Seduced by the Italian Tycoon: From the first moment they met, she was powerless to resist him

by Clare Connelly

  “Do not make a scene, Aurora,” he muttered wearily. “By now the paparazzi will have been alerted to the fact that you and I are here. Let’s slip out quietly.”

  She stared up at him, and again felt as though she was slipping back through time. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  “Believe me, it’s mutual, but someone has to make sure you get home safe, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect my sister to leave her own celebration, do you?”

  Aurora bit down on the snappy reply she’d been about to make. Her eyes drifted to Beatrice, who was happily engaged in conversation with Alec and Peter.

  “No,” she conceded mutinously.

  Leo nodded, his face without pleasure. He began to guide Aurora through the bar, pausing only to drawl to the bartender, “Don’t worry about it. Believe me, she’s a lot more trouble than she’s worth.”

  Aurora lost her footing in surprise and hurt. Leonardo reached out and grabbed her around the waist, his fingers firm at her sides.

  “Let me go,” she demanded, not able to meet his eyes.

  “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Aurora. As soon as you’re back at your apartment, I will be thrilled to walk away from you.”

  Irrationally, tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked at them furiously. “You don’t need to take me to my apartment. Just help me find a cab.”

  “Yeah, right. So you can lurch into another bar along the way? And then what? Another sleazy barman’s bed?”

  A bright red Ferrari was parked on a double yellow line in front of the bar.

  “Let me guess,” she snapped, walking with his help towards the car. “Yours.”

  He compressed his lips. “Get in.”

  She turned to face him, and Leonardo sucked in a deep breath. She might be a cold-hearted bitch, but she was, hands down, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. Now, slightly softened by alcohol, with her signature hair left to fall as a silken blonde mane down her back, her blue eyes wide like saucers, and her lips pouted, he recalled what had first attracted him to her.

  “Were you always such a dictatorial bastard?”

  He tamped down on his frustration. “Yes. I think you used to like it about me. Get in.”

  She huffed with exaggerated frustration but eased herself into the leather bucket seat. It was as luxurious as she’d expected.

  “Nice car,” she muttered disapprovingly, when he’d joined her in the prestige vehicle.

  He nodded. “It’s custom.”

  She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Of course it is.”

  He pulled out into traffic and revved the engine. It pulsed with a deep, powerful throb that perfectly suited the man behind the wheel. Aurora reached out and gripped the handle on her door. She’d never liked fast cars, but having seen what they could do to a person first-hand, she now had a particular loathing for travelling at speed.

  “You’re not racing now,” she whispered, her face pale.

  He tilted her a begrudgingly amused look. “No, I’m not.” His eyes searched her face, surprised to realise that she seemed genuinely afraid. He slowed the car a little. “Are you still at the same flat?”

  She nodded.

  He took the roads as though they were burned into his brain. For someone who travelled around the world, he was annoyingly au fait with the back streets of London. It took him no time at all to travel from Brixton to Canary Wharf. He pulled up in a loading zone near the entrance.

  Ten minutes had done a lot to ease the fog in her mind, but nothing to calm the adrenalin that was pulsing through her. She reached for her seat belt clasp at the same time he did. Their fingers connected and she flinched in her seat, earning a glare of reproach from him.

  “What’s the matter? You were about to go home with that barman but you’re jumping out of your skin because our hands touched?”

  She swallowed nervously. “I was not about to go home with him,” she said unevenly.

  “If I hadn’t interrupted, you’d be banging him right now.”

  Her cheeks flushed at the accusation, and shame swirled in her gut, for the sheer reason that he might have had a point. It was uncharacteristic, but then, Leo had always inspired unpredictable reactions in her.

  “Why did you interrupt? Were you jealous?”

  “Jealous?” He laughed, a sound that sent shivers down her spine for it was so without humour. “Not at all. I don’t care if you screw half of London. If reports are to be believed, you did that shortly after leaving me crippled in hospital.” He shook his head and leaned forward towards her, as though pulled by a strong magnetic force. “No. I was not jealous.” He lifted a finger and ran it insolently from her cheek, to her décolletage, and lower still, to the gauzy fabric that covered her modest breasts. Her nipples were erect beneath the shimmering material and he traced his finger around one, running circles over her sensitive skin. She gasped as sensations rocketed through her. “Your body is beautiful but I no longer desire you, Aurora.”

  She smothered the moan that was on the tip of her tongue. Low in her abdomen, arousal was building, and desire was flourishing like a flower in spring. “Then why did you interrupt my conversation?”

  His lips lifted in a half smile. “You could say I took pleasure from messing up your plans.” He undid his own seatbelt so that he could press his body across the car, and tease her neck with his lips. “You were always a very sensual thing, weren’t you? Are you feeling frustrated now? That your target for a night of cheap, meaningless sex isn’t around?”

  God, he was so wrong. He had no idea about her, but she wasn’t about to enlighten him. If she told him that he, and he alone, had been able to arouse her to a fever pitch of sensuality, he would hold it over her for life. He put a hand on her thigh and stroked his fingers against her bare skin, moving them higher and higher, until his thumb padded against the silk of her underwear.

  “Do you still love to be kissed here?” He asked distractedly, looping a finger beneath the flimsy fabric and touching her most intimate flesh.

  “Why don’t you come upstairs and find out?” She heard herself issue the invitation and froze in his arms. What the heck had come over her? She’d been down this path and she knew how it ended. Getting involved with Leonardo Fontana was a completely disastrous idea.

  He ran his mouth over the sensitive skin beneath her ear and inhaled her sweet fragrance. “As tempting as that is, I have a rule about sleeping with women who are so drunk they can barely stand up.”

  Disappointment seared inside of her. “I’m not that bad.”

  “You used to be able to handle your liquor,” he drawled with a shake of his head. “Not any longer, apparently. Go upstairs, Aurora. You’re fit for sleep and nothing else.”

  The sense of rejection was fierce. She groped for the handle and made a muffled sound of annoyance when she couldn’t find it.

  Leo reached across her and opened the door easily, shooting her a look of frustration. “Good night.”

  She swung her legs out, and stood. The cold air was fortifying. “So that’s it?” She demanded, her expression showing her anger.

  “For now.” He grabbed for the door again and pulled it shut. He drove off before she’d reached the security doors of the luxurious high rise.

  She rode the lift in a state of shock.

  She’d seen him again, and it had gone a lot worse than she’d imagined. She had wanted to be cool when their paths crossed. To show him that she hadn’t let their relationship breakdown affect her life. That she was successful and happy and satisfied without the great, gorgeous Leonardo Fontana.

  Only she wasn’t, and after her performance that night, she was pretty sure he’d realise that she’d spent three years pining away for a man who barely thought of her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Oh, ouch.” Aurora rubbed her temples gingerly, her blonde hair spiking around her face in disarray. “Ouch.” She repeated, her eyes instinctively squeezing shut against th
e harsh bright light that was flooding into her spacious loft apartment.

  She squinted one eye half-open and looked at her phone. The screen was filled with messages. The time showed that it was after nine o’clock in the morning. “Crap.” She lifted a hand to her hair and smoothed it down.

  She never slept in. Despite the fact she worked from home, and in her own time, she had a routine of going to the gym or for a run each morning.

  Not that morning. The only thing she wanted on her agenda was coffee, and lots of it.

  She wriggled her toes against the hardwood floor and stood. Memories flooded back to her. “Crap.” She grimaced at the painful recollection of having invited Leo upstairs. Even more painful? That he’d declined.

  She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other until she reached the open-plan kitchen. The coffee machine was always switched on in Aurora’s apartment. She slid a pod in and waited for the heavenly black liquid to pool into a cup. She drank it black, and hot, then replaced the cup and slipped another pod into the machine. While it was brewing, she took a bite of an apple and stared out at the high rise opposite. Mid-way through lifting her second coffee to her lips, there was a hard, firm knock on the door. She frowned, moving through the apartment with far greater speed than she’d been able to manage ten minutes earlier. The coffee had been vital; its restorative powers impossible to ignore.

  She pulled the door inwards and gasped. “Leonardo? What… are you doing here?”

  He pushed past her and strode into the apartment, dropping his keys and wallet on the side table, just as he always had done in the past.

  Aurora stared at them in confusion. It was better than staring at him. Dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt, he was impossibly, darkly, gloriously handsome.

  “Leonardo?” She repeated, lifting her gaze reluctantly to his face.

  “How are you feeling?” His voice made her stomach clench.

  “Fine.” She looked down at the floor. “A little embarrassed, actually.”

  He nodded. “As you should. You were in danger of behaving in a way you would truly be regretting now.”

  “If you hadn’t stepped in?” She challenged.

  “Yes.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Believe it or not, I am capable of looking after myself. I haven’t seen you in three years. Do you think I’ve been wading into danger every night, waiting to be rescued?”

  “I don’t give a shi… I don’t care how you’ve been spending your time.”

  She crossed her arms across her chest, then realised it drew attention the vast expanse of skin exposed by the low cut nightgown she wore. She uncrossed them and formed fists by her side. “Then why are you here?”

  “Why am I here?” He demanded fiercely. “Why am I here?”

  He stalked back down the hallway and pulled her into his arms, kissing her lips hard. His hands pushed at her nightgown, lifting the hem, exposing her lace underpants and naked breasts. He broke the kiss for the briefest of moments, long enough to discard her nightgown and toss it to the floor.

  “Why do you think I am here?” He lifted her easily, wrapping her legs around his waist and carrying her through the apartment, to her bedroom. He threw her down and ripped off his own shirt, then stepped out of his jeans.

  She opened her mouth to say something but he kissed her again before she could voice any words. “Don’t speak,” he muttered, running his hands desperately over her body. “God, you would have gone home with that barman last night, wouldn’t you? He would have been doing this now, instead of me, wouldn’t he?”

  She shook her head from side to side. “I wasn’t myself.”

  “You drank too much. You made yourself vulnerable.” He rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard, sending little arrows of pain and pleasure shooting through her body. “You should know better than to put yourself at risk.”

  “What do you care?” She groaned as he lowered her underpants down her long legs, and ran his hands over her calves.

  “You were mine once. I don’t like the idea of you giving yourself away to whoever throws their cap into the ring.”

  Aurora groaned, as his mouth pressed kisses along the length of her legs, to the apex of dark curls between her thighs.

  “I’m not. I wasn’t.” She tossed her head back, her fingers pressed into his shoulders as his mouth began to send her spiralling out of control.

  “Apparently you do still like to be kissed here,” he murmured, as her whole body began to shake and convulse with pleasure.

  “What are we doing, Leo?” She whispered, as coherent thought became almost impossible.

  “Laying a ghost to rest,” he responded, standing up and staring down at her. He paused only to protect them and then he straddled her. He entered her swiftly, with a soft groan, as she took his length and arched her back, crying out at remembered sensations.

  There was no love. No romance. Nothing sensual. Just pure, passionate sex. Animalistic urges overtook every shred of good sense, and led them to come together as one. She trembled in his arms as she tipped over the edge into a pleasure abyss, and he chased after her, releasing a guttural oath as he found release in her.

  He stood almost immediately afterwards, and swore.

  Aurora felt just as surprised. Shock made her numb. “What the… What the hell just happened?” She pushed up on her elbows and grabbed for a sheet, her blue eyes wide with surprise.

  “Don’t bother with the false modesty,” he ground out sarcastically. “I know you too well.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand… you don’t even like me.”

  “You seem to understand perfectly,” he contradicted smoothly, unknowingly striking a knife into her chest.

  “I mean it, Leonardo. We haven’t seen each other in three years. We’ve both moved on. Why did you come here?”

  “Because you invited me to last night, and once you suggested a… reunion of sorts, I found I couldn’t put the idea from my mind.”

  “You said you didn’t find me desirable anymore. Last night. You said that.”

  “I guess I was wrong.”

  She closed her eyes and lifted a hand to her forehead. “I can’t believe this happened.” She stood up and reached for her robe. Her fingers were shaking, her head was throbbing.

  “It happened.” His nod was grim. “You can think of it as the goodbye we never had.”

  “Goodbye?” She repeated numbly, tightening the belt of her robe.

  “Yes.” He put his hands on his hips, uncaring that he was completely naked. “You left me when I was in hospital. After two years, at the first bump in the road, you got up and left.” His bitterness was obvious. “I actually thought you loved me, and not the lifestyle.”

  “I did love you,” Aurora stuttered, shocked at his opinion of her. “I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you.”

  “Oh, right. So what? You decided that the best way to express your love for me was to leave me a ‘Dear John’ note while I was knocked out on painkillers in hospital?”

  “No.” She shook her head, biting down on her lower lip. “I’m sorry about the note. That was wrong. I couldn’t face you. I was so angry with you, Leonardo.”

  “Angry with me? What for? Doing everything you ever goddamned wanted? Adoring you senseless? Wanting to marry you?”

  “For getting yourself just about killed!” She yelled, her body shaking from the raw feelings that were flooding back to her. “For just about dying on that race track. And wanting to get out there and do it all again.”

  He stood perfectly still, his eyes flecked with resentment. “Racing has been my life since I was a teenager. You knew that about me when we started dating. If you had truly loved me, you would not have expected me to change.”

  Tears pricked her eyes and she spun away from him to conceal her sadness. “I didn’t expect you to change. At least, not for me. But I knew I couldn’t sit around waiting for the day you woul
dn’t be so lucky.”

  “Lucky?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I have metal pins in one knee and one hip. I was hardly lucky.”

  “You could have died!” She roared, not attempting to monitor her volume. “Your car was in flames. Do you have any idea how that felt? To watch you careen out of control and ram into a wall of concrete?” She shuddered at the memory. “You should have been dead. That you survived was nothing short of a miracle. And then the first thing you said when you came out of that coma was that you couldn’t wait to try out the track again. To nail that bend.”

  He was quiet as he listened to the words she’d never said to him before. They were threatening to crack the hard shield he’d developed where Aurora Jones was concerned. “You were right to leave me,” he said, finally, his voice cold. “I would never give up racing. Not for you, not for anyone. Obviously that’s a commitment you can’t understand.”

  Her heart felt like it was dying. “I know.”

  “So what? You decided that you’d quit modelling and start partying professionally instead?”

  She straightened her shoulders and held herself tall. “What I’ve been doing since then is none of your business.”

  He looked at her back, and made one of the hardest decisions of his life. “You’re right. Thanks for the walk down memory lane, S.B. It’s been fun.”

  His use of his old nickname for her was the final straw. S.B. Sleeping Beauty, the Disney princess she had been named for, by a mother who’d brought Aurora up to love fairy tales and magic. But life was no fairy tale, and magic didn’t really exist.

  She waited until she heard her front door slam and then gave into the full torrent of emotions that were ripping through her. Angry, hot tears slid down her pale cheeks. She stared up at her ceiling and sobbed, until she was exhausted. She lay down in her bed, but it smelled like him. Masculine and spiced, like an alpine forest.

  She made a sound of frustration and ripped the sheets from the bed, balled them up in her fists and tossed them out towards the lounge area. She grabbed a fresh set and made up the bed, wishing she could erase her memories of Leonardo just as easily as she had his masculine cologne from her bed.