challenge of surrendering his freedom.
Her hand trembled in his when he grasped it to thread on the wedding ring. She had worn her engagement ring on her other hand. And like Beppe’s family emerald, which she had brought out to Italy with her, it was another emerald to reflect the colour of her eyes, an emerald teamed with white diamonds but not over large because Ellie didn’t like flashy jewellery and had wanted something she could occasionally wear to work. So sensible, his Ellie, Rio thought wryly, wondering just when he had started thinking of her as his. When he’d imagined her pregnant with his child and liked the idea? When he saw her walking down the aisle towards him? Or when he realised that he was her first lover and strangely determined to be her last?
Of course, he knew why he was marrying her. With Ellie, the sex was on another level even though it had gone wrong the one and only time it had happened. She stood up to him, she talked back, she was his equal in every way. But more importantly she had signed a prenup contract ringed with so many iron hoops of protection that an escape artist couldn’t have undermined it. If Ellie liked money, he had plenty of it and there were worse weaknesses for a woman to have, he reasoned. She could have been the unfaithful type, forever in search of the next big thrill. She could’ve been the uncaring, uncommitted type but he’d already seen her bonding happily with Beppe and witnessed just how close she was to her sister. And if there was to be a baby Rio was convinced that she would always and without hesitation do right by their child. The ability and the desire to be a good mother was the most imperative trait of all that a woman could have, he reflected with sombre conviction.
Ellie emerged from the church on Rio’s arm. A crowd of people were crushed into the street outside. Fleeting introductions were made while the photographer fluttered around. They were congratulated and showered with rice.
In the midst of the noise and excitement, Ellie suddenly noticed two blondes wielding their camera phones and giggling like drains as they urged Rio to look at them and smile. And it was them, unmistakably the identical twins who had gambolled naked on Rio’s bed in that Dharian hotel two years earlier. Ellie’s throat convulsed. She couldn’t have been mistaken, she thought angrily. They were highly noticeable women, blonde, beautiful twins, whippet thin and impossibly sparkly and effervescent in a way that was seen as ultrafeminine. Rio had actually invited the twins to their wedding. Ellie paled and compressed bloodless lips while the perplexed photographer urged her to smile.
She settled almost dizzily into the limousine beside Rio and looked at him. How could he do this to her? How could he be so insensitive to her feelings? Those blondes reminded her of the most humiliating moment of her life. Before Rio had opened the door to that hotel room she had been on a high, feeling like a sexy, attractive woman for the first time ever and ready to move forward, no longer feeling like the drab, clever redhead whom few men approached. And her first glimpse of the giggly twins on his bed had cut her like a knife, making her feel ridiculous and pathetic and useless.
‘Cosa c’e di sbagliato? What’s wrong?’ Rio asked as the car moved off to whisk them back to the palazzo where the reception was being held.
And Ellie didn’t know what to say. After all, he was entitled to a sexual past and in marrying him she had accepted that past. Exes at a wedding, well, not exactly what you wanted but not always avoidable either. But did the twins recognise her as the shocked woman in that doorway two years back? And would they mention that to anyone? Have a good giggle about it? She cringed inside herself and said nothing.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she assured him quietly. ‘It’s just all the wedding hullabaloo. When it comes all together, it leaves you feeling shell-shocked.’
‘I didn’t invite Becky and Roz,’ Rio breathed impatiently, cutting through her pretence.
So, he had noticed the twins. Well, really, how could he have missed them bouncing up and down with excitement only a few feet from him, determined to be noticed by him? Yet he had somehow contrived not to look once in their direction, nor had he shown the smallest hint of self-consciousness. But then why would he?
‘Is that their names?’ Ellie queried with a wooden lack of expression.
‘I told the wedding planner to contact Rashad for the list of our university friends because I haven’t kept up with their addresses,’ Rio explained. ‘They were invited to your sister’s wedding and that’s probably how they ended up at ours. If I’d taken a greater personal interest, I would’ve left them off the list.’
If anything, Ellie had grown even stiffer. ‘Of course, if they’re uni friends, why would you leave them out?’
‘Ellie, you’re putting out more sub-zero chills than a freezer,’ Rio said with sardonic bite. ‘But I can’t change the past and neither can you.’
‘I didn’t realise the twins had ever been actual friends of yours,’ Ellie admitted stonily, not best pleased to hear that information. ‘Probably because I’ve never slept with any of my male friends.’
‘Sadly, I wasn’t quite so particular,’ Rio countered in the same measured tone. ‘And neither were they. In those days I could only cope with casual—’
Her smooth brow indented. ‘And why was that?’
Rio squared his broad shoulders and settled back with a sigh. ‘I set up a property venture when I was nineteen. Beppe was pressuring me to go to university to study business but I thought I could take a shortcut to success,’ he admitted wryly. ‘My business partner, Jax, had the security of a wealthy background. The property market was booming and we were doing very well, which is when I met a gorgeous brunette. I fell in love with Franca, asked her to marry me and we moved in together.’
Ellie dragged in a startled breath, for what he had just admitted was the very last thing she had expected to hear from him. After all, she had simply assumed that Rio had always played the field without ever pausing to settle on one particular woman. Learning different shook her up, learning that he had found that one particular woman years earlier and presumably lost her again filled her with insecurity.
Rio skimmed narrowed dark eyes over the pale, still triangle of her face and his shapely mouth twisted. ‘The property market stalled and I was overstretched. I still believe I could have made it through but Jax pulled out and hung me out to dry...and Franca, who had been screwing him behind my back and who very much liked the luxuries of life, ran off with him.’
Ellie winced and dropped her gaze, imagining the sting of that double blow of financial loss and treachery. ‘I’m really sorry that that happened to you,’ she murmured ruefully. ‘It must’ve been very hard to pick yourself up after that experience.’
‘It taught me a valuable lesson. At university I learned enough to ensure that I would never leave myself that vulnerable in business again,’ he confided. ‘I succeeded but after Franca, I avoided any kind of serious involvement with women. What the twins offered suited me at the time. No strings.’
‘I can understand that,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘You know...er...that night at Polly’s wedding, after we parted... I’ve always wondered what happened—’
‘You don’t want to know,’ Rio cut in succinctly, his tone cold as ice water.
And in telling her that he had told her everything there was to know, she acknowledged in consternation, just as suddenly furious with him. She had rejected him that night and had raced back to her room at the palace to take refuge in time-honoured tears and self-recriminations. But Rio had taken solace where he could find it and what right had she to object? Finding that out annoyed and disturbed her though. Rio could divide sex from
