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“Spend them in Palermo with my family. Mamma wishes to meet you and Martina is home from university. She will enjoy the companionship of someone closer to her own age.”
“You told your mother about me?”
“Si.” She would have been very hurt if he had sprung a bride on her out of the blue. She was not overly pleased that Hope was American rather than Sicilian, but the prospect of grandchildren outweighed even that drawback.
“What did you tell her?” Hope was looking at him as if he’d grown donkey ears.
“Why the shock?” He had told Hope his intentions. “I told Mamma I had met a woman I wanted for mi moglie, my wife.”
“I know what the word means.” She took a gulp of coffee and then started coughing.
He was around the table in a moment, pressing a glass of water into her hands. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. It was too hot.”
“Be more careful, carina. If you burn your mouth, how can I kiss it?”
She blushed and set the glass of water down with a trembling hand as he resumed his seat.
“I wasn’t sure you were serious, about marriage I mean.” Again the charming blush.
“I am.”
She nodded, the soft chestnut curls around her face bouncing. “I can see that, but it’s such a shock.”
To him as well. He had not been anticipating marriage just yet, particularly to a shy American virgin. “Life is not so easily predicted.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“So, will you come to Sicily with me and stay in my home with my mother and sister?”
“I don’t know.”
He stifled his impatience. She was skittish, like an untried mare. He did not want to spook her when his plans were finally working out as he had originally expected. Perhaps the emergency in New York had been a gift from the good God because it had given her time to make up her mind to him.
“What makes you hesitate?” he asked, allowing none of his impatience to show in his voice. “Are you concerned for your virtue? Mamma will act as sufficient chaperone surely.”
“I’m not worried about that. I’m twenty-three years old. I don’t need your mother’s protection.”
He smiled at her feistiness. “What then?”
“Grandfather might not like it.”
“I have already spoken to your grandfather.”
“You have?” Once again she looked like a doe startled by an unexpected sound.
“Si. It is only natural I should speak to him when I wish to marry his granddaughter.” He said nothing of the fact Reynolds had been the one to instigate the meeting. That was not relevant to Luciano and Hope. He wanted to marry her. That was the only issue she need be concerned with.
“How can you say that so calmly?”
“Say what?” he asked.
“That bit about wanting to marry me. I mean we haven’t even led up to it and suddenly, boom, here you are saying you want to marry me like it’s a foregone conclusion. You haven’t even asked me.”
Nor had he courted her and a woman deserved to be courted to marriage. But…“Have we not led up to it? The kiss we shared on New Year’s Eve, the kisses we shared last week, they lead to bed and bed with a virgin means marriage for this Italian male.”
Her pale skin took on a fiercely rosy hue. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Do you still deny the way we kissed gave me claim to you?” He had thought they were past that.
“No, but marriage is not necessarily the next inevitable step.”
“It is.”
“Come on, Luciano. Like I’ve said before, you can’t tell me you marry every woman you kiss passionately.”
Had he ever shared a passion so volatile with another woman? He did not think so. “I have never kissed another virgin.”
“Hush!” She looked around, her expression almost comical. “This is not the place to discuss my sexual experience, or lack thereof.”
“I agree.” It was exciting him to think of introducing her into the pleasures of the flesh. He wanted to be able to walk when they left the restaurant, but if they didn’t change the subject he wasn’t going to be able to.
“Come to Palermo and let me convince you.”
“You mean like a courtship?”
“Si. Exactly.”
“I didn’t think men still did that.”
“It is a ritual that will continue through the millennia, whatever you choose to call it. Men will pursue their chosen mate with whatever means at their disposal.”
“And your means are a couple of weeks in Palermo with your family?” She sounded bemused, shocked even.
“Si.”
