by Lynne Graham
He gave a savage frown. ‘Don’t do what? All I’m asking is for you to uphold your side of our agreement. Which, I might remind you, is a legal one. You signed the papers my lawyer prepared—remember?’
Artie steepled her hands against her nose and mouth, trying to control her breathing. Her heart was doing cartwheels and star jumps and back flips and her pulse was off the charts. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to go…’
‘Then what is it?’
She lowered her hands from her face and pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. She clasped her hands in front of her body, her fingers tightly interlaced to the point of discomfort. She couldn’t bring her gaze up to meet his, so instead aimed it at the carpet near his feet. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you…something important.’
Luca crossed the room until he was standing in front of her. He lifted her chin with the end of his finger and meshed his gaze with hers. His frown was still in place but was more concerned now than angry. ‘What?’ His tone was disarmingly gentle and his touch on her chin light but strangely soothing. ‘Tell me what’s going on. I want the truth, cara.’
Artie bit the inside of her mouth, trying to find the words to describe her condition. Her weakness. Her shame. ‘I… I haven’t been outside the castello grounds since I was fifteen years old. It’s not that I don’t want to leave it—I can’t.’
His hand fell away from her face, his forehead creased in lines of puzzlement. ‘Why can’t you? What’s stopping you?’
She gave a hollow, self-deprecating laugh and pointed a finger at her chest. ‘I’m stopping me.’ She stepped back from him and wrapped her arms around her body. ‘I have crippling social anxiety. I can’t cope with crowds and busy, bustling places. I literally freeze or have a meltdown—a full-blown panic attack.’
He opened and closed his mouth as if trying to think of something to say.
‘I’m sorry,’ Artie said. ‘I should have told you before now but I was too embarrassed and—’
‘Please. Don’t apologise.’ His voice was husky, his expression etched with concern. He shook his head like he was trying to get his muddled thoughts in some sort of order. ‘Why didn’t your father say something to me? He led me to believe you were—’
‘Normal?’ She raised her brows in an arch manner. ‘Is that the word you were looking for? I’m hardly that, am I?’
Luca made a rough sound at the back of his throat. ‘Cara, please don’t run yourself down like that. Have you seen a health professional about it?’
‘Four.’
‘And?’
Artie spread her hands outwards. ‘And nothing. I couldn’t cope with the side effects of medication. Meditation and mindfulness helped initially but not enough to get me outside the castello grounds. Talk therapy helped too at first but it was expensive and I didn’t have the time with my caring responsibilities with Papa to keep going with it.’ She gave a sigh and added, ‘I found it exhausting, to be honest. Talking about stuff I didn’t really want to talk about.’
‘The accident?’
Artie nodded, her gaze slipping out of reach of his. ‘So, there you have it. My life in a nutshell—no pun intended.’
Luca brushed a finger down her cheek. ‘Look at me, cara.’ It was a command but so gently delivered it made something move inside her chest like the slow flow of warm honey.
Artie raised her eyes back to his, the tip of her tongue sneaking out to sweep over her lips. ‘I’m sorry for misleading you. You probably wouldn’t have married me if you’d known. But I was so desperate to keep the castello. I don’t know what I’d do without it. It’s the only home I’ve ever known and if I’m forced to leave…’ She bit her lip until she winced. ‘I can’t leave. I just can’t.’
He touched her lip with the pad of his thumb. ‘Stop doing that. You’ll make it bleed.’ His tone was gruff and gently reproving, his gaze surprisingly tender. ‘We’ll find a way to manage this.’
‘How? If your grandfather is too ill to travel, then how will I ever get to meet him?’
‘Technology to the rescue.’ He gave a quick smile and patted his jeans pocket, where his phone was housed. ‘We can set up a video call. Nonno’s eyesight isn’t great and he’s not keen on mobile phones but it will be better than nothing.’
Artie moved a step or two away, her arms crossing over her body, her hands rubbing up and down her upper arms as if warding off a chill. ‘You’re being very understanding about this… I wouldn’t blame you if you tore up the agreement and took full possession of the castello.’
Please God, don’t let him do that. Please. Please. Please.
Luca came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ She suppressed a shiver as the movement of air when he spoke disturbed the loose strands of her hair around her neck. ‘We’ll work together to solve this.’
Artie turned to face him with a frown. ‘Why are you being so generous? You said earlier today you’re a selfish man, but I’m not seeing it.’
His smile was lopsided and his hands gently squeezed the tops of her shoulders. ‘I can be extremely selfish when it comes to getting what I want.’ His gaze drifted to her mouth and her heart skipped a beat. After a moment, his eyes came back to hers. Dark. Lustrous. Intense. The air suddenly vibrating with crackling energy as if all the oxygen particles had been disturbed.
‘Luca?’ Her voice was barely audible, whisper-soft. Her hand crept up to touch his lean jaw, her fingers trailing over the light prickle of his stubble. She sent her index finger around the firm contours of his mouth, the top lip and then the slightly fuller lower one. He drew in a sharp breath as if her touch excited him, thrilled him, tempted him.
His hand came up and his fingers wrapped around her slim wrist as if to pull her hand from his face. But then he made a low, deep sound at the back of his throat and his head came down and his mouth set fire to hers.
CHAPTER SIX
LUCA KNEW HE should stop the kiss before it got out of control. Knew he shouldn’t draw her closer to his body where his blood was swelling him fit to burst. Knew he was forty times a fool to be tempted to change the rules on their paper marriage. But right then, all he could do was explore her soft mouth and let his senses run wild with the sweet, tempting taste of her lips. She opened to him on a breathless sigh and the base of his spine tingled when her tongue met his—shy and yet playful, innocent and yet daring. Need drove him to kiss her more deeply, to hold her more closely, to forget about the restrictions he’d placed on their relationship. Call him reckless, call him foolish, but right now he would die without the sweet temptation of her mouth responding to his.
Artie pressed herself against him, her arms winding around his neck, her young, slim body fitting against him as if fashioned specially for him. He ached to explore the soft perfection of her breasts, to glide his hands over her skin, to breathe in the scent of her, to taste her in the most intimate way possible.
His hands settled on her hips, holding her to the aching throb in his pelvis, his conscience at war with his body. He finally managed to find the willpower to drag his mouth off hers, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go.
‘You know this can’t happen.’ His voice was so rough it sounded like he’d swallowed ground glass.
She looked up at him with eyes bright and shining with arousal. ‘Why can’t it? We’re both consenting adults.’
Luca placed his hands around her wrists and pulled her arms from around his neck, but he still didn’t release her. His fingers circled her wrists in a loose hold, his desire for her chomping at the bit like a bolting thoroughbred stallion. ‘You know why.’
Her mouth tightened, her cheeks pooling with twin circles of pink. ‘Because I’m a virgin? Is that it?’
Luca released her wrists and stepped away, dragging a hand through his hair in an effort t
o get his pulse rate to go back to somewhere near normal. ‘It’s not just about that.’
‘Are you saying you don’t find me attractive? Not desirable?’ Self-doubt quavered in her tone.
Luca let out a gusty sigh. ‘I find you extremely attractive and desirable but that’s not why I married you. It’s not part of the deal. It will make things too complicated when we end it.’
‘How do you know that? People have flings all the time without falling in love with each other. Why not us?’
Luca put some distance between their bodies, but even a metre or so away he could still feel the magnetic pull of hers. ‘You’re young, Artie. Not just in chronological years but in experience. You said it yourself—you haven’t been outside the castello for ten years. Those were ten valuable growing-up years.’
Her expression soured and hurt coloured her tone. ‘You think I’m immature. A child in an adult’s body? Is that what you’re saying?’
Luca pressed his lips together, fighting to keep his self-control in check. Her adult body was temptation personified but he had to keep his hands off her. It wouldn’t be fair to take things to another level, not now he knew how limited her experience. He was the first man to kiss her, to touch her, to expose her to male desire. She was like a teenager experiencing her first crush. A physical crush that had to stop before it got started. ‘I’m saying I’m not the right man for you.’
‘Consider my offer withdrawn.’ She folded her arms around her body and sent him a sideways glance. ‘Sorry if I offended you by being so brazen. Believe me, I surprised myself. I don’t know what came over me.’
Luca fought back a wry smile. ‘We should keep kissing to the absolute minimum.’
Artie gave an indifferent shrug but her eyes displayed her disappointment. ‘Fine by me.’
The silence throbbed with a dangerous energy. An energy Luca could feel in every cell of his body. Humming, thrumming sensual energy, awakened, stirred, unsatisfied.
It would be so easy to take back everything he had said and gather her in his arms, to assuage the longing that burned in his body with hot, flicking tongues of flame, to teach her the wonder of sexual compatibility—for he was sure they would be compatible.
He had not felt such electrifying chemistry from kissing someone before. He had not felt such a rush of lust from holding someone close to his body. He had not felt so dangerously tempted to throw caution to the wind and sink his body into the soft silk of another’s.
Artie released her arms from around her middle and absently toyed with her wedding ring. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed.’ Her cheeks reddened and she hastily added, ‘Alone, I mean. I wasn’t suggesting you join—’
‘Goodnight, cara.’
* * *
Artie bolted up the stairs as if she were being chased by a ghost. Eek. How could she have been so gauche as to practically beg Luca to make love to her? She couldn’t understand why she had been so wanton in her behaviour. Was there something wrong with her? Had her lack of socialising with people her own age affected her development? Her body had woken from a long sleep the moment he kissed her at the wedding. His mouth had sent shivers of longing to every pore of her skin, made her aware of her female needs and desires, made her hungry for a deeper, more powerful connection. A physical connection that would ease the tight, dragging ache in her core.
She closed her bedroom door behind her, letting out a ragged breath. Fool. Fool. Fool. He had laid down the rules—a paper marriage with no emotional attachment. A business contract that was convenient and for both parties. But what was convenient about the way she felt about Luca? The heat and fire of his touch made her greedy for more. She had felt his physical response to her, so why was he denying them both the pleasure they both craved?
Because he doesn’t want you to fall in love with him.
Artie walked over to her bed and sank onto the mattress with another sigh. Luca thought her too young and innocent for him, too inexperienced in the ways of the world for their relationship to be on an equal footing. But the way her body responded to him made her feel more than his equal. It made her feel alive and feminine and powerful in a way she had never imagined she could feel.
She looked down at the engagement and wedding rings on her left hand, the symbol of their union as a married couple. She was tied to him by law but not by love. And she was fine with that. Mostly. What she wanted was to be tied to him in desire, to explore the electrifying chemistry between them, to indulge herself in the world of heady sensuality.
Artie bounced off the bed and went to her bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror above the marble basin. Her eyes were overly bright, her lips still pink and swollen from Luca’s passionate kiss. She touched her lower lip with her fingers, amazed at how sensitive it was, as if his kiss had released every one of her nerve endings from a deep freeze.
Artie touched a hand to the ache in the middle of her chest. So, this was what rejection felt like. The humiliation of wanting someone who didn’t want you back.
Why am I so unlucky in the lottery of life?
* * *
Luca wasn’t a drinker, but right then he wanted to down a bottle of Scotch and throw the empty bottle at the wall. He wanted to stride upstairs to Artie’s bedroom and take her in his arms and show her how much he wanted her. He wanted to breathe in the scent of her skin, taste the sweet nectar of her lips, glide his hands over her beautiful body and take them both to paradise. But the hard lessons learned from his father’s and brother’s death had made him super-cautious when it came to doing things that couldn’t be undone.
Making love with Artie would change everything about their relationship. It would change the dynamic between them, pitching them into new territory, dangerous territory that clashed with his six-month time limit.
He had thought himself a good judge of character, someone who didn’t miss important details. And yet he hadn’t picked up on Artie’s social phobia, but it all made perfect sense now. Why she hadn’t been at the hospital when he’d visited her father. Why she’d insisted on the wedding being held at the castello instead of at one of the local churches. Why she had such a guarded air about her, closed off almost, as if she was uncomfortable around people she didn’t know. He still couldn’t get his head around the fact that she had spent ten years living almost in isolation. Ten years! It was unthinkable to someone like him, who was rarely in the same city two nights in a row. He lived out of hotels rather than at his villa in Tuscany. He lived in the fast lane because slowing down made him think too much, ruminate too much, hurt too much.
It was easier to block it out with work.
Work was his panacea for all ills. He had built his father’s business into a behemoth of success. He had brokered deals all over the world and cashed in on every one of them. Big time. He had more money than he knew what to do with. It didn’t buy him happiness but it did buy him freedom. Freedom from the ties that bound others into dead-end jobs, going-nowhere relationships and the drudgery of duty-bound responsibilities.
Luca walked over to the windows of his suite at the castello. The moon was full and cast the castello grounds in an ethereal light. The centuries-old trees, the gnarled vines, the rambling roses were testament to how many generations of Artie’s family had lived and loved here.
Love. The trickiest of emotions. The one he avoided, because loving people and then letting them down was soul destroying. The stuff of nightmares, a living torture he could do without.
Luca watched as a barn owl flew past the window on silent wings. Nature going about its business under the cloak of moonlight. The castello could be restored into a showcase of antiquity. The gardens tended to and nurtured back into their former glory, the ancient vines grafted and replanted to produce award-winning wine. It would cost money…lots of money—money Artie clearly didn’t have. But it would be his gift to her for the time she h
ad given up to be married to him.
Six months, and day one was just about over. A day when he had discovered his bride was an introverted social phobic who had never been kissed until his mouth touched hers. A young woman who had not socialised with her peers outside the walls of the castello. A young woman who was still a virgin at the age of twenty-five. A modern-day Sleeping Beauty who had yet to be woken to the pleasures of sex.
Stop thinking about sex.
But how could he when the taste of her mouth was still on his lips? The feel of her body pressed against him was branded on his flesh. The ache of desire still hot and tight and heavy in his groin.
The castello was huge, and Artie’s bedroom was a long, wide corridor away from his, but his awareness of her had never been more heightened and his self-control never more tested. What was it about her that made him so tempted to throw his rules to one side? Her unworldly youth? Her innocence? Her sensual allure? It was all those things and more besides. Things he couldn’t quite name but he was aware of them all the same. He felt it in his body when he kissed her. A sense of rightness, as if every kiss he’d experienced before had been erased from his memory so that her mouth could be the new benchmark of what a kiss should be. He felt it when he touched her face and the creamy perfection of her skin made his fingers tingle in a way they had never done when touching anyone else. He felt it when he held her close to his body, the sense that her body was a perfect match for his.
Luca turned away from the window with a sigh of frustration. He needed his laptop so he could immerse himself in work but he’d left it in the car. He knew there wouldn’t be too many bridegrooms tapping away on their laptops on their wedding night, but he was not a normal bridegroom.
And he needed to keep reminding his body of that too.
* * *
When Artie came downstairs the following morning, Rosa was laying out breakfast in the morning room, but not with her usual energy and vigour. Her face was pale and there were lines of tiredness around her eyes.