by Day Leclaire
They used up precious time returning to their respective apartments to change, before driving into Dantes together. “If you’d stay in my office during my meeting with the Romanos, I’d appreciate it,” he said as he worked his way through noontime traffic.
“That’s okay. I’ll just go to my office and—”
He released his breath in a frustrated sigh. “That wasn’t a request, cara, despite how it may have sounded.”
She stiffened. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not. As soon as we announce our marriage to the family, you’ll be free to return to work. Until then, it would be better to keep a low profile.”
“I see,” she said, though he could tell that she didn’t. Not even a little. “And what am I permitted to do during your meeting? Is twiddling my thumbs acceptable?”
“Perfectly acceptable. Though if you’d rather, you can phone your secretary and ask her to bring you messages or work files.” Unable to resist, he leaned in and snatched a quick kiss. It relieved his mind no end when she responded to it. “Just warn her not to alert anyone to your presence.”
“Like Lazz.”
“Exactly.”
He took them in through the back entrance, in the hopes of attracting as little attention as possible. They arrived at his office only moments before the Romanos and, after reluctantly parting from his wife, he escorted Vittorio and his daughter, Ariana, into the conference room. The meeting didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. A new article had appeared just that morning in The Snitch, detailing how Sev had blackmailed his wife into marriage. Not quite accurate, but damning enough.
“What do you want me to do, Vittorio?” Marco finally asked. “I can’t prevent them from publishing these stories. No one can. Look at the royal families in Europe. There are constant, scurrilous articles about them in the various rags. If the Royals can’t put a stop to it, how can I?”
“He has a point, Papa,” Ariana said.
Vittorio folded his arms across his chest and his face fell into stubborn lines. “All I hear is excuses. Maybe if you and your brothers were more circumspect, your antics wouldn’t attract the attention of this rag.”
Before Marco could reply, he heard Lazz’s voice raised in anger from the general direction of his office. Then the door slammed open and his brother burst into the room, Caitlyn hot on his heels.
“You son of a bitch,” Lazz snarled, and launched himself at Marco.
Six
Marco absorbed the impact and they hit the ground with a thud. Lazz landed several hard punches before realizing that his brother, while protecting himself, wasn’t striking back.
“Fight, you bastard,” Lazz shouted. “Give me an excuse to tear you apart for stealing what was mine.”
Before Marco could respond, Sev and Nicolò descended on the conference room, dragging the two combatants apart. A babble of voices erupted, some in English, more in Italian. Through the mass of bodies, Marco saw Caitlyn standing off to one side, looking horrified. But even as he watched, her chin set and he could practically read her thoughts. She intended to face the ramifications of her actions, just as Marco would.
“Did you touch her?” Lazz demanded. “Did you put your hands on her?”
“Touching was unavoidable, all things considered.” Marco fingered his split lip and winced. “Caitlyn and I are married.”
Stunned disbelief held everyone silent for a second before all hell broke loose again. Across the room Vittorio Romano shot to his feet. Ariana began a heated argument with him but Marco could tell it wouldn’t do any good. He could kiss that account goodbye. Something Ariana said must have made an impact because Vittorio hesitated and then with great reluctance pointed in Lazz’s direction.
And then something very strange happened. Ariana turned to look at Lazz, whose focus remained fixed on Marco. A strange smile tilted her mouth and she nodded. “Yes, he’s the one,” he heard her voice in a brief lull in the shouting.
Vittorio waded through the herd of arguing Dantes to Marco’s side. “Fix this,” he warned. “Then call me.”
Marco didn’t have a clue what had just happened, but he’d take whatever fortune the gods cared to bestow and run with it. “You have my word. This will sort itself out in time.”
“Make it soon,” Vittorio advised.
The minute the Romanos left, Lazz swiveled in Caitlyn’s direction and Marco read the determination in his brother’s eyes. He leaped to his feet to put himself between the two. Sev and Nicolò moved in to block him, grabbing hold when he would have fought his way to his wife’s side.
“You owe him this much,” Nicolò growled.
“I don’t owe him a damn thing. You don’t know what he did.” Unable to break free, Marco swore long and virulently. “I’m warning you, Lazz,” he roared in Italian.
“Stay away from my wife.”
Lazz simply shot a mocking glance over his shoulder and crossed to Caitlyn’s side. Marco began to fight in earnest, suspecting he knew what was to come.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Caitlyn say. “I swear what happened wasn’t planned.”
“Not by you,” Lazz agreed. “Just out of curiosity, who did you marry last night?”
She frowned in confusion. “Marco.”
“Marco…or Marco posing as me?”
Her breath hitched in sudden understanding and the sight of tears glittering in her eyes nearly tore Marco apart. “Does it matter?” she asked softly. “It’s done.”
He hesitated a moment before nodding. “Fair enough. But, I’d still like to know. When did you know it was Marco, and not me?”
Marco stilled as his eyes locked with Caitlyn’s. The fight drained from him as he waited for her to tell them all what he’d done. To betray his lies and deceit. For something fragile and unique to die before it ever had the change to gain in strength and power. He’d messed up. Badly. Broken something precious while risking the bonds of his family. And he didn’t know if he could fix it. If he’d have the time to fix it.
“I knew it was Marco the instant I first set eyes on him. I immediately realized that he was the one I’d met in the lobby on my first day at Dantes.” She focused on Lazz, the expression in her eyes calm and unflinching. “Why didn’t you set me straight my first day here? Why did you pretend it was you I met in the lobby?”
“I—”
She released a laugh of amused exasperation, but Marco could hear the heartache behind it. “I know. I know. You two have been competing for women since you were schoolboys.”
“I’m sorry,” Lazz said stiffly. “It was wrong of me. I should have told you.”
A sharpness crept into her voice. “You had six weeks to correct my error. The fact that you couldn’t find an appropriate occasion in all that time can only mean you deliberately kept silent in order to keep me in the dark. You also made damn certain I didn’t discover you had a twin because you worried that I might question who I’d really been attracted to that day.” She waved the topic aside as though it held no further importance. “Never mind. Marco and I worked it out between us. We’ll consider the rest water under the bridge.”
Lazz frowned. “Caitlyn, I kept silent because I didn’t trust Marco to respect our relationship.”
“We didn’t have a relationship that first day,” she said with devastating logic. “You saw an opportunity to cut your brother out of the picture and have spent weeks keeping Marco and me apart so we wouldn’t catch on. Well, sorry. The game’s over and you lose.”
“You have every reason to be upset.” He hesitated.
“But Marco’s joking about the two of you getting married, isn’t he?”
She shook her head and summoned a brilliant smile, one that succeeded in fooling Lazz, but didn’t fool Marco in the least. She held out her left hand where her wedding rings flashed. “He wasn’t kidding.”
Lazz stared, stunned. “My God, Caitlyn.”
“Don’t.” A hint of strain bled into her voice. “W
hen it’s right, it’s right. That’s why I was so confused while we were dating. Something happened during that first meeting with Marco, something that didn’t happen in all the times you and I were together since. As soon as I met Marco, everything became clear. Just because you don’t understand what my…my husband and I feel for each other, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Marco could see she’d reached the breaking point. This time when he fought off his brothers’ hold, they released him. He crossed to Caitlyn’s side and dropped an arm around her shoulders and held her close.
“Hang in there just another minute,” he murmured for her ears alone. Then louder, “Caitlyn’s answered all the questions she’s going to. The two of us will be out for the rest of the day. Don’t call unless it’s urgent. And just so you know, urgent isn’t on the schedule for the next twenty-four hours.”
Without another word, Lazz stepped back. Sev gave an agreeable nod. “Congratulations on your marriage. Take the rest of the week if you want. We’ll make sure your jobs are covered.”
“Thanks.” Marco answered for himself as well as Caitlyn. “We’ll take it into consideration.” He didn’t waste another minute but escorted his wife from the building and to his car before she broke down. “We’ll go to my place,” he told her.
She shook her head. “I just want to go home.”
“My place is your home,” he reminded her gently. “Living apart now will make it too easy to continue living apart. That’s not my idea of marriage.”
“Neither is this,” she whispered.
He shot her a concerned look. “Give it time. It’ll get better, I promise.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. “You make a lot of promises, Mr. Dante.”
“And I keep each and every one of them.” They drew to a halt at a stoplight. “Why did you do it, Caitlyn?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Lazz wasn’t an innocent in all this, either. In fact, a large portion of our situation can be placed squarely at his door. If he’d told me it was you in the lobby that day or warned me that he had a twin brother, last night wouldn’t have happened.”
Marco shrugged. “It would simply have delayed the inevitable.”
She opened her eyes, eyes gone dark with painful memories. “I’d never have agreed to date you.”
“You’re wrong.”
She considered for a moment before conceding the truth. “Okay, fine. I would have gone out with you. But as soon as I’d realized that you were—what did Britt call you?—sinfully charming, I’d have put an end to our relationship. I don’t date charming.”
“You married charming,” he reminded her. “Besides, by the time you’d discovered just how charming I am, it would have been far too late.” He put the car in gear and cruised through the intersection. “I would have won you over, just as I did last night.”
When they arrived at his apartment, he took her on a brief tour. “We can shop for a new place, if you want, though this should be big enough for two. I’ll let you decide.”
“It’s at least four times the size of my place.” Impressed, she ran a hand along the back of his couch and paused to study the collage of photos on the wall, most of which were family pictures. She focused on Nonna and Primo’s wedding photo. “I never did get to meet your grandparents.”
“You will. Did you know they also eloped?” She shook her head and he added, “Nonna was engaged to Primo’s best friend. Once The Inferno struck, that was that. There was no turning back for them, either.”
Caitlyn stilled. “Is that the only reason you married me? Because of this Inferno you believe you felt?”
“We both felt The Inferno, cara.”
Was he serious? She turned from the wall of photos to fully confront him. “Let me get this straight. The reason we’re together is because of The Inferno. It has nothing to do with me? With who I am, with what type of person I am? You felt this reaction and therefore that’s it. End of story. You’ll marry me simply based on some family legend.”
“It goes deeper than that.”
“You’re wrong, Marco. There isn’t anything more. Nothing deeper. We felt something when we first shook hands and you assumed it was this Dante legend come to life. And all because of that, you interfered in my relationship with Lazz. You tricked me into going with you to Nevada.” She fought to keep the pain and tears from her voice with only limited success. “You married me, even though you knew I thought you were your brother. And all because of a fantasy. A family superstition.”
“It’s not superstition. It’s fact.”
Anger rose to the fore. “I live by facts and figures, Marco. The Inferno is far from fact. You may believe in it. Your grandparents may believe in it. Even Sev may give it some credence, though how a man so intelligent could, is beyond me. But that doesn’t make it real. That doesn’t make it factual. And it’s sure as hell not enough of a foundation for marriage.”
“In time you’ll understand.”
“No, I won’t, because our marriage won’t last that long.”
He approached with an easy, unhurried stride and slid his arms around her waist. “Let’s see if I can’t convince you to change your mind about that.”
“What are you going to do?”
She didn’t know why she bothered to ask the question. She knew precisely what he planned. It was there in his heated gaze and in his slow smile and in the tender manner in which he held her. He moved against her in a way that instantly brought their wedding night to mind, then lowered his head to coax her mouth with a single kiss.
She could feel the slight puffiness from his encounter with Lazz’s fist and kept the kiss as gentle as possible, though why she felt the need for such consideration she couldn’t explain. To her surprise, he didn’t demand. Didn’t insist. He simply seduced with lips and teeth and tongue.
How was it possible that she surrendered with such ease after all he’d done over the past twenty-four hours? Was she so desperate to return to his bed that nothing else mattered? Where was the logic in that? How could she reconcile heart with head when every time he kissed her, her heart went wild and her head lost all ability to reason?
“Give us a chance, Caitlyn. We can make this work.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I’ll make it possible.”
He swept her into his arms and shouldered his way into the bedroom. She had a brief glimpse of bright colors and gleaming woodwork before falling into the sumptuous embrace of raw silk and velvet. The handcrafted comforter cushioned her, cradling her in softness, while Marco covered her in all that was hard and male.
“This is wrong.” Her hands settled on his shoulders to push, but clung instead. “I don’t want you to make love to me again.”
“This is even more right than last night.” Urgency blazed within his eyes, sparking with green and gold lights. “When you make love to me this time, it won’t just be with your husband. You’ll make love to me knowing I’m Marco, not Lazz.”
“So you can put your mark on me.”
A hint of a smile cut through the hard edge of passion. “That happened long ago.”
“You can’t truly believe in this Inferno,” she argued desperately. “That it’s responsible for the attraction between us.”
He hesitated, his hand tracing the curve of cheek and throat as though he was unwilling—or unable—to keep his hands off her. “I’ve been attracted to many women.” His voice held a hint of apology. “But it’s never been like this. I can look at you objectively and see a beautiful woman, a woman I’d want in my life and my bed.”
She couldn’t help stiffening against him. “And you’ve succeeded.”
“Let me finish. I’ve never once wanted more from those women than a casual affair. I’ve never been tempted to extend our relationship beyond its temporary boundaries. But with you…” He caught her hand in his and drew it to his chest, pressed it tight to the solid beat of his
heart. “With you it’s as though those women were mere shadows of possibility. Shades of gray without color or substance. I don’t want shadows. I want light and color. I want a woman of depth. And that’s you.”
“This is too much, too soon. We need time to get to know each other.”
He laughed, the sound soft and deep and oddly arousing. “We have all the time in the world, cara. Decades to get to know every intimate detail.”
“That’s not what I mean—”
“I know what you mean. It’s just not something I can offer you.”
So compassionate, and yet so absolute. He didn’t give her time to argue any further. His mouth drifted across hers, nibbling a lazy path. The casualness of the kiss should have allowed her to turn away. Instead it incited a desire to deepen it, to drive it from temperate to ardent. To feel the burn that happened only with Marco.
She whispered his name and felt him practically inhale the sound of it, felt his need as though it were her own. She expected him to exhibit some sign of victory or complacency. But he didn’t. He simply gave to her, allowing her demand to set the pace.
“If I ask you to stop, will you?” she asked.
“Yes. Reluctantly. But, yes.”
He needed to stop. Now. “Don’t stop. Not yet. Soon—” She groaned as the buttons of her blouse gave, one by one, and he stroked his finger from the dip at the base of her throat to the scalloped edge of her bra. “Marco!”
Then his mouth followed the same path, his tongue tracing the lacy contours while he found the back fastening and released it with a flick of clever fingers. Cool air sliced across her bared skin before Marco warmed it with a single touch. He palmed her breasts and laved each tip into tight peaks, catching first one and then the other with his teeth until she could barely contain her response to the pleasure.
Her hands moved of their own accord, tearing at his shirt. She heard the cotton rip, heard the muted ping of buttons popping before she finally—finally—hit hot, bare flesh. Satisfaction bubbled through her like warm syrup as her hands plied the sculpted muscles, tripping across them with her fingertips. He groaned his encouragement.