The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. (18 page)

With fingers that weren’t quite steady, she lifted her hand and pressed the doorbell. It was just after midnight, but this was the earliest she’d been able to make it to the townhouse. Her restaurant was booked solid for months; the two sittings she accommodated meant she worked even crazier hours now than when she had been married. And it suited her just fine to be so busy she didn’t have a second to think, or feel.

She smoothed a hand down her jean-clad thigh, trying to hide how nervous she was. But the knowledge that she was about to see her husband for the first time in ten months was making breathing almost impossible. Bianca had not dressed up. Her feminine desire to look her best had lost out to pride, which dictated that she not let him know she still cared what he thought of her.

Jeans and a black skivvy were her work staples, and he could just deal with the fact that his wife was more of a homebody than a glamazon. With a frown, she leaned forward and peered through the tinted glass windows. No use; she couldn’t see a thing. She pressed the button again, shivering a little in the cold October night air.

Niko wrenched the door open impatiently, his face guarded, his expression neutral. Bored, if anything, she would have said with an indignant stab of pain in the region of her heart. And though she’d promised herself she’d keep her own feelings hidden, she couldn’t control the way her eyes hungrily roamed his body, savoring the sight of him after so long without.

He was dressed all in black; well-worn jeans and a jet black sweater that showed off his bulging muscles and the olive skin at the vee of his neck. His hair was a little longer than he’d worn it when they were married; the dark curls ran just to the collar of his shirt.

She dug her nails into her palms, so hard that she could have drawn blood, and forced her expression to mirror his. Calm, implacable, disinterested.

“Niko, I’m freezing out here. Do you mind?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course.
Mi casa e su casa.”

The irony was not lost on her. His house had been her house, once upon a time. She stepped into the hallway, casting her eyes around. It was as it had been during their marriage, with the exception of the wedding photo that had hung above the hall table. A Mondrian was now its place, large and bright. Happy and ordered, the painting was everything they were not.

“Drink?” He asked, moving through the house towards the kitchen at the rear of the property. She followed behind, glumly remembering how she’d always admired his economy of movement, and his economy of words. Now, it felt like he was wasting as few syllables on her as possible.

“Yes. Something strong.”

He flashed her a derisive smile. “You hate this, don’t you?”

“Hate what?” She queried, watching as he tipped scotch into two cut-crystal tumblers. Her fingers crept up to her KitcheAid stand mixer and slowly she ran a hand down its silver mixing bowl. The kitchen had always been her domain. It was odd being back now.

“Asking me for help.”

“Yes.” She took the glass from him and tilted it to her lips. She pulled a face as the liquid burned its way down her esophagus, into her empty stomach.

“Then why are you?”

“Asking you for help?”

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, obviously impatient. “Yes.”

She placed the scotch glass onto the bench, staring at the orange liquid while her brain tried to find words. “It’s easier than telling them the truth.”

He didn’t react visibly. “I’m pretty sure your family thinks I’m a hard-headed, arrogant, demanding husband. Why do you think they’d blame you?”

“They love you,” she contradicted forcefully. “You know that. My father hugely admires you. My mother thinks you’re gorgeous. Even Sarah is a little bit in love with you.”

“Your sister doesn’t love anyone or anything except the whales.”

Bianca grimaced at his correct characterization. Sarah had spent the better part of a decade on the oceans for Greenpeace, only a very tenuous link to her environmental law degree.

Bianca picked her scotch up and took another sip; this time the liquid burned a little less and she was able to savor the tastes of the aged liquor.

It was truth time.

“My dad had a heart attack.” Her pale blue eyes lifted to his face, and still he was unmoved.

“When?” He asked finally, throwing his own scotch down and immediately topping the glass up.

“About ten months ago.” She colored, knowing that the date would have significance to him.

“When you cheated on me.”

“When we broke up,” she corrected automatically. “Yes. I was going to tell them, but when I finally got around to calling mum, she was at the hospital.”

He was watching, silently waiting for her to continue.

“Dad wasn’t out of the woods for months. And once he was more or less fully recovered, I felt like too much time had passed. Now, mum wants to have a happy family holiday. She’s gone off on some tangent about the unpredictability of life, and heaven forbid anyone who stands in her way.” Despite her strain, a small smile touched her lips. Sylvia Scott-Lee was a force to be reckoned with.

He nodded slowly. “So you want to lie to them.”

“It’s not lying,” she said quietly. “Not exactly. We are technically still married. We’ll just leave out a few details.”

“You’ve signed the divorce papers. How does that make us still married?”

“Even once the papers are lodged, the divorce will take ages to come through.”

“And you’re desperate for that, aren’t you?”

“As are you, Niko. Don’t pretend you don’t want out of this marriage.” She tried and failed to quell her hurt anger.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” he said thickly. “It wouldn’t do either of us any good to examine what I want right now.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you?” He slammed his scotch glass down onto the marble counter top and pulled her roughly against his chest. Her mouth parted in an ‘oh’ of surprise and he kissed her, hard, and rough, with a desire to taste and punish. “I want
you
,” he ground out against her teeth, scooping her up and wrapping her legs around his waist. He pushed her back against the fridge, and felt her surrender as her fingers slipped into his hair, pulling and feeling, and her tongue clashed frantically with his.

She lifted his top over his head, only breaking the kiss for the briefest of seconds. She dug her nails into his back, feeling his taught muscles move beneath his satin smooth skin.

“I want you too,” she whispered fiercely. “I wish I didn’t, but, Niko, God, please…”

“At least your lies only extend to your family,” he said throatily, ripping at her jeans so that he could pull them down. With an impatient groan, he set her down and removed them completely before lifting her back up and imprisoning her between his chest and the fridge. She had the chance to end this, but there was no way in hell she could. She wanted him with a passion that would eat her alive if she didn’t indulge it. Consequences were guaranteed, but worse than the fallout of having sex with her husband would be if she
didn’t
.

She pushed his jeans down and released him from his boxers, gasping as she remembered the feel of his erection in her hands. His eyes flared with desire as she ran her fingers up and down the length of him, her face flushed with animalistic desire. He didn’t want to wait a second longer. Hell, she was his wife, as she’d just pointed out.

And he plunged into her, deep and hard and fast, groaning loudly as her sweet muscles wrapped around him and convulsed. She screamed with the built-up tension and dug her heels into his back, scratching her nails down his arms, her head tilted back with eyes firmly shut.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she shouted into the dimly lit kitchen, grinding her hips and panting as waves of desire rolled through her.

He felt her orgasm around him and gritted his teeth. God, his control was thin where this woman was concerned. He thrust once more and felt it slip away completely, as his release shattered him completely.

He hadn’t planned it, but it had felt necessary, and it had felt right. One time, he would have said that he loved her too much to ever have sex with her out of anger, or hate. He had loved her, and she’d thrown it back in his face. So what if he used their incandescent sexual chemistry to achieve his own ends? This was just sex, wasn’t it? And when it was this good, how could it be bad?

Her head was resting on his shoulder as her breathing returned to normal, and he eased her to the ground now, pulling out of her and putting distance between them at the same time. He heard her groan at his removal and ignored the way he clenched in response. It was
just
sex.

“At least there’ll be a silver lining to this farce,” he said, his tone more gruff than he’d intended.

Bianca’s insides were melting with the force of satisfaction she’d just experienced so it took a minute for his words to penetrate the fog of her brain.

“I’m sorry?” She said, watching as he returned to the bench, picked up his drink and cradled the scotch tumbler in his hands.

“Sex, Bianca. If you expect me to play the part of your husband, I expect you to play the part of my wife.”

She fluttered a hand to her neck and fingered the collar of her top in a nervous gesture.

“I guess I hadn’t thought about that side of things.”

“Then think about it now,” he bit out coldly. “I’ll go along with this charade, but I will want you back in my bed. For my
exclusive
use.”

“Use!” She retorted hotly, sliding her briefs up her legs to hide how upset she was. “That makes it sound so… cheap and tawdry.”

He shrugged. “I call it as I see it. You were quite happy to spread your legs for anyone who showed an interest when we were married. It shouldn’t be too hard to climb back into my bed now.”

“Why are you talking like this?” She whispered, trying to match this man with the man who had made her love him. The man who had been good and kind and gentle and funny.

“This is who I am now,” he answered swiftly. “You did this to me, Bianca. It’s only appropriate that you should be forced to live with the consequences of what you created.”

“I told you that night, Nik, it’s not what you think.”

He moved a dismissive hand through the air. “I do not want to hear more lies. The mountain of evidence is impossible to explain in any other way. I will not discuss it with you anymore.”

Bianca swallowed. “I won’t do it,” she said stonily. “You can’t make me sleep with you.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll have to
make
you sleep with me,
cara.
You weren’t here for five minutes tonight before you were coming in my arms.”

She reached down and picked up her jeans, but her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t even attempt pulling them on.

“You arrogant bastard,” she stammered, turning away from him, the pain inside her so raw she quivered.

“It’s your choice, Bianca. If you want me to fool your family, you should know what you’re getting into.”

* * *

“Jesus, are you kidding me?”

Niko grimaced. Marcos’s reaction had been pretty much what he’d expected.

“She caught me by surprise. It never occurred to me that our marriage breakdown
wasn’t
public knowledge.”

Marcos swore in his own tongue. “I saw what you were like, Nik. I don’t want you to go through that again. I’m sorry to say it, but you were hanging on by a thread after she left you.”

“That won’t happen this time. We’re both on the same page.”

“This is why I don’t get involved with women,” Marcos said cynically into the phone. “You’re a smart guy, Nik, but where Bianca is concerned, you’re an idiot.”

“Not anymore,” Nik swore through gritted teeth. “Let’s just say that having had the wool pulled from my eyes once is a protection against future idiocy.”

“So what? You’re really going to go through with this elaborate deception?”

“It’s not such a deception. We are, as a point of fact, still married.”

“In the process of a divorce after she
cheated
on you. For years.”

Nik compressed his lips. He had told Marcos, and Marcos alone, the full story behind his abrupt marriage failure. He found now that he didn’t like having the salient fact forced back in his face.

“I am well aware of that.”

Marcos’s short laugh was silent. “Okay, okay. Touchy subject, I take the hint. Just watch yourself, Niko. She might have the body of a goddess and the face of an angel, but Bianca Casacelli’s heart is pure poison apple. Don’t bite into it.”

CHAPTER THREE

The wedding photo was back in the hallway. It was the first thing she noticed when two months later, she returned to the home they’d once shared. With a throat that was almost fully constricted with tension, she walked quietly towards it, unable to pull her eyes away from the evidence of their love.

It wasn’t one of the professional photographs. They had been stunning, but too like a magazine photo shoot for Bianca’s liking. The one and only picture they’d had printed had been taken by Sarah, during their first dance. Bianca was whispering into Niko’s ear, standing on tiptoe to be heard above the music, and his handsome face was filled with love, contentment and pride. She remembered the moment as clearly as if it were yesterday. Except it was a lifetime ago, now.