Chapter Eight
DOMENICO STEPPED OUT of the shower, dried himself off, and stood before the mirror to brush his teeth.
He was still waiting for relief at Marnie’s agreement to try again to hit him.
He could only assume it was her flat refusal to remarry that was stopping it from rushing out of him.
The cards she’d played, although exceedingly fair, had kept them stacked in her favour.
It gave not an iota of satisfaction to know she’d learned all her tricks from him.
Teeth clean, he stepped into his bedroom. His empty bedroom. His stare flicked straight to the adjoining door.
Marnie had gone to bed before him, shortly after they’d finished their dinner.
Although she was recovering physically and her appetite was returning, he knew the intensity of their morning had taken its toll on her.
It had taken its toll on him too. He guessed the weight of her thoughts was also playing its part.
She didn’t want to try again. Not for him. Not for herself. It was all for their baby.
It shouldn’t bite as much as it did.
By the time she’d gone up, her face had been drawn with exhaustion. She’d excused herself and slipped out of the dining room without looking back at him.
Despite sharing a bedroom being part of their new agreement, it didn’t surprise him that she’d retired to her own bed. Marnie needed the comfort of the familiar…
Where the hell had that thought come from?
He pushed the thought aside to be pondered another time as he instead forced himself to think of another, more probable reason she’d retired to her own room: in all their time together, he’d never invited her into his bedrooms. More than that, he’d made it very clear she wasn’t welcome in them, not here in Rome or in London.
He hadn’t taken her to his other homes. Not after their marriage.
He reached the adjoining door with relief even further away and with a weight compressing his chest.
His perfect marriage had been made of smoke encased in the thinnest, most fragile glass, and as he recalled all Marnie had said about her reasons for marrying him, the weight grew.
It was the first time he’d properly allowed himself to think about it.
After lunch, he’d kept himself busy, first by sending out instructions for a video conference with his directors and the heads of all divisions and then having said video conference so he could personally relay the news that he would be ceasing all transatlantic travel until after the birth of his and Marnie’s child.
He guessed the news about the pregnancy had already spread to everyone because the surprised expressions at the news looked practised.
The practicalities of his announcement had taken the rest of the afternoon to work out.
He’d been glad of it. Glad of the distraction. Glad he had something practical to get his head focused on after the intensity of all that had occurred between them in the morning. Problem-solving was something he excelled at.
He’d never expected when he married Marnie that she would be the one problem he couldn’t solve.
The regularity of her breathing as he approached her bed told him she was asleep.
His heart in his throat, he slipped beneath the sheets, moving as stealthily as possible so as not to wake her.
She was curled in the foetal position with her back to him.
His eyes adjusted to the dark, Domenico stared at the back of her head and wondered what she was dreaming of. Whether or not she dreamed in sleep, she dreamed in life.
She used to dream of him rescuing her from her life, and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply to counter the ravages of his pounding heart.
That’s what she’d said earlier, before their baby’s first movements had caught them both in their spell.
He’d not been able to feel it with his hand, but he’d felt it through the joy that had lit Marnie’s face, and he knew the connection that had passed between them in that moment had played a strong part in her agreement to try again.
She was trying again so Domenico and their baby could forge a bond before the birth and beyond.
She was pushing aside her own dreams so Domenico could live his, and as he thought this, a wave of emotion caught hold of him.
He nestled closer and gently spooned himself around her as he’d done earlier, groping for her slender hand. He wrapped his fingers around it, felt the slightest twitch in response, and pressed his mouth into her hair. She felt so damned fragile. Like she could break.
Closing his eyes, his breaths were ragged as he made a silent, fervent vow to do everything in his power to prove to Marnie that she’d made the right choice. Whatever it took, he would give her the life she used to dream of.
His last thought as he drifted into sleep was that she wasn’t the one problem he couldn’t solve. She was the one problem he’d been afraid to even try to solve.
Marnie’s heart had ballooned before she’d pulled herself out of the twilight zone that hovered between sleep and consciousness. Her eyes pinged open, all her senses awakening in a rush.
She wasn’t alone in the bed. Domenico was curved around her.
His chest was pressed against her back, his arm slung over her waist, fingers curled beneath her breast, legs locked in the back of hers.
As her reeling mind tried to take in that he’d joined her while she slept, she became aware of movement in the cleft of her buttocks.
Her eyes widened as she felt him come to life, her thin cotton pyjama shorts giving no protection against the sensation of the growing erection nestled so perfectly that if she were naked, one hip thrust would have him inside her.
Frozen, unable to even breathe, she became aware that Domenico had stopped breathing too.
The only part of her body that seemed capable of working was her heart, furiously pumping hot blood through her system, roaring in her head and pooling between her legs where the flame for him had come out of its dormant sleep at the same speed as her awakened senses.
The impulse to wantonly press her buttocks tighter against him was so strong that suddenly she was breathing again, shallow inhalations through her nose as she tried desperately to keep herself like a statue and keep her focus on the armchair in her eyeline.
The curled fingers beneath her breast flickered, a light brush of the tips against her ribs. The ache inside her grew. Her breath catching back in her throat, she could do nothing about the tremor of her body as anticipation shot through her veins in an overdose of adrenaline.
The anticipated caress of her breasts never came. In one fluid motion, his hand slid off her and Domenico rolled onto his back, stretching as if he’d only that second woken.
Marnie closed her eyes, practically sagging at the weight of a disappointment she desperately wished she could deny.
Refilling her lungs as best she could, she pushed the sheets off and sat up, swinging her feet to the floor.
A hand touched her lower back. ‘Good morning, fiore mio.’
She winced at the endearment even as his sleepy, husky voice soaked into her ears, touching her in the same way as the mark of his palm and fingers on her skin.
‘Morning,’ she whispered.
‘You slept well?’
She nodded and cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t realise you’d joined me.’
‘This is our new life now. One bed.’ His hand caressed her back and gently gripped the side of her waist, the mattress moving as he sat up. Leaning into her, he rested his chin on her shoulder and murmured, ‘Do you want to move into my room or shall I move in here?’
Sensation careering through her, she had to clear her throat again. ‘Keep your room. I know you like your privacy.’
‘That was then.’ His cheek leaned into hers, his stubble bristling into her skin. ‘This is our life now, Marnie; what we both agreed to.’ He slid his hand over her waist and rested it lightly on her belly. ‘You, me and our baby, unified as a family.’
Squeezing her eyes shut, she covered his hand and chanted mindset to herself.
She should have been better prepared for waking up with him and for him going full pelt into ‘relationship mode.’ This was Domenico’s way.
Once something was decided in his mind, he didn’t waste time.
He’d decided the law firm he’d inherited from his father when he was still a rookie lawyer should go international and within a decade had transformed it into one of the world’s leading corporate law firms. He’d turned thirty-five and decided it was time for a child, selected Marnie as his wife and married her, all within the space of a month.
Never minding his determination to have his child full-time beneath his roof; having lost her once, his pride would never allow it to happen again.
He turned his hand to thread their fingers.
‘Think about which room you would prefer to make our own, and think, too, which you would like us to share when we return to London. As for now, if you’re feeling well enough for it, what do you think about going out and taking in some of the sights Rome has to offer? ’
Remembering how he’d insisted she give him the full rundown on all her sightseeing when they’d spent those months here before, she tried not to sound too flat that he’d clearly forgotten. ‘I visited them all when you brought me here last time.’
‘Those are not the sights I’m thinking about—I want to show you my past.’
She turned her cheek without thinking. The tip of her nose brushed his cheek.
He turned his face to hers and lifted his hand from her belly to brush strands of hair from her face.
Thumb rubbing her cheek, his mouth only a whisper away from hers, his eyes glittered with an emotion that made her heart clutch.
‘I want to show you all the places I should have shown you the last time we were here.’