The Marriage He Must Keep

by Dani Collins

  For the millionth time in the past four weeks, he wished he could sweep her into their bed, make love to her and reforge the connection they needed. Instead, he had to watch her fingers twitch nervously under his touch and her bottom lip catch between her teeth.

  How did one earn a woman’s trust if not by demonstrating that even though he was strong enough to overpower her, he would only ever use his agility and strength to pleasure and protect her?

  “What happened when your father died?” she asked, unexpectedly shaking him out of his rumination. “Did your uncle not challenge your right to command then?”

  The memory of that dark time rose quick and fast to strike his heart like a rusted iron blade. He sat back, dropping her hand and trying to close the topic as swiftly and bluntly as he could.

  “He didn’t have to. He was put in charge as a provision in the directorship. I was too young and too trapped in grief to properly take in the politics or legalities. Plus, I felt so guilty I refused to even train for the position, so he dismissed me as a threat. It was years before I considered it, even longer before I was ready to usurp him.”

  He cut himself off as he realized he’d said too much.

  Octavia cocked her head in curiosity. “What do you mean you refused? Why did you feel guilty?”

  He didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t revisit the past without self-hatred overtaking him. His grandfather was the one who had insisted he assume the role, pushing and testing and guiding, telling him he owed it to his father to care and provide for the family the way his father would have done if he’d lived.

  Alessandro flinched as his crisis of faith crept up to revisit him.

  In light of all they were going through, did he deserve to oversee the family fortune? Had he caused this fissure in the family by marrying her instead of allowing Primo to do it?

  How would Octavia see his actions? Would she side with his grandfather’s view that he owed it to his father to shoulder the responsibility? Or with his own view that he was unworthy? Or with Giacomo’s dismissal that he was unpredictable.

  Unfit.

  “We were at a festival,” he said, rubbing suddenly chilly hands on his thighs. He cleared the huskiness from his voice. “I was twelve. You know that. I had a fight. It was a stupid argument between a pair of boys wanting to test each other. You understand what I mean? Hormones and immaturity. Bravado. Nothing more. But it felt like everything at the time.”

  That was always the part that bothered him most: how quickly his fuse had lit and how blindly he’d acted.

  “I didn’t even know him,” he said, berating himself all over again as he went back to that day, with its smell of dust and the heat off the buildings and sidewalks, even though the sun was down. The jarring music, the din of the crowd, the aroma of cooking thick on the air, it was all imprinted on him. “I took offense to something he said about my sister and stood up for her. We began to scrap. There would have been no harm beyond a pair of bloody noses. There were police there to keep the peace and one blew his whistle. That made my father look up from across the street. He was with some friends and had had a few drinks. He wasn’t drunk, just tipsy enough to react without thinking. He stepped off the sidewalk to come across and stop me, but he didn’t look. A car hit him and he was killed instantly.”

  “Oh, Sandro,” she gasped, hand coming up to cover her mouth, as shocked as the entire street had been with the abruptness of it.

  Her eyes held deep compassion, which wasn’t easy to bear when he expected, even wanted, recrimination. But he’d traveled this road many times with his grandfather. He had come to terms with his guilt.

  Mostly.

  He stood, restless, trying to shake off the darkness.

  * * *

  Sandro moved into the sitting room and stood over the boy who carried his father’s blood as well as his name.

  Octavia gave him a moment as she took stock herself. Her husband was such a confident man. She never would have guessed he carried such a terrible burden on his conscience.

  Following him, she saw the sun was beginning to angle across to Lorenzo’s cot. She closed the doors and curtains, dimming the room.

  “Is that why your uncle continues to challenge you?” she asked gently. “He holds you responsible for his brother’s death?”

  Sandro jerked, then nodded once, keeping his back to her as he stared at their son. “Yes. And it’s why Primo felt he had a right to this role.”

  “But he’s not...” you, she wanted to say.

  He lifted his head, seeming to hang on to what she’d been about to say.

  “They’re not like you,” she said awkwardly. “Primo is selfish and Giacomo doesn’t have your patience. There’s no one else in the family...like you.” She wasn’t expressing herself well at all, but how did she describe his calm acceptance of responsibility, as if million-dollar decisions were nothing more than a choice between coffee or tea? He sifted through a hundred details and distilled a problem and found the solution all within seconds.

  His reaction was difficult to read. His head went back a little as he absorbed her summation of his relatives, making her wonder if she’d crossed a line. Dismay curled his lip before he sighed.

  “At any other time I would have defended them, but you’re right. I’ve never wanted to see it, but of course you have.” He looked at her as though reassessing her. “You keep your opinions to yourself, but you gather a lot, don’t you? You’re very astute.” He pushed his hands in his pockets, shoulders tense. “But if you think me selfless and patient, it’s because my grandfather taught me to be everything this family needs, so I could provide what my father would have given if he’d lived. I’ve let my guilt blind me, though. I’ve seen only the wrong in me, none in Giacomo. Certainly I refused to face the extent of Primo’s shortcomings. I preferred to make him into what I wanted him to be, which was a loyal partner, not an adversary.”

  “He would never be as motivated to lead selflessly. He doesn’t carry your guilt, Sandro.” She found herself moving across, wanting to impress this truth in him with a touch on his arm. “As much as it hurts you, that remorse of yours is a strength.”

  His face spasmed with a flash of different emotions: pain and pensive regret. A reluctant kind of acceptance. He swallowed as though he was working past deep emotion and tucked his hand against the side of her neck, thumb caressing her throat.

  “I remember thinking, just after we married, that you had an original way of looking at things. I’m sorry I lost sight of that, cara. I won’t let it happen again.”

  The infinitesimal threads between them, the ones that had been snapped and floating like spider silk searching for an anchor, touched and melded and began to form a bridge between them.

  His expression grew even more somber and the caress on her cheek almost regretful. “You see now why I have to battle through this? Why I must refuse to step aside for Giacomo? You’ll stand by me while I hold my ground?”

  “I wish you’d told me all of this before.” This was why he was so deeply bound to his family and why he was so closed off emotionally. To his mind, he must think giving in to his hot feelings that one time was the cause of his father’s death. That’s why his mother’s unbridled sentimentality and grief and cries for love made him so uncomfortable. It was both a reflection of the intemperate reaction that had gripped him that day and the reason she wasn’t still married to the man she had loved.

  Octavia absently smoothed the wrinkle from his shirt, thinking of the weight these shoulders carried. She couldn’t help but want to ease his burden. “I don’t know what I can do to help,” she murmured. Had he not noticed that she didn’t even have the guts to defy him and strike out on her own?

  “Be here,” he said, the words somewhere between demand and entreaty. “Be strong with me.”

  She h
ad never felt united with anyone in her life. She was needed by her son, yes, as a caregiver, but Sandro made it sound as if he wanted her to be his partner.

  Her eyes dampened, she was so touched.

  “If you want,” she said faintly, nodding jerkily.

  His breath hissed out and his mouth tilted in a relieved smile.

  Such a beautiful mouth.

  His smile faded and he crowded closer, leaning in—

  “Oh! Excuse me! I’m so sorry,” Bree blurted as she strode in. She spun to retreat just as quickly.

  “Stay,” Alessandro commanded, forestalling her closing the door, but keeping his arm around Octavia, allowing her to turn her blushing face into his chest. “Stay with the baby while I take Octavia down for lunch, please.”

  A noise of consternation escaped Octavia before she could catch it back.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, tension returning in an instant. She could practically hear his We just agreed.

  She sighed. She hadn’t just been hiding from the family discord when he’d found her on the balcony.

  “I have nothing to wear,” she admitted.

  * * *

  Lunch and dinner were fairly horrible affairs and the entire day turned into one of the longest of Octavia’s life. She spoke to her mother briefly, which did not lighten things up.

  “We didn’t expect you to be back this soon. I suppose we’re expected to attend this birthday celebration? You’ll have to make our excuses.”

  Apparently her grandson’s birth and her daughter returning home after nearly eight months away was not inducement enough to leave the villa for a night.

  Aside from Alessandro’s grandfather, who was as quiet and visibly troubled as Sandro had said, everyone in the castello was quite unfriendly. They stopped speaking if Octavia came into a room and closed doors when she happened to pass. It was her first year at boarding school all over again.

  Sandro was pulled into private conversations himself, leaving her to navigate things alone. It was exhausting and she was having serious second thoughts about all of this when she finally crawled into bed. How, exactly, did she think she was improving her circumstance by clashing with his family?

  She fell into a troubled sleep and woke to feel Sandro settle behind her, carefully spooning his hot body behind hers and splaying his hand on her hip.

  A racy excitement glittered through her, making her roll to face him and force a tiny space of distance before she embarrassed herself.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “Coming to bed.”

  It was too dark to read his face, but he’d said they would sleep together once they came back to Italy. That had been the last word on the subject and it had been weeks ago. She wasn’t sure she was ready.

  Her body was, though. His hand went to her waist, drawing her close and in a way that was part muscle memory, her back arched and her hips wriggled so she slithered into place perfectly against his front. She shuddered with a kind of mental release as her body melted against his. It had been so long since she’d been snuggled up to his naked chest and felt his hairy legs abrade her own as he surrounded her in his strength.

  She couldn’t help but sigh in homecoming as she reacquainted herself with the delicious sensations of warmth and smooth skin, hard muscle and masculine scent. The dark room and soft bed gave her a safe place to forget her worries and take comfort from physical contact.

  “Cara,” he protested, hands moving restlessly on her, urging her to stillness. “I’m trying not to—” His breath hissed out against her cheek and he swore under his breath. “Too late.”

  He was hard. She could feel his erection thrusting against her abdomen, straining the silk that was trying to contain him.

  “You never wear anything to bed,” she murmured as she discovered his shorts.

  “This way I can get up with Lorenzo. Stop,” he growled, catching at her wrist. He didn’t pull her hand away, however, just went very still as she traced his shape through the silk. As she rediscovered his thick length and moved the silk against the sensitive tip, he jerked against her hand. “That feels good. But you should stop.” The last was a tight statement that didn’t sound very sincere.

  Yearning trickled through her. She longed to rediscover all the wonderful textures and scents on his body, the places that made him groan and shudder. The only time she had ever felt his equal was when she pleasured him in bed. That’s why it had destroyed her to think of his seeking other women. She was supposed to be the special one, the only woman who could do this to him, make him shake and shatter.

  He was a straining muscle from head to toe right now, making her believe he’d been honest with her and hadn’t had any sort of release since they’d made love months ago.

  “Bella, stop,” he said in a rasp. “I’m going to come.”

  “I want you to,” she said with a feeling in her chest like a purr. She was velvet on the inside, sensuality welling up to fill her for the first time in too long. Kissing his chest, she snaked her hand beneath his waistband, making an approving noise as she reacquainted herself with the smooth, naked shape of him, thick and taut and hard. He said something, but she only nuzzled until she found his nipple. “Do you want my mouth here?” she asked. She circled the tight bead with her tongue before sucking it wetly. “Or here?” She took firm hold of the hot, iron-hard shape of him, caressing him the way he liked, squeezing and slowly pumping.

  He bit out a very dirty word, crushed her hand through the silk and thrust within her tight grip. The silk shifted against her wrist and he swelled and hardened, so fiery against her palm he burned her skin. His hand tangled in her hair and he bit out another word, her name, and lost control with a shudder, noises of satisfaction escaping him while his abdomen shuddered and lava soaked her fist.

  She smiled, intensely pleased, and kept her lips pressed to where his heart slammed inside his chest while he made a gratified noise and caressed her arms and back and shoulders with shaking hands.

  “I can’t believe you took me apart like that,” he scolded on a whisper that lilted with disbelief. He rolled away to twist his shorts down and off, using them to swipe the wetness from his belly and her hand before he tossed the garment from the bed.

  Then he rolled so he hovered over her, not crushing, but close enough to be a heavy, damp, human quilt.

  “I didn’t know how I was going to sleep against you, but I did not expect that, you erotic little witch. I meant to behave like a gentleman.” He kissed her, once briefly, then again, this time passionately and hungrily, as if they were only getting started.

  Arousal spiked through her, stinging between her legs.

  “Sandro, don’t,” she moaned, breaking away and wriggling beneath him with conflicted desire, wanting to make love, but saying, “I can’t.” It was just over a month and the doctor had said six weeks.

  “Can’t take me inside you, but I can touch you the way you just have me.” In a well-practiced move, he crooked his knee to push her legs apart, then set the proprietary weight of his hand on her mound.

  His hand closed into a fist, drawing the silk of her nightgown upward, bunching it to her waist. She sucked in a breath as tingles of anticipation burned, teased by the movement of his hand and the stroke of silk climbing her skin, baring her thighs.

  “I didn’t mean to do that to you. It just happened,” she protested, shifting and trying to decide if she really wanted to fight him. He traced one fingertip along the edge of her undies, then in a delicate line down her center. She gasped and held her breath, pulsing, aching, literally throbbing for him to touch and satisfy her.

  “Do you think I don’t know that when you’re that aggressive, you’re so aroused you barely need more than a kiss? Here. Just like you did to me, bella,” he coaxed with sultry command, sidling o
ne fingertip beneath the narrow lace at her hip, pulling her panties askew just enough to expose her to his caress.

  She held her breath as he took his time petting, parting, one fingertip gathering moisture and circling...

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  “Let go,” he whispered, covering her mouth with a tender kiss as he explored more intently.

  She sobbed with pleasure, not realizing how aroused she was until she found release under the lightest of caresses, losing control in an abrupt shiver of pure ecstasy. Oh, she had missed this. So much, so much.

  Their kiss continued with both of them making satisfied noises in their throats as he continued to caress her, soothing and bringing her down from the heights.

  “Now sleep, before I eat you alive,” he insisted, replacing her undies and drawing her body tight against his. He was aroused again—still?—but only tucked her head under his chin. “You’re delicious, my adorable wife. I’d make love to you the rest of the night, if I could.”

  She wanted to keep making love. By the end of their honeymoon, they’d been insatiable, sometimes spending all day in bed pleasuring each other to exhaustion.

  Had she really believed she could leave him and never know this again?

  For the first time in months, her heart felt full and her ache of scorn dissipated. Her lashes dampened with relief at being held this closely against him while the tingles of climax left her floating. She fell asleep feeling treasured and safe.

  Then rose to feed Lorenzo early in the morning, coming back to their room to find Alessandro showered, shaved and dressed in a suit and tie.

  Leaving.