Page 51 of Unveiled As The Italian's Bride
‘Or we could just put the whole thing behind us as a...blip.’
‘A blip?’
‘Something that shouldn’t have happened. Something that should be nipped in the bud because of complications that could arise.’
‘What sort of complications?’
‘Things have a way of turning messy,’ Kate said vaguely. ‘Don’t they?’
‘They won’t turn messy. We both know the lay of the land.’
Dante marvelled at the rapid turnaround from when he had first laid down the rules of engagement. Then, the thought of sleeping with this woman had not featured on his horizon. Even when he had curiously begun to toy with the notion that she was a heck of a lot more attractive than he’d originally thought—when his thoughts had gone from ‘no way’to‘what if?’—he hadstillbeen resolute in his stance. No sex and no muddying of the water.
Now? A three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn.
‘Besides...’ He picked up his argument because he was intent on persuading her out of whatever doubts she seemed to have. ‘Do you honestly believe that it’ll be easy for us to lock the doors between us and pretend that nothing happened? Don’t you think that there might be just the tiniest amount of awkwardness? Worse, has it crossed your mind that, the harder we try to fight this, the more it’ll grow until it becomes an obsession?’
‘I never knew you were so dramatic, Dante.’ But she was frowning and what he said took root and mushroomed into various scenarios, all of which had poor outcomes.
Guiltily, she knew that she was also tempted to listen and agree because she wanted him so badly.
‘You do that to me,’ he said huskily and she sighed and lay back, eyes fluttering shut. She didn’t pull away when he raised her hand to tenderly kiss the sensitive underside of her wrist and, when she slid her eyes to meet his, they both knew that she would be his.
With plans swiftly moving forward for a wedding that was getting increasingly close, Kate should have been in a place of relative calm.
They were getting along. They were finding that they had a lot in common, despite their very different backgrounds. The once remote, cold and forbidding man was now a guy who was witty, thoughtful and way too clever for his own good. He liked the way she argued with him and she enjoyed the way he listened and then pulled so many facts and figures out of the bag that she usually ended up scrambling to even up the debate.
And, of course, the sex—it was red-hot.
So why was she uneasy as the date for the nuptials was set and preparations put into motion?
Everything was straightforward. Wasn’t it?
Standing in front of a floor mirror she was putting the finishing touches to her hair. When she looked over her shoulder, she caught Dante’s gaze and smiled.
‘Where’s Angelina?’
‘Flower arranging,’ he returned wryly. ‘She went out in the garden with Lorenzo and persuaded him to cut a dozen flowers for her to present to the invalid, although, from the sounds of it, the invalid is in remarkably good form.’
‘He still hasn’t said what’s going on with his tests.’ She looked at Dante. They were in his suite and she could see his reflection in the bank of mirrors to one side as he did up the buttons of his shirt. ‘Why on earth is he being so secretive? Do you think he’s concealing something from us?’
‘He would never be as jolly as he’s been for the past couple of weeks if there were clouds on the horizon,’ Dante mused, reaching for a black cashmere V-neck jumper and slinging it over the white shirt.
He was idly appreciating the curve of her slender body as she angled her head to put on some earrings, tear-shaped diamonds he had given her a handful of days ago, personally chosen.
‘Let me help,’ he murmured.
He felt the silken softness of her skin against his knuckle as he fiddled with the earring, and he felt something else—the steady drumbeat of the unfamiliar. Was this what domesticity felt like? Was this what hope felt like? The familiarity between them was so easy that words were almost superfluous. Was this whatnormalityfelt like?
His mouth tightened. Once, briefly, he’d hoped for normality. Marriage to Luciana might have been arranged, and he might have approached it with acceptance of the inevitable, but underneath the cynicism hadn’t there beenhope? Hope that he might find something beyond what his parents had had? She had been a beautiful woman and, at least in the initial stages, vibrant and fun.
It had been an illusion and the hope he’d briefly nurtured had withered and died fast enough. Whatever small shred of optimism he’d ever had, about having a wife who might be more than a woman with the right pedigree, programmed to fulfil the duties into which she had been born like his own mother, had disappeared. That was not for him, and it was better that way, because there was nothing more painful than the loss of hope.
He didn’t like the taste in his mouth now and, thinking about it, neither did he like the urgency of his body whenever he was near this woman.
Did she make him weak? Maybe not, but it felt like it, and he loathed that and rejected it out of hand because he knew what it could spell—a loss of control, a dismantling of barriers.
‘The dress suits you.’ He spun round on his heels and sauntered over for his wallet and the keys to his car, which he had intended to drive himself rather than use a car with a driver. Now, though, the romantic, exhilarating trip felt over the top and unnecessary. He needed to recover his perspective and romantic, exhilarating car trips, even with a mini chaperone in the back seat, weren’t exactly a great starting point.
