The Scandalous Orsinis: Raffaele: Taming His Tempestuous Virgin

Chiara shrugged. “You said it yourself. You had every intention of marrying me all along.”

“I said that because I was angry. You know damned well I only did it because your old man threatened to hand you over to his capo.”

“Why should I believe you now?” Her smile was like ice. “After all, signor, you lie with such ease.”

Okay. Enough. He’d taken one insult too many. It was time to let the lady stew in her own juices for a while.

“You know,” he said coldly, “I’ve had enough of this nonsense to last a lifetime. It’s bedtime.”

All the color drained from her face. She’d misunderstood him. He opened his mouth to explain, but before he could say a word, she spat out a Sicilian phrase he’d never heard anywhere but on the streets of his youth.

“Right,” he said through his teeth, “that’s precisely what I am.”

He strode purposefully toward her, grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. She cried out, struggled, and on a curse the equal of hers, he lifted her into his arms and carried her up the staircase to the second floor, down the hall and into one of the guest rooms where he dumped her in the center of the bed.

She scrambled back against the pillows. Her hair was a tangle of wild curls. Her ugly coat had come open, exposing her ludicrous outfit.

Her amazingly sexy outfit.

Her breasts, shadowed beneath the thin cotton of his T-shirt. Her nipples, pebbled and just waiting for the touch of his fingers, the heat of his mouth.

Rafe stepped back. Jerked his head toward a half-open door.

“Your bathroom’s through there. There’s a clean toothbrush in the vanity. Toothpaste. Towels. Soap. Shampoo. Whatever else you might need.”

“If you think I’m going to… to prepare myself for you—”

“If you did, you’d be wasting your time. I like my women soft, feminine and sexy. You don’t even approach that description. No wonder your old man had to find you a husband.”

It was a good line, and he made the most of it by walking out.

He was halfway down the hall when he heard her door slam hard enough to rattle the walls. For some crazy reason, it made him smile.

A hot shower, then bed.

That was what he needed.

The shower was fine. So was the bed until he turned the sheets into a tangled mess. After an hour of trying to sleep, he gave up, lay back and watched the digital alarm clock blink away the minutes.

Two a.m. Three. Four. Damn it, he had to be at work in the morning. He didn’t have time for this.

Maybe he ought to phone his lawyer now. Yeah, it was the middle of the night, but so what? He had Marilyn Sayers on retainer. A big, fat retainer. The whole point of it was so that he could contact her anytime, anyplace, about anything….

Rafe got out of bed, pulled on a pair of old gray sweatpants. What difference would it make if he spoke to Sayers now or later? She was a top-notch legal eagle; this was a simple divorce. An hour or two wouldn’t mean a thing.

He’d wait.

He thought about going for a run in the park, but that would have meant leaving Chiara alone in the apartment. Somehow, that didn’t seem wise. He had a bottle of sleeping tablets in the medicine cabinet, something the doctor had given him a couple of years ago after minor surgery on his knee—he’d torn a tendon in a motorcycle accident. But he’d never taken even one of the pills and he wasn’t about to start now. A shot of brandy. That would do it.

It did.

Twenty minutes after he drank the Courvoisier, Rafe got into bed and tumbled into sleep.

Something woke him.

He wasn’t sure what it was. A sound, but what? Not his alarm. The red numbers on the clock were steady at 5:05 a.m., which meant he had fifty-five minutes until the thing went off.

There it was again. A noise. Faint but. A cry? That was it. A cry. Weeping.

Hell. It was Chiara.

He sat up in bed, rubbed his hands over his stubbled jaw and cheeks. Now what? Did he ignore it? Might as well. Let her cry. Who gave a damn? Every time he tried to treat her with kindness, she reacted like a junkyard dog.

He lay back against the pillows again, stacked his arms beneath his head. She was unhappy? He wasn’t exactly ecstatic. If she was crying, it was her business.

But it didn’t stop. Well, so what? He’d heard women cry before. Ingrid, for example, just a couple of days ago… Just a lifetime ago. But it hadn’t been like this. Sad. Desperate. As if the sobs were being torn from Chiara’s soul.

Rafe threw back the covers, got to his feet, headed for the door and then for the guest suite, where he paused. “Chiara?”

At first he thought the sobs had stopped. They hadn’t. They’d just grown muffled. She was crying as if her heart might break.

“Chiara,” he said again, and tapped lightly on the door. Still no answer. He took a breath. Then, carefully, he tried the knob. It turned, and the door swung open. The room was in darkness, but she’d left the bathroom light on and the door partly open. He could see the huddled form visible in the center of the bed.

Rafe called her name again. Still, no answer. Slowly, certain he was going to regret this, certain she’d rear up, scream the bloody building down when she realized he was in her bedroom, he made his way forward and sat down, gingerly, on the edge of the mattress. He could see her now, part of her, at least; she was just a small, sad lump under the duvet, on her belly, her face buried against the pillows.

His heart constricted. She was small and frightened and he’d known that and added to it.

Without thinking, he reached out and laid his hand gently against her hair.

“Chiara, sweetheart, I’m sorry. Please, don’t cry…”

The bedclothes seemed to explode. Rafe braced himself for a scream, a shout, a right to the jaw. But none of that happened. Chiara launched herself at him, wound her arms around his neck and buried her damp face against his naked shoulder.

Stunned, he sat absolutely still. Then, slowly, he slipped his arms around her. Filled them with soft, warm, trembling woman.

He shut his eyes.

Holding her felt wonderful. And she smelled good. His soap. His shampoo. And mingling with their scents, essence of woman. Of Chiara.

Of his wife.

His body stirred. Silently he cursed himself for it. There was nothing sexual happening here. Dawn was about to break over a sleeping city and he had a weeping woman in his arms.

Remember that, Orsini, he told himself sternly.

“Chiara,” he said gently. “What is it? Did you have a nightmare?”

She nodded. Her hair, all those dark and lovely curls, slid like feather wisps against his skin. He shut his eyes again, drew her closer, held her more tightly against his heart.