by Tara Pammi
Suddenly, she couldn’t even breathe, the enormity of what she’d done pressing upon her. She was trusting the one man who’d broken the very thing into a thousand pieces with his recklessness.
As if tuned into every doubt coursing through her, Luca wrapped an arm around her. “Trust yourself, Sophia. You made the right decision, for you.”
Two of Luca’s friends—a woman who worked in the Piazza del Duomo and the mayor’s sister, two of his exes, of course—stood witness as they signed the marriage license. Neither woman, at least openly, exhibited their shock that the Conti playboy, the man who’d been called a god for his looks, was marrying the short, snarky, shrewish Sophia.
And soon, she became Sophia Conti. A solemn expression on his face, Luca pulled her close and kissed her cheek. Not her mouth, surprisingly, for a man who’d said he was eager to get her into bed.
A tender, almost affectionate caress that brought a lump to her throat.
Waving his friends off, they walked out into the sunshine. It was a gorgeous day for November.
“Let’s go,” he said then, pointing to his bike.
“No way am I climbing that beast in this dress.”
“No way am I leaving my new bride here. Hop on, cara mia. I want to get to the Conti offices before they disperse for lunch. I hear they have a board meeting today.”
“You want to walk in there and—” she swallowed audibly “—announce what we did?”
“You sound as if we did something naughty. And why not? I want to see the expressions on my Nonno’s face. And Kairos’s. And Leandro’s.”
Sophia wanted to see none of those people. She wanted to go home and come to terms with the emotions bursting through her before she faced anyone else. Once she processed them, she wanted to build a neat little cupboard in her mind and shove them all in there and slam the door.
“Is it necessary to upset them?”
“Stop chickening out, Sophia. You need to stop being scared of them.” Which was exactly what she was doing. But for altogether different reasons.
Facing society as the Conti Devil’s wife was going to be an exercise in humiliation and agony and a host of other excruciating things. But coward, she was not. With some difficulty, for she didn’t want to flash him a glimpse of her underwear, she got on the bike.
With her awareness of the man and an active imagination, she didn’t want to straddle anything when he was so close. The leather was supple against the tender skin of her thighs, both indecent and exciting, thanks to her libido.
“Mio Dio! Was that black lace and garters?” he asked the moment she settled on the scandalously wide seat.
He sounded hoarse and rough.
“You peeked? You actually peeked?” Outraged, she hit him on the shoulder, got off the bike and sputtered like a woman incapable of forming a coherent sentence. “You...you’re the very devil.”
He turned to the side, offering her his sharp profile. “You don’t think your horribly closed-off dresses work, do you, Sophia?”
Throat dry, it took her a few seconds to speak. “What?”
“You have the lushest curves I’ve ever seen on a woman, bella. Those dresses, all they do is tempt and tease. Didn’t you ever wonder why all those idiots made that bet about you ten years ago?”
All those idiots... He talked so glibly as if he hadn’t been a part of it. The man seemed to have a selective memory along with a face that would tempt a saint.
And she had never been a saint.
“Because I beat them all in every test we took. Because I proved again and again that I was better than them at everything. And I didn’t think they were charming princes like the rest of society did. They—” she swallowed tightly, for she’d never understood why he’d taken part in it “—wanted to see me humiliated.”
That whole episode, along with being viewed as prize cattle that he could exchange for an advantageous marriage by Salvatore, everything that was tender in her, had taken a beating.
Before she’d a chance to understand her femininity, it had been crushed. So she had locked it, and any other vulnerabilities, away and continued on.
“All that is true, yes. But they were attracted to you. They thought you were the hottest girl around. They all wanted to be the ones who tamed you.”
“Wild animals are tamed,” she said in a tight whisper that hurt her throat.
“You can’t change the world, Sophia. Men will be men—childish, arrogant and insecure. Any time we see a woman we don’t understand, we call her names. All you do by hating the world is make yourself miserable.”
“So I should lie down and let them beat me into what they think I should be.” Because her mother, Salvatore, Antonio, Kairos, that was what they all wanted to do. They all wanted her to fit into the roles they had for her.
“No, cara. You fight, like you always do. You live. You count your wins. You glory in what makes you stand out and you rub their noses in it.”
She smiled, finding the idea intriguing, at least in theory. “And what would these wins be?”
“Convincing the most beautiful man in Italy, probably Europe, to marry you, should count as a win, si?”
Sophia burst out laughing. He possessed an uncanny knack to make her laugh, at the world and even herself. Like a ray of sunshine in a gloomy, dank cave.
But beneath her laughter, shock persisted, an uncomfortable knot in the pit of her stomach. Every moment she spent with Luca, he tossed her assumptions of him upside down.
He saw and understood far more than the world thought he did.
Even back then, even as he’d seduced her as part of that horrible bet, not once had he tried to minimize her to exaggerate his masculinity. Not once had he called her intelligence and ambition weird. Not once had he told her to be happy with her lot.
His betrayal in the end had colored everything of that time but Sophia didn’t remember a time when she’d been so easy with herself.
“You are beautiful, cara mia. Enough to make stupid boys do a cruel thing to get close to you.”
Was that why he’d taken part in that bet, too? Hadn’t he known he didn’t need it? She’d been putty in his hands from the moment he’d smiled at her.
She offered a wan smile, far too rattled. “You can make the earth believe it’s the sky if you put yourself up to it, Luca. I’m not falling for you.”
He sighed, that dramatic, larger-than-life gesture. “Oh, you will, cara mia. And you’ll love every minute of your descent.”
Hands snug around his waist, she hung on for dear life as he took off.
In two seconds flat, wind whipped at the knot of her hair. Her dress rode up to her thighs, and her breasts were crushed against his tensile back.
But for the moment Sophia found she didn’t really mind being plastered to him. In fact, she decided to enjoy it.
She decided to call being plastered to the sexiest man she’d ever meet a win.
CHAPTER FIVE
A WWF SMACKDOWN would have had less dramatic effect than when Luca, arm in arm with Sophia, rushed past an aggrieved and bamboozled set of assistants and personal secretaries, and into the conference room on the tenth floor of the Conti offices.
“I thought we should share the good news with everyone in here first.”
His grandfather Antonio rose to the bait instantly. His gaze moved from Luca’s face to Sophia and then to the way their bodies were flushed together at their sides. A nerve began vibrating in his temple. “What have you done now?”
“Sophia and I got married an hour ago.”
“If this is one of your shameless jokes—”
Luca cut off Antonio’s building tirade by throwing their license on the table.
Ten pairs of eyes went to the license, scanned it and then returned to him and Sophia.
All ten faces, two assistants and eight board members, including Antonio and Kairos, looked at him as if he had crossed that final line into insanity.
Only his brother, Leandro,
didn’t exhibit any signs of the panic Luca saw in the rest. But it didn’t mean Luca’s announcement didn’t rattle Leandro. With his autocratic control of his emotions, Leandro wouldn’t betray anything until he’d decided on the best course.
Luca decided it was time to make the second, thoroughly satisfactory announcement. “Since my dutiful brother has decided to abandon me and his duties toward the board, I have decided that it is time I claimed my seat on the board and directed its decisions. After all, as someone very cleverly pointed out, it is my fortune, too. And where would my lifestyle be if I didn’t have the Conti legacy to live off? I have to protect my assets, push the company in the direction I want it to go.” He looked pointedly at Kairos, leaving no doubt as to his intentions.
Also, thwarting all board members who’d done nothing to stop his father’s escalating antics felt good. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Luca could see the fear and the shock in their faces. They were terrified that he wasn’t joking, that he would repeat history. That he would be another Enzo, and that he would be left to run wild, unchecked.
Luca tapped his knuckles on the glass tabletop, letting the silence thicken with the horror of their thoughts.
Sophia next to him became stiff, as if a pole had been driven into her spine. With the pretense of pushing away at a nonexistent speck on his collar, she reached close and glared at him. “What’s going on? They all—”
He stole the words from her in a quick kiss, unable to resist the temptation. He teased and taunted her honeyed mouth with soft strokes, waiting for her to let him in. She was his wife, and damn his romantic soul, he liked it.
He’d never realized what a beautiful, intimate thing that bond could be until he’d seen Leandro and Alex. That it was another thing he could never have—that connection that went beyond anything else. He’d acknowledged that a long time ago, still, his heart raced when he looked at the plain band on his finger.
Fingers on his shirt, Sophia stiffened and then slowly melted into the kiss. He licked her lower lip, an incessant clawing in his gut to own her.
She stilled, blushed and then glared at him again. Her breath was a warm caress against his lips. “You couldn’t have done this anywhere else?”
He grinned. “Non. I want them all to see I worship at your feet.”
She rolled her eyes and he tucked her close against his side.
Leandro sighed. It was that same half indulgent, half disciplinary sound his brother had made countless times when Luca had been up to something new. Leandro hated pretending about Luca. But he had proven countless times that only Luca’s well-being mattered.
Amusement flickered in his brother’s gaze instead of the fury Luca had expected. Luca grinned, his heart feeling light for the first time in months.
Falling in love with Alex had changed his brother.
“You barely know anything about the business or CLG. And you hate dealing with...people, remember?” Next to him, Luca felt Sophia tense, her gaze swinging between him and his brother.
“I said I wanted to take an active role. Not that I would actually do any of the work.”
A sort of a cross between relief and fear settled on the members’ faces. One of them recovered enough to say, “What do you suggest?”
“My wife, Sophia Conti, from this day will have complete authority to make decisions on my behalf. The lawyers are preparing paperwork even as we speak. Come on, cara mia.”
When Sophia, wooden and unmoving, only stared at him, he winked at her. Hand on the curve of her waist, he pushed her to the end of the table toward an empty chair. The members of the board watched like it was a movie.
Luca pulled the chair back, seated Sophia and then stood behind her. “Sophia has seven years of experience working at Rossi Leather. She has an MBA and specializes in risk management and forecasting business trends and marketing. For all legal purposes, she now owns fifteen percent of the Conti stock.”
A ripple of shock spread across the room and for once in his life, Luca felt a sense of rightness.
* * *
He had known her area of expertise.
He hadn’t told her he was giving her complete authority over his stock.
That hadn’t been part of their deal. She’d never even imagined...
Eight men—the most powerful in Milanese society—looked at her as if to figure out how she had persuaded/manipulated the Conti Devil into this.
Damn it, did he really not care what happened to the company? Or did he trust her judgment and her that much?
That thought sent her heart thumping against her rib cage.
Sophia somehow managed to smile and nod and accept the congratulations that came her way. Kairos, without looking at her, walked out the minute the meeting was concluded.
She’d understood one thing in the show her new husband had put on.
Luca hated, no, despised, his grandfather. The depth of that emotion from Luca, who seemed to fairly breeze through life with no concern and with nothing but surface involvement with everyone, had rattled her.
While Luca’s small exchange with Leandro had been civil, too, the bond between them was anything but. There was love between them.
After the depth of emotions she’d seen play out on his face in the conference room, Sophia wasn’t sure she really knew the Conti Devil.
Her gut said one thing while her history with him, quite the opposite.
She had just started looking for him when Luca appeared in the carpeted corridor and pulled her into a small, private lounge that was the size of her bedroom at home.
Cream leather and cream walls greeted her, the quiet luxury of the room markedly different from the business-oriented layout of the rest of the building. Afternoon light poured through the high windows, touching the space with a golden intimacy.
The most surprising thing about the room, though, was a piano that stood in the corner.
And in the middle of all that light, stood Luca, looking like a dark angel in his black jeans and white shirt with buttons undone to his chest. Dark olive skin gleamed like burnished metal, beckoning her touch. The leather jacket was gone.
The devil had intentions. And not good ones, for her mental health. Her body, however, had very different ideas for it was thrumming like an engine ready to take off.
Sophia rubbed her hands on her hips, had to swallow the butterflies in her throat before she could speak. “What is this place?”
“My brother’s private lounge.”
“It is soundproofed, isn’t it?”
“Si.” He raised a finger and shook it. “Don’t ask me why.”
Sophia stole a glance at the door as he closed it behind him. “You have key card access?”
“Si. Why is that so surprising?”
“I thought maybe this was the first time you came into the building.”
He shook his head from side to side, making a thick lock of hair fall on his forehead. “No, I’ve been known to crash here, once in a while. My brother used to be a very hard taskmaster years ago. He’s worked for the company since he was sixteen or seventeen. He refused to leave me alone at home.”
“Where were your parents?” She’d vaguely heard of a scandal involving their father, Enzo Conti.
“Absent.” The shrug that accompanied it seemed far too practiced to be real.
“So, wait, Leandro had this...room built for you?”
“Si.”
She looked around the room again, noting the dark, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. At first glance, the subjects were varied from art to space to the leather industry in Italy. “Wow, all this to just keep you out of trouble?”
“My brother takes his responsibilities very seriously.”
“Why do you hate them all so much?”
A shadow flitted over his face and Sophia knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “Will you not move from the door?”
Evasion. If it didn’t work, he’d smile at her. Or touch her. Or kiss her. She was beginning to s
ee the pattern. She pushed off the door and casually strolled toward the bookshelves. None of the books were for amateur readers and looked quite worn. Who did all these books belong to?
“I thought it was all a joke to you. I still think a part of it is. You’re like Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“A good-looking Puck?”
She ignored his little quip. “You do your little thing and stand back to watch the explosion. But what happened in that boardroom was more than that.” She turned around to see him standing close. Instantly, she felt the zing in her blood. The hungry clamor to touch him. The simple need to look at him, study him, to her heart’s content. “You let them think you were going to join the board and for all of three minutes, that pack of gray wolves looked terrified. It was kind of funny.”
He raised a brow. “Gray wolves?”
She shrugged.
“Why gray wolves?”
“They whiff out their prey’s weakness from a considerable distance. They stalk and hunt it until it gives up out of sheer exhaustion. I have seen them all turn on Salvatore these last few months, from the minute things began to get worse, ready to tear Rossi’s out and keep the good parts. Except Leandro, and Kairos, for his own reasons. Your grandfather leads that pack.”
“So the wolves scared you, then?”
Sophia shivered. “Yes. But then I reminded myself that they need me just as much as I need them at this point.”
A sense of coiled tightness emanated from him. And Sophia knew instinctually that he was shocked that she’d figured him out. “Why do they need you?”
“To corral you. To keep you amused and away from them.” Her fingers shook as she rubbed her temple. Nothing, she was beginning to realize, was simple with Luca. And she’d hitched her already limp pony to his ride.
He touched her then. A mere brush of his fingers over her jaw. Sophia let the bookcase dig into her back, anything to keep her grounded in reality. “Have I ever told you how much I love that clever brain of yours, cara mia?”
Warmth fluttered through her stomach. “No. And you are probably the only one.”