The Sicilian's Marriage Arrangement

He now saw the initial reticence she had shown to his advances as the ruthlessly manipulative tactic that it was. The classic game of playing hard to get refined to the point of deviousness. She had known he had no choice but to pursue her. Yet, she had made the pursuit difficult, knowing his male instincts to hunt would be aroused. She had done her own part to make sure he was caught in her grandfather’s trap.

He had been right to suspect such duplicity and a fool to dismiss the possibility so easily.

The knowledge he had been so used filled him with a desire to do violence. He hit the tiled wall of the shower with his fist, ignoring the pain that arced up his arm.

He had trusted her. He had believed she was unlike any woman he had ever known. And she was. She was a better liar. A better cheat. And better at entrapment. Many women had wanted marriage, but she had managed to secure his name on the other side of the marriage certificate. Had she begun making her plans before or after that kiss on New Year’s Eve?

No matter what, he was furious at his own gullibility.

The pain of betrayal radiated through him and that made him even angrier. He could not feel betrayed if he had not trusted her and knowing he had trusted unwisely was a direct hit to his pride.

He had allowed himself to care for her, to believe in a future together and all the while she and her grandfather had no doubt been laughing over how easy he had been to dupe. Her feminine arrogance knew no bounds. Telling him that it did not matter how they had come together.

Perhaps that would have been true if she had been a woman worthy of his name and not a lying manipulator.

She wasn’t and the fact she had colluded with her grandfather to blackmail him into marriage enraged Luciano.

No longer would he withhold his revenge from her. She would learn right alongside her grandfather that a Sicilian man would not lie down to coercion.

He was a man, not a fool, no matter that he’d been behaving like one for weeks.

Hope cuddled around the pillow in her lonely bed for the third night in a row. Luciano had gone from attentive and loverlike to cold and dismissive in a devastatingly quick and thorough transformation. And all because he was furious her grandfather had played matchmaker.

She’d tried to talk to him about it, but Luciano had refused to listen.

He’d spent the last three days working long hours and although he returned to the family villa before dinner, he did not come to bed until after Hope fell asleep.

Tonight, she was determined to wait up for him, to have it out. She wanted her marriage back. Things had been so good in Naples. She could not accept that something so unimportant could destroy it all.

She threw herself on her back and kicked the covers off. A minute later, she rolled onto her stomach. Thirty agonizing minutes later he had still not come up. Unable to wait another second in the silence of their huge bedroom, she got up. Where was it written that she had to wait meekly in bed for him to show up? She would go to him.

She went in search of her robe. Pulling it on, she left the room. He would probably be working in the study. Light filtering from the cracked doorway indicated she had been right.

She pushed the door open and found him sitting at his desk, papers spread before him.

“Luciano?”

His head lifted and he looked at her with eyes that sliced into her heart with their coldness. “What?”

“We need to talk.”

“This is not so. We have nothing to talk about.”

She glared at him, fed up with his stupid male ego. “How can you say that? You’re being ridiculous about this thing with my grandfather. Can’t you see that?”

In a second, he was towering over her, his big body vibrating with rage. “What are you saying to me?”

Okay, so she hadn’t been tactful. Her grandfather’s bluntness had rubbed off on her, but it was the truth. “We were happy together in Naples. Why do you want to throw that away over something that just doesn’t matter?”

“To you it does not matter, but to me it is important.”

She reached her hands out in appeal. “I love you, Luciano. Isn’t that more important than an old man’s machinations?”

His eyes burned her with a contempt she didn’t understand, but that hurt her horribly.

“Do not speak to me of love again. I can do without the kind of love a woman like you feels.”

“A woman like me?” What did he mean? “You told me you would treasure my love.” Whatever kind of woman she was.

“A man will say anything when his libido is involved.”

“I don’t believe that.” He couldn’t mean it. “You wanted to marry me. You said you wanted me to be the mother of your children.” He had to care a little, even if he didn’t love her.