The Bride's Awakening (10 page)

Now as she made her way to the drawing room, she wondered if Vittorio would notice. If he would care. And, if he did, would she be glad? She couldn’t decide if she would feel more of a fool if he did notice or if he didn’t.

All these thoughts flew from her head as she stood in the doorway of the drawing room and a slim, petite blonde—the kind of woman who made Ana feel like an ungainly giant—swivelled to face her. Constantia Ralfino, the Countess of Cazlevara. Soon to be the
Dowager
Countess.

The moment seemed suspended in time as they both stood there, the Countess taking in Ana with one arctic sweep of her eyes. Ana quailed under that gaze; she felt herself shrivel inside, for Constantia Cazlevara was looking at her as so many people had looked at her, beginning with most of the girls at the boarding school her father had sent her to after her mother had died.

It was a look of assessment and then disdain, followed swiftly by dismissal. It was a look that hurt now, more than it should, because it made Ana feel like a gawky thirteen-year-old again, awkward and still stricken with grief.

‘So,’ Constantia said coolly. She lifted her chin and met Ana’s humble gaze directly. ‘This is your bride.’ Her tone was most likely meant to be neutral, but Ana heard contempt. She lifted her chin as well.

‘Yes. We met many years ago, my lady. Of course, I am pleased to make your acquaintance once more.’

‘Indeed.’ Constantia did not make any move to take Ana’s proffered hand, and after a moment she dropped it. Constantia turned to Vittorio, who was watching them both in tight-lipped silence. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us, Vittorio?’

‘Ana seems to have accomplished the introductions better than I ever could,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘However, if you
must.’ He waved one hand between the pair of them. ‘Mother, this is Ana Viale, one of the region’s most promising winemakers, daughter of our neighbour Enrico Viale, and my intended bride.’ His lips, once pursed so tightly, now curved in a smile that still managed to seem unpleasant. ‘Ana, this is my mother, Constantia.’

The tension almost made the air shiver; Ana imagined she could hear it crackle. Constantia shot her son a look of barely veiled resentment before she turned back to Ana. ‘So was it love at first sight, my dear?’

Ana couldn’t tell if the older woman was baiting her or genuinely interested in knowing. She glanced at Vittorio, wondering what to say. How to dissemble. Did he want people to know just how convenient their marriage was meant to be? Or was he intending to deceive everyone into thinking they were in love? Such a charade would be exhausting and ultimately pointless, Ana was sure.

Before she could frame an answer, Vittorio cut in. ‘Love at first sight? What a question, Mother. Ana and I both know there is no such thing. Now, dinner is served and I don’t enjoy eating it cold. Let’s withdraw to the dining room.’ He strode from the room, pausing only to offer Ana his arm, which she accepted awkwardly, her elbow crooked in his, her strides made awkwardly longer than normal in order to match his.

Dinner was, of course, interminable. Vittorio and Constantia both spoke with that chilly politeness that managed to be worse than outright barbs or even insults. Ana felt her whole body tense and she had the beginnings of a terrible headache. It was impossible to know what to say, how to act. Vittorio gave her no clues.

A thousand questions and, worse, doubts, whirled in her head, demanding answers. What was the source of the antipathy between Vittorio and his mother? How could two people in the same family seem to dislike each other so much? And how could
she possibly fit into this unhappy picture? The thought of living in Castle Cazlevara with Constantia’s continual scorn and disdain was unendurable. An hour into the evening, Ana was just beginning to realize how much she’d agreed to when she’d accepted Vittorio’s proposal. Not just a marriage, but a family. Not just a business proposition, but a lifestyle. A
life
.

She felt fraught with nerves, sick with dread by the time the miserable meal came to an end. There had been some sort of conversation, she supposed, desultory remarks that still managed to be pointed, poised to wound. Ana had contributed very little; she’d eaten less, merely toying with her food.

Constantia rose from the table in one graceful movement. She was a slender slip of a woman, still strikingly beautiful despite the wrinkles that lined her face like a piece of parchment that had been crumpled up and smoothed out again. ‘I’m afraid I’m too weary from my journey to stay for coffee,’ she said, offering Ana a cool little smile. ‘I do hope you’ll forgive me, my dear.’

‘Of course,’ Ana murmured. She was relieved to be able to avoid any further awkwardness with her future mother-in-law—if she was even going to marry Vittorio. A single evening had cast everything into terrible doubt.

‘Well, then.’ She turned to Vittorio, her haughty expression seeming to turn sad, the cool little smile softening into something that looked weary and lost. Before Ana could even register what that look meant, it had cleared, leaving Constantia distant and regal once more, and with one last haughty look she swept from the room and left Vittorio and Ana suspended in a tense and uneasy silence.

‘Vittorio—’ Ana began, the word bursting from her. She stopped, unable to continue, afraid to frame the thoughts pounding through her head.

‘What is it, Ana?’ His tone was sharp, his look assessing. Knowing. ‘You’re not having second thoughts already?’ he
asked, his voice soft now and yet still faintly menacing. He rose from the table, coming around to help Ana from her chair. His hands slid down her bare shoulders in what was surely no more than a pretext to touch her; she shivered noticeably. ‘Cold feet,
rondinella
?’ he whispered and she shook her head, sudden pain lancing through her.

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because—’ She pressed her lips together. It would sound foolish—pathetic, even—to admit the endearment was special. That it
meant
something. Yet still she couldn’t stand Vittorio using it now, when his expression was so forbidding, his voice faintly mocking. When there suddenly seemed so much she didn’t know about him, so much she was afraid of.

‘Because why?’ Vittorio asked. He’d trailed his hand down Ana’s bare arm so now their fingertips were touching. Smiling faintly, he laced his fingers with her own and drew her from the table, out into the foyer with its flickering torches, the ancient stones dancing with shadows. ‘We are about to be married, after all.’

Ana let him lead her. His touch was mesmerizing, her thoughts and even doubts seeming to fly from her head as she followed him slowly, knowing each step was taking her closer to danger. Danger, and yet such exquisite danger it was. All she could think or feel was his fingers on her skin. Wanting more. Needing more.

‘I don’t—’ she began, and then simply shook her head, at a loss for words. Feeling was too much, taking over every sense.

‘You don’t…?’ Vittorio prompted. She thought she heard laughter in his voice; he
knew
. He knew how much his simple touch affected her, reduced her. He used it as a weapon. His fingers still laced with hers, he pulled her towards him. She came, unresisting, until their bodies collided and she had to tilt back her head to look up into his face, his onyx eyes glittering
as he gazed down at her. ‘Don’t be afraid, Ana,’ he murmured, his lips inches from hers.

Her own lips parted instinctively, yet also in anticipation.
Hope.
Even so, she summoned one last protest; it was both an attack and a defence. ‘There’s so much I don’t know about you, Vittorio.’

‘Mmm.’ Vittorio’s fingers trailed up and down her arm, playing her skin like an instrument, his lips now a scant inch from hers so his breath feathered her face. She knew what he was doing. He was distracting her, keeping her from asking the questions whose answers she needed to know, whose answers, she realized fuzzily, might keep her from marrying him. And, even as she knew this, she couldn’t help her overwhelming response to his touch, blocking out all rational thought, all sense of reason.

And so another damning thought followed on the heels of the first: that
nothing
could keep her from marrying Vittorio, from possessing him, or having him possess her. She knew that as, with his free hand, he cupped her cheek and brought her face closer to his, their lips now no more than a breath apart.

He was going to kiss her. She needed him to kiss her, craved it, knew that her body and mind and soul could not be satisfied until she’d felt his lips on hers once more. Later, she knew, she would be humbled and perhaps ashamed by her own helpless desire. For now, it remained only an unstoppable force, an overwhelming hunger. So much so, in fact, that in barely a breath of sound, she whispered,
begged
, ‘Kiss me.’

Vittorio’s mouth curved in a smile tinged with triumph. Ana didn’t care. She didn’t care if she was humiliating herself, if Vittorio would gloat in his sensual power over her. She
couldn’t
care, because the need was too strong. ‘Kiss me,’ she said again, and then, because still he just smiled, she closed the gap between their lips herself, her eyes closing in blissful relief as their mouths connected and her whole body flooded with both satisfaction and yet more need.

Her hands found their way to his hair, fisting in its softness, her body pressing against the full length of his. She let her mouth move slowly over his, let her tongue slide against his lips, knowing she was inexpert, clumsy even, and not caring because it felt so good. She lost herself in that kiss, sank into it like she would a big feather bed, revelling in its softness, its wonder and pleasure, until she realized—slowly—that Vittorio had not moved, had not responded at all. Dimly, distantly, she became aware that his body was rigid against hers, his hands only loosely on her shoulders, his lips unresponsive and even slack under hers.

Desire had swamped her senses, flooded her reason, and yet Vittorio barely seemed affected at all.

In a sickening flash she remembered how she’d kissed Roberto—just as clumsily, no doubt—and how he had not moved either. He had remained still, enduring her touch, relieved when it was over. He’d felt disgust, not desire. And—oh, please, no—was Vittorio the same? She took a stumbling step backwards, shame pouring through her, scalding her senses, making her eager for escape.

Yet Vittorio would not let her flee. His hands came up to encircle her arms and he pulled her towards him as he deepened the kiss and made it his own. His hands moved to her hips, rocking her so their bodies collided in the most intimate way, and her lips curved in a triumphant, incredulous smile when she heard his sharp intake of breath and felt the evidence of his arousal.

Yet if Ana felt she was in control—even for a second—she soon realized she was sorely mistaken. Vittorio had taken command, pulling her into even closer contact, keeping her there, trapped between his powerful thighs. His mouth, at first so still and unresponsive under hers, now moved with deliberate, languorous ease, travelling from her lips to the sensitive skin under her ear so she was the one gasping aloud, and then to the intimate curve of her neck, and finally to the vee between her breasts.

Ana threw her head back, her eyes clenched shut, her breath coming in audible moans. She’d never been touched so intimately, so
much
. Her head spun and her body felt as if every nerve-ending had blazed to life; it almost hurt to feel this much, to know such pleasure.

She’d never known that
anything
could be like this.

Then Vittorio stepped away, leaving Ana reeling and gasping, the aftershocks of exquisite sensation still rocking her, and he smiled rather coolly. ‘See, Ana?’ he said, reaching behind her to open the front door of the castle; a cool breeze blew over her heated body. ‘I think you know me well enough.’

Vittorio waited until Ana was safely in her car, making her way down the curving drive, before he let out a long, low shudder.

He had not expected that. He’d been planning to seduce Ana, to sweep away her doubts with a kiss—or two. Instead,
she’d
kissed
him
. He’d been shocked by her audacity as well as his response. For, in that kiss, he’d realized that Ana was more than this thing he wanted, this possession he meant to acquire, his goal achieved.
Wife.

She was a person, a being with hopes and needs and oh, yes, desires—and, even as he’d sent his little gifts and said the right words and kissed her, he’d somehow managed to forget this fact. Had he ever really known it?

Why he should realize that when she’d been kissing him, pressing against him, stirring him to a sudden desperate lust, he had no idea. He wished he hadn’t realized; it was easier not to know, or at least to pretend not to know.

To hold someone’s happiness in your hand, to take responsibility for her life—

It was monumental. Frightening, too.

‘Why, Vittorio?’

Vittorio stilled, his mother’s accusing voice ringing in his
ears. He turned slowly, his gaze sweeping over her in one dismissive glance. She stood poised on the bottom step of the ornate marble staircase—a nineteenth-century addition to the castle—her eyes blazing blue fire and her mouth twisted into a contemptuous sneer. It was an expression he’d become accustomed to.

‘Why what, Mother?’ he asked, his words holding only a veneer of icy politeness.

‘Why are you marrying that poor girl?’

Vittorio’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t appreciate the way you refer to my bride. There is nothing poor about Ana.’

Constantia let out a crow of disbelieving laughter. ‘Come, Vittorio! I know the women you’ve taken to your bed. I’ve seen them in the tabloids. They would eat Anamaria Viale alive.’

He just kept himself from flinching. ‘They will never have the opportunity.’

‘No?’ Constantia took a step towards him, incredulity lacing the single word. ‘You think not? And how will you manage that, my son? Will you keep your precious wife locked away in a glass case? Because, I assure you, that is not a pleasant place to be.’