Italian Mavericks: Forbidden Nights With The Italian: The Forbidden Ferrara / Surrendering to the Italian's Command / The Unwanted Conti Bride

‘I’m worrying about Luca’s security.’ Biting her lip, she stepped onto the small area and ran her finger along the iron railings. Then she gauged the height of the balcony. ‘This is a real hazard. Luca is two years old. His favourite pastime is climbing. He climbs anything and everything he can find. We’re going to have to lock the doors to the balconies and remove the keys.’ She was brisk and practical, but then she walked past him and he caught the scent of her hair. Flowers. She always smelt like flowers.

Irritated with himself for being so easily distracted, Santo followed her back into the apartment. This time her eyes were on the large sunken living room that formed the centrepiece of his luxurious apartment. ‘You’re worrying about the welfare of my white sofas? Don’t. My niece has already spilled something unmentionable on them. I don’t care. People are more important than things.’

‘I agree. And I’m not thinking about your sofas, I’m thinking of Luca. More particularly, I’m thinking about the step down to your living room.’

‘It’s an architectural feature.’

‘It’s a trap for a fearless toddler. He’s going to fall.’

Santo digested that. ‘He walks perfectly well. We will teach him to be careful.’

‘He gets enthusiastic and excited. If he sees something he wants, he runs. If he does that here, he’ll trip and smash his head on your priceless Italian tiles.’

Santo spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘So this place is not exactly child-proofed; I accept that. I will deal with it.’

‘How? You can’t exactly remodel the apartment, can you?’

‘If necessary. And in the meantime I will teach him to watch the step.’ He tried to hide his exasperation. However angry he was, he was well aware that she’d been through the most stressful twenty-four hours of her life and yet, apart from her visible panic when she’d found her grandfather, she hadn’t shown any emotion. She was frighteningly calm. The little girl who had refused to shed a tear had grown into a woman with the same emotional restraint. The only sign that she was suffering was the rigid tension in her narrow shoulders. ‘Are you always like this? It’s a wonder Luca isn’t a bundle of nerves, living with you.’

‘One minute you accuse me of not taking good care of your son and then you accuse me of taking too much care. Make up your mind.’ She picked up a slender glass vase and transferred it to a high shelf.

‘I was not accusing you of anything. Just pointing out that you’re overreacting.’

‘You have no idea what it’s like, living with an active toddler.’

Her words snapped something inside him. ‘And whose fault is that?’ Bitterness welled up and threatened to spill over. Afraid he might say something he’d later regret, Santo strode towards the kitchen, struggling with the intensity of his own emotions.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice came from the doorway.

‘What for?’ He dragged open a cupboard. ‘Keeping my son from me or casting doubt on my abilities as a father?’

‘I wasn’t casting doubt. Just pointing out the hazards of having an active toddler in a bachelor pad.’ She looked impossibly fragile standing there with her hair pouring over her shoulders in soft waves of wicked temptation.

He didn’t want to feel anything but anger yet he was sufficiently self-aware to know that his feelings were much, much more complicated than that. Yes, the anger was there and the hurt, but mixed in with those emotions was a hefty dollop of something far less easy to define but equally powerful.

The same thing that had brought them together that night.

‘We’ll do what needs to be done, Fia.’ He left the statement purposefully ambiguous and pulled plates out of the cupboard. ‘We need to eat. What can I get you?’

‘Nothing, thank you. I think I’ll go to bed. I’ll sleep with Luca. That way, if he wakes up he won’t be frightened.’

Santo thumped a fresh loaf of bread in the centre of the table. ‘Who is frightened, tesoro? You or him?’ He sent her a black look. ‘You think if you don’t sleep in his bed you’ll be sleeping in mine?’

Wide green eyes fixed on his face. Those eyes that said everything her lips didn’t. The first time he’d caught her in the boathouse he’d seen misery and fear, but also defiance. Even though she hadn’t said a word, he’d had no trouble reading the message. Go on and tell. See if I care.

He hadn’t told.

And he knew she would have cared.

She showed nothing, and yet he knew she was a woman who felt everything deeply. He wouldn’t have been able to list her favourite colour or whether she liked to read, but he’d never doubted the intensity of her emotions. He’d always sensed the passion in her, simmering beneath the silent surface. And eventually, of course, he’d felt it. Touched it. Tasted it. Taken it. He could clearly remember the feel of her bare skin under his seeking fingers, the scent of her as he’d kissed his way down her body, the flavour of her under his tongue.

Sexual arousal was instant and brutal.

He dragged his gaze from the wicked curve of her hips back to her face.

Those green eyes had gone a shade darker and her cheeks were flushed.

Santo strode over to the fridge and yanked open the door. Maybe he should just thrust his whole body into it, he thought savagely. He had a feeling that was the only way of cooling himself down.

He was about to pull out a dish of caponata when another memory revealed itself. Frowning, he let go of the dish. It wasn’t true to say he knew nothing about her, was it? There was something he knew. His mouth tightening, he put the caponata back and removed pecorino and olives instead. Putting them on the table next to the bread, he gestured. ‘Eat.’

‘I’ve told you I’m not hungry.’

‘I make it a personal rule only to resuscitate one person a day so unless you want me to force-feed you, you’ll eat.’ He tore off a hunk of bread, added a slice of pecorino and some olives and pushed the plate towards her. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t like it. The fact that you love pecorino is one of the few things I do know about you.’

A tiny frown touched her smooth brow as she stared at the plate and then back at him.

Santo sighed. ‘When you hid in the boathouse you always brought the same food.’ For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to respond.

‘I didn’t want to have to go home to eat.’

‘You didn’t want to go home at all.’

‘I know.’ She gave a strangled laugh and pushed the plate away. ‘You do know this is ridiculous, don’t you? Just about the only thing you know about me is that I like pecorino and olives. And all I know about you is that you like really fast, flashy cars. And yet you’re suggesting marriage.’

‘I’m not suggesting marriage. I’m insisting on marriage. Your grandfather approved.’

‘My grandfather is old-fashioned. I’m not.’ Her eyes lifted to his. ‘I run a successful business. I can support my son. We would gain nothing from marriage.’

‘Luca would gain a great deal.’

‘He would live with two people who don’t love each other. What would he gain from that? You’re punishing me because you’re angry, but in the end you will be the one who suffers. We are not compatible.’

‘We know we’re compatible in the one place that counts,’ Santo said in a raw tone, ‘or we wouldn’t be in this position now.’

Colour darkened her cheekbones. ‘You may be Sicilian, but you are far too intelligent to truly believe that all a marriage takes is good sex.’

Santo took the chair opposite her. ‘I suppose I should be grateful you’re at least admitting it was good sex.’

‘You’re impossible to talk to.’

‘On the contrary, I’m easy to talk to. I say what I think, which is more than you do. I won’t tolerate silence, Fia. Marriages are about sharing. Everything. I don’t want a wife who locks away her feelings, so let’s get that straight now. I want all of you. Everything you are, you’re going to give it to me.’ Clearly she hadn’t expected that response from him because she turned white.

‘If that’s what you want, then you really do need a different wife.’

There was a certain satisfaction in having flustered her. ‘You’ve taught yourself to be that way. That’s how you’ve survived and protected yourself. But underneath, you’re not like that. And I’m not interested in the ice maiden. I want the woman I had in my boathouse that night.’

‘That was … It was …’ she stumbled over the words ‘… that wasn’t me.’