The Scandalous Orsinis: Raffaele: Taming His Tempestuous Virgin

Assuming, of course, that would really have happened.

Rafe frowned. But would it?

Her father had wanted his daughter to marry an Orsini. The don had no way of knowing he was not part of Cesare’s organization; Cesare would never have admitted such a thing to an enemy. Cordiano surely would have figured the marriage would strengthen ties between the old world and the new at the same time it settled a debt.

Marrying Chiara to the capo, on the other hand, would have accomplished very little, only ensuring a loyalty that already existed. Why waste her on an underling?

Rafe cursed under his breath.

He’d been scammed.

His father had wanted him to marry his old enemy’s daughter. Freddo Cordiano had wanted the same thing. But he’d said he wouldn’t, and Cordiano had staged a scene straight from a fairy tale. Either the prince married the princess, or the ogre got her.

The only question was, had Chiara known about it?

Rafe folded his arms.

Dutiful Sicilian daughter that she was, what if she’d agreed to do her best to make him think everything that had happened today was real, starting with that ridiculous stuff on the road? A pair of burlesque bandits, stopping his car. Yes. That would have been good staging. Both father and daughter would have known it wouldn’t send him running, that if anything, he’d have been even more determined to reach San Giuseppe.

Even that kiss in the car. Her initial struggle against him, followed by that one sweet sigh of surrender, the softening of her lips, the rich, hot taste of her.

He’d been had.

Aside from him, the only other person who hadn’t been in on the con was Giglio. Chiara and her old man had used the capo as neatly as they’d used him.

Rafe narrowed his eyes.

Final proof? The 1-2-3 wedding ceremony. Cordiano had obviously pulled a bunch of high-powered strings. There’d been no posting of wedding banns, no formalities beyond signing a couple of papers in front of a mayor who’d all but knelt at the don’s feet. A handful of mumbled words and, wham, it was done.

Cordiano had beamed. “You may kiss the bride,” he’d said.

Except, of course, Rafe hadn’t.

Chiara had looked up at him. He’d looked down at her. Her eyes had held no expression; her lips had been turned in. “Do not touch me” had been her message, and he’d come within a heartbeat of saying, “Trust me, baby, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”

That kiss in the car, that one moment of heat. Easy to explain. The encounter on the road had left him pumping adrenaline. Danger, sex. One complemented the other. A man could fool himself into thinking anything when he was in that kind of state.

Rafe sat up straight.

Okay. He understood it all. Not that it mattered. He’d married the woman. Now he had to unmarry her. Next stop, an annulment. Divorce. Whatever it took.

Problem solved.

Not that he would just abandon his blushing bride. Yes, she’d trapped him, but he wasn’t blameless. He, the man who prided himself on logical thinking, had not thought logically. The price for digging yourself out of a hole, even when someone else had handed you the shovel, was never cheap.

He would do the honorable thing. Arrange a financial settlement. Considering all the effort Chiara had gone to, hauling him in, she was entitled to it. Then she could return to Sicily and he could forget all about—

“Signor Orsini.”

He looked up. Chiara stood next to him. He tried not to shake his head at the sight. When they were kids, his sister Anna had gone through a Goth period that had, thankfully, lasted only about a minute. She’d dressed in black from head to toe. She’d even dyed her long, blond hair black.

“You look like something the cat dragged in,” he’d told her, with all the aplomb of an older brother.

But a cat would not have bothered dragging Chiara in. Or out. She looked too pathetic. Well, except for the hair. Even skinned back in that damned bun again, it had the gloss of a raven’s wing.

Was looking like this part of the act?

“Yes?”

Yes?

Chiara forced herself not to show any reaction. Three hours of silence, and the best Raffaele Orsini could come up with was yes, said in a way that almost hung it with icicles?

Still, yes was an improvement. She would try not to show her annoyance.

“Signor. We must talk.”

His eyes narrowed to dark blue slits. Chiara was puzzled, but then she realized he was considering what she’d said, as if she’d made a request, when what she’d made was a demand.

She wanted to stamp her foot in fury! What an imbecile! Did he think she was a stray cat he’d taken in? That she would be so grateful she would simply sit quietly and let him do whatever he wished with her life?

She had not signed herself over to this man.

Yes, she’d married him. Heaven knew she had not wanted to do it, but choosing between going to America with a hoodlum and remaining in San Giuseppe with a killer had made her decision easy.

The only surprise was that he’d gone through with the ceremony, such as it was. She’d spent the last few hours trying to come up with a reason; by now, she had several.

Her father had paid him to do it. His father had paid him to do it. Her father had threatened him with what would happen if he didn’t, though she had to admit, that was a slim possibility. Whatever else he was, the American was not a coward.

Perhaps he had finally realized the benefits of marrying the don’s daughter. She had no illusions about her feminine appeal: she was mousy, skinny, nothing at all like the voluptuous females who caught men’s eyes. What she was, was a link to her father, and thus, to power.

Not that the American’s reasons for marrying her mattered.

He’d done it, was what counted, and she’d even felt a rush of gratitude that he had saved her from being given to Giglio—but gratitude only went so far. The bottom line, as they said in all those American movies she watched late at night on TV, was that she had no wish to be married, none to stay married. And from his silence, from the way he looked at her now, she was fairly certain Raffaele Orsini felt the same.

It was time to lay the cards on the table.

She told him exactly that.

“Signor. It is time to lay the cards on the table.”

One dark eyebrow lifted. He seemed amused. “Whose cards?”

Chiara frowned. “What do you mean, whose cards? The cards. Is that not what one lays on the table?”

“Not precisely. They’re either your cards or mine.” That faint hint of amusement—a smirk, was closer to accurate—disappeared from his face. “Sit down.”

“I would rather—”