Her Passionate Italian: The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

Had Carlo Carlucci lived up to Alessandro Batiste’s worst fears and threatened to remove his business and take it elsewhere?

The wretched man was beginning to cast a very long shadow over almost everything that was important in her life, she mused grimly as she stepped into her own room next to Sonya’s and closed the door. If he was a married man she would have to start wondering if he was Sonya’s new lover! Sonya’s reed-slender beauty being most definitely his type!

And on that truly caustic note she took herself off to the bathroom to indulge in a long, hot, tension-relieving soak before she had to present herself downstairs to help welcome the other guests that Angelo’s parents had invited to stay overnight at the villa.

‘I promised myself I wasn’t going to do this.’ She frowned at the mirror.

‘Do what?’ Sonya was standing behind her, busily fixing a beaded comb into the twisted knot she’d fashioned with Francesca’s hair that now felt as if it had left her creamy shoulders and neck vulnerably exposed.

‘Buy something that moulded.’

She was no raving beauty and had never pretended otherwise to herself. She might be tall and slender with passably attractive legs, but she possessed curves—oldfashioned curves like a waist and hips and full, firm breasts that sort of pouted whatever she wore. They were doing it now, pushing up above the straight edge of the bodice as if they were trying to escape.

‘Oh, dear,’ she sighed, and with a shimmy and a tug tried to pull the bodice up a bit.

‘You’re too critical of yourself,’ Sonya mumbled from behind her. ‘Have you any idea how many women shell out thousands to get C cups like yours?

‘They can have mine for free,’ Francesca muttered.

She’d gone shopping for classic black sophistication that would put her on a par with her super-elegant guests tonight and come back with this sultry dark red creation that was supposed to skim not cling to all those places she did not want to accentuate. The silk organza skirt was its saving grace with its ankle-length handkerchief edge. It was singularly the most expensive item of clothing she had ever bought, and, ‘I look like a lush.’

‘Idiot,’ Sonya chided. ‘You look like the lovely belle at your own ball, which is how it should be.’ She finished securing the hair comb then stepped back to study the overall look. ‘Gosh, that colour suits you.’

‘It reminded me of the ruby setting in my ring,’ she explained, which was why she’d bought it instead of nice, safe black. ‘Do you think Angelo will like it?’

‘I think Angelo will adore it,’ Sonya replied without a single hint of her usual caustic spoiling her tone. Then she turned away to pick up the fine chiffon scarf that came with the dress. ‘Here, let’s drape this around your shoulders just so and—presto, we have a princess.’

‘We have an overdressed Barbie doll.’

‘No.’ Sonya appeared beside her in the mirror wearing a short skimpy blue satin slip dress that matched the colour of her eyes. ‘I’m the Barbie doll around here, cara,’ she pronounced. ‘Complete with twenty-four-inch spiked shoes.’

They both fell into a fit of the giggles, which was nice because they hadn’t done much laughing recently—not since Sonya and Angelo fell out. ‘I’m going to miss having you around when I’m married,’ Francesca confided softly once they’d both calmed down again.

There was a silence—a stillness, both short, both tight. Then Sonya uttered a different kind of laugh. ‘You must be joking. You’ll be too busy doing something else to miss me.’

She was talking about making love but the moment that Francesca tried to visualise that Rubicon moment all she saw was a deeply sardonic dark, handsome face. It shook her so badly that she actually gasped.

‘What?’ Sonya demanded sharply, staring at her suddenly whitened face.

‘Nothing,’ she dismissed because how could she confess to Sonya what she had just seen? She would laugh—and why not? To her it would be one in the eye to her favourite enemy, Angelo, to learn that another man could arouse hot visions of lust inside his sex-shy fiancée.

She frowned again. It was beginning to worry her that she could feel like this about another man when she was about to commit herself to Angelo.

There was a knock at the door then. Sonya went to answer it. It was Angelo, come to escort Francesca downstairs. With a stiff smile and a mumbled, ‘See you down there,’ Sonya left them alone, pulling the door shut behind her as Francesca was turning from the mirror.

The moment she looked at him all her worries faded. He was wearing a formal black dinner suit and bow-tie and he looked so handsome that she felt herself melting inside. He was smiling at her, he was warm, he was all sunlight not mocking darkness. I’m just suffering from pre-betrothal nerves, she told herself and found her own smile when he sighed and said, ‘Ah, bella—bella, mi amore. You take my breath away.’

And that was all that she wanted, she told herself as she moved towards him. She wanted to take Angelo’s breath away. She wanted to bask in the warmth of his love.

Which was exactly what she did for the next few hours, as the villa slowly filled with people and Angelo rarely left her side. The official announcement of their engagement was to take place at midnight and until then everyone was encouraged to sample the banquet buffet laid out in one of the grand salons or dance to the music provided by a group of live musicians in another grand salon. By ten the villa was throbbing with music and laughter and the more elegant hum of conversation.

She noted Carlo Carlucci’s arrival at around ten o’clock. Who didn’t note it? she thought sourly as she watched surreptitiously the way he drew people to him without him having to do more than stand by the main salon doors. He’d arrived without the usual beauty hanging on his arm, which surprised her. And he also made no effort to come anywhere near her, which was also a surprise since it wasn’t very polite of him to keep his distance.

But it was an even bigger relief. She didn’t want him using one of his mocking smiles on her, or worse—letting it drop that they’d met by accident a couple of times and exposing the fact that she hadn’t mentioned those meetings to Angelo.

She would do, she promised herself. Tomorrow maybe when this was all over. But for now she was happy—happy—happy again and wanted to keep it that way.

Sonya, she saw, was behaving herself and sticking close to their own friends and work colleagues. If her new lover was here tonight—and Francesca was certain that he was here somewhere—she couldn’t tell from Sonya’s manner who the man was.

And foolishly she relaxed enough to drop her watchful guard on her friend. She was too busy being passed from one partner to another to be whirled beneath glittering crystal chandeliers. She was showered with beautiful compliments and teased and flirted with as only the Italians could do with such stylish panache. It was such a novelty to be the centre of everyone’s attention like this that she began to feel intoxicated by it—or was it the champagne?

Each time she paused for breath someone placed a long, fluted glass in her fingers and bid her a toast that demanded she sip. Her cheeks had discovered a permanent rosy hue and her eyes sparkled beneath the overhead lights. Angelo was being treated to the same kind of attention. They would whirl by each other occasionally and share a laughing comment, but that was all they were allowed.

It was as if there was a conspiracy afoot to keep the two lovers apart until the bewitching hour and when she challenged one of her partners with the suspicion he laughed and whirled her away. No one would know from observing this glitter-bright gaiety that the whole thing was about to shatter with the same spectacular force you would get if one of the huge chandeliers suddenly dropped to the floor.

Francesca was taking a moment to catch her breath when she happened to see Sonya quietly slipping away behind one of the gold-embossed curtains that had been drawn across a wall of French windows that led outside. Her antennae began to sing, sending her eyes flickering quickly around the room to see if anyone was going to follow her out.

It had to be her misfortune that her eyes clashed with those belonging to Carlo Carlucci. He was still holding court by the salon doors, standing with his dark head slightly tilted to one side as he listened to whatever the person with him was saying to him.

But his dark eyes were fixed on her.

That prickling sensation arrived, scoring tight frissons down her back, and she quickly dragged her eyes away from him and began weaving her way towards the French windows, determined to put a stop to the clandestine meeting she was now absolutely certain Sonya had arranged.

Sonya had left one of the doors slightly ajar. Slipping quietly through the gap, she walked across the wide marble terrace towards the stone balustrade beyond which the garden began to drop in a series of stylised tiers. It was cold out here, the late-spring chill in the air sending her hands up to rub at her bare arms as she paused to scan the darkened gardens in search of Sonya and her new man.

She heard them before she saw them, her slender body twisting towards the sound of scuffling feet and hushed voices filtering up from the terrace below. They were standing by the lower balustrade, and she was surprised to see that it was Angelo who was gripping one of Sonya’s arms while she was trying to tug herself free.

‘Let go of me!’ she heard Sonya hiss out angrily.

‘No,’ Angelo rasped. ‘I won’t let you ruin this, Sonya—’

‘I’m still going to tell her,’ Sonya lashed back. ‘She deserves to know the truth before this charade goes any further. I will be doing her a favour.’

She was threatening to confess her affair to her lover’s wife! Oh, dear God, Francesca thought. She couldn’t let her do that! She was about to move towards the steps to go down there to add her own pleas to Angelo’s—when Angelo’s harsh reply stalled her feet.

‘You think she will be grateful to you for your big confession, heh, cara? Do you think she will fall on your neck and forgive you, her closest friend, for sleeping with me, the man she is heart and soul in love with…?’

And that was the point where everything shattered, sprinkling around her like fine crystal shards that lacerated her flesh as they fell.

CHAPTER FOUR

FRANCESCA began to shake so badly she could barely stay upright, even her heart trembling, clawing at the walls of her chest as if it was trying to escape from what she was being made to face. She struggled to believe it, didn’t want to believe it. She even closed her eyes and replayed Angelo’s words inside her head in a silly, stupid, desperate attempt to find out where she had misunderstood what he’d said.

But there was no misunderstanding, Sonya’s next shrill claim made it too sickeningly clear. ‘You don’t want her! You don’t even like her that much!’

‘What I want and I what I am to have are two different issues.’

‘Money,’ Sonya sliced at him. ‘As if the Batistes haven’t got enough of it locked up in this place, you’re willing to marry a woman you have no feelings for just to lay your hands on the Gianni fortune! It’s disgusting. ‘