not entirely vacuous.’

  He cocked one eyebrow but he’d lost some of his smug I’ve-got-you-now smile.

  ‘And your type is?’

  It was her turn to laugh. ‘I don’t have a type.’

  He looked up sharply and she sensed immediately that he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Another time she might even find that amusing. Maybe it would even be worth having him believe it. She smiled inwardly at the thought as she shook her head. ‘I’ve seen what marriage can do to people, how it can tear them apart. I’m not into masochism. I’m happy to leave marriage to the romantics.’

  ‘You’re scared.’

  ‘No,’ she said, knowing she was telling the truth, her mother’s memories weighing heavily upon her. Risk averse would be more like it. And with good reason. Anyone would have to be out of their mind to want to get mixed up with the likes of a playboy. Flashes of her mother’s life flared in her mind’s eye: her mother, bright and beautiful and so happy when her husband lavished the smallest attention on her—a cameo of pure joy and hope that things were changing, that her love was reciprocated—only to be driven to the depths of despair when he abandoned her yet again for days on end for one of his continuous supply of young women.

  While she hadn’t appreciated all the sordid details, even at nine years of age Opal had felt her mother’s pain, her sense of utter desolation and rejection. All her mother’s love. Unwanted. Unrequited. Wasted. And there’d been nothing she could do.

  What was Domenic looking for by insisting on this marriage? A cover for his licentious lifestyle? Or a guarantee that even if he couldn’t have control of Clemengers, he would at least have control of her?

  The thought brought an ironic smile to her mouth. He’d never have that, even if she did agree to marry him. And there was no chance of that. But what would become of Clemengers?

  Her air of vulnerability was back. He’d seen it briefly in the office this morning, as she stood bathed in the sun’s light. Now she lo
oked younger, even more fragile. As one skilled in negotiating he recognized that look—she had nowhere to go—and it was time for him to stitch up the deal.

  ‘I’ll have my legal people draw up all the appropriate papers. We need to move quickly if the formal bid is to be lodged by tomorrow.’

  ‘No. I never said I agreed to this.’

  ‘You don’t have much choice.’

  ‘I don’t want to marry you.’

  ‘It’s only marriage. It’s not as if I’m asking you to love me.’

  She drew herself up stiffly. ‘There’s no chance I could ever love you. No chance in the world. I think at this stage it would be expecting too much even just to like you. Given those circumstances, there’s hardly any point continuing this conversation.’

  He looked at her levelly for a few moments, his eyes dark and brooding. Then he shrugged and slapped his hands on his legs. ‘So I can only surmise you have no wish to save Clemengers.’ He lifted himself from the desk, straightening his jacket. ‘So be it.’

  ‘But the hotels?’ she said, almost pleading.

  ‘You have made your decision. McQuade can have them. He can do whatever he likes with them. I don’t care.’

  He’d twisted the knife with the jibe about McQuade. He could see it in her face, see it in the way her eyes widened and her skin paled as the cost of her stubbornness hit home. Good. He’d offered her the chance to save Clemengers and she’d turned it down. Now it was time to play the last card. Whatever happened now was down to her.

  ‘Goodbye, Ms Clemenger.’ His walk to the door of the office was purposeful and direct.

  She watched him cross the room and knew that the future of her family’s business was about to walk out of the room with him. She could save it if she wanted to. And how she wanted to! There were so many people’s careers, their lives, their futures depending on it. The staff, fiercely loyal and proud to work at Clemengers. Her own sisters, trusting her to always do the best thing by the business. But marriage? It was crazy.

  But it was only marriage! Her mind screamed at her to reconsider, to make sense of the madness, as Domenic’s hand closed on the door handle. What was one wedding in exchange for the guaranteed future of Clemengers and its staff? How could she deprive them of their livelihoods? How could she face the staff, how could she face her family, knowing that she could have saved the hotels and she’d thrown the opportunity away? Was it so much to ask?

  The door swung wide and in an instant Domenic was swallowed up into the hallway.

  ‘Wait!’ she yelled after him, bolting for the door. He was halfway down the corridor when he turned.

  ‘You have something to add, Ms Clemenger?’

  ‘If you have just one more minute…’ He looked at her, then glanced at his watch. ‘Please?’ she asked.

  Finally he shrugged his assent and she ushered him back into her office, closing the door behind them, hearing nothing but the beat of blood, frantic and pounding in her ears.

  ‘You wanted to say something?’ he prompted.

  ‘This marriage,’ she began, licking her lips, ‘assuming I went along with it, that is…It would be a marriage in name only, I presume?’

  ‘Assuming you go along with it,’ he started, his voice slow and melodic and with just a hint of cultured Italian accent to send ripples down her spine, ‘it will be a marriage in name…’

  She let go a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. A marriage in name only—she could cope with that. Separate lives, separate rooms. Things might not be so different from how they were now. She’d look after Clemengers in Australia while Domenic would be travelling the world. They’d hardly see each other—she’d make sure of that. She could put up with marriage on that basis. She could even put up with Domenic on that basis.

  ‘And,’ he added, dragging her thoughts away from her comfortable musings, ‘a marriage in the bedroom. You will be my wife, in all senses of the word.’

  He couldn’t be serious! He smiled, the smoulder in his eyes revealing that he was not joking.

  She turned away, face burning, trying desperately to pull her thoughts together, to somehow make sense of the madness, but all she could focus on was the pictures that sprang into her mind, images of herself in Domenic’s bed, lying naked with him, limbs entangled, images that could soon become a reality.

  Why had she thought for a minute that Domenic would be satisfied with a sterile marriage? Of course he would expect sex. Hadn’t he thrown the mistress role at her as an alternative?

  She’d been a fool to hope that any marriage between them wouldn’t extend to the bedroom, even though he had his pick of women and no doubt would continue to after any marriage. What would he want with someone like her in bed, so far removed and less experienced than his usual brand of lover, unless it was to further humiliate her?

  ‘There must be no grounds for annulment, after all.’

  Annulment. She flicked her attention back to him. Of course. Sex would seal the contract and her fate. There would be no getting away from him then, no easy way out for her and certainly no public embarrassment for him. He intended nothing more than to imprison her in a marriage that she didn’t want.

  And there was nothing she could do about it. Not if she wanted to save Clemengers.

  She took a deep breath and tried to lubricate her ashen throat, but it was a lost cause. All moisture in her mouth, just like her hope, had evaporated.

  ‘I agree to your terms,’ she said at last, her voice a croaking whisper. ‘I’ll marry you.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘You look amazing!’ Sapphy stood back to survey her work. ‘Absolutely stunning. And with those few kilos you’ve lost recently it’s a perfect fit, almost as if I designed this dress with you in mind.’

  ‘Probably wishful thinking,’ said Ruby, handing her sisters a glass of champagne each. ‘It’s high time one of us jumped over the stick.’ She picked up the remaining glass from the tray and held it high. ‘Here’s to Opal Clemenger, the most beautiful bride on the planet.’

  ‘To Opal Clemenger,’ Sapphy added. ‘The soon-to-be Mrs Opal Silvagni.’

  Opal smiled thinly, her head pounding, and stared at the image reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining one wall of the suite, wondering whether the woman staring back at her felt any less ill than she did right now. No wonder she’d lost weight. She’d been feeling this way for weeks, ever since she’d agreed to go ahead with this farce of a marriage. And her sisters just thought she was too excited to eat. Wrong.

  But Sapphy was right about one thing. The dress she’d made up on a whim for a new line she was planning this season was divine. Strapless, with an intricately beaded bodice and a gracefully draped skirt, the champagne-coloured silk dress hugged her new shape, accentuating her curves. The pale gold full-length gloves and matching shimmering veil, held in place on her softly coiled hair with the delicate tiara her mother had worn on her wedding day, completed the picture.

  ‘It’s a beautiful dress, Sapphy. Thank you. And you both look fantastic yourselves.’

  It was true. Sapphy had designed and made dresses for the two bridesmaids in a style that complemented her own dress perfectly. The rich blue silk looked sophisticated and elegant with the twins’ darker hair and skin tones. How she’d managed to organise everything in the four weeks’ notice she’d been given was incredible but Opal was just pleased that they could both be there.

  Her sisters were more excited than she was. But then, she hadn’t shared with them the finer details. They’d both assumed she’d been swept off her feet and fallen head over heels with her Italian beau. Hardly. She’d been scuttled, pure and simple. And the only thing falling was her pride, minute by minute as the ceremony time loomed ever closer.

  How was Domenic feeling right now? Was he having second thoughts? Only once had she seen him since that first meeting, on his brief return to Sydney two weeks ago, when all they’d had time to discuss was business, how much autonomy the Clemenger
hotels would have and how the business could be streamlined without changing its ethos.

  He’d been polite during that visit. So cool and businesslike that she’d had to keep reminding herself that this man would be her husband in two more weeks. He was clearly the supreme businessman, and this was just another business transaction after all. Once he’d had her agreement, he’d moved on, saving his energy for other, more worthy pursuits.

  The only other communication between them had been by email or post. Even her engagement ring had been delivered by courier. He’d approached the whole wedding scenario like a machine, making all the decisions—the date, the venue, the guests. He’d done it all with unrelenting efficiency and with a speed that was breathtaking, not even waiting until his father had completed his current round of chemotherapy so that his parents could travel to Australia for the wedding. He would take her to Italy in a matter of months, for his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration instead. She would meet them both then.

  With no parents and few family in attendance, it was only to be a relatively small affair. Yet still she had been permitted to do nothing, other than to invite her sisters. If she hadn’t insisted on finding her own wedding dress, he would have arranged that too.

  Didn’t he trust her? Did he think she was going to turn up wearing jeans, for heaven’s sake? Frankly, he should be relieved she was planning on turning up at all.

  She took a sip from the glass, hoping it would calm her nerves, but the wine tasted sharp and acidic in her mouth and she put the glass aside. She wasn’t in the mood for champagne any more than she was in the mood for a wedding. Especially not her own.

  There was a knock at the door and Sapphy answered it, returning with a small, book-sized package along with a note.

  Opal took it gingerly, speculating on this latest development.

  ‘Open it,’ urged Ruby. ‘It must be from Domenic. How romantic.’

  ‘Just lovely,’ agreed Sapphy. ‘Who’d have thought that finding a business partner for Clemengers would result in a marriage merger as well? And to the girl who always said she was never getting married. You must have him completely wrapped around your little finger for him to whisk you to the altar so quickly. He must be absolutely crazy about you.’