The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,23

uncertain, unable to believe that the kiss they had just shared was real, that it could possibly mean something. At least to her. She had a horrible sick feeling that Vittorio, inflamed by a bit of whisky, had been acting on his baser instincts, trying to prove that this marriage bargain could actually work.

And he’d almost convinced her that it could.

Too tired to think any more, Ana slipped into the interior of the limo—the Porsche, it seemed, was reserved for Vittorio’s exclusive use—and laid her head back against the seat as the driver sped away from Castle Cazlevara back to her home.

Vittorio watched the car disappear down the curving drive with a deep, primal sense of satisfaction. He’d as good as branded her with that kiss; she was his. In a matter of days, weeks at the most, she would be his bride. His wife. He felt sure of it.

He couldn’t keep the sense of victory from rushing through him, headier than any wine. He’d set out to acquire a wife and, in a matter of days—a week at the most—he would have one. Mission accomplished.

He imagined the look on his mother’s face when he told her he was getting married; he leaped ahead to the moment when he held his son, and saw Bernardo’s dreams of becoming Count, of taking control of Cazlevara Wines, crumble to nothing. He pictured his mother looking stunned, lost, and then the image suddenly changed of its own accord and instead he saw her smiling into the face of his child, her grandchild. A baby girl.

Vittorio banished the image almost instantly. It didn’t make sense. The only relationship he’d ever had with his mother had been one of, at worst, animosity and, at best, indifference. And he didn’t want a girl; he needed sons.

Yet still the image—the idea—needled him, annoyed him, because it made a strange longing rise up in a way he didn’t understand, a way that almost felt like sorrow.

Vittorio pushed it aside once more and considered the practicalities instead. Of course, there were risks. With any business proposition, there were risks. Ana might not fall pregnant easily, or they might only have girls. Baby girls, all wrapped in pink—Vittorio dismissed these possibilities, too exultant to dwell on such concerns.

He supposed he should have married long ago and thus secured his position, yet he’d never even considered it. He’d been too intent on avoiding his home, on securing his own future. He’d never thought of his heirs.

He’d run away, Vittorio knew, the actions of a hurt child. Amazing how much power and pain those memories still held. His mother’s averted face, the way she’d pushed him down when he’d attempted to clamber on her lap. He’d stopped trying after a while. By the time he was four—when Bernardo had been born—he’d regarded his mother with a certain wariness, the way you would a sleeping tiger in a zoo. Fascinating, beautiful, but ultimately dangerous. And now he was a grown man, nearing forty and he still remembered. He still hurt.

Self-contempt poured through him, dousing his earlier sense of victory. He hated this feeling, as if he was captive to his own past, chained by memories. Surely no man should still lament his childhood? Besides, his hadn’t even been very deprived: his father had loved him, had given him every opportunity and privilege. To feel sorry for himself in even the smallest degree was not only absurd, it was abhorrent.

Vittorio straightened his shoulders and pushed the memories back down.

Now he would run away no more. He’d come back to Veneto to finally face his family, his past and make it right in the only way he knew how. By moving on. His first family had failed him, so he would create a second. His own. His wife, his child. His.

His face hardening with determination, Vittorio turned back to the dark, empty castle and went inside.

Chapter Four

VILLA ROSSO was dark as the driver let her out at the front door. Ana tiptoed through the silent downstairs, wanting to avoid her father, even though she was fairly certain he was asleep. Enrico Viale didn’t stay up much past ten.

She fell into bed, and then thankfully was fast sleep within minutes. When she awoke, the sun was slanting through the curtains, sending its long golden rays along the floor of her bedroom. Last night filtered back to her through a haze of sleep: the so-called business proposition, the billiards, the whisky, the kiss. She had no head