The Bride's Awakening

Chapter Three

THE words seemed to ring in the empty air, filling the room, even though the only sound was the crackle of the fire as the logs settled into the grate, scattering a bit of ash across the carpet.
Ana stared, her mind spinning, her mouth dry. Once again, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She wondered if she’d heard him correctly. Surely she’d imagined the words. Had she wanted him to say such a thing? Was she so ridiculous, pathetic, that she’d dreamed it?
Or had he been joking? Common sense returned. Of course he was joking. She let her lips curve into a little smile, although she knew the silence had gone on too long. She reached for her wine. ‘Really, Vittorio,’ she said, shaking her head a little bit as if she actually shared the joke, ‘I want to know why.’
He leaned forward, all lazy languor gone, replaced with a sudden intentness. ‘I’m serious, Ana. I want to marry you.’
She shook her head again, unable to believe it. Afraid to believe it. He must be joking, even if it was a terrible joke. A cruel one.
She’d known cruel jokes before. Girls hiding her clothes after gym, so she had to walk through the locker rooms in a scrap of a towel while they giggled and whispered behind their hands. The boy who had asked her to dance when she was fifteen—she’d accepted, incredulously, and he’d laughed and run away. She’d seen the money exchange grubby adolescent hands, and realized he’d only asked her as a bet. And of course the one man she’d let into her life, had wanted to give her body to, only to be told he didn’t think of her that way. Roberto had acted affronted, as if she’d misunderstood all the time they’d spent together, the dinners and the late nights studying. Perhaps she had misunderstood; perhaps she was misunderstanding now.
Yet, looking at Vittorio’s calm face, his eyes focused intently on hers, Ana slowly realized she hadn’t misunderstood. He wasn’t joking. He was serious. And yet surely he couldn’t be—surely he could not possibly want to marry her.
‘I told you the proposition was an intriguing one,’ he said, and there was laughter in his voice.
‘That’s one word for it,’ Ana managed, and took a healthy draught of wine. It went down the wrong way and for a few seconds her eyes watered as she tried to suppress a most inelegant cough. A smile lurked in Vittorio’s eyes, in the upward flick of his mouth and he reached out to touch her shoulder, his hand warm even through the thick cloth of her jacket.
‘Just cough, Ana. Better out than in.’
She covered her mouth with her hand, managing a few ladylike coughs before her body took over and she choked and spluttered for several minutes, tears streaming from her eyes, utterly inelegant. Vittorio poured her a glass of water and thrust it into her hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ she finally managed when she had control over herself once more. She wiped her eyes and took a sip of water.
‘Are you all right?’ She nodded, and he leaned back in his chair. ‘I see I’ve surprised you.’
‘You could say that.’ Ana shook her head, still unable to believe Vittorio had actually said what she’d thought he had said. And if he had said it, why? What on earth was he thinking of? None of it made sense. She couldn’t even think.
‘I didn’t intend to speak so plainly, so quickly,’ Vittorio said, ‘but I thought you’d appreciate an honest business proposition.’
Ana blinked, then blinked again. She glanced around the room with its flickering candles and half-drunk glasses of wine, the fire burned down to a few glowing embers; the desire still coiled up inside her, desperate to unfurl. What a fool she was. ‘Ah,’ she said slowly, ‘business.’ Marriage must, for a man like Vittorio, determined and ambitious, be a matter of business. ‘Of course.’ She heard the note of disappointment in her own voice and cringed inside. Why should she feel let down? Everything she’d wanted and felt—that had been in her own head. Her own body. Not Vittorio’s. She turned to gaze at him once more, her expression direct and a little flat. ‘So just how is marriage a business proposition?’

Vittorio felt the natural vibrancy drain from Ana’s body, leaving the room just a little bit colder. Flatter. He’d made a mistake, he realized. Several mistakes. He’d gone about it all wrong, and he’d tried so hard not to. He’d seen her look around the room, watched her take in all the trappings of a romantic evening which he’d laid so carefully. The fire, the wine, the glinting crystal. The intimate atmosphere that wrapped around them so suggestively. It was not, he realized, a setting for business. Fool. If he’d been intending to conduct this marriage proposal with a no-nonsense business approach, he should have done it properly, in a proper business setting. Not here, not like this. This room, this meal promised things and feelings he had no intention or desire to give. And Ana knew it. That was why she looked so flat now, so…disappointed.
Did she actually want—or even expect—that from him? Had she convinced herself this was a date? The thought filled Vittorio with both shame and disgust. He could not, he knew, pretend to be attracted to her. He shouldn’t even try. He shouldn’t have brought her to this room at all. He needed to stop pretending he was wooing her. Even when he knew he wasn’t, he still fell back on old tactics, old ploys that had given him success in the past.
Now was the time for something new.
Vittorio leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Ana, do you play cards?’

Ana looked up, arching her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Cards…?’
‘Yes, cards.’ Vittorio smiled easily. ‘I thought after dinner we could have a friendly game of cards—and discuss this business proposition.’
She arched her eyebrows higher. ‘Are you intending to wager?’
Vittorio shrugged. ‘Most business is discussed over some time of sport or leisure—whether it is golf, cards, or something else entirely.’
‘How about billiards?’
Vittorio’s own eyebrows rose, and Ana felt a fierce little dart of pleasure at his obvious surprise. ‘You play billiards?’
‘Stecca, yes.’
‘Stecca,’ Vittorio repeated. ‘As a matter of fact, the castle has a five pins table. My father put it in when he became Count.’ He paused. ‘I played with him when I was a boy.’
Ana didn’t know if she was imagining the brief look of sorrow that flashed across Vittorio’s face. She remembered hearing, vaguely, that he’d been very close to his father.
It’s all right to be sad, rondinella.
She pushed the memory away and smiled now with bright determination. ‘Good. Then you know how to play.’
Vittorio chuckled. ‘Yes, I do. And I have to warn you, I’m quite good.’
Ana met his dark gaze with a steely one of her own. ‘So am I.’
He led her from the cosy little room with the discarded remains of their meal, down another narrow corridor into the stone heart of the castle and then out again, until he came to a large, airy room in a more recent addition to the castle, with long sash windows that looked out onto a darkened expanse of formal gardens. In the twilit shadows Ana could only just discern the bulky shapes of box hedges and marble fountains. The room looked as if it hadn’t been used in years; the billiards table was covered in dust sheets and the air smelled musty.
‘I suppose you haven’t played in a while,’ she said, and Vittorio flashed a quick grin that once more caused her insides to fizz and flare. She did her best to ignore the dizzying sensation, pleasant as it was.
‘Not here, anyway.’ He pulled the sheet off the table and balled it up, tossing it in a corner, then opened the windows so the fresh, fragrant air wafted in from the gardens. ‘The cues are over there. Do you want something to drink?’
Ana felt reckless and a little bit dangerous; she knew why Vittorio had asked her if she played cards, why they were here about to play billiards instead of back in that candlelit room. This was business. She was business. He could not have made it plainer. And that was fine; she could handle this. Any disappointment she’d felt—unreasonably so—gave way to a cool determination. ‘I’ll have a whisky.’
Vittorio gazed at her for a moment, his expression thoughtful and perhaps even pleased, his mouth curling upwards into a little smile before he nodded and went to push a button hidden discreetly by the door. Within minutes another servant—this time a man, some kind of butler—appeared at the doorway, silent and waiting.
‘Mario, two whiskies please.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Ana selected her cue and carefully chalked the end. She studied the table with its three balls: two cue balls, one white, one yellow and a red object ball. Vittorio was setting up the castle in the middle of the table: five skittles, four white, one red, made into a cross. The object of the game was simple: you wanted to knock your opponent’s ball into the skittles for points, or have it hit the red object ball. Her father liked to say it was a grown-up game of marbles.
‘So where did you learn to play stecca?’ Vittorio asked as he stepped back from the table.
‘My father. After my mother died, it was a way for us to spend time together.’
‘How touching,’ he murmured, and Ana knew he meant it. He sounded almost sad.
‘And I suppose your father taught you?’ she asked. ‘Or did you play with your brother?’ She leaned over the table and practised a shot, the cue stick smooth and supple under her hands.
‘Just my father.’
Ana stepped back, letting the cue stick rest on the floor. ‘Would you like to go first?’
Vittorio widened his eyes in mock horror. ‘Would a gentleman ever go first? I think not!’
Ana gave a little laugh and shrugged. ‘I just wanted to give you the advantage. I warned you I was good.’
Vittorio threw his head back and let out a loud laugh; the sight of the long brown column of his throat, the muscles working, made something plunge deep inside Ana and then flare up again in need. Suddenly her hands were slippery on the cue stick and her mouth was dry. She was conscious of the way her heart had started beating with slow, deliberate thuds that seemed to rock her whole body. ‘And I told you I was good too, as I remember.’
‘Then we’ll just have to see who is better,’ Ana returned pertly, smiling a little bit as if she was relaxed, as if her body wasn’t thrumming like a violin Vittorio had just played with a few words and a laugh.
The servant entered quietly with a tray carrying two tumblers, a bottle of Pellegrino and another bottle of very good, very old single malt whisky. Ana swallowed dryly. She’d only said she wanted whisky because she’d known what Vittorio was up to; she’d felt reckless and defiant and whisky seemed like the kind of drink men drank when they were playing a business games of billiards.
She, however, didn’t drink it. She had a few sips with her father every now and then, but the thought of taking a whole tumbler with Vittorio made her nervous. She was a notorious lightweight—especially for a winemaker—and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of him. Especially not with this desire—so treacherous, so overwhelming, so new—still warring within her, making her feel languorous and anxious at varying turns.
‘So,’ Vittorio said as he reached for the whisky, ‘do you take yours neat or with a little water?’
Water sounded like a good idea, a way to weaken the alcohol. ‘Pellegrino, please.’
‘As you wish.’ He took his neat, Ana saw, accepting her tumbler with numb fingers. Vittorio smiled and raised his glass and she did likewise. They both sipped, and Ana managed not to choke as the whisky—barely diluted by water—burned down her throat.
‘Now, please,’ Vittorio said, sweeping his arm in an elegant arc. ‘Ladies first.’
Ana nodded and set her glass aside. She lined up her first shot, leaning over the table, nervous and shy as Vittorio watched blandly. Focus, she told herself. Focus on the game, focus on the business. Yet that thought—and its following one, marriage—made her hands turn shaky and the shot went wide.
Vittorio clicked his tongue. ‘Pity.’
He was teasing her, Ana knew, but she ground her teeth anyway. She hated to lose. It was one of the reasons she was so good at stecca; she’d spent hours practising so she could best her father at the game, which she hadn’t done until she was fifteen. It had been five years of practice and waiting.
She stepped back from the table and took another sip of whisky as Vittorio lined up his shot. ‘So why do you want to marry me?’ she asked, her tone one of casual interest, just as he prepared to shoot. His shot went as wide as her own.
He swung around to face her, his eyes narrowed, and Ana smiled sweetly. ‘I think you’d make an appropriate wife.’
‘Appropriate. What a romantic word.’
‘As I said,’ Vittorio said softly, ‘this is a matter of business.’
Ana lined up her own shot; before Vittorio could say anything else, she took it, banking his ball and missing the skittle by a centimetre. She’d been a fool to mention romance. ‘Indeed. And you see marriage as a matter of business?’
He paused. ‘Yes.’
‘And what about me is so appropriate?’ Ana asked. ‘Out of curiosity.’ Vittorio took his shot and knocked her ball cleanly into a skittle. Ana stifled a curse.
‘Everything.’
She let out an incredulous laugh. ‘Really, Vittorio, I am not such a paragon.’
‘You are from a well-known, respected family in this region, you have worked hard at your own winery business these last ten years, and you are loyal.’
‘And that is what you are looking for in a wife?’ Ana asked, her tone sharpening. ‘That is quite a list. Did you draw it up yourself?’ She took another shot, grateful that this time she knocked his ball into a skittle. They were even, at least in billiards.
Vittorio hesitated for only a fraction of a second. ‘I know what I want.’
She had to ask it; she had to know. She kept her voice light, even dismissive. ‘You are not interested in love, I suppose?’
‘No.’ He paused. ‘Are you?’
Ana watched as he stilled, his head cocked to one side, his dark eyes narrowed and intent as he waited for her answer. What a strange question, she thought distantly. Weren’t most people interested in love?
Yet, even as she asked the question, she knew the answer for herself. She was not—could not—be interested in love, the love of a man, romantic, sexual. She’d tried it once and had felt only failure and shame—both feelings had taken years to forget, and even now she remembered the way they’d roiled through her, Roberto’s horrified look…
No. Love—that kind of love—Ana had long ago accepted, was a luxury she could neither afford nor access. Yet did she want it? Crave it? Need it? Ana knew the answer to that question as well. No, she did not. The risk was simply too great, and the possibility—the hope—too small. ‘No,’ she said coolly. She leaned over for her next shot, determined to focus completely on the game. ‘I’m not.’
‘Good.’
She took the shot and straightened. ‘I thought you’d say that.’
‘It makes it so much easier.’
‘Easier?’ she repeated, and heard the sardonic note in her voice. When had she become so cynical? From the moment Vittorio had proposed a marriage of convenience, or before? Long before?
‘Some women,’ Vittorio said carefully, ‘would not accept the idea of a marriage based on common principles—’
‘Based on business, you mean.’
‘Yes,’ Vittorio said after a moment, ‘but you must realize that I mean this to be a true marriage.’ He paused. ‘A proper marriage, a marriage in every sense of the word.’
Na?ve virgin she may be, but Ana still knew what Vittorio was talking about. She could imagine it all too easily. Or almost. She closed her eyes briefly, but if she wanted to banish the image, she failed. It came back clearly, emblazoned on her brain. An antique four-poster, piled high with pillows and cushions. Vittorio, naked, tangled in sheets. Magnificent. Hers.
Ana turned back to the billiards table. ‘So,’ she said, blindly lining up a shot, ‘you mean sex.’ She didn’t—couldn’t—look at him, even as she kept her voice nonchalant. She missed her shot entirely.
‘Yes.’ Vittorio sounded completely unmoved. ‘I’d like children. Heirs.’
‘Is that really why you’re marrying?’
He hesitated for only a second. ‘The main reason,’ he allowed and Ana felt a ripple of disappointment, although she hardly knew why. Of course a man like Vittorio wanted children, would marry for an heir. Heirs. He was a count; he had a title, a castle, a business, all to pass on to his child. A hoped-for son, no doubt. Her son. The thought sliced through her, shocking her, not an altogether unpleasant feeling. Vittorio arched his brows. ‘Do you want children, Ana?’
There was something intimate about the question, especially when he spoke in that low, husky tone that made her insides ripple and her toes curl. She’d never expected to have such a fierce, primal reaction to him. It was instinctive and sensual, and it scared her. She turned away.
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘You only suppose?’
‘I never thought to have children,’ she admitted with a bleak honesty that turned her voice a bit ragged. ‘I never thought to have the opportunity.’
‘Then this marriage suits us both.’
She gave a little instinctive shake of her head. He spoke as if it were agreed, the proverbial done deal. It couldn’t be that easy. She couldn’t be that easy. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’ He’d moved closer to her; she could feel him by her shoulder, the heat and the musk of him.
‘We’re talking about marriage, Vittorio. A lifetime commitment.’
‘So?’
‘Such a decision requires some thought.’
‘I can assure you I have thought of it a good deal.’
‘Well, I haven’t.’ She turned around, suddenly angry. ‘I haven’t thought about it at all.’
He nodded, annoyingly unperturbed. ‘You must have questions.’
She didn’t answer. Of course she had questions, but they weren’t ones she necessarily wanted to ask. Why do you want to marry me? What if we hate each other? Do you even desire me at all?
Why am I so tempted?
She looked up, taking a breath. ‘I don’t even know what you think of marriage…of a wife. What would you expect of me? How would we…get on…together?’ It seemed ridiculous even to ask the questions, for surely she wasn’t seriously considering his outrageous proposal. Yet, even so, Ana was curious. She wanted to know the answers.
‘We’d get on together quite well, I imagine,’ Vittorio replied easily. Ana wanted to scream.
You’re not attracted to me, she wanted to shout. I saw how you looked at me in that first moment—you summed me up and dismissed me! And now you want to marry me?
She’d convinced herself she could live without love. But desire? Attraction? Could she give her body to a man who looked at her with disdain or, worse, disgust? Could she live with herself, if she did that, day after day?
‘Ana, what are you thinking?’ Vittorio’s voice was gentle, concerned. She almost wanted to tell him, yet she knew she couldn’t bear the truth of his confession, or the deception of his denial. She let out a long shuddering breath.
‘Surely there are other women who fulfil your criteria,’ she said at last.
Vittorio shook his head. ‘No. There are few women with your knowledge of wine, Ana, or of this region. And of course your vineyard combined with mine would give us both a legacy for our children. And I appreciate your breeding and class—’
‘You make me sound like a horse. I’m as good as, aren’t I?’ Calm once more, she spoke without rancour, merely stating the rather glum fact.
‘Then consider me one as well.’
‘A stallion, you mean?’ and her mouth quirked upwards with wry amusement in spite of all the hurt and disappointment she felt.
‘Of course.’ Vittorio matched her smile. ‘If I am considering this marriage a business, there is no reason you cannot as well. We are each other’s mutual assets.’
Ana bit her lip. He made it sound so easy, so obvious. So natural, as if bartering a marriage over billiards in this day and age was a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. Vittorio had already told her he would not love her. Yet, Ana asked herself with bleak honesty, would someone else, if she were interested in love, which she’d already told herself she wasn’t? Funny how much convincing that took.
She would be thirty years old in just two months. She hadn’t had a date of any kind in over five years, and the last one had been appalling, an awkward few hours with a man with whom she’d shared not one point of sympathy. She’d never had a serious boyfriend. She’d never had sex. Was Vittorio’s offer the best she’d get?
And, Ana acknowledged as she sneaked a glance at him from under her lashes, she could certainly do worse. He’d shed his jacket and tie and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. Under the smooth luxurious fabric, his muscles moved in sinuous elegance. His dark hair gleamed in the dimly lit room like polished ebony. The harsh lines of his jaw and cheek were starkly beautiful…He was beautiful. And he wanted to be her husband.
The thought was incredible. Insane. It couldn’t work. It wouldn’t. Vittorio would come to his senses, Ana would feel that devastating disappointment once again.
He wouldn’t desire her. She’d see it in his eyes, feel it in his body—
And yet. Yet. Even now, she considered it. Even now, her mind raced to find possibilities, solutions. Hope. Some part of her wanted to marry Vittorio. Some part of her wanted that life. That, Ana knew, was why she hadn’t dismissed him immediately and utterly. It was why she was asking questions, voicing objections as if this absurd and insulting proposal had any merit. Because, to some small suppressed part of her soul, it did.
Ana stood up and reached for her cue stick. ‘Let’s play,’ she said, her voice brusque. She didn’t want to talk any more. She didn’t want to think about any of it. She just wanted to beat the hell out of the Count of Cazlevara.

Vittorio watched as Ana shrugged off her boxy jacket, tossing it onto a chair. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes dark and smoky with challenge. ‘Ready?’
Vittorio felt his insides tighten with a sudden surprising coil of desire. One sharp dart of lust. Without that awful jacket, he could actually see some of Ana’s body. She wore a hugging top of creamy beaded silk that pulled taut over her generous breasts as she leaned forward to line up her shot. Vittorio found his gaze fixed first on the back of her neck, where a long tendril of dark hair lay curled against her skin. Her hair wasn’t brown, he realized absently, it was myriad colours. Brown and black and red and even gold. His gaze dropped instinctively lower, to her backside. Bent over the billiards table, the fabric of her trousers pulled tightly across her bottom. The realization caused another shaft of lust to slice through him and he found he was gripping his cue stick rather tightly. He’d thought she had a mannish figure because she was tall. Yet, seeing her now, her curves on surprising and provocative display, he realized she wasn’t mannish at all.
She still wasn’t the kind of woman he normally took to bed, and he would never call her pretty. Even so, that brief stab of lust reassured him, made him realize this could work. He would make it work. Ana was intrigued, interested; she hadn’t said no. He’d expected her to say no immediately, a gut reaction. But she hadn’t betrayed her own desire—he’d seen it before, at dinner, a flaring in her eyes—as well as, perhaps, her own sense of logic.
When he’d spoken to Enrico about the match, the old man had been surprised but accepting.
‘Ana is a practical girl,’ he’d said after a moment. ‘She will see the advantages.’
Vittorio could see her now, considering those advantages, wondering if the comforts he could give her outweighed the lack of feeling. And yet there would be feeling…affection, respect. He wanted to like Ana; he simply didn’t want to love her.
And, Vittorio acknowledged with a surprised wryness, he would desire her. Somewhat, at least.
Ana took her shot and then stepped aside so Vittorio could take his. As he passed by her, he inhaled her scent; she wore no perfume and smelled of soap and something else, something impossible to define. Dirt, he realized after a moment and nearly missed his shot. She smelled of sunshine and soil, of the vineyard he’d seen her stride through only days ago, as if she owned the world, or at least all of it that mattered.
It was not a smell he normally associated with a woman.
He straightened, stepping back so Ana could take her shot, making sure to step close enough to her so his elbow brushed her breast, as if by accident, just to see how she reacted. And how he reacted. Ana drew her breath in sharply; Vittorio shifted his weight to ease the intensifying ache of need in his groin.
She was untouched, he was sure of it. Untouched and untamed. And, despite the terrible clothes, the complete lack of feminine guile or charm or artifice, at that moment he wanted her. He wanted her, and he wanted to marry her.
He would.
She won. Ana knew she should feel triumph at this victory, yet in the light of everything else she found she felt little at all.
‘It seems I must concede the game,’ Vittorio said as he replaced his cue stick in the holder. ‘Congratulations. You did warn me.’
‘So I did.’ Ana replaced her cue stick as well. She felt awkward now the game of stecca was over; a glance at her watch told her it was nearly midnight. They hadn’t spoken of the whole wretched business proposition in over an hour, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to bring it up now.
‘So,’ Vittorio said briskly, ‘you’ll need a few days to think about my business proposition?’
Vittorio obviously did not share her reluctance. ‘A few days?’ Ana repeated, her voice rising to something close to a squawk. ‘Vittorio, I don’t think—’
‘Surely you won’t dismiss it out of hand?’ he countered, cutting off the objection she hadn’t even known how to finish. He leaned against the billiards table, smiling, at ease, his powerful forearms folded. ‘That is not good business, Ana.’
‘Perhaps I don’t want my marriage to be business,’ she replied a bit stiffly.
Vittorio’s gaze dropped to her mouth. She could feel his eyes there, on her lips, almost as if he were touching her. She could imagine his finger tracing the outline of her lips even though he hadn’t moved. She had; she’d parted her lips in a silent yearning invitation. Her body betrayed her again and again. ‘I think it could be good between us, Ana,’ he said softly. ‘Good in so many ways.’
His words thrilled her. They shouldn’t—words counted for so little—but they did. They gave her hope, made her wonder if Vittorio could see her as a woman. A woman he wanted not just with his mind, but with his body. Unlike Roberto.
‘In fact,’ he continued, his voice as soft and sinuous as silk, ‘as we have just finished a game where you soundly trounced me, we could shake hands.’
Automatically, Ana stuck out her hand, ignoring the tiny flip-flop of disappointment at his sensible suggestion. This was how she did business, had been doing it for years. In a man’s world, she acted like a man. It made sense. It made sense now.
‘I said we could,’ Vittorio said, his voice so soft, almost languorous, and yet with a little hint of amusement. ‘I didn’t say we would.’ His eyes glittered, his own mouth parting as hers had, and he leaned forward so when she breathed in she inhaled his musky scent. ‘Instead, how about a kiss?’
‘A kiss?’ Ana repeated blankly as if she didn’t understand the word. But oh, she did—already she could imagine it, wanted it, needed it: the feel of Vittorio’s lips on hers, hard and soft at the same time, his hands on her waist or even—‘That’s not how I do business, Vittorio.’
‘But this business is a little different, is it not? And we should perhaps make sure we suit. That we are,’ he clarified in that soft, dangerous voice, ‘in fact attracted to one another.’
Again, his words rippled through her with a frisson of excitement and hope; it was a heady, potent mix. Was he actually saying he could be attracted to her? That he was? ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Ana said stubbornly, yet she heard the longing in her own voice. So did Vittorio.
He smiled. Although he hadn’t moved—he was still leaning against the billiards table, his arms folded—he exuded a lethal grace and Ana could all too easily imagine him closing the distance between them, taking her into his arms and…For heaven’s sake, she’d read too many romance novels. Had too many desperate dreams.
That was just what she wanted him to do.
‘I think it’s a very good idea.’
‘You don’t want to kiss me,’ she said, meaning it as a blunt statement of fact. Yet, even as she said the words she was conscious of how Vittorio looked now. There was no lip-curl of disdain, no dismissive flick of the eyes. His eyes were dark, dilated, his cheeks suffused with colour. She felt the answering colour rise up in her own cheeks, flood through her own body.
‘Oh, but I do,’ he murmured, and Ana realized just how much she wanted him to want to kiss her. And she wanted it too; she’d realized that a long time ago, but now she knew she was going to do it. It had become both a challenge and a craving.
‘All right, then,’ she said and, smiling a little, her heart thudding sickly, she stepped forward, straight into his arms. She’d been moving too fast and Vittorio’s hands came up to steady her, gripping her bare shoulders so she didn’t smack straight into his chest. Still, she felt the hard length of his body against hers, every nerve and sinew leaping to life in a way they never had before. This was so new, so intimate, so wonderful.
His lips were a millimetre from hers as he whispered, ‘I like that when you decide to do something, you do it completely, with your whole heart.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Ana answered, and kissed him. She wasn’t a good kisser. She knew that; she’d had too little experience. She was unschooled, clumsy, her lips hard against his, pressing, not knowing what to do. Feeling a fool.
Then Vittorio opened his mouth, somehow softening his lips—how did he do that? Ana wondered fuzzily—before she stopped thinking at all. His tongue slipped into the warmth of her own mouth, surprising her and causing a deep lightning shaft of pleasure to go right through her belly and down to her toes. Her hands came up of their own accord and bunched on his shirt, pulling him closer so their hips collided and she felt the full evidence of his desire; he hadn’t been lying. He had wanted to kiss her.
That knowledge thrilled her, consumed her with its wonderful truth. This was not a man who had been left cold by her kiss, by her body. His body had betrayed him. Right now, at least, he wanted her. As a woman.
A sense of power and triumph surged through her, making her bold. Her hands slid down the slippery fabric of his shirt to the curve of his backside, pulling him towards her. She heard Vittorio’s little inhalation of shock and smiled against his lips. He moaned into her mouth.
His mouth remained on hers, exploring the contours of her tongue and teeth, nipping and sliding, the intimate invasion making Ana’s head spin and her breath shorten. She’d never known kissing could be like this. The few chaste pecks and stolen smacks at the end of a date didn’t compare, didn’t even count—
And then it was over. Vittorio released her and Ana took a stumbling step backwards, her fingers flying to her swollen lips.
‘Well…’ she managed. Her mind was still fuzzy, her senses still consumed by what had just occurred. Then she looked at Vittorio and saw how smug he seemed. He was smiling as if he’d just proved something, and Ana supposed he had.
‘I think that quite settles the matter, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Nothing’s settled,’ Ana retorted sharply. She wouldn’t have her future decided by a simple kiss—even if there hadn’t been anything simple about it at all. It had been amazing and affirming and even transforming, the evidence of Vittorio’s desire changing everything—or at least it could change everything. ‘You said I should have a few days to consider.’
‘At least you want to consider it now,’ Vittorio replied, and Ana knew nothing she said could take away his smug sense of superiority that he’d been able to kiss her senseless. He looked completely recovered, if he had been shaken by that kiss, which Ana suspected he had not. Not like she had. All right, he’d desired her—for a moment—but perhaps any man would react the same way when a woman threw herself at him, which was essentially what Ana had done.
Except Roberto hadn’t. When she’d thrown herself at him, desperate to prove herself desirable, he’d remained as still and cold as a statue, as unmoved and emotionless as a block of cold marble. And when she’d finished—pressing herself against him, kissing those slack lips, he’d actually stepped back and said in a voice filled with affront, ‘Ana, I never thought of you that way.’ A pause, horrible, endless, and then the most damning words of all: ‘How could I?’
Still, Ana thought, gazing at Vittorio with barely disguised hunger, was that brief stab of desire—that amazing kiss—enough to base a marriage on? Along with the respect and affection and everything else Vittorio had promised?
‘I’ll consider it,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t say I would say yes.’
‘Of course.’
Ana touched her lips again, then dropped her hand, knowing how revealing that little gesture was. ‘I should go home.’
‘I’ll have my driver take you.’ Vittorio smiled wryly. ‘I’m afraid I’ve drunk a bit too much whisky to handle a car myself, and of course I would never jeopardise your safety.’
Ana nodded in acceptance, and Vittorio pressed the button by the door again. Within seconds a servant appeared. He issued some quick instructions, and then turned back to Ana. ‘I’ll see you to the door.’
They didn’t speak as he led her through several stone corridors back to the huge entryway of the castle. The doors were already open and a driver—in uniform, even at this hour—waited on the front step.
‘So this is goodbye,’ Ana said a bit unevenly.
Vittorio tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, his fingers trailing her cheek. That smugness had left his eyes and he looked softer now, if only for a moment. ‘For now.’
Ana tried not to react to the touch of his hand. She felt incredibly unsettled, uncertain, unable to believe that the kiss they had just shared was real, that it could possibly mean something. At least to her. She had a horrible sick feeling that Vittorio, inflamed by a bit of whisky, had been acting on his baser instincts, trying to prove that this marriage bargain could actually work.
And he’d almost convinced her that it could.
Too tired to think any more, Ana slipped into the interior of the limo—the Porsche, it seemed, was reserved for Vittorio’s exclusive use—and laid her head back against the seat as the driver sped away from Castle Cazlevara back to her home.

Vittorio watched the car disappear down the curving drive with a deep, primal sense of satisfaction. He’d as good as branded her with that kiss; she was his. In a matter of days, weeks at the most, she would be his bride. His wife. He felt sure of it.
He couldn’t keep the sense of victory from rushing through him, headier than any wine. He’d set out to acquire a wife and, in a matter of days—a week at the most—he would have one. Mission accomplished.
He imagined the look on his mother’s face when he told her he was getting married; he leaped ahead to the moment when he held his son, and saw Bernardo’s dreams of becoming Count, of taking control of Cazlevara Wines, crumble to nothing. He pictured his mother looking stunned, lost, and then the image suddenly changed of its own accord and instead he saw her smiling into the face of his child, her grandchild. A baby girl.
Vittorio banished the image almost instantly. It didn’t make sense. The only relationship he’d ever had with his mother had been one of, at worst, animosity and, at best, indifference. And he didn’t want a girl; he needed sons.
Yet still the image—the idea—needled him, annoyed him, because it made a strange longing rise up in a way he didn’t understand, a way that almost felt like sorrow.
Vittorio pushed it aside once more and considered the practicalities instead. Of course, there were risks. With any business proposition, there were risks. Ana might not fall pregnant easily, or they might only have girls. Baby girls, all wrapped in pink—Vittorio dismissed these possibilities, too exultant to dwell on such concerns.
He supposed he should have married long ago and thus secured his position, yet he’d never even considered it. He’d been too intent on avoiding his home, on securing his own future. He’d never thought of his heirs.
He’d run away, Vittorio knew, the actions of a hurt child. Amazing how much power and pain those memories still held. His mother’s averted face, the way she’d pushed him down when he’d attempted to clamber on her lap. He’d stopped trying after a while. By the time he was four—when Bernardo had been born—he’d regarded his mother with a certain wariness, the way you would a sleeping tiger in a zoo. Fascinating, beautiful, but ultimately dangerous. And now he was a grown man, nearing forty and he still remembered. He still hurt.
Self-contempt poured through him, dousing his earlier sense of victory. He hated this feeling, as if he was captive to his own past, chained by memories. Surely no man should still lament his childhood? Besides, his hadn’t even been very deprived: his father had loved him, had given him every opportunity and privilege. To feel sorry for himself in even the smallest degree was not only absurd, it was abhorrent.
Vittorio straightened his shoulders and pushed the memories back down.
Now he would run away no more. He’d come back to Veneto to finally face his family, his past and make it right in the only way he knew how. By moving on. His first family had failed him, so he would create a second. His own. His wife, his child. His.
His face hardening with determination, Vittorio turned back to the dark, empty castle and went inside.