The Italian's Bride

Making love with him was more wonderful than she’d dreamed possible, and she wanted him with a desperation that sometimes frightened her. And the wanting would last because she loved him. But he craved her body full-stop. If someone craved cream cakes and gorged on them they would soon be sickened and fancy something else.

Loving him made her too vulnerable to view that situation with anything but dread.

‘You said you were hungry.’ His darkly probing eyes were intent on her troubled little face and Portia blinked, only now aware that he was holding out a small pancake covered with creamy cheese and a slice of home-cured ham.

She took it because she had to, but she didn’t think she could eat, not while her stomach was clenched tight with misery. Somehow she’d gone from one impossible situation to another, and now she was the victim of her own needy love for this man, of her fierce maternal desire to do the very best for her son.

Lucenzo reached out and touched the side of her face, a gesture so tender it made her want to cry because it hadn’t stemmed from love. He wanted sex with her. That was what this was about.

‘Portia, what’s troubling you?’

Her eyes lifted unwillingly to his. There was definitely something wry about the smile that hovered around his sensational mouth. He’d brought her here to have sex with her, away from prying eyes and clacking tongues back at the villa. That was all she was good for, apart from satisfying his family honour.

And now he would think she was behaving like a sulky, temperamental child, denying him what she had so freely offered last night.

Her sigh came up from the soles of her feet. She laid the unwanted food on the paper napkin Lucenzo had provided and pushed her hair away from her face with the back of her hand.

‘I feel trapped,’ she told him honestly, and if this was the beginning of a conversation that would lead to him freeing her from her promise to marry him, then so be it, she decided fatalistically. ‘I feel like a puppet. People are pulling strings and I’m making the right movements because I don’t have any choice in the matter.’

‘You are no wooden doll, Portia.’ His voice was an unashamedly sexy purr. ‘You are a warm, flesh and blood woman and you give me much pleasure!’

‘Sex!’ she snapped, tugging out clumps of grass w

ithout being aware of what she was doing. Sometimes he got her so angry!

She was angrier still when he came back with that lazy, heart-breaking grin of his. ‘And what’s wrong with that? I think you enjoy it, and I know I do!’

She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them, giving him a sideways glare.

‘Do you always take people this seriously?’ she enquired with a bite of sarcasm. ‘Or is it only me?’ She could strangle him sometimes, she really could!

‘Ah,’ he intoned slowly. ‘Right.’ He reached out his hand and gently touched hers. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her seriously. ‘Tell me why you think you’re being manipulated. Who is pulling your strings? I want you to be honest about your feelings.’

Portia immediately felt weary and tearful. When he looked at her with such kindness in his dark, liquid eyes it did her head in and just made her love him all the more. It was far easier to be angry with him.

There was no way she could be completely honest and tell him how deeply she loved him, but she could tell him something. ‘Vito knew all the right strings to pull. And my parents—they made it as good as impossible for me to refuse your father’s invitation to bring Sam out here. And your father himself—he doesn’t mean to put pressure on me to stay, but my knowing how besotted with Sam he is, how much happier and stronger he’s getting, does it for him. And then—’ she shot him a baleful glare ‘—there’s you. With all those sensible reasons why we should marry. If that’s not manipulation, I don’t know what is!’

Her voice had risen to a wail and a solitary tear glistened on her cheek. Lucenzo wiped it away with the ball of his thumb. ‘You could have refused me,’ he pointed out gently. ‘You had that choice.’

‘Some choice!’ Portia retorted fiercely. ‘The choice between my baby being brought up back in England—merely surviving, as you pointed out yourself, around grandparents who regret his very existence—or being here, with everyone doting on him, having every possible advantage. What kind of choice is that?’ she demanded chokily, then lowered her head in abject misery as she confessed sorrowfully, ‘As usual, I took the coward’s way out.’

Lucenzo closed his eyes. Crunch time. He could truthfully tell her that if she opted to return to England, taking Sam with her, then of course both of them would be handsomely provided for. The Verdi family took care of its own.

But surely she would be happier here. Eduardo loved her like a daughter, and he would miss her and his grandson so much that his excellent progress might be reversed. That was as good a reason for her continued presence as anything he could think of.

And, he admitted, registering a peculiar lurch in the region of his heart, he’d got quite used to the idea of remarriage. Especially when his future wife was so warm and sexy. He quickly dismissed his lustful motives. In any case, she needed to be grounded, to have someone responsible to look out for her.

Her heart was definitely in the right place, but she was inclined to be a little scatty, not to mention impulsive. The combination might be oddly endearing, but it could also lead to unscrupulous people—like Vittorio, for example—taking advantage of her.

No, she definitely needed looking after. And he was the man to do it.

He said, not quite levelly, ‘You made your choice and it was a courageous one. You agreed to spend the rest of your life with me for your son’s sake, when for all you know I could be a wife-beater, unfaithful and neglectful.’

He took both her hands in his and lifted them to his mouth, kissing the backs of her slender fingers. ‘I give you my solemn promise that you will never regret our marriage. I will be loyal throughout our lives, and while I draw breath nothing will harm you. Cara, I care about you—’ His voice broke as the knowledge hit him like a ton of bricks. Madre di Dios—he loved her!

After what had happened to Flavia he had vowed he’d never leave himself open to such hurt again. But it had happened. He loved everything about this woman. The beauty of her smile, the way she had of putting others’ needs before her own, the sweet vulnerability that lit such an unquenchable spark inside him, her open, generous nature.

He felt his body tremble, his heart open and flower. Taking her hands, he looped them around his neck and cupped her sweet face with his own slightly unsteady fingers.