The Reluctant Husband

‘But you don’t...that’s the trouble—that’s the problem,’ Santino contradicted her almost fiercely, slapping down her challenge before it could even get off the ground. ‘You just do what you feel like doing at any given moment. I swear that in all your life you’ve never looked more than thirty seconds forward into the future! And that recklessness is like a contagious disease that has spread to afflict me as well...but with me it stops, here and now!’

Having delivered that character assessment with the speaking incredulity and censure of a male who regarded her impulsive spontaneity as a highly dangerous weakness likely to lead to dire consequences, he sprang fluidly upright and strode away from her with determination. ‘I’ll run you a bath and have an evening meal sent up. You must be hungry...I know I am.’

Frankie scrambled off the bed, secured the vibrant blue throw with a knot above her breasts and hurried across the room to lodge herself in the doorway of the breathtakingly luxurious bathroom. She watched him turning on the gold taps above a big oval-shaped tub and his every measured graceful movement enthralled her. Indeed every facet of Santino enthralled her quite unashamedly now that she had admitted to herself that she was still head over heels in love with him.

Had that gorgeous black hair always flopped over his brow like silk when he bent down? Did any other male possess such wondrously shapely and erotically assured hands? She felt the deep, intimate ache of his possession with instinctive pride. Whether he had liked it or not, Santino had needed her, and similiarly, it seemed, Santino could be passion’s slave.

So he wasn’t exactly happy about that reality just at this moment, but that wild bout of lovemaking had acted like some sort of catharsis on him. That chilling anger and detachment had gone. She had the Santino she remembered back and, dear heaven, he was so perfect it was all she could do to restrain herself from hurling herself ecstatically into his arms. He could be so tender, so caring. There he was, running a bath for her. He had even admitted himself to have been in the wrong. So many men found that impossible.

She really had picked a winner at sixte

en. If only she could make him feel the same way this time...if only she could make him fall in love with her within the space of three weeks. Please, God, she prayed, fervently promising that if she got to hang onto Santino she would try never to ask for divine intervention again.

Santino straightened to find himself the sole focus of her utterly mesmerised attention. Slight colour burnished his superb cheekbones, stunning dark eyes veiling fast. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he breathed very, very quietly.

‘Like what?’ Frankie was dizzy with the overpowering strength of her emotions and the amount of restraint it took to keep her distance from him.

Santino expelled his breath in a stark hiss. ‘Having a good time in bed doesn’t naturally mean that I love you or that you love me, piccola mia...’

Even softly voiced, and couched with that old endearment, the message still went home with the force of an axe attack on a vulnerable target. Frankie went white. Her gaze slewed to the water shimmering in the depths of the tub. ‘I know that,’ she tried to say with a light, dismissive laugh, but somewhere between her throat and her lips the laugh got horribly strangled and emerged like a discordant squeak.

‘Right now, you don’t know what you’re feeling,’ Santino informed her arrogantly. ‘A long time ago you were infatuated with me...and now I’ve become your very first lover—’

‘There was no stopping you!’ Frankie reminded him helplessly.

‘But if I had known you were a virgin, if you had been honest with me, Francesca...I would never have touched you,’ Santino countered with that brand of deadly sincerity that struck like a cobra when it was least welcome. ‘When I believed that you were experienced, demanding the wedding night I had never had did not seem such a big deal.’

Frankie crossed her arms in a jagged motion, tucking shaking hands out of sight. ‘No big deal... oh?’ Even to her own ears, her voice sounded unnaturally shrill, which wasn’t surprising when she felt as if she was dying by inches with every word he spoke.

‘Possibly that wasn’t the best choice of words,’ Santino conceded, his hard jawline clenching. ‘But you did go out of your way to convince me that you had had other lovers... Francesca, this really isn’t a conversation I want to have with you right now. I think what we both need is a little breathing space from each other.’

That news could only devastate her. She could feel her brittle control over her tumultous emotions breaking up. ‘I see...yes, I really do see—in spite of my lack of sexual sophistication. You’re the kind of creep who has one-night stands and vanishes like Scotch mist before dawn!’

‘How would you know? Dio mio...you’ve never had anyone else to compare me with!’ Santino launched at her rawly.

Frankie’s spine was planted so hard up against the tiled wall, she was convinced she would bear the impressions of the lines of grouting for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t have stayed upright without that support.

Santino slowly shook his darkly handsome head and rested steady dark eyes on her. ‘And possibly I’m not sorry to know that... But what I’m trying to say is that—’

‘You’ve come to your senses now...and you’ve had what you wanted, so get lost?’ Frankie slotted in with distaste and pain. ‘There, I’ve said it for you and saved you the trouble of saying anything!’

At that assurance, Santino’s facial muscles tensed with fierce anger. He raised his arms high in a movement that fully illustrated his wrathful impatience and dropped them again. Scorching dark golden eyes struck hers. ‘You’re so bloody melodramatic! Listen to yourself,’ he grated. ‘How the hell could I say such things or even think them? Not only are you my wife, you might even be pregnant with my child!’

‘Oh, not that again.’ Frankie studied her bare pink toes as they tried to curl like strained claws into the immaculate tiled floor. It stopped her whole body from drooping. It stopped her lashing out at him in an agony of pain for telling her yet more that she didn’t want to hear.

‘Can you tell me it isn’t an even greater possibility now? Santo cielo...I couldn’t even wait long enough to get my clothes off; do you think I had the presence of mind to protect you?’ Santino demanded rawly.

‘I want my bath,’ Frankie announced, staring at the tub as if it might yet provide an escape hatch to another world, because it was devastatingly clear that Santino just could not wait to escape from her. ‘And then I’m going home to London where I intend to go for the fastest divorce on record.’

Temper in check again, Santino dealt her a fulminating look. ‘You will go nowhere. I’ll use my city apartment for a couple of days. As I pointed out, neither of us is sufficiently grounded in calm or reality at this moment to be rational.’

Frankie had already turned away. ‘Just go, then!’ she urged him feverishly.

‘Look at me...’

‘I don’t want to...I just want to be alone now—’

Santino strode forward and curved strong hands over her rigid shoulders. ‘I can’t leave you feeling like this, cara.’