The Italian's Wife

wretched magazines had ripped her apart, not least because she knew that

she should have received that same information from him. And the very

fact that Rio had not told her only made her feel that her every worst

fear was justified.

Rio surveyed her with level dark golden eyes. 'There is no point

throwing a three-act tragedy, cara. It won't change anything.'

Totally disconcerted by that statement, Holly stared at him. 'What are

you talking about?'

Unimpressed, Rio slanted a dark brow. 'You've been hi a hellish sulk

ever since it dawned on you that I'm leaving you to your own devices for

the next week,' he informed her drily. 'But you'll have to get used to

the idea of getting by without me when I'm away on business.'

'Will I?' Something close to a hysterical giggle feathered in Holly's

tight throat as she realised how he had interpreted her silence and how

he had put his own rather demeaning spin on what lay behind her behaviour.

'It'll be a challenge for you at first because you haven't made friends

yet. But by this time next year you won't be dependent on me for

company,' Rio asserted with confidence, strolling closer and reaching

for her hands. 'You'll learn to lead your own life while I'm abroad. My

mother will support you. She knows a lot of people and you can get

involved in the charities we support through the foundation or, indeed,

in whatever else interests you.'

Her hands jerked in the warm hold of his. Her husband knew how besotted

she was with him and he thought that her poor little heart was just

breaking at the prospect of surviving an entire seven days without him.

And the way he was talking about a future in which they led separate

lives chilled her to the marrow.

130

As Holly yanked her fingers free of his hectic colour fired over her

cheekbones. 'Is that what Christabel would have done?'

Rio's sculpted mouth tightened, eyes hardening at what he clearly

translated as an ungenerous and potentially catty response. 'What she

might have done hardly concerns us.'

'Are you going to tell me why I had to read a flippin' magazine just to

find out that your ex-girlfriend is the world-famous model Chrissie

Kent?' Holly demanded half an octave higher.

Rio went very still, golden eyes gleaming from below luxuriant black

lashes. 'I don't quite understand the relevance of Christabel's public

profile.'

'Like heck you don't!' Holly snapped, her temper provoked by that cool,

snubbing response. 'You knew I had no idea. Couldn't you at least have

told me that much about her?'

Rio expelled his breath in an impatient hiss. 'I knew you'd be

intimidated. I knew you would beat yourself up making stupid

comparisons. So, no, I wasn't in a hurry to ram that fact down your throat.'

At that disconcertingly honest response, Holly lost every scrap of her

feverish colour. She felt as if she was standing there naked and as

see-through as clear glass. She felt humiliated that he should

understand her that well and face her with her own insecurity. 'Yes, it

would be a very stupid comparison to even try to attempt...wouldn't it?'

'Santo cielo...that's not what I meant!' Now anger brightened Rio's

gaze, tautened his lean, strong face. 'I just felt that you'd be better

equipped to deal with all that after we'd been married for a while.'

Holly's hands coiled into hurting fists. 'Oh, you know me so well, do

you? You think you can predict how I'm likely to react to everything?'

'It seems that on that particular score I was accurate.'

Holly refused to be squashed. 'But then your ex-girlfriend's public

profile, as you called it, was only the tip of the iceberg, wasn't it?

Like when were you planning to tell me just how little time passed

between you breaking up with her and getting involved with me?'

Perceptibly, Rio's big, powerful frame tensed.

'I want a date,' Holly told him feverishly. 'I want to know how much of

a time lag there was.'

'Believe me, bella mia...you don't,' Rio countered flatly.

'It was barely even a couple of weeks...I'm right, aren't I?' Holly

persisted, determined to get the truth out of him. 'Going by the date on

that magazine article, it couldn't have been much longer than a couple

of weeks since you'd broken up. Why else was Ezio warning me that you

weren't yourself when I first met you?'

His darkly handsome features froze. 'Thank you, Ezio. Tell me, do you

make a habit of discussing me with my employees?'

'Oh, I'll be sure to make a habit of it from here on in. It seems to me

I've got more chance of getting an honest answer from other people than

from you!' Holly condemned, refusing to be embarrassed by his freezing

disapproval and defending herself. 'I still remember what you said when

you asked me to marry you. You said you had been engaged "until

relatively recently". Which hardly suggests a gap of less than a month-'

'Leave it,' Rio cut in with ruthless bite. 'I'm going for that shower

before this ridiculous argument escalates any

more-'

In incredulous, seething frustration, Holly watched him resume stripping

off his clothes. Clad only in his Calvin Kleins, he headed for the bathroom.

'I could ask Ezio,' Holly threatened between gritted

132

teeth, although she knew that now that they were married she would never

ever go behind Rio's back like that, or indeed place the older man in

such an awkward position.

'I parted from Christabel an hour before you walked out in front of my

limo.'

Holly blinked. Those words hit her as though they were in a foreign

language she could not fathom, for in a self-protective act her brain

seemed to throw up barriers to her understanding. And then, without

warning, she grasped what he had said and there was no hiding from it,

no avoiding the reality that what he had just admitted was a hundred

times more devastating than she had expected.

Rio swung round, scanned her pale, shattered face and swore in roughened

Italian, but as he moved back towards her she backed away.

Holly parted dry lips. 'An...hour?'

Strong jawline clenching, he studied her with grim golden eyes. 'I don't

see that the precise amount of time is material in this particular case...'

An uneven laugh was dragged from Holly as she collapsed down on the side

of the bed, fearful her knees were about to give way under her. An hour.

Only an hour had passed between him leaving Christabel and first meeting

her, and forty-eight hours later he had hauled her off to bed. And he

expected her to accept that there was nothing relevant in that

super-shrunken timeline?

'You couldn't possibly have known what you were doing,' she said sickly.

No way did she need huge experience of men to make that statement. An

hour. It was laughable, terrifying, outrageous. And only two days later

Rio had proven that reality to her beyond all possible doubt by doing

something that she knew in her heart had been quite out of character for

him: taking her to bed.

&nb

sp; He wasn't the sort of bloke who went in for one-night stands. He wasn't

the sort of bloke who got a kick out of going to bed with some woman he

hardly knew just for the sheer hell of it. There were men like that but

Rio wasn't one of them. Rio had a real good-taste threshold. Rio had a

conscience. Rio was not an oversexed teenager with out-of-control hormones.

But Rio had one quirk which had betrayed both her and him: it would take

torture to make him talk about his own feelings. He would probably

sooner slow-roast over a hot fire than admit that he had been upset and

off-balance after breaking off his engagement. In fact, that was an

understatement, she recognised, and hadn't she seen the evidence of how

he was feeling for herself? His emotions had been seething, but more