Chapter FOUR
JILLIAN fumed in her cabin as she confronted her open suitcase. Silver, gold or cream? Something celebratory for their ceremony?
Ha! He was out of his mind. His power had clearly gone to his head. There was no way she was going to dress up in a sparkly party dress for their vows. Because this wasn’t a special occasion and she wasn’t celebrating.
He was the one insisting on the wedding. He was the one forcing her hand.
Fine. Force her. But she wouldn’t meet him dressed up like a shiny doll without a mind of her own.
No, she’d dress for the occasion her way. Which meant she’d find the plainest, drabbest, darkest dress she owned and wear that for their vows. A dull, dowdy black outfit should convey quite nicely how she felt about their nuptials.
Jillian allowed herself the faintest of smiles as she dragged a high-necked black blouse and a long gray skirt from the bottom of her suitcase. Perfect. Gray and black. Perfect colors for mourning.
Thirty minutes later, Vittorio stood in the center of the jet’s living room holding Jill’s hands as he recited his vows. His chief pilot, the jet’s captain, performed the simple service.
Jill, he noted, had dressed as if she was attending a funeral, replacing her gray knit top with a severe high-collared black blouse and the black pants with a long, narrow, charcoal-gray skirt.
She wore the blouse buttoned high on her neck and her pale hair had been pulled back into a low knot at the back of her head. She wore no jewelry or makeup and couldn’t have looked more miserable if she’d tried.
But she did go through with the ceremony, speaking her vows in a clear, almost defiant voice, and holding her hand steady so he could slip the ring onto her fourth finger.
And now his captain concluded the service, pronouncing them man and wife.
The captain didn’t linger. With his mission accomplished, he returned to the cockpit, leaving Vitt and Jill to celebrate together.
The flight attendant appeared with more champagne, and a silver platter of delicate appetizers. Vittorio ate and drank, but Jill touched nothing. It didn’t particularly trouble him. This wasn’t a love marriage—it was about duty, commitment and responsibility, as well as restoring honor to his family.
“Jill d’Severano,” he said, trying it out as he studied her pallor and her brown eyes that looked far too big for her small face. “Mrs. Vittorio d’Severano.”
She lifted her chin, her expression pained. Apparently she wasn’t very fond of the name.
“I wish I could say the worst was over,” he added thoughtfully, “but tomorrow won’t be easy. Nor will the day after that. But in a week’s time the shock will wear off and acceptance will begin.”
“It’s going to take me more than a week to get used to being your wife,” she answered tartly.
He laughed. “I was referring to my mother, and how she’ll react to you. But I suppose you’re right. You must be in shock, too. How were you to know this morning when you woke, that twelve hours later you’d be on a plane to Sicily, married to me?”
Fire flashed in her eyes. “Your empathy is touching.”
“My empathy allows me to protect you instead of crushing you. You should be grateful for that.”
She opened her mouth to speak but then closed it, shaking her head in silent, seething frustration.
She looked like a nun at a funeral. A nun minus the wimple. She was buttoned and closed and as emotionally distant as possible. But this was his wedding day, too, and he wouldn’t let her do this to him, wouldn’t have her play victim, all numb and cold, not when she’d created this situation. And not when he’d worked so damn hard to fix it.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he told her, aware that his voice was hard, aware that he sounded every bit as cold as she looked. “You have the softness of a dried up old prune.”
She held his gaze. “I like prunes.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“If you were, you’d unbutton your blouse a little, smile a little, act like this isn’t the worst day of your life.”
“When it really is.”
“I should have left you on the side of the road when I had the chance!”
“Too late. You brought me along. Married me. We’re now husband and wife.”
“And wives are to submit to their husbands.”
“To believe that, you must also believe that husbands are to submit to the Church. But somehow I doubt you submit to anyone,” she retorted, her eyes huge, her jaw tightly clenched.
His temper flared. She was not the injured party. She could not be allowed to play the victim, either. He was the one who’d been cheated. He was the one who’d been kept from his son.
“Do it,” he ordered brusquely, “just unbutton a couple of buttons or I’ll do it myself.”
“We’re to consummate the marriage here?” she flashed. “Right now?”
“It hadn’t been my intention, but if you’re eager—”
“Not at all.”
“—and desirous of being my obedient, obliging wife—”
“That’s the furthest thing from my mind.”
“—then you can pleasure me. I appreciate that you are so sensitive to my needs.”
She flushed furiously, her pale cheeks flooding with bright crimson color. “You have many needs, if I recall.”
He took a step toward her. “And you begged for it every single time.”
Undaunted, she took a step toward him. “You flatter yourself.”
“No, if you recall, you flattered me. You were amazed at what my body could do and how I could make you feel. You wanted to know if all men were as well endowed as me, and if others could last so long. You were nearly always reverent when you took me into your mouth—”
“I was tired of being a virgin. I wanted knowledge and experience. You gave it to me. But I’ve been with other men now. I know what others can do, and oh, can they do.”
He took another step toward her and once again she moved closer, chin lifted, eyes bright and challenging. She was deliberately provoking him, daring him to lose control. He was getting close to losing control, too, intensely aware of the hot lick of testosterone, and the primitive drive of an animal hunting prey.
“And what can they do?” he murmured, so very aroused.
She held her ground, chin high, eyes bright as she breathed in and out in short, jerky gasps that made her breasts rise and fall beneath the ugly black blouse. Her cheeks were a vivid pink. “They make me moan and scream,” she threw at him.
“Really?”
“Mmm. And the good ones can make me come multiple times.”
This was a fine wedding day, wasn’t it? “You’ve really gotten around.”
“Why not? I wasn’t your woman.”
“But you are now.” He reached out an arm, and catching her low around her waist, drew her toward him.
And with his body hot, his groin hard, he roughly slipped his finger between the buttons at her breastbone and popped the first button off. “Just as you always will be,” he said, moving down a button and popping that one off, too. “So let’s dispense with this blouse, shall we?”
Her lips now were nearly as pink as her cheeks. “Why don’t you just lift my skirt and get this over with?”
She spit the words at him as if she could shame him.
He wouldn’t be shamed though. He remembered how they’d been together. Intense, physical, passionate.
“Why rush our pleasure?” he asked, reaching out to touch one of the loose blond waves that now fell past her shoulders.
She stared him in the eye, her expression disdainful. “You wouldn’t know how to pleasure me if you tried.”
“Why do you want to provoke me?”
“Not trying to. Just stating facts.”
Facts. His lip curled ever so slightly.
Despite everything, she was still determined to play a game with him, something he found both disturbing and intriguing.
She was either incredibly brave or ridiculously foolish. He wasn’t a man to toy with. She had to know that. So why dangle her adventures with other men before him? Why throw his so-called inadequacies in his face?
Brave or foolish, she did intrigue him.
She’d intrigued him in Istanbul and then she’d intrigued him in Bellagio and now here she was, cornered on his plane, his ring on her finger, mocking him. Challenging him. Attempting to defy him.
Interesting, so interesting because so few people tried to defy him, much less a slim scrap of woman who didn’t even reach his shoulder. Jill Smith was a complete enigma. She was small and fine-boned and yet so very fierce. She had a heart-shaped face, heartbreakingly high cheekbones and fire in her eyes. She flung her head back as if she were a tigress and to draw blood she talked of other men.
Of other men pleasuring her. Of other men making her moan and scream.
He should want to crush her. He should want to teach her a lesson.
But he didn’t. Because he also knew that beneath her fire and fury there was terrible sadness.
He’d sensed it that first night they were together and then nearly every night after they’d made love, she would wrap her arms tightly around him and cling tight. Clinging as if her life depended on it.
He held her against him, her cheek pressed to his chest, and he’d stroke her hair again and again until she fell asleep.
Some nights he felt tears on his chest.
Some nights he felt her take a deep shuddering breath.
But always the sadness, and always his aching need to help her. To save her. To protect her.
That’s when he knew he loved her. That’s when he imagined marrying her.
He’d marry her and give her a new life, a better life. She could start over as a d’Severano with him.
And now she was, his wife but under totally different circumstances. Which intrigued his mind but left his heart cold.
“I see,” he said evenly. “This is your idea of foreplay. You want me to talk dirty, manhandle you a bit, before dominating you in bed.”
Two spots of pink color bloomed high in her cheeks. “You’re crass.”
He felt his lips curve in an unfeeling smile. “And you were the one that suggested I lift your skirt and get it over with. Would you prefer I do it here, against the wall, or would you rather I bend you over the armrest and take you from behind? I do remember you enjoyed it on your knees—”
“Did enjoy,” she interrupted tightly, “past tense. Because I will never enjoy sex with you now—”
“Stop. Save the protests for someone who might believe them. I know better. You have always been hot and eager in my bed, and even if you’ve been with a hundred men since, I know you’ll be just as hot and eager again.”
Her eyes burned. Her cheeks turned crimson. “I couldn’t—”
“You could. Easily.”
And to prove his point, he cupped her jaw and dropped his head to brush his lips over the warm satin of her cheek and down to the corner of her mouth. His mouth barely touched hers and yet he felt her lower lip quiver, heard her soft inhale. He kissed her again, just as lightly, a kiss that just grazed her lips, a kiss that was fleeting, teasing.
He could tell she was trying to remain rigid, trying to pretend she was indifferent to him and yet he could feel her rapid pulse in the hollow beneath her ear and the sizzling heat of her skin. She wasn’t just warm, she was almost feverish to the touch, and her lips, which had been so tightly closed a moment ago, were parted now. She was breathing in those shallow little gasps that he’d always found erotic.
Instead of kissing her again, he reached inside her torn blouse and plucked aside her bra to cup one bare breast. Her skin felt like hot satin and his body, already hard, throbbed.
He strummed the taut nipple, and then rolled it between his fingers. She arched and inhaled and he pulled her against him, grinding his hips to hers so that she could feel the weight and heat of his erection, rubbing the trapped length between her thighs. She shuddered and arched and moaned.
The moan was what drove him out of his mind. That soft kittenlike cry, a mew of bewildered pleasure, severed all rational thought, annihilating control.
He flicked up her skirt, ran a hand up the inside of her thigh, feeling the quiver in her leg as his palm caressed the taut smooth muscle. He ran his hand up, up until it reached the elastic band of her panty.
He felt the damp heat of her before he’d even touched her there. She was hot, wildly hot, and when he stroked his thumb over the outside of the thin cotton fabric, she jerked and shuddered. She was still as sensitive as he remembered. He stroked her again, brushing the tender *, watching her whimper and squirm.
She wanted him. And he was her husband. And while he hadn’t planned on taking her here, now, like this, the primal male in him recognized that he could, and should. Because she was his. Because she now would always be his.
Sliding a finger beneath the elastic, he stroked her without the cotton barrier, and she was slick and silky and warm, so very, very warm.
He plunged his finger into her damp hot core and heard her sigh and felt her muscles tighten around his finger. He remained still, reveling in her tightness, and her softness, but she was impatient and she bucked against him, wanting friction, needing sensation.
He stroked her, once, again and then with two fingers and still she arched, and still she whimpered, and they both knew it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Not between them. Theirs was a physical relationship, an intense relationship, one founded on chemistry, desire and possession.
He’d possess her now, and he’d start with his mouth.
The ugly gray skirt had a loose elastic waistband and he tugged it to her feet in one swift motion. Her panties followed, and then he stripped off her shoes. She was half-naked and trembling but she wasn’t afraid. He knew her better than that. Jill, his bride, was trembling with need.
Lifting her, he positioned her over the arm of the suede chair and pressed her back down, putting her butt high in the air. She was completely bare down there, something he liked, finding it erotic to have so much skin exposed. He ran a hand over her cheek, toward the cleft and then down to the soft, plump outer lips between her thighs.
She tensed and quivered as he caressed the cleft again, teasing the swollen flesh until she swung her hips in desperation.
He parted her legs wider, kneeled behind her and took the taut aching bud of her * in his mouth, alternately sucking and licking until she began pleading with him to mount her, take her. He refused. He wanted her to buck and squirm, beg and groan until she shattered against his mouth and he could taste her surrender on his tongue.
“Please, Vitt,” she panted, as his hands held her thighs apart and his tongue stroked and jabbed and then sucked and bit. “Please, please.”
But he wouldn’t fill her, wouldn’t please her until he’d pleased himself by making her come this way. And so he licked her, covering her soft, wet, silky skin with his mouth, sucking harder, flicking the tip of his tongue over the delicate ridge until she broke, crying out as she climaxed in wave after wave, her body shuddering helplessly.
He knew he was a barbarian when he freed himself without taking off his slacks, pulling his length instead from his zipper. Fully dressed, he plunged into her hot, wet sheath while she was still shuddering. It was raw and primitive to mount her this way, but his body was hard and tight and about to explode. With his hands on her hips he held her firmly, taking her with deep long thrusts. He groaned at the pleasure, even as he hated himself for being ruthless. In his heart he knew a woman needed more tenderness. In his heart he’d wanted once to love her, not merely possess her, but possess her he did.
He was feeling even more barbaric as he neared his own climax, certain her body was sensitive, and then as he stiffened, the pressure building, she arched back against him, chest jutting, head thrown back as she came again, crying out even louder than she had before.
He came inside of her, emptying his seed into her and it crossed his mind that this was how it’d happened before. There’d been no protection the first time—although they’d used it every other time—but it’d taken just that one time. Perhaps it’d happen again.
Finished, drained, he slowly withdrew from her, his emotions as numb as his body was exhausted. He expected he’d feel something—pleasure, remorse, relief—instead he felt pain.
Pain.
How could that be? And why? Why should he hurt when she’d been the one to wrong him?
Infuriated by the thick dark emotions churning inside of him, emotions so heavy and aching he couldn’t even begin to understand, he reached out and slapped one cheek of her round pert ass. “I think I’m going to like the married life.”
And then, emotions wild on the inside, he tucked himself back into his trousers, zipped his slacks and walked out, leaving her to pull herself together on her own.
For a moment after he left, Jillian did nothing. Her legs were jelly. Her limbs shook. It was as if a bomb had exploded and she’d been left in the shattered aftermath.
Seconds passed and then she roused herself, forcing herself to move. Biting her lip, Jill straightened and began to gather her clothes strewn across the cabin floor, stepping into her panties, then her skirt before holding the torn blouse closed.
Numb, so numb, she walked quickly to her room, air bottled in her lungs, her throat raw from holding in all the emotion.
But in her room a tear fell, and then another, and she dashed them away with a furious fist.
She hated that she cried, but she cried not out of pain, or helplessness, or despair, but fury.
Fury with herself. Fury with him. Fury that she enjoyed the lovemaking as much as she had. Because she had. So very, very much.
Yet how could that be possible?
How could she allow herself to feel anything with him, much less pleasure?
And God forgive her, it’d been exquisite.
His hands, his tongue, his mouth…she shuddered with pleasure all over again even as her mind railed against her body.
She was weak.
She was pathetic.
And she’d loved it all—the wildness, the rawness, the passion. It’d been primitive and carnal and hot. Very, very hot. She could still feel the heat of his skin on hers, the weight of his body, the pressure of his hands. He’d held her, shaped her, taken her as if she were his to possess, and apparently she was. Because instead of shutting him down, she’d become hotter and wetter, responding to him with a feverish desperation.
Horrible.
For a moment Jillian felt like her father—a traitor. She’d betrayed herself. Her father had betrayed his mob family. And maybe their sins weren’t of the same magnitude, but still, the genetic link was there, as well as the same weakness of character.
Her stomach cramped at the thought. She couldn’t bear the idea that she was like her father. He’d hurt so many people. He’d destroyed their family. She refused to be like him.
Walking into the small ensuite bath, Jillian let her clothes fall and then stepped into the narrow shower, turning the water on full force. It was cold. She felt icy. But icy and cold was so much better than the last lingering effects of her feverish desire.
Taking the bar of French lavender soap, she scrubbed her skin, washing away Vittorio’s scent and imprint, telling herself she was not his, that she did not belong to him even though everything inside her whispered, you will always want him.
She feared it was true. Despite everything, there was something about him that connected with her. Something about him that mattered so much to her.
Biting her lip, she rinsed her thighs as she felt the soreness inside, where Vitt had been. He was large and he’d taken her hard and this was the first time she’d had sex since Joe’s birth.
But Vittorio didn’t know that. Vittorio thought she’d been with dozens of men because that’s what she’d told him.
Scalding tears burned the back of her eyes but she wouldn’t let them fall. Instead she tipped her head back and let the water course down, drumming strength into her, drumming confidence.
There’d be no more tears.
She needed to be focused and smart and think about what would happen when they reached Sicily.
She was entering Vittorio’s world tomorrow morning, arriving in Catania as his wife. That should make her feel protected. Respected.
Unfortunately the rushed ceremony made her feel exactly the opposite. The ceremony did not seem binding. Never mind honorable. Maybe the marriage gave Joe Vittorio’s name, but it did nothing to ease her fears, or her sense of isolation.
She was still vulnerable.
In Sicily, she’d need Vittorio’s protection.
How to get his protection and his family’s respect? It wouldn’t be with a quickie wedding, she knew that much. If Vitt’s mother was as devout as Vitt said she was, she’d never accept Jillian as her daughter-in-law, not unless she believed their union had been sanctioned by the church. But how could their union be blessed by the church, if they hadn’t even married in a church, or by a priest?
Her stomach did another nervous flip as she realized she needed a public acknowledgment that she and Vitt had indeed exchanged vows, and that they viewed their vows as holy and binding.
Which meant they needed a church wedding.
Fast.
Jillian dressed and blew dry her hair with care. She was just putting on earrings when a knock sounded on the door and she opened the door to discover Maria in the hall with Joe.
“Mama,” he said, smiling and reaching for her.
What a lovely surprise! Jillian took her baby from Maria and hugged him tight. His small sturdy arms wrapped around her neck and she kissed his neck, his cheek, loving the sweet smell of him. Her baby. Her boy.
“Signore, Signor d’Severano has said dinner will be served in fifteen minutes.”
“We’re dining with Joe?”
Maria shook her head. “I do not think so. I believe it is just you and Signor, although he thought Joseph could join you for the first few minutes.”
“Come in, then. I’m almost ready. Just need to finish styling my hair.”
In front of the mirror in the bathroom, Jillian gathered her blond hair, shaping and pinning it into a soft French twist before stepping back to examine her reflection. With her fair hair up, and in the soft silver knit top and dark pewter slacks, she could almost pass for elegant. The top and slacks were big on her, items left over from her transition wardrobe following Joe’s birth, but with pink lipstick, silver bangles on her wrist and a sophisticated hairstyle, she looked polished. Serene. Strong.
Serene and strong was good, because when she joined Vittorio for dinner, she had a purpose.
She was going to convince Vittorio that they needed to marry again, but this time in a beautiful ceremony in his hometown, in his family’s church, in front of his community of family and friends.
She wasn’t sure how he’d react to the proposed ceremony. She only knew she had to convince him it was necessary.
Finished dressing, Jillian thanked Maria for taking care of Joe and then carried her son to the dining room. Vittorio joined her almost immediately and she watched as he entered the room in a crisp white dress shirt with dark tailored trousers. His black hair was again damp and neatly combed, his hard, handsome features set.
She should hate him. She should.
She couldn’t.
Because just looking at him, she wanted him all over again. Just seeing his beautiful face with that chiseled jaw and full, sensual mouth made her body warm.
Was it only an hour ago he’d parted her legs and covered her most sensitive skin with his lips? She remembered the way he’d sucked and licked and tasted her. It’d been wanton lovemaking. So very carnal. And yet it’d been exquisite, too. Who knew such pleasure was possible?
Yet desire came with a price. And hadn’t she learned by now that those who needed others gave up power?
And wasn’t she sick of being powerless?
Ever since she was a child, she’d been at the mercy of others. First, her father. Then, the government. Between twelve and twenty they’d lived in five different states with four different identities. Each new identity required a new image, a new name, a new history.
At first it’d been difficult to remember the script. Lee Black of Ashford, Oregon. Carol Cooper from Fountain Hills, Arizona. Anne Johnson, Fredericksburg, Texas. Jillian Smith, Visalia, California.
And then it stopped being hard, because she stopped caring. It was easier not to try to fit in. Easier not to make friends. Why bother to make friends when you’d soon have to leave them without a word of explanation, or the hope of ever seeing them again? In the government’s Witness Protection Program there was no such thing as change of address cards, forwarding phone numbers, email exchanges. In the Witness Protection Program you simply vanished into thin air.
That lack of stability, and lack of control, transformed her from the innocent, sheltered little girl she’d been, a girl who’d adored her father, a girl who’d felt so very safe, into the woman she was today.
From the time she’d left home to go to college, she’d had one goal—to be completely independent. She’d gone to graduate school after finishing Gonzaga University to earn a master’s degree in hospitality management, an advanced degree in the hotel and tourism industry, thinking it was a practical study, one that would catapult her to the top. Because the one thing she’d always wanted was power of her own. Power to choose. Power to travel. Power to become someone else.
And she’d come so close to having that power and freedom. In Istanbul she’d been delighted by her job, her apartment, her clever circle of friends. But then she’d met Vittorio, and accepted his dinner invitation and her life had never been the same.
She’d given up everything that one night without even knowing it.
“I still can’t get over the fact that you’re blonde,” he said, approaching her.
“It doesn’t please you?” she said, shifting Joe in her arms.
“It wasn’t done to please me.” As he neared her, his dark eyes met hers and held. “It was done to hide from me. It was done to keep him from me,” he added, nodding at Joe.
She held her ground, refusing to be intimidated. “True.”
“And you’re not the least apologetic.”
“I did what I thought was necessary,” she answered, aware that Joe was watching his father with obvious fascination. “But that’s behind us. We must close the door on the past. Now you’re my husband. My protector. I have nothing to fear with you at my side.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “And you have nothing to fear as long as you are honest with me.” His dark eyes burned her with searing intensity. “As long as I can trust you.”
And then he held his arms out for his son.