by Abby Green
* * *
Keelin was walking back down the aisle, her mouth still tingling from Gianni’s hard kiss with her hand tucked firmly in his arm, before she seemed to come out of the slightly nightmarish paralysis that had gripped her ever since she’d realised she hadn’t succeeded in derailing the wedding.
Everyone was clapping as they walked into a lavishly laid-out ballroom for the wedding reception/lunch. But Gianni veered away from the waiting staff and guests, saying curtly, ‘Give us a minute please,’ and took Keelin’s hand, all but dragging her over to a doorway which led into a little anteroom.
He pushed her in ahead of him none too gently and came in behind her, shutting the door. Keelin turned to face him, legs wobbly from shock, and a delayed surge of adrenalin. Had she really just repeated vows to this man? And signed a register? Like some kind of pathetic automaton?
Gianni was livid, and somewhere it registered uncomfortably into Keelin’s mind that she felt a kick of excitement to see him after the few days of little or no contact.
His accent was thicker than she’d heard it before. ‘Did you imagine that right about now you’d be playing the part of the poor jilted bride crying crocodile tears while the local rags drooled over the salacious headlines?’
Keelin opened her mouth but clearly he didn’t expect an answer.
‘If your acting was going to be anything like the performance you subjected me to when we first met, then they would have seen through you in seconds,’ Gianni said with derision dripping from his voice.
Keelin’s own anger at having sleepwalked through her worst nightmare finally broke through the shock and she gesticulated wildly with the hand holding the bouquet. ‘Well, you didn’t! So I might just have got away with it.’
Gianni’s mouth tightened. ‘You won’t be walking anywhere now except out of this hotel with me, as man and wife.’
He reached for her free hand and held it up to face her so she could see the platinum band of her wedding ring glinting mockingly under the lights. And then he held up his own hand, displaying the matching ring. ‘See? For better or worse, mia moglie.’ My wife.
The sight of those wedding bands side by side gave Keelin a jolt and it wasn’t one entirely of disgust. She’d always vowed not to be like her mother, married to a man just for the sake of security. Yet here she was, married, and she couldn’t seem to drum up the appropriate sense of rage. Gianni was scrambling her responses. And her brain.
But before she could make sense of that, he cupped her jaw, a look of unmistakable determination on his face, voice rough. ‘The sooner we consummate this marriage and make it real in every sense, the better.’
Keelin immediately felt breathless, a rush of excitement zinging straight to the cluster of nerves between her legs. She gritted her jaw. No way was he going to have her flat on her back and exposing all of her vulnerabilities to his blistering gaze. She still hid so much from him, not least of which was the fact that she was innocent and had a very real fear of a man making her feel powerless, and threatened. ‘Dream on, Delucca. I will not be sharing your bed.’
He just smiled. Infuriatingly confident. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’
And then with dismayingly easy strength he slid his hand around to the back of her neck and tugged her towards him, his other arm going around her waist to draw her up against his rock-hard aroused body.
To find him so ready, in the midst of this heated exchange, made Keelin burn. A giddy rush of instant desire rose up in answer to his body’s question. She wanted him too, and the knowledge mocked her. Where was the fear now? She’d lie down all too easily for this man, that was the problem, in spite of what had happened to her.
‘I thought I told you already. I have strong moral views and this will be a marriage in name and practice.’
Keelin opened her mouth to object even if her body wouldn’t but the light was blocked and her mouth was covered by the firm contours of Gianni’s lips, moving expertly, enticing. For a betraying few seconds, her entire being cleaved to his, her mouth clinging, tongues tangling passionately. And then, somehow—she wasn’t sure how—just before she lost any ability to stay clear, she bit down on his lower lip, making him pull back abruptly with a crude curse.
When she saw the droplet of blood and his tongue snake out to touch it her insides tightened with remorse. If he knew how innocent she really was, he would laugh his head off.
‘I meant it, Gianni.’ She felt shaky, and wasn’t sure what she really meant any more.
He licked away the blood, his eyes dark. And she found it hard to focus, or remember why she’d bitten him.
‘And I meant it too, gattino. You shouldn’t display your claws unless you’re prepared for the consequences. As much as I’d like to prove you wrong here and now, I refuse to let you reduce us to such baseness with a hundred guests waiting on the other side of this door. Another time perhaps.’
He took her hand and opened the door and then stopped dead. Keelin couldn’t see past him because his big frame blocked the doorway, and then he rounded on her so fast her head spun. If she’d thought he’d looked livid before then, now his rage was infinitely worse.
‘And who the hell invited my father’s old cronies?’
Keelin’s blood drained south and she swallowed. It had felt like a risky thing to do when she’d thought of it but she’d ignored her conscience when she’d decided to make contact with Gianni’s mother before the wedding.
‘I, er, mentioned something to your mother about being sure to welcome anyone she wanted to invite.’
Gianni’s eyes were so black now they looked like cold obsidian, and all that heat had been replaced by ice. Keelin suppressed a shiver. She really didn’t know this man or what he was capable of, although she did trust implicitly that he wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically anyway. Even if he did look as though he wanted to throttle her right now.
‘Don’t you ever use my mother like that again, got it? You leave her out of this vendetta against me, Keelin.’
The clear warning ringing in his voice rendered her a little mute as something went tight in her belly, to recognise his protective streak and know that the last person it would ever be directed towards would be her.
* * *
A few interminable hours later as guests finally began to depart—his mother being one of the first as she hated leaving her home unless it was vitally necessary— Gianni was still seething with a mix of anger and mounting sexual frustration.
How dared Keelin use his mother just to score a point off him?
When he’d properly registered who the extra guests were, his blood had almost boiled over to see those familiar old faces from his father’s past, battered and bruised, hardened by the lives they’d lived and the things they’d seen.
Silly to think he’d felt a measure of complacency in believing he was far enough removed from them by now, but no. It had been like getting a cold blast of water in his face. He’d almost heard his father’s mocking laugh and rough voice in his ear: ‘So you’re too good for us now, heh?’
He could also see the headlines undoubtedly being run up at that very moment: Delucca’s Wedding Brings Out Familiar Faces... Like Father Like Son After All?
Gianni was mildly relieved to note that thankfully most of his father’s friends had left by now.
But the person who had subjected him to this very unwelcome scrutiny was still very much here and on the other side of the room, talking very energetically to a group of rapt-looking guests.
Keelin had studiously avoided him from the moment they’d emerged from the anteroom. Even while eating, she’d been practically sitting in the lap of the person beside her, rather than talk to him.
Wherever he’d moved, she’d gone in the opposite direction as if they were made of opposing magnets, when Gianni knew that was anyth
ing but the case. Just before she’d bitten his lip earlier, he’d felt her body tipping over the edge, softening, curving into his. She wanted him.
And he wanted her with a hunger made more intense by that edge of anger. It might have concerned him at any other time, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her sleek curves in that ridiculous dress. His hands itched to take it off and devour her until something of this ravenous beast inside him was slayed. He felt rough and raw, the reminder of the past far too close for comfort.
Making his excuses to the people around him, Gianni strode across the room to his wife. Her back was to him but he saw her stiffen minutely just as he came alongside her and took her hand in his with a firm grip.
Predictably she tried to break free but his grip tightened. He smiled urbanely even as he battled to keep his libido and body under control, just for a while longer. Until he could be alone with this biting gattino and tame her once and for all.
The guests melted away with knowing looks and smiles. Keelin turned to Gianni. She still wore the veil even though it was slightly askew. She held a glass of wine in her hand and her cheeks looked suspiciously flushed.
He took the drink and put it down, saying stringently, ‘I don’t like women who drink excessively in public.’
Keelin hissed, ‘Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have married me. It’s never too early to start divorce proceedings, you know.’
Gianni straightened up and looked at her and something in his chest tightened. She wasn’t drunk, he could see that. She looked beautiful. Angry, but stunning. Green eyes huge and mossy. Mouth ripe for kissing. And he intended to. But not here.
He curbed his libido. Soon—within a matter of hours—she would be under him and finally giving him the first sense of satisfaction and peace he’d had since he’d agreed to this whole thing. With the anticipation of that carnal satisfaction snaking through his blood and taking some of the edge off his anger, he said, ‘There will be no more talk of divorce. It’s time to go, mia amata.’
Immediately she tensed. ‘Where?’
Lust tightened his body in spite of his best efforts and fired up his blood. He smiled. ‘On our honeymoon, of course. I can’t wait to get you all to myself.’
CHAPTER SIX
WITHOUT EVEN GIVING her time to change, Gianni bundled Keelin, veil and all, into a waiting limousine outside the Chatsfield Hotel, accompanied by the inevitable flashes of the paparazzi cameras. They pulled out smoothly into the Rome evening traffic after Gianni had taken his seat in the back.
She had been avoiding him and that simmering rage all afternoon like a coward. Every time she’d looked at him she’d just seen those black eyes and the banked fire in their depths, and could still feel the firmness of his lip between her teeth all over again. And the guilt to have been audacious enough to encourage his mother to invite those people, especially when the meek and mild woman had said nervously, ‘I don’t know, Gianni won’t like it.’
So now she felt doubly guilty. When she was the one who had been marched up the aisle. So why didn’t you just turn and run? asked a snarky inner voice. Keelin ignored it, that feeling of inevitability and how she’d succumbed to it, too vivid for her liking.
She only realised then that she was still, ridiculously, holding on to her bouquet. She said a little redundantly now, ‘I should have thrown it.’
Gianni plucked it out of her hand and pressed a button so that his window slid down. A group of female tourists were standing on a corner reading a map near where the car was stalled at a red light. Gianni shouted out, ‘Signora!’
They looked up and Keelin could see their collective double takes as they took in who was calling to them and she could have rolled her eyes. But then he was calling out, ‘Catch!’ and he lobbed out the bouquet which flew high into the air and then into one of the girl’s outstretched hands. Much to her squealing delight.
Gianni didn’t respond, he just hit the button and the window slid back up again. Keelin’s mouth had opened in shock. He looked at her as the car moved off again, a mocking glint in his eyes. ‘Is it not traditional for the groom to throw it?’
Keelin shut her mouth and then said icily, ‘No, it’s not. But then not a lot about this wedding is traditional.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gianni growled softly, ‘I have every intention of this marriage becoming very traditional very soon.’
Her breath shortened at the explicit look in Gianni’s eyes. ‘We have to talk about this. You can’t seriously expect that we’re going to just—’
He cut her off. ‘I do seriously expect that this marriage will be a real and enduring one, Keelin, so the sooner you come to terms with that, the better.’
She crossed her arms over her chest and was aware of how ridiculous she must look. Angrily she ripped the veil off her head then, wincing as pins caught in her hair. She shrank back when Gianni hissed his disapproval and put out a hand as if to help.
‘It’s fine. I can do it.’
She continued to pick out pins and said angrily, ‘Since when did someone like you ever want to have a real and enduring marriage?’
Gianni’s anger matched hers. ‘Since it came with a business deal that will make Delucca a brand name all over the world and a wife who I want more than any other woman.’
Keelin was fired up and ready to blast back with a response but her words dissolved on her tongue. A wife who I want more than any other woman.
And just like that she could feel something crumble inside her, give way. Treacherously. She dragged her gaze away from his long enough to notice that they were driving into an airfield where a helicopter was waiting.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, avoiding thinking about what he’d just said and how it made her feel.
Gianni seemed to curb his anger. ‘We’re going to my villa in Umbria. For a week. It’s remote enough to keep you out of mischief and it’s where we can really get to know each other and start our happily married life together.’
The fact that his words held a sarcastic edge made Keelin feel stupid for having lost her focus for a second.
‘Does it have a tower?’ she asked tartly. ‘So you can lock me away and just call this marriage what it is—a prison?’
He tutted and smiled a little. ‘Such a dramatic imagination. Bondage, imprisonment, whatever will you think of next?’
Keelin wanted to launch herself at him across the back of the car and wring his neck but he was opening his door and stepping out of the car before she could do anything. The driver had opened her door and was waiting solicitously for her to get out too.
She eventually did, huffily. Still clutching the veil. Gianni was lifting two small suitcases out of the boot and carrying them over to the helicopter where a pilot was waiting. Keelin followed, reluctantly. ‘What about the rest of my things?’
Gianni threw back carelessly, ‘They’ve been sent on ahead.’
She muttered something under her breath about hoping he’d remembered to pack the hair shirts. When she caught up with him at the helicopter he turned and said dryly, ‘I wouldn’t dream of marking your skin with a hair shirt, Keelin. You’ll dress in nothing but silk and satin, for my delectation.’
She scowled at him, not liking the way she had a sudden urge to see the expression on Gianni’s face if she was to parade before him in some sensual silk concoction.
‘Neanderthal.’
He just smiled but behind it Keelin could see the remnants of his anger. He still hadn’t forgiven her for almost derailing the wedding. Or for engineering the invitation of his father’s henchmen.
He held out a hand and she looked at it warily. Gianni’s smile faded and he said crisply, ‘It’s a long walk back into Rome in a short wedding dress and high heels, Keelin.’
Giving in to the inevitable, she slapped her hand into h
is and let him help her up and into the aircraft. He buckled her in, big capable hands moving far too close to her belly and breasts with proprietorial ease. As if she was already his. She might be in name, but not in the way it mattered most, deep in her body and soul. And she vowed then that he would never reach that part of her. At least then she’d have rights to sue for divorce on grounds of nonconsummation!
Gianni took the veil out of her hand. ‘I don’t think you need this any more, do you?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, just put it somewhere in the back with the bags. The pilot joined them, climbing into the front, greeting Keelin warmly and not looking remotely fazed to have a petulant-looking bride for a passenger. Gianni shut Keelin’s door and then he swung into the other seat at the front and handed her some headphones. ‘Put these on.’
She took them and smiled faux sweetly. ‘Yes, sir.’
It was only when she saw him communicate with the pilot and flip some switches that she realised that Gianni was co-piloting the helicopter. The rotor blades were whirring now and any grudging admiration she might have felt went south with her belly when the small craft lifted off the ground with a wobbly tilt and then into the dusky sky.
When Keelin had got over her white-knuckle terror of being on her first helicopter ride, she looked down and could see Rome spread out beneath her. Gianni’s voice came into her headphones. ‘Look down to the right, you’ll see the Colosseum.’
Keelin did, and sucked in a breath. It was so beautiful, already illuminated in floodlights for the early evening. Gianni proceeded to point out other landmarks and Keelin was struck dumb by the experience, and also because he was being so solicitous.
