In short, Raffaele was in a surprisingly upbeat mood for a man who had been forced to the altar. By the end of the year he would be a father and well on the way to becoming a divorced and single man again as well. That was definitely worth celebrating, wasn’t it? He would be gaining an heir without the encumbrance of a wife and he would have no good reason to remarry. He would’ve done his duty by continuing the family line yet he would also be reclaiming his freedom to live life exactly as he liked. It wasn’t quite how he had planned his future but the key to success was often flexibility and he was convinced that he could make that change in plans work.
Even so, little apprehensions like pieces of grit niggled beneath his skin. How would Vivi cope as a wealthy single parent? Would their child suffer from seeing less of his or her father? Wouldn’t it bother him when Vivi remarried and his child gained a step-parent? There was nothing surer than that a woman with Vivi’s looks would not remain single and alone for very long. His own experience of having a step-parent had been unpleasant but then his father’s drug-addled second wife had been a disaster in every way. There was no reason why Vivi shouldn’t find an acceptable partner, capable of acting as a decent stepfather.
Yet the very thought of Vivi becoming intimate with another man or his child enjoying a stepfather’s care slashed at Raffaele like a thousand cuts from a tiny, sharp-bladed knife because it felt wrong to him on every level. Not only would it be less than ideal, it wasn’t what he wanted for his family and it wouldn’t provide the lasting security that his son or his daughter deserved. But undoubtedly, unlike Vivi, he was too set in his ways, too conventional, too traditional and far too much of a perfectionist to cheerfully accept a less than perfect scenario. He would also be defying his father’s belief that marriage was for life, but then his father’s second marriage had not set a very good example. All of them would have been happier had there been a divorce. The conviction that in some circumstances divorce was the only practical option had removed most of Raffaele’s objections to that solution.
Unaware that Raffaele was already planning their separation and divorce, Vivi spared not a glance at the packed pews that lined the aisle. Her attention leapt straight to Raffaele, lingering on his strong, devastatingly handsome features and the hard power and sensuality etched there that mirrored the lean grace of his tall, athletic body. In just a few months, she told herself urgently, she would be returning to her normal life. It didn’t matter that just looking at Raffaele sent a curl of heat travelling up through her pelvis in a far from controlled and ladylike way. It didn’t matter that this was not how she had expected her life to develop. As she should know better than anyone, life had a habit of throwing up surprises and her baby was one of them.
Raffaele was making an effort to be civil and she would make the same effort, she assured herself. They would be friends and she wouldn’t fight with him any more. Her pregnancy would be peaceful and probably pretty boring but she would take boring over troubled any day of the week, she reasoned, striving to compose herself. The words of the marriage ceremony penetrated even though she was trying hard to block them out and then Raffaele took her hand and slid a platinum wedding ring on her finger, his fingers warm and sure on hers. But then Raffaele seemed to be sure of virtually everything he did, she brooded abstractedly; clearly he did not suffer from the same insecurities that often assailed her.
A little sliver of heat tingled in her pelvis as Raffaele spun her round to face him, dark golden eyes welding to her upturned face. Her knees went weak and wobbled and she fought the sensation fiercely. Friends, she reminded herself doggedly, friends who were going to get along like a house on fire for the next few months and behave like sensible adults. But he had such beautiful eyes, a little voice whispered deep in her brain, shimmering gold like melted caramel in sunshine, in an appraisal that banished the chilled knot of tension inside her.
‘You look totally amazing in that dress, bella mia,’ Raffaele breathed as his hand gripped hers to walk her down the aisle and the church organ swelled into a burst of triumphal music.
The spontaneous compliment warmed her cheeks and she stopped scolding herself for having noticed how arresting his eyes were. It wasn’t his fault that he had lashes longer and thicker than many a woman would kill for, and it wasn’t her fault that she was reacting to his stunning good looks either because that was simply hormones. Of course, that little sizzle of lingering attraction wasn’t going to die off entirely, she reasoned, but it was nothing that she couldn’t control. Being friends was going to work like a treat, she told herself.
Raffaele was reaching a far different conclusion because the gravity of the marriage ceremony had worked to remind him of every moral principle his father and his upbringing had instilled in him from an early age. Vivi was his wife and soon to be the mother of his child. To think of her as anything less, to dismiss her as merely a temporary aberration in his life was short-sighted and disrespectful to them both. At the very least he ought to give their marriage a chance...
After all, he still wanted her.
And on one level that awareness infuriated him because that had never happened to him before with a woman and it was more than a little unnerving. Usually sexual satisfaction led very quickly to lack of interest and boredom for Raffaele, turning his eyes in the direction of a new and more challenging quarry. But just at that moment, as he found his gaze clinging involuntarily to the neat fit of his bride’s dress over the swell of her breasts and the pert curve of her bottom, Raffaele’s high-voltage sex drive was wholly centred on Vivi and an instantaneous need to mark his territory smouldered like a banked-down fire inside him.
His long, brown fingers tightened on her wrist to turn her back to him and she blinked up at him in questioning surprise. A split second later, his mouth crushed hers in stormy demand. It wasn’t a gentle kiss or a quiet formal acknowledgement of their new relationship; no, indeed, it was more a kiss of desire and possession and Vivi was utterly unprepared for it, particularly in front of an audience. Her heart thundered in her ears, her knees went from weak to numb and she leant helplessly against him for support, shaken by that passionate onslaught, for she would’ve sworn Raffaele was the last guy alive to treat her to a passionate kiss at the altar in front of hundreds of people, including the priest. It wasn’t cool, it wasn’t sophisticated but, my goodness, that uninhibited urgency was extraordinarily hot, she conceded helplessly, a slight involuntary shudder rippling through her as his tongue penetrated deep into the moist interior of her mouth and kicked off a surge of sensational response throughout her taut body.
Vivi was still shell-shocked by that sensual assault when he walked her back down the aisle. It wasn’t what she had expected from a man as controlled and cool as Raffaele, indeed it had blown her every expectation of him out of the water, including their new cosy relationship as platonic friends patiently waiting out her unplanned pregnancy. In a daze she shook her head and encountered the smiling attention of a slender brunette. It was Arianna, her former friend and now her sister-in-law, she acknowledged, a wary smile softening her own lips.
Obviously, she would have to overlook the reality that Raffaele’s sister had dumped her like a hot potato and turned her back on her two years earlier. The rejection had hurt, adding to the shamed sense of humiliation she had endured in the wake of the tabloid scandal, but it also struck her as completely unsurprising that Arianna would simply smile at her as if nothing had ever gone wrong between them. That was pure Arianna, warm and uncritical and, in truth, kind of naive about some things. Well, she didn’t want to be at odds with the younger woman and if Arianna could accept her as her brother’s wife, then surely she could be equally tolerant in accepting that for the present they were all part of the same family?
On the steps of the church, cameras and phones flashed in the direction of the newly married couple but Raffaele barely paused his steps, a strong arm curving to her taut spine to guide her towards the privacy of the limousine awaiting them. Vivi only managed a brief nod and smile towards her foster parents, John and Liz, who were standing in the crush with Zoe beside them, but she was impressed that Raffaele