Happy Mother's Day!

chapter ELEVEN


THE marriage took place in a small, hillside church in Umbria—not far from Gianluca’s vineyard home.

It was an odd kind of wedding, attended only by a handful of guests—Gianluca’s old nanny, his lawyer and the town mayor. Aisling had wanted to treat the occasion as a mere formality and wear something smart from her existing wardrobe—as if not making a fuss might protect her from the emotional fallout of marrying a man who did not love her.

But Suzy had persuaded her otherwise, in spite of her own disappointment at not being invited because Aisling had told her fiercely that it was only a marriage of convenience. A legal formality and nothing more—done for Claudio and no other reason.

‘Even if it is all that—it’s a celebration,’ Suzy insisted. ‘You can’t just treat it like any other day.’

‘He doesn’t love me.’

‘But you love him, don’t you?’

Aisling’s eyes filled with tears. Oh, yes. More than she had thought possible. ‘Of course I love him,’ she whispered. ‘It’s crazy, but I do. And it’s a million times stronger since I gave birth to his son.’ Furiously, she dabbed at her eyes with a small fist. ‘He thinks I got pregnant to trap him.’ ‘You didn’t, did you?’

‘Of course I didn’t!’ Aisling wailed. ‘But if you can think it—no wonder he does!’

Suzy shook her head. ‘None of this is relevant, Aisling,’ she said softly. ‘All that matters is that you have a baby between you and the marriage is going ahead. You’ve got to make the best of it—for Claudio’s sake, if nothing else. Look on it as a celebration of him, of this brand-new life you’ve created. Make him be proud of his mother when he looks back at the wedding photos!’

And it was those words which struck a chord and stirred Aisling into action. Didn’t she owe it to Claudio to make the most of what circumstances had thrown at her?

So she bought a simple ivory-coloured silk dress—even though she had been tempted to go for something in a colour she usually wore, so that she could wear it again afterwards. Practical, as always.

But she was spurred on by a crazy yet irresistible hunger to feel like a bride, even if it was only a role she had been forced to play by circumstance. And as it was probably the only time she was ever going to do it, she ended up buying everything—matching shoes, handbag, even pale stockings and lacy lingerie which was a million miles away from the underwear she usually sported.

Two days before they left for Italy, she stopped outside an upmarket baby boutique and, on impulse, went inside. She found what she hadn’t realised she’d been looking for—the sweetest little white sailor-suit in the lightest lawn-cotton. It even had a jaunty matching hat and tiny bootees and it would be perfect for the wedding.

And when Gianluca’s elderly nanny exclaimed her approval before the service started, Aisling knew she had made the right decision to act the part. Because that was all it was—play-acting.

Yet Gianluca looked so tall and impossibly handsome that Aisling felt her heart swelling with love and pride as she repeated the marriage vows. Her hand was shaking as she signed the register and she could feel the heat from his body as he leaned over her—the sheer masculine scent of him invading her senses and making her long to feel him in her arms again. How long had it been since they’d had sex? Well, that wasn’t difficult to remember—not since the night their son was conceived!

This close she could see his golden-olive skin and the thick black hair—and that amazingly autocratic profile. He turned his head to look at her and Aisling swallowed down her longing. How sensual his lips looked today, she thought. It seemed for ever since those lips had kissed her, had explored every single part of her body in a way which could still make her yearn for it to happen all over again.

Gianluca had booked a late lunch at an amazing restaurant run by a friend of his in the next town—and Aisling was surprised to see that the table was decorated with balloons and fresh flowers. At the end of the meal they even brought out the traditional Italian wedding cake of a Mille Foglie—a light and dreamy concoction topped with a smiling plastic bride and groom.

‘I wasn’t expecting this kind of … fuss,’ she said to Gianluca in a low voice, not sure how well she was keeping up the masquerade of supposedly happy bride.

‘Weren’t you?’ He thought how unlike most women she really was. That she had refused his offer of the biggest engagement ring the shop had to offer, saying that she didn’t think such a gesture would be ‘appropriate'. She might be ice-cold, but she certainly wasn’t mercenary. His ran his gaze over her—from the top of her fragrant hair to the high heels of some very sexy shoes. Was she sending out a message? he wondered idly. A silent invitation that she was prepared to break this unendurable tension between them, in the only way which would?

‘And by the way, you look utterly delizioso,’ he murmured. ‘Sensuale. Like the Mille Foglie—youlook good enough to eat, and I should like to do just that right now.’

Aisling felt a blush spreading from her face all the way down to her suddenly tingling breasts—and she felt horribly vulnerable. Wasn’t this day difficult enough, without her going to pieces just because he had implied.? ‘Gianluca—’

‘Gianluca, what?’ he mocked. ‘Please don’t bring up the one subject which has been preoccupying both of us.’

She shot a hot-faced glance at Fedele, although the lawyer appeared to be engrossed in conversation with the owner of the restaurant. ‘Please. Not in front of the others,’ she whispered.

He bent his head closer—close enough to remind her of how it had felt to have his lips on her and his body deep in hers. ‘Don’t you think it’s normal for a bride and groom to think about sex on their wedding day, mia bella?’

Perhaps if he had used another word other than sex, then Aisling might have responded with a degree of enthusiasm—or was she just fooling herself? Wasn’t there a part of her which welcomed his cold-blooded description—as if that would reinforce the fact that this marriage existed solely as a contract and not a true marriage at all. Should she condemn his lack of diplomacy—or commend him for his honesty?

Aisling jabbed her fork into the wedding cake, but failed to lift it to her mouth. And wasn’t the whole point that she did want him? Wouldn’t she be crazy to deny herself the physical pleasure of his body just because she couldn’t have his love? And surely it would make the alreadyexisting tension between them unendurable if she did.

After the meal ended, he drove the three of them back to the vineyard and Aisling told herself she was glad that the baby’s presence ruled out anything as traditional as being carried over the threshold. Come to think of it, she wasn’t even sure whether it was a tradition in Italy—and it did not seem appropriate to ask.

But Gianluca’s eyes narrowed as the door closed behind him, observing the tiredness which had given her such a strained look.

‘Why don’t you go and take a bath?’ he suggested softly. ‘And just relax. It’s been a long day.’

The unexpected kindness in his voice made her turn away before he could see the prick of tears in her eyes. ‘Yes. I think I will.’

Gianluca had rearranged the upstairs of the house, so that a whole floor of rooms had been arranged for them, with a nursery suite for Claudio. Which meant that she and her new husband could sleep alone, or together …

After changing out of her bridal finery, Aisling ran a bath and had a long and luxurious soak, but even though the tension was seeping from her body her mind wouldn’t stop racing. She lay there, watching all the bubbles gradually dissolve—and wondering where the hell they went from here. It was as if their energy had been focussed on the trip to Italy and the wedding—and now just the great unknown waited.

She slipped into some cool linen trousers and a shirt which made breast-feeding easier. Then she tied her hair back into a pony-tail before going downstairs to look for them.

It was strange, navigating this house where Gianluca had grown up but which was so new and so alien to her. So much of living was instinctive, she thought—like the way she still turned left out of the bathroom as if she were in her old flat, instead of in this huge place. Would she ever grow used to it—and would it ever feel like home?

She found Gianluca and Claudio in the garden which overlooked the glitter of the distant lake. For a moment her new husband didn’t hear her soft footsteps on the grass—he was far too engrossed in staring intently at the baby. It gave her just long enough for her stupid heart to turn over with longing at the vision they made, and then to collect herself before he noticed her reaction.

A huge, coach-built pram which had been sent down from Rome was parked beside an arbour which was spilling over with flowers. Soft, creamy-pink flowers with such an intoxicating fragrance which seemed to perfume the whole garden, and Aisling breathed in their scent as if her senses had been starved.

Gianluca was still in his dark wedding suit but he had removed his tie as he always did at the first opportunity—and had undone a couple of shirt buttons. He looked up from where he had been leaning over the pram, and Aisling suddenly felt almost weak with longing.

Gianluca stared at her with a thudding kind of disappointment and disbelief because it was as though the woman he had married today had gone through some sort of transformation. Like Cinderella in reverse, he thought bitterly. Gone was the sexy bride in her vertiginous shoes and the demure yet sexy ivory silk dress. In their place were some dulllooking trousers and an equally dull-looking shirt.

Well, what had he expected? He had forced her hand into matrimony and perhaps she had now decided it was time to flex her own muscles. To punish him. As a message of how she intended to conduct this marriage, it could not have been clearer.

‘You’ve changed,’ he observed softly.

Aisling was suddenly aware of a new hardness in his eyes. ‘The dressing-up part of the day is over, Gianluca—and, besides, this is much easier for feeding Claudio.’ She peered over at the pram rather desperately. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s asleep,’ he said abruptly.

‘Oh. Well, that’s … good.'Aisling stood there, feeling—redundant. She couldn’t even pick the baby up because if she did that she might look selfish—as if she was using him as some sort of prop, because she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

‘So tell me—what do you want to do tonight? This our wedding night,’ he mocked.

She stared at him nervously, unsure of what to say. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

‘You mean, other than the very obvious ones a groom might make to his new bride on such an occasion?’ His black eyes glittered. ‘I think you know the answer to that question, cara. And while you think about it, you will excuse me—for I have a few calls I need to make.’

Aisling stared at him in dismay. ‘But I thought you were taking a break for your honeymoon!’

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ he drawled insolently. ‘You have some ideas, perhaps? You want to drink a little champagne, or call on the chef and have him prepare us a few things to nibble on? Curl up together and watch a movie?’

‘Please don’t be sarcastic, Gianluca.’

‘Maybe I damned well feel like being sarcastic!’ he retorted hotly.

One of them needed to confront it and it looked as if it was going to have to be her. ‘About the sleeping arrangements.’ Help me out, her eyes appealed to him—but his handsome face remained faintly quizzical, as if he had nothing to do with the decision. She hesitated, unsure of how best to put it. Just tell him. Tell him you’re willing to share his bed tonight.

Gianluca almost laughed aloud at her pale face and the wary expression in her cool eyes. Did she think that he was going to start exercising his conjugal rights? To go over to her and take her in his arms and to kiss that sour little expression off her face until he was inside her?

Instead, his mouth flattened. ‘Oh, do not worry, cara.I am not so desperate for your body that I need to come begging you to take me into your bed. If I find that desire overwhelms me, then there are plenty of women who would relish the experience—rather than seeking it from one for whom the notion is so obviously abhorrent.’

‘Abhorrent?’ she echoed, bewildered. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’

‘Your face tells its own story,’ he said softly.

Even if he didn’t have a clue about her true feelings for him, surely he must have realised that she was nervous—as any woman would have been in these extraordinary circumstances? ‘I’m apprehensive,’ she admitted carefully.

Of what? he wondered. Of letting that icy composure slip? She seemed determined to keep him at an emotional arm’s length—and he could cope with that. But if they put physical distance between them, then this whole situation would quickly become intolerable, and surely Aisling was intelligent enough to realise that.

Gianluca’s eyes narrowed. She operated like a man in the way she compartmentalised her life. So why not present his proposition in a way she would find acceptable?

He moved towards her and lifted his hand to her face, slowly and thoughtfully using it to sculpt the shape of her chin, allowing the pad of his thumb to briefly graze across the lips which trembled. He observed the darkening of her eyes as he drew his hand away.

‘I want you,’ he said starkly.

‘Gianluca—’

‘I shall come to you tonight,’ he said softly. ‘And if you want me, then you must leave your door open. That is your choice. If it is shut, I shall not come to you again.’

Oh, why didn’t he seal his intent with a kiss? she wondered desperately. Why talk about it in those hard, cold terms as if it was some kind of takeover bid? Because that was exactly what it was. First her baby, and now her body—of course he wanted them both.

But Aisling wasn’t stupid. She wanted him, too—with a fierce hunger which frightened her. A need which was born out of the heart as much as the body. She was afraid of where all this was going to lead—but she forced her mind to draw back from the dark, torturous routes of her imagination.

Why project into an unknown future? She might get hurt, yes—but she suspected she was going to get hurt anyway and only a fool would deny herself as much pleasure as possible in the meantime.

But there was no need to be a walkover. Keep him guessing. In the past she had given in to him all too easily—surely the only way to keep his interest alive was to not be a sure bet? Hadn’t he once told her that himself—that the thing about her which appealed to him was the fact that she was so enigmatic?

‘I’ll give it some thought,’ she said coolly.

Oh, but she was awesome, he thought—with reluctant admiration. Like a cold and brilliant diamond. He gave a soft laugh. ‘Just one more thing, Aisling.’

She swallowed, her heart beating so fast that she could barely get the word out. ‘What?’

His eyes flickered to the tight pony tail. ‘If I come to you tonight,’ he said softly, ‘be sure to let down your hair.’