VITTORIO'S RUNAWAY BRIDE

by Kimberley Reeves

  She was his, she belonged to him, and Shelby knew with undying certainty that Logan would never make love to her again if he thought she’d been unfaithful. Not that there much chance he’d want to anyway considering she’d run out on him, but there was still one small, very foolish part of her that wanted to believe she’d fight her way out of this nightmare and get her life back. If only she could be sure he’d never cheat on her again, or at least understand the reasons he’d done it to begin with so she would know how to be a better wife, a better lover, the kind of woman who could hold on to her man.

  Shelby met his piercing gaze with a fearless determination to make him see the truth in her own eyes. “My reasons for leaving had nothing to do with another man. There’s never been anyone for me but you and I would never, never betray you that way.”

  “Even though you thought we were divorced?”

  “Logan, I love you,” she said softly. “Do you honestly think I could be with someone else when my heart belongs to you?”

  Logan studied her face for a moment, fervently praying he wouldn’t find any signs of deception. The gnawing fear that his sweet, beautiful Shelby had been lured away from him by another man slowly began to subside. Still, some lingering doubt remained because he was finding it difficult to dismiss behavior that was so uncharacteristic of the woman he’d married. Never in all the countless times they’d made love had Shelby taken the initiative in such an assertive manner.

  Admittedly he’d been aroused, excruciatingly so, but who could blame him when she was grinding those slender hips against him as if she wanted him to make love to her right there? But it wasn’t just Shelby’s behavior that had shocked him, it was his own behavior as well. She’d gotten him so worked up, so damn hot for her that he’d nearly lost control and given her what she so obviously wanted. It scared him, shook him to the core because he was always so mindful of the differences in their size. Shelby was so small, so delicate; it terrified him to think how easily he could hurt her if he made love to her with anything but the greatest of care. The first time they’d made love he’d allowed his control to slip, but even then he hadn’t unleashed the full power of his passion on her.

  “It’s the way I was acting that makes you suspicious,” Shelby continued when he didn’t say anything. “Logan, I’m sorry. I lost my head and couldn’t seem to stop myself. It’s just that…it’s been so long and I wanted you to know…” She shook her head, overcome with emotion and a longing for something that could never be.

  “Wanted me to know what, cara mia?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. “That I still love you,” she said in a strangled whisper.

  “If that is true,” and he prayed to God that it was, “then why did you leave me?”

  She blinked and the unshed tears slid down her face. “Because I’m not what you need in a woman.”

  Logan’s brows drew together. “Not what I…mio Dio, what makes you think that?”

  Shelby lowered her eyes and stared at his chest, feeling as if her heart were being torn out all over again. The woman he’d been with was her complete opposite; blond hair with a full, curvaceous figure and a sultry air about her that told anyone who took even a passing glance that she was very much aware of just how sexy she was. This was a woman who wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted and she’d use whatever feminine wiles she had to get it. Logan wouldn’t have held back his passion with her as he did with Shelby, his blonde lover wouldn’t have allowed it. Which was probably what had lured him away, she thought miserably, because his naïve virginal bride hadn’t been able to satisfy him.

  “It’s not that I didn’t want to be the perfect wife for you,” she chose her words carefully. “For a while I even fooled myself into believing I could make you happy just because I’d learned how to manage running the house and be a gracious hostess and because I was so in love with you.” Shelby drew in a shaky breath. “But it wasn’t enough.”

  “It was enough for me, carissima.”

  He sounded so sincere she almost believed him, but just being this close to him, feeling the intense sexuality that seemed to exude from every pore in his body, Shelby knew she was just fooling herself again.

  “We’re just too different, Logan. You’re a powerful man, so sure of yourself, so confident in everything you do and you have a magnetism that draws people to you. Doesn’t it bother you that your friends and business associates must think you’ve lost your mind to have married someone like me?”

  “Shelby, look at me.” Logan waited until she lifted her head and then almost wished she hadn’t because the pain and fear on her face was so stark it wrenched his gut. “I do not know why you cannot see how immeasurably beautiful you are, but I see it and so do my friends and business associates. Do you want to know what they say about you, cara, about us?”

  “Logan…” she shook her head.

  “I will tell you anyway. They envy me, Shelby. You are elegance and grace, with a quiet beauty that has brought peace to my heart. They see this and they want it for themselves. I am a lucky man, they tell me, and they would give anything to have a woman like you; a woman who looks at me as if I am the only man in the world and does not demand anything but that I love her in return.”

  “And yet they all have wives or girlfriends who look like movie stars,” she said with a touch of cynicism. “It seemed more like a beauty pageant whenever we entertained, Logan, but it was the men who competed. It was a contest to see who could obtain the most beautiful woman, decking them out with the finest clothes and the most expensive jewelry and strutting around like proud peacocks because their woman was the sexiest or the most desired by other men. I felt like the ugly duckling in a pond full of swans,” Shelby said miserably, “and I always knew it was just a matter of time before you saw it too.”

  “You are so wrong, cara mia.” Logan brushed a soft kiss to her lips. “I saw only you and I was proud that my wife did not need any of those things to enhance her beauty. You are like a delicate flower, so soft, so sweet.”

  His eyes moved slowly over her face, settling on her trembling lips. In all the time they’d been married, he’d never once seen her look so desolate, not even on those rare occasions when they had a disagreement. Shelby always had radiant smile ready for him when he returned home from work or a business trip, her eyes lighting up as she launched herself into his arms. No matter how bad his day had been, Logan could brush it off knowing his wife would be waiting at home for him, waiting to be swept up into his arms and kissed until her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were soft and dreamy.

  He’d loved that part of each day and come hell or high water, he was going to fix whatever was wrong so he could go home without feeling as if his heart was being ripped out because she wasn’t there to greet him. Logan could see that Shelby was hurting too, but she obviously wasn’t ready to tell him the real reason she’d left. Maybe it was true that she’d felt out of place among all the powdered and perfumed wives and girlfriends but that wasn’t what made her run out on a marriage that was as solid as theirs had been. No, something happened after he’d left for work that day, something so traumatic Shelby would rather leave than come to him with it.

  “We can work through this,” he told her. “If entertaining and being hostess is too uncomfortable for you, I swear we never have throw another party again.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that, it’s too important for your business.”

  “I do not care,” Logan said vehemently. “The only thing I care about is making you happy. Cara mia, I need you.”

  Shelby closed her eyes, feeling herself weaken. “You don’t need me. You need a woman…” Her eyelids snapped open when the blonde woman’s image swam before her, cruelly demolishing the small bud of hope that his words had planted in her heart.

  “What I need is my wife,” he insisted.

  “Please don’t do this Logan,” she pleaded wearily. “I’ve made my decision and I…I want you to leave.”

&
nbsp; His chest tightened. “You do not mean that. We will go inside and talk…”

  “No.” Shelby blocked out that pain that was constricting her heart. “I’ll give you the car so you won’t have any reason not to sign the papers.”

  “I have every reason not to sign it,” Logan argued. “I do not want a divorce now or ever. We made vows to love and honor each other, until death do us part, or have you forgotten that?”

  She gaped at him in disbelief. “Me? I’m not the one who…”

  She clamped her mouth shut, shaking her head. No, she wasn’t emotionally equipped to discuss his affair…or affairs. After all, how did she know for sure the woman she’d seen had been the only one he’d slept with? All those times when Logan said he was working late or had to fly off somewhere on the spur of the moment to meet with a client could have been a cover up for what was really going on. Despair rolled through her in waves as her mind continued to torture her with images she wasn’t nearly strong enough to deal with.

  “I can’t,” Shelby choked out. “I’m sorry, Logan, but I just can’t stay married to you.”

  She tore herself from his arms, desperate to get away before he could try to change her mind. Just where she thought she was going when she bolted for the stairs, Shelby didn’t know. It wasn’t as if there was any place to hide, and even if there had been, she didn’t have a prayer of outrunning Logan. But none of that seemed to matter. Wind whipped through her hair as she raced towards the beach and though she was sure Logan had followed after her, she didn’t know how close he was because the soft sand muffled his footsteps so she pressed herself even harder.

  Shelby had walked this beach countless times so she knew there were jagged boulders jutting out of the sand and just how dangerous it was to be running so fast. It was doubly reckless considering the thin sandals she was wearing and the fact she could barely see where she was going through the blinding tears, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She’d nearly made it to the shoreline and was frantically trying to work out an escape route that didn’t include plunging into the ocean when Logan’s fingers curled around her arm.

  Instinctively Shelby’s head turned towards him, a move she recognized as a huge mistake the moment she did it. Her footsteps faltered and though she wasn’t in any danger of falling, the firm grip Logan had on her and the sudden lurch forward pulled him off balance. Even that might not have caused them to fall if she hadn’t swerved to try and avoid one of the boulders buried in the sand because it placed her right in Logan’s path. He was moving too fast to stop himself from slamming into her back and they both went down like a ton of bricks with Shelby taking the worst of it when he landed on top of her.

  It all happened so fast she barely had time to register the agony of one injury before another was inflicted. A sharp, stabbing pain shot through her ankle followed by a jarring pain in her knees as she hit the ground. Shelby threw her arms out in front of her to break the fall and succeeded not only in tearing the skin off the balls of her hands but from her elbows as well. Then she nearly lost consciousness when Logan’s body came down hard over hers and forced the air from her lungs with a loud whoosh.

  Logan rolled off her, terrified that he’d crushed the life from her when she didn’t move. His stomach twisted into a painful knot as he stretched out a shaky hand and gently turned her over. He brushed the hair from her face, fighting back the wave of fear that rushed through him when Shelby’s beautiful green eyes stared up at him unblinkingly. Her face had gone deathly pale and for a moment Logan thought he really had killed his wife.

  “Tesoro, my darling, talk to me,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Shelby’s eyes flickered at the sound of his voice, her back arching as she dragged in much needed air. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire, in fact there didn’t seem to be a spot on her body that didn’t burn and for several minutes she was too stunned to do anything but lay there listening to Logan’s soft words of assurance that she would be okay. As her breathing gradually returned to normal, Shelby’s mind began to clear. Her gaze moved to Logan’s anxious face and she was instantly overcome with shame and remorse for how foolishly she’d behaved. Tears sprang to her eyes and slid down the sides of her cheeks.

  “I-I’m s-sorry,” she managed to say before the dam broke and she burst into tears.

  Logan’s throat constricted at the look of utter misery on Shelby’s face. Rising to his knees, he scooped her up in his arms then got to his feet and stood there for a moment cradling her to his chest and trying to calm her down. Only when the harsh sobs had subsided and she’d buried her face in his neck did Logan start back to the house. Even through his concern for her injuries he was conscious of the fact that she’d lost weight she certainly couldn’t spare.

  He hadn’t noticed it before because of the oversized t-shirt she was wearing but holding her in his arms as he was now, he could tell she weighed next to nothing and obviously hadn’t been taking care of herself. A dark scowl marred his face when he thought of all the incompetent fools he’d employed over the months to find her. He was angry at them and even angrier at himself for not realizing something was wrong to begin with. He was usually so in tune with Shelby’s feelings but he’d been working so many long hours in the weeks leading up to her departure he must have missed all the signs. Still, how could he have failed to notice that she was so unhappy?

  Logan took the steps up to the deck and slipped in through the open French doors. The place was decent sized but it didn’t take more than a cursory glance around to determine the hallway off to the left would lead to her bedroom. He carried Shelby in and attempted to lay her down on the bed but she was clinging to his neck as if her life depended on it and wouldn’t let go. A tenderness like nothing he’d ever known before welled up inside him, melting away all the anger and pain and bitterness that had followed in the wake of Shelby’s desertion. All he wanted to do now was take care of her and protect her from ever being hurt again. Whatever he’d done, he was determined to atone for it so he could reclaim his wife.

  Logan sat down on the edge of the bed with Shelby in his lap. She was so still and silent he would have thought she’d fallen asleep if it hadn’t been for the delicate arms wound so tightly around his neck. Pressing his cheek to hers, he stroked her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her shampoo. How had he survived all those months without her? How had he gotten through the long, lonely nights when he’d tossed and turned, his stomach churning because he couldn’t get the image of his wife in another man’s arms out of his head? Logan brushed a soft kiss to her temple. He knew the answer to that now. Even though his mind had tortured him with thoughts and images of her betrayal, his heart had never really believed it.

  “I need to look at you, cara mia, to see for myself that you are not hurt.”

  Shelby pressed herself even closer. “Are…are you angry with me?”

  “No, tesoro, but I am worried about you.”

  “I h-hurt my hands and elbows,” she admitted shakily. “I twisted my ankle too, and I…I think my knees got skinned up.”

  “I will take care of you,” he promised, “but you must let loose of me first, my darling.”

  She hesitated for a few minutes, lamenting the loss of his warmth once she’d let her hands slide away and he’d deposited her onto the bed. Shelby’s eyes never left his face as he examined her injuries, the furrow between his brows growing more pronounced with each new discovery. Foolishly, her heart leapt at the thought he genuinely cared for her, that the gentle way he slipped her sandals off and held her swollen ankle was an indication that his concern was borne out of his love for her. But that illusion was quickly shattered when he suddenly shot to his feet and towered over her with his lips pressed into a grim line and his dark eyes flashing with anger.

  “What the hell were you thinking running off like that?” Raking his fingers through his hair, Logan turned away from her and took a few halting steps before whirling on her again. “Your injuries could have
been much worse,” he rebuked sternly. “Madre di Dio, you might have hit your head on one of those stones. You could have suffered a concussion or fractured your skull, you might even have been killed.”