Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender

‘Next week?’ she asked, eyes widening. ‘Why so soon?’

Angelo held her gaze. ‘I know how your mind works, Natalie. I’m not leaving anything up to chance. The sooner we are married, the sooner your brother gets out of trouble.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘No.’

She frowned. ‘Why not?’

‘He’s not allowed visitors,’ Angelo said.

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ she said. ‘Of course he’s allowed visitors. It’s a basic human right.’

‘Not where he is currently staying,’ he said. ‘You’ll see him soon enough. In the meantime, I think it’s time I met the rest of your family—don’t you agree?’

Something shifted behind her gaze. ‘Why do you want to meet my family?’ she said. ‘Anyway, apart from Lachlan there is only my parents.’

‘Most married couples meet their respective families,’ Angelo said. ‘My parents will want to meet you. And my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.’

She gave him a worried look. ‘They’re not all coming to the ceremony, are they?’

‘But of course,’ he said. ‘We will fly to Rome on Tuesday. The wedding will be on Saturday, at my grandparents’ villa, in the private chapel that was built especially for their wedding day sixty years ago.’

Her eyes looked like a startled fawn’s. ‘F-fly?’

‘Si, cara,’ he said dryly. ‘On an aeroplane. You know—those big things that take off at the airport and take you where you want to go? I have a private one—a Lear jet that my family use to get around.’

Her mouth flattened obstinately. ‘I’m not flying.’

Angelo frowned. ‘What do you mean, you’re not flying?’

She shifted her gaze, her arms tightening across her body. ‘I’m not flying.’

It took Angelo a moment or two to figure it out. It shocked him that he hadn’t picked it up before. It all made sense now that he thought about it.

‘That’s why you caught the train down from Edinburgh yesterday,’ he said. ‘That’s why, when I suggested five years ago that we take that cut-price trip to Malta, you said you couldn’t afford it and refused to let me pay for you. We had a huge fight over it. You wouldn’t speak to me for days. It wasn’t about your independence, was it? You’re frightened of flying.’

She turned her back on him and stood looking out of his office window, the set of her spine as rigid as a plank. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Call me a nut job. You wouldn’t be the first.’

Angelo released a long breath. ‘Natalie … Why didn’t you tell me?’

She still stood looking out of the window with her back to him. ‘Hi, my name’s Natalie Armitage and I’m terrified of flying. Yeah, that would have really got your notice that night in the bar.’

‘What got my notice in that bar was your incredible eyes,’ he said. ‘And the fact that you stood up to that creep who was trying it on with you.’

He saw the slight softening of her spine and shoulders, as if the memory of that night had touched something deep inside her, unravelling one of the tight cords of resolve she had knotted in place. ‘You didn’t have to rescue me like some big macho caveman,’ she said after a short pause. ‘I could’ve taken care of it myself.’

‘I was brought up to respect and protect women,’ Angelo said. ‘That guy was a drunken fool. I enjoyed hauling him out to the street. He was lucky I didn’t rearrange his teeth for him. God knows I was tempted.’

She turned and looked at him, her expression still intractable. ‘I don’t want to fly, Angelo,’ she said. ‘It’s easy enough to drive. It’ll only take a couple of days. I’ll make my own way there if you can’t spare the time.’

Angelo studied her dark blue gaze. He saw the usual obstinacy glittering there, but behind that was a flicker of fear—like a stagehand peeping out from behind the curtains to check on the audience. It made him wonder if he had truly known her five years ago. He had thought he had her all figured out, but this was a facet to her personality he had never even suspected. He had always prided himself on his perspicuity, on his ability to read people and situations. But he could see now that reading Natalie was like reading a complex multilayered book.

‘I’ll be with you the whole time,’ he said. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you.’

‘That’s hardly reassuring,’ she said with a cynical look, ‘considering this whole marriage thing you’ve set up is a plot for revenge.’

‘My intention is not for you to suffer,’ he said.

Her chin came up and her eyes flashed again. ‘Oh, really?’

Angelo drew in a breath and released it forcefully as he went back behind his desk. He gripped the back of his chair as he faced her. ‘Why must you search for nefarious motives in everything I do or say?’

She gave a little scoffing laugh. ‘Pardon me for being a little suspicious, but you’re surely not going to tell me you still care about me after all this time?’

Angelo’s fingers dug deeper into the leather of his chair until his knuckles whitened. He didn’t love her. He refused to love her. She had betrayed him. He was not going to forgive and forget that in a hurry. But he would have her. That was different. That had nothing to do with emotions.

He deliberately relaxed his grasp and sat down. ‘We have unfinished business,’ he said. ‘I knew that the minute you walked in that door yesterday.’

‘You’re imagining things,’ she said.

He put up one brow. ‘Am I?’

She held his gaze for a beat, before she lowered it to focus on the glass paperweight on his desk. ‘How long do you think this marriage will last?’ she asked.

‘It can last as long as we want it to,’ Angelo said.

Her gaze met his again. ‘Don’t you mean as long as you want it to?’ she asked.

He gave a little up and down movement of his right shoulder. ‘You ended things the last time,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it fair that I be the one to do so this time around?’

Her mouth tightened. ‘I ended things because it was time to move on,’ she said. ‘We were fighting all the time. It wasn’t a love match. It was a battlefield.’

‘Oh, come on,’ Angelo said. ‘What are you talking about, Natalie? All couples fight. It’s part and parcel of being in a relationship. There are always little power struggles. It’s what makes life interesting.’

‘That might have been the way you were brought up, but it certainly wasn’t the way I was,’ she said.

He studied her expression again, noting all the little nuances of her face: the way she chewed at the inside of her mouth but tried to hide it, the way her eyes flickered away from his but then kept tracking back, as if they were being pulled by a magnetic force, and the way her finely boned jaw tightened when she was feeling cornered.

‘How were you brought up to resolve conflict?’ he asked.

She reached for her bag and got to her feet. ‘Look, I have a train to catch,’ she said. ‘I have a hundred and one things to see to.’

‘Why didn’t you drive down from Edinburgh?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t suddenly developed a fear of driving too, have you?’

Her eyes hardened resentfully. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I like travelling by train. I can read or sketch or listen to music. I find driving requires too much concentration—especially in a city as crowded as London. Besides, it’s better for the environment. I want to reduce my carbon footprint.’

Angelo rose to his feet and joined her at the door, placing his hand on the doorknob to stop her escaping. ‘I’ll need you to sign some papers in the next day or two.’