by JC Harroway
I flip through the pages, then slowly sink back into my chair, the pieces of the puzzle all falling into place. My eyes meet Uncle Gio’s and we both sit there, shocked, staring at one another. I knew something was off, but I didn’t think Marco would ever go so far as to forge the will. How could he do this? In my grief over my dad and brother, and then trying to get away from it all, I missed what was happening right in front of me.
“Luca, is this why you’ve stayed away so long—you thought you had to marry?” my mother asks. I nod, and tears form in her eyes. “We’ve lost so much time, my child.”
I swallow hard. “I just couldn’t understand why Dad would want that for me. Why he wouldn’t want me to marry for love.”
She sits on the edge of the desk and cups my cheeks. “He would want you to marry for love, and if he were here now he’d tell you to go fight for the woman who has you a mess.”
I stand, and my chair slides backward. “I have to go.”
“Yes, you do. Now go bring that woman back. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for a daughter?” she asks, grinning.
I give my mom a hug. “You’re going to love her.”
“I already do.”
I glance into my mother’s dark eyes, and as I reminisce about my childhood, my heart fills with all the love I have for her. She is going to spoil Brianna something terrible, and no one deserves it more. “She never really had a mother growing up.”
My mother touches my cheek. “Then hurry, because we have a lot to make up for.”
I turn to my uncle, and our eyes meet. “Uncle Gio—” I begin.
He holds his hand up, looking pale and a million years older. “I’ll deal with my son. He’ll be disbarred for this and his hands will never come close to running the conglomerates your father built over the years,” he assures me as he shoves the real will back into the envelope. “Now go.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going, but there is one thing I need before I do.”
“You’re right. There is,” my mother says with a twinkle in her eyes.
I’m not sure what she’s alluding to, but the only thing I know is I have to fight for Brianna, convince her how good we can be together. I want to offer her everything she’s always wanted. I just pray she’s willing to accept it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Brianna
UMBRELLA IN HAND, I hurry down the sidewalk and check my watch. Dammit, I’m late for dinner. I hate being late, but once again court kept me tied up for hours. Granddad is probably holding dinner for me, which means Tate and Summer are likely starving, too.
I haven’t really been avoiding Granddad after St. Moritz; I’ve just been busy. Tonight he was adamant that I come for dinner, and while I like the idea of it, I don’t want to see the worry on his face. Nor do I want him pushing me to call Luca. After the truth came out, he said he understood why I did what I did, even going so far as to take responsibility for it, saying it was his fault for pestering me so much. Despite that, he still won’t let up about Luca.
Footsteps pound the pavement on 64th Street as I hurry into Granddad’s mansion and shake out my umbrella before closing it. Voices sound from the large dining room, and for a fast second I’m certain I’m hearing things. God, I still can’t get Luca’s voice out of my head, the scent of his body off my skin—no matter how many times I’ve scrubbed my flesh raw.
“That you, Bri?” Granddad asks.
“Sorry I’m late,” I call out. “I’ll just wash up and be right in.” I hurry to the bathroom and glance at myself in the mirror. Today was a stressful day—as most of them are—and I look like I’m amped up on Red Bull. I try to smooth my hand over my mussed hair, but it just springs back up again. I wipe under my eyes to remove the mascara that ran down my face in the rain. An almost hysterical laugh catches in my throat. My reflection is identical to the day I got out of the taxi in the Alps. I thought I had no one to impress that night, and look how that turned out.
I wash my hands quickly and leave my hair in a tumbling mess. This time I really don’t have anyone to impress. Granddad, Tate and Summer have all seen me at my worst, and they still love me. Then again Luca saw me at my worst that day we re-met, and he still made sweet love to me.
It was sex, Brianna, nothing more.
My shoes tap on the floor as I make my way into the dining room, and my stomach grumbles at the smells coming from the kitchen. Delicious smells that take me back to the time Luca cooked for me. Is someone making carbonara?
Stop thinking about him already.
I round the corner, and my feet come to a resounding halt when I see the extra person seated around the table. No. Frigging. Way.
I swallow, falter, sag against the door frame, my knees going weak beneath me as I glance at my family, as well as the man I hate—love—to find them all staring back. Have I just walked into an intervention or something?
“What is this?” I ask, anger welling up inside me.
Luca stands and his eyes meet mine. “Can we talk?”
“No,” I shoot back. “I’m leaving.”
“Brianna, please. Wait.”
“I don’t want to hear any more of your lies,” I say, and chairs shuffle as Granddad, Tate and Summer all move into Granddad’s study to give us privacy. I turn around, head back to the door, but Luca is right there, so close I can feel his breath on my neck.
He touches my shoulder, and I spin to face him. My heart wobbles when I see the pain in his eyes. Is he hurting as much as I am? Don’t go soft now, Bri. He’s messed with you twice. Don’t let him do it again.
“Where’s your fiancée? She must be missing her duke,” I say, and that’s when I realize he’s wearing his blue Oxford hoodie, which is now two sizes too small. But it does remind me of the sting of his rejection. “Why?” I ask and then touch the cotton, stare at it through watery eyes. “Why are you wearing this?”
“I made a mistake,” he says softly.
“You made a lot of them,” I shoot back, my stupid voice hitching.
“You remember I once said assumption is the mother of all screwups?”
“I don’t want to do this, Luca. I can’t.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat, the love squeezing my heart. “I just want to go home.”
“Can I walk you?”
A laugh bubbles up in my throat. “Is that why you’re in this hoodie, so you can walk me home and reenact the night I finally got up the nerve to talk to you?”
“Yes.”
I shake my head, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. “You don’t think I’ve been humiliated enough? Who are you, anyway?”
“I made a mistake back then and I want to rectify it.”
“What—”
“Brianna, you know me. Whether you think you do or not, you know me. Do you think I’m the kind of guy who would go to bed with a girl who had as many drinks as you had that night?”
I blink once, twice, and I consider what he’s asking. From what I learned about him in St. Moritz, he’s not the kind of guy to take advantage of a woman. “No, I guess not.”
“You read the whole situation wrong. You made assumptions that weren’t true.”
Oh God, did I? Was I so insecure about myself that I assumed I was the butt of a joke and hadn’t stopped to think he was just trying to get me home safely. I take in his handsome face, the way he’s gazing at me through eyes that look like they haven’t had rest in weeks. Had he really been taking care of me? I mull that over for a second and shake my head. I really shouldn’t find it so hard to believe now, not after the way he took such care of me during our week in the Alps.
“That week was about more than sex,” he says, and reaches out to touch my cheek, brush his thumb lightly over my jaw.
“You said it was about me trying a relationship on for size.”
I frown up at him. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“You’re jaded, for many reasons, but deep down I knew you wanted your own Prince Charming. I wanted you to find him, Brianna. Except it killed me to think about you with any other guy but me.”
“You have a fiancée,” I whisper, my heart breaking a little more.
“I sure as hell hope I do,” he says, and I stumble backward, his words cutting me a little deeper. Catching me by surprise, he gathers me in his arms. “Know this—back at Oxford I wanted to be with you. I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted any other woman. I still do. I left you in your dorm for two reasons—one, you were drinking, and two, I knew if I touched you, made love to you, it would screw me over. You were the one girl, the only girl, who could make me forget my obligations. After my father and brother died, the responsibility of running his million-dollar conglomerates was left to me. I take that very seriously. I want to ensure people stay employed, want to help my peerage, want to make sure my mother stays in her home and see to her well-being. But my father put a stipulation in his will, that I must marry his business partner’s daughter by the time I am thirty, or everything goes to my cousin Marco. I only met her once, Brianna. When we were young. I’ve never even touched her. She can’t want this any more than I do.”
Fighting back the tears pounding against my eyeballs, I nod and recall Marco’s latest antics. No way can he let a guy like that take over the company. He has responsibilities and he needs to live up to them. “Then what are you doing here?” I ask, shocked that I’m not all cried out by now, considering I woke up to a soaked pillow every morning for the last two weeks.
He peels off his hoodie. “I want you to be my girl.”
I shake my head and push it away. “That’s stupid.”
And sweet. So very, very sweet.
Wait!
“Why are you asking me to be your girl when you have a fiancée?”
He drops to his knees and produces a velvet box. “When I said I sure as hell hope I have one, what I was really saying was I hope you say yes and agree to be her. I love you, Brianna. Marry me.”
Luca loves me.
I shake my head and fear moves into his eyes. “What about your obligations? You can’t let everything go to Marco. I won’t let you. Not for me. I could never forgive myself.”
He smiles up at me. “That’s one of the things I love about you.” I gulp, and tears spill down my face. “I chose you, Brianna. I chose love.”
I sniff and back up until I hit the wall. “No.”
“Even before I knew the will had been tampered with, I chose you.”
My heart leaps into my throat. “What? What are you talking about?”
“It seems my cousin, who was Dad’s lawyer, put that stipulation in there after Dad died. He knew I would never marry if I wasn’t in love, and the businesses would go to him.”
“You...you...mean...”
“I love you, and I was going to find another way to take care of my obligations. Now I don’t have to, but there is no other woman I want at my side, Brianna.”
“No, don’t. Don’t say it like that.”
His brow furrows. “Brianna, please. I love you. I want you. I want you to come to Italy, be my duchess, the daughter my mother always wanted. This is her ring. She already loves you as much as I do.”
My throat squeezes so tight at that, it’s all I can do to hold it together. A mother like his is something I’ve always wanted and never knew I could have.
I wave my hand toward the study. “My family...my work.”
“Your family wants this for us. I already asked James for his permission. We can travel back here any time you want to see him, and your work, is it what you really want?”
“No,” I say, feeling completely sure of that.
“Together we can do all the things we want,” he says. “You can help build schools in third-world countries and champion projects like Artscape.”
I drop to my knees, and my gaze goes to the ring. His mother’s ring. I’ve never been more touched.
“Brianna?”
“Don’t say it like that,” I whisper again, and slowly lift my head until our eyes meet. I smile at him. “If my friends call me Bri, my future husband probably should too, don’t you think?”
A huge smile lights up his face, and my heart nearly explodes with the love welling up inside me. His lips find mine, and he kisses me with two weeks’ worth of pent-up hunger. I know the feeling.
He breaks the kiss, and he lightly brushes his thumb over my bottom lip. “You remember I won that bike race to the top of the mountain.”
“I remember,” I say, my voice a breathless whisper.
His grin is sexy, mischievous, and my entire body lights up. “I never did tell you what I wanted.”
I laugh, wondering where he’s going with this. “What do you want, Luca?” I ask and touch his face.
“Put on that sweater, say yes to my proposal and let me walk you home. Let’s reenact that night from Oxford and have it end the way we both wanted it to back then.”
I reach for the hoodie and tug it on. When my head pops through the hole, Luca is removing the ring from the box.
“Yes,” I say, pushing that one word from my tight throat and holding my shaky hand out for him. Tears pour down my face as he slides the huge diamond solitaire on.
“It’s beautiful,” I say as he wipes the water from my cheeks.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers and drops a tender kiss onto my mouth. I sigh and put my arms around him. I might not have found my Prince Charming, but I found my duke, and that’s a million times better.
Luca stands and pulls me up with him. “Let’s go,” he says.
“Wait.” I breathe in, catching lingering scents of dinner. “Did you make carbonara?”
“Yeah. I wanted to do something special for you and your family.”
Teasing him, I say, “We should stay and eat it with the others, don’t you think? It would be rude just to take off.”
He rakes a shaky finger through his hair. “Ah, okay. If that’s what you want.”
I step into him, feel his erection. Grinning, I go up on my toes and press my lips to his. “No, it’s not what I want, and I think Granddad, Tate and Summer will understand.”
He exhales a relieved breath, as anxious to be alone with me as I am to be with him. “Thank God!”
I touch his collar. “What I really want is to go back to my place, where things will be done on my terms.”
He grins at me. “What are your terms?”
“You, having your way with me.”
“Accepted,” he says and then slides his arm around my waist.
“Then we’ll come back later and eat,” I say, laughing as I open the front door.
Forgoing an umbrella, we step out into the rain. “You really love that carbonara, don’t you?”
Water soaks our clothes, but it doesn’t matter. Soon enough we’ll be out of them. “I do, but not as much as I love you.”
“I love you, too, Bri, and I plan to spend the rest of our lives proving it.”
A happy laugh rises in my throat. Never in my life have I felt so giddy, so loved. “Good, now let’s hurry to my place so we can get naked and start on that right away.”
* * * * *
Make Me Yours
Katee Robert
A one-night stand leads to something very unexpected in this sizzling-hot DARE story by USA TODAY and New York Times bestselling author Katee Robert!
I didn’t get to be CEO of a New York tech company by chasing whims...or women. But when wildly beautiful, fiercely independent fitness instructor Becka Baudin caught my eye across a crowded wedding reception, my body reacted with a will of its own.
She wanted a sexy distraction—one night of lust in a glamorou
s hotel. And I was happy to oblige. Then, after the most amazing night of my life, she walked away—leaving me wanting so much more. I haven’t been myself since that night. My work is suffering. My social life is nowhere. All I think about, all I dream about, is her.
Three months later, she told me. A baby. My baby... I insisted she move into my Manhattan penthouse. Now I see her every day. I crave her every second. I long for her touch, her kiss, her body moving under mine. I know if I try to cage her she’ll fly away. How can I convince a wild thing to stay in my life, in my heart, forever?
To Lauren
CHAPTER ONE
“HAVE I MENTIONED how much I loathe weddings?” Becka Baudin grabbed two champagne glasses and handed one to her best friend, Allie.
“Only about half a dozen times—in the last hour.”
She drained the glass and waited for her stomach to settle. Only then did she focus on her best friend’s amusement. “It’s not my fault. They give me hives. Even this one.” Especially this one.
“Here.” Allie passed over the second champagne glass, her expression sympathetic. “You know you’re not losing her, right?”
“Of course I know that. I’m not a child.” But she still glanced at her big sister gliding across the dance floor with her new husband. They looked like something out of a fairy tale, Lucy in a gorgeous white dress that hugged her lean form. It was overlaid with lace and gave a little sparkle with every move. Her dark hair was twisted in an intricate style that left her neck and shoulders bare except for the truly outstanding necklace Gideon had bought her.
And Gideon.
Lord, the man could wear a tux.
But it wasn’t the clothes that made them the most beautiful couple in the room. It was the way they looked at each other.
She sipped her second glass of champagne. “They seem happy.”
“Yes, well, that generally happens on someone’s wedding day.”