‘Va bene. It is settled. I will escort you to my apartment now—you look tired and in need of rest.’
As he looked at her she could almost believe he was genuinely concerned, but to fall for such an idea would be her undoing and she had to remain strong.
‘I think it would be better if I booked into a hotel.’ Her words faded to a whisper at the black look on his handsome face, which appeared more severe due to the shadow of stubble he was sporting.
‘How can we be seen as lovers, about to become engaged, if you are not living in my apartment and, as far as the world is concerned, sleeping in my bed?’ He shrugged in that nonchalant way which had attracted her the first night she’d seen him. ‘It would not be very convincing, mia cara.’
Piper pushed her fingers through her hair, trying to control the emotions which were running riot inside her. Emotions she knew full well were intensified by her pregnancy. Why did she feel so let down, so disillusioned? He’d offered to stand by her, support her financially, and most importantly to be a part of their child’s life even if he wasn’t a part of hers. So why was she fighting the urge to cry? She had what she’d come for—and more.
She dragged in a sharp breath and looked up at him as he approached from her left side—her blind side—startling her when he touched her gently on her arm, as he had done several times already.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said softly.
Too softly. Her urge to give in to tiredness and tears intensified.
‘Come. You need to rest. You must have left London at an early hour this morning.’
She allowed herself to be guided to the office door, and with his arm lingering around her waist he walked to his secretary’s desk, issuing a flurry of Italian instructions which were met with curious gazes directed at her from the shocked older woman, unsettling her further. Was she so far below the kind of woman he usually dated that even his secretary was shocked?
Everything seemed to take on a glow of unreality as he escorted her out of the offices and to a waiting car. Moments later they were ensconced in the car, moving quickly through the streets of Rome as car horns sounded insistently around them. She wanted to see the sights, but the ride in the car was making her feel unsteady, and all she could do was sit back in the soft leather seats.
On her right, she felt Dante watching her. She could feel the scrutiny of his gaze and almost hear his unspoken questions. Everything about being with Dante again was unlocking all those emotions she’d hidden away as she’d left that hotel in the early hours.
As she got out of the car the tall buildings of the old town towered over her and blocked out the winter sun. She looked up at an impressive building which must have seen many things through history, unable to believe what she’d agreed to.
He took her bag from her. ‘This way. My apartment is on the top floor and offers stunning views of the city from the roof terrace. Have you been in Rome before?’
The light and easy way he spoke was in complete contrast to the way her heart was thumping. What had she done to herself? What had she agreed to? Marriage, be it in name only or not, to a man she barely knew?
‘No. Europe always seemed too far from Australia to think of.’
It had been a trip her mother had wanted to do. She’d tried to convince her father, but he’d never wanted to leave Australia, saying he didn’t need to go so far when he had all he needed at home. As he’d said those words he’d looked at her, and now Piper questioned if her mother’s need to return to England had been the start of their marriage problems.
Dante held the front door open for her and she walked into the cool shade of the old building, trying to leave the memories and questions she’d never have answered outside.
‘Yet you were in London when we met?’
‘I’d only been there for a year. My mother wanted to return to her native country after...’ She floundered for a moment, thinking of the day her father had suddenly died. Exactly one year to the day when she’d met Dante. ‘My father was Australian, my mother British, and after he died she wanted to be with her elderly mother so we left Sydney. Sadly, Grandma passed away a few months ago.’
Dante scrutinised her as he waited for the elevator and she wondered if her true feelings were showing clearly on her face, despite the calm and matter-of-fact way she’d imparted the story of her beloved father’s death.
‘And you were brought up in Sydney?’
She was glad when the elevator doors opened, diverting his attention. She’d never known anything but Sydney. It was not only where she’d grown up, but where she’d been happiest. But all that had changed when her father had been killed in a car accident. The senseless accident had happened not even a year after he’d been told he was in remission from cancer. The injustice of it made her gulp back the tears which threatened.
‘Can’t you tell from the accent?’ She laughed off the pain of those memories, wanting to move the conversation away from her. This wasn’t about her any more. It was about what was best for the baby. Her father had stood by her mother when she’d fallen pregnant and they’d been happy together. But obviously it hadn’t been enough for her mother, because she’d started to make plans to return to London soon after the accident.
‘It’s a nice accent.’ He smiled at her and she wondered if he’d sensed her unease, but his next words obliterated that thought. ‘And very sexy too, when you are consumed by desire.’
‘You should keep such comments for the women you date.’
The words left her before she could stop them, let alone think about what they meant to her. The thought of him dating other women made her heart heavy, but she had to push that aside. Their marriage was to be nothing more than a business deal.
He walked from the elevator, pulling out a key, and turned to look at her as he stopped outside his apartment door. ‘Exclusivity is something I will demand from you if this deal is going to work for us.’
That wouldn’t be a problem as far as she was concerned. Her one spontaneous and totally out of character affair had already caused her more trouble than she’d ever bargained on.
‘I should impose the same on you, but I doubt a man like you can be exclusive to any woman.’
* * *
Dante didn’t miss the crisp tartness in her voice. The subject was something he’d already given thought to on the drive to his apartment. He would have to be faithful to his new fiancée and, given that his body still heated at the memory of hers, it wouldn’t be a challenge. The biggest problem would be to ensure he didn’t repeat what had happened in London. She had made it clear this was to be only a business deal.
If he portrayed himself to the world as a caring and faithful man, in love with the woman who was to be his wife, he would not only clinch the deal he’d almost lost but wipe out the reputation that for years he hadn’t cared about. If he didn’t, the future of The Hope Foundation, the charity he wholeheartedly supported, would hang in the balance.
The three other businessmen who supported the charity were about to do the same. Zayn and Xander had agreed that Benjamin’s suggestion that they settle down was the only way. He’d watched on, uncharacteristically drowning his misgivings in a bottle of whisky, as the ghosts of his past had taunted him that he’d never be able to be responsible for another person without hurting them, forcing them to leave him.
Now he was responsible for a woman who should have been his for just a few hours of mind-blowing sex. Not only that, he was responsible for the child she carried—his child. Could he put himself through that? Could he engage the emotions he’d switched off and risk losing everything again?
‘You will have my full and undivided attention at all times. We are in love, no?’ As he looked down at her that spark of lust, a sexual chemistry too strong to deny, arced between them. He saw her eyes darken, watched her lips part, and his body responded in the only way possible to such a blatant invitation.
‘Nothing can ever happen between us
again, Dante.’
Her whisper cracked with desire, and in normal circumstances he would have laughed softly, pulled her against him and kissed her into submission. But these were not normal circumstances. This wasn’t just a meaningless affair that would end as soon as the sun rose the next morning.
‘I have agreed to our terms.’ He unlocked his door and stood back for her to enter, smiling down at her in an attempt to hide the conflicting emotions warring within him. ‘A marriage in name only that will give us both what we want.’
‘More than that, Dante.’
She stood outside, as if crossing the threshold to his home was the last thing she wanted to do. To have her permanently in his life was not what he wanted, but he had his reasons for making this deal. Just as she had hers.
‘It will give our child what it deserves.’
The mention of the baby shocked any response from him and he turned and walked into his apartment—a place he’d never taken a woman before, preferring the anonymity of hotel rooms which he could leave when he was ready.
‘Tomorrow you will sign a contact.’ His irritation at the situation he found himself in sounded in his words—even he could hear that.
Not only was he inviting a woman into his home and his life—permanently—he was giving himself the biggest challenge of all. One he wasn’t sure he could master. He would have to invest himself, his emotions, in a child. How could he do that when the pain of Alessio’s loss, the guilt of his inability to be what someone else needed, still festered in his dormant heart?
‘Until then you will have to trust me when I say that I will be the perfect gentleman, and that you may sleep soundly in my bed.’
‘In your bed?’ The few hesitant steps she’d taken into his domain faltered to a stop.
‘Alone,’ he added.
She really was adamant that they would not be repeating those hot, sultry hours in London. So be it. He didn’t want the added complication of lust becoming more than that.
‘We’ve settled this. As my lover you need to be seen here, at all times of the day and night. What the outside world will never know is that I will sleep there.’
He gestured to the second bedroom, which served as his office. Last night, if one of the other three men had suggested he’d be taking a woman into his life and sleeping in his spare room in order to salvage his reputation and that of his supported charity, he would have laughed.
‘I’m not sure... I’ll find a hotel.’
‘That is not an option any longer, mia cara. You should not have come all this way, imparted such news and then expected me not to put my terms on any arrangement made.’
The late night and early start were finally catching up with him, and all he wanted was to shut the door on the world and relax. But first he had to contact Elizabeth Young and ascertain if her agency offered the services he required. He needed to transform the plain and ordinary woman before him into a fiancée that would bring the gossips to a tongue-tied halt.
‘I can’t take your bed.’
‘Va bene, then I will share it with you if it makes you feel better.’ He stifled a smile at her shock.
‘No,’ she said, and she all but flounced past him into the apartment, her attitude hinting that the woman he’d met in London was still lingering inside her, waiting to be drawn out. If he dared to find her.
‘Then at last we understand one another. I suggest you make yourself at home. I have work to continue with.’
Never had he ever thought he would be inviting a woman into his home, into his life, and telling her to make herself comfortable. The idea was unnerving, but reluctantly he knew it was necessary.
It would make him part of his child’s life. It was a child he’d never wanted, but despite that he already knew he would do anything for it.
CHAPTER THREE
PIPER WOKE THE next morning, the soft sheets caressing her skin as she stretched, and then realisation hit. This wasn’t her bed. She sat upright quickly and looked around the room, momentarily not recalling actually getting into bed. In fact she couldn’t remember much after arriving yesterday with Dante.
She’d been so tired. The confrontation with Dante had sapped any remaining strength she’d had—which had been very little after weeks of barely sleeping because of the situation she’d found herself plunged into. But right now her biggest worry was the fact that she was in bed, wearing only her underwear, and had no recollection of getting there.
As if her thoughts had summoned him Dante knocked lightly on the bedroom door. ‘Buongiorno.’
His deep and undeniably sexy voice came through the door and the image of him that it conjured in her mind was immediate and vivid—but she had to remember the man she’d confronted yesterday was the same as the one described in Celebrity Spy! He’d also been suffering the effects of alcohol, probably from partying the previous night with glamorous women. It had shocked her that he was so far from the loving man she’d met briefly in London.
‘Come in,’ she said, far more boldly than she felt, and tugged the sheet tighter against her. Had she undressed in a tired trance or had he removed her clothes?
The door clicked open and Dante entered. The hint of stubble which had coloured his face yesterday was gone. The clean-shaven look reminded her of the man she’d lost more than just her virginity to.
‘I trust you slept well, cara?’
‘I did—thank you.’ She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking if he was the one who had undressed her and pulled the luxurious sheets over her instead of leaving her lying on the bed. Her only memory from last night was of lying there for just a few minutes.
‘Good. We have a busy day ahead of us.’
He walked closer, his expression bland and unyielding, and try as she might she couldn’t help but admire the way his shirt was all but moulded to his body. A body she remembered clearly and a body she wanted to know again. Except that would be too dangerous—now that she knew who he really was and what he was capable of.
‘We do?’ She hoped the flush that crept over her cheeks wouldn’t give her away.
‘Sì. I have the necessary paperwork for our deal, awaiting your signature, then we can go shopping.’
A hint of mischief sparked in his eyes as he turned his full attention to her as if he knew she was being a tease but refused to rise to it.
‘Shopping?’ she asked casually as she sat back against the soft pillows. If only she didn’t feel as if she’d walked into the pride leader’s den. ‘Why do we need to go shopping?’
‘For the single most important item, if this deal is to achieve its aim. A ring.’
He moved towards the bed and she had to work hard to resist the temptation to pull the sheets tighter still against her—whether to hide her state of undress or protect her heart as it fluttered at his increasingly dominating presence, she couldn’t tell. Either way, she wouldn’t do it—wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he could unbalance her with one look.
‘Of course.’ Her nonchalant tone was a total contrast to the racing of her heart and the flutter of the butterflies which had taken residence in her tummy. ‘I will join you shortly.’
‘Breakfast is waiting for you.’ His dark eyes fixed her intently to the spot and instantly she was back on that bed in the hotel room in London as he’d stood and looked at her, desire and passion so tangible in the air that she hadn’t wanted the moment ever to end.
‘Thank you.’ She dragged her mind back from that night. She would have to put such notions well and truly to one side if she was going to survive this deal she’d struck. Dante didn’t have feelings for her. She was merely a means to an end. A way to seal his deal. He was exactly the inscrutable businessman Celebrity Spy! had portrayed him as being.
The trouble was she also knew he was a skilled lover—which was what had earned him such a scandalous reputation with women—and a rebellious part of her yearned to experience that man again. After all, her curre
nt situation couldn’t get much worse. She was pregnant, jobless, and being forced into marriage as part of a business deal. It was ludicrous when all she’d wanted to do was make him aware of his child and ease her conscience.
She watched as he turned and left, unable to pull her gaze away from the broad shoulders covered in a pale blue shirt that somehow emphasised every last muscle her fingers annoyingly remembered tracing on his back.
Once the door had clicked closed she slid out of bed. Although her tummy protested its emptiness she headed for the shower, determined that when they went out later she would look at least a little bit more glamorous and like the women he’d been pictured with throughout that article as proof of his Casanova lifestyle.
The problem was she didn’t really know how to achieve such glamour—that was why she’d been sent out to the hairdresser’s and lent a dress that day she’d been told she would have to stand in for a colleague for one night and be hostess for a dinner party in London. Whilst she’d enjoyed feeling so different, it hadn’t really been her. It was a different Piper who had gained the interest of Dante Mancini, one of the world’s most debauched bachelors, but it was the real Piper who’d fallen for him right there and then.
* * *
Dante stood on his terrace, looking out over Rome as the city became its bustling usual self. Sounds of the street drifted up while he sipped his coffee and waited for Piper. On the table inside, which he’d instructed to be laid for two, was the contract. Once that was signed there would be no going back. He would be responsible not only for Piper, a woman who intrigued him more than any other, but for a child. A responsibility he wasn’t sure he could meet when the demons of Alessio’s death still plagued him.
‘I’m sorry I kept you.’
Piper’s sexy voice, with its delicious accent, dragged him from his dark thoughts.
‘I took the liberty of arranging an assortment of choices for breakfast,’ he said.
Married for the Italian's Heir Page 4