Cesare thought of what lay beneath the fabric and paused.
Because hedidwant her.
He’d felt the tug of arousal the first day old man Calogero had led her in to meet him, looking like some wide-eyed innocent. He’d felt it again and again at every meeting. Never more so than today when she’d become his in the eyes of the world.
Some primal part of him wanted nothing more than to claim her physically, forgetting the debacle of the last six months as he lost himself inside her.
He resented that she made him so desperate. Which was why he would not,couldnot, give in to that need.
‘I don’t understand.’
He took in the uptilt of her jaw and the way her mouth flattened and registered that shestilllooked too delectable. What would it take to eradicate the weakness he felt around her?
‘Then let me make it absolutely clear.’
He paused, watching her breasts hitch with her indrawn breath, feeling an answering ache in his groin. In the past there’d been no need for sexual abstinence and Cesare had enjoyed his lovers, but a man had his pride.
‘I have no interest in bedding a woman like you. A protégé of that twisted criminal who’s damaged not just my family but plenty of innocents besides. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last woman in Italy.’
CHAPTER TWO
HEMEANTIT. He really meant it.
Stunned, Ida felt his words stab into soft flesh.
She gripped the wine glass so hard it was a wonder it didn’t shatter. Wine slopped over the brim onto her hand, but she didn’t look down. She couldn’t break Cesare’s gaze. It felt as if she was locked into the high beam of that laser-like stare.
Yet it seemed imperative that she keep hold of the glass, so she wrapped her left hand around the frozen knuckles of her right, trying to steady it.
Because it gave her something to think about other than the hatred in her husband’s dark brown eyes.
Before this she’d thought his eyes velvety and warm, a welcome contrast to the mean glitter of her grandfather’s furious stare. Now Cesare’s eyes were so cold she felt ice crackle along her bones and frost her skin. He looked pitiless.
‘But I—’
‘Don’t bother making excuses. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters. We’remarried!’
This was some terrible mistake. They’d promised to build a future together, to—
‘Exactly. You got what you wanted. A high-profile husband and the cachet of an aristocratic family name to open doors for your social aspirations.’
Ida shook her head, hair swirling wildly around her face. How could he think that? What about the times, albeit brief, when they’d talked and she’d thought that they shared the beginnings of a real connection?
But when she opened her mouth to object he spoke over her.
‘Your grandfather got what he wanted, didn’t he? All those years scheming and cheating to bring down the family he hated. To manipulate us and strike a fatal blow that gives him control over our company and us.’
Cesare paused, chest heaving, and Ida felt the fury throb through him. It clogged the air between them.
If she could have moved away she would. Ida knew how dangerous a truly irate man could be. Beneath her, one ankle buckled as if that old injury had resurfaced, and it took everything she had to stand tall. The only parts of her that moved were her thundering heart and shaking hands.
She wouldn’t cower. Yet she had a horrible, dizzy feeling, as if the walls pushed in and she might collapse. Cesare made it sound like her grandfather had orchestrated their marriage as part of some vengeful scheme. But that couldn’t be true. Her grandfatherwasthrilled about the wedding, and he used people for his own ends, but Cesare was wealthy and powerful. He made his own choices.
‘But he wanted more, didn’t he?’ Cesare snarled. ‘It wasn’t enough just to ruin the family enterprises, he wanted what he’d never had. A chance to lord it over us. Acceptance in polite society. Entry to the world that draws the line at gangsters, blackmailers and murderers.’
Her gasp was loud in the thick silence.