Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2
Page 47
“If I tell you something, will you believe me?”
She nodded warily.
“I never used Greta’s vote against Leo at the last board meeting.” He pressed his palm against her mouth. “I know that that’s not much solace. I’d already threatened to use her love for you, your happiness against them, and that itself was unforgivable.
“But that same day, I also talked to Antonio, and something he said made me realize it was he who leaked my relationship to the Brunettis to the press all those months ago. He made a calculated risk that I would be able to recover any lost ground, but his primary goal was for me to leave you and carry on with my plans for vengeance, regardless of how much it would hurt me.
“And I realized how much hatred he has in him. In him, I saw my future, bella, the companionship of loneliness and hatred instead of family and love. I had already begun questioning everything I had done against my own brothers.
“But to turn away from my path completely, it terrified me. It meant I had to face what sort of a man I had become. It meant…facing the fact that I’m not worthy of you.”
“But I never wanted some perfect man, V. I wanted you. I loved you despite everything you’d done.”
“Forgive me, bella, for not seeing that before. Do you know, I wake up in the middle of the night with the most horrible nightmare now?”
She frowned. “What do you dream of?”
“That I didn’t follow you here that first time. That for some reason or the other, I changed my mind about coming to Bali. That I never met you until I had already ruined everything. My own future with both my hands. That I never got the chance for you to love me.
“And I wake up, thrashing, the sheets cold around me. My chest the coldest of all.
“I reach for you and you’re not there.
“You saved me, bella. From myself.
“And I will love you all my life for it.”
She was sobbing again, as if her heart was breaking, and Vincenzo folded her into his arms. He settled into the lounger with her in his lap, crooning to her, kissing her temple. Rocking her. Cursing himself for causing her this much pain.
“Every night I went to bed, hoping that you’d come the next day. Walking away from you was like ripping out my own heart and I couldn’t do it again, V.”
“Shh…tesoro. You will never have to leave me again. Never, bella. Never will I doubt your love for me. Never will I make you doubt mine for you.”
She kissed him, and Vincenzo felt as if he was born again. He became a different man in her kiss, in her embrace. “When you’re ready, we will fly to New York and see Charlie. And then we’ll take him back to the villa, to meet the rest of our family.”
“Really?” she said, looking at him like he was a hero.
And for the first time in his life, Vincenzo felt as if he was, if not exactly a hero, at least not a villain.
“I have tried to return the villa to Leo and Massimo. In fact, I begged them to take it back, to come back home, and I think Massimo in particular enjoyed it. He kept urging Leo to torment me a little more, and Natalie kept yelling at him to leave me alone.
“After all these years, she still has faith in me. She threw herself behind me without a moment’s thought.” He looked away.
Fingers in his hair, Alex tugged his head back around until he looked into her eyes. “Because she loves you, V. Don’t you get it? She’s already seen you at your worst and she still loves you. That kind of love…it doesn’t go away overnight.”
He kissed her deep and hard. “I’m finally beginning to understand that, Princess.”
“What happened then?”
“Leonardo won’t take it back. He’s having another villa built to his own design and he wants to live there with Neha and the babies and her mother. And Massimo and Natalie said the Brunetti villa is too big for them.”
“What about BFI?”
He swallowed, shame filling up his throat. “Leo…doesn’t want the CEO chair back either. He said that he’s carried the mantle of the Brunetti legacy, of BFI’s weight, for too many years. He’ll still work for the company, with me, but not as the CEO. I asked Massimo if he wanted it, and he backed away as if it was the very devil. He said he was happier running BCS, that the bureaucratic nonsense wasn’t for him and keeping the jackals on the board happy should be punishment enough for me.”
“Are you okay with that?” she asked him perceptively.
Vincenzo shrugged. “Only if you are, bella. I never want you to think that BFI or the villa or anything else is more important to me than you are.”
“I won’t, V. I never thought you were power hungry even before, and I don’t now.”
“So the villa is ours, but only if you want it. Only if you’ll be happy living there.”
“And Greta? Can I ask her to live with us, V?”
“Is this another test, bella? Have I crushed your faith in me so badly?”
She cupped his cheek. “No, not at all. You know when I pushed her to tell me what you’d threatened to do, she…she broke down into tears. She…said she’d hated having to tell me what you did. She said, for all the wrongs you’d done me, she was sure you did love me. In your own Brunetti way, she added. As if that pigheaded stubbornness was something to be proud of.”
He smiled as Alex pulled him close and kissed him. “You both need time to heal, V. And it’s a damn big villa. We can even have your mother and her nurses live with us. In fact, I insist on it.”
Vincenzo swallowed the tears that clogged his throat and looked into the eyes of the woman who’d given him everything. “It’s not always easy to have her around.”
She shrugged. “But family is never easy, right? I have always wanted a big family, and you and me and Charlie and this baby and Greta and your mother…this is our big family, V. This is everything I always wanted.”
“You’re my heart and soul, Princess, and my happiness lies wherever you are. With this baby. With Charlie. So, yes to everything, bella. To a life full of laughter and joy.”
“Yes, please,” she whispered against his mouth, and he felt as if his heart would burst out of his chest. For there was a strange giddy quality to it he had never known before. Love.
EPILOGUE
Eight months later
ALEX PRESSED HERSELF back with a deep moan as strong hands descended on her hips. As rock-hard thighs cradled hers. As the hardness she ached for nestled enticingly into her buttocks.
Vincenzo nuzzled into her neck, and she happily threw her head back, more than greedy for her husband’s caresses after a busy three months.
“I’ve missed you, Princess,” he murmured, his lips and teeth and tongue wreaking havoc on the sensitive spot on her neck, sending live wires of sensation straight to her sex.
“I’ve missed you too,” Alex whispered, pressing her fingers onto his. And then pulling them up until his hands cradled her breasts. He immediately obliged, rolling her already tightening nipples into harder peaks with his clever fingers.
“Think we have a few minutes before we have to rescue Greta from down there?”
Alex looked down at the front lawn, where Charlie was running around in circles, Vincenzo’s mother kept darting looks at the little baby boy in the stroller, calling him Vincenzo, and Greta was very efficiently keeping an eye on the whole lot of them. “Greta doesn’t need to be rescued at all. She soothes your fractious son, Luca, and your mother all at the same time with one magic word uttered in that commanding voice of hers. They both respond to her so well, V. It’s really something to watch.”
He didn’t say it, but Alex felt the slight tension in his body when his mother ventured closer to their son’s stroller. And his exhale of relief when she simply bent to pick up the pacifier their son had spat out and plonked it back into his mouth with a tenderness that made Alex’s throat ache.
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br /> She turned around, determined to distract him. The kiss she took from him—a heated tangle of teeth and tongues—was nowhere near enough. The last eight months had been laughter and joy and pain and sometimes plain awkwardness as her reticent husband learned to embrace all the things that came with being part of a large family.
But not a day went by when he didn’t let her know how much he loved her. Not a day went by when he didn’t show how much their sons, Luca and Charlie, and Leo and Massimo meant to him.
How wrong she’d been to think him a frog. No, her husband was indeed a prince among men. For he had learned how to love when he’d never really known it for most of his life.
Keeping her arms around his neck, she kissed his jaw. “You don’t have to worry about her, V. Greta and I took alternating turns watching her, not forgetting her nurse is always there too.”
He nodded, his brow relaxing. “I just…it’s a habit, that’s all, bella.”
“I know,” Alex said, rubbing her nose against his. “How did your lunch with Antonio go? Is he coming around yet?”
Vincenzo shrugged. “I don’t know. But I will not just abandon him, in spite of what he did.”
“Of course you won’t. Maybe you should invite him to lunch here next time. Don’t you think he should meet the little monster that is your son?”
“Ah…so he’s my son when he’s a monster and yours when he sleeps like an angel?” Amazement spiraled through Vincenzo. He knew that Antonio’s intensity still made Alex a bit wary. But she was willing to try again for his sake. “You won’t mind?”
“He’s a part of your life, V. He was there for you before me. And like you said, he’s an old man, settled in his bitterness. We can’t expect him to come around just like that.”
Vincenzo took her mouth in a hard kiss that still left him hungry. “Ti amo, bella. More and more every day.” When he reached for the zipper on her dress, she slipped out of his embrace.
“I need you, Princess. Desperately,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt.
“But we have only a few minutes before Leo and Neha and the babies and Massimo and Natalie descend upon us.”
He caught her and stole another kiss. “I’m sure I can satisfy you in a few minutes, bella.”
Alex shook her head, all the while running her greedy palms over his hard, lean chest. “Ah…but I don’t want quick satisfaction. I want a whole night of indulgence, V. I want…everything tonight.”
Vincenzo groaned but nodded, anticipation building inside of him already. When she’d have run away, he caught her, lifted her in his arms and brought her to the chaise that looked over the window and settled on it with her in her arms.
“Then let me just hold you, bella. Before the boys or my mother or your stepmother or someone else demands your attention. Just let me have you for myself, si?”
She nodded and burrowed into him and only then did his heartbeat settle into a steady pace.
And Vincenzo sat there like that, with the woman he adored more and more each day, in his arms, his life sweeter and richer than anything he could have ever imagined.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781488059605
The Flaw in His Marriage Plan
Copyright © 2020 by Tara Pammi
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Untouched and unawakened…
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Rather than lose her beloved estate to ultrarich playboy Luca Ferrantelli, Artemisia agrees to wed him…on paper. Traumatized by a devastating accident, the heiress hasn’t left the castello in years. She knows nothing of the world outside—nothing of a man’s touch.
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USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Dear Reader,
When my editor first approached me about doing a Sleeping Beauty theme for my next book, I was so excited. I adore classic fairy tales! I enjoyed the challenge of incorporating some of the essential elements of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale while doing my own spin on it. No pun intended! Alas, there are no spindles in my story, but I did make my heroine, Artemisia, a talented embroiderer living in an ancient ivy-clad castle. And of course, my hero, Luca Ferrantelli, is the dashingly handsome prince who awakens her with a kiss.
In the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty is asleep for one hundred years in a glass coffin due to a curse put upon her as a child. Artie, in my story, suffers from severe social anxiety and hasn’t left the castello for a decade. She is psychologically asleep to her potential, and it is only when she meets Luca that she is able to gradually break free of the curse of guilt that has contained her since she was a teenager.
Something rather spooky happened as I was writing this story. I suddenly realized I didn’t just have one Sleeping Beauty in my novel—I had three! Luca was also a Sleeping Beauty and so, too, was Artie’s friend and housekeeper at the castello, Rosa.
Social anxiety is a crippling condition and is notoriously difficult to overcome, but it can be done. Some people very close to me have suffered from it, and their courage in trying to overcome it has always inspired and impressed me.
Best wishes,
Melanie XX
Once Upon a Temptation
Will they live passionately ever after?
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a billionaire—or eight! Each billionaire had riches beyond your wildest imagination. Still, they were each missing something: love. But the path to true love is never easy…even if you’re one of the world’s richest men!
Inspired by fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood, the Once Upon a Temptation collection will take you on a passion-filled journey of ultimate escapism.
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Melanie Milburne read her first Harlequin novel at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a master’s degree in education, she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigious award honoring outstanding literary talent.
Books by Melanie Milburne
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Penniless Virgin to Sicilian’s Bride
Billionaire’s Wife on Paper
Secret Heirs of Billionaires
Cinderella’s Scandalous Secret
The Scandal Before the Wedding
Claimed for the Billionaire’s Convenience
The Venetian One-Night Baby
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Dedicated to Rachel Bailey—a fellow dog lover, romance writer and awesome brainstorming partner! Thanks for being such a wonderful friend xxxxx. Licks and cuddles from Polly and Lily, too.