The Italian's Bride

‘I did try, really hard, but I couldn’t live up to their expectations,’ she explained mournfully as the thick sweep of her lashes lowered over her clear grey gaze. ‘You see, they were both school teachers, academics and set in their ways. They married quite late and I came as something of a surprise, but once I arrived on the scene they sort of hatched all these ambitious plans for me. Barrister, surgeon, mathematician—there were loads of options, or so they were always telling me. They expected me to be clever. But I wasn’t. I was just a great big disappointment.’

And they made good and sure she knew it, he thought on a stir of resentment. Poor kid. Was that why she often looked so unsure of herself?

‘And what about you? What did you want?’ he asked gruffly, and she lifted her eyes and smiled at him. A real smile this time, lighting up the whole of her face, making her look almost beautiful. Her teeth were even, pearly white, her full lips glistening, and he wondered if she would taste of butter if he kissed her.

Fool! He caught the thought and kicked it out of play, shifting uncomfortably, and heard her say on a lilt of rueful amusement, ‘They wanted me to have some high-powered career or other, and all I ever wanted was my own home, children—the whole domestic bit.’

A gear shifted in Lucenzo’s brain. He leant forward, his hands on his knees, his black eyes intense. Because she had wanted a child had she lied to Vito, told him she was protected? Had she been desperate to conceive a baby—by any man? Had he misjudged her in that?

Had the financial support of a seriously wealthy family ever entered the equation? Judging by her obvious uneasiness at the ostentatious display of wealth at dinner tonight, the way she’d seemed afraid to touch the Venetian glass, the heavy silver, the delicate china, perhaps not.

‘Was that why you slept with Vittorio? Because you wanted a child?’

Portia’s mouth fell open and she looked at him blankly, for all the world as if he’d spoken in Swahili, before she blurted hotly, ‘No! Of course not! I made love,’ she stressed vehemently, ‘because poor Vito wanted to so badly.’

Out of duty, really, she recognised as soon as she’d finished speaking, and the shock of hindsight made her soft mouth tremble. Vito had been begging and begging her, telling her he wanted her so much he couldn’t concentrate on the work that was so vital to their future. In the end she’d given in, on the face of it to celebrate their unofficial engagement, relegating her possibly strait-laced intention of waiting until their wedding night to the back burner. A wedding night that would never have come, she now knew, of course.

Feeling faintly ridiculous, and not a little resentful at the way Lucenzo was prying into her private life, she bit down on her lower lip and glared at him through the long sweep of her lashes. And then she stopped breathing. His eyes were impossibly magnetic in his lean, handsome face; she couldn’t have looked away to save her life. All sorts of strange sensations were chasing each other up and down her spine, pooling in a starburst of excitement deep inside her.

One black brow rose just slightly, his mouth curved softly, and his voice was a wicked murmur as he asked, ‘Are you always so generous, Portia? If I said I wanted you would you sleep with me?’

CHAPTER SIX

WHY couldn’t she get it out of her mind? Portia asked herself distractedly, her mind in a wild tangle. She was trying her hardest to concentrate on the look of deep pleasure on Eduardo’s lined face as he held the burbling Sam on his knee, but she couldn’t stop thinking of the question Lucenzo had asked in that low, awesomely sexy voice of his: ‘If I said I wanted you would you sleep with me?’

She’d gone to pieces inside, everything fizzing and melting, breathless and qui

vering, her mouth dry, pulses skittering all over the place as she’d imagined what it would be like to make love with him. And she’d tried to hide it, tried so desperately that she’d been rigid with the effort as she’d got to her feet and flung, ‘Get out!’ right in his devastatingly attractive face.

It hadn’t been a pass; of course it hadn’t. Lucenzo wouldn’t make a pass at the likes of her; she just knew he wouldn’t. He’d simply been rubbing in the utterly humiliating fact that he thought she was anybody’s. But even knowing that hadn’t stopped her wretched body going into bedroom mode!

It was simply awful! She didn’t understand herself. She’d truly believed she was in love with Vito, but going to bed with him hadn’t sparked any kind of conflagration inside her. The only pleasure she’d had, had come from knowing she’d made him happy.

She rubbed her damp palms down the sides of her jeans and shuffled her bottom on the seat of her chair. Everything would be a darn sight easier if Lucenzo weren’t here, leaning against one of the tall window frames and watching proceedings from those dangerously enigmatic lowered eyes of his.

As they’d been last evening, the louvres were almost closed, filtering out the daylight, but thankfully the grim-faced, super-starched nurse had gone on her coffee break, leaving Lucenzo in charge to see that she and Sam didn’t bore or overtire his father.

Not that the old gentleman seemed to be either, she noted, watching his face light up as his newly introduced little grandson blew gurgling bubbles at him. If only Lucenzo would make himself scarce then she wouldn’t feel like an insect on a pin. Or feel the unwelcome tingle of awareness that now was par for the course whenever he was around. Or have face-ache from wearing a forced and often faltering smile which had to be very firmly twitched back into place every time it slipped.

‘He has the look of his father,’ Eduardo Verdi pronounced with evident satisfaction, just as a chirping sound broke into the quietness.

Lucenzo fished a slender mobile phone from the back pocket of his dark grey trousers, made a few light responses, then thrust it back where it had come from.

A few rapid words in Italian to his father, and to Portia, tonelessly, ‘I have to go. Please stay until the nurse returns.’

She watched him stride from the room with a peculiar mixture of relief and loss—glad to see him leave, yet desperately wanting him to stay—and wondered if the awful situation she found herself in was making her lose what little brainpower she did have.

‘Shall I take him, Signor Verdi, if he’s tiring you?’ she asked, determined to do her very best to concentrate on poor Vito’s sick father and put her own troubles firmly to the back of her mind.

‘He’s not tiring me in the least. He is my grandson! And please, Portia, less of the Signor Verdi. I would prefer it if you would use my given name.’ He gave her a level, kindly look. ‘You and I have much to say to each other. But first—’ his dark eyes gleamed mischievously ‘—do you think you could let a little light into this room, while my jailor’s away? I object to living in such gloom.’

‘Of course!’ Portia sprang to her feet, her spirits lifting. Eduardo’s views coincided exactly with her own. The battle-axe nurse must have decreed that the poor old gentleman lived in semi-darkness, and that couldn’t be good for anyone.

As she turned from flooding the room with welcome full daylight she noted that Eduardo didn’t look sick at all. He actually looked quite perky, and younger than she’d imagined him to be when they’d met last evening. In his late fifties, maybe?

Emboldened by his smile of approval, she slid open the glass doors that led directly onto the terrace and breathed in the warm air, the scent of a myriad blossoms.

‘I’m not a trained medic,’ she confided with a broad smile that made her face incandescent, ‘but I’m sure fresh air and sunlight can’t do any harm.’