Bargain Bride, Billionaire Groom Page 15

  Golden didn’t bother to acknowledge her beyond the social requirement. This woman had questioned her daughter’s paternity. This woman wanted for her own daughter what belonged to Golden and Enzo’s daughter, Lily.

  Jio had been so enraged over the two women’s greed that he forbade either of Enzo’s other baby-mamas to attend Enzo’s memorial service. Golden never knew what either woman looked like. Here’s one of them, she thought wryly. Now you know.

  Golden stood next to Jio, and didn’t offer her hand to the other woman to shake.

  “May I offer you a ride back down to the lodge since the contractors you rode up here with have left?” he directed at Sylvana.

  “Yes, please,” the other woman replied.

  That they hadn’t driven up here together gave Golden some measure of relief. That she’d found them here alone did not.

  The drive down the pass writhed with tension. It got worse after they arrived at the lodge and the doorman helped Sylvana out. Golden watched the other woman stroll off into the lodge with all the confidence of a man-eating she-cat.

  “Who is she?” She turned and looked at Jio.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that. She is Lia’s mother.”

  Golden stared at him in the low-lit vehicle. “What else is she to you, Jio? More importantly, how is it that she satisfied you while being a mother to your brother’s kid?”

  “She’s part of a history I’d rather forget, Golden,” Jio counseled tightly. “There is nothing to gain in picking this apart.”

  “Jio, I’m your wife. And while you warned me that there were other women involved with Enzo, I trust you not to allow yourself to be found in deserted surroundings with a beautiful woman. Clearly she is also someone from your past. We married because of some of the things this woman was saying about Enzo’s baby—of what she was trying to take from Lily. After what I’ve seen and heard, I can’t help but wonder how she ties in with you.”

  He frowned. “Where are you going with this, Golden? Do you think there was some conspiracy with her and myself over Lily’s money? Lorenzo’s estate?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  The thought never crossed her mind. It involved her emotions, and emotions didn’t always make the best compass. But if telling the truth made her emotional, then so be it. “I’m…jealous. Shocked. Curious.”

  His jaw tightened. “Look, nothing happened between myself and Sylvana at that house. She came looking for me.”

  Golden arched a brow. “All the way from Italy?”

  “All the way from the lodge,” Jio said. “She used to be a competitive skier, and this is world-class ski country—Keystone, Breckenridge,” he schooled her on some facts. Facts that made her really feel like a bumpkin who’d never left the Hawaiian islands.

  “As for you being my wife, I’d hope that you trust in me, considering the sacrifices I made to make you my—” He razored off the tail end of his sentence with a muttered eff-bomb.

  “Wife that you didn’t want to begin with?” she finished for him, feeling shaky and way more insecure than she was twenty minutes ago.

  “That came out wrong.”

  “You’re damned right it did, Jiovanni. I’ve made sacrifices, too.”

  He groaned. “I know you have. I wasn’t trying to minimize, or devalue yours. You have nothing to worry about, I promise you!” He leaned over to kiss her.

  She received his kiss with stiff lips. She couldn’t stop a flame of jealousy from igniting. Of course she’d seen women flirt with him! He was just that hot. But he didn’t belong to her then, and a part of her couldn’t help but think—maybe he didn’t belong to her now.

  She’d never had the assurance of his love, and until she saw him affected by another woman? She didn’t think she needed it.

  He drew back in his seat, his eyes cautious.

  “I know now what Sylvana was to Enzo, but what was she to you? And the prince?”

  To her surprise, she suddenly felt that old hated familiarity of Jio’s remoteness coming back to fill in the space between them.

  “Sylvana and I—we were lovers.”

  She gulped. “Okay. Then how is it that she is the mother of Enzo’s child?”

  “She was Enzo’s lover, too.”

  Her brows pleated. Her stomach lurched. “You and your brother were with the same woman?” she asked, indignant. What did that make her? Part of a-a pattern? “How do you know the kid isn’t yours?”

  “I just know,” he quietly stated, then he handed over the file folder he’d brought out to the SUV with him. “The photos inside are of Enzo’s and Sylvana’s daughter. Does she look like me?”

  Golden shook her head. “I don’t need to look—”

  “Look at them!”

  “Jio, I met Enzo’s daughters at his memorial service, remember? They both came up to me and gave me violet nosegays in paper lace doilies. I knew—” she choked on her words. “I knew right away who they were by their beautiful dark eyes and hair. Their perfect noses—so much like Enzo’s, I knew. I just didn’t realize that-that one of the mothers played a role in your life, too.”

  “Well, now you know.”

  Now you know. I could really hate those three words, Golden thought, and shuddered—irritated and hating the fit of jealousy she couldn’t help but endure. The two brothers had loved the same woman once before? The thought made her grit her teeth.

  She didn’t trust herself to speak, and looked around for the vehicle she’d driven to the lodge. Then she remembered that the valet had parked it for her when she went with the manager up to the Bellewood chalet.

  She turned to Jio, trying her best to tone down her shivers. “What is she doing here? What does she want from you?”

  “She came out here hoping her on-again, off-again lover prince was still in residence. He is a major investor in some of our property development projects, including Starfire Ridge. Both of them own rental properties in this area. She sought me out, not the other way around.”

  Golden wanted to take it further, but pride won out. She was sounding like a jealous harpy. The truth was she didn’t want to know. What she wanted all the money in the world couldn’t buy her.

  “Jio, I’m not so naïve to expect that you and Enzo were angels. I’m just…stunned to know that you and your brother were involved with the same woman once before.”

  How to tell him she was sick with shock and surprise. Jealous didn’t even begin to describe her feelings! She wanted to pull the other woman’s hair out by the roots, one by one for questioning Lily’s paternity. For having known Jio’s body, even if it was before he and Golden met!

  “I apologize if I have not met your expectations.” Jio closed his eyes then opened them, looking as tortured as she felt. Agitated hands swept through his hair. “But I’ve been put in this position of picking up the pieces after my brother died. Enzo—he was not perfect with his numerous affairs, his mistresses. He dies and I get stuck in the bloody middle!”

  She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry you’ve had to ‘pick up the pieces’ with me.”

  “Shit, I didn’t mean it like that!”

  “Maybe you didn’t, but it’s true, Jio. Isn’t it? You don’t love me—I’m a-a duty.” There, it was out.

  His gaze scoured into her stricken one. “You are not a duty. You’re my wife.”

  “Yes I am, and right now I want all the things a wife wants—faithfulness, openness, honesty.” Love. But she’d told him she didn’t want that from him. At the time, she believed she couldn’t love again the way she’d loved Enzo. Now…now she knew she could. Now it mattered!

  “You and Enzo and this woman—maybe it’s a little more truth than my island sensibilities can handle right now. I’m not judging you, Jio. I know that you and your brother weren’t monks, but—” Tears flooded her eyes. She swallowed back the painful lump in her throat. “But between the secret babies and then the women you two have been with—I mean, what else is there
, Jio? Is there anything else I should know? Just t-tell me so we can move on!”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, there was pensive look about him that made Golden think twice about her outburst.

  “Jio,” she reached out to him.

  His body stiffened before she could even touch him, and she felt the distancing of his thoughts stretch between them. A mild stomach cramp put the brakes on her rising stress. She let her hand fall to her side. Stay calm, stay calm for this baby’s sake!

  “Please. Can you take me back to the house? Or I can drive the SUV back if the valet can just bring it around?”

  “You aren’t driving in this condition,” Jio said, and as he shifted gears, the grim look on his face let her know this wasn’t open for discussion. “I’ll take you back.”

  ~~*~~

  Golden started packing later that evening. She was due to return home the day after tomorrow after all, and Jio had planned to head to the east coast on business. But when he walked into the room to check up on her, he took one look at her suitcase sprawled open on the bed—and walked right back out.

  That night, every minute in bed waiting for him to join her felt like torture. She’d had to order her body to calm down, be patient, and not go searching for him. She was Jio’s wife. They’d chosen each other. Committed to each other, and just because he and his brother had been involved with the same woman in the past, it didn’t mean she should fall apart over it.

  For the first time in her life, she felt…possessive. No way would she just hand her husband over to some beautiful old flame who wanted what belonged to her and her alone!

  Jio finally came into the room and stood by the bed. As he undressed, he watched her watching him with a hardness in his eyes that she hadn’t seen in a while. Not since the day they’d met.

  “I’m not perfect, Golden.” Off came his sweater. “But neither are you.” Off came his undershirt. He began to undo his trousers. Her eyes rounded. “And if you don’t like the fact that I am a man with a not-so-perfect past?” He shoved his trousers down, right along with his underwear. “Then I’m sure Marcus will be more than happy to take you back.” He stepped out of his clothes. “With open arms.”

  She stared back at him. He knew. He knew about Marcus. Her mind spun. He had every right to rub her nose in it, she supposed, but it wasn’t all like that. She knew Marcus wasn’t meant to be with her even before she found him in the arms of another woman.

  Her esteem for her husband grew, even as her heart shrank a bit in her chest. Wake up and smell the coffee and the bacon! This stunning man is yours. Act like a woman who appreciates it

  When he pulled the heavy covers back, he discovered her naked underneath as well. Desire spread throughout her limbs as Jio’s dark, lustful gaze melted all over her skin. Rising up to greet him from their bed, she got on her knees and pressed herself against his sculpted body.

  Framing his face in her hands, she stared into the grim pools of his eyes and matched his hard look with one of her own. “Jio, I don’t want Marcus. And whatever you and Enzo had gotten up to in the past? It makes no difference to me today, but you belong to me now,” she hissed at him. “And don’t you forget it!”

  Looping her arm around his neck, she captured his mouth with hers in a fierce kiss, giving him no room, or voice, to argue.

  His fingers swept through her hair, holding her head as his mouth ravaged her lips in a kiss that flung her off the edge of reason. The pulse of his tongue swept her despair and jealousy aside—and replaced it with down and dirty need.

  She didn’t just take initiative in their bed that night, either. She took liberties with his mouth, his body, and once his head was on the pillows, she drifted up and over him, slipped his hardness between her thighs and rooted him into her core.

  Her head dropped back. Sighing with pleasure, she swiveled her hips to match the cadence of his thrusts, her nipples and breasts rolling with invitation. Her name spilled from Jio’s lips in a heady whisper. Cupping one heavy breast in her palm, she pointed that nipple in front of the groaning breath he expelled from his lips.

  The second his mouth latched on to her breast, she lost control. She simply handed him the reins, let him be in charge of her mind, of her body, and let herself go.

  Jio couldn’t stop himself from taking everything his wife wriggled, flaunted or tipped beneath his lips. If she was going back to Maui mad at him, he damned well was going to give her something to remember him by.

  He arched his hips up into her spread-apart thighs. She moaned, her circling hips miming some incredibly erotic moves that turned his frustrations of the day, caused by his past mistakes, upside down.

  When he’d had to admit that Sylvana had been his lover as well as his brother’s, he’d hurt like the devil to hear the break in Golden’s voice. To see the what the hell? look in her eyes. He could have made it all go away if he’d taken her in his arms and given her the honesty she asked for.

  He should have told her that Sylvana had hooked up with Enzo years after she’d broken up with him. He should have just admitted that he cherished and loved Golden with the last breath he had in his miserable body.

  But a man in love wouldn’t have been selfish as he’d been. Going through with the renewal of vows, well aware he couldn’t fill his role in the one thing she was clear about; having another baby.

  What happened there at the Bellewood—what Golden walked in on—was probably for the best. When she’d asked if there was anything else she should know, he should have told her the truth about his medical condition. God only knows he didn’t exactly break the news of Enzo’s other kids to her at the best time!

  But the thought of losing her hadn’t been a reality Jio wished to face. Not then. Not ever.

  Maybe she’d never really been his to lose. Not with the lie he’d let hang between them—a lie that still hung out there. Blurting out that he’d led her on about making a baby took a back seat to him gliding out of her, then thrusting deep inside her heat while he suckled on a tasty mouthful of breast.

  He groaned, anguished with need. Look at the facts, Golden. Take a hard look at the two womanizing rejects you’d gotten yourself involved with. If you have any sense, you’d leave me.

  Yet, here she was, soaking him. Claiming him. Telling him he was hers, and riding him like her prized stallion! He loved it.

  If she could still come to love him in spite of his past? If she was brave enough to forgive him the rest of his shortcomings, like not being truthful from the beginning, their marriage could be everything he’d dreamed of. All that he longed for.

  He groaned and wound her hair in his fist, tasted her lips, lost himself inside her body and accepted that he did, in fact, belong to her.

  ~~*~~

  Golden didn’t see him until later the next morning. After spending a sleepless night in the bed they’d shared intense passion in, it was probably best that he not see the befuddled look in her eyes.

  While he’d cradled her with melting tenderness after they’d climaxed, she didn’t know how she was going to manage without his loving when she got back to Maui. The morning sun only magnified the revelations about his brother, and this Sylvana woman. The thoughts running through her head ate at her.

  Was having her Jio’s warped way of keeping his brother close, considering they’d both been with the same woman once before? She pressed a hand to her stomach, determined to wait till she got to Maui to take a pregnancy test, even as she knew in her heart…she was going to have another Falcone baby.

  She was sliding a piece of French toast off a spatula onto Lily’s plate when she looked up to find him studying her at the entrance to the kitchen as he shrugged into a long black wool overcoat. Her eyes ate up his powerful physique, sharply dressed in an espresso-colored wool-blend suit, his starched shirt a glossy olive green and his eyes a wintry blue.

  “Poppa!” Lily cried, her arms reaching out to him. He walked over and picked her up out of her
high chair, kissing her on her cheek.

  “Hello, little one,” he said, and hugged her. “Golden, I’m leaving for the east coast, as planned. I’ll be back in two days,” he addressed her quietly. “You may stay on here. Or go.”

  Such loaded words. “I understand.”

  “Poppa go bye-bye?” Lily asked.

  “Poppa go to work, but I will come see you soon,” he promised Lily. “You and mamma.”

  The slight crack in his voice made Golden’s heart burn with an unsoothed longing. He glanced at his watch, kissed Lily once more then settled her back down in her high chair.

  He turned to Golden, his eyes harboring a dark storm.

  She placed the pan on a trivet and snatched that moment to wipe a hand across her eyes. Blurting out her pregnancy might be a bit awkward right now, she supposed.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Golden?”

  She shook her head just as someone knocked on the front door. “That’s my ride to the airport.” He closed the short distance between them and took her in his arms. “We’re not finished. Promise me!”

  Her gaze lit into his. “No, Jio. We’re not. I-I don’t want us to be!”

  “Good.” His throat convulsed as he swallowed. “Neither do I, but you have to come to terms about the man you married, Golden.”

  “I will. I mean—I have!”

  “No, cara,” he told her sternly, seeing right through her. “You have not! You’re a peacemaker in your heart, but you can’t have peace without the truth, and there’s much we don’t know about each other.” His mouth thinned. “The fact is—on this honeymoon we’ve had more sex than we’ve had talks. When next we see one another again, we’ll talk then.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to demand they talk now, but Jio was not a man who’d put up with that. Making demands on him over a marriage that was mostly one-sided would push him away.

  “I have things to say. I’m not going to say them, then hop on a jet and leave you. I will tell you this much. My past isn’t pretty. I can’t change it, so I suggest you use this time that we’re apart to think long and hard about wanting the man I am today.”