‘In my opinion you would look better without them,’ Mario teased.
Colour burned in her cheeks as she tried to stare him down. ‘You haven’t seen, and nor will you see, me without them,’ she said. ‘That is not part of the deal.’
His eyes roved over her, scorching her, making her feel as if she was standing in nothing but her goose-bumped skin. ‘We could always make it part of the deal,’ he said, locking his searing gaze on hers. ‘How about it, Sabrina? How about another five-hundred-thousand euros to warm my bed?’
Sabrina felt her legs loosen and fought to stand firm. ‘N-no,’ she said, annoyed that her voice sounded so thready.
He undid the buttons on his shirt. ‘If you change your mind, let me know.’
She tried not to stare as his masculine chest was revealed: dark, springy hair, tanned skin, sculptured pectoral muscles and a stomach that was flat and rock-hard. She felt her mouth go dry as she forced her eyes back to his smiling ones. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ she asked.
‘I am getting undressed.’
‘Here?’ The word came out like a tiny squeak.
‘Where else do you suggest I do so?’ he asked. ‘This is my hotel room, is it not?’
Sabrina set her mouth into a prim line. ‘Yes, but—’
He unhooked his belt. ‘I could always do it in the corridor, but then the manager or other guests might have something to say about that, sì?’
‘I am sure there are changing rooms on the pool deck,’ she said, swallowing as he heeled himself out of his shoes.
‘Yes, I suppose there are.’
She spun away when she heard the rasp of his zipper. ‘Do you mind?’ she choked.
‘Sabrina, we are going to be officially married within days,’ he said.
She hunched her shoulders, keeping her back turned. Did he have to keep reminding her? She was having enough trouble dealing with the reality of being tied to him, without him figuratively hitting her over the head with it at every opportunity. Was he doing it on purpose to show how he had all the power and control? ‘So?’ she said in a tone that asked ‘what does that have to do with anything?’
‘So you will have to get used to seeing me without clothes. I do not want my staff to think I have an unwilling wife in my bed.’
Sabrina felt her consternation increasing. ‘You said it wasn’t going to be a real marriage,’ she said hollowly, still with her back turned towards him, every vertebrae feeling as if it was being unhinged as she listened to the rustle of his clothes being dispensed with.
‘Nevertheless, we will have to share a bedroom from time to time.’
She spun back to face him, her heart pounding in her chest. ‘What?’
‘I have dependable, trustworthy household staff at my villa in Rome, but when we stay abroad I must insist we share a bedroom like any other married couple,’ he said, folding his trousers over the back of a chair. ‘I do not wish the press to make a laughing stock out of me for not having a normal relationship with my wife.’
Sabrina stared at him in rising alarm, her heart rate soaring. ‘But … but can’t we have separate beds at such times?’
‘No.’
Something about his intractable tone annoyed her beyond measure. ‘You think I am going to sleep with you without a fight?’ she asked, still trying not to look below his waist. He was still wearing his underwear, but with one involuntary glance she had seen enough to make her body crawl all over with traitorous desire.
‘I expect you to know which side of your bread is buttered and how thickly, Sabrina,’ he returned. ‘I am paying you to act as my wife, and that is what you will do when I need you to do it.’
‘I am not sharing a bed with you and that is final,’ she said with a glittering glare.
‘Then I will have to think of a way to convince you to do so,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me. I am sure I will come up with something.’
Sabrina was immeasurably annoyed that he was so confident she would cave in just like every other woman in his life had before. She was even more annoyed because she suspected he was going to succeed with her in spite of her paltry attempts to hold him off. ‘How?’ she asked with a curl of her lip. ‘By using blackmail?’
His eyes held hers with steely purpose. ‘If necessary.’
She drew in a wobbly breath. She was in no doubt of his ruthlessness. He had a hard edge to him that for some inexplicable reason was part of his lethal charm. He was aloof, untouchable, in control and powerful at all times and under all circumstances. ‘I hardly think you could say anything about me that hasn’t already been said,’ she pointed out. ‘My reputation is hardly pristine and worth protecting.’
‘I was not thinking about using the threat of exposure to the press as my tool,’ he said. ‘As you say, what would be the point? Everybody already knows what sort of woman you are.’
Sabrina ground her teeth. Oh, how she wished she could prove him wrong. He would not look down at her in that imperious manner of his then. What would he say if she were to tell him the truth—that he wasn’t marrying a sleep-around slut but a totally inexperienced virgin?
He would laugh at her, that was what he would do, she reminded herself. It was hardly something you could prove one way or the other, or at least not these days when women were physically active from a young age. It would be her word against her reputation, hardly a level playing-field, given what the press had said about her from day one of the Roebourne affair.
‘Not going to deny it?’ he asked in the throbbing silence.
‘What would be the point?’ she asked in return. ‘You have already made up your mind about me.’
He held her gaze for endless seconds. ‘You are rather a surprise package, Sabrina Halliday. Behind that demure façade you pack quite a sensual punch. I am almost tempted to refresh my memory of how passionate and tempting that soft mouth of yours can be.’
Sabrina stepped backwards, her heart giving a little skip and trip of alarm. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
He smiled an indolent smile that creased up the corners of his eyes. ‘Oh, I am thinking about it, Sabrina,’ he assured her. ‘I think about it all the time.’
Panic beat a rapid tattoo in her chest as he stepped closer. ‘S-stop it, Mario,’ she said a little desperately. ‘Stop flirting with me. That’s what started it, you know—you flirted with me non-stop at the wedding. Don’t do it. It … it annoys me.’
‘Do you know what I have been thinking?’ he asked as if she hadn’t spoken, his dark eyes holding hers like headlights aimed on a frightened fawn.
‘No,’ she said, running the tip of her tongue over her lips. ‘No, I do not want to know what you’ve been think—’
‘I have been thinking about how it would feel to have that soft mouth around me, your tongue licking me, until I—’
Sabrina pressed her fingers against his firm lips to stop him from going any further. ‘No, don’t say it,’ she said hoarsely.
His eyes continued to burn their way into hers as he pushed his tongue against the pads of her fingers, the erotic action sending zigzags of electric heat right to her toes and back.
She pulled her hand away as if it had been burnt, her chest going up and down as she tried to control her erratic breathing.
‘We could have fun together, Sabrina,’ he said, still holding her gaze. ‘Lots and lots of fun.’
She pursed her lips, trying her best to sound firm. ‘I would rather watch paint fade … I mean dry.’
He laughed, the deep, rich sound having much the same effect on her as his tongue had against her fingertips. ‘It will be interesting to see if that holds true once we are legally married,’ he said, reaching for his bathrobe.
‘You think putting a ring on my finger is going to suddenly make me find you irresistible?’ Sabrina asked with a scowl.
‘Diamonds have usually done the trick with all the women I have known,’ he said with a mocking smile. ‘Did you know I have recently acquired
an investment in a large diamond company?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but that’s of no interest to—’
‘I will have a ring made up with Marcolini diamonds, and then we will see just how irresistible I am, shall we?’ he carried on in that arrogant manner of his.
Sabrina was steadily fuming. ‘You really have an appalling opinion of women, don’t you?’
‘I am a realist,’ he said, tying the ends of the bathrobe around his waist. ‘I know the games women like you play. Money and prestige are paramount. You do not let feelings get in the way of position and power. That would ruin everything, would it not? You didn’t love Howard Roebourne, for instance. He was just a meal ticket, a means to an end. What a pity it all went sour for you.’
Sabrina tightened her mouth even further. ‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ she said.
His dark eyes hardened with cynicism. ‘He’s told me what you were like, Sabrina. From your activities so far, I have no reason to doubt him.’
Colour flowed into Sabrina’s cheeks. She had been so naïve in her handling of Howard Roebourne. She had not recognised the subtle moves he had been making on her until it was too late. ‘He was lying,’ she said through clenched teeth.
Mario picked up his room card from the table. ‘After I have a swim I will have dinner brought up to the suite,’ he said. ‘That is, unless you think Molly is not too young to be taken out to a restaurant.’
Sabrina pressed her lips together. Dinner with others around would certainly be less threatening than sharing a meal in the room, commodious and luxurious as it was. But then Molly was only four months old, and the clatter of crockery and cutlery would hardly be conducive for a restful sleep. ‘Um … I think today has been rather a big day for her,’ she said at last.
His eyes held hers for a second longer than she felt comfortable with. ‘As you wish,’ he said.
Sabrina waited until he had left the suite before she let out her breath in a ragged stream. ‘What were you thinking, Laura?’ she whispered hollowly. ‘For God’s sake, what were you and Ric thinking?’
CHAPTER FOUR
SABRINA was sitting on one of the plush leather sofas, f licking through a magazine, when Mario returned from the pool. In spite of every attempt to ignore him, she felt her eyes drawn to his tall, imposing frame. He was wearing the hotel bathrobe but it was now hanging open to reveal the close-fitting black bathers that shaped his male form lovingly. The long, strong, tanned muscular length of his legs made her breath suddenly hitch in her throat. He was so intensely male she seriously wondered if any other man could hold a candle to him without it being snuffed out in shame. His slicked-back hair revealed the handsome contours of his face: his high, intelligent forehead, his patrician nose, his devil-may-care mouth and his dark eyes fringed with thick, black lashes still spiky with moisture from the pool.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ he said with a glinting smile. ‘Would you like to come in and scrub my back for me?’
Sabrina rolled her eyes and returned to her magazine. ‘No thank you.’
‘Afraid you might enjoy it?’ he asked.
She closed the magazine and gave him a reprimanding adult-to-recalcitrant-child look. ‘Do you ever think about anything else besides having your physical desires met?’
His eyes locked with hers in a challenging duel. ‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ he answered. ‘I think about how you slept with Roebourne under his wife’s nose.’
Sabrina stood up and tossed the magazine down with a slap of glossy paper on marble. ‘I did nothing with him,’ she bit out.
One of his dark brows lifted in derision. ‘I just can’t quite believe you, Sabrina. I wonder, how much did he pay you to say that?’ he asked.
‘Have you ever considered I might actually be telling the truth?’ she asked with a jut of her chin.
His eyes scanned her face for long seconds, as if making up his mind about her. Sabrina hated that she had a propensity to blush and fidget when under pressure. It made her look guilty and ill at ease, the opposite of what she wanted to convey. But then from the first moment she had been introduced to him Mario had made her feel like a naughty school-girl meeting the headmaster for some supposed misdemeanour.
‘I have found in life there is not often smoke without some sort of heat behind it,’ he said. ‘The rumours that stick are usually the ones that have a grain of truth in them.’
‘It seems to me it doesn’t matter what I say, as you have already made up your mind about me,’ Sabrina said. ‘I would have thought someone who has spent most of his adult life subjected to the speculation of the press would have realised how unjust that is.’
‘Ah, yes, but you have consistently refused to speak to the press,’ he said. ‘If you had nothing to hide, why not tell your own side of the story?’
Sabrina folded her arms against her chest as an image of Teddy and Amelia Roebourne came into her mind. Their young innocence was worth protecting even if it meant compromising herself. ‘I don’t have to explain anything to anyone,’ she said. ‘What I do or don’t do in my private life is my own business and no one else’s.’
‘What you do once we are husband and wife will be very much my business,’ he said, with a thread of steel underpinning his statement. ‘I am sure I do not need to remind you, I am a high-profile businessman with many important clients across the globe. I do not want any personal scandals to disrupt my life, or indeed that of Molly’s.’
Sabrina bristled at his autocratic stance. ‘I suppose you want me to have no life at all while you carry on as normal? That’s called a double standard, Mario, and in this country women don’t take too kindly to it.’
‘Then it is just as well you will not be in this country but in mine,’ he returned. ‘Of course, if you don’t want to go through with the arrangement I can always find someone else to take up the position.’
Sabrina reined in her temper with an effort. She was dancing on thin ice with him, and he was ruthlessly reminding her of it. He didn’t need her half as much as she needed him. The chances of her finding a husband at short notice were very slim indeed; the chances of finding a man who would love and protect Molly as if she was his own were even slimmer. She would have to see this arrangement through, no matter what the cost. There would be compensations, surely. She would have loads of time to be with Molly, to be the best substitute mother possible. And living in a foreign country would be an adventure of sorts. She had often toyed with the idea of working abroad and this was a perfect chance to do so.
‘I am not going to desert Molly,’ she said, with a determined set to her mouth.
His mouth was tilted in its usual mocking angle. ‘Not to mention turn your back on a truckload of money. That would go against everything written in the gold-digger’s guide to amassing a fortune, would it not?’
Sabrina glowered at him. ‘I can see why your relationships only last a few weeks. No woman in her right mind would put up with your arrogance and rudeness any longer than that.’
‘On the contrary, I make a point of always being the one to bring a liaison to an end,’ he said.
‘Have you ever been in love?’ she asked.
‘No.’
She couldn’t quite stop her lip from curling. ‘So your relationships are basically about sex.’
‘More or less,’ he said with another indolent smile.
Sabrina felt a faint shiver pass over her as his dark eyes held hers. There was something about him that deeply unnerved her when he looked at her like that. It was as if he knew what she was thinking, how her mind was conjuring up images of him pleasuring her, kissing her senseless, crushing her beneath him as he plunged into her moist softness.
She felt her womb contract as his gaze went to her mouth, each and every one of the pulsing seconds swollen with erotic promise. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips, her heart thundering in her chest as he brushed the pad of his thumb where her tongue had just been, the caress
so intimate, so sensually stirring, she felt her lips tingle all over with need.
She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, to taste his maleness, to feel the rasp of his unshaven jaw against her skin, to thread her fingers through his silky black hair, to feel his hard body pressed against hers in mutual longing. She tipped up her face, her eyes half-closed in silent appeal, a soft whimper of need sounding at the back of her throat as his head slowly came down towards hers.
Molly’s cry from the bedroom was soft but it was enough to break the spell. Sabrina stepped backwards, one of her hands shakily brushing back her hair, her eyes slipping out of reach of his. ‘I—I think she needs changing,’ she mumbled as she slipped away.
As she saw to the baby’s needs, Sabrina remonstrated with herself for being so foolish as to be tempted by Mario’s touch. She had been so close to losing her head. She had been a whisker away from begging him to kiss her. Was she so pathetically weak? She had always been so sensible and in control, but for some reason Mario Marcolini made her feel out of control and reckless. He awakened in her a side of her personality she hadn’t known existed. He made her aware of her body in a way no one else had ever done. He had only to look at her and she felt as if her skin had been set alight. Her body pulsed with longing, a persistent ache, that tortured her whenever he was around. It was like an itch she couldn’t reach to scratch, a hunger she couldn’t satisfy.
Sabrina could hear the shower running as she came back out to the lounge area with Molly in her arms. She tried not to think of Mario’s naked body standing under the fine needles of spray, but her mind played traitor all the same. Even after she heard the water being turned off, she began to picture him drying himself with one of the big fluffy white towels.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she chastised herself after a few more minutes of mental torture. ‘This must stop.’
‘Everything all right?’ Mario asked as he sauntered in with a towel slung low around his hips.
Sabrina swallowed tightly as her eyes ran over him. ‘Er … yes. Fine …’ she stammered.
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