The Bride's Awakening

Chapter Nine

ANA woke to sunlight. Even better, warming her deep inside, she woke with Vittorio’s arm around her, her head nestled against his shoulder. She breathed in the scent of his skin, loving it, loving him.
Yes, she loved him. It seemed so obvious, so simple, in the clean, healing light of day. Yes, love was confusing and scary and full of sorrow and pain; it was love. Opening your heart and your body and even your soul to another person. Risking everything, your own health and happiness and well-being. And yet gaining so much.
Maybe.
She pulled away from Vittorio a little so she could look at him; he remained asleep, his features softened, almost gentle in repose. She touched the dark stubble on his chin, felt her heart twist painfully. Yes, love hurt.
This love hurt—for, if she loved him, she had no idea if he loved her.
Love is a destructive emotion.
She was starting to understand why he believed such a thing. Constantia’s love for her husband had been destructive, her unhappiness and despair leading her to unhealthy relationships with both of her sons. And, as the one who felt unloved by his mother—and harshly loved, no doubt, by his father—Ana could almost understand why Vittorio wanted no more of it.
My love wouldn’t be destructive. My love would heal you.
She touched his cheek, let her fingers feather over his eyebrow. He stirred and she stilled, holding her breath, not wanting him to wake up and ruin this moment. She was afraid when he opened his eyes the distance would be back, the cold, logical man who had insisted on a marriage of convenience, a marriage without love.
And she had agreed. She had, somehow, managed to convince herself that that was the kind of marriage, the kind of life, she wanted. Lying there, half in his arms, Ana knew it was not and never had been. She’d accepted such a poor bargain simply because she was afraid she’d find nothing else—and because it had been a bargain with Vittorio.
A life with Vittorio.
When had she started loving him? The seeds had surely been sown long ago, when he had touched her cheek and called her swallow. Such a small moment, yet in it she’d seen his gentleness, his tender heart, and she hoped—prayed—that she could see them again now. Soon.
She wouldn’t let Vittorio push her away or keep their marriage as coldly convenient—and safe—as he wanted it to be.
Ana eased herself out of Vittorio’s embrace, wondering just how she could accomplish such a herculean task. She’d agreed to a loveless marriage, very clearly. How could she now change the terms and expect Vittorio to agree?
Lying there in a pool of sunlight, still warmed by Vittorio’s touch, the answer was obvious. By having him fall in love with her.
And Ana thought she knew just how to begin.

Vittorio awoke slowly, stretching languorously, feeling more relaxed and rested than he had in months. Years. He blinked at the sunlight streaming in through the windows and then shifted his weight, suddenly, surprisingly, alarmingly conscious of the empty space by him in the bed.
Ana was gone.
It shouldn’t bother him—hurt him—for, God knew, he was used to sleeping alone. Even when he was involved with a woman, he left her bed—or made her leave his—well before dawn. It had been his standard practice, and he neither questioned it nor chose to change it.
Now, however, he realized how alone he felt. How lonely.
‘Good morning, sleepy-head.’
Vittorio turned, his body relaxing once more at the sight of Ana in the doorway of his bedroom, wearing nothing but his shirt from last night. He could see the shadowy vee of her breasts disappearing between the buttons, the shirt tails just skimming her thighs. She looked wonderfully feminine, incredibly sexy. Vittorio felt his own desire stir and wondered how—and why—he’d kept himself from his wife’s bed for so long.
‘Where did you go?’ he asked, shifting over so she could sit on the bed.
‘To the loo.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I drank quite a bit of champagne last night. Dutch courage, I suppose.’
‘Were you nervous?’ He found he was curious to hear what she said, to know what she thought. About everything.
Ana shrugged. ‘A bit.’ She paused. ‘You can’t say that our marriage is usual, or normal, and I don’t want people…saying things.’
‘What kinds of things?’
She gave another shrug, the movement inherently defensive. ‘Unkind things.’
Vittorio nodded, realizing for the first time how their marriage bargain might reflect on her, as if she wasn’t good enough—or attractive enough—for a proper marriage. For love.
I’m not interested in love.
What he was interested in, Vittorio decided, was getting his wife into bed as quickly as possible, and then taking his own sweet time in making love to her. Whatever the guests from the party might think, their marriage would certainly be wonderfully normal in at least one respect.
‘I know it’s Saturday,’ Ana said, rising from the bed before Vittorio could even make a move towards her, ‘but it was quite cool last night and I wanted to go to the vineyards and check—’
‘We have managers for that, Ana.’
She gave a low throaty chuckle that had Vittorio nearly leaping out of bed and dragging her back to it with him. Had she ever laughed like that before? Surely he would have noticed—
‘Oh, Vittorio. I don’t leave such things to managers. You might, with your million bottles a year—’
‘Nine hundred thousand.’
Her eyebrows arched and laughter lurked in her eyes, turning them to silver. ‘Oh, pardon me. Well, considering that Viale only has two hundred and fifty—’
‘What does it matter?’ Vittorio asked, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt. His wife was wearing his shirt and he was half-naked in his own bed; their marriage was still unconsummated nearly a week after the wedding. Why the hell were they talking about wine production?
‘It matters to me,’ Ana said, a smile still curving that amazingly generous mouth. Vittorio wondered if she knew how she was teasing him. Seducing him. He’d thought she was insecure, unaware of her own charms, but at the moment his wife looked completely sexy, sensual and as if she knew it. Vittorio felt as if he’d received a very hard blow to the head.
Or to the heart.
Either way, he was reeling.
‘It’s a beautiful day—’ he started again, meaning to end the sentence with to spend in bed.
Ana’s smile widened. ‘Exactly. And I wanted you to show me the Cazlevara vineyards, or at least some of them. It’s too nice to be inside.’
Enough, Vittorio thought. Enough talking. He smiled, a sleepy, sensual smile that left no room for Ana to misunderstand. ‘Oh, I think we could be inside for a little longer.’ Her eyes widened and she hesitated, clearly uncertain. Vittorio extended a hand. ‘Come here, Ana.’
‘What—’ she began and nibbled her lower lip, which was just about the most seductive thing Vittorio had ever seen. He groaned aloud.
‘Come here.’
She came slowly, hesitantly, perching on the edge of the bed so her shirt rode even higher on her thighs. God give him patience, Vittorio thought, averting his eyes. ‘What is it?’ she asked, and he heard the uncertainty and even fear in her voice. His wife, Vittorio realized, didn’t think he desired her.
He smiled and reached out to brush a strand of silky hair away from her eyes, his fingers skimming the curve of her ear. ‘Don’t you think,’ he murmured, ‘we’ve waited long enough to truly become man and wife?’
Ana’s breath hitched. ‘Yes, but—’
‘But what?’
Again she nibbled her lip. ‘You seemed content to wait.’
‘Only because I didn’t want to hurt you.’ Vittorio paused, the moment turning emotional, scaring him. Even now he shied away from the truth of his own feelings. ‘I wanted to give you time.’
A smile lurked in Ana’s eyes, in the generous curve of her mouth. ‘And now you feel you’ve given me enough time?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He reached out to stroke her leg; he couldn’t help himself, her skin looked so silky. And it felt silky, too. Vittorio suppressed a shudder. ‘Do you feel you’ve had enough time?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Ana said, and he chuckled at her fervent reply.
‘Good.’
Ana sat there in shock, unable to believe Vittorio was saying these things, touching her this way, his fingers skimming and stroking her thigh, sending little shocks of pleasure through her body. His other hand tangled in her hair and he drew her to him, his lips fastening on hers with hungry need; as he kissed her he let out a low groan of relief and satisfaction, and Ana felt another deeper shock: that he seemed so attracted to her, wanted her so, that he couldn’t help but touch her, right here in the middle of the morning, in the sunshine, without her having done anything at all. She’d meant to seduce him, to wear a sexy nightdress and have champagne—but this was so much better. So much more real.
‘Ana…’ Vittorio murmured, his lips now on her ear, her jaw, her neck, ‘Ana, you’re going on about grapes and vineyards and all I can think about is…this…’
And then it was all Ana could think about too, for Vittorio claimed her lips in a kiss so consuming, so fulfilling, she felt replete and satisfied—as if this kiss could actually be enough—instead of the endless craving she normally felt when they touched.
Vittorio pulled away, just a little bit, but it was enough to make Ana realize that actually she wasn’t satisfied at all. She wanted more…and more…and oh, please, a little more than that.
She must have made her need and frustration known, for he chuckled and traced a circle on her tummy with his tongue, making Ana moan aloud, the sound utterly foreign to her. She could hardly believe she was making these sounds, feeling these things.
So much.
Vittorio’s mouth hovered over her skin. ‘I’m going to take my time,’ he promised her, and then did just that, while Ana closed her eyes in both surprise and pleasure.
Yet Ana wasn’t willing to be a passive recipient, as wonderful as it was. As Vittorio teased her with his mouth and hands, she finally could take no more and flipped him over on his back, straddling his powerful thighs. Vittorio looked so surprised, she laughed aloud.
‘You seem to be wearing too many clothes,’ she remarked in a husky murmur, and Vittorio nodded.
‘I completely agree.’
‘Let’s do something about that, then.’
‘Absolutely.’
She tugged at his pyjama shirt and bottoms, laughing a little bit as buttons snagged and caught, but soon enough he was naked, and Ana pushed back on her elbow to take in his magnificent body, sleek and powerful, all for her. She ran one hand down the taut muscles of his chest.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,’ she admitted a bit shyly, for now that they were both naked, his arousal hard against her thigh, she felt a little uncertain. A little afraid.
‘There’s a lot I’ve been wanting to do,’ Vittorio admitted, his voice low and a little ragged. ‘And I can’t take much more waiting, Ana—’ True to his word, Vittorio rolled her onto her back, his hands and lips finding her secret sensitive places once again, until Ana found that waiting was the last thing she could think of doing. The wanting took over.
When he finally entered her, filling her up to the very brim with his own self, and with the knowledge of their bodies, fused, joined as one, Ana felt no more than a flicker of pain and then the wonderful, consuming certainty that this was the very heart of their marriage, the very best thing that could have ever happened, that they could have ever shared.
Afterwards, as they lay in the warm glow of the sun, their limbs still entangled, she wondered how she’d lived so long without knowing what sex was about. What love was about. For surely the two were utterly entwined, as entwined as her body was now with Vittorio’s. She couldn’t imagine loving a man she hadn’t felt in her own body, and neither could she imagine sharing this with anyone but a man she loved—and that man was Vittorio.
Vittorio ran his hand down her stomach and across the curve of her hip. ‘Ana, if I’d known—’ he said softly, and she turned to him.
‘Known?’
‘Known you were a virgin,’ he explained. ‘I would have—’ he smiled ruefully ‘—I would have taken more time, I suppose.’
‘You didn’t know I was a virgin?’ Ana couldn’t keep the amusement from her voice. ‘Goodness, Vittorio, I thought it was rather obvious.’
‘Obvious to you, perhaps,’ Vittorio returned. ‘But you mentioned a relationship—a man—’
‘It never got that far,’ Ana replied. The hurt she usually felt when she remembered Roberto’s rejection seemed distant, like an emotion she knew intellectually but had never truly felt. It hardly mattered now.
‘I’m sorry he hurt you,’ Vittorio murmured.
‘It’s long past,’ Ana told him. She pressed her lips to his shoulder; his skin was warm. ‘I’ve completely forgotten it.’ She kissed the hollow of his throat, because now that he was truly hers she just couldn’t help herself.
It was several hours later when they finally rose from that bed. Ana was sweetly sore all over, her body awakened in every sinew and sense. ‘Now the vineyard,’ she said and, still lounging among the pillows, Vittorio threw his head back and laughed.
‘The vineyard will always be your first love,’ he said, his words giving Ana a tiny pang. She wanted to say, You’re my first love, but she found she could not. The words stuck in her throat, clogged by fear. Instead, she reached for her clothes.
‘Absolutely.’
An hour later Ana followed Vittorio from the estate office to one of Cazlevara’s finest vineyards. Since Vittorio owned a much bigger operation than she, he had hectares of vines all over Veneto, but the one closest to the castle—on the original estate—was still reserved for the label’s most prized grapes.
The sun beat down hot on her head and her shirt was already sticking to her back as Ana walked between the grape plants in their neatly staked rows. She wished she’d worn a hat, or makeup. Instead, without thinking, she’d donned dusty trousers and an old shapeless button-down shirt, her standard field clothes. Hardly an outfit to impress her husband. And just why did she want to impress him? Ana wondered. The answer was painfully clear. Because she still felt a little uncertain, a little worried.
Because she loved him, and she didn’t know if he loved her.
If she’d had any sense, she would have worn one of Feliciana’s carefully selected outfits—something sexy and slimming—and asked Vittorio to take her to Venice or Verona, even one of the sleepy little villages nestled in one of the region’s valleys, somewhere where they could laugh and chat over antipasti and a jug of wine.
She should not have taken him to his work place and donned her own well-worn work clothes to do it! What had she been thinking? Yet, even as she ranted at herself, Ana knew the answers. She loved the vineyards. She loved the grapes, the earth, the sun. The rich scent of soil and growing things, of life itself.
It was the place she loved most of all, and she’d wanted to share it with Vittorio.
Yet, as perspiration beaded on her brow and her boots became covered in a thin film of dust, she wondered if sharing a meal might have been the better choice. She stopped to touch a vine, its cluster of Nebbiolo grapes so perfectly proportioned. The grapes were young, firm and dusky, and this breed wouldn’t be harvested until October. She bent to inhale the grapes’ scent, closing her eyes in sensual pleasure at the beauty of the day: the wind ruffling her hair, the sun on her face, the earthy aroma all around her.
After a few seconds she opened her eyes, conscious of Vittorio’s gaze on her. His expression was inscrutable, save for the faintest flicker of a smile curling his mouth.
‘I like the smell,’ she said, a bit self-consciously. ‘I always did. When I was little, my mother found me curled under the bushes asleep.’
Vittorio had, Ana thought, a very funny look on his face now. Almost as if he were in pain. ‘You looked like you were enjoying yourself very much,’ he said. His voice sounded strangely strangled.
‘It was a safe place for me,’ Ana acknowledged. ‘And, more than that—a bit of heaven.’
‘A bit of heaven,’ Vittorio repeated. He was standing surprisingly awkwardly, his hands jammed into the front pockets of his trousers, and his voice still sounded—odd.
‘Vittorio?’ Ana asked uncertainly. ‘Are you all right—?’
‘Ana.’ He cut her off, smiling now, her name coming out in what sounded like a rush of relief. ‘Come here.’
Ana didn’t know what he meant. They were standing a foot apart; where was she meant to go?
Then Vittorio took his hands out of his pockets and, in one effortless movement, he pulled her towards him and buried his head in her hair, breathing in deeply.
‘It’s the smell of your hair I love,’ he murmured. His hand had gone under the heavy mass of her hair to her neck. ‘I want you,’ Vittorio confessed raggedly, ‘so much. Come back to the castle with me. Make love to me, Ana.’
Love. Ana couldn’t keep the smile from her voice. ‘Again?’
‘You think once—or twice—is enough?’
She could hardly believe he wanted her so much. It shook her to her very bones, the heart of herself. ‘No, definitely not,’ she murmured.
‘Come back—’
‘No.’
Vittorio’s face fell in such a comical manner that Ana would have laughed if she wasn’t half-quivering with her own reawakened desire. ‘Not at the castle, Vittorio. Here.’
He stared down at the dusty ground. ‘Here?’ he repeated dubiously.
‘Yes,’ Ana said firmly, tugging on his hand, ‘here.’ Here, where he’d found her desirable—sexy—even in her work clothes and wind-tangled hair. Here, where she’d felt safe and heaven-bound all at once, and wanted to again, in Vittorio’s arms. Here, because among the grapes and the soil she was her real self, not the woman who wore fancy dresses and high heels and tried to seduce her husband with tricks she couldn’t begin to execute with any skill or ease.
Here.
And Vittorio accepted that—or perhaps he couldn’t wait any longer—for he spread his blazer, an expensive silk one that was soon covered in dust—on the ground and then lay Ana on it, her hair fanning out around her in a dark silken wave.
Vittorio touched her almost reverently, a look of awe on his face Ana had never expected to see. To know. The ground was hard and bumpy; pebbles dug into her back and the dust was gritty on her skin, but Ana didn’t care. She revelled in it, in this. In him.
Vittorio reached for the buttons of her old shirt. ‘I never thought white cotton could be so…inflaming,’ he murmured, and bent his head to the flesh he’d exposed.
And, as Ana’s hand clutched at his hair, she realized she had no idea that she could feel so inflamed, as if the very fires of passion were burning her up, turning her craving to liquid heat.
‘Vittorio…’
‘We may be lying in a field like some farm hand and his dairymaid,’ Vittorio murmured against her skin—somehow, all her clothes had been removed, ‘but I’m not going to have you like that, with your skirts rucked up around your waist, over in a few pathetic seconds.’
‘No, indeed, since I’m not wearing any clothes.’
And, as he smiled against her skin, Ana found she had no thoughts or words left at all. Later, as they lay entangled in a sleepy haze of satisfaction, she murmured, ‘We’re going to have the most interesting sunburn.’
‘Not if I can help it.’ In one fluid movement, Vittorio rose from the dusty ground, Ana in his arms. She squealed; she never squealed, and yet somehow that ridiculously girlish sound came out of her mouth. Vittorio grinned. ‘Put your clothes on, wife,’ he said, depositing her on the ground. ‘We have a perfectly good bed at home, and I intend to use it…all day.’
‘All day?’ Ana repeated, still squealing, and then she hurried to yank her clothes back on.

The next few weeks passed in a haze of happiness Ana had never dreamed or even hoped to feel. Although they never spoke of love, her uncertainty melted away in the light of Vittorio’s presence and affection, and she hardly thought they needed to. Why speak of love when their bodies communicated far more eloquently and pleasurably? The days were still taken up with work; Ana found herself smiling at the most ridiculous moments, while signing a form or reading a purchasing order. Sometimes, spontaneously, she even laughed aloud.
Vittorio seemed just as happy. His happiness made her happy; his countenance was light, a smile ready on his lips, those onyx eyes lightened to a pewter grey, glinting with humour and love—surely love, for Ana had little doubt that he loved her.
How could he not, when they spent night after night together, not just in passion but in quiet moments afterwards, talking and touching in a way that melted both her body and heart?
He told her bits of his childhood, the hard memories which she’d guessed at, as well as some of the good times: playing stecca with his father, going to Rome on a school trip when he was fifteen and getting outrageously drunk.
‘It’s fortunate I was not expelled.’
‘Why weren’t you?’
‘I told you, I played the trombone,’ he replied with a wicked little smile. ‘They needed me in the orchestra.’
And Ana told him things she’d never told anyone else, confessed the dark days after her mother’s death.
‘My father was overwhelmed with grief. He refused to see me for days—locked himself in her bedroom.’
‘It’s so hard to believe.’ Vittorio let his fingers drift through her hair, along her cheek. ‘He is so close to you now.’
‘It took work,’ Ana replied frankly. ‘In fact, a week after she died, he sent me to boarding school—he thought it would be easier. For him, I suppose.’ It was good, if still hard, to speak of it; bringing light to the dark memories. ‘Those two years were the worst of my life.’
Vittorio pressed his lips against the curve of her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’ And it didn’t, because in Vittorio’s arms she didn’t feel big and mannish and awkward; she felt beautiful and sexy and loved.
Loved.
No, she had no doubt at all that Vittorio loved her, no sense that there was anything but happiness—that bit of heaven—ahead of them, shining and pure, stretching to a limitless horizon.