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He was so sure of himself, so sure he knew everything there was to know.
Recalling all the awful anxiety she had suffered just struggling to
survive, she felt reassured by that infinite confidence of his. So how
could she hold his patent belief that she would snatch at his offer of
marriage against him?
After all, here she was, dead keen on him and incapable of hiding it,
not to mention homeless and broke. Had he pretended a little uncertainty
as to his reception it wouldn't really have been convincing, she told
herself. He was incredibly good-looking and sexy and a huge catch for
someone like her. But he was also feeling guilty as hell over taking her
to bed, she reminded herself reluctantly. She really ought to be turning
him down flat. Wasn't it wrong to let him make such a massive mistake?
He didn't love
her, he hardly knew her, and in time he might even come to despise her
for the mistakes she would make trying to fit into his world. But he was
right, she could learn, and a part of her that she wasn't very proud of
desperately wanted that chance.
'I shouldn't say yes to this,' Holly breathed unevenly.
'But you will.' Rio leant down and closed his hands round hers to pull
her up to him. His sudden flashing smile as her cheeks blossomed with
self-conscious colour made her tummy somersault with excitement. The
warm, intrinsically familiar scent of him made her ache. The mere fact
that he was only inches away reduced her to quivering, melting
compliancy and, guilty as hell aside, she could see that he liked that,
he liked that very much. That she did not mistake.
He gave her the kind of brief kiss that he excelled at, provocative,
intimate, intensely erotic. Then he set her free again when she was
desperate to cling and every nerve-ending craved the heat of his passion.
"We'll be very uncool and wait for our wedding night,' Rio decreed, soft
and husky and boundlessly sure, it seemed, of his welcome.
And for the very first time Holly realised that she could crave him like
an addict and still want to scream at him.
91
Three days later Holly climbed into the limousine that would ferry her
to the wedding that had been arranged and the ceremony that would make
her Rio Lombardi's wife.
Ezio Farretti beamed at her in flattering admiration of her bridal
regalia but it felt so very strange to be alone, with neither friends
nor family for support, indeed none of the more personal trappings Holly
had once naively assumed would be part and parcel of such an event.
She had thought of phoning her parents and telling them that she was
getting married but had given up on the idea when it occurred to her
that naturally her parents would want to know all about her relationship
with Rio. How on earth could she admit that she was marrying a man she
had known for less than a week? She would have to wait until her
marriage was already an established fact before meeting up with her
parents again.
For three solid days she had done little but shop, first for her gown
and then for clothes for both her and Timothy that would suit a warmer
climate. That last instruction from Rio had actually caused a panic when
it had emerged that he was planning to take them abroad after the
wedding and she had confided that neither she nor her son had a
passport. Fortunately it had proved possible to redress that oversight,
but Rio's incredulity that anybody should be without a passport had
reminded her all over again of how different her world was from his, for
her parents had never been abroad in their entire lives.
Emerging from that recollection, Holly rearranged the skirt of her
dress, fearful of creasing the delicate folds before she arrived at the
church, desperately wanting to look the very best she could for Rio. She
had fallen in love with her ivory and gold wedding gown at first sight,
but Rio had told her to pick something traditional and a dress strongly
reminiscent of a medieval bride might not fit the bill, she reflected
anxiously.
Long pointed sleeves ornamented the boned V-shaped silk bodice which was
decorated with exquisite gold embroidery and laced tight at her tiny
waist, and the skirt was long and elegant. A fabulous sapphire and
diamond tiara was lodged in her bronze curls and she wore a matching and
equally impressive necklace and drop earrings. The set was Lombardi
family jewellery sent from Tuscany by special courier and Rio had
requested that she wear the items. She had had to tie on the earrings
with thread because her ears were not pierced and, terrified of losing
the earrings, she checked that they were still in place every few minutes.
In fact, nerves were eating Holly alive, for Rio had been abroad and she
had only spoken to him on the phone in recent days. Indeed, at one stage
she had honestly believed that the wedding might have to be cancelled.
The same day that she had agreed to marry him Rio had flown out to
Stockholm on business before travelling on to Florence to call on his
mother. Rio had hoped to bring the older woman back to London with him
to attend their wedding but Alice Lombardi had felt too weak to make the
trip.
'I was going to fly you out for the day so that you could meet,' Rio had
informed Holly on the phone twenty-four hours earlier before he
explained why he could not return that evening as he had hoped. 'But she
had palpitations and I had to call her doctor in. He prescribed complete
bedrest.'
Holly had repressed the troubled suspicion that her future mother-in-law
might have been felled by sheer horror that
92
her only son was about to wed a stranger who was not only an unmarried
mother but also a young woman from a background that in no way matched
their own. Since that possibility did not appear to have occurred to
Rio, she had not liked to mention it.
'What's Mrs Lombardi like?' she had asked Ezio.
'A fine woman,' he had responded. 'But a martyr to ill-health.'
'Maybe the wedding will have to be put off.' Holly had felt horribly
guilty at the dismay which had filled her at that prospect.
'Mrs Lombardi has a remarkable ability to pull back from death's door,'
Ezio had asserted bracingly. 'In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the
&nb
sp; lady outlives all of us.'
As the limousine turned off the road Holly was amazed to see that the
church appeared to be buried in a sea of parked cars and that there were
a lot of people standing outside the iron railings bounding the car
park. Had there been a wedding booked before their own and had it run on
late? Or was she arriving too early?
Leaning forward, she lifted the car phone to ask Ezio.
'They're all here for your wedding,' the older man informed her, his
astonishment at her question audible.
All those cars? Holly was aghast. She had assumed that there would be no
guests, had believed that their wedding would be a very quiet and
private affair. True, Rio had not said that, but he had told her to
leave Timothy at home with Sarah, and in the time frame concerned and
with him out of the country who on earth could have made arrangements
for so many people to attend?
As she emerged shakily from the car a seething crowd seemed to come out
of nowhere at her. Security guards held back the crush while aggressive
men with cameras shouted and urged her to look up. In the midst of that
fracas, she
was seized by a shock and fear so profound that had Ezio not seized her
elbow and hurried her on into the church she would have shot back into
the limousine and screamed at the chauffeur to drive off again.
In the church porch, she shivered and stared at Ezio in incomprehension.
