Desire flashed through Gianni with the efficiency of a lightning strike. He gritted his teeth in annoyance because that level of susceptibility made him feel as though he had been plunged back into adolescence. Every time he looked at his bride, he wanted her. Of course, it was only because his libido was on a hair trigger because he hadn’t had sex in so long, he reasoned with assurance. That was thesolereason. The scandal in the tabloid newspaper had appeared many weeks after the actual incident had taken place. In that interim period, shocked by the manner in which he had been targeted and set up for blackmail, Gianni had concentrated on the police investigation and had slept alone.
A famous singer entertained their guests during the meal. The wedding cake was cut and then Gianni swung Jo out onto the dance floor. He drew her close. The tangy aroma of his cologne mingled with his underlying scent of masculinity and warmth and she breathed in deep, with colour flaring in her cheeks. Was it pheromones or some such thing? she wondered. Because he smelt amazing to her...so amazing that she wanted to bury her nose in his jacket and just stay there.
‘You’re very quiet,’ he complained above her head.
‘Just relaxing,’ Jo proffered, hoping her flush died off before they left the floor because she loathed the fact that she still blushed like a schoolgirl, having assumed that would be something she left behind after she passed her teen years.
With every movement on the floor the contact between their bodies seemed to increase, the shift of his lean hips fluid against hers, the strength and breadth of his chest pressing on her breasts. Sexual heat stole into her like a thief in the night, lighting up a glow in all her sensitive areas. She made excuses for herself. Aside from that single kiss, they had never been so close before. But he was aroused as well. That awareness made her feel less awkward and even made her hide a smile against his shoulder. It was strange, she reflected, how something that had made her uncomfortable with other men somehow enthralled her when it was Gianni in the starring role.
And possibly more than a little naïve, she admonished herself for, aside from his veneration of his mother’s memory, Gianni seemed to have little interest in women beyond sexual satisfaction. She had sort of guessed that about him when he had changed girlfriends at head-turning speed as a teenager and teenaged beauties with broken hearts had littered the neighbourhood. Back then gossip had always kept her up to date with Gianni’s extra-curricular activities, but that handy conduit of information had died once he went to university. Once again, she found herself wondering who that first and only love of his had been. As far as the gossip columns were concerned, he had dated no woman for long, so the likelihood was that he had fallen in love as a student.
Questioning her own intense curiosity, Jo suppressed it. What did the whys and wherefores of Gianni’s one and only love matter to her? It was none of her business, and cultivating an interest in such things would only lead to friction in their relationship, but he was too reserved a guy to share confidences.
Later that afternoon, she went upstairs to change because they were leaving soon to fly out to Italy. Sybil was smiling and unusually cheerful.
‘Federico flirting up a storm?’ Jo teased. ‘It’s always nice to be appreciated.’
‘I’ve got goss about his marriage,’ Sybil revealed. ‘I think he only told me because he wants me to eat out with him again but this lady’s not for turning.’
‘I’m not sure I should listen to it,’ Jo confided ruefully. ‘Gianni is still so sensitive about his unhappy childhood, not that he would even admit that itwasunhappy.’
‘He’s got to have the odd flaw or two. His parents’ marriage was a disaster,’ Sybil opined. ‘The year before Federico met Isabella, the love of Isabella’s life, the man sheplannedto marry, died in a plane crash. Her father threatened to leave his fortune to another relative if she didn’t find a husband and that’s why she married Federico. He didn’t find that out until years afterwards. She closed the bedroom door after Gianni was conceived and it never opened again. She just used him!’
Jo wriggled out of her wedding gown and laid it carefully on the bed. ‘I hate taking it off.’
‘Gianni should be playing maid here, not me!’ Sybil quipped. ‘No comment about what I just told you? I think that if Gianni knew those facts, he wouldn’t be so hard on his father.’
‘His father should tell his son himself,’ Jo said prosaically. ‘I’m not going to get involved. Are you planning to see Federico again?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. He hasn’t stayed at Belvedere since Gianni took official ownership a few years back. It’s wicked that Isabella even took this house from Federico. She put so much money into fixing it up after their marriage that she demanded he sign it over to her.’
It was news to Jo that the Renzettis had ever been that short of cash and she simply sighed, thinking that Federico had known how to forge a path into Sybil’s heavily guarded heart. Just as she rescued stray animals, Sybil liked to rescue people. ‘You feel sorry for him,’ she said softly.
‘How could I not? Isabella fooled us all into thinking she was so vulnerable and poorly treated, but her husband also suffered. His wife didn’t love him, she only loved her son and Federico’s only child doesn’t evenlikehim!’ Sybil proclaimed with spirit.
‘Perhaps he should put more effort into talking to his son.’ And that was Jo’s last word on the subject, for it seemed that her great-aunt saw a softer side to Federico Renzetti than others did for, even as a child, Jo had found the older man cold and silent. Evidently, Sybil had the power to turn him into a positive chatterbox. She herself barely knew the man and had no opinion to offer.
Sheathed in a midnight-blue sundress, her feet in high-heeled sandals, Jo accompanied her aunt down the huge wide staircase that ornamented Belvedere’s marble front hall where a few clusters of guests, who had left the ballroom, stood around talking and drinking. Lounging in a chair at the back of the hall with his father, Gianni sprang immediately upright, a smile lightening his taut, dark expression, and strode forward.
At the foot of the stairs, a woman intercepted Jo.
‘What have you got that I haven’t got?’ the woman demanded imperiously and very loudly, her champagne glass wavering in her hand. ‘That’s what I want to know!’
‘Sorry, I—’ Jo moved to sidestep the clearly inebriated woman.
‘It’s a simple question, answer it,’ the woman slurred, heads swivelling all around them. ‘I got one night with Gianni and then I sat wasting my time and waiting for a phone call that never came.’
‘This isn’t the time or the place for this, my dear,’ Sybil interposed. ‘Let’s return to the ballroom.’
‘No, I want the bride to answer me!’ the blonde ranted even louder, her expression one of desperation, her face tear-stained as she closed her hand over Jo’s wrist to prevent her from walking away from her. ‘Hell, you’re beautiful, anyone can see that, but what special quality do you have?’
‘Milly, how lovely to see you again,’ Gianni interrupted smooth as glass as he signalled someone. ‘Jojo’s special quality is that I love her. ‘
Milly looked at him as though he had stuck a knife in her heart, her eyes overflowing, tears trailing down her quivering cheeks just as one of Gianni’s security men approached, clearly intending to remove her from the house.
‘No, it’s all right, Milly,’ Jo said gently as the hand fell from her wrist and the other woman’s head lowered in defeat and embarrassment. ‘Let’s go somewhere quiet where you can sit down and relax while we find your friends.’
As the security man hovered and Gianni froze, bewildered by his bride’s unexpected intervention, Jo walked the weeping woman across the hall into the nearest room, knowing that Sybil would ensure that Milly’s companions were located to take care of her.