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“I don’t beg, either. I offered you my father’s apology, and I apologized to your daughter. As far as I’m concerned, that ends our business.”
Chiara held her breath. The room seemed locked in stillness, and then her father’s lips curved in what was supposed to be a smile. But it was not; she knew it.
Still, what he said next surprised her.
“Very well. You are free to leave.”
The American nodded. He started for the door as her father strode toward her.
“On your feet,” he snarled.
Raffaele Orsini had already opened the door, but he paused and turned around at her father’s words.
“Let’s be clear about something, Cordiano. What happened—that I kissed your daughter—wasn’t her fault.”
“What you say has no meaning here. Now, get out. Chiara. Stand up.”
Chiara rose slowly to her feet. Her father’s face was a study in fury. She knew he would have hurt her if she were a man, but some old-world sense of morality had always kept him from striking her.
Still, he would not let what had happened pass. Raffaele Orsini could insist that the kiss had not been her fault until the end of eternity. Her father would never agree. A woman was supposed to defend her honor to her last breath.
She had not.
Someone had to pay for the supposed insult her father had suffered and who else could that someone be, if not her?
Her father’s eyes fixed on hers. “Giglio!” he barked.
The capo must have been waiting just outside. He stepped quickly into the room.
“Si, Don Cordiano?”
“Did you hear everything?”
The fat man hesitated, then shrugged. “Sì. I heard.”
“Then you know that my daughter has lost her honor.”
Rafe raised his eyebrows. “Now, wait a damned minute…”
“All these years, I raised her with care.”
“You didn’t raise me at all,” Chiara said, her voice trembling. “Nannies. Governesses—”
Her father ignored her. “I saw to it that she remained virtuous and saved her chastity for the marriage bed.”
“Papa. What are you talking about? I have not lost my chastity! It was only a kiss!”
“Today, she chose to throw away her innocence.” The don’s mouth twisted. “Such dishonor to bring on my home!”
Chiara laughed wildly. Rafe looked at her. Her cheeks were crimson; her eyes were enormous. Somehow the tight bun had come undone and her hair, thick and lustrous, swung against her shoulders.
“I’ve brought dishonor to this house?”
The don ignored her. His attention was on his capo.
“Giglio,” he said, “my old friend. What shall I do?”
“Wait a minute,” Rafe said, starting toward the don. Pig Man stepped in his path; he brushed him aside as if he were no more than a fly. “Listen to me, Cordiano. You’re making this into something that never happened. I kissed your daughter. I sure as hell didn’t take her virginity!”
“This is not America, Orsini. Our daughters do not flaunt their bodies. They do not let themselves be touched by strangers. And I am not talking to you. I am talking to you, Giglio, not to this… this straniero.”
Pig Man said nothing, but his tiny eyes glittered.
“I cannot even blame him for what happened,” Cordiano continued. “Foreigners know nothing of our ways. It was all my daughter’s fault, Giglio, and now, what am I to do to restore our family’s honor?”
Holy hell, Rafe thought, this was like something out of a really bad movie. The furious villain. The terrified virgin. And the pig, licking his thick lips and looking from the woman to the don as if the answer to the question might appear in neon in the space between them.
“Okay,” Rafe said quickly, “okay, Cordiano, tell me what will stop this nonsense. You want me to direct my apology to you? Consider it done. What happened was my fault entirely. I regret it. I didn’t mean to offend your daughter or you. There. Are you satisfied? I hope to hell you are because this… this farce has gone far enough.”
He might as well have said nothing. Cordiano didn’t even look at him. Instead, he spread his arms beseechingly at his capo.
Giglio was sweating. And all at once Rafe knew where this nightmare was heading.
“Wait a minute,” he said, but Cordiano put his hand in the small of Chiara’s back and sent her flying into the meaty arms of his capo.
“She is yours,” he said in tones of disgust. “Just get her out of my sight.”
“No!” Chiara’s cry echoed in the room. “No! Papa, you cannot do this!”
She was right, Rafe thought frantically. Of course Cordiano couldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.
But Cordiano had taken a telephone from his desk. It, at least, was a symbol of modernity, bright and shiny and bristling with buttons. He pushed one, then spoke. Rafe’s Italian was bad, his Sicilian worse, but he didn’t need a translator to understand what he was saying.
He was arranging for Chiara and Pig Man to be married.
Chiara, who understood every word, went white. “Papa. Please, please, I beg you—”
Enough, Rafe thought, He tore the phone from Cordiano’s hand and hurled it across the room.
“It’s not going to happen,” he growled.
“You are nobody here, Signor Orsini.”
Rafe’s lips stretched in a cold grin. “That’s where you’re wrong. I am always somebody. It’s time you understood that. Chiara! Step away from the pig and come to me.”
She didn’t move. Rafe took his eyes from Cordiano long enough to steal a look at her. He cursed under his breath. That last faint had probably been a fake. This one wouldn’t be. She wasn’t just pale, she was the color of paper.
“Giglio. Let go of the lady.”
Nothing. Rafe took a breath and dug his hand into his pocket, snagged his BlackBerry and shoved it forward so it made a telltale bulge. As he’d hoped, the capo’s eyes followed.
“Do it,” he said through his teeth, “and you might have an unfortunate accident.”
That was all it took. The pig’s arms dropped to his sides. Despite everything, or maybe because of it, Rafe struggled not to laugh. He could almost hear his brothers’ howls when he told them how he’d faked out a man who was surely a stone-cold killer with his trusty PDA.
“Chiara. Get over here.”
She crossed the room slowly, her eyes never leaving his. When she reached him, he took her wrist, brought her close to his side. She was shaking like a young tree in a wind storm; her skin felt clammy under his fingers. He cursed, slid his arm around her waist and tucked her against him. She came willingly and his anger toward her gave way to compassion. Sure, this whole damned mess was her fault—he’d kissed her, but if she hadn’t pulled that stupid trick on the road, it never would have happened—but her father’s reaction, even for an old-line Sicilian, was way out of line.
“It’s okay,” he said softly.
She nodded. Still, he could hear her teeth chattering.
“It’s okay,” he said again. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
She looked up at him, eyes glittering with unshed tears, and shook her head. Her loosened hair drifted across one side of her face and he fought back the sudden crazy desire to tuck the strands back behind her ear.
“No,” she said, so softly that he could hardly hear her. “My father will give me to Giglio.”
Rafe felt his muscles tense. Give her away. As if she were Cordiano’s property.
“He won’t. I won’t let him.”
Her mouth trembled. She said something, so quietly he couldn’t hear it, and he cupped her face, lifted it to his.
“What did you say?”
She shook her head again.
“Chiara. Tell me what you said.”
She took a long, deep breath, so deep that he could see the lift of her breasts even within the shapeless black dress.
“I said he will do what he wishes, Signor Orsini, once you have gone.”
Was she right? Was this only a temporary respite from her father’s crazed insistence that the only way to restore the honor she had not lost was by marrying her off?
The sound of slow applause made him look up. Cordiano, smiling, was clapping his hands together.
“Bravo, Signor Orsini. Nicely done. I see that your father raised you properly. In fact, you are very much like him.”
Rafe shot a cold look at the other man. “I assure you, Cordiano, I am nothing like my father.”
“It was meant as a compliment, I assure you. You are quick. Strong. Fearless. As for your earlier refusal to admit that you wronged my daughter…” The don smiled. “That is behind us.”
Maybe he’d been mistaken. Maybe coming to Chiara’s rescue had been enough to set things straight. Rafe forced an answering smile.
“I’m happy to hear it.”
“Gossip can spread as swiftly as a sirocco in a town like this. And people do not forget things that steal one’s honor.
“ Back to square one.
Rafe looked down at the woman who stood in the protective curve of his arm. She was calmer, though he could still feel her trembling. His arm tightened around her. What in hell was he going to do? Of course she was right; as soon as he drove away, the don would force her into a marriage, if not with the disgraced Pig Man then with someone else. Some hard-eyed, cold-faced butcher like the ones he’d seen lounging in the castle’s entry hall.
Chiara Cordiano would become the wife of a thief and a killer. She would lie beneath him in her marriage bed as he forced her knees apart, grunted and pushed deep inside her….
“All right,” Rafe said, the words loud in the stillness of the room.
Cordiano raised an eyebrow. “All right what, Signor Orsini?”
Rafe took a long, seemingly endless breath.
“All right,” he said roughly. “I’ll marry your daughter.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE private jet Rafe had rented flew swiftly through the dark night.
He’d arranged for the rental at the airport in Palermo. The alternative—a six-hour wait for a commercial flight home—had struck him as impossible.
He had no wish to spend a minute more than necessary on Sicilian soil.
The plane itself was very much like the luxuriously appointed one he and his brothers owned; the pilot and copilot were highly recommended, the cabin attendant pleasant and efficient. She’d made sure he was comfortable, that he had a glass of excellent Bordeaux on the table beside him, that filet mignon would be fine for dinner—not that he was in the mood for dinner—and then she’d faded from sight.
A night flight on a private jet was generally a great place to relax after a difficult day.
But not this time. A muscle in Rafe’s cheek ticked.
This time, he was not alone.
A woman was seated across the aisle. Nothing terribly unusual in that. Women had traveled with him before. His PA. His attorney. Clients. His sisters. An occasional mistress, accompanying him for a weekend in Hawaii or Paris.
This woman was none of those things.
She sat wrapped in a black coat even though the cabin was a steady 72 degrees Fahrenheit. She sat very still, her shoulders back, spine rigid. Last he’d looked, her hands were knotted in her lap.
She was an ill-dressed, tight-lipped stranger.
And she happened to be his wife.
Rafe felt the muscle in his cheek jump again.
His wife.
The words, the very concept, were impossible to grasp. He, the man who had no interest in marrying, had married Chiara Cordiano. He’d married a woman he didn’t know, didn’t like, didn’t want, any more than she wanted him.
Rafe shut his eyes, bit back a groan of despair.
How in hell had he let himself get roped into this? Nobody had ever accused him of fancying himself a knight in shining armor. Well, no—but he couldn’t have just stood by and let her be handed over to Pig Man.
Assuming, of course, that would really have happened.
Rafe frowned. But would it?
Her father had wanted his daughter to marry an Orsini. The don had no way of knowing he was not part of Cesare’s organization; Cesare would never have admitted such a thing to an enemy. Cordiano surely would have figured the marriage would strengthen ties between the old world and the new at the same time it settled a debt.
Marrying Chiara to the capo, on the other hand, would have accomplished very little, only ensuring a loyalty that already existed. Why waste her on an underling?
Rafe cursed under his breath.
He’d been scammed.
His father had wanted him to marry his old enemy’s daughter. Freddo Cordiano had wanted the same thing. But he’d said he wouldn’t, and Cordiano had staged a scene straight from a fairy tale. Either the prince married the princess, or the ogre got her.
The only question was, had Chiara known about it?
Rafe folded his arms.
Dutiful Sicilian daughter that she was, what if she’d agreed to do her best to make him think everything that had happened today was real, starting with that ridiculous stuff on the road? A pair of burlesque bandits, stopping his car. Yes. That would have been good staging. Both father and daughter would have known it wouldn’t send him running, that if anything, he’d have been even more determined to reach San Giuseppe.
Even that kiss in the car. Her initial struggle against him, followed by that one sweet sigh of surrender, the softening of her lips, the rich, hot taste of her.
He’d been had.
Aside from him, the only other person who hadn’t been in on the con was Giglio. Chiara and her old man had used the capo as neatly as they’d used him.
Rafe narrowed his eyes.
Final proof? The 1-2-3 wedding ceremony. Cordiano had obviously pulled a bunch of high-powered strings. There’d been no posting of wedding banns, no formalities beyond signing a couple of papers in front of a mayor who’d all but knelt at the don’s feet. A handful of mumbled words and, wham, it was done.
Cordiano had beamed. “You may kiss the bride,” he’d said.
Except, of course, Rafe hadn’t.
Chiara had looked up at him. He’d looked down at her. Her eyes had held no expression; her lips had been turned in. “Do not touch me” had been her message, and he’d come within a heartbeat of saying, “Trust me, baby, you don’t have a thing to worry about.”
That kiss in the car, that one moment of heat. Easy to explain. The encounter on the road had left him pumping adrenaline. Danger, sex. One complemented the other. A man could fool himself into thinking anything when he was in that kind of state.
Rafe sat up straight.
Okay. He understood it all. Not that it mattered. He’d married the woman. Now he had to unmarry her. Next stop, an annulment. Divorce. Whatever it took.
Problem solved.
Not that he would just abandon his blushing bride. Yes, she’d trapped him, but he wasn’t blameless. He, the man who prided himself on logical thinking, had not thought logically. The price for digging yourself out of a hole, even when someone else had handed you the shovel, was never cheap.
He would do the honorable thing. Arrange a financial settlement. Considering all the effort Chiara had gone to, hauling him in, she was entitled to it. Then she could return to Sicily and he could forget all about—
“Signor Orsini.”
He looked up. Chiara stood next to him. He tried not to shake his head at the sight. When they were kids, his sister Anna had gone through a Goth period that had, thankfully, lasted only about a minute. She’d dressed in black from head to toe. She’d even dyed her long, blond hair black.
“You look like something the cat dragged in,” he’d told her, with all the aplomb of an older brother.
But a cat would not have bothered dragging Chiara in. Or out. She looked too pathetic. Well, except for the hair. Even skinned back in that damned bun again, it had the gloss of a raven’s wing.
Was looking like this part of the act?
“Yes?”
Yes?
Chiara forced herself not to show any reaction. Three hours of silence, and the best Raffaele Orsini could come up with was yes, said in a way that almost hung it with icicles?
Still, yes was an improvement. She would try not to show her annoyance.
“Signor. We must talk.”
His eyes narrowed to dark blue slits. Chiara was puzzled, but then she realized he was considering what she’d said, as if she’d made a request, when what she’d made was a demand.
She wanted to stamp her foot in fury! What an imbecile! Did he think she was a stray cat he’d taken in? That she would be so grateful she would simply sit quietly and let him do whatever he wished with her life?
She had not signed herself over to this man.
Yes, she’d married him. Heaven knew she had not wanted to do it, but choosing between going to America with a hoodlum and remaining in San Giuseppe with a killer had made her decision easy.
The only surprise was that he’d gone through with the ceremony, such as it was. She’d spent the last few hours trying to come up with a reason; by now, she had several.
Her father had paid him to do it. His father had paid him to do it. Her father had threatened him with what would happen if he didn’t, though she had to admit, that was a slim possibility. Whatever else he was, the American was not a coward.
Perhaps he had finally realized the benefits of marrying the don’s daughter. She had no illusions about her feminine appeal: she was mousy, skinny, nothing at all like the voluptuous females who caught men’s eyes. What she was, was a link to her father, and thus, to power.
Not that the American’s reasons for marrying her mattered.
He’d done it, was what counted, and she’d even felt a rush of gratitude that he had saved her from being given to Giglio—but gratitude only went so far. The bottom line, as they said in all those American movies she watched late at night on TV, was that she had no wish to be married, none to stay married. And from his silence, from the way he looked at her now, she was fairly certain Raffaele Orsini felt the same.
It was time to lay the cards on the table.
She told him exactly that.
“Signor. It is time to lay the cards on the table.”
One dark eyebrow lifted. He seemed amused. “Whose cards?”
Chiara frowned. “What do you mean, whose cards? The cards. Is that not what one lays on the table?”
“Not precisely. They’re either your cards or mine.” That faint hint of amusement—a smirk, was closer to accurate—disappeared from his face. “Sit down.”
“I would rather—”
“Sit,” he barked, jerking his chin toward the leather seat angled toward his.
She bristled. Just as she’d suspected. He thought he owned her. Well, he didn’t, and the sooner he knew that, the better, but there was no sense in getting sidetracked right now.
“Well?”
He had folded his arms across his chest and sat staring at her, his expression unreadable. He’d discarded his suit coat soon after they’d boarded the plane, stripped away his tie, opened the top two buttons of his white shirt and rolled back his sleeves.
The look on his face, the lack of formality in his clothing, his posture… had he done it deliberately to intimidate her? He looked—he looked very masculine. Aggressive. Those wide shoulders, so clearly defined by the fine cotton of his shirt. The strong, tanned column of his throat. The tanned and muscular forearms.
“Let me know when you’re done with the inventory.”
Chiara jerked her head up. His tone was silken, that hint of amusement back on his face. She flushed. Why was he making this so difficult? He had not wanted this marriage any more than she. The only reason she had kept silent the last hours was because she’d assumed he would make the first move.
She knew how it was with men like him. They needed to believe they were in charge, even when they weren’t.
She drew a breath, then let it out. “What you did—asking me to marry you—”
He snorted. “I didn’t ask you anything.”
“No. Not if one wishes to be precise, but—”
“I am being precise.”
“Well, yes. Of course. What I mean is, if you hadn’t proposed—”
“You keep getting that wrong, baby. I didn’t propose.”
“I mean it only as a figure of speech, Signor Orsini.”
“And I mean it as fact. I didn’t ask. I didn’t propose.” His eyes narrowed again. “And yet, surprise, surprise, here we are.”
She nodded, but it was not a surprise at all. Never mind all her speculation. He had been sent to marry her and he had done so. All the rest was meaningless.
“So?”
He was waiting. Fine. She just had to phrase this right.
“Here we are indeed,” she said politely, as if the topic had to do with finding themselves in the same shop instead of in a plane heading for America. “And… and—”
She hesitated. This was the tricky part. Convincing him he had done all he had to do, that now he could take a step that would free them both, might be a challenge. She had a small fortune to offer him in exchange for a divorce. Her mother had left her all her jewelry. Her mother had never worn any of it. Vanity, she’d said, was a sin. But Mama had not been completely unworldly. She’d hidden her jewels, told Chiara where to find them in case, someday, she should need what they might buy.
Today that time had come.
She had the jewels hidden in the bottom of the small suitcase she’d packed. The American could have them all if he would grant her her freedom.
Still, she had to phrase her argument properly, not dent his macho ego.
Her throat, her mouth had gone dry. Unconsciously she swept the tip of her tongue lightly over her lips.
“And,” she continued, “this isn’t what I want. What either of us wants.”
He said nothing, and she touched the tip of her tongue to her lips again. Rafe watched her do it, and a fist seemed to close slowly in his belly.
Did she know what she doing? Was the gesture innocent or deliberate? Her tongue was pink. It was a kitten’s tongue. It had touched his, however briefly; he could remember the silken feel of it.
She was still talking, but he had no idea what she was saying. His eyes lifted; he studied her face. It was bright with animation. She had, as he’d noticed before, some fairly good features.
Good? The truth was she was beautiful.
Those big violet eyes were fringed by long, thick lashes. The straight little nose was perfectly balanced above a lush, dusty-rose mouth. Her cheekbones weren’t just razor sharp, they were carved.
Why did she dress as she did? Why did she hold herself so stiffly? Why did she confine what he now remembered was a silky mane of thick curls in such an unbecoming style? Was it all illusion? Was it part of the scam?
“Why do you wear your hair like that?”
He hadn’t meant to ask the question. Obviously, she hadn’t expected it. She’d still been talking about something or other. Now she fell silent in midsentence and stared at him as if he’d asked her to explain how to solve a quadratic equation. Then she gave a nervous little laugh.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your hair. Why do you pull it back?”
To keep her father’s men from looking at her the way this man was looking at her now, but she knew better than to tell him that. It wasn’t the same thing, anyway. When Giglio and the others looked at her, she felt her skin crawl. But her skin wasn’t crawling now. It was… it was… it was tingling.
Chiara’s hand flew to her hair. “It’s… it’s neater this—”
“Let it loose.”
The American’s voice was rough. His eyes were blue flames. She could see a muscle knotting and unknotting in his cheek.
Suddenly it seemed hard to breathe. “I don’t… I don’t see any reason to—”
“The reason is that I’m telling you to do it,” Rafe said, and a shocked little voice inside him whispered, What in hell are you doing?