The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,34

She looked up to see Vittorio tilt his head and narrow his eyes; it was a look she was becoming used to. It meant he was thinking carefully about what to say…and what he thought she wanted to hear.

‘Does it matter?’

‘I’m curious.’

He gave a tiny shrug. ‘I’ve already told you, I first read about you in the in-flight magazine. It was a short article, but it piqued my interest.’

‘Enough to dig into my background?’ Ana guessed, and Vittorio’s mouth tightened. He gestured to the waiter to take their plates, and the man scurried forward.

‘I don’t particularly like your tone or your choice of words,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ve been honest from the beginning.’

‘That’s true.’ Yet, for some reason, his honesty hurt all the more. ‘It’s just so…cold-blooded.’

‘Funny,’ Vittorio said, taking a sip of wine, ‘I thought you said you weren’t a romantic.’

‘I’m not,’ Ana said quickly. She wondered whether she was lying. Had she actually been waiting for her knight in shining armour all this time? Was she really such a lovelorn fool?

No. She would not allow herself the weakness.

‘Then what is the trouble?’

‘It is a big decision, Vittorio,’ Ana replied, a hint of sharpness to her tone. ‘As you said before. I don’t make such decisions lightly.’ She took a breath. If he wanted businesslike, then that was what he would get. ‘What about a pre-nuptial agreement?’

Vittorio arched his eyebrows. ‘Are you worried I’ll take your fortune?’ he asked dryly, for the Viale wealth was a fraction of his.

‘No, but I thought you might have that concern.’

Vittorio’s mouth hardened into a thin line. ‘Divorce is not an option.’

Ana swallowed. ‘What if you meet someone else?’

‘I won’t.’ The steely glint in those dark eyes kept Ana from even asking the question about whether she would.

‘Children?’ she finally managed. Vittorio regarded her coolly, waiting. ‘You said you needed an heir. How many?’

‘Several, if God wills it.’ He paused. ‘You intimated you wanted children. Will that be a problem?’

‘No.’ The ache for a baby had only started recently, her biological clock finally having begun its relentless tick. Yet right now she couldn’t think of babies, only how they were made.

Her and Vittorio. Her mind danced with images and her body ached with longing. She’d never realized how much desire she could feel, how it caused a sweet, sweet pain to lance through her and leave her breathless with wanting. The knowledge that Vittorio surely did not share it, or at least feel it as she did, that he could talk about the consummation of their marriage—the joining of their bodies—without so much as a flicker of emotion or longing made Ana ache, not just with desire, but with disappointment.

She wished he desired her the way she desired him, a wonderful consuming ache that longed only to be sated. Yes, she knew she could stir him to sensuality, but surely any man—well, almost any man—would have such a response.

Was it enough?

‘Ana, what are you thinking?’ Vittorio asked. His voice was gentle, and Ana saw a wary compassion in his eyes.

‘I’m thinking I don’t want to marry a man who doesn’t find me attractive,’ she said flatly. The words seemed to lie heavily between them, unable to be unsaid. Vittorio’s face was blank, but Ana sensed his withdrawal, as if he’d actually recoiled from the brutal honesty of her words.

‘I think you are being too harsh.’

The fact that he did not deny it completely made her heart sink a little. ‘Am I?’ she asked, and heard the hurt in her own voice.

‘You felt the evidence of my desire for you the other night,’ Vittorio told her in a low voice. A smile lurked in his eyes. ‘Didn’t you?’

Ana flushed. ‘Yes, but—’

‘Admittedly, you are different from the other women I’ve…known. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find you attractive.’

Having drunk enough whisky and given the right inducements, Ana silently added. ‘Have you had many lovers?’ she asked impulsively, and almost laughed at Vittorio’s expression of utter surprise.

‘Enough,’ he said after a moment. ‘But there is no point raking over either of our pasts, Ana. As I said before, we should look now to the future. Our future.’

Ana tossed her napkin on the table, suddenly restless, needing to move. ‘I’ve finished. Shall we? The last boat back to Fusina leaves before midnight.’

‘So it does.’ Vittorio raised one hand with easy grace to signal for the bill, and within minutes they were winding their way through the tables and then outside, the spring air slightly damp, the