She was in no hurry to rejoin him, not because she needed to be sure the next step she’d take was the right one. She’d never been more certain of anything in her life. It was that she wanted to make each minute last; preserve forever in her memory each perfect second.
While the bath filled, she shampooed her hair in the glass-enclosed shower stall, and took deep delight in the implied intimacy of using his shampoo, his towels. In lieu of perfumed bath crystals, she added a dollop of his Alfred Sung aftershave to the bathwater, soaped the sponge which knew every long muscle, every hard plane of his body, and let it caress her own body until not an inch of her skin was left untouched.
Finally, she slid down in the tub deeply enough for tiny waves to ripple at her throat and fragrant steam to curl around her face, and allowed herself the pleasure of contemplating the night ahead.
Pure bliss and simmering expectation made for a potent cocktail, and when he rapped on the door several minutes later to inquire, “Did you drown, my angel?” she was more than ready for the next stage in the ritual of their renewed courtship.
Swathed in a velvety bath sheet, she returned to the bedroom, but stopped short at the sight awaiting her. He hadn’t been twiddling his thumbs during her absence. Pinpoints of soft light glimmered from more than a dozen tealights floating in crystal brandy snifters stationed on every flat surface about the room. Creamy pink rose petals, their scent so sweet that they must have been plucked from their stems only minutes before, lay scattered in a path from her feet to the turned-back covers on the bed.
He stood by the window, stripped naked except for the towel slung around his waist. His hair was damp and even though the candles cast only a muted glow, she could see that he’d shaved. “If you’d told me you were going to bathe, too,” she said, resorting to the mundane because the fact that he was there, in the flesh and not just in her dreams, rendered her almost mindless, “we could have done it together.”
His low laugh floated through the night and wrapped itself around her. “A cold shower for my ladylove? I think not! But we will make love together.”
Everything was so utterly idyllic, so beyond even her most optimistic hopes, that she wanted to pinch herself. “We really are here together, aren’t we, Nico? This isn’t a figment of my imagination?”
“We are indeed here, mia moglie, starting over as I’ve so often prayed we might. I thought of putting champagne on ice, to celebrate the occasion,” he said huskily, his eyes devouring her, “but I want you to come to me with every sense alive, with every beat of your heart aware of the step we’re about to take. I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow filled with any regrets.”
She’d wondered if she’d feel shy; if time and their painful history might make it awkward for her to relax with him. She had not expected he might be the one needing reassurance. He was so confident always, so positive he could turn every situation in his favor. That he harbored even the smallest doubt of his ability to do so tonight melted her already willing heart.
“There’ll be no regrets, my love,” she said, going to him without hesitation, aware of the towel unraveling as she moved until, just as she reached him, it fell away entirely. “No second thoughts, no changing my mind at the last second.”
His smile undid her. For once it was not brash and beguiling, but slow and so tender that it left her weak at the knees. He loosened the knot anchoring his own towel and let it fall to join hers on the floor. “How can I be sure?” he said.
She placed her hands on his chest. Splayed her fingers to discover his flat, dark nipples. Bent her head and kissed the swell of muscle underlying his smooth olive skin. Grazed her cheek against the dusting of black hair shadowing his breastbone. “By this?” she whispered.
He might have been carved from marble for all the response he made. Only his magnificently aroused flesh betrayed his tortured pleasure.
Spurred to a daring beyond anything she’d attempted before, she slid her arms around him and traced her fingers down his spine to his buttocks, all the while following a path to his waist with her tongue. “Or this?”
Encouraged by his barely suppressed moan, she pressed a wet, openmouthed kiss at his navel, then continued lower to string feather-light kisses in the narrow triangle formed by his hips.
The breath hissed between his lips. His fingers knotted in her hair.
Slipping her hand between his thighs, she cradled the vulnerable cluster hidden there, then took the silken tip of him in her mouth.
“Enough!” he groaned, shuddering as violently as if an earthquake had struck. “I am convinced!”
She was trembling herself, by then; aching and eager all over, and so weak with longing that she’d have collapsed at his feet had he not drawn her up until she was imprinted against him, inch for inch.
How joyfully her body remembered his; how easily the two melded together, soft feminine warmth and unyielding male strength in perfect harmony. His arms enfolded her, tight and possessive, and when at last he kissed her, as if he could never get enough of the taste and texture of her mouth, the hell of their long separation faded away, and left heaven hovering so close, she could almost touch it.
She had no clear recollection of how they came to be lying together on the petal-strewn bed. All she knew was that the erotic play of his hands at her breasts, her waist, her hips, sent sensation pooling low in her body. An undulating rhythm, the forerunner of complete surrender, pulsed so insistently within her that all he had to do was touch his mouth to her core, flick once with his tongue, and the world as she knew it fell away.
Grasping and clutching at him, she submitted as wave upon wave of sheer ecstasy washed over her. She heard her own moans echo inside her head. Heard Nico calling her name…. “Chloe, Chloe…tesoro!” followed by a string of other words, erotic words uttered in Italian, but so full of unrestrained passion that there was no mistaking their meaning.
When at last, he slid inside her, he did so with the reverence of a man entering a sacred temple, and with each slow penetration, he soothed away the last rough, hurting edges of her soul.
Opening her eyes, she stared up at him. The candlelight painted shifting shadows of bronze and umber and gold over his skin, and filled his eyes with dark fire. “I love you, Nico,” she breathed, locking her gaze in his.
Buried thick inside her, he increased the tempo of his loving, his thrusts deep and urgent, slick and fast. And she, caught up in his fierce possession of everything she was, felt herself lured a second time, ever closer to the merciless whirlpool of capitulation.
Defying her every attempt to subdue it, the pleasure swept her in ever diminishing circles, then sucked her without mercy into its bottomless depths. She screamed softly, blinded by its power, deaf to all but the blood drumming in her ears, and aware only of the hot spurt of Nico’s seed running free inside her.
He filled not just the yearning in her body, but all the empty spaces in her heart. For the first time in over four years, she felt whole again.
Devastated by the emotional catharsis, she clung to him and burst into tears. He understood the reason, held her safe in his arms as the storm raged, and smothered her cries with kisses until she grew calm again.
Later, lying sated and sleepy with her head on his shoulder and the moon beaming full through the window, she murmured dreamily, “It feels as if we were never apart.”
“Darling,” he said, holding her closer, “in my heart we never were divorced. It just took me a while to convince you of it.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY decided on a summer wedding. “But something small,” Nico insisted, afraid Chloe would overtax herself. “Just family and a few very close friends.”
The problem lay in the fact that he had such a large family and so many friends, all of whom had missed seeing him get married the first time around. But in the end, they pared the guest list down to forty adults and thirteen children.
“Thirteen and a third, if truth be told,” Nico whispere
d the week before the wedding, placing his hand possessively over Chloe’s womb, as they lay in bed in the Verona house, with the moon beaming full through the window on their naked bodies. “But that will remain our little secret for a few more weeks.”
She had never known such tranquil happiness.
“Do not concern yourself, Signora,” the obstetrician had told her, just that morning. “The odds of your suffering another tragedy such as you knew with your first child are so small as to be negligible. There is every reason to believe this child will grow up to be as strong and healthy as his father.”
“And if it’s a girl?” she’d asked, smiling.
His eyes had twinkled. “She will be beautiful like her mother, and before she is out of the cradle, her father will be gray-haired and exhausted from fighting off the boys.”
Of course, Jacqueline and Charlotte flew over for the wedding, arriving just two days ahead of time.
“Long enough for us to recover from jet lag, but not long enough for us to do any damage,” Charlotte explained mischievously. “We didn’t think it wise to come any sooner, not after the way we meddled before and ended up making such a mess of everything.”
But nothing and no one could dim Chloe’s radiance, or spoil things for her. Nico’s sisters had welcomed her back into the family with more warmth than she felt she deserved, and showered her with love, throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the wedding preparations, and providing unconditional support of the marriage.
“I don’t need to ask if you’re sure you know what you’re doing this time,” Jacqueline said fondly when Chloe came to help her settle in and unpack her suitcase. “Your smile’s enough to blind a person! But I don’t mind admitting, your grandmother and I had more than a few sleepless nights after you left Vancouver and came here without so much as a hint of how Nico would receive you. We’re so delighted it all worked out for you, darling. You and Nico are meant to be together, and we know you’ll both be very happy.”
Although she and her husband came for the wedding, Monica begged off acting as matron of honor because she was nearly eight months pregnant with her third child, “and I’d need a tent to cover this,” she said wryly, stroking her swollen abdomen.
But there was no shortage of flower girls offering to take her place: Nico’s six nieces, ranging from two to five-and-a-half, couldn’t wait to dress up like princesses and steal the show.
Disappointed, the nephews complained that everyone liked girls best, and gave them all the special favors. “Not this time,” their uncle told them. “You boys will be my groomsmen—at least, those of you who aren’t still in diapers—and it’ll be your job to keep the girls in line.”
He and Chloe chose the mansion on Lake Garda as the place to hold the wedding. “Outdoors, if possible,” she suggested. “Down by the water on the lower terrace, for the ceremony, and on the upper one, right outside the main salon, for the reception. It’ll be more convenient there for the caterers.”
“Whatever you want, my angel,” Nico said, seducing her with his smile in full view of anyone who happened to be watching. “And we can host the entire occasion indoors if it rains. The house is certainly big enough.”
“You couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful setting,” her mother sighed, leaning against the fat stone balusters forming the wall between land and lake, on the wedding eve, and gazing out at the mountains beyond the old town. “Just look at that view! It’s like something out of a fairy tale. Oh, I hope the weather cooperates tomorrow.”
It did. Not a breath of wind marred the surface of the water, or disturbed the path of rose petals—creamy pink to match Chloe’s ankle-length dress, though why she chose that particular color scheme was something known only to her and Nico!—strewn from the French doors of the house by the flower girls.
Adorable in white organdy with coronets of pink rosebuds, they meandered along the flagstone path to Franck’s Fantasie, played by Nico’s brother-in-law, Hector. The concert grand had been rolled out to the upper terrace earlier by the crew who’d also erected a flower-draped arch on the terrace, where the couple would exchange their vows.
The groomsmen, meanwhile, stood at attention beside Nico, taking their roles very seriously. Their mission earlier had been to make sure bride and groom didn’t see each other before the ceremony, and the boys had adhered to the task religiously.
Chloe chose the Theme from Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony to herald her own entrance. Although the women grew a little misty-eyed when she stepped out of the house, her face shaded by a wide-brimmed cream hat trimmed with pink roses, their tears turned to laughter when the youngest flower girl, Lisabetta, already bored with the proceedings, wandered away from the wedding party and plunked herself down on the lawn to pick daisies.
Chloe knew there was speculation among the immediate family that perhaps she was in the early stages of pregnancy. She’d lost her breakfast, seven mornings running, and looked, according to her future sisters-in-law, as if a stiff breeze might blow her away, “the way a woman often does during her first trimester.”
They’d find out soon enough that they were right. Today, though, was not about a baby, but about Nico and her. Indeed, there might just as well have been no guests there to witness the marriage, for all the attention she spared them. She had eyes only for her groom, and he for her. The priest had to cough twice before they tore their gazes away from one another and turned to hear what he had to say.
Fifteen minutes later, they were again man and wife in the eyes of God, and the State. Just as well. Neither Nico’s family nor hers would have looked kindly on her giving birth to an illegitimate baby. As for keeping her pregnancy secret, given her new husband’s protective concern for his bride and the way he hovered over her, he might just as well have announced the news to the entire congregation.
But then, she was just as solicitous of him, reaching up to secure his rose boutonniere more firmly to the lapel of his cream jacket, and smooth her hand down his cheek as she whispered, “I love you,” before they exchanged their first married kiss in nearly half a decade.
And what a kiss it was, long and sweet enough to make up for the arid years they’d been apart. Tender enough to make the men smile and the women dab their eyes again.
The wedding supper, held on the upper terrace, began as the sun started to sink behind the mountains. Kerosene torches illuminated the scene for the waiters serving a feast of seafood chicchetti, grilled swordfish, black lobster ravioli with a cognac basil cream sauce, crab gnocchi and other delicious pastas, all accompanied by a selection of the finest regional wines.
The dessert buffet which followed rivaled anything the world’s most renowned restaurants might offer. Tiramisu, of course, and zabaglione; delicate Venetian pastries, and assorted fresh fruits and cheeses. And for the children, six different flavors of gelato.
“Our arteries aren’t thanking us for this,” Jacqueline told Charlotte, as they sampled the decadent confections, “but we’ll worry about that tomorrow.”
Throughout the lengthy banquet, a pair of musicians wandered among the candlelit tables and provided dreamy background music on a mandolin and accordion. There was much laughter and singing, champagne toasts and many long speeches, and a handful of telegrams conveying good wishes and congratulations from distant friends, including one from Baron. He wasn’t able to attend because he was in the midst of moving across country, to take up the position of senior partner in his grandfather’s old law firm. Mrs. Prescott, Chloe thought, amused, would surely approve.
Later, with the moon carving a silver swath over the lake, and the children put to bed, Nico took Chloe in his arms for the first dance. The mandolin plucked at the heartstrings of all who watched, the accordion sighed; Non Dimenticar…Mala Femana…Arrivederci Roma…Volare….
His ring warm on her finger, his arms firm around her still-slender waist, Chloe gazed into her husband’s eyes and saw a future full of promise. She knew with absolute conviction that a
lthough most times would be “for better,” if “for worse” happened anyway, she and Nico would face it together.
This time was forever.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5906-9
THE MORETTI MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2004 by Spencer Books Limited.
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