Her hand trembled in his when he slid on the wedding ring. A nice touch, he thought cynically, a bridal display of nerves and modesty and utterly wasted on Cristo, who was the last man alive likely to be impressed or taken in by such pretences. He was gaining a very beautiful and desirable wife, he reminded himself doggedly, and putting a lid on the threat of an unsavoury scandal. Even his brothers didn’t know what he was doing, for the last thing he would have risked was bringing either of them to the scene of Gaetano’s reckless shenanigans in this little Irish village.
Cristo pretty much ignored Belle on the short drive back to the Lodge, where a small catered buffet and drinks had been laid on for the family and the few friends invited. It had not escaped Belle’s notice that Cristo had not invited a single person and it bothered her, making her wonder if he was ashamed of her and her humble background and lack of designer polish.
Bruno walked up to Cristo in the hall. ‘Could we have a word?’ he asked, youthful face taut and pale.
Bruno was the living image of Zarif as a teenager and that likeness had unsettled Cristo at their first brief and awkward meeting the evening before. It seemed that Gaetano had stamped the Ravelli genes very firmly on all his offspring.
‘Is there a problem?’ Cristo enquired, a fine ebony brow lifting.
The teenager backed into the small space at the foot of the stairs and said gruffly, ‘If you hurt my sister like your father hurt my mother, I swear I’ll kill you.’
Cristo almost laughed but a stray shard of compassion squashed his amusement when he recalled his own turbulent teenaged years. In any case the warning had all the hallmarks of a prepared speech and, having delivered it, Bruno was backing off fast, troubled brown eyes nervously pinned to Cristo as though he was expecting an immediate physical attack. Before the boy could leave, Christo called him back.
‘We’re family now and I’m not like my father in any way,’ Cristo responded very quietly to the teenager. ‘I have no desire to hurt any woman.’
From a tactful distance, Belle absorbed that little interplay. Although she hadn’t heard the conversation, she suspected that Bruno had probably been very rude in his outspoken need to protect her and she recognised with a sense of unfamiliar warmth that Cristo had handled her kid brother with surprising sympathy. Their kid brother, she mentally corrected, yet there it was—Cristo might not be ready yet to acknowledge that blood tie, but he had restrained both his cutting tongue and his temper when he dealt with Bruno and she was grateful for his kindness.
As Bruno moved hurriedly away, his goal evidently accomplished, Cristo studied the slim dark man whose eyes were welded to Belle’s vibrant face as she talked to her grandmother’s friends. Cristo stiffened, aggression powering through him as he recognised the son of the land agent, Petrie. Petrie’s son, Mark, was attracted to his wife. His wife. The shock of that designation ricocheted through Cristo as well and he suppressed his awareness of both strange reactions. He concentrated on Belle instead and watched when she fell still the instant she saw him looking at her, enabling him to clearly see her sudden tension and insecurity.
The golden power of Cristo’s gaze was almost mesmeric in its intensity and Belle gulped down the rest of the wine in her glass.
‘Eat something,’ Isa instructed. ‘You didn’t have any breakfast.’
Belle accepted the sandwich extended for the sake of peace, for although her tummy felt hollow it had nothing to do with hunger. ‘I’ll go and get changed,’ she said uneasily, ruffling Franco’s curly head where he stood by her side.
Cristo was still in the hall, detached from the small crowd by a barrier of reserve that chilled her.
‘He’s not very friendly, is he?’ her sister Donetta whispered in her ear.
Belle forced a smile, cursing Cristo’s detachment and his clear reluctance to use the opportunity to get to know his younger siblings. ‘He’s just shy.’
‘Shy?’ Donetta gasped in surprise.
‘Very shy,’ Belle lied, wanting to lay the teenager’s concerns to rest. ‘It’ll be different when he gets to know all of you properly.’
And the burden of ensuring that it would be different was on her shoulders, Belle acknowledged apprehensively, registering what a challenge she had set herself. Cristo had been raised an only child and a family the size of hers had to be a shock to his reticent nature. Franco was tugging at his jacket, looking up at Cristo with adoring brown eyes, and Cristo was at least tolerating the child, she reasoned ruefully, wondering if that was the most she could hope for from him when it came to the children. And her? Would he only be tolerating her as well? A shiver of distaste at that image ran down her back until she was warmed by the recollection of his considered response to Bruno.
‘Where are you going?’ Cristo enquired when she brushed past him to head for the stairs.
‘I’m getting changed...for the flight you mentioned,’ she extended awkwardly, lashes screening her strained green eyes.
He was her husband, for goodness’ sake, and he had decreed that they would be flying out of Ireland within hours of the ceremony. She had thought about arguing but then had seen no point in trying to put off the inevitable. She had given up her life to enter his and leaving home was the first step in that process.
‘No. I like the dress. Don’t take it off.’
Thoroughly taken aback by the command, Belle glanced up at him in astonishment at the request. ‘I can’t trudge through an airport dressed like this.’
‘I have a private jet and we won’t be trudging anywhere. Don’t take the dress off, bellezza mia,’ Cristo instructed sibilantly, a strong dark forefinger curling below her chin to lift it so that she collided with smouldering golden eyes. ‘I want to be the one who takes it off.’
Face burning, breath coming in tortured bursts, Belle fled upstairs, barely able to credit that he had said that to her. She had read about male fantasies and he had just told her his with a lack of embarrassment that made her all the more conscious of her own ignorance. He was already fantasising about removing her bridal gown. It was a useful message as to what went on in Cristo’s arrogant head. While she was worrying about him getting to know and like their brothers and sisters he was thinking about sex. Was that all their marriage meant to him? Sex and the threat of a big scandal removed?
And if it was, what on earth could she do about it? All her gran’s warnings and dire predictions came crashing down on her at once. What if he was cruel? Unfaithful? Belle swallowed hard, mastering her tumultuous emotions. You made your bed, now you have to lie on it...literally, she told herself sternly as she checked that she had packed the most essential things for herself and Franco.
* * *
Franco cried and begged to get out of his car seat all the way to the airport. Aware of the irritation Cristo couldn’t hide and with her own spirits low at having left home and everything and almost everyone familiar behind her for goodness knew how long, Belle tried to distract the child.
‘Why did your mother have so many children with my father?’ Cristo asked suddenly.
‘She always wanted a big family and I think the kids were her compensation for not seeing much of your father,’ Belle opined and then, hesitating, added, ‘Gaetano wanted