Convenient Brides Read Free

accompanied the remains to the island for the private burial rites.
    His mother drifted to the balcony overlooking the rear courtyard. “I don’t know how the children would cope without Tullia,” she said fretfully. “She’s been with them since they were babies, and they cling to her now. They seem to need her more than they need us.”
    “And they need us more than they need an aunt they wouldn’t know from Adam,” Salvatore interjected, slipping an arm around her waist and leading her from the room. “Come, Lidia, my love. Stop worrying about Caroline Leighton and start looking after yourself. You’ve barely closed your eyes since we heard the dreadful news, and you need to rest.”
    She went unresistingly, but turned in the doorway at the last second. “Will you still be here later, Paolo?”
    “Yes,” he said, his glance locking briefly with his father’s and correctly reading the plea he saw there. “I’ll be here for as long as you both need me. You can count on me to do whatever must be done to keep our family intact.”
    Although determined to keep such a promise, he hoped he could do so and not end up despising himself for the methods he might have to employ.
    The Air France Boeing 777-200 touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris just after eleven o’clock on the Tuesday morning, completing the first leg of her journey to Rome. She’d left San Francisco exactly ten hours earlier, which wasn’t such an inordinately long time to be in the air, especially not when she’d reclined in Executive Class comfort the entire distance. But the fact that it was only two in the morning, Pacific Standard Time, played havoc with Callie’s inner clock, not to mention her appearance.
    She’d never been able to cry prettily, the way some women could, and her face bore unmistakable evidence of weeping. It would take considerable cosmetic expertise and every spare second of the two hours before her connecting flight to Rome,to disguise the ravages of grief. But disguise them she would, because when she faced Paolo Rainero again, she intended to be in control—of herself and the situation.
    Perhaps if, after deplaning, she’d been less involved in plotting her strategies, she might have noticed him sooner. As it was, she’d have walked straight past him if he hadn’t planted himself so firmly in her path that she almost tripped over his feet.
    “ Ciao, Caroline,” he greeted her, and before she had time to recover from the impact of Paolo Rainero’s voice assaulting her yet again out of the blue, he’d caught her by the shoulders and bent his head to press a light, continental kiss on each of her cheeks.
    She’d wondered if she’d recognize him. If he’d changed much in nine years. If the dissolute life he’d pursued in his early twenties had left only the crumbling remains of his formerly stunning good looks. Would the aristocratic planes of his face have disappeared under a sagging layer of flesh, with his sleek olive skin crisscrossed by a road map of broken veins? Would his middle have grown soft, his hairline receded?
    She’d prayed it would be so. It would make seeing him again so much easier. But the man confronting her had lost nothing of his masculine beauty. Rather, he had redefined it.
    His shoulders had broadened with maturity, his chest deepened, but not an ounce of fat clung to his frame. The clean, hard line of his jaw, the firm contours of his mouth, spoke of singleminded purpose. There was dignity and strength in his bearing. Authority in his somber, dark brown gaze.
    He had a full head of hair. Thick, black, silky hair that begged a woman to run her fingers through it. And only the faintest trace of laugh lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
    Stunned, she stared at him, all hope that he’d prove himself as susceptible to the passage of time as any other man, evaporating in a rush of molten awareness that battered her with the force of a tornado.
    It wasn’t fair.