Harlequin Presents February 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: Dealing Her Final CardUncovering the Silveri SecretBartering Her InnocenceLiving the Charade

by Jennie Lucas

  Tino tipped the contents of his glass of iced water down his parched throat. ‘That’s your definition of love?’ he mocked, forcing his tone to reflect bored nonchalance. ‘No wonder you struggle to keep a woman.’

  Dante laughed softly. ‘That’s my definition of a man who’s still running.’

  ‘Let me repeat,’ Tino bit out. ‘I am not in love with Miller Jacobs.’

  ‘What’s the problem with it?’ Dante was watching Miller now, his eyes alight with admiration. ‘It was bound to happen some day. You’re a lover, Tino, not a fighter. And she is stunning.’

  ‘You’re calling me soft?’ He ignored the instinct to go for his brother’s throat.

  ‘I’m telling you I think she’s great, and if you don’t go get her I might.’

  Valentino knew Dante was baiting him but even so his brother’s soft taunt twisted the knots in his gut.

  ‘Okay.’ Dante held up his hands in mock surrender, even though Tino hadn’t moved a muscle. ‘I take back the not a fighter bit... But seriously, man, why fight it?’

  Tino turned his back on the dance floor. ‘You know why.’ He sighed. ‘My job.’

  ‘So quit.’

  Tino was shocked by Dante’s suggestion. ‘Would you give up your multi-billion dollar hotel business for a woman?’

  Dante shrugged. ‘I can’t imagine it, but...never say never. Isn’t that the adage? You’ve done it for fifteen years and you have an omen flapping over your head the size of an albatross. I don’t think your time will be up tomorrow, if that helps, but why risk it?’

  Tino knew Dante was remembering the day his father had crashed, something neither brother ever talked about, but he felt better now, knowing the reason behind Dante’s topic of conversation. ‘Did Ma or Katrina put you up to this?’

  ‘You think the girls tried to get me to stop you racing? Ma would never do that. She’s always been a free spirit. No.’ He shook his head. ‘There was just something different about you on the track today. As if you were...’

  He frowned, searching for a word Tino didn’t want him to find.

  ‘Distracted.’ Yep, that was the one. ‘I thought maybe you were thinking it was time for a change.’

  ‘In conversation, yes,’ Tino bit out tersely.

  The fact that his brother had noticed his earlier tension before the qualifying session was more concerning to him than if either one of the females in their family had sicced Dante onto him.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Dante took the heavy silence between them for what it was—disconnection. ‘I won’t push it. God knows I’d hate someone to push me. But I’d avoid Katrina if I were you. She’s already trying to work out who will be flower girls to Toby and Dylan’s pageboys.’

  * * *

  Miller stood to the side of the sparkling room, only half listening to Katrina’s friendly chatter, her body still tingling from Valentino’s earlier lovemaking when he had returned from the track. He hadn’t even greeted her when he’d walked into the room—just backed her against the wall like a man possessed and taken her.

  It had been fast and furious, and although he had shown her the same consideration as always she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had been treating her as just another pit lane popsy—someone to use and discard straight after.

  After her near accident at the go-cart track that morning his emotional withdrawal had been handled with military-like precision.

  Which on some level she understood. She had been a complete bag of nerves watching him whip his car around the track during the qualifying sessions at speeds that made the go-carts look like wind-up toys, so she could only imagine how badly he had felt when she had lost control of the cart.

  What she couldn’t understand—what she hated—was the way he politely maintained that everything was still normal between them.

  It was too much like the time her parents had sat her down to tell her they were separating, pretending that they were happy with the decision while they each seethed with anger and hurt below the surface.

  Their denial of how they really felt had made dealing with the separation nearly impossible, because Miller had known something wasn’t right, and yet the one time she had been brave enough to broach the subject with her mother she had brushed her off and made her feel stupid.

  Which was why, she realised, she had let Valentino give her the silent treatment. She hadn’t been brave enough to open herself up to that kind of hurt again.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t a failsafe plan, because without her even being aware of it the unthinkable had happened.

  She had fallen in love with him.

  The uncomfortable realisation had hit her when she’d been pressed deliciously against the hotel wall with his body buried deep inside hers.

  At that moment when he had looked at her a spiral of emotion had caused her heart to expand, and she’d shattered around him in an agony of pleasure and longing.

  She’d told herself it wasn’t possible to fall in love in such a short space of time, but her heart had firmly overridden her head—as it had always done with Valentino Ventura.

  And now, feeling like a liferaft set adrift, she understood why people did crazy things for love. She understood what her father had been talking about when he’d said that it was too painful to visit her after she had left with her mother. He’d had his heart broken. The sudden wave of understanding made her eyes water.

  Blinking back the memories, she smiled at Katrina and pretended she’d been listening—and then at her next words she really was.

  ‘I never thought I’d see my brother so in love. He can’t stop looking at you.’

  Couldn’t stop looking at her? He hadn’t looked at her once.

  Well, okay, she had seen him glancing her way a couple of times, but she’d have called that glowering at her, not the benign version of looking. And he’d turned away each time before their eyes could properly connect.

  Which was ironic, because she was supposedly here to prevent him from being accosted by every unattached woman at the ball, and since they weren’t behaving like a couple the women had been lining up to get to him in droves. In fact, if she’d known he was going to completely ignore her, she would have brought a numbering system to help the whole process go more smoothly. Sort of like a speed dating service. Give everyone their five minutes and wait for him to choose her replacement.

  Miller felt a spurt of anger take over from the intense pain that thought engendered, and latched onto it.

  He might not want to continue things with her, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her so poorly. It wasn’t as if she would suddenly develop into a needy person who wouldn’t let him go. She had known it was going to end. What she hadn’t expected was that she would enjoy being part of a couple so much. She had been so fiercely independent for so long the thought hadn’t occurred to her. But with Valentino... He made her feel so much. Made her want so much. Was that why he was avoiding her so thoroughly? Had he guessed her guilty secret?

  The thought that he had horrified her. She might feel as if she was ready to face a lot of things she hadn’t before in her professional life, but personally she was very far from ready to “squeeze the fear”. Certainly not with a man who would never feel for her the same way she felt for him.

  But it was one thing to deceive her workplace about her relationship with Valentino, which she had hated doing, and quite another to deceive Valentino’s loving family. She didn’t think Valentino would care if she corrected Katrina.

  ‘Actually, Valentino isn’t in love with me.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. He might not have said—’

  Miller put her hand on Katrina’s arm. ‘I only met Valentino last week. The only reason I’m here with him now is because he helped me out of a bind and pretended to be my boyfriend.’
She saw Katrina’s eyes widen with unbridled curiosity and shook her head. ‘Don’t ask—it’s a long story. Suffice it to say I became unwell, Valentino helped me out, and...here I am. But I’m going home tomorrow.’

  Katrina turned compelling blue-grey eyes on her. ‘But you have feelings for my brother?’

  Miller inclined her head. No point in denying what was clearly obvious to Valentino’s sister. She shrugged. ‘Like every other woman on the planet.’

  ‘So you’re going to do what he does?’ Katrina gently chided.

  Miller’s brow scrunched in confusion.

  ‘You’re going to make light of it?’

  ‘No, you’re wrong. I don’t make light of anything.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘I’m way too serious; it’s one of my faults.’

  Katrina pulled a face. ‘I know my brother can be intensely brooding and unapproachable at times, but don’t give up on him. He’s protected himself from getting hurt for so long I think its second nature to him now. After our father’s death he changed, and not—’

  ‘Giving away family secrets again, Katrina?’

  A biting voice savagely cut through his sister’s passionate diatribe and Miller cringed. He stood behind her, legs braced wide and larger than life in a superbly cut tuxedo that made him look even more like a devil-may-care bad-boy than his jeans and T-shirts.

  ‘Hello, little brother. Are you having a good time?’ Katrina greeted him merrily.

  ‘No. And I need to go. I’ll see you at the track tomorrow, no doubt. Miller?’

  He held out his arm for her to take and Miller did so, but only because she didn’t want to cause a scene in front of his sister. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Katrina.’

  ‘Likewise.’ Katrina leant in close. ‘Don’t let his scowl put you off. He’s harmless underneath.’

  Oh, she was so wrong about that, Miller thought miserably. Valentino had the power to hurt her like no one else ever had, and she was really peeved she had given him that power over her. Because it was her own stupid fault. He’d been honest right from the start.

  Halfway across the room, Miller tugged on his arm. ‘I might stay on a bit longer, if that’s okay?’

  God, when had she been reduced to sounding like a Nervous Nelly?

  ‘Why?’

  Because I don’t want to go upstairs with you in this mood and have you rip my heart to pieces.

  ‘I’m having a good time.’

  ‘I don’t want you talking to my family about me or my father.’

  His voice was cold and she now wondered if he really was leaving because he needed to get sleep and prepare for the race tomorrow, or because he assumed she’d keep trying to wheedle secrets out of his family about him.

  ‘I didn’t ask Katrina anything,’ she denied. ‘She assumed that you had feelings for me. We both know you don’t and I told her this whole thing was fake.’

  Valentino grabbed her elbow and pulled her to the side of the room to let a couple pass by.

  ‘Why would you say that?’

  Miller forced herself not to be intimidated by his frown. ‘Because I don’t like being dishonest and I like your family.’

  ‘This thing stopped being fake the minute we had sex and you know it,’ he growled.

  Miller’s hopeful heart skipped a beat. Did he mean that? Could his black mood be because he had strong feelings for her and just didn’t know how to express them?

  ‘What is it, then?’ She knew she was holding her breath but she couldn’t help it.

  He raked back his hair in frustration and glowered at the glittering crowd of doyennes behind her. ‘I don’t know. Good fun?’

  Good fun?

  Stupid, desperate heart.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had a terrible day and I don’t want you talking about my father. The man died racing a car. Everyone needs to get over it and move on.’

  ‘Like you have?’

  His scowl at her quietly voiced question didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Don’t psychoanalyse me, Miller. You don’t know me.’

  ‘Only because you hide your deepest feelings under solid cement.’

  She thought he would try and make light of her comment. When he didn’t she realised how stressed he really was. She also realised that her breathing had grown harsh, and the last thing she wanted to do was argue with him the night before a crucial race.

  ‘Valentino, your sister didn’t mean any harm. She was boosting me up because she thinks that you protect yourself against being hurt.’ A conclusion she had also drawn after talking to him that day in the park.

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it?’ Miller asked softly, her heart going out to this wounded, gorgeous man. ‘Or is it that you believe that your father didn’t love you enough to quit racing? Because I know that tomorrow’s race has been playing on your mind, and I’ve seen enough to guess that maybe you’re a little angry with him.’

  A flash of insight hit her as she recalled how stiff he had been in his mother’s company—a woman she knew he loved dearly.

  ‘Maybe even with your mother—although I’m not sure why that would be.’

  ‘Don’t confuse your mother issues with mine, Miller,’ he snarled.

  Miller gasped. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say. My mother did her best and while you’ve helped me see that I’ve blindly followed her dreams instead of my own that wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I didn’t have to give up my artistic aspirations. I chose to because it suited me at the time.’ Miller felt as if he’d torn a strip off her and left her bleeding. ‘Now, I can see I’ve overstayed my welcome, so if you’ll ex—’

  ‘Don’t leave.’

  Miller’s stomach was in knots and she was shaking. She had to leave before her runaway mouth said anything more she might regret. ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘I don’t mean right now. I mean tomorrow. Quit your job and travel with me. Come to Monaco next week.’

  Miller stared at him. The tinkling chatter of happy guests faded to a low hum. He didn’t look completely comfortable, but was he serious?

  ‘Why?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Why does there have to be a reason? Haven’t you had fun the last few days?’

  Miller smoothed her brows. ‘You know I have. But it’s not enough to sustain a relationship.’

  ‘Why put a label on what’s between us?’

  Miller paused, taking in the offhandedness of his question, his effortless arrogance.

  Oh, God, he wasn’t talking about having a relationship with her. Not a real one, anyway. She was the only one here with long-term on the brain.

  ‘I...can’t.’

  She knew if she took him up on his offer it would mean a lot more to her than it did to him, and she knew herself well enough to know that it would be hell on her self-esteem. It would also be repeating the same mistakes she had made in the past—because following him around the world would be following his dreams at the expense of her own.

  Reluctantly, she shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’ He sounded frustrated. ‘You hate your job.’

  ‘I don’t hate my job.’

  He made a patronising noise and swung his arm in an arc. ‘It’s not what you want to do.’

  ‘How would you know? You never ask me what it is I want—you just tell me.’ She knew that was slightly unfair but she wasn’t about to correct herself right now. This was about protecting herself from his clear intent to change her mind for his own selfish purposes.

  ‘If you don’t want to come just say so, Miller, but don’t use your job as an excuse.’

  ‘What has got into you?’ she fumed. ‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore head all day, you’ve ignored me all night, and now you’re trying to steamroller me again to get what
you want.’

  ‘Because I always get what I want.’

  Miller rolled her eyes. ‘That’s arrogant, even for you.’

  He shoved a hand in his pocket, pulling the divinely cut tuxedo jacket wide in a casually elegant move redolent of a 1950s film. ‘You didn’t seem to mind it this week.’

  Didn’t seem to... Miller couldn’t fathom his indifference. She had feelings and he was treating her as if she was here just to please him.

  ‘I don’t know how serious your offer to travel with you was, but I’m assuming you want a relationship. I have to tell you that I would never enter into something with a man who is so stubborn and selfish and angry.’

  ‘And finally she lists my faults.’

  ‘Oh, that is so typical of you—to make fun of something so serious.’

  ‘And it’s so typical of you to make serious that which could be fun.’

  Miller drew in a fortifying breath. ‘I think we’ve said enough. We’re too different, Valentino. You want everything to be light and easy, but sometimes feelings aren’t like that.’

  ‘I know that. It’s why I refuse to have them.’

  ‘You can’t just refuse to have them. They’re not controllable.’ But Miller had the uncomfortable realisation that she had once believed exactly that.

  Valentino rocked back on his heels. ‘Every emotion is controllable.’

  ‘Well, you’re lucky if that’s true, because I’ve just discovered that mine aren’t, and I can’t be with someone who only connects with me during sex because he’s too afraid to share how he feels.’

  ‘It’s the damned uncertainty of it you don’t like.’

  Miller threw up her hands. ‘And now you’re going to tell me how I feel in an effort to hide your own feelings.’

  ‘Fine—you want to know how I feel? I feel that my father made a bad choice when he married my mother. He wasn’t a man equipped for having a family and he was never around for us. Hell, I was his favourite because of our shared love of adrenalin highs, but even then we hardly had any time together. And when his car hit that wall—’ He stopped suddenly, his voice thick. ‘I won’t do that to another person.’