The Italian Conte’s Second Chance (Italian #1)

Chapter 1

“I hope he’s in a forgiving mood,” Abby muttered as she drove up to the fortress-like front door of the fifteenth-century Tuscan villa.

Her flight from her home in England had been delayed, and it was later than she’d anticipated.

She peered upward, searching the windows for signs of life, but there were no lights in the formal rooms overlooking the cobbled driveway.

She began to open the car door, then hesitated, peering in the rearview mirror.

The woman revealed by the courtesy light looked older, more confident, than the girl who had fled three years ago.

She was also wiser. But was she braver, as brave as she needed to be?

Abby told herself sternly that she was there to claim what was rightfully hers. She checked her lipstick again and went over her plan in her head. She needed money for her grandmother’s operation and he would give it to her. She had no one else, and nowhere else, to turn.

The car door opened abruptly just as she reached for the handle.

“Contessa Lombardi, it is a pleasure to have you back in Firenze. I hope your journey from England was not too tiring.”

“Thank you, Pietro. Please just call me Miss Taylor.”

The elderly man made no response and offered a hand to help her from the car. The conte’s maggiordomo was nothing if not discreet.

She felt the familiar cobblestones underfoot.

She looked down because she didn’t want to see more than she had to of the gracious Italian house that had briefly been her home.

Memories were crowding her, threatening her composure.

Pietro took her coat and raised a questioning eyebrow toward the trunk.

She shook her head. Luggage would presume that a welcome awaited her under the portico.

She should have put off approaching Dante, given herself at least until the morning to sleep, to think, to plan. But there was every chance he would jet away to some remote corner of his business empire before she could speak with him. Besides, arriving unannounced might give her an advantage.

“Is the conte home?” she asked Pietro as they mounted the broad, shallow steps.

“Si. He is expecting you. Security called from the gates.”

The night was warm, but a shiver snaked down her spine.

She followed him inside, then stood uncertainly on the black and white marble tiles of the entrance hall.

The scent from the bowls of roses on the inlaid side tables sent a slideshow of happier days flickering behind her tired eyelids.

She remembered laughter and warmth and company, and, for a time, love—of every kind except that which she craved.

Pietro halted ahead of her. “The conte is in the den. I shall announce you.” He indicated with a sweep of his arm that she should precede him.

How appropriate, she thought. In his den, like a beast awaiting its prey. At the foot of the curving staircase, she took a gulp of air, but her breathing stayed erratic. She placed a hand on Pietro’s arm. “Give me a minute, will you? I need to freshen up. Then I’ll make my own way up.”

He nodded and returned her wavering smile, patting her hand. He gestured toward the cloakroom off the landing. “It is good to have you home. It will be good for him.”

This was the first time in three years that she would be in the same room as her husband, long years where she’d tried to forget him, tried to tell herself she’d made the right choice, that her business filled the void in her chest, and that knowing he’d married her without loving her no longer hurt.

She believed she had conquered her feelings for the arrogant aristocrat, and yet even now she felt the physical tug of his nearness, even a flight of stairs away.

She argued sternly with herself in the gilded mirror while she repaired the more obvious ravages of travel and anxiety. “You can do this. You’re not a gullible, awestruck twenty-one-year-old anymore. He’s just a man.”

She smoothed her skirt, conscious of every wrinkle, and of the way the short hemline showcased her legs.

Wishing for once she were taller than her five feet five inches, she made her way slowly up the marble staircase.

At the closed door of his den, her churning stomach clenched, and she was a schoolgirl again, summoned to the headmaster’s office.

With an abrupt surge of anger at her cowardice, she knocked forcefully on the tall, paneled door.

It was no use telling herself Conte Dante Lombardi was “just a man.” He was an iron will in an iron-hard body—and he was the man she still loved.

She heard his voice rumble, “Come.”

Braced by anger, she flung open the door of the softly lit room.

She gasped as pain seized her chest. After so long, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Standing in the doorway, Abby had to grip the handle to prevent herself from running across the room and pulling the beautiful woman out of her husband’s arms. He met her with a steely gaze.

“What a lovely surprise. My errant wife has deigned to pay me a visit. She must want something.”

At thirty he looked even more beautiful, in his prime now, somehow grown into his arrogance.

He wore a white silk shirt against deep olive skin.

His ebony hair, thick and glossy, fell almost to his collar.

If Abby had hoped time might have mellowed his hostility, she was swiftly put straight.

His full lips were taut with disapproval and his eyes…

She shivered. Their light blue was icy, as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her.

The voluptuous redhead in his arms had the decency to look embarrassed. She looked up from the couch with pity and made to lift herself off the lean length of him, but his arm snaked out and held her to him. “Don’t leave, Carla. My wife won’t be staying.”

If he thought she’d turn tail and run, he was going to be bitterly disappointed. She refused to drop her gaze from his cold stare. Her pride somehow clothed her in the necessary armor, and she walked into the room with her chin high. “I won’t take much of your time. I see you’re busy.”

Dante continued to lounge on the couch in his opulent study, as if the wife who’d walked out on him three years ago had just sauntered back home after a walk.

As if her presence or absence meant nothing to him.

He would have to be in this room of all the villa’s many rooms. She knew it well. She’d been seduced on that very couch.

He made no move to rise and did not offer her a seat. She stood, taking in the roaring fire and the half-full brandy glasses, all the props for an intimate evening. The coffee table made an effective barrier between them.

“Well?” He raised a dark eyebrow.

“I’ve come to ask for a favor.”

“Ah.” His mouth flickered in the mockery of a smile.

Carla pushed out of his grasp and spoke rapidly in Italian. Once Abby would have been able to keep up, but now her Italian was rusty, and Carla’s words sped by in a jumble. Dante said nothing but his mouth firmed into a grim line, and he stood as Carla rose and left the room.

“At least someone has the decency to show some courtesy,” Abby said.

Dante’s eyes narrowed but he made no answer.

Unable to hold his frosty stare, Abby flicked her gaze around the room. It hadn’t changed. In front of the desk was the faded Oriental rug where she had stood while he told her, coldly and concisely, how their marriage would work—terms she could not, and eventually did not, accept.

The high space was imposing, stuffed with antiques and heavy, formal furnishings.

His seat of power suited him and declared his values.

He was a man of traditional tastes and obedience to traditional dictates.

If only she’d understood this before she’d accepted his proposal—but at twenty-one she’d seen only his eminence, felt only her desire for him. She’d been foolishly dizzy with love.

She looked at the wall behind her husband’s head and found herself skewered by the same cold blue gaze in a row of ancestral portraits. “I see you’ve not redecorated since I was last in this room. You’re still surrounding yourself with hedonistic reminders of the past.”

He stroked the grape velvet couch on which he’d seduced her so expertly. “I like reminders of my mistakes so I don’t repeat them.”

“Mistakes? I didn’t think the powerful Conte Lombardi made mistakes. Perhaps you’re human after all.”

“At least I don’t run from them.”

She turned from his too-perceptive stare. Her eye fell on the intricate embroidered crest on the cloth covering the carved side table. Generations of history. How quickly she’d learned Dante held the honor of his ancient family above all else.

“Some mistakes take two people to fix, and your heart wasn’t in it.” She’d learned that lesson well. So she’d turned her back and walked out on him, on his family, on his name...

“My pretty English rose, you’ve wasted a journey if your favor is to ask me to speed up our divorce.” His nostrils flared and his jaw tightened. “Even I don’t have the power to hurry the Italian courts.”

Abby watched his Adam’s apple move in his throat.

Her gaze drifted down. She eyed the dark arrow of hair revealed at the open neck of his shirt.

Anger bubbled up, sheer fury at the habitual rush of desire triggered by a single look that made her nerve endings sizzle.

And through it all, her need to feel him, touch him, and kiss him asserted itself, threatening her composure.

She lowered her gaze to her hands clasped tightly in front of her. She tried to relax. She didn’t want him to notice how wound up she was. Fat chance—he noticed everything.

Perhaps her surprise visit would unsettle him enough for her to appeal to his softer side. She knew he had one, especially where families were concerned. She raised her head and met his gaze boldly.