Page 22 of The Virgin’s Dance with the Devil (The Martinelli Wedding #3)

In the time that had passed since Luisa had messaged, they’d made up over whatever it was that had been bad enough to make Luisa want to go home, and looking again at Gennaro, Marisa had a sudden strong feeling that come Monday, no divorce was going to be filed by either of them.

“I’m not the one holding hands with an Esposito.” Luisa fixed her stare on Rico and hissed, “What the fuck are you doing with my sister?”

“Luisa!” Marisa gasped, instinctively standing in front of Rico to protect him from her sister’s wrath.

“Don’t you Luisa me! You know who he is! How could you be so stupid?”

Stung at her sister’s venom, she choked, “I thought you wanted me to find someone?”

Her sister threw her hands in the air. “Anyone but him !”

“But you don’t even know him!”

“He’s an Esposito. What more do I need to know?”

“He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, that’s what you need to know. I’ve been nothing more than a faded wallflower for years, and Rico’s brought joy and colour to my life, and I love him and he loves me and we’re getting married.”

If Marisa wasn’t so upset, she’d have found the simultaneous dropping of her sister, both her parents and Gennaro’s jaws funny.

“You’re just prejudiced,” she continued, her voice shaking. “You believe that because he’s Lorenzo’s son that he must be like him, which also makes you a hypocrite seeing as it looks like you’ve gone and fallen in love with the son of the man who drove our family to the brink of bankruptcy.”

“But he’s not just his father’s son,” Luisa pleaded. Her face was now as pale as their mother’s had turned. “He’s done things. Awful things.”

“At least he didn’t weaponise our parents’ looming bankruptcy for his own advantage,” she hit back.

“That’s the man you’ve fallen for, a man who’s spent the two years of your marriage treating you abominably.

Rico hasn’t done anything to hurt me or hurt any of us, and yet you point your accusing finger at him when he’s the one who paid for Dad’s medical staff to be on call here, and for no other reason than because he wanted to help.

That’s the kind of man Rico is. He’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for me. ”

No one spoke. Through all the heated words, neither sister had raised their voice and yet Marisa felt as wretched and wrung out as if they’d screamed in each other’s faces, and it made her heart wrench to see her feelings mirrored on her sister’s face.

It was their mother who broke the silence. Her dazed stare fixed on Rico. “It’s you ,” she breathed. “You’re the one.”

Only Marisa knew what she meant. The letters. “Yes,” she whispered, reaching behind her for his hand. “He’s the one.”

Rico squeezed her fingers before sidestepping out of her protective stance to address her parents directly.

“I know I’m not of the accountant or doctor mould you probably hoped Marisa would settle down with, but I love your daughter and I give you my word that I will never hurt her or let harm come to her.

She will have my full protection…” He moved his stare to Luisa. “You all will.”

Whether her parents truly believed him or they just wanted to make things right, Marisa didn’t know, but her mother, then her father, embraced them both, her father even making a joke about Marisa needing an engagement ring.

Even Gennaro shook Rico’s hand and kissed Marisa.

And then it seemed to dawn on her parents that it wasn’t just Marisa who’d fallen in love, but that their eldest daughter had, impossibly, fallen in love with her husband, and the kisses and embraces started again.

Only Luisa remained implacable.

Later, after the six of them had shared a lunch that usurped their first meal in Accardiano as the most awkward meal ever, Luisa excused herself and went to the ladies. Marisa counted twenty seconds and followed her.

She waited until Luisa left the cubicle to wash her hands before speaking. “I’m glad you and Gennaro have found your way to each other.”

Luisa didn’t answer, but her unhappy stare fixed on Marisa’s through the mirror.

“I want you to be happy,” Marisa continued, determined to say what she needed to say without crying, “and if he makes you happy, then that’s all that matters. I just want you to show the same courtesy and compassion to me because I have never in my whole life been as happy as Rico makes me.”

Luisa extended her neck and, in a voice devoid of emotion, said, “You’re happy now, but a man like Federico Esposito cannot be tamed or trusted. He’s going to break you.”

Drying her hands on her dress, Luisa left the bathroom without looking back.

The next morning, Rico was forced to leave Marisa after breakfast for the final wedding suit fitting, which he thought was a joke as they’d been told the last fitting was the final fitting, but no, this fitting was to ensure the alterations had been done fittingly.

Once he was in his father’s suite with the groom and other groomsmen (excepting the best man who was still at his Tuscan castle holding the English troublemaker hostage), though, and had observed everyone around him, his guts started pecking at him.

He supposed it was natural for some grooms to look pale the day before they married considering the lifelong commitment they were about to make, but Niccolo didn’t just look pale, he looked wrong , like he’d had his stuffing pulled out of him and the puppet strings holding him up severed.

Rico tried catching his father’s eye to see if he’d noticed the happy groom’s less-than-happy demeanour, but his father wasn’t looking that great either.

Instead of holding court as he always did, Lorenzo was on the sofa in the living area, rubbing his chest while Giuseppe Martinelli droned on at him.

It amused Rico to see the man who held one of Italy’s most ancient Duchies and who had spent years turning his aristocratic nose up at his father feel compelled to ingratiate himself, and it amused him how completely Giuseppe had fallen into line with his father’s plans, as the only reason Lorenzo had engineered the wedding was to break the ceiling Italy’s aristocracy had sealed tight to keep him out of.

His father’s nefarious plan had worked better than any of them could have dreamed.

Once the wedding was done, the Espositos would have broken the final frontier of Italian society.

Not bad for a bunch of Neapolitan gangsters.

It amused him that his father’s ultimate plan to break into politics was progressing with the unwitting help of the snobby arseholes who despised him.

It also amused him to see Giuseppe’s sons, the puppet-without-strings Niccolo and the newly-affable Gennaro (well, affable was a debatable term, but when compared to his usual ice-cold, poker-up-the-arse demeanour, Gennaro was currently luke-warm), ignore him.

It amused him that out of all the people who loathed Giuseppe Martinelli, his sons came top of the bill.

Rico preferred to be amused as the alternative would be to let rage take hold at the man who’d done his best to destroy Marisa’s family.

As much as Marisa hated Giuseppe, Rico knew it would distress her if he were to let his rage out and, say, break the bastard’s legs.

Say what you like about Rico’s father, but at least he knew the meaning of loyalty. All the Espositos did.

When Giuseppe got up to chat to Leonardo, who seemed strangely flat that day and was also looking a bit peaky, Rico helped himself to his seat.

“Are you okay?” he asked his father in an undertone.

Instead of doing his usual pretence of being invincible, his father grimaced. “Indigestion.”

“I’m not surprised after being stuck with that moron.”

“Our useful moron,” his father reminded him with faint amusement.

Not liking the slight breathless quality in his father’s voice, Rico looked more closely at him. He didn’t know if he was imagining it, but his father’s deep tan looked tinged with grey. “You look ill.”

“Stress over this damned wedding,” his father dismissed with another grimace. “I’ll be okay once they’ve made their vows.”

“You’re picking up on what I’m picking up on, huh?”

“Yes. The English mistress hasn’t made contact, has she?”

“Nothing. She can’t make a call or send an email or message without us knowing about it.”

“Station men at the three airports closest to her so we can head her off if it comes to it. She’s pregnant and her lover’s about to marry another woman, and the closer the time comes to the wedding, the more likely she is to act.

And station men at Florence airport in case her sister tries to escape again – the wedding’s only hours away, and she’ll be getting desperate.

Keep a watch on the train stations, too. ”

Rico wasn’t going to argue that the sister couldn’t escape the castle.

Dante’s security was second to none, and even if by some miracle she did escape, Rico’s men had all exits covered.

His father hadn’t made himself into the most powerful man in Italy by being a fool who didn’t second-guess everyone and everything.

“Do you want me to keep an eye on the groom?”

His father shook his head and patted Rico’s knee. “Mattia’s on it. You enjoy your time with your unicorn. She’s a great girl.”

Rico had coaxed Marisa into sitting with his family during the previous evening’s ballroom entertainment, a spectacular cabaret act.

As predicted, his father had been enamoured.

Even his mother had nodded her approval, and she’d hated every female Rico had ever introduced her to.

Threats of breaking kneecaps had worked in getting his brothers to behave around her.

Threats of breaking elbows had worked in getting them to not even allude to that damned bet.

Rico had won the bet, but the only prize he wanted was Marisa, and only when he had his ring on her finger would he make his confession, no matter how hard his guts agitated for him to make his confession now.

Now that he had her, he would do anything – anything – to keep her, and if that meant smothering his growing conscience until they were married, then so be it.