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“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head.
“No. Okay. Fine. You don’t have to—”
“I dreamed it was my wedding night.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw. It was her wedding night. A hell of a thing to know that he was her nightmare.
“It’s all right, baby. Nothing will happen to you. I promise.”
“My wedding night with… with Giglio.”
A nightmare, all right. Rafe’s arms tightened around her.
“Shh, sweetheart. It was just a bad dream.”
A shudder went through her. “It was so real. His hands on me. His mouth.”
“Shh,” Rafe said again, an unreasoning rage filling him at the picture she’d painted. “Giglio can’t get to you. Not anymore.”
Silence. Another shudder. Then, a whisper so low he could hardly hear it.
“What?” he said, and bent his head closer to hers.
“I said… I said I have been awful to you, Raffaele. You saved me from him. And instead of saying thank you, I have accused you of… of all kinds of terrible things.”
He smiled. “Seems to me we’ve done a pretty good job of accusing each other of all kinds of terrible things.”
“It is only that I never expected any of this to happen. My father had threatened to marry me to an American but—”
“Just what every guy hopes,” Rafe said, trying to lighten things. “To be a beautiful woman’s worst nightmare.”
His little attempt at humor flew straight over her head. “No,” she said quickly, “I did not dream of you, Raffaele, I dreamed of—”
“I know. I only meant. Chiara, you have to believe me. My father wanted me to marry you, yes, but I didn’t have any intention of doing it. Not that a man wouldn’t be lucky to marry you,” he added quickly, “but—”
Her hand lifted; she placed her fingers lightly over his lips.
“It… it isn’t that I don’t want to be your wife. It’s that I do not want to be any man’s wife. Do you understand?”
He didn’t. Not really. He’d been dating women since he’d turned sixteen and he’d never yet come across one whose ultimate goal, no matter what she claimed, wasn’t marriage.
Then he thought of what he knew of the woman in his arms. Her father’s domination. Her isolation. Above everything else, her fear of sex, a fear he’d done little to ease over the past several hours.
“Truly,” she said, “it is not you. It would be any man.” She drew back in his arms, her face turned up to his, her eyes brilliant, her dark lashes spiky with tears. “Do you see?”
God, she was so beautiful! So vulnerable, lying back in his arms.
“Yes,” he said, his voice a little rough, “I do see. But you need to know—you need to know not all men are beasts, sweetheart.”
A wan smile curved her lips. “Perhaps you are the exception.”
The exception? If he were, his body wouldn’t be responding to the tender warmth of hers. He wouldn’t be looking at her and wondering if her mouth tasted as sweet as he remembered, if she was naked under the oversize cotton thing he assumed was a nightgown.
“I… I appreciate your decency,” she said, and every miserable male instinct he owned shrieked, Yeah? Then how about proving it?
He sat up straight, all but tore Chiara’s encircling arms from his neck and set her back against the pillows, grateful—hell, hopeful—that his baggy sweats would hide the effect she’d had on him.
“Well,” he said brightly, “you’ll be okay now.” She didn’t answer. “So, ah, so try to get some sleep.” Still no answer. He cleared his throat. “Chiara? About that divorce?”
“Yes?”
The hopeful note in the single word would have thrilled him if this were Ingrid or any one of a hundred other women. As it was, it only made him feel a pang of remorse.
“I’ll phone my attorney first thing in the morning and get it started.”
She gave a deep sigh. “Grazie bene, Raffaele. The jewels—”
“Forget about them. They’re yours.”
“I can, at least, use them to pay my share of the legalities.”
“I said, I don’t want them.” He knew he sounded harsh but, damn it, did she really think he’d let her pay for the severance of their marriage? Okay, it was a bogus marriage but still. “I’d prefer you keep them,” he said, trying for a calmer tone.
“Grazie. I can use the money they bring to live on. New York is expensive, yes?”
“New York is expensive, yes. But it won’t be so bad. Not with alimony.”
“Alimony?”
Alimony? his baffled brain echoed. A settlement was bad enough but alimony? Why would he pay alimony to a woman who’d been his wife for, what, twenty-four hours?
“I do not expect alimony, Raffaele. We have not had a real marriage.”
“Yeah, but this is America. Everybody pays alimony,” he said with a straight face, even though he could already hear his lawyer screaming in legal horror.
Chiara smiled. “I think,” she said, very softly, “I think, perhaps, you are an honorable man, Raffaele Orsini.”
Guilt made his jaw tighten. She wouldn’t think that if she could see the response of his body to the soft hand she laid upon his thigh. He took that hand, gave it a brisk little shake and stood up.
“Okay,” he said brightly, “sleep time.”
Her smile faded.
“You won’t have that bad dream again,” Rafe said softly. She didn’t answer and he cleared his throat. “If you like—if you like, I’ll sit in that chair until you doze off.”
“Would you mind?”
“Mind? No. I’m happy to do it.”
“It would be comfortable for you?”
Comfortable? Not in this lifetime. The chair in question was a Queen Anne, a Marie Antoinette, a Lady Godiva or something like that. It was puny looking. He’d put his own stamp on the living room, the library, the dining room and his bedroom, but he’d grown impatient after a while and turned the interior decorator loose on the guest rooms. One result was this chair. It might hold a dwarf but would it hold a man who stood six-three in his bare feet?
“Raffaele? I would not want you to be uncomfortable.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said with conviction, and he pulled the chair forward, sank onto it and prayed it wouldn’t collapse under his weight.
“Grazie bene,” Chiara said softly.
Rafe nodded. “No problem,” he said briskly. “You just close your eyes and—”
She was asleep.
He sat watching her for a while, the dark curve of her lashes against her pale cheeks, the tumble of her curls against her face, the steady rise and fall of her breasts. A muscle knotted in his jaw, and he reached out and tugged the duvet up, settled it around her shoulders.
He wanted to touch her. Her face. Her hair. Her breasts.
Determinedly he forced his brain from where it was heading. Concentrated on taking deep breaths. He needed to get some rest but it was impossible. The damned chair.
What if he slipped out of the room? She was deep, deep asleep. Yes, but what if she dreamed of Giglio again? He’d promised she wouldn’t, but thus far, his clever predictions had hardly been infallible.
His back ached. His butt. His legs. He looked at the bed. It was king-size. Chiara was curled on one edge. He could sit at a distance from her—sit, not lie—and at least stretch his legs. He wouldn’t touch her and she’d never know he was there.
Rafe made the switch carefully, waiting to make sure she didn’t awaken before he leaned back against the pillows. Yes. That was much better. He knew he wouldn’t sleep even though he was exhausted. He yawned. Yawned again until his jaws creaked. Maybe he’d just shut his eyes for a couple of minutes….
The sun, streaming in through the terrace doors, jolted him awake.
Chiara lay fast asleep in his arms, her hand over his heart, her breath soft and warm against his throat.
Rafe’s body clenched like a fist. He knew the perfect way to wake her. He’d kiss her hair, her eyelids, her mouth. Slowly her lashes would lift. Her beautiful eyes would meet his.
“Chiara,” he’d whisper, and instead of jerking back, she’d say his name, lift her hand to his face, and he’d turn his head, press his mouth to her palm, then to the pulse beating in the hollow of her throat, then to her breasts, breasts that he was now damned sure had never known a man’s caress—
Rafe swallowed a groan of frustration. Then he dropped the lightest of kisses on his sleeping wife’s hair, left her bed and headed to his bathroom for the longest cold shower of his life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SLOWLY, cautiously, Chiara opened her eyes.
Had she been dreaming, or had Raffaele been in bed with her, holding her in his arms?
It must have been a dream. A man wouldn’t get into a woman’s bed only to hold her close. Not even a man like Raffaele, who—she had to admit—seemed to have some decent instincts. Even he would not have slept with her curled against him without… without trying to do something sexual.
And yet the dream had seemed real.
His arms, comforting and strong around her. His body, warm and solid against hers. His heart, beating beneath her palm. And then, just before she awakened, the soft brush of his lips.
A dream, of course. And, at least, not a dream that had sent her into a panic.
Despite the things about him that were good—his gallantry in marrying her, his gentleness last night—he still represented everything she despised.
But she no longer despised him.
What if he’d actually slept with her in his arms? If she’d awakened, wrapped in his heat? If she had looked up at him, clasped the back of his head, brought his lips to hers.
Chiara shoved aside the bedcovers and rose quickly to her feet. There was a cashmere afghan at the foot of the bed. She wrapped herself in it and padded, barefoot, over a rich Oriental carpet to the doors that opened onto a small terrace.
The morning air was crisp, the colors of the trees across the street, brilliant. Was that Central Park? It had to be. It surprised her. She knew of the park, of course, but she had not expected such an oasis of tranquillity.
Pedestrians hurried along the sidewalk: kids dressed for school, men and women in business suits, sleepy-looking people in jeans and sweats being tugged along by dogs hurrying to reach the next lamppost. Cars, taxis and buses crowded the road.
The street was busy. Still, it was surprisingly quiet up here.
She hadn’t expected that, either.
The truth was, she hadn’t expected most of what had happened since yesterday. She certainly hadn’t expected what little she’d discovered about Raffaele Orsini.
She had, almost certainly, misjudged his reasons for marrying her. She felt a little guilty about that. Not a lot. After all, they had misjudged each other. But everything pointed to the fact that he had not gone to Sicily to do his father’s bidding.
That he had taken her as his wife only to save her from being given to Giglio.
But, as he had said, he was no Sir Galahad. He was a hoodlum, like her father. Like his father. It was in his blood, even though he looked more like a man who’d stepped out of one of the glossy magazines that had been Miss Ellis’s one weakness….
Or like the David. Michelangelo’s marble masterpiece. She had never actually seen the statue, of course, but one of her tutors had taught her about art, had shown her a photo of the David in a book.
Chiara swallowed dryly.
Did Raffaele look like that statue? Was his naked body that perfect? Was all of him so… so flagrantly, blatantly, beautifully male?
Beautifully male?
Blindly she turned and hurried back into the bedroom.
What did it matter? He could look like one of God’s angels and it wouldn’t change the fact that he was what he was. That he did things, made his money—lots of money, from what she’d seen of his life so far—doing things she didn’t want to think about.
That he had decent instincts was interesting, even surprising, but it didn’t change the facts.
Still, would it not be a good thing to make it clear she was grateful to him for what he had done? She remembered little of what they’d said to each other when he’d come into her room last night. She was pretty sure she’d said thank you, but showing her gratitude would be polite.
How?
She could find ways to make herself useful.
Yes. Of course. She could be useful. He had no wife. Well, he had her but she was not really his wife. The point was, there was no woman here to do things. Clean. Cook. She could do those things. She could start immediately. She could make breakfast. Make coffee.
Coffee! Men liked awakening to the scent of it. When her father came down in the morning, he always said the smell of good, fresh espresso was the perfect way to start a day.
