He looked up, his handsome face stoic. “He died when I was nineteen, and left us only debts in his memory. My mother would have starved in the street, if I hadn’t started work to support her. When she died five years ago, she was living in a palace in Rome. As I vowed she someday would.” He exhaled. “I’m trying to tell you that you never need to worry now, about anything. I will always take care of you.”
She blinked back tears, giving him a smile as she reached across the aisle to stroke his face. “We will take care of each other.”
He turned his rough cheek into her caress, then placed his hand over her own. “You won’t regret giving up your dreams to marry me. I’m no shining knight, but I will treat you well. You won’t have a business of your own, but I will work hard for you and the baby. I’ll give you all the precious jewelry you could possibly desire.”
Frowning, she drew back her hand. “What do you mean—giving up my dream of having a business?”
He stared down at her. “You have no time for a career. Not anymore. Your place is to be my wife, and raise our child.”
“You don’t tell me this until now—after we’re already married?”
“I thought it would be obvious,
” he said stiffly, looking uncomfortable.
“No,” she whispered. “You knew I would be upset. Which is why you waited till now.” She forced her voice to be calm. “I never agreed to give up my business.”
He looked at her. “If that dream had ever meant anything to you, you would have done something about it long ago.”
Lilley’s eyes widened, then she sucked in her breath. He was right. She could have built her business for years, but instead, she’d squandered her time being paralyzed by fear.
“Money will never be an issue for you again,” he tried. “I will provide you with everything you desire.” He gave her a smile. “And if you want to make jewelry as a little hobby to entertain yourself, I have no objection to it.”
“Generous of you,” she muttered.
He stared down at her, then set his jaw. “Once you have properly settled in as my bride, as the mother of our child, well then—we will see,” he said grudgingly. His eyes softened as he stroked her cheek. “I want you to be happy, Lilley. I will do everything I can to make that happen.”
Feeling his hand upon her skin, seeing the tenderness in his eyes, she exhaled. It would be fine. Somehow, it would all work out. “I want to do the same for you.”
His eyes were hot and dark as he gave her a wicked grin. “Ah, but you’ve made me so happy already. You make me happy on an hourly basis,” he breathed, leaning forward to kiss her. He stopped, his face inches from hers. “Just promise you’ll never lie to me.”
“I’ll never lie to you,” Lilley promised, and she meant it, with all her heart.
“Io bacio.”
“Io bacio,” Lilley repeated, balancing a book on her head.
Standing by the window overlooking the bright-blue water of the Costa Smeralda, her Italian tutor smiled. “Tu baci.”
“Tu baci,” Lilley repeated rather breathlessly, walking across the marble floor in four-inch high heels.
“Lui bacia.”
As Lilley repeated all the conjugations of baciare, she found herself smiling. Her tutor had clearly chosen the verb to kiss in honor of her standing as a newlywed. And though her feet ached from the expensive shoes and her body ached from standing up straight in the designer skirt suit for hours, she felt strangely happy. Yes, her head ached from a full schedule of etiquette and deportment lessons, mixed with Italian classes in which she not only learned the word for fork, la forchetta, but she was taught which one to use for salad and which for dessert. But she was … happy.
This wasn’t the same world she’d left behind in Minnesota, that was for sure. Her father had come from nothing. He’d never given a hoot about etiquette. Now, after a week in Sardinia, Lilley felt exhausted, but it was the best kind of tired. She felt sore, too, but there was a very delicious reason for that as well. A hot blush filled her cheeks as she remembered what Alessandro had done to her in bed last night, and what she’d done to him. The braver she got, the more she acted on her own needs and fantasies, the more he liked it.
“Molto bene,” the Italian tutor finally said with satisfaction.
“You are a quick learner, Principessa,” said the Swiss woman who’d come from a famous boarding school in the Alps to teach her deportment.
“Grazie,” Lilley said with a laugh. A quick learner? She’d certainly never heard that one before. But it helped that she didn’t have to read, just listen, repeat and practice. Her husband had given the instructors precise instructions.
Her husband.
After a week in Alessandro’s white wedding-cake villa in Sardinia, seven blissful days of life as his wife, Lilley still adored the word husband. She held the word close to her heart, cuddled it like a child. She had a husband. And—she glanced discreetly at her watch, almost causing the book to slide off her head—it was almost five o’clock. Her favorite time of day.
The Italian tutor followed her gaze and nodded. “We are done.” He turned to gather his briefcase. “Buona sera, Principessa.”