Gingerly, she lifted the sheets and climbed in. As she did so he caught a whiff of minty toothpaste and a delicate floral scent.
There was an immediate thickening of his blood. And a thickening of another part of his anatomy.
She turned her back to him and burrowed under the sheets so only the top of her white-blonde hair showed.
Gabriele switched the bedside light off, plunging the room into darkness.
He gazed up at the ceiling, a hand resting above his head, and tried to empty his mind of clutter and not pay too much attention to the fact that Elena lay beside him.
Soon the stiffness in his loins would subside.
These were natural reactions for a man to have.
Sharing a bed with a pretty woman, even one clad in the most disgusting nightclothes he’d ever had the misfortune to see, would be enough to make any man hard, especially when that man had been celibate for the best part of four years.
After Sophia had ended their engagement, he’d smarted for a while but had been too caught up in the legal battle to allow himself to dwell on it for any length of time. Prison itself had been about getting through each day. Even with his work detail he’d had plenty of time to think and all that thinking had been spent on one thing—revenge. Sophia had hardly crossed his mind.
Since his release, the part of his brain not plotting his revenge had been spent rebuilding his and Mantegna Cars’ reputation. This rebuilding would culminate in the car being launched to honour his father’s memory. There simply hadn’t been the space for a woman, not in any capacity.
So it was no wonder that lying in the dark next to Elena had made his libido jump-start itself.
* * *
They were on the front page of every major paper in the US and Europe.
The Burying of the Hatchet? screamed the most common variety of headline.
They were also the headliners of all the major news outlets on the Web and the top trending story on social media. The picture most commonly used in them had Gabriele’s arm wrapped protectively around her and Elena’s head resting against his chest.
While she’d been sleeping, her phone, put on silent for the night, had gone berserk. She awoke to eleven missed calls from her father and brothers. All their texts and emails were variants of ‘call me now’.
There were also dozens of messages and missed calls from journalists and bloggers wanting comments on her relationship with Gabriele.
She couldn’t bring herself to listen to the voicemails.
Turning her phone off, she climbed out of the empty bed and headed to the bathroom, splashing some water on her face and brushing her teeth.
As with the day before, Gabriele was already showered and dressed. She found him in the dining room sipping a cup of coffee. He was casually dressed again, wearing black chinos and a grey T-shirt under an unbuttoned checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
An empty plate had been pushed to one side, half a dozen newspapers strewn before him.
‘Good morning, tesoro.’ He rose to his feet, a smile playing on his lips, one she was coming to recognise as the smile of satisfaction he gave when he was pleased with a plan coming to fruition.
To her shock, he stepped to her, pulled her into his arms and briefly covered her mouth with his own.
She reared her head back but couldn’t break free from his hold. ‘What are...?’
‘We have company,’ he interrupted in a low voice, dragging his lips across her cheek and dipping into her neck, his hand rubbing across her back.
‘Come, have some breakfast,’ he said in a normal tone, pulling the seat out from beside his own and virtually pressing her into it.
It was then that she saw the small man standing at the door separating the dining room from the kitchen.
‘Michael, this is Elena,’ Gabriele said by way of introduction, smiling affectionately at her as he took her stiff hand in his.
Michael bustled into the room, beaming widely. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ricci.’ He spoke with a strong New York drawl. ‘What can I get you for breakfast?’
‘Erm...’
‘I can recommend his poached eggs.’ Gabriele smoothed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
As soon as Michael had disappeared back into the kitchen, Elena snatched her hand from Gabriele’s hold.
‘There was no need for that,’ she hissed.
‘There was every need,’ he answered, taking her hand back. ‘You are like a cat on hot coals around me. We’re going to the city clerk’s office later to arrange our wedding licence. Tomorrow we marry. You need to be comfortable with me holding you and touching you.’
‘I did all that last night,’ she said indignantly, though making an effort to keep her voice down.
‘No, you made a start last night,’ he corrected. ‘You were as stiff as a board under my touch but anyone would excuse that because of the paparazzi’s presence. When we see the clerk, you have to keep in mind they deal with couples in love all the time. They will know a fake when they see it.’
‘I am trying.’
‘And I’m going to help you.’
‘How?’
‘By kissing you. Properly.’
Any objection she would have made was swept away when he placed his giant palms to her cheeks and brought his mouth to hers.
The couple of times he’d kissed her before had been the briefest of touches, a flash of warmth and then done, leaving nothing but the faintest impression on her lips and a trace of his masculine body heat.
This time...
His lips caressed hers, moving softly. His long fingers traced her cheeks then spread out to thread into her hair and massage into her scalp.
Gently but authoritatively his tongue slid out to probe and caress her lips, which were still clamped tightly together.
But she was fighting a losing battle.
As hard as she tried to keep a hold of herself, to stop this subtle erotic assault from seeping into her, all the tiny atoms inside her were awakening, sensation spreading through her.
What was happening to her?
And then her lips made the tiniest of partings that was enough for him to sweep his tongue into her mouth.
Deep, dark heat suffused her, his taste seeping into her. Coffee, the faint trace of mint and a taste she didn’t recognise but she knew was his and his alone.
With shock, she suddenly realised her hand had moved of its own accord to rest on his shoulder, her fingers gripping it tightly.
And she was kissing him back. Her tongue had slipped into his mouth and was mimicking the explorations he was making in her own.
She flexed her fingers and let go, then reared her head back enough to break the kiss.
‘That’s enough,’ she muttered in a voice that sounded distant. The only sound she could make out was the ringing in her ears.
Gabriele didn’t say anything, his hold on her head still firm as he gazed intently into her eyes, the expression on his face making her stomach contract in on itself and her thundering heart crash painfully against her ribs.
Thank God Michael chose that moment to come back into the room with a pot of coffee, clearing his throat loudly to announce his presence.
Gabriele moved his hands from her hair and straightened.
‘Your breakfast will be with you in five minutes,’ Michael said, pouring her a cup and then leaving as quickly as he’d come.
Shaken, her body still singing, heat still swirling, she added a spoonful of sugar with a trembling hand.
Gabriele was her sworn enemy. She had no right to take such pleasure from his kiss.
She had no right to want more.
‘That’s much better,’ he said with approval.
‘Don’t ever do that
again.’ She couldn’t look at him.
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it.’
‘Don’t pretend that I did.’ She hadn’t enjoyed it. What she had felt—what she still felt—was something she hadn’t known she could feel.
His voice dropped and he spoke into her ear, blowing more of that gorgeous heat over her sensitised skin. ‘You taste like nectar. Soon, I will taste all of you.’
She wrapped her hands around her cup, breathing deeply, trying in vain to take control of herself.
His gaze stayed locked on her, penetrating her skin.
This man was her sworn enemy.
‘What’s the matter, tesoro? Does your desire for me scare you?’
‘There is no desire. All I feel for you is loathing. All I want is for you to release me from this nightmare.’
Instead of being angry, he laughed. ‘There is no shame in attraction. It is natural.’
Not for her it wasn’t.
But she had no intention of sharing that with him. The contract she’d signed stipulated she gave him her body, not her thoughts. The only intimacies they would share would be in the bedroom and they would be as brief as humanly possible.
Gabriele got to his feet. ‘I have some calls to make. Can you be ready to leave in an hour?’
Thrown at his abrupt change of conversation, she looked at him.
And immediately wished she hadn’t.
Every time she looked at him her chest tightened some more.
Tomorrow she would marry this man.
She would belong to him.
And the only way to cut the bonds that would bind them was to give him the one thing she’d never given to anyone. Her body.
But the one thing she now knew above all else was that she would never allow him to kiss her again. Not as he’d just done.
It made her feel too much.
* * *
Somehow Elena made it through their meeting with the official at the city clerk’s office without incident. She’d held Gabriele’s hand and smiled adoringly every time their eyes met. She’d even managed a simper.
The only time she’d come close to crumbling that day was when Gabriele had taken her to a boutique, leaving her with the instructions, ‘You need to choose a dress to marry in. White. Nothing subversive.’
She’d thumbed through the many and varied beautiful dresses with a deep ache inside her.
She might never have expected to marry, but this...
This was an abomination. A mockery of everything marriage was supposed to stand for. She was marrying a man she despised and who loathed her with equal intensity.
You have to do it. If you don’t, he’ll destroy you all.
It was this thought that had sustained her through her chat with her father that evening, before she and Gabriele had sat down for a quiet meal prepared for them by the housekeepers.
Elena refused to give credence to Gabriele’s belief that her father had framed Alfredo, yet it echoed in her head with every word exchanged between them. But she would not ask for her father’s side. He had nothing to answer for.
It hurt so much to hear the strain in her father’s voice, knowing his fears of his only daughter seeing a convicted criminal. He’d casually asked if she’d any plans to see ‘Mantegna’ again. She’d crossed her fingers and said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster, ‘Oh, yes, Papà, he’s such a lovely man.’
Now she lay beside that ‘lovely man’ feigning sleep.
This time tomorrow they would be married.
This time tomorrow she would no longer be a virgin.
Gabriele turned in his sleep. A warm leg brushed against her.
She stopped breathing.
Sensation spread throughout her, a low ache pulsing deep in her pelvis.
She gritted her teeth and exhaled through her mouth.
How could she be so aware of him? Why could her body not hate him with the same passion as her brain?
If she could only switch her body off she would be able to ignore the fact that sleeping beside her was the most physically attractive man she’d ever met.
She could pretend the heat suffusing her at his nearness meant nothing.
* * *
‘Elena, are you ready?’ Gabriele banged on the bedroom door, where she’d been holed up for the best part of an hour, telling him she wanted to be alone as she prepared.
The door swung open.
All she had on was a mauve robe. A towel was wrapped around her hair.
‘I can’t do it,’ she said, panic in her voice.
‘Do what?’ He looked at his watch. His driver would be here any minute to take them to the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Everything was set. All they had to do was turn up. If she was about to renege on their contract...
‘My make-up,’ she screeched. ‘I can’t remember what Adrian told me to do.’
Not only was there panic in her voice but in her eyes too.
She was so highly strung at that moment she could snap like a too taut piece of elastic.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘One minute.’ He went to his drinks cabinet and poured two hefty measures of brandy, then carried the glasses back to the bedroom and pressed one in her hand.
‘Drink it,’ he commanded. ‘It will calm your...’
She’d downed it before he could finish his sentence.
‘Can I have another?’
‘Sure.’
He went off and poured them both another. She drank it as quickly as the first and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Better?’
She nodded.
‘Elena...’ Her robe had opened a touch, enough for him to catch a glimpse of a small breast.
He blinked and refocused his attention on her face.
‘Elena, we have plenty of time,’ he lied. ‘Just do your best. Everyone will be too busy looking at your dress to pay attention to your face.’
He’d waited in a nearby coffee shop while she’d bought it. He’d spent the time trying not to think of their breakfast kiss, the remnants of which had still lingered in his bloodstream. It still lingered.
Before his engagement to Sophia he’d had a steady stream of regular girlfriends. He would never have considered himself a playboy but he’d had a lot of fun. Then he’d turned thirty and decided it was time to settle down. It was what people did when they still had trust in human decency.
Now, there was no one alive he trusted and he never would again.
His father had trusted Ignazio. He’d never dreamed his oldest, closest friend would betray him in such a manner.
Gabriele had trusted Ignazio too. Why on earth would he not? But where had this trust got him? A prison sentence, a dead father and a severely incapacitated mother.
He’d trusted Sophia. She hadn’t cared to believe in him, her only concern saving her reputation.
That was what trusting someone who wasn’t your own blood got you. Pain.
When his time with Elena came to an end, he was sure he would date again—he wasn’t dead—but sharing a life with anyone? Not a chance in hell.
At the time, Sophia had, on paper, seemed the perfect wifely candidate. They’d agreed on all the major things like religion and politics. It was the perfect meeting of minds. Plus she was from an old wealthy family so there was no question of her being a gold-digger. And she was beautiful. Properly beautiful. The kind of beauty that men and women alike would turn their heads to look at twice.
In the year he’d been with her, not one single kiss had elicited the reaction kissing Elena had evoked. He couldn’t remember a single kiss that had ever provoked such a strong surge of heat not just t
hrough his loins but through his blood, his bones, his very flesh.
He’d sat in that coffee shop, talking quietly on the phone to the man who could clear his name, trying to think of the words to induce him into switching sides, but his concentration had hung by a thread. His blood had thrummed too deeply from his kiss with Elena to think clearly.
The desire it had provoked in him had been inexplicable. It still was. As he looked at her now, standing before him with nothing but a robe covering her, the urge to take her into his arms and carry her to the bed was strong.
But, as he told himself grimly, desire meant nothing. It didn’t change anything.
But it would certainly make marriage to her more pleasurable.
She nodded, her lips pursed, determination etched on her face. ‘I can do this.’
‘Good. I’ll leave you to get on.’
Closing the door behind him, he wondered what kind of woman made it to the age of twenty-five without knowing how to apply make-up. He’d always assumed it was something inbuilt in them, like their ability to multitask without breaking a sweat.
How sheltered had her life been?
He knew Ignazio had kept her in the home for much of her childhood. His own father had often commented on it, saying how sad it was that his friend was hiding his only daughter away while his sons roamed free. No wonder she had aspired to be as much like her brothers as she could.
She was a strong, confident woman now, he assured himself. Whatever kind of childhood she’d had, it didn’t change who she had become.
Forty minutes later she finally appeared.
The dress she’d chosen to marry him in was white, as he’d stipulated, but that was the only truly traditional aspect. Sleeveless, it had a high lace neckline and fell like a fan above her knees. On her feet were simple white shoes with the tiniest of heels.
Her newly feathered fringe had been swept to one side, the rest of it gathered in her newly favoured knot at the back of her neck. She’d kept her make-up simple but effective.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘It’s perfect.’ He nodded his approval. ‘You’ve chosen well.’
‘I couldn’t bring myself to buy a floor-length traditional dress. It would have made this whole farce an even bigger mockery.’
Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed Page 8
