Ruthlessly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded

by Abby Green

  She blushed fiercely then, and Vicenzo had to control his response, his impulse to grab her and run far away from everyone around them. It left him feeling a little weak. In all honesty he couldn’t truthfully say that he was especially enjoying this place either, and seeing the villa earlier through her eyes had made him feel uncomfortable.

  But now he was doggedly taking her to Porto Cervo’s most famous club, in an almost desperate bid to have her finally act true to type.

  If she’d looked uncomfortable in the restaurant, now she looked positively queasy. Stubbornly, he persevered. He ordered champagne and strawberries. He asked her to dance on the sparkling dance floor. She declined. When someone knocked into a waitress beside them and the drinks fell off her tray, Cara jumped out of her seat to help the girl. It was the most animated he’d seen her all night.

  That was it.

  Once she was finished her Good Samaritan act, and Vicenzo had given the stunned waitress a hefty tip, he took Cara out of there. He dismissed the car and said, ‘Do you mind walking? It’s not far, and we can go by the beach.’

  She shook her head. ‘That sounds nice.’ She sounded relieved.

  Once they were walking along the beach in the moonlight, shoes in their hands, it was the most relaxed Cara had felt all evening. She felt guilty for not having enjoyed herself, but all those places, especially the club, just hadn’t been her. Her heart twisted. But they were obviously Vicenzo—just like the villa where he entertained.

  Cara looked up then, and stopped in awe at the glittering array of stars in the sky. ‘So beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘I feel like I could just reach out and pluck one from the sky, they’re so close.’

  Vicenzo was very silent beside her, and when she looked at him he too was studying the sky, his profile strong even against the inky black.

  When they reached the villa, coming at it from the back, Vicenzo took her hand to lead her over the stones. Cara pulled her dress up to make it easier to navigate. At the top she landed flush against Vicenzo. She couldn’t move or she’d fall back down onto the rocks. Her breath caught in her chest, her heart hammering. She saw his eyes take in her face as he smoothed some hair behind her ear.

  ‘You didn’t lose them.’

  She shook her head, feeling the earrings swing, ‘No. Thank goodness. One debt is enough.’

  She saw something cross his face, and a new tension came into the air as he caught her around the waist with one arm and pulled her into him.

  ‘Vicenzo—’

  But her words were swallowed by his mouth descending on hers, taking and plundering passionately. Cara’s shoes dropped from a nerveless hand and she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck, raising herself high to try and mould herself even closer. She’d ached for him the last few weeks. His distance had been necessary for her peace of mind, and to get well again, to restore some equilibrium but she’d found herself yearning to be held as he’d held her when she’d cried after losing the baby. And to be kissed like this.

  It felt as if he was pulling the very soul out of her body. When they finally moved apart he looked down at her for a long moment, as if trying to figure something out. Then he took her hand, waited till she’d retrieved her shoes, and led her into the villa. The white was jarring as they walked in, and every nerve in Cara’s body was on a knife-edge, waiting for him to make a move. She didn’t care that they were here, or how cold the place was. She felt cold inside, and knew that only Vicenzo could take that away.

  Vicenzo turned to her, but just when he would have taken her in his arms again he stopped. He saw her face tipped up to his, read the mirror of desire in the depths of those swirling green eyes, saw her mouth already plump from his kisses… And he also saw the faint purple bruises under her eyes. The unmistakable vulnerability in the lines of her body. He couldn’t ignore it any more. Things were shifting, changing. Cara was either playing him for a complete fool, or else she was something he didn’t believe even existed.

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead and turned her towards her bedroom. ‘Get some sleep, Cara. You’re tired…’

  For a second she didn’t move. He willed her to move—because if she turned around and looked at him… She moved. Hesitantly. And then turned after a few steps, her chin hitched up. She gestured to her earrings and smiled tightly. ‘Thank you for these…and everything. I had a really nice time.’

  And as she turned and walked away again his whole world tipped on its axis.

  The following night Cara sat out on the terrace after dinner with Silvio, finishing the chess game they’d started earlier. She was annoyed with herself. She should be feeling at peace, but ever since Vicenzo had informed them earlier, soon after returning from the east coast, that he was going to Rome on business for a few days, she’d been on edge.

  Silvio surprised her after a long moment of silence when she’d thought he’d been contemplating a move by saying, ‘Vicenzo is not an easy man. I’m aware of that.’

  Cara sat up straight, horror filling her that Silvio felt compelled to act as some kind of confidante. ‘Silvio, please—you don’t have to—’

  He held up a hand, effectively shushing her and she closed her mouth. He glanced at her briefly before looking back to the board. ‘You know Vicenzo and Allegra’s mother left when he was twelve and she was four years old?’

  Cara shook her head. She knew not to protest against his speaking again, and in all honesty she couldn’t help her interest being piqued about what had happened to their mother. Was this where Vicenzo’s cynical mistrust stemmed from?

  Silvio sighed heavily before moving a pawn, expertly capturing one of hers. ‘My wife and I had been unhappy for some time. The truth was that ours was an arranged marriage. She had lost her heart long before me, to her childhood sweetheart. I was aware of the fact, but after we got married, had children, I thought she’d forgotten about him.’

  Cara sat still and silent, watching as a bleak expression took hold of Silvio’s features, making him look drawn and older, more frail.

  ‘She started acting strangely…going out at odd times, becoming distant, elusive, secretive. I suspected she was seeing someone and confronted her. She admitted that she had been seeing her old love. His own wife had died and left him with a small child. Emilia told me that he’d asked her to go back to him, help him raise his child.’

  Cara gasped softly, unable to stop herself, but Silvio didn’t seem to hear her.

  ‘I pleaded with her, begged. To no avail. His pull was too strong. I don’t know what the children knew, but somehow they knew. The day she chose to leave they were lined up in the hall. They’d refused to go to school that morning.’ Silvio cast out a hand and shrugged. ‘Who knows? Perhaps they overheard us arguing… They just stood there, saying nothing. Allegra was holding onto Vicenzo’s hand so tightly. When Emilia walked down the drive with her suitcase Allegra broke away and ran after her, screaming and crying, begging her to stop, clinging onto her clothes. Emilia had to push her away—and that’s when Vicenzo ran out. He followed her all the way to the gate and kept demanding why, why, why, over and over again, just that one word. Emilia was about to get into the car, her lover had the engine running and his own child in the back. Vicenzo held the car door open, wouldn’t let her shut it. Finally, Emilia got out of the car and slapped him across the face. So hard that I heard it here in the house. It was only then that Vicenzo stopped asking why.’

  Cara had gone cold inside. This was why Vicenzo had believed she would be cruel enough to walk away from her own baby.

  She looked at Silvio, hoping the horror she felt wasn’t mirrored on her face. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘And why would you? I know Vicenzo has never spoken of what happened. And I knew better than to ask of him that he get married and have children.’ Silvio looked at her. ‘But now…since Allegra…obviously everything is different. But Cara, please know that I’m very glad you are here.’

  Before Cara could articulate any kind of re
sponse, he said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, my dear, I think it’s past my bedtime.’

  Cara got up jerkily and helped him from the room in his wheelchair. The night nurse came and took over, taking Silvio into his room.

  Cara went back to sit on the terrace and looked out into the darkness for a long time. She could only imagine the kind of bond that must have been forged between Vicenzo and Allegra that day. Her mind was a tumult of dark thoughts and a wrenching sadness for what they had gone through. Yet even with this knowledge Cara knew she’d be a fool to think that it gave her any deeper understanding into Vicenzo and his psyche. All she did know now for sure was that he was about as likely to marry for love as she was ever to be free of Cormac and his debts.

  No wonder it had been so easy for him to marry her. It meant absolutely nothing to him. It would only be a matter of time before he sought to get the marriage dissolved, and then Cara could get on with working and paying the debt off. Hopefully never to see Vicenzo again. At the thought of that her heart immediately constricted.

  And then, as if to mock her, all she could see was Vicenzo’s dark, stern face, his powerful body. And when she tried to call up hatred, or even the wish for vengeance for his turning her life upside down, she couldn’t. All she could call up was a deep desire for him to take her…but he couldn’t have made it more obvious the previous night in that impersonal bright white space, that she didn’t hold any more appeal for him.

  It was that stark disappointment that finally had her fleeing to her bed, where she tossed and turned all night, her dreams full of a mocking smile.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  VICENZO stood watching Cara. She sat on the ledge by the pool at the back of the villa, with its sweeping view over the Mediterreanean. His heart jolted with the realisation that he’d missed her. And also with the sinking confirmation that she wasn’t behaving in the manner he would have expected of the women he knew: a spoilt oiled body worshipping the sun… magazines lying around…Lucia running back and forth, bringing drinks.

  He finally had to concede that she was completely different from any woman he’d ever known. And what he’d learned in Rome over the past few days sat heavily within him. His original rock-solid opinion of her was being washed away with all the remorselessness of a tidal wave approaching the land, threatening everything in its path.

  Her slim legs were drawn up and her chin rested on her knees. His eyes roved hungrily over her bare skin, where her waist dipped in and out in a gentle curve. Her perfectly modest black bikini fired his blood and libido more than the skimpiest scraps of material he’d seen on countless women over the years. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and it made her look young. His belly clenched when he thought of her birthday. She was young. Too young in many ways for what she’d been through.

  Doppo was stretched out near her, and Vicenzo marvelled again at how she and the dog had taken to each other with an almost fierce devotion. He’d just been up to visit Allegra’s grave, which was on a hill behind the villa and had discovered fresh flowers. He ruled out his father, due to his lack of mobility. It could have been Tommaso or Lucia, but…

  Cara sensed him even before Doppo jumped up and started wagging his tail energetically. A fine-tuned awareness ran across her skin, raising it into goosebumps as she turned her head to find Vicenzo leaning against a tree nearby, watching her. Her breath caught in her throat. He was so gorgeous, dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, hair damp as if he’d just showered. He must have arrived home some time ago. She felt self-conscious in the bikini and stood up, reaching for the sarong she’d been sitting on, tying it just over her breasts.

  He strolled towards her, not a hint of anything on his face, and stopped a few feet away. Cara was breathing fast, every cell in her body jumping with wild excitement at seeing him again. She tried desperately to clamp down on the reaction, knowing that he wouldn’t thank her for it.

  ‘You’ve caught the sun.’

  Cara grimaced. The curse of the Celtic skin she’d inherited. ‘I know. It’s—’

  ‘It suits you.’ Vicenzo’s eyes swept down, taking in the way Cara’s skin had started to go even more golden, an explosion of freckles marking every exposed surface.

  He held something up then—a card. Cara recognised it. It was the sympathy card she’d sent to the Valentini offices in London all those weeks ago. It felt as if a lifetime had passed since then.

  ‘I only received this when I went back to Rome. Any personal post gets couriered over once or twice a week, depending on how urgent it looks. It was with a batch of other sympathy notes and cards, so I didn’t see it till just a couple of days ago.’

  Cara swallowed. ‘I sent it that week…after the crash. I didn’t know what to do—how to get in contact with you. I asked at the hospital, but they wouldn’t give out any details…’

  Vicenzo remembered that week, hearing his assistant on the phone to someone at the hospital, telling them that under no circumstances were they to give out any personal family information. He could see from the postmark that Cara had sent the card to his office before he’d met her that night. Its simple message of condolence had reached down deep within him and clenched tight.

  The revelations he’d faced in the last twenty-four hours rushed up and made him want to push her away. To somewhere he didn’t have to deal with her simple and yet explosively alluring sexuality, and all her contradictions as she stood before him now.

  ‘Why did you send the card, Cara? What were you hoping to achieve if I got it?’

  Cara couldn’t keep the bitter edge out of her voice. For a moment there, when she’d seen him watching her, she’d fancied that something had changed. But of course it hadn’t. ‘Nothing. I sent it because I wanted to extend my condolences…I didn’t know what else to do.’ She turned her head to look away, scared he might see the emotion she was trying to keep down. The awful paltriness of her sympathy card mocked her.

  He sighed heavily and against her will she looked back, schooling her expression. To her surprise he looked almost… defeated.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you worked at the club, Cara?’

  She froze. ‘How did you find out?’

  Vicenzo smiled a small grim smile. ‘When I got to Rome someone called Rob had been calling every day, looking for a way to reach you. I finally allowed one of his calls to be put through, and he informed me that you are due some tax back on your wages and he was sure you’d need it. He wanted to know how to send it to you. He was rather bullying in his demands to know how you were.’

  Cara couldn’t help smiling at the thought of Rob bullying Vicenzo over the phone, but she quashed the smile when she saw how Vicenzo was looking at her so intensely. ‘I didn’t tell you because you wouldn’t have believed me, and I didn’t have the energy to fight.’ She shrugged one slim freckled shoulder and looked away for a second. ‘It looked bad. I could see that.’

  ‘You said it was like a second home to you,’ he said, almost accusingly.

  Her eyes met his. ‘It was like a second home. Rob, his boyfriend Simon, and Barney on the door were…are…like family to me.’

  Vicenzo shook his head. She could see him trying to figure it all out.

  Cara crossed her arms. ‘I used to drive Cormac to the club every night…’ She couldn’t look at Vicenzo when she told him this, so she turned and looked down, absently kicking at the grass. ‘He used me like a kind of taxi service. He’d make me wait outside, so that he could leave whenever he wanted.’ Cara’s back was very rigid. ‘One night the weather was horrendous, and I was trying to study in the car.’

  She cast a quick glance to Vicenzo. His jaw was hard, and it made a flutter run through her belly. She looked away again, out to sea.

  ‘Barney took pity on me and brought me into his little office, so I could study in the warmth. He made me tea, gave me biscuits…it became a routine then. I’d drop Cormac off, and go and study in Barney’s office.’

  ‘How did you go from tha
t to working there?’

  Vicenzo’s voice had an edge that made Cara cross her arms tighter. She knew she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he didn’t believe her. In an effort to communicate this to him she turned back to face him, not letting herself be daunted by the speculative look in his eyes.

  ‘One night Simon was in a tizzy because his door hostess had called in sick at the last minute. He was understaffed as it was… I offered to step in. It worked out well, and when that hostess left he asked me if I’d take over on the door.’

  Cara’s thoughts went inward.

  ‘Cormac gave the job his blessing because he wanted to impress Simon—and after all—’ she couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice ‘—once I was earning money it meant he could charge me rent for my room in his apartment.’

  ‘He charged you rent?’ Vicenzo couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice. What Cara spoke of now was so far removed from what he’d believed…

  He saw the way her chin tilted up, the defiant light in her eyes. The pride. And felt a sinking sensation in his chest. He knew it wouldn’t take much to check out her story, and he was horribly aware that if he instructed his accountants in Rome to go through Cormac’s accounts with a fine-tooth comb they would probably find some regular amount of money being deposited into one of them. And, a small voice reminded him, she’d said that morning in London that she hadn’t had access to the account in her name. He had to concede now that he’d seen absolutely no evidence to prove that she had ever received funds from it. The memory of her reaction to the earrings mocked him now. And the plain clothes she insisted on wearing. Those were not the actions of a spoiled princess.

  Cara could almost see the cogs whirring behind Vicenzo’s eyes as he tried to assess everything she was saying, and it was too much to have him stand there and deliberate. She turned away abruptly, holding herself so tight she thought she might crack. ‘I told you that things weren’t as they seemed.’