After changing out of her bridal finery, Aisling ran a bath and had a long and luxurious soak, but even though the tension was seeping from her body her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She lay there, watching all the bubbles gradually dissolve—and wondering where the hell they went from here. It was as if their energy had been focussed on the trip to Italy and the wedding—and now just the great unknown waited.
She slipped into some cool linen trousers and a shirt which made breast-feeding easier. Then she tied her hair back into a pony-tail before going downstairs to look for them.
It was strange, navigating this house where Gianluca had grown up but which was so new and so alien to her. So much of living was instinctive, she thought—like the way she still turned left out of the bathroom as if she were in her old flat, instead of in this huge place. Would she ever grow used to it—and would it ever feel like home?
She found Gianluca and Claudio in the garden which overlooked the glitter of the distant lake. For a moment her new husband didn’t hear her soft footsteps on the grass—he was far too engrossed in staring intently at the baby. It gave her just long enough for her stupid heart to turn over with longing at the vision they made, and then to collect herself before he noticed her reaction.
A huge, coach-built pram which had been sent down from Rome was parked beside an arbour which was spilling over with flowers. Soft, creamy-pink flowers with such an intoxicating fragrance which seemed to perfume the whole garden, and Aisling breathed in their scent as if her senses had been starved.
Gianluca was still in his dark wedding suit but he had removed his tie as he always did at the first opportunity—and had undone a couple of shirt buttons. He looked up from where he had been leaning over the pram, and Aisling suddenly felt almost weak with longing.
Gianluca stared at her with a thudding kind of disappointment and disbelief because it was as though the woman he had married today had gone through some sort of transformation. Like Cinderella in reverse, he thought bitterly. Gone was the sexy bride in her vertiginous shoes and the demure yet sexy ivory silk dress. In their place were some dulllooking trousers and an equally dull-looking shirt.
Well, what had he expected? He had forced her hand into matrimony and perhaps she had now decided it was time to flex her own muscles. To punish him. As a message of how she intended to conduct this marriage, it could not have been clearer.
‘You’ve changed,’ he observed softly.
Aisling was suddenly aware of a new hardness in his eyes. ‘The dressing-up part of the day is over, Gianluca—and, besides, this is much easier for feeding Claudio.’ She peered over at the pram rather desperately. ‘How i
s he?’
‘He’s asleep,’ he said abruptly.
‘Oh. Well, that’s … good.'Aisling stood there, feeling—redundant. She couldn’t even pick the baby up because if she did that she might look selfish—as if she was using him as some sort of prop, because she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
‘So tell me—what do you want to do tonight? This our wedding night,’ he mocked.
She stared at him nervously, unsure of what to say. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’
‘You mean, other than the very obvious ones a groom might make to his new bride on such an occasion?’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I think you know the answer to that question, cara. And while you think about it, you will excuse me—for I have a few calls I need to make.’
Aisling stared at him in dismay. ‘But I thought you were taking a break for your honeymoon!’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ he drawled insolently. ‘You have some ideas, perhaps? You want to drink a little champagne, or call on the chef and have him prepare us a few things to nibble on? Curl up together and watch a movie?’
‘Please don’t be sarcastic, Gianluca.’
‘Maybe I damned well feel like being sarcastic!’ he retorted hotly.
One of them needed to confront it and it looked as if it was going to have to be her. ‘About the sleeping arrangements.’ Help me out, her eyes appealed to him—but his handsome face remained faintly quizzical, as if he had nothing to do with the decision. She hesitated, unsure of how best to put it. Just tell him. Tell him you’re willing to share his bed tonight.
Gianluca almost laughed aloud at her pale face and the wary expression in her cool eyes. Did she think that he was going to start exercising his conjugal rights? To go over to her and take her in his arms and to kiss that sour little expression off her face until he was inside her?
Instead, his mouth flattened. ‘Oh, do not worry, cara.I am not so desperate for your body that I need to come begging you to take me into your bed. If I find that desire overwhelms me, then there are plenty of women who would relish the experience—rather than seeking it from one for whom the notion is so obviously abhorrent.’
‘Abhorrent?’ she echoed, bewildered. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’
‘Your face tells its own story,’ he said softly.
Even if he didn’t have a clue about her true feelings for him, surely he must have realised that she was nervous—as any woman would have been in these extraordinary circumstances? ‘I’m apprehensive,’ she admitted carefully.
Of what? he wondered. Of letting that icy composure slip? She seemed determined to keep him at an emotional arm’s length—and he could cope with that. But if they put physical distance between them, then this whole situation would quickly become intolerable, and surely Aisling was intelligent enough to realise that.
Gianluca’s eyes narrowed. She operated like a man in the way she compartmentalised her life. So why not present his proposition in a way she would find acceptable?
He moved towards her and lifted his hand to her face, slowly and thoughtfully using it to sculpt the shape of her chin, allowing the pad of his thumb to briefly graze across the lips which trembled. He observed the darkening of her eyes as he drew his hand away.
‘I want you,’ he said starkly.