by Sara Craven
She was again the nervous bride-to-be of the previous year, being shown her future domain by the man who would share these rooms with her. And too embarrassed at the prospect to allow herself more than a fleeting overall glance.
But some details had remained locked in her memory. This huge bed, for instance, with its tapestried canopy and curtains, where eventually she’d be obliged to submit to whatever Renzo asked of her. And those two doors—one leading into the palatial white-and-silver bathroom which they would share, and the other the communicating door into the adjoining room, his room. At present, mercifully closed.
She became aware of other things too. That the shutters over the long windows leading out to the loggia were fastened, and their concealing drapes drawn over them. That the pair of deeply shaded lamps that flanked the bed had been lit by someone, too. And all this while she’d slept.
But how long had she been there? She reached for her watch, which had been placed on the night table, but was instantly distracted by the unwelcome sight of the communicating door swinging open and Renzo walking into the room.
Stifling a gasp of dismay, she slid hastily back under the shelter of the coverlet and saw him halt, his brows lifting cynically at the manoeuvre.
Beautifully cut charcoal pants clung to his lean hips and accentuated the length of his legs, and his white shirt hung negligently open, revealing far too much of his muscular brown chest.
In spite of herself Marisa felt her mouth dry, and her heart beginning to thud. She said with faint breathlessness, ‘Good—good evening. Did you want something?’
‘Certainly not what you seem to expect,’ he returned crisply. He looked her over, the golden eyes assimilating the slender shape of her under the concealing coverlet. ‘Unless, of course, you insist?’
‘I don’t!’ The denial seemed choked out of her.
He smiled faintly. ‘I believe you. But for the present I wish only to speak to you.’ He walked over to the bed and stood at its foot, his golden gaze examining her. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes—thank you.’ Her recent headache seemed to have vanished completely, she realised with surprise. But no doubt there would be many more to take its place. And this interview could be the first.
‘I am delighted to hear it.’ His tone was silky. ‘And I hope you will please my father too, by joining him for dinner.’ He paused. ‘He wished to make it a black tie celebration in your honour, but has now consented to a less formal affair. I trust that is agreeable to you?’
‘Yes,’ Marisa said in a hollow voice, reflecting on the deficiencies of her wardrobe. ‘Of course.’
He nodded. ‘Also the meal will be earlier than usual, as it is considered unwise for Papa to stay up too late. Can you be ready in an hour?’
She fastened her watch back on her wrist. ‘I could probably be ready in five minutes. After all, I’m hardly going to be spoiled for choice over what to wear.’
‘One of the reasons I suggested a stopover in Rome,’ he said softly. ‘So that you could go shopping.’ He paused. ‘Although not the only reason, of course.’
‘No.’ She made a slight adjustment to the watch’s bracelet, not looking at him. ‘I—appreciate that.’
‘And we would also have been spared the reception committee,’ he went on. ‘For which I apologise.’
She did glance up then. In the days leading up to the wedding, in spite of her own inner turmoil, she’d been aware there were other tensions in the household.
She bit her lip. ‘Do you no longer mind so much about Signora Alesconi?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘Ottavia?’ There was genuine surprise in his voice. ‘No, how could I? What right have I of all people to begrudge my father another chance to be happy?’ He paused, then added dryly, ‘I did not mean her.’
Marisa took a breath. ‘Oh—your grandmother.’ She hesitated. ‘Considering how little she likes me, I’m surprised she chose to be here.’
Renzo shrugged. ‘No doubt she has her reasons. I regret her presence, but you must not allow it to disturb you.’
Your grandmother, signore, she told him silently, is the least of my worries.
Aloud, she said tautly, ‘She clearly thought I wasn’t worthy to be your wife. I expect she thinks so still. And that she’s quite right.’
‘Not a view I have ever shared.’ He hesitated. ‘Which is one of the things I came to say to you. We did not begin our marriage well, Maria Lisa, but all that could so easily change—with a little…goodwill, perhaps.’
She stared unseeingly at the embroidery on the coverlet. ‘How can it? We’re still the same people, after all. Both pushed into this situation by our families,’ she added bitterly.
‘No one pushed me,’ Renzo said quietly. ‘It is true that the mothers who loved us both believed that we could be happy together, but that would have counted for nothing if I had wished to choose elsewhere. But—I did not.’
He paused again. ‘Tuttavia, I am aware that for you the choice was not so easy,’ he added ruefully. ‘That there was—pressure. But if you truly found the idea of our marriage so repulsive then you should have said so—and to me.’
Marisa’s lips parted in a gasp of sheer indignation. ‘In my dreams,’ she said stormily. She propped herself on an elbow, uncaring that the coverlet had slipped down below her lace-cupped breasts. ‘And you know it, signore. How could I choose when I’d been bought and paid for, like any other commodity? And when my cousin’s husband’s future wellbeing depended on me doing exactly as I was told?’
She drew a breath. ‘That was the clincher. Because Harry’s sweet and decent in a way you couldn’t appreciate, and it was impossible for me to let him down. So I had to consent to being… handed over—untouched—to the great Lorenzo Santangeli. Someone who’d never given me a second glance until he was reminded of his dynastic obligations and suddenly required a willing virgin.’ She added furiously, ‘Not many of those to draw on in your social circle, I dare say. So my life had to be wrecked to provide one for you.’ She shook her head. ‘What a pity I wasn’t the slut you once called me.
‘At least I’d have been spared…all this.’
There was a silence, then Renzo said slowly, ‘That was quite a speech, mia bella. How strange that you only speak from the heart when saying things you know I will not wish to hear. But at least now I understand that your resentment of me goes back much further than this past year alone.’
He stood up and walked slowly round the bed to her side.
‘You were only fifteen, were you not, when you decided to test my self-control that day in the pool?’ He spoke softly. ‘And while I do not aspire to your Harry’s level of sanctity, I am occasionally capable of a spark of decency—such as not taking advantage of the heedless innocence of a girl hardly out of childhood. If I was harsh with you, it was because I wished to ensure that you would not be lured into making a similar offer to any other man.’
His voice slowed to a husky drawl. ‘But do not ever think, Maria Lisa, that I was not tempted. And if I had succumbed to your enticement I would not have merely looked, believe me. Not with a second or even a third glance.’
He sat down on the edge of the bed, and as she tried to move away from him, leaned across to place a hand squarely on the other side of her, trapping her where she lay.
‘So what would you have done, carissima?’ he queried softly, looking into her dilating eyes. ‘If you had suddenly found yourself naked with me in the water? And if I had taken you in my arms…?’
‘As it didn’t happen,’ Marisa said curtly, aware that she was trembling, ‘this is a totally pointless discussion. And now please let me up.’
‘In my own good time,’ he said, and had the gall to smile at her. ‘Because it is quite clear to me, mia bella, that my dismissal of you that day still rankles with you. Therefore it is time I made reparation.’
He bent towards her, his purpose evident, and Marisa reacted, gasping, her hands braced, to her dismay
, against the warmth of his bare chest.
‘Renzo—please—you can’t.’
‘Why not?’ he countered, shrugging. ‘You are no longer a child to be protected from herself, my lovely wife.’ He paused significantly. ‘Inoltre, you promised me only this morning that I would find you willing.’
‘Well—yes. But not—not like this.’ She swallowed desperately, realising that by some totally unscrupulous means he’d altered his position and was now lying beside her. Holding her. ‘You seem to have forgotten that we—we’re having dinner with your father,’ she went on, improvising wildly. Realising, too, how absurd she must sound. ‘I—I have to—get ready.’
‘I have forgotten nothing, carissima.’ Renzo’s smile widened disgracefully into a grin of pure enjoyment at her stumbling words. ‘Particularly your assurance that it will take you only five minutes to dress.’
He lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair back from her flushed face. Ran an exploring finger down the curve of her cheek and across the moist heat of her startled, parted lips.
‘So, at long last,’ he added softly, ‘we are together—and with all the time we need.’
CHAPTER NINE
MARISA stared up into the dark face poised above her, unable to think coherently. Scarcely able, she realised, to breathe. Shatteringly conscious of the heat of his lean body and the beguiling, never-forgotten scent of his skin: the clean tang of the soap he used overlaid with the faint musky fragrance of his cologne.
The almost hypnotic beat of his heart was imprinting itself on her spread hands, still trapped against the hair-roughened wall of his chest, and finding an echo throughout her entire bloodstream.
Then Renzo bent his head, and for only the second time in her life she felt the warmth of his mouth on hers. But not in the way she’d experienced in that brief contact this morning, she thought, her brain reeling. No—it was not like that at all.
Because this was an unhurried and totally deliberate exploration of the contours of her mouth, unlike anything she’d ever encountered before or expected to meet with. And although his lips were still gentle, they were also offering a frank enticement which she could not ignore. Or, it seemed, resist.
Not this time…
Then, in one dizzy, shaking moment, Marisa knew that her instincts had been entirely accurate. Understood completely why she’d been so right all this time to keep him at arm’s length and further.
Why she’d reacted so violently to his touch on her wedding night—and later, when she’d been offered the chance of escape, why she’d fled across Europe, telling herself it was over.
Determined to make it so by doing her utmost to cut him completely out of her memory, her life.
And, God help me, she thought with anguish, my heart.
Renzo lifted his head and looked down at her for a long moment, before leaning down again to brush small kisses on her forehead, her half-closed eyes and along the betraying hectic flush that she could feel heating her cheekbones.
Then his mouth returned to hers with renewed urgency, and involuntarily, devastatingly, her lips were parting under his insistence, allowing the silken glide of his tongue to invade the inner moist heat that he sought.
She found too that she was no longer trying to push him away. That in fact she was not simply yielding to his kiss, but slowly and shyly offering him a response.
And that as a result his demand was deepening—turning to undisguised and passionate hunger.
When he lifted his head, they were both breathless. His lambent gaze holding hers, Renzo ran a caressing finger along the curve of her lower lip.
‘You are trembling, mia bella.’ His voice was soft. ‘Am I truly such an object of terror to you still?’
She stared back at him, wordlessly shaking her head. Not terror, she thought, but excitement and the promise of unimagined delight.
Everything that she most feared from him. Everything that she most desired.
He said, half to himself, ‘And I came here only to talk…’
He drew her back to him. His lips touched her throat, dwelt for an instant on the leaping, uneven pulse, then found her ear, caressing its inner whorls with the tip of his tongue and allowing his teeth to graze softly at its small pink lobe, forcing a gasp from her.
His mouth moved downward, planting kisses on the delicate line of her neck before lingering in the fragrant hollow at its base.
She didn’t even know when he’d slipped her bra straps from her shoulders, but they were certainly bare when he traced their slenderness with his lips, touching her skin as if it was fragile silk.
At the same time his fingertips began to glide gently over the exposed curves of her breasts, where they rose above the scalloped edge of her bra, and she felt her nipples swell and harden against their lace confinement in a response to his touch, which was as stark as it was involuntary.
His hand slid under her back, releasing the metal clasp so that he could slip the tiny garment from her body completely and allow his fingers to cup her breasts instead, stroking them gently, almost reverently, while his lips captured hers again, caressing them with an explicit insistence she was unable to refuse.
More than that, as she returned his kisses Marisa found she was touching him in turn, pushing his shirt from his shoulders in clumsy haste so that her eager, untutored hands could begin to learn his body. Could seek the muscled planes and angles of his shoulders and the supple length of his spine under the satiny skin.
Could turn his kiss, too, into a sigh of longing.
Renzo reached down and threw the shrouding coverlet aside, his hands drifting slowly and sweetly down the length of her body before returning to her tumescent breasts, taking them in the palms of his hands and offering them to the candid adoration of his mouth.
His lips gently possessed first one scented mound and then the other, his tongue teasing the puckered rosy peaks with lingering sensual expertise.
Her body was alive, quivering with the sensations he was provoking, and fierce shafts of delight were running through her like a flame in the blood as she arched towards him, stifling a little sob. Wanting more.
And—as his questing hand slid down over her ribcage and her stomach to the flimsy barrier of her briefs—wanting everything…
Only to feel his whole body grow suddenly tense, and to realise that he was lifting himself away from her, looking across the room at the door, his brows snapping together.
Reality came storming back as she heard it too—the sound of knocking, followed by a woman’s voice.
‘What—who is it?’ Her voice was unrecognisable.
Renzo called sharply in his own language, ‘A moment, if you please.’ He turned back to Marisa. ‘It is Rosalia,’ he told her ruefully, shrugging. ‘The maid who attended you earlier. She has come to prepare your bath and assist you to change.’ He added dryly, ‘My father’s orders, you understand.’
He paused, looking down at her. ‘So, does she come in, carissima?’ he asked softly. ‘Or shall I send her away in order that I may bathe and dress you myself—later?’
But the spell was broken, and the flush that warmed her face was suddenly one of embarrassment—not just at the unexpected interruption, but at the intimate picture his words had conjured up.
Also at the realisation of how close she had come to absolute surrender. And not just of her body, but her mind and will too.
She said, stumbling a little, ‘But if you tell her to go then she’ll know that we’re—together. And why…’
‘As we are married,’ he said levelly, ‘it will hardly come as any great surprise to her.’
‘Yes.’ Her blush deepened. ‘But she might—say something—to other people.’
‘It could happen.’ Renzo studied her wryly. ‘I think, mia bella, you must accustom yourself to a little curiosity from the staff. They too have waited a long time to see you here.’
‘I understand that.’ She snatched up her bra and fumbled it back into place, av
oiding his gaze as she struggled with the hook. Telling herself to be thankful that matters had gone no further. ‘But it’s all too soon for me. I can’t deal with it yet—this living under a spotlight. Knowing that everything that happens is going to be under scrutiny.’
Including, no doubt, the moment I become pregnant…
‘Ah,’ he said quietly. ‘Then the answer to my question is no.’
He moved her hands aside, dealing briskly and deftly with the recalcitrant clip on her bra, then he lifted the soft mass of hair and dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck.
It was the lightest caress, but it made her burn and shiver all over again.
He said, ‘I will leave you to your maid, Maria Lisa. But we still have to talk, carissima.’ There was an odd note in his voice—almost strained. ‘There are things that have to be said—things I think you must know—before we begin our real marriage.’
Retrieving his crumpled shirt, he swung himself off the bed and strode off towards his own room, leaving Marisa frantically hauling the coverlet back into place and straightening the pillows in an attempt to eliminate any indication of recent events.
Renzo paused in the doorway, sending her a final, frankly sardonic glance as he observed her efforts.
‘Save yourself the trouble, carissima,’ he advised. ‘You would not deceive a blind woman.’
He called, ‘Avanti, Rosalia,’ and disappeared, closing the door behind him.
The last thing in the world Marisa wanted was a personal maid, but Rosalia seemed quiet, and eager to please, discreetly ignoring her young employer’s state of flushed dishevelment. But she was clearly distressed that the signora did not have a suitable dress in which to grace her father-in-law’s celebration dinner table.
She listened with open astonishment to Marisa’s halting explanation of mislaid luggage, her expression saying clearly that heads would roll at any airline foolish enough to mislay so much as a paper bag belonging to the Santangeli family.
In the end, it had to be the wrap-around skirt from the previous evening, teamed this time with a high-necked Victorian-style blouse in broderie anglaise. Not ideal, but the best she could do under the circumstances.
