“Thank you for that much,” he said with irony strong in his voice, “though it’s possible you’re wrong. But no, the apology I wished to make is for being so certain your brother was at fault in the accident, for the things I said to him and to you about it, for failing to believe you when you tried to defend him.”
“Oh.” The knowledge that she could have saved herself a great deal of humiliation by keeping quiet was galling. She looked away from him, wondering how soon she could leave the room and put the memory of this conversation forever behind her.
“Does that mean I am forgiven?”
“You didn’t know Jonathan, so had little to go on. Even I, who did, still assumed he was behind the wheel.” She shook her head. “I didn’t really blame you for being upset with him, and certainly don’t blame you now.”
“Excellent. We progress. You will agree, I hope, that it’s best if Carita and your brother come here to the villa as soon as possible?”
“I’m sure Carita will be better with her family around her.”
“So you said before, and were perfectly correct as it turns out.” The faintest of smiles came and went across his face. “You see how magnanimous I can be when forced to it? But what of Jonathan?”
“I’m sure he’ll be delighted to be near your sister if you will allow it.”
“It’s a little late to forbid it, yes? Besides, he could have parlayed the accident and the baby Carita carries into a hefty settlement. That he did not, that he allowed himself to be accused rather than exposing her to public censure or police involvement speaks well for him. Added to that, his effect upon Carita seems entirely beneficial.”
“Magnanimity indeed,” she said with a small twist to her lips.
“A physical therapist can be brought in to work with him. In a month or two, when they are both much better, there will be a wedding.”
She swung to face him. “You … you have made up your mind about their marriage — you approve it?”
“As an alternative to them living together, you mean? Davvero, indeed. I have no doubt my sister would run away with him if he asked. Well, or beg him to run away with her if he failed to ask soon enough.”
“And he would absolutely agree if his allowing her to drive his car is any gauge.”
“My thought exactly. As my grandmother would be scandalized by the thought of her granddaughter living in sin, marriage seems the best solution all around. That is assuming that Jonathan wants to be married.”
“I don’t believe there can be any doubt.” He would be over the moon, Amanda thought with a lump in her throat. She couldn’t wait to tell him, or at least to be there when he understood what was in store.
“And what of you,” he asked, his voice dropping to a lower note. “What do you think of marriage?”
She summoned a smile. “I’m sure Jonathan will do his best to make Carita happy.”
“Certo, but that was not my meaning.”
“Then what?” she asked in real perplexity.
“I was not speaking of your brother and my sister, but of you and me. I require to know what you think of marriage between the two of us.”
11
She could not have appeared more stunned, Nico thought, if he had suggested they jump off a bridge together. It was not the reaction he’d envisioned when he steeled himself to propose. Most women would have gasped, crying out for joy, before throwing themselves into his arms.
He should have known Amanda would be difficult in this as in all else. And yet there was something enticing in the fact that she did not make it easy for him. It put him on his mettle.
“Marriage between us,” she said, her voice flat.
“I should have made it clear earlier, but I thought you would first want to know what has been planned for Carita and Jonathan. I desire you for my wife, carissima, if you will do me the very great honor.”
“How can you say such a thing? You are the wealthy and privileged Conte de Frenza. Italians like you, so I’m told, marry your own kind.”
He inclined his head. “It was that way in the past. My mother and father were such a match, comparable in wealth, faith, nationality, age and family name. It was perfect in all respects.” He allowed himself an ironic smile. “And just look how it turned out.”
Nico wasn’t sure when the prospect of a chilly, socially acceptable marriage had ceased to be enough, when he had rejected the idea of being married for his title and his wealth. It might have been any one of a dozen moments — when he saw her concentrating so hard as she painted Carisa’s small mouth with lip gloss, when she smiled after taking her first sip of warm Italian wine, when she clutched a handful of his skin while defending her brother from his wrath, or the moment when he first saw her wearing the mermaid’s bikini he’d bought for her. He only knew that he wanted something more, something rich with passion and the stormy give-and-take he found with this woman. He wanted a life and family with Amanda Davies.
She swallowed, a movement in the smooth line of her throat that he watched with paralyzing interest and tingling lips as he thought of placing them just there. It was a moment before he could make sense of what she was saying.
“This is because of what Jonathan said, after all. You feel you owe me a proposal because you actually thought for a brief moment about seducing me as pay back for Jonathan with Carita.”
“No — well, yes, I thought of it, but that’s not the reason, I swear it.”
“Or maybe because the paparazzi and their stupid tabloids branded me your latest conquest, and it doesn’t suit you.”
He shook his head. “I regret you had to see that. It was a day or two before it came to me, but a retraction will be printed.”
She blinked, her eyes widening. “I thought they never did that.”
“They will, tomorrow.”
“I see. The power of the Conte de Frenza.”
He detected more respect than scorn behind the words. His lips twitched into a half smile. “It has its uses.”
“Well, but you allowed Carisa to believe I was your fiancée, allowed her to become attached to me. You preferred not to upset her with a denial before, and now—”
“Don’t be foolish, cara. No man marries for such a reason.
“Maybe, maybe not. But it must be because you want me then? And I’m supposed to believe in this great desire of yours when you left me without a word and stayed away for days? Talk about foolish.”
“I sent flowers.”
“For remembrance. As if I could ever forget.” She swung and walked away from him a few steps, but not before he caught the glitter of tears in the corners of her eyes. Tears that gave him hope.
“I didn’t say goodbye, cara mia, because I would not have left you if I had tried it. I didn’t come back because I would never have been able to sleep in the same house without finding my way to your bed. Nonna and my aunt might have accepted that from me as a man and head of the family, but I’m afraid they are old-fashioned enough to have thought less of you for it. I didn’t want that when I was the one who couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
She gave a low laugh of mingled surprise and admiration. “Nice try. But it doesn’t explain why you didn’t call, didn’t send a message of some kind to let me know you had no regrets about what happened between us.”
“I could not have heard your voice without ordering the plane for my return,” he said, running a hand through his hair in his exasperation. “Besides, I did have regrets. I knew I should not have pushed you into a relationship while you were not only my guest but worried over your bother. I needed distance, and thought you might as well. This affair of ours had come about so suddenly amid the disturbance over the accident. It seemed best to give us both time to discover how we really felt.”
“What I feel is that who and what you are as a man is forcing you into something you’ll regret. You don’t really want me, but will marry me because your miserable code of honor demands it. Well, I won’t be married for that re
ason. So there. Now you’re free. Count yourself lucky.”
Dio mio, she was driving him insane. He stared at her there in his study where he had thought of her so often, absorbing the perfection of her appearance in white linen, bridal white so seductively innocent in the way it was cut to mold her breasts, the narrow turn of her waist and flare of her hips, that it seemed a wedding omen. Yes, and made him want to peel it from her while tasting every inch of skin as he uncovered it.
He could tell her that he loved her, but why would she believe it when she would accept nothing else he said? He had hurt her, though without intending it. He had doubted her word, maligned her brother, forced her to abandon her job and her life in the States and come with him. It would take time to rectify his errors, time to win her trust and her love, to bind her to him so she would not, as his mother had done, decide the De Frenza blood was tainted and she wanted no part of his family.
He was not sure he would be allowed that much time. Nor was he certain that he could bear to wait until her trust and her love were freely given. To be her husband while he convinced her that she belonged beside him would have infinite advantages.
There was, he was almost positive, one other way to break through the prickly independence she wore like armor. It was overbearing, even arrogant, but a risk he had to take.
“You will marry me,” he said with great deliberation as he moved toward her, “because you want me as much as I want you. You will marry me because you need me as much as I need you. You will marry me,” he finished as he reached for her and pulled her close against him, “because of this that is between us.”
Her lips were so sweet, so cool and delicious as he took them. He groaned with the perfection of them, breathed deep with gratified longing as he pushed his hand into the softness of her hair, holding her while he slanted his head to probe deeper. He swirled his tongue into her mouth, inciting her response.
And he had it, tentative at first but growing bolder as her mouth heated under his fervid assault. She sighed and gripped his shirt in her hands, twisting it to bring him closer. He felt the curves of her breasts against his chest, recognized their hard peaks, and his brain was suddenly aflame.
Moving with his thighs brushing her legs, between them, around them, he guided her backward until her hips were against the edge of his desk. Without releasing her lips, he swept the top clear of papers, books, his calendar, even his cell phone. Before the clatter had died away, he lifted her to the desk. Before she could do more than gasp in disbelief, he pushed the skirt of her dress up and stepped between her spread thighs.
She was so soft, so warm against him. Only the thinnest of barriers separated them. He rubbed against it, mindless with such closeness, while he captured a breast in his hand. Clasping, squeezing in slow rhythm, he allowed himself to be enticed by the rounded neck of her dress. He trailed kisses down the curve of her neck, tasted her pulse with his tongue, delved into the hollow at the base of her throat. He inhaled her fragrance of flowers, linen and warm woman and felt it mount to his head like the most delicate of wine bouquets.
Delirious, half-crazed with need, he searched for and found the zip of her dress, sliding it down, tugging her bodice forward and down her arms to expose her breasts. The bra she wore was a masterpiece of lace and sensual purpose, made expressly to entice. It was the work of a moment to lower its straps until it became a seductive sling for their lovely pink-crested perfection. Bending his head, he blew upon them, watched the nipples become small sweet candies for his delectation, and took one into his mouth.
Her moan was soft music that urged him to greater effort. He drove himself to earn more of it, and yet more, suckling her while smoothing his hand over her thigh, easing between them to cup her, part her delicate folds. He pressed into the moist and silken depths of her while his body protested its deprivation. Exerting more control than he dreamed he possessed, he ignored the violent pleasure that gripped him as she ran her hands over his body, found and captured his flat nipple with her fingers. Matching her movements in instinctive unison, he stroked into her again and again, then found and rolled the delicate bud of her femininity between thumb and forefinger like testing the most fragile of raspberries.
She cried out, a high-pitched sound he caught in his mouth as he felt its approach. And he held her while she trembled with the force of her release, her body straining against his while she pulsed against his fingers. Then, only then, he lowered his zipper and freed his strutted flesh. A brief pause to sheath himself in brand-new protection, then he wrenched her forward to the very edge of the desk and sank into her wet heat.
She crooned, twining her legs around his, pressing her forehead to his breastbone. It was all he needed. Easing her backward, supporting her until she lay upon his desk, he pumped into her in aching need while his heart threatened to burst inside and his pulse almost drowned out the praise and the most sacred of promises that he whispered in the language of his fathers. Telling her how hot arguing with her made him, how proud he was of how she stood up to him, he held her gaze while he took her, and even as she coalesced around him again, drawing him into the surging power of her heartbeat, her ultimate pleasure.
He joined her in it, exploding in supreme and ruthless enjoyment, knowing it had never been like this before and might never be again, knowing he possessed her in that moment if in no other.
He knew, too, even as he shuddered in glorious, unending surcease, that she had still not agreed to be his wife.
12
Carita and Jonathan arrived at the villa with a police escort racing ahead of their matching ambulances and another bringing up the rear. The undulating twin notes of the siren drew everyone to the front entrance. There they waited in a double line, Amanda, Nico and his Nonna on one side, and Aunt Filomena, Carisa and Yolanda on the other. Jonathan was helped up the steps on his crutches by the medical technicians, while Carita was brought in on a stretcher. Both were smiling, almost laughing with the ridiculous display they made and their pleasure in it.
Amanda took over as Jonathan’s escort, walking slowly beside him into the downstairs ladies sitting room that had been turned into a bedroom for him. Carisa walked beside Carita’s stretcher, holding to its side and chattering every step of the way, as she was installed in the invalid’s room next door that had apparently been so designated from time immemorial.
The arrangements had been Amanda’s idea, though Nico had backed her up in it against his grandmother’s protests. She’d had visions of her brother tumbling down the marble stairs in his attempts to visit his fiancée, or Carita doing the same as she sought to spend time with Jonathan.
Nico’s suggestion had been to put in an elevator, something his grandmother might require eventually. Nonna had been scandalized. This was what the invalid’s room was for, she declared, though it would be many years before she was reduced to such straits. She would not have the villa cut up for a modern contraption that would be used a few weeks at the most.
Nonna had a point, Amanda thought, as she was reluctant herself to see permanent damage done to the wonderful old place. With the two of them against him, Nico had thrown up his hands and let them have their way.
It was the only thing he had given in on, however. He had announced Amanda’s engagement to him in print without the least regard for her refusal of his proposal. Spending most of every day at the villa, he had been the most attentive of fiancés. He sat beside her at meals, took her walking in the garden, escorted her on a tour of the villages of the Cinque Terre and swam with her from the beach that was hidden from the villa by the lay of the land. And he made love to her with the tenderness of dedication, taking her in a hidden cove, in a boat floating on its own reflection in liquid aquamarine-blue water, on a dew-damp garden bench while a life-size statue of Pan looked on, laughing slyly as he played his pipes.
When she tried to protest, she was kissed into silence. Any attempt at serious discussion was thwarted as he traced her nipple through the fine
knit of one of the shirts he had bought her or tucked his fingers under the edge of the her shorts in search of more erogenous areas than he had located already. She was soon lost in a haze of such drugging desire that she could not think, must less argue with him.
He didn’t come to her in her room at night. It was, she supposed, some mental compromise for him, as if leaving her to sleep alone soothed his overactive conscience.
So she existed in a sensual daze, living from one day to the next, allowing Nico to plan what they would do and where they would go. To be so constantly in his company satisfied some need she had not known she had. His kisses, his touch enthralled her; she could not resist him in an amorous mood, now, any more than she could in the beginning.
It could not go on. She had to take a stand, must force him to listen to her. This marriage was all wrong. She would regret it if she went through with it. She did not want to be like her mother, so desperately in love with her husband and drawn to his sensual allure that she had no life of her own. She did not want to be dependent on his presence to the point that she’d rather die than live without him.
She was in love with Nico. To admit it was painful, but could no longer be denied. She waited for him to appear at breakfast, ached to be alone with him, thought constantly of what it would be like to be his wife. She could not imagine going back to Atlanta and her gray existence there. Yet she must. It was the only way.
Nico had said he wanted her, and she believed him; he had shown her that much in a thousand ways. When desire was gone, however, what would be left? To love a man to distraction who felt the same was frightening enough, but to love one who cared little for her beyond the desire of the moment would be painful beyond imagining.
On a morning when Carita and Jonathan had been at the villa over a week, Amanda sat on the terrace with Carisa and Carita, their aunt and grandmother. Jonathan was with the physical therapist that came every morning to put him through a series of mild exercises for his leg and shoulder. Nico was working in his study.
The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding Page 16
