He left her to explore her room, and she was grateful for the time to collect herself. She left a message for Reeve, dozed in the bath, then glanced in the closet, recognizing the dresses as the ones Dante had bought for her in Whistler.
She didn’t know what to make of that, but as she glanced across the vineyard from her personal balcony and took in the abundance and sheer richness of her surroundings, she couldn’t bring herself to greet his grandmother in her worn jeans and thinning T-shirt. She found the cache of makeup she’d also left in his suite that last night and painted some confidence onto her anxious face, then wriggled herself into a dress that still had a tag on it.
When he knocked, he was freshly showered and shaved, smelling deliciously of soap and spice and something she instinctively recognized as Sicilian. It was the scent of his home. The source of all that he was. Oh, he filled her up with yearning.
He took in her simple blue dress with its sweetheart neckline and rib-hugging bodice over an A-line skirt without comment. It was the most modest in the bunch. She was trying to show some decorum in front of his grandmother, but found herself shifting her feet, aching for a sign he liked what he saw. That he still found her attractive.
That he wanted to play a silly game of modeling with her. Foreplay.
She blushed and looked at his polished shoes.
“This way.” He waved a hand, crushing her fragile ego with his absence of response.
She made herself hold her chin high and her shoulders back as they followed a corridor of rich red carpet. It was painful, though. She suspected the paintings were originals by men whose names were revered. She felt hideously unsophisticated that she didn’t have the background to know or recognize their value.
Bernadetta rose to meet her when Cami and Dante entered the lounge.
“Oh, my dear.” She looked older, which made Cami sad. The poor woman had to be devastated, first at having been kept in the dark, then on learning her grandson had not only committed crimes, but was facing the consequences.
Cami warmed the trembling hands that the old woman extended. “You have enough to worry about. Please don’t be upset for me. I’m fine.”
Dante made a noise, and Cami caught a flash of impatience on his face. She was stung by it, but focused on Bernadetta, sitting with her on the sofa to reassure her.
“You were so kind to me that day. You are so kind. And our family has treated you so terribly.” Bernadetta’s voice creaked.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Isn’t it? Perhaps I was too lenient with Arturo’s mother. She was my wild child. We should have brought Arturo to live with us after she divorced. He might have turned out differently.” She lifted her rosary beads and pressed her lips to them.
Cami gently squeezed Bernadetta’s free hand.
“Please don’t dwell on things that can’t be changed. Dante and I will make it right. You don’t have to worry about me. Why don’t you tell me about your visit with your niece in Vancouver? Did you see everything you were hoping to?”
* * *
“Grazij, for taking her mind off things,” Dante said a few hours later, when his Noni had gone to bed and he was alone with Cami.
“She’s so sweet. But I’m insanely curious about your home theater now.” She moved to the rail on the south terrace that overlooked the lower slopes. “How could I have guessed it’s an ancient amphitheater?”
The music had started while they were finishing dinner, catching Cami’s attention and prompting his grandmother to describe the site built by the Greeks and restored with great care—and expense—by his grandfather, at Noni’s behest. One of her greatest pleasures was listening to the pitches by theater companies and choosing the season’s starlight production.
“We could walk down if you like. It sounds like they’re still rehearsing. Unless you’re tired?”
“My body thinks it’s the middle of the day. I’d love to.” She fetched a wrap, and they started down the path. After a moment, she drew a deep breath and let it out. “It smells fantastic out here. Is that orange blossom?”
“We have a grove, yes. How is your leg?”
“I’m fine.” She halted abruptly to demand, “Did you just tsk me?”
“You say it all the time. You’re not fine.” More than jet lag was putting the strain around her eyes, and he had noted the subtle way she was favoring one leg. Then there was the pregnancy. He was still reeling under that news.
“I’m totally fine.” She hugged her wrap closer and continued walking. “You don’t know me.”
“Untrue,” he said under his breath, but she halted again.
It was dark, turning her eyes into dark pools with a pinprick of light as she stared up at him.
“Everything you’ve thought about me has been a wrong impression.” She turned away, saying with anguish, “Everything I thought about you was misinterpretation.”
Toxic. He kept hearing her say that, and it scored his soul every single time.
Yet, she carried his child. Wanted it.
The news of his impending fatherhood burned like a fuse, wanting to explode out of him, but who could he tell? His grandmother would love to hear it, but she would be devastated if something happened and damn Cami for putting that grain of doubt in his mind. He was already that attached to the idea of sharing a child with her, he would be devastated if it failed to happen.
“Dante!”
They came into the clearing of lights, and people stopped packing up water bottles and notebooks to greet him. He introduced Cami to the director and his cast. They were kind enough to move back onto the stage and perform part of a scene for her, much to her astonishment and delight.
“I’m sorry I won’t see the actual performance,” she said as they were walking back up the hill toward the villa. “That was amazing.”
“Why won’t you?”
“They said it opens in a month. I can’t imagine I’ll be here more than a couple of weeks.”
He snorted at her naïveté. “You’ll be able to see as many performances as you like. You live here now.”
She halted in the middle of the darkened vineyard and flung around to face him.
“We’re getting married, Cami. You had to know that.”
* * *
Maybe she had given up the fantasy of being swept off her feet long ago, but seriously? That was his proposal? All her girlhood dreams went down the toilet in a single flush.
“Be still my heart,” she muttered.
“Neither of us has a choice,” he added, making her want to bark out a laugh at how brutal he was being.
“You’re out of your mind.” She started toward the villa again, but he caught her arm.
“Stay here. The windows are open. She might wake up and hear us if we get any closer.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
“Are you? Duty to family is everything to me.” His grip firmed as he impressed the words through her. “You are family now.” He drew her forward a step and set his free hand on her stomach, splaying his fingers and drawing a deep breath, as if he was overcome by the magnitude of her pregnancy.
The world stilled, and she imagined she could feel their baby’s heartbeat rocking through both of them, hammering them together in indelible little pulses.
“Our baby might be, but I’m not.” She said it to remind herself as much as him. “What are you going to do about the rest of your family? Abandon the cousin who is like a brother to you?”
Dante’s breath hissed through his teeth. He dropped his hands from her, bunching them into fists. “He could have destroyed all of this.” He jerked his head at their surroundings. “He abandoned me first. All of us.”
“Has he confessed?”
“No.”
“So things could still change. I want to believe Arturo is behind the theft. You have no idea how badly I need that to be the truth, but this nightmare never lets me wake up. And quite frankly—” she looked to the house, throat tight “—I can’t help thinking you might wish my father was the real culprit. That way you wouldn’t have to dredge this up again. If you don’t already resent me for not being to blame, you soon will. Everyone in your family will.”
“That’s not true. My grandmother doesn’t.”
“This is going to drag on for years, Dante. It will be awful and expensive and draining. I know how awful it will be. You’re going to want to point fingers. I don’t want to be married to you when you decide you hate me—more than you already do.”
She had to quit talking then. Her throat became too small.
“And now we come to the truth of the matter. I’m not the one filled with hate, am I?”
A ferocious ball of heat rose in her. “Okay, fine, yes. I hate you.” She spat in a hiss, trying to keep her voice down. “Whether it was Arturo or Benito didn’t matter. The person pressing like a heel onto my life all this time was you. I am brimming with resentment toward you, and I hate myself for being so weak as to sleep with you and get pregnant. There is no way on this earth that I want to be chained to you for a lifetime.”
“Yet here we are,” he bit out with a similar crack of frustration in his tone as he took her by the upper arms and pulled her close. “Bound by the child we conceived. But if you think that’s all that chains us, you weren’t paying attention when we made that baby.” He covered her mouth with his own, kissing her with such ferocity, he burned away everything except the searing passion that had existed between them from the moment they’d met.