Hot Nights with...the Italian: The Santangeli Marriage / The Italian’s Ruthless Marriage Command / Veretti's Dark Vengeance

‘You are not hungry? Or is there something you would prefer?’

‘Oh, no,’ she denied hurriedly. ‘The fish is wonderful. I’m just very tired—and I think I’m getting a headache,’ she added for good measure. ‘Perhaps you’d apologise to Evangelina for me—and excuse me.’

‘Of course.’ He rose politely to his feet. ‘Buona notte, mia cara.’

She walked sedately to the door, trying hard not to appear as if she was running away, but knowing he wouldn’t be fooled for a minute. But at least he’d let her go, and what conversation there’d been during the meal had been on general topics, avoiding the personal.

In her bedroom, she saw that the bed had been turned down on both sides, and that one of her trousseau nightgowns, a mere wisp of white crêpe de Chine, had been prettily arranged on the coverlet.

More scene-setting, she thought. But the day’s drama was thankfully over.

She had a warm, scented bath, and then changed into the nightgown that Daniella had left for her because there was little to choose between any of them. In fact all her trousseau, she thought, had been chosen with Renzo’s tastes in mind rather than hers.

Not that she knew his tastes—or wanted to—she amended quickly, but this diaphanous cobweb of a thing, with its narrow ribbon steps, would probably be considered to have general masculine appeal.

She climbed into the bed and sank back against the pillows, where the scent of lavender still lingered, aware of an odd sense of melancholy that she could neither dismiss or explain.

Sleep’s what I need, she told herself. Things will seem better in the morning. They always do.

She was just turning on her side when an unexpected sound caught her attention, and she shot upright again, staring towards the dressing room as its door opened and Renzo came in.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded huskily.

‘An odd question, mia bella, to put to your husband when he visits your bedroom on your wedding night.’

She sat rigidly against the pillows, watching him approach. He was wearing a black silk robe, but his bare chest, with its dark shadowing of hair, and his bare legs suggested that there was nothing beneath it.

She lifted her chin. ‘I—I said I was tired. I thought you accepted that.’

‘Also that you had a headache.’ He nodded. ‘And by now you have probably thought of a dozen other methods to keep me at a distance. I suggest you save them for the future. You will not, however, need them tonight,’ he added, seating himself on the edge of the bed.

It was a wide bed, and there was a more than respectable space between them, but in spite of that Marisa still felt that he was too close for comfort. She wanted to move away a little, but knew that he would notice and draw his own conclusions. And she did not wish him to think she was in any way nervous, she thought defensively.

As for what he was wearing—well, she’d seen him in far less in the past, when she’d been swimming or sunbathing in his company, but that, somehow, was a very different matter.

She marshalled her defences. ‘You still haven’t said why you’re here.’

He said, ‘I have come to bid you goodnight.’

‘You did that downstairs.’

‘But I believe that there are things that remain to be said between us.’

He paused. ‘We have not begun well, you and I, and these difficulties between us should be settled at once.’

‘What—what do you mean?’

He traced the gold thread on the coverlet with a fingertip. ‘Earlier today you implied that I had been less than ardent in my wooing of you. But if I stayed aloof it was only because I believed it was what you wanted.’

‘And so it was,’ she said. ‘I said so.’

‘Yet if that is true,’ he said softly, ‘why mention the matter at all?’

She said defiantly, ‘I was simply letting you know what a hypocritical farce I find this entire arrangement. And that I won’t play games in public just to satisfy some convention.’

‘How principled,’ he said, and shifted his position, moving deliberately closer to her. ‘But we are no longer in public now, mia cara. We are in total privacy. So there is no one else to see or care what I ask from you.’

She swallowed. ‘You—promised that you—wouldn’t ask.’ Her voice was thin. ‘So I’d really like you to go—please.’

‘In a moment,’ he said. ‘When I have what I came for.’

‘I—I don’t understand.’

‘It is quite simple,’ he said. ‘I wish to kiss you goodnight, Maria Lisa. To take from your lovely mouth what you denied me this morning—nothing more.’

She stared at him. ‘You said you’d wait …’

‘And I will.’ He leaned forward, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. ‘But I think—don’t you?—that when you come to me as my wife it will be easier for both of us if you have become even a little accustomed to my touch, and learned not to dread being in my arms.’

‘What are you saying, signore?’ Her voice sounded very young and breathless. ‘That I’m going to find your kisses so irresistible that I’ll want more and more of them? That eventually I’ll want you?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not going to happen. Because you can dress up what you’ve done any way you like, but the fact is you bought me. Anything you do to me will be little more than legalised rape.’

There was a terrible silence, then Renzo said, too quietly, too evenly, ‘You will never use such a word to me again, Maria Lisa. Do you understand? I told you I would not force myself on you and I meant it. But you would be unwise to try my patience twice in twenty-four hours.’

She threw back her head. ‘Your loss of temper doesn’t seem much to set against the ruin of my life, Signor Santangeli. Whatever—I have no intention of kissing you. So please leave. Now.’

‘And I think not.’ Renzo took her by the shoulders, pulling her towards him, his purpose evident in his set face.

‘Let me go.’ She began to struggle against the strength of the hands that held her, scared now, but still determined. ‘I won’t do this—I won’t.’

She pushed against his chest, fists clenched, her face averted.

‘Miacara, this is silly.’ He spoke more gently, but there was a note in his voice that was almost amusement. ‘Such a fuss about so little. One kiss and I’ll go, I swear it.’

‘You’ll go to hell.’ As she tried to wrench herself free one of the ribbon straps on her nightgown suddenly snapped, and the flimsy bodice slipped down, baring one rounded rose-tipped breast.

She froze in horror, and realised that Renzo too was very still, his dark face changing with a new and disturbing intensity as he looked at her. His hand slid slowly down from her shoulder to a more intimate objective, cupping her breast in lean fingers that shook a little. He brushed her nipple softly with the ball of his thumb, and as it hardened beneath his touch she felt sensation scorch through her like a naked flame against her flesh. Frightening her in a way she had never known before.

‘No.’ Her voice cracked wildly on the word. ‘Don’t touch me. Oh, God, you bastard.’

She flailed out wildly with her fists, and felt the jolt as one of them slammed into his face.

He gave a gasp of pain and reared back away from her, his hand going up to his eye. Then there was another silence.

She thought, the breath catching in her throat, Oh, God, what have I done? And, even worse, what is he going to do?

She tried to speak, to say his name—anything. To tell him she hadn’t meant to hit him—or at least not as hard.