The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride Of Convenience

He had such a nice mouth.

She gave that nice mouth playful kisses that teased, that were almost friendly—but not chaste. It was like a little warm-up…like poking a big, sleeping bear.

She could feel his naked torso between her legs and the warmth of his belly on her sex as she practised her kiss on him.

‘Taste me with your tongue,’ he told her, and she saw that Nico’s eyes were now closed.

‘I’m too shy.’

That elicited another laugh from them both. It was nice to laugh as their mouths mingled, to share in each other’s breath—and then his hand came behind her head and Aurora received her first proper kiss, for with one sweep of his tongue he discounted all the others.

Finally, she closed her eyes.

Then, as he sucked her tongue and pressed her head into his, she knew she was right to be there, for her body was on fire for him.

He tasted of limoncello and water and skill. He gave her a taste of the passion beneath that aloof exterior and he made her crave him.

She rose on her haunches and his other hand came to her waist as he kissed her more deeply, tangling with her in indecent ways. His hand slipped down to her buttocks—and he pulled his head away.

‘Dio, Aurora, where are your knickers?’

‘I don’t wear them to bed.’ She smiled. ‘It’s too hot.’

His hands were on her ripe flesh and she could feel his fingers digging hard into her. And then she recognised the reluctance in him and felt regret as he removed them.

‘Do you wear your underwear to bed?’ she asked.

She slid back and sat on his thighs. It was a very provocative move, for in doing so she slid her naked sex over the hardest part of him. She pulled back the cotton blanket and saw beneath his black silk boxers and the clear evidence of his desire for her.

‘Oh, Nico…’

She touched him without fear or hesitation, freeing him from the restraint that had kept their actions decent. She explored him with her eyes and her hands and knew she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life.

‘Aurora…’ he warned, and removed her hand, or soon he wouldn’t be able to control himself any more.

But she did not stop, and when her hand returned he did not halt it.

‘Make it stop, Nico,’ she begged.

‘Make what stop?’

‘This fire.’

‘Go to bed,’ he told her, pushing at her hips and attempting to lift her from his thighs.

But she dug in. ‘No.’

‘Okay,’ he compromised. ‘I’ll make you come, and then you are to go to bed.’

His arrogant tone only turned her on even more, and she relished the opportunity to discover what he could make her body feel.

Oh, he brought bliss with his fingers. He was not gentle, and she stifled a cry as he slipped his fingers inside her. She moved with his hand for a moment, but then sobbed in frustration. ‘It’s not your hand I want…’

‘Let go,’ he told her as he stroked her more insistently, increasing the speed and pressure of his fingers according to the responses of her body.

When she climaxed, Nico decided, he would allow himself to join her, and then they could both get some sleep.

‘We might be going to die tonight, Nico,’ she told him. ‘Don’t let me die a virgin.’

She looked down at him and felt a shiver rippling inside her as he almost smiled.

But was it a smile?

Aurora did not know, for it was a look she had never before seen. It was a kind of grim smile that made her stomach flip, and his voice, when it came, was deeper than thunder, with a low warning edge.

‘Get on the floor,’ he told her.

‘No,’ she said. For that would mean separating their bodies and she did not want to give him even a second to change his mind.

That grim smile remained as his hand left her sex and moved to his own. ‘Take off your top,’ he told her. ‘I want to know every inch of you.’

With anticipation bubbling inside her, and delight that she was finally getting her way, she pulled her T-shirt over her head.

Aurora put her hands on his chest and lifted herself a little. She looked down as he held himself in one hand and ran the glistening tip against her most sensitive flesh.

‘Don’t make a noise,’ he warned as he nudged against her, except she was too tight for his thick length.

He could feel her thighs shaking as she knelt up. ‘Get on the floor,’ he said again, for he could better control things there.

‘Please, Nico, now!’

He was just a little way inside her, and he took her hips in his large palms. He’d meant to do it more gently, but she was damp with perspiration, and so was he, and as he pushed her down their bodies slid together and he pulled her down harder than he’d intended and seared into her virgin flesh.

It was the most painful, exquisite, blissful moment of her life and she did not make a sound. It was Nico who let out a breathless cry as he took her virginity.

‘Shh…’ Aurora said, though the sound stroked through her as they locked together. She stayed still, so still, because it was agony, but it was delicious too, and she felt his hands very gently on her hips, steadying her.

‘Come here,’ he told her, but did not move an inch. ‘Let me kiss you.’

Now he made her moan, for his kiss was her first taste of the true Nico—utterly tender and all man. His kiss and his tongue took all the hurt away as his hands stroked her hips—not to move her, just to feel her—and he made her whimper. And as the hurt receded desire took its place and she started to move according to the demands of her own body.

She wanted to linger on his lips, to savour this side of Nico, but her body wouldn’t allow it, for she could not kiss him softly and move as she wished to at the same time.

Nico took over, holding her hips and bringing her in line with his building rhythm, lifting his hips to thrust into her.

‘Nico…’ she said, in a voice that was fighting not to scream. ‘Nico…’

He wasn’t putting out the fire in her—it was spreading and consuming her, and she did not recognise the approaching bliss, but sought it all the same.

And then he let out that breathless shout again and lifted himself.

Feeling Nico swell and then the rush of his relief fill her, caused Aurora to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. And Nico, her Nico, pressed his hand over her mouth as her world went black and her orgasm coursed through her.

It was the most intense moment she had ever known and he guided her through it.

Aurora started kissing his palm. Kissing and tasting his salty skin. His hand slid behind her head and he pulled her back to his kiss.

They came down from their high together and slowly. Back to the world they had left for a while. Back to the sound of the choppers and her father’s snores.

He held her for a while, but he was concerned about the pace and direction of the fire, and soon he went to the window and checked the solid red glow on the hillside.

And then he looked back to the sofa, where Aurora lay…

Aurora knew she must return to her bed.

‘Come on,’ Nico said, and took her hand.

He helped her up, and as Aurora stood on shaky legs she fought the sting of tears. How could he be so close one moment and then pack her off to bed like a child the next?

He picked up her T-shirt and led her through to the small kitchen. He turned on the light and she looked down and saw blood, and the evidence of their coupling.

‘I can’t have a shower—they’ll hear the pipes.’

‘I know,’ Nico said.

Instead he turned on the water at the sink and began to wash her, slowly and carefully.

Tenderly.

It was the second best moment of her life.

Then he put the T-shirt over her head. She did not get another kiss, but he held her for a moment and then released her.

Aurora returned to her pink bedroom and lay in a bed in which she no longer felt she belonged.

CHAPTER FIVE

AURORA AWOKE VERY EARLY, as she always did, in her own bed, but to a world that felt different.

She gave no thought to the wildfires.

For days she had been obsessed by them, but now her first thoughts were of Nico and what had happened between them.

There was no regret—in fact it was bliss to recall. But there was a tremble of fear. For she had not thought she could love him more, or want him more, than she had this time yesterday.

But she did.

Only then did she register the sound of rain—a light patter against her window. Aurora climbed out of bed and peered out. There was steam from the heat, and black smoke in the sky, and a steady fine drizzle of rain.

Aurora pulled on a dress and sandals, and as she slipped out of the house she stole just one look at Nico, crashed out on the couch.

Nico was not feigning sleep this time, but he woke at the sound of the door closing softly and then the steady, welcome patter of rain.

He was not one to examine his emotions—more often he shut them down—but for a moment he lay there, trying to label how he felt.

It wasn’t so much regret that had him closing his eyes tight, for in all his twenty-six years those hours last night had been the best of his life.

It was guilt.

Guilt because although everything had changed between them nothing had changed about what he wanted from his life. He did not want love and he certainly didn’t want marriage.

Nico had lost control in the small hours and he was not used to losing control.

He always used condoms.

Always.

Yet last night he had not given them so much as a thought.

Had her brother come home, or if her parents had got up and caught them, they would be heading over to the priest right now to arrange a wedding.

Instead he dressed, and headed out to where he knew he would find her.

It was muggy and humid, and no doubt the water would evaporate long before it got to the fires, but the rain would certainly help because the mountains had been tinder-dry.

Down through the village he headed, towards the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

He found her walking through the temple ruins, clearly deep in thought, because she jumped a little when she saw him, evidently not having heard his approach.

‘Are you okay?’ Nico asked.

‘Of course,’ Aurora said.

She knew she must look a sight, with her damp dress and hair, but there was nothing she could do about that.

Nico’s shirt was damp too, and his black hair was wet from the rain. She guessed this was what he would look like coming out of the shower, and thought of the shower they hadn’t been able to have last night.

‘Do you have any regrets?’ Nico asked.

‘About last night?’ Aurora checked. ‘None.’

She wouldn’t change it even if she could. The things Aurora would change would be the now and the future without him.

‘Do you?’

‘In part,’ Nico admitted, ‘because I loathe mixed messages and—’

‘I get the message, Nico,’ Aurora halted him. ‘I heard it loud and clear—you don’t want to marry me and—’

‘I don’t want to marry, period,’ Nico said. ‘I don’t ever want a relationship.’

And therein lay the difference between them, thought Aurora. How did he so easily separate sex from a relationship? For she felt as if she was in a relationship with Nico. Right now, as they walked through the ruins, she felt the closest she ever had to another soul.

‘Aurora, you don’t want to be married to me.’

Yes, Aurora did. But for dignity’s sake she had to sound as if she wasn’t imploding when she spoke, and so she took a breath.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be married to a man whose skin crawls at the thought of being here. I don’t want to be married to a man who keeps his hand on my shoulder but his eyes on the pretty—’

‘What are you talking about?’

Aurora just shrugged, and then asked him a question. ‘When are you leaving?’

‘I’ll see what’s happening with the fires,’ Nico said, ‘but I expect I shall leave today.’

Even the heavens were against her, Aurora decided, because as he said it the drizzle turned into heavy rain. Yes, he would be leaving today.

‘Aurora, did you think last night might change things?’

‘No.’

She had been under no illusion that having sex with Nico would change anything for him. There had been a kernel of hope, though…

And Nico crushed it.

‘I’ll never marry, Aurora.’

‘I shall,’ she said, and she said it harshly.

Her words punished Nico, but determinedly he did not let it show. ‘You have your own life to live and you have no obligation to me.’

‘I know.’

‘So, please, if you are going to help care for my father, at least give me your bank details.’

‘I don’t want your dirty money.’

‘Dirty money?’

‘Oh, come on, Nico, don’t take me for a fool. Since when did a boy from Silibri leave school at sixteen and go on to own hotels and his own helicopter?’

‘You really are good at assuming the worst, aren’t you, Aurora?’

‘What else is there to think?’ She stopped walking then and looked at him. ‘Nico, be careful.’

‘Of what?’

‘Whatever it is you’re mixed up in.’

‘You think I’m in the mafia?’ Nico said. ‘Or moving drugs?’ He loathed that she thought that of him. ‘I’m not involved in anything like that.’

‘Come off it, Nico,’ Aurora said, and tried to walk off. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

He caught her arm. ‘I’m not,’ Nico said, he was angry. ‘Please don’t take me for some corrupt mafia gangster.’

‘I don’t,’ Aurora said. ‘Or I’m trying not to.’

‘Aurora, ask and I’ll tell you—but only you.’

She stood in the rain and it still felt like a relationship. She should walk away now, not draw herself in closer to a man who would never want her completely.

She asked, ‘How?’

‘You know when I left here that I went to my grandfather’s?’

Aurora nodded. ‘On your mother’s side?’

‘Sì. They are very modest people, who never cared much for my father. They thought my mother had made a poor choice, but she ran off and married him anyway. My grandfather suggested that I cut all ties with my father, but I could not. I got a job there and I sent half my wage home to him. I knew that he was not well and could no longer work the vines—’

‘He could have,’ Aurora interrupted. ‘He chose not to.’

‘Perhaps,’ Nico conceded. ‘Anyway, I made my own way. I worked in a bar, and then I took a loan, and then I bought a small stake in the bar and put in more hours.’

‘That does not buy you a five-star hotel in Rome and three others.’

‘I don’t own four hotels, Aurora. I have stakes in them.’

She shook her head, disbelieving. No, a Sicilian woman could not be beguiled.

‘What I do own,’ Nico said, ‘is land.’

He looked to the misty grey waters and the cliffs shining from the rain.

‘This will go no further?’ he checked.

‘Of course.’

‘Even when you sit on the hill drinking wine with Antonietta?’

‘She won’t be hearing about last night, Nico.’

‘This might be a more difficult secret to keep.’

He smiled at her slight eyebrow-raise, and the fact was he wanted to tell her. Nico wanted her take on the decision he was about to make.

‘My father married my mother not for love, but for what he thought he would get.’

‘Which was…?’

He led her out of the temple ruins and they walked towards the old monastery.

‘My grandfather owned the land we stand on—right to the edge of the temple ruins. When my mother died, he said the only good that could come out of it was that my father would never get his hands on it. He left it to me. That is why my father says I stole from him.’

‘Why did he want it?’ Aurora said.

She did not doubt it was beautiful—and, yes, the view was divine—but as far as she could see it was worthless, and she told him so.

‘Houses sit empty here for years. My father goes on about the house he had for—’ She swallowed, not wanting to say ‘us’ when no such thing existed. ‘He could not even give it away.’ She looked around again. Yes, it was her playground and, yes, she loved it, but… ‘There’s just the carcass of the old monastery and those steps down to the beach.’

‘It’s gold, Aurora. And my father would have sold it to developers. We would be standing now in a concrete jungle, with tourists being bussed in from the airport every day.’

Aurora could not picture it, though she tried to. ‘It would be good for the village, though, to have people coming through…’

‘In some ways it would—but that is not what my grandfather wanted and I agreed with him. He thought the monastery should be restored, but that would mean bringing stone up from the quarries…’ He halted. The cost and logistics were appalling. ‘Believe me, I have been tempted to just sell it—’

‘No!’ Aurora cried, and it was emphatic. ‘He left it to you!’

‘Yes.’ Nico nodded. ‘But I didn’t even know he owned it until a short while before he died.’

‘Yet you spoke of his plans for it?’

‘I thought they were just nostalgic ramblings about his hometown,’ Nico admitted. ‘And my father certainly never told me about it—though when I found out I understood better why he hates me so. He married my mother to get his hands on it.’

Aurora looked at the land she loved and knew so well, but she looked with different eyes now. It was Nico’s.

‘What will you do with it?’

‘I don’t have to do anything. It’s a huge asset and I can keep building on that.’

‘Or sell it to developers?’

‘No,’ Nico said, for he had ruled that option out long ago, even if at times he’d been tempted. And then he said what had long been on his mind. ‘I could restore the monastery.’

‘And make it into what?’

‘A very exclusive, very luxurious hotel.’

Aurora swallowed.

‘Just a few suites…’

‘But how would that make a profit?’

‘I would charge a fortune to stay in my Silibri hotel, and I believe I would get it.’

Aurora heard the steely resolve in his voice and blinked, because businessman Nico was someone she did not know.

She spoke then. ‘It would bring people back to Silibri…’

‘It would,’ Nico said, and then he made sure he crushed that last kernel of hope. ‘But not me. At least not permanently.’

‘I get it, Nico.’

She did.

Nico would not be returning to Silibri to live.

He looked at the ruins, and then he looked to the shell of an old stone cottage, and vowed it would be the first thing that was restored. Yes, he would be back to see his father, but there would be no reason to spend another night in the Messina house.

Nico would not do that to Aurora.

And finally, after years of indecision over the land, his decision was made.

He would not marry Aurora.

But he would take care of her this way.

CHAPTER SIX

Rome

THE LAST TEAR.

It spilled out as she began to pull herself together.

Enough.

She swore there and then that it would be the last tear she shed over Nico Caruso.

Aurora wiped it from her cheek and crumpled the sodden tissue in disgust.

Alone in her hotel room, with the others on the bus tour, she was bent double with the strength of her tears as she relived that night and the morning after.

Well, she had relived it for the last time and she had embarrassed herself enough over him.

It really was time to move on.

So, instead of peeling another tissue from the box she topped up her lip-gloss over swollen lips and tried to repair the damage her crying binge had caused to her eyes.

She would not sit in her hotel room and mourn him—or rather mourn the fantasy of him—for a moment longer.

It was springtime in Rome.

She downloaded that dating app and scrolled through it, but when she tried to write her profile she gave in and thought, Baby steps, Aurora.

She headed down to the bar, more than a little nervous about walking in alone.

And just as she was doing her best to get over Nico, who did she see walking towards her?

A scowling Nico, who, from his expression, wasn’t expecting to see her either.

‘Aurora.’ He gave a swift nod.

‘Buona sera.’ It took everything she had to greet him with a smile.

‘Buona sera. I thought you were on a bus trip?’

‘No.’ She did not elaborate ‘I’m going to have a drink at the bar.’

‘Alone?’ Nico frowned.

‘Not for long hopefully!’ She smiled at her own little joke. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Then she corrected herself. ‘Oh, no, I won’t. You’re heading home in the morning.’

‘Here is my home, Aurora.’

‘Ah, but home is where the heart is, Nico. You know that.’

‘I do,’ he agreed. ‘And I shall say it again—here is my home.’

He ordered his head to give her a nod and his legs to turn and walk off, but neither obeyed. And then, even as his common sense was screaming at him to walk away, he spoke. ‘And, given you are in my hometown, let me get you a drink.’

He’d done it again.

Just when she was determined to move on from him he pulled her back to him.

Well, not this time, Aurora told herself. Yes, she would have a drink with him, but she would not be making a fool of herself again.

He was her boss and she would hold on to that fact.

The bar was busy and he put a hand on her upper arm to guide her through. Staff jumped into action and they were taken to a quiet corner table.

‘It’s so busy I thought I’d have to drink at the bar,’ Aurora said. Although that was possibly the reason he had joined her. ‘It’s lucky we got a table.’ That sounded naïve. ‘I mean, I’m glad no one was asked to move to make way for the boss.’

‘It would be poor form to do that to my guests, which is why this table is reserved solely for me.’

He watched as her lips pursed and wondered what he could possibly have said to upset her, for it looked as if she was tempted to get up and walk out.

Aurora was.

His private table did not impress her. In fact she felt a little insulted as she wondered how many other women had sat in this very seat. How many hands had he held across this very table?’ And then she halted herself, for Nico was the last person she could imagine being affectionate.

They ordered their drinks—a spritzer for Aurora and a red wine for Nico—and then sat in tense silence as they waited for them to arrive.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me how your father is?’ Aurora asked.

‘I spoke with him two hours ago and I see his doctor tomorrow.’

‘My mother is taking in his meals while I’m away. In case you were wondering.’

Nico said nothing and Aurora took a deep breath, trying to keep her exasperation in. Reminding herself that Nico did not want to hear anything about home…

She was supposed to be keeping things professional, Aurora told herself. Except his father was fading. Did Nico properly know that?

‘Look, Nico, I know that after all he did to you, you must hate him, but I think—’

‘I don’t,’ Nico interrupted. ‘I love him very much.’

For Aurora the sky turned purple, the floor was now sand and the people in the bar were green.

Everything she knew was gone.

‘I have to accept, though, that he does not want my love. Still, tomorrow I will try again, and I will be told to get lost again.’

Their drinks were brought to them and even after Aurora had taken a sip of hers the revelation had not sunk in.

‘You love him?’