The Bride's Awakening (5 page)

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.’

Naïve 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.