The Sicilian’s Marriage Arrangement

by Lucy Monroe

  She stumbled toward the door, her vision blurred by tears spilling down her cheeks.

  “Hope!”

  She ignored him and made top speed for the elevator outside his office suite. Following a pattern set in early childhood, she wanted only to find someplace to be alone where it would be safe for her to grieve in private. That precluded going back to the villa.

  She couldn’t even stand the thought of getting in the di Valerio limousine and exposing her pain to the chauffeur. She hated the fact that Luciano’s secretary had no doubt seen the tears.

  She used her mobile phone to call and dismiss the driver, telling him she would find her own way home.

  Anger warred with pain in Luciano. He wanted to go after Hope, to hold her and tell her he was thrilled about the baby. The thought of her pregnant with his child was sweet when it should be sour.

  He wanted to wipe the look of misery off her face and he despised himself for his weakness.

  She had lied to him.

  But what was the lie and what was the truth? She had looked so lost, so vulnerable when she told him about the baby and he had forced himself to contain his response.

  The woman who had colluded with Joshua Reynolds to trap herself a husband was not vulnerable.

  But Hope had been vulnerable. And she had been hurting. Was it possible he had misunderstood what he had heard on the phone two weeks ago? His brain rejected the thought as the words replayed themselves in his mind. Yet, he could not reconcile those words with the woman who gave herself so completely when they made love.

  She was too generous in her passion to be such a heartless schemer. And yet, what other explanation was there? Joshua Reynolds had blackmailed Luciano and Hope had known about it.

  She had said she loved him.

  The reminder caused more disquiet in the region of his heart. She hadn’t repeated the words since he returned from his business trip abroad, but he could not forget the sweetness of them on her lips when their bodies were intimately joined.

  He wanted to hear her say it again, which enraged him. What was the love of a deceitful woman worth?

  Nothing.

  Only if that were true, then why did the lack of those words weigh on him in the dark of the night? She slept in his arms, but felt separated from him in a way he could not define?

  He was not used to feeling like this.

  He did not like it.

  He did not like the confusion, or the need she engendered in him.

  He did not like the way he doubted the wisdom of including Hope in his revenge, his weak desire that she not find out what he had done to hurt her.

  He did not like the feeling that his actions had been stupid rather than decisive.

  A short buzz alerted him that his next appointment had arrived. Business was much more comfortable than wallowing in conflicting and destructive emotions, so he forced himself to focus on it.

  Stepping out into the sunshine from the air-conditioned building, Hope asked herself where she could go. Looking up and down the busy street, she knew she wanted only to get away from the crush of people. An image of the grounds surrounding the di Valerio villa rose in her mind like Valhalla to her ravaged state. She would take a taxi to the grounds and then when she was ready, she could walk home.

  Having a plan of action helped calm her churning emotions enough to wipe her tears away and wave down a cab.

  She had the driver drop her on the outskirts of the di Valerio estate. Luckily, she remembered the code for the small gate in the far wall. She and Martina had used it once before on an afternoon walk.

  Once inside the estate’s walls, she walked only far enough to hide herself in the trees, then sank to the ground. Her back resting against the trunk of one of them, she let the tears fall freely. It hurt so much.

  Not only had she made a huge mistake in marrying Luciano, but she was pregnant with his baby. No matter what she wanted from life, she was now inexorably linked to a man who had as much affection for her as the man on the moon. Less even.

  The sobs came harder and she cried out her grief over the years of neglect in her grandfather’s house followed by marriage to a man destined to treat her the same way.

  A long while later, her mobile phone chirped. She had stopped crying, but had not moved from her place against the tree. She dug the phone from her purse. The display identified Valerio Industries as her caller.

  Luciano.

  She didn’t want to talk to him.

  She wanted to shoot him, which didn’t say much for the gentle nature others were so convinced she possessed.

  He had taken the joy of her discovery and turned it to ashes. His rotten attitude was tearing her apart and she knew that tonight there was no way she could lie with him in their bed and pretend nothing had happened.

  She could not bear the thought of being just a body and their baby meaning nothing to him.

  The phone stopped ringing.

  Ten minutes later it rang again.

  She refused to answer it.

  He kept calling and finally, she turned off the volume on the ringer.

  She stood up and dusted off her skirt before starting the walk toward the villa.

  It took her twenty minutes because she didn’t rush in any way.

  A maid saw her approach and went running inside. Seconds later, both Martina and Claudia came rushing toward her.

  Claudia was babbling at her in Italian, much too fast for her to understand, but Martina spoke English.

  “Where have you been? Luciano is worried sick about you. We all were. What happened to your cell phone? Why didn’t you answer? You’d better call him right away. He’s ready to call in the authorities.”

  She couldn’t understand why a man who treated her the way her husband had would worry. Surely if she disappeared, he would be off the hook for a marriage he clearly no longer wanted. Then she remembered the baby. Maybe he cared more about their child than he had let on.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset anyone. I wanted to take a walk.” Which was true as far as it went. “And I turned off the ringer on my mobile.” Which was also true, but she neglected to mention she had turned off the ringer after Luciano started calling.

  “Why would you turn off your ringer?” Claudia demanded in heavily accented English.

  Hope felt really badly for upsetting her mother-in-law so much, but she wasn’t about to tell her the truth. Hope’s problems with Luciano were private and she refused to visit them on the other women.

  “You don’t even carry a mobile,” she said instead.

  Claudia grimaced. “I also do not dismiss the driver and disappear for hours.”

  Hope looked at her watch and realized it had been three hours since she left Luciano’s office and forty-five minutes since the first phone call. “Are you saying you never go shopping or for a walk where you can’t be reached?”

  Claudia’s hands rose in the air. “Ai, ai, ai. I see there is no reasoning with you.”

  Hope said nothing. She didn’t want to hurt the older woman, but she couldn’t explain her actions without divulging her impasse with Luciano.

  “It is nothing more than a storm in a teacup. She went for a walk and time got away from her. Mamma, there is no need for you to keep carrying on.”

  “Tell your brother this.”

  Martina grimaced. “No thank you.”

  “There you see.” Claudia crossed her arms and gave both Hope and Martina a baleful look.

  The maid came out at that moment, a cordless phone in her hand. “ di Valerio wishes to speak to his wife.”

  Hope looked at the phone with as much enthusiasm as she might feel for a plateful of spoiled fish.

  “Hope?” Claudia asked, her expression now concerned.

  Hope put her hand out for the offending phone.

  Claudia stopped her from lifting it to her ear. “Every marriage goes through growing pains in the beginning, child. Do not be too hard on my son, whatever he has done. A w
oman must be strong enough to forgive.”

  Hope forced herself to smile and say, “Thank you.”

  Her mother-in-law and Martina showed a great deal of tact by leaving her to speak to Luciano in privacy.

  She lifted the phone to her ear. “What?”

  “That is no way to greet your husband.”

  The censure infuriated her. “Go to hell, Luciano.”

  His indrawn breath told her he hadn’t liked hearing that.

  She didn’t care. Not anymore, she told herself. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  His sigh was audible through the phone lines. “The driver said you dismissed him. How did you get home?”

  “What do you care?”

  “You were upset when you left my office.”

  “And this surprises you?” she asked scathingly.

  “No.” He sounded odd. “How did you get home?” he repeated.

  “I took a cab and I went for a walk. I turned the ringer volume down on my mobile after you called. Any more questions?”

  “No.”

  “If that is all…” she said, reversing the roles they had played in his office.

  Again the sigh. “I’m flying to Rome and will be gone overnight. I realize it is not the best time for me to leave, but it cannot be helped.”

  “Why are you bothering to tell me?” She stared across the swimming pool, her body aching from the pain filling her heart. “I’m just a body in your bed. I’m not your wife. You don’t even want our baby.” She was crying again and hated him for hearing the choking sobs she could not hide.

  “Hope—”

  She hung up the phone before he could say whatever it was he had meant to say. All his words hurt her and she was so tired of being hurt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  LUCIANO called again that evening from Rome. She came to the phone, feeling subdued and just plain not up to arguing with his mother or sister about taking the call.

  “Hello, Luciano. Was there something you wanted?” she asked in a voice that sounded dead to her own ears.

  “Si, Hope, I want many things, but I called to apologize for my behavior when you told me about the baby.” He sounded tired. “I want our bambino, cara. I am sorry I was less than enthusiastic when you told me.”

  She dismissed the apology as too little, too late. Perhaps if he hadn’t been treating her so hurtfully for days beforehand, it would have been enough. “Don’t call me cara. It means beloved and you don’t love me. I don’t ever want you to use that word with me again.”

  “Hope, I…” He hesitated.

  Strange to hear her super-confident husband hesitant.

  “If that’s all, I’m tired and want to go to bed.”

  “I want to go to bed also, but with you, not in solitude.”

  For once his sexy voice had no affect on her whatsoever. “I don’t want to sleep with you anymore.”

  He said something low and forceful. “You are not leaving my bed.”

  “Really? How are you going to stop me?” she asked with little more interest than she had felt for the rest of the conversation.

  “Santo cielo. You are my wife. You sleep in my bed.”

  “I don’t like you anymore, Luciano.” She didn’t say she didn’t love him because it was not true. She did, more fool her. And it hurt.

  “Cara—”

  “Please, Luciano. I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t know why you married me, but I can see now it was a huge mistake.”

  “You know why I married you.”

  For the sex?

  He went on when she remained silent. “Even so, it was not a mistake. We can make our marriage work. We will talk when I return from Rome.”

  He wanted to make their marriage work now? “I can’t deal with this. You just keep hurting me and I don’t want it anymore.”

  “That is over. I will not hurt you again, cara.”

  Was there something significant about the fact that he kept calling her beloved even after she had asked him not to? It was such a tantalizing thought that she rejected it immediately.

  She had believed too many times things would work out only to discover they would not.

  “We’ll talk when you get back,” she said, repeating his words.

  What form that discussion would take she did not know.

  When the maid brought her the phone the next morning, she was in a stronger frame of mind and prepared to discuss her marriage with Luciano. He had said he wanted to make their marriage work and he had apologized for being such a toad when she told him about the baby. Men like Luciano didn’t say sorry easily and if he was willing to work on their marriage, she was too.

  Only her caller wasn’t Luciano. It was her grandfather.

  “What the hell is going on over there?” he demanded in a voice that had her pulling the phone a few inches from her ear.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” she hedged, wondering if Luciano had called him after she’d hung up the night before.

  “I’ve got two society columns in front of me. They’ve both got pictures of your husband eating dinner with a woman in a swank New York restaurant. That woman is not you.”

  Hope felt the words like multiple body blows. Luciano had promised. No mistresses. But he’d also promised to treasure her love and he’d broken that one. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answered truthfully.

  “Could be his secretary I guess, but where were you when he was having these business dinners?”

  “Here, in Palermo. Luciano flew to New York right after we returned from our honeymoon.” And he’d been furious with her when he left.

  Would that fury have translated into actions that would destroy their marriage?

  Yet, the idea of a series of business dinners was not so far-fetched. She knew what his secretary looked like after visiting his office yesterday, but if she asked her grandfather to fax the articles he would know she was worried. Maybe it was stupid, but her pride forbore her airing her marital troubles to either her family or Luciano’s.

  “What else would it be besides a business dinner?” She forced a laugh. “Surely you aren’t implying that Luciano would have sought other feminine companionship so soon after our marriage.”

  “Stranger things have happened, girl.”

  “Not with a man like Luciano.” Until the last two weeks, she would have sworn she could trust him with her life and everything in between.

  “There are things you don’t know.”

  Dread snaked through her at her grandfather’s tone. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s not important. Ask Luciano about these pictures, Hope. Communication is important to a healthy marriage.”

  Coming from her grandfather, who considered asking if she wanted more wine at dinner a foray into personal conversation, that was laughable. Only she didn’t feel like laughing.

  She rang off and went in search of a computer with Internet access. She found one in Luciano’s study. He didn’t have a password on the Internet browser, so she was able to go right in. It took her less than thirty minutes to find the newspaper stories her grandfather had mentioned. They were both small articles in the society section of a New York paper.

  They mentioned Luciano’s name, but failed to identify his companion.

  She didn’t need the information supplied to her.

  The dark, exotic beauty was very familiar to Hope. The woman in the photos was Zia Merone and she was not wearing the expression of a woman discussing business.

  Hope barely made it to the bathroom before she was sick.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was in their bedroom with the door shut and a copy of the articles clutched in one hand, dialing his mobile phone with the other. She needed to talk to Luciano, to hear a rational explanation for his dinner dates with Zia. Or to hear from his own mouth that he had broken this promise too. Could she trust him not to lie to her? She just didn’t know.

  It rang three times before being picked up
.

  “Ciao.”

  Zia? Zia had answered Luciano’s cell phone.

  Hope’s stomach did another somersault. “ Merone, I would like to speak to my husband.”

  “This is Hope?” Zia’s voice rose in surprise.

  “Yes. Where is Luciano?”

  “He is in the shower.”

  Hope gasped, feeling ripped in two by the answer. “I’m surprised you aren’t with him. He likes sex in the shower.” The crude sarcasm just slipped out, but even if it wounded Zia, it hurt Hope more.

  “I was not in the mood.” Far from sounding wounded, Zia’s voice was laced with innuendo.

  The tacit agreement to her fears made Hope’s knees give way and she sank onto the side of the bed. “Are you saying you spent the night with my husband?” Her voice trembled, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to die.

  “Are you sure you want me to answer that question?”

  “No,” Hope whispered, her vocal cords too constricted for normal conversation, “but I need you to.”

  Zia hesitated. When she spoke, her voice had changed, become more tentative. “Perhaps you had better discuss this with Luciano.”

  Hope didn’t answer. She just held the phone to her ear and stared at the far wall of the room she shared with Luciano. Was this what death felt like? Your whole body going numb and your emotions imploding until there was nothing left?

  Another voice intruded on her blanked out mental state. “Hope? Is that you, cara?”

  And she realized she wasn’t numb.

  “Don’t call me that you bastard!” She’d gone from whispering to screaming so loud she strained her throat. “You lied to me.” A sob snaked out and she covered the mouthpiece so he wouldn’t hear it.

  He started to speak, but she plowed over him. “You p-promised. No mistresses. I believed you. What an idiot I am. Look how good you’ve been at keeping your promises. You said you would treasure my love too, but you stomped all over it. I hate you.” And at that moment she meant it.

  “Hope, mi moglie, it is not what you are thinking!”

  She would be a fool to believe the desperation that seemed to infuse his voice. She heard him ask Zia what she had said. Hope couldn’t hear Zia’s answer and she didn’t want to. She did hear the Italian curses erupt from her husband’s throat when Zia stopped speaking.