“It’s all right.” Her hand slid across his back. “I’m just glad he’s okay.”
The gentle touch soothed him and stoked him at the same time. The touch was too much. The combination of forgiveness he didn’t deserve and the lust he couldn’t allow himself to feel overwhelmed him.
He stood with a jerk and gathered his leather jacket. Turning back to her, he met eyes no longer hazy with desire or welling with forgiveness. Iced frost stared at him with grim concentration.
“I’m taking you to Italy,” he stated.
Where there would be no work. No fights.
No sex.
Chapter 14
The sun’s rays beamed down, hot and soothing, although it was early October.
Lise ran her hand over the blue nylon bathing suit covering her bump. Which really wasn’t a bump anymore. It was actually a ball. A growing, healthy ball.
A kick whacked her palm and she chuckled.
Her baby, her son, was healthy.
A girlish scream of laughter and the splash of a small body into the pool water caused her to look up. The scene around her still managed to startle her, even after three weeks of exposure.
To Vico’s family.
Her wedding, filled with rejoicing Italians, had provided merely a glimpse of reality.
His pool, looking over Lake Como, was filled with giggling nieces and wrestling nephews. His momma held court under one of the table’s umbrellas, one of half a dozen encircling the Olympic-size pool. The older woman nodded as one of the dozens of cousins waved his hands as he talked. An elderly aunt dozed in a sunny stupor in the heated whirlpool.
Vico’s family was loud. Their voices competed with each other, rising in a cacophony of chatter. Childish chuckles blended with adult discussions in an endless cacophony of human sound. They were also very…colorful. Hands waved in unison to the talk. Faces lit with laughter or anger in a flash. Violent arguments changed to warm hugs so quickly it was hard for Lise to keep pace.
But she’d learned to during the past weeks.
The family was not to be denied.
True, the family had left them alone for the first week. Vico had insisted. Peace and quiet he’d told her, he’d promised her. Even though she didn’t understand the words, she’d understood the tone of his voice as he told his mother his plans over his mobile phone, pacing his elegant office in the center of his villa.
The villa housing ten bedrooms. Twelve bathrooms. A library packed with books—something she had figured out was one of her husband’s obsessions. A theater with every movie known to man ready at a flick of the wrist. A workout area fit for a prestigious country club. A huge game room stocked full of toys ranging from baby rattles to computer consoles made for the big boys. Large public rooms dressed in ageless antiques and priceless art.
Where Vico’s London residence was all funky, colorful comfort, and his Paris flat screamed modern chic, this house stepped onto the stage like a proud Renaissance queen.
The grounds rose to the challenge of matching royalty. They surrounded the queen with even more beauty. Terraces filled with sculpted hedges and trees led down and down to the shores of Lake Como. The boathouse stored an unbelievable number of toys: boats and Jet Skis, a pontoon, a canoe. Along with the pool, there was a tennis court, and a large putting area where her husband and his brothers often played a vicious contest of golf which usually descended into a cheerful fight.
All this, all this grand and glorious house and grounds, were designed for one thing.
Not a bevy of beauties. Not a crowd of jet-setters. Not a retreat to make business deals.
No, it was for his family.
They’d swooped in on them on the second weekend. Piles of cars had pulled onto the long, tree-shaded lane circling around the marble steps of the front door. His momma and the family from Naples. His beloved papa’s family from the nearby town of Varenna. Vico had groaned and gnashed his teeth, yet within seconds they’d been surrounded by a laughing, grinning crowd of happy Italians bent on carrying them into play. When they’d spotted her bump, the loud cries of happiness and congratulations had probably been heard all the way to Rome.
She’d played during the last three weeks.
Play she’d never experienced as a child or as an adult.
Vico had been strict, and she’d been careful. But she’d still found herself on the ski boat, wind whipping her hair while one of the teenagers whooped when he skied over the wake. She’d still been included in a close battle of computer warlords with a grinning cousin counseling her on the best way to win the fight against her husband. She’d also been allowed to laze away the days by the pool, enjoying the heat of the sun and the warmth of the conversation she was always included in.