by Lynne Graham
Kathy snatched in a deep jerky breath. She was so worked up that it was an effort. At that instant she could not even explain why she was getting so angry so quickly. All she knew was that Grazia’s presence felt like a very public slap in the face. She felt humiliated and insecure and unnerved. She was now thinking that there might be a great deal more to Grazia’s utterances than mere sour grapes. ‘Don’t you? She shouldn’t be here. Why did you invite her?’
‘I didn’t,’ Sergio murmured levelly. ‘But she’s with her cousin, who was. Perhaps he brought her as his guest.’
It was not a good moment for Kathy to be forced to appreciate that Grazia and her relations had an ongoing social entrée to his exclusive world. Inevitably that meant that a network of other connections could still link Sergio back to the beautiful blonde.
‘I want her out of here,’ Kathy confided and her voice shook because it was a struggle to keep her voice low in pitch.
‘You’re a Torrente now. That is not how we treat guests, welcome or otherwise.’ Sardonic dark deep-set eyes held hers.
Her heart-shaped face flushed with embarrassment. ‘I’m not joking, Sergio. Get rid of her. I don’t care how you do it, just do it. ‘
There was hard resolve in his steady appraisal. ‘No,’ Sergio countered. ‘Now calm down.’
Kathy walked away from him. She was trembling with hurt and anger and resentment. She lifted a glass of wine to occupy her restive hands. Her mind and her imagination were on fire with suspicions and fears that there was more going on between Sergio and Grazia than she knew. What was she supposed to think? That everything Grazia had said was true? That Sergio was content for the other woman to attend his wedding because it was part of his revenge? After all, his brother was surely no less guilty of betrayal, but Sergio refused even to speak to Abramo, never mind see him. Grazia, however, was now getting a divorce and, if she was to be believed, that was at Sergio’s request. Was that divorce her first step back into Sergio’s affections?
Suddenly Kathy was totting up facts and fearing the worst. What was the explanation for Grazia’s amazing insider knowledge? How had she known where Kathy would be the night before? Or about Ella’s existence? Was Grazia in regular communication with Sergio? Her skin turned clammy. How could Grazia just appear at Kathy’s wedding? Why was Sergio protecting the other woman? On this particular very special once-only day, which should have been Kathy’s day alone?
All smirking smiles and pearly teeth, Grazia sauntered up to Kathy. ‘Trouble in paradise already?’ she mocked, making it clear that she had been watching the bride and groom closely.
The next few seconds were for-ever after etched in Kathy’s memory. Someone nudged her from behind and tipped her forward. Her arm jerked and, although she contrived to retain her hold on the glass, red wine flew out of it and splashed in a wide arc across Grazia’s white dress, leaving stains like drops of blood.
‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry!’ Kathy gasped, reaching out in haste to snatch up a napkin from the nearest table.
Grazia shrieked as if she had been attacked and refused to let Kathy near her. While the blonde examined the stains with enraged turquoise eyes she hissed at Kathy in vitriolic Italian. Kathy just didn’t know what else to do or say but then, mercifully, Maribel surged up out of nowhere like a one-woman rescue squad. Undeterred by Grazia’s noisy histrionics, Maribel swept the blonde woman off through the crush and out of sight. A transitory silence as sharp as a thunderclap lay across the ballroom like the quiet before the storm. Then the whispers broke out and grew into a buzz of comment.
A hand closed over Kathy’s and drew her round, detaching her fingers from her death grip on the napkin. She looked up at Sergio in bewilderment. Lean, powerful face impassive, he swept her out onto the dance floor in silence.
‘It was an accident,’ Kathy told him unevenly.
Sergio said nothing. He didn’t need to. His dark golden eyes radiated disbelief.
‘Say something,’ Kathy urged tightly.
‘I’m not into arguments as a spectator sport,’ Sergio delivered silkily.
Her spine became more rigid. Pain and fury melded inside her until she was literally shaking with the force of her feelings. She pulled back from him with a fixed smile designed to fool any interested onlookers. Engaged in a fierce effort to keep her emotional turmoil hidden, she walked away.
Eyes stinging with tears, Kathy hurried upstairs to the suite she had occupied. Sergio strode through the door only seconds in her wake. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
‘I didn’t throw it at her. Honestly, I’ve had it with you,’ she breathed rawly. ‘You won’t speak to your brother even though he’s a nice guy, but you roll out the red carpet for that spiteful witch at my wedding!’
‘When did you meet my brother and reach that conclusion?’ Sergio shot at her.
‘You’re never there when you’re needed and you always assume I’m in the wrong,’ Kathy told him thickly, ignoring his question. ‘Grazia cornered me when I was out last night and bitched at me. She knows too much, she even knows about Ella. This was supposed to be my day and you’ve wrecked it!’
His ebony brows pleated in surprise. ‘Last night? You ran into Grazia in Florence?’
‘You wreck everything…every single thing,’ Kathy added, mentally piling up his every sin, laying them out for judgement and finding him guilty at that moment without any possibility of forgiveness. ‘Now I’m going to pack and I’m returning to London—’
‘Kathy—we have just got married,’ Sergio pointed out.
‘So?’ Kathy hurled back wrathfully. ‘I can already see that I’ve made a dreadful mistake and I’m not too proud to admit it!’
Sergio rested incredulous golden eyes on her. He lowered lush black lashes, his gaze intent. ‘You’re not thinking this through—’
‘You picked a weak moment to ask me to marry you. I was in labour, for goodness’ sake! If I’d been my normal self I’d never have agreed to be your wife. I’m leaving you—’
Sergio moved at speed to plant his lean powerful frame squarely between her and the door. ‘No, you’re not, delizia mia.’ He took out his mobile and made a call.
‘What are you doing?’ Kathy demanded.
‘We’ll leave together. I may have ruined your day, but that’s no reason why we have to share our misery with our hosts and our guests.’
Kathy studied her case, which was already sitting packed in readiness for their departure. She sank down at the foot of the bed. ‘You’re making me unhappy—’
Sergio moved forward at a measured pace. ‘It’s early days yet. Obviously, I’m far from perfect. But in my own defence I have to ask why you didn’t tell me that you’d met Abramo. Or Grazia?’
‘I didn’t want to spoil the wedding,’ Kathy mumbled in a wobbly voice. ‘If you’d wanted me to know about them, you’d have told me about them, right?’
‘Please don’t cry,’ Sergio breathed gruffly, taking a step closer to her. ‘Obviously I owe you a little family history…’
His mother had died when he was eight years old. Five years later, his father had married his mistress, Cecilia, who already had a ten-year-old son: Sergio’s half-brother, Abramo. Unfortunately, marriage to a man several decades older, who was inclined to frown on her extravagance, failed to meet Cecilia’s expectations and she took a series of lovers.
‘I minded my own business—’ Sergio’s lean strong features darkened ‘—but when my father was receiving cancer treatment, Cecilia began an affair with the family lawyer, Umberto Tessano. He was my father’s closest friend and in charge of our business interests.’
Kathy winced. ‘What age were you then?’
‘Twenty-two, and in my final year at Oxford University. I found my stepmother in bed with Tessano at our London apartment. I felt that I had no choice but to tell my father, but Cecilia and her lover got their story in first.’ Sergio vented a bitter laugh of remembrance, his classic profile
settling into grim lines.
As the silence dragged Kathy breathed, ‘And what was that?’
‘That for some time I had been harassing my stepmother with sexual attentions—’
‘Oh, no!’ Kathy exclaimed with a feeling grimace
‘—and that that particular day I made a drunken assault on her virtue from which Tessano gallantly rescued her.’
‘Surely your father didn’t believe such nonsense?’
‘When his lifelong best friend confirmed that sordid account, I had no hope of being believed,’ Sergio breathed heavily. ‘I had a playboy reputation and Cecilia was beautiful. I can’t blame my father because he was a sick man and he loved her. At the time he was dying. I didn’t know that but they did. In so far as my father was able within the law, and with Tessano’s encouragement, I was disinherited in favour of Cecilia and Abramo. My stepmother married Tessano three months after the funeral.’
His story rocked Kathy out of her self-absorption; she was appalled. There was, she was discovering, a great deal more unpleasantness to the events that had torn Abramo and Sergio apart than she had innocently imagined. The greed and envy of his stepmother and his half-brother had combined to tear Sergio’s life asunder. ‘Having your father turn against you when he was so ill must’ve been a nightmare for you.’
‘It shattered me.’ A muscle pulled taut at the edge of Sergio’s wide sensual mouth. ‘He died two months later still believing their lies. Up until that point, my life had been easy and privileged. At birth, I was the little prince, the heir to the Azzarini estates and I took it all for granted. Then it was all taken away from me.’
In a quick movement, Kathy got up and reached for his hands in a spontaneous gesture of sympathy, because she had been deeply attached to her own father and she knew how much that misjudgement and rejection from one so close must have tormented Sergio. Her softened green eyes clung to the bold angularity of his bronzed masculine features. ‘You should have told me about your family ages ago. But then you don’t tell me anything.’ Her voice grew more hesitant as she registered that he had finished talking and had still not made a reference to Grazia’s role. Feeling self-conscious, she made an abrupt movement to withdraw her hands from his.
‘That can change, dolcezza mia.’ Sergio snapped long brown fingers round her narrow wrists before she could back away again.
Uncertainly, Kathy looked up at him. She was being torn in two by the pull of his white-hot sexual attraction and the need to protect herself from further hurt and disappointment. ‘You know you think you’re great just the way you are—’
‘Until you came along and somehow I consistently manage to live down to your lowest expectations,’ Sergio traded.
‘Your aversion to weddings…how do you think that made me feel today?’ Kathy fenced, jerking her hands free, walking away and turning back with an agitation that betrayed her tension.
‘I was a selfish bastard. But, believe me, it wasn’t intentional. Grazia jilted me at the altar. It made an indelible impression.’
Shell-shocked by the sheer unexpectedness of that flat admission, Kathy stared up at him.
‘Only my closest friends know about that. My father had recently passed away and the wedding was to be a small quiet affair in London. She didn’t turn up.’ His stunning eyes were dark and reflective. A saturnine smile slashed his hard, handsome mouth. ‘Don’t look so surprised. Grazia was a luxury I couldn’t afford.’
Her lashes veiled her gaze. Her nails carved little crescents into her palms as she recalled Grazia’s smiling air of complacency, for the other woman was very much aware of her pulling power. Sergio had wanted her once, loved her enough to want to marry her and lost her again. It could only have added salt to the wound when she decided to marry his brother instead. But it troubled Kathy that both brothers seemed to accept without comment that Grazia put money first.
‘Surely she didn’t believe that claptrap about you and your stepmother?’
‘Naturally not.’ Sergio reached out and pulled her up against him with the bold self-assurance that was so much a part of his nature. ‘Are you still bent on leaving me?’
Disconcerted by that sudden change of subject, Kathy tipped her coppery head back and he meshed his fingers into the luxuriant fall of her hair to hold her there. Hot golden eyes struck hers and desire pierced her as sharply as a knife. Her tummy flipped and her knees went weak. That fast her physical awareness rose to a level of almost painful sensitivity. His high-voltage male potency got to her every time. She wondered if there had ever been any real chance that she would walk out on him. She wondered if that was a little fantasy she used to console her pride, for at that instant it would have taken brute force to tear her away from him.
‘Is it too late to strike a deal?’ Sergio husked, tracing the full pout of her lower lip with a caressing fingertip. ‘Grant me a trial run until the end of the honeymoon?’
‘How flexible are you when it comes to change?’ Kathy asked half under her breath. ‘Will I need to set objectives? Award points for performance? Come up with rewards for inspirational outcomes?’
‘All of the above, dolcezza mia.’ Brilliant eyes alight with appreciation, Sergio curved her slim body to his. ‘Rewards work with me.’
The brisk staccato knock that sounded on the door provoked a groan of frustration from him. ‘I said we were leaving immediately.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘SO WHAT do you think?’ Sergio demanded before Kathy had got more than fifty feet from the helicopter that had delivered them to the Palazzo Azzarini.
Even from the air, the architectural magnificence and size of the building that crowned the hill had disconcerted Kathy. Sergio closed a hand over hers to walk her up the steps to the terrace. ‘This house has been in my family for centuries. For the best part of a decade it belonged to Cecilia and Abramo but I bought it back last year. Right now, it’s a work of art in progress because the restoration is ongoing. This will be where we base our lives—our home with Ella.’
Kathy cleared her throat gently. ‘Objective one, Sergio. Major decisions should be discussed.’
An unholy grin slashed his handsome mouth. ‘Of course I’m not going to make you stay here if you hate it. But you’re a country girl; you know you are—’
‘And when did you reach that conclusion?’
‘Maybe I know more about you than you think. You’ll love the estate and the people here, bella mia.’
Kathy wondered whether to mention that his second objective should be not making assumptions about her feelings. But that reference to Ella had tugged at her heartstrings and acted as a distraction. ‘I miss Ella already.’
‘I’m sure she will be fine without us for a week,’ Sergio interposed. ‘Maribel is terrific with children.’
Kathy knew that was true. But even though intelligence told her that they needed time alone together as a couple, the habit of constantly fretting about her baby was hard to unlearn and resist. Clearing her mind of those anxious thoughts, she reminded herself of the very sensible pair of nannies also placed in charge of their daughter’s care, not to mention the doctor engaged to make daily visits as a safeguard. She rested her hands on the worn stone balustrade, which was still warm from the heat of the day. The silence was bliss after all the hoopla of a big wedding. It was early evening and a soft mist of light lay across the lush valley over which the palazzo presided. Nothing she could see reminded her of the twenty-first century: the rolling hills were covered with dense woodland, vineyards and dotted here and there was the indistinct silvery foliage of olive groves. The view was utterly breathtaking.
She walked below the massive arched portico and wandered wide-eyed into a huge circular reception hall ornamented with faded frescos and towering columns. Like the view, it was an amazing sight and the prospect of living amid such grandeur made her laugh. From somewhere she could hear faint strains of music and she recognised a popular song. Slim hips swaying to the beat, hair glittering l
ike burnished copper and falling back from her high cheekbones, she executed a couple of dance steps.
Sergio fell still and watched her. Kathy met his intent dark eyes and stopped dancing. Although she was pink with embarrassment she gave him an irrepressible grin.
‘You have so much life that it bubbles out of you, bellezza mia,’ he murmured thickly. ‘You also look astonishingly beautiful.’
‘Who’s playing that radio?’ she stage whispered.
‘Apart from the security outside the house, we should be totally alone here.’ Sergio pushed open a door on a big bare room that had scaffolding erected along one wall. A workman’s radio was playing in one corner. He switched it off and strolled back to her.
‘Thank you. Your first objective at all times,’ Kathy instructed cheekily, ‘is to make me happy.’
Sergio was much amused. ‘And the reward is?’
‘Keep me happy and you get an easier life, because you should know by now—I don’t suffer in silence.’
Sergio slid out of his jacket and let it fall.
‘Oops,’ Kathy gasped. ‘I think this is a very male take on what makes a woman happy.’
Sergio tugged loose his tie and backed her in the direction of the splendid stone staircase.
‘Although you could be on the right track,’ Kathy conceded half under her breath, her attention locked to him as he unbuttoned his shirt. ‘Of course we could play chess first…’
Sergio was thrown enough by that possibility to frown.
Kathy smiled like the cat that had got the cream. ‘Just checking how keen you were. If you’d agreed, I wouldn’t have been impressed.’
‘Maremma maiale…I couldn’t concentrate,’ he confided.
Her attention rested on the muscular slice of bronzed, hair-roughened torso visible between the parted edges of his shirt. She did not believe that she could have concentrated, either. A delicious frisson of anticipation was already running through her slender body and self-consciousness claimed her, for she wasn’t yet used to feeling like that.