by Lynne Graham
‘Yes, that is so. As far as I’m aware there is no boyfriend in your life to complicate matters and I too am free of any ties. I assure you that if you were to become my wife I would treat you with respect and generosity. This house would be your home. I would not expect you to make a permanent move to Italy on my behalf. In many aspects your life would continue as it always has.’
Jess tried to imagine him in her bed with life continuing as it always had, and almost loosed an overwrought giggle in blunt and incredulous disagreement. But native caution was already beginning to restrain her from a too hasty response.
‘Perhaps it is the thought of having to get pregnant that you find most off-putting—’
‘No,’ she cut in abruptly, surprising herself as much as him. ‘I’m at an age when I would very much like a baby, even if it did mean ending up on my own as a single parent. But have you really thought about this idea? You could marry me and I might fail to conceive.’
‘That would be fate. I would be disappointed but I would accept it with good grace,’ Cesario declared.
The sunshine coming through the window drenched his tall powerful figure in shades of bronze and gold and turned his dark deep-set eyes to gleaming topaz brilliance. As she stared her colour fluctuated and her antipathy to him was only heightened by the quickening of her heartbeat. If she said no, it would be because she did not know how she could possibly hope to fulfil the terms of giving him a positive answer. But she did not feel that she had a choice, or at least she had no choice when faced by the likelihood of her father being imprisoned and the family she adored being torn apart by the fallout from Robert Martin’s folly.
Almost thirty years earlier, Robert had promised to bring up Jess as his own child. He had stood faithfully by that promise, even when he’d been censured for not marrying Sharon until her daughter had been almost a year old because everybody had simply assumed that her child was his. In those days, having a child out of wedlock had still been a big deal in a country village and Jess’s mother had had a tough time during her months as an unmarried mother. Robert Martin had taken a big gamble when he’d married the woman he loved who, at the time, had willingly admitted that she did not love him. Sometimes, Jess reckoned, in a state of painful anxiety and uncertainty, the only way to move forward was to close your eyes and take a leap in the dark.
‘All right…I’ll do it!’ she breathed with an abruptness that shocked even her as she suppressed her teeming flood of misgivings and tendered agreement without allowing herself to think too hard about what she was doing.
And Cesario di Silvestri actually smiled, but not with the usual curl of his handsome mouth that had on previous occasions left her unimpressed. He gave her a dazzling smile powered by enough charisma to float a battleship, his lean, darkly handsome features energised by that expression on his wide, sensual mouth.
‘You won’t regret this,’ he asserted with confidence, reaching for her hand to mark their accord. Just before he released her fingers he noticed the line of paler scar tissue along the back of her hand and asked abruptly, ‘What happened here?’
Jess froze and paled, her heart suddenly beating frantically fast. ‘Oh, an accident…a long time ago,’ she heard herself say, only just resisting the temptation to yank her hand free again.
‘It was a nasty one,’ Cesario remarked, releasing her fingers.
He had picked an unfortunate moment in which to notice that scar and rouse bad memories. Indeed Jess had barely agreed to marry him before she fell into the turmoil of doubt and regret, but she rammed back those feelings and simply nodded, focusing her thoughts on the future rather than on that distressing episode from her past. The end would justify the means, she told herself urgently. Cesario would get what he wanted but so would she. Her child would still be her child to keep and he or she would benefit from a father. She would not think about the bedroom end of things, she absolutely would not think about that aspect until she was forced to do so.
‘I’ll get my staff to make a start on the wedding arrangements,’ Cesario informed her.
Jess studied him in dismay. ‘You are in a hurry.’
‘Naturally…I wouldn’t want you to change your mind, piccola mia,’ Cesario sent her a winging appraisal, his beautiful mouth taking on that sardonic curl she had always disliked. ‘And we have no reason to waste time before we embark on our project, have we?’
‘I suppose not,’ she mumbled as she bent to lift her jacket.
Cesario extended his hand and, when she failed to grasp his intention, simply and coolly removed the jacket from her grasp before shaking it open for her to put on. Colouring as she finally realised what he was doing, she turned to slide her arms into the sleeves, tensing beneath the familiarity when he tugged her hair out from below the collar where it was caught.
‘I’ll look forward to seeing your hair loose,’ he told her with husky anticipation.
And something in his dark voice and the intensity of his appraisal as she turned her head spooked her so that she backed off a hasty step. No man had ever had the power to make her so conscious of her own body, and around him she always felt clumsy and naïve.
Cesario ignored the arms she had crossed in front of her like a defensive barrier and touched her cheek with a reproving brown forefinger. ‘You’re going to be my wife. You will have to get used to being touched by me.’
‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ Jess questioned, infuriated by the fact that at such speed and with even less effort he had reduced her to a state of almost adolescent awkwardness in his presence.
Ignoring the distrustful vibrations that she was putting out, Cesario closed his hand over one of hers and tugged her inexorably closer. ‘Try relaxing first…’
Her teeth momentarily chattered together behind her closed lips as if she had been plunged suddenly into an icy bath.
‘I’m only going to kiss you,’ he imparted silkily.
Jess froze, her silvery eyes flickering with dismay at even that prospect. ‘No—’
‘We have to start somewhere, piccola mia.’
But he surprised her by releasing her hand and she snatched it back and was about to retreat further until it occurred to her that she could no longer afford to follow her own inclinations where he was concerned. If she couldn’t even allow him to kiss her, he would naturally assume that she couldn’t handle their agreement and he would withdraw his proposal. She froze like a bird confronted by a hungry stalking cat.
Cesario laughed softly in triumph and colour ran like a fire up over her cheekbones. She gazed up at him, properly aware for almost the first time of how much taller and heavier he was, six feet plus inches of lean, power-packed muscle. Her colour drained away, silvery eyes veiling as she reminded herself that she had no reason to fear him, but her body wasn’t listening to her brain, for it was angling backwards without her volition, almost tipping her off balance. Her heart was positively thundering in her ears.
‘There are some things I’m very good at,’ Cesario delivered with innate assurance. ‘And this is one of them, piccola mia.’
And his mouth slid across her sealed-shut lips as lightly as a dandelion seed borne by the breeze. She had expected passion, but he defied her expectations and her heart set up an even louder thump behind her breastbone, the pace speeding up as he brushed his knowing mouth back over hers and the extent of her tension made her rigid. The tip of his tongue scored that seam of denial and her body came alive when she was least prepared for it, a jerky quiver of feminine response slivering through her with almost painful effect as she parted her lips to let him kiss her properly. It was slow and hot and very thorough and it shook her up because her nipples pinched into hard little buds and her breasts swelled so that her bra felt as if it was constricting her ability to breathe. As his tongue delved with erotic skill into the sensitive interior of her mouth, moist heat surged between her thighs and she trembled.
‘That’s enough,’ she said shakily, her hands rising again
st his broad shoulders to push him back from her. Feverishly flushed, she found it hard to accept that once again she had enjoyed the feel of his mouth on hers. She had thought it was a fluke the last time he had kissed her and she had been intimidated by the pent-up passion she could feel in him.
‘No, it’s only the beginning,’ Cesario husked, smouldering golden eyes fringed by dense black lashes roving boldly over her averted face so that when she glanced up, she flinched at that visual connection and hurriedly looked away.
‘This wedding you mentioned,’ Jess remarked hurriedly, keen to move on to a less controversial subject because she was taken aback by the way he was looking at her. She stifled an urge to shiver because she felt cornered. She was not so naïve that she didn’t recognise the force of his desire for her and she could hardly afford to knock the source of her apparent appeal when it was probably the main reason he was offering her a wedding ring and her father’s freedom. ‘When would it take place?’
‘As soon as it can be arranged—it will be a proper wedding,’ Cesario decreed without hesitation. ‘With the dress, the big guest list, the whole bridal show.’
‘Is that really necessary?’ Jess pressed uneasily, wincing at the prospect of having to play the blushing bride for an audience of posh strangers.
‘It won’t look like a normal marriage otherwise,’ he pointed out.
‘Oh, my goodness, what am I going to tell my family?’ she suddenly gasped in an appalled undertone.
‘Not the truth, for that is only for you and I to know,’ Cesario spelt out in a tone of warning.
He had just given her an impossible embargo, but Jess was already reaching the conclusion that it was better not to blurt out unwary comments around Cesario. She knew even then that she would tell her mother the truth, but that she would present it in an edited version to satisfy her father’s curiosity without making the older man feel responsible for her predicament. She breathed in deep and slow, reminding herself firmly of the positive aspects to her situation and repeating them over and over to herself in a soothing mantra. Her father would not pay the price for his stupidity and her family circle would stay intact. She would hopefully end up with the baby she had long dreamt of having and she would even have that all important wedding ring on her finger first, since her mother set great store on a woman being married in advance of the arrival of children.
So what if it was a project rather than a wedding? She could cope with that. She was very realistic and, if he was as good at everything else as he was at kissing, given time she would surely come to terms with the more intimate aspects of their relationship. Women didn’t always marry just for love, she reminded herself doggedly, and neither did men, as Cesario was about to prove. If such a marriage was good enough for him when she was convinced that he could have so many more exciting options, it should be good enough for her as well.
‘Why did you choose me for this?’ she heard herself ask without warning.
His dense lashes swooped low over his brilliant dark gaze. ‘Ask me on our wedding night,’ he advised, a piece of advice that not unnaturally silenced her.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I LIKE the dress with the full skirt best,’ Jess repeated doggedly, ignoring the raised brows of Melanie, the hip fashion stylist Cesario had hired to work with her in what bore all the hallmarks of a tip-to-toe makeover.
Jess, however, was determined to at least choose her own wedding gown. ‘It suits me,’ she added.
‘It’s very, very pretty,’ Sharon Martin agreed with unconcealed delight at her daughter’s choice.
‘Well, if you like bling,’ Melanie said drily, encouraging the saleswoman to display the dress so that the pearl-beaded bodice and the scattered crystals on the skirt sparkled in the light, her lack of enthusiasm palpable. ‘It has certainly got buckets of bling.’
Jess had surprised herself with her choice. Although her taste generally ran to the plain, she had fallen head over heels in love with the unashamedly romantic wedding gown. Melanie’s efforts to persuade her client to pick a restrained satin column style instead had fallen on stony ground.
On that score, though, it had to be admitted that Jess had enjoyed a rare victory. She had already had to accept an entire trousseau of new garments for her up-and-coming role as the wife of an international tycoon and her preferences had often been politely ignored. Cesario was a perfectionist who dotted every i and crossed every t, while Jess was someone who never ever sweated the small stuff if she could help it. And arguing on the phone about something as unimportant as clothes with a male as single-minded and accustomed to getting his own way as Cesario was, she had learned, exhausting and ultimately pointless.
It was a fact that Jess had taken virtually no interest in clothes and cosmetics since that traumatic episode in her late teens when she had decided that it was safer and much more comfortable not to dress to attract male attention. Now willing to admit that she was out of date with regard to fashion and the art of self-presentation, she had agreed to accept advice and grooming. As a result, her uncontrollable black waterfall of curls had been shaped and tamed and her brows plucked. While she could see that her appearance had improved and her hair was much more manageable, she was appalled that the time she had already had to spend in the beauty salon was now being extended into the territories of waxing, facials, manicure and pedicure sessions. Was there no end to the vanity sessions she was expected to endure? Her colleagues at the veterinary practice had pulled her leg unmercifully as the ugly duckling—as she saw herself as—was ruthlessly repackaged into a would-be swan.
Although only three weeks had passed since Jess had agreed to marry Cesario di Silvestri, the comfortable groove of her life was fast being erased. The wedding was set for a date only ten days away and Cesario had been abroad on business almost from the day they had agreed to marry. A giant diamond cluster, delivered by special courier, now adorned her ring finger and an announcement about their engagement had appeared in an upscale broadsheet newspaper that nobody Jess knew read. In response to that first public reference to her new position, a photographer had just the day before popped up from behind a hedge to take a ghastly picture of her returning to the surgery after a difficult calving, bedraggled and dirty with her hair like a bird’s nest. The subsequent picture, comically entitled Jet-Set Bride?, had appeared that very morning in a downmarket tabloid. Jess had merely pulled a face when a colleague showed it to her, because getting messed up in her field of work was an occupational hazard. Cesario, however, had requested that she meet him for lunch to discuss the matter.
‘Don’t go falling in love with Cesario,’ Sharon advised her daughter as she was being driven home, shooting Jess a troubled glance. ‘It worries me that you will and then you’ll get hurt…’
‘As it won’t be a real marriage I’m not going to fall for him,’ Jess fielded with a sound of dismissive amusement, wondering if she had made a mistake in telling her mother the truth about Cesario’s proposal of marriage.
‘Don’t you fool yourself. If you have a baby with the man, it’ll be just as real as any other marriage,’ her mother forecast ruefully. ‘And I know you. You have a softer heart than you like to show.’
‘I’m also almost thirty-one years old and I’ve never been in love in my life,’ her daughter reminded her crisply.
‘Only because you let that creep at university put you off men!’ Sharon Martin retorted with an expressive grimace that recognised her daughter’s sudden pallor and tension. ‘Cesario is a very handsome guy and I think it would be easier for you than you think to lose your head over him. You’ll be living together, sharing your lives, for goodness’ sake!’
‘But we won’t be sharing anything but a desire to have a child,’ Jess pronounced flatly, her cheekbones colouring as she made that point. She had told her mother everything and sworn her to silence for her father’s sake. Robert Martin had swallowed the contrived story that Jess had been seeing Cesario on the quiet without telling any
one and he saw no reason why even a billionaire should not be bowled over by his beautiful daughter. ‘Cesario made that quite clear, Mum. He likes his own space. He wants a child but that’s the extent of it. He certainly doesn’t want a wife who might get too comfortable in the role.’
‘I know…it’s a marriage of convenience, just like your dad and I made…’
‘Not at all like you and Dad,’ Jess protested firmly. ‘Dad was in love with you, even if you didn’t feel the same way at the time. That made a big difference. Cesario and I have already agreed to a divorce before we even get married.’
‘It’s not as easy to keep emotions out of things as you think it will be,’ Sharon retorted, unconvinced by her daughter’s arguments.
Jess watched her mother walk into her terraced house in the centre of the village before reversing her old Land Rover to drive over to Halston Hall and meet Cesario for lunch. Once Sharon Martin had adjusted to the shock of her daughter’s confidences, which Jess had presented in a very positive way, she had gotten excited by the prospect of the wedding and the very fact that her beloved daughter was about to marry a very wealthy and influential man.
Jess drove past the public entrance to the extensive parkland that Cesario had thrown open to the public. It contained a lake, a playground he had had built at great expense, wooded walks and picnic spots. His tenants, employees and neighbours were free to stage events with permission in the grounds as well. It was ironic that a foreigner like Cesario di Silvestri had already done more for the community than the Dunn-Montgomery family had done in several centuries of having owned the great house. The man she was about to marry for the most practical of reasons had an admirably public-spirited side to his nature, she acknowledged reluctantly.