Dante's Honor-Bound Husband (8 page)

“I'm not. I swear I'm not.”

“You were drugged, attacked. Terrorized. Still in shock.” She wished she could deny his catalog of events, but she couldn't. “And you just woke from a nasty nightmare. That makes you vulnerable, and I don't take advantage of vulnerable women.”

“Even if the vulnerable woman in question says it's okay? Because that's what I'm saying. Okay. Go right ahead. I'm all yours.” He was killing her. “Please, Constantine.”

“Would you have me compromise my sense of honor?” he countered.

She closed her eyes. “Considering how I feel right now? Yes, yes I would.” An inner debate raged, one that filled her with frustration. Damn it, she'd been a Dante for too long, knew all too well the importance of honor. She continued to debate for another full minute while he waited her out. Then she caved. “When you put it like that…”

“There's no other way
to
put it.”

She couldn't argue, not about an issue as serious as a man's honor. It wasn't something the Dantes took lightly, any more than the Romanos. “Will you still hold me?”

“That I can do.” He covered her again and settled in beside her. Pulling her into his arms, he just held her. “Better?”

“Frustrating.”

He chuckled. “That makes two of us.” He kissed her with unmistakable finality. She could still feel the edge of desire, banked, but white-hot around the edges. “Go back to sleep. And this time, try not to press my buttons.”

She yawned. “Push your buttons. And I wasn't.”

“No? I seem to remember you throwing David in my face. You didn't just press my button. Or even push it. You kicked it with those spiked heels you love to wear.”

“Maybe.” Honesty forced her to concede, “Okay, definitely.”

“Don't do it again. Not with d'Angelo.”

She looked at him curiously. “David said the two of you had a history.”

Tension speared across the muscles in Constantine's jaw. “Is that what he called it?”

“What would you call it?”

“Funny. I'd have said you were in a better position to answer that question.”

She stiffened. “I don't understand. What do you mean?”

“How would you describe what he attempted to do tonight?”

She didn't want to say the word. Couldn't. It would make it too real. She moistened her lips. “After you rescued me… You said he'd done this before. I'd forgotten until just now.”

“The drug will do that to you.”

“Who else did he drug? Who did he do this to before me?”

“Ariana.”

G
ianna bolted upright in bed. “Oh, no. Oh, Constantine, no. Not Ariana.”

“It's all right. I found her—”

She burst into tears. “How could it be all right? He…he…” She fought to get the words out. “She would have been terrified when she returned from Italy and saw me with him. I'd never have gone out with him if I'd known. And I'd have made him pay for hurting her. I swear I would have. Somehow. Someway.”

“Calm down, Gianna.” Constantine lifted onto his elbow and smoothed her hair back from her face. “She wouldn't have been terrified when she saw the two of you together for one simple reason. Unlike you, she consumed all of the drug d'Angelo gave her. She has no memory of the events of that night. Not being drugged. Not of how close she came to disaster. Not of my arriving in time to save her. I saw no
reason to tell her the sordid details then, or mention it since. She was barely seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” Tears slipped down Gianna's cheeks. “So, he didn't…?” She couldn't say the word.

“No. I got there in time. She barely even remembers d'Angelo.”

Something else clicked. David's opening salvo at the Midsummer Night's gala when he'd first spoken to Constantine. “That's what he meant about your timing.”

Constantine nodded. “I wasn't in a position to make him pay with Ariana. But I swear to you, he won't get away with it again.”

“What happened? To Ariana, I mean?”

“Come.” He eased her back into his arms and she surrendered to the embrace, using his warmth to comfort her distress. “I'll tell you the story if you promise to go to sleep afterward.”

“I promise.” Honesty forced her to add, “If I can.”

“You have to understand something that is very uncomfortable for me to speak of.”

He'd switched to Italian again, his voice stiff with pride and something else. Pain? “Something from your past?” she hazarded a guess.

“It has to do with the manner in which I was raised.”

“Old Italian aristocracy?”

“That's at the root of it, yes. The Romanos have the name, but not the money to go with it. We own the land and the palazzo, but have no way to maintain it. Because it has been in our family for so many generations, it would be sacrilege to sell. So we struggle over money.”

“Why not get a job?”

Constantine laughed without humor. “You and I think alike. Unfortunately my father considered this beneath him. We are only recently poor. My grandfather made some un
fortunate investments and my father finished the job with other bad choices. More than anything, I wished to start up my own business. But there was no capital. No seed money. I attended Oxford. My grandmother—she wrote the Mrs. Pennywinkle children's books before Ariana took over. You are familiar with Mrs. Pennywinkle?”

“Sure. I loved her stories as a child.” They were beautifully illustrated tales, all about a china doll named Nancy who passed from needy child to needy child. With each subsequent owner came exciting adventures and heartrending problems for whichever youngster came into possession of the doll. By the end of the book, Nancy had helped resolve the child's problems and magically moved on to the next boy or girl in need. “I even owned a Nancy doll. It was one of my favorite toys growing up.”

“My grandmother, Penelope, paid for my education with the royalty money she earned from them. But I could not take her money to start up my business. It would have been—”

“Dishonorable?”

He slanted her a swift, hard look. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not even a little,” she instantly denied. “I'm in total sympathy with you. Our family also went through a period of financial difficulty.”

“I vaguely remember Babbo telling me about that. It involved your uncle Dominic, didn't it?”

“Yes. He made some unwise investments, expanded into other areas of the business too fast, and nearly put Dantes out of business. Since my father never handled any of the financial aspects of the business, he had no idea how to turn things around. Like Luc, he dealt with the security end of things. So, after Uncle Dominic's death, Sev stepped in and salvaged the business. It was a point of honor that he
make up for his father's mismanagement. But it was touch and go there for a while and we had to sell off almost all of Dantes except for the main jewelry business. It took Sev years to buy back all we'd lost.”

“Then you do understand.” He hesitated. “This brings me to the d'Angelos.”

She made the connection. “They're bankers. They were in a position to loan you money for Romano Restoration.”

Darkness descended. “Yes. D'Angelo and I met at Oxford. I had the name. He had the money. I didn't think anything of it. We were…” He shrugged. “Friends. Or I thought we were. I didn't realize at the time that he deliberately set out to cultivate a friendship. He liked bragging about his close relationship with a Romano.”

“I assume at some point he met Ariana.”

“It happened on a vacation we took with the d'Angelos when Ariana was in her early teens.” There was something in his voice when he said that, something unbearably painful and forbidding. Something he wasn't telling her. “At first, I didn't think anything of it. When I looked at my sister, I saw a child. D'Angelo saw a toy that he didn't yet own. And he needed to own all the toys.”

She thought about David's Jag and Rolex and suite at the Ritz. “He still does.”

“I'm not surprised.” Constantine scrubbed a weary hand across his face. “At some point, d'Angelo made a comment about dating Ariana and I came on like the typical big brother. She was too young, the differences in their ages too great.”

“I gather that didn't stop David.”

“Not at all. If anything, it made him want her all the more.”

“Because she was forbidden fruit.”

“Yes. It caused a rift between us. I began to really look
at him, listen to him. When I did, I heard rumors about d'Angelo and women. Ugly rumors that perhaps not all the women were willing. I learned afterward that d'Angelo's father kept it all hushed up with huge payoffs.”

Constantine trailed a finger along her arm. He did it in an absentminded manner, not really paying attention to his actions. The featherlight caress sent desire cascading through her and she shut her eyes, fighting to focus on the story instead of his touch.

“What happened then?” Gianna managed to ask.

“By this time we'd become somewhat estranged. But one day he came to me unexpectedly and offered to arrange an interview with his father. He said Aldo was extremely interested in financing my start-up restoration business. It surprised me. But hell, I'd talked about it for years. I thought perhaps d'Angelo extended the offer as an olive branch.” He hesitated. His mouth compressed and he shook his head. “I'm deluding myself. I went along because I wanted the opportunity so badly—”

“Stop it, Constantine.” She wouldn't allow him to shoulder so much of the blame. “David is responsible for his own choices, not you.”

He didn't argue the point, but she didn't think she'd convinced him that he didn't bear some fault in what happened. “A time was set,” he continued the narrative, “and I showed up in my best suit, prospectus in hand, my sales pitch polished. David should have been there, but I wasn't too surprised when he wasn't.”

“Why not?”

“His family is—or maybe was—ridiculously wealthy. He didn't need to work and invented as many excuses as possible to avoid it. Still, as my former friend and considering he'd set up the interview—”

“You expected David to be there.”

“Yes.” Constantine closed his eyes, all emotion draining from his voice. For some reason the very lack of emotion made the telling that much worse. “At some point I asked where he was and Aldo gave this laugh.”

“Oh, no.”

“I knew then. Aldo realized he'd given the game away and told me to let it go. That he'd make it worth my while. That it was only a little fun between consenting adults.”

“How many teeth did you knock out?”

A cold smile slashed across Constantine's mouth. “Only one. It took me forever to track down my former friend. I arrived just in time.”

“Ariana doesn't remember any of this?”

“Nothing of that night, no. Despite my attempts to hush it up, she later found out that David and some of his friends took bets to see who'd be the first to have her. Fortunately, whoever told her the tale prettied up the details somewhat. She assumed that d'Angelo and his friends were trying to make her fall in love with one of them in order to relieve her of her virginity. She thinks it was because of her name and status.”

“That's bad enough.”

“True. But the actuality would have been far worse. He wanted her. But more than that, he wanted to hurt me. I could never have lived with myself if Ariana had found out that d'Angelo attempted to get back at me for ending our friendship by using her to make his point.”

Gianna rested her hand on his arm, feeling his muscles clench beneath her fingers. “I think it was more than making a point. He may have money, but you have something he could never hope to possess. Honor. Ethics. And a name that stood for just that. I suspect David couldn't stand the idea of your possessing something he didn't. Something he could never possess.” Constantine didn't respond and she
sensed she'd missed something. It only took a moment's thought to key in on it. “It's not your fault. You must realize that by now. You couldn't have known David had an ulterior motive.”

She'd guessed right. Fury tore through him. “That's just it, Gianna. I knew him. I should have known, or at least suspected what he might do. I'll never forgive myself for putting my own selfish interests ahead of my duty and responsibility to Ariana. If I hadn't been so desperate to gain financing for my business, I'd have guessed what d'Angelo was up to.”

“You did figure out what David was up to. And you rescued Ariana, just like you rescued me.” She pressed her fingertips to his mouth. “Before you say it, you're also not to blame for tonight. You had no way of knowing that he would act so fast. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I should have listened to my instincts…and to you.”

He kissed her fingertips. Then he leaned in and kissed her. She surrendered to the embrace, helpless to resist. How could she have ever thought she'd someday feel this sort of desire for David? It either existed or it didn't.

It was like The Inferno. Some people melded, driven together by forces beyond their control. Others didn't. And even though she knew that Constantine wasn't the only man capable of sparking The Inferno, she'd never felt it with anyone else. Did it really matter that he didn't experience it the way she did? That for him, there'd been a glitch in the connection, enabling him to walk away from her? Couldn't she be happy with what he was willing to give her?

He deepened the kiss and she moaned in longing. Why couldn't he want her as much as she wanted him? As though to prove the point, he pulled back and brushed her hair behind her ear.

“Sleep now,” he said.

“Yeah, right. I'm sure your bedtime story will put me right off.”

“Try.” A slow smile played at the corner of his mouth. “For the sake of my sanity, please try.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

She closed her eyes, if only to shut out the sight of him. And though she didn't think she'd sleep, the instant she snuggled against him, she went under.

 

A loud pounding woke Gianna the next morning. She bolted upright in bed, disoriented. Confusion battled with a sudden, overwhelming alarm, made worse by the empty indentation beside her.

“Constantine?” His name escaped, edged with panic.

“Right here.”

At some point he'd left the bed and returned to the chaise. At the commotion emanating from below he stood, looking strong and rested despite all they'd been through the night before. His air of calm immediately relaxed her. He still wore the trousers from his tux, but hadn't bothered to don the shirt or jacket he'd loaned her the night before, possibly because she'd left them in a heap in the corner of the bathroom.

She vaguely recalled hearing him in the shower at some point in the early hours of the morning, though a dark shadow clung to his jaw indicating he hadn't borrowed a razor, and his hair fell across his brow in heavy, unruly waves. Despite that, his “morning after” look made him almost unbearably appealing.

He checked his watch. “Don't get up. I'll see who it is.”

“What if it's David?”

He didn't hesitate. “Then he'll soon regret ever coming near you.”

She despised the wave of fear that swept through her when she thought about David. She'd never experienced that before. Nor had she ever considered herself weak or vulnerable. He'd stolen her innate feeling of security and, for that alone, she'd never forgive him. As for the rest, she'd find some way to make him pay for drugging her, for attempting to assault her. Because there wasn't a doubt in her mind he would have done precisely that if she hadn't gotten away.

Determined not to surrender to cowardice, she tossed aside the covers and swept up her robe. She tied the sash around her waist in a quick, angry motion, then followed Constantine from the bedroom. He opened the front door just as she reached the foyer. To her horror, Primo stood there, his gaze moving from a half-dressed Constantine to Gianna in her bathrobe, bare feet and bed-head hair.

Uh-oh.
This couldn't be good.

“May I come in?” Primo asked, excruciatingly polite.

Gianna thrust her hands through her hair in an effort to smooth the unruly curls. Not that it helped. It simply drew attention to the horror of it all. “Of course. We…I wasn't expecting you.”