The Cost of Her Innocence

CHAPTER NINE



GLANCING AROUND THE feminine bedroom Beth had grown accustomed to, she wondered if she would ever sleep there again. Dismissing the disturbing thought, she slid off the bed and quickly showered and dressed in one of her new purchases—a midnight-blue trouser suit teamed with a heavy white silk blouse. Her own clothes were already in a suitcase, along with a couple of new additions courtesy of Dante. After adding her toiletries she was ready.

A leisurely breakfast in the kitchen with Sophie had become a habit she had acquired quickly rather than endure the formality of eating on her own in the breakfast room. Today they were interrupted by Carlo, entering to inform them that the helicopter had landed.

Beth walked into the hall and glanced around, her eyes lingering on the family oil paintings that adorned the walls. One day would a painting of her child as an adult hang here? she wondered. Not that she would see it. Once her child was three she would probably never be back here again....

Dante walked in through the door. Her eyes locked with his and then slid away as he crossed the wide expanse of marble floor. Her heart thudded.

‘You’re looking more lovely than ever, Beth.’

His deep voice played across her nerve-endings.

‘How do you feel?’

He cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her head up to his. The familiar male scent of him filled her nostrils. This close he appeared to tower over her, all broad-shouldered and vibrantly male. Shockingly, she had a vivid mental image of his great golden naked body over hers, enclosing her, possessing her. She pressed her trembling thighs together. No way was she telling him how she really felt.

‘Fine,’ she managed to say, and his mouth descended on hers briefly.

‘Sorry I could not be here to show you around. I have missed you,’ he said in a deep, husky voice, his dark eyes unreadable as he held her gaze.

Something stirred deep inside Beth and she realised that against all reason she had missed Dante. She opened her mouth to say so, but Sophie burst in with a string of Italian aimed at him that saved her from making a huge mistake. He had obviously only said he missed her for Sophie’s benefit.

Five minutes later Beth sat in the helicopter with Dante at the controls. He turned towards her and handed her headphones so they could communicate. Not that she wanted to. The enormity of the day ahead was finally hitting her.

Within an hour they had landed in Rome and were being whisked away from the helicopter in a chauffeured limousine to the hospital. The building looked impressively modern, Beth thought as she entered the luxurious reception area with Dante at her side.

The ultrasound was embarrassing with Dante hovering over her, but as the nurse pointed out the outline of their baby on the screen for an awesome moment they simply stared, then looked at each other and grinned in amazed delight.

Back in the car, Beth looked in wonder at the photo of her child—until she realised the car had stopped.

‘My lawyer is expecting us.’

Dante took her arm and helped her out of the car into the offices of his lawyer. In twenty minutes the prenuptial agreement was signed and they were back in the car.

Beth glanced at Dante, a foot away from her in the back seat. He had taken out his smartphone and she presumed he was working. He was certainly efficient, she thought. The speed with which they had seen his lawyer had surprised her. But it should not have done, she realised. Of course he’d wanted absolute proof of the baby before he deigned to give his name to the woman he thought her to be. Thinking about it, she was surprised he had not demanded a DNA test. He didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him.

The car drove out of the city and finally through iron gates and up a wide drive, to stop in front of the entrance to a magnificent old building surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns and colourful gardens.

‘Is your apartment here?’ Beth asked, turning to Dante, sure he was the type to have a super deluxe apartment in the city centre.

‘No, I have an apartment on the top floor of the Cannavaro building. But it is more like an extension of my office than a home. I thought you would prefer a hotel so I booked a suite here for two nights.’

Beth was even more amazed, and slightly intimidated as she looked around the elegant sitting room. She glanced at Dante as he handed the porter some money and then turned to walk towards her, and she had the oddest notion that the distinctive, self-assured Dante was not as calm as he appeared.

‘You should be comfortable here, Beth. There is an excellent spa and beauty salon, a boutique—everything you could want. And as it is unlucky for the bride to see the groom the night before the wedding, and we need all the luck we can get,’ he said dryly. ‘I’ll leave you to rest and relax. Enjoy the facilities—buy whatever you like. I’ll call you tonight to make sure you have everything you need and be back at three tomorrow afternoon to pick you up. The ceremony is at four. Now, order some lunch. I’ll see you later.’

Beth watched him walk out through the door, leaving her alone at last. Why did she feel deserted? She dismissed the disturbing thought and prowled around the suite, discovering a bathroom and another room that contained a huge widescreen TV. But there was only one bedroom. Big and beautifully proportioned, with two arched windows and the biggest bed she had ever seen set between them. There was a walk-in closet, and the en-suite bathroom had a double shower, his and hers vanity basins, and a bath wide and deep enough to accommodate two people even as big as Dante.

Ordering a light lunch, she sat down to enjoy the meal. After she had finished eating she thought she would make the most of what was on offer and ordered a spa treatment for eleven the next morning. Then she unpacked and lay down on the bed to rest, the photo of her baby in her hand. This miraculous baby was why she was here, and she would marry the devil himself to keep her child. Her only problem was that she no longer thought of Dante as a devil.... The nightmares of a man in black no longer haunted her. Instead, erotic and sometimes stupidly romantic dreams of a happy-ever-after with Dante had taken their place, and that was what worried her most.

After a stroll around the hotel and gardens she returned to the suite to have a delicious dinner and a surprisingly good night’s sleep.

The following afternoon, having been waxed and polished, with her hair styled and her make-up applied to perfection, Beth finally put on the winter-white suit and matching camisole Dante had bought for her in Milan. She slipped her feet into high-heeled shoes, courtesy of the hotel boutique, and walked into the sitting room just as Dante appeared.

‘You are ready—good. Let’s go and get this over with.’

Beth simply nodded, because the sight of him had taken her breath away. He looked tall and effortlessly elegant in a silver-grey designer suit with a tie shaded in grey, a white silk shirt and the glint of platinum cufflinks. His black hair was brushed back from his brow, his handsome face stern. Lethally attractive, Dante exuded sophistication and innate masculine power—and very soon he would be her husband. The reality terrified her, but if she was brutally honest it also thrilled her, and she had trouble tearing her gaze away.

Half an hour later, intensely conscious of Dante at her side, Beth glanced around the wood-panelled room in the town hall. In her childhood dreams, before real life had caught up with her, she had pictured her wedding as a fairy-tale affair—nothing like this. The suit she wore with its silver trim was as close to bridal as she was ever going to get.

Beth glanced at the celebrant. The man conducted the service in Italian and English, but the ceremony had to be one of the briefest on record.

‘You may kiss the bride.’

The words jolted her out of her musings.

She looked up into Dante’s eyes as his arms wrapped around her and his lips touched hers, firm and warm and tender. Her hands went to his chest and she felt the beat of his heart beneath her palm as his tongue slipped between her parted lips and found hers. Involuntarily she responded, her body softening against him.

The celebrant cleared his throat and said something to Dante, and his arms tightened around her before reluctantly easing her away.

A camera flashed and Beth blinked.

‘Smile, please,’ Dante instructed, tucking her arm through his. ‘This one is for the baby,’ he said, placing a gentle hand on her stomach. ‘Every child wants to see a picture of their happy parents on their wedding day—even when the marriage no longer exists.’

‘So that is the reason you insisted on buying this suit?’ she said, surprised by his forward-thinking.

‘Even an autocratic lawyer can have flashes of inspiration sometimes,’ he said drolly, and then tugged her arm through his and led her out of the building and into the waiting car.

Back at the hotel, she could not look at him as they ascended the stairs to the first-floor suite. Her panic was mounting with every step as the enormity of what she had done filled her mind. She was married and pregnant and in a few minutes she would be alone with Dante. Her stomach knotted with nerves.

When they reached the suite, Beth’s mouth fell open in shock. The elegant suite had been transformed into something incredibly romantic, with dozens of red roses in vases, others in exquisite arrangements, and candles scattered all around. Champagne stood on ice on a silver stand, and next to it was a table exquisitely set for two, with a single red rose in a silver flute as a centrepiece.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Beth said, and Dante reached for her, his hands clasping her waist, drawing her nearer. She felt her body flush with warmth and her pulse quicken.

‘Would you believe I’m a romantic at heart? I believe every bride deserves a bridal suite on her wedding night.’ He grinned.

Seeing Beth in the hospital had caused a seismic shift in Dante’s thinking. For years he had considered her beneath contempt as a drug dealer and the type of immoral woman who would play on her beauty to entrap men for her personal benefit. But when he had seen the scan of their child inside her an emotion he had never experienced before had overwhelmed him. From that moment on he had looked at her in a new way—a different way.

He had sat in the car pretending to work, his mind spinning, and realised she would feel trapped in his apartment, twelve floors up in an elevator. Hurriedly he had booked the hotel. Later he hadn’t been able to get out of the suite quickly enough. He’d wanted her so fiercely, but as the mother of his child and his soon-to-be-bride she’d deserved much better than a quick coupling the night before her wedding. He had stopped at Reception as he left and given strict instructions that she was to be given anything she wanted, and he’d ordered the transformation of the suite for the following afternoon.

Beth looked at Dante, stunned he had bothered. His hand lifted to curl a strand of hair behind her ear, the other slipping behind her to press in the small of her back and hold her close. The brush of his hard male body against her stomach sent heat from low in her pelvis pounding through her veins. Her eyes lifted to the chiselled lips, the sensual mouth. It was impossible to ignore the way her body reacted to his.

But Beth tried. ‘No, I wouldn’t believe it,’ she said, in a last-ditch attempt to deny the fatal attraction Dante held for her.

Her gaze lifted to his dark long-lashed eyes and she felt herself drowning in the glittering depths. She had thought she hated Dante for so many years, but now she wanted him with a hunger and a need for physical contact that she could not control. She raised her hands to his chest....

‘I guessed as much,’ he murmured, and the teasing brush of his mouth was on hers, making her lips tingle and part. ‘But at least give me credit for trying, and allow me to try to prove you wrong.’ He chuckled softly and tilted her head to one side. His tongue touched the silken skin below her ear, then trailed kisses down her slender throat.

Beth dragged in a ragged breath and Dante lifted his head, a long finger running along her tremulous lower lip. Dizzy with longing, she instinctively pressed her body closer and felt the jut of his erection against her belly. It was shockingly intimate and incredibly arousing to think she could do this to him, and it made her forget about the past—only the moment and Dante existed.

‘Trust me, Beth, today is a new beginning for us, and I want to make it right for you.’

And she did trust him.... Meeting his lips with her own, she signaled her total capitulation.

His mouth explored her with gentle expertise, his tongue curling with hers, teasing, tasting, and she was lost in the wonder of his kiss.

Dante raised his head and had to battle to resist his basic instinct to take her where they stood. He cupped her head in his hands and looked down into her sparkling emerald eyes. The pupils were dilated to black pearls of passion and he stifled a groan.

‘Not here, Beth.’

Swinging her up in his arms, he carried her into the bedroom and lowered her gently onto the bed. He had never believed her once was enough comment—although ironically it was that one time when he had made her pregnant. But Dante had never suspected Beth was a virgin, and could not help feeling that if he had known he could have done better. Now she was his wife, the mother of his child, and he was determined to give her the wedding night she deserved and would remember with pleasure.

Beth glanced at yet more candles, then stared in awe as Dante stripped off his clothes, his great body gleaming golden in the candlelight. The fine black hair across his chest arrowed down over his washboard stomach to curl at the junction of his thighs, and his powerful erection sent a primordial feminine thrill quivering through her slender frame.

Then he was leaning over her, her clothes were being peeled from her body, and she lay without shame, naked before him, mesmerised by the burning gleam in his eyes as they raked her from head to toe.

‘You are exquisite, mia moglia,’ he rasped, and kissed her forehead, her nose, briefly her lips, and moved lower to her breasts and the soft curve of her stomach, where he lingered, murmuring in Italian.

He raised his head and the intensity in his magnificent dark eyes made her heart squeeze. All her doubts and fears for the future faded away, and she linked her hand around his neck, hungry for his kiss.

Finally his mouth found hers, and she responded intuitively to the searching passion of a kiss that left her breathless and wanting more. Her hands unfurled from his neck to clasp his broad shoulders, while his hands traced slowly and gently over her breasts and stomach, brushing the soft curls as he reached the apex of her thighs. With every silken touch of his fingers Beth’s hunger for him grew. Moisture and heat pooled low in her body, which was pulsing with need. His long fingers flicked around her inner thighs, so close to where she ached. His hands swept back up her body, firmer now, cupping her breasts, his thumbs stroking the rosy peaks.

‘Slightly larger, I think,’ he said huskily, his glittering gaze on her breasts.

His head lowered and his mouth closed over a pouting nipple. She moaned low in her throat. His tongue rolled the rigid tip and his teeth nipped and tugged. The pleasure was almost pain before he licked the throbbing peak and excitement threatened to explode inside her.

Her fingers pressed into his muscular shoulders, nails digging into his flesh. When she could stand no more her hand fisted in his hair to pull his head back, and with a husky groan his mouth closed over hers with the powerful, possessive passion that she hungered for....

His hands, big and strong, caressed her skin and his mouth followed—kissing, tasting, discovering pleasure points she’d never known she had. But Dante knew...

Oh, how he knew...

Beth writhed beneath him, aroused to fever-pitch by his prolonged sensual exploration. His mouth returned to hers, playful, teasing and passionate, while his long fingers continued their delicate exploration of every secret place with an erotic skill that drove her wild....

She was burning up. Her slender hands stroked him and found the thick, hard length of his erection. She knew he was as desperate as she was. With a guttural growl he tore her hand from his body and his mouth found hers again, devouring her. His hands lifted her, and his great body was tense as steel as finally he was where Beth madly, desperately wanted him. He began to probe gently—too gently—and she locked her legs high around his back, her body arching as with supreme control he probed a little deeper, stretching her...

He withdrew.

‘Dante!’ she cried, desperate for all of him. ‘Please!’

With a husky groan and a thrust of his hips he answered her. his hard length filling and holding her. He drew a taut nipple into his mouth and raised his hips and thrust again. Then he paused and suckled its twin, and a starburst of feelings blinded her to everything but Dante. He moved in a fluid, ever increasing rhythm, harder and faster, pulsing inside her until she convulsed around him in a blaze of heat and light, like a star going nova, and she heard his cry of triumph as he followed her, his life force spilling inside her.

‘I’m too heavy for you,’ Dante rasped some time later, and with a gentle kiss on her love-swollen lips he rolled onto his back and slipped a hand beneath her waist, easing her into the curve of his shoulder.

Beth rested a slender arm across his broad chest. She had thought the first time Dante had made love to her had been incredible, but tonight had surpassed that. She had never felt so complete, so languorous, so perfectly at peace in body and mind in her life.

‘How do you feel, Beth? I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ He stroked the hair back from her brow.

She raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at Dante. His hair was all over the place, his incredible eyes serious, and she let her hand stroke over his chest, her fingers playing with his chest hair. ‘No, you didn’t hurt me. Though I have to admit...’ She paused teasingly, and surprisingly felt his body tense. ‘You were right. Once was not enough.’

‘Why, you little tease.’ He grinned and pulled her head down to his to press his lips against her mouth.

In minutes they were making love again.

Dante took his time to explore her and to show her various ways to please him that surprised and excited both her and Dante! Their senses were on a knife’s edge, and when he finally surged up into her with a few pounding thrusts they climaxed together.

Beth lay across Dante’s body in the aftermath, totally sated. She had been on top during their lovemaking—something she had never envisaged before—and as her head rested on his chest she found herself too languorous to move. Instead she listened to the heavy pounding of his heart gradually steady.

‘Beth?’

Dante said her name and she glanced up at him.

‘Sorry to disturb you.’ His strong hands clasped her by the waist and he lifted her as if she was as light as a feather and sat up, placing her flat on her back on the bed. ‘These damn candles are a fire risk. I can smell burning.’

‘So much for romantic gestures,’ Beth said, and burst out laughing.

Dante slid out of bed and snuffed out the candles. Beth watched him as he walked to the bathroom. Big and lithe and stunning from the rear, with long legs and firm, tight buttocks—not something she had ever really noticed in a man before, but now she found every inch of Dante fascinating.

They slipped on the robes the hotel had provided and Dante ordered room service. They shared an intimate dinner, and then went back to bed.

The next morning they took a flight to London and Beth fell asleep on the plane....

* * *

‘Not too bad, hmm...?’ Dante said, with a guiding hand on Beth’s back as they walked out of his mother’s home in Kensington. ‘My mother adores you. And when we finally tell her you are pregnant—if she hasn’t already guessed—she will worship at your feet. As for Harry—he made his feelings very clear.’

Beth chuckled. ‘Yes, he did.’ She had been dreading meeting Dante’s mother, Teresa—a lovely petite woman, with black hair and brown eyes—and her husband, Harry, but they were a delightful couple and had made her feel completely at ease. Harry was an older version of Tony, and Beth had not been able to help saying so—which had led to her admitting she had lived in the apartment beneath Tony until a few months ago. Dante had added smoothly that that was where Beth and he had met—at Tony’s barbecue.

‘So you are the angel girl who supplied my Tony and Mike with food and all kinds of help!’ Teresa had exclaimed, and from then on everything had been plain sailing.

Lunch had been a happy affair, and an eye-opener for Beth as Teresa had regaled her with stories of Dante as a child—much to his embarrassment.

Beth turned now as Teresa and Harry followed them out to say goodbye, with hugs all round and promises to return soon. They were finally about to leave when there was a screech of tyres and Tony arrived.

With a ‘Hi, Mum—Dad,’ he stopped in front of Beth. ‘I don’t believe it, Beth! You actually married Dante. What on earth possessed you when you could have had me?’ Grinning broadly, he gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Beth laughed.

‘Yes, she did marry me—so you can take your hands off her,’ Dante said with a smile that verged on triumphant as he slipped a proprietorial arm around her waist.

‘You’re a lucky devil, bro, and I’m not surprised you whisked Beth away and married her. I noticed you couldn’t take your eyes off her at the barbecue....’ Tony said. ‘Mind you, I’m not sure you deserve her—’

‘That’s enough, Tony,’ Dante cut in, and the tone of his voice brooked no argument.

‘Okay...congratulations. You do make a striking couple. So, where are you going for the honeymoon?’

‘Somewhere hot—the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean, as it will be December before I can free up any time. Beth can decide.’

‘I can decide?’ A honeymoon had never entered Beth’s head.

‘Yes—why not?’ Dante gave her a sexy smile. ‘I have been all over the place. You can have fun choosing somewhere you would really like to go.’

‘Is that wise, Dante?’ Tony queried. ‘Knowing Beth, it will be a surfers’ beach in Hawaii—hardly your scene!’ he quipped, then added, ‘Trust me, I still shudder at the thought of when she tried to teach Mike and I how to surf.’ He grimaced. ‘But wherever you go you’d better take good care of her, or you will have me to deal with.’

‘I intend to—and thanks.’

‘Thank you for that, Tony,’ Beth said with a grin. Tony was such a joker, and he enjoyed winding people up, but he was a truly lovable young man.

‘Now we really must get going,’ Dante commanded, and with final goodbyes all round Beth slid into the passenger seat of the Bentley and they left.

Dante concentrated on negotiating the city traffic, with a frown on his face that had little to do with his driving and everything to do with Beth. Seeing the easy interaction between Beth and his brother, and after spending time with her and getting to know her intimately, he could tell there had never been anything sexual about their relationship. Tony was an irrepressible flirt, like most twenty-three-year-old males, but Beth just laughed and ignored it. And Tony’s ready acceptance of their marriage confirmed he had never been serious about her....

Which made Dante question his own actions—not something he was prone to do—in threatening Beth with dire consequences unless she left Tony alone. He now knew a lot of what Beth had told him was the truth, but did it change anything? Her past was inescapable, and he would still have felt duty-bound to tell Tony why she was unsuitable as a wife, conveniently ignoring the fact that he had married her.

He cast a sidelong glance at Beth; she looked so relaxed, so beautiful, and she was carrying his child. Yesterday had been their wedding day and last night he had enjoyed the best sex of his life. He only had to look at Beth to want her, and he knew she felt the same. The past was the past and there was no point in dwelling on old mistakes, he told himself.

‘You really do like Tony?’ he prompted.

‘Yes, I do. He is so easygoing, happy and carefree,’ she said with a wistful smile. ‘It must be nice to be so uncomplicated. What you see with Tony and Mike is what you get, and they make me laugh. I can’t remember when I felt young like that—if ever.’

Dante heard the hint of sadness in her tone and could have kicked himself for reminding her of the past; the present and their baby was all that should concern him. ‘No wonder they are a carefree pair, with you helping them out all the time.’

‘I told you—we’re good friends. Though sometimes I think I was more like a house mother to the pair of them.’

Dante shook his head. ‘You are far too soft for your own good, Beth.’

* * *

Where Dante was concerned Beth knew she was.... This morning she had awakened in his arms and they had made love again. Bedazzled in the aftermath, she had told him he was a perfect lover. But Dante’s response—‘I always aim to please, cara!’—had struck a discordant note in Beth’s mind. Just how many women had he pleased? she’d wondered, and it had brought her back to reality.

Dante didn’t make love—love never entered his vocabulary. He was a sophisticated man of the world and he must have had sex with dozens of women. The only reason Beth was in his bed was because she was pregnant with his child. She must never think it was anything more than a convenient marriage for the good of her child and herself.

But it was hard when a smiling, tactile Dante was so irresistible as they’d shared breakfast in their hotel suite. He had fed her food from his plate and planted kisses on her mouth between bites. He only had to look at her and she wanted him, and she had to keep reminding herself it wasn’t going to last....

She cast Dante a sidelong glance. His focus was on the narrow, twisting country road, but nothing could detract from the sculptured perfection of his profile and her heart skipped a beat.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he slanted a knowing smile her way.

‘Not long now.’

Her tummy flipped.

‘It’s a shame I can only stay one more night. When I get back next weekend we need to discuss more permanent living arrangements.’

Later Beth would wonder if she’d had a premonition that night, when she’d decided to share the main guest bedroom with Dante instead of her own room, the master suite.