Italian Prince, Wedlocked Wife Read online

He wanted to hear her admit that she was his.

  She cried out as he caressed her with his tongue. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead from the exquisite pain of holding himself back as she twisted her hips beneath him.

  He held her down. Stretching her wide, he lapped her with the full width of his tongue. With agonizing slowness, he pushed one finger inside her, then two. She was so taut, he thought. So ready. He groaned aloud, not sure how much longer he could withstand this torture.

  Moving up, he kissed her dark hair, her belly, finally her breasts. He suckled her, squeezing the other breast with his fingers as his palm rubbed against her mound in an erotic circle.

  He felt her tense and tremble beneath him…

  Leaning forward, he whispered against her ear, “Don’t come, Lucy. Don’t.”

  He slowly pushed two fingertips inside her, inch by inch, swirling the nub of her pleasure with his thumb. He heard her suck in her breath. And hold it. Then she started to gasp. He felt her tighten around his fingers. Her whole body shook as her gasp crescendoed into a loud, terrible cry of ecstasy.

  For one perfect moment, joy went through him as he closed his eyes in triumph. She was his. He’d never had to try so hard for any woman as he had for his wife.

  His wife. At that thought, Maximo, the playboy prince who’d had more women than he could count, nearly lost his self-control like an untried teenager.

  Ripping off his jeans, he fell upon her, kissing her neck. Sliding a condom down his painfully hard shaft, he positioned himself between her legs. He could feel her hot wetness, her sweetness, and thought he would die if he didn’t—

  “Maximo.”

  He abruptly focused on her face. Tears were coursing down her cheeks.

  Dio santo!

  “Lucy,” he gasped. “You’re crying!”

  If he’d hurt her—

  She shook her head. “You’ve won.” Her voice trembled. “I’m yours forever.”

  Forever? The word shocked him. It was too perilously close to his own traitorous thoughts. He quickly shook his head. “No, cara, no. You’ve always known that our marriage is just—”

  She stopped him by putting a finger against his lips. “I know.”

  Lucy, his forever? Ridiculous thought! He wanted to satiate himself with her, that was all. A three-month affair. Six months. A year or two at most. And while they were together, they could pretend to be in love. Pretend to be a family. He would have her every night. And if a condom broke, if he accidentally got her pregnant…

  Pregnant.

  The thought of Lucy pregnant with his child finally made him lose the last of his control.

  Taking her finger into his mouth, he sucked it. He kissed up her bare arm to her neck. He lowered his body against hers and kissed her lips. She returned the kiss passionately, no longer trying to fight, and he entwined her tongue with his own. He stroked his hands down her body, caressing her belly, her backside and finally her hips. She swayed against him with a whimper.

  “Sì, cara, sì,” he said hoarsely. Feeling like he was going to explode, he pressed himself between her legs, trying to go slow, trying to resist the urge to shove forward and impale her with a single deep thrust.

  But she put her hands on his chest, holding him back. Her eyes pierced his.

  “Maximo,” she whispered, “everyone I’ve ever loved has lied to me. If you’re keeping anything from me, tell me now. Before I lose myself completely…”

  Stroking her hair, he looked deeply into her eyes and lied to her. “Proprio niente, cara. There’s nothing.”

  She smiled back at him for a brief instant, and joy filled her soft brown eyes. Then she gasped, arching her back as he pushed into her. She moaned, turning her head from side to side as he gripped her hips in his hands, penetrating her inch by inch. He sucked in his breath at the force of his pleasure. He’d never felt anything remotely like this. Shocked, he drew back, then thrust into her again. And again. And again, with increasing roughness.

  Growling aloud, he held her hips tight, riding her hard until their bodies were hot with sweat. Her body began to coil with new tension beneath his touch.

  “Don’t…” she muttered, biting her tender pink lip. Her eyes were closed as she gave a shuddering intake of breath. “Don’t stop. Please…oh God, please…”

  Her dark hair was twisted and tangled around her naked shoulders. Every time he thrust into her, her breasts bounced softly. Her slender white hands gripped his hips now, unknowingly controlling his rhythm. She finally screamed, bucking her hips, and he thrust into her with a final explosive shout. He nearly blacked out from the pleasure as he poured his seed into her.

  He collapsed next to her on the bed with a hoarse, exhausted sigh. Lying next to her on the bed, he held her. He tenderly kissed his wife’s sweaty forehead. “Goddess,” he whispered. “Donna molto bella. You’re mine.”

  But even as he murmured the words, he knew that if she ever found out the truth this would all come to a crashing end.

  It was a new world.

  Lucy had never known that sex could be like this.

  This—this intoxicating drug was why people made such fools of themselves for the sake of desire. She understood it now.

  Her husband’s skills exceeded even his Casanova legend. He was better than Heathcliff—better than Mr. Darcy. What he could do with his hands. What he could do with his tongue…

  She blushed. Hours later, lying naked yet again in his arms, she ran her fingers along the edge of his strong, masculine hand, his dark-haired forearm. They’d made love three times today now. Twice before his aunt had returned with Chloe. They’d taken a brief break to have dinner—both of them had been starving, and he’d cooked for them as she played with her daughter—then they’d put Chloe to bed in her crib.

  And Maximo had picked up Lucy in his arms and tossed her into the master bedroom next door.

  She should have been exhausted. Spent. And yet she was strangely wired—too energized to even think of sleeping. She couldn’t stop looking at him. She pressed her head against his shoulder, looking up at the sharp edge of his cheekbone, his masculine beauty.

  Moonlight pooled on the foot of the bed, lining her dark sleeping prince with silver.

  Sex without love. Was it possible?

  For him, perhaps. Not for her.

  She knew it for certain now. Because with his every kiss, his every thrust, she’d felt herself falling deeper.

  Disaster. But there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t pick and choose her feelings like Maximo could. She was falling in love with him. With a playboy prince who hated her grandfather, who’d married her only to get his revenge and who planned to casually divorce her, tossing her in the trash like stale bread.

  She’d lost their war. Lost it completely. She would have only three months with him before she lost him forever. Before she lost the perfect husband and perfect father who had only one flaw—that he wanted to be neither a husband nor a father.

  And of course there was that additional problem of him insisting that her grandfather die miserable and alone.

  Her hand involuntarily clenched against his chest. Giuseppe Ferrazzi was a stranger to her, but he was still her family. She couldn’t allow him to suffer. Not when she could do something about it.

  She had to end the feud between the two men.

  Not just for her grandfather’s sake—but for Maximo’s. She had to find out what demons haunted him. She had to find out what her grandfather had done. Only then could she end the feud and save them both…

  Maximo covered her hand with his larger one. “Do you want more already, cara?” His voice was sleepy. Eyes still closed, he turned toward her, pulling her to nestle closer to his naked body. “I can see you’re going to keep me very busy.”

  She took a deep breath. “Maximo? What did my grandfather do to your family?”

  The lines of his face hardened and he started to roll away. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

&nb
sp; “No. Stop.” She grabbed his bare shoulder. “We’re going back to Aquillina tomorrow. If you don’t tell me the story, I will hear it from him.”

  “No!”

  “He’s my grandfather, Maximo! Contract or no contract, you can’t expect me to just leave him to die alone. Not without good reason!”

  He stared at her, his eyes alight and terrible. Moonlight traced the whites of his eyes.

  “Bene, cara. I’ll tell you.” His voice was low and dangerous. “The day you were born, there was a blizzard in Aquillina, the worst ever seen. My mother and sister became sick with pneumonia. We were living far from the village, in my aunt’s old pensione. My father phoned Ferrazzi, asking him to send the only doctor from his villa.”

  “Go on,” she said in a tiny voice.

  “Ferrazzi refused to even give him the message. My father snapped on some old skis and set out for Aquillina to get him.” His hand tightened around her. “But he never returned. He froze to death in the snow. And without the antibiotics my mother and sister needed, they died two days later.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Oh, Maximo.”

  “I promised my father I’d stay with my mother and sister. That I’d take care of them. But all I could do was watch them die.”

  “Maximo, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do to take the pain away. I…I…”

  She wanted to say I love you, but the words stuck in her throat. How could she say them when he’d warned her against ever loving him? What if he responded with anger, or worse—pity?

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

  “You and your mother were both healthy and strong after the birth. It was only selfishness that made Ferrazzi keep the doctor at his villa—selfishness and spite. He’d already ruined us, but it wasn’t enough for him. The day I buried my family, I knew I would get my revenge. I would take everything from him. Everything.”

  She wrapped her arms around Maximo, trying desperately to offer comfort. He was her husband, and she loved him. All she wanted to do was comfort him.

  He took a deep breath.

  “In three days, we’ll have a wedding. He will hear about it across the village—across the world. And he will realize the enormity of what he’s lost. His company. His fortune. His place in society. And his granddaughter.”

  Maximo’s voice was grim and cold. Troubled, she drew away. How had she fallen in love with a man like this—a man who was not only incapable of love, but who could be so vengeful and cruel?

  “Go to sleep,” he said, rolling over on his side. “We leave very early for Aquillina.”

  She stared at his dark figure in the shadows.

  He’s not incapable of love, she thought. She’d seen too much good in him to believe that. His anger and guilt over his family’s loss had just festered in him like a sore, eating away at his soul.

  Lucy thought of the old man sobbing in the street. Surely her grandfather had never meant to hurt Maximo’s family. He’d only been trying to protect his own, by keeping the doctor for his daughter-in-law and newborn granddaughter…

  Lucy had to end the feud between them.

  If she could heal Maximo’s pain, perhaps he could open up his heart. He would see how much Lucy and Chloe both needed him. He might be able to love them. He might decide to make their family a real one…

  You’re dreaming, she told herself harshly. The playboy prince would never settle down. He would never love her.

  But.

  She could still love him.

  Instead of saying those three little words aloud, she could show her love—by taking the pain out of his heart. Then even after he divorced her and forgot her very existence, she would at least know she’d done something to make his life better. To make him happy.

  She listened to her husband’s breathing slip into the evenness of sleep. Putting her hands behind her head, she stared at the ceiling. How could she make the men talk to each other? Where? She sucked in her breath.

  The wedding. A joyous celebration, families united by love. What better time or place?

  “For you, Maximo,” she whispered without sound, speaking the words like a silent prayer in the darkness. “Because I love you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THREE days later, Villa Uccello was in total wedding-day uproar.

  “Let me in!” Maximo roared, pounding the bedroom door.

  “No!” Lucy leaned back against it. Her teeth chattered with the reverberating force of his pounding. “It’s bad luck for you to see me today!”

  “Lucy, be reasonable! It’s an evening wedding. You can’t expect me not to see you all day long. This is torture!”

  She covered a laugh. She could just bet he wanted to see her. Ever since they’d returned to Aquillina, they’d both been busy—he with wrapping up the details of the Ferrazzi acquisition, and Lucy with her planner trying to create her dream wedding in just a few short days.

  Three days of dress-fittings and cake-tastings, with Chloe sampling as much frosting as she could get her chubby little hands on. Three days of being interviewed by reporters from around the world. Three days of manicures and pedicures and massages, as Maximo had brought the team of stylists from Milan to stay at the Villa Uccello at Lucy’s beck and call. Three days of luxury and frantic fun, of feeling like a bride, of feeling like a star.

  And three nights of unbridled passion in her husband’s bed.

  Every night, he set her world on fire. Even once in the middle of the afternoon, when he’d found her alone in the hallway and dragged her into a quiet unused study. He’d made love to her against a wall of leather-bound Italian books. She flushed hot to her toes. She would never think of Machiavelli or Petrarch in quite the same way again.

  So it was no wonder he was so frustrated, Lucy thought, since it had now been ten hours since they’d last made love. She could understand why he might be going a little crazy.

  So was she.

  But she was pushing him away for a good cause. One that had nothing to do with wedding-day superstition.

  This was her last chance to try to sneak away before the wedding. Her last chance to speak with Giuseppe Ferrazzi and find out his side of the story, so she could invite him to the celebration with a clear conscience. Once she was sure that their feud was all based on a misunderstanding, she would have no qualms about forcing the two men to meet in public. Maximo would never want to insult his dignity with a humiliating public scene. He would have no choice but to listen, if only for a few scant moments.

  And she would end the feud between the men. She’d save her grandfather from poverty and loneliness, and save the soul of the man she loved.

  If Maximo could never love her, at least he might someday love someone. Thinking of him with another woman made her want to rip her heart out, but Maximo’s happiness was everything to her.

  Even if he couldn’t be happy with her.

  Maximo’s pounding on the bedroom door increased.

  “Cara—” he sounded truly desperate now “—have mercy! I’m just a man!”

  “Maximo, go away!” she said over the lump in her throat. “It’s for your own good!”

  Growling and muttering in Italian, he left.

  When she was sure he was gone, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went to the nursery. Waking up Chloe from her morning nap, she bundled her against the cold, and grabbed a coat for herself.

  She tiptoed them both past the enormous kitchen, where Ermanno was tucking into a plate of late-morning pasta. Over her objections, Maximo had recently assigned him to be her bodyguard. With his three hundred pounds of muscle and bulk, he’d be eating his lunch for an hour. And Georgiana Stewart, her British wedding planner, had ordered Lucy to take a refreshing nap (“just forty-five minutes to restore your skin’s youthful glow, Princess”), warning the servants to leave both Lucy and her baby to sleep in peace.

  Now all Lucy could do was cross her fingers and pray she was successful. And able to finish her mis
sion before anyone, especially Maximo, caught her.

  It was dangerous. For her to even talk to Giuseppe was a breach of the prenuptial agreement. If Maximo decided to nullify their marriage contract, Lucy and her daughter would be left destitute.

  But she had to risk it. She couldn’t choose between her husband and her grandfather. She couldn’t live happily with her baby, knowing that a mile away the poor old man was suffering alone. And she couldn’t bear for Maximo to live his whole life suffering as well, choking on the vengeful guilt in his soul.

  Not when she could fix everything.

  She would protect all the people she loved. She would save them, even from themselves.

  Maximo had good in his heart. She’d seen it. All the times he’d been good to her and Chloe without benefit to himself proved it.

  Tucking Chloe into a stroller, she hurried through the villa’s elaborate gardens. She waited until the security guard was distracted, flirting with a pretty reporter, then escaped behind the bushes near the back gate.

  So far, so good. Lucy reached the edge of the village. The snow had long melted, the sun was warm and the days were already growing longer. Spring was just around the corner, lifting her spirits. Now if she could just find her grandfather’s old villa without anyone noticing…

  A foolish hope. Even if she weren’t the principessa, the new darling of the whole village, the street was packed full of people trying to see her. The village was filled with florist and catering trucks, reporters covering the “single mother rags-to-riches” story and international paparazzi stalking the illustrious guests scheduled to arrive from the Villa d’Este, opened out-of-season especially for the event.

  “La principessa!” she heard a voice shout down the street. Heart pounding, she ducked back into an alleyway between two old houses.

  A kind-eyed, white-haired woman was at the end of the alley, sweeping with a broom. “Bambina?”

  Lucy knew this woman. She struggled to remember the Italian word. “Bambinaia?”

  The woman dropped the broom with a clatter. She burst into excited chatter in Italian, embracing first Lucy and then Chloe. She pulled them both into her tiny kitchen. Lucy knew that her old nanny didn’t speak English, but the request she had to make didn’t need translation.