by Tara Pammi
The only thing he didn’t give her was his trust when it came to business matters. Could she blame him when it was a one-hundred-and-sixty-year-old legacy that he wanted to protect for her brothers? Maybe asking for him to take such a big risk on her, when she’d never really excelled at the things he wanted of her, was too much?
Maybe things would have been different if she’d been born a Rossi.
At least, she had done the right thing in marrying Luca. Salvatore was delighted that finally he had a connection to the venerable Contis.
Sophia had come to Villa de Conti straight from work that evening, and had been shown into Luca’s suite by a smiling Alexis. Aware that she’d wanted to chat, Sophia had claimed a headache and rushed in for a bath.
After her shower, Sophia put on a silk wrapper and stepped out into the bedroom. Her impulse purchases lay in chic, expensive bags on the bed, having left a hole the size of a crater in her bank account. Designer heels lay in another box.
The glittering bags mocked her. She flopped to the bed, feeling foolish now for splurging—when the devil hadn’t even answered her texts. Again. Was he going to show up tonight?
She’d just rubbed lotion in and put her underwear on when the door opened quite rudely. Cursing, Sophia grabbed her towel just as Valentina, of all people, came into view.
Spine rigid, Sophia preempted the tall beauty, who looked stunning in a long black evening dress. “I’m far too nervous already, so please, Valentina, no theatrics right now.”
The younger woman had the grace to look ashamed. “I came to apologize, Sophia.” When Sophia remained stubbornly silent, Valentina changed tack. “My brother sent me to see if you wanted help.”
“Thank Leandro, but I’m good.”
“Non, Luca sent me.”
The towel slipped from Sophia’s hands. “Luca is here? Downstairs?” Her breath ballooned up in her chest.
“Si.”
He hadn’t deserted her. Just for this evening, Sophia needed him by her side. After tonight, after getting through facing the society that she’d never belonged in, she wouldn’t need him again.
“You thought he would not come?”
Curiosity filled Valentina’s question. The last thing Sophia wanted was the Contis or anyone else for that matter, to know how little familiarity she had with Luca’s lifestyle. “I’m nervous because I know everyone’s eyes will be on me and I don’t handle attention well.”
Valentina’s gaze swept over her almost clinically, assessing, and Sophia tugged the towel toward her. “You are hot, Sophia, why do you hide it?”
The question was so matter of fact that Sophia forgot that she was supposed to be angry with Valentina. “Did he ask you to be kind to me?”
“Non, I’m not being kind. He did tell me to stop being bitchy to you.” The woman didn’t mince her words and Sophia was beginning to like her. “You have breasts I would kill for.” To punctuate it, she looked pointedly at Sophia’s breasts, contained dangerously in a pink bra and then at her own relatively smaller ones, which wasn’t saying much because everyone had smaller breasts than Sophia’s.
And then Valentina sighed.
Sophia half groaned, half choked.
“I developed very late and even then, they were like apples. Yours are more like...” Sophia wanted to crawl under the bed sheets. “Small melons.”
“Please, Tina...stop!” Sophia rubbed her fingers over her forehead, shook her head and then let the laugh building in her chest escape. Tears filled her eyes, her nose, she was sure, was running and her throat and lungs burned. “Oh, how we torture ourselves... I’ve always been so jealous of your model-like figure, your style and grace. You’re like a gazelle, whereas I...waddle like a penguin. Your sense of fashion is...just wow.”
Warmth entered Valentina’s eyes, transforming her entire visage. “Sense of style and fashion can be...acquired, si? But not curves. Unless I go for those silicone implants. But I don’t think Kairos will like artificial boobs and there is already too much he...” Stricken black eyes shied away from Sophia’s. “I know now that Kairos and you are just friends.”
“You confronted Kairos?”
“Si. He was angry that I struck you. But... I had no business acting like a bitch to you. Not when the problem is between us.” Misery radiated from her. “Will you forgive me, Sophia?”
Sophia smiled. “If you help me, yes. Since you’re a fashionista who Milan looks up to, can you advise me? I bought three dresses. I don’t want them to see a wobbly penguin paired with a strutting peacock. I want to look back on tonight and not cringe.” There were far too many cringe-worthy episodes already in her life.
Valentina burst out laughing. “My brother is a peacock?”
Sophia nodded. With a brisk efficiency, Valentina vetoed all three dresses in two minutes flat.
“The saleswoman assured me that they are the height of—”
“Si, but she followed your direction to cover up every inch of skin. What is in the last bag?”
“That one... I picked that one. But it’s going straight back to the shop. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Valentina floated through the room, picked up the last bag on the bed. The knee-length turquoise silk slithered out in a silken whisper. “This dress is perfect.”
Alarm rattled through Sophia. “That was a foolish purchase. It is strapless and too snug and my melons will surely pop out and then—”
“What are you so scared of, Sophia? That people will realize you’re beautiful under the hideous clothes you wear?”
“Hey! They’re not hideous and—”
“Fine, look like a penguin, then. There will be at least three women downstairs who have, at some time, been linked with Luca.”
Sophia gasped. “Oh...you play dirty.”
No way was she going to be shown up by Luca’s willowy exes. Tonight might be a farce, but she was going to be the heroine of the farce.
A thousand butterflies flying in her stomach, she let Tina do her hair, even her makeup. When Tina pronounced her ready, she faced the floor-length mirror. Her breath halted in her throat.
The low cut of the bodice showed the upper curves of her breasts. Simple beadwork on the bodice caught the light with every breath she took. The hem of the dress kissed her knees just so, baring her legs. She turned her foot and looked at her legs. She did have sexy legs.
The woman in her, the part she tried to hide and ignore and forget, preened that she looked good in it. Nothing was going to make her tall, elegant or graceful but that was okay. She would continue her diets, grumble about never being svelte but she would also enjoy what she was. No more hiding, as if she was ashamed of herself.
Rub their noses in it...
Her hair, air dried during her chat with Tina, fell in dark waves, softening the strong planes of her face.
Bright red lipstick, brighter than Tina’s, made her mouth look scandalously seductive. Like her red lips could somehow balance the rest of her features that she’d told herself were far too stubborn for a woman. “This is too red. It will make everyone look at my mouth—”
“You married the Conti Devil. Of course they will look at you. Why not give them something gorgeous?” She looked Sophia up and down with a strange glitter. “How like my artistic brother to see what you so carefully hide, to see what no one else could.”
A cold shiver snaked up Sophia’s spine. “Luca is artistic?”
It was Tina’s turn to look surprised. “Luca is a lot of things that I can’t even keep track of. He works for CLG only to please Leandro. He has a personal...” She threw Sophia a startled glance. “Leandro even calls him our very own mad genius. Apparently, Luca’s musical talents have no comparison.”
“In a fond, useless sort of way, right?” Sophia asked, her heart thundering in her ears. “He lives off his brother and his family’s fortune and dabbles in music, surrounds himself in beautiful things, that kind of artist?”
Her nose high up in the
air, Valentina flayed her with her gaze. “That indulgent playboy thing he does—that’s only one side of him. Your marriage to Luca, I know that it’s an agreement for a few months. That he lets you use him in them. But still you should know that—”
“I’m not using him as much as we’re using each other,” Sophia interrupted, in prickly defense. Of course, the devil would try to come off as her savior in his account of their deal.
“Luca is not all he seems, Sophia.”
Luca works at CLG, just to please Leandro.
Luca is artistic.
Luca was turning out to be more complex than any man she knew.
Sophia halted on the top of the stairs, trying to corral the panic spearing her belly. She tried to let very little in life unsettle her—in that way, she and Luca were alike, although with him, she supposed it was easier, more his natural state.
At least, that’s what she’d assumed.
Even taking a couple of deep breaths didn’t calm the furor in her veins. She couldn’t get a grip on why it mattered this much.
All she knew was that she needed him to be what she and the entire world though him to be. A wastrel, a playboy. A man who cared for nothing and no one.
* * *
She appeared at the top of the curving marble staircase like a beautiful thought from his mind come to life. Luca felt a pressure on his chest, as if there was weight there, making it harder to pull a breath. He’d known, and guessed, she would be a revelation.
Oh, but what a revelation she was...
He heard the stunned whispers behind him, like a gathering wave rushing toward the shore.
The gasps, the bellissimas, the frantic reassessment of a woman they had all been duped into not seeing. Joy sang through his veins. The same he felt when he finished a piece of music or when he manipulated stock numbers into a pattern, into making sense. Like seeing a piece of art, unfinished and raw, come to life.
His joy in her was possessive and primitive. Suddenly, he didn’t want anyone else to see her like this. He didn’t want the whole world to see and covet this beautiful creature.
She was his, at least for now. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think he’d created her but he’d discovered her, hadn’t he? He alone had seen what Sophia was beneath that prickly nature and tough attitude. And tonight, she was a true reflection of the woman beneath—soft and yet formidably beautiful.
He wanted to pick her up, throw her over his shoulder, carry her away to his studio and lock the world away. He wanted to bury himself deep in her, until neither of them could breathe, until he was rid of this obsession with her. Until her mind, body and spirit, they were all only his.
He’d never chased a woman before. They all came to him. That he was chasing a woman who was determined to not be caught by him was perfect irony.
The bold, sensual lines of her body were a feast. The upper curves of her breasts swelled over the strapless bodice, beckoning to be savored. The silk followed the dip of her waist and the flare of her hips, lovingly touching everything he wanted to.
Their eyes met and the world floated away.
Her brown gaze raked over his face, lingering, assessing, almost frantic in its search. A clamor began in his veins as he stood at the foot of the steps and she took each step down.
Shards of light from the crystal chandelier caught at the white beads on her dress. And glinting brown eyes. They didn’t look average or dull right then.
They glinted with a fierce intention.
She looked at him as if...she wanted to peel off all the layers he covered himself in and reach inside the core of him. A shiver traveled down his spine.
As though she’d somehow bypassed the surface sheen of him—his looks, his charm. As though she hungered to know more.
But he couldn’t reveal himself to her. He couldn’t show the dirty truth of his birth, couldn’t show her the devouring hunger for something more than he was allowed to have. Only then would this work. And he was so lust-riddled for her that Luca would have taken even a morsel of Sophia.
By the time she reached the last step, he’d calmed himself down. His practiced smile curved his mouth.
She raised a well-defined brow, all haughty arrogance.
He imagined that was how she commanded her team at work. One raised brow and one blistering remark from Sophia would probably send the staunchest soul scrambling to do her bidding. She wielded it with the same skill now, he thought, as if to start the evening with swords drawn.
All it made him want to do was kiss that brow. And probably her temple. Then that stubborn bridge of her nose. That lush, carnal mouth. Then he would bite, none too gently, on that defiant chin.
A line of fire swept along his nerves at the delicious path he could trace down her glorious skin. Very soon, he promised himself. Very soon he’d have her all rumpled and flushed beneath him, screaming his name. Only he would unravel all that strength she wore like armor. Only he would know the soft, vulnerable woman beneath.
He could have had her that day at the CLG offices but he didn’t want to see her regrets later. He wanted Sophia present and pleasantly ravished when he was through with her. “You look biteable, cara mia.”
She looked startled at the compliment, looked away then back at him. Had he done this to her? Luca wondered for the millionth time. Had he shattered her confidence so badly?
“Nothing to say, Sophia?” he prompted softly.
“You disappeared for six days, three hours after we were married.” Accusation punctured every word. “Even for the short-term agreement that our marriage is—” She bent toward him, her voice lowered to a husky whisper, for she was flushed with awareness. “You can’t just rush me into a taxi and walk away. I ate a ton of chocolate and probably gained three pounds in three days. Do you know how many questions I’ve faced just from my family alone? Salvatore is desperate for your plans for Rossi’s.”
“But they are your plans.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t know that.” She slowed down her words as if he was a bit slow in the head. Luca had never had so much fun just talking to a woman. “I told him Leandro and you are finalizing them. Damn it, Luca, there has to be some accountability even in this sham. We didn’t even talk about where we’d live.”
Her whisper caressed his jaw; the honeysuckle scent of her wafted over his nostrils, tightening every muscle and sinew. Acres of glowing skin taunted him. He shrugged, struggling to get a grip on the desire riding him. Hard. “I’ve never been a husband before, so you have to forgive me. I will check in with you every night at eight. Si?”
She sighed, and that made her glorious breasts rise and fall. “Wonderful. Now I feel like your parole officer.”
“Will you put me in handcuffs if I violate my conditions, then?” he offered and saw her swallow visibly. “I could not give up control like that for any other woman, bella.”
Desire shone in her enlarged pupils, a song sung by her hurried breaths. She licked her lower lip, took it in between her teeth, flushed and then pursed it into a thin line. As if she could hide her mouth.
Three hundred people waited for them and he was painfully hard.
Dio, when had lust ever taken control of him like this? Six days and nights he’d spent cooped up in his studio, and he’d still not gotten it under control.
He didn’t like needing her so much. He didn’t trust himself in this state for he’d never been in such before. He intended to ravish her out of her senses, not lose his own.
“If anyone asks,” she said, coming to stand by him, “and by that I mean my mother, we aren’t doing a honeymoon because I’m super busy. And you, too.”
A tiny sneer curled her mouth every time she talked about his “work.” Or lack of it, to be precise. It made him want to pull that snobby upper lip into his mouth and suck on it. He would do it, too.
He was going to need a little notepad to jot down all the numerous things he wanted to do to her. Suddenly, three months felt like a very short time in wh
ich to indulge his darkest fantasies with her, to drive her from his blood, once and for all. Especially because the woman was an obvious workaholic.
Urgency laced with his desire now and he ran a brave finger down her jaw. She swatted him away, like he was a fly. “You want her to believe this is a love match.”
“Of course I do.”
He nodded. “It’ll probably break her heart to see her daughter doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body.”
She rolled her eyes. “Her daughter can’t afford a romantic bone. Anyway, we steal all kinds of time during the day to see each other and get up to all kinds of...”
He raised his brows and waggled them. Warmth tinted her cheeks, the brown of her eyes gleaming bronze. Oh, she wanted him, all right.
“Afternoon sex—how delightfully imaginative, Sophia.”
“I had to say something when she burst into my bedroom and demanded to know why I wasn’t with my beloved husband on my wedding night.”
“Why do you live with your parents? Doesn’t that curb your nightly...activities?”
“I don’t have any nightly...” She clamped her mouth tight, her face flushed. “I...work a lot of late nights and I like to keep track of what’s going on with Sal and the company... It’s just easier that way.”
Again, a pang stole through Luca. Had he so thoroughly crushed her heart that she had no romantic notions left like any other woman?
“I do regret not spending our wedding night with you. Did you wait for me to spirit you away?”
She flushed and it lit a fire inside him. “You’re absolutely cuckoo. I can’t stay with my parents anymore. Not if I want to have some peace to work in the evenings.”
“So move into Villa de Conti. Into my room. Alex and Leandro don’t stay here all the time. Neither will I distract you, except when I feel like it. But—”
She hissed. The woman hissed at him. “Where were you? And why do you never answer a single call or a text?”
Luca raised a brow. No one ever asked him where he went and when he came back. Not even Leandro, after he had reassured himself that Luca wasn’t going to self-destruct. The novelty of it was amusing and a little disconcerting.