Vicenzo tried to push down his feeling of relief at having Cara back in his car, to himself, away from Stefano Corzo and all the other men he’d seen notice her pale and unusual beauty.
He forced himself to be civil when he felt anything but, and said, ‘So, what were you and Stefano talking about?’
Cara looked at him briefly, warily, before turning away again. Vicenzo had to quell the urge to turn her face back to him. He saw her throat work and then she answered. ‘We were talking about the recent boom and subsequent downturn in the Irish economy, actually, and its effect in Europe.’
Cara looked at Vicenzo, feeling defiant. She’d no doubt that he probably thought she’d been trying to seduce that other man, but Stefano was the one who had collared her, blocking her from getting back to Vicenzo. She bit down the urge to say something else and just clenched her fists in her lap.
Vicenzo looked at her, eyes glittering. She’d been talking about economics? Uncomfortably, the thought made something lurch in his chest, and he looked away before he might reveal how ambiguous her statement made him feel.
When they got back to the apartment, Vicenzo gestured for Cara to precede him through the door. She put down her wrap and turned to go to her room, but he seemed to be blocking the whole hallway with his huge dominating presence. She stepped back, willing him to move, looking up warily.
‘I’m going to bed…’
Why did she suddenly feel so breathless? A jolt of electricity seemed to pass between them, and out of nowhere came a tingling awareness of something so erotic that Cara felt as if she should run away—very fast.
And yet she couldn’t move, pinned to the spot by Vicenzo’s dark, unfathomable gaze. His hand came out and tipped up her chin. His eyes rested on her mouth. Cara’s heart started to thump crazily in her chest. He wasn’t going to—
His scent enveloped her and his breath was feathering close to her mouth before Cara registered fully that he’d closed the distance between them and was about to kiss her. But just before his lips touched hers she had a deep and visceral reaction. She couldn’t risk that rejection again—that he might turn away from kissing her on the mouth. Not when she craved it so badly. Despair filled her. Nothing had changed. She brought her hands up to his chest to push him away, and twisted her head so that his mouth landed on her cheek. Even that was annihilating her equilibrium.
His arm snaked around her waist, pulling her in tight to his body, and Cara gasped, heat flooding her all over. She looked up and could see that Vicenzo’s jaw was clenched.
She stiffened in his hold even as she was made aware of his arousal and the corresponding pooling of desire between her legs. ‘No,’ she said fiercely, as much to herself as him, ‘I won’t let you do this. I don’t want you.’
Even as she said it she knew she was lying. She wanted him more than anything.
Vicenzo’s gaze moved down the pale column of her throat to her shoulder. Her skin seemed to tingle wherever his eyes rested. Then she felt him raise a hand and gently but firmly push down the strap of her dress, over her shoulder and down her arm.
Cara tried to get a hand out to stop him, but they were both trapped against his chest, which felt like a steel wall—a warm steel wall. Her heart beat so fast now she was sure he had to be able to feel it.
He bent his head and pressed kisses all along her shoulder, and then pushed her dress strap down further. Much to Cara’s deep shame she felt a weakness invade her. She could feel him start to pull the dress down to bare the swell of her breast.
‘Vicenzo, please…no.’
‘Vicenzo, please…yes.’ His voice sounded guttural, making her feel even weaker as she remembered how he’d sounded when he’d taken her that night.
‘Don’t lie to yourself, Cara. You might lie to me, but not yourself. You want this as much as I do.’
She shook her head desperately to deny it, even though she knew she lied to herself. She sucked in air as she felt him roughly pull down her dress to expose her bare breast completely, its design precluding the need for a bra. He took her hands in one of his, looking at her with challenge in his eyes, daring her to stop him.
Cara couldn’t move or think or speak.
With a triumphant gleam in his eyes he dropped his head again, and his mouth closed around the pouting peak, already hard and begging for his touch, his tongue. Cara realised the wall was supporting her and she sagged against it, her breath coming swift and sharp, her eyes closing in defeat.
As Vicenzo registered the musky scent of her arousal his desire soared.
He knew he wasn’t far from pushing Cara’s dress up, her pants down and taking there and then, standing against the wall. With a supreme effort he stopped and drew back, quickly pulling up her dress to hide the sight of her heaving breast.
Dazed glittering eyes looked at him accusingly, and he finally broke his hold and let her step away from the wall. She was unsteady on her legs, and it made something move through him. Tendrils of hair had come undone, falling around her flushed face, and the pulse-beat under the pale skin of her neck told him of her desire for him.
He reached out and pulled the strap up her arm again. She flinched minutely, making anger lace his words. ‘Tomorrow we’re to be married, and this will be a proper marriage. In bed and out of it. There’s going to be some recompense for marrying you, Cara. I don’t see the necessity in taking lovers when we both know how good it can be between us…at least until our desire burns itself out, as undoubtedly it will.’
Cara struggled to find her balance again. She couldn’t believe she’d let him undo her so completely. Her dress chafed against sensitive breasts and she was mortified at her lack of control. Hurt lanced her at his cold declaration, and anger at that made her hurl out desperately, ‘Go to hell, Vicenzo. I won’t let you near my bed.’
‘Brave words, Cara,’ he said silkily. ‘I think we’ve just proved how empty they are.’
And before she could be the one to walk away he turned and strode off, leaving her standing there, feeling thoroughly disheveled and aching with unsatisfied desire.
The following evening Cara stood in the kitchen of the apartment, making dinner. She felt numb inside. And all over. She was married to Vicenzo Valentini. Something glinted as she moved her hand to get a pot, and she looked at the plain platinum band winking on her finger. She grimaced.
For something that was so wrong, it looked somehow right. It suited her pale, slender hand.
Abruptly she pulled it off and put it down jerkily on the marble counter-top. She busied herself with the process of cooking and tried unsuccessfully to block out the events of the day. When she’d emerged from her bedroom that morning, in a simple grey shift dress, Vicenzo had marched her back into her room and flung open her wardrobe doors.
When he’d seen nothing but varying shades of black, grey and dark blue he’d rounded on her.
‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
She’d forced herself to stand strong, ‘In case you’ve forgotten, we’re both in mourning. I’m certainly not going to play the part of some wide-eyed ingénue bride and make this marriage more of a farce than it already is.’
He’d looked at her for a long moment with a suspicious glint in his eye, before stalking back out of her room with a curt instruction to be ready to go in five minutes.
The ceremony in the register office had been attended by just two of Vicenzo’s colleagues. It had been possibly the most loveless ceremony ever conducted.
Cara had made sure his mouth didn’t land on hers for the kiss, and he’d whispered in her ear silkily, ‘Careful, Cara.’
She’d hissed back, her heart thumping erratically, belying her words,
‘You’re the last man on earth I want to kiss.’
On the steps outside as they’d faced the paparazzi he’d held onto her hand tight, and she’d been dismayed to realize that she’d needed that support in the face of the overwhelming interest. He’d spoken urbanely in English and Italian, lies tripping off his tongue as he’d informed them that he’d been so impatient to marry his bride that he’d foregone any celebration in Rome. They’d all take place in Sardinia, at the family villa.
The press had lapped it up—this international rake brought to his knees by this pale, unknown and unremarkable girl.
And then Vicenzo had dropped her back to the apartment, telling her that he had business to take care of in the office for the rest of the day, in order to clear things before going to Sardinia.
She’d signed the pre-nuptial agreement, having read that he was cynically offering her nothing if she insisted on staying when the baby was born and a small fortune if she left. She’d had no problem signing it as she had no designs on his money and no intention of abandoning her baby. Her mind skittered weakly away from what Vicenzo would do when faced with that scenario…
As Cara took out her frustration at her feeling of loneliness on the kitchen implements she didn’t notice Vicenzo standing at the door, with his shoulder propped against the frame, watching her. She opened the fridge door and took out a jar of basil pesto. She was just muttering to herself about how typical it was that the kitchen was mysteriously stocked to the gills with fresh delicatessen-style food when she heard a deep, drawling voice. ‘How sweet—you’re making us dinner like a good little wife.’