Italian Boss, Proud Miss Prim

Touching his fingers to her chin, Rigo made her look at him. ‘What are you frightened of, Katie?’

Instead of answering, she traced the line of his beloved face with her fingertips until he captured her hands and kissed each fingertip in turn. Her skin was still prickling from contact with Rigo’s sharp black stubble. Tears welled in her eyes as the thought, sharp and dark, like the end of this romance, rose in her mind; there could be no happy ending.

‘So, signorina,’ he murmured against her lips, ‘have you no answer for me? Will you not tell me what is wrong, so I can help you?’

What is wrong? I love you with all my heart, she thought, and always will. My love for you fills every part of me with happiness…But she would never speak of this to Rigo. He was so confident and so happy. He was still at the top of the mountain, while she was rapidly slithering down it—though his sexy, slumberous eyes had begun to gain an edge of suspicion. In that brief moment she saw the same vulnerability everyone felt when they had bared their soul to another. And right on cue her scars stung a reminder of why this love for Rigo must go no further.

She pulled away. He dragged her close, kissing her until her soul was as bare as his. He tasted her tears and pulled back. ‘What aren’t you telling me? Is there someone else?’

‘No!’ she exclaimed; the idea was abhorrent to her. But Rigo’s voice had turned cold and everything had changed. Their brief idyll was over.

‘Katie?’

Someone else? No. Something else.

‘I knew it.’ He thrust her away. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’

Could he? Could he see the ridged skin—the ugly, ruined skin? Those foul red shiny scars stood between them as surely as another person—

‘Why don’t you just admit it?’ He launched himself from the bed.

Because she had wanted this too much.

But she had forgotten Rigo was not the tame, civilised man he appeared to the wider world, but a man who had survived life on the streets, fighting for every piece of bread he put in his mouth. Rigo had never stopped fighting, whether for his foundation or for his company and employees, or anyone else he believed needed someone to champion them, and he wasn’t about to lose this fight. Whirling round, he seized her wrists and tumbled her back onto the pillows. Holding her firmly in place, he cursed viciously in her face. ‘Not again! Do you understand me, Katie? Tell me the truth. Tell me why you have such a problem with commitment.’

‘There’s no one else—’

‘And I should believe you?’

But his grip had loosened fractionally.

‘I swear, Rigo—there’s only you.’

He let her go and sank down on the bed with his head in his hands.

‘You’re my world,’ she said. ‘You fill my mind every waking moment and my dreams are full of you when I’m asleep—’

‘Then I don’t understand,’ he said, looking up. ‘What’s standing between us? Tell me, Katie. I have to know. Maybe I can help you.’

This big, strong, powerful man, this man who was so confident he could make everything right for her if she only wanted it badly enough. But her voice would never come back and her scars would never go away. Could she burden him with that? Shaking her head, she clung to the edges of her blouse.

Rigo’s gaze followed her movement. ‘Oh, Katie,’ he murmured and, gently disentangling her hands, he brought them to his lips. Letting her go at last, he stood in front of her, stripping off his clothes. When he was completely naked he lay on the bed and drew her into his arms. ‘Why couldn’t you tell me the truth? Do you think my feelings for you are so fragile?’

As understanding flooded her brain shame suffused her. ‘It’s not my breasts.’

‘What, then?’ He went still.

Moments passed and then Rigo drew her to him. ‘You have to tell me, Katie. You can’t live like this.’

He was right. Without him she was only half-alive.

‘I’m going to take your blouse off.’ He started unfastening it. He shared his courage, staring into her eyes. He lifted her up into a place he inhabited, a place where problems were dealt with and not pushed aside. He slid the blouse from her shoulders and embraced her back. His hands explored and his expression never wavered. ‘Come to me, cara,’ he said, drawing her closer. ‘Trust me…’

And so at last she lay with her face pressed into the pillows while he looked at her back. Hot shame coursed through her. She felt dirty and ugly. She was repulsive. That was how she’d felt when she’d left the hospital and taken a long, hard look at herself in the mirror. Squeezing her eyes shut now, she pictured Rigo recoiling in horror. How could he not? He only had to measure his perfection against her flaws to know jokes didn’t come this bad.

But she waited in vain for his exclamation of disgust, and felt the bed yield as he lay down at her side. And then, incredibly, she felt him kiss her back…all down the length of the scars. And when he’d finished, he said softly, ‘Tell me—how do you think this changes you?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she mumbled, her voice muffled by the pillows.

‘Not to me. Is this what you were hiding from me?’

She turned her head to look at him.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Rigo murmured. ‘I can’t believe you would think me so shallow—’

‘I don’t. I think you’re perfect—so perfect, how can you not be disgusted?’

‘By you holding out on me, perhaps that might disgust me, but by these? You said you’d trained as an opera singer when we were at Gino’s, and the letter of introduction sent to me by your firm mentioned it, but it said nothing about a fire—’

‘I didn’t put it on my CV. I didn’t think it relevant to my new life.’

‘So you shut it out and tried to forget you were in a fire that left you badly scarred and stole your voice away? And every day you were reminded of what you’d lost each time you spoke or when you took your clothes off.’

‘It’s not so bad—’

‘Not so bad? You lost the future you’d planned. That’s big—huge, Katie. Who did you confide in? No one!’ he exclaimed when she remained silent. ‘And you’ve been hiding your feelings ever since?’

‘I had to hide my scars from you—’

‘Because you thought I would throw up my hands in alarm?’

‘Because I thought they would sicken you. I thought if you saw them they would take any feelings you might have for me and turn them sour and ugly.’

‘So how do you feel now when I tell you that I love you?’

‘You—’

‘Sì, ti amo, Katie. I will always love you. I can’t imagine life without you. You’re my life now.’

He stopped her saying anything with a kiss so deep and tender, she felt c

herished and knew the nightmare that had mastered her for so long didn’t exist in Rigo’s mind. Bottling things up, just as he had said, had allowed the consequences of the fire to ferment and expand in her imagination until they ruled her life. And now he was kissing her in a way that sealed the lid on those insecurities. There was no need for words; this was the ultimate reassurance.

Rigo made love to her all night and they woke in the morning with their limbs entwined, when he made love to her again while she was still half-asleep. To wake and be loved was the miracle she had always dreamed of, only it was so much better in reality. ‘I love you, Rigo.’ She said this, kneeling in front of him, naked. ‘You’ve made me strong.’

‘You’ve always been strong,’ Rigo argued. Taking hold of her hands, he drew her to him. ‘You just needed reminding how strong you are. If you weren’t strong you wouldn’t have chosen such a challenging path through life—first music, and now me.’

She laughed. How could she not? ‘I love you so much,’ she whispered, staring into his eyes.

‘You’re sure?’

‘You made it possible for me to love.’

‘So now the world is your oyster?’ he teased in his sexy drawl.

‘My world is you—’

‘Brava,’ he murmured with one of his killer smiles. Lowering her onto the bank of pillows beside him, he added, ‘Just remember, I love every part of you—not just this leg, or that finger, or these ears. I love the whole Katie.’

And the fierce pledge in his eyes said that as far as Rigo was concerned her scars did not exist. ‘I love every part of you that goes to make you the woman I love now and always.’