But after a moment she said stiffly, ‘No, I would not.’
‘Shame,’ he drawled. ‘Still, there’s always the wedding night to look forward to.’
‘Yes, there is.’ She lifted her chin. ‘But we’ll be enjoying it in separate rooms. Just to be clear, this marriage is purely for show, Vicè. You won’t be sharing my bed. Or having sex with me.’
Vicè felt his smile harden.
He’d already had to be celibate in the run-up to his brother’s wedding. Not out of choice, but Ciro had insisted, and in the end he’d grudgingly accepted that any hint of scandal would ruin his chances of seducing Imma before he had even got to meet her.
Those nine weeks had left his body aching with sexual frustration. And now she was suggesting that that sentence should be extended to a year.
‘Obviously you won’t be having sex with anyone else either,’ she added coldly. ‘I won’t have my family’s name dragged through the mud by your libido.’
Their eyes met. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that, cara. Your father wallows in something far nastier than mud.’
His words drained the colour from her cheeks, but he told himself that a woman who was prepared to enter willingly into this kind of marriage deserved no compassion on his part.
‘That’s rich, coming from you,’ she said shakily. ‘The man who seduced a virgin for revenge.’
He felt his gut twist. But he wasn’t going to feel guilty about that. She should have told him—given him a choice about whether to do things differently.
She lifted one slender wrist and gazed down at her expensive gold watch. ‘If you’re done insulting me, then a simple yes or no will suffice.’
No. Absolutely not. Never. Not if my life depended on it.
He thought about his life before...la dolce vita.
A life of leisure and pleasure. A sweet life.
And then he thought about his mother, and his father, and the promise he had made to his brother.
‘Yes,’ he said.
CHAPTER FIVE
SO SHE REALLY was going to go through with this.
Glancing out of the window of the taxi, Imma felt her fingers tighten around the small posy of lilies of the valley in her lap. Beside her, his dark eyes shielded behind even darker glasses, his fingers pointedly entwined with hers, Vicè sat in silence.
To anyone else he would seem the perfect groom. Young, handsome, intent on marrying the woman he loved.
She swallowed past the ache in her throat. But of course he was good at pretending.
They had left the island and returned to the mainland, ‘borrowed’ Cesare’s private jet and flown to Gibraltar. They had arrived in late last night, and booked into a discreet hotel on the edge of town, near the Botanic Gardens.
Separate rooms, obviously.
Not that it was really necessary. He might be almost painfully attentive in public, but as soon as they were alone he barely lifted his eyes to meet hers, choosing instead to stare at his phone.
And it hurt. Hurt in a way that seemed utterly illogical.
Or just stupid.
Yes, ‘stupid’ was the only way to describe this hollowed-out feeling of loss for something that had been so fleeting and false.
It didn’t help that all the preparations had been so rushed and furtive, but she couldn’t risk Cesare finding out and intervening.
Thinking about her father made her chest ache. She loved him still, but right now she didn’t trust him—and she didn’t trust herself to be around him. She was too angry and confused about everything she had found out, and her desolation and the sense of betrayal were still too raw.
She had no idea what to say or do next. But she did know that she didn’t want anything to do with what he’d done to Alessandro. Which was why she’d agreed to hand over the business to Vicè in a year’s time.
If she hadn’t needed a bargaining chip to get some space and time away from her father she would have handed it over today. She hated owning the thing he wanted—hated knowing that it was the only reason he was here, sitting beside her in the car, on their way to a register office.
Her chest tightened. If they had been other people, or if the circumstances had been different, then maybe all this haste and secrecy would be exciting, impulsive and romantic. But instead it just felt sneaky.
Even though she had texted her father to say that she was at the villa, she kept expecting him to call, demanding to know when she was coming home. Obviously she hadn’t told him she was in Gibraltar, and that made her nervous too.
But, judging by the long, rambling and gleeful voicemail Cesare had just left her, she had been worrying for no reason.
He hadn’t been fretting over her absence at all; instead he had been shooting boar on the Di Gualtieri estate.
A shiver scuttled down her spine. Stefano di Gualtieri was a fabulously wealthy local landowner and the great-grandson of Sicilian nobility. He was her father’s age, and in her opinion he was a bore of a different kind—and a snob. But, despite her hinting as much, she knew Cesare saw him as a possible suitor for her hand in marriage.
Imma exhaled softly, trying to still the jittery feeling in her chest. If her father knew what she was about to do...
But his prospective anger was not the only reason she wanted to keep off his radar for as long as possible. Since reading those emails, her world—everything she had taken for granted about the man who had raised her—had begun to look as fragile as the tiny, delicate bell-shaped flowers in her hand.
She’d thought she knew her father so well. His moods, his brusqueness, his maddening and stifling overprotectiveness. Now, though, she felt as if she didn’t know him at all.
Obviously she’d heard the rumours about him, but her father had always brushed them off: yes, some of his friends were a little rough. You had to be tough where he’d grown up—that was just how it was. And he wasn’t going to turn his back on his mates. What kind of friend would do that?
‘That’s why people say these things about me. They’re jealous, piccioncina mia. They hate me for dragging myself up out of the gutter so they scrape over my past...invent stories.’
It reminded her of what Vicè had said about people making up what they didn’t know, and the thought that he had this, of all things, in common with her father made her want to leap out of the car while it was still moving.
Finding out that Cesare had behaved so ruthlessly made her feel sick. But finding out that he’d lied to her had been the reason why she’d finally decided to marry Vicè.
Okay, maybe at first she’d wanted revenge. Part of her still did. And she hadn’t been lying when she’d told Vicè that he was the lesser of two evils. Her father would find her a husband, and she shuddered to think who he might choose.
But all her life she had struggled to know herself, and this revelation about her father made her feel she knew herself even less. Marriage to Vicè would at least give her the freedom to think about what she wanted to happen next.
And so this morning they had met with a notary, to complete the necessary paperwork. And now they were on their way to the register office.
Shifting in her seat, she glanced down at her dark blue polka-dot dress. It was the same one she’d worn to Claudia’s wedding. And she hated it.
Not because it was a little boring, and cut for an older, more mature woman. But because it was so tied up with the now crushed romantic dreams of her little sister, and those few hours when Imma had mistakenly, humiliatingly, believed that Vicè was interested in her.
She could have bought another dress, but that would have defeated the object. She needed this reminder of where vanity and self-delusion led. And anyway she wouldn’t have known what to buy. What was the correct dress code for a marriage of convenience?
Her stomach clenched—doubt gripping her again. She could stop this
now. Tell the driver to pull over...tell Vicenzu to get out.
Only then what?
Go back to the life she’d had?
Pretend that none of this had happened or mattered?
Blanking her mind, she sat up straighter. She didn’t know if she could go back to her old life. And where could she go, what could she do, if she didn’t return to it?
She didn’t know that either. And that was why she would go through with this ceremony.
That way, at least she would have time to find the answers to all the questions swirling inside her head.
* * *
Feeling Imma shift beside him, Vicè felt his body tense. She was a good actress. Not for one moment would anyone guess that she was marrying him out of spite.
The solid rectangular shape of his phone pressing against his ribs reminded him of the brief but reassuring message his brother had sent.
Have secured the house. Keep your promise.
He should be pleased—and he was. And yet it would be such a relief if, just for once, his brother messed up. But of course—Ciro being Ciro—he had turned everything around. So now it was just him hurtling towards a broken bridge on a runaway train.
In the street, a group of young men jostled against the car, shoving each other and laughing at some shared joke. They looked so happy. And free.
He bit down on a sudden rush of envy. A week ago that would have been him. Now he was marrying a woman he hated. And she hated him.
But it would be worth it. For in a year the Trapani Olive Oil Company would belong to his family again.
‘We’re here.’
She turned to face him and smiled, and even though he knew it was for show his breath stuck in his throat. She shouldn’t be marrying him like this. Where was her father now? Her bodyguards? Didn’t anyone care that she was doing this?
He thought back to the way her face had changed when he had taken her that first time. The directness of her green gaze had clouded over, transforming her from sexy to vulnerable. And in that moment, he’d forgotten about her father, forgotten about his. There had been nothing but the whisper of pleasure skimming over his skin and the white heat building between them.
‘We could do this with a bit more style, you know. Take some time,’ he said.
‘We don’t have time.’ Her voice was clipped. ‘My father is binary in the way he approaches life. It’s his way or no way. We need to present him with an irreversible fact—like a marriage certificate.’ She met his gaze, her green eyes narrowing. ‘I know this is a little basic, but unlike you I didn’t have a couple of months to work everything out in detail. Shall we go in?’
The ceremony was short and functional.
The registrar, a pleasant woman in her fifties, spoke her lines clearly, turning to each of them as she waited for their responses.
They had agreed to use English for the ceremony. But although they were both fluent, to her, the unfamiliar words made everything feel even more remote and pragmatic.
‘Immacolata and Vicenzu, with your words today, I can now pronounce you husband and wife.’ The woman smiled. ‘And now you may seal the promises you have made with a kiss.’
Imma’s expression didn’t change, but Vicè felt her go still beside him. Glancing down, he saw that her green eyes were huge and over-bright, and her slim body was trembling like a wild flower in the wind.
It’s just a kiss, he told himself.
And he lowered his head, assuming it would be nothing more than a passing brush of contact. But as their mouths touched he felt her lips part and instantly his body tensed, his insides tightening as a jolt of desire punched him in the gut.
Instinctively he slid his hand over her hip, tilting her face up to meet his and deepening the kiss.
Oh, but he hadn’t meant to do that.
It was insane, stupid—beyond reckless—only he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
He wanted her...wanted her with an urgency and intensity that was beyond his control.
He heard her breath hitch in her throat and was suddenly terrified that he would lose her—that he wouldn’t be able to satisfy his hunger for her sweet, soft lips—but she didn’t pull away.
Instead she leaned into him, her body moulding against his, and then he was pressing her closer, one hand sliding down her body, the other threading through her silky, dark hair.
His heart was pounding and his blood was surging through his limbs as an ache of need reared up inside him, pulsing and swelling, blotting out everything but the softness of her body.
From somewhere far away he heard a faint cough and, still fighting his drowning senses, he broke the kiss.
Imma was staring up at him, her green eyes unfocused, her lips trembling, and it was only the presence of the registrar and the two witnesses that stopped him from pulling her back into his arms and stripping that appalling dress off her body.
The registrar cleared her throat. ‘Now, if you’d like to join me, we have the register here, all ready and waiting. Once that’s signed, we’re done.’ She smiled. ‘I’m sure you have plans for the rest of your special day.’
Vicè nodded. He did. But unfortunately for him, his marriage strictly forbade those plans being fulfilled.
Watching Imma sign the register, his shoulders tensed. It didn’t matter that they had just come close to ripping off each other’s clothes in public. Judging by the look on his new wife’s face, that wasn’t about to change any time soon.
* * *
Leaning back in her seat, Imma tilted her head sideways, gazing through the window at the cloudless blue sky. Her posture was determinedly casual, but her ears were on stalks and every five seconds or so her skin tightened and her stomach flipped up and over like a pancake in a skillet.
She felt on edge and distracted. And, even though wild horses wouldn’t have dragged it out of her, she knew she was waiting for Vicè to walk back into the cabin.
After the ceremony they had taken a taxi back to the private airfield, Vicè’s hand still clamped around hers. But as soon as they had got on board the plane he had excused himself on the pretext of wanting to change into something less formal.
In reality, they had needed to give one another privacy to tell their respective families.
There was the sound of footsteps and instantly her nerves sent ripples of unease over her skin. But it was only the steward, Fedele, bringing a pot of coffee.
‘Congratulations again, Signorina Buscetta—I mean Signora Trapani.’ The steward smiled down at her. ‘Would you like anything to go with your coffee? We have pastries and fruit.’
She shook her head. ‘No, thank you, Fedele. But would you please thank the crew again for their kind words.’
It had been easy to tell the cabin crew that she was married, to receive their polite and no doubt genuine congratulations. Sharing the news with her father had been far less pleasant.
As predicted, Cesare had roared. For a good ten minutes he had threatened, reproached her, ranted and railed against her, his frustration and displeasure flowing unstoppably like lava from a volcano.
On any other day she would have tried to soothe him, to be the eye of calm at the centre of his storm.
But not today.
Maybe it had been the strain of the last few hours catching up with her, or perhaps she’d just been worried about letting the truth slip out, but she simply hadn’t had it in her, so she had just let him rage until finally he’d registered her silence and said gruffly, ‘So this Trapani boy—he loves you, does he?’
‘Yes, Papà, he does.’
She’d heard her father grunt. ‘And you love him?’
‘I do—I really do.’
He’d sighed. ‘Well, what’s done is done. And if he makes you happy...’
It had been easier to lie than she had thought. Maybe it always was—ma
ybe that was how her father managed to lie to her about Alessandro’s business.
It hurt to think about all the other lies he might have told her. Only not as much as it had hurt having to stand next to Vicè at that dismal parody of a wedding and hear him repeat his vows knowing that he meant not one word of them.
She had heard him speaking, heard herself respond. She had watched the registrar smile and watched the witnesses sign the register. But she had felt totally numb, as though her veins had been filled with ice.
Until Vicè had kissed her.
Her heart bumped against her ribs as she remembered.
It had been as if he’d struck a match inside her. His mouth had tasted of freedom, and the warmth of his body against hers had seemed to offer danger and sanctuary all in one.
And just like that she had leaned into him, her body softening like wax touched by a flame. And all she knew was his closeness. And he had been all she wanted.
She shivered as a jolt of heat shot through her and shifted in her seat, pressing her knees together, trying to ignore the flood of want.
Her cheeks felt hot. Yes, want. She wanted him.
Only how could she?
How could she still want Vicè after everything he had done? The lies he had told... The manipulation... The pretence...
But it didn’t matter that it made no sense. It was the truth. And although she might be lying to her father, and to the cabin crew and to the rest of the world, she wasn’t going to lie to herself.
The truth was that, even hating him as she did, with every fibre of her being, she still wanted him.
Kissing him should have been complicated.
Except it hadn’t felt complicated.
It had been easy. Natural. Right. Facile come bere un bicchiere d’acqua, as her father liked to say when he was boasting about some deal he’d made.
But it was clearly just some kind of muscle memory kicking into action. It wouldn’t happen again, of that she was certain. She might have been swept along in the moment, captivated by the swift, intoxicating intimacy of that kiss in an otherwise colourless ceremony, but—like the misplaced desire she had felt for Vicè yesterday—it had been just a blip.
The Terms of the Sicilian's Marriage Page 8
