The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding (14 page)

~ ~ ~

So Nico was going to act as if nothing had
happened that he couldn’t fix, Amanda thought as they threaded once more
through the streets of Florence. Was that for her sake, to make certain she
calmed down? Or was it an example of the machismo she’d read about, the
masculine need to prove he was in control? She stared at the road rushing
toward them while she tried to work it out, but could settle on no answer.

“Stopping for lunch really isn’t necessary,” she said as the
city began to fade away behind them. “Can’t Erminia give us a sandwich or
something when we get back to the villa?”

He gave a swift look, his eyes narrowed against the wind
that swirled around them. “I prefer something more substantial,” he replied.
“Besides, I am your host.”

“And it’s your duty to feed me, I suppose.”

“My privilege,” he corrected. “You are pale and have dark
circles under your eyes from worrying about your brother. You are probably more
shaken by what took place back there than you realize. Some small diversion
should be useful as well as pleasant.”

The knowledge that he’d paid such close attention to her
appearance added to her discomfort. “I’m sure you have better things to do, a
company to run, people who depend on you.”

“I keep up well enough by phone and Internet.”

She brushed the comment aside with a quick gesture.
“Besides, your worry over Carita has been just as great.”

“So I am also in need of diversion. Come, we must eat. We
might as well take what pleasure we may.”

Come…

It was a word he used often and with varying degrees of
coaxing or command. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend he meant it in a
more intimate fashion. How would it sound if whispered against her hair as he
encouraged, urged, demanded that she come for him.

A wave of heat swept over her, one so intense she thought he
must feel it wafting toward him. She really must not let her imagination — or
was it her libido? — run away with her. It came from the idea of their names
being linked in the tabloids, being portrayed as his current lover if not his
mistress. Brief fantasies aside, she was not foolish enough to think she would
ever fill that position.

No, the photo, if it appeared, would be a one-day sensation.
With nothing more to feed the speculation, it would soon be forgotten. Her main
concern was that Jonathan might get hold of it. She’d warn him as soon as
possible, but hated to think of him being upset by snide implications. He was
worried enough about her relationship with Nico already.

In her preoccupation, she made no more objections to
stopping. Nico appeared to take that as agreement, for he turned his attention
back to the road.

The powerful vehicle climbed into the hills. The hum of the
engine and buffeting rush of air around them were the only sounds. Amanda could
feel the adrenaline high caused by the car chase easing, being carried away in
the wind that swirled behind them. It left her tired and not a little
depressed.

Her mind wandered, forming images of Carita lying so quiet
and still in her bed, of Nico staring down at his sister with his mouth set in
grim lines and of Jonathan with tears in his eyes. More vivid still, however,
was Nico coming toward her that morning with twin devils of amusement in his
eyes, swooping upon her for a kiss of the kind he might give a woman who was
really his fiancée. He had taken it as if he had the right, his lips so sweet
and hot that she had felt possessed. Yes, that was it. It was as if he had
claimed her.

Such thoughts were not practical or safe. She was spending
too much time in the company of Nico de Frenza while in a situation where
emotions ran too close to the surface. She must not read anything into whatever
he said or did that was not there. Jonathan was right, she was sure, when he
tried to warn her against Italian men. No matter how considerate Nico might be
of her comfort, anything he intended toward her was unlikely to be lasting. She
would do well not to forget that point.

Thinking of Jonathan and Carita brought the paparazzi and
the tabloid headlines to her mind again. She and Nico would not be the only
ones pilloried in newsprint if reporters gained access to the details of the
accident.

She directed a quick glance at the man beside her. His
expression was forbidding, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. She spoke anyway.

“You said before that you expect Jonathan to marry Carita.
Wouldn’t it be helpful to announce their engagement as a way of defusing
whatever may come out in the tabloids about the accident?”

“Possibly.”

“You could even say the wedding will take place soon.”

Wariness shaded his black gaze. “That would be premature
given her condition.”

Impatience jangled inside her. “Yes, but it can’t hurt to
have everyone know.”

“We’ll see.”

“What does that mean?”

“Carita will first have to agree.”

“I thought you had decreed it,” she replied with some irony.

“I would not force her to the altar if she doesn’t want to
go.”

She studied him, noting the taut skin around his eyes, the
tucked corners of his finely molded mouth that indicated his annoyance. “I
never said you would.”

“You implied it.”

“If you don’t want to appear that way, then you shouldn’t—”

“I shouldn’t do what I think is right for those around me?”

His expression was so aloof, so certain of his place in the
world and his right to command all that was in it, that she almost smiled. He
had no idea how superior he appeared in his certainty that he knew best, that
the decisions he made were above reproach.

At least he had no control over her and was unlikely to have
any. She could afford to be generous, could even concede that he acted, for the
most part, from care and concern.

“I’m sure you mean well,” she said finally.

“So kind of you.” The glance he gave her mocked her
diplomacy.

She frowned at the road ahead. “Have you reason to think
Carita might not want to marry Jonathan?”

“I can hardly answer that as I wasn’t aware she was seeing
him.”

He made that sound like a personal failure, or so it seemed
to Amanda. “You said that before, but your grandmother and aunt knew. Jonathan
has been a guest at the villa, after all. It’s not as if anyone was keeping it
from you.”

“Isn’t it? You would think someone might have mentioned his
name, if only Carisa.”

She gave him a straight look. “If you had been told, would
you have forbidden Carita to see him?”

“Forbidden is too strong a word,” he said, his gaze on the
road.

“But you would have discouraged it.”

“In other words, it’s my own fault that I wasn’t told.”

She wasn’t about to answer that one, though omission
probably had the same effect. “Jonathan isn’t a bad risk as a husband. He’s
invested his winnings from the racing circuit from the beginning, so is well
able to keep your sister in the manner you might prefer.”

“I am aware.”

Her gaze widened. “You mean—”

“I had him investigated, of course,” he answered in
impatient tones. “How could I not?”

How indeed, when his sister’s happiness was at stake. “I
see. And did you have me investigated as well? I mean, beyond what it took to
locate me in Atlanta?”

He sent her a fleeting glance, due perhaps to the coolness
of her voice. “Only as a part of his family.”

“Then you know we aren’t criminals, but just normal people.”

“I know your brother allows you to work as some managing
director’s assistant.”

She gave him a cool look. “He doesn’t
allow
me to do
anything. Jonathan respects my need to be independent.”

“And you think I should do the same for Carita,” he said in
derision.

“Unless you want her to depend upon you all her life.”

“It isn’t what I want, but what is best for her. You must
understand that being of the De Frenza family puts her at more than the usual
risk.”

“She isn’t Carisa. We all have to learn to make our own
decisions.”

“And suffer the consequences?” Something bleak and layered
with regret flashed in his eyes. “My sister made one, it seems, and see how it
turned out.”

He blamed himself for what had happened, Amanda saw with
sudden insight, thought he had failed in his duty toward his sister and his
family. It was a revelation.

“There is such a thing as an accident,” she said quietly.” The
same thing might have happened with someone who had your full approval as a
future husband.”

“But it didn’t. It happened with your brother.”

“And no one regrets it more than Jonathan. I’ve never seen
him in such pain. He loves her desperately, would do anything, anything at all,
to make it right. He’ll die if she—”

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

That request was an indication of his silent anguish. Amanda
looked away toward the blue line of the sea’s horizon that had appeared
alongside the road. “No. I’m sorry. I just hope you will allow Jonathan to be a
real husband to her, won’t expect this marriage to be for show only. He will be
a good to her, I promise he will, and an excellent father to her child. He will
quit the racing circuit, I’m almost sure, as he would never want his son or
daughter to be brought up as—” She stopped abruptly, aware she had said too
much.

“As he was?”

There was quiet insistence in the question. It was doubtful
he could be diverted from what she had been about to say. She sighed, and then
told him something of the rootless childhood Jonathan had endured, of how
little attention he had been spared from either of their parents, and how much
their deaths had affected him.

“Your brother had you,” Nico pointed out, his dark eyes
watchful as he studied her.

“We had each other.”

“And now he has Carita.”

Did he think she minded that her brother had found someone
else to love? She could settle that point for him, at least. “So he does. I
couldn’t be happier, as she will be like the sister I never had.” She paused.
“That is, if you think she will have him.”

It was a moment before he lifted a shoulder. “That she was
intimate with your brother suggests an unusual degree of commitment, but young
women these days? Who knows?”

The idea of the young woman who lay so pale and still in her
hospital bed actually defying Nico to go her own way as a single mother seemed
so unlikely that Amanda could not take it seriously. There were other points to
be determined, however. “If there is a wedding, will it be a large affair or
something quiet that can be dissolved by divorce later?”

Nico’s gaze was hard as it turned it toward her. “This is
Italy. It might not be impossible to dissolve a marriage, but neither is it as
easy as in your country.”

“I’m glad of that, really,” she said.

“In any case, my family doesn’t do things by halves. My
grandmother and my aunt may not insist on a huge affair, but there will be
something more than a mere civil ceremony.”

“But won’t that take time to arrange?”

“It won’t be allowed to matter. Though it may not be usual
for a De Frenza bride to be obviously pregnant on her wedding day, it hasn’t
exactly been unknown.”

The hauteur of that statement was relieved by the quirk of
his lips in a sardonic smile. Her own curved in slow response. “You shock me.”

“Now why? It was once considered an excellent sign as it
proved the fertility of both bride and groom.”

“Supposing, of course, that the child belonged to the
husband-to-be.”

“There might have been a murder instead of a wedding if it
had not,” he answered, his voice stiff with what sounded very like a warning.
“A bloodthirsty crew, my family, in defense of their honor.”

7

The reminder of family honor and the
possibilities it held was disturbing, Nico thought, particularly with Amanda
Davies so close beside him. He needed no such incentives, was far too familiar
with them already. Two generations ago, three at the most, she would be his by
now. He would know every inch of her skin, every curve and hollow of her
delectable body.

She would have no secrets from him, nor would she be able to
retreat into chilly reserve. He would know exactly what it took to make her cry
out with pleasure, and how it felt when she came apart in his arms. He would
know her as well physically as she seemed to know him mentally.

How had she guessed at the guilt that drove him? How dare
she feel compassion for it, much less show it? He was used to women who saw
only what he wanted them to see, who cared little for what lay beneath the
surface. If they’d discovered his failure of duty by chance, they’d have
scorned it or else sought to use it against him.

Jonathan Davies’s sister could do the same if the chance
arose, which was something he should remember. She might have the cool serenity
of a Madonna, but she could still be tempted.