Her Wedding Night Surrender (Harlequin Presents)

by Clare Connelly

  ‘Are you wearing suntan lotion?’

  Her face showed bemusement. ‘No. But it’s after five. I’m sure I’ll be—’

  ‘The Roman sun still has bite.’ He turned on his heel and disappeared, returning a moment later with a small yellow tube. ‘Here.’

  He tossed it down on the lounger and she picked it up, unscrewing the lid slowly. His eyes followed her progress and he crossed his arms over his chest, his manner imposing.

  He had been imposing even before Emmeline had factored in her embarrassing confession and request in the pool last night. No. Not last night: in the early hours of that same morning.

  The colour in her cheeks now had nothing to do with the fact that she’d been reading by the pool for hours. Though why she’d chosen to return to the scene of the crime was beyond Emmeline. In that moment, confronted by the ghost of what a fool she’d been, she wished she was anywhere else.

  She flicked the cap off the bottle and squeezed some cream into her hands, then rubbed it over her exposed arms and the vee of her neck.

  Pietro watched, but his temper wasn’t improved by the display. Nor was it improved when she placed more cream into her palm and reached down to spread it over her legs. Legs that were long, tanned and smooth...

  He looked away from her, his arms still crossed.

  But he could see her in his mind. As she’d been in the pool early that morning—her hair like a shimmering black veil, her eyes enormous, her lips curved into a smile.

  Her question hadn’t been unreasonable. Hell, he’d backed her up against a wall and slid a finger into her wet heat until she’d come in his arms. Of course she was curious.

  He’d stirred something inside her and now he was preventing her from experimenting. From exploring that side of her.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Was she annoyed that he’d turned her down?

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, as though their conversation from the night before was still going, had simply been paused for a few hours while they slept and he worked. ‘You’re my wife, and if we were to sleep together it would be too complicated...’

  Her eyes flew to his face, the statement knocking her off balance completely. She hadn’t expected this, but she managed to pick up the threads of their negotiation as though it were just that—a simple business deal.

  ‘Complicated how?’

  ‘I have nothing to offer.’ He spoke stiffly, his shoulders squared. ‘I’m not interested in a relationship, and I suspect you’ll blur those lines if I do what you ask of me.’

  She nodded slowly and then shrugged her shoulders. ‘Sure.’

  Her easy acceptance was insulting. ‘If you came to want more from me I can promise you I wouldn’t offer it.’

  She bit down on her lip and shrugged once more. ‘Whatever. It’s not important. Forget I mentioned it.’

  He looked away once more. Why did she have such beautiful legs? Out of nowhere he pictured them wrapped around his waist as he pulled her closer, pressing into her.

  His arousal throbbed painfully.

  ‘I know I can’t hold a candle to your usual...um...lovers. It was stupid of me to even suggest it.’

  ‘You are very different,’ he agreed softly.

  Her battered pride was almost debilitating in its intensity. He didn’t need to tell her how different she was. She’d seen the photos. He’d all but told her that she wasn’t attractive. God, she’d thrown herself at his feet! Of all the foolish, embarrassing, childish, stupid things to do!

  Regret washed over her heart. But pride was beating its drum, forcing her to remember who she was and what she wanted in life. This marriage was a stepping stone for Emmeline—a brick path to freedom.

  ‘I think I just got carried away last night. The moon... The water... The heat...’ Her smile was dismissive. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  She briefly met his eyes and then looked back to her book, pretending fascination with the page she was on even as the words swam before her eyes.

  It won’t happen again.

  ‘That is for the best, cara.’

  He spun on his heel and stalked back inside the villa before he gave in to temptation and pulled her to her feet, roughly against his chest, and plundered those sweet lips that had been tempting him all afternoon.

  * * *

  Rafe let out a low whistle, his eyes locked on some point across the room. Pietro followed his brother’s gaze, though he knew what he’d see.

  His wife, Emmeline Morelli, looking as if she’d walked out of a goddamned Vogue photo-shoot. Her dress was beautiful, but every woman at this event was draped in couture and dripping with diamonds. It was Emmeline he saw.

  Her long dark hair had been set in loose curls that waved around her back, and the dress itself was a sort of Grecian style, in a cream fabric that gathered beneath her breasts then fell in floaty, gauzy swathes to her feet, which were clad in shimmering gold sandals. She wore a snake bracelet on her upper arm, and a circle of gold around her head.

  She looked like a very beautiful, very sexy fairy. Something the two men she had been locked in conversation with for the past twenty minutes seemed eminently aware of. Her face was animated as they spoke, her eyes illuminated and her laugh frequent.

  Hot, white need snaked through him.

  ‘Married life seems to agree with Mrs Morelli,’ Rafe said, and grinned, grabbing a glass of wine from a tray being walked past by a waiter.

  ‘Si,’ Pietro agreed, willing himself to look away but finding it almost impossible.

  ‘And you?’ Rafe turned to study his brother, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. ‘I would ask how you’re finding the leap into married life, but I can see for myself that it is no hardship.’

  Pietro’s expression was shuttered.

  ‘No comment, eh?’ Rafe laughed good-naturedly.

  A muscle jerked in Pietro’s jaw. ‘There are too many of these twinkling lights,’ he snapped, changing the subject. ‘I feel like they are everywhere I look.’

  Rafe’s laugh was annoying Pietro. Everything was annoying him. Who the hell were those men? Had she met them before? It was possible that they had dealings in America...that they knew Col. Perhaps she’d hosted them at the plantation. Maybe they were old friends.

  A groan of resentment died in his throat. He nodded dismissively at his brother. ‘I’ll speak to you later.’

  Pietro moved quickly, cutting through the crowd, ignoring any attempt to draw him into conversation. But there were so many people between him and his wife and he was the man of the hour, in huge demand.

  He spent a few minutes in curt exchange with a board member, and then smiled briefly at his cousin Lorena before getting within striking range of his wife.

  He paused, watching her up close for a few seconds, seeing the way her face moved while in conversation.

  Guilt was not something he was used to and yet he felt it now. Her father was one of his most valued friends, and yet he’d hardly taken the time to speak to Emmeline. What was making her laugh like that? What did she find funny?

  He compressed his lips and moved closer, but at the moment of his approach the two men stepped away—not before one of them pressed a kiss against Emmeline’s cheek and almost earned an angry rebuke from Pietro.

  ‘Oh, Pietro.’ She blinked up at him, her expression shifting swiftly from enthusiasm to confusion.

  His chest felt as if it had been rolled over by a car. He manoeuvred his body, placing himself between Emmeline and the crowd, her back almost touching the wall, so that both of them would be reminded of the night he’d made her come.

  Her breath snagged in her throat. She stared up at him, a pulse beating wildly in her throat.

  ‘Who were those men?’

  A frown tugged at her lips, but only for a second. Then the enthusiasm was back in her eyes, apparently irrepressible.

  ‘Oh, they’re professors at the university! One of them is a lecturer in the psychology department. It�
��s going to be so helpful to have people there I know already.’

  Great. She’d continue to see people who looked at her as though she was an ice cream they wanted to lick regularly.

  Anger made common sense impossible. ‘You should be with me,’ he grunted angrily. ‘Not talking to strange men.’

  ‘They weren’t strange men—they were perfectly nice. And staying with you at something like this is impossible,’ she responded curtly. ‘Everyone wants to talk to you, not me.’

  ‘I don’t care; you’re my wife.’

  ‘Yes, your wife. Not an accessory,’ she pointed out softly, keeping her voice low purely out of recognition of the fact that there were people everywhere.

  ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t draw attention to our relationship or lack thereof. I will not have people gossip that my wife’s interest is straying.’

  She blinked up at him, her face pale. ‘You must be kidding me! Your ego is wounded because I was talking to two probably married professors from the university I’m going to attend?’

  ‘You weren’t just talking. You were...’

  ‘What? You think I was flirting?’ she said with disbelief. ‘You’re unbelievable.’

  ‘Forse,’ he acknowledged. ‘Nevertheless, I want you to stay with me tonight.’

  Emmeline glared up at him angrily. She might have moved hell and high water to please her father, but that was where her submissive tendencies ended.

  ‘No way.’ To her chagrin, tears sparkled on her eyelashes. She blinked them away angrily. ‘Right now you’re the last person I want to see.’

  And then, with her back up against the wall—literally—he placed a hand on her hip and stroked her flesh gently, teasing her, making her pulse throb.

  ‘Why do I find that so hard to believe?’ he asked throatily, the words a hoarse demand.

  ‘Don’t.’

  She bit down on her lower lip, and there was such a look of need in her eyes and confusion in her face that he almost dropped his hand.

  Almost...but not quite. ‘Don’t what?’

  Don’t use this against me, she thought, her heart hurting. This desire she wasn’t used to was tormenting her enough already.

  He moved a little closer, dropping his head by degrees, so that when he spoke his words were whispered into her ear. ‘Go and wait for me in the car. It’s time for us to leave.’

  ‘We’ve only been here an hour,’ she pointed out huskily, her body attuned to every shift in his.

  ‘Fifty-nine minutes too long,’ he responded.

  ‘Why are we leaving?’

  Because I don’t want to watch you being drooled over by any other man.

  Because I want to make love to you.

  Because you’re mine.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s time. I’ll be out as soon as possible.’

  But it was not so easy for Pietro to depart. By the time he’d said goodbye to the more influential of the guests Emmeline had been cooling her heels in the car for almost a half-hour, and it was clear that she was in a foul mood.

  ‘Am I being punished for enjoying a conversation?’ she demanded, the second he was in the driver’s seat.

  ‘No.’ He revved the car to life and floored the accelerator.

  He shifted a sidelong look her way. Her jaw was clenched, her hands gripped tightly in her lap, her body vibrating with barely suppressed anger.

  ‘I went to a lot of effort to come to this damned thing tonight because you told me you wanted me to! No, you told me I had to! I don’t appreciate being frog-marched out like some errant schoolgirl.’

  Oh, God. The last thing he needed was to picture his wife as a schoolgirl. Hell. She had been a schoolgirl the first time he’d seen her, around the time of Patrice’s funeral. She’d appeared in the hallway in a navy blue dress, with a blazer that fell to her hips, and even then Pietro had known she had the potential to be trouble for him.

  He had unconsciously stayed away from the plantation after that, avoiding her as much as he could. It hadn’t always been possible—there’d been a few dinners and parties, in the intervening years—but for the most part he’d kept a very wise distance.

  Something about Col Bovington’s daughter had sent all his warning sensors haywire, and now he knew how right his instincts had been.

  ‘I was having a good time,’ she continued angrily, her gaze focussed on the streets of Rome as they drove.

  She didn’t know it well enough yet to recognise that they were heading out of the city—away from his villa.

  ‘I’m glad,’ he said quietly. ‘But those men were all over you and you were encouraging them.’

  ‘How can you say that? We were just talking.’

  ‘Believe me, cara, with you in that dress no man will be “just talking” to you.’

  Her jaw dropped and she whipped around to face him, her face lashed by pain. ‘It’s a nice dress. A respectable dress.’

  ‘You look good enough to eat—and I’m sure as hell not the only man who thought so.’

  Emmeline’s face drained of all colour, and all the fight seemed to leave her in one second.

  Pietro didn’t notice.

  ‘You’re my wife! It doesn’t matter that our marriage is unconventional. I will not have you dragging my name through the mud...’

  ‘Your name...’ She rolled her eyes, but her words were just a whisper. ‘For such a powerful, successful guy, you’ve got major insecurity about your reputation.’

  He slammed his palm into the steering wheel, anger coursing through him. It wasn’t about that! Didn’t she understand? He had no insecurities; his virility left him little room for doubt on that score. It was just a stupid excuse. Something he could say that would achieve the desired result—which was what? Her total isolation? Dio. What kind of barbaric son-of-a-bitch was he turning into?

  ‘You said I should change how I look.’

  She was shivering now—a reaction Pietro finally recognised, though he couldn’t understand it. Unconsciously he drove faster, turning the car onto the highway and picking up speed.

  ‘You said that I had to be what people would expect of your wife. Haven’t I done that?’

  He gripped the steering wheel tighter, his eyes focussed on the night sky ahead. She’d done it—only far too well for his liking.

  ‘You would have complained if I’d come to that thing tonight wearing something I was comfortable in—something I usually wear. Now you’re complaining because I’m dressed like any of those other women who were there.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘That’s not fair.’

  It wasn’t—she was right. But nothing about this was fair! He’d been happy before marrying Emmeline. Happy in his life...happy with the endless parade of women he’d taken to his bed.

  And now?

  He had no damned idea.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, as if waking from a dream and suddenly realising that they were well outside the city.

  ‘Not much further,’ he promised, his eyes flicking to the clock in the centre of the dashboard, willing the distance to shorten. ‘Close your eyes, cara.’

  ‘I’m too angry to sleep,’ she snapped, but she did sit back in her seat, and a moment later her eyes fluttered closed.

  Her steady, rhythmic breathing informed him that she’d drifted off despite her protestations. He drove the rest of the way in a silent car, but his thoughts were still screaming at him.

  What he was planning was stupid, crazy, and he’d decided firmly against it. But after seeing her with those men... He no longer had a choice.

  He pulled the car through the electric gates to the farmhouse and then crept up the gravelled driveway.

  Though no one lived there, he had a team who kept it permanently tidy and stocked.

  His headlights illuminated the pots of geraniums and lavender that stood on either side of the green-painted door.

  He went inside, checking from room to room, leaving the bedroom until last. It was an enormou
s space, with an old iron bed in the middle. The floor was tiled and the shutters were closed over the windows, making it pitch-black. In the morning light would filter through the cracks, and when the shutters were open a stunning view of the countryside would open up, with the ocean glistening beyond the rolling hills.

  It didn’t take him long to make the room ready, and then he went back to the car.

  Emmeline was still asleep, and he knew the kindest thing to do would be to carry her inside and leave her to sleep.

  But fire was raging through his body, tormenting him as much as it was her, and there was only one answer to that.

  He opened her door and crouched down, hesitating for a second before pressing his lips to hers.

  In her drowsy state, she opened her mouth to receive his and moaned, lifting her hands to curl them around his neck, her fingers twisting in the dark hair at his nape.

  ‘Pietro...’ she moaned, and he undid her seatbelt then lifted her out of the car in one easy movement. He cradled her against his chest, carrying her with grim determination into the house. He moved up the stairs at the front, through the corridor and then up the flight of internal stairs.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asked, looking around and then, as if remembering that she was annoyed with him, pushing at his chest. ‘I can walk.’

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  He shouldered the door of the bedroom open and Emmeline looked around, a soft gasp escaping her lips. Dozens of candles had been lit, casting a golden glow in the room.

  The bedroom.

  Music was coming from somewhere, a lilting song in his native language that did something strange to her heartbeat.

  He placed her down on her feet with care and then straightened, catching her face between his hands. ‘You have two choices, Emmeline.’

  ‘And what are those?’

  ‘You may use this room to sleep,’ he said softly, stroking her cheek. ‘Or we will be together here tonight. Your first time. Our first time.’

  He dropped his lips to hers softly, studying her, waiting. He felt as if he’d been waiting an eternity already...

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE AIR STRETCHED between them, thin and tense. Emmeline’s heart was rabbiting about in her chest. She’d wanted this for a really long time. Since their wedding? Or since her father had first suggested this hare-brained idea?