She had been impressed even more when Rio had accurately forecast her father’s every reaction to their marital plans and the stages of it. Beppe had initially been taken aback and had urged her not to rush into anything, but then Beppe had also confided that had he been free when he had met Ellie’s mother he would have rushed to marry her. He had also admitted that he thoroughly understood the powerful life-enhancing effect of falling madly in love. And ultimately he had decided that as far as family growth went he could wish for no more than to see his daughter married to a young man he had always valued.
‘Rio will grow with you by his side,’ Beppe had forecast loftily. ‘You make him think, you make him question what he truly wants from life. And what he has always wanted most of all is a family.’
Ellie gazed into the mirror and wondered if she was pregnant, if she could give Rio what he supposedly most wanted. But was that what Rio most wanted? Cavorting with all those women seemed a funny way of going about attaining a stable family life. Tomorrow morning, however, she would carry out the pregnancy test she had already purchased. She was both excited and scared by the idea. But most of all she was wondering how Rio would feel, regardless of what the result was.
She had naively assumed that she would see a great deal more of Rio once their relationship was out in the open, but Rio had flown out to Dharia to settle some complicated dispute about oil well rights and although he had urged her to accompany him and she would’ve loved to see her sister sooner, she had refused. Why? Girly though it was, she had wanted to work with the wedding planner Beppe had hired and make her individual choices while also being available to ensure her gown fitted perfectly. After all, she was only planning to marry once.
And her dress fitted like a dream. The corset top had been chosen with Rio in mind. She just knew Rio would revel in hooks and laces and cleavage. The long skirt skimmed down in a flattering cut over her curvy hips and fanned out below the knee. Her feet were shod in Polly’s gift, a pair of enchanting high-heeled sandals studded with pearls.
‘Rashad really likes Rio and the men will be able to go off together when you visit and give us peace to gossip,’ Polly remarked happily.
Ellie hid a smile because Polly was sometimes so innocent. The very last thing Ellie could imagine wanting just then was to be deprived of Rio’s company. After all, he had been more absent than present since the wedding fervour kicked off. Beppe had held a series of social evenings to introduce his long-lost daughter to friends and relatives. Rio had dutifully attended those evenings before he flew out to Dharia, but Ellie’s need to respect Beppe’s boundaries had ensured that the bridal couple had little time alone together. Predictably, Rio had been much less accepting about the simple reality that she did not feel free to leave the palazzo to spend the night with him and possibly Ellie’s insistence on restraint had kept him from hurrying back to Tuscany.
‘When you have me wondering if we could contrive to have sex in my car without being picked up on a charge of public indecency, we have a problem, principessa,’ Rio had complained the night before when he had joined them with Polly and Rashad for a quiet prewedding dinner. ‘You need to learn to be more selfish and put us first.’
‘No,’ she had said. ‘You need to learn that anticipation can act as an aphrodisiac.’
‘But I don’t need one of those,’ Rio had responded with sardonic bite.
An abstracted smile tilted Ellie’s lips now.
‘You’re nuts about him. I don’t know how I didn’t spot it at my wedding—’
‘Your attention was elsewhere…on your bridegroom? And I’m not what you call “nuts” about him—’
‘Oh, you so are,’ Polly contradicted. ‘Everything you’ve done just screams it, Ellie. You are not the sort of woman who meets a man and marries him within a couple of weeks unless he rocks your world…’
‘People change,’ Ellie argued and, eager to change the subject, added, ‘isn’t it really sad that we still haven’t managed to find our missing sister? She could have been with us here today…’
Tracking down Lucy had so far proved difficult because she lived a travelling life, moving around a lot and surviving on casual jobs.
‘We’ll find her eventually,’ Polly said soothingly. ‘And it’ll be very exciting when we do. Haven’t you been tempted to look in her envelope and see what ring she was left and what name is attached to it? It could possibly help us to locate her.’
‘No, I was trusted with that envelope and I wouldn’t open it,’ Ellie swore. ‘How would you ever explain that to her when we finally met?’
‘We could use steam to open it,’ Polly suggested, colouring lightly at Ellie’s raised brows.
‘No, we should respect her privacy,’ Ellie decreed.
Ellie descended the stairs smiling at her father, who stood at the foot beaming with pride. Beppe could not compliment her on her appearance enough. They travelled to the church in a limousine. She paused on the steps in the morning sunshine and she breathed in deep and slow, recognising that the elation she was feeling was happiness and marvelling at it while also fearing the undeniable storms ahead. She knew that she and Rio would argue and tussle and that there would be many times when she wanted to strangle him. That was normal life, she told herself prosaically, but true happiness was so rare a sensation for her that she wanted to make the most of it while she was feeling it.
Rio turned from the altar to get the full effect of his bride. And Ellie was stunning with her coppery hair swept up and her green eyes gleaming with intelligence above her sultry mouth. As for the dress, well, he was extremely impressed by that surprisingly sexy corset, which defined his bride’
s splendid curves to perfection. No, getting married didn’t feel half as bad as he had dimly expected. He had thought he might feel trapped but the prospect of peeling Ellie out of that corset was more than equal to the challenge of surrendering his freedom.
Her hand trembled in his when he grasped it to thread on the wedding ring. She had worn her engagement ring on her other hand. And like Beppe’s family emerald, which she had brought out to Italy with her, it was another emerald to reflect the colour of her eyes, an emerald teamed with white diamonds but not over large because Ellie didn’t like flashy jewellery and had wanted something she could occasionally wear to work. So sensible, his Ellie, Rio thought wryly, wondering just when he had started thinking of her as his. When he’d imagined her pregnant with his child and liked the idea? When he saw her walking down the aisle towards him? Or when he realised that he was her first lover and strangely determined to be her last?
Of course, he knew why he was marrying her. With Ellie, the sex was on another level even though it had gone wrong the one and only time it had happened. She stood up to him, she talked back, she was his equal in every way. But more importantly she had signed a prenup contract ringed with so many iron hoops of protection that an escape artist couldn’t have undermined it. If Ellie liked money, he had plenty of it and there were worse weaknesses for a woman to have, he reasoned. She could have been the unfaithful type, forever in search of the next big thrill. She could’ve been the uncaring, uncommitted type but he’d already seen her bonding happily with Beppe and witnessed just how close she was to her sister. And if there was to be a baby Rio was convinced that she would always and without hesitation do right by their child. The ability and the desire to be a good mother was the most imperative trait of all that a woman could have, he reflected with sombre conviction.
Ellie emerged from the church on Rio’s arm. A crowd of people were crushed into the street outside. Fleeting introductions were made while the photographer fluttered around. They were congratulated and showered with rice.
In the midst of the noise and excitement, Ellie suddenly noticed two blondes wielding their camera phones and giggling like drains as they urged Rio to look at them and smile. And it was them, unmistakably the identical twins who had gambolled naked on Rio’s bed in that Dharian hotel two years earlier. Ellie’s throat convulsed. She couldn’t have been mistaken, she thought angrily. They were highly noticeable women, blonde, beautiful twins, whippet thin and impossibly sparkly and effervescent in a way that was seen as ultrafeminine. Rio had actually invited the twins to their wedding. Ellie paled and compressed bloodless lips while the perplexed photographer urged her to smile.
She settled almost dizzily into the limousine beside Rio and looked at him. How could he do this to her? How could he be so insensitive to her feelings? Those blondes reminded her of the most humiliating moment of her life. Before Rio had opened the door to that hotel room she had been on a high, feeling like a sexy, attractive woman for the first time ever and ready to move forward, no longer feeling like the drab, clever redhead whom few men approached. And her first glimpse of the giggly twins on his bed had cut her like a knife, making her feel ridiculous and pathetic and useless.
‘Cosa c’e di sbagliato? What’s wrong?’ Rio asked as the car moved off to whisk them back to the palazzo where the reception was being held.
And Ellie didn’t know what to say. After all, he was entitled to a sexual past and in marrying him she had accepted that past. Exes at a wedding, well, not exactly what you wanted but not always avoidable either. But did the twins recognise her as the shocked woman in that doorway two years back? And would they mention that to anyone? Have a good giggle about it? She cringed inside herself and said nothing.