VITTORIO'S RUNAWAY BRIDE (The Vittorio Series) (5 page)

Shelby desperately searched her mind for a reasonable excuse, but nothing came to her.
 
She couldn’t tell him the truth; that it would be like twisting the knife in an open wound.  But there was no plausible lie she could think of, and with his eyes locked to hers, Logan would see right through it anyway.
 
Stuck between a rock and hard spot, she gave the simplest answer she could.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Shelby would have done anything at that moment to get away from Logan so she wouldn’t have to answer his questions, but she’d seen that look of determination on his face before and knew he wasn’t going anywhere until he got what he wanted.
 
The problem was, she didn’t know what he wanted.
 
Had he broken it off with his lover and decided reconciliation with his wife was in order?
 
Or had he simply folded under the pressure he must be getting from his family?
 

His traditional Italian parents would have frowned on a divorce and counseled him to work it out.
 
The sad part was, they would never understand why she’d walked away because no matter how much she was suffering for it, Shelby loved Logan’s family and would never break their hearts by letting them know what he’d done.
 
Besides, she carried just as much of the shame as Logan did.
 
If she had been the wife he needed, he wouldn’t have gone looking for another woman, although she wasn’t exactly sure what she could have done differently to prevent it.

“Shelby, I am waiting for an answer.
 
Why have you never taken it off?”

Her eyes stung from unshed tears and there was a quiver in her voice when she spoke, but somehow she managed to answer him.
 

“You know why, Logan.
 
I love you, I always have.”

“
Mio bello
,” Logan murmured, slanting his mouth over hers.

This was the part where Shelby was supposed to push him away and tell him it didn’t make any difference, that it was still over.
 
Except that when she put her palms on his chest, she could feel how fast his heart was racing and it made her own pulse jump.
 
Shelby’s eyes closed of their own volition, her lips parting as he claimed her mouth in a slow, seductive kiss.
 

If the sensations Logan aroused in her had crept up on her slowly she might have been able to maintain at least a small amount of indifference, but of course, that was impossible.
 
They slammed into her all at once, just as they’d always done whenever he kissed her.
 
The heat of his body seeped into her skin, chasing away the chill that had become such a part of her life.
 
 
She filled her lungs with his masculine scent and let it breathe new life into her while the taste of him fed her starving heart.
 

Shelby couldn’t get enough of him, and when Logan wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to his chest, her body exploded in a kaleidoscope of heat and desire and an aching need so powerful she would have let him take her right there without the slightest resistance.
 
She wanted him, wanted to feel him sink into her body so desperately that she lost sight of everything, including the reason she’d fled their marriage to begin with.

Shelby molded herself to him, gently moving her hips from side to side until he was so hard she could feel him even through the thick denim of his jeans.
 
She sifted her fingers through his hair, pulling Logan’s mouth down hard against hers, telling him in every way she knew how just how much she needed him.
 
For a few glorious moments, Shelby felt his love wrap around her like a protective cloak before it was abruptly snatched away from her.

Logan yanked his head back as if he’d been struck, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
 
“Just where in the hell did you learn moves like that?”
 

Still caught up in the drunken effect he had on her, it took Shelby several seconds to catch on to what he was implying.  “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” he said gruffly.
 
“I want to know who has been giving
my
wife lessons in seduction.”

Stung by his accusation, Shelby tried to wriggle out of his grasp but she was no match for his strength, and with ridiculous ease he subdued her by pulling her even closer.
 
Pinned as she was between his powerful arms and broad chest, she could do little more than glare at him.
 
What right did he have to question her fidelity?
 
From the moment he’d taken her hand and led her out onto the dance floor, she’d thought of no other man but Logan.
 
And while he had probably been enjoying his freedom the past six months, Shelby had spent her days and nights crying her eyes out and nursing a broken heart that didn’t have a chance in hell of healing itself.

What he deserved to hear was that she’d found someone else who had taught her not to be afraid of the passion inside herself and that she wanted him to leave.
 
He deserved to feel the life being crushed out of him by the image of his wife in another man’s arms, to have his entire world shattered by the knowledge that she hadn’t loved him enough to remain faithful.
 
Then maybe he would experience a little of the hell she’d been going through.

But somewhere between the time she decided to blast him with lies that would tear him apart and the time she opened her mouth to let them fly, something behind those dark eyes of his wavered.
 
It didn’t last long, a fraction of a second at best, but it was long enough for Shelby to see a vulnerable side of Logan she’d never known existed.
 
Maybe he didn’t love her in the same way she loved him, but she was his wife, and if Logan believed she’d so much as let another man touch her, that masculine pride that was so much a part of him would be completely destroyed.
 

She was his, she belonged to him, and Shelby knew with undying certainty that Logan would never make love to her again if he thought she had been unfaithful.
 
Not that there much chance he would want to anyway, considering she’d run out on him, but there was still one small, very foolish part of her that wanted to believe she would fight her way out of this nightmare and get her life back.
 

If only she could be sure he would never cheat on her again, or at least understand the reasons he had done it to begin with so she would know how to be a better wife, a better lover, the kind of woman who could hold on to her man.
 
Shelby met his piercing gaze with a fearless determination to make him see the truth in her own eyes.
 

“My reasons for leaving had nothing to do with another man.
 
There has never been anyone for me but you, and I would never,
never
betray you that way.”

“Even though you thought we were divorced?”

“Logan, I love you,” she said softly.
 
“Do you honestly think I could be with someone else when my heart belongs to you?”

Logan studied her face for a moment, fervently praying he wouldn’t find any signs of deception.
 
The gnawing fear that his sweet, beautiful Shelby had been lured away from him by another man slowly began to subside.
 
Still, some lingering doubt remained because he was finding it difficult to dismiss behavior that was so uncharacteristic of the woman he’d married.
 
Never in all the countless times they had made love had Shelby taken the initiative in such an assertive manner.
 

Admittedly he had been aroused, excruciatingly so, but who could blame him when she was grinding those slender hips against him as if she wanted him to make love to her right there?
 
But it wasn’t just Shelby’s behavior that had shocked him, it was his own behavior as well.
 
She’d gotten him so worked up, so damn hot for her that he’d nearly lost control and given her what she so obviously wanted.
 

It scared him, shook him to the core, because he was always so mindful of the differences in their size.
 
Shelby was so small, so delicate; it terrified him to think how easily he could hurt her if he made love to her with anything but the greatest of care.
 
The first time they’d made love he allowed his control to slip, but even then he hadn’t unleashed the full power of his passion on her.

“It’s the way I was acting that makes you suspicious,” Shelby continued when he didn’t say anything.
 
“Logan, I’m sorry.
 
I lost my head and couldn’t seem to stop myself.
 
It’s just that…it’s been so long and I wanted you to know…” she shook her head, overcome with emotion and a longing for something that could never be.

“Wanted me to know what,
cara mia
?”

Tears pooled in her eyes.
 
“That I still love you,” she said in a strangled whisper.
 

“If that is true,” and he prayed to God that it was, “then why did you leave me?”

She blinked and the unshed tears slid down her face.
 
“Because I’m not what you need in a woman.”

Logan’s brows drew together.
 
“Not what I…
mio Dio
, what makes you think that?”

Shelby lowered her eyes and stared at his chest, feeling as if her heart was being torn out all over again.
 
The woman he’d been with was her complete opposite; blond hair with a full, curvaceous figure and a sultry air about her that told anyone who took even a passing glance that she very much aware of just how sexy she was.
 
This was a woman who wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted and she would use whatever feminine wiles she had to get it.
 
Logan wouldn’t have held back his passion with her as he did with Shelby, his blonde lover wouldn’t have allowed it.
 
Which was probably what had lured him away, she thought miserably, because his naïve virginal bride hadn’t been able to satisfy him.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to be the perfect wife for you,” she chose her words carefully.
 
“For a while I even fooled myself into believing I could make you happy just because I learned how to manage running the house and be a gracious hostess.  And because I was so in love with you.”
 
Shelby drew in a shaky breath.
 
“But it wasn’t enough.”

“It was enough for me,
carissima
.”

He sounded so sincere she almost believed him, but just being this close to Logan, feeling the intense sexuality that seemed to exude from every pore in his body, Shelby knew she was only fooling herself again.

“We’re just too different, Logan.
 
You’re a powerful man, so sure of yourself, so confident in everything you do.  You have a magnetism that draws people to you.
 
Doesn’t it bother you that your friends and business associates must think you’ve lost your mind to have married someone like me?”

“Shelby, look at me.”
 

Logan waited until she lifted her head and then almost wished she hadn’t because the pain and fear on her face was so stark it wrenched his gut.
 

“I do not know why you cannot see how immeasurably beautiful you are, but I see it and so do my friends and business associates.
 
Do you want to know what they say about you,
cara
, about us?”

“Logan…” she shook her head.

“I will tell you anyway.
 
They envy me, Shelby.
 
You are elegance and grace, with a quiet beauty that has brought peace to my heart.
 
They see this and they want it for themselves.
 
I am a lucky man, they tell me, and they would give anything to have a woman like you; a woman who looks at me as if I am the only man in the world and does not demand anything but that I love her in return.”

“And yet they all have wives or girlfriends who look like movie stars,” she said with a touch of cynicism.
 
“It seemed more like a beauty pageant whenever we entertained, Logan, but it was the men who competed.
 
It was a contest to see who could obtain the most beautiful woman, decking them out with the finest clothes and the most expensive jewelry and strutting around like proud peacocks because their woman was the sexiest or the most desired by other men.
 
I felt like the ugly duckling in a pond full of swans,” Shelby said miserably, “and I always knew it was just a matter of time before you saw it too.”

“You are so wrong,
cara mia
.”
 
Logan brushed a soft kiss to her lips.
 
“I saw only you, and I was proud that my wife did not need any of those things to enhance her beauty.
 
You are like a delicate flower, so soft, so sweet.”
 

His eyes moved slowly over her face, settling on her trembling lips.
 
In all the time they had been married, he’d never once seen her look so desolate, not even on those few occasions when they had a disagreement.
 
Shelby always had radiant smile ready for him when he returned home from work or a business trip, her eyes lighting up as she launched herself into his arms.
 
No matter how bad his day had been, Logan could brush it off knowing his wife would be waiting at home for him, waiting to be swept up into his arms and kissed until her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were soft and dreamy.
 

He loved that part of each day, and come hell or high water, he was going to fix whatever was wrong so he could go home without feeling as if his heart was being ripped out because she wasn’t there to greet him.
 
Logan could see that Shelby was hurting too, but she obviously wasn’t ready to tell him the real reason she’d left.
 
Maybe it was true that she felt out of place among all the powdered and perfumed wives and girlfriends, but that wasn’t what made her run out on a marriage that was as solid as theirs had been.
 

No, something happened after he’d left for work that day, something so traumatic Shelby would rather leave than come to him with it.