Sandra Marton - Nicolo: The Powerful Sicilian  

T HE wedding at the little church in lower Manhattan and then the reception at the Orsini mansion had made for a long day, and Nicolo Orsini was more than ready to leave.

A naked woman was waiting in his bed.

Shed been there when he left his Central Park West triplex at ten that morning.

Must you go, Nicky? shed said, with a pout almost as sexy as the lush body barely covered by the down duvet.

Nick had checked his tie in the mirror, checked the whole bitthe custom-tailored tux, the white silk shirt, even his wing tips, spit-polished the way hed learned to do it in the corps. Then hed walked back to the bed, dropped a light kiss on her hair and said yeah, he did.

It wasnt every day a mans brother got married.

He hadnt told her that, of course, hed simply said he had to go to a wedding. Even that had been enough to put a spark of interest in her baby blues, but if hed said it was one of his brothers doing the deed

Talk about the Orsini brothers and weddings was not a thought he cared to leave bouncing around in any womans head.

Ill phone you, hed said, and shed pouted againhow come that pout was becoming less of a turn-on and more of an irritation?and said maybe shed just wait right where she was until he returned.

Nick lifted his champagne flute to his lips as he thought back to the morning.

Damn, he hoped not.

He had nothing against finding beautiful women in his bed, but his interest in this one was definitely waning and the female histrionics that sometimes accompanied the end of an affair were the last thing he wanted to deal with after a day like this. Much as he loved his brothers, his sisters, his mother, his sisters-in-law and his little nephew, there was such a thing as too much togetherness.

Or maybe it was just him. Either way, it was time to get moving.

He looked out the glass-walled conservatory at the garden behind the Orsini mansion. The flowering shrubs his sister Isabella had planted a couple of years ago were still green despite the onset of autumn. Beyond the shrubs, stone walls rose high enough to block out the streets of his childhood, streets that were changing so fast he hardly recognized them anymore. The Little Italy that had been home to generations of immigrants was rapidly giving way to Greenwich Village.

Trendy shops, upscale restaurants, art galleries. Progress, Nick thought grimly and drank some more of the champagne. He hated to see it happen. Hed grown up on these streets. Not that his memories were all warm and fuzzy. When your old man was the don of a powerful crime family, you learned early that your life was different. By the time he was nine or ten, hed known what Cesare Orsini was and hated him for it.

But the bond with his mother and sisters had always been strong. As for the bond with his brothers

Nicks lips curved in a smile.

That bond went beyond blood.

All day, his thoughts had dipped back to their shared childhoods. Theyd fought like wolf cubs, teased each other unmercifully, stood together against kids who thought it might be fun to give the sons of a famiglia don a hard time. Barely out of their teens, theyd gone their separate ways only to come together again, their bond stronger than ever, to found the investment firm that had made them as wealthy and powerful as their father but without any of the ugliness of Cesares life.

They were part of each other, Raffaele, Dante, Falco and him. Close in age, close in looks, in temperament, in everything that mattered.

Was that going to change? It had to. How could things remain the same when one after another, the Orsini brothers had taken wives?

Nick tossed back the rest of his champagne and headed for the bar that had been set up at one end of the conservatory. The bartender saw him coming, smiled politely as he popped the cork on another bottle of vintage Dom Prignon and poured the pale gold liquid into a Baccarat flute.

Thanks, Nick said.

Unbelievable, he thought as he watched Rafe dancing with his wife, Chiara. His brothers, married. He still couldnt get his head around it. First Rafe, then Dante and now even Falco. I-Am-An-Island-Unto-Myself Falco

Absolutely unbelievable.

His brothers had fallen in love.

So will you, someday, Rafe had said last night, as the four of them had toasted Falcos coming nuptials in The Bar, the Soho place they owned.

Not me, hed said, and theyd all laughed.

Yeah, my man, Dante had said, you, too.

Trust me, Falco had said. When you least expect it, youll meet the right woman and next thing you know, shell have your poor, pathetic heart right in the palm of her hand.