Page 16 of Seduced by Her Fake Husband (The Martinelli Wedding #2)

She held his sensuous gaze knowing exactly what he was thinking. The broken picture frame on the table was a physical reminder of how gloriously he’d taken complete advantage of her diminutive stature. “I’m not going to fall in love with you, but I’m not willing to go back to how we were.”

Kneading the sole of her foot, his eyes narrowed in question.

“I’ve spent the whole of our marriage feeling like your personal nodding dog.

We’ve only got four days left together so if you can’t do anything else, can you at least promise me that you’ll try to treat me like a human being?

There’s only so many times a woman can mentally fling a vase at a man’s face before her arm starts to hurt. ”

His heavenly fingers continued their heavenly work on her foot. “Have I been that bad?”

“Worse.”

“Then I promise to do better.”

“Thank you.”

Gennaro took in Luisa’s mussed hair; the artful pile that had been on her head now half-strewn around her shoulders, and the plump lips that had been kissed so hard only a faint stain of lipstick remained, and felt his chest swell.

Already, he wanted her again. He wanted to forget the world, strip her naked and lose himself in her until every drop of their desire had been extracted from them both.

Releasing her foot, he leaned forward and gently pulled out the clip holding what was left of her hairstyle in place and dragged his fingers through falling tresses that felt like a silken cloud. “I need to go back to the ballroom and be sociable for a while longer.”

Her sigh at this was filled with regret.

He cupped her cheeks and gazed into her beautiful doe eyes in the way he’d spent two years swearing he would never do. “I don’t have to stay for long but I’m the brother of the groom and my prolonged absence will be noted.”

“And you want to check in on your brother?” she guessed.

He gave the flicker of a smile. “You notice everything, don’t you.”

“Only the things that matter.”

“Don’t ever let me matter,” he felt compelled to warn her darkly. Remind her. Remind himself.

He might never lost control like he had with Luisa before, but that was only because he’d never felt such a bone-deep fever to be inside someone before.

The fever had caught them both.

Two years of celibacy was always bound to take its toll, and that went for Luisa too.

She might not have enjoyed sex much with her previous lover, but it still served a human function.

What they’d shared against the wall a short while ago had been a pent-up explosion of lust, nothing more, and now they had days left together to work the rest of that lust out of their systems.

They’d taken the lid off Pandora’s Box but the effects would be contained. He would make certain of it.

There would be no misery from what they’d unleashed. Only pleasure. And then they would say goodbye.

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Good.” He pressed his mouth to hers and held it there, filling his lungs with the heady scent of Luisa’s breath and her skin.

“Why don’t you stay here? I can say you have a headache which means I’ll be able to leave even sooner, and when I get back, I can start making amends for all the times you’ve wanted to throw a vase at me. ”

The pupils of her eyes dilated. “That’s a lot of making up to do.”

His senses already thickened to arousal, he kissed her swiftly but savagely. “Then it’s as well that I’m not a man who’s afraid of hard work.”

The ballroom’s dancefloor was heaving with bodies, the noise level substantially increased in the time Gennaro had been gone. His brother, he noted, was in the mass of dancers, dutifully dancing with his fiancée.

Helping himself to a glass of scotch from the drinks tray carried by one of the many waiting staff dotted around, he spotted Marisa dancing with a man who, beneath his mask, bore an uncanny resemblance to Rico Esposito.

This in itself wouldn’t be remarkable if he hadn’t noticed the positioning of Rico’s hand on her bottom.

Just as he was debating whether to ask her to dance and so save his sister-in-law from the devil, Gennaro’s mother, wearing an elaborate Venetian mask that covered everything on her face except for her mouth and chin, sidled up to him.

“There you are, darling. I’ve been looking for you. ”

His good mood evaporated in an instant. “I took Luisa back to the suite. She’s got a headache.”

“The poor darling,” she said automatically but without any inflection of meaning. “We need to talk about Saturday.”

Although Luisa’s headache was a lie, his mother’s dismissal of it made the hackles that always rose in her presence strain even higher. Luisa was her goddaughter. That should mean something. “What about it? ”

“I’ve heard a rumour your father and I are not being seated at the top table.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “Whatever made you think you would be?”

“We’re the parents of the groom. Our place for the wedding breakfast is at the top table.”

“You’re the parents of a groom who despises you.”

She didn’t even have the grace to blush. “So this is a deliberate humiliation?”

“No, it’s a deliberate compromise. If Niccolo had had his way, you and father would have been banned from the whole thing.

You’re only here because Lorenzo insisted – if you hadn’t figured it out yet, he’s very much looking forward to being related by marriage to a duke – but his one concession to Nic was that neither of you would have the honour of being treated as parents of the groom – that honour, I’m afraid, is going to your own parents.

” About to stalk away, he added, “You’re damn lucky to be here and not be having to deal with the humiliation of the whole world knowing you’ve been excluded from your son’s wedding, so don’t even think about complaining to Nic about it. ”

Downing his scotch, he left his mother staring at his retreating figure, uncaring if he’d wounded her feelings. The word toxic was used so frequently in today’s world that it had lost all meaning, but it was a word that perfectly epitomised his parents.

Lorenzo Esposito was in Gennaro’s eyeline, flirting with a woman younger than his daughter.

Another toxic bastard with another poisonous family, but unlike the Martinellis, a proper family in the proper Italian tradition.

They reserved their toxicity for everyone else, never turning it inward on each other.

Once Gennaro’s brother was safely married into their family he would be considered one of them and would finally be safe.

Only three more days until that happened, he reminded himself grimly, and it was his job to make sure it did happen. There would be no cold feet. If he had to march his brother up the aisle and force him to say his vows then that’s what he would do.

Tonight, though, any cold feet his brother was suffering from were well hidden. Observing him across the dancefloor, Niccolo was giving every outward impression of enjoying himself.

As if he sensed his brother’s stare, Niccolo, like Gennaro a head taller than most of the guests, caught his eye and raised his glass.

Gennaro raised his empty glass back.

After another twenty minutes of circulating, making small talk and discreetly observing his brother, Gennaro determined it was safe to leave.

Outside, he took a moment to reflect on what he was doing. What he’d done.

He’d abandoned the masquerade ball to have sex with his wife and now he was abandoning it again for the same reason.

He’d made his wife his lover.

He’d done the one thing he’d sworn he would never do.

Just to imagine Luisa in the suite waiting for him pumped fire into his veins.

The first thing he registered when he stepped into the suite was the fragrant scent filling the air… bubble bath.

Stepping out of his shoes and removing his bowtie and jacket, he paced to the bathroom, the thuds of his heart somehow getting even stronger and weightier.

The bathroom door was ajar.

He pushed it open.

His heart exploded.