flipped him over on his back, straddling his powerful thighs. Vittorio looked so surprised, she laughed aloud.
‘You seem to be wearing too many clothes,’ she remarked in a husky murmur, and Vittorio nodded.
‘I completely agree.’
‘Let’s do something about that, then.’
‘Absolutely.’
She tugged at his pyjama shirt and bottoms, laughing a little bit as buttons snagged and caught, but soon enough he was naked, and Ana pushed back on her elbow to take in his magnificent body, sleek and powerful, all for her. She ran one hand down the taut muscles of his chest.
‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,’ she admitted a bit shyly, for now that they were both naked, his arousal hard against her thigh, she felt a little uncertain. A little afraid.
‘There’s a lot I’ve been wanting to do,’ Vittorio admitted, his voice low and a little ragged. ‘And I can’t take much more waiting, Ana—’ True to his word, Vittorio rolled her onto her back, his hands and lips finding her secret sensitive places once again, until Ana found that waiting was the last thing she could think of doing. The wanting took over.
When he finally entered her, filling her up to the very brim with his own self, and with the knowledge of their bodies, fused, joined as one, Ana felt no more than a flicker of pain and then the wonderful, consuming certainty that this was the very heart of their marriage, the very best thing that could have ever happened, that they could have ever shared.
Afterwards, as they lay in the warm glow of the sun, their limbs still entangled, she wondered how she’d lived so long without knowing what sex was about. What love was about. For surely the two were utterly entwined, as entwined as her body was now with Vittorio’s. She couldn’t imagine loving a man she hadn’t felt in her own body, and neither could she imagine sharing this with anyone but a man she loved—and that man was Vittorio.
Vittorio ran his hand down her stomach and across the curve of her hip. ‘Ana, if I’d known—’ he said softly, and she turned to him.
‘Known?’
‘Known you were a virgin,’ he explained. ‘I would have—’ he smiled ruefully ‘—I would have taken more time, I suppose.’
‘You didn’t know I was a virgin?’ Ana couldn’t keep the amusement from her voice. ‘Goodness, Vittorio, I thought it was rather obvious.’
‘Obvious to you, perhaps,’ Vittorio returned. ‘But you mentioned a relationship—a man—’
‘It never got that far,’ Ana replied. The hurt she usually felt when she remembered Roberto’s rejection seemed distant, like an emotion she knew intellectually but had never truly felt. It hardly mattered now.
‘I’m sorry he hurt you,’ Vittorio murmured.
‘It’s long past,’ Ana told him. She pressed her lips to his shoulder; his skin was warm. ‘I’ve completely forgotten it.’ She kissed the hollow of his throat, because now that he was truly hers she just couldn’t help herself.
It was several hours later when they finally rose from that bed. Ana was sweetly sore all over, her body awakened in every sinew and sense. ‘Now the vineyard,’ she said and, still lounging among the pillows, Vittorio threw his head back and laughed.
‘The vineyard will always be your first love,’ he said, his words giving Ana a tiny pang. She wanted to say, You’re my first love, but she found she could not. The words stuck in her throat, clogged by fear. Instead, she reached for her clothes.
‘Absolutely.’
An hour later Ana followed Vittorio from the estate office to one of Cazlevara’s finest vineyards. Since Vittorio owned a much bigger operation than she, he had hectares of vines all over Veneto, but the one closest to the castle—on the original estate—was still reserved for the label’s most prized grapes.
The sun beat down hot on her head and her shirt was already sticking to her back as Ana walked between the grape plants in their neatly staked rows. She wished she’d worn a hat, or makeup. Instead, without thinking, she’d donned dusty trousers and an old shapeless button-down shirt, her standard field clothes. Hardly an outfit to impress her husband. And just why did she want to impress him? Ana wondered. The answer was painfully clear. Because she still felt a little uncertain, a little worried.
Because she loved him, and she didn’t know if he loved her.
If she’d had any sense, she would have worn one of Feliciana’s carefully selected outfits—something sexy and slimming—and asked Vittorio to take her to Venice or Verona, even