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But Imma had barely registered any of it. Not the food, nor the music or the toasts. Of course she had gone through the pantomime of raising her glass to her mouth and smiling and nodding, but inside she had been too busy trying to work out the enigma that was Vicenzu Trapani.
She’d expected to like him—obviously. A man didn’t get the kind of reputation he had for no reason. And this must be how he was with every woman. She was no different in her response to his easy charm and lush beauty.
And yet although she had wanted to find him shallow and spoilt, flirtatious and flippant—and he was all of those things—she felt she might have misjudged him.
Particularly in those moments like now, when he seemed to forget that she was there and his eyes would seek out his mother at the far end of the table.
Her breathing lost its rhythm. Of course she missed her own mother, but his loss was so recent...still raw.
Glancing over at him, she said hesitantly, ‘It must be difficult.’
‘Difficult?’ He raised one perfect eyebrow.
‘Today. I mean, without your father. I know Papà wishes he’d come to him sooner.’
Vicenzu’s handsome face didn’t change, but she could sense an immediate tightening beneath the surface of his skin.
‘It’s no harder than any other day.’
The lazy amusement had left his voice and her cheeks grew warm. Wanting to kick herself, she glanced across the dance floor to where Ciro had taken over from Cesare. Watching him gaze down into Claudia’s upturned face, she felt an ache of the loss to come.
‘I’m sorry, Vicenzu—’
‘It’s Vicè—and, no, I’m sorry.’ He frowned, his face creasing without impairing its beauty. ‘You’re right. It is hard without him, and I should have expected it to be, but I’m an idiot.’
Maybe it was the bleakness in his eyes, or perhaps his earlier defiance of her father, but she felt suddenly protective of him.
‘You’re not an idiot for missing your father. I miss my mother every day.’
They were so close she could feel his warm breath on her face, see the stubble already forming on his jaw. For a full sixty seconds they stared at each other, wide-eyed, mesmerised by the bond they seemed to have formed out of nowhere, and then, standing up, he held out his hand.
‘Maybe not,’ he said slowly. ‘But I will be an idiot if I leave this wedding without having at least one dance with you.’ He hesitated. ‘That is if you’ll dance with me?’
Her mouth felt dry and her blood was humming in her ears. She could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on her. But her eyes were fixed on his and, nodding slowly, she stood up and took his hand.
CHAPTER TWO
BREATHING OUT, VICÈ pulled Imma against him, keeping his beautiful face blank of expression. It was all part of the plan, he told himself. The first step in his great seduction of Immacolata Buscetta.
But inside his head a war was raging between the man he was and the man he was trying to be and needed to be.
No change there, then, he thought irritably.
Except this time there would be no second chances.
It should be easy—and had it been any other woman it would have been. Women liked him. He liked them. But Imma wasn’t like other women. She was the daughter of his enemy—and as such he’d expected to hate her on sight.
Everything he’d seen and heard about her in advance had made that seem likely. He’d expected her to be cool and reserved, less overtly aggressive than Cesare, but still her father’s daughter. And she was definitely a princess. Watching her with her staff, it had been clear to him that her quiet wo
rds and the decisive up-tilt to her jaw held the same authority as a royal command.
Her dark, demure dress seemed to confirm the message that she wanted to be taken seriously—only it couldn’t hide her long, coltish legs.
He felt his chest rise and fall.
And as for that long dark hair... It might be neatly knotted at the nape of her neck but he could all too easily imagine running his fingers through its rich, silky length, and her bee-stung parted lips definitely seemed to contradict the wariness in her green eyes.
In short, she was beautiful. Just not the cold, diamond-hard beauty he’d anticipated.
