Sicilian's Bride for a Price

by Tara Pammi

  She’d had to go to London to deal with problems concerning her mother’s charity. She had even spearheaded a charity gala to raise money. He’d been looking for leverage and he had found it.

  He wasn’t cheating Alisha out of anything she wanted. He was, in fact, proposing he give her what she wanted out of it, the one thing she held precious in return for what he wanted.

  No, what threw him into the kind of emotional turmoil that he’d always avoided like the plague was that he was involving her in this play.

  Alisha, who was a mass of contradictions, who he’d never quite figured out, who’d been the kind of flighty, selfish, uncaring kind of woman he loathed, was an unknown.

  From the moment she’d come to live with her father, Neel, she’d hated Dante with an intensity that he’d first found amusing and then dangerous. Even worse, she’d always incited a reaction in him that no one else provoked.

  But all this was before the changes in her the last six years had wrought.

  Cristo, the sight of her walking into the back alley a few hours ago—the white spaghetti top plastered to her breasts, her shorts showing off miles and miles of toned legs, the utter sensuality of her movements as she pushed away tendrils of hair falling on her face, the sparkle of the fading sun on her brown skin...

  The shock in her face, the greedy, hungry way she’d let those big brown eyes run all over him...even that hadn’t made a dent in the need that had pulsed through him.

  Dios mio, this was Neel’s daughter.

  She was forbidden to him. And not just because he was determined to take the last bit of her father’s legacy from her. But because, with everything he planned to put into motion, Alisha would be the variable. His attraction to her was a weakness he couldn’t indulge, much less act on. There were only two positions for women in his life: colleagues like Izzy and a couple of his business associates, women whose judgment he respected, women he genuinely liked; and then there were women he slept with who knew the score, and didn’t want more from him.

  Alisha didn’t fall into either of those camps.

  “Dante? What the hell are you doing with my mother’s necklace?”

  “I bought it back from the guy you sold it to.” He made a vague motion to her tears, more shocked than discomfited by them. He’d never seen her as anything but poised to fight her father, him, Vikram, with all guns blazing. Never in this...fragile light. “Looks like I made the right call in thinking you would like it back. Why did you sell it?”

  She took another longing look at the box before pushing it back toward him. “For a pair of Jimmy Choos.”

  “Don’t be flippant, Alisha. I never understood why you were always so determined to be your own worst enemy.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And really, did you invite me to dinner just to point out my flaws?”

  He forced himself to pull his gaze from the way she chewed on her lower lip. Suddenly, everything about her—her mind, her body, Dio...everything—felt fascinating. Everything was distracting. “I know your mother’s charity is failing. Why didn’t you come to me for help?”

  “Why didn’t I come to you for help?” Some of that natural fight in her crawled back into her shoulders. He liked her better like that. He didn’t want a vulnerable Alisha on his hands for the next few months. She laughed. White teeth flashed in that gamine face. “Have you met me? And you?”

  Despite himself, Dante smiled.

  He’d forgotten how witty Alisha could be, how she’d always laughed in any situation, how even with all her tantrums and drama she’d made the house lively when she’d come to live with Neel after her mother’s death. Even with grief painting her eyes sad, she’d been so full of life, so full of character, even at the age of twelve.

  He’d never gravitated to her, true, but when she’d blossomed into a teenager, it had seemed as if her hatred for him had grown too. The more he had tried to fix things between her and her father, the more she had resented him.

  Her gaze slipped to his mouth for a fraction of a second. Every muscle in him tightened. “I’d starve before I take anything from the company. Or you.”

  He was far too familiar with that spiel to question it now. “What did you need the money for?”

  “If you know I sold it, and to whom, then you know why. Come on, Dante, enough beating around the bush.”

  The waiter brought their food and she thanked him.

  She dug into the food with the same intensity with which she seemed to attack everything in life.

  Dante, mostly because of the jet lag, pushed his food around. He watched her as she sipped her wine, her tongue flicking out to lick a drop from her lower lip.

  He wanted to lick it with his own.

  The thought came out of nowhere, hard and fast. He pushed a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath.

  Maledizione! In all the scenarios he had foreseen for this, he hadn’t counted how strikingly gorgeous Alisha had become. Or the intensity of the pull he felt toward her.

  Whatever tension had been filling up the air, it now filled his veins. And he realized it was because she wasn’t focused on him anymore.

  Not so with him. Not even the constant reminder, the ironclad self-discipline that made him a revered name in his business circles, the one that told him this was nothing but a quid pro quo, could distract his gaze from the expanse of smooth brown skin her dress exposed. He took the wine flute in his hands, turned it around and around, watching his fingers leaving marks against the condensation.

  He wanted to trace his finger against the slope of her shoulders to see if her skin was as silky as it looked. He wanted to touch the pulse at her throat, to sink his fingers into her silky hair and pull her to him, hold her against his body as he plundered her mouth...

  She put her fork and spoon down, and took another sip of her wine. Then she leaned back all the way into her seat, her head thrown back over the top. The deep breath she took sent her chest rising and falling.

  Basta! He needed to direct this conversation back to his plan.

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to in the last few years.” The words slipped out of his mouth. She looked just as shocked as he felt. “You know, other than living like a hobo and moving around every few months.”

  She shrugged, and the simple gold chain she wore glimmered against her throat, the pendant dangling between her breasts playing peekaboo with him. “You don’t have to pretend an interest, Dante. Not now.”

  “You’re his daughter. I’ve always been interested in what you do with your life. Until I realized my interest only spurred you toward destruction.”

  “Water under the bridge.” She put her napkin on the table, her expression cycling from wariness to fake cheer. “Thank you for the dinner. That was a treat, even with your company. And on second thought, thanks for buying my mother’s necklace back.” She took the velvet box from him and put it underneath her clutch on the table. Waggling her brows, she leveled a saccharine smile at him. “You must know me well to give me a present I would so appreciate.”

  Being on the receiving end of that smile was just so...jarring. “You mean to sell it again, don’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “That will only take care of the payroll for another month. I’ve seen the financials, Alisha. The charity will be bankrupt in a month.”

  Her mouth tightened. “I’ll find a way. I always do.”

  “Or you could just ask me for help.”

  “I told you, I don’t want your money. Or the company’s or Papa’s. I need to do this on my own.”

  “Does the charity home really mean that much to you?”

  “It does. It’s where Mama grew up. I spent so much time there with her. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood were there.”

  “If you really want to save the home, put aside your irrat
ional resentment of me and I will funnel some much needed money into it.”

  “And what do I have to do in return?”

  “Marry me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  MARRY ME...

  Marry Dante...

  Ali’s mind went into a loop over that one phrase, like one of those gramophone records her mama had had.

  Marry Dante, marry Dante...

  Dante, who thought she was selfish and spoiled.

  Dante, with whom she reverted back to that lonely girl come to live with a distant father, distracted brother and a resented changeling, after her mama’s sudden death.

  With Dante she would always be her worst self.

  Panic skittled over her skin like a line of fire ants crawling up her legs. She needed to marry Dante like she needed a hole in her head. It would be like all the bad decisions she’d ever made steamrolled into one giant boulder that would chase her for the rest of her life.

  A hysterical sound released from her mouth.

  “Alisha?”

  She brought her gaze to his, stood up from the booth, picked up her clutch and turned. “You’ve gone mad.”

  “Alisha, wait.”

  Nope.

  She didn’t want to hear more. If she did, he would rope her into it.

  As a master strategist, he wouldn’t have sought her out across the world, wouldn’t have approached her if he hadn’t already figured out a way to make her agree. And she needed to flee before that happened. Before their lives were even more tangled. Before she betrayed herself in the worst way possible.

  Dear God, when it came to him, all she had left was her pride.

  “Alisha, stop!” His arm shot out just as Ali got ready to sprint across the restaurant if necessary.

  Long fingers roped around her wrist and because of her desperate forward momentum, her foot jerked to the side. Pain shot up through her ankle and she fell back against him.

  The breath punched out of her as he anchored her by throwing his arm around her midriff.

  Unstoppable force meets immovable object...

  “What happens when they crash, Alisha? Who gets destroyed?”

  The world stopped tilting at that silky whisper as she realized she’d spoken out loud. And yet, the explosion his touch evoked continued to rock through her body.

  The scent of him was all over her skin, filling each pore, drowning her in masculine heat. His legs were thrown wide, the tensile power of his thighs just grazing the back of hers, his chest pushed up tight against her back. Her chest expanded as she tried to stop the panic. On the exhale, the underside of her breasts fell against his steely arm. A soft hiss of warm air bathed her neck, making it a thousand times worse. Or was that pleasure skittering across her skin?

  An onslaught of sensations poured through her, her skin prickling tight, and yet, a strange lethargy crawled through her limbs. She wanted to lean into him completely, until her bottom was resting against his hips. She wanted to feel him from chest to toe against her back, she wanted to rub herself against that hard body until he was as mindlessly aroused as her. Until that iron will of his snapped like a thinly stretched rubber band.

  As if he could guess the direction of her thoughts, his fingers tightened around her hip, digging into her slightly to keep her still; to keep her from leaning back and learning his body’s reaction to her.

  Because, really, in what universe did she imagine Dante would want her back with this same madness?

  She groaned—a feral, desperate sound. Why was it that everything she did came back to taunt her a thousand times worse?

  “Because you don’t think before you do,” came the voice at her ear. Ah...perfect! Of course, she’d said that out loud too. “You’re impulsive, brash and if I hadn’t caught you, you would have fallen flat on your face.”

  “Kissing the floor sounds like a better alternative,” she said, her words throaty and whispery.

  “Will you sit down and listen if I let you go?”

  As if operating on an instinct that defied rationality, her fingers clenched over his wrist.

  She opened her eyes and swallowed hard. Since he’d undone his cuffs earlier, her palm rested against a hair-roughened wrist. She rubbed the skin—the rough texture, the plump veins on the back of his hand—the startlingly sensual contrast between her and him inviting her along further and further.

  It was the sharp inhale followed by another curse that pulled her out of the fog.

  Her chin flopped down to her chest. “No. I don’t want to hear anything you say. I don’t want to be near...you in this moment, much less in the future.”

  The vulnerability she fought every waking minute, the longing for a deeper connection in her past, with anyone related to her past, pervaded her in his presence.

  This was what would happen if she agreed: every look, every touch would wind her up; lines between want and hate, reality and fantasy would blur...until she attacked him—claws and all—just to keep herself tethered, to keep herself together. Or until she gave in to this inexplicable yearning she had felt for him for so long.

  The stiffness of her posture drained away and she leaned back against his chest. She let herself be weak and vulnerable for five seconds.

  Both of his arms wound around her. He held her gently, tenderly and that...that was more than Ali could bear. That uncharacteristic moment between them, the mere thought that he could pity her uncontrollable attraction to him, snapped her out of it.

  She wriggled in his embrace and he instantly let her go.

  Pushing her hair back, she fought for composure. The glass of cold water down her throat was a much needed burst of reality. When he sat down, when she had her wits together again, she looked back at him. “Tell me why.”

  “Vikram’s been declared legally dead.”

  Gray gaze drinking her in, he paused. Ali looked away.

  That he knew what her brother meant to her, that he had seen firsthand that night her grief, her regrets, it was something she couldn’t erase. This nebulous connection between her and Dante—despite the knotted history of it—was the only thing she had of her past. And however far she ran, it seemed she would never be free of it. “And?”

  “Your uncle will contest for his voting shares and might win. I’d like to crush his little rebellion with as few resources and as little time as possible. I have a huge merger coming up with a Japanese manufacturing company that I need all my energies focused on. Thousands of jobs and thousands more livelihoods depend on that merger. He’s well-known for his ability to create PR damage.”

  So that was what he’d been counting on—that Ali’s loathing of her uncle was greater than her combined loathing of her papa and Dante.

  Her uncle had driven a wedge between her parents, though Ali knew it had been her father that had finally broken them apart.

  Her father’s ambition. Her father’s unending hunger for success.

  Just like the breathtakingly stunning man sitting across from her.

  “I never realized what a true legacy you are of papa. Not Vicky, but you.”

  “Vicky always blazed his own path.”

  She nodded, the depth of her grief for her brother a hole in her chest. At least that was one thing she couldn’t blame Dante for. Her brother had been a technical genius with no interest in his papa’s company.

  “If I marry you, I can transfer my shares to you and the eventual fate of Vicky’s shares won’t really matter. You can continue to be the master of Matta Steel.” Even she couldn’t dispute the trailblazing new heights that Dante had taken the company to since her father’s death.

  “Si. Your vow not to touch a penny of your father’s fortune will not be broken since the voting shares are yours through your mother. Monetarily, they don’t have much value, since they can’t be sold off, or transferred to anyone
outside marriage. So this is a good deal for you.”

  He had a well-rehearsed answer for every contentious point she could raise. “What do I get in return?”

  “Money to throw into the drain that is the Lonely Hearts Foundation.”

  She refused to bite into that judgmental tone. “As much as I want?”

  “A pre-agreed upon amount, si.”

  “I want a check—from your own personal fortune,” she added, determined to wring every drop of blood from him, “for that amount. If I agree.”

  There was a glint in his eye and a slick smile around his mouth, arrogant confidence dripping from every pore. “Bene.” A regal nod to her request. “From my personal fortune, si?”

  And whatever she demanded would be a drop in the ocean for him.

  “We can’t annul or end the marriage for three years or they will revert back to you. We’ll both sign a prenup. At the end of the three years, a substantial amount of money will be settled on you.”

  “I don’t want a settlement, I don’t want a penny from you. And I won’t—”

  “Don’t be foolish, Alisha. Throwing away your inheritance when you were eighteen was one thing but—”

  “—under any circumstances sign a prenup,” she delivered that with all the satisfaction of a well-placed right hook.

  Shock etched onto those arrogantly handsome features.

  It wasn’t wise tweaking the tail of a tiger, especially when he was so royally wound up. But if she expected an outburst, a small glimpse of his infamous Sicilian temper that cowed all his employees, Ali was disappointed. Only a small tic in that granite jaw even betrayed how...thrown he was by her coup de grâce. Since he had dropped the whole thing on her with the sensitivity of a bulldozer, she’d pulled that out pretty fast based on that instinct she’d honed for years to annoy the heck out of him.

  But now she realized how much she needed that illusion of control over...this. The only way she could keep the balance in this relationship of theirs was not to give him everything he wanted.

  “Why not sign the prenup? All it does is give you money I know you won’t touch.”