The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (22 page)

She could not have appeared more stunned,
Nico thought, if he had suggested they jump off a bridge together. It was not
the reaction he’d envisioned when he steeled himself to propose. Most women
would have gasped, crying out for joy, before throwing themselves into his
arms.

He should have known Amanda would be difficult in this as in
all else. And yet there was something enticing in the fact that she did not
make it easy for him. It put him on his mettle.

“Marriage between us,” she said, her voice flat.

“I should have made it clear earlier, but I thought you
would first want to know what has been planned for Carita and Jonathan. I
desire you for my wife,
carissima
, if you will do me the very great
honor.”

“How can you say such a thing? You are the wealthy and privileged
Conte de Frenza. Italians like you, so I’m told, marry your own kind.”

He inclined his head. “It was that way in the past. My
mother and father were such a match, comparable in wealth, faith, nationality,
age and family name. It was perfect in all respects.” He allowed himself an
ironic smile. “And just look how it turned out.”

Nico wasn’t sure when the prospect of a chilly, socially
acceptable marriage had ceased to be enough, when he had rejected the idea of
being married for his title and his wealth. It might have been any one of a
dozen moments — when he saw her concentrating so hard as she painted Carisa’s
small mouth with lip gloss, when she smiled after taking her first sip of warm
Italian wine, when she clutched a handful of his skin while defending her
brother from his wrath, or the moment when he first saw her wearing the
mermaid’s bikini he’d bought for her. He only knew that he wanted something
more, something rich with passion and the stormy give-and-take he found with
this woman. He wanted a life and family with Amanda Davies.

She swallowed, a movement in the smooth line of her throat
that he watched with paralyzing interest and tingling lips as he thought of
placing them just there. It was a moment before he could make sense of what she
was saying.

“This is because of what Jonathan said, after all. You feel
you owe me a proposal because you actually thought for a brief moment about
seducing me as pay back for Jonathan with Carita.”

“No — well, yes, I thought of it, but that’s not the reason,
I swear it.”

“Or maybe because the paparazzi and their stupid tabloids
branded me your latest conquest, and it doesn’t suit you.”

He shook his head. “I regret you had to see that. It was a
day or two before it came to me, but a retraction will be printed.”

She blinked, her eyes widening. “I thought they never did
that.”

“They will, tomorrow.”

“I see. The power of the Conte de Frenza.”

He detected more respect than scorn behind the words. His
lips twitched into a half smile. “It has its uses.”

“Well, but you allowed Carisa to believe I was your fiancée,
allowed her to become attached to me. You preferred not to upset her with a
denial before, and now—”

“Don’t be foolish,
cara
. No man marries for such a
reason.

“Maybe, maybe not. But it must be because you want me then?
And I’m supposed to believe in this great desire of yours when you left me
without a word and stayed away for days? Talk about foolish.”

“I sent flowers.”

“
For remembrance
. As if I could ever forget.” She
swung and walked away from him a few steps, but not before he caught the
glitter of tears in the corners of her eyes. Tears that gave him hope.

“I didn’t say goodbye,
cara mia,
because I would not
have left you if I had tried it. I didn’t come back because I would never have
been able to sleep in the same house without finding my way to your bed. Nonna
and my aunt might have accepted that from me as a man and head of the family,
but I’m afraid they are old-fashioned enough to have thought less of you for
it. I didn’t want that when I was the one who couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

She gave a low laugh of mingled surprise and admiration.
“Nice try. But it doesn’t explain why you didn’t call, didn’t send a message of
some kind to let me know you had no regrets about what happened between us.”

“I could not have heard your voice without ordering the
plane for my return,” he said, running a hand through his hair in his
exasperation. “Besides, I did have regrets. I knew I should not have pushed you
into a relationship while you were not only my guest but worried over your
bother. I needed distance, and thought you might as well. This affair of ours
had come about so suddenly amid the disturbance over the accident. It seemed
best to give us both time to discover how we really felt.”

“What I feel is that who and what you are as a man is
forcing you into something you’ll regret. You don’t really want me, but will
marry me because your miserable code of honor demands it. Well, I won’t be
married for that reason. So there. Now you’re free. Count yourself lucky.”

Dio mio
, she was driving him insane. He stared at her
there in his study where he had thought of her so often, absorbing the
perfection of her appearance in white linen, bridal white so seductively
innocent in the way it was cut to mold her breasts, the narrow turn of her
waist and flare of her hips, that it seemed a wedding omen. Yes, and made him
want to peel it from her while tasting every inch of skin as he uncovered it.

He could tell her that he loved her, but why would she
believe it when she would accept nothing else he said? He had hurt her, though
without intending it. He had doubted her word, maligned her brother, forced her
to abandon her job and her life in the States and come with him. It would take
time to rectify his errors, time to win her trust and her love, to bind her to
him so she would not, as his mother had done, decide the De Frenza blood was
tainted and she wanted no part of his family.

He was not sure he would be allowed that much time. Nor was
he certain that he could bear to wait until her trust and her love were freely
given. To be her husband while he convinced her that she belonged beside him
would have infinite advantages.

There was, he was almost positive, one other way to break
through the prickly independence she wore like armor. It was overbearing, even
arrogant, but a risk he had to take.

“You will marry me,” he said with great deliberation as he
moved toward her, “because you want me as much as I want you. You will marry me
because you need me as much as I need you. You will marry me,” he finished as
he reached for her and pulled her close against him, “because of this that is
between us.”

Her lips were so sweet, so cool and delicious as he took
them. He groaned with the perfection of them, breathed deep with gratified
longing as he pushed his hand into the softness of her hair, holding her while
he slanted his head to probe deeper. He swirled his tongue into her mouth,
inciting her response.

And he had it, tentative at first but growing bolder as her
mouth heated under his fervid assault. She sighed and gripped his shirt in her
hands, twisting it to bring him closer. He felt the curves of her breasts
against his chest, recognized their hard peaks, and his brain was suddenly
aflame.

Moving with his thighs brushing her legs, between them,
around them, he guided her backward until her hips were against the edge of his
desk. Without releasing her lips, he swept the top clear of papers, books, his
calendar, even his cell phone. Before the clatter had died away, he lifted her
to the desk. Before she could do more than gasp in disbelief, he pushed the
skirt of her dress up and stepped between her spread thighs.

She was so soft, so warm against him. Only the thinnest of
barriers separated them. He rubbed against it, mindless with such closeness,
while he captured a breast in his hand. Clasping, squeezing in slow rhythm, he
allowed himself to be enticed by the rounded neck of her dress. He trailed
kisses down the curve of her neck, tasted her pulse with his tongue, delved
into the hollow at the base of her throat. He inhaled her fragrance of flowers,
linen and warm woman and felt it mount to his head like the most delicate of
wine bouquets.

Delirious, half-crazed with need, he searched for and found
the zip of her dress, sliding it down, tugging her bodice forward and down her
arms to expose her breasts. The bra she wore was a masterpiece of lace and
sensual purpose, made expressly to entice. It was the work of a moment to lower
its straps until it became a seductive sling for their lovely pink-crested
perfection. Bending his head, he blew upon them, watched the nipples become
small sweet candies for his delectation, and took one into his mouth.

Her moan was soft music that urged him to greater effort. He
drove himself to earn more of it, and yet more, suckling her while smoothing
his hand over her thigh, easing between them to cup her, part her delicate
folds. He pressed into the moist and silken depths of her while his body
protested its deprivation. Exerting more control than he dreamed he possessed,
he ignored the violent pleasure that gripped him as she ran her hands over his
body, found and captured his flat nipple with her fingers. Matching her
movements in instinctive unison, he stroked into her again and again, then
found and rolled the delicate bud of her femininity between thumb and
forefinger like testing the most fragile of raspberries.

She cried out, a high-pitched sound he caught in his mouth
as he felt its approach. And he held her while she trembled with the force of her
release, her body straining against his while she pulsed against his fingers.
Then, only then, he lowered his zipper and freed his strutted flesh. A brief pause
to sheath himself in brand-new protection, then he wrenched her forward to the
very edge of the desk and sank into her wet heat.

She crooned, twining her legs around his, pressing her
forehead to his breastbone. It was all he needed. Easing her backward,
supporting her until she lay upon his desk, he pumped into her in aching need
while his heart threatened to burst inside and his pulse almost drowned out the
praise and the most sacred of promises that he whispered in the language of his
fathers. Telling her how hot arguing with her made him, how proud he was of how
she stood up to him, he held her gaze while he took her, and even as she
coalesced around him again, drawing him into the surging power of her
heartbeat, her ultimate pleasure.

He joined her in it, exploding in supreme and ruthless
enjoyment, knowing it had never been like this before and might never be again,
knowing he possessed her in that moment if in no other.

He knew, too, even as he shuddered in glorious, unending
surcease, that she had still not agreed to be his wife.

12

Carita and Jonathan arrived at the villa
with a police escort racing ahead of their matching ambulances and another
bringing up the rear. The undulating twin notes of the siren drew everyone to
the front entrance. There they waited in a double line, Amanda, Nico and his
Nonna on one side, and Aunt Filomena, Carisa and Yolanda on the other. Jonathan
was helped up the steps on his crutches by the medical technicians, while
Carita was brought in on a stretcher. Both were smiling, almost laughing with
the ridiculous display they made and their pleasure in it.

Amanda took over as Jonathan’s escort, walking slowly beside
him into the downstairs ladies sitting room that had been turned into a bedroom
for him. Carisa walked beside Carita’s stretcher, holding to its side and
chattering every step of the way, as she was installed in the invalid’s room
next door that had apparently been so designated from time immemorial.

The arrangements had been Amanda’s idea, though Nico had
backed her up in it against his grandmother’s protests. She’d had visions of
her brother tumbling down the marble stairs in his attempts to visit his
fiancée, or Carita doing the same as she sought to spend time with Jonathan.

Nico’s suggestion had been to put in an elevator, something
his grandmother might require eventually. Nonna had been scandalized. This was
what the invalid’s room was for, she declared, though it would be many years
before she was reduced to such straits. She would not have the villa cut up for
a modern contraption that would be used a few weeks at the most.

Nonna had a point, Amanda thought, as she was reluctant
herself to see permanent damage done to the wonderful old place. With the two
of them against him, Nico had thrown up his hands and let them have their way.

It was the only thing he had given in on, however. He had
announced Amanda’s engagement to him in print without the least regard for her
refusal of his proposal. Spending most of every day at the villa, he had been
the most attentive of fiancés. He sat beside her at meals, took her walking in
the garden, escorted her on a tour of the villages of the Cinque Terre and swam
with her from the beach that was hidden from the villa by the lay of the land.
And he made love to her with the tenderness of dedication, taking her in a
hidden cove, in a boat floating on its own reflection in liquid aquamarine-blue
water, on a dew-damp garden bench while a life-size statue of Pan looked on,
laughing slyly as he played his pipes.