His Convenient Wife

‘So you think my grandfather’s idea of an arranged marriage is mad,’ she stated for starters, carefully keeping her voice level, non-confrontational as she waited for his robust confirmation of what he’d said earlier. And watched him turn, very slowly.

‘Not necessarily.’ His lean features betrayed nothing. ‘It was idle supposition on my part—on your behalf. Do you really think I would have come this far if I’d thought the idea had no merit?’ He strolled with an appallingly fluid grace to where she was standing. ‘Shall I pour, or will you?’

The question didn’t register. Cat’s mouth ran dry, her lips parted. She gasped for air; she felt she was being suffocated. From his attitude since they’d taken leave of her grandfather she’d drawn the conclusion that he’d been humouring the old man, had as little intention as she did of entering into an arranged marriage. Now it seemed the game was back on. It was a deeply terrifying prospect.

Though why that should be she couldn’t work out. No one could force her to marry anyone!

‘Your silence tells me you don’t care either way. About who should pour the coffee.’ A strange satisfaction threaded through his voice and curved his lips. Cat’s eyes went very wide as they locked on to that sinfully sexy mouth. Her own lips felt suddenly desperately needy and she was hot, much too hot; she could spontaneously combust at any moment!

The silence was stinging; it gathered her up and enclosed her with him, very tightly, and there was no escape. Her flurried gasp of relief was completely involuntary when he finally broke the awful tension and turned to pour the coffee.

Taking his own cup, he angled his lean body into one corner of the sofa, long legs stretched out in front of him, the sleek fabric caressing the taut muscles of his thighs like the touch of a lover.

Cat gulped thickly. Her thoughts were so wicked! She had to blank them, and when he glanced at the vacant space beside him and invited softly, ‘Shall we talk?’ she shied away, wrapping her arms around her trembling body, and had to force herself to say, ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ because the temptation to join him, sit intimately close, was enormous.

And very, very dangerous!

‘No? No opinions?’ he queried softly, his honeyed tone giving her goose bumps. The look in his eyes as they fastened on her hectically coloured face made her stop breathing. ‘Then I’ll give you mine, shall I?’

Cat forced herself to move, to give a slight, careless shrug before she picked her way over to a vaguely throne-like chair she’d picked up one Sunday afternoon at a car-boot sale. It’s slightly vulgar ostentation had amused her but it was supremely uncomfortable.

Aldo was watching her, his eyes hooded, looking smoky. Seated, Cat kept her eyes firmly on her bare toes. He could spout opinions all night but that didn’t mean she needed take the slightest notice of them.

But her heart was beating uncomfortably fast as he raised his arms and laced his hands behind his head and told her, ‘I have nothing against arranged marriages, all things being equal. Up until now I’ve been too busy to consider marrying. I confess to never having been in love, and unlike most of my compatriots,’ he added drily, ‘I consider the condition to be vastly overrated. It dresses the basic human need to procreate in romantic flummery.’

Cat’s eyes shot up from the anodyne contemplation of her toes to lock with his. ‘So you don’t believe in love,’ she challenged. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Bully for you! I bet you a dime to a king’s ransom the right woman could teach you differently!’

Brilliant dark eyes sparked with pinpricks of golden light at her husky outburst but his voice was cool when he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a serious matter. An heir is necessary. Any wife I choose would have to be intelligent, good to look at, have her feet firmly on the ground—no girlish claims to be madly in love with me because such emotional demands would merely make life difficult. Besides all this, I would need her to bring something of substance to the marriage. Family honour as well as sound financial sense demands that much.’ He brought his hands down, his beautifully cut jacket settling back against his upper body with exquisite, unruffled elegance. ‘I think you qualify on all counts.’

‘Especially Grandfather’s shares,’ she said on a dry snap. ‘Couldn’t you offer to buy them off him—twist his arm or something? You could save yourself a whole heap of trouble.’ If what he’d been saying was supposed to be a proposal then it was the coldest, most calculating one any woman was ever likely to hear. It deserved her utmost contempt. It showed in the green glitter of her eyes, in the tight downturn of her generous mouth.

Water off a duck’s back as far as Aldo was concerned, apparently. He expanded his argument fluidly. ‘Perhaps Domenico would agree to sell; perhaps not. But I have no intention of going down that road. Why should I when I can kill three birds with one stone? One,’ he ticked off on his long, tanned fingers, ‘I secure those possibly rogue shares for the family, where they belong. Two, I get a beautiful and intelligent wife, and three, I get an heir. And as far as you’re concerned, you get a pampered lifestyle, more financial security than you’ve ever dreamed of—’

‘I don’t need it!’ Distraught, Cat shot to her feet, her breasts heaving. Listening to this man—this…this sex-on-legs—talking of marriage as if it were a cold business arrangement was the last thing she wanted. ‘I don’t want your empty wealthy lifestyle—I want my own life, warts and all. I’m a big girl, signor; I can stand on my own feet, or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘Oh, I noticed,’ he countered, smooth as cream. He rose to his feet and sauntered towards her and she gritted her teeth. He had too much style. He was too much altogether. And this close she could see those intriguing golden lights deep within his eyes, breathe in the elusive male scent of him, and her mouth fell open on a trembling gasp as he whispered seductively, ‘You truly are a big girl.’ His eyes slid down and lingered on her breasts, which annoyingly responded to this devastating no-touching slide of seduction. ‘But only, I assure you, in all the most enticing places.’

‘Don’t!’ Cat’s command came out on a tortured whisper. When he turned on the sex, flooded his voice with it, she went to pieces.

He was lethal!

‘Why not? It’s a bonus.’ Another movement, a step closer.

His black eyes looked drugged as he lifted them slowly from her shamelessly peaking breasts and fastened them on her softly trembling mouth as she muttered defensively, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘Yes, you do.’

The tension was making her shake, making the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. The sheer sexual power of the man overwhelmed her. She wanted to fight it but didn’t know how.

‘A wife who would excite me in bed would be a bonus. Yes?’ The soft huskiness of his voice was an unbearable intimacy; it made the blood pound in her ears and her whole body burn. He was much too close. She stared at him wildly. She had to put more space between them. At any moment she could find herself grabbing him, pulling his head down to discover if the promise of that so sensual mouth was capable of delivery.

Cat tried to move but her legs were so weak she could only sway. Aldo’s hand slid to her shoulder to steady her and an electric storm fizzled through every cell in her body and her eyelids closed helplessly as his knowing fingers stroked the heated skin of her naked shoulder before it brushed with wicked intimacy over the tingling peaks of her aching breasts.

‘And you would be excited, too. We would be dynamite together. I feel it and so do you. Yes?’ His hands curved over her hips as he gently tugged the span of her against the hardness of him and the shattering excitement that flooded her produced a ragged sound, halfway between a gasp and a moan. As he lowered his sleek dark head to stifle the sound at source, her arms snaked around his neck, and her last coherent, triumphant thought as he plundered her avidly responsive mouth was a repetition of what she’d said to him earlier—I bet you a dime to a king’s ransom the right woman could teach you differently!

The sounds of a muted commotion in the courtyard far below brought Cat out of her thoughts of the past. Blinking the film of moisture from her eyes, she peered down. At the sight of Aldo’s silver Ferrari her heart leapt and twisted like a landed fish then dropped with heavy lifelessness to the soles of her bare feet as he exited, and walked round to the passenger side to hand out his mistress.

Three members of staff were milling around in excited welcome at their beloved master’s unexpected arrival. Cat willed him to look up to where she was standing, to appear remotely interested in her whereabouts. But he didn’t glance towards the villa. His attention was all for Iolanda Cardinale, who was clinging to his arm, her sleek, elegantly clothed body leaning possessively into his, her ripe lips parted with sultry promise.

Fighting nausea, Cat forced herself to creep down the spiral staircase to her suite of rooms. She was going to have to act her socks off if she was going to be able to pretend she could accept the situation.

Pride wouldn’t allow her to let either of them see how desperate she was. Love and sexual fidelity hadn’t been part of the bargain on his part, had it?

As her English grandmother would have said, ‘You’ve made your bed, girl. Now you must lie on it.’

CHAPTER TWO

REACHING her rooms and closing the bedroom door behind her, Cat leaned back weakly against the carved wood. She was going to have to face him. Them.

Why had he chosen to arrive unannounced? Why had he brought Iolanda Cardinale with him?

Because he was cruel.

Or simply because this sort of thing went on in the elevated circles in which he moved and he didn’t consider it to be even slightly unusual?

And how long were they staying? Overnight? Would he share this room with her?

Grimly, she thought not. He hadn’t bothered to visit during her exile and he hadn’t so much as touched her since she’d told him—dewy-eyed and stupid with love for him—of the confirmation of her pregnancy.

Besides, he wouldn’t even think about sharing her bed when he had his mistress draped all over him!

On that draining thought she levered herself tiredly away from the door and walked further into the lovely room. Apart from the gilded four-poster bed the furnishings and decorations were a dreamy medley of white and creams, gauzy drapes fluttering at the tall windows that looked out over the sun-drenched landscape, over the silver olive groves and purple hills.

She would have to prepare herself, put on the camouflage of warpaint and chic designer armour, and as if on cue Rosa came bouncing in after a decidedly hysterical rap on the door.

‘Il padrone has arrived! So unexpected—everyone’s running round in circles! Did you know? Why didn’t you tell us to make ready? Come, I will help you dress, make yourself beautiful for him!’

Cat forced a thin smile. Rosa, assigned as her personal maid on her arrival here two months ago, had become her dresser, her nanny, her arbiter of correct behaviour and her friend. Unlike the other members of staff Rosa wasn’t painfully deferential and she didn’t whisper behind her hands when she thought she was out of earshot. And no, Aldo hadn’t said anything about finally deigning to visit her the last time he’d phoned her.

‘You have already bathed?’ Rosa didn’t wait for an answer, bustling towards the huge hanging cupboard that almost filled one wall, tutting disapprovingly as her eyes fell on the untouched breakfast tray. ‘You must eat, signora. You lose too much weight already.’ She pulled out one of the fitted drawers and handed Cat her selection of underwear, filmy, lacy pale cream briefs and bra, her kind eyes softening. ‘I understand how you feel about losing your baby; it was a terrible thing to happen, but an accident of nature and nothing to blame yourself for. There will be other babies for you.’

Nothing to blame herself for? She knew differently. Removing her wrap and dressing in the understated chic of the smoky-grey sleeveless shirt-shift Rosa had put out for her, Cat shivered as the cool silk whispered against her body. She’d been assured at the private clinic where she’d been taken on that dreadful night that the early miscarriage had been nature’s way of coping when everything was not as it should be.

She had said nothing to oppose the well-meaning platitudes but she’d known that if she hadn’t been so tense and anxious she wouldn’t have lost her baby.

Aldo had politely and coolly distanced himself from her when he’d heard of the coming baby. Overjoyed at the news of her pregnancy, of course, and very solicitous.

Too solicitous, she’d felt smothered. Her eager explorations of the beautiful old city with her husband as her attentive guide had been firmly vetoed and he’d given orders to his staff at their Florence home that she was to rest, take a little gentle exercise in the cool of the day with Beppe, an ancient retainer who could walk no faster than a snail, as her companion.