The Reluctant Wife (3 page)

“Yes.” He would not be drawn into hysterics. “But I don’t think you fully understand—”

“I understand very well.” She slammed the glass on the table and stood. “The company means everything to you, more than your family, more than your wife. It always has and always will. You’ll never change.”

“Will you sit down and listen? There is more.”

She took a step back. “No. I listened enough for the first twelve months of my marriage. Not this time. This time you listen. Don’t expect me to be a doormat. I came here thinking you’d do the decent thing and help me. I thought you’d do anything for your family. I thought, for old times’ sake, that vow might extend to me and my grandmother.”

Her words needled him until his temper rose.

“One favor deserves another. It’s not as if I’m asking for anything you did not stand in a church and vow to give me. Besides, having you back in my bed would be a pleasure—for us both.” Her face flooded with color at her words.

The corners of her lips turned down. “Sex. You’re all about sex. But not because you want me, but because you crave a child.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t understand. You think you know me, mio fiore, but you don’t.”

She raised her head high. “I’m pretty sure you no longer know me at all. I want and deserve more from a marriage. My answer is no. Categorically no. I’ll find another way to get the money.”

“You and I were married. You are still my wife.”

Abby’s eyes glittered with distaste. “Your problem, not mine. I have no intention of marrying again so I’m more than happy to wait the three years for a divorce. Screw your business deal. Isn’t the Lombardi Group big enough as it is? Why do you want more?” She looked at her watch. “It’s late. I’m tired. As it appears you haven’t changed one bit, I’ll take my leave.”

Abby turned and started toward the door.

“
Va bene
. Do what you do so well—run away again, Abby.”

She hesitated with her hand on the door handle.

She threw a look over her shoulder. “Good-bye, Dante. Have a nice life. I’m sure you’ll have no problem replacing me. You’ve made it perfectly clear I am not, and never was, important to you.”

Then she walked out and refused to look back.

Chapter Three

Dante refilled his glass and drank the burning liquid in one gulp.
That went well.

He heard the door open behind him and for an instant hope flared. Abby had come back. But when he turned it wasn’t Abby, only Carla.

“She left then?”

Dante shrugged. “She said no.”

Carla took his empty glass from his hand, refilled it, and sat on the couch, sipping his brandy. “Hardly surprising considering the act you pulled when she arrived. I’m amazed she didn’t slap your face and take off running. Your mistress, indeed. Don’t ever use me like that again.”

He grinned, filled another glass with brandy, and joined her on the couch.

“It worked, though. Did you see her face? She was jealous. She still has feelings for me.”

Carla eyed him suspiciously. “I thought you didn’t want her to love you. I thought you were going to make her a business proposition?” She raised a knowing eyebrow. “You are so full of it. ‘I don’t want love. I don’t need emotional complications. All I need is a son.’”

She parroted the words he’d told her at lunch last week, and they did sound ridiculous the way she said them, but even Carla wasn’t privy to his real fear and reason for wanting no emotional involvement. He didn’t want
anyone
to know, not even his best friend.

“Well,” she said, “what are you going to do now?”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He’d had it all planned out. Of course he knew about her grandmother. He also knew Abby would come to him. Where else could she go? It was simple enough to tell the bank he wouldn’t cover another loan. It allowed him to offer a straightforward transaction—money in exchange for her agreement to return to his life and help him fulfill the conditions of his father’s will. “I should have married you. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Carla almost choked on her brandy, spluttering drops down her shirt. “As if I’d have agreed to that. I’m with Abby on this one. Marriage should be to the one you love, and you don’t love me any more than I love you, well, not in that way. I love you like the brother I never had.”

He’d known Carla since he could walk. She was the daughter of his father’s financial adviser and they’d been friends since the age of eight when Carla beat him at tree climbing. Dante was scared of heights and Carla climbed higher than him, and she never let him forget it.

“Marriage to you would be perfect. No emotions involved. It would make my life much simpler.”

She punched his arm. “As if I’m here to make your life easier. In fact, I’m pleased Abby is such a challenge. You’ve had it far too easy where women are concerned. It’s time a female taught you that you can’t click your fingers and be obeyed.”

“I wouldn’t be in this mess if I had that sort of power. I tried to explain to her why she had to come back.”

“
Had to?
Oh my God, you didn’t tell her how you feel, did you? I bet you simply sat her down and started preaching at her about your father’s will and duty and the company.”

“I didn’t want her to misunderstand. You know me, I don’t do love.”

“Rubbish. You love your family. You love me. You
can
love. Why is it that you guard your heart so carefully from the one person you should be able to share everything with, your wife?” She leaned across and tapped his chest. “I know there are feelings deep in here. Don’t let what happened with Nicky keep the walls up. Abby is not Nicky. Abby married you because she loves you. A woman who could walk away from all this,” she swept her arm around the room, “is definitely not like Nicky. Surely you can see that?”

He nodded. Nicky, a woman he almost married, had only been after his money and title. That’s what first attracted Dante to Abby. She had no idea who he was. Deep down he knew Abby had loved him—he prayed she now didn’t. He couldn’t afford to have any woman love him, not if history was anything to go on. His father and grandfather had been dead before forty. He was thirty-three. If Carla thought he feared love because of his spectacular failure with Nicky, then that suited his purpose well.

“What do you think I should do? It isn’t just me I’m worried about. If I don’t fulfill the terms of my father’s will, my family will lose everything, including this home. You know what that would do to Mother. Her life with my father is here.”

“If I were you, I’d be prepared to do a heap of groveling. I’ve never met Abby before tonight. I was in the Antarctic when you met and raced to the altar in an obscene hurry, for which I have never forgiven you because I wanted to be a bridesmaid. But I think she’s got a backbone. Forcing her won’t work. You don’t want a wife who hates you, especially if you wish to have children. A hostile marriage bed is not the answer.”

“That’s the one place we never argued and were in perfect accord. I’m skilled enough to make her very willing to share my bed any time I please.”

“Oh, please. Men!”

“What?” He grinned. “She’s had nothing to compare me to.”

“She might now.”

His smile disappeared and he growled deep in his chest. “She hasn’t slept with anyone else.”

“My, my, that sounds like jealousy to me.”

They sat in companionable silence. Carla had always been there for him when he needed an understanding shoulder. He would never have gotten through his father’s death, his brother’s death, having to take the reins of the company at only twenty, or Abby’s desertion without her. And likewise he’d been there for her when things got rough for her at university, and when her father passed away. He linked his hand with hers.

“I have to get her to agree. There is no other choice.”

“You’re going to have to go to her, show her you really need her back and why, and not just because you want a son.” Her smile died. “I know you care for her. You would never have married her otherwise. If it had been solely about the will, you would have married a local girl. Listen to your heart. You need someone like her in your life.”

“Someone like Abby?”

Carla rose, bent, and kissed his head. “A woman who won’t put up with your dictatorial ways. I won’t always be here. I’m off to the Amazon soon, remember? Give this marriage a chance. Do things differently than you did last time.”

At his frown, she added, “What’s the worst that could happen? You might fall in love with a woman who loves you. I can think of worse things.”

He could think of nothing worse.

Time was short. He felt the overriding need to secure his family, especially since his test results showed an abnormality. He might have less time than he imagined. He tried to push the fear back into the recesses of his mind. Giving in to fear was a weakness he would never entertain.

Dante’s gut coiled and he swore into the empty room. Abby. He needed Abby. If he waited until his divorce, another three years, he’d be thirty-six. That left very little margin of error to ensure a son before his father’s decree saw his family lose everything.

He grabbed the brandy decanter and headed for his bed. He would secure his family’s future. All he needed was for Abby to come home to him. His heart clenched at the thought. Bringing love into the transaction wouldn’t be fair.

As he slid between the cool sheets, a hint of fear entered his mind—he was likely a dead man walking.

Chapter Four

Abby sat on her hotel room’s balcony overlooking the piazza, soaking in the early morning sun. How ironic. She was right back where she’d started four years ago. Why had she chosen this hotel? Four years ago, she’d looked down and watched the most handsome man she’d ever seen walk across the piazza while her heart fluttered in her chest.

Dante had arrived to take her on a picnic. On that fateful day, he’d bent down on one knee and asked her to become his contessa, and like the naive fool she was, she’d thought he loved her.

When she left the villa last night, she’d never felt so defeated. Dante had never seemed so remote. He was almost a stranger, so unlike the man she’d fallen in love with. Perhaps she’d hoped to recapture a glimpse of the past by picking this hotel.

She let out a sigh. Where to from here? If Dante wouldn’t help her, how on earth was she to get the money? She leaned back and closed her eyes, and tiredness slid over her. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night. Dante’s taunting words about running away ate at her confidence. She had run. But as soon as she needed help she’d run back to him.

Her mobile phone interrupted her memories. A text. What she read made her skin grow cold and fear gnawed her insides as if she’d swallowed a piranha.

Your grandmother had a small turn yesterday. She’s in hospital and recovering well. She’s resting at the moment but perhaps call her this evening. Any news?

It was from her friend Susan. Thank goodness she’d arranged for Susan to watch over Nana.

Any news?

She was running out of time. No. Her grandmother, the only family she had left, was running out of time. Perhaps she’d been too hasty. Perhaps she should have stayed and discussed Dante’s proposition. Pride was something she could no longer afford.

Her fingers hovered over the keypad of her phone. How to reply?

Soon. I’ll have news soon. Tell Nana I love her and I’ll Skype with her tonight. Make sure she has her iPad. Thank you sweetie.

Just as she pushed send, a flurry of pigeons erupted in the square below, and as they parted she noted that everyone seemed to stop and look to the right-hand side of the square.

A man was striding over the cobblestones heading toward her, a vision of potent masculinity.

Dante.

The women sitting at the café tables stared. Who wouldn’t? In his light pink shirt, over which he wore a charcoal gray suit that fitted like a second skin, he was utterly gorgeous. His black hair gleamed in the sun. He wore sunglasses that made him look like a movie star. Here was a man who was oblivious to the undercurrents of interest he created. From his casual walk, everyone knew he was someone important.

As the women in the square followed his progress, Abby could well imagine that all the men wanted to be him. Abby couldn’t look away. She stared at his approach with her heart in her throat. His features were blank, his chiseled jaw tight. His perfect white teeth flashed a smile as he stopped to retrieve a ball that a little boy kicked his way. He crouched and spoke to the child. She watched the little boy succumb to the Lombardi charm with a big smile spreading across his face. The boy ran back across the square and waited while Dante kicked him the ball. Something broke inside Abby while watching Dante play ball with the toddler. This could have been them, a real family.

The boy’s mother finally stepped in and rescued Dante or he could have been there all morning. His smile of thanks looked as though it made the woman weak at the knees, and a wave of jealousy enveloped Abby. Dante glanced up. She pulled back the shade. She didn’t want him to see her with her tongue hanging out of her mouth like every other female in the piazza. He stood staring for a moment before striding toward her hotel.

Abby glanced at the text message on her phone. She knew she had to listen to whatever despicable offer Dante presented. But she’d stipulate a few conditions of her own.

When the knock on the door came, she was prepared. She stayed on the balcony and hardened her heart. There was no way she’d waste one tiny piece of her heart on a man who categorically stated he didn’t “do love.”

“Come in, Dante.”

She heard his footsteps across the bedroom tiles. Then large, warm hands massaged her shoulders. “You didn’t run far this time,
cara
.”

“I wasn’t running.”

She felt a sense of loss when Dante removed his hands. He took off his sunglasses and put them in his jacket pocket. “Interesting choice of hotel.” He looked over at the bed. “Abby,” he said with corrosive lightness, “I remember many pleasant hours spent in a bed similar to this.”

“Obviously not pleasant enough or you would have come looking for me.”

“Frankly, I was too bloody angry. If after everything I’d given you… You didn’t even leave me a good-bye note.”

Guilt crushed her tension-filled shoulders. “I didn’t think you’d care. Actions speak louder than words. You didn’t even care enough to call my grandmother to find out if I was all right.”

“I did call, Abby. I called every day for weeks.”

“Nana didn’t pass on any messages.”

“At first your grandmother told me you didn’t wish to speak with me. Then she told me you’d gone traveling and she didn’t know how to contact you.”

A shiver chilled her spine, and she closed her eyes momentarily. If only she’d known…

“There was a time I thought that if I gave you your space, you might come back on your own. That living with me, sharing my life and my bed, wasn’t so terrible.” His clear blue eyes met hers. “But obviously I was mistaken. You only returned when you needed something from me. ”

Abby struggled to make sense of Dante’s confession that he’d tried to contact her. He wouldn’t make something like this up. It was far too easy to check. No wonder Nana didn’t want her to come here and ask for his help. Why did her grandmother keep this from her? She couldn’t even ask her. She was too frail to be confronted.

“I never knew,” she said.

“I never suspected your grandmother would do something like that. She seemed to be happy about our marriage at the wedding.”

“It doesn’t matter. We can never get back the last four years.”

Dante kept his tone light. “But it does prove I wanted this marriage to work. I wanted you.” When she didn’t respond, he pushed. “Will you at least listen to my proposition? Although I can’t offer you my heart, you’ve always had my respect, admiration, and desire. There is no other woman I’d prefer to stand by my side as my wife.”

Abby’s fingers stroked the phone as if willing it to ring and offer her another solution.

“I need to think. I need to get my head around this.”

Dante sat beside her and reached for her hand. She couldn’t hide her trembling. “I swear it’s the truth, Abby.”

“I’m sure it is. It’s just such a shock,” she said, her throat thickening. “I wish I’d known.”

“Mio Fiore,” he whispered as he lifted her into his lap. She resisted, but he held her tightly, one hand slinking under her T-shirt to stroke down her spine.

“Am I such an ogre that you had to run?”

She shrugged. “Perhaps not, but you were nothing like the man I fell in love with. Once we married you were different, so preoccupied with business affairs. You had no time for me and I felt us drifting apart. That’s why I pushed so hard for the business development role, and when you gave it to Elena it was as if you were pushing me further away.”

“Yet, here we are almost as close as two people can be.” He lightly kissed her lips. “Come home to me, Abby. We need each other. You need money to help your grandmother, and I need you and a son to save my business and family home. I can’t let Katarina lose the only place that holds the memories of my father.”

She tried to ignore the heat from his hand on her bare skin. “I don’t understand.”

“I tried to explain last night. If I do not have a legitimate son by the age of thirty-eight, I lose control of the Lombardi Group and the family villa. It goes to my father’s cousin. I can’t do that to the family, not after all my grandfather and father did to ensure our heritage. I can’t fail them or my mother and sisters.”

She looked at him in silence for so long Dante became restive.

“I’m offering you everything I can give a woman. I can give you my name, security, and a loving family. Can that be enough for you?”

Abby pondered his words. She did want a family, more than anything. He was right about security too. Her grandmother would be well cared for, and this time she would go into the arrangement with her eyes wide open. How could he break her heart if she didn’t give it to him?

With the scent of him filling her senses, his hard body beneath her, and his chiseled face in reach, she was hard-pressed to deny him.

“I have some conditions of my own. If this is to be a business arrangement, as you put it, then I want an equal partnership.”

“What are your demands?”

She took a quick breath. “If, after I fulfill my obligations to this deal, I wish to leave and return to England, you’ll let me, and you’ll grant me my divorce.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “What about any children we have?”

“They come with me until the age of fifteen, when, if they so choose, I’ll send them to you.”

She watched Dante’s fists clench and unclench.

“I’ll consider your request with an amendment. You cannot leave me until our youngest son turns five, and our children spend every school holiday here with me at the villa.”

Victory speared with pain. He had agreed to her being allowed to divorce him. He must want to eventually be free of her as much as she wanted to be free of a loveless marriage.

“In addition, you’ll leave me to deal with my grandmother. You’ll not bring up her deception. You’ll treat her with respect. Is that clear?”

Dante took her face in his hands. “I’d never disrespect the woman who raised you as her own.” He brushed a butterfly kiss over her lips.

She swallowed back the longing his words and actions invoked.

“There is one further condition,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“We resume marital relations when I’m ready. You can’t expect me to simply fall back into your arms.”

“You surprise me. The bedroom was the one place we communicated perfectly.”

“That’s because I loved you.”

“I see. The inference is that you now don’t. It always amazes me how women confuse sex and love. They try to tie one up with the other.”

“Perhaps because one is more satisfying with the other.”

“The will decrees I have a son. I can’t wait for too long.”

“We have a few years yet. Why this urgency to procreate?”

He wouldn’t look her in the eye. “My grandfather and father’s eldest children were sons, but that doesn’t mean our first or even second child will be a son. Once I know what I want, I let nothing stand in my way of achieving it.”

“I’m not nothing.”

“True.” He looked her over from head to toe. “I won’t wait for long, but I can give you some time.”

Relief passed through her. “Then I agree to your proposition.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you. It’s settled then.” He stood up. “I’ve already canceled your flight back to England.”

God, he was arrogant.
Abby wondered if she’d made a pact with the devil. She couldn’t get her head—her heart—around the fact that she had been as intimate with him as any two people could be. The thought of sharing his bed again made her feel like a terrified yet eager virgin. Four years was a long time. She felt exactly as she had the day she’d met him. Flustered, overcome by her reaction to his virility and good looks. The thought of a loveless marriage for the rest of her life made her blood run cold.

This situation was born from her own stupidity. She should have looked more closely at the man she was marrying. But foolishly she hadn’t been drawn by only the man himself. She’d been seduced by his family, a large, loving family. An extended family like she’d never been a part of but had longed for all her life. Now here they were, back at square one. This time she was determined it would be different.

Desire unfurled deep in her belly. She recognized the signs. Her body wanted to share his bed. He’d taught her everything there was about making love. She couldn’t help but glance at the bed. She silently scolded herself.

Dante saw what held her gaze and his mouth flickered in something not quite a smile. “Memories? Not bad memories, surely. Come, Abby. It’s not as if you are a nineteen-year-old virgin. You know how good sharing my bed will be.”

That’s what she must now count on if she was to have any chance of winning his heart.

“Say yes and we can start tonight.” His voice was low, pleasant, and smooth, yet devoid of any true expression. “I’ll ease your frustration.”

She took a long, hard look at him. He still made her breath catch in her throat and her heart thump painfully in her chest. He was the most earth-shatteringly handsome man she’d ever seen. The high, slanting cheekbones, the arrogant crook of his nose above sculpted, sensual lips, made heat seep under her skin.

“What happens if you find someone else?” she asked. “I won’t stand for infidelity in my marriage.”

“From what I remember, you were more than enough for me. There will be no need for other women.”

An image of him raised above her, lowering his head to… She wished she could cross her legs to subdue the thrumming pulsation there. On this they both agreed. The sex had been astonishing. Electric. Unforgettable.

“Remember, Abby. This is a business arrangement. Don’t expect more or you’ll be disappointed again.”

“I’m not that stupid. I know who you are now.”

“Good.” He held out his hand. “Come, I’ll take you home and we can arrange for your grandmother’s operation.”

She let her fingers be swamped in his large, powerful hand. At the mention of her grandmother, all her doubts fled. She’d done the right thing. Her grandmother would be taken care of.