Bride By Choice

Bride By Choice
Lucy Gordon

A very public proposal!Gorgeous Sicilian Lorenzo Martelli had proposed to Helen in front of his whole family! How could she say anything other than…yes? Now the Big Day was getting alarmingly close–and the bride-to-be was getting cold feet!The groom, however, was as hot-blooded as ever. He wanted Helen, and Lorenzo always got what he wanted. But would he have to wait until she was ready to be his bride–by choice…?

Everyone was watching them.

In sight of them all he went down on one knee before her and said, “Elena, will you marry me?”

“Get up,” she said frantically.

“Not until you promise to marry me.”

“Then you’ll stay there forever.”

“Okay, if I stay here forever, will you marry me?”

And suddenly everyone was clapping and cheering and Lorenzo was on his feet kissing her exuberantly, and she seemed to have said yes, although she never recalled saying it. But you couldn’t reject a man who’d knelt before you in front of his whole family. Could you?

Dear Reader,

Being married to an Italian, I take a special delight in writing about Italian men—the most fascinating and endearing men on earth. I’ve enjoyed telling the stories of the three Martelli brothers.

Although linked by kinship, they are all different. Renato, the eldest, is head of the family, a man of confidence and power. Bernardo is aloof, a loner. Lorenzo, the youngest, is a merry charmer. Lovable and thoughtless, he has much to learn, but the right woman can teach him.

And then there is Sicily, their home, one of the most beautiful places on earth, where people’s true passions rise to the surface, giving them the courage to follow their hearts.

Bride by Choice is about Lorenzo, who intended to stay fancy-free—until he met Helen, daughter of a New York Sicilian family. She was determined never to marry a Sicilian—until Lorenzo won her heart. He taught her that love could conquer prejudice, and when she broke his heart he became a stronger man, ready to endure anything to win the woman he loved.

With best wishes,

Bride By Choice

Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

PROLOGUE

‘THEY’LL be calling you any minute,’ Heather said, looking up at the screen that gave boarding details at Palermo Airport.

Lorenzo gave a sigh of pleased anticipation. ‘Can’t be soon enough for me. New York, here I come!’

‘Well, try to remember what you’re there for, little brother,’ Renato reminded him. ‘You’re Lorenzo Martelli, Export Manager for Martelli Produce, visiting America to establish the firm in a big, new market; not Lorenzo Martelli, playboy, there to spend money enjoying yourself.’

‘You can’t stop him doing that,’ Heather chuckled. ‘But he might sell a few vegetables between orgies.’

She had to admit that her brother-in-law looked like a playboy. With his light brown curly hair, deep blue eyes, good-looking face, and athletic figure, he might have stood as a symbol of healthy, thoughtless young manhood: with the emphasis on “thoughtless”, she decided with wry affection.

It was almost incredible that only a few months ago she had fancied herself in love with Lorenzo, had actually come out to Sicily to marry him, only to discover that her true love was his older brother Renato after all. Most women would have found her choice puzzling. Renato was a hard, difficult man who frowned more than he smiled, except for those he loved. Lorenzo had a smile for everyone, and was, in Renato’s caustic words, ‘too handsome for his own good or anyone else’s’.

But Heather had seen beyond looks and discovered that it was the prickly Renato who touched her heart. She had been married to him for eight months now, and was expecting his child. It had been natural for the two of them to come to the airport to see “their” brother off to the States.

‘Call us when you reach the Elroy Hotel,’ Renato reminded him now. ‘And don’t forget—’

‘Will you stop?’ Lorenzo pleaded plaintively. ‘What with your instructions and the list Mamma’s given me of people to visit I shan’t have a moment to myself. She was so determined I shouldn’t forget the Angolinis that she called them yesterday, and the next thing I knew I was promising to spend next Thursday evening with them.’

‘Our grandfather and Marco Angolino were young men together before Marco emigrated with his wife and son,’ Renato reminded him. ‘Their friendship was very close.’

‘But that was years ago and Marco is dead,’ Lorenzo objected. ‘I’m having dinner with the son, who’s now an old man, his wife, who’s an old woman, his three sons who are all older than I am, and his four daughters, Elena, Patrizia, Olivia, and Carlotta—all unmarried.’

The nervous way he said “unmarried” made Renato grin. ‘In other words, you think they’re on the catch for you,’ he said. ‘Conceited oaf!’ He aimed a friendly punch at his brother’s shoulder.

‘Let’s just say that the Angolinis are butchers, and I feel as if I’m being laid out on the slab for inspection,’ Lorenzo observed gloomily.

‘Definitely you should marry one of those girls,’ Renato said, turning the screw with brotherly malice. ‘With their meat and our vegetables it’s a match made in heaven.’

‘Get lost,’ Lorenzo told him without rancour.

The boarding call came. They all rose, and Lorenzo hugged his sister-in-law eagerly. Renato gave his brother the fierce, unembarrassed embrace of one Latin male to another.

‘Behave yourself!’ he barked. ‘If you cause our mother a moment’s anxiety I’ll personally put an end to you. Now get going!’