Page 13 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

Chapter Seven

They’d reached the top of the path again. They’d been packing their stuff away when the yacht had come back into view, marking the return of everyone else.

Marisa would have given anything to have stayed a little longer. Knowing she had to say goodbye to Rico now, even if only for a few short hours, made her heart hurt.

“I guess this is it, then,” she said, unable to hide her sadness.

He drew her into his arms and rested his chin on the top of her head. “We’ll see each other later.”

“Not like this.” Not for two days. Tonight was casino night.

The makeshift casino in the ballroom would be open until four a.m. As the man ultimately in charge of it, Rico would be busy.

He’d work the whole night through, likely wouldn’t go to bed until she woke up.

Tomorrow morning would be spent catching up on his sleep, the afternoon spent with the other groomsmen for their suit fittings.

He didn’t contradict her.

With a sigh, she unwrapped her arms from around his waist to hook them around his neck. There was something about Rico’s size and muscularity that made her feel safe and protected and feminine to her fingertips, and she stretched onto her toes, tilting her face to him in a silent plea for a kiss.

He obliged, holding her tightly as he bestowed her with a demanding kiss that left her weak-kneed and breathless.

When he walked away, she felt bereft.

“Who gave you a pass to miss the boat trip?” Tommaso demanded when he took the seat just vacated by their mother next to Rico in the restaurant later that evening.

Rico’s head automatically turned in Marisa’s direction.

They were both dining at different tables than the night before.

Tonight, she wasn’t hidden from him. To look at her, all he had to do was turn his head to two o'clock, and, God, she’d clad her hot little body in that white halter-necked dress she’d worn to the engagement party, and all he could think was how badly he wanted to strip it off her.

Every time she met his stare, which at their current rate was approximately every twenty seconds, his heart skipped, and her cheeks coloured.

He felt like a schoolboy with his first crush. Watching her pick the food on her plate and he knew it was the same for her too. He would give anything to cancel the casino night.

“I was busy,” he said. Busy bringing Marisa to her first orgasm and enjoying the most thrilling orgasm of his own.

“Too busy to spend an afternoon with a bunch of Siena’s semi-naked friends?” Tommaso suddenly caught the direction of Rico’s stare and grinned. “Is that where you were? With your virgin unicorn? Has she let you touch her titties yet?”

Rico stiffened at his brother’s lewd tone and words. “That is none of your business,” he said icily.

“If you want to keep your Neiman in your possession, then it is my business, little brother. ”

“When I win the bet, you will be the first to know.”

“If you’re that confident, you can send me a nude.”

There had been many times in Rico’s life when he’d wanted to punch Tommaso – a handful of times he’d given in to that urge – but this was the first time he’d wanted to punch his face right off his shoulders.

Tightly controlling his tone because the last thing he wanted was to kill his brother in front of Marisa, he put his knife and fork together.

“You will get proof that validates my winning the bet, not proof to titillate you. Now, excuse me, I’ve got a casino to run.

” Rising to his feet, he excused himself to the rest of his family and caught Marisa’s eye one last time as he swept out of the restaurant and made his way to the ballroom.

His blood was still surging with anger when the first guests began trickling in.

The only thing to feel grateful for that evening was the Martinellis dining at a different table from them. Everything else was a nightmare, one of the biggest parts being when Luisa mentioned Marisa missing the boat trip.

Marisa hated lying. It wasn’t just that she was no good at it, she hated doing it.

She could just about cope with little white lies, like when her mum asked if she looked as tired as she felt and Marisa said no because to say yes would make her mum feel bad about herself, and if she was asking the question in the first place it was because she was already feeling bad about herself. But that was her limit.

She’d managed to mumble something about getting the time confused to explain missing the trip, but she’d felt so guilty at this, and Luisa was usually so astute in picking up on her moods that Marisa had immediately asked about Lorenzo’ s yacht to deflect attention away from herself.

It had worked, but it wasn’t until they were eating their desserts…

well, picking at them… that she’d realised Luisa wasn’t being her usual astute self because she too had something lying heavy on her mind.

She was drinking more than usual too, and this would normally have Marisa volleying probing questions at her, but all she could truly focus on was Rico.

Every time she looked up, his eyes were on her.

Every time she met them, the simmering flame in her pelvis flared and her heart twisted.

When he’d abruptly left the restaurant with a face like thunder that softened when he took one last look at her, she’d ached to follow him.

She ached, too, to confide in Luisa. Marisa had all these brand-new feelings rampaging through her, and no one she could share them with.

Even if she was confident Luisa wouldn’t hit the roof about Rico – and Luisa most definitely would hit the roof – something was going on with her too, an awful instinct telling Marisa this something was to do with Gennaro.

It wouldn’t be fair to burden her, not when she had her own problems to deal with, problems she clearly wasn’t ready to share yet.

She would have to burden her at some point though, and soon. Once their time in Accardiano was over, she would have to tell her family. She couldn’t hide something like this from them indefinitely, and there was a painful awareness living in her that lies of omission were still lies.

If she could get Luisa’s support about Rico, then it would make it easier for her parents to allow themselves to support her too. She didn’t imagine for a moment they would disown her or anything like that, but their blessing meant everything.

“Are you coming to the casino?” Luisa asked, breaking through her morbid thoughts.

“I’ve got a headache.” Although it wasn’t the reason she didn’t want to go, it wasn’t a lie. Everything felt so right and natural when she was in Rico’s arms. When away from him, it all turned into a nightmare of guilt and confusion.

She didn’t want to go to the casino because she couldn’t bear to spend an evening sharing a roof with him and having to keep her distance. It had been hard enough trying to eat her dinner with him in full view of her.

A short while later, she rose with her parents, who were retiring to their room, and as she stood, she caught the eye of Tommaso Esposito.

Something in the way he was looking at her made her hackles rise, but it was the wink he dropped at her when she looked back at him as they left the restaurant that made Marisa suddenly certain he knew what was going on between her and Rico.

Seeing her parents to their room, her heart lightened when her father wanted to sit on the balcony and share a bottle of wine with his wife. Marisa kissed them both goodnight and left for her own room.

Slipping out onto her balcony, she breathed in the scent of cigarette smoke coming from the adjoining one and smiled at the accompanying laughter.

She was glad her parents were relaxing into their break here.

After all the trials and tribulations of the past few years, they deserved it.

Maybe when Luisa and Gennaro’s marriage ended – less than a week to go until they went their separate ways – and Gennaro paid out the last lump sum he’d promised them, her parents could come back here and just relax without the Martinellis and everyone else to fake smiles for.

Enjoy the sun and the sea breeze, and just be.

She hoped her marriage to Rico would be as strong as her parents’.

Thirty years of marriage and they still loved each other dearly.

.. Oh, but she was jumping ahead of herself.

Marriage hadn’t even been mentioned. Not explicitly.

One step at a time, she reminded herself before blinking away the sudden image of Tommaso’s wink.

It shouldn’t bother her that Rico had told his brother about her, if indeed he had. Brothers must confide things to each other like sisters did.

She just couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been a hidden meaning behind Tomasso’s wink, almost as if she were the butt of some joke.

But no. She was imagining things and attributing meaning where there was none.

Too restless to go to bed, she tried to lose herself in her book, but it was impossible. Rico was lodged so fully in her mind that he was all she could see. After thirty minutes spent reading the same paragraph and it still failing to register, she threw the book to one side.

This was worse than seeing him and having to keep her distance.

Barely thinking through what she was doing, Marisa touched up her makeup and sprayed herself with fresh perfume.

She closed her door quietly behind her and set off to the ballroom.

Marisa had never been in a casino before, but she’d seen enough of them on television to know what to expect of one.

As this was just a makeshift casino in a hotel ballroom, she’d imagined it would look like a makeshift casino, so to walk inside and feel that she’d just stepped into Vegas took her breath away.