“Our sex life will be just fine, thank you!”
“Will be?” He reared back and stared at her, his eyes dancing with evil amusement. “You mean to say, you don’t already know?”
She sniffed scornfully, as if he’d asked the most absurd question yet to be uttered by modern man. At least, that’s what she aimed to do. But the blush scorching her face put paid to her effort in a hurry.
Of course, he saw right through her pathetic attempt to bamboozle him. “You haven’t made love with him, have you?” he said, feigning astonishment. “He has to settle for a chaste kiss. Or do you let him put his tongue in your mouth and touch your breasts, once in a while, just to keep him hooked?”
“It’s none of your business,” she replied, investing her answer with a healthy dose of haughty disdain, “and I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”
Unimpressed, he said, “I can’t believe he’s prepared to go through with this charade of a marriage. Wake up, Chloe! I might not know Baron well, but I know what a man expects of his woman. How long do you think he’ll put up with a wife who’s merely going through the motions, who brings no real commitment to the relationship?”
“My goodness,” she scoffed. “I had no idea you were such an expert on what makes a marriage work!”
“I learned firsthand that, as long as there is love, the rest at least stands a fighting chance of falling into place.” He caught her hands, turned them over, and before she could guess his intent, bent his head and pressed his mouth first to one palm, then to the other. “I learned, too, that love doesn’t die just because you want it to. If it’s the real thing, it endures regardless.”
Shockingly, a streak of pure sexual pleasure sizzled the length of her, and settled with stunning impact between her legs. “Stop that!” she whimpered, making a feeble effort to tug herself free.
He wouldn’t release her. Instead, he slid his mouth to her inner wrist, to where her pulse ran so hard and fast that it was a wonder it didn’t leap out of her skin. “We had all the love in the world, Chloe,” he murmured, looking up at her from beneath the dense sweep of his lashes. “It was what made the magic between us.”
“But it didn’t last, Nico,” she said sadly. “Our son’s death killed whatever we once felt for one another.”
“Did it? Then why do I find myself aching to hold you again? To kiss away the shadows lurking in your lovely eyes? To feel you, warm and alive and eager, beneath me?”
Another surge of sensation bolted through her, leaving her underwear damp with yet another flush of melting heat. “You have no right to be saying such things to me now.”
“Why not?” Lifting his head, he exerted just the slightest pressure on her wrists. Pulled her just close enough for his chest to brush tantalizingly against her nipples. “What I’m saying doesn’t strike a chord with you?”
She sighed, capitulation sweeping over her so fiercely that she couldn’t find the wherewithal to lie. “More than you know!”
“Then stop fighting it.” His voice flowed around her, casting a low, hypnotic net. “Let yourself feel again, tesoro. Set yourself free.”
Suppressing an inner shudder, she said, “I can’t, Nico. I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid. Trust yourself. Trust me.”
Trust me, Baron had said. Know that I will never hurt you.
“Chloe…preziosa…!” Nico’s arms went around her. His lips roamed over hers, drawing her ever closer to the edge of destruction.
“I can’t do this,” she sobbed, wanting to so badly that she ached with the pain of it. “It’s not right!”
“It feels very right to me.”
She slapped out wildly, at his chest, his shoulders, his upper arms. Anger was so much easier to deal with than fear. “Because you’re selfish and don’t care about anyone but yourself!”
He let go of her so suddenly that she almost tipped backward off the bench. “You are the selfish one, cara mia,” he declared flatly. “You would shackle a man to you for no other purpose than to use him as a shield between you and anything you perceive to be hurtful. You would condemn him to a living death, just as you’ve condemned yourself.”
“If that’s what you think of me, then you should be grateful I had the good sense to put a stop to your seduction before it went any farther, because God forbid I should end up choosing you over Baron! But then, that’s not exactly what you want to have happen, is it? Your only aim is to make me doubt myself, and spoil what I have with him.”
“Why would I bother, when you’re doing such a good job of that all on your own? Why is that, do you suppose? Because you think you don’t deserve to be happy again? Is this your way of punishing yourself for Luciano’s death?”
“I’m not the one who insisted on leaving him with a sitter, that night. If anyone needs punishing, it’s you!”
“But of course it is,” he said, his words dripping with sarcasm, and smacked his forehead with the flat of his hand. “Nico, stupido, how is it that you weren’t blessed with divine foresight enough to realize the tragedy about to befall you? How come you’re but a man, instead of God?”
“If you hadn’t been so hell-bent on going out, if you’d let me stay home with him, the way I wanted to—”
“You could have done nothing. Do you hear me, Chloe? Nothing!” He started out softly, and ended roaring like thunder, so filled with fury and frustration that she almost cowered.
“You don’t know that for sure!” she retorted shrilly. “If I’d been there, I might have realized the moment he stopped breathing, and been able to help him. But no, you had to have things your way. You had to show off by taking me to a restaurant we couldn’t afford, and spending money we didn’t have, and for what? Who did you think you were impressing, while our son lay dying?”
“You,” he bellowed, his eyes shooting sparks, his jaw thrust forward belligerently. “You! But you were too wrapped up in our baby to notice. Sometimes, I think it was a blessing that he was taken from us because, had he lived, you would have smothered him with your coddling and turned him into a mammono—a mother’s boy tied to her side by her apron strings!”
“At least he’d have known he had one parent who cared about him!”
They were hurling words at each other; using them as missiles to wound and destroy. And as the realization struck home, they sank into an appalled silence punctuated only by their ragged breathing. By mutual consent, they drew apart and stared out to sea again, because they couldn’t look one another in the eye.
Seconds ticked by; became a minute, then two. Chloe knew she should leave, that she was courting disaster by exposing herself to the gravitational pull existing between them despite everything. Yet she remained motionless, too drained to move.
At length, he said quietly, “Do you remember the last time we sat side by side on a hard stone bench in August?”
“In Verona, in the Roman amphitheater. You took me to the opera there. We forgot to bring cushions.”
“But we didn’t notice. We were too wrapped up in the music and each other.”
“I’d found out that morning that I was pregnant.”
“And you told me just as Act 3 started. I missed the rest of the performance after that. You were all I could see or think about.”
“Not exactly,” she said. “You stood up and announced to the entire arena that we were expecting a bambino. You made such a fuss that people around us started complaining and told you to sit down and be quiet, or else take me home. But you said I deserved better than to spend the night in such a poor, cramped apartment.”
“So I did,” he said, something of a smile in his voice. “Instead, we drove into the country, to a place by the river that I’d known as a boy.”
“On our neighbor’s Vespa which you ‘borrowed’ without asking.”
“Sì, and it was wonderful! You sat behind me, with your arms wrapped around my waist, and your body pressed close to mine.”
“And you sang
at the top of your voice, the whole way. It’s a wonder we weren’t arrested for disturbing the peace.”
“I was serenading my pregnant wife. The polizia would have understood.” His tone grew husky with nostalgia. “What a magical night we had, there on the banks of the Adige. The grass and trees, the shadows deep enough to hide a couple hungry to possess one another…do you remember, Chloe?”
Remember? She could almost smell the sweet green scent of summer, the musky scent of love! If she closed her eyes, she’d see the pale glimmer of moonlight on naked limbs, hear again his impassioned murmurs and her own sighing responses. “Vaguely. As I recall, we slept there until sunrise.”
“We made love, cara mia, all night long. We celebrated your pregnancy in the same way that we promoted it. With passion and tenderness. We lay naked in each other’s arms beneath the stars. You cannot have forgotten that.”
Oh no, she hadn’t forgotten!
“I laid my head against your belly and whispered to our child.”
He’d done a lot more than that! He’d sunk his head lower, eased her legs apart, and with an unerring instinct for knowing exactly how to arouse her, settled his mouth there.
“For you, little one, from your papa,” he’d murmured, and blown gently against her flesh, to send his kiss fluttering inside her.
Already aroused to fever pitch, she had shattered into orgasm. Clamped her thighs together and held him captive at her core. And he, intimately acquainted with every nuance of her sensuality, had played his tongue over her, prolonging the ecstasy.
After, when he’d found release also, they remained locked together and watched the sunrise. “This child will never know want, Chloe,” he’d promised. “I will provide handsomely for him and for you. Before long, we’ll live in a mansion, with servants. You’ll drive an expensive car, and shop in all the best places.”
“I don’t need servants or a fancy car,” she’d told him. “All I’ll ever need is you.”
“You have me, for now and forever.”
But in the end, it hadn’t been enough. When push came to shove, they’d hadn’t been able to help one another. Instead, they’d isolated themselves in their separate grief, and forever had translated into a lifetime without the son they’d loved so dearly.
“Now it all seems so long ago,” he said, with palpable regret.
She nodded. “In some ways, yes.”
So long since she’d held her baby in her arms and felt his sweet breath winnowing against her neck. So long since he’d tugged at her breast, and splayed his tiny fingers over her skin. And yet, not long enough. It would never be long enough for her to accept the unkind stroke of fate which had affected her so profoundly. Even all this time later, her nipples ached and tingled, as if preparing to release her milk. She still cried herself to sleep, sometimes. A sudden reminder of what she’d lost could still leave her eyes stinging with tears in the middle of a busy day.
It didn’t take much: watching a mother chase her toddler through the fallen leaves in the park; a little boy, the same age as Luciano would have been, sitting on Santa’s lap in the mall, certain that life really was full of miracles.
Stirring, Nico said, “A great deal has changed in the interim.”
“Has it?”
“Senz’altro! For a start, you’re engaged to another man.”
“And what about you, Nico?” she asked, glad to shift the conversation to another topic. Luciano’s death was never something she could discuss with equanimity. “Is there a new woman in your life?”
“At present?” He shook his head. “No.”
“But there have been others, since me?”
“Naturalmente. You surely didn’t expect me to live like a priest?”
“Of course not.”
“Yet you disapprove?”
“I have no right either to approve or disapprove,” she replied, with just the right note of indifference. “You’re single, and free to associate with whomever you please.”
Yet the truth of her answer stung, which she hadn’t expected. Somehow, whenever she’d thought about him in the years since they’d divorced, he’d always been alone. But she had only to look at him to realize the arrogance of such an assumption. He was a man in his prime; handsome, successful, confident and sophisticated. If she’d found him irresistible when he had nothing, inevitably other women would be even more attracted to him now.
“Do you think you’ll marry again?”
“Of course, when the right woman is ready to say ‘I do.”’ He shrugged. “I am, after all, only thirty-four. I do not see myself living without the comfort and companionship of a wife for another fifty years. It is not in my nature.”
Shaken, Chloe realized that she did not see him with anyone but herself. That he could so calmly discuss the idea of sharing his life with another woman…! “What about your family?” she said, hastily turning to another subject. “Your sisters, how are they?”
“Doing very well. Carmina and Rogero had another baby last year, a daughter at last, bringing them up to four children. Just as well, otherwise Rogero would have been in trouble. Abree and Chiaro have three girls.”
“What about Belva? She was pregnant when I left Verona.”
“She had a boy, Sabatino. He’s four now. And since then, there’ve been two more boys, Augusto, two, and Vincenz who just turned one.”
“And Delia? She has children?”
“Three. Blanche, who’ll be four in December, eighteen-month Milinda, and the latest, a boy, Riccardo, just two months old.”
“How lovely!” she said, working her tongue around the bitter taste of envy nipping at her words. So many babies, and not one of them lost!
Not that she’d wish such tragedy on anyone, least of all a family who’d embraced her with so much warmth and kindness. Indeed, their sorrow had almost matched hers when Luciano had died, and they’d come together en masse to try to comfort her. But she’d barely been able to acknowledge them, surrounded as they were by children of their own.
“Sì.” Nico laughed ruefully. “And how noisy, when they all get together!”
“You must be a very devoted uncle, that you remember how old each one is, and keep tabs on their birthdays.”
“I love them,” he said simply. “They are part of my family.”
“I guess your mother’s kept busy when they all come over for Sunday dinner.”
A shadow passed over his face. “My mother died last year.”
“Oh, Nico, I’m sorry! I didn’t know. I remember her with such fondness. She was always wonderful to me.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you’ll want to hear this, but her last words to me were that she would look after Luciano for you, and that he wouldn’t be alone anymore.”
The damnable tears, always so ready to betray her, flooded Chloe’s eyes.
Dashing them away, she choked, “How like your mother to be thinking of others at such a time.”
“She loved you, cara. We all did.”
“I loved you, too.”
And could again, if I let myself!
The thought rose unbidden to her mind, shocking her. It was too late to be second-guessing her feelings, she reminded herself sternly, overwhelmed yet again by the inexorable sequence of wedding preparations marching through her mind.
Ice sculptures, beluga caviar, pagoda tents, red carpets, string quartets, dance bands; the corsages and bouquets and table arrangements and rented linens and chairs; her wedding dress, hemmed and ready to be collected from the bridal boutique, her going-away outfit, her suitcases still needing to be packed…dear heaven, was there no end to it all?
“Are you happy, Chloe?” The question, gently uttered, washed over her like a shroud.
She could not look at him. Dared not. “What do you think, Nico?” she said, staring off into the distance.
“That you are the saddest bride I ever saw. That your heart is empty, and you find yourself backed into a corner from which yo
u see no escape.”
He was wrong. Her heart was full to overflowing—with regret for what, in her horrifying fall into despair, she’d left behind. For what she’d thrown away, out of fear and hopelessness. And most of all, for the fact that she’d left it too late to rectify her mistakes.
“Supposing you’re right, Nico,” she said, worrying the diamond solitaire on her ring finger, “what do you suggest I do about it?”
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday, August 25
JACQUELINE phoned him just as he was heading back to his office after a lengthy business lunch. “I know you’ve got enough on your mind today, and can probably do without me asking for favors, Nico—”
“But you have a problem and would like my help,” he finished, recognizing an uncommonly frantic edge in her voice. “What’s the trouble, Jacqueline? Don’t tell me Chloe and Baron have eloped?”
“Not that, thank heaven! To the best of my knowledge, he’s still at Whistler with his parents. But because I had to bring my car in for servicing this afternoon, and Chloe wanted to stop by her office before she met with the landscaper at her new house, we came in together, in theory to save us bringing two vehicles across town.”
“But that wasn’t the real reason?”
“No. She’s so hung up on all the wedding arrangements, Nico—the expense, the material things—that she’s lost all sense of proportion. And that, I’m afraid, is my fault. She never wanted an elaborate affair, but I went ahead and turned it into a huge production anyway. I hoped, if I had some time alone with her, I might persuade her to look past all that and consider the untold cost, to herself and Baron, if she insists on ignoring the very real doubts she has that she’s making a mistake in marrying him.”
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