The Bride's Awakening

Kate Hewitt

He’s going to teach her how to be a woman! Vittorio Ralfino, the Count of Cazlevara, is back in Italy to find a traditional wife. Anamaria Viale, a good local girl, loyal and scandal-free, is perfect. Anamaria’s stunned that her teenage crush is proposing to her…an ugly duckling! Tall, voluptuous and awkward, she’s stoically resigned herself to singledom.But Vittorio is persuasive – and passionate! He offered marriage as a business proposition – but very soon unlocks a deep, powerful need in Ana’s untouched body that only he can sate…

‘I want you,’ Vittorio confessed raggedly, ‘so much. Come back to the castle with me. Make love to me, Ana.’

Love. Ana couldn’t keep the smile from her voice. ‘Again?’

‘You think once—or twice—is enough?’

She could hardly believe he wanted her so much. It shook her to her very bones, the heart of herself. ‘No, definitely not,’ she murmured.

‘Come back—’

‘No. Not at the castle, Vittorio. Here.’

He stared down at the dusty ground of the vineyard. ‘Here?’ he repeated dubiously.

‘Yes,’ Ana said firmly, tugging on his hand. ‘Here.’ Here, where he’d found her desirable—sexy—even in her work clothes with her wind-tangled hair. Here, where she’d felt safe and heaven-bound all at once, and wanted to again, in Vittorio’s arms. Here, because among the grapes and the soil she was her real self, not the woman who wore fancy dresses and high heels and tried to seduce her husband with tricks she couldn’t begin to execute with any skill or ease.

Here.

The Bride’s Awakening

By

Kate Hewitt

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

KATE HEWITT discovered her first Mills & Boon

romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older.

She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, traveling, and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years and now resides in Connecticut, with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog.

Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website: www.kate-hewitt.com

Chapter One

VITTORIO RALFINO, the Count of Cazlevara, stood on the threshold of San Stefano Castle and searched the milling guests for the woman he intended to be his wife. He wasn’t certain what she looked like for, beyond a single small photo, he hadn’t seen her in sixteen years. Or if he had seen her, she hadn’t made much of an impression. Now he planned to marry her.

Anamaria Viale wasn’t readily apparent amidst the tuxedo and evening gown-clad crowd circulating through the candlelit foyer. All he remembered from when he’d seen her at her mother’s funeral was a sad, sallow face and too much dark hair. She’d been thirteen years old. The photo in the magazine gave little more information; she had good teeth. Still, her looks—or lack of them—did not interest Vittorio. Anamaria Viale possessed the qualities he was looking for in a wife: loyalty, health and a shared love of this land and its grapes. Her family’s vineyard would be an asset to his own; together they would rule an empire and create a dynasty. Nothing else mattered.

Impatiently, he strode into the castle’s medieval hall. Shadows danced along the stone walls and he felt the curious stares of neighbours, acquaintances and a few friends. He heard the murmur of speculative whispers travel around the ancient hall in a ripple of suppressed sound and knew he was their subject. He hadn’t been back in Veneto for more than a day or two at a time in the last fifteen years. He’d kept away from the place and its memories and regrets. Like a hurt little boy, he’d run away from his past and p