The Sicilian Marriage

One thing was certain. The O’Connell women all had impeccable taste. The men they’d set in her path were handsome, charming and, she was sure, great catches.

It wasn’t their fault that not a one was as gorgeous, as sexy, as altogether spectacular as Gianni Firelli…and, she was certain, not a one of them was the same kind of rotten SOB.

Bree brought the iron down with enough force to smooth out a wrinkle in a sheet of steel.

She’d tried to forget about him. Forget that elevator ride. Forget that she hated herself for not having dealt with him properly. Now, here he was, back in her head.

It was the heat. The damned heat. Bad enough it was a million degrees outside and almost that in her apartment. Was this a day to sweat over a hot iron in her tiny kitchen?

It was, if you were going on a job interview.

Too much heat and humidity could turn your brain to mush. She couldn’t afford that. She had a job interview in less than an hour. Why waste time thinking about something that was history?

Yes, she’d behaved like an idiot. Yes, the memory still made her cringe. Yes, she wished she’d slapped Gianni Firelli’s face but—

But, she hadn’t.

The interview. She’d think about the interview. About how difficult it was to get the miserable wrinkles out of this miserable blouse because the iron was too hot and the ironing board table didn’t stand straight on the worn linoleum floor. The stupid legs wobbled…

Her legs had wobbled, when Gianni kissed her.

The faint scent of scorched silk rose from the ironing board. Bree snatched the iron off the blouse. Too late. There was a brown spot right on the collar the size of a quarter.

“Damn, damn, damn!”

Washable silk, the tag said. Light pressing might be required. Light? An elephant could sit on the blouse for an hour and the wrinkles would still be there as soon as it lifted its butt. And what difference did it make? Five minutes on the street, she’d look as if she’d slept in it, anyway.

Truth was, she’d probably look that way as soon as she put it on. She was sweating. Not glowing, the way those lade-da fashion magazines said. Sweating, with a capital S.

No wonder the rent was so cheap. Well, cheap for New York City. When she’d signed the lease a few months back, she’d figured she was getting a bargain. Some bargain, she thought, as she shoved her hair back from her face.

The kitchen faucet leaked. Only one of the stove’s burners worked, and there wasn’t any point in talking about the air conditioner. It was supposed to cool the whole place—not much to ask, considering the size of this shoe box the landlord called an apartment.

Pitiful.

And so was she.

Bree yanked out the plug and stood the iron on its heel. That was the only way to describe a woman who was fixated on something that was weeks in the past. A man came on to you like a savage, forced his kisses on you…

Another time, another place, a woman who’d endured such indignities would have gone straight to her brothers and asked them to defend her honor. She wouldn’t do that, of course—this was the twenty-first century, not the middle ages, and besides, she could handle her own affairs—but the thought of the male contingent of the O’Connell clan beating Gianni Firelli to a pulp held definite appeal.

Never mind that she’d seemed to respond to what he’d done. If she had, it was only because he’d taken her by surprise. Okay. So she hadn’t handled the scene well. So what? Why keep thinking about it?

Why keep thinking about the taste of his mouth, the feel of his hand between her thighs?

Bree said a word that would have stunned her protective brothers, crumpled the blouse into a ball and hurled it across the room.

As if she gave a pig’s whistle about any of that.

The job interview. She had to concentrate on that. She needed to be at her best, look her best and how was she going to manage that with Mr. Firelli in her head and a scorch mark the size of Texas on her blouse?

The blouse was easier to handle.

She could stand the collar up. Or wear a scarf around her neck. No. The collar wasn’t made to stand up. As for the scarf—Fallon would probably make a scarf look like an ascot.

She’d make it look like a noose.

Bree dumped the blouse on the bed. What to wear? She needed this job. She didn’t know anything about being a gofer for a TV producer but she’d learn. She had to. What little she’d saved from her last stint as a waitress was about gone, and an hour spent yesterday with the Sunday Times employment section had been depressing.

The city seemed in desperate need of everything from accountants to zoologists. Unfortunately two years of college didn’t qualify her for much of anything.

“You and me, kid,” Sean used to say. “All the O’Connells are busy being grown-ups, except us.”

Bree stepped into the shower and turned the water cold enough to raise goose bumps.

That wasn’t true anymore. Sean, the untamable gambler, had been tamed. He’d sunk his winnings into ownership of an exclusive Caribbean resort while she still drifted from job to job and place to place, searching for something she’d like enough to want to do for the rest of her life.

The score, thus far, was a big, fat zero.

She shut off the shower, stepped onto the mat and wrapped herself in a bath sheet.

Who’d want to make a career demonstrating cosmetics to bored matrons with more money than common sense? Spend a lifetime selling prêt à porter to spoiled rich girls? She’d have been one of those overindulged brats herself if it weren’t for the fact that she flat-out refused to accept help from her family.

Financial help, anyway, and when she’d tried the other kind…well, it hadn’t worked out. Waiting tables at Keir’s vineyard restaurant last winter had gone well enough until she’d not-so-accidentally dumped a glass of wine on a pain-in-the-ass customer who’d complained about everything from the first course to the last.

More recently, Fallon had wangled her a stint modeling for a new diet drink photo shoot.

You probably weren’t supposed to stab your index finger between your lips and make gagging noises when the guy watching from the sidelines was the client’s rep. Even so, he’d hit on her. That had been even more nauseating. He was okay to look at, she supposed, but nothing compared to…

Bree frowned into the mirror. “Stop that,” she said out loud, and marched to her closet.

What did TV people wear, anyway? Was the desired look funky or professional? Maybe a little of each. The navy silk suit, but with that Bella Sicilia T-shirt she’d picked up last time she visited Fallon and Stefano.

The doorbell rang.

Bree rolled her eyes. What now? The super had already come by to peer at her air conditioner and tell her there was nothing he could do until a new part arrived. Her usual early-morning visitor, Mrs. Schilling from across the hall, had already stopped by to update her on the alien spaceship on the roof.

Brring, brring, brring.

Time for another bulletin on the Alien Invasion.

Bree sighed, knotted the bath sheet more tightly over her breasts and went to the door. She undid the hundred and one locks—each brother had added his own assortment—and cracked the door a couple of inches.

“Yes, Mrs. Schilling,” she said, “have you heard something more from the Mart—”

The words caught in her throat. It wasn’t her slightly-batty-but-sweet neighbor standing on the doormat, it was her impossibly arrogant would-be seducer, the man she’d spent the last few weeks loathing. Here he was. In the flesh. The gorgeous flesh.

What had taken him so long?

“You!” Oh God, such originality! And such a stupid thought. Bree stood straighter. “What are you doing here, Firelli?”

“I have to see you.”

He wasn’t much on originality, either…and why should such a hackneyed phrase make her pulse beat zoom? Definitely, the heat was frying her brain.

“A charming line,” she said brightly, “but wasted on me. I am absolutely not interested in—”

“Briana. This is important. Let me in.”

Like the big, bad wolf, he made the simple words sound tempting. That was the bad news. The good news was that she wasn’t some silly little creature in a nursery rhyme.

“Not in a million years.”

“We have to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about. And if, by some miracle we did, have you ever heard of that new invention called the telephone?”

“Damn it, this isn’t a game. Let me in.”

“You’re right. It isn’t a game.” Bree started to close the door. “Go on home, Firelli. Give us both a break and just—”

“Briana.” Gianni moved forward and wedged his shoulder in the narrow opening between the door and the jamb. “Please.”

The word, as much as that shoulder, stopped her cold. Please? She wouldn’t have thought the term was in his vocabulary. At least, not when it came to women. She started to tell him what he could do with his plea but something in his eyes made her reconsider.

“Something’s wrong,” she said slowly.

He didn’t answer. “Open the door, Bree.”

“What is it?” A coldness began stealing over her. “Gianni? What’s the matter?”

“I’ve come to tell you something,” he said quietly, “but not like this. Let me in.”

Her heart gave an unsteady thump. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Gianni ran his hand through his hair. It was already standing up in little curls, as if he’d repeated the same action several times. Now she noticed he was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and running shoes, and there was a shadowy bristle on his jaw.

Gianni Firelli, unshaven and casually dressed at this hour on a weekday morning?

“Stefano,” she whispered. “And my sister…”

Her knees buckled. Gianni cursed and caught her by the shoulders.

“No,” he said sharply. “Listen to me, Bree. Your sister and brother-in-law are fine. Your family is fine. This has nothing to do with them.”

“Then what…It’s something bad, isn’t it?”

She was staring at him, her eyes enormous in her suddenly pale face, and the anger he’d been riding since the last time he saw her drained away. He had bad news for her. Terrible news, the worst imaginable.

He had to tell her that her best friend was dead.

Gianni drew a long breath. “Bree—”

“Briana? Is it the Martians?”

He looked over his shoulder. An old woman was standing in the doorway opposite, hands clutched to her breasts.

“Have the aliens demanded our surrender?”

Any other time, he would have laughed. The woman was staring at him as if he were the devil himself, which pretty much described how he felt at the moment.

“I’m a friend of Briana’s,” he said gently. “Everything’s fine.”

The old woman looked uncertain. “Are you sure?”

“The president says we’ll never surrender,” he said firmly, and forced a smile to his lips.

That seemed to do it. She stepped back inside her apartment; Gianni moved forward, still holding Briana by the shoulders, and kicked the door shut.

Heat and humidity curled around him like the breath of a swamp. The room reminded him of a closet. He felt too big for it and for the emotions churning in his belly.

“Tell me,” Bree said.

“Sit down first.”

He knew the second she figured it out. What little color had returned to her face drained away.

“It’s Karen,” she whispered.

Gianni swung her into his arms. Two steps, and he was beside a tattered sofa. Carefully he lowered her to it. She scooted into the corner, watching him as if he held the secrets of the universe.

“Please. Tell me what happened. It is Karen, isn’t it?”

A muscle tightened in Gianni’s cheek. “Yes.”

Tears flooded her eyes. “Oh God,” she said brokenly. “Oh God!”

“And Tomasso,” he said, rushing the words, knowing she had to hear it all and hear it quickly before the sledgehammer blow of pain struck him again.

“Both of them?”

“Yes.”

Her head fell back, as if she’d been hit. Gianni moved closer and clasped her hands.

“I’m sorry, Briana.”

“It can’t be.” She made a choked sound that was almost a laugh and was, he knew, the first sign of hysteria. “It isn’t possible.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

“But how? How could—”

“They were in Sicily, visiting Tomasso’s grandmother. They were driving. The roads there are narrow. Twisting. Another car—the driver was drunk. He—he—” Gianni couldn’t get the words out. His throat felt as if someone were gripping it, trying to choke the air from his lungs. “It was quick,” he finally said. “They didn’t suffer.”

Bree’s eyes had become dull. Suddenly they flashed to life. “The baby?”

He nodded. At least there was some good news. “The baby is fine.”

Briana began to weep, silently at first, then in great, gasping sobs that tore at his heart.

“Cara,” he said thickly, and drew her into his arms.

She cried uncontrollably. He felt his eyes grow damp. He wanted to weep with her but he hadn’t cried since he was five and he’d realized that if he did, his father would only beat him harder.

Instead he buried his face in her hair as he tried to figure out how to tell her the next part. Surely it would seem as impossible to her as it had to him when Tomasso’s attorney phoned early this morning, first with the brutal news of Tommy’s and Karen’s deaths, and then with the details of their will.

“Are you sure?” he’d kept asking the man, which was incredibly stupid because he was a lawyer, too; he knew the Massini attorney couldn’t have misunderstood. But the other man was patient. He read the pertinent clauses aloud. Even after that, Gianni kept saying, yes, but are you sure? because what he was hearing couldn’t be right.

“Give me your fax number,” the exasperated attorney finally said. Minutes later, Gianni had been staring at a document that would change his life.

His, and Briana’s.

“When?” Bree said.

Her tears had stopped but she was still in his arms, her face hidden in the crook of his neck.

“Two days ago. Their lawyer called me this morning.”

“Two days ago.”

Bree shuddered against him. The room was hot, almost airless, but she was probably in shock. And she was wearing nothing but a towel.

A towel.

Gradually he became aware of the feel of her against him. The softness of her skin. The warmth of her breath. The silky strands of damp hair, tickling his nose.

“Bree.”

He clasped her shoulders, tried to ease her from him, but she shook her head and burrowed closer.

“Bree,” he said again, and stroked her back. Her skin was as silken as her hair, and bore the fragrance of flowers.

She was an oasis of life in a sea of death.

He understood that. Still, he despised himself as he felt his body beginning to quicken.

“Karen was my best friend,” she whispered.

“As Tomasso was mine.”

“We met in college, but it was as if we’d always known each other.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Tommy and I were friends since we were ten.”

“I just—I can’t believe—”

“Neither can I.”

She gave a soft sob that tore at his heart. He drew her closer and began to rock her in his arms.

“To think of them both gone…”

“Shh,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her hair. They sat in silence for a few minutes and then Briana looked up at him.

“What about—what about the funeral?”

“It’s over,” he said gruffly. “Tommy’s grandmother made the arrangements. She’s an old woman. I don’t think it occurred to her that Tomasso and Karen had friends in the States who’d want to attend.”

“So we—we can’t even say a proper goodbye.”

The pragmatist in him wanted to tell her that the Massinis wouldn’t know the difference but the pain he felt, the pain he knew she felt, made him offer a different answer.

“They knew we loved them,” he said quietly. “Perhaps they know it still.”

Briana began to weep again. Gianni whispered to her, stroked her cheek, her hair, and suddenly she tilted her face up to his. Her eyes were enormous, as bright as stars; her mouth trembled.

“At least they had each other.”

“Yes. They were lucky.”

“It’s terrible, to be alone.”

“Terrible,” he whispered back, and he would never know which of them moved first, he or Briana, but a heartbeat later his mouth was drinking from hers, her arms were wound tightly around his neck, and his mind was emptied of everything but her taste, her scent, the soft reality of her in his embrace.

He lay her back on the couch and kissed her throat, felt the leap of her pulse against his lips. Her hands were in his hair; her sighs were sweet affirmations of the power of life.

“Bree…”

She drew his head down and silenced him with another kiss. Her lips were soft; her body was warm and alive under his hands and when she moved against him, whispered his name, Gianni was lost.

With a groan, he tore open the knotted towel. Her breasts were beautiful, rounded and small with delicate nipples the color of roses.

“How lovely you are,” he whispered.

“Touch me, Gianni. Please. Please…”

Her breasts. They fit his palms as if they’d been fashioned to do exactly that. She whimpered with pleasure as he cupped them. He bent his head to her and sucked first one beaded tip and then the other into his mouth.

She sobbed his name, raised her hips in age-old invitation, asking a wordless question that could only have one answer and he gave it, spreading the towel fully so he could see all of her: the narrow waist, the rounded hips, the golden triangle between her legs.

He kissed her there, seeking the perfect pink bud nestled between her thighs with the tip of his tongue. She tasted sweeter than honey and when she arched toward him and cried out her passion, the blood roared in his ears.

“Gianni,” she sobbed, “Gianni, please, please, please…”

“Yes,” he said hoarsely, and in a single, swift movement he unzipped his jeans, came down to her, lifted her to him and entered her, sinking deep, deeper than he ever had before, and then she tightened around him and he stopped thinking of anything but this, this, this…

Her wild cry of fulfillment triggered his own release.

For an instant, for an eternity, the world hung suspended.

And then it was over.

Gianni’s body sang while his brain recoiled at what he’d done. He rolled away, searching for the right words. Briana scrambled up against the back of the sofa, grabbed for the towel and clutched it to her.

“Oh God,” she said brokenly. “Oh God…”

“Briana. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t say anything. Just—just go away.”

Her mane of golden hair was a wild tangle that obscured her features. He wanted to pull her into his arms, smooth it back, lift her face to his and tell her he hadn’t meant to take her like this, that what had happened in the elevator wasn’t what he’d wanted, either.

What he wanted was to make slow, tender love with her. To kiss her mouth, then trail kisses down her throat to the hollow between her breasts until she was trembling with desire. He wanted to enter her slowly, watch her face as he did, take her with him to the heavens and hold her close as she came back to earth.

But she was glaring at him, disgust and hatred bright in her eyes. He knew that reaching for her would be a mistake. Hell, everything he’d done since they’d met had turned out to be a mistake.

“Damn it, are you deaf? Get out!”

She sounded as if he were a monster who’d attacked her. Gianni felt the first stirrings of an emotion far safer than regret.

“Look,” he said carefully, “these things happen.”

“These things?” she said, and the coldness in her voice was the final touch he needed.

“Sex,” he said bluntly. “It’s an affirmation of life. It’s what people often turn to, in the face of death.”

He was right. Briana knew that. She’d read books, seen films; she wasn’t stupid. People had sex for reasons that had nothing to do with desire.

And that was the worst of it. That she’d done this for all the wrong reasons. Dreamed of being with this man, ugly as that was to admit, dreamed of it since the night in that elevator, and now that it had happened, it had nothing to do with Gianni wanting her or her wanting him; it had to do with the loss of someone who’d been like another sister.

“Briana.”

She looked up. Gianni’s tone was cool. He sounded like a man about to make a speech instead of a man who’d just—who’d just—

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