Delucca's Marriage Contract

Something resolute crossed his face as if he was fighting a similar battle in his own head. He stepped back and let her hand go. Keelin’s blood was pumping so fast that she felt a little light-headed.

A doorman opened the door for them and Gianni introduced him as Lorenzo. Keelin smiled politely, and then they were ascending in the lift and the confined steel box was doing little to make her less aware of him. He seemed to take up a ridiculous amount of space.

When the doors slid open, there was a small plush corridor and Gianni was opening the door into the most stunning apartment Keelin had ever seen. She tried not to be impressed, to affect a blasé response, but it was a challenge not to let her jaw drop.

It was enormous, obviously the length and width of the building. Open plan but broken up by seriously luxurious discreet furnishings. Everything from the art on the walls to the rugs on the floors was perfectly pitched and placed. Seriously impressive.

She’d been facing away from Gianni and now he walked around in front of her. She quickly schooled her features into something more disinterested and said, ‘This is your only home in Rome?’

Gianni nodded. ‘What did you expect, cara? A palatial villa on one of Rome’s most exclusive hills overlooking gardens that belonged to emperors?’

Keelin made a small shrug and said, ‘I wasn’t sure what to expect.’ Hoping to project disappointment.

Gianni said dryly, ‘I do also own a villa in Umbria.’

Keelin feigned delight. ‘I believe it’s beautiful there.’

‘It is. I expect it’s where you’ll spend a lot of time once we’re married, but of course you’ll be welcome in the city whenever you need diversion.’

Gianni walked over to a phone, saying, ‘I’ll call the chef and let him know we’re ready to eat.’

It was just as well he was facing away from her because Keelin was glaring at his back. He expected that she’d be happy to be farmed out to some crumbling Italian villa so that he could get on with his own, obviously far more important, life?

Maybe he saw her out there with a brood of dark-haired sons, grooming them to be the perfect heirs. For a second though, Keelin’s anger was pierced by something very scary to think of a miniature Gianni running around.

She crushed that image ruthlessly. This is exactly what her parents had done. Left her alone in their cavernous house for long months at a time. It was time to push Gianni off his complacent perch.

Within seconds of him making the call, discreet staff were preparing the dining room and he led her into the glass-walled space. Keelin did her best not to notice the stunning decor and assured herself she wouldn’t be coming here for diversions.

Staff opened some champagne and she pushed down the queasiness, saying brightly, ‘We should probably discuss the important stuff, like children.’

Gianni looked at her, cheeks flaring slightly with colour—because she was talking about this in front of his staff? He waited until they were alone and he lifted his glass of sparkling wine. ‘You want to discuss that now?’

Keelin took a sip of the champagne and tried not to let her aversion to it show on her face. When she put her glass down she tried to look serious. ‘Better now than never.’

She leant forward a little and said conspiratorially, ‘Honestly? I didn’t imagine even contemplating children until I’m in my thirties. But obviously in light of this engagement I’ve been thinking about it.’

She bit her lip as if this pained her to say. ‘To be perfectly frank, the idea of labour and being pregnant is a serious downer. But I’d be open to adopting.’

She sat back again and elaborated as their starters were delivered. ‘A friend of mine adopted a baby from Africa and she’s so cute! All the big designers have kids’ collections now, and naturally she has a nanny to take care of the day-to-day stuff.’

‘You mean the child rearing.’

Keelin took a bite of food and pretended to be distracted. ‘What? Oh, yes, that’s what I mean.’

She risked a glance and Gianni was looking at her with a hard expression and Keelin feigned surprise and put her fork down. ‘Oh, had you intended on having children, for real? Like, your own?’

His jaw was tight, he wasn’t touching his food. ‘Call me old-fashioned but yes, I had anticipated having children of my own.’

Keelin’s anger flared again at the way he’d obviously decided he’d have no problem with children resulting from a cold and clinical union. She forced her irritation down and said pseudo-sympathetically, ‘And you’d imagined your wife bringing them up in the villa?’

‘Something like that. My mother was my main carer, not a nanny.’

Keelin rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky you. I had a veritable parade of nannies.’ She made a faint grimace. ‘I wasn’t the easiest child apparently, but I’m sure it’s not hereditary.’

Gianni seemed prepared to let that little nugget go and frowned. ‘Where was your mother?’

Keelin pushed down the old bitterness and said airily as if it hadn’t mattered a jot, ‘Oh, you know, with Daddy on trips, or away on holidays, or shopping. I was in boarding school most of the time.’

She looked at him after eating more of her starter and washing it down with champagne. ‘You should probably hear it from me that I was expelled from four schools, including my last one, a finishing school in Switzerland.’

Gianni hadn’t touched his starter and when the staff returned he let them take it. His eyes were hooded, dangerous. ‘Hear it from you?’

Keelin shrugged. ‘In case the papers pick up on it when they find out we’re getting married.’

Gianni went rigid. He hadn’t thought about that. ‘You were expelled from all your schools?’

Keelin pouted. ‘Well, not all. Not my primary one. Just the later ones, you know how teenage rebellion is.’

She continued chummily, ‘But I can see how good that discipline was for me so I’d be a big advocate of boarding school—the earlier, the better. There are lots of great schools in Ireland.’

* * *

Gianni fought down the urge to stand up and pace up and down. Keelin was not painting a good picture, and dammit, he hated feeling as if he was being made a fool of. Her father hadn’t hinted at any of this. She was practically a delinquent! And yet she’d be only too happy to send any children they had down the same route! He’d always thought of boarding schools as upper-class nonsense.

Once again he forced himself to remain civil. ‘May I ask what your transgressions were?’

Keelin ticked off her fingers. ‘Being caught in a local bar, smoking, being caught with boys in the dorm, running away...’

Gianni felt disgust rise, not because they were serious crimes since they weren’t especially, but he hated that evidence of someone from a life of privilege taking it so much for granted, exuding a kind of supercilious confidence that said she could do whatever she liked and get away with it.

And clearly she had the idea that her life would be going in the same direction as her mother’s—that of leaving the care of her children to strangers or to a school. And they wouldn’t even be their own children if she had her way! This conversation was also making a completely hitherto unexplored sense of protectiveness at the thought of a child of his own rise up within him.

It was too much. Gianni was feeling seriously claustrophobic. But then the main course arrived and he absently picked a suitable wine to go with the meat. Only to see Keelin wrinkle up her nose and say, ‘I’ll stick to the champagne, if that’s okay. I can’t abide wine.’

Gianni took a deep calming breath and tried not to dwell on that image of Keelin at important functions insisting on champagne when everyone else was drinking wine. He made a gesture to the chef’s waiter and said urbanely, ‘Of course, have what you like.’

Blissfully, for a moment as they ate, there was silence. And once Keelin wasn’t talking and saying anything that was guaranteed to wind him up, he became uncomfortably aware of her.

In spite of the bling jewellery, big hair, lots of make-up and fake tan, she was clearly a beauty. Those eyes, especially when she widened them, threatened to distract him every time. And those lush lips. And the curves underneath the provocative silk of the jumpsuit, not to mention the flash of long shapely legs every time she moved. One thing was very clear—his body would marry this woman in a second, his head though was another matter.

When their plates had been cleared, Gianni’s eyes narrowed on Keelin. For a moment she wasn’t looking at him, or looking vacant, or chattering nonsensically, and he had the strangest notion that this was all some kind of elaborate—what? Was she deliberately sending him crazy? Making him doubt himself? Maybe he was being too hasty? Surely they could talk about these things, and if they had children, then perhaps she could be persuaded that a nanny was sufficient, and not necessarily a boarding school in the remote reaches of Ireland?

But just then she looked at him again, and a small frown marred her smooth forehead. ‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.’

Gianni tried not to let his eyes drop to the voluptuous swell of her breasts. ‘Yes?’

Keelin looked exceedingly uncomfortable; a faint blush stained her cheeks. ‘I wanted to talk to you about sex.’