THAT had her looking at him.
He wasn’t smiling. No teasing. He’d meant it, but then possible parenthood was no joking matter.
“I suppose this time you’ll believe the baby is yours, or are you wondering if I’ve had a lover in the past year?”
“I know you have not.”
“How? Have you been having one of your operatives spying on me?”
Dull color burnished his cheekbones and her eyes widened. “You have!”
“You would not see me. I had to know you were all right. So, I had you checked up on.”
“Well, unless you had me followed twenty-four-seven, you can’t know if I’ve been faithful to you, can you?”
Why had she put it like that? There was nothing to be faithful to. They weren’t married. They weren’t even dating any longer.
“I just know,” he said, ignoring her slip of the tongue.
“What, now security tycoons are psychic too?”
It was a juvenile jab and his expression said he thought so too. “This arguing is getting us nowhere.”
“Maybe we have nowhere to go.”
“On the contrary. We leave for Sicily in an hour.”
“What are you talking about? We aren’t going to Sicily.” She put her hands on her hips and gave him her best glower. “I have a job. Signor di Adamo is counting on me.”
“Adamo Jewelers will be closed until the auction.”
Her heart contracted with pain at what that would mean. “No. That will ruin his business. He’ll lose everything.”
“This will not happen.”
“Says you?” she challenged him.
“Sì. I say. I have worked things out with your boss. My company will finish installing the new security system while the store is closed as well as seeing to some necessary structural and wiring changes in his building.”
“He can’t afford that.” She should know. She did the books and Signor di Adamo was hanging on by a financial thread.
“I have taken care of it.”
If Salvatore had worked around her boss’s pride to the extent that Signor di Adamo allowed him to do these things, then he had been ten times more politic with him than he’d ever been with her.
“What about the crown jewels?”
“They will be transported to an undisclosed location for storage until the auction.”
“I suppose your company is supplying security for the auction now as well.” Not that she really minded. She hadn’t known how she was going to handle security for the prestigious guest list, much less the jewels. It was just his high-handed way of handling things that got to her.
“Sì.”
“I don’t understand why I have to go to Sicily, then. I’m not at risk if the jewels aren’t in my keeping.”
“And how are would-be thieves to know that you and Signor di Adamo no longer have access to the jewels?”
They couldn’t exactly put out an ad in the paper. She bit her lip and stared out the window, then looked back at Salvatore. “I guess I just assumed that if they knew we had them, they’d know when we didn’t.”
“The world is not such a simple place, amore.”
Something snapped inside her at the use of that endearment. “You know, I’ve put up with you calling me sweet and darling. I don’t like it—” and her heart called her a liar “—but I tolerate it. They’re just words to an Italian man. I know that, but don’t you ever call me love. Got it? Love has nothing to do with our relationship.”
She wasn’t going to fool herself into believing love prompted his protectiveness or concern for her. Sicilian guilt and obligation to a family friend mixed with a lot of red-hot desire were the extent of his feelings toward her and she’d do well to remember that.
His expression could have been set in cement. “You are saying you no longer love me. I know this.”
“And you don’t love me, so let’s not play games.”
“I was not aware I was playing any game.”
“Then stop using endearments, would you?”
“You are dear to me.”
“I’m your guilty burden, you mean.”
Another layer of cement poured over his expression. “Did last night feel like guilt?”
She couldn’t deal with what it had felt like. She had to deal with reality. “Last night was about two people overcome by lust to the extent that they both forgot birth control.”
“I did not forget.”
“Right.” She glared at him. Men, especially macho men like Salvatore, had a hard time admitting when they’d messed up. “You just decided to forgo any attempt at preventing the conception of a child.”
“This is so.”
“What?” She could not have heard what she thought she had just heard. No way. Not possible.
“I chose to do nothing to prevent pregnancy.”
“You said you didn’t have a condom with you.” Was that whisper-soft voice sounding so stunned hers?
“I did not, but I could have made love differently to you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I did not.”
She plopped down into the dining chair she had vacated earlier, her legs going wobbly on her. “Because you thought real men didn’t pull out, or something?”
His eyes mocked her words. “That thought was not in my mind.”
“What thought was in your mind, then? You can’t tell me you wanted me to get pregnant.”
“But I did. I do.”
She could actually feel the blood draining from her face as shock made her heart skip a beat and her breathing shallow. “You want me to get pregnant?” she asked again, incapable of voicing any other concept.
“Sì.”
“But why?”
“There are many reasons.”
“Name one.”
“Your health.”
“You think I’ll be healthier pregnant? But that’s absurd.”
“Not so. I spoke to a doctor after your miscarriage. He warned me you might have what is termed postpartum depression.”
She’d heard of after-the-baby blues, but she hadn’t had a baby and said so.
“The hormones that become imbalanced can do so after a miscarriage as well. It was clear you were still sad, still not functioning under your normal faculties. Not only have you stayed away from other men this year, but you have also stopped socializing altogether. You moved from your apartment, but you never go back to visit the friends you had in your old building. You refuse every invitation from Signor di Adamo to share a meal with his family.”
“I suppose your spies told you that too,” she cried, stung by his assessment of her.
“No. Your boss. He is worried also, but he thinks the sadness is due to our breakup.”
“It was! And to losing the baby. I don’t have some sort of chemical imbalance you need to fix by getting me pregnant.”
“Perhaps, but the grief counselor I spoke to also said that having another baby would help you with the grief over losing our first one.”
“You talked to a grief counselor and a doctor about me?”
“I wanted to know why you were so adamant in your refusal to see or speak to me.”
“Because you hurt me and I didn’t want you in my life any more. I could have told you that!”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he didn’t get angry. “There was more to it than that.”
“So, you thought you’d fix what your imagination told you was wrong with me by getting me pregnant?” No matter how many times she said it, it still sounded unbelievable.
“I also believed you would agree to marry me once you knew you again carried my child.”
“So now the baby was yours?” she asked scathingly in an attempt to mask the other emotions swirling through her.
“You say it is so. I should not have doubted you.”
But then he hadn’t loved her and doubt found a fertile ground in the distrust he’d harbored toward women since Sofia.
“You can’t force me into marrying you.”
His shrug was anything but reassuring. It as good as said, Yeah, right, whatever you say, but I am Salvatore di Vitale and I know how to get what I want.
And right now…he wanted her to marry him.
Salvatore watched the emotions flow across her expressive features. None of them were even remotely related to joy at the prospect of marriage to him.
That made him angry. So, he had made a mistake. It happened. That she should dismiss all that they shared because of it was ludicrous.
“We have a lot going for us.”
“Your distrust of women, my distrust of you and lots of lust. That is not my idea of a recipe for a happy life together.”
Her sarcasm was wearing away at his good intentions.
“Oh, yes, and let us not forget your guilt. The only real reason you want to marry me in the first place.”
Why did she have to keep bringing up his guilt? Of course he felt guilty toward her. He had hurt her, his anger had caused the loss of their baby. He would never forget that fact. Did not know if he could ever forgive himself.
“I have forgotten nothing.”
Like the fact that at one time she had wanted his love. Now she did not care. In a way, he was glad. He did not know if he had this love to give her. He’d thought he loved Sofia, but had realized later his pride had been lacerated, not his heart.
What he felt for Elisa was bound up with the overwhelming desire his body had to mate with hers. Was that love?
Probably not the kind of love a woman would understand or want. It wasn’t flowery and romantic. What he felt around her was too elemental. In the final picture, love did not come into it. He owed her a baby. He owed her the security of marriage and a family.
“You will marry me.”
“I’ll do as I please.” She looked both incredibly fragile and stubbornly defiant.
“May I suggest it please you to get ready for our trip to Sicily? If we do not leave on time, my pilot will lose his take-off slot at the airport.”
She glared. “I don’t have to go to Sicily with you.”
“And those after the crown jewels?”
“I can go somewhere else, a place neither you nor the bad guys can find me.”
Panic lanced through him that she might do just that. “Your father would worry if he did not know where you were.”
“Then I’ll tell him.”
“And he will tell me.”
Her small hands made tight fists against her thighs. “Not if I tell him not to.” She didn’t sound completely convinced of that fact.
And she should not be. “No father is going to allow his daughter to remain unprotected when there is any risk she could be hurt by her own stubborn independence.”
“So, I won’t tell him!”
“And risk causing him another heart episode in his worry for you?”
An hour later, buckled into a seat on Salvatore’s private jet, Elisa stewed. What a Class A manipulator.
He’d known exactly what buttons to push to get her to agree to go to Sicily with him, but, even knowing she was being manipulated, she would not change her mind. Papa would worry. She knew that. He was sick and she could not stand it if she was the reason something truly bad happened with his health.
Besides, she wanted to know why he had told Salvatore she was like Shawna. She was tired of just accepting the outsider’s role in her family. She wanted something more and it began with her father’s trust and belief that she was every bit as good a daughter as Annemarie. Somehow, she would get him to see that.
She knew deep down that he loved her.
She needed to feel that love now, not just be aware of its existence.
How different these thoughts were from the ones she’d always harbored about love and family. Shawna had raised her to depend only on herself, to rely on no one else physically or emotionally, because other people let you down. Elisa had learned the truth of that statement early on, right at Shawna’s knee.
Here Salvatore was, invading her space, demanding she rely on him. He wanted her to depend on him, to trust him, but how could she? He’d shown her that, just as with the other people she loved in her life, she had only a minor role to play in his. That of lover, but not beloved.
He wanted to marry her because he felt guilty. If it had been for any other reason, she would have jumped at the chance to build a life with him, to have the family she had never had. She craved the closeness she saw in other families, the relationship that existed between her father, Therese and Annemarie.
She was livid with Salvatore for tempting her with what she wanted most in the world, but knew she could not really have.
Because in a marriage without love, she wouldn’t belong to him any more than she had ever really belonged with Shawna or her father.
They were on the road that led to the di Vitale estate outside of Palermo before Elisa realized Salvatore was not taking her to her father’s house.
Instead they pulled past the iron-gate entrance to his palatial home.
“Why have we come here first?”
Salvatore’s profile was grim, as it had been since she had agreed with little grace to accompany him to Sicily. “You are staying with me.”
“No, I am not.”
He pulled the car to a stop in front of the huge old house. It looked like something straight out of a European guidebook, a classic example of the opulent Mediterranean villa, home of the wealthy from the previous century.
Salvatore got out of the car and came around to open her door. Although his big body shaded her from the sun, hot air blasted her as the climate-controlled coolness of the car poured out through the open door.
She made no move to get out, leaving her safety belt buckled. “I’m not going inside.”
He sighed. “I got very little sleep last night, cara.”
That had her frowning. “Whose fault is that?”
“Yours.”
She gasped out her outrage at that. “I didn’t seduce you last night.”
“Did you not?” His gaze traveled over her like seeking hands. “Your very presence in the same space is a seduction to my senses. Surely you know this.”
“It’s not my fault you didn’t get any sleep,” she maintained stubbornly, not sure how she felt about his admission.
“It is. Therefore, you must also accept the results. I am out of patience. I wish to refresh myself, to relax in my home. I will not stand beside this car arguing with you. Come into the house now, Elisa, or I will carry you there, but be assured you are coming.”
His words elicited not the least amount of surprise, but they did make her angry. “You’re being a bully.”
“I am being practical. Are you coming?”
She didn’t want to know how she would react to his touch should he carry out his threat so she undid her seat belt with a jerky movement. “You should have six younger siblings, the way you like to boss people around.”
His bark of laughter was short. “My parents wanted more, but Mamma died before that goal was achieved.”
“Your father never remarried.”
“No.”
She climbed out of the car. “He must have loved your mother very much.”
“He says so.”
She cast a glance at Salvatore. “You don’t believe him?”
“I do not disbelieve him.”
“But you can’t comprehend that kind of love?” she guessed.
He shrugged. “Not really, no.”
Which as good as told her in no uncertain terms that what he felt for her was nothing like the emotion his father had had for his mother. “I wish I couldn’t,” she muttered to herself as she followed him inside.
He stopped in the cavernous hall and looked back at her. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.” As if she was admitting it to him. That was not happening. She looked around in silence.
She loved the warm, old-world feel of the di Vitale home Salvatore shared with his father and grandfather. No grandmother, Elisa mused, the woman had died before he was even born. It struck her that Salvatore had had very little feminine influence in his life. He’d only been a small boy when his mother died and his father had never done anything that she knew of to fill that void in Salvatore’s life. No aunts. No good friend of the family, except perhaps Therese, her father’s wife.
Salvatore was only five years older than Elisa. Therese would have married Elisa’s father not long after the death of Salvatore’s mother.
“Did you see much of Therese growing up?” she asked as he led her up the grand staircase.
“Your father and my father are good friends and have been since before I was born.”
She supposed that answered the question, except it didn’t tell her how close he might have been to her stepmother. “Are you and Therese close?”
He stopped in front of a door and turned to face her. “What are you asking, cara?”
“Your mother died when you were little. I just wondered if…”
“Your stepmother played the role of surrogate to me?”
“Yes.”
“I had no desire to have another mother.”
“But you were so young.”
“Old enough to know how much it hurt when Mamma died. I did not go looking for someone else to fill her place.”
He’d been afraid of losing again, was perhaps still afraid of it. To love meant taking a risk, one Salvatore might never willingly submit to.
It was a depressing thought.
He pushed open the door. “This is your room.”
“I don’t understand why I can’t stay with my father and his family.”
Salvatore’s brows drew together, the bronze skin between his eyes wrinkling. “You are his family, dolcezza.”
“Right.” But not in the same way. Never in the same way. “So, why can’t I stay with them?”
“You are safer here.”
“I don’t believe that. Your company is in charge of my father’s security. I’ll be safe as houses there.”
“If one of the fanatics opposed to the sale of the crown jewels came looking for you, the woman who convinced the former prince to allow her to auction them off, would you want someone else to perhaps get in the way? Like your sister or your stepmother?”
“But he planned to sell them before I came along. It had been made public for weeks when Adamo Jewelers was chosen to host the auction. Making me a target would be senseless.”
“Fanatics often are. You are willing to risk your family’s safety on this belief?”
She shook her head.
He stepped back. “Your room.”
“Thank you.” She moved inside, her attention arrested immediately by the charming femininity of the room.
The large four-poster bed in the middle of the floor was draped with dusky mauve canopy and curtains, while the bedspread was made from fabric in a large cabbage-rose print. The drapes matched the bedspread. The dresser and vanity table were the same dark wood as the bed, but had the elegant styling of the Queen Anne era.
“It’s gorgeous, but so feminine.” She hadn’t expected such a thing in a houseful of bachelors.
“Little has changed in this room since my mother’s death.”
“This was her room?”
Salvatore looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Of course not. Can you see a Sicilian male having separate bedrooms with his wife?”
Not one in the di Vitale family. If she ever agreed to marry Salvatore, she knew the one thing they would definitely share was a bed.
“No.”
“She had it decorated for female guests and the housekeeper followed this tradition when bedcoverings and such needed to be replaced.”
Without her realizing it, he had come all the way into the room and now stood not two feet from her.
She stepped back a pace. “I think I’ll lie down before dinner. I’m wrung out.”
He reached out in a totally unexpected gesture and brushed her cheek. “Running from it will not make it go away.”
“I’m not trying to make anything go away. I’m just tired.”
His hand dropped from her face. “If you say so.”
She was still reliving that brief touch and the gentle accusation an hour later as she moved into yet another position, hoping to get comfortable enough to sleep.
The problem was her body wanted his masculine frame curled around it. One night, and a whole year of his absence from her bed was dismissed by a body that knew what it craved, no matter how much she would like to deny it.
“You are not asleep.”
She turned, a feeling of deep inevitability washing over her. He stood beside the bed, his hair ruffled from running his fingers through it, his shirt undone partway, his eyes black with an emotion all too familiar.
“What are you doing in here?”
“You cannot sleep.” He set one knee on the bed. “Do not ask me how I know this, but I do. I cannot work thinking of you tossing and turning in your lonely bed.”
She couldn’t very well deny the tossing and turning bit. The state of the covers said all that needed to be said on that score. “I’m not lonely,” she denied instead.
His hand landed beside her head on the pillow and he leaned over her, all sensual, threatening male. “Are you sure?”