Page 54 of Bought For The Marriage Bed

She shifted her gaze. ‘I’m fine. The cramps have gone.’

‘Good.’ She heard him get out of bed but didn’t chance a glance his way, not sure she could cope with seeing his body without the shield of his clothes. ‘I have plans for you.’

‘Plans?’ She met his eyes briefly.

He shrugged himself into a bathrobe. ‘This is your first visit to Sorrento, is it not? I think it would be nice if we left Lucia with Georgia this morning while I show you around a bit. We can visit the church of San Francesco and have lunch at one of the restaurants in the centre of Sorrento at Piazza Tasso. Tomorrow we can explore the ruins of Pompeii and then drive to Positano for a late lunch.’

‘Are you sure Georgia will be—’

‘She will be fine,’ he reassured her. ‘My father will want to spend time with her, under Lucia’s supervision, of course. In the light of what occurred last night, I think it is best if both of us are not there.’

Nina was inclined to agree but didn’t voice it. She was still feeling terribly unsettled by the exchange between Marc and his father. Vito Marcello was undoubtedly an ill man and his drinking of obvious concern to Marc, but when she considered the back to back grief he had experienced so recently she could hardly hold it against him.

‘If there’s anything I can do…’ she offered, lowering her gaze once more.

It seemed a long time before he responded. ‘Just be yourself, Nina. You cannot do any more than that.’

His words were like a dagger to her heart. If only she could be herself!

The morning was sunny and clear, the cobbled streets filled with avid tourists intent on seeing this exquisite part of the Amalfi Coast. The view from the public gardens above the typical Italian square of Piazzo Tasso was spectacular and Nina couldn’t help feeling as if all of her worries and fears were gradually disappearing on the light breeze that gently stirred her loose hair whenever she faced the sea.

Being in Marc’s company was like a potent drug; the more she had, the more she wanted. She drank his presence in, filling her senses with everything she most loved about him: his tall commanding figure, his darker than night eyes that now held no trace of their previous hardness, the softer line of his mouth now that a smile had replaced its earlier line of contempt and the way his hand reached for hers, his long tanned fingers threading through hers as if he never wanted to let her go.

He walked beside her, his broad shoulder against hers as he pointed out various sites of interest, his deep voice stroking over her like a soft caress. ‘According to legend, it was here at Sorrento that Ulysses heard the tempting song of the Sirens, the nymphs who tried to entice passing sailors.’

Nina looked out at the sparkling water, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight as she tried to concentrate on what he was telling her instead of the way his lips moved when he spoke and how her stomach fluttered like a handful of butterflies every time he looked at her.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said and, after a short pause, turned to look up at him. ‘You must miss it terribly now that you live in Sydney.’

Marc’s eyes left hers to gaze out over the water. ‘Yes, but after my mother died I felt it necessary to get away.’ He gave a small sigh and turned back to look down at her, leaning his back against the terrace railing. ‘My father had decided Andre should set up the Sydney branch but it became clear after a while that he was not doing a good job of it.’

Nina held her breath, wondering if he was going to break his promise of a truce and blame her sister—and thereby her—for distracting Andre from his work, but to her surprise he didn’t.

‘Andre was a party animal, not a merchant banker, but my father refused to admit it. He resented the fact that I could handle business better than his favourite son,’ he went on. ‘But I think, given enough time, my over-indulged brother would have ended up very much like my father is now—a bitter, broken man with the crutch of alcohol doing a very poor job of keeping him going.’

She put her hand on his, her fingers curling around his, her expression empathetic as she held his gaze. ‘Marc, I know you won’t believe this, but I know what it is like to be the unfavoured child. It hurts so deeply to think that no matter how hard you try you can never quite please the one you love the most.’

Something briefly flickered in Marc’s eyes and a small frown appeared on his forehead. He looked at her very intently and said, ‘I thought you were an only child.’

Nina froze.

‘How can you know what it is to be the unfavoured child when you are the only child?’ he asked when she didn’t respond.

The silence seemed endless as she hunted frantically for something to say.

‘I—I meant I can imagine what it must be like…you don’t have to have personal experience of something to understand what it is like—might be to feel that way…’ Her fractured sentence trailed helplessly away.

It was only a second or two at the most before he responded, but to Nina it felt as if a century had passed.

‘We should get back,’ he said, pushing off the railing and taking her arm. ‘The sun is starting to burn your face. I should have thought to tell you to bring a hat.’

Nina walked on unsteady legs as he led the way back to the car, her heart-rate all over the place at how close she had been to giving the game away.

The next few days passed in the same manner. Each morning Nina woke with Marc’s arms around her, his body warm and protective, although he did not touch her intimately, even though her body ached for his possession. After breakfast he would take her out for the morning while Lucia cared for Georgia so Vito could spend time with her in his favourite private garden on one of the many terraces.

Nina was fascinated by the site of Pompeii. The crumbling buildings with their tragic history, the ancient relics, including bodies frozen in time by volcanic ash, chilled her blood as she stood silently looking at them, wondering how the people must have felt trying to escape the fury of Mount Vesuvius.

‘It’s just so sad,’ she said when they came back out to the sunshine. ‘To think that they had no time to escape, nowhere to run and hide, no hope of protecting their loved ones…’

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