she declared mutinously. She had already had this argument earlier, and she was not about to start trying to defend her choice again.
‘Dance with me,’ Gianfranco demanded. She stilled, and the large hand at her spine pulled her closer. ‘Smile,’ he suggested silkily, glittering dark eyes absorbing the defiance in her beautiful face. ‘Or people might suspect that we are arguing.’
‘Heaven forbid anyone would dare argue with you, Gianfranco,’ she drawled sarcastically. And was punished by being kissed in a brief, hard kiss. Her nostrils flared on the disturbingly familiar scent of him, her body instantly melting in the circle of his arms. ‘People are watching,’ she said, her face flushing scarlet.
‘So what? I am master in my own home,’ he murmured against her ear as he guided her gently around the floor. ‘You would do well to remember that. I am not used to the women in my life bending my ear about clothes,’ he declared with all the aristocratic arrogance of his illustrious ancestors. ‘It has got to stop—understand?’
Involuntarily Kelly flinched and missed a step, stung by the implied threat in his statement…
‘Olivia was right, you are rather clumsy tonight,’ he remarked.
Judy had not been lying! In that second Kelly wanted to thump him; her blue eyes flashed fire as they met his. ‘And you are a blind chauvinist pig!’ she whispered tightly.
Her sapphire eyes were magnificent when anger or passion aroused her, but he did not want to argue with her. ‘Don’t get upset, Kelly.’ His gleaming dark eyes held hers. ‘I will forgive you. It’s probably your hormones playing up.’
Kelly pulled free just as the music stopped, but before she could speak Carmela tapped Gianfranco on the arm. ‘The guests will soon be leaving.’
Half an hour later the last of the guests had left. Carmela declared the evening a great success and suggested they all have a nightcap. Kelly refused, said goodnight and made straight for the stairs.
Inside she was a seething mass of conflicting emotions. She loved Gianfranco, but he, by his own words, had admitted he had been laughing at her with Olivia. She couldn’t believe he was so insensitive to her feelings. But then, she did not know him that well, as she was fast discovering.
Once in the bedroom, she quickly undressed, and in the bathroom she washed, then brushed out her hair, before slipping on a blue satin nightgown. She grimaced slightly—it was getting a little snug—and walked back into the bedroom.
After an instant’s hesitation at seeing Gianfranco, she continued towards the bed.
‘Rather a hasty exit, Kelly,’ he opined hardly. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt you to share a nightcap with Mamma.’
‘I thought I’d leave you to it, then you could all have a good laugh at me,’ she snapped.
In the process of divesting himself of his clothes he stopped and faced her, his dinner suit discarded and his fingers lingering on the last button of his shirt.
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ He shrugged off his shirt and stood before her in just black silk boxers. His dark eyes narrowed intently on her pale face. ‘You have been in a strange mood for the past hour.’
‘Maybe because I don’t like being told what to wear, or being ordered to change.’
Gianfranco stilled, his broad shoulders tensing. ‘Maybe you should learn some courtesy to my mother, when she has very generously tried to help you,’ he opined bluntly.
‘Maybe you should learn some courtesy to me, your wife,’ she snarled, the events of the evening finally getting on top of her. ‘Like when your sister-in-law tipped her drink all over me and apologised. Yet, according to Judy, when you appeared she told you it was my clumsiness and you all had a jolly good laugh.’
A dark stain of red ran along his high cheekbones. At least he had the grace to blush, which was something, Kelly thought bitterly. Thoroughly fed-up, she did not want to argue with him, she wanted him to hold her in his arms and reassure her of his love, and instead he was staring at her with eyes as cold as ice.
‘Everyone laughed; as the host, I smiled in agreement with my guests, the correct thing to do,’ he said with chilling politeness. ‘But you are being ridiculous, Kelly. I have known Olivia a lot longer than you and she would not lie.’
‘No? You’re inferring that I would?’ Kelly shot back at him in outrage.
‘Yes—no.’ For once her indomitable husband had to struggle for words. ‘You were probably mistaken, a woman in your condition.’
‘If you mention my condition once more, so help me I will flatten you,’ she screeched tempestuously.
His jaw clenched. ‘Contain yourself, Kelly, such temper cannot be good for you or the baby.’
Too angry to bother guarding her tongue, Kelly flared, ‘And you supporting Olivia over your wife is? The woman sleeps in the master suite and her husband has been dead over three years. But then maybe she is waiting for the new master to take his place, or perhaps you already have,’ she snarled, shaking with anger.
Gianfranco went rigid, tension emanating from him in waves. Hooded black eyes surveyed her with a look of such simmering rage that she involuntarily stepped back, afraid of a physical attack. Her anger vanished. She knew she had gone too far. What on earth had possessed her to throw Judy’s coarse rumours in his face?
‘You do well to retreat, Kelly. If you were not carrying my child I would make you pay for such a slanderous slur on your husband and a woman who has done you no harm but welcomed you into the family home.’
Kelly had never seen Gianfranco so angry; his eyes were flat and cold, and somehow that frightened her. He caught her shoulders and she trembled. His tanned near-naked body had the familiar devastating effect on Kelly. He was so close she had trouble breathing. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured, completely subjugated by his towering presence.
Gianfranco saw the fear in her deep blue eyes and checked himself. She in turn infuriated and enchanted him, and if he could get his hands on whoever it was putting such stupid ideas in her head he would strangle them. ‘Tell me, who has been filling your head with such rubbish?’ he demanded, staring down at her, noting the panicked bounding of her heart and the rise and fall of her breasts against the soft satin covering them.
‘No one.’ Kelly lowered her eyes and stared at his broad chest. ‘It probably is just my hormones playing up,’ she offered as an excuse, and perhaps it was, she told herself, filled with shame at what she had implied. She had sounded like the worst kind of jealous wife. But she was not going to betray Judy. ‘When Anna showed me around I knew Olivia…’ She trailed off.
Gianfranco breathed a sigh of relief and pulled her into his arms. Hormones he could understand. He brushed his lips across her smooth brow in a tender gesture. ‘Perhaps I should have explained earlier, but you have to understand Olivia was devastated by the death of her husband Alfredo—my brother. We all were. But Olivia had a nervous breakdown and was ill for over a year, and, although she appears very confident and in control, she is still very fragile. She is family, so naturally Mamma and I look after her.’
Kelly was feeling worse by the minute. ‘Oh, how terrible for her.’ Her soft heart was touched.
‘Yes,
