When Aislin emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes later, Dante let out a whistle.
‘Wait a minute before you say anything,’ she ordered then hurried to her suitcase and removed a pair of jade-green high heels. She slipped her feet into them and did a twirl. ‘Now you can tell me, how do I look?’
‘You look like someone who had better leave this room right now before I throw you on the bed and make love to you again.’ He wasn’t joking.
Aislin looked ravishing. She’d showered and changed into a beautiful emerald-green silk dress that had a Roman toga appeal to it. High-necked and sleeveless, it gathered at her slender waist, where it was encircled by a thick silk band covered in hundreds of tiny crystals. Falling to her knees, it had elegance and just the right touch of glamour. In the time she’d spent in the bathroom, she’d also reapplied her make-up, her eyes now rimmed with dark kohl, giving a smoky effect. She’d cured the problem of her hair by sweeping it into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. The loose tendrils falling down the side of her face were, he was certain, unintentional. On her ears were huge hooped rose-gold earrings that suited her colouring beautifully.
‘I shall assume you mean that as a compliment... Do you mean it as a compliment?’
‘Yes. Get out.’
They’d made love but it hadn’t made a dent in his hunger for her.
When he joined her a few moments later he found her backed against the wall by the door.
Their eyes met.
He wanted to haul her into his arms and ravish every part of her so badly that, right then, he was prepared to say to hell with the wedding celebrations and Riccardo D’Amore, throw her over his shoulder and carry her back inside.
She held a hand out to him.
He stared down at it. Her short but shapely nails were bare of any varnish or the ornate things he guessed every other female guest here would have done to theirs.
A pang of guilt cut through him.
He’d plucked this minnow from a small town and taken her into this city of sharks he inhabited. Even if Riccardo failed to be convinced that Dante was a changed man who was nothing like his deceased father, he had a duty to take care of his minnow and keep her safe from the predators who would eat her alive.
He would not let her out of his sight.
CHAPTER TEN
UNIFORMED STAFF WAITED at the bottom of the stairs to lead the guests through the castle to the champagne reception outside.
Her hand firmly clasped in Dante’s, Aislin gazed in awe at the enormous rooms with their high frescoed ceilings and ogled the furnishings that were a mix of old and new, gaudy and stylish. She guessed the generations who had lived here had simply replaced curtains and carpets when the old ones were worn with the latest trends and without sympathy with what was already there. The lack of internal uniformity turned what could easily have been an imposing monument into something more relaxed.
She tried to compose her features into something more relaxed too.
Beneath the beautiful dress she wore with its expensive price tag, she was painfully aware she was just plain old Aislin O’Reilly, a small-town Irish girl whose most glamorous wedding invite to date had been in a three-star Dublin hotel.
A hugely obese man stood on the patio area by the wide double doors that led out to the beautiful gardens, holding court and greeting the guests as they were brought outside.
‘Is that Cristina’s father?’ Aislin asked in an undertone.
‘No. That’s Riccardo.’
‘I thought Cristina’s father was hosting this reception?’
‘He is but Riccardo cannot resist muscling in and taking over. He has to be in charge even when he isn’t.’
‘And you want to do a business deal with him?’
‘No, I want to do a business deal with his son.’ He squeezed her hand, indicating this whispered conversation was over because now they were being taken to him.
Riccardo gr
eeted her politely enough with the traditional Sicilian embrace and kisses, but then took hold of her hand and peered down to examine her ring.
‘You are to be married,’ he said in heavily accented English when he finally released her, and focussed his little piggy eyes on Dante. ‘Congratulations.’