Now, of course, she understood why Charlie had not pressured her for sex. It hadn’t been out of respect for her. It had been because he had never been in love with her and had only asked her to marry him so that he could hide his relationship with the person he really loved—Dominic.
It was true she had realised she did not love Charlie either, but she was still hurt that he had intended to use her so callously, and she felt a resurgence of her old feelings of worthlessness.
‘I believed that Charlie and I wanted the same things.’
Tears filled her eyes as she remembered how Charlie had said he wanted them to start trying for a baby as soon as they were married. She had never hidden the fact that she loved children and longed for a family. No wonder Charlie had decided she would be an ideal wife.
‘He is very ambitious to do well at the bank, and I hoped to support his career and make a home for us.’
In other words Athena had hoped to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle provided by a wealthy husband, Luca thought derisively. She had told him she did not work. Perhaps she was looking tearful again now because she was regretting her decision not to marry Charlie and one day being able to sign her name as Lady Fairfax.
‘Luca...’ Athena turned away from the ruined breakfast table. It was one more thing to add to her weight of guilt. ‘I feel terrible that your fiancée saw the story about us in the newspapers and has refused to marry you. It’s partly my fault...’
‘So you admit you tipped off the press that I’d brought you to my hotel?’ Luca’s temper soared.
‘No!’ Athena felt her insides knot with tension at Luca’s explosion of anger. She hated confrontation, and whenever she and Charlie had argued she had always been the one to back down—just as she had with her parents. ‘I’ve explained that I didn’t tell anyone of our whereabouts. Charlie must have known the name of your hotel. Perhaps he phoned and found out that you had brought me here. But I do feel partly responsible because Kadir asked you to help me. I’m really sorry that your fiancée thinks we spent the night together. If I explained to her what really happened she might still be willing to marry you.’
Oh, Giselle would be willing—for the right price, Luca thought grimly. At the end of their phone conversation, when she’d realised that he wasn’t going to concede to her demand for more money and was prepared to walk away, she had turned nasty and threatened to go to the media with the story of their marriage deal. He would be damned if he would allow her to manipulate him. It was bad enough that his grandmother was doing so from her grave.
‘My relationship with Giselle is over for good,’ he told Athena.
She looked visibly upset, which surprised Luca, for in his experience women rarely cared about anything other than themselves.
‘I wish there was something I could do to help put the situation right,’ she murmured.
The mellow September sunshine streaming through the window made Athena’s hair gleam like silk. The chestnut tones were mixed with shades of gold through to dark auburn, Luca noted absently. He skimmed his gaze over her wedding dress—not with the critical eye of a designer this time, but with a view to fulfilling the terms of his grandmother’s will.
‘There is something you can do,’ he said abruptly. ‘You can marry me.’
Athena’s breath lodged in her throat. She knew she could not have heard him correctly. Luca De Rossi could not have just asked her to marry him. But even though she was certain she had misheard him, her heart was banging against her ribs.
‘I’m sorry...could you say that again?’
‘I want you to marry me.’
Oh, God! She felt a strange trembling sensation inside. Was it possible that Luca had been unable to forget, as she hadn’t, the kiss they had shared in Zenhab nine months ago?
‘We...we hardly know each other,’ she stammered.
He frowned. ‘Obviously I am not suggesting a real marriage.’
Obviously! Athena flushed with embarrassment that she had misunderstood him.
Luca’s black hair was ruffled, as if he had been running his fingers through it, but the careless style only made him look even sexier. The sunlight highlighted his sharp cheekbones and the sculpted angles and planes of his face. He was the most handsome man Athena had ever seen, and she wondered how she could have been foolish enough to think he might be interested in someone as plain and ordinary looking as her.
‘I didn’t think you were suggesting a real marriage,’ she said quickly. ‘But I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to marry on the rebound as a way of paying your fiancée back for rejecting you. I realise you are probably heartbroken over Giselle...’
‘I don’t have a heart to break,’ Luca drawled.
He had once. He had loved Jodie and it had hurt like hell when she had left him. He had no intention of repeating the great mistake of his youth. He did have a heart, but it belonged solely to his daughter.
He gave Athena an assessing look. Earlier, when he had leaned over the bed, he had sensed that she had wanted him to kiss her. A memory of when he had kissed her in Zenhab had stirred his desire, and he had been tempted to kiss her again. But then he had remembered that he suspected her of telling the press that he had helped her to run away from her wedding.
‘I need to get married,’ he said abruptly. ‘But emotions won’t be involved.’
He could see that had been the problem with Giselle. She had wanted more from him, and like every woman scorned, she had become spiteful when she’d realised that she meant nothing to him.
He looked into Athena’s sapphire-blue eyes and dismissed the brief flicker inside him that he did not understand. ‘I’m offering you a business deal. I’ll pay you one million pounds if you will be my wife in name only for one year.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ARE YOU THINKING what you could do with a million pounds?’ Luca demanded as the silence stretched and Athena seemed to have been struck dumb.
She shook her head. ‘I’m thinking that you are mad. Why do you need to get married?’ He was wealthy, successful, and seriously gorgeous—it seemed bizarre that he had to pay someone to marry him. ‘You have a reputation as a playboy. A lot of women would pay you to marry them,’ she murmured.
‘If I asked one of my mistresses I’d run the risk of them becoming emotionally involved.’ He swept his gaze over her. ‘I need to make it quite clear that there will be no point in you falling in love with me.’
Athena felt a spark of temper flicker inside her. Luca must really think she was pathetic if he felt he needed to warn her off him. ‘If I was crazy enough to accept your marriage deal—which I’m not—I’m sure I would be able to restrain myself from falling in love with you,’ she said curtly.
His brows rose, as if he was surprised by her sarcasm, and that infuriated her even more. She was tired of people walking all over her—but it was her own fault. She had spent her life trying to please people, but however hard she had tried she had never made her parents proud, and Charlie had neither loved nor respected her. It was time she grew a backbone—starting with telling this man who was too sexy for his own good what he could do with his outrageous marriage proposal.
The memory of the dismissive, faintly disdainful glance he had given her made her painfully aware of her shortcomings. At least Charlie had pretended he wanted to marry her, she thought dismally. Luca hadn’t bothered with niceties when he had offered to buy her as if she was a prize heifer at a cattle market.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t—’ she began, but he cut her off.
‘You asked why I need to be married. The terms of my grandmother’s will demand that I must marry before I am thirty-five or I will lose the house which has belonged to the De Rossi family for eight generations. I will also lose my place on the governing board of the family business—despite the fact that I restored
the company’s fortunes and saved it from bankruptcy,’ Luca said harshly.
Athena succumbed to her curiosity. ‘Why did your grandmother make such a horrible will? Didn’t you get on with her?’
‘She disapproved of me—and especially of my lifestyle.’ He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Although I believe that Violetta would have disapproved of me even if I had become a priest. I could do nothing right in her eyes.’
Athena had half turned away from him, but she caught the faint note of hurt beneath his sardonic tone and hesitated. She knew what it was like never to feel good enough, consistently to fail to meet the expectations of parents.
‘What about your parents? Aren’t they included in your grandmother’s will?’
‘My mother is dead.’ Luca did not mention his father. He neither knew nor cared if the faceless, nameless man who had fathered him was alive or not. ‘I am the only De Rossi heir. But if I don’t produce a bride by my birthday, in two weeks’ time, I will lose everything I have worked for over the past fifteen years.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Athena murmured for a second time. She felt guilty that Luca’s fiancée had dumped him, but she couldn’t marry him just to appease her conscience. ‘I understand why you feel an urgency to marry, but what you’re suggesting is...well, wrong—and immoral. Marriage should happen because of love, not financial gain.’
‘So you were going to marry Charlie because you loved him, and the fact that the Fairfaxes are one of the richest families in England had nothing to do with your decision?’ Luca said sharply.
‘I thought I loved him. I didn’t care about his money or his title,’ Athena insisted, flushing when Luca gave her a disbelieving look. ‘It’s difficult to explain. My parents were so delighted when Charlie asked me to marry him... I just wanted to do something right, for once, that would make them proud of me. The wedding preparations snowballed and I couldn’t bring myself to admit even to myself that I was making a mistake.’
‘But the truth is that without a wealthy husband or a job you presumably do not have any means of supporting yourself.’
Luca forced her to face the reality of her situation.
‘What would you do with one million pounds? Think about it,’ he urged.
His voice softened and his sexy, smoky accent caused the tiny hairs on her body to stand on end.
‘What do you wish for more than anything, Athena? Jewellery? Beautiful clothes? A house?’
His words circled in her mind. She wasn’t interested in jewellery or designer dresses. But a house... She thought of the dilapidated building situated on an area of scrubland that housed fifty-four orphaned children. Rajasthan was one of the poorest areas of India, and the orphanage in Jaipur, which had been founded twelve years ago by a remarkable American woman called Cara Tanner, was built of crumbling bricks, with a tin roof that leaked during the monsoon season and made the house as hot as an oven in the summer.
The House of Happy Smiles provided food, shelter and hope to children who were utterly destitute. Athena had discovered the orphanage during a holiday to India with her parents, and the contrast between the luxurious hotel where she had been staying and the devastating poverty she’d witnessed in the slums of Jaipur had had a profound effect on her.
Since that day four years ago, when she had met Cara Tanner and learned of the work she was doing running the orphanage, which was dependent on charitable donations, Athena had set up a fundraising campaign in England, and she returned to the House of Happy Smiles to work as a volunteer as often as she could.
Cara had plans for the orphanage, which included building a properly constructed house for the children to live in and also a school, and employing teachers to give the children an education.
‘It will cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to turn the Happy House into a proper home and school for abandoned children, and to pay for staff to care for them,’ Cara had explained. ‘That kind of money will take years of fundraising, but think how it would transform the lives of those kids who have nothing.’
Deep in thought, Athena walked over to the window and stared unseeingly down at the crowd of people standing outside the front of the hotel. Her training as a nursery nurse meant that she could look after the younger children at the orphanage. Her visits to Jaipur and the fundraising she organised back in the UK meant a lot to her, and she felt she was actually doing something worthwhile.
A million pounds could transform the lives of those orphaned children. Her heart gave a jolt as she imagined the plans for the new house that Cara had shown her coming to fruition. There would be six beds in each dormitory, with curtains around each one to give the children a sense of privacy. A nursery for the babies and toddlers would be filled with toys, and there would be colourful murals painted on the walls. And a school would be built, with proper classrooms and desks and books. The children could be taught to read and write and to develop the skills that would enable them to find good jobs.
A million pounds would set the orphaned children free from grinding poverty. And she could make that difference with the money Luca was offering her to be his wife in name only for a year.
She swung round to face him. Her brain was telling her she would be mad to accept his proposal, but her heart ached for children like Suresh, a seven-year-old boy who was unable to walk as a result of contracting polio, who had been found begging on the streets. The orphanage was the only home he had ever known.
One million pounds could transform a rundown shack into a true House of Happy Smiles and give Suresh and the other children a future.
‘How would this marriage work?’ she asked shakily. ‘Where would I live?’
‘I have a penthouse apartment in Milan, close to the famous shopping precinct, where I am sure you would be very comfortable. I only stay at the apartment occasionally, if business requires me to spend a few days in the city. I live mainly at Villa De Rossi. Occasionally I might need you to come to the villa and act as a hostess at dinner parties.’
She grimaced. ‘I’m not very good at organising dinner parties. I always seem to forget something or spill something.’
‘My staff will take care of all the arrangements. I don’t do a lot of entertaining, but sometimes I have to invite the board members of De Rossi Enterprises to the villa.’ Luca stared intently at Athena. ‘So, what is your answer?’
She bit her lip, hardly able to believe that she was actually contemplating accepting his proposal. ‘When...when would I be paid the money?’
‘Five hundred thousand will be paid into your bank account when we marry, and you’ll receive the other five hundred thousand after we have been married for a year.’
That would mean work on the new building for the orphanage could begin soon. She remembered Luca had said that he had to be married before his birthday in two weeks. But could she go through with a sham marriage?
She glanced at his sculpted features, softened slightly by that lush mouth, and something hot and fierce unfurled inside her.
He walked over to her, and swore when he glanced out of the window and saw the crowd on the street below. ‘The damned paparazzi have caused enough trouble.’ He glared at Athena. ‘And so have you.’
Guilt swamped her. If Luca hadn’t helped her escape from her wedding his own wedding to Giselle would still be on. ‘I promise I didn’t tell the press you brought me here.’
He didn’t seem to hear her. ‘You owe me, Athena.’
A nerve flickered in Luca’s jaw as he thought of how Rosalie loved to watch the weeping willow tree in the garden of Villa De Rossi swaying in the breeze. He could not bear the thought of taking his daughter away from the few simple pleasures she had.
For a moment he considered telling Athena about Rosalie, in the hope of gaining her sympathy. But he still wondered if she had tipped off the press, and he did not trust her not to talk to j
ournalists about his daughter. When Rosalie was younger he had often taken her out to the park or the zoo, but she had been terrified by the paparazzi, who followed him everywhere with their camera flashbulbs. His global fame as a fashion designer had made him a target for the press’s interest.
Nowadays, Rosalie’s disabilities meant that she was rarely well enough to leave home. Thankfully the media seemed to have forgotten about his daughter, and Luca was determined to protect Rosalie’s privacy.
He pulled Athena away from the window and the prying lenses of the photographers. ‘If I am not married two weeks from now I will lose everything I’ve spent the past fifteen years working for, and it will be your fault,’ he said harshly.
She had a chance to do something worthwhile—something that mattered. What was a year out of her life if she could improve the lives of the orphaned children of Jaipur?
Athena drew a sharp breath. ‘All right, I’ll do it. I’ll marry you. But I want the one million pounds to be paid to me on the day of the wedding.’
That way she could give all the money to Cara Tanner to ensure that the project to build a new orphanage and school would be completed.
Luca frowned and she explained. ‘If the money is in instalments you might decide not to pay me the full amount at the end of the year.’
‘But if I pay you the one million up front how do I know that you won’t take the money and disappear?’ he said grimly. ‘I can only claim the deeds to Villa De Rossi after I have been married for a year.’
‘I give you my word that I will be your wife in name for one year.’
Luca’s brows lifted. ‘You’ll understand why I am suspicious of trusting the word of a woman who jilted the man she had promised to marry an hour before the wedding,’ he drawled.
Athena blushed guiltily, even though she knew she could not have married Charlie after she had discovered the truth about him. But she was determined to stand her ground. The orphanage project would need to be fully funded before building work began, and she had to have all the money Luca had said he would pay her.
A Bride Worth Millions Page 6