"Coop!"
Bianca’s voice scraped through his insides, hollowing out his chest so that his heartbeat echoed with emotions he couldn’t bear to acknowledge. His anger refused to be denied, so he remained silent and continued tossing his belongings into his duffel.
He heard her tear across the living area of their suite, then stop in the doorway. She breathed his name with relief, but he refused to turn around.
"I thought you’d left," she said, panting.
A bitter retort pounded on his teeth, but he kept his mouth shut.
When she rushed forward and wrapped her hand around his arm, however, he couldn’t help but yank away.
She gasped. She was surprised? Really? How much did she think a guy could take before he said, "Enough," even nonverbally. Speaking could only make the situation worse. Brutally honest words—words that would rip and tear at the foundation of all they’d had together—wouldn’t do either of them any good.
As angry as he was, as humiliated and confused, Coop couldn’t bear to piss on the relationship he’d invested his heart and soul into for ten years. He loved Bianca. But he was going to have to learn to live without her.
"Coop," she begged. "Let me explain."
He spared her a glance. His chest squeezed tight at the sight of her red nose, tear–stained cheeks and her red–raw lips. Bianca rarely cried. Only death of a loved one or the desperate children they sometimes met on their travels ever evoked her tears. Like so many other things, her penchant for stoicism came in handy since he was such a self–proclaimed softie.
He squelched down the instinct to open his arms so she could rush into his embrace, where he could soothe away her sadness. He couldn’t fix this for her. He couldn’t fix it for himself. Their relationship was irrevocably broken. The best they could both do was walk away.
"There’s nothing to explain. You don’t want to get married."
"But I still want you," she said.
He scoffed. "That’s nice, but what if I don’t want you, anymore?"
"You have to," she said. She hesitated then attempted to press her hands to his shoulders.
Though it wretched his gut, he tore away from her touch. "Don’t."
"I can’t not touch you, Coop. I love you. This is killing me."
"You’re kidding, right? The woman I’ve worshipped for ten years, the woman I’ve followed around the world to the depths of the ocean or the heights of mountains, just refused to marry me and you’re the one who’s dying?"
She yowled in frustration. "You have to listen to me! You have to understand!"
Coop threw down the pair of jeans he was about to shove into his bag and swung around to face her.
"Okay. Explain it, then. I’d love to hear how you’ve rationalized not marrying me. And think hard before you answer, because if you can’t make me understand, we’re through."
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 7
Coop’s hand hovered over the door handle to the hotel room. For the past month and a half, this had been their home. They’d played house all over the world. How stupid was he that he only realized now how little that game meant to her?
The sheer terror in her eyes when he’d opened her car door in front of the chapel punched him in the gut. For the first time he could remember, she’d refused to take his hand. How could he be so confused by a woman he’d always thought he’d known so well?
Turning, he walked away from the door and leaned his forehead against a cool glass mirror hanging on the wall, careful not to look at himself. Humiliation was never fun to see.
He’d actually believed Bianca when she’d said yes to his proposal. Why wouldn’t he? They’d been constant companions since college, sharing everything from their intense love of travel and sports to tastes in music and food. And when their preferences did diverge, they usually did so in complimentary ways. He didn’t like pickles on his hamburgers, but she liked extra ones. She abhorred dark meat on chicken or turkey and he couldn’t get enough of the stuff. In a thousand little, insignificant ways, they were two pieces of the same whole.
Why then, was she so reluctant to officially join her life with his?
She hated the idea of divorce. So did he. The strong desire to make sure they were compatible in every conceivable way before they officially exchanged vows had been the reason they’d had such a long engagement. They lived together long enough to experience both good times and bad. Heck, after ten years, they’d even confronted the possibility that they’d tire of each other eventually.
Which they had not.
After five years, Coop had known that if they hadn’t broken up by then, they weren’t going to. From that point on, he’d figured that with the right timing and circumstance, they’d seal the promise they’d made to each other in the Hawaiian treetops. He’d waited for his bride to take charge of wedding preparations, but he had made sure they renewed their marriage license every time they went home.
And yet, something inevitably came up to waylay a ceremony.
Between his family, her family and their extensive network of friends, the opinions on precisely how he and Bianca should tie the knot had ranged from the romantic to the ridiculous. Then he’d get a new assignment or she’d take a job halfway around the world and instead of dealing with dress designs, cake flavors or honeymoon destination brochures, they’d jet off to their new temporary home—never once considering their relationship anything less than permanent.
But he’d been wrong. Because while he saw his future inexorably intertwined with Bianca’s, her visions were nowhere near as clear.
If Bianca wanted him in her future, she would have married him. Today. On the mountain.
But she hadn’t.
Which meant he no longer had any reason to stick around.
The sheer terror in her eyes when he’d opened her car door in front of the chapel punched him in the gut. For the first time he could remember, she’d refused to take his hand. How could he be so confused by a woman he’d always thought he’d known so well?
Turning, he walked away from the door and leaned his forehead against a cool glass mirror hanging on the wall, careful not to look at himself. Humiliation was never fun to see.
He’d actually believed Bianca when she’d said yes to his proposal. Why wouldn’t he? They’d been constant companions since college, sharing everything from their intense love of travel and sports to tastes in music and food. And when their preferences did diverge, they usually did so in complimentary ways. He didn’t like pickles on his hamburgers, but she liked extra ones. She abhorred dark meat on chicken or turkey and he couldn’t get enough of the stuff. In a thousand little, insignificant ways, they were two pieces of the same whole.
Why then, was she so reluctant to officially join her life with his?
She hated the idea of divorce. So did he. The strong desire to make sure they were compatible in every conceivable way before they officially exchanged vows had been the reason they’d had such a long engagement. They lived together long enough to experience both good times and bad. Heck, after ten years, they’d even confronted the possibility that they’d tire of each other eventually.
Which they had not.
After five years, Coop had known that if they hadn’t broken up by then, they weren’t going to. From that point on, he’d figured that with the right timing and circumstance, they’d seal the promise they’d made to each other in the Hawaiian treetops. He’d waited for his bride to take charge of wedding preparations, but he had made sure they renewed their marriage license every time they went home.
And yet, something inevitably came up to waylay a ceremony.
Between his family, her family and their extensive network of friends, the opinions on precisely how he and Bianca should tie the knot had ranged from the romantic to the ridiculous. Then he’d get a new assignment or she’d take a job halfway around the world and instead of dealing with dress designs, cake flavors or honeymoon destination brochures, they’d jet off to their new temporary home—never once considering their relationship anything less than permanent.
But he’d been wrong. Because while he saw his future inexorably intertwined with Bianca’s, her visions were nowhere near as clear.
If Bianca wanted him in her future, she would have married him. Today. On the mountain.
But she hadn’t.
Which meant he no longer had any reason to stick around.
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 6
In nearly every aspect of life, she and Coop saw the world through nearly identical filters. They’d always wanted the same things out of life. Love. Adventure. Excitement. Thrills.
Until now. He wanted marriage. And despite how desperately Bianca needed him—perhaps, precisely because of her soul–deep love—she did not want to ruin what they had by getting married. Settling down.
And yet, what was she doing to their relationship by refusing to be his wife?
She could no longer see him on the curving mountain road. As he was going downhill, she figured she was better off using the car to catch him. Just having him out of her sight, left her feeling as if she was the last person remaining on a barren, desolate earth.
Coop never left. Not during their most heated arguments. Not when she was being utterly and completely irrational. He reasoned and cajoled and sometimes—though rarely—outshouted her until his point was driven home. But turning his back on her and walking away?
Never.
She jumped into the driver’s seat and eased the vehicle onto the unpaved road, wondering how long it had been since she’d sat behind the wheel of a car. Coop always drove. She always navigated. He had quicker reflexes and she seemed to have a GPS coded into her DNA. Together, they could find any location without more than a few garbled directions or a landmark.
Together, they made the perfect team.
So why was he so intent on changing perfection?
She slowed down as she approached the curve, sure she’d see Coop just on the other side. But he wasn’t there. She rounded the next curve and again—no Coop. With no one else braving the treacherous route, she stopped and got out of the car.
"Cooper Rush!"
Birds flocked out of a nearby tree. In the distance, she could hear a waterfall. They weren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere—she could see San José from the ridge—but she heard nothing that indicated where he’d gone.
Was he hiding?
Ridiculous. Coop might have been too angry to share a ride with her back to the city, but he wasn’t the type to skulk or hide to avoid confrontation. He probably picked up a ride with someone going down the mountain. He was likely on his way back to their hotel now, stewing over her refusal to make good on her promise to marry him—maybe even hating her for the first time since they’d met.
Behind her a dilapidated truck honked, forcing Bianca back into the vehicle. She had no choice but to return to their hotel and pray that when she arrived, Coop would be there waiting for her—though for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why he would be.
Until now. He wanted marriage. And despite how desperately Bianca needed him—perhaps, precisely because of her soul–deep love—she did not want to ruin what they had by getting married. Settling down.
And yet, what was she doing to their relationship by refusing to be his wife?
She could no longer see him on the curving mountain road. As he was going downhill, she figured she was better off using the car to catch him. Just having him out of her sight, left her feeling as if she was the last person remaining on a barren, desolate earth.
Coop never left. Not during their most heated arguments. Not when she was being utterly and completely irrational. He reasoned and cajoled and sometimes—though rarely—outshouted her until his point was driven home. But turning his back on her and walking away?
Never.
She jumped into the driver’s seat and eased the vehicle onto the unpaved road, wondering how long it had been since she’d sat behind the wheel of a car. Coop always drove. She always navigated. He had quicker reflexes and she seemed to have a GPS coded into her DNA. Together, they could find any location without more than a few garbled directions or a landmark.
Together, they made the perfect team.
So why was he so intent on changing perfection?
She slowed down as she approached the curve, sure she’d see Coop just on the other side. But he wasn’t there. She rounded the next curve and again—no Coop. With no one else braving the treacherous route, she stopped and got out of the car.
"Cooper Rush!"
Birds flocked out of a nearby tree. In the distance, she could hear a waterfall. They weren’t exactly in the middle of nowhere—she could see San José from the ridge—but she heard nothing that indicated where he’d gone.
Was he hiding?
Ridiculous. Coop might have been too angry to share a ride with her back to the city, but he wasn’t the type to skulk or hide to avoid confrontation. He probably picked up a ride with someone going down the mountain. He was likely on his way back to their hotel now, stewing over her refusal to make good on her promise to marry him—maybe even hating her for the first time since they’d met.
Behind her a dilapidated truck honked, forcing Bianca back into the vehicle. She had no choice but to return to their hotel and pray that when she arrived, Coop would be there waiting for her—though for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine why he would be.
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 5
She couldn’t speak. He took her hand and gave a little tug, his roguish grin faltering when she resisted.
"Bianca?"
"I—"
Her continued hesitation wiped the smile from his face. Before disappointment clouded his twinkling dark–green eyes, she’d caught sight of his pure, unbridled excitement. He was jumping into this marriage with the same enthusiasm as he did a base dive off steep cliffs. Coop craved adrenaline, but he existed on faith. Faith in life. Faith in her.
Her foundation, however, had rocked to the core. Fear of crashing to a bottomless pit of loneliness or disappointment paralyzed her so that she could not even manage to take his hand.
"I made the arrangements this morning," he explained. "I wanted to surprise you."
"Oh," she said, gulping air. "I’m surprised."
When he leaned forward, his magnificent arms braced on either side of the door frame and his face inches from hers, her heart seized.
"Bianca, do you love me?"
"Oh, God, Coop. This has nothing to do with love."
"You’re not answering my question."
"Yes, I love you." Each word cost her. Her lungs squeezed inside her chest and sweat beaded on the back of her neck. "I’ve never loved anyone else. I plan to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Just not as my wife," he guessed, anger simmering through his words.
She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find anything worthy to say. Coop cursed and threw himself away from her. The action was so foreign, so shocking, that he was fifty yards down the unpaved mountain road before she fully realized he’d left her behind.
"Coop!" She tumbled out of the car, barely maintaining her balance. She glanced back inside the Jeep. He’d left the keys inside the ignition. Should she drive after him? Pursue on foot?
She was dizzy, nearly blind with his abandonment. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been apart for more than a few hours, and in the few moments since he’d left her, a lifetime elapsed. He’d never walked away from her before. Never. They’d had a few impressive rows over the course of their relationship, but each one had been followed by incredibly hot make–up sex.
As Coop became smaller as the distance between them increased, Bianca couldn’t remember what a single argument had ever been about.
"Coop, wait!" she cried, tearing around to the other side of the car to retrieve the keys. A woman had come out of the church, her head covered with a shawl and her eyes wide with surprise. She called Bianca’s name, but more as a question—as if she wanted to know if the woman screaming for the man who’d nearly disappeared around a curve in the road was the bride she’d been expecting—the bride who’d had no real intention of ever getting married.
Not even to the man she would certainly lose if she did not find a way to walk down the aisle.
"Bianca?"
"I—"
Her continued hesitation wiped the smile from his face. Before disappointment clouded his twinkling dark–green eyes, she’d caught sight of his pure, unbridled excitement. He was jumping into this marriage with the same enthusiasm as he did a base dive off steep cliffs. Coop craved adrenaline, but he existed on faith. Faith in life. Faith in her.
Her foundation, however, had rocked to the core. Fear of crashing to a bottomless pit of loneliness or disappointment paralyzed her so that she could not even manage to take his hand.
"I made the arrangements this morning," he explained. "I wanted to surprise you."
"Oh," she said, gulping air. "I’m surprised."
When he leaned forward, his magnificent arms braced on either side of the door frame and his face inches from hers, her heart seized.
"Bianca, do you love me?"
"Oh, God, Coop. This has nothing to do with love."
"You’re not answering my question."
"Yes, I love you." Each word cost her. Her lungs squeezed inside her chest and sweat beaded on the back of her neck. "I’ve never loved anyone else. I plan to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Just not as my wife," he guessed, anger simmering through his words.
She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find anything worthy to say. Coop cursed and threw himself away from her. The action was so foreign, so shocking, that he was fifty yards down the unpaved mountain road before she fully realized he’d left her behind.
"Coop!" She tumbled out of the car, barely maintaining her balance. She glanced back inside the Jeep. He’d left the keys inside the ignition. Should she drive after him? Pursue on foot?
She was dizzy, nearly blind with his abandonment. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d been apart for more than a few hours, and in the few moments since he’d left her, a lifetime elapsed. He’d never walked away from her before. Never. They’d had a few impressive rows over the course of their relationship, but each one had been followed by incredibly hot make–up sex.
As Coop became smaller as the distance between them increased, Bianca couldn’t remember what a single argument had ever been about.
"Coop, wait!" she cried, tearing around to the other side of the car to retrieve the keys. A woman had come out of the church, her head covered with a shawl and her eyes wide with surprise. She called Bianca’s name, but more as a question—as if she wanted to know if the woman screaming for the man who’d nearly disappeared around a curve in the road was the bride she’d been expecting—the bride who’d had no real intention of ever getting married.
Not even to the man she would certainly lose if she did not find a way to walk down the aisle.
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 4
But not as much later as Bianca thought.
After making love in the cove, they drove back to their hotel in San José, hardly talking. Did Coop’s disinclination to speak stem from his suspicion that any discussion would lead to the subject of marriage and more excuses about why they shouldn’t?
Or was that only her fear?
She’d agreed to a wedding, but only so he’d make love to her. A glance, a touch, a laugh—the littlest thing made her hot for him. She had the same sway over him. Their mutual attraction was powerful stuff—and she didn’t want to lose it.
She’d seen lots of successful marriages in her lifetime. Her grandparents, married for sixty years. Her parents were closing in on anniversary thirty–five. Even Coop’s parents, who had dated since middle school, were inseparable. And yet, when she looked closely, she didn’t see sparks. She saw love, yes. But lust? Not so much.
Women’s magazines, late–night comedians, girly tête–à–têtes all claimed that marriage killed the sex drive.
That wasn’t acceptable.
Every single day Coop made her feel beautiful, cherished and wanted. His appreciation for her intellect, her love of fun and adventure and yes, her body, had not wavered since that first moment they’d met at a fraternity–sponsored road rally. She was all for jumping out of airplanes and surfing mammoth waves, but when it came to risking the bedrock of her relationship with Coop by shifting the foundation, she wasn’t ready to take the plunge.
Annie, Coop’s sister, was the perfect example. Before she got married, she jetted around the world as a sought–after photographer. She regaled Bianca with tales of wild adventures and exciting affairs. After one such trip, she’d talked about a devilishly handsome, sweet–talking corporate shark who’d swept her off her feet.
Too bad she landed with a thud the minute she’d married him.
Annie’s post–marital transformation had reinforced Bianca’s fear that marriage might not be the right path. Annie stopped traveling, taking pictures and seeking thrills. She’d settled into a life of dirty diapers, car pools and Little League. Not that Bianca had anything against Coop’s nephews—she loved kids. But she didn’t necessarily want to give up her free–for–all lifestyle to have them.
Coop never pressed the subject, but he floated the idea now and again—always after prefacing his hopes and dreams with, "After we’re married."
So to avoid conflict, she’d simply avoided matrimony.
Up until now, the diversion had worked. She’d anticipated that she could pull off at least another five years of avoidance. And by then, she’d figure out how to reconcile her fears that they’d lose their mutual attraction when bound by marriage.
At least, that’s what she’d thought until Coop pulled up in front of a quaint mountain chapel, hopped out of the Jeep and opened her door with a bow.
"Your castle, my queen."
"Coop?"
"We’re going to get married. Today. Right now. You always want to live in the moment, Bianca. Well, now’s your chance."
After making love in the cove, they drove back to their hotel in San José, hardly talking. Did Coop’s disinclination to speak stem from his suspicion that any discussion would lead to the subject of marriage and more excuses about why they shouldn’t?
Or was that only her fear?
She’d agreed to a wedding, but only so he’d make love to her. A glance, a touch, a laugh—the littlest thing made her hot for him. She had the same sway over him. Their mutual attraction was powerful stuff—and she didn’t want to lose it.
She’d seen lots of successful marriages in her lifetime. Her grandparents, married for sixty years. Her parents were closing in on anniversary thirty–five. Even Coop’s parents, who had dated since middle school, were inseparable. And yet, when she looked closely, she didn’t see sparks. She saw love, yes. But lust? Not so much.
Women’s magazines, late–night comedians, girly tête–à–têtes all claimed that marriage killed the sex drive.
That wasn’t acceptable.
Every single day Coop made her feel beautiful, cherished and wanted. His appreciation for her intellect, her love of fun and adventure and yes, her body, had not wavered since that first moment they’d met at a fraternity–sponsored road rally. She was all for jumping out of airplanes and surfing mammoth waves, but when it came to risking the bedrock of her relationship with Coop by shifting the foundation, she wasn’t ready to take the plunge.
Annie, Coop’s sister, was the perfect example. Before she got married, she jetted around the world as a sought–after photographer. She regaled Bianca with tales of wild adventures and exciting affairs. After one such trip, she’d talked about a devilishly handsome, sweet–talking corporate shark who’d swept her off her feet.
Too bad she landed with a thud the minute she’d married him.
Annie’s post–marital transformation had reinforced Bianca’s fear that marriage might not be the right path. Annie stopped traveling, taking pictures and seeking thrills. She’d settled into a life of dirty diapers, car pools and Little League. Not that Bianca had anything against Coop’s nephews—she loved kids. But she didn’t necessarily want to give up her free–for–all lifestyle to have them.
Coop never pressed the subject, but he floated the idea now and again—always after prefacing his hopes and dreams with, "After we’re married."
So to avoid conflict, she’d simply avoided matrimony.
Up until now, the diversion had worked. She’d anticipated that she could pull off at least another five years of avoidance. And by then, she’d figure out how to reconcile her fears that they’d lose their mutual attraction when bound by marriage.
At least, that’s what she’d thought until Coop pulled up in front of a quaint mountain chapel, hopped out of the Jeep and opened her door with a bow.
"Your castle, my queen."
"Coop?"
"We’re going to get married. Today. Right now. You always want to live in the moment, Bianca. Well, now’s your chance."
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 3
Desperate to escape this conversation, Bianca threw herself backwards into the water, enjoying the momentary disorientation of falling beneath the surface. In the cool, churning waters, she didn’t have to remember how long her mother had dreamed of Bianca wearing her vintage couture dress, or how her father waxed poetic about walking her down the long aisle at their family’s church.
Then there was Coop’s family. In light of his sister Annie’s divorce, the Rush’s had lately taken to speaking about little else but the grand party they wanted to throw for Coop’s trip to the altar. They were sure, since Coop and Bianca had been inseparable for ten years, that their marriage would last a lifetime—as marriages were intended.
She couldn’t argue. She had every intention of growing old with Coop. But why did she have to do so as his wife? Why couldn’t she just be his lover, his helpmate, his best friend? Why couldn’t things stay exactly as they were?
As far as she was concerned, the rope that bound her to Coop had been twisted into an irreversible figure–eight since the moment they’d met. What did it matter if they had a legal document to seal the deal?
She supposed a ceremony might be nice.
Great clothes. Fabulous party. A honeymoon trip to top all their adventures.
But then, in the end, they’d be married. Their perfect relationship would face an irrevocable and inexorable change. Why mess with perfection?
Emerging from under the water, Bianca waylaid further discussion with a long, luxuriant kiss. Inch by inch, she maneuvered him closer to the hidden cove they’d discovered a few days ago, where none of the tourists would follow. Between the dappled sunlight, the churning water, the wild jungle and their insatiable passion, a quickie remind would show him how little a wedding would impact their lives.
"You’re trying to distract me," Coop said, his mouth descending to her neck even as his magic fingers untied the back of her bikini.
"Guilty," she confessed, hissing with pleasure as he circled her nipples with his thumbs, sparking a need that made the water unequal to the wetness within her. She wanted him. And for over a decade, he always wanted her. None of the married people she knew were still hot for their partners as rapaciously as she was for Coop. Every nerve ending in her body craved him. How could she give that up simply to satisfy someone else’s idea of commitment?
"I still want to marry you," he said.
"I know," she murmured, concentrating on the feel of his mouth on her earlobe, down the tendons of her neck, across her collarbone.
"Then let’s do it today," he demanded.
She tugged at his swim shorts until she had access to the part of him she wanted more needfully than any piece of paper that declared them wed.
"Yeah," she said. "Let’s do it."
He’d misinterpret her meaning, but she’d deal with that later. Much, much later.
Then there was Coop’s family. In light of his sister Annie’s divorce, the Rush’s had lately taken to speaking about little else but the grand party they wanted to throw for Coop’s trip to the altar. They were sure, since Coop and Bianca had been inseparable for ten years, that their marriage would last a lifetime—as marriages were intended.
She couldn’t argue. She had every intention of growing old with Coop. But why did she have to do so as his wife? Why couldn’t she just be his lover, his helpmate, his best friend? Why couldn’t things stay exactly as they were?
As far as she was concerned, the rope that bound her to Coop had been twisted into an irreversible figure–eight since the moment they’d met. What did it matter if they had a legal document to seal the deal?
She supposed a ceremony might be nice.
Great clothes. Fabulous party. A honeymoon trip to top all their adventures.
But then, in the end, they’d be married. Their perfect relationship would face an irrevocable and inexorable change. Why mess with perfection?
Emerging from under the water, Bianca waylaid further discussion with a long, luxuriant kiss. Inch by inch, she maneuvered him closer to the hidden cove they’d discovered a few days ago, where none of the tourists would follow. Between the dappled sunlight, the churning water, the wild jungle and their insatiable passion, a quickie remind would show him how little a wedding would impact their lives.
"You’re trying to distract me," Coop said, his mouth descending to her neck even as his magic fingers untied the back of her bikini.
"Guilty," she confessed, hissing with pleasure as he circled her nipples with his thumbs, sparking a need that made the water unequal to the wetness within her. She wanted him. And for over a decade, he always wanted her. None of the married people she knew were still hot for their partners as rapaciously as she was for Coop. Every nerve ending in her body craved him. How could she give that up simply to satisfy someone else’s idea of commitment?
"I still want to marry you," he said.
"I know," she murmured, concentrating on the feel of his mouth on her earlobe, down the tendons of her neck, across her collarbone.
"Then let’s do it today," he demanded.
She tugged at his swim shorts until she had access to the part of him she wanted more needfully than any piece of paper that declared them wed.
"Yeah," she said. "Let’s do it."
He’d misinterpret her meaning, but she’d deal with that later. Much, much later.
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 2
Coop twirled Bianca to face him, his hands hugging the muscled curves of her arms. If she refused to make this ultimate step in their relationship, could he let her go? He’d asked her to become his wife—the first time—over a decade ago. Though she wore his ring, called herself his fiancée, showed him that she loved him in a thousand different ways, they’d yet to say, "I do." He had no idea why this chafed at him so much lately, but it did.
Maybe he was just getting older. Maybe he wanted to settle down, have a family, and put down roots. He hadn’t given the matter as much thought as it deserved, which was probably how he’d ended up in this fix in the first place. Up until very recently, he’d focused only on ensuring that once he had sorted through his contradictory desire between traveling the world and finding a place to call home, he’d have Bianca at his side. Each time they’d gone to visit their families in their hometown, they’d renewed their marriage license. And yet, he’d never once forced the issue of actually going through with the wedding.
Until now.
"Okay? Okay?" he asked. "That’s the answer I get to a heartfelt marriage proposal delivered in one of the most beautiful places on earth?"
Bianca pressed against the curve of his erection, hidden by the water from everyone but her. "Actually, when you say, ’Marry me,’ it sounds more like an order than a question."
She’d been spending way too much time with her attorney client if she was going to nitpick or look for loopholes. But this time, her attempt to divert his attention would not work.
"So the question has been asked and answered, counselor," Coop said wryly. "And yet, I continue to ask."
"And I continue to say yes!" she said, lifting her hand so that her diamond engagement ring twinkled in his peripheral vision.
"Actually—" he said, tilting his head so he could nibble on her chin "—the first time I asked, you said something like, ’Of course, now grab that zip line and let’s go!’"
She laughed as she returned his kisses. Her free–spirited, unbridled explosion of happiness infected him, instantly filling the void that seemed so wide and so deep every time he caught a glimpse of the engagement ring on her finger. Sometimes, the damned thing glittered like the sharp edges of a broken promise. Other times, it reminded him that though he’d asked her to marry him, he hadn’t exactly pushed for a short engagement.
He blamed himself. He’d started the whole thing off wrong in proposing just before they flew over the treetops in Maui. Maybe if he’d asked the first time when they were on solid ground, they would be married by now.
"Let’s get married here," he suggested.
She sighed with exasperation. They had, after all, had this conversation before.
"Coop, our parents would kill us if we eloped."
"I’m willing to take that risk…are you?"
Maybe he was just getting older. Maybe he wanted to settle down, have a family, and put down roots. He hadn’t given the matter as much thought as it deserved, which was probably how he’d ended up in this fix in the first place. Up until very recently, he’d focused only on ensuring that once he had sorted through his contradictory desire between traveling the world and finding a place to call home, he’d have Bianca at his side. Each time they’d gone to visit their families in their hometown, they’d renewed their marriage license. And yet, he’d never once forced the issue of actually going through with the wedding.
Until now.
"Okay? Okay?" he asked. "That’s the answer I get to a heartfelt marriage proposal delivered in one of the most beautiful places on earth?"
Bianca pressed against the curve of his erection, hidden by the water from everyone but her. "Actually, when you say, ’Marry me,’ it sounds more like an order than a question."
She’d been spending way too much time with her attorney client if she was going to nitpick or look for loopholes. But this time, her attempt to divert his attention would not work.
"So the question has been asked and answered, counselor," Coop said wryly. "And yet, I continue to ask."
"And I continue to say yes!" she said, lifting her hand so that her diamond engagement ring twinkled in his peripheral vision.
"Actually—" he said, tilting his head so he could nibble on her chin "—the first time I asked, you said something like, ’Of course, now grab that zip line and let’s go!’"
She laughed as she returned his kisses. Her free–spirited, unbridled explosion of happiness infected him, instantly filling the void that seemed so wide and so deep every time he caught a glimpse of the engagement ring on her finger. Sometimes, the damned thing glittered like the sharp edges of a broken promise. Other times, it reminded him that though he’d asked her to marry him, he hadn’t exactly pushed for a short engagement.
He blamed himself. He’d started the whole thing off wrong in proposing just before they flew over the treetops in Maui. Maybe if he’d asked the first time when they were on solid ground, they would be married by now.
"Let’s get married here," he suggested.
She sighed with exasperation. They had, after all, had this conversation before.
"Coop, our parents would kill us if we eloped."
"I’m willing to take that risk…are you?"
Surprise Wedding - Chapter 1
I have another love story here..is called Surprise Wedding
Cooper Rush gazed across the turquoise blue water of the Costa Rican mountain pool, and spotted the woman in the black bikini whose curves stopped his heart. The blood pumping in his chest rushed south so that his lower body seized with a deep–rooted desire. Her thick dark hair streaked down her back, the ends lust–tipped arrows pointed at her luscious backside.
He had to have her.
He dove into the pool and swam, torpedo–like, through the strangers in the water, honing in on her. When he popped through the surface, he had eyes only for her. A body only for her.
A heart only for her.
"Marry me," he said.
She tossed a coy glance over her shoulder, her honey–brown eyes wide, as if she didn’t understand the simple request. "Excuse me?"
She did not turn to face him, so he slid his hands around her waist and tugged her tight against his chest. She didn’t resist, but instead, curved her body against his so that her buttocks cradled his lengthening erection.
"You heard me," he said. "Marry me."
The beautiful siren closed her eyes, tilting her head back in sweet, but incomplete surrender. He splayed his hands across her middle and toyed with her diamond–studded belly ring, practicing the precise flick and swirl he knew she loved—especially when applied much lower down her body.
"Okay," she replied, sighing contentedly.
And therein lay the problem.
As much as they might have loved playing "strangers in the pool" games from time to time to keep their sex life exciting, Coop knew Bianca Brighton better than he knew anyone else in the world. For ten years, they’d been nearly inseparable—first through college, then grad school, then on their seemingly endless travels either to satisfy the requirements of her job as a translator or his job as an international software designer. For the past month, they’d lived and loved all over Costa Rica, in–between canyoneering the lush tropical rainforests and Bianca’s assignment to assist the attorneys for an American real–estate investor sorting through contracts drafted in Spanish.
The activities had ranged from wildly exciting to untenably boring, yet never for an instant had Coop lost interest in his ultimate goal—convincing Bianca, finally, to marry him. Because while he’d asked her a dozen times this year alone, she’d yet to walk down the aisle with him.
For too long, he’d accepted her excuses. They were too busy. Too far away from home. Too obligated to her mother’s lavish plans for a show–stopping ceremony, or too wrapped up in their own adventures to stand still long enough for a clergyman or judge to say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
Well, Coop was done waiting. And he was done allowing his lover to play the clever mouse to his determined cat.
He was going to marry Bianca Brighton. And he was going to do it today.
Cooper Rush gazed across the turquoise blue water of the Costa Rican mountain pool, and spotted the woman in the black bikini whose curves stopped his heart. The blood pumping in his chest rushed south so that his lower body seized with a deep–rooted desire. Her thick dark hair streaked down her back, the ends lust–tipped arrows pointed at her luscious backside.
He had to have her.
He dove into the pool and swam, torpedo–like, through the strangers in the water, honing in on her. When he popped through the surface, he had eyes only for her. A body only for her.
A heart only for her.
"Marry me," he said.
She tossed a coy glance over her shoulder, her honey–brown eyes wide, as if she didn’t understand the simple request. "Excuse me?"
She did not turn to face him, so he slid his hands around her waist and tugged her tight against his chest. She didn’t resist, but instead, curved her body against his so that her buttocks cradled his lengthening erection.
"You heard me," he said. "Marry me."
The beautiful siren closed her eyes, tilting her head back in sweet, but incomplete surrender. He splayed his hands across her middle and toyed with her diamond–studded belly ring, practicing the precise flick and swirl he knew she loved—especially when applied much lower down her body.
"Okay," she replied, sighing contentedly.
And therein lay the problem.
As much as they might have loved playing "strangers in the pool" games from time to time to keep their sex life exciting, Coop knew Bianca Brighton better than he knew anyone else in the world. For ten years, they’d been nearly inseparable—first through college, then grad school, then on their seemingly endless travels either to satisfy the requirements of her job as a translator or his job as an international software designer. For the past month, they’d lived and loved all over Costa Rica, in–between canyoneering the lush tropical rainforests and Bianca’s assignment to assist the attorneys for an American real–estate investor sorting through contracts drafted in Spanish.
The activities had ranged from wildly exciting to untenably boring, yet never for an instant had Coop lost interest in his ultimate goal—convincing Bianca, finally, to marry him. Because while he’d asked her a dozen times this year alone, she’d yet to walk down the aisle with him.
For too long, he’d accepted her excuses. They were too busy. Too far away from home. Too obligated to her mother’s lavish plans for a show–stopping ceremony, or too wrapped up in their own adventures to stand still long enough for a clergyman or judge to say, "I now pronounce you husband and wife."
Well, Coop was done waiting. And he was done allowing his lover to play the clever mouse to his determined cat.
He was going to marry Bianca Brighton. And he was going to do it today.
*Scandal at the Balfour Ball - Chapter 8
"What?" Meredith gasped in disbelief.
"He has known since he was an adolescent." Alessandro revealed his once-best friend’s deepest, darkest secret.
"Oh, that’s terrible…"
"Well, don’t start to feel too sorry for him," Alessandro advised her cynically. "He might play the charmer and the best friend to both of us, but underneath it all he has a very bitter and twisted view on life."
"But…sterile, Alessandro…you can almost understand why he feels that way."
"That he was willing to wreck what you and I have going together so that we don’t achieve what he cannot?"
"What?"
"You heard me." He sighed. "He’s that twisted up, cara. He told me to my face, too."
It was only when she saw the bleak look enter his eyes that she realized how hurt he was feeling by Marco’s betrayal of their long friendship. Reaching up with her free hand, she was about to tenderly push a stray lock of hair away from his brow and say something soothing when a sudden thought hit and her fingers stilled a half inch away from their target.
"You only decided to believe I was telling you the truth because of the baby!"
Losing the bleak look, Alessandro honed his sharpened gaze on her paling face.
"No," he said quickly. "No, Merry…" Catching hold of her hovering fingers, he crushed them into his. "This is the point when you have to place your trust in me. I did not come to my senses because I linked your pregnancy with Marco’s sterility—what difference would it have made to the two of you having an affair?" he pointed out.
"Then what did change your mind about me?"
"Madre di Dio," he groaned. "This is going to sound no better when I tell it to you!"
Then she didn’t want to know! "Get off me." She gave a push at his shoulder.
"You were a virgin," he husked out. "I was your first lover. When I first met you, Marco had told me that he was your lover, but I laughed him off because you didn’t behave like lovers—"
"I told you we weren’t!"
"But I only remembered that conversation with him after you shocked my jealous head into thinking clearly again—tonight!"
As she tried again to push him away, he growled something not very polite about stubborn women and pinned her clenched fist to the pillow beside her head.
"If he could lie to me about that, Merry—" he persisted "—it hit me that he could lie about other things, and it suddenly came to me that Marco had written the letters."
"Too convenient." Meredith denounced his logic.
"The last thing it was is convenient. You had just handed me a pen thing, which was telling me you are pregnant. We should be celebrating that, bella mia, not fighting about him."
Meredith knew he was right, but it did not stop the tears from flooding her eyes. "I was so shook up when I called you up last night to tell you about the baby. I wanted you to jump on a plane and come home to m-me."
"But you got my bad temper, instead." With a growl of remorse, he claimed her full soft mouth.
"I’m sorry," he husked between brief hot kisses. "I was very unhappy." He was really going for broke now, Meredith noted. "I pretty much hated myself for suspecting you."
She nodded her head in encouragement between kisses.
"If I could take the past twenty-four hours back I would consign them into oblivion. But I cannot, so you are going to have to forgive me—what would our baby have to say if you did not?"
Oh, that was so very sneaky. Meredith drew back from the arrival of the next kiss.
"I love you quite pathetically badly." His luscious dark eyes tried to eat through the sparks in her eyes. "You are my life, and I am going to prove how sorry I am for doubting you."
"How?"
Alessandro apparently couldn’t help it. He grinned. "Stupid question, Merry mia."
As her cheeks turned pink, he moved their bound hands to rest them on her flat stomach. "But first I am going to acquaint myself with this tiny miracle about to happen," he murmured. "This really clever bit of mixing of the best of you and me…"
Meredith squirmed a little when he fed their hands inside her robe and felt instantly drenched in the silken heat of his gentle touch. He moved closer until his face was all she could see, and she knew he was going to kiss her.
"I still have not forgiven you," she warned him a trifle breathlessly.
"I promise to work hard on making you forgive me," he vowed and claimed her mouth with his again.
Not hard and hot and passionate as he had kissed her in the middle of Balfour’s ballroom, but slow and soft and so sensationally tender, Meredith shifted restlessly as she began to melt.
"Untie us," she whispered, needing her hand free so that she could touch him.
But Alessandro just shook his head. "I like being bound to you, it makes me feel safe."
Safe…there was nothing whatsoever safe about Alessandro when he started caressing her the way that he was doing. With the deft moves of a man who knew all about seduction, he slid their bound hands up her body and made sure that it was his fingers that closed around one of her breasts then he deepened the tender kiss, dipping carefully between her parted lips and gently kneading her breast.
"Oh," she breathed as the silken heat inside her gained momentum.
Her fingers strained in an effort to reach up and touch his lean hard cheek. As if it knew it had to do it, the binding slipped its knot and suddenly she was free to do as she wished.
"You tie really bad knots," she whispered.
"Perhaps," he conceded, running the tip of his tongue along the ultra-sensitive wall of her abdomen. "But I am really good at doing this…"
He was, too. It was a long time later when Mutt woofed at their closed bedroom door and Meredith stirred lazily.
"He wants to go out."
He’s your dog," Alessandro reminded her without a hint of conscience.
"But I’m in a delicate condition…"
Wrapped very comfortably around her, Alessandro lifted his head up, dark hair a cute rumpled mess and his chocolate eyes so languorously sleepy, Meredith wriggled a little because he was just so sexy like this.
"You blackmailing witch."
Her green eyes looked back at him with perfect innocence, and her even white teeth plucked at her full, soft lower lip. Maria Callas still played softly in the background. The dog woofed again. Drowning, gorgeous tension was trickling through Meredith and she moved ever so sensually to it.
"I love you so much, Alessandro," she told him softly. "And I am never—" she slid her arms around his neck "—ever going to let you spend more than one tiny night away from me again."
"You will move to Milan?"
She nodded. "No one would have had the power to cause trouble between us if we’d lived and worked out of the same city, could they?"
The tears were back. Alessandro lowered his mouth to lick them away. "It won’t happen again, Merry. I won’t be such a fool as to let it."
"And I’m having a baby." She sighed with all the blissful wonder of it. "Our baby… I feel…magical."
She looked it, too. "Beautiful, magical, wonderful…"
Mutt woofed again.
Alessandro’s answering growl could have beaten any the dog might want to demonstrate. He eased inside her with the quick hard satin sureness of a man sure of his welcome, and a low and huskily delivered, "Mutt is going to have to wait.…"
The End
"He has known since he was an adolescent." Alessandro revealed his once-best friend’s deepest, darkest secret.
"Oh, that’s terrible…"
"Well, don’t start to feel too sorry for him," Alessandro advised her cynically. "He might play the charmer and the best friend to both of us, but underneath it all he has a very bitter and twisted view on life."
"But…sterile, Alessandro…you can almost understand why he feels that way."
"That he was willing to wreck what you and I have going together so that we don’t achieve what he cannot?"
"What?"
"You heard me." He sighed. "He’s that twisted up, cara. He told me to my face, too."
It was only when she saw the bleak look enter his eyes that she realized how hurt he was feeling by Marco’s betrayal of their long friendship. Reaching up with her free hand, she was about to tenderly push a stray lock of hair away from his brow and say something soothing when a sudden thought hit and her fingers stilled a half inch away from their target.
"You only decided to believe I was telling you the truth because of the baby!"
Losing the bleak look, Alessandro honed his sharpened gaze on her paling face.
"No," he said quickly. "No, Merry…" Catching hold of her hovering fingers, he crushed them into his. "This is the point when you have to place your trust in me. I did not come to my senses because I linked your pregnancy with Marco’s sterility—what difference would it have made to the two of you having an affair?" he pointed out.
"Then what did change your mind about me?"
"Madre di Dio," he groaned. "This is going to sound no better when I tell it to you!"
Then she didn’t want to know! "Get off me." She gave a push at his shoulder.
"You were a virgin," he husked out. "I was your first lover. When I first met you, Marco had told me that he was your lover, but I laughed him off because you didn’t behave like lovers—"
"I told you we weren’t!"
"But I only remembered that conversation with him after you shocked my jealous head into thinking clearly again—tonight!"
As she tried again to push him away, he growled something not very polite about stubborn women and pinned her clenched fist to the pillow beside her head.
"If he could lie to me about that, Merry—" he persisted "—it hit me that he could lie about other things, and it suddenly came to me that Marco had written the letters."
"Too convenient." Meredith denounced his logic.
"The last thing it was is convenient. You had just handed me a pen thing, which was telling me you are pregnant. We should be celebrating that, bella mia, not fighting about him."
Meredith knew he was right, but it did not stop the tears from flooding her eyes. "I was so shook up when I called you up last night to tell you about the baby. I wanted you to jump on a plane and come home to m-me."
"But you got my bad temper, instead." With a growl of remorse, he claimed her full soft mouth.
"I’m sorry," he husked between brief hot kisses. "I was very unhappy." He was really going for broke now, Meredith noted. "I pretty much hated myself for suspecting you."
She nodded her head in encouragement between kisses.
"If I could take the past twenty-four hours back I would consign them into oblivion. But I cannot, so you are going to have to forgive me—what would our baby have to say if you did not?"
Oh, that was so very sneaky. Meredith drew back from the arrival of the next kiss.
"I love you quite pathetically badly." His luscious dark eyes tried to eat through the sparks in her eyes. "You are my life, and I am going to prove how sorry I am for doubting you."
"How?"
Alessandro apparently couldn’t help it. He grinned. "Stupid question, Merry mia."
As her cheeks turned pink, he moved their bound hands to rest them on her flat stomach. "But first I am going to acquaint myself with this tiny miracle about to happen," he murmured. "This really clever bit of mixing of the best of you and me…"
Meredith squirmed a little when he fed their hands inside her robe and felt instantly drenched in the silken heat of his gentle touch. He moved closer until his face was all she could see, and she knew he was going to kiss her.
"I still have not forgiven you," she warned him a trifle breathlessly.
"I promise to work hard on making you forgive me," he vowed and claimed her mouth with his again.
Not hard and hot and passionate as he had kissed her in the middle of Balfour’s ballroom, but slow and soft and so sensationally tender, Meredith shifted restlessly as she began to melt.
"Untie us," she whispered, needing her hand free so that she could touch him.
But Alessandro just shook his head. "I like being bound to you, it makes me feel safe."
Safe…there was nothing whatsoever safe about Alessandro when he started caressing her the way that he was doing. With the deft moves of a man who knew all about seduction, he slid their bound hands up her body and made sure that it was his fingers that closed around one of her breasts then he deepened the tender kiss, dipping carefully between her parted lips and gently kneading her breast.
"Oh," she breathed as the silken heat inside her gained momentum.
Her fingers strained in an effort to reach up and touch his lean hard cheek. As if it knew it had to do it, the binding slipped its knot and suddenly she was free to do as she wished.
"You tie really bad knots," she whispered.
"Perhaps," he conceded, running the tip of his tongue along the ultra-sensitive wall of her abdomen. "But I am really good at doing this…"
He was, too. It was a long time later when Mutt woofed at their closed bedroom door and Meredith stirred lazily.
"He wants to go out."
He’s your dog," Alessandro reminded her without a hint of conscience.
"But I’m in a delicate condition…"
Wrapped very comfortably around her, Alessandro lifted his head up, dark hair a cute rumpled mess and his chocolate eyes so languorously sleepy, Meredith wriggled a little because he was just so sexy like this.
"You blackmailing witch."
Her green eyes looked back at him with perfect innocence, and her even white teeth plucked at her full, soft lower lip. Maria Callas still played softly in the background. The dog woofed again. Drowning, gorgeous tension was trickling through Meredith and she moved ever so sensually to it.
"I love you so much, Alessandro," she told him softly. "And I am never—" she slid her arms around his neck "—ever going to let you spend more than one tiny night away from me again."
"You will move to Milan?"
She nodded. "No one would have had the power to cause trouble between us if we’d lived and worked out of the same city, could they?"
The tears were back. Alessandro lowered his mouth to lick them away. "It won’t happen again, Merry. I won’t be such a fool as to let it."
"And I’m having a baby." She sighed with all the blissful wonder of it. "Our baby… I feel…magical."
She looked it, too. "Beautiful, magical, wonderful…"
Mutt woofed again.
Alessandro’s answering growl could have beaten any the dog might want to demonstrate. He eased inside her with the quick hard satin sureness of a man sure of his welcome, and a low and huskily delivered, "Mutt is going to have to wait.…"
The End
*Scandal at the Balfour Ball - Chapter 7
Meredith was so sick she feared she was not going to be able to stop. Her world had turned hazy. Butterflies were flying around in her head. She tried a wary sip of water only to have it come back up.
I want to die, she thought pityingly and flopped with her cheek resting against cold ceramic, feeling prickling hot yet shivering cold at the same time. Tears bulged in her poor abused throat and she set them free with a pathetically weak sob.
Married for barely a year and her husband thought she could happily indulge in a raging affair with his best friend.
I so hate him now for believing that. I am never going to forgive him, she vowed as she tried—dared—to raise herself upright, though still sitting on the tiled floor with her sparkling dress spread out around her like an icy cold lagoon she could just as well let herself drown in.
And he hadn’t even bothered to follow her. He was probably too busy talking to his lawyers, finding out how quickly he could arrange a divorce and rid himself of a wife who could be pregnant by another man.
Meredith burst into a wild flood of hot tears right there on the bathroom floor in a pool of kingfisher silk.
…
He wasn’t an absolute fool. Alessandro sent the dog in first, opening the bedroom door just enough to allow Mutt to slink through the gap. When no sound greeted the dog’s arrival, no broken sob as she fell on her most precious friend, he dared to widen the opening and step into the room.
All was in darkness except for a beam of light filtering out from her dressing room. As he trod silently towards it, Alessandro saw her and stopped dead.
She was lying on their bed in a huddle of snowy white toweling, and the way Mutt had settled down on the rug beside her with his nose between his big front paws, told Alessandro that Meredith was fast asleep.
His eyes drifted to the dressing room. The hard thump his heart gave him happened because he could see the suitcase lying open on the floor half packed.
She’d been packing to leave him.
Who could blame her?
He supposed he should feel grateful that exhaustion had gotten the better of her and sent her into that huddle of white toweling on their bed.
He pulled in a breath and with a silent gesture he called to the dog. Getting up reluctantly, Mutt came over to him and looked up. Something strange must have been in his expression because the dog gently nuzzled his hand and Alessandro felt the first ever burn of moisture attack his eyes and his throat.
"Come on."
Turning away, he urged the dog out of the room with him and spent a few minutes settling the animal in his bed made up of several giant cushions and an assortment of stolen clothing.
"It is going to be okay," he promised those big brown eyes looking so limpidly up at him.
Though as he straightened, he wished he could be as certain about that as he’d sounded.
…
Meredith came slowly awake to the strangest feeling that something so dreadful had happened she would have been better off staying asleep.
Maria Callas was playing softly in the background. She flicked her eyes open, suddenly so wide awake there wasn’t a chance she was going to be able to sink back down into blessed oblivion.
"Marco wrote the letters."
Stung by surprise at the sound of Alessandro’s voice, she flipped over onto her back. He was lying stretched out beside her on top of the covers as she was herself. And he was wearing a bathrobe the same as she was.
"What?" she husked out.
His eyes were shut. He did not bother to open them. "Marco," he repeated. "I got him to confess a couple of hours ago."
Marco? Still not fully catching on to the import of what he was saying, she frowned. "You’ve been out?"
Alessandro nodded. "I called him first to warn him I was coming." An odd kind of wry smile twitched his mouth. "We met up halfway between here and Balfour Manor—think guns drawn at high noon—only this was more like midnight."
Intrigued despite not wanting to be, Meredith asked, "You had another fight?"
"I would have enjoyed it, but he did not want to fight." Raising his lazy, long eyelashes, he turned his head to look at her through the sultry dimness of a morning half light. "He’d decided to surrender before we even met up. He witnessed the Balfour ballroom kiss, you see. It told him that no matter how much poison he fed to me about you, I was not going to give you up."
At last it began to dawn on her. "You mean…Marco wrote those awful letters?"
"Every single one."
"How did you find out?"
"Now the answer to that is…complicated," he murmured very dryly. "And I’m afraid I don’t appear in the good light."
Becoming confused again, Meredith tried to lift a hand to push a tumbled lock of hair out of her eye only to choke out a shocked gasp instead.
She could not move her hand! Or at least she could move it, but only with the weight of Alessandro’s hand firmly attached to it! Staring down the length of space between them, she shot like a rabbit into a kneeling position and stared at the binding wrapped around their two wrists.
"You’ve tied me up!" she shrieked.
"No," he denied. "I have tied me up."
"What’s the difference?" Her free hand was plucking at the binding, and she realized he had tied them together with his black silk tie.
"This is the difference." With a tug he brought her toppling down on top of him.
She found herself staring directly into his dark chocolate eyes.
"Where you go now I have to go," he explained quite calmly. "As my ex-best friend discovered tonight. You’ve got me, Merry. Tied, bound, trussed and labelled. Possession of Meredith. So the next time you pack a suitcase, make sure that you pack one for me at the same time."
"You’re mad," she gasped, trying to push up again.
No chance—his superior strength kept her flattened against him with the help of their bound wrists.
"Crazy," he agreed. "About you. Mad. In love. Punch drunk on it. Scared witless by it. Jealous of any man that looks at you—no, don’t pull that sneering face."
"Let me go," she demanded, yanking hard on the black silk tie to no avail. "I am not into bondage!"
"Marco has always wanted you for himself. When I grabbed you for myself, he let his jealousy and resentment build until it twisted up his head."
Heaving out a sigh, Meredith gave up on the uneven battle to get free. Feeling her slump, Alessandro flipped her over and beneath him then covered her mouth with a short, deep, very possessive kiss.
"It takes more than resentment to write the kind of poison in those letters," Meredith said when he gave her the chance to speak.
Alessandro nodded in agreement, his expression turning bleak. "He wanted to hurt me with them enough to make me want to walk away from you so he could step into my place."
"And you believed what was written in them." She was not prepared to forgive him for that.
"Not at first," he denied. "But eventually they started to get to me. There was just enough truth in them to make them start to make a sick kind of sense."
"I don’t do that kind of sick!" Meredith objected.
"I meant the times, the dates—the smaller details. And Marco always featured high in your phone calls when we were apart."
Flushing a little as if she knew he had a point there, she defended herself. "I’ve been working with him."
"And you laugh with him a lot—"
"Because he has my sense of humor—"
"And I don’t?"
Ooh, that was a flash of green-eyed jealousy. "No. You’re a bad-tempered moody devil. Maybe I did marry the wrong Italian."
She gave a useless tug at her wrist to show that she meant it.
"No, you did not—and stop fighting me," he snapped. "Because I have something important I need to tell you."
"Well, if it’s about stupid letters and CCTV spies, you can just keep quiet. You’ve been h-horrible to live with recently, and if you think I’m going to—"
"You want children," he interrupted. "You’ve always said you want a big family.…"
Remembering the baby, Meredith tensed and went still, ready to hear fresh accusations start flying. But, instead, Alessandro delivered the biggest shock of all.
"Marco can’t have children, cara. He is sterile."
I want to die, she thought pityingly and flopped with her cheek resting against cold ceramic, feeling prickling hot yet shivering cold at the same time. Tears bulged in her poor abused throat and she set them free with a pathetically weak sob.
Married for barely a year and her husband thought she could happily indulge in a raging affair with his best friend.
I so hate him now for believing that. I am never going to forgive him, she vowed as she tried—dared—to raise herself upright, though still sitting on the tiled floor with her sparkling dress spread out around her like an icy cold lagoon she could just as well let herself drown in.
And he hadn’t even bothered to follow her. He was probably too busy talking to his lawyers, finding out how quickly he could arrange a divorce and rid himself of a wife who could be pregnant by another man.
Meredith burst into a wild flood of hot tears right there on the bathroom floor in a pool of kingfisher silk.
…
He wasn’t an absolute fool. Alessandro sent the dog in first, opening the bedroom door just enough to allow Mutt to slink through the gap. When no sound greeted the dog’s arrival, no broken sob as she fell on her most precious friend, he dared to widen the opening and step into the room.
All was in darkness except for a beam of light filtering out from her dressing room. As he trod silently towards it, Alessandro saw her and stopped dead.
She was lying on their bed in a huddle of snowy white toweling, and the way Mutt had settled down on the rug beside her with his nose between his big front paws, told Alessandro that Meredith was fast asleep.
His eyes drifted to the dressing room. The hard thump his heart gave him happened because he could see the suitcase lying open on the floor half packed.
She’d been packing to leave him.
Who could blame her?
He supposed he should feel grateful that exhaustion had gotten the better of her and sent her into that huddle of white toweling on their bed.
He pulled in a breath and with a silent gesture he called to the dog. Getting up reluctantly, Mutt came over to him and looked up. Something strange must have been in his expression because the dog gently nuzzled his hand and Alessandro felt the first ever burn of moisture attack his eyes and his throat.
"Come on."
Turning away, he urged the dog out of the room with him and spent a few minutes settling the animal in his bed made up of several giant cushions and an assortment of stolen clothing.
"It is going to be okay," he promised those big brown eyes looking so limpidly up at him.
Though as he straightened, he wished he could be as certain about that as he’d sounded.
…
Meredith came slowly awake to the strangest feeling that something so dreadful had happened she would have been better off staying asleep.
Maria Callas was playing softly in the background. She flicked her eyes open, suddenly so wide awake there wasn’t a chance she was going to be able to sink back down into blessed oblivion.
"Marco wrote the letters."
Stung by surprise at the sound of Alessandro’s voice, she flipped over onto her back. He was lying stretched out beside her on top of the covers as she was herself. And he was wearing a bathrobe the same as she was.
"What?" she husked out.
His eyes were shut. He did not bother to open them. "Marco," he repeated. "I got him to confess a couple of hours ago."
Marco? Still not fully catching on to the import of what he was saying, she frowned. "You’ve been out?"
Alessandro nodded. "I called him first to warn him I was coming." An odd kind of wry smile twitched his mouth. "We met up halfway between here and Balfour Manor—think guns drawn at high noon—only this was more like midnight."
Intrigued despite not wanting to be, Meredith asked, "You had another fight?"
"I would have enjoyed it, but he did not want to fight." Raising his lazy, long eyelashes, he turned his head to look at her through the sultry dimness of a morning half light. "He’d decided to surrender before we even met up. He witnessed the Balfour ballroom kiss, you see. It told him that no matter how much poison he fed to me about you, I was not going to give you up."
At last it began to dawn on her. "You mean…Marco wrote those awful letters?"
"Every single one."
"How did you find out?"
"Now the answer to that is…complicated," he murmured very dryly. "And I’m afraid I don’t appear in the good light."
Becoming confused again, Meredith tried to lift a hand to push a tumbled lock of hair out of her eye only to choke out a shocked gasp instead.
She could not move her hand! Or at least she could move it, but only with the weight of Alessandro’s hand firmly attached to it! Staring down the length of space between them, she shot like a rabbit into a kneeling position and stared at the binding wrapped around their two wrists.
"You’ve tied me up!" she shrieked.
"No," he denied. "I have tied me up."
"What’s the difference?" Her free hand was plucking at the binding, and she realized he had tied them together with his black silk tie.
"This is the difference." With a tug he brought her toppling down on top of him.
She found herself staring directly into his dark chocolate eyes.
"Where you go now I have to go," he explained quite calmly. "As my ex-best friend discovered tonight. You’ve got me, Merry. Tied, bound, trussed and labelled. Possession of Meredith. So the next time you pack a suitcase, make sure that you pack one for me at the same time."
"You’re mad," she gasped, trying to push up again.
No chance—his superior strength kept her flattened against him with the help of their bound wrists.
"Crazy," he agreed. "About you. Mad. In love. Punch drunk on it. Scared witless by it. Jealous of any man that looks at you—no, don’t pull that sneering face."
"Let me go," she demanded, yanking hard on the black silk tie to no avail. "I am not into bondage!"
"Marco has always wanted you for himself. When I grabbed you for myself, he let his jealousy and resentment build until it twisted up his head."
Heaving out a sigh, Meredith gave up on the uneven battle to get free. Feeling her slump, Alessandro flipped her over and beneath him then covered her mouth with a short, deep, very possessive kiss.
"It takes more than resentment to write the kind of poison in those letters," Meredith said when he gave her the chance to speak.
Alessandro nodded in agreement, his expression turning bleak. "He wanted to hurt me with them enough to make me want to walk away from you so he could step into my place."
"And you believed what was written in them." She was not prepared to forgive him for that.
"Not at first," he denied. "But eventually they started to get to me. There was just enough truth in them to make them start to make a sick kind of sense."
"I don’t do that kind of sick!" Meredith objected.
"I meant the times, the dates—the smaller details. And Marco always featured high in your phone calls when we were apart."
Flushing a little as if she knew he had a point there, she defended herself. "I’ve been working with him."
"And you laugh with him a lot—"
"Because he has my sense of humor—"
"And I don’t?"
Ooh, that was a flash of green-eyed jealousy. "No. You’re a bad-tempered moody devil. Maybe I did marry the wrong Italian."
She gave a useless tug at her wrist to show that she meant it.
"No, you did not—and stop fighting me," he snapped. "Because I have something important I need to tell you."
"Well, if it’s about stupid letters and CCTV spies, you can just keep quiet. You’ve been h-horrible to live with recently, and if you think I’m going to—"
"You want children," he interrupted. "You’ve always said you want a big family.…"
Remembering the baby, Meredith tensed and went still, ready to hear fresh accusations start flying. But, instead, Alessandro delivered the biggest shock of all.
"Marco can’t have children, cara. He is sterile."
*Scandal at the Balfour Ball - Chapter 6
Silence fell behind Alessandro, if he did not count the sound of rustling notepaper. Tension crept all over his skin. Closing his eyes, he visualized her scanning the pages of poison, and felt muscles all over him twist. He was already regretting giving in and letting her see the poison. He felt strangely like a man standing on the bow of a sinking ship. He did not know why he felt like that, unless it had something to do with the way she was maintaining this long throbbing silence.
Then it came, the frail breathless quiver of her voice. "But…this is terrible…"
Alessandro turned to look at her. She seemed to shimmer the way she shook so badly. Her lovely fair skin was as white as alabaster against the shock of her fire bright hair and the sparkling blue of her dress. Only her fingers moved, trembling like the rest of her as they sped back and forth through the wad of notes. The scrunched one came to the top and pale lips parted to release a broken choke.
"You believe this?" She looked up at him suddenly, glistening green eyes piercing into him, stark with shattering shock.
He did not answer. But then he did not need to. The fact that he had produced the poison had spoken for him.
Meredith wrenched her eyes back to the letters, then with a sudden jerk she let them fall to the floor so she could lift her hand up to cover her mouth. "Oh, what am I going to do?"
Guilt, those had to be words of guilt. "Why don’t you just tell me the truth and get it over with!"
…
His sudden burst of blistering fury made her flinch.
The truth? Meredith echoed. He wanted to know the truth?
Feeling as if she was trying to walk in a rumbling earthquake, she crossed the floor towards him and took hold of his hand. "There is your truth," she shook out, and placed the slither of white plastic in his palm. "I h-hate you now. You—you’ve just spoiled everything."
With that, Meredith turned and fled.
…
Alessandro stood staring down at what she’d given him. Having never held such a contraption before, he needed to read what was written on the tiny screen half a dozen times before its meaning finally began to sink in.
Pregnant, it told him, 4-5 weeks…
Pregnant…
A baby…
An icy chill crept over his flesh. Like a man about to confront the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life, his eyes drifted to the letters where they still lay on the floor.
That sinking ship feeling returned as he walked over to them and bent to gather them up. As he straightened up again, for some unaccountable reason his mind honed in on Marco—his best friend.
A guy he would have staked his life on being the best kind of friend a man could have.
The same guy he had snatched Meredith away from because he’d seen the two of them as just friendly business colleagues—as Merry had always stated.
Marco had told it differently…
Marco had implied that he and Meredith had been lovers, yet Alessandro knew—had received irrefutable proof that he had been her first lover.
Her only lover.
The clearly defined shape of their tri-friendship began to blur as if its sharp corners had been rubbed out. He remembered Marco had been angry with him for muscling in on Meredith, though he’d tried to cover his anger up with sarcasm.
Marco should have been his best man at his wedding, but cried off at the last minute, claiming he had caught the flu. Marco was always laughing with Meredith, flirting with Meredith when they were all in each other’s company, and he’d always dismissed it as a man thing, the desire to tease and provoke. And Marco had always been conveniently there for Meredith when he was not around—like this evening at the Balfour Ball, holding and kissing her on the lawn without a care as to who might catch them doing it despite all the rumors flying around…
He looked back at the letters held in his long tense fingers. You stupid fool, Alessandro, he cursed himself angrily.
Marco still wanted Meredith for himself.
"Madre de Dio…" he breathed.
What had he done?
Then it came, the frail breathless quiver of her voice. "But…this is terrible…"
Alessandro turned to look at her. She seemed to shimmer the way she shook so badly. Her lovely fair skin was as white as alabaster against the shock of her fire bright hair and the sparkling blue of her dress. Only her fingers moved, trembling like the rest of her as they sped back and forth through the wad of notes. The scrunched one came to the top and pale lips parted to release a broken choke.
"You believe this?" She looked up at him suddenly, glistening green eyes piercing into him, stark with shattering shock.
He did not answer. But then he did not need to. The fact that he had produced the poison had spoken for him.
Meredith wrenched her eyes back to the letters, then with a sudden jerk she let them fall to the floor so she could lift her hand up to cover her mouth. "Oh, what am I going to do?"
Guilt, those had to be words of guilt. "Why don’t you just tell me the truth and get it over with!"
…
His sudden burst of blistering fury made her flinch.
The truth? Meredith echoed. He wanted to know the truth?
Feeling as if she was trying to walk in a rumbling earthquake, she crossed the floor towards him and took hold of his hand. "There is your truth," she shook out, and placed the slither of white plastic in his palm. "I h-hate you now. You—you’ve just spoiled everything."
With that, Meredith turned and fled.
…
Alessandro stood staring down at what she’d given him. Having never held such a contraption before, he needed to read what was written on the tiny screen half a dozen times before its meaning finally began to sink in.
Pregnant, it told him, 4-5 weeks…
Pregnant…
A baby…
An icy chill crept over his flesh. Like a man about to confront the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life, his eyes drifted to the letters where they still lay on the floor.
That sinking ship feeling returned as he walked over to them and bent to gather them up. As he straightened up again, for some unaccountable reason his mind honed in on Marco—his best friend.
A guy he would have staked his life on being the best kind of friend a man could have.
The same guy he had snatched Meredith away from because he’d seen the two of them as just friendly business colleagues—as Merry had always stated.
Marco had told it differently…
Marco had implied that he and Meredith had been lovers, yet Alessandro knew—had received irrefutable proof that he had been her first lover.
Her only lover.
The clearly defined shape of their tri-friendship began to blur as if its sharp corners had been rubbed out. He remembered Marco had been angry with him for muscling in on Meredith, though he’d tried to cover his anger up with sarcasm.
Marco should have been his best man at his wedding, but cried off at the last minute, claiming he had caught the flu. Marco was always laughing with Meredith, flirting with Meredith when they were all in each other’s company, and he’d always dismissed it as a man thing, the desire to tease and provoke. And Marco had always been conveniently there for Meredith when he was not around—like this evening at the Balfour Ball, holding and kissing her on the lawn without a care as to who might catch them doing it despite all the rumors flying around…
He looked back at the letters held in his long tense fingers. You stupid fool, Alessandro, he cursed himself angrily.
Marco still wanted Meredith for himself.
"Madre de Dio…" he breathed.
What had he done?
*Scandal at the Balfour Ball - Chapter 5
Here is the continue of the Scandal at the Balfour Ball.... Enjoy
It was like receiving a hard slap in the face. Meredith gasped and jerked away from him.
He had done it on purpose—kissed her like that to bring her defenses crashing down just so he could stick his knife in her chest.
…
Aware that the pilot was waiting for them to disembark, Alessandro turned away from her shaken expression, opened the door and stepped out into the mellow, dark night.
Meredith walked off ahead of him with her slender white shoulders stiffly set and her hair a streaming river of fire down her back. He grimaced as he followed at a slower pace. By the time he entered the glass atrium, which formed the entrance to their apartment, she had already disappeared in a whisper of silk organza down the stairs. A huge black dog sat at the stair head, its shaggy black tail bashing the floor.
A glimmer of a smile softened some of the sternness from his face, and the moment it did so the dog pounced with a husky woof.
"Okay, you stupid dog," he said fondly. "You don’t need to ruin my suit."
The dog wasn’t just stupid, he was deaf to any vocal censure and refused to stop jumping up at him until he’d been petted and stroked.
Alessandro heard a door shut downstairs, and he straightened, the smile dying from his face. The dog finally took the hint and sat.
"So, where did she stalk off to, Mutt?" he queried grimly.
Mutt loped off towards the stairwell then paused to wait until Alessandro arrived at his side. Perhaps, the dog was not so stupid, he mused grimly because he let out a whimper before he shot off down the stairs.
Alessandro followed and was eventually guided into the master bedroom. He stopped on the threshold, watching as Mutt slunk up to Meredith, who was standing on one foot as she slipped off a shoe. The dog nudged her hand and she almost toppled over.
"Oh, thanks, Mutt," she murmured.
"I think he is trying to warn you I am here," Alessandro provided.
Meredith froze for a throbbing crush of a second then bent to snatch something up off the bed. It was something white, like her mobile phone, Alessandro saw in the split second before it became lost in the folds of her flowing skirts.
Had she been intending to call up her lover before he walked in here? Was Marco that important to her that she could think only of him?
A stream of acid jealousy poured into his bloodstream. As she lifted her chin to him, he saw the defiance on her pale face. Tension shot between them like an electric current. It infuriated Alessandro that it attacked every erogenous zone in his body, accompanied by flash lightning images of him declaring to hell with it and tossing her down on the bed.
He wanted her. It was like a growling animal inside him. His wife. His woman. It felt that primitive.
As if sensing the lurking intruder in their midst, Mutt let out a warning growl. Alessandro looked down at the dog standing there at the ready to defend his mistress and felt like growling himself.
"Out," he instructed the dog.
"Don’t you take your filthy mood out on Mutt," Meredith said shakily.
"Out," he repeated, spearing out an arm indicating towards the door, and Mutt, big though he was, surrendered to a greater power and slunk out of the room.
Alessandro closed the door then turned back to Meredith, who was in the process of wrapping her arms across the front of her sparkling bodice. The aroused animal inside of him honed onto the creamy lush slopes of her breasts the action had highlighted for him like a taunt.
Her soft full mouth pursed for a second then parted as she took in a short breath. "Okay." She tossed her head up. "So show me your proof."
Vaguely surprised that she had thrown down the first challenge, without a word he walked over to the television set mounted on the wall opposite their bed and switched it on.
…
Puzzled as to what was going on, Meredith watched as he used the remote. A picture of their apartment block and its car park flicked up on the screen. Alessandro walked away to remove his jacket while she watched Marco’s silver Porsche drive into the car park and stop.
"CCTV recording," he provided as Marco climbed out and strolled towards the building. "Keep watching and you will see him enter one of the lifts."
Not understanding where this was leading, Meredith turned her questioning gaze on Alessandro who was loosening the black bow tie around his neck. Squared chin lifted, sleek golden skin stretched taut, his eyes were cold beneath the heavy veil of his eyelashes.
"Is this supposed to mean something to me?" she asked him.
"Still playing the innocent, Merry?" He threw her a grim smile. "You have been lovers for weeks—maybe longer." He extended with a shrug that coincided with the undoing of his shirt collar. "Who the hell knows how long you’ve both been cheating on me."
"We have not been cheating on you!" Merry protested stiffly. "Marco and I work together—and he’s supposed to be your best friend!"
"And I need a drink."
The way he strode to the door and pulled it open left Meredith gasping in shock. Mutt was lying across the opening. Alessandro stepped over the dog and headed down the hall. Meredith, bewildered as to what had made him just walk away like that, stepped over Mutt, too, as she tagged on behind.
He was in his study pouring himself a stiff drink. When he heard her come in the room, he announced coolly, "I called you back last night after you rung off. You were talking to him."
Opening her mouth to deny the charge, Meredith thought about it and closed her mouth again.
"No smart comeback?" Alessandro mocked.
"He—he called me," she confirmed. "I thought it was you."
"And having assured yourself that I was still safely out of the way in Milan, you invited him around here to keep you company?"
"What are you getting at now?" she cried out.
…
Those lustrous green eyes did bewilderment so well, Alessandro saw bitterly. The way she was standing there in her ball gown looking like a princess with her hair a veil of fire around her smooth pale beautifully innocent face. "You have just watched him arriving here, Meredith. Stop playing the innocent."
"You—you mean that recording was made last night?" Her delicate eyebrows drew together. "Well, whoever it was he was visiting it was not me," she declared outright. "Is that all the proof you’ve got that I’m cheating on you?" she then thought to ask.
"Do you really want me to produce more?" he derided.
"If you have it—yes!" she heaved in a taut breath then let it out again. "And I want you to know that I don’t like what it is you’re trying to pin on me here."
"You think I do?"
Her temper growing thinner with her deepening sense of injustice, Meredith stalked forward and took the glass out of his fingers just as he was about to drink from it. She slammed it down on the nearest surface then spun back to flare him a look.
"Marco did not visit me in this apartment last night and I expect you to believe that!"
"You want to return to the bedroom and watch him get out of the lift on the floor below then head for the stairwell?" Alessandro threw back. "You want to make me take this all the way to the bitter end before you will stop lying about it?"
"There are twenty other floors beneath this apartment, most of them with several apartments on each! He could have been using the stairs to walk down to any of them!"
"If that was the case, why not use the lift?"
…
"I don’t know!" This was beginning to turn just a little crazy in Meredith’s opinion. The whole scene felt like a nightmare that refused to make any sense. "If the CCTV system is so clever, it should tell you exactly where he went!"
"He came to see you."
Meredith balled her hands into two angry fists. "I’m warning you, Alessandro, if you keep insisting on that, I will supply you with real proof just to shut you up!"
"You did that, in the garden at Balfour."
"With a stupid sympathy kiss?"
His jaw line clenching, he turned away from her. "Guilty lovers stealing a clandestine moment," he described. "It was very…touching."
No it wasn’t. She could tell by the way he had said it. And nor was it sufficient proof that she had betrayed him.
"Please, Alessandro, just think about it," she urged him. "Why would I want to have an affair with anyone when I’m so in love with you?"
As if she’d delivered him the worst kind of insult, he moved violently, swinging round to stride to his desk. A few seconds later he was coming back to her holding a thin wad of notepaper, which he offered for her to take.
Flickering him a warily questioning glance, Meredith saw the ring of fierce tension compressing his mouth and the granite-hard cast in control of his face. As she took the paper from him, he spun away to go and recover his drink.
It was like receiving a hard slap in the face. Meredith gasped and jerked away from him.
He had done it on purpose—kissed her like that to bring her defenses crashing down just so he could stick his knife in her chest.
…
Aware that the pilot was waiting for them to disembark, Alessandro turned away from her shaken expression, opened the door and stepped out into the mellow, dark night.
Meredith walked off ahead of him with her slender white shoulders stiffly set and her hair a streaming river of fire down her back. He grimaced as he followed at a slower pace. By the time he entered the glass atrium, which formed the entrance to their apartment, she had already disappeared in a whisper of silk organza down the stairs. A huge black dog sat at the stair head, its shaggy black tail bashing the floor.
A glimmer of a smile softened some of the sternness from his face, and the moment it did so the dog pounced with a husky woof.
"Okay, you stupid dog," he said fondly. "You don’t need to ruin my suit."
The dog wasn’t just stupid, he was deaf to any vocal censure and refused to stop jumping up at him until he’d been petted and stroked.
Alessandro heard a door shut downstairs, and he straightened, the smile dying from his face. The dog finally took the hint and sat.
"So, where did she stalk off to, Mutt?" he queried grimly.
Mutt loped off towards the stairwell then paused to wait until Alessandro arrived at his side. Perhaps, the dog was not so stupid, he mused grimly because he let out a whimper before he shot off down the stairs.
Alessandro followed and was eventually guided into the master bedroom. He stopped on the threshold, watching as Mutt slunk up to Meredith, who was standing on one foot as she slipped off a shoe. The dog nudged her hand and she almost toppled over.
"Oh, thanks, Mutt," she murmured.
"I think he is trying to warn you I am here," Alessandro provided.
Meredith froze for a throbbing crush of a second then bent to snatch something up off the bed. It was something white, like her mobile phone, Alessandro saw in the split second before it became lost in the folds of her flowing skirts.
Had she been intending to call up her lover before he walked in here? Was Marco that important to her that she could think only of him?
A stream of acid jealousy poured into his bloodstream. As she lifted her chin to him, he saw the defiance on her pale face. Tension shot between them like an electric current. It infuriated Alessandro that it attacked every erogenous zone in his body, accompanied by flash lightning images of him declaring to hell with it and tossing her down on the bed.
He wanted her. It was like a growling animal inside him. His wife. His woman. It felt that primitive.
As if sensing the lurking intruder in their midst, Mutt let out a warning growl. Alessandro looked down at the dog standing there at the ready to defend his mistress and felt like growling himself.
"Out," he instructed the dog.
"Don’t you take your filthy mood out on Mutt," Meredith said shakily.
"Out," he repeated, spearing out an arm indicating towards the door, and Mutt, big though he was, surrendered to a greater power and slunk out of the room.
Alessandro closed the door then turned back to Meredith, who was in the process of wrapping her arms across the front of her sparkling bodice. The aroused animal inside of him honed onto the creamy lush slopes of her breasts the action had highlighted for him like a taunt.
Her soft full mouth pursed for a second then parted as she took in a short breath. "Okay." She tossed her head up. "So show me your proof."
Vaguely surprised that she had thrown down the first challenge, without a word he walked over to the television set mounted on the wall opposite their bed and switched it on.
…
Puzzled as to what was going on, Meredith watched as he used the remote. A picture of their apartment block and its car park flicked up on the screen. Alessandro walked away to remove his jacket while she watched Marco’s silver Porsche drive into the car park and stop.
"CCTV recording," he provided as Marco climbed out and strolled towards the building. "Keep watching and you will see him enter one of the lifts."
Not understanding where this was leading, Meredith turned her questioning gaze on Alessandro who was loosening the black bow tie around his neck. Squared chin lifted, sleek golden skin stretched taut, his eyes were cold beneath the heavy veil of his eyelashes.
"Is this supposed to mean something to me?" she asked him.
"Still playing the innocent, Merry?" He threw her a grim smile. "You have been lovers for weeks—maybe longer." He extended with a shrug that coincided with the undoing of his shirt collar. "Who the hell knows how long you’ve both been cheating on me."
"We have not been cheating on you!" Merry protested stiffly. "Marco and I work together—and he’s supposed to be your best friend!"
"And I need a drink."
The way he strode to the door and pulled it open left Meredith gasping in shock. Mutt was lying across the opening. Alessandro stepped over the dog and headed down the hall. Meredith, bewildered as to what had made him just walk away like that, stepped over Mutt, too, as she tagged on behind.
He was in his study pouring himself a stiff drink. When he heard her come in the room, he announced coolly, "I called you back last night after you rung off. You were talking to him."
Opening her mouth to deny the charge, Meredith thought about it and closed her mouth again.
"No smart comeback?" Alessandro mocked.
"He—he called me," she confirmed. "I thought it was you."
"And having assured yourself that I was still safely out of the way in Milan, you invited him around here to keep you company?"
"What are you getting at now?" she cried out.
…
Those lustrous green eyes did bewilderment so well, Alessandro saw bitterly. The way she was standing there in her ball gown looking like a princess with her hair a veil of fire around her smooth pale beautifully innocent face. "You have just watched him arriving here, Meredith. Stop playing the innocent."
"You—you mean that recording was made last night?" Her delicate eyebrows drew together. "Well, whoever it was he was visiting it was not me," she declared outright. "Is that all the proof you’ve got that I’m cheating on you?" she then thought to ask.
"Do you really want me to produce more?" he derided.
"If you have it—yes!" she heaved in a taut breath then let it out again. "And I want you to know that I don’t like what it is you’re trying to pin on me here."
"You think I do?"
Her temper growing thinner with her deepening sense of injustice, Meredith stalked forward and took the glass out of his fingers just as he was about to drink from it. She slammed it down on the nearest surface then spun back to flare him a look.
"Marco did not visit me in this apartment last night and I expect you to believe that!"
"You want to return to the bedroom and watch him get out of the lift on the floor below then head for the stairwell?" Alessandro threw back. "You want to make me take this all the way to the bitter end before you will stop lying about it?"
"There are twenty other floors beneath this apartment, most of them with several apartments on each! He could have been using the stairs to walk down to any of them!"
"If that was the case, why not use the lift?"
…
"I don’t know!" This was beginning to turn just a little crazy in Meredith’s opinion. The whole scene felt like a nightmare that refused to make any sense. "If the CCTV system is so clever, it should tell you exactly where he went!"
"He came to see you."
Meredith balled her hands into two angry fists. "I’m warning you, Alessandro, if you keep insisting on that, I will supply you with real proof just to shut you up!"
"You did that, in the garden at Balfour."
"With a stupid sympathy kiss?"
His jaw line clenching, he turned away from her. "Guilty lovers stealing a clandestine moment," he described. "It was very…touching."
No it wasn’t. She could tell by the way he had said it. And nor was it sufficient proof that she had betrayed him.
"Please, Alessandro, just think about it," she urged him. "Why would I want to have an affair with anyone when I’m so in love with you?"
As if she’d delivered him the worst kind of insult, he moved violently, swinging round to stride to his desk. A few seconds later he was coming back to her holding a thin wad of notepaper, which he offered for her to take.
Flickering him a warily questioning glance, Meredith saw the ring of fierce tension compressing his mouth and the granite-hard cast in control of his face. As she took the paper from him, he spun away to go and recover his drink.
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