The Italian's Wife

He was so sure of himself, so sure he knew everything there was to know.

Recalling all the awful anxiety she had suffered just struggling to

survive, she felt reassured by that infinite confidence of his. So how

could she hold his patent belief that she would snatch at his offer of

marriage against him?

After all, here she was, dead keen on him and incapable of hiding it,

not to mention homeless and broke. Had he pretended a little uncertainty

as to his reception it wouldn't really have been convincing, she told

herself. He was incredibly good-looking and sexy and a huge catch for

someone like her. But he was also feeling guilty as hell over taking her

to bed, she reminded herself reluctantly. She really ought to be turning

him down flat. Wasn't it wrong to let him make such a massive mistake?

He didn't love

her, he hardly knew her, and in time he might even come to despise her

for the mistakes she would make trying to fit into his world. But he was

right, she could learn, and a part of her that she wasn't very proud of

desperately wanted that chance.

'I shouldn't say yes to this,' Holly breathed unevenly.

'But you will.' Rio leant down and closed his hands round hers to pull

her up to him. His sudden flashing smile as her cheeks blossomed with

self-conscious colour made her tummy somersault with excitement. The

warm, intrinsically familiar scent of him made her ache. The mere fact

that he was only inches away reduced her to quivering, melting

compliancy and, guilty as hell aside, she could see that he liked that,

he liked that very much. That she did not mistake.

He gave her the kind of brief kiss that he excelled at, provocative,

intimate, intensely erotic. Then he set her free again when she was

desperate to cling and every nerve-ending craved the heat of his passion.

"We'll be very uncool and wait for our wedding night,' Rio decreed, soft

and husky and boundlessly sure, it seemed, of his welcome.

And for the very first time Holly realised that she could crave him like

an addict and still want to scream at him.

91

Three days later Holly climbed into the limousine that would ferry her

to the wedding that had been arranged and the ceremony that would make

her Rio Lombardi's wife.

Ezio Farretti beamed at her in flattering admiration of her bridal

regalia but it felt so very strange to be alone, with neither friends

nor family for support, indeed none of the more personal trappings Holly

had once naively assumed would be part and parcel of such an event.

She had thought of phoning her parents and telling them that she was

getting married but had given up on the idea when it occurred to her

that naturally her parents would want to know all about her relationship

with Rio. How on earth could she admit that she was marrying a man she

had known for less than a week? She would have to wait until her

marriage was already an established fact before meeting up with her

parents again.

For three solid days she had done little but shop, first for her gown

and then for clothes for both her and Timothy that would suit a warmer

climate. That last instruction from Rio had actually caused a panic when

it had emerged that he was planning to take them abroad after the

wedding and she had confided that neither she nor her son had a

passport. Fortunately it had proved possible to redress that oversight,

but Rio's incredulity that anybody should be without a passport had

reminded her all over again of how different her world was from his, for

her parents had never been abroad in their entire lives.

Emerging from that recollection, Holly rearranged the skirt of her

dress, fearful of creasing the delicate folds before she arrived at the

church, desperately wanting to look the very best she could for Rio. She

had fallen in love with her ivory and gold wedding gown at first sight,

but Rio had told her to pick something traditional and a dress strongly

reminiscent of a medieval bride might not fit the bill, she reflected

anxiously.

Long pointed sleeves ornamented the boned V-shaped silk bodice which was

decorated with exquisite gold embroidery and laced tight at her tiny

waist, and the skirt was long and elegant. A fabulous sapphire and

diamond tiara was lodged in her bronze curls and she wore a matching and

equally impressive necklace and drop earrings. The set was Lombardi

family jewellery sent from Tuscany by special courier and Rio had

requested that she wear the items. She had had to tie on the earrings

with thread because her ears were not pierced and, terrified of losing

the earrings, she checked that they were still in place every few minutes.

In fact, nerves were eating Holly alive, for Rio had been abroad and she

had only spoken to him on the phone in recent days. Indeed, at one stage

she had honestly believed that the wedding might have to be cancelled.

The same day that she had agreed to marry him Rio had flown out to

Stockholm on business before travelling on to Florence to call on his

mother. Rio had hoped to bring the older woman back to London with him

to attend their wedding but Alice Lombardi had felt too weak to make the

trip.

'I was going to fly you out for the day so that you could meet,' Rio had

informed Holly on the phone twenty-four hours earlier before he

explained why he could not return that evening as he had hoped. 'But she

had palpitations and I had to call her doctor in. He prescribed complete

bedrest.'

Holly had repressed the troubled suspicion that her future mother-in-law

might have been felled by sheer horror that

92

her only son was about to wed a stranger who was not only an unmarried

mother but also a young woman from a background that in no way matched

their own. Since that possibility did not appear to have occurred to

Rio, she had not liked to mention it.

'What's Mrs Lombardi like?' she had asked Ezio.

'A fine woman,' he had responded. 'But a martyr to ill-health.'

'Maybe the wedding will have to be put off.' Holly had felt horribly

guilty at the dismay which had filled her at that prospect.

'Mrs Lombardi has a remarkable ability to pull back from death's door,'

Ezio had asserted bracingly. 'In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the

&nb

sp; lady outlives all of us.'

As the limousine turned off the road Holly was amazed to see that the

church appeared to be buried in a sea of parked cars and that there were

a lot of people standing outside the iron railings bounding the car

park. Had there been a wedding booked before their own and had it run on

late? Or was she arriving too early?

Leaning forward, she lifted the car phone to ask Ezio.

'They're all here for your wedding,' the older man informed her, his

astonishment at her question audible.

All those cars? Holly was aghast. She had assumed that there would be no

guests, had believed that their wedding would be a very quiet and

private affair. True, Rio had not said that, but he had told her to

leave Timothy at home with Sarah, and in the time frame concerned and

with him out of the country who on earth could have made arrangements

for so many people to attend?

As she emerged shakily from the car a seething crowd seemed to come out

of nowhere at her. Security guards held back the crush while aggressive

men with cameras shouted and urged her to look up. In the midst of that

fracas, she

was seized by a shock and fear so profound that had Ezio not seized her

elbow and hurried her on into the church she would have shot back into

the limousine and screamed at the chauffeur to drive off again.

In the church porch, she shivered and stared at Ezio in incomprehension.