The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride Of Convenience

‘I could just put you over my shoulder—the same way I am tempted to do with my father.’

‘And then what, Nico? What will you do with me in Rome?’

He gritted his teeth.

‘My father would not object,’ she said. ‘In fact, all the villagers would come out and cheer if you carried me off.’ She gave him a smile that did not quite meet her eyes. ‘But then you would surely return me, Nico, and that would not go down very well.’

No, Nico thought, it would not. ‘Don’t you ever think of leaving?’ he asked.

‘Why would I?’ Aurora shrugged. ‘La famiglia is everything to me. Give me good food and family and my day is complete. What more could I want?’

‘You should deepen your voice, Aurora,’ Nico said, ‘when you impersonate your father.’

‘But I wasn’t impersonating him.’

‘No? You’ve heard it so often you believe it to be your own thought.’

‘Why do you have to criticise?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Oh, but you are.’

Nico took a breath. Aurora was correct. He was criticising—and he had no right to. Especially when she did so much for his father.

He addressed that issue. ‘You still haven’t sent me your bank account details so that I can pay you for the time spent with my father.’

‘I don’t count it as work.’

No, she saw it as duty. Nico knew that.

Even though he had not married her, she had taken on the role of caring for his family.

‘Aurora…’

‘I don’t have time for this, Nico. I want to move the firewood away from your father’s home. I thought my brother had done it…’

‘Give me a moment,’ Nico said.

Walking away from the house, he took out his phone and made a call to his pilot.

He could get out.

Perhaps he even should get out.

As he and the pilot both agreed, it would be a waste of vital resources to have a pilot and helicopter sitting idle, just in case Geo changed his mind.

But Nico could not leave his father to his fate alone.

And neither could he leave Aurora behind.

He looked over to her, lifting logs, doing all she could to keep the old man safe.

‘Right,’ he said walking towards her. She was filthy from the effort and he watched the streaks of ash grow as she wiped her forehead. ‘Leave the firewood to me. What else needs to be done?’

‘Aren’t you leaving?’

‘No.’

Their conversation was interrupted with the arrival of Aurora’s father. ‘Nico!’

Bruno greeted him warmly, as he always did—and that consistently surprised Nico. The fact that he had refused to marry his daughter should have caused great offence, yet Bruno had confounded Nico’s expectations and still treated him as a future son-in-law.

‘You will stay with us,’ Bruno said.

‘No, no…’ Nico attempted, for he did not want to be under the same roof as Aurora.

Or rather, he wanted to be under the same roof alone with Aurora. He wanted to strip her off in the shower and soap those breasts that now had sweat dripping between them.

He was trying to hold a conversation with Bruno even as filthy visions of the man’s daughter flashed in his mind. What was wrong with him?

‘So you’re too good for us now?’ Bruno demanded.

They all spoke from the same script, Nico thought as he dragged his mind from Aurora’s breasts. To refuse Bruno’s hospitality would be an insult, and although in his professional life Nico did not care who he offended, he attempted to do things differently here.

Like it or not, while his father was alive, he still needed these people.

More, though, he wanted to do the right thing.

‘You can have Aurora’s bed.’

‘No. Absolutely not!’ Nico would not hear of it.

‘She will be out tonight, at Antonietta’s birthday party.’

‘Aurora should be at home,’ Nico said. ‘With the threat to the village I thought the roads would be closed.’

‘The main one is, but some are open between the villages, and the threat has been here for weeks,’ Bruno said. ‘Life goes on, and Antonietta’s father is the fire chief. The firefighters are camping on his grounds so it is the safest place for her to be.’

Nico wasn’t so sure of that—and it had nothing to do with the fire!

‘I could be on lookout,’ Nico said, but Bruno shook his head.

‘It is Pino’s turn tonight. I did it last night. You shall stay with us.’

‘Well, thank you for your offer, ‘Nico said, ‘but I shall stay only if I sleep on the sofa.’

‘Up to you.’ Bruno shrugged.

Before dinner Nico checked in on his father, who had drifted off into a drunken stupor. Aurora was already there, and rolling him onto his side, making sure Geo would not choke should he become unwell during the night.

‘I told the store not to supply him with whisky,’ Nico said to her.

‘There is home delivery now.’ Aurora shrugged. ‘Even your father has worked out the Internet. And there’s always Pino stopping by, or Francesca. You can’t stop him.’

‘I send money, but then I wonder…’

‘If you didn’t send it he would drink cheap wine instead,’ Aurora pointed out. ‘Come on, it’s time to get back. Supper will soon be ready.’

‘I need to speak with the doctor first.’

The news from the doctor was the same.

Geo needed to stop drinking and he needed a more comprehensive level of care—except there was no staff to provide it in Silibri.

‘I have spoken to the agency,’ Nico said to him. ‘And I am looking to purchase the house across the street. That way—’

‘You could purchase ten houses,’ the doctor interrupted. ‘No one wants to live here. The village is dying faster than your father.’

Why did Aurora choose to remain here?

Nico thought of long-ago evenings at the Messina dinner table. She would talk of her photography, and how she would pester the manager at the winery to change the labels on his wine. To rename, rebrand. She had passion and dreams—but they had been smothered by this village, like the smoke that blanketed the valley now.

‘Come and sit down,’ Bruno said as Nico walked into the Messina home. ‘Good food and family and my day is complete. Come now, Aurora.’

But Aurora did not join them at the table.

‘No, Pa, there will be food at the party and I have to get ready.’

‘And will there be firemen at this party?’ Bruno checked. And though he spoke to Aurora, he looked over to Nico.

‘I think they are a little too busy fighting fires.’ Aurora smiled sweetly as she left the room.

Nico’s gut tightened.

‘Aurora has a thing for one of the firefighters,’ Bruno said, and rolled his eyes. ‘Per favore, mangia, mangia, Nico. Come on—eat.’

The pasta, though delectable, tasted like ash in Nico’s mouth.

Worse still, he could hear the pipes groan as Aurora turned on the shower…

It was bliss to have the hot day and all the grime slide off her skin and to feel the dirt and grease being stripped from her hair. This morning she had risen before six, and had worked every minute since, and yet though she ached, Aurora was not tired.

She looked down at her skin, brown as nutmeg, and saw her fleshy stomach and full breasts and all too solid legs.

She was too much.

Too much skin and bum and boobs.

Too much attitude.

Although as it had turned out for Nico she was not enough. Never enough for him.

How, Aurora pondered as the water drenched her, could Nico manage to turn her on even from the kitchen table?

Last week she had kissed a firefighter, and all she had felt was the tickle of his beard, and all she had tasted was the garlic on his breath, and all she had smelled was the smoke in his hair.

There was something so clean about Nico.

Even if his morals were filthy.

Oh, yes, she had heard the gossip about his many women!

But there was still something so clean about him—the tang of his scent and the neatness of his nails that made her shiver on the inside.

She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body that was burning inside like the mountains that were aflame all around them.

She headed into her pink bedroom. It was too childish—she knew that—but then she should be gone by now.

Aurora thought now that she would either be the village spinster or perhaps she would marry one day.

But she would never know the bliss of Nico.

Never.

Ever.

And that made angry tears moisten her eyes.

Her nipples felt as if the surface skin had been roughened as she stuffed her breasts into her bra. And as she wrestled her dark hair into some semblance of style there was suddenly the snap of a chain, and her collana, the cross and chain she had worn for ever, fell to the floor.

It felt like a sign.

She felt dangerous and reckless and everything she should not be.

Oh, what was the point of being a good Italian girl when the perfect Italian boy didn’t want you?

And so she went to the special book on her shelf, out of which she had cut the middle and in which hid the forbidden Pill.

The Pointless Pill, she called it, for she could not imagine sex with anyone other than Nico.

Tonight she would drink wine and try kissing that firefighter again—and maybe this time when his hand went to her breasts she would not brush him off.

To hell with you, Nico Caruso. I shall get over you.

She put blusher on her cheeks and lengthened her lashes with mascara before sliding glossy pink onto her lips.

She dabbed perfume on her neck and wrists and then strapped on high heels. And she knew that she was not dressing for the fireman tonight, but for the one minute when she would pass Nico on her way out.

She wanted him to ache with regret.

Instead Nico ached with need when, mid-meal, Aurora teetered out in heels and a silver dress.

Nico tried not to look up.

‘Go and change, Aurora,’ Bruno warned.

‘Why? I would just have to put my dress and shoes in a bag and change in the street,’ Aurora said cheekily. ‘Because I am wearing my silver dress tonight, whatever you say.’

Nico could not help but smile. Aurora did not hide, or lie, she just was who she was.

The taxi tooted. The one taxi that ferried people between villages.

He had to ignore the effect of her and the feeling, a lot like fear, that rose when he thought of her out on those fiery mountains tonight.

As she bent and kissed her father, her mother, her brother, he found he had to stop himself from running a tense hand down his jaw and neck as he awaited the torture to come.

Torture for them both.

If she did not extend to him the traditional farewell it would give rise to comments. Her omission would be noted and it would be awkward indeed.

He sat at the head of the table, and as she bent she put her hand on its surface to make as little contact with Nico as she could.

His cheek was cool when her lips brushed it. His scent she tried to obliterate by not breathing in. But because her brother leaned forward to ladle out more pasta she had to move quickly and put out a hand on Nico’s shoulder.

It was solid and warm.

One cheek to go.

Both were holding their breath.

Their desire was like the cattails and the bulrushes, waiting to be snapped open and for a million seeds to fly out and expand.

‘Be safe,’ he told her, in a voice that was somewhat gruff.

She gave the tiniest unreadable smile, and in it was a glint of danger as she straightened up.

‘I’m not your problem, Nico.’

She was, Nico knew, looking for trouble tonight.

Hell.

CHAPTER FOUR

Later on the night that neither can forget…

‘WE SHOULD HAVE got out.’

Aurora turned and looked at Antonietta as the three friends sat on the hillside, watching the ominous glow.

‘We’ll make it,’ Chi-Chi said. ‘There is soon to be a storm.’

‘And with storms come lightning,’ Antonietta pointed out. ‘I wish I had left. I wish I had taken off to…’ She thought for a moment. ‘Paris.’

‘But you don’t speak French,’ Aurora said.

‘I’m learning it.’ Antonietta shrugged, and then was silent for another moment before continuing. ‘Pa says we shall have a proper party after the fires. I’m getting engaged.’

Chi-Chi let out a squeal and jumped up in excitement.

‘To Sylvester,’ Antonietta added, and she looked to Aurora, who had to fight not to pull a face.

For Antonietta and Sylvester were second cousins, and Aurora was sure this was a match to keep money within the family rather than for love.

‘Are you happy?’ Aurora asked carefully.

Antonietta was silent for a very long time, and then she shrugged an odd response. ‘C’est la vie!’

Aurora didn’t really know what that meant, but she could hear the weary resignation in her friend’s voice and it troubled her.

‘I hear your Nico is back,’ Antonietta said.

‘He is not my Nico,’ Aurora said.

‘No,’ Chi-Chi agreed, and made a scoffing noise. ‘You should forget about him,’ she said. And then she nudged her as a fire truck turned into the hillside, bringing weary firefighters for a break, some food, and maybe a kiss…

But Antonietta caught Aurora’s arm. ‘If Nico is back, then what are you doing here?’

‘He doesn’t want me,’ Aurora said.

But Antonietta, though only newly twenty-one, had an old head on her young shoulders.

‘Go home,’ Antonietta said. ‘Fix what you can, while you still can. I heard my father speaking to his men about the direction of the fire…’

And hearing the solemn note in Antonietta’s voice, and watching the weary firefighters approach, Aurora no longer wanted to be out in the valley tonight.

This… Nico thought as he sat at the table with Aurora’s parents playing cards. This would have been my life.

Hard work out on the vines by day, and a tired body at night.

Except no amount of labour would be enough to tire his mind.

Yet, on the plus side, he would be sitting with Aurora in the now vacant house across the road, rather than looking at Bruno’s hairy arms as he shuffled the cards.

Just because Nico did not want to be married to Aurora, and just because Nico did not want to stay, it did not mean there was not desire. It did not mean he did not care.

And he loathed the thought of her out there tonight.

‘I’m going to check on my father,’ Nico said.

He found Geo deeply asleep, and as he came out Nico felt the hot winds lick his face. He looked at the glowing mountains, and the approaching fire spreading towards them, and in the distance he could see lightning strikes.

They were sitting ducks, Nico thought as he went back into the Messina house.

‘Bruno, can I borrow your car and go and get Aurora? The fire is moving fast…’

But Aurora’s work-shy brother had just taken it, Bruno said. ‘And anyway, Aurora will not thank you if you interfere with her plans for tonight. I’ve told you she is in the safest place. They’re not going to let the chief firefighter’s house burn.’

Dio! Nico wanted to shout. Do you really think the fire will give them a choice?

‘If it gets much closer,’ Bruno continued, ‘Aurora knows to come home and we will head to the beach.’

He wanted to shake Bruno and ask, Is it not better that we all die together? But then, he did not want to worry her mother.

‘Grab a cushion from Aurora’s room,’ Bruno said, ‘You know where it is.’

Oh, he knew.

The scent of Aurora lingered in the air. He looked down and saw her gold cross on the floorboards. He picked it up and held it in his palm for a moment.

He caught sight of the book on her chest of drawers and he was intrigued, because he knew that poetry was not her thing. Even before he opened it Nico almost knew what he would see.

The little packet of pills, half of them gone, had been left for him to see, Nico was sure.

He replaced the book in her top drawer.

Message received, Aurora. Loud and clear.

And tonight it was killing him.

The sofa was soft.

Nico was not.

He heard the taxi drop some people off in the street, followed by some chatter—but not Aurora’s throaty voice.

The taxi service stopped at midnight.

It was ten past midnight now.

He thumped the cushion and put it over his head to block out the sound of Bruno’s snores.

Signora Messina must have had enough, because she shouted for her husband to be quiet and for a short while silence reigned. Except for the drone of the firebombers, filling up in the ocean and then heading back to the hills.

Then, deep in the night, he heard the baker’s truck rattle past and stop. He knew that truck was the last chance to get home, for he had taken it many times—except in his case Nico would often leave Silibri in it, heading to the next village.

Anything to get away.

He ached from his calves to his groin to hear Aurora’s footsteps. From the small of his back to his chest, need gripped him tightly and fear for her choked him.

And then the door opened quietly, and Nico breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the pad of bare feet and guessed that she was carrying her shoes.

Aurora tiptoed past him.

She couldn’t really see him on the sofa—it was more she could feel that he was there.

She was so sick of Nico and his effect on her that it was all she could do not to spit in his direction.

Instead, she crept into the bathroom and stared at her streaked mascara and wild hair for a moment before she brushed her teeth.

She couldn’t even kiss anyone else.

The fireman was quite attractive.

Big and bearded, he was the type of man who would get on with her father. He lived in the next village and had said he was more than happy to come and meet her family, if that was what it took to get to know Aurora some more.

He was perfectly nice—but he was not Nico.

In every dream, in every thought, it was Nico she kissed, Nico who was her first, and she did not know how to change the grooves in which her mind was stuck.

Nico’s hands on her body.

Nico’s mouth on hers.

She washed her face, stripped off her clothes and pulled on a baggy old T-shirt that had seen better days.

But instead of heading to her bedroom it was the kitchen to which she headed, her choice fully made.

Nico would be her first.

He heard the fridge door open and water being poured, but feigned sleep as she stood over him.

‘I know you’re awake,’ Aurora said.

‘How come you’re back?’

She didn’t answer.

‘What have you been doing?’

‘I don’t answer to you,’ Aurora said, and then shrugged. ‘I was just sitting on the hillside, talking…’

‘With?’

‘You forfeited any right to ask, Nico.’

‘With?’ he asked again.

‘Chi-Chi and Antonietta.’

‘And your firefighter?’

‘He wants me. You don’t.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘I don’t want him. I want you.’

Nico could hear her despair and he took her hand, pulled her a little towards him, indicating for her to sit down.

‘Aurora,’ he said. ‘Me not wanting to marry has nothing to do with you.’

‘I would say it has everything to do with me, given our fathers agreed—’

‘Since when did I ever do as my father wished?’ Nico interrupted.

‘You rejected me.’

‘You were sixteen—and if you want to take offence that I was not attracted to some teenager who I looked at as a sister, then that is your choice.’

Aurora swallowed. She had never thought of it like that.

‘You think of me as a sister?’

‘I did.’

And now he did not.

‘Do you think of me the same way now? Or as a friend?’ she asked.

‘We can never be friends Aurora.’

Some might take that as an insult, Aurora thought, but it was true. She did not want to do the things she wanted to do to Nico with her friends.

‘What have you been doing?’ he asked again.

‘Trying to fit in—but as always I didn’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Chi-Chi is desperate to marry and Antonietta…’ She hesitated, and then told Nico what he might not know, as it was very recent news. ‘She is soon to be engaged to Sylvester.’

‘But isn’t he her cousin?’

‘Second cousin, I think,’ Aurora said, and watched as Nico pulled a slight face. ‘I don’t think she’s happy about it.’

‘I can’t say I blame her.’

Nico sighed. If Aurora was fire, then Antonietta was ice, and did not show her feelings. If Aurora thought Antonietta unhappy, then she was.

‘So,’ Aurora continued. ‘There is Chi-Chi wanting a husband, Antonietta not wanting one, and as for me…’ She took a breath and told him, ‘I am twenty and only last week had my first kiss.’

‘Just a kiss?’ Nico asked, and she nodded.

‘I hated it,’ she admitted.

Nico wasn’t sure he believed her. ‘You need to hide your Pill better, Aurora.’

‘You were snooping?’

‘And you think your parents don’t?’ said Nico.

‘Usually I’m more careful. I was in a rush tonight.’

‘So, if you have just had your first kiss, and hated it, why are you on the Pill?’

‘If you build it they will come,’ Aurora said. ‘Or hopefully I will.’

He laughed.

So did she.

Oh, they laughed—and it was such a moment, such a shared flash of bliss, to see cold, immutable Nico lie there and laugh, that she did what she knew she should not and moved her hand to his cheek.

His hand went to remove it, but instead it held hers there.

‘It’s me who doesn’t fit in, Aurora. I don’t want relationships. I don’t want responsibilities.’

‘And you probably don’t want someone who can’t kiss.’

‘Aurora, trust me—you can kiss.’

‘Can I try it on you?’

‘No.’

‘I repulse you so much?’

‘You know you don’t.’

‘Then why not let me kiss you?’

‘I’m not your practice board.’

‘So I go back to my firefighter…’ Aurora said, and felt his hands grip her fingers tighter.

‘One kiss.’

He said it with authority, but the undercurrent suggested they both hoped he was lying.

How to kiss him? Aurora pondered. How best to claim her one kiss?

‘What are you doing?’ Nico asked.

‘I want to see you,’ Aurora said, and she climbed up so she sat on his stomach, and it made her insides melt that he helped her and that he smiled.

She had not looked at her firefighter. In fact she had closed her eyes—though not in bliss.

Now she looked.

His face was still beautiful in the dark: the shadows in the hollows of his cheeks, the dent in his strong jaw, and those delectable lips, and those black eyes watching her.

‘You know how to kiss, Aurora,’ he told her, and she lowered her head to his.

She felt the softness of his mouth, and his pleasurably rough jaw, and she lingered there for a moment, lightly kissing his full lips.