Talos’s wife, Amalie, was a violinist who played so movingly that even Daniele could appreciate its beauty.
‘You’re on your own? Come, join us.’ Then, turning to Eva, he made the introductions. ‘Eva, this is my old friend, Talos Kalliakis. Talos, this is Eva...my...wife.’
‘Your wife?’ Talos didn’t bother hiding his shock. ‘You dark horse. I didn’t know you’d got married.’
‘That’s because we only married today,’ Eva piped up, getting to her feet and sticking her hand out to him. She’d had a few breathless moments there when she’d wondered exactly how Daniele was going to introduce her. ‘Nice to meet you.’
It was very nice. The interruption was exactly what they’d needed.
Despite her best efforts over the years to move on and forget her torrid childhood, discussing her family and her past still had the power to hurt her. She could lay the facts out in simple, unambiguous language but the memories that lay behind them...
That was an area she would prefer not to delve into, especially with the man who’d explicitly told her that he had no interest in her past, hence no interest in her. Daniele desired only her body. She was a means to an end for him and she would do well to remember that, just as she had to remember that he was nothing but a means to an end for her too.
Ignoring her hand, the giant planted an enormous kiss on both her cheeks and embraced her tightly. ‘Congratulations to you both. Are you sure it’s okay to join you? I won’t be offended if you’d rather be alone.’ He looked quizzically at Daniele as he said this, clearly wondering why a married couple would spend their wedding night anywhere other than in bed.
‘Not at all,’ Daniele insisted in that relaxed, good-natured manner he had that Eva knew she would never be able to emulate. He took her hand and brought it to his lips. ‘Eva and I have the rest of our lives to be alone.’
Talos called for champagne to be brought over and, before she knew it, the three of them had formed their own little group that slowly expanded as more people drifted over to join them, including the movie star Eva had been enraptured by earlier, more bottles of champagne were ordered as word got out that the notorious bachelor Daniele Pellegrini had finally settled down.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVA STARED AT the eclectic mix in which they were the star attraction with that old feeling of falling into a vortex engulfing her again. It didn’t help that Daniele kept her so close to him for the rest of the evening that she ended up squished against him on the sofa with his arm around her and his large warm hand resting possessively on her thigh. He made sure she was included in all the conversations and, to the natural question asked ad infinitum of how they’d met, he proudly told them all about her work in Caballeros. He even sounded genuine about it, which thrilled her more than she cared to admit.
These were some of the richest and most famous people in the world and they were treating her as their equal. She almost choked on her champagne when she realised Talos was, in fact, a prince and that his wife was the violinist whose latest album Eva had downloaded. When they finally left it was with a dozen invitations to parties and dinner ringing in her ears.
‘What did you think?’ Daniele asked when they were in the back of the car, his driver taking them back to the castello. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘It was surreal but, yes, I did.’ She’d surprised herself by how much she’d enjoyed it. She’d felt like a fish out of water but his friends had been so hospitable and welcoming—even if some of the women had looked at her a little bit too pityingly for her liking—that she’d almost relaxed.
‘I thought you did amazingly.’ His admiration sounded as genuine as his pride when discussing her work. She hadn’t expected that, not for a minute.
But Daniele was proving to be nowhere near as shallow as she’d thought when she’d first met him. She’d formed preconceptions about him, which his behaviour on their ‘date’ had confirmed for her. She hadn’t given him any credit for what he was doing in Caballeros; a project that his brother had set in motion. The brother who had died just a month before their date.
Other than the flirting, she hadn’t seen any sign of that selfish, shallow behaviour since. Quite the opposite if she was being honest. On the whole, he was a perfect gentleman.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
‘For what?’
‘For including me. For not ignoring me.’
‘Why would I do that?’ he asked, seemingly bemused.
Suddenly she realised they were still holding hands.
She carefully disentangled her fingers from his and put her hands together on her lap. Her fingers tingled their disappointed resentment.
‘I don’t know.’ She took a long breath. ‘I hadn’t thought about what would happen when we met your friends. It just surprised me that you included me in the conversations. I guess I had an image in my head that when rich men get together the cigars come out and the little women are banished to another room.’
‘If that still happens it’s not in the circles I mix in.’ He didn’t sound put out by her less than charitable pre-assessment.
‘Have you taken many women there before?’ She couldn’t summon the courage to ask if any of the women with the pitying stares had been ex-girlfriends of his.
Had they pitied her because of their own pasts with him or were those looks based solely on his reputation?
Why did it even matter? It shouldn’t. His past held no more interest to her than hers did to him...
She felt his hand cover hers and had to close her eyes and will herself not to take hold of it again.
‘Tesoro, would you do me a favour?’
‘If I can.’
‘Stop assuming the worst of me. I’m not an angel. I know my reputation with women isn’t good—and deservedly, I admit—but I’m not the pig you think. I meant what I said when we first discussed marriage, about it being based on respect. I would never be so disrespectful as to take you somewhere I’ve taken other women.’
She opened her eyes and turned her head to face his intent stare. ‘I’m starting to believe that,’ she murmured.
‘Good.’ Then he ruined it all by grinning lasciviously at her and kissing her knuckles. ‘And I also meant what I said when I promised to try and seduce you at every given opportunity.’
She glared at him but couldn’t quite summon her usual force, not when her whole body now ached to be kissed in places far more intimate than her hands.
‘You can let go of my hand now,’ she said, hating that her voice pitched itself so low.
He laughed in as low a pitch but did as she said. ‘I’m starting to think that marriage to you is going to be fun.’
She flexed her fingers. ‘I’m a laugh a minute.’
‘You’re a lot more fun than I thought you would be,’ he admitted, twisting so he faced her with his whole body.
‘I’ve never had much time to explore my fun side,’ she said drily. ‘I’ve always been too busy studying and working.’ She didn’t add that the concept of fun had been banned in her household when growing up. Fun was something other families had, not the van Bastens.
‘I’ve always studied and worked hard too,’ he pointed out. ‘It never stopped me having fun.’
‘I don’t imagine there’s anything that would stop you in your pursuit of pleasure.’
‘You’re stopping me,’ he said, dropping his head a touch to look woebegone, but then his eyes sparkled and he inched closer to her. ‘But not for much longer, and I can promise you the pleasure will belong to us both.’
‘Do you only think of sex?’ She shouldn’t be encouraging this conversation but sense seemed to have gone out of the window. And she shouldn’t be leaning closer to him...
‘Have you not looked in a mirror? What man wouldn’t look at you and think of sex?’
‘I am more than just my body.’
‘And I am more than just my sex drive. I’m learning to appreciate all your other qualities
too.’
‘If you’re more than just your sex drive, why do you hate marriage so much?’
‘I don’t hate marriage. It’s just an institution I never wanted to join. But now that I have joined it, I mean to make the most of its positive aspects, which involves sleeping beside your warm, delicious body every night.’
With her body leaning ever closer to his, Daniele’s gorgeous mouth near enough that one quick push forward would link their lips together, it was with great relief that Eva saw the lights of the castello glowing brightly in the night sky.
She snatched a breath and forced herself away from him.
They were home. It was time to go to bed.
* * *
Daniele stoked the fire before getting into the four-poster bed that had been a feature of the castello for so many years it was considered an antique. He’d already replaced the curtains on the high window with the thickest available, and made a mental note to call his head contractor in the morning. He wasn’t prepared to wait a day longer. The renovation of this wing would start immediately.
His thoughts puffed away when Eva emerged from the bathroom with her thick robe wrapped around her.
Her composure, as had become her trademark, was exactly as it always was. It had been the same when she’d first stepped into his room and looked around it coolly before giving a little nod that he took to be approval.
He’d arranged for the staff to move her stuff over to his bedroom while they were out, and she’d opened the doors to her new dressing room, which had been used by his ancestors as a prayer room, as if she’d opened them a hundred times before. She’d selected her nightwear then gone into the bathroom as if it were something she’d been doing for years.
It was only as she walked barefoot to their bed that he saw a faltering in her step.
She slid under the sheets and gave a little gasp. ‘You don’t use any kind of bed warmer?’
Not tonight he didn’t. Tonight he’d left deliberate instructions to the staff not to warm the bed for them. Underhanded but necessary. ‘If you’re cold I’m very happy to warm you.’
‘I’ll get warm without your help soon enough.’ She flashed a knowing smile at him. ‘Especially if I keep my robe on over my pyjamas.’
‘Are they sexy pyjamas?’
Settling onto her side and burrowing under the covers so only the top of her vibrant red hair peeked through, she said, ‘If you won’t use a bed warmer you’ll never find out. Goodnight, Daniele.’
‘No goodnight kiss for your new husband?’
‘No.’
‘It is our wedding night.’
‘Happy wedding night.’
Laughing softly, Daniele switched the bedside light off, pitching the room into black. Done, he settled himself down as close to the middle of the bed as he could without encroaching on her space in a way she could complain about, facing towards her. Well, facing towards her back, which his eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness to see with any form of clarity.
He could smell the faint trace of her shampoo. And the mint of her toothpaste. And the remnants of the perfume she wore, which he was coming to adore.
She shifted a little, her movements those of someone trying to get warm.
‘Still cold?’
‘I’m warming.’
They fell into silence, the only sound the rustling of the sheets where Eva had entangled herself.
‘Are you always such a fidget?’ he teased.
‘Do you always talk so much?’
‘I can get you warm.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Prove it and stop fidgeting.’
‘I don’t have to prove anything.’ But she stopped moving. For almost a whole minute before the rustling started again.
Grinning to himself, Daniele inched closer and lifted the sheets where they were tight across her back.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked sharply.
‘Using my body heat to warm you. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe.’
‘Touch me inappropriately and you won’t be.’
Taking full advantage of her tacit, if reluctant agreement, Daniele hooked an arm across her belly, taking great care not to touch her anywhere she could deem inappropriate, and pulled her so she was spooned against him.
‘Better?’ he asked into the top of her head. The strands of her hair brushing the underside of his chin had the texture of silk.
She gave a noncommittal mumble. She was hardly melting into him but neither was she attempting to escape.
It surprised him how good this felt, just holding her. He wasn’t going to try anything else—though he wouldn’t mind in the least if she turned over and jumped on him—and found himself content to simply lie there with her voluptuous curves nestled against him, all the scents that combined to make her filling his senses.
It was too much to expect his loins to behave with the same decorum as the rest of him. He’d fantasised about getting Eva into his bed for weeks and having her in his arms, even as chastely as this, was playing havoc with his reactions to her.
He heard an intake of breath and knew she could feel his lack of decorum for herself.
‘Relax,’ he murmured. ‘You’re safe.’
She must have believed him for she sighed but stayed exactly where she was. When he moved his hand over her belly and the tie of her robe knotted around it, and found her hand, she didn’t resist when he covered it with his own. When he laced his fingers through hers he felt the lightest of pressure in return.
Her fingers were cold.
A smattering of guilt settled in him. Eva had lived in the Caribbean for...how long, he didn’t know. He hadn’t asked. But he knew it had been a long time. The only thing Caballeros had going for it was its year-round sunny climate. She must have adjusted to that and now she was living here in this draught-ridden ancient castle in a winter far colder than was the norm for this region, she was having to adjust again.
She hadn’t complained. She’d simply got on and coped with the cold draughts and mostly ineffective log fires. If he’d known how much she felt the cold he would have got his tradesmen in immediately to sort their living quarters out, not decide to concentrate on getting as up to date with his work as he could before their wedding.
And he would have got the bed warmed up for them too. Wanting her to be a little bit cold so he could take advantage of it was a different matter from making her body temperature plunge to that akin to a fridge.
But she was warming up now. And relaxing.
His heart beating harder with every passing second, Daniele willed himself to relax too.
It was a long struggle, one he knew he’d brought on himself by holding her so close, even with that thick robe separating their bodies. The only parts of their flesh that touched were their hands, which neither of them seemed to be in any hurry to part.
‘Can I ask you something?’ she whispered just as his brain was starting to switch off.
‘Sure.’
‘You’ve had so many lovers...didn’t you have feelings for any of them?’
So she was thinking of him with lovers...
He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Probably the latter, which he couldn’t blame her for.
‘There were some I liked more than others,’ he answered honestly, his mind flickering to a few years back when he’d been dating a French model who’d been capable of holding a decent conversation. Not a decent conversation like he could have with Eva but compared to his other girlfriends she’d been an Einstein. He hadn’t bored of her as quickly as he usually did. A few weeks into their relationship—a record for him—he’d taken her to a party at an embassy in Paris that his brother had also attended. She’d spent the entire night flirting with Pieta, who’d made no effort to discourage her even though he’d been engaged to Natasha, who in turn had been absent from the event. Daniele had dumped her without a backward glance. Whenever he thought of that night it wasn’t her he t
hought of but his brother.
Daniele had been the one with the reputation of a Lothario but he would never have flirted with Natasha or any of Pieta’s girlfriends that had come before her. He would never flirt with any woman who had a partner. His sense of honour might be warped in some people’s view but his loyalty was absolute. It had angered and astounded him that Perfect Pieta’s honour and loyalty could be so fickle and that he could have been so blind to it.
‘But none you would have considered marrying instead of me?’ she asked in the same soft whisper.
‘No.’ His fingers tightened against hers reflexively. He didn’t want to think of his brother and his less than perfect behaviour. He needed to remember the good, not the bad, and there had been far more of the former. ‘You are the only woman I could have taken this step with.’
He knew with a certainty that he couldn’t explain that Eva would never demean herself or be so insensitive as to flirt with a man when she belonged to someone else.
Not that she belonged to him, he quickly reminded himself. Of course not. And if she could read that thought he was quite sure she’d kick him.
But none of this did anything to alter the proprietorial feeling in his chest as he held her so tight against him.
* * *
Eva awoke feeling as snug as she’d ever felt in her life, so warm and dreamy that she was reluctant to open her eyes and break the spell.
Daniele’s large warm body was still pressed against hers, keeping her warm as if he were her own life-sized hot-water bottle. At some point in the night their fingers had unlocked and his hand had burrowed under the knotted tie of her dressing gown and through its gap to rest over her pyjama top on her belly.
She hadn’t thought she’d be able to sleep in the same bed as him but she’d slept as deeply and sweetly as a baby. She’d felt his erection pressing against her. The heat it had conjured... It had been enough for her to move away from him with the truth that she was no longer cold.
Buying His Bride of Convenience Page 9