His Lost-and-Found Bride

‘Forgive me.’ Dario nodded. ‘I have to go. I have business to attend to. Please, take all the time you need.’

Lucia gave a gracious nod of her head as Dario walked swiftly down the path towards the waiting motorboat.

She turned and pressed her hand against the heavy wooden door of the church and smiled at Logan. There was a gleam of something in her eye. He only hoped it was for the contents of the church and not for the retreating back of Dario. The spike of jealousy had been unexpected—a feeling he hadn’t dealt with in years.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

He nodded and she pushed the door and it groaned and creaked loudly on its hinges as it swung back. The church wasn’t lit.

The only light that streamed in came through six muted stained-glass windows above the altar.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. He caught his breath.

The fresco on the wall was magnificent and stretched from one end of the church to the other. His feet moved automatically towards it.

Over his years in Italy he’d seen many frescoes—but none quite like this. It was completely and utterly unique, almost like a timeline through the first book of the bible.

She rested her hand on his arm. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’m quite sure I’ll never see anything like it again.’ He could hear the amusement in her voice at his reaction. ‘It’s a little different from the Madonna and Child, isn’t it?’

He shook his head as he took in more and more of the fresco. He recognised the characters—at least, he thought he did. Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Jacob and his sons. But the thing that made these characters unique was the fact they were all completely naked.

He spun to face her. ‘What on earth...?’

She laughed. ‘I know. It’s why the Italian Heritage Board hasn’t bothered to make demands on the family. The Catholic Church would be outraged by these scenes.’

Logan moved forward. He just couldn’t stop smiling. He was trying to think rationally. ‘Adam and Eve—you might expect them to be naked. But the rest...’ He kept looking at the scenes. ‘It’s amazing. I mean, apart from their nakedness the depictions are accurate. Eve with the apple, Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea, Noah on the ark, and Jacob with his twelve sons.’ He let out a laugh. ‘Joseph is even holding his multi-coloured coat instead of wearing it.’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Naked bodies were pretty much the fashion during Renaissance times.’ Her brow creased slightly. ‘But usually they had something—anything—draped around about them. These ones are totally original.’

Logan stepped back a little. ‘But there’s something else, isn’t there? I can’t quite put my finger on it.’ He paused, staring hard at the scenes, looking between one and another.

She nodded, with an amused expression on her face. ‘Give it time, Logan. You’ll get it.’

She was teasing him. It was almost like throwing down a challenge. So he took a few minutes, concentrating hard until, finally, the penny dropped.

He turned to her in amazement. ‘It’s the faces, isn’t it?’ He stepped right up to the fresco, staring first at the face of Adam then at the face of Moses, then Noah. ‘It’s the same face.’ His eyes scanned one way, then the other. ‘It’s the same man and woman in every scene.’

Lucia was laughing. ‘You’re right. The family don’t have any official records about who commissioned the fresco. The name of Burano has just been passed down through the family. That’s why we’ll have to do a comparison. And we’re not quite sure why it’s the same faces in all the scenes. I’ve spoken to the family about it at length. We think there’s something a little narcissistic in it. We think that when the original Brunellis commissioned the artist they asked for the faces to be made in their image.’

Logan let out a burst of laughter. ‘You mean, even all those years ago we had fame-hungry people?’ He shook his head. ‘Wow, just wow.’

He took another few seconds and stopped in front of the young Joseph holding the coat. ‘I still can’t believe they wouldn’t let Joseph wear his multi-coloured coat.’

She bent down in the front of the fresco. In the dim light he could see her dark eyes were still gleaming. ‘Yes, but look at the folds in the cloak. What do you see?’

He looked closer. ‘Of course. They look exactly like the folds in the Madonna’s dress in the fresco in Tuscany. That’s what you noticed.’

There wasn’t a sound in the dark church. They were entirely alone, crouching on the floor. The lack of artificial light was almost like a safety blanket around them.

His face was only inches from hers. Their gazes meshed. It was a moment. An instant. For just that second she had the same passion and wonder in her eyes that she’d had twelve years ago. Twelve years ago when they’d thought they could conquer the world.

He’d been trying so hard to hold his tongue, trying to keep a handle on how he felt about everything, but the memories of Lucia were just overtaking him. The spark of jealousy, the protectiveness, the connection between them. He was like a pressure cooker just waiting to go off.

Her pupils were dilating in front of him, the blackness overtaking the chocolate brown of her eyes. He was pretty certain his were doing exactly the same.

All of a sudden he couldn’t stop himself. He leaned forward, just a few inches, and caught the back of her head in his hand, tangling his fingers through her hair as he pulled her towards him.

And then he stopped thinking entirely...

* * *

She was instantly transported back twelve years. The familiarity was astounding.

No one had kissed her like this in twelve years.

No kiss had felt so right.

No kiss had felt so perfect.

Her body moved on automatic pilot, ignoring all the little neurons that were firing in her brain. Ignoring every single rational thought that might be there.

She could only act on instinct. Her hands slid through his thick, dark hair, her fingers tugging and pulling at his head. She could taste him. She could smell him.

Everything about him was familiar. His scent was winding its way around her like a coiling snake. Her hands moved, sliding across his muscled shoulders and arms and down the planes of his chest.

His lips never left hers. Their teeth clashed, his tongue tangling with hers. Crouching on a floor wasn’t comfortable for kissing. Logan sensed that and pulled her up against him, his strong legs lifting them both upwards, keeping their bodies in contact the whole time.

She could feel his heart th

udding against her chest. Feel her breath catching in her throat.

It was so easy to be swept away. It was so easy to forget about everything else. His fingertips brushed across the front of her breasts as she sucked in a sharp breath, then rounded her hips and stopped firmly on her behind, pulling her even closer to him.

There was no mistaking his reaction to her. There was no mistaking he was every bit as caught up in this as she was.

So when he stopped kissing her she was shocked.

He pulled his lips back from hers and rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily. His body was still interlocked with hers. It seemed he had no intention of moving.

Her hands, resting against his chest, clenched.

Embarrassment swamped her. She wanted to step back but couldn’t.

What on earth was he thinking?

Then, to her surprise, he let out a deep laugh. It wasn’t a mocking laugh. It wasn’t derogatory. It was more one of astonishment.

In the dark church his voice was husky. ‘So that’s what I’ve been missing.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I sometimes wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me. If I’d imagined how good it was.’

He was echoing her thoughts. She’d felt exactly the same way. Any time she’d allowed memories of Logan to sneak into her brain, she’d always thought it couldn’t possibly have been as good as she remembered it. Everything before Ariella Rose, that was.

The portcullis that was always stiffly in place was shaken a little. The thick gate had risen just a tiny bit, leaving the thinnest gap underneath. The black cloud of self-protection that usually cloaked her was thinning in patches.

Their foreheads were still touching. She could feel his warm breath on her cheeks. ‘It wasn’t all that bad, was it?’ she whispered.

His fingers stroked through her soft hair. ‘Some parts were really good,’ he breathed quietly.

She stayed where she was—for a few more seconds.

This was only a moment of madness. A tiny little step back in time.