she lay beside that ‘lovely man’ feigning sleep.
This time tomorrow they would be married.
This time tomorrow she would no longer be a virgin.
Gabriele turned in his sleep. A warm leg brushed against her.
She stopped breathing.
Sensation spread throughout her, a low ache pulsing deep in her pelvis.
She gritted her teeth and exhaled through her mouth.
How could she be so aware of him? Why could her body not hate him with the same passion as her brain?
If she could only switch her body off she would be able to ignore the fact that sleeping beside her was the most physically attractive man she’d ever met.
She could pretend the heat suffusing her at his nearness meant nothing.
* * *
‘Elena, are you ready?’ Gabriele banged on the bedroom door, where she’d been holed up for the best part of an hour, telling him she wanted to be alone as she prepared.
The door swung open.
All she had on was a mauve robe. A towel was wrapped around her hair.
‘I can’t do it,’ she said, panic in her voice.
‘Do what?’ He looked at his watch. His driver would be here any minute to take them to the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. Everything was set. All they had to do was turn up. If she was about to renege on their contract...
‘My make-up,’ she screeched. ‘I can’t remember what Adrian told me to do.’
Not only was there panic in her voice but in her eyes too.
She was so highly strung at that moment she could snap like a too taut piece of elastic.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said.
‘Where are you going?’
‘One minute.’ He went to his drinks cabinet and poured two hefty measures of brandy, then carried the glasses back to the bedroom and pressed one in her hand.
‘Drink it,’ he commanded. ‘It will calm your...’
She’d downed it before he could finish his sentence.
‘Can I have another?’
‘Sure.’
He went off and poured them both another. She drank it as quickly as the first and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Better?’
She nodded.
‘Elena...’ Her robe had opened a touch, enough for him to catch a glimpse of a small breast.
He blinked and refocused his attention on her face.
‘Elena, we have plenty of time,’ he lied. ‘Just do your best. Everyone will be too busy looking at your dress to pay attention to your face.’
He’d waited in a nearby coffee shop while she’d bought it. He’d spent the time trying not to think of their breakfast kiss, the remnants of which had still lingered in his bloodstream. It still lingered.
Before his engagement to Sophia he’d had a steady stream of regular girlfriends. He would never have considered himself a playboy but he’d had a lot of fun. Then he’d turned thirty and decided it was time to settle down. It was what people did when they still had trust in human decency.
Now, there was no one alive he trusted and he never would again.
His father had trusted Ignazio. He’d never dreamed his oldest, closest friend would betray him in such a manner.
Gabriele had trusted Ignazio too. Why on earth would he not? But where had this trust got him? A prison sentence, a dead father and a severely incapacitated mother.
He’d trusted Sophia. She hadn’t cared to believe in him, her only concern saving her reputation.
That was what trusting someone who wasn’t your own blood got you. Pain.
When his time with Elena came to an end, he was sure he would date again—he wasn’t dead—but sharing a life with anyone? Not a chance in hell.
At the time, Sophia had, on paper, seemed the perfect wifely candidate. They’d agreed on all the major things like religion and politics. It was the perfect meeting of minds. Plus she was from an old wealthy family so there was no question of her being a gold-digger. And she was beautiful. Properly beautiful. The kind of beauty that men and women alike would turn their heads to look at twice.
In the year he’d been with her, not one single kiss had elicited the reaction kissing Elena had evoked. He couldn’t remember a single kiss that had ever provoked such a strong surge of heat not just through his loins but through his blood, his bones, his very flesh.
He’d sat in that coffee shop, talking quietly on the phone to the man who could clear his name, trying to think of the words to induce him into switching sides, but his concentration had hung by a thread. His blood had thrummed too deeply from his kiss with Elena to think clearly.
The desire it had provoked in him had been inexplicable. It still was. As he looked at her now, standing before him with nothing but a robe covering her, the urge to take her into his arms and carry her to the bed was strong.
But, as he told himself grimly, desire meant nothing. It didn’t change anything.
But it would certainly make marriage to her more pleasurable.
She nodded, her lips pursed, determination etched on her face. ‘I can do this.’
‘Good. I’ll leave you to get on.’
Closing the door behind him, he wondered what kind of woman made it to the age of twenty-five without knowing how to apply make-up. He’d always assumed it was something inbuilt in them, like their ability to multitask without breaking a sweat.
How sheltered had her life been?
He knew Ignazio had kept her in the home for much of her childhood. His own father had often commented on it, saying how sad it was that his friend was hiding his only daughter away while his sons roamed free. No wonder she had aspired to be as much like her brothers as she could.
She was a strong, confident woman now, he assured himself. Whatever kind of childhood she’d had, it didn’t change who she had become.
Forty minutes later she finally appeared.
The dress she’d chosen to marry him in was white, as he’d stipulated, but that was the only truly traditional aspect. Sleeveless, it had a high lace neckline and fell like a fan above her knees. On her feet were simple white shoes with the tiniest of heels.
Her newly feathered fringe had been
