“You’re so beautiful, so squisita.” He muttered thrilling endearments in his native tongue against her mouth and throat, his breathing as ragged as hers.
Rapture transported her. She had no idea how they happened to end up on the couch. The need to become one flesh was fast turning into a reality as Luke’s body followed hers down against the cushions.
“I want you so much, Gabriella, I don’t think I can wait,” he admitted. His eyes glazed with raw desire before he buried his face in her fragrant hair. His accent had become more pronounced, underlining the depth of his passion.
Gaby feared this might be a dream and held him tighter. “Don’t stop loving me, darling. Please—you’re my whole life. Don’t ever stop—” she begged, once more finding his mouth with her own, allowing him no escape.
Consumed by mutual wants, both were driven to assuage; neither of them heard footsteps outside. Not until the fury in her brother’s voice penetrated her brain, did a cognizance of her surroundings come back to Gaby, particularly the door dangling from the only twisted hinge left holding it.
“You’ve got one second to get off my sister before I blow your head to kingdom come, you animal!”
“No, Wayne! Don’t shoot!” Gaby screamed when she saw the barrel of the shotgun pointed at Luke’s back.
In a lightning move, Luke had gotten to his feet, but Gaby was faster and leaped in front of him, protecting him with her own trembling body.
The confusion on her brother’s face before he lowered the gun would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so precarious.
“I know what this looks like, Wayne, but you’d be completely wrong in anything you’re assuming. This is the man I love!” Her throbbing voice rang with the undeniable declaration.
“I’m Luca Provere,” the man behind her spoke up boldly before she could officially introduce them. With possessive hands that caressed her waist in response to her unequivocal pronouncement, he pulled her against his hard chest, letting her know he wanted her right there, that she wasn’t to move.
“It’s a privilege to meet you, Wayne. I’ve heard about you and your brothers. Please accept my apology for the damage done to the door. Naturally I’ll have it repaired. Gabriella didn’t believe that I had come for her.”
He encircled her in his arms. “Drastic measures were needed to convince her otherwise,” he drawled, nestling his chin in her hair.
A distinct blush covered her neck and face, causing her brother’s mouth to twitch. Gaby saw admiration and respect for Luke in her brother’s eyes. Wayne’s approval meant a great deal.
“She’s been waiting for you, Luke. It’s been hell around here. I was about to apply a few drastic measures myself. What took you so long?”
She heard Luke’s satisfied chuckle. “Gaby and I became acquainted in Italy, but because of extremely unusual and delicate circumstances, we parted on less than satisfactory terms. As soon as it was humanly possible, I came after her.”
“Thank the Lord,” Wayne murmured. “Under the circumstances, I apologize for interrupting. While you two finish getting reacquainted, I’ll mosey down to the shed and get the tools I need to fix the door.”
His blue eyes—identical to Gaby’s—glanced at the splinters on the floor, then he winked at her. “Judging by the look of things, it’ll take me a while to find everything I need.”
When he left the trailer, Luke spun her around. “I like your brother very much,” he whispered against her lips before devouring them all over again. “He has the good sense to know we need our privacy.”
Gaby nodded wordlessly, too entranced by their physical proximity to think, let alone talk. She never wanted to be apart from him, not for one single second. Overflowing with the love she had to give him, she began raining kisses on his face, then captured his mouth.
But when he unexpectedly broke their kiss and put her firmly away from him, she groaned in agony, staring at him with wounded eyes.
His breathing grew shallow. “Mio Dio. Don’t look at me like that,” he grated. “You don’t think I’m in as much pain as you are?” He raked his hands through his hair. “We have to talk, Gabriella, and talking is a physical impossibility when I feel your beautiful body melting into mine. It’s best your brother broke in on us when he did.”
With those words, the joy went out of her world. “Is that because you’re going to leave me as soon as you tell me the reason for your unannounced visit? Are you trying to do the noble thing by saving me from myself?” Raw pain laced her questions. “If that’s the case, I wish to heaven you’d never come!”
A spate of unintelligible Italian escaped his lips. “If I weren’t in love with you, if I didn’t place that love above duty, do you honestly believe I’d have broken down that door to get to you for any other reason?” His challenge resonated in the minuscule interior.
Her heart hammered unnaturally. “Y-you’re in love with me?”
He expelled a tortured sigh. “Si, signorina. The moment my little brother introduced us, my life was thrown into utter chaos, and that was something that has never happened to me before.”
“Are you saying that you decided not to take your vows b-because of me?”
Lines darkened his face. “Sit down, Gabriella. This is going to take some time to explain and I can’t do that when you are standing this close, looking so desirable that all I can think about is crushing you in my arms.”
After hearing his admission, she was hardly able to breathe and did his bidding by subsiding on the couch where they’d lain so briefly. But she couldn’t keep still.
“Please, before you tell me anything else, how is Giovanni? I care for him so much.”
Luke took a deep breath. “Giovanni is in Assisi. He has begun his training to be a priest.”
A priest. She mouthed the words.
They stared hard at each other for timeless moments while Gaby reflected on Giovanni whose spiritual makeup had separated him from the worldliness of men.
“I—I never expected to hear a revelation like that. Yet I can’t honestly say I’m surprised.”
“Nor can I,” Luke concurred.
“The night of the accident, he inferred that it would be noble to die for a sacred love. But I thought—I thought he was discreetly warning me not to fall in love with you!”
“He’s happy for the first time in his life. To think he fooled everyone all these years, Gabriella. He never told the family of his spiritual leanings, or his soul-changing experience at Assisi. Only you were privy to that information.”
“But it makes perfect sense, Luke. He loved you so much, he didn’t want to take anything away from you or your parents’ dreams for you.”
She rose to her feet, unable to stay seated. “Everything’s becoming clear to me. On our drive to the pensione after dinner, he kept telling me how worried he was about you. He said you were such a noble person, you always put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own. I finally asked him if he was upset that you wanted to serve the church.”
Luke’s black eyes pierced hers. “What did he tell you?”
“He said he wanted that for you more than anything in the world, but only if it was going to make you happy.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “My brother knew me better than I knew myself.”
The mysterious tone of his voice prompted her to ask him what he meant.
“It’s very simple. Giovanni knew I never had a vocation for the priesthood.”
“Never?” she whispered. “You mean you went through all those years of training to please your parents?”
“Nothing is that simple, Gabriella. I grew up knowing nothing else and went along with it. I’ll always be grateful for the excellent education I received, the great minds who imparted their knowledge. There were men I loved, men who will one day rise to become great men. I’m not sorry for the years I spent learning about God. It was all to my good.
“But to answer your question, I never received the ca
lling. That’s the reason I left Rome to go home and help Giovanni run the estate after our father died. I knew the most important ingredient for my life as a priest was missing. I thought that if I went back to the family, maybe my life would be touched in some way to let me know I should take final vows.
“Unfortunately, I received no special witness. On the other hand, my life at home held no particular attraction for me, either. There were several women, but the relationships were brief and unsatisfying. I felt like I was caught between two dimensions. Nothing was clear.”
Gaby’s eyes began to prickle with tears. “How awful for you.”
His expression grew bleak. “I won’t lie to you. For a time, I floundered. But in the end, I chose to serve the church because I knew it would be a good life and make my mother happy.”
“Giovanni was right about everything,” she murmured emotionally.
Luke nodded. “Over the years my brother observed all of this while keeping his own burning desire a secret. And then he met you. That’s when he conceived his cunning plan.”
The way he said it sent a chill chasing across her skin. “What plan?”
He shifted his weight. “When you fled from me in Lugano, I concluded that it was best not to go after you until I’d confronted Giovanni. To my surprise, he was at the palace waiting to confront me.
“We said a lot of things to each other. Things that should have been said years ago. During the course of that conversation he confessed that he knew I was unhappy, that he’d been praying to find a way to help me find peace in my life.
“He said that from the moment he met you, he had the unmistakable conviction that you and I were meant for each other. All it would take was for us to meet and spend time together.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“Only Giovanni could have hatched such a plot, planning every move like he would a chess strategy. Even the accident was deliberate.”
At that revelation, Gaby’s eyes widened in shock. “But he could have been killed!”
“No, Gabriella. He staged everything to make it look that way. In reality, he influenced the doctor and staff to say he had a concussion so that you and I would be forced to stay together. Worse, he planted the jewelry, then arranged for the police to arrest you and lock you up so I’d have to come and bail you out. At that point, he knew I was so in love with you, I’d never return to Rome.”
Her throat constricted. “He loved you enough to do all that?”
“He loves you, too,” Luke said in a haunting whisper. “All that’s left to make his joy complete is to hear that you have agreed to become my wife.”
He moved swiftly, cupping her flushed face in his hands. “You have to marry me, Gabriella.” His voice shook. “I knew I wanted you for myself long before the dinner at the palace concluded. That’s why I left the table when I did, because I suddenly discovered that the missing ingredient in my life had been sitting at my side all evening, torturing me with invitation, and my hands were tied for more than one reason.”
Gaby moaned. “I couldn’t bear it when you got up and left so quickly. I was afraid I’d never see you again. It was one of the worst moments of my life. Much as I hated to learn that Giovanni had been in an accident, I was overjoyed when you came to the pensione for me.”
Luke brushed her lips with his own. “He didn’t have to manufacture a reason for me to stay in Urbino. Nothing could have made me return to Rome. I was determined to spend the next day with you.”
Her eyes glowed a hot blue. “It was a time I’ll never forget. That’s when I knew I’d fallen so deeply in love with you, I realized that if I couldn’t be your wife, I’d probably remain single because no other man could ever compare to you.”
She slid her hands up his warm chest, feeling the heavy thud of his heart. “I adore you, my darling Luca. There’s nothing more I could ask of life than to be your wife, but I’m afraid your mother won’t approve.”
Luke felt the contour of her lips with his thumb. “Mother surprised both Giovanni and me by giving us her blessing. After the three of us sat down together, she, too, had some confessions to make. Among them, the fact that she’d sensed for some time that neither of us was truly happy.
“She insisted that it was her fault for thrusting something on me which should have been my choice. She also blames herself for not seeing Giovanni’s pain. At this point, Mother is so overjoyed that one of us is going to get married and provide her with grandchildren, she’s ready to give you a proper welcome. As for the rest of the family, you won them over at dinner.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” was all Gaby could manage to say in her emotion-filled state.
His expression sobered. “I have yet to meet your parents. How are they going to feel about their only daughter living in Italy?”
“They won’t be at all surprised. The whole family knows I fell painfully in love while I was abroad. Daddy half expected it because of my great-grandmother’s history, but no one knows the details. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it, not when I thought you were lost to me forever.”
The memory of so much unhappiness made her shudder and she clung to him all the harder.
“We’ll leave for Las Vegas now. I want to marry you as soon as we can, surrounded by your family and friends. Later we’ll renew our vows in Assisi with my family in attendance.”
She smiled up at him, blinding him with its radiance. “I can’t wait to be Signora Luca Francesco della Provere.”
He lowered his head and smothered her with kisses. “I can’t wait to give you one of your wedding presents.”
“You already have presents for me?”
“Let’s just say that this one has been sitting in Tivoli for years, waiting to be discovered.”
Her mind began turning over all the possibilities. Tivoli was an ancient city outside Rome. “Does this have something to do with my great-grandmother?” she cried in pure delight.
A mysterious smile broke out on his handsome face. “You’re going to have to wait for the truth until we’ve taken our vows mia testarossa.”
She sucked in her breath. “I feel like I already made mine in that cherry tree.”
“We both did,” he murmured thickly. “But humor me once more, Gabriella.” His black eyes burned with an intensity of feeling. “I need legal permission to love you so I can really start to live…”
EPILOGUE
LUKE’S mother, resplendent in tearose pink peau de soie, rang the small crystal bell, signaling that she wanted the attention of everyone in the wedding party.
Throughout the succulent feast served immediately after the five o’clock ceremony in the palace chapel, Gaby had been aware of Luke’s possessive hand on her thigh beneath the dining room table.
A month ago he’d followed her to Nevada. She didn’t know how they’d survived the marriage preparations this long without going to bed together. But they’d both agreed that waiting until their wedding night to make love for the first time would be their priceless gift to each other.
Too feverish to do anything more than toy with her food, she slid her hand over his, aware that in just a little while, her new husband would become her lifetime lover. Unable to do otherwise, she lifted adoring blue eyes to him. The devouring look in his thrilled her almost to the consuming of her flesh.
He lifted her hand and kissed the palm. “It’s time we forgot the world and concentrated on each other.”
“Darling—” she whispered breathlessly at the husky tone of his deep voice, “I still can’t believe I’m your wife. The last time we sat at this table, you—”
“Don’t think about it, Gabriella. That is all in the past, when I was a different man.”
She clung to his hand. “I—I hope your mother will come to accept me one day.”
“Mama is making great strides. By the time we produce a new little Provere, she’ll be calling you her treasured daughter.” Gaby blu
shed. “If you’ll notice, the portrait of my illustrious ancestor no longer dominates this room.”
“I hadn’t realized!” she blurted. Being with Luke caused the world around her to recede because he was her world. She loved him with a fierceness that almost frightened her.
“One day soon a painting of Giovanni will grace that wall.”
Just then Giovanni’s warm brown eyes captured her attention from across the table and they both smiled. His face glowed with an inner happiness he no longer had to hide.
“If I don’t miss my guess,” Luke murmured, “Efresina is going to make a full recovery. Have you noticed how she and Ted haven’t spent one minute apart since they met?”
“Ted?”
Shocked by Luke’s observation, she gazed down the long table at her family. Everyone loved Luke and had come for the wedding. But they were overwhelmed to discover the kind of family she’d married into and were still looking a little dazed.
Ted, the shiest of her brothers, was not only dazed but smitten with the lovely Efresina. Her dark eyes sparkled from all the attention he was giving her.
Gaby darted her husband an illuminating smile. “Ted got his sandy-red hair from our great-grandmother. Something tells me we might be seeing a lot of him in the months to come.”
His smile faded to be replaced by a look of such smoldering sensuality, her heart turned over. “As happy as I am for Efresina and your brother, I’m glad you said months, mia testarossa, because it’s going to take that long before I’m willing to share you with anyone.”
“Luca, we’re all waiting to hear you say a few words,” Giovanni prodded with an infectious grin.
In a swift movement, Luke rose to his feet and brought Gaby with him. Hugging her around the waist, he started toward the door. “I’m sorry, fratello,” he called over his shoulder, “but Gabriella and I need to do some communicating of our own first.”
With her heart thudding because she was finally going to get her heart’s desire, Gaby honored American custom and threw her bouquet over her head so it practically landed in Efresina’s lap.
Second-Best Wife Page 14
