Antoninni scurried away like a rat. Alessia reached out her hand to Nicolo. She had never seen him like this, so furious, so vengeful, so cold. It terrified her.
“Nicolo, please, listen to—”
“I’m done listening, princess. We’re here so you can finalize the deal you made with Daddy by becoming my wife.”
“No! I never made such a deal!”
“Sorry. I should have said, we’re here so you can improve the deal by becoming my wife.”
“Oh, Dio, oh, God, please—”
“I’ll pull the loan money,” Nick said softly. “And then I’ll use e
very ounce of that Orsini power you find so disgusting and I promise, I’ll take my child away from you. What happens to you then, principessa?”
Alessia stared at him in horror. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He waited. Then, he held out his hand. Slowly, she put hers into it and he led her across the room, to where the mayor was waiting.
“No,” Alessia said in a desperate whisper, “no, not like this!”
“Exactly like this,” Nick said.
Five minutes later, they were man and wife.
He had planned to surprise his bride.
A honeymoon in Venice, at the Gritti Palace. Five days in a suite the concierge had assured him was as romantic as a newly married couple could wish, then a two-day stop in Milan so he could buy his bride a new wardrobe, and, finally a flight to New York in a chartered plane, a bottle of rare Krug Brut Multi-Vintage Rosé waiting in a silver bucket in the craft’s private bedroom, the room itself filled with orchids and roses.
There would be none of that now.
Nick made quick adjustments to his plans. A stop at the villa outside Florence to pick up his things. A phone call to the charter service so he could change the arrangements he’d made, a drive to the airport where a plane awaited them without champagne or flowers.
But it had a private bedroom, he thought coldly as he kept a hard hand on his wife’s elbow and climbed the steps into the cabin, because no way was he giving up the one thing Alessia Antoninni Orsini could provide him…until, of course, she delivered his child.
After that, after his son or daughter was born, he’d decide if he wanted his wife in his bed anymore or if her usefulness to him was at an end.
“Nicolo,” Alessia said now, as the door to the plane slid shut behind them, “Nicolo, if you would only listen—”
It was what she’d been saying ever since he’d stumbled into what he’d stupidly assumed was a last conversation between a father before he gave his daughter into the care of the man who was now her husband. And, as he had done each time she’d asked him to listen, Nick ignored her.
Listen to what? More lies? He’d heard enough from that soft, sweet-tasting mouth to last a lifetime.
That she was sexually inexperienced.
That she had “forgotten” to take her birth control pills.
That he was her lover. Of it all, those two whispered words, mio amante, infuriated him the most. He’d known she hadn’t meant it, that she’d said it in a haze of sexual heat. Hell, who cared what she’d called him? Still, honesty demanded he admit the truth to himself. All he was to her, all he’d ever been, was a ticket to a fat bank account.
He’d let her make a fool of him, he thought grimly as he drew her down next to him in a leather seat. He hated himself for having let even a part of his heart feel the impact of her sighs, her whispers, her caresses.
Sex, Nicolo thought coldly. That was all it had been. For him. For her. And he had every intention of making the most of it.
The plane’s jet engines came to life. The aircraft moved slowly forward. And his lying, deceitful wife leaned toward him. “Nicolo,” she said in a frantic whisper, “please…”
Nick shot to his feet, grasped her wrist and brought her up beside him. He walked purposefully toward the rear of the cabin, slid open the bedroom door and pushed her inside.
Then he shut the door and locked it.
“Take off your clothes,” he growled.