The Bride's Awakening (7 page)

For the rest of the day Ana immersed herself in work, determined not to think of Vittorio or the spray of grapes that remained on her desk, in plain view. Yet she couldn’t quite keep the thoughts—the hopes—from slipping slyly into her mind. She found herself constructing a thousand what-ifs.
What if we married? What if we had a child? What if we actually were happy?

These thoughts—tempting, dangerous—continued to dance along the fringes of her mind over the next week. She caught herself more than once, chin in hand, lost in a daydream that was vague enough to seem reasonable. Possible. She found she was arguing with herself, listing the reasons why a marriage of convenience was perfectly sensible. Why it was, in fact, a good idea.

She didn’t see Vittorio all week, but every day there was something from him: a newspaper article on a new wine, a bar of dark chocolate—how did he know that was her secret indulgence?—a spray of lilacs. Ana accepted each gift, found herself savouring them, even as she knew why he was doing it. It was, undoubtedly, a means to an end, a way of showing her how it could be between them.

I think it could be good between us, Ana…Good in so many ways.

Remembering how it had felt to kiss him—how he’d felt, the evidence of his own arousal—made Ana agree with him. Or, at least, want to agree with him. And want to experience it again.

A week after her dinner with Vittorio, as the day came to a close, the sun starting its orange descent, Ana left the winery office and decided to walk the half-kilometre home along the winding dirt track, her mind still brimming with those seductive what-ifs. A new wealth of possibilities was opening up to her, things she’d never hoped to have. A husband, a child, a home, a life beyond what she’d already made for herself, what she’d been
happy to have until Vittorio stirred up these latent desires like a nest of writhing serpents. Ana wondered if they could ever be coaxed to sleep again.

If she said no, could she go back to her life with the endless work days and few evenings out among old men and fellow winemakers? Could she lull to sleep those deep and dangerous desires for a husband, a family, a home—a castle, even—of her own? Could she stop craving another kiss and, more than that, so much more, the feel of another’s body against hers, that wonderful spiral of desire uncoiling and rising within her, demanding to be sated?

No, Ana acknowledged, she couldn’t, not easily anyway and, even more revealingly, she didn’t want to. She wanted to feel Vittorio’s lips against hers again. She wanted to know the touch of his hands on her body. She wanted to be married, to live and learn together like the two stones her father had been talking about.

Even if there was no love. She didn’t need it.

Stopping suddenly right there in the road, Ana laughed aloud. Was her decision already made? Was she actually going to marry Vittorio?

No. Surely she couldn’t make such a monumental decision so quickly, so carelessly. Surely her life was worth more than that.

Yet, even as common sense argued its case, her heart and body were warring against it, lost in a world of wonderful—and sensual—possibility.

Slowly, she started walking again; the sun was low in the sky, sending long lavender rays across the horizon. Villa Rosso appeared in the distance, its windows winking in the sunlight, its long, low stone façade so familiar and dear. If she married Vittorio, she wouldn’t live there any more. Her father would be alone. The thought stopped her once more in the road; could she do that? Could she leave her father after all they’d shared and
endured together? She knew he would want her to do so; this marriage—should it happen—already had his blessing.

Still, it would be hard, painful even. It made her realize afresh just how enormous a decision she was contemplating.

Could she actually say yes? Was she brave—and foolish—enough to do it?

As she came closer to the house, she saw a familiar navy Porsche parked in the drive. Vittorio’s car. He was inside, waiting for her, and the realization made her insides flip right over. She’d
missed
him, she realized incredulously; she’d expected him to come before now.

She’d
wanted
him to come.

At the front step she took a moment to brush the hair away from her face and wipe the dust from her shoes before she opened the door and stepped into the foyer.

It was empty, but she followed the voices into the study, where she checked at the sight of Vittorio and her father in what looked like a cosy tête-à-tête. Enrico looked up and smiled as she entered, and Vittorio stood.

‘We were just talking about you,’ Enrico said with a little smile and, despite the treacherous beating of her heart, Ana smiled rather coolly back.

‘Were you? What a surprise.’

‘I came to see if you’d like to have dinner with me,’ Vittorio said. He seemed entirely unruffled at being caught gossiping about her with her father.

Ana hesitated. She wanted to have dinner with Vittorio again but suddenly she also felt uncertain, afraid. Of what, she could not even say. She was afraid to rush, to show her own eagerness. She needed time to sort her thoughts and perhaps even to steel her heart. ‘I’m not dressed—’

‘No matter.’

She glanced down at her grey wool trousers and plain white
blouse—which, aggravatingly, had become untucked. Again. ‘Really?’

Vittorio arched his eyebrows, a smile playing around his mouth. ‘Really.’ And, though he said nothing more, Ana knew he was surmising that she had a wardrobe of similarly unappealing clothes upstairs. At least they were clean and freshly ironed.

Still, she accepted the challenge. Why should she change for Vittorio? Why should she attempt to look pretty—if such a thing could be done—for the sake of this business arrangement? She lifted her chin. ‘Fine. Let me just wash my face and hands at least.’ He nodded, and Ana walked quickly from the room, trying to ignore the hurt that needled her, the little sink of her heart at his indifference to her clothes, her appearance. She wanted Vittorio to care how she looked. She wanted him to
like
how she looked.

Get over it
, her mind told her, the words hard and determined.
If you’re going to marry him, this is how it is going to be.

Her heart sank a little further. She wished it hadn’t.

Within just a few minutes they were speeding down the darkening drive, away from Villa Rosso, the windows open to the fragrant evening air.

‘Where are we going?’ Ana asked as the hair she’d just tidied blew into tangles around her face.

‘Venice.’

‘Venice!’ she nearly yelped. ‘I’m not dressed for
that
—’

Vittorio’s glance was hooded yet smiling. ‘Let me worry about that.’

Ana sat back, wondering just how and why Vittorio was going to worry about her clothes. The idea made her uneasy.

She found out soon enough. Vittorio parked the Porsche at Fusina and they boarded a ferry for the ten-minute ride into the city that allowed no cars. As the worn stone buildings and narrow canals with their sleepy-looking gondolas and ancient arched bridges came into view, Ana felt a frisson of expectation and even
hope. What city was more romantic than Venice? And just why was Vittorio taking her here?

After they disembarked, he led her away from the Piazza San Marco, crowded with tourists, to Frezzeria, a narrow street lined with upscale boutiques. Most of them had already closed, but all it took was Vittorio rapping once on the glass door of one for the clerk inside, a chic-looking woman with hair in a tight chignon, wearing a silk blouse and a black pencil skirt, to open the door and kiss him on both cheeks.

A ridiculous, totally unreasonable dart of jealousy stabbed Ana, and fury followed it when the woman swept her assessingly critical gaze over her and said, ‘This is the one?’

‘Yes.’

She snapped her fingers. ‘Come with me.’

Ana turned to Vittorio, her eyes narrowed. ‘You talked about me?’ she said in an angry undertone, choosing to show anger over the hurt she felt inside, a raw, open wound to the heart. She could only imagine the conversation Vittorio must have had with this woman, talking about her hopeless clothes, her terrible taste, how pathetic and
ugly
she was…

She tasted bile, swallowed. What a fool she’d been.

‘She’s here to help you, Ana,’ Vittorio murmured. ‘Go with her.’

Ana could see racks of gorgeous-looking clothes—a rainbow of silks and satins—in the back of the boutique. They beckoned to her, surprisingly, because she’d never been a girly kind of woman. She’d avoided all things feminine, mostly out of necessity. She didn’t want to look ridiculous. Yet the enticement of the clothes was no match for the hurt—and fury—she felt now.

‘Perhaps I don’t want help,’ she snapped. ‘Did you ever consider that?’

Vittorio remained unfazed. ‘Is that true?’ he asked calmly, so clearly confident of the answer. Humiliatingly, his gaze raked
over her, more eloquent than anything he could have said. Ana’s cheeks burned.

The woman appeared once more in the doorway, her lips pursed in impatience. She was holding a gown over one arm, frothy with lace. Ana had never seen anything so beautiful. She could not imagine wearing such a thing, or what she would look like in it. It could not possibly be her size.

‘Ana,’ Vittorio murmured, ‘you will look beautiful in these clothes. Surely you want to look beautiful?’

‘Perhaps I just want to be myself,’ Ana said quietly. She didn’t add that she was afraid she
wouldn’t
look beautiful in those clothes, or that she wished he thought she looked beautiful already. It was too difficult to explain, too absurd even to feel. She didn’t want Vittorio to want to change her, even if she was willing to be changed. Stupid, unreasonable, perhaps, but true. She shook her head and pushed past him to the door. ‘I’m sorry, Vittorio, but I’m not going to be your Cinderella project.’

Vittorio stifled a curse as he called back to Feliciana before following Ana out into the street. He’d thought she would appreciate the clothes, the opportunity to look, for once, like a woman. He’d thought he was giving her a
gift
. Instead, she acted offended. Would he ever understand women? Vittorio wondered in annoyed exasperation. He’d
thought
he understood women; he was certainly good with them. Allow them unlimited access to clothes and jewels and they’d love you for ever—or think they did.

Not that he wanted Ana’s love, but her gratitude would have been appreciated at this point. He gazed at her, her arms wrapped around herself, her hair blowing in the breeze off the canal, and wondered if he’d ever understand her. He’d thought it would be simple, easy. He’d thought her an open book, to be read—and discarded—at his own leisure. The realization
that she was far more complicated, that he’d managed to dismiss her before even getting to know her, was both annoying and shaming.

‘I think perhaps you should take me home.’

‘We have reservations at one of the finest restaurants in Venice,’ Vittorio said, his voice clipped, his teeth gritted. ‘That’s why I brought you to this boutique—so you could be dressed appropriately, preferably in a dress!’

‘If you want to marry me,’ Ana replied evenly, ‘then you need to accept me as I am. I won’t change for you, Vittorio.’

‘Not even your clothes?’ He couldn’t keep the caustic note out of his voice. The woman was impossible. And, damnation, she was blinking back tears. He hadn’t meant to make her cry; the last thing he needed now was
tears
. He’d hurt her, and his annoyance and shame deepened, cutting him. Hurting
him
. ‘Ana—’

She shook her head, half-talking to herself. ‘I don’t know why I ever thought—hoped, even—that this could work. You don’t know me at all. We’re
strangers
—’

‘Of course I don’t know you!’ he snapped. Impatience bit at him, the swamping sense of his own failure overtook him. He’d lost control of the situation, and he had no idea how it had happened. When she’d come into the villa this evening and he’d seen how her eyes had lit at the sight of him, he’d felt so confident. So sure that she was going to marry him, that she’d already said yes in her mind, if not her heart. Hearts need not be involved.

Yet, even as Vittorio reminded himself of this, he realized how impossible a situation this truly was. He wanted to be kind to Ana; he wanted affection and respect to bud and grow. He wanted her loyalty; he just didn’t want her to fall in love with him.

Yet there seemed no danger of that right now.

‘I thought,’ he finally said, ‘this could be an opportunity for us to get to know one another.’

‘After you’ve changed me.’

‘After I bought you a dress!’ Vittorio exploded. ‘Most women would have been thrilled—’

‘Well, I’m not most women,’ Ana snapped. Her cheeks glowed with colour and her eyes were a steely grey. She looked, Vittorio thought with a flash of surprise, magnificent. Like a woman warrior, Boadicea, magnificent in her self-righteous anger, and all that vengeful fury was directed at him. ‘And
most
women I know,’ she spat, ‘wouldn’t entertain your business proposition for a single minute!’ With that, her eyes still shooting angry sparks at him, she turned on her heel and stormed down Frezzeria towards the Piazza.

This time Vittorio cursed aloud.

Standing alone, crowds of tourists pushing past her, Ana wondered if she should have gone back with that stick-thin saleswoman and tried on those gorgeous clothes. In one part of her mind—the part that still managed to remain cool and logical—she knew Vittorio had been trying to please her. Surprise her with a gift. It would have been the kind thing—the sensible thing—to accept it and go back into that dressing room. Part of her had even wanted to.

And part of her had been afraid to, and another part had wished Vittorio didn’t want to improve her. No matter what her father had said about smoothing stones and that ridiculous river of life, she didn’t want Vittorio to improve her. She wouldn’t be his little project.

And if he was thinking of marrying her—if she was actually still considering marrying him—then she knew he needed to accept that. Accept
her
.