"It threw me off when you said it. I'd never—apart from my nieces, no one had ever said those words to me. They freaked me out." He looked down, his shame no longer allowing him to meet my eyes, to see the truth that he'd dismissed so long ago.
"Especially since…what I feel for you, and what Ifeltfor you back then…it overwhelmed me," he confessed.
"I was bloody scared of my feelings for you. They were too strong, too much, and too fast. I was worried that I would turn out like my father…in love with someone who felt nothing for me. Manipulated by someone who only used those words as a way to make a fool out of me. Later on, when our marriage settled and you never said those words again, I chalked it up to the pressure of our unique situation. Our marriage, though normal to us, was not real in the traditional sense. We'd just agreed to give our marriage a real go and spent an incredible three weeks together. You were also a virgin, so I thought you were having a knee-jerk reaction to your first lovemaking."
I nodded, understanding what he meant. Because I had no experience and had not had a serious boyfriend prior, he thought it natural that I would latch on and fall for my first sexual partner.
"When your father first put an offer of marriage to you on the table, I was pissed. I knew that I would eventually marry one day, and not for love. But I thought she would be someone within my circle and age group. Perhaps we would date for a little while to ensure we were compatible. She would be older and sophisticated with experience under her belt."
His mouth twisted in a wry grin, needing to soothe his words so as not to offend. "A whirlwind marriage to an eighteen-year-old was not on my radar."
I glanced up at him beneath coy lashes. "So what changed your mind?"
He sighed and reached out to stroke one rosy cheek. "I guess it started when I saw a picture of you. I couldn't deny that I found you extremely attractive, but I also couldn't deny that I was extremely attractedtoyou. I was left feeling intrigued and annoyed. I couldn't get you out of my head, so I requested a meeting."
"And you were so arrogant and rude, I wanted nothing to do with you," I dryly remembered.
He shook his head. "And I left that meeting more infatuated with you than ever. And not bloody happy about it. I have to tell you; I did somewhat trick you into marrying me—"
"Cesare told me all about it." I smirked, smugness overcoming me that I had one over him. "My father took marriage off the table in some sort of parental guilty conscience—but you insisted upon it anyway."
His mouth tightened, yet his eyes were alight with humour. "My father gossips worse than a knitting circle."
"He loves you. If he didn't, he wouldn't have approached me to leave you to make you happy."
"Dio mio, that would have had the opposite effect! Though I must admit, I was seriously contemplating a separation."
I flinched at that confession, confusion at that reveal clouding my vision. "You were?"
His arms encircled my waist, and he pulled me up against his body. "I could sense that you were miserable, and I didn't want to be the reason for that anymore. So I very unselfishly started to look into a divorce solicitor." He shook his head. "And then Gordon called about you being in this hotel, and I wised up pretty damn fast. When I was smacked in the face with the reality that I was actually about to lose you, I knew in that moment that there was nothing I wouldn't do, no law I wouldn't break, to keep you."
"If you felt that strongly about me, even if you didn't realise that it was love, why did you dump me off at your home in Devon?"
"Out of sight, out of mind." His deep voice was heavy with regret. His large hands tucked themselves under my shirt, their roughness spanning the expanse of my bare back.
"When I married you, I was determined to have a marriage purely in name only. We'd stay legally bound for a few years until I was ready to be married. No harm, no foul."
"So why did you come after me seven months later?"
"Curiosity, mainly. I was highly amused by your passive-aggressive retaliation."
I huffed indignantly. They were supposed to piss him off, not amuse him.
"But then your purchases changed from diamond bracelets to farm feed. I thought: 'I'll just check that she's okay. That she hadn't palmed her credit card off to some hapless farmer as punishment.'" His expression turned severe, his brow raised. "I didnotexpect to find you flirting with some farmhand."
"Tom's lovely."
"And fancies the pants off you," he swiftly countered. "I saw his crestfallen face when I informed him that you were leaving."
"Is that why you haven't let me go back?"
He tilted his chin in that unapologetic, manly and arrogant way.
"I never planned on taking you to Sicily, but the words were out of my mouth before I could think. I was eaten by jealousy and wanted you well away from prying male eyes."
"And I was so mad that you dragged me there," I wistfully recalled, "but the joke was on me because I ended up falling madly in love with you."
He groaned, his body crowding mine as he attempted to soothe the hurt away. "And you heard me on the phone making those…plans."
