The Italian's One-Night Baby(19)

Ellie knew that was sensible advice but something stubborn in her refused to back down. Hard reality was steadily taking the bloom off her wedding day.

Rio tugged her stiff, resisting body close as he swept her out onto the floor to open the dancing. He bent his arrogant dark head and whispered, ‘Do you know just how annoyed I’m getting with you?’

‘Do you know how annoyed I am with you?’ Ellie whispered back, unimpressed.

‘Are you always going to be this jealous and possessive of me?’ Rio enquired silkily.

A current of rage travelled through Ellie as hotly as a flame. ‘Are you? I seem to remember you threatening to beat up Bruno for buying me dinner—’

‘That was different,’ Rio asserted without hesitation. ‘We were already involved.’

Angry tears prickled behind Ellie’s lowered eyelids and she finally knew what was really wrong with her. She had got involved with Rio on an emotional level the very first night she met him. But he hadn’t got involved with her until she entered Beppe’s life and became what he initially saw as a threat to someone he cared about. Was he even involved with her now that he had married her? Or had he only married her to please Beppe and because she might be pregnant? And why was she only asking herself that now and worrying about the answer?

Rio caught her hand firmly in his as they left the floor, deftly weaving them through the clusters of guests addressing them, never pausing longer than a few polite seconds. Only when they reached the foot of the main staircase did Ellie question where he was taking her and she tried to wrench her hand free.

‘We’re going to sort this out in private,’ Rio delivered in a driven undertone.

‘There’s nothing to be sorted out,’ Ellie protested, trying once again and failing to free her fingers from his.

Determined not to be sidetracked, Rio headed for the opulent guest suite where Ellie had dressed for the wedding. He thrust the door shut behind him in a movement that sent dismay skimming through Ellie. She had not expected Rio to turn confrontational because she had assumed that the presence of their guests would control and inhibit him. The message she was getting now was that Rio’s temper was rarely repressed.

He dropped her hand and Ellie immediately made for the door. ‘We can’t do this in the middle of our wedding,’ she argued.

Rio cut off her escape by stepping in front of the door, which in turn sent Ellie stalking and rustling angrily in all her finery across the room towards the window. She flipped round, colour accentuating her cheekbones, green eyes very bright and defiant.

‘It’s our wedding and it’s almost over and we can do whatever we like,’ he told her grittily.

‘Do you have an off button?’ Ellie asked helplessly. ‘Because I think it’s time to hit it. Yes, this is our wedding and we have had a slight difference of opinion but I have done and said nothing anyone could criticise—’

‘I’m criticising you!’ Rio bit out harshly.

Ellie stared at him in shock, her lips falling open, because once again, Rio was blindsiding her and catching her unprepared. He had the most amazing eyes, stunning dark gold fringed with black curling lashes, and for a split second she was held fast by them while noting the aggressive angle of his strong jaw line, the faint black stubble already shadowing his bronzed skin and, finally, the ferocious determination stamped into his amazing bone structure.

‘I’m not perfect, Ellie, and I’m never going to be but I was prepared to give this my best shot—’

‘I never expected you to be perfect, for goodness’ sake!’ Ellie spluttered uncertainly as she moved warily back towards him. ‘Look, maybe I was a bit oversensitive but there’s absolutely no need for us to start having this out now! Let me go back downstairs before anyone notices we’re missing—’

‘No,’ Rio breathed with finality.

‘You don’t just tell me no like that and expect me to take it!’ Ellie argued furiously, trying to push him away from the door.

‘I keep on hoping that you’ll learn from experience,’ Rio growled, scooping her up, nudging a giant vase of flowers out of his path and planting her down squarely on the marble-topped side table behind her. ‘But you never do.’

‘This is getting ridiculous. Let me down,’ Ellie told him forcefully.

Rio pinned her in place even more effectively by pushing her knees apart and stepping between them to wedge himself even closer.

‘You may be physically stronger but you can’t bully me,’ Ellie informed him tartly.

‘I don’t want to bully you, principessa. I want you to start using your brain,’ Rio bit out impatiently, settling his big hands down on her bare shoulders. ‘It’s time to put sulky, moody Ellie away, ditch the negativity and look forward.’

‘I am neither sulky nor moody,’ Ellie pronounced with as much dignity as she could summon while seated as she was on a table, being held still. His hands were hot on her bare skin, sending odd little prickles of awareness travelling through her.

‘Bear in mind the fact that I’m not sulking about having had to marry a woman who could be a scheming little gold-digger,’ Rio urged, stunning her with that statement as his long fingers flexed expressively over her shoulders.

Her lips opened. ‘A...a gold—’

‘But I gave you the benefit of the doubt. When do you extend the same privilege to me?’ he demanded grimly.

Ellie tried to slide off the table but he forestalled her. Flushed by the undignified struggle and enraged by the label of gold-digger, she snapped, ‘Let me go!’

‘No. I’m keeping you right where I can see you and we’re having this out right now,’ Rio decreed.

‘How dare you call me a gold-digger?’ Ellie slung at him an octave higher.

‘What else am I going to call you when you still haven’t explained yourself? You see, I may not be perfect, Ellie but the news is that you’re not perfect either. You’ve had serious allegations made against you and although I’m now aware that an enquiry dismissed one set, there are still others in your background made by a family member,’ Rio reminded her caustically. ‘But I was prepared to overlook that history to marry you and give you a fair chance.’

Ellie had frozen where she sat and she didn’t know what to say or even where to begin. ‘You said you’d had to marry me,’ she said, instead of tackling his accusations head-on. ‘But you didn’t have to. I didn’t demand it. I wouldn’t have allowed my father to demand it either. It wasn’t necessary—’

‘It was necessary to me,’ Rio cut in ruthlessly. ‘I could not live with the chance that you could be pregnant. I had to ensure that we were a couple and that if there is a child, he or she will not grow up without me.’

‘So, this really is a shotgun marriage,’ Ellie breathed painfully.

‘No, it’s what we make of it and so far you’re doing your best to undermine us,’ Rio condemned.

‘You know the enquiry cleared my name,’ Ellie reminded him sharply. ‘How can you still think I could be a gold-digger?’

‘It’s all those shades of grey that lie between black and white,’ Rio commented reflectively. ‘What was your true intent when you befriended that old lady at the hospice where you were working?’

‘I didn’t befriend her. I was doing my job, acting as a sympathetic listener when there was nobody else available!’ Ellie told him angrily.

‘Maybe you would’ve got away with that inheritance had a complaint not been lodged against you and maybe you thought you could get away with it. Maybe you only looked up your father after you found out that he was a reasonably affluent man,’ Rio murmured lethally. ‘Who can tell? That’s what I mean about shades of grey. How can I know either way? But I still took a chance on you—’

Ellie relived the stress and worry she had endured when quite out of the blue, one of the patients she had been tending had altered her will and left her estate to Ellie instead. It had been wholly unexpected and she had not felt in any way that she deserved that bequest. She had reported it immediately but naturally the old lady’s nephew had lodged a complaint. It had been a nasty business and there had been nothing she could have done to avoid the ordeal. Rage and distress over Rio’s suggestions roared through her taut body. ‘I hate you!’ she gasped chokily.

‘No, you don’t. You just don’t like being questioned and judged without a fair trial but it’s exactly what you do to me,’ Rio condemned levelly.

‘I don’t want to be married to you!’ Ellie slung at him wildly.

‘You don’t mean that,’ Rio assured her, the hands on her shoulders smoothing her delicate skin as he bent his head. ‘You want me as much as I want you.’

‘Stop telling me what I want, what I think!’ Ellie exclaimed in seething frustration.

‘Maybe I’m talking too much... Maybe I should be showing you,’ Rio husked, tipping her back a little and burying his mouth hotly in the smooth slope of her neck while his hands delved beneath her skirt and swept up over her thighs.

‘Stop it!’ Ellie hissed, struggling against the great wave of quivering weakness that assailed her as the heat of his lips and the teasing nip of his teeth grazed her sensitised flesh. ‘You’re not allowed to do this when we’re fighting!’