The Marriage He Must Keep(44)

The humid air was warm and the blue water inside the cave misty and inviting. Only a handful of people were here, all tucked in private corners, but she hadn’t wanted to leave the ring in her changing room.

She tilted the blue sapphire that had arrived hours after Alessandro had gone into the city the other morning. It sat where her wedding rings still didn’t quite fit.

“I’ll be terrified the whole time that it will slip off and I’ll lose it,” she said.

“I noticed it before we left, but I didn’t want you to take it off. I don’t like seeing you without my ring.” He brought the knuckle of her finger to his lips. “I’m possessive.”

Octavia made a noise. She knew that much about him, she thought wryly, but curled her fingers inside his loose grasp, thinking about what had happened when the ring had arrived at the house.

Her troubled thoughts must have shown in her face because Sandro asked stiffly, “You don’t like it?”

“What? No, I love it. I told you I did when it arrived,” she reminded, pulling her hand from his to ensure the stone was perfectly centered. “It was just that when Viviana saw it...” She couldn’t hide her distaste at how Primo’s family was treating her. “She asked if it was a push present.”

“A push—?”

“A gift from a husband to his wife for pushing out a baby. She said I didn’t deserve one because the surgeons did all the work.”

She stepped into the pool and silky heat washed over her calves, soothing her prickly mood.

Alessandro halted beside her. “Your coolness the last few days begins to make sense. She’ll apologize,” he said tightly.

“Is that why you brought me here? You thought I needed warming up?” she asked. Twisting her mouth to the side, she scrunched her nose at him. “I wasn’t trying to avoid you, but I didn’t want to tell you. I was pretty rude. But I had had it with the way they’re all acting toward me, Sandro! She sounded just like Primo. I knew that was the source of it and I just snapped.”

His brows went up. “What did you do?”

“Stooped to her level.” She swept her towel off and tossed it to the edge, then sank quickly into the blissfully hot water, turning so she still faced him, but was hidden to her shoulders. “I told her that she might want to consider who I sleep with, since she’s asked you to underwrite that tanning salon of hers.”

Sandro slowly came down the steps after her, not sinking into the water, not taking his gaze off hers. He was wearing his disapproving look, but she didn’t know if it was for her or his cousin.

“She told me not to expect you to fight my battles and I said fine. She was right. That I have no right to interfere in your business decisions, but that she can’t expect to enjoy the hospitality of someone she is insulting. I said that if she needed help packing, she should let me know since I’d be more than happy to arrange assistance from my staff.”

She ended with a press of her lips and a sheepish look up at him.

He folded his arms, looking so much sexier than she felt. His chest was gorgeous, his shoulders a sculptor’s curved line that begged to be traced with fingertips and lips. He dropped his hands to his hips, framing his perfect torso with his neatly muscled arms.

“No, I didn’t bring you here to warm you up, but I did wonder if something was bothering you. I also wanted to take us out of the house for a few hours. Primo has been in touch with Nonno. He’s trying to go over my head and my grandfather has told him he can’t. Nonno is drawing up a settlement that will help Primo pay his legal bills, but he will forfeit any claim to the estate. Primo has accepted and that puts an end to any aspirations his side of the clan has. I expect they’ll be gone by the time we get home today. It’s the final nail in the coffin, if you will.”

He scowled into the middle distance and she could almost hear his thoughts. He’d caused the death of his own father and hadn’t been disinherited, but Primo was losing virtually everything over what he’d done.

But Sandro’s mistake had been a youthful accident, Primo’s a deliberate act with intent to harm.

She stood without thinking and moved to wrap her arms around her husband’s waist. He closed his arms across her back, hand smoothing over her bare skin, fingers going under the wide band of her shoulder strap.

A second later, she felt a stirring of his flesh just below the line of the water. He set her back a step, expression wry. “Swimming was a bad idea. I was only thinking about the view...” He roamed his gaze down her bare upper chest and arms. The wet swimsuit plastered against her breasts revealed a lot more than it hid. “I didn’t consider the effect it would have on me.”