Penniless Virgin To Sicilian's Bride (Conveniently Wed!)

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  His gaze drifted to her mouth for a brief moment. But then he blinked and brought his eyes back to hers, his expression an unreadable mask. ‘We will have to touch on occasion but we can agree on what’s appropriate.’

  ‘You’re making it sound so...so clinical,’ Frankie said.

  ‘The best solutions to tricky problems are formed without emotion clouding judgement.’ He tapped his fingers on the back of the leather chair and added, ‘Which brings me to the number one rule I insist on.’

  ‘Rule?’

  His eyes were as steady and determined as a marksman’s. ‘No falling in love with me.’

  Frankie rocketed out of her chair as if it had burned her. ‘Me fall in love with you?’ She pointed her index finger at her chest and then at him. ‘What about you falling in love with me?’ This time she stabbed her index finger at him before pointing it back at herself. ‘Works both ways, buddy.’

  His jaw was set in an intractable line, his gaze suddenly cold and marble-hard. ‘It’s highly unlikely. No offence.’

  Frankie gave a snort of laughter even though her ego was suffering a major crisis. A debilitating crisis. Was she so unlovable? Was every doubt she had about herself true? ‘Let me tell you what I find offensive. You thinking I would be so desperate as to accept your stupid proposal.’

  Gabriel put his hand on the paperwork he’d placed on the desk earlier and pushed it across so she could see it. ‘The villa will be placed back in your name as soon as we’re married. It’s written in this contract. We will go on a short honeymoon to the south of France for the sake of appearances.’

  A honeymoon? Frankie’s gaze went to the contract even though she hated herself for it. She didn’t want to need Gabriel’s help but who else would or could help her? Some of the people she had thought of asking had already lent her father money and were impatient to be repaid. And who else had that sort of money?

  She read through the contract, wondering yet again why he was going to so much trouble to help her. But then she recalled what he’d said about his father’s latest scandal and the board position Gabriel was trying to keep. Success was important to men like Gabriel. He thrived on it. It was why her rejection of him had nettled him.

  He didn’t give up on a goal.

  He found ways, made ways, to achieve it.

  Frankie pushed the contract back to his side of the desk. ‘It seems to me you’re paying a very high price for respectability, marrying a woman you swear you could never love.’

  ‘It’s best if we both keep our emotions out of this, Francesca.’ He softened it with a small on-off smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘And if we were to consummate the marriage, I absolutely insist on the use of contraception. No exceptions. Understood?’

  Frankie held her hand up. ‘Whoa there. Aren’t you jumping ahead of yourself? I haven’t agreed to marry you yet and I—’

  ‘You will marry me, cara. You have too much at stake not to.’

  Frankie wished it wasn’t true. But the thought of losing her home for the sake of her stubborn pride was an ask too big, an even bigger ask than marrying a man who claimed he would never fall in love with her. Was there any crueller blow to a feminine ego than that insulting declaration?

  Frankie blew out a breath of resignation, keeping her gaze out of reach of his. ‘It looks like I’ve got no choice...’

  He came from behind the desk and stood next to her. ‘Look at me, Francesca.’

  She brought her gaze up to his dark inscrutable one. He searched her gaze for a long moment, then he lifted his hand to her face and gently traced the curve of her cheek from just below her ear to the base of her chin. Every nerve in her face tingled at his touch, her heart skipping a beat, her breath coming to a screeching halt.

  His mouth slanted in a knowing smile. ‘I’m helping you. You’re helping me. That’s all this is. Do I make myself clear?’

  Frankie pulled out of his hold and pointedly rubbed at her chin. ‘I have some rules too. You don’t get to touch me unless I say so.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable, although there will be occasions when we’re in public that my asking permission will look odd, sì?’

  ‘Okay, but I mostly meant when we’re alone.’ Frankie elevated her chin to a defiant height. ‘And it’s going to be a paper marriage.’

  A glint appeared in his gaze as if the wick of an irresistible challenge had been lit. ‘Are you absolutely sure about that, cara mia?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  GABRIEL HELD FRANKIE’S defiant grey-blue gaze. He could see the battle playing out over her beautiful features. She reminded him of a haughty princess who had suffered an insult from a lowly stablehand. She wanted to slap him but her classy upbringing prevented her from doing so. Her small fists kept clenching and unclenching, her shoulders stiff with bottled-up emotion. It was one of the things he found so cute about her. The way she was so buttoned up like she had stepped straight out of the Regency period.

  ‘I told you not to call me that.’ Her eyes flashed like lightning and his groin tightened at the thought of seeing those unusual eyes shining with lust instead of loathing. Grey one minute, blue the next, her eyes reminded him of the lake outside with its shifting blue moods and smoky grey shadows.

  ‘People will expect me to speak to you affectionately once we’re married,’ he said, privately smiling at her tightly compressed mouth. The mouth he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing. Lush, full lips shaped like a perfect cupid’s bow. A mouth built for passion, for pleasure. A mouth he craved to taste, to explore, to tease and tantalise.

  She thought him beneath her—understandable given his criminal family—but while four years ago she had rebuffed his offer of a date, now she was the one who couldn’t say no.

  He liked proving people wrong. It filled an emptiness inside him. He had spent most of his life trying to avoid comparisons with his father and it satisfied him to prove he was nothing like anyone in his family.

  Gabriel was a self-made man who lived by his own moral code, not by the warped and corrupt one of his family. Marrying Francesca Mancini was his way of honouring her father. Marco Mancini had put aside his prejudice about his upbringing and had given him a chance. A chance Gabriel had not wasted. Marco’s timely advice and direction had meant Gabriel had been able to expand his career, buying and selling property, and in the process had amassed huge amounts of his own wealth. Last year, Marco had invited him to an exclusive board of company directors. The networking alone was worth gazillions. He would never forget the risk Marco had been prepared to take on a young man from a notoriously disreputable family.

  The decision to marry Frankie was a calculated move on Gabriel’s part. Calculated because he was not going to stand by and watch her father’s good name be sullied by an unfortunate set of circumstances during the last months of Marco Mancini’s life.

  But there was more to his offer than a simple favour to a dead man.

  Gabriel wanted Frankie. He’d wanted her ever since she had rejected him, because deep down, he knew she wanted him too, but she refused to acknowledge it. She was a challenge he couldn’t resist. He wasn’t an egotist. He was a man who set goals and did all he could possibly do, within reason and moral boundaries, to achieve them.

  Even if—and it was a big if—she didn’t want their marriage to be consummated, once he had his ring on her finger he would have won.

  Getting her to marry him would be a victory in itself.

  Frankie spun away from him, her wildly curly dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail swinging from side to side as if even her hair was annoyed with him. She had her English aristocrat mother’s colouring—creamy white skin and those beautiful eyes with their fringe of thick lashes and black eyebrows. She had curves in all the right places, curves he longed to explore in real time instead of dream time.

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t time for a church w
edding,’ Gabriel said.

  She turned to face him, her expression so icy he could have shivered. ‘If you think I would stand in front of a priest and make promises I have no intention of keeping, then you’d better think again.’

  ‘People will understand given it’s only been a few weeks since your father’s death.’ He paused for a beat before adding, ‘I can only imagine how much you miss him.’

  Something flickered through her gaze like a zephyr across the surface of a lake. But then she shifted her gaze and straightened one of the books on the shelves nearby. ‘Sometimes I find it hard to accept he’s no longer here...’ She glanced at him again. ‘When I came in just before and heard you in here, I thought it was him. That he wasn’t dead and this horrible nightmare of his squandered wealth was just a bad dream.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘If only, huh?’

  Gabriel was no stranger to grief. His mother had died when he was nine and it had taken him years to stop missing her. For a decade he’d secretly kept one of her jumpers so he could still smell her. The fallout from her death had not just affected him but his two younger brothers Ricci and Lorenzo and most especially his baby sister Carli, who had only been two years old.

  Gabriel had tried to fill in the gaps, to be a parent figure, but his younger brothers idolised their father and nothing Gabriel did or said could influence them. He’d had more of a chance with Carli. As a small child, she had hero-worshipped him and was mostly frightened of their father and his violent outbursts, not to mention the shady characters who came and went from the house. Gabriel hoped and prayed he still had a chance with his little sister, but Carli had been struggling on and off with an eating disorder since her teens.

  Even now, when Gabriel saw a family group with two parents and small children, smiling, loving, belonging, razorblades would twist and churn in his gut. He hadn’t yet saved his baby sister from her inner demons but he wasn’t giving up. Not yet. Not ever.

  Gabriel came to stand in front of her near the bookshelves. ‘He was a good man, Francesca. One of the best. And he loved you and only wanted what was best for you.’

  The fleeting shadow was back in her gaze, making them appear more grey than blue, like troubled clouds. ‘I suppose compared to your father, mine must have seemed Father of the Year material.’

  You don’t know the half of it. Gabriel kept his expression blank. He had taught himself not to reveal too much of how he felt about his father. The term ‘father’ was too nice a term to use in reference to the man who had sired him and his siblings. ‘There is no comparison.’ He glanced at his watch in an effort to change the subject. ‘It’s time for a drink to celebrate our upcoming marriage, which reminds me...’ He fished in his pocket and took out the engagement ring he’d bought for her. He took her left hand and slipped the diamond cluster over her ring finger.

  Frankie glanced up at him and then back at the ring, her small white teeth chewing at her lower lip. ‘It’s beautiful...but it looks ridiculously expensive. I mean, you’ve already spent so much money and—’

  He held her hand in both of his, squeezing it gently. ‘Stop worrying about money. We’re helping each other, remember?’

  Her shimmering eyes met his and something moved in his chest, like a small creature scrabbling through one of the chambers of his heart. He released her hand and stepped back, trying to ignore the tingle in his fingers. Trying to ignore the urge to kiss her. ‘What were your plans this evening?’ He was proud of the neutral tone of his voice.

  ‘I was just going to go back to my hotel and have dinner.’

  ‘Why have you been staying in a hotel?’ Gabriel asked. ‘I was surprised when the agent told me you hadn’t been here since the funeral.’

  ‘I thought it would be easier to keep away while the real estate agent showed potential buyers through.’ She fiddled with the ring on her finger, avoiding his gaze. ‘And since Papa died here...it felt too empty and lonely... I had to lay off the staff to keep the running costs down.’

  ‘Would you consider staying here if I stayed with you?’

  Indecision flicked through her gaze. ‘Is that wise?’

  Probably not. But he would get his self-control in hand. ‘We will be married in a matter of forty-eight hours. People will expect us to live together.’

  Frankie slipped out of his hold and hugged her arms around her middle. She suddenly looked much younger than her twenty-five years. Young and vulnerable. It was rare for her to show vulnerability and he had yet to see her shed tears. Her default position was anger—or at least in her dealings with him. He didn’t know too much about her dealings with other men. She somehow kept her private life private—rare for someone of her social standing. But that was another reason she was perfect wife material—no salacious scandals in her past.

  ‘You’ll be safe with me, Francesca. I will honour your decision to keep our relationship platonic.’ It nearly killed him to make that promise but he would see it through if she didn’t change her mind. He was not the sort of man to cajole or manipulate a woman into having sex. He didn’t need to.

  ‘Thank you.’ If she was relieved by his promise, she didn’t show it. Her beautiful face was as still as frost on a lawn but behind her grey-blue eyes he sensed a storm was brewing.

  * * *

  Within an hour, Gabriel had organised Frankie’s things to be packed and sent over from her hotel back to Villa Mancini. And now they were seated at an exclusive restaurant a short drive from the villa overlooking Lake Como, the third largest lake in Italy. The mountains beyond rose majestically, creating a stunning backdrop to the deep waters of the lake. Frankie never tired of looking at the view and even though she had been based in London for the last four years, she considered the lake and its surrounds as one of the most beautiful places in the world.

  And it was the place where for a brief space of time she had been held her in her mother’s arms. Of course, she had no conscious memory of her mother, but sometimes she wondered if her infant brain had registered the loss of her mother and twin brother. Wouldn’t that explain the terrible emptiness she felt when she saw mothers with their infant children?

  Frankie was so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed Gabriel’s steady gaze. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ She picked up her glass with the top shelf French champagne he had selected and took a sip. ‘Mmm, lovely. You have good taste.’

  ‘For a man from the wrong side of the tracks?’ His tone was wry, so too the twist to his mouth.

  Frankie put her glass back down. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—’

  ‘It’s fine, cara.’ He moved the base of the glass in a small and precise quarter turn like he was unlocking the code to a safe.

  ‘Do you ever see him? Your father, I mean?’

  ‘No.’ The word was as final as a full stop.

  ‘When was the last time you saw—’

  ‘Leave it, Francesca.’ His expression had turned to stone. Cold. Hard. Impenetrable stone.

  ‘Why do you always call me Francesca?’

  His eyes met hers across the table and something unfurled in her stomach. ‘It’s a beautiful name. Regal. Sophisticated.’ His voice lowered a notch, the hint of huskiness making the base of her spine fizz.

  ‘Is that how you see me?’ She could have bitten off her tongue for fishing for compliments but couldn’t seem to help herself.

  He picked up his glass but she got the feeling he had only done it to do something with his hands for he didn’t raise it to his lips. ‘I’m not sure you’d want to hear how I see you.’

  ‘Try me. Go on. Tell me.’ Seriously, she should not drink champagne. It loosened her tongue way too much. It made her daring and flirtatious and the one thing she never did was flirt. Never.

  His smile was crooked and so damn sexy she could feel her lower body tingling. ‘You’re a passionate woman underneath that ice princess thing you
have going on.’ The husky note was back in his voice and his gaze lingered on her mouth as if he were thinking of how it would respond to his own.

  Frankie’s cheeks could have scorched the top of a crème brûlée. ‘You don’t know anything about me. You just think you do.’

  He gave a soft laugh and tipped his head back to take a sip of his champagne. He put the glass back on the table, watching her with an amused gaze. ‘You’re ashamed of how you’re attracted to me. Nice girls like you don’t do bad boys like me.’

  Frankie was having trouble staying seated. Her lower body was betraying her with hot little flickers of unbidden desire. Desire she didn’t want to feel. Not for him. She wasn’t so much ashamed of her attraction towards him. She was frightened. It was too powerful, too intense, too out of control for her to handle. She picked up her glass again, her posture cool and composed, but inside she was trembling with need. Could he see it? Could he sense it? He seemed to have an uncanny ability to see through the cool mask she wore. ‘I wouldn’t have thought a worldly man like you would be interested in a nice girl. She would be too boring and pedestrian for your taste, would she not?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  His dark lustrous eyes pulsed with a message as old as time—hot, raw, earthy male desire. ‘On which nice girl you’re talking about.’

  Frankie chest fluttered like there was a frantic robin trapped in her ribcage. This conversation was getting into dangerous territory. She didn’t flirt with men. Not any more. She had flirted once in the past and a relationship developed out of it, only for her to find out the man had only wanted to date her because of her family wealth and status. He’d been a trophy collector intent on sleeping with her so he could boast about it to his friends. Thankfully she had ended the relationship before the deed was done, although the horrible names he called her made her feel just as sullied.