Inherited by Ferranti

by Kate Hewitt

  Marco froze, his face twisted in a grimace of shock and restraint. ‘Sierra...’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she assured him. ‘Just...give me a moment.’

  He stared at her in disbelief as she adjusted to the feel of him, her body expanding naturally to accommodate his. The twinges of discomfort receded and she arched upwards to take him more fully into herself. ‘You can move,’ she whispered. ‘Slowly.’

  He slid deeper inside and she gasped again, the sensation acute and overwhelming. He froze, and she let out a shaky laugh. ‘This isn’t quite...’

  He touched his forehead to hers, his biceps bulging with the effort of holding himself back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘I didn’t want to ruin anything. It seemed so...’ She laughed again, softly. ‘I don’t know.’ Maybe part of her had liked the idea of Marco thinking she was experienced, worldly. Maybe part of her had wanted to match him for sophistication and expertise, even though she knew she never could. In some unvoiced corner of her heart she’d wanted to make their positions more equal.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he whispered, and she nodded. It hurt more than she’d expected, but within the hurt were flickers of pleasure, and her body arced towards those, seeking them out of instinct. Marco moved again, sliding deeper inside and then out again and Sierra tried to relax. He was so big, and he filled her so completely. It was overwhelming, both emotionally and physically, to be completely conquered by another person. She felt him in every nerve, every cell of her body. There was no part of her that he did not possess, and it was a complex and frightening feeling.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked again and she laughed, a hiss of sound, as she clutched his shoulders.

  ‘Stop asking me that.’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘You’re not.’ Except he was, and in a way she hadn’t expected. The physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional onslaught, the sense that Marco Ferranti was battering every defence she had, leaving her completely bare. Exposed and vulnerable and wanting.

  And even as these feelings crashed over her, pleasure came, too. Tiny at first, little whispers that promised something greater, and her body responded instinctively, arching up towards his as she wrapped her legs around his waist and drew him completely into herself. She could feel him everywhere, and it made tears start in her eyes.

  Marco was moving faster now and Sierra found his rhythm and matched it, awkwardly at first and then with more grace as the sensations whirling inside her coalesced and drove her body onwards. The pain had receded and pleasure took its place, so she clutched him and threw her head back, letting out a ragged cry as she climaxed, the feeling more intense than anything she had ever experienced. Marco shuddered on top of her, his body sagging against hers even as he bore his weight on his arms.

  He kissed her temple, his lips lingering against her skin. ‘That was incredible.’

  ‘Was it?’ she asked, her voice trembling a little with everything she felt.

  ‘You have to ask?’ He smiled tenderly and smoothed the hair away from her flushed face.

  ‘Well, I don’t have much experience of this kind of thing. As you know.’ She let out a shaky laugh and averted her face. She was, quite suddenly and inexplicably, near tears and she didn’t want Marco to see.

  ‘Sierra...’ He trailed his fingers down her cheek, the gesture so tender it brought a lump to her throat. In a few seconds she’d be bawling. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘It didn’t feel like the right moment.’

  ‘I’m not sure when a better moment would have been,’ he said wryly, and then pulled out of her, rolling away to dispose of the condom. Sierra took the reprieve from his scrutiny to tidy her hair and wipe quickly at her eyes, wrapping the duvet around herself.

  Marco glanced back at her, eyes narrowed. Was she so obvious? Could he see the torment and confusion in her eyes, her face? ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked, and she nodded. ‘You don’t...you don’t regret this?’

  ‘No,’ she whispered, because that much was true. Mostly.

  He stretched out next to her, unabashedly naked, and tucked a few stray tendrils of hair behind her ear as he studied her face. ‘Then why do you look like you’re about to cry?’

  ‘Because it’s so much.’ The words burst from her and a few rogue tears trickled down her cheeks. She batted at them impatiently. ‘I wasn’t expecting to feel so much. And I don’t mean physically,’ she clarified quickly. ‘I’m not talking about the pleasure.’

  ‘I hope you felt that, too.’

  ‘You know I did,’ she said, and she sounded almost cross.

  Marco frowned, shaking his head. ‘Then what?’

  Did he not get it? But then maybe Marco hadn’t felt the emotional tidal wave that had pulled her under. Maybe she was the only one who felt so exposed, so vulnerable and needy. She felt as if Marco had stripped away everything she’d had to protect herself and left her reeling, wondering how to recover. Wondering how she would ever live without him even as terror clutched her at the thought of living with him. At being this vulnerable again, ever.

  ‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she muttered and wriggled away from him, the duvet snagging about her body.

  Marco reached for her arm. ‘Sierra—’

  ‘Please, Marco.’ She finally freed herself from the bedcovers and hurried towards the en suite bathroom. ‘Please just let me be.’

  * * *

  Marco watched Sierra barricade herself in the bathroom, a frown deepening on his face. What the hell had happened? He’d had the most incredible sexual experience of his life, and he’d reduced his lover almost to tears. It didn’t make sense. He knew, despite the initial pain, she’d enjoyed herself. He’d felt her climax reverberate through his own body. And he knew she’d been touched emotionally, too, but then so had he. Sex had never felt so important as it did right then.

  But Sierra seemed to think that was a bad thing. She’d been tearful, cross, even angry—and why? Because she didn’t want to feel those things? She didn’t want to have that kind of connection with him?

  The answer seemed all too obvious. Swearing under his breath, Marco rose from the bed and reached for his boxers. The intimacy they’d wrapped themselves in moments before was already unspooling, loose threads they might never knit back together, which was just as well. This was a fling, nothing more. No matter what he’d felt moments before.

  And yet it still stung that Sierra was withdrawing from him. The possibility that she might regret what had happened filled him with a bitter fury he remembered too well. This time he’d be the one to walk away first. He’d make sure of it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BY THE TIME Sierra emerged from the bathroom twenty minutes later she’d managed to restore her composure. Cloak herself in numbness, just like she used to during her father’s rages. Strange that she was using the same coping mechanisms now, after the most intimate and frankly wonderful experience of her life, as she had then.

  She unlocked the door to the bathroom and stepped out, thankfully swathed in an enormous terry-cloth dressing gown. Marco was sitting in bed, his back propped against the pillows, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms folded. His face was unsmiling.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Yes.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears and came gingerly towards the bed. What was the fling protocol now? Should she thank him for a lovely time and beat it to her own bedroom? That was what she wanted to do. She wanted an out, even if the prospect filled her with an almost unbearable loneliness.

  Marco arched an eyebrow. ‘You’re not actually thinking of leaving my bed, are you?’

  It disconcerted her that he could guess her thought processes so easily. ‘I thought... I thought maybe it was best.’

>   ‘Best? How so?’ There was a dangerous silky tone to Marco’s voice that she remembered from when she’d first seen him at the lawyer’s office, and then at the villa. It made alarm prickle along her spine and she took an instinctive step backwards.

  ‘You no doubt want your space, as do I. We know what this is, Marco.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A fling.’ She forced herself to say the words, to state it plainly. ‘We’re agreed on that. Nothing’s changed.’ Even if she felt as if her whole world had shattered when Marco had made love to her.

  Love... How had she not realised how dangerous this would be? How had she not seen how much a so-called fling would affect her?

  ‘And does having a fling mean we can’t sleep together?’ Marco bit out. ‘Does it mean you’ve got to hightail it from my bed as if you’ve been scalded?’

  Sierra stared at him in surprise, understanding trickling through her. He was hurt. He’d taken her sprint to the bathroom as a personal slight. The realisation softened her, evened out the balance of power she’d felt so keenly had been in his favour.

  ‘Maybe you ought to tell me what the rules are. Since I’ve obviously never been in this situation before.’

  ‘I haven’t either, Sierra.’ Marco rubbed a hand across his jaw as he gazed at her starkly. ‘No other woman has made me feel the way you do.’

  Sierra swallowed hard, a thousand feelings swarming her stomach like butterflies. Disbelief. Fear. Hope. Joy. ‘Marco...’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said roughly. ‘Like you said, we both know what this is. But you can still stay the night.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  He hesitated, his jaw tight. ‘Yes,’ he finally bit out. ‘It is.’

  ‘It’s what I want, too,’ Sierra said softly.

  ‘Good.’ Marco held out his arms and she went to him easily. Suddenly it seemed like the simplest thing in the world to accept Marco’s embrace. Moments ago she’d wanted to escape, but now she felt there was no other place to be.

  Sierra closed her eyes and snuggled against him, wondering how a supposed fling could be so confusing and make her feel so much.

  * * *

  Marco woke slowly, blinking in the sunlight that streamed through the huge windows. Sierra lay curled up in his arms, her cheek resting against his bare chest. They’d slept in each other’s arms all night, and Marco had marvelled at how good it had felt, how much he didn’t want to move. Even if he should. No matter what he’d said last night, this felt like more than a fling...to him.

  Now he eased slowly from Sierra’s sleepy embrace and stole downstairs to the living area; dawn was streaking across the city sky and the first rays of sunlight were touching the skyscrapers of midtown in gold.

  He gazed out of the window at the beautiful summer morning, but his thoughts were with the woman he’d left upstairs in bed. Sierra was supposed to fly back to England this afternoon. He’d booked her ticket himself. A few weeks ago it hadn’t seemed an issue. He’d convinced himself that he wanted her only to open the hotel, not in his bed. In his life. Maybe even in his heart.

  Marco let out a shuddering breath and pressed his fists to his eyes. He couldn’t be in love with Sierra. He’d written off that useless emotion. He’d seen how people who supposedly loved you were able to walk away. His father. His mother. And even Sierra, seven years ago, although at least no love had been involved then. No, then it had only been a lifetime commitment. And if Sierra had been able to walk away from him then, how much more easily could she do it now?

  He should let her go. Kiss her goodbye, thank her for the memories and watch her walk onto the plane and out of his life. That would be the sensible thing. It also made him recoil with instinctive, overwhelming revulsion. He didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t going to do that.

  So what was he going to do?

  Marco turned away from the window and reached for his laptop. He’d leave the question of Sierra for a little while, at least until she woke up and he got a read on what she was feeling.

  He clicked on his home news page, freezing when he saw one of the celebrity headlines: A Rocci Reunion?

  Quickly, he scanned the article, which covered the hotel opening yesterday. Very little was about the hotel; the journalist was far more interested in lurid speculation about the relationship between him and Sierra. There was even a blurry photo of him and Sierra slow-dancing last night, which infuriated him because no paparazzi had been invited to the private ball. It looked, he decided, like a snap someone had taken on their phone and then no doubt sold to the press.

  Marco swore aloud.

  ‘Marco?’

  He turned to see Sierra standing in the doorway, an uncertain look on her face. She was wearing that ridiculously huge dressing gown, her hair about her shoulders in tousled golden-brown waves. She looked delectable and yet also nervous.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, and she took a step towards him.

  Marco glanced back at his laptop. ‘Not exactly,’ he hedged. He realised he had no idea what Sierra’s reaction to the news article would be. He didn’t even know what his was. Irritation that someone had so invaded his—their—privacy. And anger that someone was plundering their shared past for a sordid news story. And, underneath all that, Marco realised, he felt fear. Shameful, hateful fear, that Sierra would see this article and be the one to walk away first.

  ‘What does “not exactly” mean, Marco?’ Sierra’s gaze flicked to his laptop and then back to his face. He’d closed the browser window, thankfully, so she hadn’t seen the article. But he knew he couldn’t, in all good conscience, keep it from her.

  ‘We’ve made the news,’ he said after a pause. ‘Someone must have snapped a photo of us on their phone.’

  ‘On their phone? But why?’

  ‘To sell to a celebrity tabloid.’

  ‘A celebrity tabloid...’ She shook her head, bewilderment creasing her forehead. ‘But why would a celebrity tabloid want photos of us? I mean...I know I opened the hotel, but it’s not as if I’m actually famous.’ Her gaze widened. ‘Are you famous? I mean, that famous?’

  ‘We’re famous,’ Marco stated flatly. ‘Together. Because of our past.’

  ‘You mean...’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.’ He bit out each word, realising he was sounding angry, but he couldn’t keep himself from it. This was the last thing he wanted to have happen now.

  ‘What does it say?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Marco clicked to enlarge the browser window. ‘See for yourself.’

  Sierra stepped forward, her mouth downturned into a frown as the gist of the article dawned on her. ‘“Will these star-crossed lovers find happiness off the dance floor?”’ she quoted, and then shook her head. ‘Goodness,’ she murmured faintly.

  ‘I’m sorry. Press were forbidden from coming to the ball. I had no idea something like this would happen.’

  ‘I had no idea our engagement seven years ago was so well known,’ Sierra said slowly. ‘I thought it had been a quiet affair.’

  ‘Not that quiet. Your father made a public announcement at a board meeting. It was in the papers.’

  ‘Of course. It was business to him. And to you.’ She spoke without rancour, and Marco let the comment pass.

  The last thing he wanted to talk about now was what had happened all those years ago. He wanted to take Sierra back to bed and he wanted, he knew, for her to stay past this afternoon.

  Sierra took a deep breath and turned to face him directly. ‘Do you mind? About the article?’

  ‘It’s an annoyance. I value my privacy, and yours, as well.’

  ‘Yes, but...’ She hesitated, fiddling with the sash of her robe. ‘Having it all in the papers? The fact that I...that I left you?’

  Ten
sion knotted between his shoulder blades. ‘It’s not something I particularly relish having bandied about,’ he answered, keeping his voice mild with effort. ‘But I’m not heartbroken, Sierra.’ He’d refused to be.

  ‘Of course not,’ she murmured and then nodded slowly. ‘I should get ready for my flight.’

  ‘Don’t.’ The word came out abruptly, a command he hadn’t intended to give.

  She gazed at him, her eyebrows raised. ‘Don’t?’

  ‘Don’t get ready for your flight. Don’t go on your flight.’ He held her gaze, willing her to agree.

  ‘But the opening is over, Marco. I’m not needed here any more.’

  ‘Not needed, maybe.’ He paused, trying to find the right words. ‘We’re having fun, though, aren’t we?’

  Her gaze widened. ‘Fun...’

  ‘Why should we end it so soon?’ Smiling, he reached for the sash of her robe and tugged on it gently, pulling her towards him. She went, a small smile curving her lips, and triumph roared through him. ‘Stay with me,’ he said when she’d come close enough for him to slide his hands under her robe, around her waist. Her skin was warm and silky soft. She let out a breathy little gasp of pleasure. ‘Stay with me a little while longer.’

  ‘I have a job, you know,’ she reminded him, but she didn’t sound as if it mattered much.

  ‘Teaching a few after-school lessons? Can’t you reschedule?’

  She frowned slightly but didn’t move away. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Then reschedule.’ He pulled her close enough so their hips collided and she could feel how much he wanted her. ‘Reschedule, and come with me to LA.’ A few more days with her, nights with her, and then perhaps he’d have had enough. Perhaps then he’d be willing to let her go.

  * * *

  It was amazing how tempted she was, and yet not amazing at all because what woman on earth could resist Marco Ferranti when his hands were on her skin and his smile was so seductive?