Chapter Four #3
A swanky baker from Italy was currently providing the bakery’s sale produce while Tabitha took care of the business side and the staff.
Her twin was a hard worker and that awareness was allowing Violet to relax.
Her mother had begun her treatment at the cancer centre in Massachusetts and it was too early for any prognosis as yet, but at least a start had been made.
Certainly, Lucia’s spirits had lifted, Violet had deduced from their various phone chats.
This time, her mother was daring to hope.
Violet decided to bake Tore’s cake before dinner.
It would have to be a large cake because they had a castle full of guests.
For forty-eight hours, there had been a constant procession of arrivals and Belle was no longer alone in her nursery.
The aunts and the uncles, the adult cousins and partners and their children had contrived to fill every spare room in the castle.
‘We’ve never had so many guests,’ the housekeeper had proclaimed with pride and satisfaction at the large turnout. ‘It’s because Signor Tore has married you. Everyone is curious.’
For curious, read downright nosy, Violet thought for she had had to fend off far too many intrusive questions.
How many weeks/months had it taken for Tore and her to realise their futures were aligned?
Did she want children? How was Tore adapting to being a stepfather?
Considering that she had only met Tore on their wedding day, it was challenging to handle the assumption that she knew everything there was to know about her husband.
Everyone believed they had been together for months yet had married in indecent haste.
Cue many curious glances in the direction of her not quite flat stomach.
After the beach, Belle went down for a nap and Violet hit the kitchen to begin baking.
Unfortunately, Sandro soon found his way there, too, and joined her, sitting at the table with his coffee to watch her work while sharing both criticisms of her method and what he viewed as motivational tips.
Violet gritted her teeth and just got on with her task, ignoring him to the best of her ability while tossing him the occasional polite smile.
Tore paused in the doorway when she was laughing at some story Sandro was recounting, a dusting of flour on the tip of her nose.
Sandro, in the meantime, was busy admiring Violet’s bare shapely legs and curvy bottom as she ambled between sink and table.
Something about that scene infuriated Tore and filled him with distaste.
‘May I have a word with you, Violet?’ he asked.
Her smooth brow furrowed as she looked up from her labour and focused on him. So tall, and dark and effortlessly suave. ‘Er…okay.’
‘In private,’ he specified, urging her a few feet down the corridor.
‘I’m kind of busy,’ she admitted, wiping her hands uneasily down the sides of her shorts, wondering what was amiss.
Tore wasted no time in telling her. ‘It is not appropriate for you to be working in the kitchen. We have a full staff here,’ he reminded her, gazing down at her with fierce green eyes, his exasperation unhidden.
‘I like to bake. I’m afraid you’re stuck living with that,’ Violet replied curtly.
‘I’m hoping you’ll be reasonable about this,’ Tore informed her.
Faint pink entered her cheeks. ‘Not feeling reasonable. When are you reasonable? When you’re working eighteen-hour days even though we have a houseful of guests? Is that your version of reasonable? People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’
‘Violet—’
‘No, don’t say my name like that as if you’re scolding a little girl.’ Violet lifted her chin and stared up at him, her blue eyes wide with annoyance. ‘Don’t make me lose my temper with you. I have a terrible temper.’
‘You are my wife—’
‘Don’t remind me of what you won’t allow me to forget!’ Violet exclaimed, her trembling hands settling on her slim hips, her voice steadily rising in volume.
‘We’ll discuss this upstairs,’ Tore breathed with resolve.
‘I won’t be any more reasonable upstairs.
Even gagging me won’t shut me up. If I want to work in the kitchen, I will work in the kitchen and there’s nothing you can say or do to stop me!
’ Violet lashed back at him furiously, his unyielding stance and tough gaze merely making her feel more angry. ‘You are a bully, Tore.’
‘I am not a bully,’ Tore fielded speedily and then he bent down and simply swept her off her feet to stride down to depress the button on the lift that went up to the next floor.
As he draped her over one broad shoulder, Violet just lost it. Her temper surged to the top of the scale and screamed inside her in desperate need of escape. She thumped his back with balled fists and shrieked, ‘Put me down!’
Tore strode into the lift and lowered her back to the floor. ‘You do not need to be working in the kitchen,’ he informed her stubbornly. ‘You’re my wife, a very wealthy wife. We employ people to take care of all the domestic tasks. Your personal involvement is in no way necessary.’
‘Tell all that to someone who wants to listen!’ Violet hissed, spinning where she stood to brace white-knuckled hands against the steel wall in frustration. Anger was writhing inside her like a wildfire, seething and burning out of control.
‘You weren’t joking about the temper,’ Tore remarked, disconcerted by the level of her ire and her obvious struggle to put a lid on her emotions. Violet, so quiet, so calm. Had he done this to her? Driven her into a rage?
Violet had told him the truth when she told him that she didn’t like to lose her temper.
Very rarely did she make that mistake. She didn’t want to get angry and lash out at people because invariably that led to regret and apologies.
But when she did get angry it reminded her of her childhood when her drunken father’s rages and assaults had terrified them all.
Thankfully, that rage was the only thing she had inherited from him and in the aftermath, she always felt wrung out like an old dishcloth.
She stomped down the passage and preceded Tore into their bedroom. ‘Why did we have to come up here?’ she demanded, refusing to look directly at him.
‘The staff were peering out of doorways. If we fight, it should be in private,’ Tore decreed.
Her gaze moved up to his lean, dark face, his eyes bright as gemstones. He stood back from her, his suit jacket flipping back to show a slice of shirt-clad chest and a silky lining as he pushed long fingers into the pocket of neat-fitting pants, drawing the fabric taut across his groin.
Pink and uneasy, Violet shrugged and glanced away from him.
‘I have nothing to say other than that I plan to continue treating this place as I would treat my own home. It’s wrong to expect me to behave differently here.
And if you could prevent your smarmy slimebag cousin Sandro from stalking me, flirting like mad and telling me risqué jokes and stories, I would be very grateful,’ she added in a rush.
‘Although I suppose it’s possible that he’s feeling sorry for the new wife, whose husband rarely puts in an appearance.
Maybe he thinks he’s doing me a favour by showing me so much attention. ’
Tore’s shapely mouth went taut at the reference to his cousin and faint colour edged his high cheekbones.
He would certainly ensure that Sandro did not make any more of a nuisance of himself.
He suspected that Violet’s refusal to be impressed by the younger man had pushed Sandro to ever greater efforts. Sandro did not like to be ignored.
‘I believed I was doing you a favour because you don’t need kitchen duties on top of everything else you’re handling here.’
Violet winced. ‘But I enjoy baking. Did you think you were rescuing some poor downtrodden Cinderella from kitchen labour that you consider too humble for your wife to be seen doing?’ She breathed in deep, feeling the last of that insane anger draining away and sighed.
‘What I really need to tell you is that that contract Tabitha signed does not mean that you own me body and soul.’
Tore went rigid. ‘I know that.’
‘I’m not sure that you do,’ Violet confided.
‘I may only be your wife for the present. But I’m not an employee who has to do everything you say and follow your every guideline.
Is it really this much of a challenge for you to show me some respect?
I treat you with respect. I also try to see your viewpoint.
You should at least have asked if I considered baking a pleasure or a punishment. ’
Tore raised both hands in sudden apology.
He felt slightly battered. Only his grandfather had ever dared to rake him down in such a way.
He saw that he had erred in his view of his bride right from the first mention of marriage.
He had considered only his own comfort, his own needs, his own wishes.
He had not made allowances for hers and yet how could she remain part of his life for three years without negotiation and compromises on both sides?
He knew that he could be selfish. It had been a means of survival while he was a child, but being raised by adoring grandparents had possibly allowed that fault to linger longer than it should have done.
‘I should’ve asked,’ he conceded. ‘But I will repeat… I am not a bully.’
‘Perhaps not. It may just be the sheer physical size of you that intimidates me,’ Violet countered ruefully.
‘And that’s not your fault, any more than it’s my fault that I’m shorter than most people.
Well, at least you didn’t lose your temper, too.
Look, I have to get back down to the kitchen to finish what I started. ’
The cake complete, Violet went upstairs to dress for dinner where she was intercepted by one of Tore’s cousins, who told her apologetically that later they would all be heading to a family party at her boyfriend’s parents’ home.
Sheathed in a black, quite sparkly cocktail frock that bared her back and her legs, Violet sat down to dinner with the heady knowledge that once the meal was over she was free from the responsibility of acting as a hostess.
A night off her duties and she would make the most of it with a long, luxurious bath and a good book.
‘You’re free to go back to work,’ she told Tore cheerfully as he rose from his seat, having assumed that he had been bored stiff with the inconsequential chatter that had distinguished the gathering.
‘And what are your plans?’
‘A lazy bath and a book I’ve been saving,’ she confided lightly.
‘That dress is lovely on you,’ he murmured, sharply disconcerting her with that personal remark. ‘And I spoke to Sandro. I doubt if he’ll make you uncomfortable again.’
The compliment embarrassed Violet. She wasn’t used to compliments.
There had been no loving father or admiring boyfriend to build up her ego.
She told herself that the beautiful new wardrobe was worth its weight in gold.
She was also relieved that he had taken the step of warning Sandro, having been unsure of how best to handle an actual pass if Sandro dared to push that far with her.
Thirty minutes later, she slid with a sigh of bliss into a richly scented bath.
The water brushed against her skin like silk and she had even laid out a fancy nightdress and wrap to don afterwards.
Luxury, sheer luxury, she savoured. That bath had been calling to her since the day they had arrived because as far back as she could remember she had only lived in accommodation with showers.
She had sampled one of the decorative bottled bath oils to try.
An hour later, she clambered out, moisturised all over, dried her hair and put on her new slithery lingerie, an artful confection of lace, silk and ribbons in a soft blue shade, the likes of which had never come her way before.
There was a glorious seating area by a fireplace in the bedroom and she sank into an opulent sofa, clutching her romance novel, and put up her feet with a groan of pleasure. Perfect peace she was savouring just as the door opened and Tore strode in.