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There was an odd note in her grandfather’s voice.
“As she has said, she is happy.” Luciano’s tone was flat and emotionless.
She felt like an intruder on their conversation even though she and her grandfather had been talking first. “I’ll let you two talk business,” Hope interjected.
Her grandfather said goodbye, but Luciano said nothing and she hung up the phone.
Up in their bedroom, she undressed and took a quick shower before pulling on matching lace bra and panties. She was pulling a lavender sheath dress from the closet when Luciano walked into the room.
She laid it on the bed and went over to him, expecting a kiss of greeting, but he sidestepped her. “I need a shower.”
“You look wonderful to me.” She smiled.
He looked better than wonderful. In his tailored Italian suit that clung lovingly to the well-developed muscles of his thighs, he looked edible.
He didn’t return her smile. “Like a Thanksgiving turkey all tied up?” he asked grimly.
“You heard that?”
“Si. I heard.” He looked totally unapproachable.
Heard and been seriously upset by it.
“Don’t let Grandfather’s analogies annoy you.” She pulled her dress off the hanger and tossed the hanger back onto the bed. “It’s just the way he is.”
“He is blunt.”
She smiled again, this time in relief at his understanding. “Right,” she said as she pulled the dress over her head. “He’s not very tactful, but I think he means well.”
She straightened the dress over her hips.
“When it comes to you, his granddaughter, there is no doubt of this.”
“You know, I think you’re right.” It was a novel concept, but one that unraveled some of the pain that had been caused by her grandfather’s rejection throughout her growing-up years. “It feels good to be cared about, to tell you the truth.”
“Regardless of what form that caring takes?” Luciano asked, his expression just this side of feral.
She didn’t know what was wrong with him, but then there were still a lot of things about her husband she did not understand.
“We can’t always choose how someone will love us.” Or if they would love you at all, she thought. Her grandfather had certainly done a good job of hiding any affection he felt for her before.
“And you will take whatever form of love he gives, or is it that you are happy to reap the advantage of his desire to give it at all?”
Okay, her grandfather’s comments had been less than flattering to Luciano, but surely he wasn’t offended by the older man’s claim at matchmaking. Perhaps his male ego was wounded by the thought of someone interfering in his life like that.
She stepped over to him and laid her hand on his chest. “How we came to be together is not as important as the fact that we are together, is it?”
“For you, I can see that it is not.” He swung violently away and stormed into the bathroom.
The door shut with an audible click.
Shocked into immobility, she stared at it for the longest time. What in the world had just happened?
Luciano’s reaction to the situation was totally over the top. His fury at the discovery that her grandfather’s request he check on her in Athens had been an attempt at matchmaking was disproportionate to the circumstances. Even taking into account that it had been a successful attempt and he might feel somewhat manipulated, was it really so awful?
Luciano was a really smart guy. Hadn’t he even suspected ulterior motives when Joshua Reynolds asked for such a personal favor? Especially after that kiss on New Year’s Eve.
One thing became glaringly clear to her as she stood in transfixed stupefaction. If Luciano really had loved her, it would not have mattered. His pride would not find such offense in her grandfather’s harmless machinations. After all, it wasn’t as if Joshua had held a gun to Luciano’s head and forced him to marry Hope.
He’d set them up to meet again, but Luciano had been the one to pursue her. He had invited her to come to Palermo, so why was he acting like her grandfather’s actions and her acceptance of them was so heinous? If anything was at fault for their marriage, it was Luciano’s desire.
Feeling sick, she realized that was all it was. Desire.
And desire was not the soother of pride that love was.
She’d been so sure he was coming to love her, but his reaction tonight showed her how wrong she had been.
Luciano stood under the hot water and cursed until his throat was raw with it.
She had been in on it all along.
This woman he had trusted and believed would make the perfect mother for his children was in reality a scheming witch who did not care how she got what she wanted so long as she got it. Where he had seen innocence, there had been deviousness.
