Still grinning at the formal ‘madam’, Anna’s mouth dropped open when Nick ambled in carrying a huge bouquet of startlingly colourful flowers. ‘For you.’ He thrust them at her. ‘Congrats on the baby, by the way.’ His cheerful open face was one big blush. ‘So, everything’s OK? When I called by your place this morning your mum told me your baby’s father’s going to marry you. You OK about that?’ He shifted his feet, glancing around uneasily. ‘Judging by this place he’s loaded, but money isn’t everything. It didn’t take much to work out it must have happened while you were on that holiday—the baby, I mean. And, well, he didn’t exactly follow up, did he? Not till he found out by accident he was going to be a dad. Does he want to keep the kid? Is that it? Threatening to take him off you if you don’t toe the line? Is that the sort of bloke you want to marry? You can tell me the truth.’
That had been a long speech for Nick. Astute, too. Was he remembering how he’d offered to marry her, care for her baby as if it were his own? Was he feeling hurt and somehow denigrated because he’d been turned down in favour, apparently, of a guy who could offer far more materially?
Her suspicion was confirmed when he stated stiffly, ‘Soon as I heard about you getting hitched I had to come and tell you that my offer still stands. If we married quickly no court would grant him custody of the kid. You’re his mother, and that gives you a head start, and showing that we would give the lad a stable family background would clinch it. You wouldn’t have to worry. I can’t give you a fancy lifestyle, but I do care about you.’
He looked so earnest that Anna’s throat closed up. Regardless of the personal cost, he was offering her a viable way out, and affection for him made her heart swell.
They were like brother and sister. And they’d always looked out for each other. He wasn’t in love with her, but he was looking out for her now. And she couldn’t bear him to think she regarded his offer of marriage as second-best, not worth considering.
‘I know you care for me—we care for each other. But we’re not in love with each other, Nick. We’ve discussed it before, remember?’ She took one of his hands and led him to one of the sofas, placed the flowers at the end and sat down. As he joined her she said, ‘You’ll make some lucky girl a great husband, Nick. But you see I’m in love with Francesco. I fell in love with him within twenty-four hours of meeting him. I want to be his wife.’
Anna’s breath stuck in her throat. She’d said that to make her dear friend feel easier about his rejected proposal. But was it true? Her tummy lurched and she stumbled over her next words. ‘You—you deserve to fall in love with a girl who feels the same way.’
Any reservations she might have felt about her claim to be in love with the man she was soon to marry disappeared when Nick grinned, his mild blue eyes washed with relief. ‘Then you don’t need rescuing? You are happy—not being bullied into doing something you don’t want to do?’
‘Of course not,’ Anna mumbled, her mind in knots over the hardening possibility that she was still in love with Francesco—had never really stopped loving him. It made the future seem even bleaker. How would she cope? How could she tread through the years ahead loving a man who saw her only as a necessary encumbrance?
But Nick was blushing again, and telling her, his voice gruff, ‘Thing is, if you’d needed me I would have—well, you know—married you, like I suggested. And I wouldn’t have taken it any further.’
‘Taken what further?’
‘Well, there’s this girl. Melody. We only met a month ago, and—well, it’s early days—only I think—’ Unable to articulate further, he spread his big hands, his grin wide enough to split his face.
Anna, overwhelmed with affection for this good, uncomplicated man, this lifelong friend who would have swallowed his feelings for this girl Melody and dedicated himself to caring for her and her child had she needed him, flung her arms around him and cried, ‘Didn’t I tell you the real thing would happen for you one day? I’m so happy for you! If she’s the one, don’t you dare let her get away!’
‘I won’t!’ Nick got to his feet, pulling her with him. ‘Better make tracks. Get the train back.’
‘So soon? Peggy could make us some tea,’ Anna offered. Her old and valued friend, uncomplicated and steady, was easier to be around than the tricky enigma that was her future husband.
‘Thanks, but I’ll pass. Now I know you’re OK and everything I’ll head home, be in time to phone Melody and fix a date for tonight.’
‘Then I’ll see you out. And Nick?’ She smiled up at him as they headed for the hallway. ‘I’m really happy for you. Remember to send me an invitation to the wedding!’
‘Will do—and that goes for you, too.’ His arm went around her, holding her close, and Anna felt tears clog her throat at the thought of her wedding. She would make her vows and, more fool her, would mean them. While Francesco would just go through the motions.
For a moment Anna closed her eyes, blocking tears. When she opened them again Francesco was walking in through the main door they’d been heading for. Tall and strikingly handsome, so elegant, he made Nick in his cheap brown suit look like a peasant, and his voice was dark menace as he observed, ‘How touching. But I would prefer not to see my fiancée being pawed by a garage mechanic whose services are not required here.’
Anna’s gasp of outrage was smothered by Nick’s grinning, ‘On my way, mate. Just called in to check if my services were required. And as they’re not—’ He dropped a light kiss on Anna’s cheek and headed swiftly for the door, which Francesco was holding ostentatiously open. Obviously fully aware of six feet plus of intimidating, fist-clenching male, he made a rapid exit, leaving a sizzling silence.
‘You’re jealous!’ Anna’s amazement made her feel light-headed. Nick must have picked that up too—hence his unstoppable grin, his tongue-in-cheek riposte in the face of the furious male.
She had never, ever seen the so arrogantly in control Francesco look so discomfited as he closed the door with unnecessary force then turned to her. ‘I? Jealous?’ As if such a concept was beyond human imagining.
Dark colour stained his classically moulded cheekbones as she pointed out, ‘Then why were you so rude to him?’ Only searing jealousy could have made him lose his famous cool urbanity, and the implications of that made her bones go weak.
His handsome mouth hardened, but there was a febrile glitter in his charcoal-dark eyes as Anna went on, ‘The poor guy only called by to say hello and bring me flowers,’ knowing that would further rattle his cage. Because Francesco didn’t do romantic gestures. Except for when she had first met him, when he had picked wild flowers and tucked them in her hair. But she rapidly thrust that memory aside, concentrating only on the here and now.
‘The poor guy—’ he parodied her tone ‘—was lucky not to have his jaw broken.’ His body tensed and burned at the recollection of wanting to tear the other man limb from limb, because looking at her, at that glorious hair framing her flushed features, that lethally luscious body clothed in silky tones of green that brought out the emerald depths of her lovely eyes, confirmed what he already knew. That no man could look at her and not want to bed her.
‘You are to be my wife. You are the mother of my child,’ Francesco pointed out with suppressed fury. ‘I take exception to coming home and finding my future wife and some oaf wrapped around each other.’
He caught her raised hand before it could connect, and received an irate shriek. ‘Nick is not an oaf! You horrible snob! He’s the nicest, kindest friend anyone could have—he’s worth a dozen of you!’
‘How many times have you slept with him?’ he enquired with crushing cool, his eyes like daggers of ice.
‘Never!’ Anna tried, and failed, to release her wrist from his punitive grasp. ‘I don’t sleep around—I was a virgin when we met—you know that!’
‘And later? After we split?’ He was breathing raggedly, suppressing the wave of lust that always washed over him around her, forcing him to voice the cynical doubts that plagued
him. ‘When you discovered you were pregnant, perhaps? Did you get him on your hook as back-up, in case any plans you might have had to present me with a flesh-and-blood child and demand a handsome settlement from me failed?’
Anna paled. She didn’t know how she could still love him, but she did. And he thought she was a scheming monster. The future was a nightmare. Tears she couldn’t fight glittered in her eyes, and her voice was thin as she protested, ‘How could you think that of me?’
‘It’s not something that fills me with joy,’ he gritted, frowning as his gaze hit her wobbling mouth. ‘But I have to face facts. You discovered my private beach, draped yourself alluringly, and waited until I showed up—hoping I’d find you as irresistible as indeed I did.’
So that was what he’d decided, and he was sticking to it. Nothing she said would make him change his mind. Her slim shoulders shook as tears fell.
Shock made her gasp as, uttering a low expletive, he scooped her up into his arms. ‘I can’t bear to see you cry. There’s no need.’
There was every need! Beyond explaining her horrible inner turmoil, Anna sagged in his arms as he carried her upstairs, not even breathless as he told her with infuriating complacency, ‘You shouldn’t make scenes. They upset you.’
To counter that he had started it would be too childish for words, so she kept her mouth shut. His arrogance, his conviction that he was never in the wrong, inexplicably made her want to giggle—but all desire to give way to hysterical hilarity vanished when he shouldered her bedroom door shut behind them and lowered her to her feet, down the length of his taut, beautifully made body, his hands still holding her against him.
Her tummy muscles tightened. Heat pooled deep inside her. She could feel his arousal. Her breath caught as he used the pads of his thumbs to stroke away the signs of recent tears, and she was powerless to stop the urgent peaking of her breasts against the thin fabric of her camisole top. And he registered the invitation—of course he did—and his hands lifted to tangle in her hair as he took possession of her lush mouth. She gave herself up to sweetly intense sensation, desperate for him as she always would be, she recognised weakly as a stormy river of response raged through her.
Breaking the kiss, Francesco held her eyes as his supple hands dropped to shape her bountiful breasts. He felt her quiver as she wound slender arms around his neck, nuzzling her pelvis into the hardness of his, and he knew he had a monumental fight on his hands.
A fight with himself and with the torrent of male need that told him they were only paces from the bed, murmured far too temptingly that a few deft movements were all that were needed to remove the thin silky fabric that clothed her to-die-for body, scarcely more to jettison his own constricting garments and, lie with her, flesh to eager flesh, skin to burning skin. A fight against the conventional necessities that awaited him.
His breath scorching his lungs, he ground out huskily, ‘You want me; I want you. We must put the past way behind us and for Sholto’s sake make our marriage work. Be civilised, build on what we have.’
‘You mean sex,’ Anna whimpered, trembling with need, ravaged by knowing that all he wanted from her was a civilised front and animal lust in the marriage bed. She wanted so much more, but was besotted enough to settle for what she could get.
‘What else?’ To her shamed humiliation his hand dipped to the waistband of the culottes and dealt with the buttons with a practised ease that excited and further shamed her, dipping his fingers and languourously exploring the slickness between her thighs. ‘Don’t knock it. Apart from our son, it is all we have.’ Silvery eyes mocked her. ‘And it is good. Admit it.’
He released her. ‘To my regret, I am unable to give the decisive demonstration.’ He straightened his wide shoulders. ‘Sophia will be arriving at any moment. I must greet her. You will meet at dinner.’
And he was gone in a handful of smooth strides, leaving Anna to wrap her arms around her tormented body and wish she’d never set eyes on him.
He would have his son and heir—with her thrown in as a bonus. A sex slave. A willing sex slave, she admitted with an inner cringe of shame. He lusted after her. But lust died. And when it did he would satisfy his needs elsewhere.
She didn’t know how she would cope with that!
CHAPTER NINE
FRANCESCO had been closeted with the hired wedding organiser since eight that morning—a cool, smooth blonde, with efficiency dripping from her beautifully manicured scarlet-tipped fingers.
Anna had done as she’d been asked and written her list of wedding guests, which she had handed over horribly conscious of the manic state of her hair—courtesy of Sholto’s desire to explore every crinkly strand—and the baby dribble on the shoulder of her designer shirt.
Fancy labels didn’t go with child-minding, and, regardless of what Francesco had to say on the matter, she was going to have to acquire a few bog-standard jeans and T-shirts.
The cool blonde had placed her list, together with the one faxed through from his cousin Silvana and, presumably, the one Francesco had supplied, into a slim leather briefcase and departed.
Musing on the unpalatable fact that she was being allowed very little input towards her own wedding, she gave a little leap of surprise when Sophia tucked her hand beneath her elbow and crowed, ‘The wedding organiser has gone. Now for the fun part!’
Turning startled eyes on the pretty brunette, Anna visibly relaxed. ‘I didn’t see you coming—you made me jump!’
Meeting Francesco’s sister at dinner last night, she had immediately taken to her. Lovely to look at, with sleek dark hair flowing down to the middle of her narrow back, dancing black eyes and a ready smile, she possessed a warm, outgoing personality that had made Anna able to endure ploughing through three of Peggy’s excellent courses beneath Francesco’s brooding gaze, under the explicit curve of his handsome mouth that reminded her so forcibly of her soon-to-be sex slave status.
A shudder of awareness rippled down her spine at that reminder, and Sophia soothed her. ‘Every bride-to-be gets the nervous attack. I was dreadful before my wedding—I couldn’t stay still for one small moment! Here—’ she tucked an oblong of smooth plastic into Anna’s hand ‘—Francesco said to give this to you. He has opened an account—all you have to do is sign.’
‘Where is he now?’ The credit card was burning a hole in he palm of her hand. She wanted to drop it! Her throat tightened. She wanted to toss it on the ground in front of his feet and loudly restate that she didn’t want his wretched money!
‘He was going to look in on the baby, then shut himself in his study to work, so forget him if you can. I know you can’t take your eyes off each other—probably can’t keep your hands off each other, either!’ She giggled. ‘I have seen this—but this morning we are going make the plastic work very hard, so hurry and get ready. We shop for your trousseau, silly!’ she stated, when faced with Anna’s blank stare. ‘And Francesco tells me he is having a choice of wedding gowns flown over from Milan. We will have a hard time choosing—they will all be beautiful!’
Three hectic hours later Anna collapsed with thankfulness at a table outside a fashionable bistro, fanning her perspiring face and surreptitiously slipping her aching feet out of her shoes.
The sun was unseasonably hot, and Sophia had dragged her in and out of so many classy boutiques she’d lost count. At least she had acquired a couple of serviceable cotton skirts and cheap T-shirts—but the dreadfully expensive nightgown and matching negligee, not to mention a whole raft of wickedly sexy underwear that Sophia had proclaimed impossible to leave behind, threatened to give her terminal indigestion.
‘There—this is good!’ Sophia seated herself, the sea of carriers—some classy, one or two definitely down-market—flowing around her feet. ‘We have an hour before Arnold arrives to collect us.’ She picked up the menu. ‘What shall we eat?’
In the end they chose herb omelettes with a simple green salad, and a glass of chablis. Sophia tipped her head on one side and
said, ‘I never thought the day would come when Francesco married. It is a joy to me to know I was wrong!’ Her smile was mega-watt and full of warmth. ‘He chose well—you will make him so happy!’
Anna gave her attention to the omelette to hide her bleak expression. Happy? It wasn’t in her gift to make him happy. Satisfying him in bed until he tired of her was as good as it could get.
Anything to get her mind off that miserable track, she laid down her fork and asked as lightly as she could, ‘So why didn’t you think he’d marry? After all, he’s got to be every girl’s dream.’ Breathtakingly handsome, fabulously wealthy, able to charm the birds out of the trees when the mood took him—what woman wouldn’t go weak at the knees in his vicinity?
‘Yes, and that’s the problem.’
Sophia’s serious response drew Anna’s brows together in a puzzled frown. As far as she could tell there would be no problem as far as Francesco was concerned. Arm candy came with his status.
‘It is not something we talk about.’ Sophia sighed. ‘But you are family now, and you have given him the blessing of a child.’ She drained her wine glass. ‘My brother never talks of it—he refuses to speak of it—but there should be no secrets in a family.’
Her dark eyes misted, and Anna saw that if Francesco refused to talk about whatever it was, then his sister was also finding it difficult.
‘You see, a bad thing happened when we were children,’ Sophia continued quietly. ‘It saddens me to say this, but our mother had no heart, no love in her. She was a great beauty, a society darling, and to our father she was a great passion—an obsession, I suppose you could call it. When she left us he was a broken man. He changed overnight from being a normal sort of father to being cold and distant—he seemed to hate having his children around him.’
‘She left you?’ Anna couldn’t make sense of that. ‘She had two beautiful children who both needed her and a husband who adored her. Why leave? Did she fall in love with someone else?’ How terrible!
Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request) Page 24