The Marriage He Must Keep (11 page)

As he left, she kept her stinging eyes closed tight and tried to believe he wasn’t being optimistic. She wanted so badly to believe him.

But what if he was wrong?

* * *

Alessandro reentered the suite an hour later and saw the bed was empty. Clothes were strewed on the chair and the foot of the mattress. She wasn’t in the bathroom.

He was so keyed up, his heart lurched in his chest, convinced in that first second that she’d left in a hurry, but her cases were still here, one of them open on the floor near the closet.

The door into the sitting room was also open. He strode in to find Lorenzo asleep, which was reassuring, but there was no sign of the nanny or Octavia.

A hand appeared on the brocade curtain and Octavia peered at him from where she was sitting in the sun on the balcony. “Are you hungry? I ordered for both of us.”

He stepped outside to join her, finding her picking over a selection of antipasto, the scene so commonplace it made his leap to wrong conclusions embarrassing.

“I came up to see if you were awake and wanted to join us for a late lunch.” He stole a square of sharp cheese and hunger contracted his stomach. He dug in to the rest. “Where’s Bree?”

“I said I’d listen for Lorenzo so she could introduce herself to the kitchen and walk the grounds, get her bearings. Don’t eat all the olives.”

His mouth twitched at her command, still not used to her new assertiveness, but there was something engaging about it. Like finding unexpected talent in your tennis opponent so the match was more challenging.

He was about done with challenges for the moment, though, he thought with a scowl.

He slid his attention to the tomato slices sprinkled with chopped basil and scooped a circle of toasted bread into the tapenade, topped it with an artichoke heart, then chased it with two of the stuffed grape leaves.

“You could have brought him down,” he chided. “You’re hiding.” Not that he blamed her. He had no desire to go to the dining room now he was here.

“I’m acclimating,” she corrected. “It’s nice to feel the sun and smell the earth and hear Italian again.” She tilted her closed eyes to the sky.

His conscience pinched, but then he reminded himself she’d been considering staying in London. He might have sent her away, but he’d brought her home, too.

The thought didn’t ease the havoc inside him. His muscles were still twitching with aggression after holding himself back so heroically in his meeting with his grandfather and his uncle.

A fierce need to see his wife had driven him in swift steps up to their room. Funny how, after years of being the safety net for his entire family, he’d alienated nearly all of them and really only had an ally in Octavia. No one else appreciated the depth of betrayal he was experiencing and it bound him to her in a way he hadn’t recognized until his uncle had confronted him on it.

“What hold does she have on you that you’d choose her over Primo?”
That bark from Giacomo had lit a fire in Alessandro. His own grandfather had asked if there was some way—or reason—her family could have done this.

Octavia was his
wife
, he’d near shouted in completely uncharacteristic ferocity. They’d stared at him flatly. The statement wasn’t an explanation.

You don’t choose a woman over your family
, his uncle had spat, adding to his grandfather,
He was always unpredictable
. It had been a deliberate attempt to goad Alessandro into losing his temper completely.

It had nearly worked. Instead, he’d said something that he hadn’t even computed until the words had come out of his mouth.
“Octavia is my family. She and my son are as much my family as any of you. I protect all of my family. Provided they remain loyal to me.”

Thankfully Octavia’s eyes remained closed and she couldn’t see the barely banked rage he was still struggling to contain. Or his confusion as he belatedly wondered if he really was choosing his marriage over his fealty to the Ferrantes. He had fashioned himself into a bastion of dependability and allegiance and
couldn’t
let a woman shake his resolve. That’s why he hadn’t wanted a love match when he married.

But as she’d held him off this past month, showing more caution than warmth, he’d been acutely aware of a sense of loss. He was ready to do just about anything to get back what he’d had.

Which disturbed him.

Leaning his backside on the balcony rail, he studied his wife, trying to determine how she was managing to affect him so deeply. She wasn’t a calculating femme fatale making a deliberate effort to provoke him. Quite the opposite. In some ways she was more aloof than when they’d first met, but wasn’t doing it as a lure.

She was genuinely disappointed and mistrustful, which cut a straight line through his ego.

Plus, she was so beautiful his throat hurt just looking at her. The baby weight still softening her pretty features made them even more sensual and fascinating. Her hair was loose and longer than he remembered it. He wanted to comb his hands through the silky strands, letting them caress between his fingers, then bury his nose in the almond-and-nutmeg scent. That hair of hers had been a fetish since his first whiff. Why?

Her color was better, he noted, though her brow remained tense and there was an underlying anxiety in the somberness of her mouth. She still seemed very wary and worried.

But she’d called him Sandro earlier. It had been so sweet it had touched off a pang in his chest, until he’d seen how badly she’d wanted to swallow it back, fearful she’d let her defenses down too far. He’d taken such encouragement from that little slip and had been shaken by how much she’d regretted letting it happen.

He sighed at the gridlock before him.

She opened her eyes.

“Don’t you want to look at the view?” She indicated the cushioned chair on the other side of the table, then nodded past him to the sweep of land toward the distant water.

“I am,” he said, delivering his compliment with a dose of self-mockery, mostly because it was so damned true. He could barely take his eyes off her.

And he wasn’t above using every weapon at his disposal to overcome her defenses, even flattery.

Which he supposed she realized because she dismissed his words with a downward sweep of her lashes. It should have been a relief that she didn’t know how sincere he was in his praise of her, that he was entranced by her, but it just reminded him that she didn’t even trust him to be honest about something as simple as her beauty.

The food he’d eaten grew heavy as gravel in the pit of his gut.

After a moment, she lifted her attention to him, her expression grave. “How did it go?”

He shrugged shoulders that were prickling from the penetrating heat of the sun, instinctively wanting to shut down a rehash of what had been a very difficult conversation. But his efforts to protect her had backfired in the past. He supposed she had a right to know what they were up against.

“My grandfather is understandably troubled. Giacomo is livid.”

She glanced back toward where Lorenzo slept, brow knitting with consternation.

“No,
cara
,” he reassured in a quick hush, stepping forward. He leaned down to kiss the part in her hair, surreptitiously stealing a caress and inhaling her scent, but trying to impart comfort, too. He was a physical man and found it easier to show than to tell, but he did his best to assuage her fears with words, too. “He won’t harm him. And I won’t let anyone try.”

“You’re sure?” She caught his hand.

Her fingers were cold and the tightness with which she clung was both heartening and worrisome. He liked that she was looking to him and seemed so willing to take his word. It was a first step in rebuilding her belief in him, but it made him realize how frightened she was under her composed exterior. He was learning that his wife was a woman of far more complexity than he’d given her credit for.

Which was a concern on many levels, but for now he had to alleviate her fear.

He hooked his foot around the leg of the empty chair and dragged it around so he faced her, not letting go of her hand. He spoke in an undertone that wouldn’t carry to open windows or below to the gardens.

“I am sure, but we are facing a greater battle than I anticipated. Primo wasn’t the only one playing politics or resenting my position.”

“I never thought it significant before,” she murmured. “Until we arrived today and I saw that almost everyone who lives here... They’re all Giacomo’s children. There’s your aunt, but she travels so much this isn’t really where she lives, is it? And no one from your father’s or his sister’s side.”

They’d all had seemingly valid reasons for moving in and it was his grandfather’s house. Alessandro hadn’t considered it an appropriation, especially when his grandfather was in fine health and Alessandro preferred his town house because it was closer to work. Through Octavia’s eyes, however, he saw things much differently.

Especially after today’s conversation.

“My uncle is trying to convince my grandfather to let him have control again. So I may have an opportunity to put my house in order.” Disdain curled his lip as he recalled the suggestion. “I said he has some work to do in his own. I
am
in control, legally, so it’s not within my grandfather’s rights to remove me, but I didn’t want to insult him by reminding Giacomo of that in front of him. Things will get uglier before they settle into place.”

The wrinkle in her brow deepened. “When I went off to school, there was a girl in her last year there. Her father had a bone to pick with mine. To this day, I don’t even know what the problem was, but she turned me into persona non grata
.
I feel like that’s how it’s going to be here.”

She was pale and, despite the new mettle she was showing toward him, very sensitive. He saw it now, underneath the impassive expression she’d no doubt perfected against cold shoulders.

A weight settled on his heart, an apology on his lips.

“I’m asking a lot, I know.” He massaged her hand, still bare of his rings. Even though he knew she wasn’t leaving them off to hurt him, he disliked how her empty fingers suggested their marriage had been set on a windowsill to collect dust. He wanted the statement of their commitment back where it was prominent and visible.

But the rings were the least of his problems. He forced himself to maintain a light hold on her fingers, even though a subversive sense of urgency made him want to close his grip and hang on tight. Was he harming her—
them
—by insisting she face this with him? When she’d already been through so much and confrontation wasn’t her strong suit?

Was it even necessary for her to be here? After his uncle’s questioning of his loyalty, he had to wonder if these final weeks of restructuring might be easier if Octavia wasn’t under everyone’s noses.

Even as he considered sending her away, he rejected the idea. He wasn’t giving her up. Not when it was exactly the result Primo had hoped for.

Octavia had been a source of tension in the family from the moment he had married her, he saw now. His taking a wife and producing an heir was the assertion of his position as overseer of the Ferrante empire. Apparently Primo hadn’t been the only one to find that threatening. From his Uncle Giacomo through that branch of the family, there was disapproval and antagonism.

The opposition Sandro had only subconsciously acknowledged in his cousin last year was flagrant now. Leaving Octavia in London had given them all breathing space, but it had been a mistake. Sandro wouldn’t abandon her again and it was a decision that had less to do with defending his right to his heritage and more to do with how precarious his marriage was. If Giacomo and the rest of the family made these next few weeks difficult enough, he could lose Octavia and he simply refused to.

For the millionth time in the past four weeks, he wished he could sweep her into their bed, make love to her and reforge the connection they needed. Instead, he had to watch her fingers twitch nervously under his touch and her bottom lip catch between her teeth.

How did one earn a woman’s trust if not by demonstrating that even though he was strong enough to overpower her, he would only ever use his agility and strength to pleasure and protect her?

“What happened when your father died?” she asked, unexpectedly shaking him out of his rumination. “Did your uncle not challenge your right to command then?”

The memory of that dark time rose quick and fast to strike his heart like a rusted iron blade. He sat back, dropping her hand and trying to close the topic as swiftly and bluntly as he could.

“He didn’t have to. He was put in charge as a provision in the directorship. I was too young and too trapped in grief to properly take in the politics or legalities. Plus, I felt so guilty I refused to even train for the position, so he dismissed me as a threat. It was years before I considered it, even longer before I was ready to usurp him.”

He cut himself off as he realized he’d said too much.

Octavia cocked her head in curiosity. “What do you mean you refused? Why did you feel guilty?”

He didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t revisit the past without self-hatred overtaking him. His grandfather was the one who had insisted he assume the role, pushing and testing and guiding, telling him he owed it to his father to care and provide for the family the way his father would have done if he’d lived.

Alessandro flinched as his crisis of faith crept up to revisit him.

In light of all they were going through, did he deserve to oversee the family fortune? Had he caused this fissure in the family by marrying her instead of allowing Primo to do it?

How would Octavia see his actions? Would she side with his grandfather’s view that he owed it to his father to shoulder the responsibility? Or with his own view that he was unworthy? Or with Giacomo’s dismissal that he was unpredictable.

Unfit.

“We were at a festival,” he said, rubbing suddenly chilly hands on his thighs. He cleared the huskiness from his voice. “I was twelve. You know that. I had a fight. It was a stupid argument between a pair of boys wanting to test each other. You understand what I mean? Hormones and immaturity. Bravado. Nothing more. But it felt like everything at the time.”