The Italian's Wife

by Lynne Graham

  'What's going on? Who are those people?'

  'The press.'

  'But why would they be interested in our wedding?'

  'Rio getting married is news,' the older man advanced. 'Nobody knows who

  you are either, and that was sure to whip up a storm.'

  At that point the double doors near by were opened wide from the other

  side and organ music flooded out from the main body of the church.

  Holly gazed in horror at the packed pews she could now see, the

  swivelling heads of those keen to see the bride, and she backed out of

  sight again at speed. 'I can't do this!' she gasped in genuine panic.

  'Not walk down that aisle on my own without my dad or any bridesmaids.

  Why didn't Rio warn me it would be like this?'

  'He probably didn't think. You'll be fine,' Ezio Farretti soothed.

  Holly liked and trusted the older man. She scanned his smart appearance

  in his well-cut suit and mustered the courage to make a special request.

  'You could give me away...' A note of entreaty underlined her strained

  voice. 'That way I wouldn't look so odd and I wouldn't be alone.'

  Ezio dealt her a startled look and then absorbed the fact that she was

  still backing in the direction of the exit. With a slow smile, he

  straightened his shoulders and extended his arm. 'I would be honoured.

  But remember that this was your idea, not mine,' he warned her gently.

  However, if Rio was taken aback to see her approach the

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  altar in tandem with his security chief, Holly was too enervated to

  notice. No sooner had she arrived than the priest began to speak, and as

  she looked at Rio and met his brilliant dark eyes her heartbeat just

  went haywire. The instant the ring went on her finger was so precious to

  her but it also made her regret that she had not thought to ask him if

  he would have liked to receive a ring too.

  But then, he would have had to buy that for himself as well, Holly

  realised with a stab of mortification. She wondered how it was that when

  life had been normal she had never worried quite so much about money nor

  felt so much of a pauper. It hurt her pride that not a shred she wore

  even on her own wedding day had been paid for with her own money, for

  she had nothing that he had not given her.

  'You look really stunning in that gown.' Rio flashed her an appreciative

  smile while they stood on the church steps being filmed and photographed.

  His smile filled her with warmth and security. Without him by her side,

  Holly knew she would have bolted for cover. Never before had she been

  the target of so many speculative stares and she had never dreamt even

  in her wildest fantasies that she would ever marry a male likely to

  attract such enormous attention from the media. She fingered the slender

  band of gold on her wedding finger as if it was a talisman that might

  yet make her feel that she was really and truly Rio Lombardi's bride.

  But just then, regardless of the winging sense of happiness

  strengthening her, it still felt like a crazy daydream.

  As a limousine whisked them away from the church she turned to him, her

  lovely face betraying her continuing strain. 'Why didn't you tell me

  that there would be so many people coming?'

  Rio elevated a smooth ebony brow and responded with

  his own question. 'Why would you have thought otherwise?'

  'You told me to leave Timothy at home-'

  'I thought that that would be more relaxing for you,' Rio slotted in

  smoothly. 'Nor would Timothy enjoy being deprived of his mother and

  surrounded by strangers.'

  Both statements were indisputably correct but Holly could not help

  wondering if her son's exclusion might also have been linked to a

  certain unwillingness on Rio's part to brandish the fact that his bride

  was already a parent, and to a child who was not his.

  Rio rested knowing dark golden eyes on her. 'You're wrong.'

  Holly flushed. 'I didn't say anything!'

  'You don't need to. I also once sat through a wedding during which a

  baby screamed continuously. It left a lasting impression on me,' Rio

  mocked, reaching for the taut fingers coiled on her lap and closing his

  hand over hers in reassurance. 'I will look on Timothy as my son and

  treat him accordingly. Didn't I promise you that?'

  'Yes...' Holly's throat had thickened with tears because she was ashamed

  that her own insecurity had made her doubt him.

  'If I kiss you now I'll wreck your make-up,' Rio teased.

  'To heck with that...' she muttered in a wobbly undertone.

  With a husky masculine laugh, Rio laced indolent fingers into the bright

  fall of her hair and crushed her soft mouth under his own with a hunger

  that sent miniature lightning bolts stabbing to every sensitive spot in

  her quivering body. 'Enough,' he groaned, setting her back from him. 'We

  still have a reception to get through, although I'm not planning on a

  lengthy stay.'

  Holly tensed. 'A reception?'

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  'Feeding one's guests is an inescapable duty,' Rio quipped. 'Sometimes I

  wonder if we grew up on the same planet, cara.'

  At that crack, Holly paled and said defensively, I just didn't know we

  were going to have a proper wedding.'

  'What else could we have had?' Rio regarded her in polite bewilderment.

  'What did you expect?'

  'Just us.'

  'Just us?' Rio stressed in patent astonishment at the idea. 'Don't you

  think that would have looked very odd? In the circumstances, the very

  last thing I would wish is the suggestion that there is anything odd

  about our marriage.'

  'So who arranged all this stuff, then?'

  'My staff. I have an extensive staff,' Rio pointed out gently.

  Her mouth still tingling from the smouldering contact of his, Holly

  nodded hurriedly in receipt of that information and strove not to look

  as if her own ignorance was embarrassing her when indeed it was.

  In the grand and exclusive hotel where the reception was staged, she

  shook hands with a countless number of people and later recalled not a

  single face or name. Rio's relations, his business connections and

  personal friends got all mixed up inside her buzzing head. During the

  superb meal that was served, a lot of the conversation around her kept

  on switching from English into Italian and she tried not to feel

  excluded and tried not to seem conscious of the enormous curiosity

  behind the lingering appraisals she received. Obviously learning to

  speak Italian was going to be one of her first challenges, she told

  herself, but it was something of a shock to meet with that language

  barrier and to sit there feeling like the quietest bride that had ever

  existed.

  She angled her head closer to Rio's and whispered, 'I'm just going to

  find a phone to ring Timothy.'

  Rio interrupted his conversation to turn questioning eyes on her.

  'Ring...Timothy?'

  Holly reddened. 'Yes. Sarah can hold the phone to his ear so that I can

  talk to him.'

  Rio eased a hand into his pocket and withdrew his cellphone. 'Be my guest.'

  'I wouldn't know how to use it-'

  'It's simple.'

 
Accepting the phone, Holly slipped away from the table to find a quiet

  spot in the foyer, but no matter how many buttons she stabbed she

  couldn't work out how to use the darned thing and got nothing but words

  coming up on the tiny screen. Peering down at it in frustration, she

  only then noticed that the same words seemed to be going round and

  round: 'I love u. Call me.'

  A chill ran down her sensitive spine. As she stood there by the wall,

  two women engaged in animated conversation strolled out of the crowded

  function room. 'Well, all I can say is...if the baby bride stole Rio

  from Christabel, there's hope for all of us!'

  'Did you hear that hilarious accent of hers? I almost burst out

  laughing! She talks like a hayseed-'

  'I could practically see Rio wincing. He is so refined. And she

  obviously doesn't have a single presentable relative because I know

  everyone here.'

  'Poor Christabel,' the first woman said with mocking sympathy. 'Just

  imagine the agony of being that beautiful and being replaced by a

  creature with red hair like an electrified ragdoll! What did you think

  of her wedding dress?'

  If you're that skinny, you should hide it, not flaunt it!'

  'It was so cheap-and-nasty-looking too. Bargain basement. You could tell

  he hadn't paid for it.'

  Her back pinned to the wall, her tummy churning at those comments, and

  trembling, Holly waited until the women

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  had moved out of sight before setting off without even knowing where she

  was going. She just wanted to hide somewhere. Rio was getting love

  messages on his phone and everybody was laughing at her. In an archway,

  she stumbled as her gown caught on her heel and she had to pause to free

  the hem. When she looked up she realised that she was in a bar and that

  people were looking at her. Espying a cloakroom at the far end, she

  began to walk fast towards it, head held as high as she could manage.

  'I'm telling you...' a loud, very upper-class male voice proclaimed full

  of amusement just as she moved past the bar. 'I'll lay you a grand that

  I'm right. Rio's bride is preggers. He's been playing away behind

  Christabel's back and then bang...his perfect life just went up in smoke!'

  Holly stopped dead behind the tall blond man in full flood. 'If that's

  what you think, why did you come to our wedding? Guests are supposed to

  want to wish the bridal couple well...fat chance!' Holly snapped with

  stinging disgust, her charged voice falling into a deathly silence that

  she was quite beyond noticing. 'The likes of you are too nasty to wish

  anybody well!'

  The young blond man swung round. Warm colour flooding his fair, open

  face, he stared down at her with appalled blue eyes. 'Oh, no...I am so

  sorry!'

  Holly only dimly recalled him from the long procession of guests she had

  been forced to greet. But, without another word, she headed on into the

  cloakroom. She wondered dismally if she could brick herself up in one of

  the cubicles and stay there for ever undiscovered. She studied her

  'electrified ragdoll' hair and her 'cheap' dress, which she had believed

  was so lovely, and tears started streaming down her face. On her terms

  the gown had been quite expensive enough for something that would only

  be worn once, but

  probably by rich people's standards it had been bargain basement.

  Yet all she could really think about at that moment was the woman

  sending 'I love you' text messages to Rio on his phone. A woman called

  Christabel, the same name that the beauty-salon owner, Sly, had

  mentioned that day she trimmed Holly's hair. Christabel, who was so

  obviously Rio's former fiancée. Beautiful Christabel, whom Rio had

  evidently dumped and yet nobody seemed to have the slightest idea why.

  Unless it was because he had got Holly pregnant behind Christabel's back.

  But only time would take care of that kind of spite and, knowing her own

  luck in the fertility stakes, time might yet convince people that their

  suspicions had been entirely correct. Furthermore, Rio had married her

  but he didn't love her and she had better get used to that reality. How

  could she demand the same boundaries as any other new bride? It was not

  a normal marriage. Mopping her damp face dry, powdering her shiny nose

  and repairing her lipstick, Holly headed back into the fray.

  As she recrossed the bar, looking to neither left nor right, the young

  blond man fell into step beside her. 'Go away,' she spat out of the

  corner of her mouth.

  'I don't think you even know who I am. I'm Jeremy, from the English side

  of the Lombardi clan-'

  'Didn't know there was an English side-'

  'But Rio's mother, Alice, is English...she's also my mother's sister,'

  Jeremy remarked, his surprise at her ignorance unconcealed.

  Holly walked away from him. Unable to face returning to the function

  room until she had got a better grip on her overtaxed emotions, she

  picked one of the sofas in the seating area just off the main foyer. Her

  unwanted companion

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  infuriated her by throwing himself down beside her and reaching for her

  hand.

  'Look, I'm willing to grovel. What I said was utterly indefensible but I

  was sounding off for a laugh,' Jeremy asserted earnestly. 'I would

  sooner have cut off my right arm than hurt you like that-'

  'It's not too late. Go ahead,' Holly told him.

  Amused respect flared in Jeremy's eyes. 'All right, so I was laying on

  the syrup a bit thick.'

  Without the smallest warning, Rio strode into the alcove. His sudden

  appearance made Holly jerk in dismay, and Jeremy hurriedly removed his

  hand from hers. His devastatingly handsome features set like steel, Rio

  flashed scorching golden eyes over the two of them and then settled his

  hard gaze on Holly with intimidating force. 'Where have you been all

  this time? Sitting out here flirting with my layabout cousin?'

  Jeremy shot upright, visibly disconcerted by the speed with which that

  accusation had emerged from the bridegroom. 'I was trying to make a

  grovelling apology to Holly-'

  'What were you apologising for?' Rio demanded of the

  younger man.

  'Oh, leave it, for goodness' sake!' Attempting to reclaim some dignity,

  Holly got up. 'I still have to ring Timothy.'

  Jeremy had already started to speak to Rio in a low-pitched flood of

  Italian. It was just as though she wasn't there, and she had had enough

  of that throughout that endless meal. She had married an Italian, she

  reminded herself ruefully. Had she really thought that his family would

  talk in English just for her benefit? What was she...stupid or something?

  She located the public phones and called the town house. However,

  Timothy was having a nap. Sarah offered to wake him but Holly told her

  not to be daft and just to leave him sleeping. Even so, denied even the

  small comfort of talking to her baby, Holly felt tears sting her eyes

  afresh. She had never felt so alone in her life.

  'Holly...Jeremy told me what happened.'

  It was Rio's dark, rich drawl, his hand comi
ng to rest on her taut

  shoulder, and Holly gulped, fighting for composure before she could turn

  round. 'It doesn't matter-'

  'It does matter-'

  Holly spun round. 'Just before that, I heard another couple of your

  charming guests talking about my cheap dress, my hilarious accent and my

  electrified ragdoll hair-'

  'Who the hell-?' Rio growled after a shaken pause at that outburst of

  confidence.

  'They're all the same...horrible!' Holly was feeling so alienated from

  him that she was in no mood to accept sympathy. 'You know, my friends,

  had they been invited, might have drunk too much and laughed a lot

  louder, but they wouldn't have attended only to pull the bride or the

  groom to shreds. Where I come from, weddings are happy occasions. I've

  had more fun at a wake than I've had today!'

  'Really?' Rio breathed glacially.

  Finally, Holly thrust his phone back at him. 'I don't know how to get

  rid of that stupid message going round and round,' she framed jaggedly.

  'But either you're making a mug of me or you're being too refined to

  tell her where to get off!'

  His dense black lashes screened his gaze as he studied his phone. With a

  fingertip he jabbed a button and the screen went blank. Even the ease