Fighting a dangerous urge to challenge him, she stalked out of the living room, into the bedroom, taking great pleasure in shutting the door as she went. Privacy. Oh, how she needed it!
It took almost an hour to remove everything from the bags. Stunning dresses, evening gowns, mini-dresses as well as casual clothes—designer jeans and jackets, simple blouses, but cut so they were the last word in flattering. She started with the bags on the left of the room, and worked to the right, so it was completely a coincidence that she left the lingerie to last. But as she opened a thick cardboard box, revealing a ribbon-wrapped, tissue-paper item inside, her heart did a funny little tremble.
It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. Lacy knickers, ornate bras, and, my God, suspenders. She shoved them back in the box and stepped away, heat radiating through her whole body.
She couldn’t wear them.
She couldn’t wear half this stuff. It was too beautiful, too revealing, too...
But how could she resist?
Knowing that he’d chosen it for her? That he’d imagined her in it? As if that weren’t temptation enough, there was a part of Olivia that had always loved pretty, feminine clothes, a part of her she’d been forced to hide, that she suddenly felt a compulsion to indulge.
Surrendering to temptation, she opened the lingerie again, withdrawing a particularly beautiful matching set, caramel and black silk. She kept an eye on the door as she changed, then glanced at her reflection, doing a double take at the woman who stared back at her.
And she was a woman. A flesh and blood, sensual woman. She took two steps towards her reflection, dragging her eyes over her body.
It was clear that he’d wanted her before she revealed the truth. Did he still want her?
Nothing had changed for Olivia.
She cast a glance over the bed, her eyes landing on one of the more outrageous dresses. It was a sure-fire way to get his attention...and suddenly that was what Olivia wanted most on earth. To hell with the consequences.
She slid the dress on—it hugged her like a second skin—then brushed her golden hair until it shone, pulling it over one shoulder. He’d bought her shoes too, and she slipped her feet into a pair with a red sole and a spiky black heel, pausing to admire the effect in the mirror. It was almost too much. The exact opposite of what she’d been raised to think she should be stared back at her, but Olivia fought the strong impulse to change into something less attention-grabbing.
You only lived once, right?
If he’d had any kind of heart condition, then Olivia’s appearance would have tested it. She emerged from the bedroom like some kind of Venus, a transformation that completely took his breath away. He’d known she was beautiful—hell, she was stunning no matter what she wore—but when she was dressed like this, in heels that made her hips swagger, a dress that hid nothing from his appraising eyes, it was all he could do to stay in the kitchen with his hands by his sides.
‘Will this do?’
He was drowning. Would it do? It would do for him to peel the dress right off her, not to take her out in public. He didn’t want the rest of Venice to see her like this, he realised, even as, at the same time, he felt a purely masculine pride in the woman he’d married.
A muscle jerked in his jaw as he grappled with the contrasting emotions.
‘Luca?’ Her uncertainty confused him. Surely she knew how spectacular she was?
‘You’re perfect,’ he growled, turning away from her on the pretext of grabbing a drink of water.
‘There’s something important I want to discuss at dinner.’ Her cool voice was steady and calm—the exact opposite to how he felt. ‘Do you think there’ll be a private table at the restaurant?’
He dipped his head. Privacy was the devil—he had to avoid it. ‘Forse. Let’s go.’
He didn’t offer her his hand as they left, nor did he touch the small of her back to guide her towards the lift. In fact, he walked at least a metre away from her, and when the elevator doors pinged open he kept to his side of the small cube, mutinously staring ahead, refusing to look at her even when his eyes wanted to drink up the vision she made.
The restaurant was busy, filled with Venice’s glitterati. Luca saw many people he knew, was recognised, heard the gossip, and also the change in tenor—the surprise at the woman on his arm. Was she being recognised? He doubted it. While her name might be well known, and well regarded, Olivia herself was somewhat of an anachronism. Unlike most people of her generation, she didn’t have an enormous social-media footprint, or a paparazzi trail. It was further evidence, not that he needed it, that her life was every bit as confined as she’d indicated. That she’d been a virtual prisoner at Hughenwood House, a modern-day Cinderella, just as he’d charged the night before, left to do chores from dawn to dusk. Did that make him Prince Charming? Hardly. Nothing like it.
‘This is perfect,’ she said with satisfaction as the maître d’ led them to a table at the front of the canal, set a little apart from the others. They were still visible, but their voices wouldn’t carry, and that was foremost in Olivia’s mind.
While he wanted to avoid being too close to her, Pietra had raised him with faultless manners, so he came to her chair and pulled it back, waiting for Olivia to settle before moving away swiftly, before he could do something stupid like brush his hands over her shoulders. But he did breathe her in, the same sweet, intoxicating fragrance wrapping around him, so he felt himself strain against his pants, as though he were some kind of inexperienced teenager, completely incapable of controlling his desire.
‘You wanted to talk to me?’ Please, let it be about something mundane and rudimentary. Let her bring up anything to take his mind off what he wanted them to share.
‘When you agreed to marry me, we negotiated terms for our marriage that would suit us both.’
‘I remember.’
‘What if I want to change the terms?’
He sat very still. ‘Which terms in particular?’ But he knew what was coming. He braced for it, for the offer she was going to make, for the test that he was about to meet, no idea if he had the strength for it.
‘The no sex thing.’ She lifted her eyes to his, meeting his gaze with apparent calmness now. ‘I want to lose my virginity, to you. Tonight.’