going to do about it? She couldn’t make him want more or force him to see her in a different light, could she?
A sham marriage? That overheard phone call returned to haunt her. How hard could it be for Vito to fake being genuinely married when all he intended to do was have sex with her? A chill trickled through her tummy and made her tense. Suddenly fears that she had earlier dismissed were becoming a source of genuine concern. Why had she so easily believed that Apollo was talking nonsense about Vito’s intentions? Apollo Metraxis had known Vito since childhood. Apollo probably knew Vito a great deal better than she did and if he suspected that Vito had only married her to gain custody of his son, shouldn’t she be sincerely scared?
When she wakened it was still dark, with only the faintest glimmer of light showing behind the curtains. She was deliciously comfortable. Vito had both arms wrapped round her and she was snuggled up to him, secure in the warmth and the wonderfully familiar scent of his skin. He was stroking her hip bone and she stretched in a helpless little movement.
‘I want you, tesoro mia.’
Her eyes flew wide as he shifted against her back, letting her feel the hard swell of him. ‘Again?’
His sensual mouth pressed into the sensitive skin of her throat. ‘Don’t move. I’ll do all the work.’
And he did, repositioning her, gently rousing her from her drowsiness and then sinking into her with exquisite precision. She heard herself gasp and then moan and the sweet swell of pleasure surged up and overpowered all her anxious thoughts. Excitement took hold and she trembled with need as his smooth thrusts rocked her sensitised body. She couldn’t fight her responses or the uncontrollable wave of ecstatic sensation that swept her to an explosive climax.
‘What a wonderful way to wake up,’ Vito groaned into her tumbled hair. ‘I never dreamt that having a wife could be so much fun. Are you joining me for breakfast?’
Behind her hair, Holly rolled her eyes. She was married to one of those horrid people who came alive around dawn and acted as though it were late morning. Either she stayed in bed and saw very little of him or she changed herself to fit. She lay listening to the shower running and watched him emerge swathed in a towel, the long, lean length of his unspeakably beautiful body mostly exposed. Her mouth ran dry as he disappeared into the dressing room and opened another door. Closet doors were rammed back, drawers opened and closed. She scrambled out of bed and ran for the shower before she could be tempted to backtrack and fall back asleep. Dabbing on minimal make-up, she brushed her hair and extracted some of her new clothes to wear because a pair of jeans and a washed-out cotton top didn’t seem quite sufficient for the grandeur of the Castello Zaffari.
Clad in beautifully tailored chinos and a filmy blouse in autumn shades, she slotted her feet into canvas shoes and went out to join Vito. He looked as he had the day she had confronted him at the Zaffari Bank: cool, sophisticated, remote, very much the banker. And at the same time he contrived to look amazing whether he was slotting cufflinks into his cuffs or brushing his cropped black hair.
‘Who wears cufflinks these days?’ Holly prompted.
Vito shrugged. ‘We all use them at the bank.’
‘Not at the cutting edge of fashion, then,’ she mocked, although his dark suit was incredibly well tailored to lovingly shape wide shoulders, a broad chest, narrow hips and long, powerful legs. Just looking at him, she wanted to touch him.
‘Breakfast,’ he reminded her, heading for the door.
The castello was silent until they reached the ground floor where vague signs of industry could be heard somewhere in the distance. Silvestro entered the hall and looked taken aback to see them. He burst into Italian and Vito responded with quiet amusement.
‘Why does everybody think I should be staying home today?’ he quipped, leading the way into a sunlit dining room.
‘Maybe...because you should be?’ Holly dared. ‘Just married and all that...’
Silvestro fussed round the table making unnecessary adjustments while Vito translated all the many options Holly could choose for breakfast. As the older man sped off Vito lifted one of the financial newspapers piled at his end of the table and began to read it and Holly wondered whether she should have stayed in bed. She wanted to go and see if Angelo was awake but she didn’t want to leave Vito lest he leave for the bank while she was gone.
She had already decided to confront Vito about that phone call she had overheard Apollo making but she had intended to pick and choose the right moment, which might well have been while they were still wrapped round each other in bed. But something about the way Vito lifted that newspaper after dragging her downstairs awakened her temper.
‘I overheard Apollo talking on the phone to someone at our reception yesterday.’
Vito lowered the newspaper and frowned at her. ‘Overheard?’ he questioned.
Below the onslaught of his dark glittering gaze, Holly went pink. ‘Well, eavesdropped... I suppose.’
‘Are you in the habit of listening in on other people’s phone calls?’
‘That’s not really relevant here,’ Holly fudged in desperation, feeling like a child being called to account for misbehaviour. ‘Apollo was so obviously talking about us...about our marriage. He was saying that you hadn’t had a DNA test with Angelo and that there had been no pre-nup—’
‘You’re trying to shock me with facts?’
Holly scrambled out of her seat and squared her small shoulders. ‘Apollo was sneering about his belief that you trust me.’
‘Obviously I won’t be trusting you in the vicinity of confidential phone calls,’ Vito pronounced, deadpan.
Somehow the confrontation was not proceeding in any expected direction and Holly was stung into anger. ‘Apollo thinks our marriage is a sham!’
Vito elevated an ebony brow. ‘I think the only two people who can comment on that probability are the two of us.’
‘Apollo seemed to believe that you had only married me to get me to move to Italy. He thinks you’re planning to go to court and try to claim full custody of our son.’
‘I’m not sure whether to be more offended by my friend’s low take on my morals or by my wife’s,’ Vito imparted very softly, marvelling that she could have placed credence in such an unrealistic plot, which smacked very much of Apollo’s sensational outlook on life. ‘Do you think I would do that to you and Angelo?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Holly protested.
‘It is exactly the point,’ Vito incised with ruthless bite. ‘Why else are you challenging me with this nonsense?’
As Silvestro reappeared with a tray Holly sank back down into her seat. She was angry and mortified at the same time but clung to the comforting fact that Vito had called her concerns ‘nonsense’. While food was being laid on the table, Holly studied her pale pink nails and suspected that one day she might possibly throw a coffee pot at Vito for his sarcastic cool.
‘To clarify matters,’ Vito mused as Silvestro retreated, ‘Apollo was most probably talking to a mutual friend called Jeremy, who happens to be a lawyer trained in family law. Although it is ridiculously unnecessary, Apollo tries to protect me from the gold-diggers of this
