by Dani Collins
“You didn’t know that,” he guessed.
“No,” she murmured. But since one of her father’s other expectations was that she not question his decisions, she kept her reaction to that one disturbed response.
She had felt Alessandro’s gaze on her profile and her heart had pounded as though she’d run up a thousand flights of stairs. This was just a test, she’d told herself. He was a rich and powerful man heading a very rich and powerful family. He wanted to know if she—if her family—was worthy of joining his. She needed to be her most pleasant and conciliatory, reassure him that she’d make a fine wife for his cousin, but her throat could barely work to swallow, let alone make conversation.
“You’re willing to go through with an arranged marriage?” he asked. “You wouldn’t prefer a love match?”
Did he think she was gold digging?
“An arranged marriage makes sense to me,” she said, reminding herself as she spoke, even though her voice wasn’t quite steady. Until tonight, she hadn’t met a man who attracted her enough to consider the alternative.
Not that she would really consider a love match. She didn’t think of herself as the sort men fell for. She’d also been raised under the attitude that her uterus was the center of her worth, and only then if it delivered a healthy heir who could grow up to take possession of her father’s fortune. She didn’t believe that, but given her mother’s struggle to produce her, Octavia couldn’t help feel a duty to make her sacrifice worthwhile. She had agreed to follow through with her parents’ plans and hopefully, finally, earn their appreciation.
“Most women I know want to marry a man who is well positioned, but they try to find them in bars and at parties. Men at parties want to hook up, not settle down.” Octavia had watched hearts get tossed to and fro as her female acquaintances tried to make these potential mates fall in love and propose. It hadn’t seemed worth the heartache when all she really wanted was children. “There’s a disconnect.”
She glanced at him, thinking she sounded as if she was showing off, using fancy words. It disconcerted her to see she had his full attention.
“I want to have a family so why shouldn’t I let my parents find a good prospect to father my children? One who could provide well for them?” she finished in a mumble into her glass.
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” he said.
She hadn’t wanted to do anything to jeopardize the negotiation, but she’d taken offense, challenging tartly, “It’s my future. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I’m not criticizing. Believe me, I’m impressed. I’d prefer an arranged marriage myself.”
Her heart had skipped under what sounded like a compliment. She searched his expression in the silvery moonlight, catching an impression of computation, as if he was realigning certain facts and developing a fresh strategy.
“Do you intend to run your father’s portfolio after you marry? Is that why you’re letting him choose your husband?”
As if her father would allow that! Mario had grudgingly yielded to her desire to finish school, disparaging her study of psychology and sociology, then had confined her work in his office to redecorating his lobby where he had consistently pulled rank on final decisions. She’d thought about striking out, taking a job elsewhere, but despite a dozen find-your-career quizzes she’d never identified anything that had sparked her enthusiasm enough to defy her father over it.
“My father has traditional views on a woman’s place,” she said dispassionately.
“Which doesn’t answer my question.”
“I thought I did,” she’d said truthfully. “Your own family’s fortune is managed by men, isn’t it?”
“Not entirely. I have three female cousins who head different departments. My sister runs an architecture firm I co-own with her and her husband, and my middle sister has a string of boutiques that I underwrote quite confidently. They’re all very successful, so I’m well aware that women make perfectly capable executives.”
His lack of sexism was refreshing, but if his remarks were meant to encourage her, they had had the opposite effect, making her think she wasn’t trying hard enough to reach her potential.
“If your cousin needed me to take on some of the management, of course I would be willing to learn,” she had assured him with manufactured confidence. “At least until children come along.” Octavia’s mother had been there, but she hadn’t been there. Octavia would do both. “But I’m sure my father will remain active in the role for a long time, so...”
She trailed off, heart snagged by a new look of intention in his gaze.
“What?” she prompted.
“I’ve had an idea.” A faint smile drifted across his lips—lips that were a sensual contrast against the rest of his starkly hewed features. His cheeks were hollow, his chin strong, his expression vaguely dismissive of what she’d just said. Reaching out, he’d stolen her champagne and set both glasses on the narrow rail. “Let’s dance, Octavia.”
He’d taken hold of her hand and tugged her back into the ballroom, his calm surety causing a wild chaos inside her. To this day, she could feel the way his hands had burned her through her gown, already taking on the possessive quality she had grown to revel in.
Across the room, where her parents stood with Primo, her mother was waiting to catch her eye to signal that Octavia should rejoin them.
“I think they want to talk to us,” she said.
Alessandro had continued dancing, saying almost casually, “What if my cousin was not your potential husband, Octavia? What if I was? Would you still rather be a full-time wife devoted to running our home life, which I’d prefer, I must admit, or would I have a part-time business partner whom I would sleep with, which I would settle for?”
“Are you serious?” She’d misstepped, forcing him to catch her close to keep her upright. The press of his body had flushed hers with sexual awareness—something that had never happened to her before. The heated glow had risen up and radiated outward from her center like an aura, sensitizing her skin, warming her cheeks, encasing her in a blush of excitement.
Something happened to him in the same instant. He flashed a look of reassessment at her, brows crashing together as though he’d been taken completely by surprise. For a moment, his hands tightened on her and a muscle ticked in his cheek. A question hung in the balance, but she didn’t know what that question was.
Only that his mouth tightened with resolve as he made up his mind.
“Wh-why would you want to marry me?” she asked.
“As I said, I’d prefer a practical arrangement myself. I’ll need an heir and your father’s assets are a good mix for ours. Did you respond like this when you danced with Primo?” His thumb had traced a circle against her rib cage, the caress tiny and mind-blowing at the same time as he kept her pinned to his front.
“What? No!” Heat like she’d never known had flamed upward, burning her throat and stinging her cheeks. It was both embarrassment that they were talking so bluntly and reaction, pure animal attraction.
For the first time, she saw he was capable of humor as he flashed a grin of amused satisfaction.
“Good,” he said with a heavy-lidded look that put a funny knot in her belly. “And I’m glad you respond to me. It will make the making of those babies you want more fun for both of us.”
Lying in her hospital bed, Octavia threw her arm over her eyes, flooded with the same painful excitement and callow embarrassment now as had overwhelmed her then. What had he ever seen in her but naivety and willingness to be bedded?
As they’d resumed the dance, he’d kept his jaw angled proudly to look across the bobbing heads around them toward his cousin, asking almost casually, “Well?”
All she’d been able to think was that this wasn’t the man her father had chosen. She shouldn’t refuse Primo, but what if she land
ed a better catch? Such a lofty aspiration, she thought now with bitterness, but at the time she’d experienced a funny rush of excitement. It wasn’t rebellion if it was improvement.
Was he really asking her to marry him?
In case she was misinterpreting things, she merely answered the question he’d asked first. “I would prefer to focus on building a good home life after I marry.”
The aspiration was stark and fervent, actually. She’d had the same banked ache all her life. She wanted a place in the world that was hers. A place where she was welcomed and loved. Surely if she was a better mother than her own, her children would love her? That was her real dream. To be loved.
“I’ll speak to your father and begin working out the details.” His voice provoked the most delicious bubble of tension in her.
But she’d been surprised enough to halt again. Her skirt had swayed around both their legs. “Are you serious? We’ve only just met.”
“You’ve only just met Primo. But you’ve chosen me.”
She swallowed. Had she? When? This was starting to feel too fast. Impulsive.
“What...? What about him?” she asked.
Something fierce flashed in his expression, but he’d suppressed it before she fully caught what it could have been. “I’ll handle my cousin.”
He’d returned her to her parents, saying to Primo, “We need to talk.”
Primo had given her another hard study, as if he was trying to find what he’d missed, then set his jaw and left with Alessandro.
“You ruined it,” her father had growled in accusation.
“You were on the balcony with his cousin?” her mother scolded. “He was asking for you.”
“Nothing happened,” Octavia protested, but a lot had. “I mean, not like anything wrong.” She had been quivering in a kind of shock. “We just talked and... I think he’s going to offer for me. Alessandro, I mean.” It sounded outlandish even to her, now that he was gone.
Her father had given her a grim look. “You misunderstood,” he insisted. What could Alessandro possibly want with her, his disdainful sneer had asked?
What did Alessandro want from her? Compliance? A son? Would he be happy now? Approve?
In every way, Alessandro was so much more than she was. She’d realized it that night on the terrace and it had only become more apparent as time wore on. He had more education and street smarts, pulled all the strings, had the power and the influence and confidence in his own prowess whether it was in negotiating the marriage contract or teaching his wife the ways of their marital bed.
All she’d had was youthful, twenty-two-year-old looks that were passably pretty because she’d made a concerted study of how to highlight her assets and downplay her flaws. She prided herself on things like duty and loyalty because they were the only things her parents had ever valued and she’d overshot independence, skinning her knees hard enough to scare her back into her mother’s lap.
She had been a complete doormat.
It had to stop.
* * *
Alessandro had been exhausted when the interrogation was finished, but he was drawn to the hospital rather than bed, still poised to fight—because his cousin had attacked him in a very selective, devious way. Gone were the pesky one-upmanship salvos. This had very nearly succeeded in causing unimaginable damage.
It had nearly cost Octavia’s and Lorenzo’s lives.
A storm of retaliation was gathered in his chest, threatening to burst the civilized armor he had welded around himself with careful precision after his immature, hair-trigger temper had snuffed out his father’s life in the time it took to blow. Since then, he had learned to contain the wild force inside him so, even though he wanted to do violence to Primo, he ruthlessly disciplined himself to seek reprisal through legal channels. He would pursue every avenue of justice open to him and he would lose nothing in this undeclared war Primo had subversively raged against him.
Walking away unscathed would be his ultimate revenge.
He checked on Lorenzo, having already learned from Octavia that her instinct had been right. This was their son. Alessandro could barely take in the magnitude of how easily he could have missed knowing his own flesh and blood.
Those thoughts fed his rage so he pushed them aside, going to Octavia’s room where he was relieved to find her asleep. He wasn’t ready to talk about all that had transpired today.
Part of him was tempted to crawl into the bed alongside her, which he put down to his naturally possessive nature. Having a woman in his bed was something he’d always enjoyed for the obvious reason, but his need to hold her was a more primal compulsion. Protective, certainly, but an assertion of his right, too. Octavia was his and, despite Primo’s plotting, would remain so.
Her recent surgery gave him the strength to show some decency, though. She needed her rest and he wanted her to have it.
Somehow he had disturbed her, however, because he’d barely dozed off when she awoke, pulling away from his light fingers against the pulse in her wrist, giving him an inscrutable look he could barely read in the filtered city light that slid past the vertical blinds.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, hearing the rasp of fatigue in his voice.
“What time is it? I should check on Lorenzo, see if he’s hungry.” She tried to push herself to sit.
“I was just in there.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder, feeling her stiffen under the weight of his fingertips. It wasn’t the first time she’d reacted with something like rejection, which disturbed him. “He was sleeping,” he said, pretending he hadn’t noticed, offering a reassuring caress that she retreated from by dropping onto her back. “The nurse said she’d come for you when he wakes.”
“Oh.” She licked her lips. Her mouth looked shiny and pouty. Very delectable. He’d kissed her earlier, but it hadn’t been the right moment for the kind of reunion he craved. Right now wasn’t any better. His sharpest male instincts were activated, desperate not only to go on the attack in his role as protector, but wanting a private expression between them that affirmed his role as the chosen one to kiss and touch and cover her. He wanted the physical claiming that reinforced their bond.
Not possible, obviously. Not in her condition. He hoped that was the only reason she was tensing under his touch.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, genuinely wanting to know, but his voice thickened involuntarily as frustration bled back into him. Primo had risked her life and Lorenzo’s by failing to call the ambulance. How had he thought to get away with that along with the rest? He couldn’t think of any of it without nearly losing what temper he’d managed to keep.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, shifting to draw the light blanket over her arms and shoulders, all the way up to her chin.
A lie, of course. She couldn’t possibly be fine. He wondered why she wasn’t being honest with him. The estrangement he’d been sensing took on new dimensions as he grasped how much power Primo had had, moving into Alessandro’s mother’s mansion under a guise of waiting out renovations. It had seemed insignificant when Primo had asked Alessandro’s mother four months ago if he could prevail on her. Sandro hadn’t seen any harm in it so he hadn’t interfered, but now...
Now he saw it as the seemingly innocuous chess move it had been.
“You’re not fine, Octavia. We’ve both had a number of shocks and there’s more. Primo switched the babies’ name tags.”
* * *
Primo. Perhaps she’d guessed it subconsciously, but hadn’t wanted to face it because it was too cruel a thing for one person to do to another, especially to an innocent like Sorcha and a pair of newborn babies.
“I didn’t realize he hated me that much,” she said.
“It wasn’t you he hated,” Alessandro said, rising abruptly, shrugging within the collared shirt h
e’d changed into. He still hadn’t shaved, though. He turned to pace across the end of her bed, then stood at the window, angled to see out the slats of the blinds.
The disillusionment he projected affected her, making her heart pang even though she didn’t want to be soft-hearted Octavia anymore, the one who thought she could keep herself safe and ease tension between her parents by doing as she was told.
“Who then? You?” she croaked. “I’m the one who chose you over him. He never forgave me for it.” Why were there always such harsh consequences when she asserted herself?
Alessandro swung around. “He said that?”
She debated a moment. The cousins had always been so close it had been yet one more wall that had kept her from trespassing anywhere near Alessandro’s deeper self. He wouldn’t want to hear anything against his precious Primo.
“Not in so many words, but it was obvious. He thought it was my fault he was stuck in London and said he should have told my father where to go when he first approached him about joining the family fortunes. It was clear he was angry and I gave up trying to make amends. But I didn’t realize he was capable of something this awful.”
“I needed him here in London. I planned that before we even met. I didn’t think he could do something like this, either,” Alessandro bit out, giving his face a tired rub. “But he was directing his anger with me onto you. He’s always been jealous. Ever since my father died and my grandfather and uncle turned their attention to grooming me to run things. He felt passed over.”
She knew the basics of their family history, that Alessandro had been twelve when he lost his father. His grandfather, Ermanno, had already been semiretired. Alessandro’s mother and her children had moved into the castello with Ermanno so he could mentor Alessandro himself. Alessandro’s uncle Giacomo, Primo’s father, had taken over the day-to-day running of things until Alessandro was old enough to do it himself.