The Italian's Doorstep Surprise Read online

  His lips twisted. “Way ahead of you.”

  Benny didn’t speak to her again on the drive. Honora sat in the front seat, gripping the handle over her head as the big SUV swayed sharply around the turns of the narrow coastal road, passing within inches of tour buses flying in the opposite direction.

  She felt sick from the twisty roads, exhausted by jet lag and lack of sleep, and horrified by his words.

  But as the SUV finally entered through a guarded gate into a beautiful estate filled with lemon trees, Honora thought of how lucky she was: a newlywed, expecting a baby, in love with her husband. Surely she could be kind to Benny and not ruin his life just because of some ridiculous infatuation.

  With a deep breath, she turned to him. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to lose your job—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Pulling up in front of a grand, classical villa, he faced her. “I’ll be fine. I already know someone looking for a driver. She lives in Hollywood.” He gave a sharp smile. “I’ll be a movie star within a year. I would have left a long time ago if you’d just been honest with me.”

  “When was I not honest?”

  “Every time I flirted with you, showed you how much I liked you, bought you pickles. I believed you when you said you couldn’t date because your grandfather needed you. But it was just an excuse. The second Ferraro crooked his finger, you couldn’t wait to fling yourself into his bed. The second he bought that ring—” he eyeballed the huge diamond on her left hand “—you couldn’t wait to say your vows.”

  Her cheeks went hot. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings...”

  Benny gave a harsh laugh. “So you kept me around for years in hope, rather than telling a single hard truth to set me free.”

  “I never meant to—”

  “Save it.” Getting out of the SUV, Benny came around to her side and opened her door, his expression hard. He didn’t look at her. Honora got out slowly, feeling bewildered by his sudden anger.

  Wrenching open the rear passenger door, Benny waited stone-faced as Nico got out, his Italian assistant trailing behind him. Her husband looked between the driver and Honora sharply. He seemed to sense something was wrong.

  As Frank Bauer got out of the second car, he called, “Hey, Benny, mind helping me with the bags?”

  “Screw you, Bauer. And as for you—” Turning to Nico, Benny said something in Italian, complete with a gesture that even Honora knew was vulgar.

  Nico’s jaw dropped a little, but he responded with a cool smile, “Thanks for making this easy, Rossini.”

  “Same to you.” Dropping the car key onto the gravel driveway, Benny stomped into the large, imposing villa, surrounded by gardens and overlooking the blue sea from a rocky cliff.

  “Follow him,” Nico drawled to his employees. “I imagine he’s packing his things, but make sure he doesn’t run off with the silver.”

  His security chief and assistant nodded, then hurried into the looming white villa with its elegant columns and statuary.

  Nico’s pretense of impassivity dropped as he went to Honora.

  “What happened on the drive?” he demanded, looking down at her. “What did he say? Did he hurt you?”

  “No, he just...he said he loved me. And he’s angry because he thinks I led him on, but I didn’t!”

  “Of course not,” he said soothingly. He gave a crooked grin. “You can’t help it if you’re desirable.”

  Honora choked out a laugh, but it sounded like a sob. “He’ll be happier now. He’s off for some new job, working for some woman in Hollywood.” She tilted her head. “Do you think he’s talking about Lana Lee?” Now that was a woman every man desired!

  “Probably. I don’t give a damn.” His hands tightened at his sides. He turned grimly toward his villa. “I can’t believe he tried to seduce you while I was in the same car. I’m going to go in there and—”

  “No.” Frightened by the look on Nico’s face, she put her hand over his. “He didn’t try to seduce me, not like you mean. And maybe he had a point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All these years, I pretended not to notice how he was always flirting with me, asking me out to dinner.”

  “You should have just punched him in the face,” Nico said darkly. She laughed, then saw he was serious. She shook her head.

  “That probably would have hurt him less. I should have been brave enough to tell him the truth.” Trying to change the subject and take away the scowl on her husband’s face, Honora looked up at the enormous villa. “Wow. It’s a palace.”

  Nico looked up at it. “It’s not a palace. But it will do.” His lips curved at the edges. “Until I get the one I really want.”

  “There’s a villa nicer than this?”

  “No. It’s a ruin. And I’m going to knock it down and build something beautiful and new.”

  Shaking her head, she smiled. “You’re never satisfied, are you?”

  “No,” he said huskily, drawing closer. “Especially not where you are concerned. I’ll never get enough of you.”

  Her heart lifted, helping to dispel the dark clouds caused by Benny’s words. Sooner or later he’s going to hurt you. Glancing past his ear, she gave him a tentative smile. “Is that a garden?”

  “Yes. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Will I?” Holding his hand, Honora tugged him around the edge of the villa. She stopped, her mouth agape when she saw the formal garden with roses and palm trees surrounding marble fountains, and past that, groves of lemon trees with the biggest lemons she’d ever seen. Beyond the grand villa, she could see the turquoise sea crashing against the rocky cliffs. The soft Italian wind, redolent of oranges and spice, blew against her skin.

  Nico looked down at her with a frown. “Are you crying?”

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she whispered. She looked up at him. “I can’t believe all this is yours.”

  He looked at her and his harsh expression changed, became almost tender, as a light entered his dark eyes. “Ours.”

  “Ours?” she breathed. “Even the garden?”

  “No.” He smiled. “The garden is just yours.”

  She danced on the spot. “I love you!”

  Nico gave a surprised, joyful laugh as she threw her arms around him. He hugged her back.

  Then she looked up at him, trembling with fear, and it felt as if time stopped. But she’d learned her lesson. It was better to reveal the truth, come what may.

  “I mean it.” With a deep breath, she looked straight into his eyes and said in a totally different tone, “I love you, Nico.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I LOVE YOU.”

  Nico felt the words like a blow, as if she’d punched him in the throat.

  I love you.

  Those words had been said to him before, by overeager girlfriends trying to take the sexual affair to the next level, to tie him down, to get him to put a ring on it. He’d seen them for the manipulations they were.

  This was different.

  Nico looked down at his beautiful pregnant wife in his arms. Honora. So beautiful inside and out. She meant the words. He saw emotion shining in her big green eyes. Love. What did that even mean?

  Her heart-shaped face was filled with adoration—adoration Nico knew he didn’t deserve. He knew he was selfish and ruthless and cold.

  How had Honora convinced herself to see something else? Had he been complicit in her self-deception?

  He also saw her unspoken longing for him to return her love.

  Why? His demons reared their ugly heads. So she could possess and control him? He would never allow himself to be so weak, so vulnerable, so helpless, giving his soul up into the power of another. As a boy, he’d always yearned desperately for attention, to feel like he belonged, like he was valuable. Instead, he’d bee
n neglected, heartsick and alone, always wondering what was wrong with him that even his own mother seemed to regret his existence. Never again.

  But as Honora looked up at him, as her soft body pressed against his, he looked down at her full breasts, pushing up against the thin straps of her red cotton sundress, and felt a different emotion. The only one he could allow himself to safely feel.

  Desire.

  Even after hours of making love to her—in the Hamptons, on the private jet—Nico suddenly wanted her more than ever.

  She loved him. He’d never asked for her love, but now he possessed her, body and soul.

  And if he couldn’t love her back, he could at least give her his body, because it was utterly and completely hers...

  The sky above the villa was bright blue, and a warm wind blew in from the azure sea as he held her amid the lemon groves. Nico saw the growing question in her beautiful face: Did he love her, too? He could not break her heart with the truth.

  So he kissed her.

  She felt warm in his arms, her baby bump pressed against him in her red sundress, as he stroked her bare arms. Her hands reached up to pull his head down to deepen the kiss, which made him ache for her even more. It was as close as he could get to love.

  He ran his hands through her long dark hair, which swept loose and long over her bare shoulders. Her fingertips stroked lightly through his short black waves, then down over his shirt. Around them, he could smell the scent of lemons, of Italy, of the sea. He smelled roses and vanilla—the scent of his wife’s perfume. He kissed her passionately, holding her close.

  Cupping his unshaven cheek, she whispered against his lips, “I love you, Nico.”

  Again. He shuddered from a mixture of desire and dread. He liked her loving him, he realized. But if she knew he could never return her feelings...

  He had to make sure she never realized that. For her sake. He had to protect his wife’s feelings, to make sure she never knew his heart felt nothing.

  But his body—

  “I want you,” he whispered huskily. He kissed her again and felt the sweet pleasure of her lips drawing him down, down into an intoxication more thrilling and mind-numbing than he’d ever experienced with alcohol. He felt her shiver in his arms.

  Taking her hand, Nico pulled her away from the lemon groves, through the formal Italian garden, past the roses and burbling marble fountains. The warm sun caressed their skin as he drew her back to the enormous white wedding cake villa that was perched on a cliff overlooking the coast.

  He paused for only a moment when he saw Benny Rossini scowling as he was escorted into a waiting SUV by his security chief. Honora watched, her face shadowed with worry and guilt.

  Nico ground his teeth. Why would she feel guilty? Rossini himself was clearly to blame for his own bad judgment. But Honora’s heart was so tender and kind that she blamed herself for everything.

  “Make sure he gets his full salary for the month, and any vacation time owed,” he told Frank Bauer, who nodded.

  Honora turned to Nico. “I feel bad—”

  “Didn’t he say he was glad to go to Hollywood?” he said shortly. “He’ll be fine.”

  “But—”

  “Honora.” As the SUV drove away, he looked directly into her eyes. “Why do you always blame yourself? It wasn’t your fault. Let it go.”

  She bit her lip, then sighed. “Fine.”

  He pulled her inside the villa, and the tall oak door closed solidly behind them.

  Inside, the two-hundred-year-old classical villa was elegant, stately in its age, and crowded with antiques, the antithesis of his sleek Hamptons beach mansion and stark Manhattan penthouse.

  Honora looked with surprise at the foyer’s checkered marble floor and frescoed ceilings of cherubs soaring high above. “This is...yours?”

  He shrugged. “I bought it with the furniture intact.”

  Looking around, she gave an amused laugh. “This is the shack you’re slumming in until you can buy the villa you really want?”

  “Until I can build it. I told you. When I get my father’s ancestral home, I will raze it to the ground and build something modern and new.”

  “An ancestral home?” She frowned. “That sounds important. Why not remodel and restore it?”

  He looked away. “It’s a symbol,” he said quietly, “of everything my father did. The place where he seduced my mother, who was a maid in his house. Then he threw her out and refused to take responsibility for her pregnancy. He represents everything that’s wrong and corrupt and cruel. I want to burn it all to the ground.”

  “Oh, Nico,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. No wonder you want to tear it down.”

  His eyes met hers. “I do. Then I will build a new villa. A new home. With you.”

  She seemed to visibly melt at his words. Emotion made her green eyes glow. At first it warmed him—but then his heart started to pound. Danger! He could not let himself feel emotion.

  But desire...

  Taking her hand, he pressed it to his lips. “I expect the Villa Caracciola to be mine within the week.” He slowly kissed up her bare arm to her shoulder, feeling her shiver. “Until we can build our real home,” he whispered, cupping her cheek as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers, “we’ll just have to make do...”

  Nico kissed her in the foyer until she sagged against him in surrender, both of them lost in pleasure. When he pulled away, he saw her beautiful face was dazed with desire. Taking her hand, he pulled her up the grand staircase.

  He’d only visited this villa once, the previous November, when he’d bought it. He was relieved to find he still knew the way to the master suite. It was the only thing he’d refurbished, combining three bedrooms to make a single large modern one.

  Huge windows and a balcony overlooked the picturesque sharp cliffs jutting into the turquoise sea. At the center of the room was an enormous bed. The white duvet was dotted with red rose petals. The marble fireplace had been filled with an enormous bouquet of pink and red long-stemmed roses. Nearby, an intimate table for two was covered with chocolate-dipped strawberries, sparkling pink lemonade, small canapés, fruit and tiny sandwiches.

  Honora stopped, her sandals almost screeching to a halt on the hardwood floor, her eyes wide as her dark hair swayed over her red sundress. “What’s this?”

  Nico felt glad in this moment, so glad, that he’d taken the time to ask his Italian housekeeper to set it up. All so simple, and yet his wife looked more touched than when he’d dragged her to Cartier and insisted on buying her a twenty-carat diamond. She looked, in fact, as if she were about to cry.

  Maybe he couldn’t give her love. But romance, romance he could do.

  “For you, my darling bride,” Nico whispered. Coming forward, he cupped her cheek as he slowly lowered his lips to hers. “Roses and chocolates and kisses. Kisses most of all. Everything I have, everything I am...is yours.”

  * * *

  Honora woke up smiling.

  Late-afternoon sunshine was flooding through the west-facing windows of their bedroom. She must have fallen asleep naked, she realized, after their lunch and lovemaking. She stretched languorously, loving every sweet ache of her body.

  Every part of her felt touched by him, blessed. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but then, she’d been tired even before they’d arrived at his villa, with all the passion they’d shared while crossing the Atlantic in his private jet, and before that in his Hamptons house.

  Although, she knew Nico would say, if he were here, that it was their private jet. Their Hamptons beach house. Their Amalfi Coast villa.

  But the thing she loved most about all of those places was that he was in them.

  So where was Nico? Getting out of bed, she looked around her. Unlike the rest of the villa, which had been chock full of antiques, this gorgeous master bedroom was as sparse with fur
niture as Nico’s other homes. Pulling on a silk robe that she’d bought in New York as part of the wedding trousseau he’d insisted on buying her, she peeked into the en suite bathroom.

  It was gleaming, modern and new. And empty.

  She glanced at the small clock over the bedroom’s sleek marble fireplace, above the vase of long-stemmed pink and red roses. It was six o’clock. Almost dinner time, at least by American standards. And she was hungry. Being pregnant really gave her an appetite.

  Or maybe she’d worked it up doing something else. Again and again. She blushed.

  Taking a shower in the large walk-in shower, Honora relished the warmth against her skin as she scrubbed her hair. So much easier to do here than in that postage-stamp-sized shower on the private jet. Stepping out, she wrapped herself in a thick white cotton towel. As she wiped the steam off the mirror, she looked at herself in amazement as she brushed her teeth.

  How had she stepped into this life? She didn’t understand how she could be so lucky. What had she ever done to deserve it?

  You didn’t have to work for it. You’re just marrying it.

  Her smile fell a little as she remembered Emmie’s bitter words, words her friend had apologized for and tried to take back. But it had never been about money for Honora. She would have been mad about Nico, rich or poor! She loved him just for himself!

  She loved him. But did he love her?

  Everything I have...everything I am...is yours.

  Honora shivered, remembering how she’d felt when he’d kissed her earlier and taken her on that bed.

  That meant love, didn’t it?

  Anyway, she didn’t need him to say the words. He cared for her; he was committed to her. That was enough. Honora’s heart could love enough for both of them. It could.

  Getting dressed in a pretty, new cotton sundress, she pulled her hair back into a long ponytail and went downstairs.

  After some aimless wandering along the villa’s hallways, she finally found Nico in a home office with his assistant and several other men in suits, all of them speaking in tense, rapid Italian as they looked over papers spread across a large table. They looked up as she entered. Nico smiled.