A Debt Paid in the Marriage Bed (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jennifer Hayward

  She curled her fingers around a handful of his T-shirt, tugged at the soft material. “I worry about what this is going to do to us. We’re in a good place right now. What’s going to happen when the stress of this kicks in?”

  “We’re going to manage it,” he said quietly. “Just like we’ve managed everything else. Life isn’t going to stop throwing curveballs at us, Angelina. That’s the way it works.”

  “I know.” She bit her lip. “But what about my career? I have worked so hard for what I’ve achieved. I can barely keep up with the demand as it is. How am I going to handle it with a child?”

  “Keep your assistants on a full-time basis. Do what you need to do. We’re lucky money is no object for us.”

  “And if I want to get a nanny?”

  His face stilled. “We can talk about it.”

  She read his reluctant expression. “You want me home raising our child just like your mother was.”

  “I know I need to make concessions,” he conceded stiffly. “I’m just not sure I want a nanny bringing up our child.” He lifted his hand in a typically Italian gesture. “A child needs its mother. You, of all people, should know that.”

  She wasn’t sure what sparked the violent reaction that rose up inside of her—fire licking her spine, heat flaming her cheeks. Whether it was because this was Lorenzo and his perfect family he was using as a benchmark, or whether he saw her as a deficient product of her mother’s lack of maternal ability and wanted to make sure his child had better.

  She pushed a hand against his chest, rolled to her feet in a jerky movement and stood facing him, hands planted on her hips.

  “Angelina—”

  “No, you’re right.” Fury crackled beneath every syllable. “I do know what it’s like. I also know what it’s like to feel as if my life is utterly out of control—to navigate those curveballs you talked about on a daily basis, to not know what’s going to blow up in my face next. I am an expert at navigating the perils of childhood, Lorenzo. So trust me when I say, I will never neglect our child.”

  His jaw hardened. “I didn’t say that.”

  “Yes, you did.” She lifted her chin. “A part-time nanny would not be detrimental to our child’s development.”

  “You didn’t say part-time, you said ‘a nanny.’”

  “Well, I’m saying it now. I will be in control of this, too, Lorenzo. You will not decide how this works and negate all my decisions or I will take the Ricci heir and walk so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

  His gaze narrowed, an icy black flame burning to life. “You need to settle down and not say things you’ll regret, cara. You are overreacting.”

  “Overreacting? You are the one who blackmailed me back into this marriage.”

  “Sì.” A flash of white teeth in his arrogant face. “A marriage you promised to make work. And just to point out—you have sprung this on me just this minute. I have not had the time to process the fact that I am going to be a father. You might give me some time to do that.”

  Guilt lanced through her. She thought she might be overreacting as she stood there, chest heaving with God knew what emotions, but it was all just too...much.

  Lorenzo snagged an arm around her waist and pulled her back down on his lap.

  “We,” he said, visibly pulling himself back under control, “are going to figure this out. You are not going to create one of your dramas to throw us off track. There will be no decrees from me, Angelina, but we will talk this out in whatever way we need to to reach common ground.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Took a deep breath and nodded.

  “That said,” he continued, “what was it about what I just said that set you off?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Part of it is Octavia. How you build her up to be this mythical creature who can do no wrong—the earth mother who created the perfect family. The other part of it is about me, I think. I worry about being a good mother. I worry I don’t have the skills to do it—that it isn’t in my DNA.”

  His gaze softened. “You have a deep, loving relationship with your sister. You have mothered your own mother since you were fifteen. How is that not a sign you will be a caring mother?”

  The adrenaline surging through her veins eased, her breath escaping in a slow exhale. She’d never thought of it that way. She’d thought she’d had no choice but to take care of her mother because that’s what family did. But in reality, she could have done the opposite as James had—as her father had—and pretended the problem didn’t exist, that the disease ravaging her mother wasn’t tearing her apart. But that hadn’t been in her DNA.

  Her tendency to sabotage the good before it disappeared was suddenly cast in a bright, blinking light. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “It’s my instinct to reach for anger, to lash out when I don’t know how I feel...when my emotions confuse me.”

  “I know you now.” His stare was level, unwavering. “I’m not going to let you drive wedges between us because of your fears. This baby is our second chance to do this right, Angelina. But you have to fight for us like I’m fighting for us. Fight for what we are building here.”

  She nodded. Rested her forehead against his. “I know. I’m sorry. Old habits die hard.”

  He lifted a hand to cup her jaw. Brought his mouth to hers. She met his kiss hungrily, wanting, needing him to wipe away her fears. Because she knew in her heart they could do this—that what they were building was more powerful, more real than what they’d been before. She just needed to get past the fear.

  He slid a hand into her hair, held her more securely while he consumed her, feasted on her. She kissed him back, giving of herself without reservation. Hotter, brighter, the flame between them burned until it was an all-consuming force that engulfed them both.

  Undoing the buttons that ran up the front of her dress, he exposed her body to his gaze. She shivered as he took the weight of her in his palms and teased her nipples into hard, aching points with his tongue, his teeth, nipping then laving her with soothing caresses. Moaned when he drew her deeper into the heat of his mouth, his hot, urgent caress turning her core liquid.

  His eyes were hungry when he broke the contact, devouring her face with an intensity she felt to her toes. “My child will suckle at your breast,” he rasped. “Do you know what that does to me? How much that makes me want you? How can this not be right, Angelina?”

  Her heart slammed hard against her breastbone, stealing her breath. Her gaze locked with his for a long, suspended moment before he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. Sliding his hand up the inside of her thigh, he found the strip of silk that covered her most intimate flesh.

  She spread her thighs wider, giving him better access. Sweeping aside the silk, he dipped inside her heat, stroking her with a touch that made her arch her back, mewl a low sound of pleasure at the back of her throat.

  Nothing, no feeling on this earth compared to being in Lorenzo’s arms. He had become her addiction again as surely as she’d known he would. And yet it was more, so much more this time.

  He sank two fingers inside of her. She gasped, her body absorbing the intrusion. He worked them in and out, his urgent, insistent rhythm sweeping her along with it until she was clenching around him. Begging him to let her come.

  He pressed a kiss to her temple. “We should go inside.”

  “Here,” she insisted, desperate to have him.

  She slid off him, moved her hands under her dress and shimmied her lacy underwear off. Straddling him, she left enough room between them to find the button of his trousers and release it. He gritted his teeth as she slid the zipper past his throbbing flesh, closed her hands around him.

  “Angie,” he groaned, eyes blazing. “The neighbors could see us.”

  She ignored him, stroking her hands over him, luxuriating in th
e velvet-over-steel texture of him. He was made to give pleasure to a woman and she wanted him to lose control as surely as she did each and every time he drove her to it.

  Her husband closed his eyes. Let go. Told her how much he loved it, how good it felt, how much it turned him on to have her hands on him. Her blood burned hotter, so hot she thought she might incinerate.

  He let her have her fill, then he took control, snagging an arm around her waist and pulling her forward. Lifting her with one hand anchored around her hips, he palmed himself, brought his flesh to her center and dipped into her slick, wet heat.

  His penetration was controlled and so slow it almost killed her. She shuddered, clenching her fingers around his nape. The look of pleasure written across his beautiful face, the naked play of emotion he couldn’t hide were all she needed to fall tumbling into him. And this time she did it with all of her.

  She caught his mouth with hers. “More.”

  He gripped her hips tighter and impaled her in one impatient movement that made her gasp. Clutching his shoulders, she absorbed the power of him. How he filled her in ways she’d never been filled before. How what they were becoming accessed even deeper pieces of her than she’d even knew existed.

  She knew in that moment she’d never stopped loving him. Wondered how she ever could have denied it. The admission sent a frisson of wild, unadulterated fear up her spine.

  Eyes on his, she rode it out, anchored herself to him with the contact, trusted him with all of her. Circling her hips, she took him deep. He was hard as a rock and thick enough to stretch her muscles to the very edge of her pleasure. She sucked in a breath as the power of him caressed her with every hard stroke, pushing her toward a release she knew would be intense and earth-shattering.

  The glazed look in his eyes told her he was just as far gone as she was. Banding his arm tighter around her hips, he drove deeper, harder.

  “Lorenzo—” His name was a sharp cry on her lips.

  He shifted his hand to the small of her back, urging her to lean forward, to grind against him, to take her pleasure. She moaned low in her throat as his body set her on fire. He drove up into her shaking body until he hit that place that gave her the sweetest pleasure. Nudged it again and again until she splintered apart in a white-hot burst of sensation that knocked her senseless.

  Her husband joined her on a low, husky groan, his big body shaking with the force of his release. It was erotic and soul-searing in a way that sucked the breath from her lungs.

  She wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, joined with each other, before Lorenzo picked her up and carried her to bed. The dusky shadows of the room enveloped her as sleep carried her off to unconsciousness, her limbs entangled with his.

  * * *

  He had to move faster.

  Lorenzo pressed his finger against the biometric scanner, heart pounding in his chest. The lights of the sports car, still running in the street, illuminated the number 29 on the red door.

  The system flashed green. Jamming his hand on the handle, he swung open the door and strode inside, scanning the dimly lit main floor. Nothing.

  Lucia had called from his study.

  Running for the stairs, he climbed to the second level. Deep voices echoed above. The intruders were still there...

  Back against the wall, he scaled the length of the narrow hallway until he reached the pool of light sprawling from his study. Silence, black silence, pumped ice through his veins.

  He pushed the half-ajar door open. Levering himself away from the wall, he slipped inside. Stopped in his tracks. Blood—red, sharp, metallic, everywhere. His heart came to a shuddering halt. He followed the trail that dripped slowly to the mahogany floor up to the woman at the center of it all, slumped over his desk.

  The world began to spin. Snapping out of the trance he was in, he started toward her—to help her, save her. A flash of movement—fingers banded around his arm. He lifted his other arm to strike. The glimmer of the officer’s gold badge froze his hand in midair.

  He was too late. He was always too late...

  Lorenzo sat bolt upright in bed, sweat whipping from his face. His heart, gripped by terror and grief, stalled in his chest. It took him a full two or three seconds to realize the woman beside him was not Lucia, it was Angelina.

  He was in bed with Angelina in Portofino.

  She stirred now, putting out a hand to touch him. He set a palm to her back and told her to go to sleep. Making a sound in the back of her throat, she curled an arm around her pillow and went back to sleep.

  He sucked in deep breaths, attempted to regulate his breathing. Soaked with sweat, he slid out of bed and put himself under a cool shower in the guest bedroom so he wouldn’t wake his wife.

  Water coursing over him, he stood, head bent, palms pressed against the tile as the brisk temperature of the water cooled his skin. When the hard spray had banished the worst of the fog, he stepped out of the shower and dried off.

  Wrapping a towel around his waist, he walked out onto the terrace, the lingering fragments of his dream evaporating as the pink fingers of dawn crawled across the sky. They had used to come nightly, his nightmares. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one.

  He watched the sun rise over the hills, a fiery yellow ball that crept into the hazy gray sky. I’m going to be a father. It had been the goal, of course, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly, not when they hadn’t even been trying. His brain, his emotions, needed time to catch up, because they were mixed just as his wife’s were.

  There was joy, undoubtedly, at something he’d at one point decided might never be his. Bittersweet regret his brother would never have that opportunity. And fear. Fear that what happened before might happen again. The fear of more loss.

  Losing his unborn child on the heels of Lucia had pushed him into a red zone where any more emotional deficits were too much. Where any more losses could push him over the line. So he’d shut down—refused to feel, and avoided any chance of that happening. In doing so, he had pushed Angelina away when she’d needed him the most—when she had been at her most vulnerable. No wonder she was so terrified to do this again.

  His jaw locked, a slow ache pulsing beneath his ribs. This time would be different. This time he’d made sure he and Angelina’s relationship was built on a solid, realistic foundation of what they were both capable of. He would make sure he kept them on track—he would be the steady, protective force she needed as they went through this pregnancy together.

  If he worried his emotions for his wife were wandering into dangerous territory—into that red zone he avoided—that his efforts to exorcise her power over him weren’t having any effect at all, he would just have to make sure he was extravigilant he never crossed that all-important line.

  * * *

  Angelina awoke to the sensually delicious smell of coffee and spicy, hedonistic male. “Breakfast,” her husband intoned in her ear, his sexy, raspy tone sending a shiver up her spine, “is served.”

  She wasn’t sure which she wanted to inhale more—him or the coffee. She opened her eyes to find him dressed and clean-shaven. The kiss he pressed to her lips was long, leisurely, the kind that squeezed her heart. Curling her fingers around his nape, she hung on to the magic for as long as possible.

  He finally released her, sprawling on the bed. “I bought pastries in the village,” he said, gesturing to the tray he’d tucked beside her.

  “Is that a chocolate croissant?”

  “What do you think?”

  Yum. Her husband knew all of her weaknesses. She picked up her espresso and took a sip. Eyed him. Not as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she’d first imagined with those dark shadows under his eyes. “Were you up last night? I thought I heard you.”

  “I woke early.” He plucked a croissant off the plate. “An annoying habit I c
an’t seem to get rid of.”

  She watched him over the rim of her coffee cup as he inhaled the croissant. “I had a thought on the walk back,” he said.

  She lifted a brow.

  “We’re going to have to renovate the Belmont locations before we fold them into the Ricci chain. Your clientele is a perfect match. Why not open Carmichael Creations boutiques in them?”

  “You haven’t even landed them yet. Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?”

  “It will happen. It’s a perfect marriage of brands, don’t you think?”

  He was serious about this. Her heart contracted. Once she would have given anything to hear him say that. To know he believed in her work that much. But their child needed to take precedence now.

  “That’s a big compliment,” she said carefully, “but I have more business than I can handle at the moment and I want to remain hands-on. Plus, with the baby, I think we’ll have our hands full.”

  “True.” His brow creased. “I suggested the hotel boutiques because you’ve always said you wanted a partnership between us. But the point is for you to be happy, Angelina. That’s what I want for you.”

  A glow inside her sparked, grew to almost scary proportions. She’d never imagined they could be this good. This amazing together.

  She didn’t want to be afraid of loving him anymore. She wanted to trust that this was going to work out, that they were meant to be together, just like he’d said that night in the Hamptons. Taking that last step, however, making herself completely vulnerable, was painfully hard.

  His eyes darkened with a sensual heat that made her pulse leap. He nodded toward the half-eaten croissant in her hand. “You going to eat that?”

  She shook her head. Put it down. He reached for her, covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was pure heat. Pure possession. She relaxed her grip on the sheets as he stripped them off her, working his way down her body, tasting, idolizing every inch of her.