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“I love you too,” Julienne replied.
She waited until she heard the helicopter blades begin to whir. She watched it rise into the air to whisk Fleurette back to an airfield outside of Florence, where one of the Cassara jets waited for her.
Then she went back into the villa, a married woman, to find her husband waiting for her.
She should have been dancing for joy. Or at least simmering with it, somewhere inside. She wore a lovely white dress. She had his rings on her finger. And when she came into the salon where he waited, staring down at one of those tumblers of whiskey he never drank, he gazed at her with a look on his face that she could only describe as possessive.
This was what she’d wanted.
Wasn’t it?
“I’ve taken the liberty of moving your things into the master bedroom,” he told her in his calm, certain way. “And now, wife, I think it is time we consummate this marriage. Unless you would like to take this opportunity to further debate my grandparents’ marriage.”
She wanted to smile, but her mouth felt funny. “I would not.”
Cristiano’s smile was not funny at all. It was savage. Erotic.
He swept her into his arms, lifting her as if she weighed nothing at all though she was seven months pregnant. He carried her through the villa, then bore her into the master bedroom, where he lay her down on the bed as if she was fragile.
And wasn’t that a funny thing, because she certainly felt fragile.
His mouth was demanding on hers, and it didn’t matter what oddities she felt in her heart tonight, because her body was his.
Always, only, and ever his.
His hands moved over her, as if he was learning her anew. As if the fact she was nowhis wifemade her a stranger he needed to reacquaint himself with. Inch by inch.
She wanted to burst into tears, or let out a terrible sob she wasn’t sure would ever end. Instead, she poured it into her own kisses. She took it out on his body, peeling off the gorgeously tailored suit he wore to find the glory of his flesh beneath.
And this time, he lifted her to straddle him and then watched her as she rode them both toward that bliss, his eyes a fierce claiming all their own.
She sobbed all right, passion and that odd stone inside her together making her too raw to do anything but let it out. Again and again and again.
And she loved him. And she was married to him now. And somehow, she had to come to terms with what all of that meant.
Because it wasn’t what she thought it would mean, back when she’d fantasized about things like this. About him.
He poured himself into her, and then they lay there together. They both fought to catch their breath as the breeze came in through the windows smelling of jasmine, the deep green of growing things and the dark brown earth, and the faintest touch of rosemary.
She thought about bookends. She thought about that dark, grim life she and Fleurette had escaped in the hills of France. She thought about that awful bus ride down into Monte Carlo with the last of their euros, the stolen dress and the longest walk of her life into that hotel bar.
“You deserve to be loved,”Fleurette had said.
And maybe, just maybe, Julienne also deserved to ask for more. Instead of simply accepting what came her way and thinking that was the height of what life had to offer. She understood his grandmother, that was the thing. She understood the decision to live as she liked, to bealive, even if it meant living all alone in exile and scaring children while she did it. Just because most women didn’t make that choice didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the temptation of it, like another bit of jasmine in the air, blooming just for her.
“Cristiano,” she said, as much to the dark ceiling above her as to the man who lay beside her. The man who had married her in haste, despite the fact everyone knew how that went, traditionally. But would he be the one doing the repenting? Or would she? “Husband.”
“Wife,” he said, as if in agreement.
She shifted to look at him, propping herself up on her elbow and wishing her belly didn’t make her feel quite so ungainly.
“Why do you look so serious?” he asked. “Everything is settled now. You and me. Our son. If you truly wish it, I will introduce you to my grandmother, though I will have to insist you maintain a reasonable distance. You never know if she’ll throw things.”
“I love you,” she said, and she could hear the foreboding in her own voice. The worry. But she said it, and that startled, thunderstruck look on his face didn’t make her take it back. “I love you, Cristiano. I always have. I loved you when I was a teenager you happened to save, and I loved you as a businesswoman who sought your good opinion in the office. I loved you when I came to you in that hotel six months ago, and I loved you even before you recognized our son. I have loved you a thousand ways already, and I imagine I will love you in a thousand more before we’re done.”
And she wasn’t surprised when all he did was stare at her, his expression arrested. Frozen, almost.
Hurt, yes. But not surprised.
