Catherine Spencer - Convenient Brides

She had come prepared for a battle that had never taken place, she realized, and that she’d entertained, even for a minute, the idea of using the children as a weapon, left her sick with self-disgust.

His mouth curled in a faint smile. “If you’re asking me, will I be faithful, I give you my word it will be so. The reason I’ve not taken a wife sooner is that I was not willing to make a promise before God that I knew I couldn’t keep.”

Although it hurt to say the words, the question begged to be asked. “Yet you are now, with a woman you’ve admitted you don’t love?”

“Yes,” he said, with a candor that dealt a savage blow to her romantic fantasies. “Much has changed recently. Tragedy has struck and turned us all, particularly you and me, in a new direction. Suddenly we have children to consider. They must be our first priority. That much we owe them.”

“And what of the rest?” Common sense told her not to press the point, but she couldn’t help herself. “By themselves, children aren’t enough to hold a marriage together, and I ought to know. Despite having two young daughters and a wife who needed him, my father walked out on my mother and left her to bring up Vanessa and me on her own.”

“Then your father amounted to less than a man. To sire two children, then abandon both them and their mother is despicable.”

He took stock of her again. “Listen to me, Caroline, and believe me when I tell you, I will not desert you.”

“Then why bother to include the option to dissolve the marriage after one year?”

“Because I hoped it would make you feel less coerced. I am not so blinded by duty that I expect you to remain in a union you find intolerable. But let me make this much clear: if our marriage doesn’t last, it will be because you decide to end it.” His voice dropped suggestively. “And I intend to make it very difficult for you to arrive at such a choice.”

If the way his arm tightened around her shoulders hadn’t warned her of his next move, the sexy, smoky note in his threat did. Starting with her forehead, he skimmed his mouth from her eyes to her jaw in a string of kisses that ended at her lips.

Such a mouth should be against the law, she thought, all the reasons she should call a halt to his behavior evaporating. If, in the course of their marriage, he never did more than simply kiss her, she could die a happy woman.

But he was bent on more erotic pleasure. With a low murmur of approval, he eased her down on the bed—not that he had to expend much energy to do that; already, she was limp with pleasure. Then, with the unhurried expertise of a man who’d had much practice, he unfastened the row of small pearl buttons running down the front of her nightgown, and parted the fabric to lay bare her breasts.

Still not satisfied, he continued dispensing with the garment. It yielded to his efforts, sliding down her torso in a soft sigh of surrender until it puddled around her waist. Another tug, and he had it past her hips and down her legs until not an inch of her was spared his inspection.

She had carried his two children practically full-term, and although her body had weathered the experience far better than most, the signs were there, if he cared to look for them. Plagued by a belated attack of nervous modesty, she tried to curl away from his gaze. But to no avail. Shaking his head in reproof, he manacled her wrists in the tender steel of one hand and imprisoned them above her head.

Helpless as a butterfly pinned to a collector’s mat, she gave up the struggle and submitted to his absorbed scrutiny. His breath sifted over her, warm and light as a summer breeze.

“Magnifica…incredibile…!” he whispered, his sultry gaze scorching her flesh. “Venero, la mia bella!”

She’d studied enough Italian to know what his murmured words meant, but even if she’d been unfamiliar with the language, she’d have guessed that he liked what he saw. Only when his emotions ran high, be it from anger or, as now, from passion, did he lapse into his mother tongue with her.

What seduced her completely, though, was not that he eventually stopped looking and put his mouth everywhere on her, but that he did so with the reverence of a connoisseur examining a rare, exquisite work of art. Touches so fleeting they caressed her like a benediction.

Had he shown her the same tenderness the first time he’d seduced her, she’d probably have thought the melting delight he induced now was reward enough for giving him her virginity. But he’d taught her too well. She knew this was but a preface to much more explosive pleasure, and so did her body. The faint humming along her nerve endings, growing in volume until they buzzed, was evidence enough of that.

“Paolo…!” she sighed, squirming to free her hands from his grip. “Let me touch you…”

“Patience, my lovely,” he breathed in Italian, settling his mouth again at her throat. “We have all night to enjoy one another.”

“Not if your father finds you here.”

She wished she hadn’t reminded him. Abandoning her without a second’s hesitation, he rose from the bed and strode to the door. “Indeed not. He would awaken the entire household with his outrage.”

Regret leached away all the lovely anticipation building in her blood, and left her aching with disappointment. No point trying to delude herself that she’d feel differently in the morning and be glad she’d called a halt to things. She wanted him with a deep and vital yearning that had its roots in something far more enduring than the temporary release of good sex. She wanted to belong to him in every way that counted: physically, emotionally, spiritually.

She’d grown up without a father, or uncles or brothers. Of course, she had a son, as well as a daughter, but even for them, she had Paolo to thank. At the end of the day, he was the only man ever to have left an indelible impression on her soul.

At last accepting that it was something that neither time nor circumstance would ever change, she tossed aside the last of her pride and begged, “Paolo, please don’t go!”

“I must,” he said roughly, and before she could repeat her plea, the door had closed behind him.

Desolated, she gathered a fistful of sheet, and crushed it against her mouth to silence the wave of anguish threatening toerupt. To have come so close to heaven, and then, with a few ill-chosen words, to lose it all, was beyond cruel. It was inhumane, torture of the worst kind, and she wanted to howl at the unfairness of a world which would allow such suffering.

Then, miraculously, the door opened again, and Paolo was there again. Stunned, delighted, grateful, she said, “I thought you’d left and weren’t coming back.”

“Not coming back?” Locking her door, he tossed the key on the nearby dresser, and began to remove his clothes. “Caroline, my angel, I couldn’t stay away, even if I wanted to.”

By the time he reached the bed again, he was as naked as she was. And, like her, he’d changed over the years. The younger playboy son of the almighty Salvatore Rainero had matured into a man of impressive stature, and she was mesmerized by the magnificence of him.

He’d always been classically tall, dark and handsome, but at twenty-four there’d been a hint of softness in his build, an indication of too much fast living, coupled with a distinct lack of self-discipline. He’d worn too much jewelry. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck. Diamonds rimmed the dial of his gold watch. Another diamond graced the signet ring on his little finger. Smitten though she’d been at the time, she’d found such a conspicuous display of wealth somewhat tasteless.

Now, he wore only a slim gold watch which he discarded along with his clothes, and a simple chain that glimmered softly against his deep olive skin. His chest had deepened, his shoulders broadened with muscle more cleanly defined than before. His limbs were strong, his flanks lean, his belly flat and hard. And his masculinity…?