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‘Yes, it’s a boat.’ Watching the delight on his face lifted her spirits and she had to concede that the room was beautiful. A little boy’s dream.
A window seat was padded with overstuffed, beautifully appliquéd cushions, each reflecting the nautical theme. Baskets overflowed with toys and shelves were stacked with more books than the average bookstore.
‘Your daddy doesn’t understand the word “moderation”,’ Fia muttered, and with that single thought her mind, which she’d managed to distract for all of five minutes, was right back in the night before. No, he certainly didn’t understand moderation. But she’d been as bad, hadn’t she? Wall, floor, shower—
‘Mamma red—’ Luca looked at her and she blinked and snapped herself back to the present.
‘Mamma hot.’ She took his hand and went next door to what was presumably intended as a guest bedroom. It was a pretty room, with a tiny balcony and a view overlooking the private cove beneath the villa.
‘Mamma sleep here,’ Luca said happily, crawling onto the bed and bouncing on it.
Fia stared at him for a long moment and then smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Mamma sleep here. What an excellent idea.’
There was no earthly reason why they had to share a bed.
While Luca ran back to his bedroom and set about turning the place upside down, she removed her clothes from the master suite and transferred them to the spare bedroom. Then she bathed Luca, who now had his own nautical bathroom to match his nautical bedroom, read to him and then allowed Gina to take over so that she could return to the restaurant for evening service.
A hectic evening improved her mood. She hadn’t seen or heard from Santo all day, presumably because he was equally busy with his project to bring the Beach Club up to the standard of the rest of the group. Maybe this could work, she thought. If she played it very, very carefully, she wouldn’t even see him. And if she kept very, very busy she might even stop thinking about him every second of the day.
Testing that theory, she plunged herself into her work, creating dishes, talking to her customers, interacting with her staff. By the time she’d finished for the evening, it was late.
She walked across the sand back to the villa, pausing for a moment to look at the boathouse that had provided her with sanctuary on so many occasions when she was younger. It stood at the far end of their private beach, but Fia couldn’t bring herself to go there. She couldn’t bring herself to confront the memories. She’d known loneliness before but she was fast discovering that there was nothing quite as lonely as a cold, empty marriage. And hers was still in its infancy.
The villa was silent. Gina had clearly retired to bed in the staff apartment, which was situated in an annexe.
Of Santo there was no sign.
Relieved to avoid confrontation, Fia settled herself in the guest bedroom. She took a shower and slid into the large, comfortable bed, her legs aching with tiredness after a day on her feet.
She was already drifting off when the door crashed opened, flooding the room with light.
Santo stood silhouetted in the doorway, his eyes homing in on her like a hunter locating his escaped quarry. ‘Just for the record,’ he said smoothly, ‘hide-and-seek is a game for children, not adults.’
‘I wasn’t playing hide and seek.’
‘Then what the hell are you doing in here? When I come home from work I don’t expect to have to search for you.’ The combination of his lethal tone and the darkening of those eyes sent nerves fluttering through her.
‘You were expecting me to wait up and bring you your slippers?’ He was so extreme, she thought. Another man might have waited until morning, or just opened the door and had a civilized conversation. Not Santo. He virtually broke it down.
He prowled into the room, circling the bed like a dangerous animal gauging the best method of attack. ‘Did you really think I’d let you sleep here?’
‘It is my choice where I sleep,’ Fia muttered, holding the silk sheets firmly around her, which was ridiculous, of course, because nothing so flimsy would protect her from a man like Santo.
‘You made that choice when you married me. You’ll sleep in my bed tonight and every other night.’ Moving so swiftly she didn’t have time to react, he ripped the sheet from her fist and scooped her into his arms.
‘Get off me! Stop behaving like a caveman.’ She twisted in his grip but he simply grasped her more tightly, his superior strength making it impossible for her to escape. ‘You’ll wake Luca!’
‘Then stop yelling.’
‘He’ll see!’
‘And what he will see is his father carrying his mother to bed,’ Santo growled, as he strode towards the master suite, ‘which is a perfectly acceptable scenario. I have no problems with him knowing his parents sleep together.’ Kicking the door shut behind him, he walked over to the enormous bed and deposited her in the middle of it.
‘For God’s sake, Santo—’
‘Let me give you some tips about how to make a marriage work. First, withholding sex is not going to improve my mood,’ he said coldly. ‘Second, I can have you flat on your back within five seconds of making the effort so let’s cut the pretence. It’s one of the few things we have in common.’
‘You think you’re so irresistible.’ Fia shot upright, intending to run for the door, but he came down over her, flattening her to the bed with his superior weight, pinning her arms above her head with one hand.
