Her Passionate Italian: The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

CHAPTER THREE

FATE, Francesca repeated to herself. She knew about the power of fate. Fate was what Angelo maintained had brought them together. She refused to accept that this… force she was being hit with here had any familiarity with Angelo’s fate.

It was then that she remembered tonight’s party and that this man had been invited. She’d even written the invitation herself. Carlo Carlucci and Guest, she’d scribed in Italian.

Which brought up another thought that sent her eyes slewing sideways to glance inside the open-top car expecting to see some raving dark beauty sitting in the passenger seat. To think of Carlo Carlucci without his usual female appendage was impossible, so she was puzzled to discover the seat was empty.

When she looked back at him he’d lifted those lashes higher and was watching her. ‘I do travel light on occasion,’ he said lazily, reading her like a gauche open book.

‘Does the fact that you’re here and not in Milan mean that you’ve tired of making Angelo’s life a misery and let him come back too?’ she threw back.

He smiled at this attempt on her part at acid sarcasm but his reply when it came was deadly serious. ‘Angelo deserved everything he got from me, Francesca, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.’

‘I suppose you’ve never overslept and missed a meeting.’

‘Not even after a heavy night with a beautiful woman in my bed,’ he replied. ‘Although…’ his eyes moved over her ‘… I can appreciate that the cause in this case was worth the consequences…’

He was inferring that she was what had caused Angelo to oversleep that morning, Francesca realised, and opened her mouth to deny the charge only to close it again when she realised that Angelo must have used her as his excuse for missing his flight. A frown creased her brow and she lowered her eyes to the ground while she tried to decide how she felt about that. She didn’t think she liked it. It smacked too hard at the male ego conjuring up a night of erotic sex with his lover as a way of getting himself out of an awkward situation. Her mind even threw up a picture of Angelo standing in some faceless office in Milan, casually boasting to this man of all men about something that should remain private to themselves—if it had happened at all, which it hadn’t.

‘I’ve got to go.’ She spun away, not wanting to continue this line of discussion. Not wanting to be here at all. She was cross now with Angelo—cross with Carlo Carlucci for placing a cloud across her golden image of the man she loved.

There was a hiss of impatience, a scraping of shoe leather on the road surface. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said, and began striding towards her across the lane.

Her shoulders tensed, her clenched hands jerking out of her pockets as those now familiar prickles began really asserting themselves the closer he came. A hand curved around her arm, long fingers gently crushing sun-warmed denim against the skin beneath that began to burn like a flame. She jumped in response to it, her breathing snagged. He turned her to face him and she found herself fascinated by the discovery that her eyes came level with his smooth brown throat.

‘I embarrassed you. I apologise,’ he murmured huskily, and she watched his throat muscles move with the words. ‘It was unforgivably crass and insensitive of me to say what I just said.’

Yes, Francesca agreed. It had been crass and insensitive—but which man had been the most crass and insensitive?

‘Forget it,’ she said, but both of them knew she was only mouthing words she did not mean.

‘If it helps, he did not mention you by name,’ he offered.

‘Meaning what?’ she flashed. ‘That he left it open to interpretation as to whether he was sleeping around or not? Great. Thanks.’ She gave an angry tug at her arm.

He refused to let go. She could feel his anger, the pulse of his frustration because his bit of light teasing had gone so wrong.

‘I apologise—again,’ he bit out finally.

Francesca glared daggers at his chest. ‘I suppose you think it’s all just jolly good fun to swap sexual experiences across some office desk,’ she said shakily. ‘Men being men,’ with lots of phews and wows and you’d have overslept too if you’d been there. She’d heard the men at work talking like that, having no idea how cheap they made their lovers sound. ‘Egotistic cockerels crowing about their prowess,’ she muttered, not realising she’d said the words out loud until he laughed as if he couldn’t help himself.

‘Don’t laugh at me!’ she snapped out hotly.

‘Then don’t say such comical things,’ he threw back. ‘You sound like some outraged virgin.’

But she was an outraged virgin—that was the whole point! ‘Did you tell him all about the way you propositioned me on the Corso just to even up the score a bit?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘But the interesting point here is—did you tell him?’

‘Why, are you worried that he might damage your famed sexual ego by telling him how you made a play for his woman and got turned down flat?’

It was reckless. She shouldn’t have said it. His eyes turned as black as bottomless caverns and his other hand came up to capture her other arm. Hard fingers crushed the denim fabric as he drew her closer.

‘Did you turn me down?’ he prompted. ‘Or did you run like a frightened rabbit because you were already so turned on you didn’t know how to cope with it?’

‘That’s not true!’ she gasped in shocked horror.

‘Shall we test that?’

She saw in the dark glitter of his eyes what he meant to do next and drew in a sharp breath. Suddenly something dangerous was dancing in the air, spinning silver spider webs of tension into the golden sunlight.

Then a twig snapped somewhere, bringing the whole episode clattering down as both heads turned to stare across the top of her great-uncle’s wooden gates. Trapped in a trembling force field that held her breathless, Francesca searched the wilderness in some wild, weak, pathetic hope that her great-uncle was about to appear to rescue her from this.

It didn’t happen. No dapper old gentleman wearing a wine-red velvet smoking jacket appeared on the twig-strewn driveway. The dappling light from the afternoon sun quivered amongst the heavily leafed branches of the tangled trees and vines and played with peeling ochre paint, but otherwise the wilderness garden remained at peace.

She sighed as she thought that, the action parting her lips to release the sad sound. He moved, she looked back at him without thinking and met head-on with a pair of dark, brooding eyes that told her things she didn’t want to know—or feel the way she was feeling them.

It was better to look away. ‘Please let me go,’ she whispered shakily.

His fingers flexed against the denim and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to ignore her plea and just continue from where he’d been interrupted. Her throat ran dry. She tried to swallow. The promise of tears bloomed across her eyes.

Then his grip eased and slowly lifted. She stepped back—went to turn her back, desperate now to get away.

‘You are acquainted with Bruno Gianni?’ he asked.

‘What…?’ She blinked, lifting slightly unfocused eyes back to his face. ‘Oh, n-no,’ she denied, and quickly lowered her eyes again—not because of the lie she’d just uttered but because she didn’t want him to see the threatening tears.

She shoved her hands back in her pockets, swung away and made another attempt to leave.

‘Strange …’ he murmured. ‘I could have sworn I saw you posting a note in the letter box as I drove up.’

And she froze all over again. ‘Y-you mistook what you saw,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was admiring the garden, that’s all.’

‘The garden,’ he repeated and uttered a soft laugh. ‘Cara, that isn’t a garden, it is a neglected mess!’

‘And what would you know about a real garden?’ she swung round to slice at him, not sure if she was responding to his derision or the near kiss she had just escaped. ‘I bet your idea of a beautiful garden has to be something filled with straight lines and must be manicured to within an inch of its life!’

‘Bruno Gianni obviously doesn’t feel like that,’ he pointed out.

He was laughing—still laughing at her! He’d even leant a shoulder against one of the gateposts—right next to her letter box! And he’d folded those wretched arms again, tugging that jumper up over the bronze stud at his waist. She hated him, really hated every hard, mocking inch of his sardonic, handsome—sexy stance!

‘Well, neither do I,’ she declared, uttering this next halflie as she tried very hard to put her temper back under wraps. ‘And I like this garden,’ she added within a tightly suppressed breath. ‘I like the way it’s been left to do its own thing. It has soul and atmosphere and—and—’

‘An irresistible hint of romance about it,’ he inserted when she stammered then stalled. ‘We could even say it possesses a kind of lost-in-time mystique about it that some may love to weave secret fantasies around. We could even imagine Sleeping Beauty lying in one of the cobweb-strewn rooms inside waiting for her prince to come and waken her with the all-important kiss.’

‘Oh, very droll,’ she derided. ‘Next you will be telling me you believe in fairies.’

‘Why not?’ he quizzed. ‘We should all believe there is magic out there or we would stop bothering to look for it and that would be sad, don’t you think? Oh, come on, Francesca,’ he sighed out impatiently when she stiffened up in offence. ‘I was teasing you. Stop prickling.’

‘I’m not prickling,’ she snapped, prickling even as she denied it.

He uttered a short laugh. ‘You remind me of a very beautiful but temperamental tabby cat,’ he told her. ‘Every time I look at you I can almost see the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.’

‘You don’t know me well enough to know anything of the sort,’ she hit back, saw the amusement lurking behind those glossy eyelashes, went to stiffen up some more—then sighed heavily instead. ‘You enjoy winding me up.’

’Sì,’ he acknowledged.

So she was a game, Francesca concluded. An easy game.

Carlo studied her beautiful face as she stood in her own pool of sunlight and wondered grimly if she had any idea how hurt she looked by his last comment. Anger gripped him, along with a hot and bloody frustrated urge to grab for her again and impress on her why his barbs could hurt so much.

Easy, he thought inwardly in grinding contempt and flicked a hard glance at the crumbling Palazzo Gianni hiding inside its romantic wilderness. Sleeping Beauty she was not; Cinderella more like, so damn starved of ordinary love and affection that she left herself wide open for any no-good adventurer to take advantage of.

Damn it, he cursed to himself and straightened away from the gatepost. ‘I suppose,’ he started, ‘if I offer you a lift, you will throw the offer back in my face.’

He was right and she would. ‘Take no offence but I will enjoy the walk.’

The sound of his dry laughter brought her reluctant gaze back to his face again. ‘That was so beautifully English and polite, cara.’ The mocking man was back, she saw.

‘I am English.’

‘Mm,’ he murmured as if even that amused him now. Then he surprised her by abruptly striding back to his car. ‘Like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day,’ he threw over his shoulder as he opened the door then swung his long body into the seat. ‘Very—contradictory.’

‘Thank you—I think.’ She frowned.

Carlo just grimaced and gunned the car engine. ‘I will see you later,’ he said by way of a farewell.

Francesca sent him a perfectly blank look.

‘Your engagement to the mistreated Angelo?’ he prompted and was truly rewarded when the blank look changed to one of dismay because that look told him she had not given a thought to her wonderful Angelo beyond those first few seconds of this encounter.

Having to be satisfied with achieving that much, he put the car into gear and sped off down the lane, leaving her to stew alone on his final heart-ruthless barb.

Francesca watched him go with the sunlight clinging to his satin black hair again and his last sardonic punch making her eyes blink. How could she have become so drawn in by him that she’d completely forgotten the most important event in her life was about to take place tonight?

Another twig snapped somewhere behind her and she turned to glare at her great-uncle’s wilderness as if all of this confusion she was feeling was his fault. And maybe it was, she thought as she turned away again. If he’d been a kinder man he would have accepted her hand of friendship and her pathetic need to maintain contact with him would not have driven her to walk here to post him silly little notes. Then she would not have been standing here like a prime target for Carlo Carlucci to amuse himself with—again.

Easy, he’d called her. And she flinched, ashamed of herself—disgusted with him for playing with her as if she was a toy.

Well, she wasn’t anyone’s toy. She wasn’t easy either—and it was about time that she remembered that! Her chin came up, her hazel eyes glazing over with contempt for the hateful Carlo Carlucci. What was he after all but just one man among many that believed all women were fair prey?

She began to walk, feeling better now she’d managed to snatch her shaken pride back from the brink.

Villa Batiste came into view, its white marble walls drenched in the coral warmth of the late-afternoon sun. The contrast between it and Palazzo Gianni was so pronounced that Francesca pulled to a stop for a moment, struck by the sudden realisation that she did not like this beautiful place. It was all too neat, too shiny and pampered; even the elegant gardens had been groomed to within the tips of their hard edges.

But what the heck? It was a great place to throw a party, she decided, and with a lighter step she began walking up the long, straight driveway with its ceremonial guard of cedar-tree soldiers flanking her approach. She was just walking around the circular courtyard in front of the house when she saw Angelo come through the front door and a light came on inside her that quite simply lit her up. He was wearing jeans and a loose-fitting white sweatshirt and his hair shone golden in the sun.

She began to run to him, and he opened his arms and grinned as she raced up the shallow flight of steps. She fell into those open arms—and fell into his warm, familiar kiss. Oh, she loved—loved—loved this beautiful man, she thought happily.

‘You’ve no idea how much I’ve missed you,’ she sighed when the kiss eventually ended.

‘I think I got the message,’ he grinned.

It was then that she noticed the tiredness around his eyes and the hint of strain tugging at his mouth. ‘Bad day?’ she asked softly, running a gentle finger along a newly arrived groove at the corner of his mouth.

‘Bad week,’ he grimaced, then added with feeling, ‘I never want to get on the wrong side of Carlo Carlucci again.’

Oh, Francesca could sympathise with that. Then she remembered to be annoyed with him for what he’d said to Carlo Carlucci and was just about to tackle him about it when the sound of a car horn grabbed their attention and the embrace was broken so they could turn to watch a minibus come hurtling up the drive.

She smiled in recognition, relaxing into the warmth of Angelo’s circling arms as she watched the minibus pull to a stop at the bottom of the steps. Doors were flung open. People began piling out. Francesca’s friends and work colleagues had arrived, having commandeered one of the company tour buses so they could travel here en masse. They were staying overnight in a hotel in the town but they’d stopped here first to drop off Sonya, who, like Bianca and several others, had had to work today or she would have travelled here with Francesca and Angelo’s parents.

There were fifteen people in all, and every one of them had eyes round like saucers as they scanned the magnificence of Villa Batiste, making suitably impressed comments to each other and tossing teasing ones at Francesca and Angelo.

Sonya was the last one to climb out of the bus. She was wearing a simple white shift-dress that clung to her slender figure and left a good portion of her long legs on show. As she took her time turning a full circle to view her surroundings the late-afternoon sun placed a pale copper gloss on her flaxen hair. She really was beautiful. Everyone said so—except Angelo. He said that her looks were spoiled by her own vanity. That too many compliments had given her a hard edge. The fact that Sonya held much the same views on Angelo was a classic sign that they were two people whose strong characters just did not mix.

When Sonya finally lifted that delicate, heart-shaped face to look at them, Francesca felt an instant pang of irritable despair as she read the sardonic expression in her wide-spaced baby-blue eyes because she knew Sonya was mocking the overt display of wealth here.

Angelo must have seen it too because his arms tightened around her and he uttered something nasty beneath his breath.

‘Oh, wow, this place is amazing!’ one of the others exclaimed. ‘Why isn’t it on our tour list?’

‘Don’t let my mother hear you say that,’ Angelo responded drily. ‘She will send you all back the way you have come before you have a chance to do more than gasp.’

Group laughter rippled into the late-afternoon sunlight. One of the many things Francesca loved about Angelo was his willingness to send up. He might be a fully paid-up member of Rome’s wealthy set but he had never allowed that to tarnish his attitude to her less advantaged friends. He was easy-going and warm and generous. He liked to be liked.

Unlike someone Francesca knew who did not give a care what anyone thought of him. He simply strolled through his life, upsetting anyone he wanted to upset and to heck with the consequences. But then, Carlo Carlucci was a fully paid-up member of the very upper echelons of Rome’s wealthy set. A cut above the rest in other words—a very large cut.

Oh, stop thinking about him, she told herself crossly and was glad to have her thoughts diverted when a mass migration back into the minibus began to take place. Angelo strode down the steps to take Sonya’s overnight bag for her, and the two exchanged stiff if polite words then came to join Francesca to wave the minibus off.