CAROL MARINELLI - The Italian's Marriage Bargain

He was staring at her, one quizzical eyebrow raised, as she struggled to make an excuse and work out how the hell she could get out of here with even a shred of dignity, how she could get back to her and Matthew’s room and, more importantly, what possible excuse she could come up with to stop Matthew finding out where she had been…

‘I think I must have food poisoning, or the flu or something. I must have made a mistake and wandered into the wrong room…’ Her voice trailed off as his other eyebrow joined its partner in his hairline, and somewhere at about that point Felicity admitted defeat.

‘I’ve got a hangover, haven’t I?’ she mumbled, completely unable to meet his eyes, pleating the counterpane with her fingers.

‘I would suggest so.’ He gave a very small nod and she was positive, as his lip twitched slightly, that he was laughing at her, enjoying her utter humiliation. Felicity decided she had had enough. Coiling the counterpane tightly around her, ignoring the million hammers pounding in her head, she stood up. There was no point wasting her time with excuses. Whatever had happened, whatever awful mess she had got into last night, sitting here watching him enjoying her utter misery wasn’t going to solve anything.

‘I have to go.’ How Felicity wished she was one of those sophisticated women she had seen in the movies. How she wished she could manage a mystical smile and sashay off as she blew a kiss. But waking up in a strange man’s bedroom—in any man’s bedroom, come to that—was uncharted territory for her, and her usually confident demeanour, the slight air of aloofness she generally portrayed, didn’t seem to be surfacing this morning.

Tears were threatening now, but Felicity blinked them away. Whatever had possessed her to weep in Luca’s arms last night certainly wasn’t about to be repeated—and, sniffing none too graciously, she cast her eyes around the room in an attempt to find her clothes.

Skimming the room, she located her shoes and bag and hobbled over. The counterpane—wrapped way too tightly to merit a graceful manoeuvre but Felicity was past caring. She had to get back to Matthew, had to hope to that he was somehow as hungover as her and miraculously would not notice her creeping in at the crack of dawn.

‘If you’re looking for your dress, Housekeeping will bring it up shortly.’

It was all too much. With a small sob of frustration Felicity lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, resting her head in her hands. Her carefully pinned hair finally collapsed under the strain and unravelled in a blonde curtain around her shoulders tumbling across her face, and for a moment she took refuge under the golden curtain. For a second or two she welcomed its temporary veil as she tried to fathom how she, Felicity Conlon, meticulously organised, completely in control, could have made such an utter mess of things.

Last night had been planned down to the minutest detail. She had attacked it in the same careful way she tackled any job that needed to be done—determinedly pushing emotion aside, looking at every angle, checking and rechecking details until she was sure she had every possible scenario covered.

Last night had been business.

‘I didn’t just wander in here, did I?’ Felicity mumbled, undignified memories not just trickling now, but gushing in with horrible precision. ‘You carried me.’

‘I did.’

‘You were going to sleep on the sofa,’ Felicity ventured. ‘I didn’t want to go downstairs—’

‘To be with your boyfriend,’ Luca broke in, his lips curling somewhat around the word. ‘Right again. So I agreed you could stay here, in my bed, and said that I would sleep on the sofa.’

That much made sense. She’d got the four corners of last night’s jigsaw now, and was working on the bottom line, but the rest of it still lay in a higgledy piggledy pile in her cluttered mind.

‘So why did I…?’ He registered her nervous swallow, the dusting of pink on her far too pale cheeks and fought back a smile. ‘Why did I wake up in your arms? Why weren’t you on the sofa?’

‘You asked me to share the bed.’ Luca’s voice was slow and measured, every word a scorching indignity as she screwed her eyes more tightly closed. ‘I refused at first. Naturally I was concerned, given your…’ a small cough, another sting of shame ‘…given your inebriated state and your lack of attire.’

‘But you came over anyway.’ Her attempt to discredit him, to exert some control over this hopeless situation, was quickly and skilfully rebuffed.

‘You were insistent,’ he countered. ‘Most insistent.’

‘Oh.’

‘In fact you became quite hysterical. Rather than slapping you on the cheek, I lay down with you.’

‘Oh.’ He was speaking the truth. Ever if she’d doubted him for a moment, his words had set off a fresh cascade of memories. Luca begging her to be quiet; Luca pouring her water, standing like a protective parent and insisting she drank it; Luca pulling tissues out of a box, wiping away black mascara-laced tears… But through the murky depths of her despair a rather more disturbing image was taking shape. Luca taking her in his arms, holding her not gently, not tenderly, but firmly, clamping his arms around her, that beautiful methodical voice talking over her tears, on and on until…

Felicity took a shaky breath. She could almost feel the hand that had soothed her last night there on the back of her neck, working in small, ever-decreasing circles, massaging away the tension, the pain, working its way along her shoulders, soothing her as one might a child coming out of a nightmare.

But there had been nothing childlike about the response it had triggered, nothing innocent in the way her body had responded to the mastery of his touch. And, sitting there, dejected, embarrassed and utterly, utterly humiliated, Felicity knew there was one final question that really needed to be asked—one awful answer to complete her despair, one more nail to bang into the coffin before she made her way back to her own room and attempted to salvage something from the wreck that last night had turned out to be.

‘Did we…?’ Felicity swallowed, cleared her throat, looked him in the eye and squared her shoulders, ready to face the world—or, more importantly, her conscience. ‘Did we do anything?’

‘We talked,’ Luca clipped. ‘Or rather you talked and I listened.’

‘I’m sorry if I bored you.’ He didn’t reciprocate her tight smile, made no attempt to elaborate further, and it was left to Felicity to pursue this most shameful line of conversation. ‘So, if all we did was talk, how did I end up minus a dress?’

‘When we first came back to the room I ordered some strong coffee. I was hoping it would sober you up. It might have worked had you not spilled it. Your dress is down with Housekeeping.’ He put her out of her misery then, and if Felicity had looked up she’d have seen a surprisingly gentle smile soften his stern features. ‘We didn’t make love, if that’s what is concerning you; though since you choose to bring up the subject…’

‘I didn’t,’ Felicity argued, but of course Luca ignored her.

‘Since you bring up the subject,’ he repeated, his husky, deep voice halting her protests, ‘had we made love, you most certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded of the fact. When I make love to a woman I can assure you she has no trouble remembering the occasion!’

Shooting a glimpse from under her eyelashes, Felicity knew, as arrogant and presumptuous as his statement sounded, he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. There was nothing unforgettable about him—not a sliver of him could be labelled dispensable—and, however reluctantly, there and then Felicity had to admit that a night being made love to by a man as effortlessly sensual as Luca Santanno would be a night no woman could even pretend to forget.

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

Felicity swallowed hard. Still she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘For not taking advantage.’

‘Believe me, it wasn’t difficult.’

Ouch!

‘So we definitely didn’t?’ Felicity checked unnecessarily, her cheeks positively flaming now.

‘We definitely didn’t. I happen to prefer my women conscious.’

Felicity chose to ignore that particular little gem and, blinking a couple of times, felt what was suspiciously like relief start to flood her veins.

Things were still salvageable!

Okay, staying out all night wasn’t going to go down particularly well with Matthew, and undoubtedly she’d have to omit to mention exactly whose bed she’d awoken in—after all, Luca was effectively Matthew’s business partner—but the fact she hadn’t slept with Luca offered at least a temporary reprieve. She would get her things and get the hell out, with hopefully no damage done.

Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her hair away from her eyes and flicked it back, forcing a tiny smile as she caught Luca still staring at her, even attempting to inject a flash of humour into this rather unusual situation.

‘Whoops!’

He didn’t smile back, just rolled over sideways, propping himself on his elbow, and resumed his blatant stare. ‘Whoops?’ he said in a very low, very sardonic drawl.

‘I’m sorry,’ Felicity ventured again, the watery voice now replaced by her more confident tones. ‘You see, I don’t normally drink—well, not spirits. The occasional glass of wine I enjoy…but as for spirits, well I don’t even like the taste. I just had a couple for courage, you know.’

He shook his head and Felicity gave a small shrug. ‘I’m sure someone like you doesn’t need any help in the courage department.’

‘I wasn’t aware you had been drinking.’ His words confused her, and she frowned as he continued, wondering if somewhere along the line she had misinterpreted him, if his English was really less fluent than it first appeared. ‘Just how much did you have last night?’

‘Two vodka and oranges.’ Felicity pulled a face. ‘And if this is what it does to me I’m glad that I don’t normally drink. How could people do this for pleasure?’ She was starting to ramble, the words spilling out from her mouth like a runaway train. She wished Luca would smile, look away, shrug, even—anything rather than stare at her with that slightly quizzical superior look.

‘You really think that two vodka and oranges could have that effect?’ he asked finally, but when Felicity opened her mouth to speak Luca got there first, his eyes never leaving her face, watching every flicker of reaction as his words reached her. ‘Do you still not realise that your drinks were being spiked?’

‘You spiked my drinks?’ Startled, she went to stand, but Luca let out a hiss of indignation, flicking one hand in a derisive Latin gesture and muttering something in Italian that Felicity assumed wasn’t particularly complimentary, as realisation with the help of a few extremely hazy recollections, finally dawned. ‘Matthew spiked them.’

The surge of anger that welled inside her didn’t bode very well for the pounding drums in her head, and Felicity screwed her eyes closed as she grappled with this latest vile flaw in Matthew’s personality.

Confirmation, if ever she needed it, of just how low Matthew would stoop to get what he wanted. The clanging gates of the prison door banged ever more loudly as she further realised the murky depths of his personality. Proof that the extreme lengths she was taking to curtail him were necessary.

Very necessary.

‘My staff alerted me to what was going on,’ Luca went on, but Felicity was only half listening—too busy concentrating on her awful predicament to concern herself with small details. ‘You will remember I was actually sitting at the next table to you?’