With a deep breath, Alex held out his arm. “So,” he said with forced cheerfulness, “into the fiery pit?”
Rosalie took his arm, putting her hand lightly over the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket. She gave an awkward laugh. “There will be dessert, right? And music?”
“Yes,” he said a little grimly. “There will be music.”
He looked down at her fingers resting on his arm. Even that slight touch made him tremble. Three years, he thought. Nearly three years without a woman. And he wanted this woman more than he’d wanted any other.
Rosalie wanted him too. He could see that by the way she looked at him, the smile sliding from her face as her fingers tightened around his arm. It would be so easy to seduce her. He could take her right back upstairs and—
No. No, damn it. He could not. Would not. She wanted love. She wanted marriage. It would be dishonorable of Alex to lure her into accepting less.
He could not do love, he thought suddenly. But marriage?
Marriage...
Outside in the palazzo’s courtyard, the warm twilight enfolded them. They went through the back gate, where Lorenzo waited with the speedboat. Alex gently helped her into the vehicle. As his driver accelerated the engine, the gleaming boat moved forward, slicing through pink-and-violet waves. The wind blew against Rosalie, whipping her dark hair against Alex’s cheek.
This was unwise, he thought. He expected Chiara’s friends to be brutal, even cruel. He never should have let Rosalie come with him tonight. He should tell Lorenzo to turn around and take her back to the palazzo, where it was safe.
But in the Venice sunset, as Rosalie turned to face him with eyes like stars, something cracked in his soul. And he could not let her go.
Alex wanted her to be his. Tonight and forever. He didn’t just want her in his bed. He wanted to live with her. As his partner. As his friend. He wanted to raise their child together, in a stable, permanent home. She’d had loving parents. She could show him how to give their son a happy childhood.
He wanted Rosalie to be his wife, he realized. And to hell with the consequences.
As Rosalie stepped onto the dock near the grand palazzo where the charity ball would be held, she had a hard time taking a full breath. It had to be due to her formfitting pink cocktail dress, she told herself. She wasn’t nervous. She wasn’t. Her high-heeled shoes tottered as Alex led her toward the red carpet and paparazzi waiting in front of the palace’s grand entrance.
But Rosalie knew she was lying to herself. She was afraid.
Because Giulia Zanella had seemed so spiteful and mean when they’d met yesterday. The woman had already spread gossip far and wide. Rosalie had heard Alex’s bodyguard telling him it had been Giulia’s posts on social media that had snowballed, brought crowds outside their restaurant and forced them to flee out the back door. Rosalie could only imagine h
ow bad tonight would be, being surrounded by people who’d loved Alex’s dead wife, and come together to honor her. Would all of them believe Alex had been unfaithful, and Rosalie was some kind of trashy mistress-slash-home wrecker?
And her a virgin!
It was so unfair. But remembering how Alex had mocked her for that admittedly childish complaint earlier, she didn’t say that aloud.
“Are you ready for this?” Alex asked quietly, tucking her hand around his arm as they faced the crowds outside the door. With a deep breath, she nodded. Because as nervous as she was, she was totally sure about one thing: she couldn’t let him face this alone.
As they walked by the paparazzi, she ignored the shouted questions and Italian words that sounded vaguely like insults, and kept her head held high. She exhaled with relief as they entered the building. But she relaxed too soon. As he led her into the grand ballroom, she quickly discovered it was a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Crowds of party guests, mostly young and dressed creatively, in wild, bright colors, or else scantily, barely covering themselves, all turned to stare, some with hostility, others merely curious. A few men in tuxedoes, clearly Alex’s friends, came and spoke with him quietly. They spoke in Italian, obviously astonished he’d come to enemy territory. They looked at Rosalie with something like pity.
“You made it!” Giulia was suddenly in front of them with a sharp, gleeful smile. With her extremely thin frame and tiny tight black-and-white dress, she made Rosalie think of Cruella de Vil.
“Hello,” she replied politely. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Darling, you’re the star attraction. Come.” The blonde took Alex’s other arm. “Let me show you to your table.”
As they passed through the crowds, Rosalie watched as people came forward, speaking tauntingly to him in Italian. They didn’t even look at Rosalie’s face, only her belly. Her hands clenched. It was all she could do not to yell or run away.
A red flush crept up Alex’s neck. But he did not rise to the bait. He responded to each person coolly, even coldly.
Giulia gave each interlocutor plenty of time to corner them before she moved on through the ballroom at a glacial pace.
“And here is your table,” the blonde chirped finally. “Just for you lovebirds, to have some private time!”
It was a table for two, set directly beneath the podium on the stage. They were surrounded by ten-person tables.