The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding

by Jennifer Blake

  Nicholas must have spoken to his grandmother and aunt earlier, and they’d agreed among themselves to avoid the subject in front of Carita’s twin. This meant no one could express sympathy for her brother’s injuries or address her natural concern for him. The knowledge eased a small ache in Amanda’s heart that she had not realized was there.

  When the dessert was eaten, a young Polish woman appeared who was introduced as Carisa’s companion, Yolanda. With her flaxen hair, sky blue eyes, and rather vapid expression, she appeared the perfect model for a child’s doll. Looks were perhaps deceiving, however, as she was not only greeted with affection by Carisa, but spoke to her charge in Italian, greeted Amanda in English on being introduced and muttered an soft oath in her own language when a lizard darted across her path.

  Yolanda drew the girl into the house for her afternoon rest with the promise of a chapter from the book they seemed to be reading. A short time later, Nicholas’s grandmother drifted away with a similar idea in mind, or so it seemed, and his Aunt Filomena excused herself for a hairdresser’s appointment. Left alone with Nicholas, Amanda drank the last of her mineral water as she sought an excuse for her own escape.

  Nicholas sent a brooding glance her way as he leaned back in his chair, fingering the rim of his coffee cup. Abruptly, he pushed cup and saucer away and got to his feet. “Come,” he said as he offered his hand, “let me show you the garden while I tell you a thing or two about this business with Carisa.”

  She might not have agreed so readily except for the riddle of Carita’s twin. As it was, she allowed him to place her hand in the bend of his arm as they left the table and descended the steps that led from one terrace level to another. It was surprisingly difficult to let go when they reached flat ground, not just of the firm, warm muscles under her fingers but of the odd sense of security it provided.

  The gardens were formal, with tree-shaded alleyways that arrowed toward a sea vista in one direction and the purple line of the distant hills in the other. Geometric beds centered by statuary and edged with low evergreens lay between them. Nicholas led the way down the main path that was lined with the dark green cylinders of cypress trees and had a giant olive oil urn at its end. The urn had been turned into a fountain that flowed into the swimming pool which lay across the entire bottom of the garden, set like a great aquamarine jewel within its surround of lapis tiles.

  The garden was lovely, well-kept, filled with birdsong and the drone of insects, a place designed for rest and repose. Amanda might have found those things except for the man who walked at her side.

  “Carisa was of course born as you see her,” he said, breaking the silence at last. “Carita, on the other hand, was and is perfectly normal in all respects. There is no reason to think the child she carries will be like Carisa.”

  “The thought had not crossed my mind.” It really hadn’t, though there’d been little time, of course, and so much else to consider.

  “It would be a problem for many. My own parents—”

  “What about them,” she asked as he stopped speaking, looking away toward the gray haze of olive trees.

  “They separated over it,” he answered with a faint shrug,” though their marriage was strained from the beginning. It was a practical alliance rather than a love match. To cement a merger of the Florentine olive oil production of my father’s family with that of my mother’s family from near Naples was the intention.”

  She gave him a quick look. “I thought that kind of thing went out ages ago.”

  “There was nothing arranged about it, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was more of a business merger that both went into with their eyes open. My father lived for the land and the business, so was satisfied with the doubling of his holdings. My mother preferred life in Rome, Venice, Cannes — anywhere except the Villa de Frenza — and was happy as long as the money flowed to support her lifestyle. I was born early on, the requisite heir. The twins were the result of an effort at reconciliation when I was ten.”

  “Not a successful one,” she suggested when he did not go on.

  “It was a spectacular failure. My mother blamed my father for Carisa’s problem, claiming there had never been such a birth in her family. My father said she was so afraid of gaining weight during pregnancy that she starved herself, affecting the baby’s development.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Nicholas sent her a quick glance at that soft sound of regret. “Both were wrong, of course, but it made no difference. My father buried himself in work, spending most of his time at the office in Florence or else in London or Paris. She returned the favor by escaping to a fairly wild social set. The result was as you might expect.”

  “They divorced?”

  “Separated, rather, after a year or so,” he corrected. “My mother left the villa, left all of us but particularly Carisa who adored her. Carisa was so bereft that her development was set back even more than normal. She screamed for days when she realized she was really gone, failed to learn to walk at a normal age, didn’t speak until she was five years old.”

  Amanda shook her head, swallowing hard. “How awful for her.”

  “Carisa is devastated even now when anyone she loves goes away. When I return after being gone for a while, she punishes me by withdrawing, at least until she forgets. She only spoke to me today because you were there and distracted her. She’s even worse with Carita who shares the twin bond, so is closer to her than anyone else.”

  “That’s why she was so quiet earlier — she was annoyed as well as missing her sister?”

  He inclined his head.

  “And you feel she will be terribly upset if she knows Carita has been injured.

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  Amanda frowned down at the path they walked. “Won’t it be just as bad to let her believe her sister is staying away on purpose? And what if Carita doesn’t—”

  “If anything more disastrous occurs, Carisa will of course have to be told,” he said without allowing her to finish. “Meanwhile, it seems best to withhold the news until she is able to speak to Carita, to see for herself that she’s all right and is going to be well again.”

  “Another difficult decision that had to be made, I suppose, and by you alone.”

  “It’s my place, my duty.”

  The blame if anything went wrong would also be his, Amanda saw with uneasy clarity. “I realize you could hardly tell her who I am or why I’m here without getting into everything else. But why allow her to think we’re engaged? Why not just say that I’m a friend?”

  “My lady friend, you mean?” he asked, giving the words a sensual twist.

  A dark look was her only answer.

  “I would never introduce a lover into our family circle. Carisa understands that, though perhaps not the details of such a relationship. It follows, at least to her mind, that you must be someone special, the woman I intend to marry.”

  “A fake engagement still seems a drastic solution.” Her voice carried a waffling sound she disliked.

  “Indeed, and I do apologize for it. I should have realized how it would be and had some story ready, would have except for other things on my mind.”

  He meant Carita’s condition and the news of her pregnancy, Amanda assured herself. It was not possible for him to mean she was the distraction.

  That reflection triggered the memory of the word Carisa had spoken with such excitement. “You say she knows nothing, yet I thought — I was almost sure she mentioned a baby.”

  “Not Carita’s, but mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “And yours, of course,” he agreed with a trace of grave humor. “Carisa demanded that I hurry with the wedding so she can play with the bambino she is sure will follow.”

  An odd constriction in her throat made it difficult for Amanda to speak. “She is going to be disappointed, after all.”

  “Yet she has hit upon this reason for you being here at the villa and it satisfies her for now. It seems best not to
confuse her by denying it.”

  Si, si, little one…

  Nicholas had said that in answer to Carisa’s question, and his young sister had gone immediately into transports of gladness.

  “You already told her it was true. What you want is for me to let it stand.”

  He met the accusation in her gaze with quiet irony and no noticeable regret. “I doubt you will be able to do anything else given the language barrier. Carita once tried to teach Carisa English, you know, but with little success. Regardless, it would be a kindness to allow this private deception for the short time you are here.”

  The subterfuge was halfway understandable, and would last only a short while. It would not go beyond the family circle here, for Nicholas would surely see to that. The last thing he would want was for this complication to become tabloid fodder.

  Pretending to be his fiancée while at the villa would change nothing for her. As soon as Jonathan was well enough to travel she would be gone. Whatever the fallout might be, Nicholas seemed more than capable of dealing with it.

  Still, something did not feel right.

  “Are you sure this is best for Carisa?” she asked. “I mean, what if she overhears something and fears the worst? She would trust you, I think, if you told her about the accident while assuring her Carita will be home soon.”

  “Possibly. But what if she can’t come home? Carisa doesn’t forget lies, nor does she forgive them.”

  Amanda gave him a quick look. “You lied to her about our relationship, something you will have to admit eventually.”

  “That’s different,” he said with instant rejection in his voice.

  Amanda could not quite see how. Did he mean she would not be around long enough for Carisa to become attached? Or did he think she would soon be revealed, along with Jonathan, as an enemy of the family?

  He had a solution of some kind in mind, she was sure; he was not a man who did things without planning.

  Amanda had the feeling she was being maneuvered into agreement again.

  The problem was she could find no good reason to resist.

  5

  Nico spent the afternoon in his study with phone and laptop as he attempted to catch up on matters of business that had been neglected in the past two days. In the way of such things, it required more time than expected. He had thought to visit the hospital with Amanda again, stopping off for dinner before their return to the villa. When he emerged from his paperwork, it was too late for that program. He was also told that Amanda was lying down in her room, presumably asleep.

  Her fatigue was almost certainly from stress, plus the shadows under her eyes suggested she’d not slept in the hours before lunch. Nor had he, if it came to that, something that might now be corrected.

  Picking up the phone, he spoke to Carita’s doctors, also those looking after Jonathan Davies, and received the expected report that nothing had changed. Giving orders that neither he nor his supposed fiancée should be disturbed, he mounted the stairs to his bedroom, showered and stretched out on the bed.

  He was perhaps overtired after long hours without rest, for he couldn’t drop off to sleep. He kept seeing Amanda Davies staring at his naked body, wide-eyed, flushed with embarrassment and what he dared hope was something more. He would have loved to take her hand and draw her back into the shower with him. It would be a new experience for her, or so he liked to think; she had the look of a woman whose sexual appetites had not been awakened. She would require careful initiation in these matters, just as he meant to slowly cultivate her appreciation for fine wine.

  What would she do, he asked himself, if he soaped his hands and laved her body, every curve and hollow, while claiming the sweetness of her mouth? Would she moan and allow him access, or would he have to entice her to open to him? Would she complain that her hair was getting wet, or glory in the warm wetness that sluiced over them, around them? Would she urge him on as he pleasured her with his mouth or would she attempt to prevent it? And would she cling to him, crying out, as he took her against the tiled wall, plunging into her again and again?

  Per l'amor di Dio, he muttered, turning to his stomach in hope of subduing his throbbing erection. It was insane to torture himself with such visions. She was forbidden to him unless she decreed otherwise, and he must accept it.

  He had flung down his challenge before her, but had little hope she would bend to pick it up. If she did, now that she had seen the villa and recognized the extent of his wealth, he would be forced to consider the cause. How was that for trapping himself in a hell of his own making?

  No, this charade of an engagement they had stumbled into would play itself out after a few days. Carita would awake, begin to heal, and that would be the end of it.

  Well, it would be the end unless his sister married Jonathan Davies. If that happened, Amanda would become an official part of his family. What then?

  Jonathan’s sister might visit on occasion. The families would mingle during holidays, and he and Amanda make polite conversation across a table or with the width of a sofa cushion between them. They would go their separate ways then, always wondering what it might have been like if they had abandoned principles and prohibitions and taken each other to bed.

  If he could not have Amanda, he could at least have the fantasy. Rolling to his back again, he clasped his hands behind his head and allowed her phantom to come to him, gloriously naked, moist, hot, and with silvery promise in her eyes.

  Ah, but that way lay torture, pure and simple.

  With the contraction of powerful muscles, he heaved off the bed. He shook himself like a dog getting rid of stiffness then padded toward the bathroom.

  It would be best if Amanda woke, after all. Sleeping too many hours now would only delay her adjustment to the current time. He would send someone to rouse her, and they would make a brief hospital visit, just long enough to make certain all was well. Dinner afterward might be late by American standards, but not by his.

  The sooner Amanda adjusted to Italian time, Italian ways, the better it would be. He was sure of it. Why he was so sure was something he refused to examine.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was the sound of laughter that drew Nico out of his office on the following morning. He paused in the tall, open doorway of the back entrance that gave onto the terrace. What he saw stunned him into immobility.

  Amanda sat with Carisa and Yolanda, his young sister’s companion who was serving as translator, at the table under the grape arbor. The sunlight through the leaves made dappled patterns on their skin, formed tiny spotlights that glowed in their hair. They had eaten breakfast, for stacked plates sticky with the remains of sliced fruit had been pushed aside, along with a basket holding the crumbs of rolls, a chocolate service and a small coffee service. The three young women seemed to be experimenting with lip gloss, for Amanda was using a fingertip to paint Carisa’s willing mouth a soft shade of pink.

  The process tickled, or so it seemed. His little sister kept giggling and ducking her head so Amanda, laughing as well, got the gloss on the end of Carisa’s small nose and had to wipe it away.

  Nico’s chest felt tight as he listened to the mingled sounds. Carisa laughed so seldom, and almost never when he was present. It was good to hear her. He was also touched and gratified to see her interacting so naturally with Amanda. Yet it seemed near unbearable that Carisa should be carelessly happy while her twin still lay in a deep coma.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  The laughter stopped, perhaps because his voice was gruffer than he’d intended. Carisa looked up at him, her eyes going round with surprise and something like alarm. With a small gasp, she clamped a hand over her lips as if to hide them from him.

  “Having a lesson in makeup,” Amanda answered with an uncertain smile as she glanced from him to his sister. “Carisa has never used gloss or mascara. Can you believe it?”

  “Why not, when she has no need for such things?” He strolled toward them while noting that Amanda
still wore her prim navy blue skirt. She apparently had yet to explore the additions to her wardrobe that had been delivered while they were away the evening before.

  “I like it, Nico,” Carisa protested, her gaze darting between him and Amanda as she gauged his displeasure. “My lips are very kissable now. Mandy said so.”

  “Did she?” he asked in hard inquiry on the very heels of the translation Yolanda provided.

  “It’s the name of the gloss, Nicholas,” Amanda told him, color rising in her face as she picked up a napkin to wipe the oily residue from her finger.

  “Nico,” Carisa corrected, “you must call him Nico!”

  “She suggests a name change for me,” he said, speaking above Yolanda’s literal translation as Amanda met his gaze with a question in her eyes. “It seems reasonable, under the circumstances.”

  “The circumstances?”

  He glanced at Yolanda, but the companion had begun clearing away the clutter of cosmetics now that he had taken her job. “Our engagement, if you will recall?”

  “Oh. I suppose.” She hesitated. “And Carisa has been calling me Mandy, like my brother.”

  “Charming,” he drawled, “but for myself I like Amanda.”

  She glanced away, and he almost smiled at that small crack in her composure. It was momentary, however.

  “About the lip gloss, I can show you the Kissable label on the pot.”

  “Kissable, Kissable, Kissable,” Carisa sang to herself. Shoving away from the table, she slid off her chair. Running the few steps to where he stood, she held up her face and closed her eyes. “It tastes good, Nico. Want to see?”

  It was his usual habit to brush a quick kiss of greeting on either cheek. He would not alter that affectionate ritual. Putting a knuckle under Carisa’s plump little chin, he turned her head, saluting her soft face on either side. Only then did he touch his forefinger to her lips and carry a smear of gloss to his tongue.