by Tara Pammi
“You just said you wore her out!” Her brow cleared. “You said that just to rile me up, didn’t you? There was hardly any time between when you left and I found you for you to...to—” She couldn’t believe what her logic led her to say. If only she could stop blushing! “—wear her out.”
“I actually don’t need that much time to get my lover off—”
“Where is she?” Sophia cut him off.
“She’s a lightweight and I kept plying her with drinks. Her husband’s divorcing her, which is what she wanted, but she’s a little emotional about it. I couldn’t just...throw her out of the party when she was in such a state.”
“No, of course, not. They all adore you even when you’re done with them.”
* * *
Except her, Luca thought with something akin to a pang in his chest.
“You’re free to adore me, too, cara. No one will have to know.”
She snorted. That inelegant movement of that sharp, stubborn nose made him chuckle. “God, really, you don’t need any more admirers, secret or otherwise. And I’m not kissing you.”
Pink and wide, her mouth was like a long bow, the only feature in her face that was soft and vulnerable. A pillow of lushness. It betrayed that tough-as-nails, no-nonsense persona of hers.
He desperately wanted to feel it under his own, wanted to taste all that pent-up passion. One kiss wouldn’t hurt. She was the one who’d cornered him, the one throwing outrageous ideas at him, the one looking all delectably confined and uptight in that dress. “How do you expect me to believe you’re not playing a joke on me with this proposal? Maybe this is revenge? Maybe you intend to make me fall in love with you, and then leave me at the altar pining for you? Maybe...”
Brown eyes glittering, wide mouth mobile, she laughed. It was a full-throttled laugh, deep and husky. The kind that came all the way from your stomach, burned through your lungs, leaving you a little dizzy. Her body shook all over.
The sound stole into Luca, filling every hungry crevice inside him. It was one that could cut through the darkest space, filling it with light. “What is so funny?”
“You, falling in love. With me.”
He said it softly. “The whole world assumes Sophia Rossi is tough, brave, the conqueror of every challenge. Decimator of men. Only I know what a coward you are.”
It fell in the space between them like a weapon, and he waited, breath balling up in his lungs. Anger and apprehension vied in her face until she covered the distance between them. He didn’t know if she was going to slap him or kiss him or castrate him. No woman could create that mystery except Sophia. No woman had ever filled his veins with this heady anticipation.
Fingers on the lapels of his shirt, she jerked him close. “No one calls me a coward, you manipulative bastard.”
Throaty and tart, growly and yet with a deep vein of need pulsing beneath, it was Sophia to the end. Brave Sophia accepting facts and meeting them head-on. Dutiful Sophia kissing the man she hated just to hear him out.
Short and curvy, she barely came up to his chest. Hands on his shoulders, she pulled herself up, as if to elongate herself. Like a vine clinging to a cement wall.
That pressed every inch of her to him. Lush breasts, followed by such a thin waist that he wondered how it held up those glorious curves, then flaring into rounded hips, hips a man would anchor himself on while he thrust inside her. Shapely thighs that would clutch a man tight as he jerked in pleasure within her velvet heat.
Again and again, until he forgot what or who he was.
Such heat rolled over his skin that Luca’s fingers dug into her soft flesh.
With a protesting moan, she stilled her mouth on his. The tips of their noses collided and a soft sigh left her. Hot breath kissed his hungry lips. Then she moved that mouth again. Testing and trying. This way and that. Halting thoughtfully and then hurrying along urgently when she liked the fit.
Brown eyes met his. And the world stilled. Time and space narrowed to this minute, this space around them. Never breaking his gaze, she slanted her head and dragged a kiss from one corner of his mouth to the other.
She took control of the kiss like she did everything else.
And Luca let her take over. Let the scent and taste of her fill every hungry crevice. Let her imprint herself on him.
Flames of fire raced along his veins when she licked the seam of his lips and probed for entry. Desperate, Luca opened his mouth under hers. The throaty sound of her gasp shivered down his spine. Never had he been waiting like this for pleasure. Never had he been the recipient.
Suppressing every instinct to take over the reins of the kiss—he’d never waited to be pleasured—he let her seduce him. She obliged, stroking the inside of his mouth with bold flicks, teasing and incinerating. Took his mouth with a carnality that left him shaking to the very marrow.
Christo, he’d never been so aroused by just a kiss.
* * *
The sound of footsteps behind them brought Sophia back to earth with a thud.
Her mouth stung with the taste of Luca, her body thrumming with unsatisfied desire. The crisp hair on his wrists teased her palms.
But she felt anything but exultant. She wanted to cry. She wanted to ask him to take her to his bedroom, turn off the lights and—no, not his bedroom. Not the place where he’d probably made love to a horde of lovers, each more stunning and thin and wispier than the next. Maybe they could slip away into that veranda, hide under the moonlight and he could kiss her a little more.
She could pretend that he’d never broken her heart and that he wanted her just as much as she did him.
Because when Luca kissed her, Sophia was always carried off to some faraway land. A land where she could be strong enough to be weak, where she could let someone care for her, where she didn’t worry about her family, where she was not mocked for who she was.
Where a man like Luca didn’t have to be induced into seducing a woman like her...
She hid her face in his chest. His heartbeat thundered against her cheek. He was warm and male, both exciting and comforting, something she hadn’t realized until this moment she missed.
Sophia couldn’t dredge up anger for that kiss. Toward him or herself.
His fingers wandered up and down her hips, questing and caressing. “I’d rather we kissed again, but I keep my word.” Deep and hoarse, his voice pinged over her heated skin. “So tell me, why do you wish to...”
Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder pulled her from his arms, turned her around.
“Tina, non!” she heard Luca shout dimly.
Sophia didn’t see it coming. Someone slapped her. Hard.
Her head went back, pain radiating up her jaw and through her ear. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked to clear them away. Pulling in a shuddering breath, she looked up.
Valentina—Luca’s sister and Kairos’s wife, stood before her, her lithe, willowy body shaking with rage. Her entire face was mobile with emotion, turning her into a volatile beauty. “You...you tart!”
Sophia raised a brow, refusing to show her dismay. “Tart, really?”
Her composure seemed to only rile the younger woman more. “You’re determined to go through all the men in my family, aren’t you? First Kairos, and now Luca? And to think I felt sorry for you when Leandro broke your engagement.”
“Basta, Tina!” Luca again. His arm around Sophia’s shoulders, he was a wall of lean strength against her. A dark scowl framed his features, his fingers rubbing against her arm in unconscious comfort.
Against every rational warning, Sophia felt her body leaning into his.
“You know the rumors about Kairos and her?” Tina screeched, her eyes filling with tears.
“If there’s truth to them, confront your husband, Tina.”
“Fall into her clutches, then. Maybe she will leave my husband alone.” Her black gaze raked over Sophia in a sneer. “Although I do not see the appeal.”
Valentina left with the same fierceness as
she had come in. Like a storm, leaving a minefield of awkward silence behind.
Sophia untangled herself from Luca’s side and ran her fingers tentatively over her cheek. She thought she might be a little sick but it could be because of how much dessert she’d eaten in her anxiety tonight after the strict diet of the last two weeks.
Luca pulled her to him; she tried to swat him away.
He won in the fight for possession of her. She swallowed hard. Fingers on her chin, he examined her cheek. “I apologize. She had no right to behave like that.” His mouth became a hard line. All the charm, the wicked laughter, was gone.
She waited for the inevitable question about her and Kairos, but it never came. But then, the one thing Luca had never been was a hypocrite.
“Marriage to Kairos is not good for her.”
She frowned but he didn’t elaborate. “Kairos can be hard to—” he raised a brow and she realized she’d jumped to her supposed lover’s defense “—understand.”
“You feel sorry for her?” he said, amazement in his eyes.
Sophia shrugged. Despite the sting in her cheek and the burn in her stomach at the comment on her looks, something inside Sophia recoiled at the vulnerability in Valentina’s eyes. A palette of emotions for Kairos, who was as hard-hearted as hell, to see. And everything was acted upon, too...
No man was worth that self-doubt, that haunting sense of inadequacy, Sophia wanted to tell Valentina.
Swift anger rose through her at Kairos; he was supposed to be her friend. Couldn’t he have reassured Valentina instead of using Sophia to keep his own wife at a distance?
“It’s obvious that what I suggested is a disastrous idea.” She chanced a glance at Luca, greedy to the last second. She’d make sure it was another decade before she saw him again. Something in her clenched tight. “Forget what I suggested.”
Without waiting for his answer, Sophia turned and walked away.
And in that moment she hated all men.
Antonio, for planting that horrible idea in her head, for using her desperation to promote his own agenda.
Kairos, for using their friendship as a barrier against his own wife.
Salvatore, for never giving her a chance in the company, even though he called her his daughter.
And the man behind her, more than anyone else, for kissing her like he meant it. Now and ten years ago. For making her want him so much, for making her weak and foolish, for making her imagine, even for a second, that she was all the things she could never be.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCA SPENT THAT Monday morning with Huang from the design team of Conti Luxury Goods, studying the prototype for new heels that would be released the coming spring.
Huang and he had worked together for almost ten years now, since Leandro had convinced Luca to take a small part in Conti Luxury Goods. Luca interacted only with Huang, and Huang worked with the rest of the design team.
He picked up a royal blue pump, tracing the aerodynamic sole with his fingers. The success of these pieces didn’t worry him. As always, anything he designed, from pumps to handbags, became instantly covetous among the fanatically fashionable.
Seeing something raw and shapeless transform into something so pleasing, that was success to him. But this particular design run had come to fruition and he felt the loss of it keenly. It had been quite a challenge—the design of the new heel. Now the production team would take over.
Familiar restlessness slithered through his veins. What to work on next? Sophia’s outrageous proposal from Friday night winked at him.
Dio, but that had challenge and fun and all kinds of things written into it. She hated him—had every right to, but she was still attracted to him. When his looks tripped Sophia into that kind of a kiss, he couldn’t quite hate them. It should have been one of a hundred kisses, she one of numerous, interchangeable faces he filled his life with and yet, the taste of her lips lingered, the passion with which she had taken him lingered, filling him with a restless craving for more.
Since he had no intention of following that up with Sophia, he needed a woman. To forget her and her kisses and that he had no place in her life. Soon.
He was at the door when Huang said, “You’re not going to wait?”
“For what?”
“You don’t even know, do you? Your brother—” Huang’s smile dimmed for the rift between Leandro and him, the first in their life, was fodder for office gossip “—is at the board meeting today. The one that’s going on now.”
“Well, he’s the CEO of CLG, Huang.” His mind ran over the next few days. He couldn’t disappear without checking on Tina first.
“There are rumors that he’s making a big announcement today.”
Luca stilled.
His brother claimed to have changed, that he regretted ruthlessly arranging Tina’s marriage to Kairos, pulling such deception over their sister, even if he intended it for her own good. But Leandro did nothing without reason. Needing to control everyone and everything around him was an itch in his brother’s blood.
A lot of fates depended on Leandro’s decision. Including Salvatore’s. And Sophia’s.
Her problems are not yours.
No warning could curb his thoughts, though. The poor state of the Rossi finances was common knowledge now. What would be her next move? Who would she propose marriage to next?
Curiosity was wildfire in his gut, eating away at that restlessness that never deserted him. Her expression when she had walked away, defeated yet resolute, stayed with him.
If nothing, it would be amusing to see what Sophia would do next. So Luca waited, for Sophia was a breath of fresh air, cold and yet invigorating, in his predestined life.
* * *
Leandro was stepping down as the CEO of the CLG Board.
Two hours and a million thoughts later, Luca still hadn’t recovered from the shock. For years Leandro’s life had been CLG. Kairos, his brother-in-law, would be the front-runner for CEO.
What use would his sister, Tina,then be to the ruthlessly ambitious Kairos once he had that?
His thoughts in a tangle, Luca walked past the alarmed secretary and pushed the door open to his brother’s office.
Kairos was in Leandro’s office, his hands on Sophia’s shoulders.
Jealousy twisted Luca’s gut, his blood singing with that same possessive fury again. Dio, only Sophia reduced him to this. Willing control over his emotions, he stayed by the door. The question he’d refused to ask, because he’d believed that Sophia was above such disgusting behavior as him, even after Tina’s accusations gnawed at him now.
How well did Sophia know him?
Sophia’s quick shake to Kairos’s whisper, the intimacy their very stance betrayed...suggested something more than an affair, something far more dangerous.
He couldn’t be the only man in the world who realized Sophia’s worth, the only man who wanted to claim her in every way. Did Kairos want more, too?
Even if they weren’t having an affair, it was clear Sophia had something with Kairos that Tina could never reach.
He’d hated this match between Tina and Kairos from the beginning, but seeing the stars in his sister’s eyes, he had stayed out of it. Even now, every instinct in him wanted to let Kairos have the CEO position he’d pursued with such cunning and ruthlessness, to let their marriage reach that destructive conclusion.
Only the tears he’d seen in Tina’s eyes at that party stayed his hand now.
It had been Leandro who had brought Tina to live with them after their mother’s death but it was Luca who’d made her laugh. Luca who’d gained her trust first; Luca she laughed with over all these years.
With her smile and generous heart, Tina loved Luca unconditionally, provided as much an anchor in his life as Leandro had.
Smarting at the direction of his thoughts, Luca ran a hand through his hair.
If there was a chance that Tina’s marriage to Kairos could be saved, he had to take it. He had to trust in Leand
ro’s belief that Kairos was the right man for Tina.
And to give Tina a running chance, he’d take away what stood between his sister and Kairos—the CEO position of CLG and Sophia Rossi. Luca’s seat on the board, which he’d have to claim for the first time in his life, would see to the first.
The second...
The solution that appeared released a panic in his gut, as if a noose were tightening around his neck.
Of all the women in the world, Sophia was the last woman he should be contemplating marriage to. She had proved to be dangerous to his peace of mind even as a chubby, composed nineteen-year-old. Now she was a force to be reckoned with.
“Can we borrow...your office, Kairos?” Luca interrupted the sweetly nauseating scene. “Sophia and I have something important to discuss.”
“I won’t let you bully Sophia.”
“How about you show that concern for my sister? Your wife, remember?” Luca retorted.
Another squeeze of Sophia’s shoulders and Kairos left.
“That looked like a very cozy scene, very tender,” Luca said, leaning against the closed door, batting away at the ugly emotion festering in his gut. “I gather he knows what Tina did.”
He saw her spine stiffen, making her look like an angry crow in her black dress. “I didn’t tell him. And I came by to tell him that he should clear this misunderstanding with Valentina.”
As always, the black linen was unadorned with the skirt falling demurely past her knees, high necked and severely cut. Yet the very cut and the way it enfolded all of her emphasized the very voluptuousness of the woman’s curves. If her intentions were to cover up that exquisitely luscious body with those painfully severe dresses, then she was an abysmal failure.
The only thing her horribly dowdy dresses showed was her rejection of style and fashion. Of her femininity. That she found herself not worthy enough of even trying.
He wanted to tear the ugly fabric off her and dress her in slithery silks, discover that satiny soft skin that he’d tasted once thoroughly, make her—
“Luca?”
Christo, two minutes in the same room and he could imagine only one scenario. The easy way she unmanned his control made Luca’s tone uncharacteristically harsh and bitter. “How did he receive your mutually beneficial proposal? Should I be flattered that you asked me first?” Disgustingly shameful words, he realized the moment he spoke.