Claimed by the Italian: Virgin: Wedded at the Italian's Convenience / Count Giovanni's Virgin / The Italian's Unwilling Wife

Stroking her palm with one lean finger, he cracked down on the urgency of his desire to carry her over to the couch, strip her, reveal again the tantalising all-woman nakedness that had already been open to his avid view. To slide eager, questing hands over every delightful curve and hollow of her small but exquisitely proportioned body, discover the secret heart of her femininity and pleasure her until she was begging for release. To make her his.

But she was to be his wife. He was determined on that. And as his future wife she commanded his respect. Thrusting aside the erotic fantasies, promising himself that they would be played out in full on their wedding night, he said thickly, ‘No one needs to be disappointed, cara mia. Our marriage will make everyone happy.’

Such rampant sex appeal was dangerous. She felt hot, restless, her breasts tight, the nipples pushing against the thin camisole top she was wearing beneath an elegant linen suit, and her mind had been reduced to a fuzzy blank—apart from the tiny voice that was urging her to give in, do anything he wanted her to do, admit she loved him. Then the realisation that he was manipulating her again brought her to her senses as effectively as if he’d tossed a bucket of icy water over her.

Snatching back her hand, she took a step away, a pulse beating furiously at her temples. He was working on her soft nature. Clever enough to understand that she would hate hurting anyone she loved. He knew how fond she and Fiora were of each other. Knew she cared deeply for her great-aunt, valued all she’d done for her, the sacrifices she’d made when she’d adopted her, brought her up as if she were her own child.

Well, she’d show him she wasn’t as soft as he obviously thought she was. Her chin high, she got out, ‘You forgot me when you listed the people who would find happiness through our marriage. Or was I supposed to be included in “everyone”?’

Scorn for his methods, when all he had to do was say he loved her and mean it, which she knew would never happen, gave her the strength to walk out, telling him, ‘I won’t marry you. I’ll leave you to break the bad news in your own time and carry the results on your own conscience—if you have one!’

Lily gazed at her reflection with no enthusiasm. She was wearing the smoky blue backless designer gown—minus underwear—hoping it would make her feel more like a grown woman with a mind of her own rather than a doll in the hands of an expert puppet-master.

It wasn’t working. Her mind, what was left of it, was being jerked every which way. Her adamant decision to reject Paolo’s proposal out of hand was wavering, then veering back on track again, until something else happened to swing it right back in the other direction.

The latest being the shattering conversation she’d had with her great-aunt a couple of hours ago.

‘I want to talk to you.’ The old lady’s whisper had been loud enough to singe her ears. ‘It’s not necessary, but I’d like your agreement.’

Wondering what Edith was on about, Lily had found herself in the small salon that overlooked the gardens at the rear of the villa, the door closed firmly behind them, the old lady peering round to make sure they were alone. ‘You know Fiora and her companion plan to move back to her home in Florence immediately following the wedding? Well, what do you think of this?’ She’d pulled in a big breath, then added on a rush, ‘I’m invited to move here to Italy—make my home in Florence with them! Such a lovely city, I believe. I’ve always wanted to see it, but never could afford the time or the pennies to do it!’

Speechless at that heart-sinking announcement, Lily could only stare into her beloved great-aunt’s glowing eyes.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘I—’ Struggling to get her head around this latest development, Lily didn’t know where to start. ‘What about your cottage—the charity?’ But she knew what the answer would be.

It came as expected. ‘The charity’s fine—more part-time volunteers than ever, splendid fundraising activities planned, Paolo’s support. And as for the cottage—it goes to you in my will. But married to Paolo you won’t need it. So I shall sell it and pay my way in Florence with the proceeds.’

Her heart some miles beneath her feet, Lily said, ‘So you’ve made your mind up?’

‘As good as. Fiora and I get on like a house on fire. I wouldn’t consider the move if we didn’t. Apparently her apartment is enormous, fully staffed. And we’d be company for each other. Carla’s splendid, but Fiora says she often longs for someone nearer her own age to talk with. And of course I’d be near to you—not that I’d be forever visiting and being a nuisance, but I’d be near.’

And, as if Lily’s wide-eyed stare was not the enthusiastic reception she’d expected, the old lady had added confidently, ‘Paolo’s opinion has been sought. He thinks it’s a splendid idea!’

I just bet he does! Lily thought now, heartily sick of everything being ‘splendid’, and turning from the mirror. Outmanoeuvred again! If she persisted in her refusal to marry Paolo those happy plans would bite the dust.

Great-Aunt Edith had a strong, unshakable sense of duty. She would no more go ahead with her plans to move to Florence, sell the cottage to fund her life here and in the process see her, Lily, homeless or living in a bedsit, than sprout wings and fly. They would move back to England and take up the life they had left.

Could she be selfish enough to deny the old lady the luxury and ease she deserved in her declining years?

Edith had never married. A teacher for many years, she had founded the small local charity and adopted her great-niece on her retirement from full-time employment at the age of sixty, having worked hard all her life with precious few of life’s small luxuries. Didn’t she deserve something much better now?

And, to make everything so much worse, Paolo had been so warm, so attentive—respectful, even—during the last couple of days. The perfect Italian fiancé. On the one hand it had made her fall more deeply in love with him, and on the other it made her feel decidedly murderous!

Looking forward to this evening’s engagement party with as much pleasure as she would if faced with an appointment with her dentist for root canal work, she heaved a heartfelt sigh and slipped her feet into high-heeled mules.

The guests would be waiting for the happy couple to put in an appearance. Her stomach gave a violent lurch. Apparently a handful of Paolo’s closest friends had been invited and, ominously, the village priest. And the cousins, of course. Three males and a female. They’d arrived an hour ago, but she’d only had time to smile wanly, register the males with sharp suits and indolent attitudes, and a striking Latin beauty who looked bored, before they’d been shown to their respective rooms.

On reflection, she thought she could sympathise with Paolo for having little time for them, but grumbled at herself for being uncharitable enough to condemn on first sight a bunch of people who were probably perfectly nice.

Nervously twisting the heavy ring on her finger, she straightened her spine. She couldn’t hide in her room any longer. Time to face them and take part in this distasteful charade. Try to stop going over and over the uncomfortable facts that in refusing to marry Paolo she would distress her great-aunt, casting a pall of disappointment over her remaining years—not to forget Fiora, who would be one very unhappy lady.

As if her anguished thoughts, centred on the impossible male who was the author of all her present troubles, had conjured him up, Paolo entered the room.

Lily’s progress towards the door skidded to a halt. In his white dinner jacket he was breathtakingly handsome, his hard male mouth softened into that sensual smile that always took her wits and scattered them.

Covering the space between them in a couple of fluid strides, his eyes holding her, entrapping her, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips, confidence oozing from every pore as he commented, ‘You look spectacular, cara mia. A future bride any man would be proud to claim.’ He held her hand against his broad chest, tugging her closer with a gentleness that almost defeated her, making her deplore the weakness that urged her to lean into him, to cling and never let go. But then he claimed, ‘Not too long ago you accused me of considering everyone’s happiness but yours—’

Which gave her the strength of mind to counter, ‘And considering only your convenience—’

‘Let me speak.’ His voice lowered to a spine-weakening husky promise. ‘I could make you happy. I will make you happy,’ he stressed in amendment, and Lily sucked in a shaky breath, hypnotised by his golden eyes, by the lean, olive-toned male beauty of his unforgettable features, horrified by her internal admission that, yes, he could make her happy.

Ecstatically happy.

For about a week.

Until she bored him. And she was left broken, like his first wife.

Denying herself the relief of flinging her head back and wailing like a baby deprived of its most treasured plaything, she pushed out, ‘We don’t want to keep the guests waiting, do we?’ and headed for the door. She paused just long enough to take a deep breath and make sure her voice emerged sounding as if she were in control. Of herself. Of everything. ‘You may be king fish in the pond you swim in, but I will not be forced or emotionally blackmailed into doing something I know would be wrong for me—something I don’t want to do.’

Then was undone as his arm snaked around her narrow waist, his warm breath feathering her ear as he whispered, ‘But you do want to do it, my sweet Lily. And if I had the time I would prove it to you now.’

Her face flaming, Lily leant against him, needing his support because her legs had gone hollow, her whole body weakened by the shameful hunger he could awake in her effortlessly. Miserably aware, as they went down to greet the guests, that she was fighting a battle on two fronts.

With him. And, more terrifyingly, with herself.

CHAPTER TEN

PAOLO leant against the frame of the open French windows, one hand in the pocket of his narrowly cut black trousers, the collar of his dress shirt undone, the shimmering gold of his eyes partly veiled by an enviably thick fringe of black lashes.

Watching her.

Lily’s delicate loveliness drew every eye in the room, and the dress she was wearing made him so hot for her he couldn’t wait for this tedious party to be over and he could take a long cold shower.

Overturning his long-held rejection of the idea of remarriage had been the right thing to do, he congratulated himself, his eyes following her as she and the wife of one of his oldest friends moved out of the way of a couple who were dancing to music pounding out from the state-of-the-art stereo system. Cousin Orfeo’s idea, he supposed, suppressing vague irritation. Fortunately the grand salon had been largely cleared, and could accommodate those of the guests who chose to indulge in the pointless activity.

With ease he dismissed his notoriously workshy, playboy cousin, and returned his mind to a far more pleasant subject.

Marriage to Lily, who didn’t treat him with tedious simpering deference, who didn’t have a greedy eye on the main chance, as proved beyond all doubt by her rejection of his proposal when every other woman he knew would have tied herself in knots to accept such an offer, was the obvious step to take. It would be of indisputable benefit to all concerned, an entirely logical step. And logic—not emotional muddle—was how he liked to live his life.

He would no longer have to endure the constant feeling of guilt because his former refusal to settle down and sire an heir and a spare was causing his mother a great deal of grief—even more so since Antonio’s death.

He would have a wife and companion he could trust implicitly, and in return Lily would have status, his care and fidelity, his children.

A band tightened about his heart at that entirely novel prospect. And the hope that their first child would be a girl, small and delicately formed, with those huge silvery grey eyes just like Lily’s, hit him like a thunderclap.

Unused to bracketing himself and children together, he found the picture pretty startling. He shifted his feet and decided that he liked the idea. At least, he amended, with Lily as the mother of his children he liked the idea.

His eyes narrowed. She was being approached now by his cousin Renata. Lazy, like the rest of the clan, offspring of his father’s unlamented, light-fingered brother, and believing the world owed her a living. Greedy, bitchy.

Still watching, he twitched his long mouth. Lily didn’t know it, but her over-emphasised refusal to be his wife was soon to be turned on its head. Everything was in place. The arrival of her relative, planned and executed with precision, had set the scene. The unlooked-for but fortuitous liking the two senior ladies had quickly formed for each other, and their consequent decision to share the apartment in Florence, had been the icing on the cake, the last nail in the coffin of Lily’s resistance—proof, if he needed it, that the gods were on his side.

Tomorrow he would take Lily to his villa in the hills above Amalfi. Alone with him, she wouldn’t be able to hold out, resist his powers of persuasion. He had been around long enough to know when a woman was sexually attracted to him, and she was. He’d read the signs. Her days of digging her heels in were numbered! And to his dying day he wouldn’t let her regret it.

He had done his duty as a host, circulating, receiving congratulations on his betrothal, had danced attendance on his mother and Edith. In a moment he would claim his Lily, make sure he mentioned the visit to Amalfi in front of his mother and Edith, certain that she wouldn’t make a scene and refuse to go anywhere with him, because he knew that she was already beating herself up over the prospect of having to sorely disappoint the two women some time in the near future.

Which worked to his advantage, but made him deeply uncomfortable. When it came right down to it he didn’t like himself for playing on her caring nature, for manipulating her. But it would be for the best in the long run. Her life with him would be happy, and she would want for nothing. He would make sure of that.

A sudden scowl darkened his eyes. Lily, turning white-faced away from Renata, had brushed against his cousin Orfeo, who promptly swept her unresisting body into his arms and into a clumsy parody of a foxtrot.

His stubby fingers were splayed over the unblemished creamy skin of her back, sliding down her delicate spine and dipping beneath the barrier of fabric. His oiled-looking head pressed against hers as he whispered something.

Murderous rage surged through Paolo. How dared that oily creep paw his woman?

He strode forward.

She was hating every second of this. The congratulations, the curious looks veiled with sycophantic smiles, the whole wretched lying charade she’d got herself caught up in. And, worst of all, the radiantly happy smiles of Fiora and her great-aunt as they sat chatting together at a table in an alcove.

Worst of all, that was, until Paolo’s cousin Renata slid up to her, a glass of red wine clutched in long white fingers, almost wearing a dress of sequinned scarlet.

‘Nice work!’ she said. ‘You’ve nailed the wealthiest man in Italy—probably in the whole of Europe. It won’t last, of course, but think of the big fat settlement you’ll get when he decides marriage bores him!’ She gave a tinkling laugh as brittle as breaking glass. ‘Dear Paolo the heartbreaker. He has the attention span of a gnat when it comes to the female sex—fact, I’m afraid. He can’t help it! His first wife got the elbow after only a few months. She overdosed, you know, only a few months after they broke up. Some say it was deliberate.’ She shrugged, as if disassociating herself from the slander. ‘For your sake, let’s hope you’re made of sterner stuff!’

Refusing to dignify that piece of malicious spite with a response, Lily turned away, feeling sick at what the other woman had implied. To her huge annoyance she found herself swept into the centre of the room by another of Paolo’s cousins.

Dancing was the very last thing she wanted to do. She wanted to escape the noise, the pointed questions and speculative looks, the pervasive scent of the banks of flowers that seemed to be everywhere. Switch her mind off and stop fretting over this horrible situation. Just for a little while. Just until she found the strength she’d need to tell her great-aunt and Fiora the truth.

And the wretched man was actually pawing her! The crudities he was murmuring in her ear disgusted her, and as she tried to pull away his hot, heavy hand slid down to her waist and hauled her into him. The aftershave he must have drenched himself in made her feel as if she were about to throw up.

‘Beat it, Orfeo!’

Never had Lily been so glad to see Paolo. Her anger with him for putting her in such an unenviable situation vanished like mist in the sunlight.

She felt weak with love, totally debilitated with longing, her mind—what was left of it—in so much turmoil she felt as if her brain had been boiled!

She wanted so much to be with him, accept his proposal. But she knew she couldn’t. Mustn’t.

Her knees shook as he slipped an arm around her shoulders, and, trying to stiffen her already tottery resolve, she took a moment to remind herself that given what she knew about him—what appeared to be general knowledge—marrying him would be self-destructive madness.

Yet Paolo Venini looked as if he would tear the younger man into pieces, limb from limb. Outrage had darkened his eyes to blazing ice. Looking up into his hard, rivetingly handsome features, she felt her eyes well with feeble tears.

‘Don’t let that lowlife upset you, cara mia,’ he urged as the younger man sloped away, tugging at his tie in red-faced humiliation. ‘If he comes within a hundred miles of you again I will kill him! Him or any man who shows you disrespect!’

Her soft mouth wobbled into a smile. Almost she could believe him. But did that mean he was jealous? He had his faults, but she had never numbered possessiveness among them. Where his women were concerned his modus operandi seemed to be to take what he wanted for as long as his interest lasted, then throw the current female aside and forget her. Move on. Not really the actions of a man with a possessive streak.

Paolo dropped his protective arm and curved a hand around her waist. ‘Come with me, bella mia. We will escape together.’ Time enough later to take her to sit with Fiora and Edith and mention the trip to Amalfi. Right now Lily was looking stressed, and she needed to unwind. That—her well-being—was his first priority. ‘No one will miss us, and if they do they will understand the need of a newly betrothed couple to be alone together, to take time out for a few minutes.’

A danger light flashed its warning, but Lily recklessly ignored it as he guided her through the open French windows. As the cooler, soft night air enfolded them Lily leant into the strength of his lean, toned body. Needed to.

This was what she needed, she decided, on a rush of relief at having left the party behind, as he led her down a grassy path, the sound of music, chatter and laughter thankfully receding.

Tonight had been a nightmare. Her emotions all over the place. With him at her side as he’d introduced her to the guests she’d felt wired to the point of detonation, stingingly aware of every breath he took, every movement he made. When he’d left her to circulate on her own she’d felt bereft. Weak. The self-protective need to resist him fading to nothing.

Such had been her emotionally muddled state that she’d actually been on the point of searching the room to find him and tell him she would marry him. Partly for Fiora’s and Great-Aunt Edith’s sake, but mostly, she knew, because she couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. Then that dreadful woman had come up to her and spilt out her spite. Spite that had a firm basis in fact, reminding her that Paolo would never love her, just use her to ease his conscience where his mother was concerned. She didn’t know how she could love a man like that. But, for her sins, she did.

She bit down hard on her lower lip, annoyed with herself. Her brain was hurting. She didn’t want to think of any of it, wanted just to close her mind and enjoy this brief period of silent tranquillity.

‘You are quiet, my Lily.’ His voice was like a caress, setting tiny shivers to sensitise her skin.

‘I’ve switched my mind off,’ she confessed.

She registered his amused, ‘Ah—that I can understand!’ just loving being this close to him. Strangely, she felt unthreatened now. He had rescued her from that pawing idiot back there, whisked her away from all those curious stares, from his friends and family probably trying to work out how plain, ordinary her had snared a guy who was so anti-marriage it was legend. Did they all think, as that creepy cousin of his had crudely suggested, that she was so fantastic in bed that he had to hang on to her? The very thought made her go hot all over.

All she wanted to do was not think of any of it, make a renewed effort to empty her stubborn mind of all those knotty problems and enjoy the silence and the solitude.

He was matching his pace to hers, not talking, his arm around her waist, thankfully keeping his mouth shut on the subject of marriage—because right now she was sure she couldn’t handle it.

His hand resting on the curve of her hip felt so right. The air was full of the gentle scent of the flowers and wild herbs of the hillside, the moonlight gleaming on the stands of silvery eucalyptus, turning the night to the sort of soft magic that talking would destroy.

Determined that nothing would come between her and this so desperately needed period of tranquillity, she didn’t protest, didn’t even think of trying to when, at the end of a path she hadn’t explored before, they came across a summerhouse festooned in climbing roses in early bud.

‘We will sit a while.’ Leading her to a wide padded bench seat that ran along the full length of the far wall, he eased her down, laid a hand against the side of her face, turning her head so that he could see her eyes in the dim silvery light. ‘I didn’t see you relax with a drink in your hand all evening. Would you like me to phone through to the house and have someone bring us champagne?’

Instinctively nuzzling into his hand, she let a smile thread her voice as she said, ‘Such decadence! Thank you, but no. I don’t need to have alcohol to relax.’ She didn’t add that being with him here, like this, was intoxicating enough. She’d been arguing with him ever since they’d met and she was tired of it. Just for a few moments—until they returned to the villa and normal battle-ready positions were resumed—she wanted to sink into this feeling of real closeness.

For some reason her answer seemed to please him. She felt him smile. Now, how could that be? Could she really be that closely attuned to him? she pondered, with a little shiver of awe.

‘You are cold?’ His voice had a strange rough edge as he turned her head towards him. Moonlight bathed them with a faint silvery glow, casting his features into harsh relief, all planes and angles, but his eyes were soft—what she could see of them before he dipped his head and used his sensual mouth to close one pale eyelid and then the other, his lips drifting down to lay a feather-light kiss on one corner of her mouth.

Without understanding how it happened, only that it had to, Lily’s lips parted as she sought his teasing mouth. She loved his kisses, and taking one tonight couldn’t be wrong—could it?

He laced his long fingers in her hair as he took her soft pink lips in a kiss that knocked out her senses, promised heaven, made her feel fully alive and yet weak with hunger for him all at the same time.

Her hands came up to cling to his broad shoulders for support, her peaking breasts pressed against the cool fabric of his shirt, and she felt him stiffen, a tremor racing through his perfectly honed body as he lifted his mouth from hers.