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Though she understood why the other woman had made the choice she had. Annika could feel her heart beating too fast. She couldfeelher own heart. And she knew that there was nothing more she wanted to tell Ranieri than the truth.
Even though she knew he wouldn’t take it well.
She would hold it inside. She would keep it sacred, and hers. And as long as she didn’t say it, she didn’t see why she couldn’t have this year of theirs.
And maybe more than this year, a voice in her whispered, because in everything concerning this man, she was so greedy. So interminably greedy.If you play your cards right.
Annika almost laughed at that as she made her way down the stairs, heading toward Ranieri’s study on autopilot. Because when had she ever been even remotely good at cards?
Well, she would have to learn. And in the meantime, she would take all these new, unwieldy feelings and keep them where they belonged. Deep inside her. Hidden away, like treasures too precious to be taken out in the light.
She could do it, she was sure.
Or in any event, shewoulddo it.
But when she pushed open the door to Ranieri’s study, she didn’t have to worry that he might see her love for him all over her face.
Because he wasn’t alone.
And she was certain she knew exactly who the two older people were who sat there on the couch of the study, neither one of them looking pleased. If she looked closely, she was certain she could see the man she loved in both of them.
Her gaze flew to Ranieri as he stood there at the mantel, looking...cold and cruel.
As distant as if none of these sweet honeymoon days had ever happened.
“Buongiorno, Annika,” he said, but not in the way he normally said her name. Not with that dark delight she’d come to depend on. “How kind of you to join us. May I present my parents. It appears they have invited themselves along on our honeymoon.”
CHAPTER NINE
RANIERITOLDHIMSELFhe was grateful.
Grateful that he had not spoken this morning, so deep inside Annika’s body that he had somehow felt that he was turned inside out. He had not said the things he knew he shouldn’t. He had fought back all those strange and terrible feelings that had broken loose after their conversation the night before. When he had never wished to speak to her ofprideat all.
That was not the word he wanted to use, not when he came to Annika. This woman who took everything he threw at her, wrapped it up in endless delight, and then asked for more.
In his whole life, Ranieri had never met anyone who did not grow weary of his intensity. He had never spent this amount of unrestricted time with a woman. Or with anyone. He had learned long ago that he was better—more effective, even—in small doses. He had come to think of that as a virtue.
But then there was Annika, who had all but lived in his skin for weeks now, and showed no signs at all of wanting or needing a break.
If anything, she seemed to want more.
She was a wonder.
And he had nearly opened his mouth and said the kinds of things he couldn’t take back.
The kind of things that would ruin them.
So really, all things considered, he found himself profoundly grateful that his parents had arrived, unannounced, this morning of all mornings.
His mother, the perpetually dissatisfied Paola, did not openly sneer at her new, American daughter-in-law. Instead, she only treated Annika to a slow perusal, from head to toe and back again, making it clear that she was not impressed with what she saw. “I see that you’ve taken to country life with enthusiasm,” she said.
Ranieri wanted to take his mother apart for that snide tone. But before he could find a way to do that without also showing how much he cared about Annika—information his mother would only use as ammunition, which he could not allow—Annika herself laughed.
“You must forgive me,” she said, her voice warm and something like merry. “I’m on my way to my morning walk out in the fields. I had no idea Ranieri was entertaining or I would have changed into something more appropriate.”
She glanced down at her clothes as if she’d been off rolling around in the dirt when she looked the way she always did. Beautiful. Natural and unstudied, and Ranieri thought that Paola, with her penciled-on brows and dark grooves of disappointment bracketing her lips, would do well to take a page from Annika’s book.
“Your mother has apparently come here to make uncivil remarks,” said his father. “I did not.”
