Читать книгу The Scandalous Orsinis - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 9

IT WAS like being trapped in a nightmare. One minute, Rafe was about to launch into his father’s all-too-florid verbal apology. The next—

The next, Chiara Cordiano was lying as limp as laundry in his arms.

Was she faking it? The woman was a class-A actress. First a tough bandit, then a demure Siciliana, when the truth was, she was anything but demure.

A little while ago, she’d attacked him with the ferocity of a lioness.

And there’d been that sizzling flash of sexual heat.

Oh, yeah. The lady was one hell of an actress and this was her best performance yet. Claiming he’d tried to seduce her. He’d kissed her, was all, and one kiss did not a seduction make.

The don was holding his capo back with a hand on his arm and an assortment of barked commands. Rafe knew that Pig Man wanted to kill him. Good. Let him try. He was more than in the mood to take on the load of lard.

First, though, the woman in his arms had to open her eyes and admit she’d lied.

He looked around, strode to a brocade-covered sofa and unceremoniously dumped her on it. “Chiara,” he said sharply. No response. “Chiara,” he said again, and shook her.

Pig Man snarled an obscenity. Rafe looked up.

“Get him out of here, Cordiano, or so help me, I’m gonna lay him out.”

The don snapped out an order, pointed a finger at the door. The capo shrugged off his boss’s hand. Like any well-trained attack dog, he did as he’d been ordered but not without one last threatening look at Rafe.

“This is not over, American.”

Rafe showed his teeth in a grin. “Anytime.”

The door swung shut. Cordiano went to a mahogany cabinet, poured brandy into a chunky crystal glass and held it out. Give it to her yourself, Rafe felt like saying but he took the glass, slipped an arm around Chiara’s shoulders, lifted her up and touched the rim of the glass to her lips.

“Drink.”

She gave a soft moan. Thick, dark lashes fluttered and cast shadows against her creamy skin. Wisps of hair had escaped the ugly bun and lay against her cheeks, as delicately curled as the interior of the tiny shells that sometimes washed up on the beach at Rafe’s summer place on Nantucket Island.

She looked almost unbelievably fragile.

But she wasn’t, he reminded himself. She was as tough as nails and as wily as a fox.

“Come on,” he said sharply. “Open your eyes and drink.”

Her lashes fluttered again, then lifted. She stared up at him, her pupils deep as a moonless night and rimmed by a border of pale violet.

“What… what happened?”

Nice. Trite, but nice.

“You passed out.” He smiled coldly. “And right on cue.”

Did defiance flash in those extraordinary eyes? He couldn’t be sure; she leaned forward, laid cool, pale fingers over his tanned ones as she put her mouth to the glass.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. A couple of sips and then she looked up at him. Her lips glistened; her eyes were wide. The tip of her tongue swept over her lips and he could imagine those lips parted, that tongue tip extended, those eyes locked, hot and deep, on his—

A shot of raw lust rolled through him. He turned away quickly, put the glass on a table and stepped back.

“Now that you’re among the living again, how about telling your old man the truth?”

“The truth about.” Her puzzled gaze went from her father to Rafe. “Oh!” she whispered, and her face turned scarlet.

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. Her reactions couldn’t be real. Not the Victorian swoon, not her behavior at the memory of what had happened in the car. He’d kissed her, for God’s sake. That was it. He’d lifted her into his lap and kissed her and, okay, she’d ended up biting him, but only after she’d responded, after he’d gotten hard as stone and she’d felt it and…

And he’d behaved like an idiot.

He was not a man who did things like that to women. A little playing around during sex was one thing; he’d had lovers who liked a hint of domination, but having a woman whisper “more” even as she pretended something else was not the same as what had happened with Chiara Cordiano.

What in hell had gotten into him? He’d been furious, but anger had nothing to do with sex… did it?

It was a subject to consider at another time. Right now he might just have a problem on his hands. This culture had its roots in times long gone. Its rules, its mores, were stringent.

Back home, a kiss, even a stolen one, was just a kiss. Here it could be construed as something else.

“Don Cordiano,” he said carefully, “I kissed your daughter. I’m sorry if I offended her.”

“And I am to accept your apology?”

The don’s tone was arrogant. It made Rafe bristle.

“I’m not asking you to accept it,” he said sharply, and turned to Chiara. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. If I frightened you, I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps you would care to explain how you managed to meet with my daughter before you met with me.”

Perhaps he would, Rafe thought, but he’d be damned if he’d stand here and admit he’d almost been bested by a slip of a girl and an old man. Besides, that part of the story belonged to Cordiano’s daughter, he thought grimly, and looked at her again. But she locked her hands together in her lap, bent her head and studied them as if she had no part in this conversation.

The hell with that.

“Your turn, signorina,” Rafe said coldly.

Chiara felt her heart thump. The American was right.

This was the time for her to say, “You have it wrong, Papa. This man didn’t ‘meet’ me, not the way you make it sound. I stopped him on the road and tried to scare him away.”

What a joke!

Instead of scaring him away, she’d brought him straight to San Giuseppe. And she couldn’t explain that, not without telling her father everything, and that meant she’d have to tell him about Enzo.

No matter what the consequences, exposing Enzo’s part in the mess would be fatal.

She knew her father well. He would banish Enzo from San Giuseppe, the place where the old man had spent his entire life. Or—her heart banged into her throat—or Enzo could suffer an unfortunate accident, a phrase she’d heard her father use in the past.

She was not supposed to know such things, but she did. When she was little, her father would say that Gio or Aldo or Emilio had left his employ but by the time she was twelve, she’d figured it out.

No one “left” the don. They had accidents or vanished, and their names were never mentioned again.

She could not risk having such a thing happen to Enzo. And yet if she didn’t come up with something, who knew what her father might do to Rafe Orsini? Not that she cared about him, but she surely didn’t want his “accident” on her conscience.

“Well? I am waiting.”

Her father wasn’t talking to her; he was glaring at Raffaele Orsini… but she would reply. She would make up the story as she went along and pray the American would not correct her version.

“Papa. Signor Orsini and I met when I—when I—”

“Silence!” her father roared. “This does not concern you.

Signor Orsini? I demand an explanation.”

“Demand?” Rafe said softly.

“Indeed. I am waiting for you to explain your actions.”

Her father’s face was like stone. Chiara had seen men cower from that face. Orsini, for all his studied toughness, surely would do the same. That patina of arrogant masculinity would crumble and he’d tell her father the entire story.

“I don’t explain myself to anyone,” the American said coldly.

Her father stiffened. “You came here to beg my forgiveness for an insult half a century old. Instead, you insult me all over again.”

“I don’t beg, either. I offered you my father’s apology, and I apologized to your daughter. As far as I’m concerned, that ends our business.”

Chiara held her breath. The room seemed locked in stillness, and then her father’s lips curved in what was supposed to be a smile. But it was not; she knew it.

Still, what he said next surprised her.

“Very well. You are free to leave.”

The American nodded. He started for the door as her father strode toward her.

“On your feet,” he snarled.

Raffaele Orsini had already opened the door, but he paused and turned around at her father’s words.

“Let’s be clear about something, Cordiano. What happened—that I kissed your daughter—wasn’t her fault.”

“What you say has no meaning here. Now, get out. Chiara. Stand up.”

Chiara rose slowly to her feet. Her father’s face was a study in fury. She knew he would have hurt her if she were a man, but some old-world sense of morality had always kept him from striking her.

Still, he would not let what had happened pass. Raffaele Orsini could insist that the kiss had not been her fault until the end of eternity. Her father would never agree. A woman was supposed to defend her honor to her last breath.

She had not.

Someone had to pay for the supposed insult her father had suffered and who else could that someone be, if not her?

Her father’s eyes fixed on hers. “Giglio!” he barked.

The capo must have been waiting just outside. He stepped quickly into the room.

“Si, Don Cordiano?”

“Did you hear everything?”

The fat man hesitated, then shrugged. “Sì. I heard.”

“Then you know that my daughter has lost her honor.”

Rafe raised his eyebrows. “Now, wait a damned minute…”

“All these years, I raised her with care.”

“You didn’t raise me at all,” Chiara said, her voice trembling. “Nannies. Governesses—”

Her father ignored her. “I saw to it that she remained virtuous and saved her chastity for the marriage bed.”

“Papa. What are you talking about? I have not lost my chastity! It was only a kiss!”

“Today, she chose to throw away her innocence.” The don’s mouth twisted. “Such dishonor to bring on my home!”

Chiara laughed wildly. Rafe looked at her. Her cheeks were crimson; her eyes were enormous. Somehow the tight bun had come undone and her hair, thick and lustrous, swung against her shoulders.

“I’ve brought dishonor to this house?”

The don ignored her. His attention was on his capo.

“Giglio,” he said, “my old friend. What shall I do?”

“Wait a minute,” Rafe said, starting toward the don. Pig Man stepped in his path; he brushed him aside as if he were no more than a fly. “Listen to me, Cordiano. You’re making this into something that never happened. I kissed your daughter. I sure as hell didn’t take her virginity!”

“This is not America, Orsini. Our daughters do not flaunt their bodies. They do not let themselves be touched by strangers. And I am not talking to you. I am talking to you, Giglio, not to this… this straniero.”

Pig Man said nothing, but his tiny eyes glittered.

“I cannot even blame him for what happened,” Cordiano continued. “Foreigners know nothing of our ways. It was all my daughter’s fault, Giglio, and now, what am I to do to restore our family’s honor?”

Holy hell, Rafe thought, this was like something out of a really bad movie. The furious villain. The terrified virgin. And the pig, licking his thick lips and looking from the woman to the don as if the answer to the question might appear in neon in the space between them.

“Okay,” Rafe said quickly, “okay, Cordiano, tell me what will stop this nonsense. You want me to direct my apology to you? Consider it done. What happened was my fault entirely. I regret it. I didn’t mean to offend your daughter or you. There. Are you satisfied? I hope to hell you are because this… this farce has gone far enough.”

He might as well have said nothing. Cordiano didn’t even look at him. Instead, he spread his arms beseechingly at his capo.

Giglio was sweating. And all at once Rafe knew where this nightmare was heading.

“Wait a minute,” he said, but Cordiano put his hand in the small of Chiara’s back and sent her flying into the meaty arms of his capo.

“She is yours,” he said in tones of disgust. “Just get her out of my sight.”

“No!” Chiara’s cry echoed in the room. “No! Papa, you cannot do this!”

She was right, Rafe thought frantically. Of course Cordiano couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.

But Cordiano had taken a telephone from his desk. It, at least, was a symbol of modernity, bright and shiny and bristling with buttons. He pushed one, then spoke. Rafe’s Italian was bad, his Sicilian worse, but he didn’t need a translator to understand what he was saying.

He was arranging for Chiara and Pig Man to be married.

Chiara, who understood every word, went white. “Papa. Please, please, I beg you—”

Enough, Rafe thought, He tore the phone from Cordiano’s hand and hurled it across the room.

“It’s not going to happen,” he growled.

“You are nobody here, Signor Orsini.”

Rafe’s lips stretched in a cold grin. “That’s where you’re wrong. I am always somebody. It’s time you understood that. Chiara! Step away from the pig and come to me.”

She didn’t move. Rafe took his eyes from Cordiano long enough to steal a look at her. He cursed under his breath. That last faint had probably been a fake. This one wouldn’t be. She wasn’t just pale, she was the color of paper.

“Giglio. Let go of the lady.”

Nothing. Rafe took a breath and dug his hand into his pocket, snagged his BlackBerry and shoved it forward so it made a telltale bulge. As he’d hoped, the capo’s eyes followed.

“Do it,” he said through his teeth, “and you might have an unfortunate accident.”

That was all it took. The pig’s arms dropped to his sides. Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Rafe struggled not to laugh. He could almost hear his brothers’ howls when he told them how he’d faked out a man who was surely a stone-cold killer with his trusty PDA.

“Chiara. Get over here.”

She crossed the room slowly, her eyes never leaving his. When she reached him, he took her wrist, brought her close to his side. She was shaking like a young tree in a wind storm; her skin felt clammy under his fingers. He cursed, slid his arm around her waist and tucked her against him. She came willingly and his anger toward her gave way to compassion. Sure, this whole damned mess was her fault—he’d kissed her, but if she hadn’t pulled that stupid trick on the road, it never would have happened—but her father’s reaction, even for an old-line Sicilian, was way out of line.

“It’s okay,” he said softly.

She nodded. Still, he could hear her teeth chattering.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

She looked up at him, eyes glittering with unshed tears, and shook her head. Her loosened hair drifted across one side of her face and he fought back the sudden crazy desire to tuck the strands back behind her ear.

“No,” she said, so softly that he could hardly hear her. “My father will give me to Giglio.”

Rafe felt his muscles tense. Give her away. As if she were Cordiano’s property.

“He won’t. I won’t let him.”

Her mouth trembled. She said something, so quietly he couldn’t hear it, and he cupped her face, lifted it to his.

“What did you say?”

She shook her head again.

“Chiara. Tell me what you said.”

She took a long, deep breath, so deep that he could see the lift of her breasts even within the shapeless black dress.

“I said he will do what he wishes, Signor Orsini, once you have gone.”

Was she right? Was this only a temporary respite from her father’s crazed insistence that the only way to restore the honor she had not lost was by marrying her off?

The sound of slow applause made him look up. Cordiano, smiling, was clapping his hands together.

“Bravo, Signor Orsini. Nicely done. I see that your father raised you properly. In fact, you are very much like him.”

Rafe shot a cold look at the other man. “I assure you, Cordiano, I am nothing like my father.”

“It was meant as a compliment, I assure you. You are quick. Strong. Fearless. As for your earlier refusal to admit that you wronged my daughter…” The don smiled. “That is behind us.”

Maybe he’d been mistaken. Maybe coming to Chiara’s rescue had been enough to set things straight. Rafe forced an answering smile.

“I’m happy to hear it.”

“Gossip can spread as swiftly as a sirocco in a town like this. And people do not forget things that steal one’s honor.

“ Back to square one.

Rafe looked down at the woman who stood in the protective curve of his arm. She was calmer, though he could still feel her trembling. His arm tightened around her. What in hell was he going to do? Of course she was right; as soon as he drove away, the don would force her into a marriage, if not with the disgraced Pig Man then with someone else. Some hard-eyed, cold-faced butcher like the ones he’d seen lounging in the castle’s entry hall.

Chiara Cordiano would become the wife of a thief and a killer. She would lie beneath him in her marriage bed as he forced her knees apart, grunted and pushed deep inside her….

“All right,” Rafe said, the words loud in the stillness of the room.

Cordiano raised an eyebrow. “All right what, Signor Orsini?”

Rafe took a long, seemingly endless breath.

“All right,” he said roughly. “I’ll marry your daughter.”