The Ranieri Bride

by Michelle Reid

  Since he was already climbing the stairs, Freya did not need to ask where. He kicked the bedroom door shut behind them and strode towards the bed.

  None of this should be happening—none of it! she told herself as the feverish sensation grew worse.

  ‘No,’ she protested, only to feel the hard cut of disappointment when he let her feet slip to the floor then took a step back.

  His dark head went back. ‘What, then?’ he challenged arrogantly.

  ‘Explain that—thing you said about Luca,’ she insisted.

  She had eyes he wanted to drown in and a body beneath the virginal dress that was seething with wanton lust. Did she think she was fooling him with the stubbornness? Did she think he could not tell that she wanted what he wanted as badly as he did?

  His hand went into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew an envelope—a gold envelope. He handed it to her then turned and walked across the room to the tallboy.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Look,’ he suggested, using the key to unlock the wall safe.

  The Georgian lady sprang away from the wall while Enrico listened to Freya breaking the envelope seal. His fingers were not steady as he reached inside the open safe.

  She’d gone very quiet now. He turned to look at her. As usual her hair was tumbling around her lowered face.

  ‘We see what we expect to see,’ he fed across the room to her. ‘What do you see, cara?’

  She gave a small shake of her head. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she whispered.

  ‘I cannot say that I readily believed it when I walked into his hotel suite and saw it for myself.’

  Freya looked up. Enrico was leaning against the tallboy, all sartorial elegance and sophisticated grace. Her senses leapt. She crushed them down again.

  ‘You just—walked in?’

  ‘Luca has always liked to do things the easy way. And using the Ranieri name to gain him the good things in life, including the best in accommodation, has always been expensive—for me. He might have been thrown out of the family, but I have been picking up the tab for his high-life ever since. The hotel he was staying in belongs to me,’ he explained. ‘So access to his suite was relatively easy.’

  ‘And…’ He watched intently as she moistened her lips. ‘And you caught him—like this?’

  ‘Exactly like that. Quite revealing, hmm?’

  Freya looked back at the photograph she held in her fingers, which showed Luca close up and full in the face. He was sporting a red-haired wig and a beautifully cut slinky black dress. His make-up was simply perfect. He looked—disconcertingly beautiful.

  ‘I had the foresight to use my phone to take pictures while he was recovering from the shock.’ Enrico had many more of them stashed in Luca’s folder, but the one Freya was holding said it all.

  ‘He is not gay, in case you are wondering. He simply likes to dress up in women’s clothes. His latest mistress finds it…exciting. But she is not excited about his running costs. So when we appeared in the newspapers he believed he had found himself a new income—just as you had predicted he would.’

  ‘Blackmail.’

  ‘With a sense of humour.’ Enrico nodded. ‘Hence the staged appearances as the redhead. He always was a twisted son of a bitch.’

  ‘Did you already know a-about this?’

  Enrico shook his head. ‘None of the family knows, which meant I had stumbled upon the best weapon I had to shoot down his blackmailing plans. He would rather run back down his dark hole and never emerge again than have the Ranieris know his little secret.’

  ‘But he turned up at the church today in front of the whole Ranieri family!’

  Enrico grimaced. ‘I have to confess that I don’t know why he did that unless…’ He pushed out a sigh then straightened up to turn back to the safe. ‘He hates me, cara,’ he said. ‘For being born to inherit the Ranieri power instead of him. I used to turn a blind eye to his envy because, in a way, I understood it and I actually cared about him, but…’

  The words stopped but the expression on his face said the rest for him. ‘There’s nothing wrong with loving someone who does not love you back,’ Freya said huskily.

  His shoulders flexed. ‘It makes you a weaker person.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed.

  ‘Vulnerable,’ he added.

  Freya pulled in her bottom lip to stop herself from answering that, unsure where he was going to take it.

  ‘You are forever striving to make them see you in a better light.’

  ‘You paid his debts off.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You gave him the money.’

  ‘Though I had no need to,’ he agreed. ‘Yet Luca could not resist turning up today for one last thrust of the knife. He wanted me to know that if he wanted to he could “come out” and my hold on him would be gone.’

  But there was more to this than just Luca playing devil’s advocate. ‘You still believe his version about what happened three years ago,’ she whispered as her heart spun into a painful twist.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he turned round to look at her at last. ‘Of course I don’t!’

  ‘Then why the big tear-jerking confession about the vulnerability of loving someone?’ she threw back.

  ‘Here—catch.’ He tossed something at her.

  Freya had to drop the photograph to field what had arrived in her hands. It was a DVD case. She frowned at it.

  ‘Your wedding present,’ he explained—and she did not miss the point being made in the way it had been delivered. ‘I am a man who likes to cover all contingencies, cara. Getting Luca to give me a full and honest confession about what happened three years ago was a safeguard I recorded via my mobile then downloaded to DVD. I did think of going for the big matching gesture and having a printed version mounted and framed for you but I was afraid you might hang it in the hall where everyone could read it and see what a blind and vulnerable idiot I am.’

  ‘Vulnerable how?’ Her head came up.

  He sent her one of those lazy, rueful smiles because she was not questioning the blind-idiot part.

  ‘Frightened,’ he expanded. ‘That here came another person I—cared about, who held me in contempt for feeling that way.’

  ‘You wanted to believe his version!’ Freya accused him.

  ‘I was as weak as a kitten,’ he continued. ‘Besotted; with your hair, your eyes and—’

  ‘You stay back there until we have finished this!’ she warned when he began to move.

  ‘—And scared because the marriage thing was hitting panic buttons inside my head even before I saw you with him.’

  ‘So you preferred to believe I could betray you because that let you off the commitment hook?’

  He caught her, crushing sensual silk and lace to lift her right off the ground and bring their eyes level. Hers were sparking, his were just black…

  Sexy black, contrite black…an I-know-where-I-am-going-with-this kind of arrogantly challenging black.

  ‘I love you like there is no tomorrow,’ he told her softly.

  ‘Well, that makes it all OK then, doesn’t it?’ Freya flashed back sarcastically even as the declaration sent her heart into a dizzy, dipping dive.

  ‘Why can’t you cut me a bit of slack?’ Enrico sighed out.

  ‘Because you’re aroused,’ she said in disgust.

  ‘You think you need to tell me that?’

  ‘And you’re crazy if you think I am going to—’

  ‘I married you because I am crazy,’ he put in as he turned with her still clamped to his body. ‘Mad,’ he expanded. ‘Cut up. Gut-wrenchingly guilty. On fire. In love. Scared of it and you and of losing it all again because I had been too blind to see the truth three years ago.’

  ‘Because he told you the truth at last?’

  ‘Because you told me the truth,’ he sighed out impatiently. ‘Because you made me open my eyes and see that damn truth!’

  She opened her mouth to say something. He kissed her to stop her from a
rguing and she fell into the kiss the way she always did.

  None of this should be happening—none of it! Freya told herself as the familiar fever erupted and she could not stop herself from responding. They still had things to discuss!

  ‘Later…’ he murmured.

  He could even read her mind now. ‘OK,’ she heard herself mumble weakly—and recaptured his mouth.

  Just like that—just like that!

  ‘Madre de Dio, you are a contrary creature,’ he gritted out as he stopped beside the bed and let her feet touch the floor so he could start taking his clothes off.

  ‘Let me,’ she said and flipped his hands away so her own could do the job.

  It was like unwrapping the best wedding present ever. Her man, her possession—she had the vow of love and the gold wedding ring to prove it.

  She laughed.

  He growled something not very pleasant about teasing women, then sent her flying backwards onto the bed and followed her.

  The dress could have been a rag. Maybe she should have married him in a rag, bearing in mind the lack of care and respect he used for the exquisite fabric of her wedding dress as he removed it.

  His shirt was hanging open, his trousers half undone. While she knelt up so he could deal with the million and one tiny buttons down the back of her dress, she was busy removing his shoes and socks.

  ‘No finesse—no finesse,’ she accused the both of them. ‘And it’s my proper wedding night!’

  ‘We will do the finesse bit later,’ he assured her as the dress fell away to reveal sheer lace-cupped breasts that pouted creamily and a shapely backside dressed in almost nothing at all.

  He smoothed his hands possessively over her rear. He leant forward and buried his teeth in its tight satin flesh. She quivered with pleasure and raked off his trousers.

  After that, everything was forgotten as passion took over: hungry, sensory, hot, greedy, giving, taking, lusty and loving passion….

  More adjectives, Freya thought hazily. Good adjectives. Beautiful, meaningful, wonderful adjectives.

  ‘I love you so much,’ she sighed out.

  His hand curved around her nape, gently tugging it back so he could look into her eyes. It was there. Their greenness was lit by a love he had seen three years before, but only now did he realise that it had been missing recently.

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ he responded roughly.

  ‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘Aren’t you lucky? And you never know, if I’m very persistent I might even get you to say the love word again.’

  His dark eyes began to gleam. ‘Maybe, if you press all the right buttons.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. It was a challenge. ‘What about this button…?’

  ‘You green-eyed witch,’ he groaned. ‘Yes. Si—si—si…!’

  ISBN: 1-55254-589-X

  THE RANIERI BRIDE

  First North American Publication 2006.

  Copyright © 2006 by Michelle Reid.