THE WEDDING WENT precisely as Ranieri had planned.
It was true that the Schuyler House museum baffled him. There it sat on a side street on Upper East Side, lost, to his mind, between the flashier museums that littered the area. The Metropolitan. The Guggenheim. The Frick.
But there was no denying that using Schuyler House leant this wedding of his a certain extra glow.
Even the weather dared not defy him. It was a spectacular afternoon. The deep blue of the sky was a color only possible here in the fall, and yet this first Saturday in October was neither chilly nor overly warm. As if the skies above approved of the outdoor venue he had chosen.
The house was built in that old Gilded Age style, and rather than rearrange the museum—and contend with Annika’s potential reaction to that—Ranieri had decided that the back courtyard was more appropriate. He had found the best event planners the city, offered them enough money to make this last-minute high society wedding a prospect too appealing to turn down, and today he found himself pleased with the results.
Perhaps he was particular. But particular got results.
He had several fortunes to prove it.
Ranieri stood at the head of the aisle the event planners had constructed there in the walled stone courtyard. He waited for his bride while a select number of the world’s and New York City’s wealthiest—as well as Annika’s close friends—filled the few rows of chairs. And when Annika finally appeared, a single violin began to play.
She caught his gaze and stood there a moment, and he wondered—not quite idly—if she might attempt to play one of her tricks here. But instead, she gripped the bouquet she held before her a little tighter and then she started down the wide stone steps at the back of the old house.
And then she headed straight for him.
Ranieri had planned every part of this wedding. Including the dress she wore now, because he’d known that its elegant sweep would highlight her beauty perfectly. He was pleased to see it did. She looked graceful and ethereal, a vision in white.
He had slowly come to terms with the reality of Annika over the past few weeks. Perhaps it was simply that once he’d kissed her, all the blinders he’d kept firmly in place for years had come crashing down.
Annika was a beautiful woman. Full stop. What she was not, he had found, was overly concerned with maintaining and showing off that beauty. He doubted she thought much about it at all. Just as she did not care overmuch about fashion the way everyone did—including him—because it was considered a calling card in these circles.
She had never been interested in calling cards. If she was, she would not have secreted herself away in this funny old museum.
And Ranieri knew this: if she had truly been as embarrassing and awkward as she and everyone around her pretended, she would not have inspired the kind of snide commentary that forever followed in her wake. That sort of thing only came about when jealousy was involved.
It made sense. A beautiful woman so unselfconscious could only be considered a threat to some.
Not that this explained his long-term aversion to her and what he liked to think of as her bedraggled state. Kissing her had brought other memories back, too. He could recall his first introduction to her. She’d been standing there in the stunning foyer of her apartment, beneath the Baccarat chandelier with her father, and he had taken a quick initial impression of her. He’d seen the long, silky hair. Her lovely oval of a face. An hourglass figure in a lovely dress. He’d noticed, because of course he noticed, how pretty she was—
And in the next moment she had been introduced to him as Bennett Schuyler’s daughter and he had shut all of that off. So completely that it was as if he hadn’t truly seen her again until now.
But it made sense to him why her sartorial choices had always irritated him so deeply. Why he had only been able to see the careless hair, the oddball choices of dress. If asked, he would have banged on about the stain upon the Schuyler name, which affected him personally in his position. He often had, at length.
Now he rather thought the truth of it was, deep down, that he’d always known exactly how pretty she was. And it offended him, connoisseur of all things beautiful, that her loveliness was obscured. When all it would take was a little work on her part to showcase it.
Today, he’d done the showcasing himself.
And he had done it well.
What he hadn’t been prepared for was the punch to the gut he felt when he laid eyes on her for the first time in the dress he’d picked out for her, walking toward him as if she’d chosen this.
As if she’d chosen him.
It was as if that violin was scratching out the bridal march inside him.
Annika had opted to walk down the aisle herself. And though Ranieri knew she’d done it because she thought that somehow made what was happening less real, he thought she’d miscalculated. It didn’t make her look removed from the proceedings, but the opposite. She could not have made her father more present here in any other way.
All anyone could possibly see as she walked was his absence. The afternoon shadows almost seemed to make it possible to imagine him walking proudly beside her as she made it down the aisle and faced Ranieri at last.
And he felt everything far too keenly, though he told himself it was the sweetness of his victory here, nothing more.
He reminded himself of that victory when she took his hands. When he said his vows and her green eyes darkened. When she repeated them, her voice gone ever so slightly scratchy on those old words that he knew she would say did not apply to them.
Love. Honor. Cherish.
Then it was done, so Ranieri hooked a hand around her neck and pulled her close to kiss her. Once more for a crowd.
They were getting good at it, this kissing thing. He had staved off God only knew how many humiliations this way, and now was done. The marriage her father had demanded, sealed with a kiss.
Now if either one of them wanted to walk away, it would take a divorce.
The reception kicked into gear as they walked back down the aisle and posed for a few pictures, because not doing so would look strange. When the photographer had snapped what must have been hundreds of shots, Annika murmured something about tending to the guests, and excused herself.
Ran away from him, more like, but Ranieri could allow it. There was nowhere for her to go, after all. He did his own rounds of the party, checking in with the usual heavy hitters he always found himself talking to at parties like this. He liked that the caterers Annika had recommended were deft and seemed functionally psychic, replacing a drink the very moment a guest noticed it was empty. Or producing a plate of appetizers to choose from at the very moment someone almost felt hungry.
He was tempted to imagine that if they wished, the two of them could do well together. Stuck as they were with each other for the year. Today, it seemed less a bitter fate than before.
The events coordinator oversaw the removal of all the chairs from the ceremony and swiftly set up the single long table down the length of the courtyard as the sun began to set. The courtyard was lit all around with lanterns, a bright glow against the October evening, with heat lamps placed every few feet to keep the warmth of the day. Schuyler House stood there before them, its old walls surrounded them, and Ranieri almost thought he understood Annika’s connection to the place now. It was beautiful, in its way. A slice of old New York and, having grown up in so many old places himself, Ranieri felt drawn to it.
When really, he should’ve been basking in his triumph. His complete and utter victory, despite much provocation from Annika herself. Despite the pink monstrosity that was still overtaking his desk and unicorn figurines.
But in truth, all he could think about was the honeymoon. About getting away from all these people at last and taking her somewhere that there would be no eyes on her at all, save his.
The violinist was joined by three other musicians to form a proper string quartet, and they played classical standards as the party was called to dinner. Ranieri wasn’t hungry. Not for food. But what he liked was that it gave him a good excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway. He found his way to his bride’s side, intending to take her hand and tug her away from the conversation she was having with the group of women he knew were the college friends she sometimes spoke of. Not to him, but to the staff when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.
She had not yet learned that he always paid attention.
“There you are,” he said as he came up beside her. As if he might have lost track of her in the small crowd. Or ever.
Then he found himself smiling slightly as her friends all turned the same sort of steely, assessing looks upon him.
“Do you not have a family?” one of them asked. “Is that why none of them are here?”
“Or are you estranged from your family?” asked another.
His brand-new wife frowned at her friends, but her smile was apologetic when she aimed it at him. “They’re very nosy and wholly ungovernable,” she told him. “I told them to leave it alone, but you see how well that went.”
“We can’t be contained,” said the third friend with a shrug. “But it is interesting...” She lingered over that word as if it was the clue they’d all been looking for, and perhaps it was “...that your side of the aisle was all business associates, isn’t it?”
Ranieri acknowledged her with the barest lift of his brow. “I admire this support for your friend. But I must steal her away.”
And then, he steered Annika away with him, giving her no choice but to follow him—unless she wished to make a scene. He rather thought her appetite for scenes had diminished these past few days. Maybe it was because she viewed the wedding as a setback, having failed to make him call it off. Or possibly it was because he kept responding to each attempt on her part to make a scene with a kiss.
Either way, though he braced himself for her to struggle with him now, she didn’t.
He led her over to the center of the long table and seated her, then took the chair beside her. All around them, the guests filled in the empty seats, and then the caterers outdid themselves as they began to serve the simple, but exquisitely prepared meal that Ranieri had chosen.
Yet he could barely taste it.
Beside him, Annika only picked at the food on her plate. And Ranieri almost laughed, because to all appearances, it must have looked as if they were consumed with the sort of wedding nerves normally reserved for people in love. That or virgins, tremulously expecting the unknown on their wedding night.
“If you wish to ask me questions about my personal life, you should simply ask,” he said, sitting back in his seat and looping his arm on the back of her chair, because he could. Because she was his wife. And possibly also because she didn’t sit up straight to get away from him, so his fingers could graze the delicate strap of her dress, the tempting line of her shoulder blade.
“I don’t know what makes you think I have the faintest interest in your personal life,” she said, but she didn’t say such things the way she had at first. Her voice was warm. And the look she shot him was green and bright.
“It must be your friends, then, who are so interested. Such that they feel it reasonable to interrogate me at my own wedding.”
Annika shifted around in her seat to look at him then. And it should not have surprised him as much as it did, the way the rest of the reception seemed to fall away. As if it was only the two of them out here in the Manhattan night.
He would have sworn they were entirely alone.
“I’m the very last of my family. And there’s not a lot I wouldn’t do to bring them back, if I could.” Annika glanced away briefly, her eyes moving over the museum and then returning to him. Almost shyly, he thought, or perhaps that was a trick of the lantern light. “It’s not really a surprise that I’ve chosen to spend my life immersed in all this family history. It’s the closest I can get to the real thing.”
Ranieri felt very nearly...unsettled, and that was a new sensation. He had to fight the urge to rub his free hand over his chest.
“This seems unduly introspective,” he said, but softly. Very softly, and not, for once, because he wished to score any points. “But it is not surprising. Weddings can be very emotional.”
He would not have thought so, previously. They had always been networking opportunities to him. But in this moment of sudden, bracing honesty, here in this private little bubble between them despite the fact they were surrounded on all sides, he found it was easy to admit it.
Alarmingly easy, as though it took nothing from him. He had to consider that its own sort of win, he supposed.
“Everything happened so fast,” Annika told him, almost gravely. “It wasn’t until I walked down the aisle that it really hit me. My father isn’t here. I actually got married without him.”
Her green eyes were too bright, for a moment. She lowered her gaze. And he had to fight not to reach over and pull her to him. He didn’t know why it occurred to him to try. When had he last offered anyone comfort? But this was Annika.
He allowed his hand to move, rising until he could wrap his palm over the nape of her neck. It wasn’t enough, he felt certain. But it was something.
She looked at him again and took a steadying sort of breath, and he wasn’t sure if the warmth he felt in his hand was hers or his. Perhaps it was both of theirs.
“I think I’ve decided to be grateful that I didn’t have to anticipate the loss,” she said in the same grave tone. “I didn’t spend years having to imagine walking down a wedding aisle without him. It happened so fast that it’s already done.”
“I’m delighted that could be a part of this...expediency.”
That should have come out sardonic. Hadn’t he meant it to? But instead, he said it with the same weight and gravity she had used.
And more astounding, Ranieri found he meant it.
Her gaze rose to meet his again and they were not kissing. Not now. Yet somehow, that was what this moment felt like anyway. There was heat, intensity. There was that breathlessness. He wasn’t sure that he had ever felt connected like this to anyone.
The closest he had ever come had been when he’d been deep inside a woman, and he would not compare the experiences. This felt...sacred.
It occurred to him to pay attention to where he was. The clink of the glasses around them, the sparkling conversations. The eyes on them, everywhere, even as Annika quietly took him apart.
He assured himself that all of this was about sex. Sex and the year ahead, that was all.
That was all it ever could be.
As the dinner wore on, Annika lost that hint of melancholy. Or emotion, of whatever stripe. She got up from her seat and walked around the table, talking to whoever stopped her, and Ranieri learned some more things about her then. That she was not, perhaps, as awkward as she always appeared at galas and the like. That here, with her friends nearby and only a few close business associates to contend with, she bloomed.
He wasn’t sure how it had never occurred to him that the secret of Annika Schuyler was simply that she was shy. Ranieri tried to tell himself that she was putting on an act here the same way she did elsewhere, but he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. He’d seen the genuine emotion in her gaze. More than that, he had tasted her now.
And a person could fake a great many things, but a kiss was not one of them.
Not the way Annika kissed him, as if she might die if she stopped.
Act or not, the result was the same. She had invited her friends. He had made strategic choices for the guest list and he knew full well that all of them would tell tales about Annika Schuyler Furlan’s easy, elegant hospitality for years to come.
He would have set about congratulating himself, but he had far more pressing things on his mind.
Like the marital relations she had seemed so shocked to discover he wanted.
Ranieri might have been shocked too, but he wanted her too badly. And while he had never been led around by the hardest part of him in his life, he hadn’t been married before, either. All bets appeared well and truly off.
After dinner was done, the string quartet began to play dancing music. Ranieri gritted his teeth and got to it.
Because that was the most expedient way to fast-forward to the part he was actually interested in. He strode over to Annika, involved in another deep discussion with her college cohort, and drew her away once more.
This time without an interrogation.
“That was rude,” she told him, looking over her shoulder at her friends.
“This is not a reunion, amore,” he told her, loud enough that her friends were not the only ones who could hear the endearment he used. “You are the bride. You have certain duties, and one of them, I am afraid, is that you must dance with your husband.”
He was suddenly overtly aware of the platinum band on his finger. And the slender, matching band Annika now wore, because she hadn’t wanted more diamonds. She had felt the single one she wore was more than enough. She had said as much, repeatedly, waving his family heirloom around as if she would have liked it if it flew off and shattered the nearest window.
Ranieri drew her out into the middle of the courtyard that been set aside as a dance floor, and pulled her into his arms at last. Where she fit too well and he was a little too invested in that.
He told himself that, too, was about sex.
The truth was he couldn’t recall the last time he had been required to wait.
The strings played, singing out an ancient song of love, and he whirled her around, again and again.
And while the music played, Ranieri did not think of winning or losing. He did not calculate the advantages here or plot out his next move. He only held her in his arms, this woman who had become his wife, gazed down at her, and lost himself in all that marvelous green.
Grave again, as if she could see the deepest parts of him. The things no one ever saw.
Finally, when the dancing was done, he drew her with him as he climbed the steps of the museum.
“Are you planning to make a speech?” she asked as they went. “What a good host you are, Ranieri. I doubt anyone saw that coming.”
He liked that dry little bit of teasing in her voice. It made him feel like himself again. It chased away all the unexpected weight of this odd emotion he couldn’t seem to dispel.
“Only in a manner of speaking,” he told her. “My ferocious reputation will remain spotless, I promise you.”
And then, while their assembled guests watched and applauded—or in the case of her friends, frowned—he bent slightly, then swept her into his arms. Ranieri held her there for a moment, so the whole of the wedding reception could see them. So the photographers could be certain to take the last picture for some time.
Then he turned without another word and bore her into the museum.
Ranieri did not put her down. He carried her straight through the museum, then out the front door, and deposited her in his waiting car.
“I think this counts as a kidnapping,” she said, but she did not sound unduly concerned at the prospect.
“I would not be surprised to discover that many a honeymoon started off the same way,” he replied, unrepentantly.
And then, finally, Ranieri kissed her the way he wanted to.
He feasted on her as the car pulled away from the curb, carrying them off to the jet that waited for them in a private airfield.
She surged against him, tasting of the same hunger that burned so hot and wild within him. He kissed her and he kissed her, and this time, they were safely ensconced in the back of a moving car. There were no watching eyes. No cameras.
No acts to perform.
He could indulge himself.
And so, at last, that was what he did.
Ranieri succumbed to the temptation of her mouth, angling his head as he took the kiss deeper. And while he was at it, he let his hands explore the glory of that figure of hers she had so long kept concealed.
He wanted to take that as some kind of evidence of her perfidy, even now, but he couldn’t get past the notion of her shyness. Her disinterest in the games so many in her set played.
And the possibility that it had never occurred to her that her figure was a gift.
One he did not intend to share.
He bent his head to press his mouth to the graceful line of her neck, then followed it down. He lavished attention on the sweet, rounded mounds that rose above the bodice of her gown.
But he wanted more. He wanted some proof that he was not alone in this wanting. This need that had taken him over, little as he wished to admit it.
He pulled her voluminous skirts up with him, still kissing her. And he reveled in every noise she made. Because she sounded greedy and half-mad, just as he felt.
And because he could taste the sounds she made, and that made him even harder.
He found the garter she wore, and he moved his fingers up higher. Then still higher, until he found the soft heat of her at last.
“Ranieri...” she whispered brokenly.
But her hips rose as she said his name. And she opened herself beneath his hands, giving herself over to him that easily.
As if this was no surrender, but an invitation.
He traced the shape of her, learning the soft, hot contours of her femininity. The scent of her was wilder now, but still that same sweetness that was only hers. And only when she was shuddering in his arms, her head thrown back and her back arched as if offering herself to him on the altar of his choosing, did he test the tight clasp of her heat.
Then, following an urge that felt like a drumbeat within him, he tested her heat with one finger, then another. She sighed, and opened herself even farther as he set a slow, unhurried pace, twisting his hand around to let his thumb press hard against the center of her need.
Now, finally, she was his.
Ranieri gazed down at her, her face flushed, her head thrown back, the very picture of grace and greed.
He had never wanted a woman more.
In point of fact, he could no longer recall if any other women existed.
After only a few thrusts, Annika bucked all around him, flooding his hands with her sweet heat.
Ranieri forced himself to sit back. He rearranged her skirts, and found himself smiling as he pulled her up from where she’d gone limp against the seat, arranging her so that she looked a proper bride and not the debauched creature he’d made her.
That she was both of those things, and both were his, pleased him deeply.
It took her some time to open her eyes and when she did, the green of her eyes seemed to pierce him straight through.
“But... Don’t you want to...?”
“Amore,” he said with a certain intensity, and did not choose to ask himself why he was using that particular endearment when there was no one but her to hear it, “you are a Furlan now. And I am taking you to my ancestral home, such as it is. Where I will sample you as is only good and proper and civilized, in an actual bed. Not in the back of a car as if we are nothing but overwrought teenagers.”
If she didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t bother to wait, a voice inside him whispered.
He ignored it.
Annika stared at him for a long moment. Then a smile took over her face. And this was not the kind of smile he’d grown used to from her. This one seemed to crack her wide open, until all he could see was sunlight, and no matter that outside the car the October night was dark and deep.
“Yes, dear,” she said, almost diffidently, and then her smile widened. “Isn’t that the appropriate, subservient mode of address? Is that what we’re looking for here?”
And Ranieri had to shift on the seat before he forgot his good intentions and had her here and now—
But he was taking her home. And he would wait until he got her there, or really, he could count himself no better than animal. Something he was certain he would have to remind himself of during the flight ahead of them.
If she didn’t matter to you...
Ranieri took her hand and played with his grandmother’s ring, sitting so snugly on her finger. “I’m glad you’re taking your wifely duties so seriously, Annika,” he said, and found himself smiling again at her laughter. “See that it continues.”
Then he allowed himself one more kiss.
But only the one.