wasn’t naïve enough to think her father had never cut corners in his life but what Gabriele was accusing him of?
No. It just couldn’t be.
‘Elena?’
His voice broke her out of her trance.
He leaned forward and murmured, ‘Adoration, tesoro, adoration.’
Taking a deep breath to clear the unwarranted thoughts, she rested her chin on her hand and gazed at him.
And, as she stared into those soulful dark eyes, she couldn’t help but think that should he be anyone other than he was—a vengeful blackmailer—looking at him with adoration would be no hardship at all.
* * *
Elena had been locked in the bathroom for so long Gabriele wondered if she’d drowned in the shower.
He had to give it to her; she’d performed admirably that night.
All evening she’d kept her eyes on his, fluttering her lashes, laughing and smiling. She’d even managed not to flinch too overtly whenever he’d taken her hand. No other diner in the restaurant would be in any doubt that they were a couple very much enjoying each other’s company.
When Elena finally came out of the bathroom he wasn’t surprised to find her wearing her oversized pyjamas rather than the sexy sleepwear Liana had selected for her and which she’d put away in her dressing room earlier with her other purchases.
‘Do you have a preference to which side you like to sleep?’ he asked from his vantage point in the middle of the bed.
She shook her head, shuffling with obvious trepidation to him.
‘I’ll take the right side, then.’ He moved over.
Gingerly, she lifted the sheets and climbed in. As she did so he caught a whiff of minty toothpaste and a delicate floral scent.
There was an immediate thickening of his blood. And a thickening of another part of his anatomy.
She turned her back to him and burrowed under the sheets so only the top of her white-blonde hair showed.
Gabriele switched the bedside light off, plunging the room into darkness.
He gazed up at the ceiling, a hand resting above his head, and tried to empty his mind of clutter and not pay too much attention to the fact that Elena lay beside him.
Soon the stiffness in his loins would subside.
These were natural reactions for a man to have.
Sharing a bed with a pretty woman, even one clad in the most disgusting nightclothes he’d ever had the misfortune to see, would be enough to make any man hard, especially when that man had been celibate for the best part of four years.
After Sophia had ended their engagement, he’d smarted for a while but had been too caught up in the legal battle to allow himself to dwell on it for any length of time. Prison itself had been about getting through each day. Even with his work detail he’d had plenty of time to think and all that thinking had been spent on one thing—revenge. Sophia had hardly crossed his mind.
Since his release, the part of his brain not plotting his revenge had been spent rebuilding his and Mantegna Cars’ reputation. This rebuilding would culminate in the car being launched to honour his father’s memory. There simply hadn’t been the space for a woman, not in any capacity.
So it was no wonder that lying in the dark next to Elena had made his libido jump-start itself.
* * *
They were on the front page of every major paper in the US and Europe.
The Burying of the Hatchet? screamed the most common variety of headline.
They were also the headliners of all the major news outlets on the Web and the top trending story on social media. The picture most commonly used in them had Gabriele’s arm wrapped protectively around her and Elena’s head resting against his chest.
While she’d been sleeping, her phone, put on silent for the night, had gone berserk. She awoke to eleven missed calls from her father and brothers. All their texts and emails were variants of ‘call me now’.
There were also dozens of messages and missed calls from journalists and bloggers wanting comments on her relationship with Gabriele.
She couldn’t bring herself to listen to the voicemails.
Turning her phone off, she climbed out of the empty bed and headed to the bathroom, splashing some water on her face and brushing her teeth.
As with the day before, Gabriele was already showered and dressed. She found him in the dining room sipping a cup of coffee. He was casually dressed again, wearing black chinos and a grey T-shirt under an unbuttoned checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
An empty plate had been pushed to one side, half a dozen newspapers strewn before him.
‘Good morning, tesoro.’ He rose to his feet, a smile playing on his lips, one she was coming to recognise as the smile of satisfaction he gave when he was pleased with a plan coming to fruition.
To her shock, he stepped to her, pulled her into his arms and briefly covered her mouth with his own.
She reared her head back but couldn’t break free from his hold. ‘What are...?’
‘We have company,’ he interrupted in a low voice, dragging his lips across her cheek and dipping into her neck, his hand rubbing across her back.
‘Come, have some breakfast,’ he said in a normal tone, pulling the seat out from beside his own and virtually pressing her into it.
It was then that she saw the small man standing at the door separating the dining room from the kitchen.
‘Michael, this is Elena,’ Gabriele said by way of introduction, smiling affectionately at her as he took her stiff hand in his.
Michael bustled into the room, beaming widely. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ricci.’ He spoke with a strong New York drawl. ‘What can I get you for breakfast?’
‘Erm...’
‘I can recommend his poached eggs.’ Gabriele smoothed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
As soon as Michael had disappeared back into the kitchen, Elena snatched her hand from Gabriele’s hold.
‘There was no need for that,’ she hissed.
‘There was every need,’ he answered, taking her hand back. ‘You are like a cat on hot coals around me. We’re going to the city clerk’s office later to arrange our wedding licence. Tomorrow we marry. You need to be comfortable with me holding you and touching you.’
‘I did all that last night,’ she said indignantly, though making an effort to keep her voice down.
‘No, you made a start last night,’
