by Lucy Monroe
‘oh, Salvatore.” She didn’t know what to say to make him believe her, so she just hugged him, wrapping her arms and legs around him.
‘lt wasn’t your fault. It was meant to be and neither of us could have changed it.”
She’d needed to know that, that she had not done something to cause the miscarriage. ‘Lots of women are way more stressed than I was during that time and carry their babies to full term. You have to accept that.”
‘I wanted to be a father, Elisa.”
Yes, she knew that now. His fury had been at believing she was pregnant with another man’s child she was trying to pawn off on him not at the prospect of fatherhood.
‘Salvatore there have not been any other men. I don’t know why my father believes what he does, but you’re the only lover I’ve ever had.”
Silence met that and she waited realizing a great deal hinged on his reaction to her words.
She might never have his love but she had to have his respect or there was no way she could marry him. And she realized now that not marrying him would hurt more than tying her life to a man who wanted her as desperately as he did. But if he did not believe her, did not trust her, there was no future for them. No matter what a pregnancy test might tell them in a few weeks’ time.
‘you were a virgin?” At least it was a question and he did not sound incredulous at the thought.
‘yes ” you were twenty-four.”
‘I know how old I was.”
‘This is not usual.”
‘I spent my childhood living with a woman who treated sexual intimacy like cheap candy. She never formed lasting bonds with her lovers, but I tried. I wanted to be part of a family. I’d started school before I finally figured out that Shawna didn’t want a family. Not even a daughter. Her lifestyle put me right off sex. I didn’t even want boys heavy petting with me when I dated in college.”
‘you did not date until college?”
‘shawna sent me to an all-girls dormitory school. Papa approved and I didn’t get an opportunity to meet boys. If I had, I would have shied away from anything like that. I was scarred, Salvatore.”
His hands were rubbing in soothing circles on her back.
‘What do you mean?”
‘I equated sex with the pain of being an unwanted child, with the bitterness of loss. It wasn’t until I met you that I even felt passion for a man.”
‘And I demeaned you by taking what I should have waited until after marriage to take.”
She didn’t want to dwell on the past. The present and the future were what concerned her now.
‘Do you believe me?” He was talking as if he did but she wasn’t taking any chances on misreading him.
It was too important.
‘Si. Had I been less certain of your experience I would have realized your innocence. There were enough clues.”
‘But Papa said what he did and you assumed he knew what he was talking about.”
Tension filled the big body under hers. ‘He and I will have words.”
She lifted up until their eyes met.
‘I think I should talk to him first.”
He looked as if he wanted to dispute her words and she laid her finger across his mouth.
‘No.This is between him and me. Let me talk to him, all right?” He nipped her finger and then kissed the small wound.
‘lf that is your wish.”
She appreciated the lack of argument. He might be primitive in many ways, but he wasn’t a total di poseur.
She was ready to label him a tyrannosaurus rex and be done with it three hours later.
Crossing her arms over her chest she glared at the man she’d thought was so accommodating earlier. She felt like laughing at her naivety. He was about as accommodating as a ten-tonne truck.
‘But I don’t want to go to my father’s for dinner tonight.”
She’d been outside on the terrace relaxing and reading a book trying not to think about how she and Salvatore had spent the afternoon when he came out and dropped the bomb on her.
‘l’m not even dressed for it for heaven’s sake.” Wearing a pair of Espadrilles and a casual shorts outfit, she didn’t feel anywhere up to dinner with her father’s perfect little family.
‘You can change your clothes. They are not expecting us for another forty minutes.”
‘I don’t want to go.”
‘You wanted to stay in his home not so many hours ago. Why this aversion to dining with him?” If Salvatore did not look so genuinely puzzled, she’d be ready to hit him.
‘Because I’m not ready to talk to him.”
Salvatore’s dark eyes warmed with an understanding that undermined her determination to remain emotionally distanced from him. Not that making love with him all afternoon hadn’t already done its bit to destroy that particular goal.
‘I will be with you, carA.”
‘And is that supposed to make all the difference?” Unsurprised when he frowned at her sarcasm she turned her head away so she didn’t have to see the disapproval in his expression. But not seeing didn’t mean being unaware, particularly when his scent still lingered on her skin-even after a long, hot shower.
‘He thinks I’m a tart.”
She’d been committed to her course of action in speaking with her father and she still was, but the very need for the conversation hurt. She wanted time to mentally prepare for it.
Did other daughters have to tell their fathers they weren’t floozies?
‘I am convinced Francesco is working under a misapprehension.” Salvatore brushed her long hair away from her face.
‘perhaps he misunderstood something you said.”
She looked at him, wondering if the deep vulnerability she felt was reflected in her eyes.
Salvatore saw so much when it came to what she did not want him to see. ‘What could I have said that would make him believe I hold lovemaking cheaply?”
‘I do not know, cara, but we will get to the bottom of this.”
She didn’t bother arguing the we in his statement. The truth was, as disparaging as she had sounded a minute ago, she was glad that in this he was on her side.
‘This is heinous, Elisa. What were you thinking to take such a risk?” Her father’s expression looked like a storm on the verge of hurricane status. He’d jumped up from the chair he’d taken in the salon after greeting her and Salvatore and was pacing the floor as Salvatore told him all that had transpired over the last two days.
‘I did not consider it that great a risk for goodness’ sake. The jewels were transported in secrecy. No one should have even known they were in di Adamo’s vault.”
‘you cannot keep these things quiet.” A typical Sicilian male, at least six inches shorter than Salvatore with a stocky build, he glowered with all the intimidation factor of the younger man. you should never have negotiated for Adamo Jewelers to host the auction. What would have happened I ask you, if I had not sent Salvatore up there to watch over you?”
She made the mistake of saying, ‘I don’t know.”
His normally dark olive complexion paled. ‘you would be dead, or worse, child.”
Fearing for his health, she got up from her seat beside Salvatore and laid her hand on her father’s arm to stop his restless movements. ‘calm down Papa. I am fine and you did send Salvatore.”
‘Not that she wanted my interference at first.”
She turned from her father to fry Salvatore with her eyes.
He lounged back on the sofa with the relaxed air of a man who had no idea how close to murder and mayhem she felt.
‘You didn’t listen, did you?” she asked through gritted teeth.
‘I hardly think it is necessary to bring it up now.”
Surprisingly, Francesco laughed. ‘lt is a good thing I sent someone so stubborn for you are so like your mother in thisl” He winked at Salvatore.
‘Did I not tell you? Independent like Shawna. We can only thank the good God my daughter does not share other at
titudes with her mother.”
Salvatore’s smile froze on his face. AII condescending male disappearing as comprehension dawned.
Francesco frowned. ‘I am sorry, Elisa. It is wrong for me to speak unkindly of your mother.”
Feeling disoriented, but with dawning relief, she shook her head. ‘Do not worry about it. I am not blind to Shawna’s belief system. She did raise me, after aII.”
Her father grimaced and plopped back into his chair as if he’d lost all his energy.
‘Si. And for that I must always live with regret. Had I forced the issue you could have grown up with the same secure home that I was able to give Annemarie, but I did not. I believed a child needed her mother.”
He sighed and shook his head, his forearms resting on his thighs. ‘shawna filled your life with uncertainty.”
Her heart felt buffeted by such revelations of regret on her father’s behalf for choices made in her childhood. She stood in the middle of the room feeling as if she was in some kind of weird suspended animation.
‘I don’t think I would have fitted in your family with Therese on a full-time basis. I doubt she would have appreciated being expected to raise your former mistress’s illegitimate daughter.”
She bit her lip, realizing how bitter the words might sound, but that was not how she had meant them. It was simply the truth.
‘No. You are wrong. I should have enjoyed having you as part of my family, Elisa. I wanted more children, but it was not to be.” Therese, who had entered the room quietly, went to stand by Salvatore’s chair her expression serene as usual.
‘Annemarie would have enjoyed living with her older sister full-time. She will be sorry she missed this visit, but she will not return from her trip with friends in the country for several days.”
This was simply too much. Elisa loved her younger sister but they were so different and she was not at all convinced Annemarie could care one way or the other if she missed a visit from her infrequently seen older sister.
‘We are not close.”
‘you could have been, if things had been different.” This from her father, who looked ready to immerse himself in a full-fledged guilt attack.
And no doubt he would be happier if she were more amenable like her half-sister but she was twenty-five years old. The time for such considerations was long past.
‘lt’s a bit late for such thoughts.”
Francesco winced and she clenched her hands at her sides.
‘I don’t mean that in a negative way. I meant you are not doing yourself any favors focusing on something that is over and done with.”
Therese laid her hand on Francesco’s shoulder.
‘she is right adore. You have been too caught up in memories since your heart episode but these considerations do no one any good. What is past is past. We must live in the present and we have your daughter with us now. You should enjoy her visit not waste it mourning over old regrets.”
Francesco’s face filled with love for his wife of twenty-three years. ‘Si della mia as always, you are right.”
Therese’s still beautiful cheeks turned a soft pink and she squeezed Francesco’s shoulder.
‘you! Sweet talk will not get you anything for dinner. You heard the doctor with ears that work as good as mine ”
They continued their gentle banter through the meal but afterward Francesco’s good humor vanished when Salvatore informed him he had no intention of leaving Elisa to stay in the Guiliano home .
‘your father is in America and your grandfather has gone on that cruise of the Greek islands with the widow Genose. It is not seemly for my daughter to stay alone with you.”
Elisa felt like laughing. She could understand the concern were she Annemarie but she’d been living on her own for years. However she said nothing. Let Salvatore fight his own battles. The whole living-arrangement thing had been his idea.
‘That is precisely why we are staying at my home and not here. Until the auction is over Elisa is at risk. Whoever she is with is also at risk. I can watch over her more effectively if my attention is not divided with the risks posed to those around her as weII.”
Her father looked much less impressed by this argument than Elisa had been. His eyes narrowed and his chest puffed up with male pride.
‘I can watch over my family just fine. Your own company has ensured that the security in my home is top-of-the-line.”
‘Nevertheless, Elisa will stay with me.” Salvatore, who had persuaded di Adamo with perfect finesse faced Francesco with primitive male aggression and not one attempt at conciliation.
Therese shook her head and clicked her tongue. ‘Ah an argument between two stubborn proud males is not my idea of after-dinner entertainment.” She turned to Elisa.
‘Come, child, we will go out to the garden and I will show you my new Pink Butterfly orchid. I planted it soon after your visit last year.It is just now in bloom.”
Elisa didn’t understand why Salvatore wasn’t trying harder to handle her father more carefully, but she had no intention of letting him and her father make any more decisions regarding her life.
‘l’d love to see your orchids but first… ” She turned to her father.
‘I agree with Salvatore. I will not put you and Therese at risk. I’ll go off on my own first.”
Her father opened his mouth to speak, but Salvatore forestalled him. ‘That is not going to happen.”
She didn’t bother to argue, simply lifted her brow as if to ask, ‘Is it not’?, and left the room with Therese.
Salvatore and her father joined them outside a few minutes later. Francesco had the look of a man whose favorite sports team had won an important tournament.
‘lt is a beautiful evening, is it not? The fragrance of flowers the warm air the company of good people.”
Once again the expansive Italian host he beamed at the others.
Therese smiled. you two have worked out your difference of opinion?’
With what Elisa considered an extreme lack of subtlety on his part, he leaned to whisper something in Therese’s ear.
She smiled too as he spoke.
‘lt is time to go, cars.” Salvatore slid his arm around her in a way that blatantly claimed possession .
Shocked, she stiffened against him, but he pulled her close to his side and kept her there through the! r goodbyes .
Her father didn’t act surprised, though, and Therese had the look of an Italian woman making wedding plans in her mind. Elisa felt as if she’d been measured for the wedding gown and eyed for the cut of the veil by the time Salvatore tucked her into the passenger seat of his car to take her home.
Salvatore waited for the inquisition to start. Elisa had been ominously silent since he and her father had rejoined the women in the garden.
She was too smart not to realize that certain things had been said between him and Francisco.
The older man’s smug acceptance of the situation gave that away. Not that he had easily been convinced of the rightness of Elisa staying with Salvatore. Even after he promised her father he intended to marry her Francesco had balked.
But Salvatore had refused to budge and he had reminded Francesco just how independent his daughter was. Her threat to go off on her own was not an idle one. Neither man wanted that to happen.
Commenting that the world was a different place from when he had courted Therese Francesco had finally agreed to Salvatore taking Elisa back to his home.
Elisa shifted in her seat until he could feel the weight of her beautiful green gaze on him.
‘What did you tell my father to bring such an about-face?”
‘I told him the truth.”
‘Which part of the truth?” she pressed.
‘That I intend to marry you.”
No gasp of outrage was forthcoming. ‘ls that aII?” He could tell nothing of what she was thinking from the bland tone in her voice.
‘Not precisely, but it is all you need to know.”
When Fran
cesco had pressed for a promise Salvatore would not take advantage of his daughter Salvatore had made the commitment with a clear conscience. Making love to her was not taking advantage. It was absolutely necessary, both to his campaign to convince her to agree to marriage and to b0th their well-being. She might be unwilling to admit it, but she needed him every bit as much as he needed her.
‘I see’.
He stood the silence for a full five minutes of monotonous driving before breaking it.
‘I do intend to marry you.”
‘you’ve said so.”
He cursed under his breath. ‘Si. I have.”
It was her own intentions in the matter that were in question. He fully expected to have his way, but he wanted her acceptance. He wanted her to admit that life without him would not be an option, regardless that she had spent the last year pretending it was.
‘And that was enough to convince Papa my virtue would not be compromised by staying alone with a single man?”
At the mention of her virtue, Salvatore’s grip tightened on the steering wheel and the discussion of their future took a back seat for the time being.
‘I am sorry’. ”
‘What are you sorry for?” She sounded only mildly interested, but he was not fooled.
Her own hands were clasped in her lap with white-knuckle intensity.
‘I misunderstood your father and because of it I caused both you and myself untold grief.”
‘Didn’t it occur to you, even once, my father was not implying my moral values when he said I was like Shawna?”
‘To my shame no ”
‘Why?” The bewilderment in her voice tore at his heart.
‘Did I do something to make you believe that?”
‘don’t understand.”
He hated admitting what drove him, but she deserved the truth. ‘I wanted you.”
‘yes, that has been well and truly established.”
‘I could not have you if I believed you to be a virgin.”
‘Because you were not thinking marriage.”
‘Si. ” Anger and disgust with himself made his teeth grind together.
He had been considering marriage a year ago, but not with her. He had not wanted the volatile feelings he associated with his humiliation at Sofia’s hand to be part of his married life and Elisa elicited the most violent of feelings in him. Both passion and possession.