by Trish Morey
Dante sighed roughly and hugged her closer. He wanted to kill the bastard. He pressed his lips to her hair. ‘You couldn’t have believed him?’
She tightened in his arms but she didn’t pull away. ‘You think I wanted to? But in a way it made sense. Maybe I was frigid. Because I’d never found someone who made me feel like a woman, who made me want to have sex.’ She tilted her head up towards him. ‘Not until you—and that night.’
If the moon had been out, he would have howled at it. She was his woman and his alone, and his heart was so swollen it threatened to burst from his chest.
He lifted her hands in his, pressing the backs of them to his mouth. ‘Listen to me, and believe it—you are the hottest woman I’ve ever known, and you are a real woman in every sense of the word.’
She smiled back at him. ‘I used to have a dream lover who visited me some nights. I think he was trying to tell me that.’
He tilted her chin up and focused on her lips. ‘You don’t need a dream lover any more.’
‘No,’ she agreed, her lips dancing enticingly under his. ‘Now I’ve got the real thing.’
They were only a couple of hours late for the wedding and nobody seemed to mind. At her neck she wore the emerald necklace, the matching earrings swaying in time as she walked. Dante had kept them for her, knowing they were perfect for her, knowing the time was right. He’d presented them to her before the ceremony as his wedding gift, a token of his love, and Mackenzi had accepted them, knowing it was true.
Stuart Quinn had happily agreed to act as best man and stood alongside Dante, his sun-and-salt-battered features beaming with pride. But it was Dante who drew her eye as her father led her down the blossom-lined walkway to the outdoor altar. Dante whose eyes smouldered with a rare emotion that drew her towards him like a magnet. Dante, whose slightly upturned lips spoke volumes as she came closer.
‘You always told me the view from here was beautiful,’ he whispered, taking her arm in his and looking her in the eyes as she drew alongside him. ‘But this view is the very best. I love you, Mackenzi.’
She looked back at him and felt his love embrace her, wrapping around her, warm and real. ‘As I love you, Dante. Forever.’
And then he dipped his head and kissed her. Deeply. Thoroughly. Shamelessly.
Thunderous applause broke out behind them, but it was only the polite coughing of the celebrant that finally brought about an end to the kiss.
‘Most unconventional,’ he said, his broad smile at odds with the shaking of his head. ‘But perhaps now we can get this show on the road.’
He looked over his Bible to the gathering of guests. ‘Dearly beloved…’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2031-1
THE ITALIAN BOSS’S MISTRESS OF REVENGE
First North American Publication 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Trish Morey.
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