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Joshua shook his head. “You’re wrong. There was only one thing Hope wanted and I got it for her.”
Understanding came slowly. “Me.”
Joshua turned and looked at Luciano, his expression almost harsh. “You. She wanted you and I was damned determined she was going to have you.”
Had she known all along then? Had she told her grandfather she wanted to marry Luciano and then waited for the old man to procure her a husband? Remembering how difficult she had been to catch, he dismissed the idea.
He remembered too how Hope’s gaze used to follow him at business dinners and how she had been on New Year’s Eve. Luciano was positive that Joshua had witnessed more passion between Hope and Luciano on New Year’s Eve than he had ever seen with her and another man. He had drawn his own conclusions about his granddaughter’s behavior and acted accordingly.
Hope was not devious, not like her grandfather or her new husband. She was honest and giving as both men had agreed, too soft to be party to something as reprehensible as blackmail. She would be appalled by Joshua’s ruthless actions in securing her a husband and equally devastated to know what Luciano planned in retaliation.
He would make sure she never found out.
He didn’t want her hurt, but he did want her grandfather to realize the folly of blackmailing Luciano di Valerio.
Hope stood in the bathroom and brushed her hair and then fluffed it around her face for the tenth time. She’d tried pulling it up, but hadn’t liked the severity of the effect, besides what woman wore her hair up to go to bed? It hardly seemed conducive to a passionate wedding night, but then neither did her hiding in the bathroom for an hour and a half.
Luciano was waiting out in the suite’s bedroom. She’d come into the en suite to get ready on his suggestion. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she was struggling with the courage it took to open that door and join the man she had married. It was the joining part that had her cowering like a ninny in the bathroom.
She should be ready.
They’d come close to making love twice. She’d been naked with him, for Heaven’s sake.
None of that seemed to matter to the nerves shaking her equilibrium until she felt like a soda bottle ready to fizz over the side in a bubbly mess.
She wanted Luciano. Desperately. But she was afraid. Afraid she would disappoint him. Afraid it would hurt. Afraid that once they had made love, he would lose interest in her. She was something different in his life, not one of the sophisticated jet-setters he was used to having affairs with. Not like Zia.
She was just Hope. A cultural anachronism. A twenty-three-year-old virgin. Could she maintain his interest once the newness wore off, the uniqueness of making love to a woman of no experience?
A hard tattoo sounded on the door. It had been gentle an hour ago and thirty minutes ago and even fifteen minutes ago, but the impatience he must be feeling was now coming out in the force with which he rapped on the door.
“Hope?” Definitely impatience in his voice.
“Yes?”
“Are you coming out, cara?”
She stared at the door as if it might explode into flame at any moment. If it did, she wouldn’t have to go through it, she thought a bit hysterically. Of course it didn’t and she forced herself to cover the few feet so she could unlock and open the door. She turned the handle and pulled the door toward her.
He stood on the other side, a pair of black silk pajama bottoms slung low on his hips. The rest of his magnificent body was naked.
She swallowed. “Hi.” She was making Minnie Mouse impersonations again. That only happened around him.
“You are frightened.”
What had been his first clue? The ninety-minute-long sojourn in the bathroom or the death grip she had on the door now? “Maybe a little.”
“You have nothing to fear, tesoro mio,” he said with supreme confidence, “I will be gentle with you.”
Easy for him to say. Not that she doubted his gentleness, but this was different than anything they had shared before. It was premeditated. She found that being overcome with passion was a very different animal to psyching herself up to making love completely for the first time.
If that weren’t enough, what they were about to do would have permanent ramifications. The wedding was a ceremony, this was the reality of being married. She was about to become one with this man, a man who inspired both feelings of awe and love in her. But with love came trust, or so she had always believed.
“I’m not afraid of you.” Just the situation.
He put one brown hand out toward her. “Then show me, little one. Come to me.”
Luciano waited tensely for Hope to come to him. He did not know how much longer he could keep a rein on his desire.
