The Italian's Doorstep Surprise

His new bride gave a dreamy smile. “I said I’ve never been so happy. I think we were meant to be. Soulmates. It was fate.”

Nico blinked, then felt a sudden shock of panic that he couldn’t explain. Just a moment before, he’d been thinking how contented he felt to be wed to her, how proud. But now he saw something in Honora’s shining eyes, some overwhelming emotion that scared him. And he imagined he saw a question in her lovely face, wordlessly asking if he felt the same.

He didn’t. His heart was a stone, had been since childhood. The only emotions he could still feel were anger and satisfaction and...anger. He felt satisfaction at the thought of possessing her, and winning his point, and bedding her, and starting a family with her.

But somehow he didn’t think she would be flattered if he told her what was in his shallow heart.

Cover, block, hide.

Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it. “I think,” he said huskily, “it is time for our guests to leave.”

“Nico!” Honora blushed, but he saw how she hid a smile and felt the tremble of her hand in his own. That was enough. He rose to his feet.

“Thank you all so much for coming to our wedding,” he said loudly, over the roar of the waves against the sand dunes. “But my wife...” My wife! What delicious words! “...is very tired, and so I’d like to invite you all to leave.”

“Oh...” Honora moaned softly, covering her pink face with her hands. For a moment, the guests were silent. Then he received help from an unexpected source.

“Quite right,” Patrick Burke said loudly, rising to his feet from the nearest table. The old man looked around at all the guests, almost entirely his and Honora’s friends. “If we leave now, we can beat the traffic back to the city!”

Beat the traffic. Those were magic words. Everyone looked at each other with alarm and, as if of one accord, rose to their feet.

“May I take you back in my Bugatti, Miss Swenson?” Theo asked the maid of honor, Emmie.

“Not a chance,” she responded crisply, then turned to hug Honora one last time. “Congratulations and good luck. You deserve everything good.” She bit her lip. “And I’m sorry for...for what I said before.”

“Nothing that wasn’t true,” Honora said, smiling, then handed her the bouquet of pink roses. “You’re a good friend. The best. Thanks for being here for me.”

“What was that all about?” Nico asked, as the guests crossed the grassy bluff back toward the sprawling mansion, back toward valet parking.

Honora watched them go, including her grandfather, who was holding Phyllis’s hand tightly as they departed, and Emmie stumbling over the dunes with her family, and Theo, now flirting with Lana Lee.

Now there was an interesting idea for a couple, Nico thought. Though they were so similar in their selfishness that they might kill each other.

“I feel bad...” Honora whispered, watching her maid of honor.

“About what?”

She turned back with a small smile. “Nothing.”

“Good,” he said, because the last thing he wanted to do was talk. Standing together on the grassy bluff, beside the flower-strewn wedding arch overlooking the vast blue-gray Atlantic, Nico pulled her into his arms.

“Kiss me, Mrs. Ferraro,” he whispered.

Reaching up, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his.

At her touch, something in his heart unfolded. His body relaxed and grew tight all at once. His hands moved in her dark hair, and pink rose petals whirled around them in the soft ocean breeze as she wrapped her arms around him, holding him close.

With an intake of breath, he lifted her up into his arms to carry her back to the house. Even at seven months pregnant, her weight felt negligible, as she pressed herself against him, so soft and warm. In this moment, he would have killed anyone who tried to take her away from him. Their eyes locked with wordless hunger as he carried her inside the sprawling beachside mansion.

Inside, the back foyer was empty, deserted. The staff was gone. She looked around.

“Where is everyone?”

“I told Sebastian we wanted to be alone after the reception...to pack for the honeymoon. Bauer is waiting at the car.” The Rolls-Royce had been festooned with flowers to take them to the airport. “We’re due to leave in an hour.”

“I’m so excited. I’ve never been to Italy.” She gave a crooked smile. “The farthest I’ve ever traveled is New Jersey.”

Nico wished she hadn’t chosen the Amalfi Coast for their honeymoon. She’d said she wanted to see the country where he’d been born, but it only reminded him of unfinished business there.