Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

‘I don’t have to listen to this—’

But he moved fast and caught her arm, making her gasp—not in pain, but in the contact of flesh to flesh. He whirled her back round and Cara saw his raised hand. She reacted completely reflexively, flinching violently in his hold, ducking her head. Then she froze. An awful stillness descended around them and Cara’s breathing sounded unbearaby loud.

‘You think I would hit you?’ His voice was horrified.

Cara trembled from reaction and looked up, seeing Vicenzo’s eyes narrowed and how his mouth had tightened. She knew that of all things she feared about this man violence was not one of them.

She shook her head faintly. She realised now that his hand had merely been coming out to steady her. ‘No,’ she said shakily. ‘I don’t know what—’

Vicenzo was grim. ‘Someone hit you. Was it Mortimer?’

Cara couldn’t understand the feral glitter of his eyes. She shook her head again, mesmerised.

His hand gripped her even harder. He wasn’t going to let this go.

‘Who hit you, Cara?’

‘Why? Why do you even care?’ she asked desperately, wanting to find any way to avoid him seeing the inner, secretly vulnerable part of her. No one knew about this. Not even Rob or Barney. She was ashamed of it, of her weakness.

‘Tell me, Cara.’

And then he did something she couldn’t counter-attack. He gentled his hold on her and his hand became caressing, smoothing the skin it had held so tightly. Cara trembled and looked up at him, unaware of the mute plea in her eyes. But he would not budge.

She dropped her head and said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear, ‘Cormac. Sometimes when he was drunk he’d lash

out… Most of the time I avoided it…him…but sometimes…’

Vicenzo swore under his breath and let her go. Immediately Cara put space between them and rubbed her arm distractedly. She felt something move within her. ‘Like I said, not everything was as it seemed.’

‘So you keep saying’ was all Vicenzo said enigmatically as he looked at her from under hooded lids.

A long tense moment stretched between them as Cara looked at Vicenzo and willed him to believe her. And then a knock came on the door, making Cara jump minutely, her heart beating unsteadily.

Lucia appeared in the doorway and said, ‘Signore Valentini is waiting outside on the terrace for Cara…’

‘Chess…’ She looked at Vicenzo, but he still had that unreadable expression on his face. She shouldn’t have said anything. A sense of futility stole over her, zapping her energy. ‘I promised your father a game of chess this morning.’ She glanced down at the papers on the floor, the evidence of her own brother’s handiwork making her feel sick. ‘But I can stay here—’

‘No.’ Vicenzo sounded harsh. ‘Go to my father. I can clear this up.’

Vicenzo watched Cara leave the room with a straight back. The dark colours of the clothes she wore mocked him now. He raked a hand through his hair as he saw again the abject terror on her face when she’d thought he was going to hit her. That any woman should think that was absolute anathema to him. She was throwing up so many contradictions, and it made him feel strangely vulnerable. And that was not an emotion he cared to admit to. That feeling had almost devastated him once, and he would not allow it back in now.

That evening, after dinner, Vicenzo called Cara back when she would have made her escape after Silvio had retired. She turned reluctantly at the door, still smarting from their encounter earlier. Vicenzo stood and came around the table, the hands in his pockets stretching the material over his groin. Cara’s cheeks flared as she felt her body respond. The last few weeks of no contact made her skin prickle.

‘Yes?’

He looked at her steadily from under hooded lids. ‘It’s your birthday tomorrow.’

Cara blanched. It had been so long since anyone had remembered her birthday—not since her parents had died… Cormac certainly never had. She was turning twenty-three the next day.

‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly, not sure where he was going with this.

‘I have a villa on the Emerald Coast, in Porto Cervo. I’ll take you there tomorrow evening and we can go out for dinner…’

Cara gripped the door, her knuckles showing white. Suddenly the thought of leaving this villa was frightening in the extreme. ‘But why would you want to do that?’

He shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Call it a truce… I think we could do with a truce, don’t you?’

Cara shrugged as well, too bemused and confused to do anything else.