Читать книгу Modern Romance March 2017 Books 5 -8 - Дженнифер Хейворд, Natalie Anderson - Страница 12
ОглавлениеNew York Daily Buzz
Society Shocker!
Word has it the engagement of up-and-coming designer Angelina Carmichael and district attorney candidate Byron Davidson is off after a flashy soiree to celebrate the couple’s betrothal just two weeks ago.
The buzz about town is the prominent lawyer is clearly devastated at the split, perhaps suggesting it was Angelina who called it off?
One can’t help but wonder if the reason for the break comes in the form of none other than Angelina’s ex: sexy corporate raider Lorenzo Ricci. The two were seen dining at Tempesta Di Fuoco last week, conjuring up images of the couple’s tempestuous marriage that offered this column a regular supply of juicy news over its fiery but short duration.
Given the much lusted-after Lorenzo has been curiously devoid of a woman on his arm since the split, suspicion is running rampant that Angelina could be the cause.
The question on everyone’s lips is...are the Riccis back on?
OH, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE. Angie tossed the salacious tabloid on the coffee table in her studio, blood heating. Did those people not have better things to do with their time? Her heart sank as she imagined what Byron must be thinking. Feeling. How he was coping with the barrage of gossip that had spread through town faster than a forest fire eating up dry timber.
She hadn’t talked to him since the night after her confrontation with Lorenzo, when she’d given him back his ring. Since that kiss with her husband had made it clear she couldn’t marry her fiancé. Even if Lorenzo had miraculously changed his mind and offered to expedite their divorce, she still couldn’t have married her fiancé. Not after everything she’d done to prove she was over her husband, that she didn’t care about him anymore, had been exposed for the lie it was.
Her mouth turned down. That was why she’d felt so off the night of the engagement party. Because she’d been trying to convince herself she was in love with her ultraintelligent, grounded fiancé, that she wanted the opposite of her roller-coaster ride of a marriage, when in fact she had never truly gotten over Lorenzo—the man who had made her feel as if her emotions were out of control.
The movers, currently emptying her apartment above the studio of her possessions, stomped back in to take the final load of boxes out to the truck parked on the street. The ball of tension in her stomach grew as she witnessed what was left of her carefully constructed existence disappear before her eyes.
A conversation with her father had provided no alternatives to her husband’s proposition, only a suggestion by her father to repair the marriage she never should have left in the first place.
Potential investors were too spooked by Carmichael Company’s recent performance to touch the once lauded company, nor would her father’s pride allow him to hunt other offers of assistance. Which meant, as she’d feared, she was the only solution to this problem if her brother, James, who would someday soon run Carmichael Company and her sister, Abigail, were to have anything left of the company to inherit.
She picked up her coffee, taking a sip of the steaming brew and cradling the cup in her hands. Allowing Abigail to bear all the responsibility for her mother was also something she needed to fix. She had her life together now. She was strong. It was time to start assuming some of the responsibilities she’d been shirking so her sister could have a life, too.
Which didn’t negate the fear gripping her insides. The anger keeping her awake at night, tossing in her bed, leaving her hollow-eyed in the morning. That Lorenzo was forcing her into this reconciliation, using her family as leverage, made his intentions very clear. This was a power play for him like every other he executed on a daily basis. He wanted her back, needed his heir, so he’d made it happen.
It was not about his feelings for her. Or lack of them... About a sentimental, real desire to give what they’d had a second chance. It was about him repossessing what he felt was his. Staking his claim.
She set down her cup in its saucer. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it with her eyes wide-open, naïveté firmly banished. On her terms. She wasn’t going to allow him to take control, to overwhelm and intimidate her as he had the first time around. She wasn’t sacrificing the independence and freedom she’d carved out for herself and she wasn’t letting her husband break her heart again. Those were her rules.
Defiance drove her back to her worktable when the movers left, where her anger fueled a furious burst of productivity. By the time she finished up a couple of pieces for Alexander Faggini’s Fashion Week show, her watch read 7:00 p.m. Oops. She was supposed to be home having dinner with Lorenzo right now—their first night together again in the penthouse. Unfortunately, she was going to be at least a half hour late.
* * *
“How’s the deal going? Still mired in legalese?”
“Sì.” Lorenzo cradled his mobile between ear and shoulder while he poured himself a drink in deference to the end of the week. “There’s a few small points Bavaro and I have to work through. He’s been a bit of a wild card.”
“Bene.” Amusement danced in Franco’s voice. “I love watching Father on this one. To make Ricci the largest luxury hotel chain in the world is an accomplishment even he can’t match. It kills him to think of you surpassing his achievements.”
Lorenzo smiled. His father, retired now and serving on the boards of other companies, had an endless thirst for competition. That included the one he had with his sons. It had made the bonds between him and Franco even tighter as they had united to combat their father’s powerful personality, with Franco running the shipping operations out of Milan, while Lorenzo oversaw the rest of the company from New York.
“He needn’t worry he’ll be forgotten. He has more than his fair share of achievements.” Lorenzo lifted the whiskey to his mouth and took a sip. “So,” he said, as the fiery spirit burned a soothing path through his insides, “when were you going to tell me about the IVF? I have to hear it from the old man?”
A low oath. “I should have known he’d jump the gun. We didn’t get the results on the latest procedure until today. I was waiting until we knew for sure before laying that on you.”
“I figured it was something like that.” He paused a beat, searching for the right words. “So what was the verdict?”
“It didn’t work. Likely never will.”
A knot formed in his throat. “Mi dispiace. I know how much you and Elena wanted this.”
“It is what it is.”
The raspy edge to his brother’s voice gutted him. It always hurt to be so far away but right now it felt like the sharp blade of a knife. “How is Elena taking the news?”
“Not well. She’s claiming it’s her fault even though I’ve told her it could just as easily be me.”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t know the pain of being denied what he’d always assumed to be his, but he did know what it was like to lose a baby. How deeply it had cut when just a week after being given a clean bill of health, Angelina had inexplicably lost their child. How you didn’t know how much you wanted something until it was taken away from you.
“Be there for her,” he said quietly. Do what he hadn’t done.
Franco exhaled. “We might adopt. I don’t know...it’s a big step.”
“It is. Take your time with it.”
A pause. Franco’s tone was wary when he spoke. “Your reconciliation with Angelina... The timing is...”
“It’s not because of this. Yes, there is that, but it’s become clear to me Angelina and I have unfinished business between us.”
“She walked out on you, fratello. How much more finished do you want it to be?”
Lorenzo winced, pressed a hand to his temple. “I bear responsibility for the demise of my marriage, too. You know I have my ghosts.”
“Sì. But she changed you, Lorenzo. You shut down after she left. You don’t trust like you used to—you aren’t the same man.”
No, he wasn’t. His wife had taken a piece of him with her when she’d walked out that door on the heels of the loss of his child, his fledgling trust in life and love, his half-built bond with Angelina vaporizing on a tide of bitterness so thick he’d wondered if he would ever move past it. But with time, as his grief over Lucia had subsided, his own faults had been revealed. It would be delusional of him to lay the blame solely at his wife’s feet.
“Angie was young. She needed time to grow. I intend for our marriage to work this time.”
“Or you will take the house down around you as you try.” A wry note stained his brother’s voice.
Lorenzo asked about his mother’s upcoming birthday celebrations. They chatted about that for a few minutes before his brother signed off. Lorenzo leaned against the bar and nursed his drink while he waited for his wife to deign to appear.
The thought that he would have to produce the Ricci heir no longer evoked the violent reaction it had when his father had lobbed that grenade at him. Instead of feeling roped and tied, he felt strangely satisfied. As if his father’s directive had been the incentive he had needed to rewrite a piece of history that hadn’t gone down as it should have.
Two years after the death of Lucia, he had still been without a taste for women the night he’d met Angelina in Nassau. Plagued by demons, if the truth be known, over the wife he hadn’t protected. Until Angie had walked out on the terrace while he’d been talking to one of her father’s associates and he’d felt as if he’d been struck by lightning.
All it had taken was one dance, his hands taking purchase of her lush curves, before he’d found himself in an isolated part of the gardens taking over the seduction, driven by a need he couldn’t name. His libido had woken up like a five-alarm blaze by the time they’d made it to his luxurious room on the Carmichael estate. Somehow, in the haze of his still ever-present grief, Angie had brought him back to life.
His mouth twisted as he brought the whiskey to his lips. Little had he known that the passion they shared would devolve into the plot from The War of the Roses. That the only place he and his young wife would be in sync was in the bedroom, where they’d solved every argument with hot, burn-your-clothes-off sex.
The clock chimed seven thirty. His good mood began to evaporate. The elevator doors swished open a couple of minutes later, his wife breezing in dressed in black capris and a sparkly, peasant-style blouse. Her hair pulled back in a ponytail, face devoid of makeup, she was still the most exquisite woman he’d ever known.
“Long day?” he drawled, leashing his anger.
Pink color stained her cheeks. “It was. I had to finish up some pieces for a show. I’m sorry I’m late.”
No, she wasn’t. But for the sake of their fresh start and given everything he’d thrown at her, he cut her some slack. “Go change.” He cocked his head toward the bedroom. “Constanza unpacked your things. She left dinner in the oven. It’ll keep while we have a drink.”
Her eyes darkened at the order. Firming her mouth, she dropped her purse on a chair and swept by him.
“Angie?”
She swung around.
“Put your wedding rings on.”
She lifted her chin. “Is this how it’s going to be, Lorenzo? Just like old times? You firing orders at me? Expecting me to run and do your bidding?”
“Married people wear wedding rings.” He held up his left hand, the elegant, simple gold band she had given him glittering in the light.
Her face tightened. Turning on her heel, she disappeared down the hallway. When she returned, she was dressed in the comfortable black leggings she favored and a cream-colored tunic that fell just below her curvaceous derriere. Unfortunate, he decided. He’d have to fill in that part from memory.
“Drink?” he asked, walking to the bar.
“Mineral water, please.”
“It’s Friday night.”
“I’d still like mineral water.”
And the battle lines were drawn... He poured it for her, added a slice of lime and carried it out onto the terrace, where Angie had drifted. Strategically placed lanterns lit up a thirty-five-million-dollar view of the park.
He handed her the drink. Noted she wore her sapphire engagement ring and wedding band. “Which show?”
She blinked. “Sorry?”
“Which show are you designing for?”
“Oh.” She wrapped her fingers around the glass. “Alexander Faggini’s Fashion Week show.”
“That’s impressive.”
She lifted a shoulder. “A friend of mine introduced us. He thought my designs worked well with his. It’s an honor for me.”
“I’d like to see the collection.”
“Would you?” She turned those beautiful blue eyes on him. “Or are you just making an effort to appear interested?”
“Angelina,” he growled.
“It’s a fair question.” Her chin set at a belligerent angle. “I am, after all, playing at a start-up business that has somehow, magically, found success.”
He rested his gaze on hers. “Three-quarters of new businesses fail in this city. They don’t even last until their second year. You have done something extraordinary with yours. I’m proud of you. But at the time, it seemed like a long shot.”
“You didn’t think I had the talent? Not even with you nurturing me?”
There was a distinctly wounded edge to her eyes now. He blew out a breath. “I could see you were talented. But you knew I wanted my wife at home. We were having a baby.”
“You were like that after we lost the baby. When I desperately needed something to occupy my brain.”
His mouth flattened. “I could have supported you better, there’s no question about it. I should have. But someone had to run our life. I needed the sanity of you at home.”
“And I needed the sanity my work provided me.” She turned her gaze to the lush canvas of green spread out before them, Central Park in full, glorious bloom.
He studied the delicate line of her jaw, the stubborn set of her mouth, silhouetted in the lamplight. Defensive. Protective. It made him wonder about all the pieces of his wife he hadn’t known. Didn’t know. Had never attempted to know.
“Sanity from what?”
She shrugged. “My life. All of it.”
He frowned. He understood what being the offspring of a dynasty meant, because his family was as much Italian aristocracy as the Carmichaels were American royalty. Understood how the pressure of the relentless press coverage, the high expectations, the rules in their world could weigh a person down. What he had never understood was what about it his wife reacted so violently to.
“Why do you hate it so much,” he asked, sweeping a hand through the air. “This world? Why has being a Carmichael been so difficult for you? I could never figure it out. I know you have a combative relationship with your father and that having his affairs plastered across the media couldn’t be easy for you...but it always seemed like it was more.”
A cynical light shone in her gaze as she turned toward him. “Did it need to be more? Those affairs devastated my mother, cut her so deeply she never recovered.”
“No,” he agreed, “it doesn’t. My father worships the ground my mother walks on and rightly so. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been to watch your father disrespect your mother like that when she has stood by his side the entire time.”
Her dark lashes swept over her cheeks. “You see what everyone else sees. The glittering, perfect world of the Carmichaels. You don’t see the dysfunction on the inside.”
“So tell me about it,” he countered. “Help me understand.”
“They are private family issues. I would be betraying confidences if I did.”
“You are my wife. You can confide in me.”
Her mouth formed a stubborn, straight line. An oath left his lips. “This is one of those areas we need to fix, Angelina. How can we make this marriage work if there are big pieces of you I don’t know?”
“Like those big pieces of you I don’t know?” Her eyes flashed, a storm rising in their gray-blue depths. “You can’t press a button and summon emotional intimacy. Trust. It doesn’t work like that. It takes time and effort. If you want that from me, you have to lead by example.”
Heat seared his belly. He knew she was right. Knew he’d been operating on automatic pilot in the years after Lucia’s death, cauterizing his emotions, refusing to feel. But it wasn’t the easiest thing to admit.
“Bene,” he conceded harshly, opening his arms wide. “Consider me an open book, then. No subject is off-limits. Anything is fair game. But we are going to learn how to communicate—in ways that do not involve the bedroom.”
The stare she leveled at him rattled every nerve ending. Made him ache to resort to tried-and-true methods. But he wasn’t going there. He was making good on the promise he’d just given her.
“I think,” he said evenly, deciding a change of subject was in order, “we should host a party in the Hamptons over the long weekend. Marc Bavaro, the CEO of the Belmont chain, has a place there. I’d like to try and soften him up a bit. Get a few outstanding issues resolved. It would also provide an ideal opportunity to formally announce our reconciliation given the gossip that’s running rampant.”
She muttered something under her breath. His brow lifted. “Scusa?”
“I said to put your stamp on me. That’s why you want to have this party.”
“I already did that,” he murmured, eyes on hers. “Why would I need to make a public display of ownership when we both know the truth?”
A flush stained her cheeks. “Go to hell, Lorenzo.”
“I’ve already been there, cara. At least this time there will be a great deal of pleasure along with the pain.”
Her eyes locked with his. A long, loaded moment passed as they took a step into uncharted territory. Lashes lowered, his wife studied him, as if deciding whether to continue the charge.
Her chin dropped. “Everyone’s calendars will be full on the Labor Day weekend.”
“They’ll be doing the rounds. What’s one more stop? Speculation about us alone will pack them in.”
She gave him a pointed look as if to say that was exactly the issue. “I have to finish the pieces for Alexander so he can match them up with the show. If something doesn’t work, I’ll need to come up with an alternative.”
“It’s one weekend. There’s nothing pressing between now and then. Work around it.” He pointed his whiskey glass at her. “This is where we learn to compromise, Angie. You give, I give—that’s how it works.”
Her mouth flattened. “Fine.”
“Good. Gillian will plan it, you will contribute your guest list and the staff in the Hamptons will execute. All you need to do is show up.”
Her expression remained frozen. He sought the patience he was not known for. “I expect you to invite your family. Whatever’s going on between you and your parents, you need to fix it. This will be a good opportunity to do so.”
“No.” The word flew out of her mouth—swift and vehement. He lifted a brow. “I went to see them last week,” she explained. “They aren’t in the Hamptons much anymore in the summer. There’s no point in inviting them.”
“I’m sure they’ll make the effort to come. It will look strange if they’re not there given I do business with your father.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “Speaking of parents, mine will be visiting the week after the party. They’ll stay at their apartment, but we’ll host them here for dinner. Decide on a date with Gillian that works for you.”
Her face fell further, if that was possible. “What did you tell them? About us?”
“That we’ve decided to make this marriage work. That we made a decision in haste at a time when we were both in pain and now we are rectifying it.”
“So you chose to leave out the part where you’re bullying me into becoming your wife again?”
“I prefer to think of it as a mutually beneficial arrangement. Motivation for us to make this marriage work.” He leveled his gaze on her combative face. “We made a deal, a commitment to each other, Angelina. I meant it when I said your heart and soul have to be in it, but I’m not so unfeeling that I don’t understand you need time to adjust. After that settling-in period, however, I expect an attitude adjustment, because this is not how it’s going to be.”
* * *
An attitude adjustment? Angie was still fuming after she and Lorenzo had shared a tense, mostly silent dinner on the terrace, where she ate little and talked less. It had been so generous of him to concede she needed time and space after what he’d done to her. Clearly she should be falling into line, looking forward to spending more time with his PA than she did her husband.
Her mouth twisted. I meant it when I said your heart and soul have to be in it. He didn’t even have a heart...or a soul for that matter. What would he know about it?
Lorenzo was ensconced in his home office to finish some work, so she elected to have a hot bath and go to bed. Constanza had unpacked all her things in the light, airy master bedroom, with its gorgeous vistas of the park, the housekeeper’s usual ruthless efficiency putting everything back as if she’d never left.
It was eerie to pull a nightgown from a puddle of silk in a drawer and untangle her hair with the pearl-backed brush that sat on the dresser in the exact same place it used to be. On edge, her nerves in disarray, she headed for a rose-scented bath in the Italian-tiled en suite, immersing herself up to her ears in hot, cathartic bubbles.
All sarcasm aside, she was relieved with her husband’s acknowledgment they needed time—that he didn’t expect her to jump into bed with him as seamlessly as her brush had landed back on the dresser. But clearly, she thought, stomach knotting, given that her things were where they were, he expected her to share that bed with him. The thought made her search desperately for something else to focus on, like why he had rose-scented bath bubbles in here.
Either Constanza had been thoughtful, as she was wont to be, or they had belonged to one of his lovers. Because surely, the tabloids couldn’t be right? Surely her highly sexual husband, who’d thought he was divorced, had had other women?
You haunt me, Angelina, every time I’m with another woman... Her heart sank, a numb feeling settling over her. He’d pretty much admitted he had. Lorenzo wouldn’t have spent two years pining after her as she had him. Going dateless until Byron wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The thought of her husband with other women lanced her insides. She sank farther into the bubbles and closed her eyes. They had been so happy in the beginning. That’s what hurt the most. What might have been.
After Lorenzo had accepted the consequences of what a broken condom had produced, he’d submitted willingly to her mother’s ostentatious society wedding—what he’d considered a politically advantageous match, she suspected. She’d been too crazy about him to care.
They’d spent the first months of their marriage in a pheromone-induced haze, tuning out the world. In Lorenzo’s arms, her worries about why he’d married her had faded to black. He’d hungered after her with an intensity that had made her feel as if she’d been the most important thing on the planet to him, their addictive obsession with each other inescapable, unassailable. The wounded pieces of her, the parts that had been convinced she was unlovable after a childhood devoid of emotion, had begun to heal. For the first time in her life, she’d felt whole, as if she was worthy of love.
And how could she not? Having her husband focus on her, choose to engage, had been like having the most powerful force in the universe directed at her. Suddenly all the pieces of her life had been falling into place and happiness had seemed attainable after years of wondering if it even existed.
Until reality had interceded—one of Lorenzo’s big, flashy deals had come along, he’d immersed himself in it and their cozy cocoon had become her husband’s insanely busy life.
She’d learned being Mrs. Lorenzo Ricci had meant wining and dining his business contacts multiple times a week, their social schedule so exhausting for a pregnant Angie she’d barely been able to keep up. She’d begun to feel as if she was drowning, but Lorenzo hadn’t seemed to care, was too busy to notice.
It had all come to a head when they’d lost their baby. Her increasingly distant husband withdrew completely, rendering him a virtual stranger. He’d descended into the blackness, whatever hell had been consuming him, and they’d never recovered. But, apparently, she thought bitterly, it was her obsession with Lucia that had crippled their marriage—not his.
The water cooling, a chill descending over her, she got out of the bath and got ready for bed. Slipping the silk nightie over her head, her eyes were half-closed by the time she stood in front of the beautiful, chrome, four-poster bed.
Too many memories crowding her head, a burn in her chest so painful it was hard to breathe, she fought back the hot, fat tears that burned her eyes. I can’t do it. She could no more get into that bed as if the last two years hadn’t happened than she could convince herself that coming back to Lorenzo hadn’t been a big, huge mistake.
She padded down the hall to the guest room. Done in soothing pale blues and yellow, it evoked none of the master bedroom’s painful echoes. Pulling back the silk coverlet, she slid between the sheets. Peace descended over her. She was out like a light in minutes.
* * *
She woke to a feeling of weightlessness. Disoriented, half-asleep, she blinked against the velvet black of night. Registered the strong arms that cradled her against a wall of muscle. Heat. The subtle, spicy, familiar scent seduced her into burrowing closer. Lorenzo.
Lost in the half-awake state that preceded full consciousness, bereft of time and place, the dark, delicious aroma of her husband seeping into her senses, she flattened her palm against the hard planes of his chest. Reveled in his strength. Registered the rigid set of his body against hers.
Her eyes flew open, consciousness slamming into her swift and hard. The taut line of Lorenzo’s jaw jolted her the rest of the way to full alertness. Cold, dark eyes that glittered like diamonds in the dim light.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she stuttered as he carried her down the hallway and into the master bedroom.
He dumped her on the bed. “You can have all the time you need but you will sleep in here. We are moving forward, not backward.”
She pressed a hand into the mattress and pushed herself upright. “I—” She slicked her tongue over her lips. “I couldn’t get into this bed. There were too many memories, too many things I—”
“What?” he responded harshly. “Too many things you want to forget? Too much backstory you’d like to erase instead of facing it?”
She blinked, her eyes becoming accustomed to the light. Anger pulsed in his face—a living, breathing entity that made her heart tick faster. “Why are you so angry?”
“You weren’t in bed,” he said tersely. “I didn’t know where you were.”
He’d thought she’d left. Again. The realization wrote itself across her brain in a dazed discovery that had her studying those hot, furious eyes. She’d known instinctively that walking out on Lorenzo hadn’t been the right thing to do, but she hadn’t been equipped with the emotional maturity at twenty-three to handle the destruction they had wrought. Instead she had left Lorenzo alone to face the fallout of their marriage while she’d spent a month in the Caribbean with her grandmother. She’d never quite forgiven herself for it.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, reminding herself he had things to be angry about, too. “For leaving like that. I didn’t handle it the right way. I did what I thought was necessary at the time. I needed to find myself—to discover who I was. But it wasn’t right. I know that.”
He reached for the top button of his shirt, eyes on hers. “And did you succeed? Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes.” She laced her fingers together, eyes dropping to the sapphire that blazed on her finger. “I found me.”
“And who is she?”
“The true me,” she said quietly. “The one who spends her evenings with a sketch pad beside the bed, who gets to get up every morning and make those ideas into reality, tells a story someone might find beautiful. That’s what I love, Lorenzo. That’s when I am at peace.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then finished unbuttoning his shirt. She told herself to look away as he stripped it off, but her sleepy, hazy brain, her senses, still filled with the scent of him, the parts of her that still craved him like a drug demanded she watch. Absorb every lean, cut line he exposed, angling down to the V that disappeared into his belt line.
Heat lifting to her face, she lay back against the pillows. It didn’t matter how many times she’d seen Lorenzo naked, it still had the ability to fluster her beyond reason.
Seeking to distract herself, she voiced the one question her still unguarded brain needed to know as she lay staring at the ceiling. “Those women you talked about...did you sleep with them?”
* * *
Lorenzo balled up his T-shirt and tossed it in the hamper, struggling to get his anger under control. A part of him, the bitter, wounded part that hadn’t been able to enjoy the one woman he had taken to bed during their time apart, while she had apparently found her fiancé more than satisfactory, wanted to see her flinch, hurt. But something stopped him. He thought it might be the knowledge that if he followed through on that desire, it would haunt them forever.
Setting his knee down on the bed, he joined his wife. “I don’t think we should go there,” he said softly. “I said, forward, Angie, not back.”
Her face crumpled. “I want to know.”
A knot formed in his chest. He drew in a breath. Dannazione—he was not the injured party here.
“One,” he said evenly, “and no, I won’t tell you who she is.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t need to know.”
She closed her eyes.
Heat seared his belly. Blood fizzling in his veins, he threw a thigh over his wife’s silk-clad body and caged her in, forearms braced on either side of her head. “Angelina,” he murmured, watching as her eyes fluttered open, “you asked. And while we’re at it, let’s not forget about our friend Byron.”
Her lashes shaded her cheeks. “I didn’t sleep with Byron. We were waiting.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Waiting for what?”
“Until we got married.”
Incredulity that any man would marry a woman without knowing whether they were sexually compatible warred with the infuriating knowledge that she had lied to him.
“And yet you deliberately let me think you’d bedded him,” he murmured. “‘I have no complaints,’ was how I think you put it.”
Her eyes filled with an icy blue heat. “You blackmailed me back into this marriage, Lorenzo. If you think I’m going to apologize, think again.”
What he thought was that he had no idea what to think. Knowing his wife remained his and only his satisfied him on a level he couldn’t even begin to articulate. That she might be as haunted by him as he was by her...
He traced his gaze over her lush, vulnerable mouth. Across the enticing stretch of bare skin the askew neckline of her nightie revealed, down over the smooth flesh of her thighs where the silk had ridden up...the dusky shadow between her legs. Unbearable temptation. Hard as rock, he ached for her.
“Get off me.” His wife drew his attention back up to her flushed face.
His lip curled. “What’s the matter, mia cara? You afraid I’m going to penetrate those defenses you cling so desperately to? That make you feel so safe?”
A defiant look back. “Just like yours do?”
“Ah, but I am promising to open up.” A lazy smile twisted his lips. “I’m a caterpillar poised for transformation. You get to come out of your cocoon, too, and try your wings.”
“Very funny.” She pushed at his chest. “Off.”
He dropped his mouth to her ear. “An open book, Angelina. That’s what you and I are going to be. The brutal truth and nothing but. We might just survive this little experiment if we can offer each other that.”
He levered himself off his sexy, furious wife and headed for the bathroom. It occurred to him, then, as he stepped under a hot shower, his emotions a tangled mess, that he might have underestimated the power his wife still held over him. That both of them might end up getting burned before this was over.
