Luca shot another glance at Athena, thankful that she could not understand Italian. At least he assumed she could not speak his language. He frowned, realising that he knew virtually nothing about her. But why should he? Their marriage was a business arrangement and he did not intend to spend much time with her after he took her to Italy.
He ground his teeth as he thought of his great-uncle. Luca knew that Emilio would do anything to get his great-nephew removed from the board of De Rossi Enterprises. But to have any chance of doing so Emilio would have to prove that his marriage to Athena was fraudulent.
‘There is one more thing you should know,’ Sandro said. ‘Some American journalists have heard of the story breaking in the English media and somehow the information has been leaked that you are here in Las Vegas to marry Miss Howard.’
* * *
Athena wondered what Luca and his PA were talking about. She was curious about the fierce urgency in Luca’s tone. She guessed he was speaking Italian. Perhaps she should try to learn the language, seeing that she would be living in Italy for a year. She grimaced as she remembered that she had not been any good at French at school, and even worse at Latin. But it was supposed to be easier to learn a language if you lived in the country where it was spoken, and if Luca spoke to her in Italian regularly it might help her to pick it up...
Her eyes were drawn to her husband. She could not quite believe that they were married. Luca did not look particularly happy, she noted. His sculpted features looked harder than ever and his mouth was drawn into a thin line, as if he was angry about something. She wondered if he wished he had married Giselle. He must have been devastated when his fiancée had broken off their engagement. And it was her fault, Athena thought guiltily. If she hadn’t asked Luca to help her escape from her wedding, he could have married the woman whom she assumed he loved.
She tensed as he finished his conversation with his assistant and came to stand beside her. But her tension was not from the anxious feeling she usually experienced when she was around men. Her heart beat faster as she breathed in the spicy scent of Luca’s aftershave, and her stomach muscles clenched when she lifted her eyes to his face and absorbed the masculine beauty of his chiselled jaw and above it the lush fullness of his mouth.
‘In a moment we will leave the chapel,’ he told her. He hesitated. ‘When we step outside it will be necessary for me to kiss you.’
She blinked at him. ‘Necessary for you to...? Why?’
Athena had the most incredible eyes. The thought came unbidden into Luca’s mind. ‘There’s no time to explain now. The press are outside, and it’s vital that we make them believe our marriage is real.’
‘Real?’ She knew she probably sounded witless, but she couldn’t take in what he had said about needing to kiss her.
‘All you have to do is kiss me back,’ Luca said impatiently when she stared at him as if he had grown a second head. ‘It shouldn’t be too much of an ordeal. You seemed to enjoy it when I kissed you in Zenhab.’
So he hadn’t forgotten that kiss. Her mind flew to the palace gardens and she remembered vividly the whisper of the fountains and the silver gleam of the moon, the scent of orange blossom and the gossamer-soft brush of Luca’s lips on hers.
He opened the chapel door and Athena’s thoughts scattered as she was blinded by an explosion of flashbulbs. Luca slid his arm around her waist and drew her close to his body—so close that she could feel his powerful thigh muscles through her dress, his hard, masculine frame a stark contrast to her softness.
‘Remember, this has to look convincing,’ he murmured as he lowered his face towards hers.
Athena’s heart lurched as she realised that he hadn’t been making some bizarre joke and was actually going to kiss her. She was aware of a fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach, but it wasn’t the horrible nervous feeling she’d had when her ex-boyfriends—she could count on one hand the number of men she had briefly dated after the incident with her Latin tutor—had tried to kiss her.
Time seemed to be suspended as she watched Luca’s dark head descend. He slanted his mouth over hers and she discovered that the fluttering sensation in her stomach was not apprehension but anticipation.
He claimed her mouth with the supreme confidence of a man who had had more mistresses than he cared to remember. His lips firmly coaxed hers apart in a blatant seduction designed to make her capitulate to his mastery and warn her that resistance was futile. Luca was the ultimate charmer, and he knew exactly how to make a woman melt while he retained complete control.
For a moment Athena felt a familiar sense of panic—especially when he tightened his arms around her so that she could not escape. But the dark shadows in her mind receded as Luca continued to kiss her and she felt his tongue probe between her lips, seeking access to the moist interior of her mouth. She closed her eyes to blot out the flashing bright lights of the photographers’ flashbulbs and sank into darkness and the sweet pull of desire that was stirring inside her.
Luca’s tongue tangled with hers, and she dissolved, sliding her hands up to his shoulders to cling to him for support as she dismissed her inhibitions and kissed him with unrestrained passion.
He had asked Athena to kiss him convincingly and she was certainly complying, Luca thought. Dio, he was almost convinced himself that her passionate response was real and not just an act in front of the paparazzi. Her warm breath filled his mouth as she parted her lips beneath his. He could easily become addicted to the taste of her, he thought, to the softness of her mouth and the sweetness of her kiss that made his gut ache.
He had not expected to be so turned on that his body felt as if it was on fire. Athena was not doing anything more than kissing him. She wasn’t running her hands over his body, or whispering artful suggestions in his ear the way he was used to women doing. There was something curiously innocent and unsophisticated in her kiss that he found incredibly erotic. He felt as though he was the first man to have awoken her sensuality, but he knew that could not be true because she had been engaged—and anyway he preferred sexually experienced women, he reminded himself.
He heard someone call out from the crowd of journalists gathered outside the wedding chapel, but did not catch what they said—and he did not care as he pulled Athena against him so that her soft contours were moulded to his taut body. His arousal was unexpected and painfully hard, and he heard her little gasp of shock as he rubbed his pelvis up against hers.
The voices and the camera flashbulbs disappeared and he was conscious only of Athena: the delicate rose scent of her perfume, the silky softness of her hair against his cheek and her incandescent sensuality that captivated him and made him long to remove the barrier of their clothes so that they were skin on skin, a man and a woman poised on the brink of fulfilling their sexual desires.
He drew her closer still, so that he could feel the erratic thud of her heart echoing the unsteady rhythm of his, and deepened the kiss, taking it to a level that was flagrantly erotic.
On the periphery of his mind Luca heard raucous laughter, and a voice called out, ‘What do you say to the allegation that your marriage is a sham, Mr De Rossi?’
Someone else said loudly, ‘It looks real enough from where I’m standing. Let them get to a hotel room before they combust. Will you and your wife be taking a honeymoon, Mr De Rossi?’
Luca felt a pang of reluctance as he lifted his lips from Athena’s and turned his head towards the journalists. ‘Of course Signora De Rossi and I will have a honeymoon. We are looking forward to spending a few days in Las Vegas.’
‘Did you design your wife’s wedding dress?’
‘Certainly I wanted to create a gown that complemented Athena’s beauty.’ He returned Athena’s startled look with a bland smile.
‘Is it true that you only married Miss Howard to meet the terms of your grandmother’s will?’ someone c
alled.
‘I married Athena because...’ Luca looked into Athena’s sapphire-blue eyes and thought again how easy it would be to drown in their depths. ‘Because she captured my heart when we met in Zenhab nine months ago, and I was determined to make her my wife,’ he told the journalists. ‘Now, if you will excuse us...?’
Athena was glad of Luca’s arm around her waist as he led her towards the waiting limousine and the paparazzi surged around them. The sound of voices shouting questions and the glare of camera flashbulbs was disorientating. The chauffeur held open the door and she fell inelegantly into the car after Luca, almost landing in his lap. Hot-faced, she slid along the seat, and moments later the car pulled away from the kerb, chased by the photographers still snapping pictures.
‘Why did you say all that rubbish about me capturing your heart?’ she demanded. And why was there a little part of her that wished that what he had said to the journalists was true? Athena wondered. She and Luca were virtually strangers, but since her sister’s wedding in Zenhab she had been haunted by the memory of his kiss, she admitted.
‘It’s important that the press believe our marriage is real,’ Luca said tersely.
The man who had played the role of adoring husband outside the wedding chapel had disappeared, and his sculpted features were impossible to read.
‘I don’t understand.’ Shock, jet lag, and the fact that her body clock was out of sync were having a detrimental effect on Athena’s ability to think. ‘Why would they think our marriage is a sham?’
Luca handed her his phone. ‘I’ve downloaded the online edition of a tabloid newspaper currently being read by people in England while they eat their breakfast.’
She looked at the screen and gasped as she read the interview with Giselle Mercier. ‘Why does your fiancée say that you offered her money to marry you?’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘I assumed you were going to marry Giselle because you were in love with her, and that when she broke off your engagement you had to find a wife before your birthday in order to claim your inheritance.’
‘I certainly wasn’t in love with Giselle.’ Luca’s lips curled into a cynical expression. ‘I accept that some people find true love...’ he thought of Kadir and Lexi ‘...but for the majority of people love is simply a romanticised excuse for lust. And whilst I am happy to enjoy the latter, I have no inclination to fall in love.’
Athena felt a flicker of temper at his dismissive tone. ‘One of the reasons why I agreed to marry you in name only was because I felt guilty that I had unwittingly been the cause of Giselle breaking up with you. I felt it was partly my fault that you would lose your inheritance if you didn’t marry before your birthday.’
‘Let’s not forget the main reason you married me is because I’m paying you a million pounds,’ Luca drawled.
Athena might have convinced herself that her motive for agreeing to be his wife was altruistic, but he didn’t believe it for a second. She was as much of a gold-digger as Giselle, but the situation resulting from Giselle’s story in the press meant that Athena was going to have to work a little harder for her money.
Anger surged through Luca, and with it another emotion —desperation. He was so close to achieving his goal. He did not care if he lost the chairmanship of De Rossi Enterprises, but he had to have the deeds of Villa De Rossi for Rosalie’s sake. The degenerative disease his daughter suffered from was taking her from him, bit by bit, and in perhaps only a few more years it would claim her life. He would not allow the time that Rosalie had left to be disrupted by having to move her to a new house, away from the things she loved.
‘Why were there journalists outside the wedding chapel?’ Athena bit her lip. ‘The pictures they took of us won’t be printed in the newspapers in England, will they?’
‘I hope so.’ Luca’s jaw hardened. ‘After Giselle’s stunt, my great-uncle Emilio—my late grandmother’s brother—said that he and the board of De Rossi Enterprises will try to prove that my marriage to you is a sham. Their intention is to prevent me from claiming my inheritance. That’s why it is vital that we convince the press—no, the world, and especially my great-uncle—that we married for conventional reasons. We are going to have to act like we are in love.’
He sighed impatiently when Athena looked blank.
‘Pictures of us kissing on the steps of the wedding chapel will be a good start. For the only time in my life I will be happy to court the paparazzi. The more publicity we can get showing us as adoring newlyweds, the less chance my great-uncle will have to persuade the courts that our marriage is a fake.’
‘You said our marriage would be in name only,’ Athena said worriedly.
‘In private it will be. But in public we must appear to be a blissfully happy couple.’
She shook her head. ‘That wasn’t part of the deal. I can’t imagine what my family will think when they see photos of us and hear that we are married. I wasn’t going to tell them that I’d married you. I planned to say that I was working abroad for a year. My parents will be horrified if I tell them about our deal.’
‘You can’t tell them of our financial deal,’ Luca said sharply. ‘No one can know the truth about our relationship except us. I can’t risk the press finding out that we are married in name only. Your parents already think you and I are lovers because Charlie told them so. Convincing them that we are happily married shouldn’t be too difficult.’
Athena gnawed on her bottom lip. ‘I don’t like the idea of lying to my family. You said that we would live quietly at your penthouse in Milan and few people would even know we are married.’
The limousine drew up at the entrance of a famous Las Vegas hotel and immediately a flurry of camera flashbulbs exploded outside the car window.
‘Why have we stopped here?’
‘My PA has booked us into the honeymoon suite. It’s all part of the pretence that we are happily married.’
‘I can’t do this,’ she said falteringly. ‘I can’t pretend to be in love with you.’
‘If you want your million pounds, I’m sure you’ll manage to give as convincing a performance as you gave outside the wedding chapel,’ Luca said grimly. ‘Keep thinking of the money, mia bella.’
He moved before she had time to register his intention, cupping her chin in his hand and dropping a hard kiss on her mouth that left her lips tingling. He had timed the kiss for the exact moment when the chauffeur opened the car door—much to the delight of the waiting paparazzi.
Athena would have liked to hurry into the hotel with her head down, but Luca clamped his arm around her waist and sauntered up to the front entrance, apparently totally relaxed as he smiled for the photographers.
‘Can we have another shot of you kissing your wife, Mr De Rossi?’
He obliged, his eyes gleaming with a silent warning to Athena to play her part as he dipped his head and captured her mouth in a long, slow kiss that earned a few more catcalls from the journalists.
He had missed out on a career as an actor, she thought dazedly. His performance as an adoring husband was so thorough that she simply melted against him, and her legs were trembling when he escorted her across the hotel lobby.
Her hope that Luca would take her to their suite, for some respite from the attention of the paparazzi and the other hotel guests, who were staring at her wedding dress, was dashed when they were greeted by the hotel manager, who personally showed them into the restaurant and explained that the head chef had prepared a special wedding dinner for them.
The elegant table, set with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and fine china, was a potential minefield for her. She was bound to knock something over or break something, and Athena kept her hands firmly in her lap.
‘Would you like oysters, madam?’
‘No, thank you.’ She stopped the waiter just as he was about to
place a plate of the unappealing-looking shellfish arranged on a bed of ice in front of her. Her stomach churned. ‘I don’t like oysters.’
The hotel manager who was hovering close to their table looked surprised. ‘I understood that Mr De Rossi ordered oysters because they are your particular favourite?’
‘Yes, darling,’ Luca murmured. ‘You love oysters, remember?’
‘Oh...yes, of course I do, darling.’ Athena flushed when the manager gave her a strange look. ‘I hate oysters,’ she muttered to Luca when they were alone. ‘This is hopeless. How can we convince people that we are...in love when we don’t know the first thing about one another?’
‘We’ll have to take a crash course in learning about each other.’
Luca sipped his wine and, noticing that the hotel manager was still looking at them curiously, reached across the table, clasped Athena’s hand and lifted it to his mouth to press his lips against her fingers. He felt a tremor run through her and for a split second imagined that their marriage was real, and that after dinner they would go up to the honeymoon suite and he would remove her dress and the wispy scraps of lace underwear that he had been unable to forget since he had put her to bed in his hotel room in London.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he instructed. ‘I actually know more about your sister than I do about you. Lexi was an RAF helicopter pilot before she married Kadir, wasn’t she? Did you consider joining the armed forces?’
Athena shook her head. ‘Even when we were children Lexi was brave and bold, but I’m afraid I’m not. Lexi was adopted, but in fact she is far more like our parents than me. She is clever, and she did well at school, whereas I was an average student. Mum and Dad are both doctors and brilliant academics,’ she explained. ‘They named me after the Greek goddess of wisdom, but were hugely disappointed when I failed to get the grades to go to university to study medicine.’
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