The Bride's Awakening (4 page)

‘The Counts of Cazlevara have always lived here,’ he said simply. ‘And their families. Although my mother lives near Milan for much of the year, in a palazzo like you mentioned.’ There was a sharp note to his voice, a hint of something dark and even cruel, something Ana couldn’t understand. He turned, his eyes gleaming from the light of the sconces positioned intermittently along the stone walls. ‘Could you not imagine living in such a place as this?’

In a flash of insight—or perhaps just imagination—Ana
could
see herself living there. She pictured herself in the gracious drawing rooms, presiding over a Christmas party like the one she’d gone to as a child. Overseeing a feast in the ancient dining hall, as if she were the Contessa herself, inviting the citizens of Veneto into her gracious home. Such images caused longing to leap within her. Surprised by its intensity, she pushed the images away; they were absurd, impossible, and surely not what Vittorio meant.

‘There is certainly a great deal of history here,’ she said, once again to his back.

‘Yes. Many centuries. Yet your own family has been in Veneto a long time.’

‘Three hundred years,’ Ana conceded wryly. ‘No more than a day compared to yours.’

‘A bit more than a day,’ Vittorio said, laughter in his voice. He stopped in front of a polished wooden door which he opened so Ana could enter. ‘And now. Dinner.’

Ana took in the cosy room with a mixture of alarm and anticipation. Heavy velvet curtains were drawn at the windows, blocking out the night. A fire crackled in the hearth and sent dancing shadows around the candlelit room. A table for two had been laid in front of the fire, with a rich linen tablecloth and napkins, the finest porcelain and crystal. On a small table to the
side, a bottle of red had already been opened to breathe. It was an intimate scene, a romantic scene, a room ready not for business, but seduction.

Ana swallowed. She walked to the table, one hand on the back of a chair. When had she last had a meal like this, shared a meal like this? Never. The idea of what was to come filled her with a dizzying sense of excitement that she told herself she had no right to feel. She shouldn’t even want to feel it. Yet still it came, bubbling up inside of her, treacherous and hopeful. This felt like a date. A real date. She cleared her throat. ‘This all looks lovely, Vittorio. Somewhere special indeed.’

Vittorio smiled and closed the door behind him. They were completely alone; Ana wondered whether there was anyone else in the castle at all. ‘Do you live here alone since you’ve returned?’ she asked.

Vittorio shrugged. ‘My brother Bernardo and my mother Constantia are in Milan. They come and go as they please.’

His tone was strange, cold, and yet also almost indifferent. It made Ana wonder if he considered his brother and mother—the only family he had left—as nothing more than interlopers in his own existence. Surely not. Ever since her own mother had died, she’d clung to her father, to the knowledge that he was her closest and only relative, that all they had was each other. Surely Vittorio felt the same?

He pulled back her chair and Ana sat, suppressing a shiver of awareness as he took the heavy linen napkin and spread it across her lap, his thumbs actually brushing her inner thighs. Ana jerked in response to the touch, a flush heating her cheeks, warming her insides. She had never been touched so intimately, and the thought was shaming. He’d just been putting a napkin in her lap.

She supposed it was her lack of experience with men that made her so skittish and uncertain around Vittorio, hyper-aware of everything he did, every sense stirring to life just by being near
him. That had to be it; nothing else made sense. This aching awareness of him was just due to her own inexperience. She didn’t go on dates and she didn’t flirt. She did not know what it felt like to be desired.

And you’re not desired now.

This dinner—this room—with all of its seeming expectations was going to her head. It was setting her up, Ana realized, for a huge and humiliating fall. She’d fallen before, she reminded herself, her would-be boyfriend at university had had to spell out the plain truth.

I’m just not attracted to you.

Neither was Vittorio. He wasn’t even pretending otherwise. She mustn’t forget that, no matter what the trappings now, Vittorio was not interested in her as a woman. This was simply how he did business. It had to be.

And so it would be how she did business as well.

‘Wine?’ Vittorio asked and held up the bottle. With a little dart of surprised pleasure, Ana realized it was one of Viale’s labels. The best, she acknowledged as she nodded and Vittorio poured.

He sat down across from her and raised his glass. Ana raised her own in response. ‘To business propositions.’

‘Intriguing ones, even,’ Ana murmured, and they both drank.

‘Delicious,’ Vittorio pronounced, and Ana smiled.

‘It’s a new blend—’

‘Yes, I read about it.’

She nearly spluttered in surprise. ‘You did?’

‘Yes, in the in-flight magazine on my trip home.’ Vittorio placed his glass on the table. ‘There was a little article about you. Have you seen it?’ Ana nodded jerkily. The interview had been short, but she’d been glad—and proud—of the publicity. ‘You’ve done well for yourself, Ana, and for Viale Wines.’

‘Thank you.’ His words meant more to her than they ought, she knew, but she couldn’t keep the fierce pleasure at his praise
from firing through her. Ana had worked long and hard to be accepted in the winemaking community, to make Viale Wines the name it was.

A few minutes later a young woman, diminutive and darkhaired, came in with two plates. She set them down, Vittorio murmured his thanks and then she left as quietly as she had come.

Ana glanced down at the paper-thin slices of prosciutto and melon. ‘This looks delicious.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

They ate in silence and Ana’s nerves grew more and more taut, fraying, ready to break. She wanted to demand answers of Vittorio; she wanted to know just what this business proposition was. She wasn’t good at this, had never been good at this; she couldn’t banter or flirt, and at the moment even idle chatter seemed beyond her.

It was too much, she thought with a pang. Being here with a devastatingly handsome man—with Vittorio—eating delicious food, drinking wonderful wine, watching the firelight play with shadows on his face—all of it was too much. It made her remember all the things she’d once wanted that she’d long ago accepted she’d never have. A husband. Children. A home of her own. She’d made peace with that, with the lack in her life, because there was so much she had, so much she loved and enjoyed. She’d
thought
she’d made peace with it, but now she felt restless and uncertain and a little bit afraid. She
wanted
again.

She had no idea why Vittorio—Vittorio, of all people, who was so unbearably out of her league—made her feel this way. Made her remember and long for those things. Made her, even now, wonder if his hair felt as crisp as it looked, or if it would be soft in her hands. If she touched his cheek would she feel the flick of stubble against her fingers? Would his lips be soft? Would he taste like her own wine?

Ana nearly choked on a piece of melon, and Vittorio looked
up enquiringly. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, all solicitude, and she nodded almost frantically.

‘Yes—yes, fine.’ She could hardly believe the direction her thoughts had taken, or the effect they were having on her body. Her limbs felt heavy and warm, a deep, pleasurable tingling starting low in her belly and then suddenly, mischievously flaring upwards, making her whole being clench with sudden, unexpected spasms of desire.

She’d never thought to feel this way, had thought—hoped, even—she’d buried such desperate longings. For surely they were desperate. This was
Vittorio
. Vittorio Ralfino, the Count of Cazlevara, and he’d never once looked at her as a woman. He never would.

They ate in near silence, and when they were finished the woman came back to clear the plates and replace them with dishes of homemade ravioli filled with fresh, succulent lobster.

‘Have you missed home?’ Ana asked in an effort to break the strained silence. Or perhaps it wasn’t strained and she only felt it was because her nerves were so fraught, her body still weak with this new desire, desperate for more. Or less. She was torn between the safety of its receding and the need for it to increase. To actually touch. Feel.
Know.

Vittorio seemed utterly unaware of her dilemma; he sat sprawled in his chair, cradling his glass of wine between his palms.

‘Yes,’ he replied, taking a sip. ‘I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.’

Ana was surprised by the regret in his voice. ‘Why did you?’

He shrugged. ‘It seemed the right thing to do at the time. Or, at least, the easy thing to do.’ Vittorio took a bite of ravioli. ‘Eat up. These ravioli are made right here at the castle, and the lobster were caught fresh only this morning.’

‘Impressive,’ Ana murmured, and indeed it was delicious, although she barely enjoyed a mouthful for she felt the tension
and the need building inside her, tightening her chest and making it hard even to breathe. She wanted to ask him what she was doing here; she wanted to reach across the table and touch him. The need to touch was fast overriding the need to know. Action would replace words and if she had just one more glass of wine she was afraid she would do just what she was thinking—fantasising—about and actually touch him.

She wondered how Vittorio would react. Would he be stunned? Flattered? Repulsed? It was too dangerous to even imagine a scenario, much less to want it—crave it…

She could stand it no more. She set down her fork and gave Vittorio as direct a look as she could. ‘As lovely as this meal is, Vittorio, I feel I have to ask. I must know.’ She took a breath and let it out slowly, laying her hand flat on the table so she didn’t betray herself and reach out to touch him. ‘Just what is this business proposition you are thinking of?’

Vittorio didn’t answer for a long moment. He glanced at the wine in his glass, ruby-red, glinting in the candlelight. He smiled almost lazily—making her insides flare with need once more—and then set his glass down on the table.

‘Well,’ he said with a wry little smile, ‘if you must know, it is simply this. I want you to marry me.’

T
HE
words seemed to ring in the empty air, filling the room, even though the only sound was the crackle of the fire as the logs settled into the grate, scattering a bit of ash across the carpet.

Ana stared, her mind spinning, her mouth dry. Once again, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She wondered if she’d heard him correctly. Surely she’d imagined the words. Had she wanted him to say such a thing? Was she so ridiculous, pathetic, that she’d
dreamed
it?

Or had he been joking? Common sense returned. Of course he was joking. She let her lips curve into a little smile, although she knew the silence had gone on too long. She reached for her wine. ‘Really, Vittorio,’ she said, shaking her head a little bit as if she actually shared the joke, ‘I want to know why.’

He leaned forward, all lazy languor gone, replaced with a sudden intentness. ‘I’m serious, Ana. I want to marry you.’

She shook her head again, unable to believe it. Afraid to believe it. He must be joking, even if it was a terrible joke. A cruel one.

She’d known cruel jokes before. Girls hiding her clothes after gym, so she had to walk through the locker rooms in a scrap of a towel while they giggled and whispered behind their hands. The boy who had asked her to dance when she was fifteen—she’d accepted, incredulously, and he’d laughed and run away. She’d
seen the money exchange grubby adolescent hands, and realized he’d only asked her as a bet. And of course the one man she’d let into her life, had wanted to give her body to, only to be told he didn’t think of her that way. Roberto had acted affronted, as if she’d misunderstood all the time they’d spent together, the dinners and the late nights studying. Perhaps she had misunderstood; perhaps she was misunderstanding now.

Yet, looking at Vittorio’s calm face, his eyes focused intently on hers, Ana slowly realized she hadn’t misunderstood. He wasn’t joking. He was serious. And yet surely he couldn’t be—surely he could not possibly want to marry
her
.

‘I told you the proposition was an intriguing one,’ he said, and there was laughter in his voice.

‘That’s one word for it,’ Ana managed, and took a healthy draught of wine. It went down the wrong way and for a few seconds her eyes watered as she tried to suppress a most inelegant cough. A smile lurked in Vittorio’s eyes, in the upward flick of his mouth and he reached out to touch her shoulder, his hand warm even through the thick cloth of her jacket.

‘Just cough, Ana. Better out than in.’

She covered her mouth with her hand, managing a few ladylike coughs before her body took over and she choked and spluttered for several minutes, tears streaming from her eyes, utterly inelegant. Vittorio poured her a glass of water and thrust it into her hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ she finally managed when she had control over herself once more. She wiped her eyes and took a sip of water.

‘Are you all right?’ She nodded, and he leaned back in his chair. ‘I see I’ve surprised you.’

‘You could say that.’ Ana shook her head, still unable to believe Vittorio had actually said what she’d thought he had said. And if he had said it, why? What on earth was he thinking of? None of it made sense. She couldn’t even
think
.

‘I didn’t intend to speak so plainly, so quickly,’ Vittorio said, ‘but I thought you’d appreciate an honest business proposition.’

Ana blinked, then blinked again. She glanced around the room with its flickering candles and half-drunk glasses of wine, the fire burned down to a few glowing embers; the desire still coiled up inside her, desperate to unfurl. What a fool she was. ‘Ah,’ she said slowly, ‘business.’ Marriage must, for a man like Vittorio, determined and ambitious, be a matter of business. ‘Of course.’ She heard the note of disappointment in her own voice and cringed inside. Why should she feel let down? Everything she’d wanted and felt—that had been in her own head. Her own body. Not Vittorio’s. She turned to gaze at him once more, her expression direct and a little flat. ‘So just how is marriage a business proposition?’

Vittorio felt the natural vibrancy drain from Ana’s body, leaving the room just a little bit colder. Flatter. He’d made a mistake, he realized. Several mistakes. He’d gone about it all wrong, and he’d tried so hard not to. He’d seen her look around the room, watched her take in all the trappings of a romantic evening which he’d laid so carefully. The fire, the wine, the glinting crystal. The intimate atmosphere that wrapped around them so suggestively. It was not, he realized, a setting for business.
Fool.
If he’d been intending to conduct this marriage proposal with a no-nonsense business approach, he should have done it properly, in a proper business setting. Not here, not like this. This room, this meal promised things and feelings he had no intention or desire to give. And Ana knew it. That was why she looked so flat now, so…
disappointed
.

Did she actually want—or even expect—that from him? Had she convinced herself this was a
date
? The thought filled Vittorio with both shame and disgust. He could not, he knew, pretend to be attracted to her. He shouldn’t even try. He shouldn’t have brought her to this room at all. He needed to stop pretending he
was wooing her. Even when he knew he wasn’t, he still fell back on old tactics, old ploys that had given him success in the past.

Now was the time for something new.

Vittorio leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Ana, do you play cards?’

Ana looked up, arching her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Cards…?’

‘Yes, cards.’ Vittorio smiled easily. ‘I thought after dinner we could have a friendly game of cards—and discuss this business proposition.’

She arched her eyebrows higher. ‘Are you intending to wager?’

Vittorio shrugged. ‘Most business is discussed over some time of sport or leisure—whether it is golf, cards, or something else entirely.’

‘How about billiards?’

Vittorio’s own eyebrows rose, and Ana felt a fierce little dart of pleasure at his obvious surprise. ‘You play billiards?’

‘
Stecca
, yes.’

‘Stecca,’
Vittorio repeated. ‘As a matter of fact, the castle has a five pins table. My father put it in when he became Count.’ He paused. ‘I played with him when I was a boy.’

Ana didn’t know if she was imagining the brief look of sorrow that flashed across Vittorio’s face. She remembered hearing, vaguely, that he’d been very close to his father.

It’s all right to be sad, rondinella.

She pushed the memory away and smiled now with bright determination. ‘Good. Then you know how to play.’

Vittorio chuckled. ‘Yes, I do. And I have to warn you, I’m quite good.’

Ana met his dark gaze with a steely one of her own. ‘So am I.’

He led her from the cosy little room with the discarded remains of their meal, down another narrow corridor into the stone heart of the castle and then out again, until he came to a large, airy room in a more recent addition to the castle, with long
sash windows that looked out onto a darkened expanse of formal gardens. In the twilit shadows Ana could only just discern the bulky shapes of box hedges and marble fountains. The room looked as if it hadn’t been used in years; the billiards table was covered in dust sheets and the air smelled musty.

‘I suppose you haven’t played in a while,’ she said, and Vittorio flashed a quick grin that once more caused her insides to fizz and flare. She did her best to ignore the dizzying sensation, pleasant as it was.

‘Not here, anyway.’ He pulled the sheet off the table and balled it up, tossing it in a corner, then opened the windows so the fresh, fragrant air wafted in from the gardens. ‘The cues are over there. Do you want something to drink?’

Ana felt reckless and a little bit dangerous; she knew why Vittorio had asked her if she played cards, why they were here about to play billiards instead of back in that candlelit room. This was business.
She
was business. He could not have made it plainer. And that was fine; she could handle this. Any disappointment she’d felt—unreasonably so—gave way to a cool determination. ‘I’ll have a whisky.’

Vittorio gazed at her for a moment, his expression thoughtful and perhaps even pleased, his mouth curling upwards into a little smile before he nodded and went to push a button hidden discreetly by the door. Within minutes another servant—this time a man, some kind of butler—appeared at the doorway, silent and waiting.

‘Mario, two whiskies please.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Ana selected her cue and carefully chalked the end. She studied the table with its three balls: two cue balls, one white, one yellow and a red object ball. Vittorio was setting up the castle in the middle of the table: five skittles, four white, one red, made into a cross. The object of the game was simple: you
wanted to knock your opponent’s ball into the skittles for points, or have it hit the red object ball. Her father liked to say it was a grown-up game of marbles.

‘So where did you learn to play
stecca
?’ Vittorio asked as he stepped back from the table.

‘My father. After my mother died, it was a way for us to spend time together.’

‘How touching,’ he murmured, and Ana knew he meant it. He sounded almost sad.

‘And I suppose your father taught you?’ she asked. ‘Or did you play with your brother?’ She leaned over the table and practised a shot, the cue stick smooth and supple under her hands.

‘Just my father.’

Ana stepped back, letting the cue stick rest on the floor. ‘Would you like to go first?’

Vittorio widened his eyes in mock horror. ‘Would a gentleman ever go first? I think not!’

Ana gave a little laugh and shrugged. ‘I just wanted to give you the advantage. I warned you I was good.’

Vittorio threw his head back and let out a loud laugh; the sight of the long brown column of his throat, the muscles working, made something plunge deep inside Ana and then flare up again in need. Suddenly her hands were slippery on the cue stick and her mouth was dry. She was conscious of the way her heart had started beating with slow, deliberate thuds that seemed to rock her whole body. ‘And I told you I was good too, as I remember.’

‘Then we’ll just have to see who is better,’ Ana returned pertly, smiling a little bit as if she was relaxed, as if her body wasn’t thrumming like a violin Vittorio had just played with a few words and a laugh.

The servant entered quietly with a tray carrying two tumblers, a bottle of Pellegrino and another bottle of very good, very old single malt whisky. Ana swallowed dryly. She’d only said she
wanted whisky because she’d known what Vittorio was up to; she’d felt reckless and defiant and whisky seemed like the kind of drink men drank when they were playing a business games of billiards.

She, however, didn’t drink it. She had a few sips with her father every now and then, but the thought of taking a whole tumbler with Vittorio made her nervous. She was a notorious lightweight—especially for a winemaker—and she didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of him. Especially not with this desire—so treacherous, so overwhelming, so new—still warring within her, making her feel languorous and anxious at varying turns.

‘So,’ Vittorio said as he reached for the whisky, ‘do you take yours neat or with a little water?’

Water sounded like a good idea, a way to weaken the alcohol. ‘Pellegrino, please.’

‘As you wish.’ He took his neat, Ana saw, accepting her tumbler with numb fingers. Vittorio smiled and raised his glass and she did likewise. They both sipped, and Ana managed not to choke as the whisky—barely diluted by water—burned down her throat.

‘Now, please,’ Vittorio said, sweeping his arm in an elegant arc. ‘Ladies first.’

Ana nodded and set her glass aside. She lined up her first shot, leaning over the table, nervous and shy as Vittorio watched blandly. Focus, she told herself. Focus on the game, focus on the business. Yet that thought—and its following one,
marriage
—made her hands turn shaky and the shot went wide.

Vittorio clicked his tongue. ‘Pity.’

He was teasing her, Ana knew, but she ground her teeth anyway. She hated to lose. It was one of the reasons she was so good at
stecca
; she’d spent hours practising so she could best her father at the game, which she hadn’t done until she was fifteen. It had been five years of practice and waiting.

She stepped back from the table and took another sip of whisky as Vittorio lined up his shot. ‘So why
do
you want to
marry me?’ she asked, her tone one of casual interest, just as he prepared to shoot. His shot went as wide as her own.

He swung around to face her, his eyes narrowed, and Ana smiled sweetly. ‘I think you’d make an appropriate wife.’

‘Appropriate. What a romantic word.’

‘As I said,’ Vittorio said softly, ‘this is a matter of business.’

Ana lined up her own shot; before Vittorio could say anything else, she took it, banking his ball and missing the skittle by a centimetre. She’d been a fool to mention romance. ‘Indeed. And you see marriage as a matter of business?’

He paused. ‘Yes.’

‘And what about me is so appropriate?’ Ana asked. ‘Out of curiosity.’ Vittorio took his shot and knocked her ball cleanly into a skittle. Ana stifled a curse.

‘Everything.’

She let out an incredulous laugh. ‘Really, Vittorio, I am not such a paragon.’

‘You are from a well-known, respected family in this region, you have worked hard at your own winery business these last ten years, and you are loyal.’

‘And that is what you are looking for in a wife?’ Ana asked, her tone sharpening. ‘That is quite a list. Did you draw it up yourself?’ She took another shot, grateful that this time she knocked his ball into a skittle. They were even, at least in billiards.

Vittorio hesitated for only a fraction of a second. ‘I know what I want.’

She had to ask it; she had to know. She kept her voice light, even dismissive. ‘You are not interested in love, I suppose?’

‘No.’ He paused. ‘Are you?’

Ana watched as he stilled, his head cocked to one side, his dark eyes narrowed and intent as he waited for her answer. What a strange question, she thought distantly. Weren’t most people interested in love?