Bound To The Sicilian's Bed

She’d never been here before but she knew all about the sun-drenched principality at the tip of southern France, which was home to some of the richest people in the world. A place of luxury and excess and glamour. Her heart gave a funny twist. And now it was Rocco’s home, too. She pushed her sunglasses further up her nose. Strange to think of him living in this billionaires’ playground when he’d always been so fiercely loyal to his homeland and its rustic values. When he’d insisted that simple pleasures were what turned him on, not the lure of the gaming tables, or restaurants which were all about show instead of serving real food. Not for the first time, she wondered what had made him leave Sicily.

She walked towards the shiny black car which was waiting on the Tarmac, glad she’d insisted on a few days to herself before coming here. She’d told Rocco she needed to organise someone to take her place at the shop and water her plants for her and that much was true, but really she’d needed time to compose herself. To strengthen her resolve not to do anything she might later regret and try to achieve a state of impartiality before she faced her estranged husband again. She’d told herself that whatever happened, she couldn’t afford to let desire cloud her judgement and on the plane journey here she’d convinced herself that she had succeeded. But as she looked around in vain for Rocco’s dark head and spectacular body, she realised her heart was racing and her skin was clammy—and if that wasn’t desire then what was?

The uniformed chauffeur stepped forward to open the car door for her.

‘Welcome to Monaco, Signora Barberi,’ he said in perfect English, with a marked French accent. ‘Unfortunately, your husband has been delayed and was unable to meet your flight. He asked me to say he will see you at the house.’

Nicole opened her mouth to tell the driver that she actually preferred to be called Ms Watson these days, until she remembered. None of this was real. She wasn’t a feisty singleton who was forging a new and independent life for herself. She was supposed to be a woman fighting tooth and nail to hang onto her marriage. So be that woman.

Giving what she hoped was a suitably disappointed expression, she slid onto the back seat of the limousine, pressing her knees together and trying not to think how scruffy the faded denim of her jeans looked against the opulence of the car.

The seat was deliciously soft and the vehicle was coolly air-conditioned, but even so it was difficult to relax. As they drove through the pristine streets of Monaco, Nicole sat as stiffly as someone on their way to a job interview. She’d barely slept a wink since Rocco had turned up at her shop and sent her thoughts and her senses into disarray. Suddenly it hadn’t been so easy to put him into that forbidden box where he’d been locked away for so long. Suddenly she’d found herself wondering how on earth she was going to pretend to be reconciling a marriage which had barely got off the ground in the first place. When they’d been nothing but a pair of mismatched strangers with nothing in common other than twin tragedies in their young lives.

They were both orphans: Nicole had been dumped outside a snowy hospital in a shopping bag and Rocco’s parents had been killed outright in a speedboat accident when he’d been fourteen. Nicole had thought their dual losses might have provided some kind of bond, but Rocco had adamantly refused to discuss the past. Whenever she’d tried to bring up the subject he would shake his head and tell her it had happened a long time ago and he was over it. And she should be over it, too. He’d told her they should list their blessings instead. She had found herself a kind adoptive mother—and he and his grandfather had helped rear his two heartbroken younger siblings.

They were both over it, he’d insisted.

Nicole stared out of the car window as they passed the fancy stores with designer clothes and jewellery which made you feel you’d been transplanted into the centre of Paris. This was real high-end living, she thought, and once again found it difficult to reconcile Rocco living in such a glitzy place. But what did she really know about him? She was hardly qualified to cast judgement on a man so far out of her league, who had never really allowed her to get close to him. A billionaire who would never have married her if she hadn’t been carrying his baby. Nicole felt a brief spear of pain as she pushed her fingers back through her curls. Even now she couldn’t believe how two people from opposite ends of the social spectrum should have become lovers—something which had caused outrage at the Barberi family’s swanky Mayfair offices, where Nicole been employed as an office cleaner and Rocco was the big boss.

Not that she’d ever intended to be a cleaner. She’d been about to take up a scholarship at one of London’s most prestigious art schools when her adoptive mother had been struck down by a virulent form of cancer. Fired by fear and devotion, Nicole had nursed the kindly woman who had taken in the abandoned little girl. The lonely child who had passed through streams of foster parents before Peggy Watson had appeared in her life as a saviour. Nicole hadn’t been able to imagine a life without her but, despite her frightened prayers, Peggy had died a painful death. And something in Nicole had died along with her.

Grief had left her barely able to lift a paintbrush, let alone have any ideas worth putting down on paper. Ignoring the pleadings of her teachers, she had deferred her place at art school. Suddenly, she’d felt old—as if she’d had nothing in common with the whacky art students and their garish clothes. How could she possibly behave in a carefree way when inside she’d felt so numb? All she’d wanted was a well-paid job she didn’t have to think about—and cleaning the Barberi offices had provided the ideal solution. She’d told herself it was just a case of recovering her confidence and clawing together some savings until she felt ready to continue with her art. And that had been her intended path, until the night she’d bumped into the Sicilian billionaire who, against all the odds, had been destined to become her husband.

She’d known who he was because he’d had a reputation for staying late and burning the midnight oil. And like all her co-workers, she’d agreed that the workaholic billionaire was the hunkiest man she’d ever seen. But Nicole had regarded Rocco Barberi in the same way you might regard the leading man in your favourite TV box-set—easy to fantasise about, but totally out of reach. Until the evening they had collided—literally. When Nicole had been carrying her mop and bucket along the corridor and seen the Sicilian heading towards her and they’d been so busy staring at each other that their paths had crossed. The metal bucket had caught the edge of the tycoon’s ankle and Nicole had looked down in horror to see soapy water sloshing all over his pristine suit trousers and handmade shoes.

‘Oh, my gosh. I’m so sorry,’ she’d stumbled, looking up to find herself transfixed by the bluest pair of eyes she’d ever seen. ‘I... I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘And neither was I. Non importa.’ He had made a careless movement with his hand. ‘They will clean.’

He’d still been staring at her, staring at her as if he’d known her, or as if he hadn’t been able to quite believe what he’d been seeing. And Nicole had felt exactly the same. She might have been a virgin and naïve in the ways of men, but she’d been unable to deny the powerful attraction which had temporarily incapacitated them both. It hadn’t seemed to matter that she’d been wearing a blue uniform which had been straining across her breasts, nor that her flyaway curls had been tugged back with a single strand of the green velvet ribbon she always wore, because it matched her eyes. Or that the man in front of her had exuded a power and status which was many lofty rungs above her own. She’d just felt as if she knew him. As if they’d met in a previous life. Or something.

When she’d analysed it afterwards, she’d realised just how dumb she’d been. All that had happened was that she’d been captivated by a man who any painter in a life class would drool over and he had obviously felt something very similar. Their connection had been purely physical. Or chemical. A freak of nature which shouldn’t have gone anywhere else, except that it had.

She’d felt apologetic the next day but she’d also felt intensely alive—as if he’d woken her from a long sleep. She’d painted him a little postcard—the first time she’d picked up a brush since Peggy’s death—and on it she’d depicted a cartoon of Rocco standing in a sea of soapy water on which floated an empty bucket and the single word, sorry, at the bottom of the card.

Maybe Rocco had been frustrated at the time and that was why he’d thrown caution to the wind and told her how much the postcard had made him laugh, before asking her out for a drink. And maybe Nicole had just wanted something joyful to happen after the two bleak years since Peggy’s death. Either way, their drinks had lain untouched, and the dazzling skyline outside the fancy rooftop bar had gone unnoticed. He’d asked her to dinner and she’d said yes, and it had been the most wonderful evening of her life. But he hadn’t touched her, even though she had desperately wanted him to.

A week later they’d had dinner again and then, over a drink following a trip to Milan, he’d asked if she’d ever been on the London Eye. She hadn’t as it happened, and as the giant wheel had circled London’s imposing monuments Nicole had realised that she was completely smitten by her billionaire boss. Smitten enough to find herself at his apartment later that day with Rocco breaking through her hymen with a groan of hunger followed by disbelief.

Apparently, it was a big thing in Sicily for a man to take a woman’s virginity and Rocco had alternately stormed at her, before hugging her tightly to his chest and then lowering his head to suck on her nipples. It had gone on like that for days. Snatched moments of bliss—even at work. That time on the desk would be scorched in her memory for ever. She’d never known that sex could be so addictive and Rocco had told her he felt exactly the same.

But then something had changed.

When Rocco had started buying her gradually more daring items of underwear and asking her to wear them Nicole had been eager to try out his sexy commands, yet on some deeper level—she’d been a bit wary, too. Had instinct warned her that the more outrageous his demands, the more he’d seemed to be distancing himself from her? Had he already decided her humble status meant he should end their liaison—and the provocative items of lingerie had been helping highlight her unsuitability? She’d been about to tell him he was making her feel like an object, when she’d missed her period, and her newly tender breasts had told her what the pregnancy test had quickly confirmed—that she was carrying Rocco Barberi’s baby.

Telling him had been nothing like the rose-tinted version she’d secretly longed for—a version as far away as possible from her own bleak beginnings on the snowy steps of a wintry hospital. She’d wanted to give him the news somewhere neutral, but he’d told her he was expecting a call and maybe they should take a rain check on the date they’d planned—and had he mentioned that he was planning a trip to the States the following week and wouldn’t be around for some time? And that was when it had all come blurting out, there in his penthouse office—with her untouched mop and bucket standing on the floor beside her feet.

‘Rocco, I’m pregnant.’

She would never forget his expression as he’d looked up from his computer. A brief shuttering followed by a shadowed caution.

‘You’re certain?’

‘Positive.’

‘And it’s...’

His words had faded but a sudden chill had washed over Nicole’s skin.

‘Yours?’ she’d questioned with a perception which had made her suddenly feel quite sick. ‘Is that what you were going to say, Rocco?’

He had shaken his head. ‘Of course not.’

She hadn’t believed him and had started to cry when he’d ‘jokingly’ suggested she might have deliberately sabotaged the condom in order to trap him. Had her woeful, red-eyed face tugged at his conscience? Was that why he’d risen from his desk and walked across the office towards her? His unkind words had been blotted out by the deep sense of gratitude she’d felt when he’d taken her in his arms and told her that of course she must marry him. He was going to stand by her and that meant a lot to someone who had been abandoned as a baby. And of course, she had thought herself in love with him. Yet all the time she had been acutely aware of the dutiful way he went about preparing for their marriage—as if he was being forced into something he’d never intended.

If she’d been an independent woman instead of a broke cleaner with hardly any qualifications, might her answer have been different? Would she have tried to go it alone to bring up her baby and told him he was very welcome to have access visits whenever he wanted? She thought not. Even if she had been inclined to embrace single parenthood, she recognised that Rocco would never have allowed that to happen. She had been carrying his child and therefore she had been his possession. That was something else she understood. It was something to do with being Sicilian and something to do with being a Barberi.

Their unlikely union had excited a flurry of interest in the European gossip but the Cinderella slant of the newspaper articles had made her feel somehow...less than—and that wasn’t a good way to start a marriage. And anyway—the whole thing had been a waste of time, hadn’t it? Rocco had only gone through with the wedding because she’d been pregnant—but her body had been unable to hold onto the baby she’d wanted so much. She had failed the baby, just as she had failed Rocco. She had let everyone down. She felt the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes and dabbed at them furiously with a curled-up fist.

She wasn’t going to think about that.

She wasn’t going to let herself go there.

But Nicole’s hands were trembling as the powerful car suddenly turned off the main drag and began to ascend a steep and curving street before eventually coming to a halt at the top, outside a deep rose-hued house with its amazing view over Monaco’s harbour. She looked up at it in surprise. Somehow she hadn’t imagined Rocco living somewhere like this—in a house on a street—not when he had grown up amid roaming acres of olive groves and vineyards in beautiful rural Sicily.

The front door was opened immediately, almost as if someone had been watching out for the car. But it wasn’t Rocco who stood on the doorstep, but a chic woman in a black and white uniform, which made Nicole realise why so many women wore French maid outfits to fancy-dress parties when they were trying to look sexy.

‘Welcome, signora,’ the woman said, with a coral-tinted smile. ‘I’m Veronique and I’m the housekeeper. Signor Barberi’s assistant, Michele, is waiting upstairs for you in his office and I will take you there.’

Slightly disorientated by the size of the entrance hall, Nicole turned to stare out of the still-open front door where the limousine was parked. ‘But my suitcase—’

‘The driver will bring it in and leave it in your room,’ said Veronique. ‘Do not concern yourself. Please. Come with me.’

Nicole followed the housekeeper along a gleaming marble corridor and into a huge room whose only concessions to being an office were a giant desk and a row of clocks on the wall depicting different time zones around the world. For the most part it just looked like an amazing room with an equally amazing view. A tall blonde was waiting for them, her high-heeled shoes matching her fitted pink dress, and Nicole wondered just how many beautiful women Rocco surrounded himself with and whether any of them provided any additional extras.

But that’s none of your business, she told herself fiercely trying to downplay the savage little kick of jealousy which flared up inside her. If he wants to sleep with the staff, that’s up to him.

The blonde stepped forward and extended her hand. ‘Hi! I’m Michele, Rocco’s assistant, and I’m delighted to be able to welcome you to Monaco, Signora Barberi.’

‘Please—call me Nicole.’

Michele smiled. ‘Nicole it is. I’m afraid he’s a bit tied up at the moment.’ She gave an apologetic shrug which suggested she was no stranger to conveying this message. ‘His last meeting went on longer than anticipated and he’s taking a conference call right now. He said to tell you he’ll be with you as soon as he can and that I should show you around.’

Unsure if Rocco’s assistant was aware of the make-believe nature of their reconciliation, Nicole forced herself to adopt an expression of lively curiosity. ‘That would be great.’

‘So why don’t we start down here?’

Nicole followed Rocco’s shapely assistant through the most luxurious house she had ever seen. High-ceilinged reception rooms were studded with modern furniture and once again, she couldn’t help comparing it to Rocco’s Sicilian home. There was no dark wood, or furniture which had been worn down by previous generations who were now unsmiling faces in framed sepia photographs. Everything looked so new and so...bright. She found herself liking it because it had no obvious history and an unexpected smile curved the edges of her mouth. A bit like her, really.