The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,27
plain view. Yet she couldn’t quite keep the thoughts—the hopes—from slipping slyly into her mind. She found herself constructing a thousand what-ifs. What if we married? What if we had a child? What if we actually were happy?
These thoughts—tempting, dangerous—continued to dance along the fringes of her mind over the next week. She caught herself more than once, chin in hand, lost in a daydream that was vague enough to seem reasonable. Possible. She found she was arguing with herself, listing the reasons why a marriage of convenience was perfectly sensible. Why it was, in fact, a good idea.
She didn’t see Vittorio all week, but every day there was something from him: a newspaper article on a new wine, a bar of dark chocolate—how did he know that was her secret indulgence?—a spray of lilacs. Ana accepted each gift, found herself savouring them, even as she knew why he was doing it. It was, undoubtedly, a means to an end, a way of showing her how it could be between them.
I think it could be good between us, Ana…Good in so many ways.
Remembering how it had felt to kiss him—how he’d felt, the evidence of his own arousal—made Ana agree with him. Or, at least, want to agree with him. And want to experience it again.
A week after her dinner with Vittorio, as the day came to a close, the sun starting its orange descent, Ana left the winery office and decided to walk the half-kilometre home along the winding dirt track, her mind still brimming with those seductive what-ifs. A new wealth of possibilities was opening up to her, things she’d never hoped to have. A husband, a child, a home, a life beyond what she’d already made for herself, what she’d been happy to have until Vittorio stirred up these latent desires like a nest of writhing serpents. Ana wondered if they could ever be coaxed to sleep again.
If she said no, could she go back to her life with the endless work days and few evenings out among old men and fellow winemakers? Could she lull to sleep those deep and dangerous desires for a husband, a family, a home—a castle, even—of her own? Could she stop craving another kiss and, more than that, so much more, the feel of another’s body against hers, that wonderful spiral of desire uncoiling and rising within her, demanding to be sated?
No, Ana acknowledged, she couldn’t, not easily anyway and, even more revealingly, she didn’t want to. She wanted to feel Vittorio’s lips against hers again. She wanted to know the touch of his hands on her body. She wanted to be married, to live and learn together like the two stones her father had been talking about.
Even if there was no love. She didn’t need it.
Stopping suddenly right there in the road, Ana laughed aloud. Was her decision already made? Was she actually going to marry Vittorio?
No. Surely she couldn’t make such a monumental decision so quickly, so carelessly. Surely her life was worth more than that.
Yet, even as common sense argued its case, her heart and body were warring against it, lost in a world of wonderful—and sensual—possibility.
Slowly, she started walking again; the sun was low in the sky, sending long lavender rays across the horizon. Villa Rosso appeared in the distance, its windows winking in the sunlight, its long, low stone façade so familiar and dear. If she married Vittorio, she wouldn’t live there any more. Her father would be alone. The thought stopped her once more in the road; could she do that? Could she leave her father after all they’d shared and endured together? She knew he would want her to do so; this marriage—should it happen—already had his blessing.
Still, it would be hard, painful even. It made her realize afresh just how enormous a decision she was contemplating.
Could she actually say yes? Was she brave—and foolish—enough to do it?
As she came closer to the house, she saw a familiar navy Porsche parked in the drive. Vittorio’s car. He was inside, waiting for her, and the realization made her insides flip right over. She’d missed him, she realized incredulously; she’d expected him to come before now.
She’d wanted him to come.
At the front step she took a moment to brush the hair away from her face and wipe the dust from her shoes before she opened the door and stepped into the foyer.
It was empty, but she followed the voices into the study, where she checked at