“What’s down there?”
His lips curved slightly; his eyes held a definitely wicked cast, all the more beguiling as the sun slipped lower and the sky was bathed in orange and scarlet. “Family secrets and skeletons,” he told her. “What else would a di Medici keep buried below the earth? If you have the courage and heart, Chris, I’ll take you one day.”
She laughed, shaking off his macabre tone. “Oh, I’ve got the heart. And in daylight, I’m loaded with courage.” She frowned then. “What was Joe saying when we first met him, when he was talking so enthusiastically in Italian?”
He watched her for a moment, his eyes partially hidden by the darkness of his lashes. “He was saying that you had grown like a flower. Like a rose. Very beautiful.”
“Oh!” Chris murmured.
“A thorny rose, I told him.”
“Did you?”
“Of course.” He paused for just a minute, then smiled dryly. He started walking again, pulling her close, and murmuring to her in a warm stirring whisper. “You are beautiful, Christina. But then, you know that, don’t you? You’re relying on that fact to wheedle every bit of information out of me that you want.”
“What!” she demanded, wrenching away from him. His tone had been so seductive that she hadn’t realized for several seconds that she was being mocked.
He appeared undaunted by her anger, only challenged. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his inner jacket pocket and lit one, watching her over the flare of his match.
“I told you, Christina, I do not care to be conned. But…” He shrugged, then smiled slowly, and in the darkness she couldn’t tell if the smile was sardonic, or merely amused. “But perhaps I will not mind being charmed. We will have dinner alone, away from the palazzo, and perhaps I will tell you why your father was accused.”
“Perhaps!” she snapped. “You owe it to me! Damn it! Someone owes me an explanation.”
“Don’t tell me what I do or do not owe, Christina,” he warned her quietly, but she sensed the granite behind his words, the warning…or threat.
She didn’t feel like backing down, even if she was shivering again, outwardly and inwardly. And she didn’t know if it was with anger or the sense that she had fallen prey to something beyond common sense or logic.
Fallen prey to Marcus. His excitement and danger.
He didn’t allow her time to answer. He slipped an arm around her, pulling her close to his body, its strength and riveting heat. “You’re cold,” he told her. “Let’s get to the ristorante. Because I choose to, I’ll explain what happened. Though you really should know.”
“How could I?” Chris cried out.
He hesitated again, and she could feel him looking down at her, his cobalt eyes raking over her. She cast her head back to meet those eyes, now cold as the moon.
“Because you were there,” he said softly.
CHAPTER 4
“What?”
“Could we go inside, please? You’re shivering again. And I’d appreciate it if you’d quit shouting.”
“I’m not shout—”
He laughed, bringing his hand from her shoulder to clamp it lightly over her mouth. “You were shouting. Per favore! Can we go inside?”
Chris nodded, and managed to maintain a tense silence while he led the way into a restaurant called Le Grotto. The place gave the appearance of a cave—or a cellar, at the very least—but it was decorated with warm wood and plants, and each of the booths was very private, in its own little enclave. They were seated immediately, and when the waiter spoke ingratiatingly to Marcus, he glanced at Chris.
“Wine?”
She shrugged. “When in Rome…”
“This is Venice,” he reminded her.
“Close enough.”
He spoke to the waiter in quick flowing Italian, then faced Chris again, his hands folded on the table. “You really have no memory of Venice?” he asked her.
“No, not really,” Chris murmured, wondering suddenly if that meant that Marcus intended to lie to her. “Just…images now and then. A sense of déjà vu. When I got to St. Mark’s Square I knew what it was going to look like, although I didn’t really remember it, if that makes any sense.”
The wine arrived, and the waiter poured a small amount in Marcus’s glass. He tasted it and nodded. A glass was poured for Chris, and small crisp loaves of Italian bread were set before them. Marcus caught the waiter before he could leave, asking Chris quickly if she liked shrimp.
“Yes,” she told him.
“It’s their specialty. Shall I order?”
Why did she feel that it wasn’t really a request? Because it wasn’t, she decided. It was an assumption that she would comply. He was just showing a facade of courtesy.
She lifted a hand. “It makes no difference.”
He placed their order, and the waiter moved away. Somewhere a violinist was playing, but it seemed that they were very much alone. They were across the table from one another, but her kneecaps kept brushing his and even that contact seemed to start her heart racing.
“Would you care to go on?” she asked him, watching him over the rim of her wineglass. He raised one brow, but kept silent. “Would you please go on?” she murmured with a saccharine edge, smiling as she added, in a softly warning tone, “Before I start shouting again and leap across the table to strangle you.”
He chuckled, a warning in itself. “Why do I doubt, Christi, that you could do such a thing?”
She ignored the comment. “All right. Alfred Contini and Sophia were there on the yacht that day. My parents and your parents. Genovese was there…and Joe Conseli and Fredo Talio. Right?”
“Yes. And so were Tony and I…and you.”
Chris took an overlarge drink of her wine. The dry liquid burned her throat and abdomen. She swallowed a second time and set her glass down, wanting to watch him but unable to. She traced a finger around the rim of her wineglass.
“So why my father, Marcus? All those people were there…yet it’s pinned on my father. How? Why?”
“Because your father was the last person to see him alive.”
“The last person to admit to seeing him alive!” Chris exclaimed indignantly.
“Because,” Marcus said, and his voice seemed to grate impatiently, “they’d been fighting.”
“Fighting?”
“Yes. They’d come to blows. Your father had a black eye and a cut lip. He told your mother that my father looked worse.” He was silent for a minute, then added bitterly, “And, oh, he did! By the time they found him, he was hardly recognizable.”
The waiter came over then, leaving a typical antipasto tray piled high with olives, small tomatoes, celery, anchovies and slim pepperoni. Chris looked at the platter, feeling a little ill.
The waiter moved away.
“You’re not eating,” Marcus commented.
She stared up at him furiously. “No, I’m not. And you’ve got no right at all to condemn my father on such slim evidence!”
“Slim evidence?” he asked quietly as he selected a piece of pepperoni.
“Damned slim…and even an Italian judge thought so, too!” Chris exclaimed. “All right, they’d been fighting. But like two men, Marcus. My father came in with a black eye, not with a denial. He didn’t do anything cold-blooded or conniving. He got into a fight. Where is your sense of reason? Obviously someone else killed your father!”
“Who?” Marcus demanded flatly, and she felt the full blue flame of his gaze. “Myself? Or Tony? You? Perhaps you’re up to strangling men these days, but you were only four at the time. Your mother? She never left the cabin.”
“You’re neglecting Alfred, Genovese, Joe and Fredo, and Sophia,” Chris said stiffly. “And your own mother.”
His hand shot out across the table, encircling her wrist in a painful vise. “You would accuse a woman who has lived in a tomb herself since his death? My mother?”
“Why not?” Chris demanded heatedly, ignoring the burning hold around her w
rist and meeting his gaze with fury of her own. “You accuse my father.”
He emitted an impatient curse and practically threw her wrist from him. “You refuse to face the facts, Christina,” he said wearily. “Your father left. The rest of us…we have all been together for the past twenty-one years. I’m sorry. Everyone believes that your father killed mine. If he hadn’t, somewhere in all these years, something would have come up. Some type of evidence or proof of guilt. It has not.”
Chris took a deep breath. “You’re wrong about one thing, Marcus. Not everyone thinks my father was guilty. Alfred Contini doesn’t think my father killed yours.”
She had the supreme satisfaction of seeing stunned surprise filter across his customarily guarded and implacable features.
“What?” he demanded with a quick harsh breath.
“You heard me.”
“Alfred told you this?”
“Yes, quite flatly.” Chris smiled, picking up her wineglass to swirl the liquid around. “It’s rather amazing, isn’t it? All these years, Alfred Contini has been cared for into his old age by the powerful di Medicis. His loving mistress stays by his side…but he came to me, a near stranger, to ask for help.”
“He asked for your help?”
“He said that he needed me.” Chris just stopped herself from telling him that Alfred intended to meet her alone at the galleries to talk to her and impart secrets that he didn’t want the “walls” or the “air” to hear. She wanted to rub Marcus di Medici’s nose in his own arrogance, but she reminded herself that Marcus could be the very “walls” or “air” that Alfred had meant.
Marcus lowered his head. A lock of his jet hair fell across his forehead, and when he raised his eyes to Chris once again, they were filled with amusement. The candlelight was caught in his eyes, making them look like blue diamonds, and something about his expression caused Chris to catch her breath and reminded her with a little shock that she should never have forgotten her first impression of the man. He was elementally dangerous on many levels, not least of them sexual.
Her hand lay on the table. He reached out to touch it again, but this time without painful strength. She found that she was staring at his fingers as they stroked her flesh. The nails were neatly bluntly cut. His hands appeared slimmer than they were because his fingers were long. Long, and filled with a shocking strength…and stunning tenderness. Now his touch grazed lightly, almost absently, over her knuckles, and he warned her with humor, “I wouldn’t take anything that Alfred has to say too seriously. His health is poor, and I think that he is often bored with life these days.”
“Bored, perhaps, but not senile,” Chris objected quietly. Her eyes were still drawn to his fingers where they stroked her hand. She could snatch it away, she knew, but some part of her refused to do so. She couldn’t help it; she had never pretended to herself that she had been anything but fascinated by him from the first. If he had walked away she would have been fine. But instead he had become, within hours, the focal point of her life.
“Then, Christina,” he murmured lightly, “perhaps you should be very careful. If any of what you are saying is true, Alfred could well be casting you straight into the fire!”
Her eyes flew to his. “What?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “Oh, Christina! I wasn’t being serious! Alfred is old and lonely. Perhaps he craves a little intrigue or excitement in his life, and perhaps he also feels this is a time for peace. He has you here; he does not want you hurt. It’s very possible that his plan is simply to give you a sense of well-being so that in your mind, and your heart, you can clear your father.”
“I don’t…”
She paused when the waiter arrived, and watched as their pasta and shrimp were served. The pasta tonight was a spaghettini with a light sauce. The shrimp had been broiled in oil and garlic, then topped with crispy cheese and bread crumbs. Everything smelled delicious, and Chris hoped she could find an appetite.
Among other things, she was acquiring a headache. The white wine that Marcus had ordered was extremely potent.
The waiter refilled their glasses, and apparently asked Marcus if there would be anything else. Marcus glanced to Chris. She hadn’t understood many of the words, but she had grasped the question. She smiled at the waiter.
“No, grazie.”
He left them. Chris picked up her fork to poke at the shrimp. She started when she felt Marcus’s hand on hers again, and when she looked into his eyes this time, she felt as if something as haunting as Venice itself swept through her being. There was, she thought, guarded concern in his eyes, something gentle where there was so often anger and mockery.
“Christina, let it all lie,” he told her quietly. “Let the past go. You are here, you are welcome. Enjoy Venice, enjoy the galleries. My father is dead, so is yours. Let them rest.”
“I…”
She wanted despertely to break his spell over her. She tossed back her hair and offered him a very cool smile. “Have you forgotten? I’m really after Alfred’s money.”
He slowly withdrew his hand from hers, and she saw the ice rise in his eyes again. “Ah, yes. Alfred’s money. Or a di Medici husband, didn’t you say? Actually, we’re not worth much… financially.”
“Oh, but you must be! All those gems! Those paintings!”
He smiled, white teeth flashing in the candlelight, copper features harsh and drawn. “The galleries and the palazzo, they are hungry, Christina. They consume money like sharks prey upon the weak.”
Chris chewed a shrimp and deliberately ignored his comment. “This really is delicious, Marcus. And you needn’t worry too much. I’ll go after Tony, I believe. He has a much sweeter disposition.”
“Really? Perhaps I should try to exude a greater charm.”
“You could try,” Chris murmured noncommittally, and she began to wonder what she was doing besides playing with fire.
He seemed to be thinking the same thing. Smiling laconically, he reached across the table, grazing her cheek with his thumb.
“The irony of it, Christina, is that I do find you fascinating,” he murmured, and a flash of pure heat assailed her. “So if you choose to flirt with fire, cara Christi, see that you do not do so carrying casks of petrol, eh?”
Chris caught his hand and placed it on the table, smiling sweetly. “I always flirt carefully, Marcus.”
He laughed, freeing her from his spell.
“Eat your shrimp, Christina. Manga. Manga.” Smiling with a slight curl of his lips, he tapped her glass.
“Bicchiere,” he said, and she smiled, finding herself repeating him. “Pane.” He picked up the bread, then pointed to her shrimp. “Frutti de mare.”
“Fruit of the sea?” she asked.
“Literally, yes. Seafood.”
Chris did manage to eat as the meal turned into a lesson in the Italian language. And—the déjà vu again—many of the words rolled off her tongue very easily.
Despite the fact that the evening had begun with tense anger and rigid determination, she discovered that she had a nice time. She laughed, smiled and was, she was certain, charming…to an extent, at least.
But then, he had already told her all that he could. Or had he? She didn’t feel like dealing with it anymore that night. Her headache had become light-headedness, and the idea of playing with fire had become very seductive.
By the time they left Le Grotto Ristorante a full moon had risen over the city. Chris smiled slightly as she stared up at it. Venice, Venezia…it was a city of romance, touched by the years and by the future. She loved the water, the bridges, the gondolas and everything about the city.
And Marcus…
Dark, handsome and intriguing. The perfect host when he chose to be. Courteous, charming, polite.
But always…mysterious. It was his eyes, she decided then. So deeply, deeply blue against his dark complexion. His features were so ruggedly defined, his movements so smooth. What was it about the man? She liked the casual touch of his hands, the feel
of the fabric of his suit. His casual laughter, his negligence and…
And his intensity. It was always there, lurking beneath his smile or his laughter. In the way he looked at her, touched her with his eyes.
The narrow roads were almost empty as they sauntered slowly back to the palazzo. She didn’t mind his arm about her at all, and that thought made her smile again.
She was going to have to watch out for the local Venetian wines. They were a potent brew.
It seemed that he could read her mind. As they neared the palazzo steps he asked her, “Did you like the restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“The shrimp?”
“Yes.”
“The wine?”
She wrinkled her nose. “It was a little dry.”
“Ah, well, there is a similar sweeter vintage,” he murmured.
“I’ll have to try it sometime.”
“Yes,” he murmured. He opened the gate and locked it behind him. Then, in the shadow of the steps, shrouded by vines and shadowed by the moon, he pulled her into his arms.
Startled, Chris stared upward into his eyes. She felt his palms grazing her bare shoulders, then fitting themselves to the base of her spine, pulling her hard against him. His lashes fell briefly over his cobalt eyes, darker than the night, hypnotic, and then he returned her gaze with a probing depth.
“If it’s Antonio you’re after,” he whispered, “I’ll have to sample what I might be missing…now.”
Chris knew that she should resist him, yet she had no desire to. She watched his eyes as they came closer and closer to hers, then disappeared altogether as she closed her own and felt the hot provocative touch of his mouth, firm against hers. Ah, yes, she had charmed him. Done such a wonderful job that she was in his arms, losing sight of everything but the perfect feeling of being there. This kiss was no mild thing, stirred and fanned to grow deeper; it began as a tempest. She felt that she melted at the steel of his arms about her, fusing to his length. And yet she was real and alive, and aware that as he held her, she pressed her length to his, arching to appease the hunger of his mouth and her own. His tongue moved wickedly, fluid and demanding; his hand moved to her cheek, then caressed her throat. Blue fire sizzled within her, sweet and urgent, lapping along her spine, burning into her limbs. She played with the dark hair at his nape, touched his cheek, savored the scent and taste of him, barely aware that in all her life, she had never been kissed like this. So deeply, so passionately. Never had a man made her feel so alive, so hungry herself…. She felt the warmth of him beneath his jacket, the taut musculature, rippling, powerful beneath her fingers. The feeling grew that this was something wild and beautiful, as old as original sin, but absurdly right.
The Di Medici Bride Page 8