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He did not understand what was happening to him. He had assumed he would think of his marriage to Paloma as simply another business deal and he was unprepared for the possessiveness that swept through him. Just as inexplicably, he found himself imagining Paloma was his wife for real. He was no good for her, he reminded himself. For so long he’d believed that he had not been good enough for his mother and his heart had turned to stone.
One day Paloma would marry a man who could give her the love she clearly craved and deserved, and she and her husband would have beautiful children and she would be a devoted mother. Daniele pictured a happy family. He felt like a child with his nose pressed against a sweet-shop window, staring enviously at something he would never have and, until now, he’d never thought he wanted.
Dancing with Daniele in the moonlight was dangerous. It made Paloma wish that she were in the arms of a man who loved her, a husband who had married her because he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. She had thought she could distance her emotions from the wedding ceremony. But when she had stood beside Daniele in the chapel to make their vows, her heart had been thumping.
She had reminded herself that his husky voice when he’d promised to love and cherish her and the warmth in his amber eyes as he’d slid a white-gold wedding ring onto her finger, next to her grandmother’s sapphire engagement ring, were a demonstration of his impressive acting skills. It had been the same at the reception when Daniele had dipped his head towards her and listened attentively to what she was saying. In a room full of guests, she’d only had eyes for him.
She did not know why he had followed her onto the balcony or why he’d asked her to dance with him, and she gave up trying to fathom the mind of this enigmatic man. The warmth of his body pressed close against hers entered her bloodstream, and the spicy scent of his aftershave was all around her as they moved in total harmony to the seductive beat of the music. Was the erratic thud of his heart that she could feel when she laid her hand on his chest fake?
A discreet cough from the doorway leading to the dining room broke the magic, and she stepped away from Daniele as one of the castle’s footmen explained that he would escort them to the white tower.
‘Prince Dragan said it is a tradition for the bride and groom to spend their wedding night in the tower,’ Daniele told her when the footman had left them at the bottom of a narrow spiral staircase. ‘Our belongings were moved by the staff earlier.’
The stairs seemed to climb up for ever, and Paloma was breathless when she eventually arrived at the top and stepped into a huge, circular room. The domed ceiling was made of glass and the inky sky and countless glittering stars looked close enough to touch. A four-poster bed was hung with velvet drapes, but the top was open so that the view of the heavens was uninterrupted.
Daniele discovered a large en suite bathroom complete with a roll-top bath. He walked off to explore the rest of the tower but returned minutes later, frowning. ‘This is the only bedroom.Dio, I’m sorry. The Prince believes our marriage is real, and naturally, he assumed we would share a bed. Don’t worry,’ he said when he saw Paloma’s startled expression. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa in the dressing room.’
He strode into the adjoining room and closed the door, leaving Paloma alone in the bedroom that had been designed for romance. In the mirror, the reflection of a virgin bride mocked her. Before they had been disturbed on the balcony, she was sure Daniele had been about to kiss her. There had been pain in his voice when he’d told her what his mother had said. Why would his grandmother have hidden the letters from his mother? Had she believed Daniele would be upset to hear from Claudia Farnesi, or had his grandmother acted out of spite because she’d disliked his mother?
Paloma wanted to offer her sympathy to Daniele after the shocking revelations that had torn his family apart and destroyed his relationship with his mother. She saw in the mirror her enlarged pupils and flushed cheeks and knew she was kidding herself. What she wanted was for Daniele to make love to her. Their marriage must continue until her twenty-fifth birthday, months away, but the pretence of being a happy couple was already becoming a strain. Every time they were in public, and he smiled at her with heart-stopping tenderness or gently brushed a strand of hair off her cheek, she fell further under his spell. Each time he kissed her, she wanted more than his kisses.
Without pausing to think her decision through, she tapped on the door of the dressing room and waited for an agonising few seconds before she let herself into the room just as Daniele emerged from what must be an additional bathroom. His hair was damp, and droplets of water clung to his chest hairs that continued down over his flat abdomen before disappearing beneath the edge of the towel he’d knotted around his waist. His gaze collided with hers, and the flare of hunger that turned his amber eyes to liquid gold reassured Paloma that she was not about to make a fool of herself.
He lifted a brow. ‘Is there a problem,cara?’
‘I need help to unzip my dress.’
‘Turn around,’ he bade her in a clipped voice as he walked towards her.
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s a side zip.’ She indicated the cleverly disguised zip that started under her arm and ran down to her hip.
Daniele’s big chest rose and fell swiftly when he realised that she could undo the zip herself. ‘What do you want, Paloma?’
‘You,’ she whispered.
He shook his head, and Paloma felt heat spread over her face as mortification loomed, thinking he did not want her. ‘If I touch you, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stop,’ he said tautly. ‘It was hard enough when you changed your mind last time.’ The flames in his eyes scorched her. ‘You have to be sure,cara.’
‘I am.’
Still he made no move towards her. ‘I want to have sex with you.Dio.’
His rough laugh made her skin prickle.
‘Want does not come near to describing how badly I ache for you. But the situation is already complicated.’
‘If we are lovers, it might make things less complicated. It will be easier to convince people that our relationship is genuine.’ Inwardly, Paloma could hardly believe she was negotiating the terms of making love with Daniele. Having sex, she corrected herself. Love did not feature in any bargain she made with him. ‘Our marriage has a time limit,’ she reminded him.
‘And we are wasting time talking.’ His slow smile set Paloma’s pulse racing. Daniele closed the gap between them in one stride, and whether by accident or design, his hand brushed the side of her breast as he slid her zip down.
‘You will have to lift the dress over my head,’ Paloma told him. The silk felt sensuous against her skin when Daniele gathered the long skirt in his hands and eased the material up her body as she raised her arms in the air. She was momentarily swathed in metres of white silk and could not see his face, but she heard him growl when he uncovered her sheer bra with a delicate floral pattern over the nipples.
‘You blow my mind,’ he said rawly. ‘You have no idea how long I have wanted to do this.’ He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the side of her neck, trailing kisses up to her jaw, and finally slanted his lips over hers. He kissed her until she was mindless and aware only of his potent masculinity as she ran her hands over his naked chest and felt the faint abrasion of his body hairs beneath her palms.
He unfastened her bra and let it fall away from her breasts.‘Perfetto.’His voice was thick, and the fierce glitter in his eyes sent a shiver of excitement through Paloma. Calum’s foreplay had been rushed and perfunctory, but she’d believed—because he’d told her—that it was her fault she had not become aroused.
How was it that Daniele simply had to look at her and molten heat pooled between her legs? He cupped her pale breasts in his darkly tanned hands and rubbed his thumbs across her nipples so that they tightened and a sensation like an electrical current arced down to her pelvis. Any worries she’d had that her body would be unresponsive to his caresses disappeared. She was burning up, and impatient for her first sexual experience at long last. But she was reluctant to admit to Daniele that this was new for her. Talking would mean he’d stop kissing her and doing the wicked things with his hands and mouth that turned her legs to jelly.
Paloma trailed her fingertips over Daniele’s stomach until she came to the edge of his towel.
