Page 15 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

Don’t give in, she begged herself.This means nothing to him. It was all a set-up from the very start.

Her pleading words to herself penetrated the memory of the very start and threw her back to the night she’d come out into this garden to forget. The night Enzo proposed.

He’d taken her out to dinner on the river, an exclusive floating restaurant where they were served the most exquisite food she’d ever tasted. After a dessert of chocolate mousse on a chocolate crumb with flakes of gold leaf scattered over it, they’d taken their after-dinner liqueurs onto the top deck. The cloudless evening sky had been chilly. Noticing her shiver, Enzo had draped his suit jacket over her shoulders...how she hadthrilledat the pleasure of being warmed by the remnants of his body heat. By the time they’d returned to the villa, Rebecca had been floating like the boat they’d dined on in a sea of happiness she’d never known before.

She’d smelt the roses from the moment she stepped through the front door.

Hundreds and hundreds of red roses encircled the main living room, set in so many crystal vases Florence must have declared a shortage. There, in the centre of the room, a plinth had been placed. On it, the largest vase of all. Wrapped around it had been a red ribbon onto which had been tied a small black velvet box.

Enzo had been the one to untie it. He’d held it in his hand and sank onto one knee before her.

Her heart had beat so hard and so fast she’d feared she would be sick.

He’d opened the lid. Inside it glittered the most beautiful oval diamond ring.

‘Will you marry me?’

Three times he’d asked the question before what he was asking actually sank in, and even then she couldn’t comprehend it or comprehend what was happening to her. Barely a month before, Rebecca’s world had been grey with grief but then Enzo had come into her life and saturated it with colour and now he was asking her to marry him?

‘Why?’ It was the only word she could form in her brain or on her tongue. Why her when he could have anyone?

His eyes had glittered. ‘Because I can’t imagine my life without you in it.’

And still she’d gawped at him, hardly daring to believe this could be true and that she wasn’t dreaming.

He’d risen to his feet slowly and taken her hand, and suddenly she’d detected something new in his eyes, something she could never in a hundred years explain but when he’d then quietly said, ‘What do you say? Will you marry me, Rebecca?’ her heart had exploded with joy.

‘Yes.’

Such a contortion of emotions had flashed over his face that she’d been certain she’d only imagined the shadow that darkened it before the heartbreaking smile she’d fallen in love with widened his whole face and he pulled her into his arms for a kiss so deep and passionate that the pulses in her core throbbed throughout her entire body.

He’d broken the kiss to cup her face in his hands. ‘I love you, Rebecca.’ There had been a dazed quality to his voice that matched the dizziness she’d been feeling. ‘I love you.’

To know it had all been fake, every last part of it, broke her heart all over again and gave her the impetus needed to turn her cheek and wrench her mouth from his with a plaintive,‘Stop!’

The wonderful pressure of Enzo’s mouth against hers disappeared leaving nothing but tingles on her lips. The grip on her waist loosened and then disappeared too but the heat from his body remained as he covered her fists, a gentle, tender pressure that made her want to cry harder than anything else had that whole day.

‘My desire for you was never a lie,’ he said fervently.

She shook her head violently. ‘Stoplyingto me. I told you, I don’t want to hear this.’

‘Why would I lie about this? What purpose would it serve?’ He pressed her hand to his chest. ‘I’ve already lost you. But you haven’t lost me. Everything I—’ He cut himself off and swore under his breath. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed her fisted hand tighter against his heart and said, ‘Whatever you believe of me, never think I didn’t want you. Resisting you is the hardest thing I have done in my life.’

How could she wish so hard to believe him wheneverythingwas predicated on a lie?

Another memory slammed into her, straddling Enzo on the loveseat of his New York penthouse, both fully clothed, their pelvises locked together, the rock solidness of his erection burning, tantalising and frustrating her in equal measure. She’d been desperate for him to make love to her. ‘I’ve spent my whole life waiting to feel like this,’ she’d whispered into his ear.

His kiss had been deep and hard, and then he’d fisted her hair in his hands and tugged her head back to gaze deep into her eyes. ‘What I feel for you is like nothing I have felt before.’

‘Then make love to me,’ she’d pleaded.

He’d kissed her again, fervently. ‘Cara, there is nothing I want more than to carry you to my bed and make love to you but our wedding is so close now. Let every part of our day be special. We have the rest of our lives to satisfy our desires.’

She closed her eyes to the memories and shook her head even harder. ‘Please, Enzo, just accept that you’ve lost. You’re demeaning us both.’

‘Do you really think so little of yourself?’ he demanded.

‘It’s nothing to do with how I see myself but how I see you, and how I see you is as a ruthless liar prepared to do anything and say anything to get what he wants.’

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