by Lynne Graham
‘It’s the palazzo...the best view of it you can have,’ Raffaele persisted with all the sensitivity of a torturer as she fought mind over matter not to throw up. ‘You’re not looking...why are you not looking?’
‘Because I’m feeling sick, you dummy!’ Vivi hissed at him fierily.
His disconcertion almost comically palpable, he grabbed a receptacle for her and guilt assailed her because she didn’t know why she was blaming him for her physical condition when she herself was equally responsible. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, hanging on for grim death to the receptacle and praying that she did not have to use it in front of him.
Mercifully, only a few minutes later, the helicopter settled back on solid earth again and she emerged from the craft with a sigh of relief but still feeling dizzy and sick.
‘You should’ve told me you weren’t feeling well.’ Raffaele sighed, urging her towards the waiting car he had ordered when he himself usually walked.
‘It’s the first time it’s happened and you said it was a short flight so I didn’t want to make a fuss,’ she responded truthfully. ‘All the same, I shouldn’t have bitten your head off the way I did.’
‘I’m getting used to it,’ Raffaele incised lazily. ‘You often speak before you think...’
In other words, she was the only real dummy in the relationship, Vivi interpreted, feeling sorry for herself. Only at that point did she begin to notice the sheer immensity of the building they were heading towards. It was a giant stone property that stretched across an entire hilltop with windows that had a blinding sparkle because there were so many of them. ‘This is your home?’
‘Sì,’ Raffaele said fondly. ‘The home of my family for centuries.’
No wonder he had said Zoe could move in with them if she liked, Vivi thought weakly, overpowered by the grandeur of the statuary adorning the façade and the formal gardens the car was traversing. Her impressions didn’t improve when a stout little man in a formal suit, introduced to her as Amedeo, ushered them into a huge hall decorated with breathtaking frescoes and where a uniformed staff line-up awaited them. Vivi felt overpowered by the splendour of her surroundings, fearing that at any minute someone would call her an impostor and ask her to leave because she did not belong in such a place. She wasn’t fancy enough, she ruminated uncomfortably, certainly not fancy enough to have a personal maid and a social secretary working full-time to see to her needs, but nonetheless she was introduced to an example of each.
Certainly, however, it was an education to see the evident pomp and ceremony with which Raffaele lived and which he quite took for granted, she surmised. After all, if he had been born and bred to such a magnificent home and a very large staff, it was normal for him, but she was convinced that it would never, ever feel normal for her and that she would race back to her own life when their marriage ended with nothing but a sense of deep relief. No, she would have to have a rather difficult conversation with Raffaele concerning his startlingly unexpected suggestion that they spend the months of her pregnancy seeing if they could make a go of their marriage. Raffaele needed a wife to match his palazzo, not a one-time junior employee with a marketing degree, not a young woman who had merely fallen accidentally pregnant and whose sole claim to fame was a very rich, eccentric, controlling and argumentative grandfather.
‘Would you like to rest for a while?’ Raffaele enquired as if she were a very elderly lady.
‘No, I’d like a shower, a change of clothes and something to eat,’ Vivi confided as they walked upstairs at a stately pace. ‘You know, I’m not the slightest bit delicate, Raffaele... I’m just pregnant and a little more tired than normal.’
‘You felt sick,’ Raffaele broke in to remind her.
‘Par for the course,’ she parried carelessly, keen not to encourage him to view her as weak and in need of care and supervision.
‘I don’t know anything about pregnant women.’
‘Why would you?’ she traded as tall double doors were opened wide on a gigantic bedroom with a grand gilded four-poster bed on a platform as a centrepiece. ‘Good grief, this place is like a museum. Is this one of the sights?’
‘It’s my bedroom,’ Raffaele admitted, reckoning that he wasn’t quite getting the reaction he had hoped for from his new bride. ‘You’re not into history, are you?’
‘Not living in it, no,’ Vivi admitted truthfully, wondering why she was being brought into his bedroom and then scolding herself for not appreciating that it was perfectly natural for a member of staff to show a new bride into what was presumably supposed to be the marital bedroom.
‘You are free to do whatever you like with your own bedroom to make yourself more comfortable here,’ Raffaele told her, crossing the room to cast open a communicating door that opened onto another door, and opening that as well.
She was to have her own bedroom, of course she was, she registered, following him to step through the double doorways and see another big bedroom, which was mercifully not quite as much of a museum piece as his. The bed was shaped like a swan but the décor was lighter and brighter and less rich and ornate. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, because it was.
A quick smile flashed across Raffaele’s lean, startlingly handsome face, lightening his eyes to the gold of a sunset fringed by black lace and, just looking at him, she felt her breath trapped in her throat for an instant.
‘This room hasn’t been occupied since my stepmother died, so I had it refurnished and decorated for you.’
‘You really didn’t ever think of us staying in London,’ she acknowledged thoughtfully.
‘No, this is very much home for me and I hope that in time it can feel like your home as well,’ Raffaele asserted with impressive sincerity.
Impressive, Vivi tagged, because she couldn’t credit that he could possibly mean such a sentiment when it came to her. After all, she was the wife he had taken merely to make a fat profit and he had originally intended to leave the church without her by his side. According to Raffaele, her pregnancy had changed everything, but it hadn’t changed the essential facts, which were that he had never expected to stay married to her and that they were ill-suited as a couple, she reasoned briskly. All the wishing in the world couldn’t alter those inescapable facts.
In the aftermath of that reflection, she marvelled at the hollow sensation of emptiness and sadness filling her, reckoning that she was still tired and feeling intimidated by her opulent surroundings. ‘What time’s dinner?’ she enquired.
‘Eight but I’ve ordered a snack for you. It’ll be brought up soon.’
He had barely stepped back to his room when a knock on the door sounded and her maid, Sofi, appeared, holding a tray. Vivi tucked into the delicious omelette and salad and the lingering nausea ebbed. Sofi reappeared and eagerly showed her the built-in closets in the dressing room where her small collection of clothing huddled shamefacedly on opulent padded hangers and in scented drawers. Life at the palazzo, Vivi reckoned, was a complete other world, far removed from that of more ordinary folk. She sat down on the bed while thinking about that and somehow fell asleep again, waking with a start to see the light beyond the windows dimming and wondering what was wrong with her that she was feeling so incredibly tired all the time. And then she remembered...again and patted her tummy ruefully.
It was after seven and, recalling that dinner was at eight, she was galvanised into action, stripping where she stood to dive into the bathroom and straight into the shower. She would get her hair straightened again, she thought blissfully. She hadn’t had time before the wedding with so much else to stress about. Now she could return to being sleek, straight-haired Vivi, whom she much preferred. She might be pregnant but that didn’t mean she had to let her standards slip. She was unnerved to return to her bedroom, luckily wrapped in a towel, to find Sofi hovering expectantly to offer assistance. What with, Vivi wondered, until Sofi shyly confided in quite good English that
she was trained to do different hairstyles and make-up.
Vivi sped into the dressing room and snatched her single long dress off a hanger, a gown bought for her first meeting with her grandad and hopefully formal enough to meet the palazzo standards. Sofi turned out to be a miracle with curly hair, leaving Vivi scrutinising her elegant reflection in surprise, for she had never been very good at putting her hair up and when she had, it had still always looked like an uncontrollable mop.
She picked her path delicately downstairs in her high heels and was ushered by Amedeo into a grand salon, where she took one glance of consternation at Raffaele and realised that she had got it wrong. He sported faded jeans and an open-necked white shirt. He looked fantastic but the difference between them sent colour surging into her cheeks. ‘This really says it all about us,’ she commented, indicating her long dress, her attempt at formality, with a dismissive hand. ‘You dressed down and I dressed up.’
‘What does it say about us?’ Raffaele pressed. ‘I simply assumed that after a long day in formal clothing you would prefer to relax...as do I.’
‘But you normally dress up for dinner, don’t you?’ Vivi cut in, determined to make her point even if it was beginning to feel like a petty point.
‘Sì,’ Raffaele conceded grudgingly.
Vivi lifted her chin, mortified colour lying in bright bars across her triangular face as she walked down to the foot of the room, keen to put as much space as possible between them. ‘You don’t need to dress down for my benefit, then,’ she sniped.
Raffaele resisted the urge to heave a sigh and wonder why he always, always got it wrong with Vivi. He tried to be sensitive and he embarrassed her. He tried to be caring and she got sick as a dog. ‘I’m getting tired of your defeatist, negative attitude,’ he intoned with complete honesty. ‘I appreciate that you’re in a situation not of your choosing, but I am as well and at least I’m trying to make the best of it.’
Caught utterly unprepared by that raw condemnation, Vivi coloured to the roots of her hair. ‘That’s not true,’ she said stiffly.
‘It is true. You misread everything I do. You hold spite. You judge me.’
‘For living like a prince in a palace?’ Vivi shot back at him defensively.
‘I was born here...this is my life. You expect me to apologise for it?’ Raffaele shouted down the length of the room at her, the sound of his raised voice cracking like a stinging whiplash through her because in her experience Raffaele never raised his voice and it thoroughly unnerved her. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Amedeo hurriedly retreating from the doorway and, if possible, she felt even more humiliated.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Vivi told him, throwing back her slight shoulders and stalking back towards the hall.
Raffaele planted himself in her path like an immoveable rock. ‘No, for once in your life, you’re going to listen to me.’
‘Like hell I am!’ Vivi snapped back at him like a spitting cat. ‘The day I listen to you while you talk down to me there’ll be two blue moons in the sky and a flying pig!’
‘Listen to me,’ Raffaele ground out wrathfully, struggling to get a hold on a temper that he never usually lost.
Vivi told him very rudely where he could go and what he could do with himself when he got there and raced past him at the speed of a lemming ready to throw herself off a cliff. She climbed the stairs even faster, sped into her bedroom and just stood there breathing fast. Behind her the door opened and she spun round, as rigid as a stick of rock.
‘We can do better than this,’ Raffaele breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I’m sorry that I shouted at you but sometimes you push me too far.’
‘I have a habit of doing that with you,’ Vivi muttered, somewhat mollified by the apology and relieved he no longer seemed angry. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Don’t you?’ Raffaele questioned, an eloquent ebony brow lifting, unimpressed. ‘You do it to keep me at a distance.’
Vivi was appalled that he could interpret her behaviour that easily, that he had picked up on her need to avoid any form of intimacy developing between them. ‘It’s safer that way,’ she mumbled in disconcertion.
‘Not now that we’re married with a baby on the way, it’s not!’ Raffaele countered scathingly. ‘There’s enough attraction between us to light a bonfire.’
Vivi stiffened even more. ‘Speak for yourself,’ she parried.
Raffaele had never met such a stubborn woman and he crossed the room to stand in front of her, only then noticing the tiny, almost imperceptible tremors shaking through her slender body; only then reading the anxiety in her wide eyes as the fear it genuinely was. ‘Vivi... I would never ever hurt or harm a hair on your head,’ he muttered shakily, so unnerved was he by the sight of a woman regarding him with fear.
‘It was just...er...when you shouted,’ she whispered, not sure she was even telling him the truth at that moment. ‘I’m sort of programmed to run when men shout because when I was a kid it usually got violent and if you didn’t get out of the way you got hurt!’
‘I swear I’ll never shout again,’ Raffaele framed, lifting a not quite steady hand to smooth soothing fingers down the side of her flawless face to her soft, full pink mouth. ‘Ever. I had no idea that was your experience.’
‘It’s not something you share freely,’ she admitted brokenly, all shaken up by both the conversation and the manner in which their argument had gone downstairs. He had accused her of holding spite and judging him, constantly throwing up barriers between them, and she felt overwhelmed by the awareness that Raffaele was correct on every count. He had read her, she conceded guiltily, and called her bluff, refusing to allow her to continue hiding behind such empty excuses, and that had proved an utterly unnerving experience for Vivi. That was what had really sent her fleeing into retreat, she acknowledged in mortification.
‘But if it’s a trigger, it’s something I should know about you,’ Raffaele breathed, a long forefinger tracing her full, soft lower lip, the ever-ready pulse at his groin throbbing with helpless arousal. ‘Believe me, Vivi...dannazione, I have many flaws but you will always be safe with me.’
And the rigidity went out of her taut length as if he had punched a release button and she smiled tentatively up at him. ‘Sorry about the drama...and Amedeo heard you shouting and he looked so shocked.’
Raffaele’s lean, darkly mesmerising features slashed into a reluctant grin. ‘He’s never heard me shout before. I’m very even-tempered.’
‘Until you met me...’
‘Until I met you, bella mia,’ Raffaele husked, lowering his proud dark head.
And she knew he was about to kiss her and she told herself to step away but inexplicably she stayed right where she was, heat curling up in her pelvis at even the thought of that much contact.
CHAPTER NINE
RAFFAELE’S MOUTH CAME down on hers with the most earth-shattering sensuality she had ever experienced. It was everything her charged body needed even though she refused to admit that to herself. Desire shot through her as hot as the bonfire he had mentioned, her breasts swelling, her nipples tightening hard, her core growing slick and damp. All just from a kiss! She argued with herself while pushing instinctively into the hard, muscular heat of him. She wanted so much more, craved the most primitive of possessions, was completely shocked by the tide of sexual longing he could awaken in her.
‘Per l’amor di Dio... I ache for you,’ Raffaele husked thickly, tugging at the spaghetti straps of her dress and dragging the bodice down to reveal the pink pouting buds of her breasts while stalking her backwards, down onto the swan bed. He closed his mouth hungrily to a tantalising peak, dimly registering that he was aroused beyond belief and questioning the reality because sex had never done that to him before. Unfortunately for him, however, he was getting a real high out of it, so he repressed that nagging flare of dismay and ignored it.
‘I love your breasts,’ he growled.
Vivi lay back on the bed, belatedly disconcerted by what she was allowing to happen between them. She was being shimmied out of her dress by determined hands and she wasn’t doing anything to stop him.
I don’t want to stop him. The words stood out like some sort of brain Morse code she couldn’t ignore. Her fingers speared into his black cropped hair and she trembled, seduced by the lashing of his tongue and the nip of his teeth over her achingly sensitive breasts. She wanted more, she wanted so much more, not least the irksome ache at the heart of her sated. She was just using him for sex. That was all right, wasn’t it? Nothing scary about that, was there? Men had been using women for sex for centuries, so, there was no reason why it couldn’t occasionally be done the other way round, she told herself, pulling him up to her to claim his passionate mouth for her own.
Heavens, his kisses were addictive, she acknowledged helplessly, lifting her hips to facilitate the removal of her last garment, barely crediting what she was doing, but she couldn’t get enough of his mouth or the taste of him. And then there was the wonderfully solid weight and feel of him over her and the wickedly familiar scent of him, clean, musky man overlaid with a hint of sexy cologne. There was just something about Raffaele that got to her every time he got close. Her hands roved down his spine to his slim hips and back up again, tugging at his shirt when it got in her way. She found the buttons, doggedly released them, began to pull and he got the message, rearing up half over her to pull it off and throw it aside, looming over her to expose a mouth-watering display of well-toned pecs and abs.
Below those elegant suits he wore, he was all sleek bronzed flesh and lean, hard muscle. She loved his body, she realised, really, really loved his body, and that alien thought shook her into opening her eyes and blinking up at him.