by Dani Collins
Dio! Her naïveté astonished him.
“I’ve always been jealous,” he elaborated.
Lauren’s fingernails hurt. She realized distantly that she had her fists knotted in Paolo’s shirt, her grasp so hard her nails were bending, but even while tension held her in its silent grip, deep inside she unfurled a bit. If he was being honest...
“I don’t have any right to it,” Paolo allowed begrudgingly, “but from the moment he slid into our booth and you barely looked at me again, I have been eaten up with it.”
Lauren forced herself to release him, unnerved by what he was saying. Logically she knew there was nothing particularly reassuring about a man revealing his territorial streak. Jealousy was a sign of distrust, not love, but a nebulous hope tried to take root in her breastbone, painful in its worming to take hold. It seemed like a start.
“Did he know?”
“What do you think?” he retorted flatly, letting his hands drop away from her to find his pockets.
The moments following their kiss at the wedding came back to her, both men crackling with territorial aggression. And then there was that conversation she and Ryan had had in the bridal suite later on, when he’d casually revealed that Paolo had tried to talk him out of going through with the wedding. She’d interpreted it as Paolo trying to save his friend from a woman he deemed unworthy, but now it took on a different connotation as did the way Ryan had watched her so closely as he relayed it.
“Do you...” She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the tension there. “Do you think he married me just to hurt you?”
Lauren’s question notched higher the suspicion Paolo had been holding off with bone-gripping denial. It wasn’t just the treachery it implied. It was a blow to a woman who was already struggling to recover from infidelity. To learn her husband had never really loved her was too cruel to suggest.
For long seconds he refused to look at her, but was ultimately unable to lie to her. When he finally did take in her anxious pallor, regret cut through him like a broadsword. He had never, ever meant to draw her into what he now feared had always been more feud than friendship.
“He had his own jealousies,” he allowed, holding out a hand that she ignored. “You know what his father was like. Mine was proud and supportive... In Ryan’s eyes I was spoiled, living an easy life.”
“So it’s possible.” Her voice sounded like she’d swallowed broken glass.
“At the time I thought he was marrying you because you made him happy.” It was easy enough to believe when he’d coveted her for himself. “If I’d suspected otherwise, I really would have stopped it.”
She shrugged that off, lost in a place that pulled down the corners of her mouth.
“Look at me.” Taking a firm grip of her soft chin, he waited for her shattered gaze to tentatively meet his.
He gentled his touch so he was caressing her downy skin, trying to ease the anguish from her expression while a personal hurt reared inside him. “You walked away from me and went to him more than once. I thought he made you happy, too. That was important to me, that you were happy.”
Her lips quivered and he stilled them with the brush of his thumb.
“I thought you wanted nothing to do with me,” he admitted gruffly. “That’s why it meant everything when you knew it was me you were making love to that night in Charleston.” The floor became quicksand beneath him as he opened himself up this way.
Her breath hitched and her yellow-brown eyes melted into liquid gold. “You realize my passport says Lauren Green.”
Paolo’s body seemed to consolidate into a statue of tested strength. His grip hardened on her chin. His eyes closed and for long seconds his only movement was the flare of his nostrils and the visible pound of his pulse in his throat.
“You are a cruel, cruel woman, Ms. Green.”
She couldn’t help the wicked smile that traced itself across her lips. Her heart fluttered in pleasure and anticipation.
He looked down at her with pupils that had expanded to swallow all the color from his irises, inciting a shiver of delicious excitement. His hand slid to her neck and his other one splayed at her waist, firm and possessive.
“But this is important to me, Lauren. I want my wife in my bed. No one else.”
Lauren was still anxious at how fast things were moving between them, but honestly, if she had wanted to raise this baby alone, she never should have told Paolo he was the father. He was too paternal to let that go and she wanted him in her life.
Her heart gave a little thunk as she realized she might have been expressing that desire with her phone call to him. As foreboding as Ryan’s disappearance had been, she hadn’t been reacting as a wife fearing for her husband. Her marriage had been over. Ryan had been a big part of her life and she would never want him to suffer the kind of tragic end he’d met, but she could have waited to hear the truth. She had known answers would come eventually, delivered on the standard military need-to-know basis.
Instead she’d seized the excuse to reach out to Paolo, sensing that her tenuous connection to him was about to fray away completely. The truth was, she had been longing for five years to explore what might have happened between them if Paolo had not been engaged when they had met in New York.
Her heart felt like it was beating outside her body, unprotected and at risk. The reason she had turned to Ryan in the first place was that he hadn’t been able to reach through her inner barriers the way Paolo did. That spinelessness had led her to marry the wrong man.
As scary as it was to open herself to Paolo, she had to or they’d never stand a chance. There was no shrinking back into the shadows here. She’d come too far. It was time to adapt to the new world she’d put herself in.
She nodded jerkily. “I want to be married, too.”
Until she saw the ease that washed over him, she hadn’t realized how tense he’d been. Marrying her was important to him. Touched, she let her gaze flick to the desk where he’d left the ring.
He stepped back, hands dropping away from her. “If you don’t like it—”
“What? No! I didn’t mean to be rude about it. I was just so angry— Oh, Paolo, it’s lovely.” She melted into near tears as she took a proper look at the antique ring, so simple and delicate and obviously treasured.
He slid the ring onto her finger and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, his expression shining with masculine pride.
And from there they had to have a real kiss. Had to. He moved his hand to the back of her neck, holding her in place while he stole one deep kiss after another, his mouth moving on hers as though savoring her. Lauren moaned in pleasure, but before she could press herself into the hard ridge of his erection, he pressed her back in a show of merciless discipline.
“Get some sleep,” he said gruffly. “Because I swear after that ceremony tomorrow, I’ll be keeping you awake. A lot.”
CHAPTER TEN
SOMEHOW PAOLO PROCURED a perfect wedding dress overnight. The simple sheath with an overlay of eggshell lace was stylishly understated, just right for a midmorning wedding. New shoes, better than Cinderella’s, were a perfect fit and sparkled with promise. Her hat with a short veil completed the outfit, making her feel chic and sophisticated.
All good omens, Lauren told herself, as her groom’s appearance nearly knocked her off her feet.
The familiar couched energy of Paolo’s dynamic personality was vaguely austere in a tailored Italian suit. His shoulders, sharply defined by the cut of his jacket, eased slightly when he saw her. He looked a little tired, a lot determined, and sexy as hell.
Nerves struck her. Marriage was permanent. Not to be entered into lightly. At the same time, Lauren had the sentient feeling that this was inevitable. Like she and Paolo would have come to this no matter what.
Therefore, it seemed both right
and surreal that he took her to a towering cathedral to speak their vows before an archbishop, of all people. Paolo had said it would be a small, private ceremony with only two witnesses, so she wasn’t entirely surprised to see Vittorio and Maria waiting on the steps, Maria’s daughter Alys in tow.
“Don’t be nervous,” Maria urged Lauren when she realized how intimidated Lauren was. “He’s a family friend. He marries all of us and would be insulted if Paolo hadn’t asked him. Although he’s a little put out with the speed. I can’t imagine what Paolo paid him to waive the banns. When my brother makes up his mind, though, don’t even think of getting in his way.”
“Is this a wedding?” Alys nearly leapt out of her skin. “When Mama said to wear my church dress, I thought it was for mass.”
Paolo reached a hand to Alys’s curly head. “Didn’t you make me promise that when I married, you could be my flower girl? Vittorio brought bouquets and everything.”
Vittorio greeted Lauren with a lazy kiss on her cheek, looking slightly hungover and unabashedly amused as he handed over the flowers.
Alys grasped her posy in reverent hands, her adoring eyes lifting to Paolo. “Oh, Uncle, I love you.”
They all laughed, but Lauren grew teary-eyed at the same time. Of course Alys loved him. Who could resist a man who kept promises to little girls? Whether he kept promises to big ones, was the question.
She was distracted from her fears as they entered the reverent building and she was introduced to the archbishop. The ceremony was under way seconds later.
And it was too easy. Lauren had done the fairy-tale thing with Ryan, working herself into knots over every small detail of the huge event, agonizing through the ceremony with so many eyes upon her while her own focus kept slipping to the brooding man on Ryan’s right.
This was intimate and solemn and very much between the two of them. Which made it almost too big for Lauren to handle. She was hypersensitive to his concerned frown as he took her cold hands in his warm ones and massaged lightly to warm them. She began to well up as Paolo looked into her eyes to make his vows. It was too impactful. Lack of sleep, she tried telling herself, but her throat was one big lump of hope that he meant these vows. By the time he kissed her, she was trembling with the effort not to reveal how susceptible to him she was.
He wrapped his strong arms around her and drew her in, promising to square up all her loose edges with one warm, comforting embrace.
“Are you okay?” he murmured.
She wasn’t. Everything about this was too right, leaving her deeply disturbed by how skinless he felt. She hid her expression by tilting her head down.
“It’s just the baby making me emotional,” she whispered in excuse, and felt a tender kiss brush her temple.
They broke apart as Maria announced she had to get back to the rest of her children. “Are you coming to the house?” she asked Paolo.
“I’ve already made my apologies to Mama. I promised Lauren I’d take her south for our honeymoon. We’ll be back in a week.”
They were in the air to Sicily within thirty minutes. Something must have shown on Lauren’s face as she returned to her seat after changing in the very well-appointed bedroom on the private jet because Paolo gave her a laconic grin before rising to take his turn. “I don’t want to be interrupted and we’d have to take our seats to land.”
Oh. She was that obvious, was she? It took everything she had to act naturally as they ate a light lunch. Every cell of her being was locked on him, filling the air around them with an aura of sexual tension.
Once they landed, Paolo murmured something about her desire to see his country as he instructed their driver to take them on the coastal route from Catania to Taormina. The scenery was pretty enough, offering glimpses of clear blue waves lapping at stretches of sand and rocky escarpments interspersed with pockets of village life and tourist havens. Lauren appreciated his thoughtfulness, but she was ever aware of the silent man beside her, seemingly gripped in a similar stasis of impatience.
They climbed something the driver called Monte Tauro. The road entered a charming village high off the water and the grandness of the position and view of snowcapped Mount Etna prompted a wonder-filled “Oh” of reaction out of her. They passed a tram making a steep decline to the water and she craned her neck.
“It saves hiking down to the beach. The water is warm year round. We could swim if you’d like,” he said.
“You expect we’ll leave the villa?” she joked, her nerves strained to screaming pitch by the suppressed desire crackling between them.
Paolo laughed with rich appreciation and crushed her hand in his, fingers weaving between hers in a determined grip of possession. The car stopped and he pulled her out behind him into a sunny courtyard where bougainvillea bloomed in bursts of red on spidery green tendrils clinging to the stone walls of the house.
He dismissed the staff and brought the luggage in himself while Lauren moved through the lavish interior of the small home. Outside, the deck of the infinity pool seemed to drop into the horizon and she wedged herself into a corner of the terrace next to it, seeking the warmth of slanting sunshine as she savored the simmering sensuality inside her. Heat gathered in the stainless steel rail and each breath she took was a sexy inhale of anticipation.
“Are you hungry?”
Paolo’s graveled voice abraded her taut nerves. Suppressing a little shiver, Lauren shook her head, then quarter-turned to look at him.
The sun was in her eyes and he was in shadow. All she saw was the silhouette of his razor-sharp business pants and the way his muscles strained his shirt. Glints of light in her periphery, possibly reflections off the neighbor’s pool below, gilded his figure and threw his frame into a relief map of powerful male beauty.
Flutters of feminine response started in her abdomen. She involuntarily tensed against them, gripping the rail tighter as she saw the tornado forming and knew she couldn’t escape it. As her pupils adjusted, she received an impression of blazing eyes and a face lined with lust.
“Come here,” he growled.
Lauren gave a tiny shudder as though he’d shouted when his voice was only raspy with desire. At the same time, the glint in her eyes seemed to become more deliberate.
She raised a hand to shield her vision and glanced below. “I think there’s someone down there with binoculars.”
Paolo crowded into the small space next to her, nearly frying her mind, but the flash of a lens fixed on them like a laser pointer from one of the properties below.
“It’s fine,” he said, settling his hands on her waist to lightly force her into turning to face him. As her body brushed his, need flared inside her. It was all she could do to steel herself against him as her fingers draped his biceps in subtle resistance.
“But it could be paparazzi. Mom and the Bradleys don’t even know—”
“I called them last night,” he told her. “We needed declarations that there were no impediments to our marrying. Given your reservations about talking to your mother, I took the liberty.”
“You what!” She pressed back into the rail behind her.
“I asked her if we should wait until she was available to attend the wedding or make it official immediately. I realize that’s a clichéd negotiating tactic, giving her a choice between yes and yes, but it worked. She supports the marriage,” he said dryly.
Nevertheless, Gabrielle Reid had registered her disapproval. Lauren could sense it in the way Paolo took on a look of suppressed umbrage.
“Yes, well, marrying was the right thing to do,” Lauren said into the middle of his chest, both relieved and dreading her next call home. She quickly asked, “And Elenore?”
She braced herself, too often the target of judgment from Ryan’s mother to take her reaction lightly.
“Chris made a declaration on your behalf.” A mus
cle pulsed in Paolo’s jaw. “He wasn’t happy, but it’s done. Everyone liable to be affected is aware that we’ve married. This photographer works for a friend.” He nodded to the camera below. “They’ll leak the news with the least amount of sensationalism. No more secrets, no more impediments.”
A rush of power and excitement surged in him as he absorbed their freedom to finally be together. The feeling had its root in sexual anticipation but carried subtle branches of pride and triumph and elation. She was his now. His hands tightened on her.
“He’ll leave us alone shortly,” he assured her. “Meantime, let’s give him what he’s being paid for.”
Lauren ducked his kiss before it landed, skittering her gaze toward the pool next to their feet, her only direction of escape.
Paolo frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to play the devoted wife for the world again,” she said, flickering a glance of hurt up at him. “This is between you and me, Paolo. It’s real and it’s private.”
He was oddly touched, realizing that Lauren wasn’t just being shy. When something meant a lot to you, you protected it. Her sensitivity to intrusion spoke volumes about how important their intimacy was to her.
“You’re right. Come, Signora Donatelli. I’ve waited too long to have you to myself.” Taking her hand, he led her into the villa.
The ivory walls and linens in the bedroom reflected the rosy glow of the sinking sun. Lauren’s heels made a soft click on the marble as they moved into the cavernous room. She unconsciously tightened her hand on his to prevent a slip.
Paolo took it as a signal to stop and turned to face her. His hands came up to the buttons of her shirt.
Lauren drew back in surprise at his forwardness.
A smile twitched his lips. “I’m not rushing you, just dying to see how the baby is changing you...” He tugged the tails of her shirt free while Lauren bit her lip, unable to keep from grinning as he parted the edges of her blouse and looked down.
