Читать онлайн книгу «Married For The Italian′s Heir» автора Rachael Thomas
Married For The Italian's Heir
Rachael Thomas
She’ll pay the price with two words. I do.After a shocking media exposé reveals that the compelling stranger she lost her virginity to is debauched bachelor Dante Mancini, Piper Riley is stunned! Their unexpected but exquisite night has left them inextricably bound…When Dante learns that Piper is pregnant, the heartless playboy sees a perfect opportunity to restore his business reputation—by making Piper his wife! But Piper won’t settle for anything less than happy-ever-after. Dante must overcome his past to prove to Piper—and to the world—that that this is more than a convenient match…
She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
After a shocking media exposé reveals that the compelling stranger she lost her virginity to is debauched bachelor Dante Mancini, Piper Riley is stunned! Their unexpected but exquisite night has left them inextricably bound...
When Dante learns that Piper is pregnant, the heartless playboy sees the perfect opportunity to restore his business reputation—by making Piper his wife! But Piper won’t settle for anything less than happy-every-after. Dante must overcome his past to prove to Piper—and the world—that this is more than a convenient match...
‘I am in need of a wife and you are carrying my child—which makes you the perfect choice.’
‘In need of a wife?’ Piper stumbled over the word ‘wife’, hardly able to believe Dante wanted her to become his wife. How could a self-professed playboy, a man who had the wealth, power and looks to have any woman he wanted, want to marry her?
‘I am in negotiations for a business deal which I can only pull off if I am seen to be a man with family values. I need a wife—a woman I am seen with in public…one who can be discreet. Because that untimely piece in Celebrity Spy! has made those negotiations somewhat difficult. What better way to prove I am a man of family honour than to stand by the woman who is carrying my child?’
‘You make it all sound like a business deal.’
‘That, cara, is precisely what it will be. You came for money and support and you will now get both—providing we are seen out in public as the perfect couple. The world must believe we are madly in love. In return you will have the honour of being the woman who tamed Dante Mancini.’
Dante looked at her, saw her face pale and watched her eyes close, provoking images of her beneath him as passion had driven her wild and he’d unwittingly claimed her as his. Now she would pay the price of acting the part of a seductress when she’d been nothing more than an innocent virgin. She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
Brides for Billionaires (#ulink_6bd8b770-df01-5d4e-bc12-1700e5aa5761)
Meet the world’s ultimate unattainable men...
Four titans of industry and power—Benjamin Carter, Dante Mancini, Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas—are in complete control of every aspect of their exclusive world...until one catastrophic newspaper article forces them to take drastic action!
Now these gorgeous billionaires need one thing: willing women on their arms and wearing their rings! Women falling at their feet is normal, but these bachelors need the right women to stand by their side. And for that they need the billionaire matchmaker Elizabeth Young.
This is the opportunity of a lifetime for Elizabeth, so she won’t turn down the challenge of finding just the right match for these formidable tycoons. But Elizabeth has a secret that could complicate things for one of the bachelors...
Find out what happens in:
Married for the Tycoon’s Empire by Abby Green
Married for the Italian’s Heir by Rachael Thomas
Married for the Sheikh’s Duty by Tara Pammi
Married for the Greek’s Convenience by Michelle Smart
Married for the Italian’s Heir
Rachael Thomas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
RACHAEL THOMAS has always loved reading romance, and is thrilled to be a Mills & Boon author. She lives and works on a farm in Wales—a far cry from the glamour of a Modern Romance story—but that makes slipping into her characters’ worlds all the more appealing. When she’s not writing or working on the farm she enjoys photography and visiting historical castles and grand houses. Visit her at rachaelthomas.co.uk (http://rachaelthomas.co.uk/).
Books by Rachael Thomas
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Sheikh’s Last Mistress
New Year at the Boss’s Bidding
From One Night to Wife
Craving Her Enemy’s Touch
Claimed by the Sheikh
A Deal Before the Altar
The Billionaire’s Legacy
To Blackmail a Di Sione
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk/) for more titles.
For Mum
Contents
Cover (#u64777f46-8fd0-586c-821d-320fc326e1b4)
Back Cover Text (#uccfc4c9b-3304-5de7-87d8-32ed86b048a5)
Introduction (#u3417d7d6-19e3-5d62-bb36-be22c165f07b)
Brides for Billionaires (#ulink_72ee8ba4-e893-5982-b830-a18d4c8312cf)
Title Page (#u5b6eb96b-14f8-51f7-a4e8-88343d7581d9)
About the Author (#ubff5fcf1-150d-55af-bf90-13b47088f721)
Dedication (#u9c95c9a0-a214-57b3-80c4-3769dc6b7145)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_87d292cd-45a0-520f-b738-1aa06bd83fd5)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_5b473805-f269-5133-98e3-47f913a9d6c3)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_55e6ce9c-1edb-55e1-8f69-a61cbd606aea)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_714f73ae-144f-5558-a8ef-491fdf76c30c)
Two months ago
PIPER LOST ALL sense of reason as his kiss seared her skin and his accomplished touch brought her body to life in a way she’d never known. The pain and grief that this day held for her were blotted out as he whispered words of Italian that sounded romantic, but she had no hope of understanding them.
She gloried in his embrace, for the first time in many months feeling treasured, wanted and needed. What would come after this moment she couldn’t think about now. She didn’t want to face the emptiness. All she wanted was to abandon herself to this man and his passion, to yield to his kisses and give herself utterly and completely to the moment—and to him.
She gasped in frustration as he stopped kissing her. He pulled away and looked down at her, his sinfully dark caramel eyes full of desire—for her. Empowered by this, she smiled at him, unable to hide the longing that was tearing through her faster than lightning. She’d never been desired by any man, and had certainly never been kissed the way he had just kissed her. But, more than that, it was the way she wanted him to kiss her again and again.
This man was a skilled lover, and the way he was looking at her now, with raw lust that vibrated through the semi-darkness of the hotel room, she knew there was no turning back—not that she wanted to. The attraction between them had been too fierce, too strong, even before he’d suggested they leave the party.
Tonight she would give herself to this man. But she was well aware there wouldn’t be a tomorrow. She might be an innocent woman discovering the pleasure of a man’s touch, but she knew not to expect more. She’d worked as a waitress at many society parties in Sydney and in London and she had recognised him as a playboy—a man who wanted one uncommitted night of passion, who loved and left women. Tonight she didn’t care about her dream to settle down with the right man. Tonight she wanted the wrong man.
She wanted to drown her sorrow in the passion even she couldn’t deny, which had ignited between them from the very first moment their eyes had met as he’d arrived at the party. It had arced between them as if they were meant to be here together, caught up in a moment of passion which would surely change her...change her life. How, she didn’t know. She just knew that this moment was one she had to explore.
He touched her face, tracing the pad of his thumb down her cheek, and she closed her eyes as her knees threatened to give way. He pulled her closer, holding her tightly with one arm, keeping her body pressed against the hardness of his, making her virginal body pulse so wildly with unquenched desire it was as if the conclusion of the kiss was already sealed. As was her fate.
‘Before we go any further, do we need protection?’
His husky and heavily accented voice shimmered over her, and her senses were so confused by the desire which burned through her Piper couldn’t think straight.
‘Protection?’ The whispered word sounded so seductive she could hardly believe it was her voice. How had the sensible and shy woman she usually was become such a seductress?
‘I intend to make love to you, cara.’
He slipped off his suit jacket in a purposeful way which made her heart race as much as his words did. All sensible thought vanished from her as she watched him turn and toss it onto a nearby chair. His white shirt was bright in the partial darkness of the room.
She quivered with anticipation as he stepped back to her, excited and terrified about what would happen next. With deliberate slowness he took her in his arms again and kissed her. Then his hand moved down her neck and along her shoulder, slipping under the strap of her dress, sliding it away. As his lips followed the blazing trail of his hand she let her head fall back and gave herself up to the abandonment of the moment.
‘Sorted...’ She gasped the word as his kisses moved down her neck, hardly able to think straight because of the fire each kiss ignited within her.
‘Then there is nothing to stop us.’
With unnerving ease he pulled the zip at the side of her dress and the black silk slithered down her body. The heat of embarrassment rushed over her, and she watched his face as he touched her breast, his fingers concentrating on the hardened peak of her nipple, making her gasp with pleasure. Then he lowered his head and teased the other nipple with his tongue until she thought she might explode with pleasure.
‘That is so...’ She closed her eyes as heat seared within her, unable to say anything else.
‘Do you want me, cara?’
His warm breath increased the sensation of delirium as his tongue teased her nipple.
‘I want you...’ She struggled to say the words as he continued to work his magic. She entwined her fingers in his thick hair, not wanting him ever to stop. ‘To make love to me.’
He laughed softly against her breast, the sensation making her writhe against him.
‘I can think of nothing better, you little tease.’
His accent thrilled her as much as his words, intensifying this new and exciting need inside her, pushing the real Piper further away.
‘Now.’ She pulled him close against her, wanting to feel his body, to taste his skin. ‘I want you now.’
A soft, sexy laugh escaped him and he let go of her briefly, putting her at arm’s length. The black silk of her dress slithered to the floor in a pool around her feet, leaving her in skimpy black panties and strappy sandals.
His dark gaze roved over her near nakedness and the air between them sparked with desire. A flash of her usual shyness threatened, but she pushed it back, refusing to allow it into this moment, and reached for him. Her need to see more of him and touch him made her pull so hard at his shirt buttons they popped off.
His feral growl of pleasure pushed her on, making her want him, want this even more. She couldn’t stop now—couldn’t be her usual cautious self and spend the rest of her life wondering What if? Tonight she would experience ‘What if?’ She couldn’t let this moment go by without responding to it.
In a movement so swift, so decisive, he pushed her back onto the bed, pulling off his white shirt and exposing his muscled torso, dusted in dark hair. Then, with a wicked gleam in those devil-may-care eyes, he removed every last scrap of clothing from his glorious body.
She watched, entranced and excited, as he stepped towards her, towering over her. She trembled in anticipation as she lay there, his gaze never leaving hers. Her heart pounded so hard she was sure the whole of London could hear it, and a sigh of pleasure escaped her as he lowered himself over her, the hardness of his arousal almost too much.
He spoke again in Italian as he kissed down her throat and she ran her hands over his strong back, pressing her nails into his skin. But still it wasn’t enough. Still she wanted more.
Driven by a powerful need she no longer had any control over, she slipped her hands between their bodies and he lifted himself slightly, allowing her to touch him. She wanted to feel him, to torment him as he’d done her. But still it wasn’t enough. She wanted to remove the last barriers of clothing and feel him touch her intimately before possessing her completely.
Urgency took over and she clung to him, raising her hips, her body begging his for release and the oblivion of passion. She wanted him so much. It was as if she’d been waiting for this moment—for him.
‘Dio mio. You are a goddess sent to torment me.’
His guttural voice together with his insistent kisses up her neck was almost too much, and she knew that it had to be now—that they had to come together, that there was no turning back.
He moved, clasping his hands around her wrists and pinning her arms either side of her head. The wild look in his eyes was as terrifying as it was exciting. His breath was coming hard and fast as he fixed her with those dark, sexy eyes. She lifted her hips, clasping her legs around him as her need to be one with him increased.
Another curse left his lips and he let one of her arms go as he raised his hips and ripped her black panties from her. Her shocked gasp only encouraged him further, and he barely paused as she pressed her nakedness against him, feeling the heat of his erection intimately.
‘Per Dio.’
The words rushed from him as she moved, bringing them together. He thrust into her, her startled cry making him stop. She glanced up to see a furious frown on his handsome face, but she couldn’t let it end there. She wanted total possession. She wanted him to take her, make her his. Even if it was only for tonight.
‘Don’t stop.’ She lifted her hips, taking him deeper inside her as she raised her head and pressed kisses against his chest, tasting the salty tang of desire on his skin.
‘You’re a...’ he whispered hoarsely.
But she pressed her lips against his, hiding the truth as she used the unrelenting need in her body and lifted herself up to him, making his possession deep and powerful, forcing him to surrender to the moment too.
Another feral curse left him as he joined her in the frenzied dance of sex. It was so exquisite, so much more than she’d ever dared to hope it could be, that as she hovered on the brink of oblivion she cried out, holding him tight against her as several tears escaped, sliding down her face. She buried her face against his chest, inhaling the sexy scent of him, knowing it would be etched in her memory for ever.
As would the moment she’d lost her virginity, becoming a real woman with a man whose name she didn’t even know.
As her heart rate slowed and his body relaxed she moved, but he caught an arm around her, pulling her close against him. ‘You are not going anywhere yet, cara.’
Those sultry words made her mind spin—as did the reality of what she’d done. Through the fog of desire rational thought was finally becoming clear. She’d lost her virginity and jeopardised her new job—all for a man who hadn’t even bothered with the pleasantries of an introduction. His kisses and soft words had seduced her on a day when she was at her most vulnerable, a day when she needed to know she was alive, prove she could be a woman in charge of her life.
His breathing deepened as he slept, and even though her body was held tightly against his Piper knew she had no option but to leave. She might have experienced the most wonderful night, but this wasn’t who she was.
She slipped carefully from the bed and quietly gathered her clothes, dressing in the near darkness. He stirred and she looked at him—at his handsome face, his lean body partially covered by the white sheet—committing it all to her memory, because this was a man who didn’t want anything other than casual affairs. Despite her naivety, she knew this.
Quietly she left the room of the man whose name she didn’t even know—the man she would never see again as she returned to being the shy woman who’d arrived in London from Australia only a year before.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3aab3a4b-2c72-5952-b002-1c287f80ccbd)
FURIOUS AT THE way his life had begun to unravel over the last two weeks, Dante Mancini pushed back the effects of too much whisky at last night’s impromptu meeting. He tried not to think of the outrageous solution Benjamin Carter had proposed to counteract the damning article Celebrity Spy! had run.
The scandalous piece—naming himself, Ben Carter, Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas as the world’s most debauched bachelors—had done untold damage to their favourite charity, The Hope Foundation. Now those who ran it had demanded they clean up their acts or step aside as patrons. To make matters worse, a business deal he’d been working on was in danger of collapsing because of the damage to his reputation—he was a bachelor who played the field and now everyone knew it.
Could Ben’s idea work? Would taking such drastic action as marriage divert unwanted attention from the charity and secure his most lucrative business deal yet? Possibly. But was he prepared to take the gamble...?
Dante pushed open the door to his office building, not bothering to remove his sunglasses and definitely not ready to admit that the copious amount of whisky he’d drunk whilst being told he needed to find himself a wife was the reason for his fierce headache and foul mood.
He stabbed at the button to call the elevator and inhaled deeply as he waited, still fuming that Bettino D’Antonio was pulling out of the deal because he, Dante Mancini, and his company didn’t uphold family values.
As the doors to the elevator swished open he walked in, desperate for a moment of solitude before he entered the suite of offices which served as the headquarters for his self-built global business empire dealing in renewable energies. In a bid to bring back some control and chase away the threatening headache he inhaled deeply once again.
The doors closed and instantly his senses were on alert. His memory rushed back to an illicit night of hot sex in a London hotel with an unknown redhead who’d haunted his dreams and stalked his thoughts each day ever since.
She had been wild and passionate, and yet as he’d made her his he’d realised she was a virgin. A fluid curse left him as the elevator doors closed, trapping him inside with a memory which only added to his unaccustomed bad mood. It irritated the hell out of him that those gorgeous green eyes continued to haunt him and that, despite the alcohol still in his system from last night, his blood heated at the memory and a shot of lust hurtled round him.
‘Maledizione.’ He never thought of a woman once their affair was over, and the redhead encounter had been two months ago. Well and truly over.
He clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. Now was not the time to become embroiled in memories of one meaningless night. He had to remain in control—focus on the matter in hand. He couldn’t allow that piece of gossip in Celebrity Spy! to jeopardise one of the biggest deals he’d ever gone after, or to tarnish the work of the charity he helped to fund. But neither was he about to be dictated to by Benjamin Carter. He had absolutely no desire to settle down in that very elusive state of marital bliss just to salvage his reputation. There had to be another way and he’d find it—of that he was sure.
Not a moment too soon the elevator doors opened and he left the memory-evoking scent of perfume and marched into his office. His head thumped mercilessly from last night’s excess of whisky and his temper was frayed from the latest developments on the deal.
His secretary jumped up eagerly as he stormed in but he refused to indulge in his usual morning pleasantries. He didn’t have the stamina for niceties right now. All he wanted was total silence and coffee—strong and black.
‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ He snapped the instruction at her as he strode past her desk, desperate for the solitude of his office with its sought-after views over the old quarter of Rome.
‘Signor Mancini...’ she began, overriding his instruction, and he stopped and looked at her, about to open his office door, glad of the sunglasses he still wore.
The last thing he wanted his secretary to know was that he was suffering from an uncharacteristic over-indulgence of alcohol. After his meeting with Ben and the others he’d managed to catch an hour or two of sleep during the overnight flight back to Rome on his private jet, but that hadn’t helped dull the effects of the whisky. All he needed was to be left alone.
‘No calls. No meetings. Nothing.’ He threw the words at her and as she took a breath to protest turned from her and burst into his office. He slammed the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The world had gone mad. Everything he’d worked so hard to achieve seemed in danger of falling to pieces around him.
He muttered a curse and strode across his large office, pressed the button on his coffee machine, then stood at the windows looking out over the city that had at first been a hard and demanding mistress but was now one of only two places in the world where he felt completely at ease.
As the welcome aroma of coffee filled his office he heard movement behind him and tensed. He turned slowly to see just who it was in his office, aware now that his secretary’s unusual insistence on speaking to him must have been to warn him that he had someone waiting for him.
What he didn’t expect to see was the flame-haired siren who’d haunted him since that night two months ago, when she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, long before he’d woken. Not something he was accustomed to.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I waited in here for you...’ The redhead’s soft voice wavered with uncertainty and, dressed in jeans and a navy knitted poncho, she certainly didn’t resemble the glamorous self-assured beauty he’d bedded that night. But then she hadn’t been all she’d pretended to be that night, had she? She hadn’t been an experienced seductress. She’d been a virgin. A fact she’d kept from him until it had been too late.
He pulled off his sunglasses and looked at her. How had she found him? How did she know who he was? Those few hours in his hotel room had been so passionate, so filled with lustful need that they hadn’t even exchanged names, let alone phone numbers.
Icy-cold fingers of dread clutched at him. Was she here to use that story in Celebrity Spy! for some kind of blackmail? Did she want to sell a kiss-and-tell story? Was that why she’d come to Rome unannounced? To demand money from him for her silence?
‘As a matter of fact I do.’ The angry bitterness in his voice barely concealed his disappointment at this realisation. He’d placed her on some kind of pedestal since that night, his thoughts constantly returning to her like a lovesick teenager. She’d got to him in a way no other woman had come close to doing. Even now his blood heated at the knowledge that she was so close, just as it had when he’d smelt the lingering trace of what he now knew to be her perfume in the elevator moments ago.
She stood up and he let his gaze travel quickly down her jean-clad legs, remembering how they’d felt as she’d wrapped them around him. Savagely he dragged his mind back to the present. Dwelling on one night of sex was not in his nature.
‘What do you want?’ He fired the question at her.
‘I just have one thing I need to say and then I will go.’
Her voice still held uncertainty and her face looked pale. Was that just because she wore hardly any make-up?
She looked totally different from the seductress who’d tempted him from the party that night, and she stood before him now looking every bit the innocent and inexperienced virgin she had been when he’d taken her to his hotel room. But she wasn’t a virgin any longer. He had been her first lover and he wanted to know why she had kept that from him. The question wouldn’t come. As she looked at him he sensed something much bigger, much more threatening.
‘How much?’ he demanded, narrowing his eyes as he tried to gauge her reaction, angry that he’d put himself in this position, that he hadn’t exercised his usual caution where women were concerned.
Her delicate brows flew together. ‘How much what?’
He stepped closer and the scent of her perfume teased at his memory again. He closed his mind to the images which threatened to engulf him. The woman who stood before him now was very different from the woman who’d teased him until he’d all but lost his mind as well as his control.
He sighed and walked towards his desk, tossing his sunglasses down before leaning on its solid wood, fixing her with a hard glare. ‘How much do you want? For your silence?’
‘I’m not about to tell the world,’ she snapped back at him, her voice full of injustice.
He only just managed to stifle a smile. The fiery redhead had briefly surfaced from behind the façade of unassuming inexperience she had adopted.
‘Then why are you here, cara? And, more to the point, how did you find me?’ Already he was bored with this conversation. His head thumped cruelly and he wanted nothing more than to sit down in silence. He had a deal to salvage and he didn’t need Little Miss Shy adding to the mix of hurdles he had to power over.
‘There was an article...’ she said softly as he walked back towards the windows.
He turned to face her and noticed how she followed his every move, turning herself slightly to maintain eye contact with him. It made him suspicious.
‘I’m more than aware that there was an article,’ he growled back at her, the tension in his head reaching almost breaking point. This tedious conversation should have ended when she’d named her price—right before he threw her out. So why hadn’t she? More to the point, why hadn’t he thrown her out?
‘That is how I got your name.’ He raised his brows as she blushed before continuing. ‘We didn’t exactly have time to exchange details.’
Exchanging details had been the last thing on his mind. All he’d wanted was her naked and beneath him. He’d been rash and uncontrolled. Hell, he’d even taken her word that she was on the pill. Something he’d never succumbed to, no matter how deliciously tempting the woman.
‘True, but we had much more fun that way, did we not, cara?’ He smiled at her, allowing himself to remember her eagerness, her insistence which had so turned him on, testing his control beyond its usual limits.
‘Piper.’ Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, the green depths of them sparking wildly.
‘Piper?’ he repeated, his mind still not able to function as it should. Hell, he hadn’t even had an espresso yet to banish the remnants of whisky, even though the welcome aroma now filled the office.
‘My name is Piper. Piper Riley.’
He nodded. ‘And now that we are both in possession of each other’s names, perhaps you’d tell me exactly why you are here.’ Once again he moved across his office and glanced at the woman who’d been just the redhead in his mind until today. As before, she moved to face him. Now she had a name would she continue to linger in his mind so temptingly? He hoped not.
‘I needed to see you because...’ She faltered and he folded his arms across his chest, becoming increasingly irritated by the conversation.
‘Dio mio. Just say what you have to say and leave. I don’t have time for games.’
‘Very well.’ She stood taller, lifted her chin a fraction and looked directly at him. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Dante had thought the previous twenty-four hours had been filled with nothing but trouble, swallowing up his usual cavalier attitude. He had never expected—or wanted—those words to be said to him. He couldn’t be a father—not when he’d already proved his inability to look after anyone.
‘How?’
The word shot from him before he had time to think, time to compose himself, but she stood resolutely before him. Even the heated redness which rushed over her pale face for a second time didn’t alter the fact that she had suddenly become bolder and more confident—much more like the woman he’d made love to that night.
* * *
Piper held her ground, remaining rigidly still, focusing her full attention on the man whose baby she was carrying. A man whose reputation had been plastered all over the tabloids in recent weeks, one of the world’s most eligible and debauched bachelors. He was far from ideal father material, but she couldn’t deny him the knowledge that he was going to be a father—much less deny her child the right to a father.
She watched him as he prowled around his office, oblivious to the fact that the coffee he evidently needed was ready. He looked as immaculately stylish as he had the night of the party. The only difference was the hint of stubbly shadow at his jaw and the lines of tension on his face, which stirred her sympathy. But she couldn’t let sentiment get in the way. Not now she knew exactly who she was dealing with.
‘I think we both know how.’
She couldn’t believe the seductive purr which wrapped around those words as she looked at him, wondering just what kind of effect this man still had on her. Her heart raced wildly and her stomach somersaulted. She wasn’t at all convinced it was just her nerves at the situation. It was the darkly passionate man she’d lost her virginity to—Dante Mancini. A playboy and exceedingly proud of it, if the article she’d stumbled across in Celebrity Spy! was to be believed.
‘What I mean is how, when you allowed me to believe that the protection I wanted to use wasn’t necessary?’ His words were slow and his accent heavy, as if he couldn’t take in what she’d told him—or the implications.
Yes, that was the question she’d asked herself as she’d done the first pregnancy test—and the second. It had changed to the question of how she could have been so stupid as she’d done a third, and by the time she’d torn the packaging from the fourth and final test it had changed to words she never usually used, followed by panic at what she was going to do.
Being a single mother was not what she wanted. She’d grown up with a doting father and had always wanted that for her children. And now she was pregnant with this man’s baby.
‘In case you weren’t aware, I had never been in such a situation with a man before. I assumed when you mentioned protection that it had been dealt with.’ She hurled the words at him, furious at herself but even angrier that he’d balked at taking such responsibility.
He walked towards her, suspicion in his dark eyes, and she fought hard against the memory of them being full of desire for her, full of need for her and overflowing with passion. It had been a moment out of time that she’d wanted to remember for ever. Now, thanks to the legacy of that night, she had no choice.
‘And how do I know you didn’t go straight from my bed to that of another man? How do I know the baby you claim to carry is mine?’
She gasped in shock at his fiercely cold words. She’d played out many scenarios in her head over recent weeks, but none had been as brutally attacking as this. In a spur-of-the-moment decision she’d booked a ticket to Rome, because all she’d wanted to do was tell him, face to face, that he was going to be a father. She’d never anticipated anything more. The close bond she’d had with her father had made it impossible for her to do anything else but tell Dante Mancini personally. She’d foolishly believed that he’d want to know that those wonderfully passionate few hours together had created a new life. His child.
How wrong she’d been.
Defeat washed over her, followed by tiredness. She hadn’t even booked a hotel. Once she’d made up her mind all she’d wanted was to get to Rome as soon as possible and to do what she considered the right thing before her confidence deserted her.
‘There are tests that can determine such things.’ She ploughed her fingers into her hair, pulling it off her face, holding it before letting it fall back. She was too tired to deal with this now. She’d felt sick for the duration of the flight, going over and over how to tell him. Trying to second-guess his reaction.
‘Then there will be a test carried out as soon as it is safe to do so.’
The harsh words focused her mind acutely.
‘I have no intention of taking your word for such a claim.’
‘In that case you may be interested to know it can be done in a few weeks’ time.’ She couldn’t help the rush of triumph as he glared at her. Had he expected her to flounder, to back away and leave without fighting her corner—her child’s corner? As the battle of what to do had waged in her mind she’d done her research on the internet, and she knew that, within two weeks if he demanded it, she could confirm that he was the father.
He moved towards her—so close that she could see the flecks of black in the caramel-brown of his eyes, almost obliterating their colour. She could also detect the faint hint of alcohol and wondered if he had left another woman’s bed that morning, after a night of sex and champagne like the one they’d shared. The thought sickened her and nausea rushed over her again. Her knees threatened to buckle as the reality of her shattered and foolish dreams sank in.
‘You sound very convinced that the child is mine.’
He sounded indifferent to her distress, his accent intensified, and being so close to him brought back memories of their night together, increasing the almost overwhelming nausea. She gathered herself quickly. She couldn’t break down now. Not here. Not in front of him.
‘You are the only man I have ever slept with. That night we spent together was totally out of character for me.’ She pushed down her reasons for acting on the undeniable attraction which had sparked so outrageously to life between them. She’d tried to continue working, but with his hot gaze all but stripping her naked right there in the middle of the party it had been almost impossible.
‘So why did you do it?’
He walked slowly round her and she turned, needing to keep him firmly in her line of vision, and inwardly she cursed the lack of sight in her left eye that she’d been born with. She wanted to tell him to stand still, but she hated people knowing, and thanks to the operation she’d had as a child and the contact lenses she wore there wasn’t any need to explain endlessly any more.
She took a deep breath. Honesty was the best way, and if he wanted to know why she’d gone hand in hand with him to his hotel room she would tell him. ‘It was the first anniversary of my father’s death, and I guess I wasn’t my normal self.’
His penetrating gaze slid down her body and she swallowed down the nerves that were threatening to get the better of her. ‘And is this your normal self?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped, hurt by his scathing tone.
She knew she looked nothing like the woman he’d taken to his hotel room. Not only that, she knew she was far from the self-assured woman who’d carried out her job dressed up to the nines in borrowed clothes and fresh out of the beauty salon. That woman had been so far removed from who she really was it was almost laughable—except Dante Mancini didn’t look the least bit amused.
‘Va bene. That can easily be sorted.’ He reached towards her and pushed her hair back from her face so gently it might almost have been an intimate and loving gesture—almost.
Shocked by the heat of his fingers as they grazed her face, she stepped back. ‘What do you mean, that can easily be sorted?’
‘The woman I met in London exists. She was very real as she smiled at me, enticing me with her beautiful green eyes. She was also very real as I undressed her, kissed her and made love to her.’
She bit down on the urge to tell him that woman had never really existed. That night she’d been someone else, driven by the need for physical contact and the spark of sexual attraction which had exploded as they’d first made eye contact. Since that night she’d lost her job because of her dalliance with a client and discovered that she was pregnant. The woman he remembered would never be able to exist again. Already she’d changed.
‘That may be so, but I have no intention of being that woman again. All I came here to achieve was making you aware of the fact that you are to be a father.’ Inwardly she cursed her impulsiveness at coming to Rome. What had she been thinking? That love and happiness would follow?
‘And now that I am aware we will do things my way.’
He strode back to the windows and stood looking out over Rome as the early winter sunshine danced on the rooftops of a city she’d always longed to visit.
‘We will do no such thing.’ Again she questioned her motives for being here. ‘I want nothing. You can go back to your wild lover-boy existence. Goodbye, Dante.’
She took a deep breath as he squared his shoulders against her verbal attack, then walked briskly to the door of his office. All she wanted was to escape. To run away and hide so she could nurse her wounds and rebuild her damaged dreams of a happy-ever-after. How stupid she’d been to harbour any hope that he would stand by her, take on the role of father. What she’d read in Celebrity Spy! should have been enough to extinguish those hopes long before she’d boarded the plane.
She heard his curse before she saw him as he put himself between her and the door, and she wondered if he’d guessed she couldn’t see him from her left side—or anything else, for that matter. Was he exploiting the weakness she took such great pains to conceal?
‘Let me pass,’ she demanded as anger and disappointment collided inside her, making her voice sharp and fierce.
‘You are not going anywhere. We have things to discuss, things to settle.’
‘Such as?’ She folded her arms beneath the knitted poncho she’d opted for early this morning as she’d left her small flat in London.
* * *
Dante looked at Piper and fought the urge to step back and let her go. He knew she was capable of walking away with something he’d never wanted—a child. But his business mind had worked overtime as she’d spat fury and fire at him. Piper carried his child—the one thing that might now be the answer to all the problems which had erupted since that damn article.
‘My child.’
He couldn’t and wouldn’t think any further about the plan that had formulated in his mind.
‘The one you tried hard to deny could even be yours until I mentioned the paternity test?’
The accusation in her voice cut deep, touching a part of him he hadn’t known existed.
‘You are carrying my child, my heir, and no matter how that has come about I will support you. Of that there is no question.’ Outwardly he was in control...inwardly his past mistakes rushed at him. But he couldn’t turn his back on his flesh and blood. He might have got it wrong in the past, but this was his child. ‘But naturally there will be conditions attached.’
‘I don’t want your grudging support, Dante. I want more than that from you for my child—or nothing at all.’
The indignation in her voice reverberated around the office and her green eyes looked so fierce he actually wanted to kiss her. To feel her lips against his once more and kiss away all that fury, replacing it with the passion he knew only too well existed within her.
‘I don’t care what you say you want. You wouldn’t have come all this way to tell me you are carrying my child if you didn’t want something, Piper.’ He liked the feel of her name on his tongue, but still suspicion niggled at him. ‘Perhaps I was right the first time. Is it money that will buy your silence?’
Her green eyes blazed with fury and anger emanated from her in palpable waves. ‘I want no such thing, and I can see I have made a very big mistake in thinking you would be even remotely interested in our baby.’
She turned and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open, but his reactions were quick and he pressed his palm against the door, slamming it shut before she’d even opened it wide enough to walk through.
‘You are not going anywhere until this is sorted, mia cara.’ He leant close to her left ear and whispered his warning, surprised when she jumped away, turning to glare once more at him. The threat in his voice had made her look vulnerable, and his proximity made her as nervous as a kitten, but still she pulled herself together and prepared to fight.
‘I am not your mia cara.’ She all but spat the words at him, like a wild cat which had been cornered. ‘And I want nothing from you. Forget you ever saw me.’
How could he forget her when ever since that night in London she’d been in his thoughts? An unnamed lover who’d given him her virginity and a night he would never forget.
Benjamin Carter’s suggestion floated once again on the periphery of his thoughts. Piper’s arrival at his office couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Her news—unwelcome at any other time—fitted perfectly into his rapidly forming plan. He needed a wife and she carried his child.
‘That will not happen—not when you are carrying my child.’ He held her arms gently, preventing any further attempts to flee. ‘Marriage is the only option.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_90b54c6a-22e0-5ad1-9996-5be578d63cfb)
‘MARRIAGE?’ THE WORD spluttered from Piper and she blinked at Dante, acutely aware of his hands holding her and scorching her skin through the layers she wore, setting free memories she’d rather not deal with right at this moment.
‘If you didn’t come here for money then it must be for a ring on your finger.’
The callous tones of his accented voice were splintered with bitterness, shattering any faint and futile hopes that what they’d shared in London might have been the start of something. That his rash proposal was for real.
Who was she trying to fool? She had been nothing more than an amusing diversion from a dull dinner party. And wasn’t that precisely why she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, stealing a last lingering glance at him as he’d slept? She’d hoped to save her job and her reputation by leaving before the hotel had come to life, but even that attempt had been in vain.
‘Have you any idea how arrogant you sound?’
Where had the considerate and charming man she’d left that dinner party with gone? Was this the real Dante, or was he just shocked at the news she’d brought?
The idea of being pregnant after a one-night stand with a man she’d known she’d never see again had been a complete shock to her. So much so that she’d bought all four pregnancy tests in stock at the small pharmacy near her flat in an attempt to convince herself that she’d got it wrong, that their one night of non-committal but passionate sex hadn’t resulted in pregnancy. Each time she’d used a test she’d become more panic-stricken.
‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous it was for you to come here, tell me such news and expect me to stand aside while you leave?’ Anger laced his accented words. ‘You might have left me once, but it will not happen again, mia cara.’
‘But marriage?’ she protested, desperate to make him see how impossible such an idea was. All she’d wanted was for him to know, to be told to his face that he was going to be a father. It would have been what her father would have wanted her to do. ‘We don’t know anything about each other.’
‘I know where you like to be kissed and how very sexy you look when you are naked. I think that is a good enough start, no?’
He smiled a slow, seductive smile and her heart almost stopped beating as she remembered how he had kissed her, how she’d all but begged for more, not wanting him to stop, wanting only to lose herself in the oblivion of the passion he’d showed her.
‘Exactly the kind of answer I’d expect from a man like you.’ Her temper fired and she drew in a deep breath, challenging the charm he seemed so incredibly capable of even in such a situation.
His eyes darkened and his brows furrowed together. ‘A man like me?’ His accented words were filled with suspicion.
‘There must be some truth in that article in Celebrity Spy!’ She faltered as his eyes narrowed and she knew she’d touched a raw nerve. But hadn’t he charmed her, seduced her, all without them even exchanging names?
‘Do you normally believe everything inside such magazines?’
He moved fractionally closer and she resisted the urge to step back, to keep him from invading her space with the power of his masculinity.
‘No, of course not.’ She snapped the words out quickly, and judging from the smile which lingered on his lips he knew he too had hit the target.
‘I would also suggest you change your reading material to something more...how shall I say it?...salubrious.’
Thankfully he stepped away, and she let out a breath she had no idea she’d been holding, but the urge to justify herself was too great. ‘I don’t normally read it. I was flicking through it whilst waiting at an employment agency.’
‘Employment agency?’ He turned his attention back to her instantly, those incredibly sexy eyes full of mistrust.
She bit down hard, inwardly cursing her wayward tongue. The last thing she wanted him to know was that she was no longer employed because of their night together, but she’d walked into a trap of her own making.
‘I no longer have a permanent contract. The dinner party in London was a one-off.’
‘So,’ he said, and there was a hint of triumph in that one word. ‘You are without a job and pregnant?’
She looked at him warily and corrected him quickly. ‘Between jobs.’
‘And will you easily find another job as your pregnancy progresses? I think not, cara.’
The undeniable self-assurance in his voice irritated her more than she cared to admit—because he was right. Hadn’t that been her worry as she’d tossed and turned every night since discovering she was pregnant? Maybe if she was still living in Sydney, where she’d grown up, she’d be able to find a job. But she wasn’t in Sydney. She’d come to her mother’s city of birth, London, and she knew nobody. And, as much as she wanted to return to Australia, she needed to stay with her mother.
‘That is for me to worry about.’ And worrying was just what she would still be doing when she left here. She’d had such a strong bond with her dad that she couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into the world and it not knowing its father. It was her experience of a father-daughter relationship which had convinced her that seeing Dante was the right thing.
She hadn’t told her mother about the baby yet, afraid to disappoint her, afraid she’d use her father’s memory to make her feel guilty. Would he have been disappointed? No, she silently answered herself, but he would have wanted her to do the right thing.
The need to clear her conscience, to tell Dante personally, had fuelled hopes that he would at least acknowledge the child and hopefully want to be part of its life. But marriage? That was something she hadn’t considered. And even if she had that article in Celebrity Spy! would have smothered that dream completely. Dante Mancini was a charmer—a playboy with a ruthless disregard for any kind of commitment.
‘You will not have to worry about work now you are to be my wife. I will provide you with everything you and my child can possibly want—and more.’
He stood with his back to the amazing view of Rome, with the winter sunshine sliding in around him, making reading his expression difficult. But she had no doubt how fierce the darkness of his eyes was.
‘I do not want to marry you.’ She injected attitude into each word, desperate to push home her point.
‘It’s not negotiable, cara. I am in need of a wife and you are carrying my child—which makes you the perfect choice.’
He walked towards her, away from the sunshine which had temporarily concealed his expression, and the determination she saw on his handsome face made her heart sink. She had very little energy left to fight with.
‘In need of a wife?’ She stumbled over the word ‘wife’, hardly able to believe he wanted her to become his wife. How could a self-professed playboy—a man who had the wealth, power and looks to have any woman he wanted—want to marry her?
‘I am in negotiations for a business deal which I can only pull off if I am seen to be a man with family values. I need a wife—a woman I can be seen publicly with, and one who can be discreet. Because that untimely piece in Celebrity Spy! has made those negotiations somewhat difficult. What better way to prove I am a man of family honour than to stand by the woman who is carrying my child?’
‘You make it all sound like a business deal.’
‘That, cara, is precisely what it will be. You came for money and support and you will now get both—providing we are seen out in public as the perfect couple. The world must believe we are madly in love. In return you will have the honour of being the woman who tamed Dante Mancini.’
* * *
Dante looked at her, saw her face pale and watched her eyes close, provoking images of her beneath him as passion had driven her wild and he’d unwittingly claimed her as his. Now she would pay the price of acting the part of a seductress when she’d been nothing more than an innocent virgin. She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
When her eyes opened, seconds later, the spark of annoyance was back within their sea-green depths. With her shy blushes and understated clothes she certainly didn’t look or act like the kind of woman he would date, let alone fall for, but she had on that night in London. He might have scoffed at Benjamin Carter’s suggestion last night of using the discreet agency run by the American matchmaker Elizabeth Young to find him a suitable wife, but now he would definitely call upon the agency’s services. He needed to transform the Australian redhead who carried his child back into the woman he’d met in London.
‘Honour? You overrate yourself, signor. If it is to be a business deal and not a true marriage I will accept—with one condition.’
‘You do not make the conditions.’ This was not something he was used to. Women dictating to him. It was unheard of. He was always in control, always laying down the rules.
‘I will make all the conditions I want.’
Her flippant tone almost pushed him too far, reminding him just how much his head throbbed with alcohol-induced pain.
‘It is obvious that your need of a wife is far greater than my need to tell you that you are going to be a father.’
‘Molto bene. Name your terms.’ Angrily he crossed the room and sat behind his desk, leaning his arms on its clutter-free surface and fixing her with a warning glare.
‘The marriage will be in name only and it will be ended after an agreed time. Once you have duped the world into thinking you are a reformed character and have secured your business deal, I assume.’
She stood in the centre of his office, her long legs snagging his attention, making him think things he had no right to be thinking—especially as he was negotiating a deal with her. A deal that would save his reputation and enrich his business—and claim her as his.
‘Va bene.’ He nodded his agreement. So far she spoke sense. He didn’t want to be married and had never contemplated it. All he needed right now was to change the way the gossips thought of him, prove he could be a family man if he chose to be and ultimately finalise the deal that would put his company at the top of the renewable energies industry. He also needed to calm the fears of their charity and fix any other negative impact of that damning article.
‘And you will play an active part in the child’s life.’
Her words fell into the suddenly large gap which separated them, highlighting how very different they were.
His brows rose. How could he play an active part in the child’s life when he’d been solely responsible for his younger brother’s untimely death? He wasn’t fit to be a brother, let alone a father. He couldn’t commit to giving his son or daughter anything other than material things. His emotions had frozen and shut down the day his father had walked out on them. Alessio’s death was proof of that.
She must have sensed his reluctance because she stepped closer. ‘I want nothing more than that. If you cannot agree then we do not have a deal and I will leave right now.’
He took a deep breath, forcing back the guilt and regret from the past. He had to think of this as just another deal. One like the many he made each year. He couldn’t open the wounds of his past. But as he looked at Piper he suspected it was already too late. She was the key that had turned in the door he’d long ago slammed shut.
He’d never longed for a woman once his desire had been quenched, but Piper had changed that and it was a change he wasn’t happy about. Reluctantly he admitted he would have to accept her terms. If he didn’t marry her and took another wife she’d have an even bigger story to sell and more damage to do. Worse than that, he would be guilty of turning his back on his child, and he’d pay any price not to do that.
‘We have a deal. I will have it drawn up into a contract by tomorrow.’
For a moment she looked lost, as if she’d expected a big battle. Little did she know that was just what it was for him—but it was his battle and he would fight it alone. He didn’t need anyone—least of all a woman who threatened everything he’d turned his back on after the revelations exposed by Alessio’s death.
‘Then, as we have concluded our business, I will go to my hotel.’ She picked up a bag from beside the chair she’d been sitting in when he arrived. If that was all her luggage she really hadn’t intended on staying in Rome long. Long enough to turn my world on its head. If she thought she could just walk away now, she’d got it all wrong.
He sprang from the seat. ‘You are not going anywhere except to my apartment—with me.’
‘That is totally unnecessary,’ she said, and pulled the somewhat battered bag, which bore no resemblance to the designer bags his women usually had, onto her shoulder. She moved towards the door and once again he found himself needing to stop this woman from leaving.
‘We are lovers, are we not?’ He lowered his voice, smiling to see the blush which crept over her face at the way he spoke. ‘And if we are to be believed as such you will not stay in a budget hotel.’
‘How do you know it’s a budget hotel?’
Indignation flared to life in her voice and her eyes and he knew he’d scored a point in this particular battle.
‘I merely assumed.’ He shrugged and looked at her, liking the way her lips pressed together tightly as she fought to hold back her retort. A fight she soon lost.
‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped at him, then lowered her gaze briefly before meeting his once more.
‘This is a business deal—one which will legitimise my child. A child that will be the heir to all I own. You will have every luxury, Piper, and my word that nothing else will happen between us.’
* * *
Piper gulped back the disappointment. Nothing else would happen between them. She should be pleased. It was exactly what she’d asked for, what she’d wanted, but a part of her ached with the pain of it. She wasn’t his type. The article in Celebrity Spy! had left her in no doubt of that. But the passion which had ravaged them that night in London must have meant something.
‘That is all I want,’ she lied, desperate that he wouldn’t detect even a hint of her dismay. She had to remain strong and firm. He couldn’t know she’d often thought of those few hours which had changed her life even before she’d known she was pregnant.
‘Va bene. It is settled. I will escort you to my apartment now—you look tired and in need of rest.’
As he looked at her she could almost believe he was genuinely concerned, but to fall for such an idea would be her undoing and she had to remain strong.
‘I think it would be better if I booked into a hotel.’ Her words faded to a whisper at the black look on his handsome face, which appeared more severe due to the shadow of stubble he was sporting.
‘How can we be seen as lovers, about to become engaged, if you are not living in my apartment and, as far as the world is concerned, sleeping in my bed?’ He shrugged in that nonchalant way which had attracted her the first night she’d seen him. ‘It would not be very convincing, mia cara.’
Piper pushed her fingers through her hair, trying to control the emotions which were running riot inside her. Emotions she knew full well were intensified by her pregnancy. Why did she feel so let down, so disillusioned? He’d offered to stand by her, support her financially, and most importantly to be a part of their child’s life even if he wasn’t a part of hers. So why was she fighting the urge to cry? She had what she’d come for—and more.
She dragged in a sharp breath and looked up at him as he approached from her left side—her blind side—startling her when he touched her gently on her arm, as he had done several times already.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said softly.
Too softly. Her urge to give in to tiredness and tears intensified.
‘Come. You need to rest. You must have left London at an early hour this morning.’
She allowed herself to be guided to the office door, and with his arm lingering around her waist he walked to his secretary’s desk, issuing a flurry of Italian instructions which were met with curious gazes directed at her from the shocked older woman, unsettling her further. Was she so far below the kind of woman he usually dated that even his secretary was shocked?
Everything seemed to take on a glow of unreality as he escorted her out of the offices and to a waiting car. Moments later they were ensconced in the car, moving quickly through the streets of Rome as car horns sounded insistently around them. She wanted to see the sights, but the ride in the car was making her feel unsteady, and all she could do was sit back in the soft leather seats.
On her right, she felt Dante watching her. She could feel the scrutiny of his gaze and almost hear his unspoken questions. Everything about being with Dante again was unlocking all those emotions she’d hidden away as she’d left that hotel in the early hours.
As she got out of the car the tall buildings of the old town towered over her and blocked out the winter sun. She looked up at an impressive building which must have seen many things through history, unable to believe what she’d agreed to.
He took her bag from her. ‘This way. My apartment is on the top floor and offers stunning views of the city from the roof terrace. Have you been in Rome before?’
The light and easy way he spoke was in complete contrast to the way her heart was thumping. What had she done to herself? What had she agreed to? Marriage, be it in name only or not, to a man she barely knew?
‘No. Europe always seemed too far from Australia to think of.’
It had been a trip her mother had wanted to do. She’d tried to convince her father, but he’d never wanted to leave Australia, saying he didn’t need to go so far when he had all he needed at home. As he’d said those words he’d looked at her, and now Piper questioned if her mother’s need to return to England had been the start of their marriage problems.
Dante held the front door open for her and she walked into the cool shade of the old building, trying to leave the memories and questions she’d never have answered outside.
‘Yet you were in London when we met?’
‘I’d only been there for a year. My mother wanted to return to her native country after...’ She floundered for a moment, thinking of the day her father had suddenly died. Exactly one year to the day when she’d met Dante. ‘My father was Australian, my mother British, and after he died she wanted to be with her elderly mother so we left Sydney. Sadly, Grandma passed away a few months ago.’
Dante scrutinised her as he waited for the elevator and she wondered if her true feelings were showing clearly on her face, despite the calm and matter-of-fact way she’d imparted the story of her beloved father’s death.
‘And you were brought up in Sydney?’
She was glad when the elevator doors opened, diverting his attention. She’d never known anything but Sydney. It was not only where she’d grown up, but where she’d been happiest. But all that had changed when her father had been killed in a car accident. The senseless accident had happened not even a year after he’d been told he was in remission from cancer. The injustice of it made her gulp back the tears which threatened.
‘Can’t you tell from the accent?’ She laughed off the pain of those memories, wanting to move the conversation away from her. This wasn’t about her any more. It was about what was best for the baby. Her father had stood by her mother when she’d fallen pregnant and they’d been happy together. But obviously it hadn’t been enough for her mother, because she’d started to make plans to return to London soon after the accident.
‘It’s a nice accent.’ He smiled at her and she wondered if he’d sensed her unease, but his next words obliterated that thought. ‘And very sexy too, when you are consumed by desire.’
‘You should keep such comments for the women you date.’
The words left her before she could stop them, let alone think about what they meant to her. The thought of him dating other women made her heart heavy, but she had to push that aside. Their marriage was to be nothing more than a business deal.
He walked from the elevator, pulling out a key, and turned to look at her as he stopped outside his apartment door. ‘Exclusivity is something I will demand from you if this deal is going to work for us.’
That wouldn’t be a problem as far as she was concerned. Her one spontaneous and totally out of character affair had already caused her more trouble than she’d ever bargained on.
‘I should impose the same on you, but I doubt a man like you can be exclusive to any woman.’
* * *
Dante didn’t miss the crisp tartness in her voice. The subject was something he’d already given thought to on the drive to his apartment. He would have to be faithful to his new fiancée and, given that his body still heated at the memory of hers, it wouldn’t be a challenge. The biggest problem would be to ensure he didn’t repeat what had happened in London. She had made it clear this was to be only a business deal.
If he portrayed himself to the world as a caring and faithful man, in love with the woman who was to be his wife, he would not only clinch the deal he’d almost lost but wipe out the reputation that for years he hadn’t cared about. If he didn’t, the future of The Hope Foundation, the charity he wholeheartedly supported, would hang in the balance.
The three other businessmen who supported the charity were about to do the same. Zayn and Xander had agreed that Benjamin’s suggestion that they settle down was the only way. He’d watched on, uncharacteristically drowning his misgivings in a bottle of whisky, as the ghosts of his past had taunted him that he’d never be able to be responsible for another person without hurting them, forcing them to leave him.
Now he was responsible for a woman who should have been his for just a few hours of mind-blowing sex. Not only that, he was responsible for the child she carried—his child. Could he put himself through that? Could he engage the emotions he’d switched off and risk losing everything again?
‘You will have my full and undivided attention at all times. We are in love, no?’ As he looked down at her that spark of lust, a sexual chemistry too strong to deny, arced between them. He saw her eyes darken, watched her lips part, and his body responded in the only way possible to such a blatant invitation.
‘Nothing can ever happen between us again, Dante.’
Her whisper cracked with desire, and in normal circumstances he would have laughed softly, pulled her against him and kissed her into submission. But these were not normal circumstances. This wasn’t just a meaningless affair that would end as soon as the sun rose the next morning.
‘I have agreed to our terms.’ He unlocked his door and stood back for her to enter, smiling down at her in an attempt to hide the conflicting emotions warring within him. ‘A marriage in name only that will give us both what we want.’
‘More than that, Dante.’
She stood outside, as if crossing the threshold to his home was the last thing she wanted to do. To have her permanently in his life was not what he wanted, but he had his reasons for making this deal. Just as she had hers.
‘It will give our child what it deserves.’
The mention of the baby shocked any response from him and he turned and walked into his apartment—a place he’d never taken a woman before, preferring the anonymity of hotel rooms which he could leave when he was ready.
‘Tomorrow you will sign a contact.’ His irritation at the situation he found himself in sounded in his words—even he could hear that.
Not only was he inviting a woman into his home and his life—permanently—he was giving himself the biggest challenge of all. One he wasn’t sure he could master. He would have to invest himself, his emotions, in a child. How could he do that when the pain of Alessio’s loss, the guilt of his inability to be what someone else needed, still festered in his dormant heart?
‘Until then you will have to trust me when I say that I will be the perfect gentleman, and that you may sleep soundly in my bed.’
‘In your bed?’ The few hesitant steps she’d taken into his domain faltered to a stop.
‘Alone,’ he added.
She really was adamant that they would not be repeating those hot, sultry hours in London. So be it. He didn’t want the added complication of lust becoming more than that.
‘We’ve settled this. As my lover you need to be seen here, at all times of the day and night. What the outside world will never know is that I will sleep there.’
He gestured to the second bedroom, which served as his office. Last night, if one of the other three men had suggested he’d be taking a woman into his life and sleeping in his spare room in order to salvage his reputation and that of his supported charity, he would have laughed.
‘I’m not sure... I’ll find a hotel.’
‘That is not an option any longer, mia cara. You should not have come all this way, imparted such news and then expected me not to put my terms on any arrangement made.’
The late night and early start were finally catching up with him, and all he wanted was to shut the door on the world and relax. But first he had to contact Elizabeth Young and ascertain if her agency offered the services he required. He needed to transform the plain and ordinary woman before him into a fiancée that would bring the gossips to a tongue-tied halt.
‘I can’t take your bed.’
‘Va bene, then I will share it with you if it makes you feel better.’ He stifled a smile at her shock.
‘No,’ she said, and she all but flounced past him into the apartment, her attitude hinting that the woman he’d met in London was still lingering inside her, waiting to be drawn out. If he dared to find her.
‘Then at last we understand one another. I suggest you make yourself at home. I have work to continue with.’
Never had he ever thought he would be inviting a woman into his home, into his life, and telling her to make herself comfortable. The idea was unnerving, but reluctantly he knew it was necessary.
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Rachael Thomas
She’ll pay the price with two words. I do.After a shocking media exposé reveals that the compelling stranger she lost her virginity to is debauched bachelor Dante Mancini, Piper Riley is stunned! Their unexpected but exquisite night has left them inextricably bound…When Dante learns that Piper is pregnant, the heartless playboy sees a perfect opportunity to restore his business reputation—by making Piper his wife! But Piper won’t settle for anything less than happy-ever-after. Dante must overcome his past to prove to Piper—and to the world—that that this is more than a convenient match…
She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
After a shocking media exposé reveals that the compelling stranger she lost her virginity to is debauched bachelor Dante Mancini, Piper Riley is stunned! Their unexpected but exquisite night has left them inextricably bound...
When Dante learns that Piper is pregnant, the heartless playboy sees the perfect opportunity to restore his business reputation—by making Piper his wife! But Piper won’t settle for anything less than happy-every-after. Dante must overcome his past to prove to Piper—and the world—that this is more than a convenient match...
‘I am in need of a wife and you are carrying my child—which makes you the perfect choice.’
‘In need of a wife?’ Piper stumbled over the word ‘wife’, hardly able to believe Dante wanted her to become his wife. How could a self-professed playboy, a man who had the wealth, power and looks to have any woman he wanted, want to marry her?
‘I am in negotiations for a business deal which I can only pull off if I am seen to be a man with family values. I need a wife—a woman I am seen with in public…one who can be discreet. Because that untimely piece in Celebrity Spy! has made those negotiations somewhat difficult. What better way to prove I am a man of family honour than to stand by the woman who is carrying my child?’
‘You make it all sound like a business deal.’
‘That, cara, is precisely what it will be. You came for money and support and you will now get both—providing we are seen out in public as the perfect couple. The world must believe we are madly in love. In return you will have the honour of being the woman who tamed Dante Mancini.’
Dante looked at her, saw her face pale and watched her eyes close, provoking images of her beneath him as passion had driven her wild and he’d unwittingly claimed her as his. Now she would pay the price of acting the part of a seductress when she’d been nothing more than an innocent virgin. She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
Brides for Billionaires (#ulink_6bd8b770-df01-5d4e-bc12-1700e5aa5761)
Meet the world’s ultimate unattainable men...
Four titans of industry and power—Benjamin Carter, Dante Mancini, Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas—are in complete control of every aspect of their exclusive world...until one catastrophic newspaper article forces them to take drastic action!
Now these gorgeous billionaires need one thing: willing women on their arms and wearing their rings! Women falling at their feet is normal, but these bachelors need the right women to stand by their side. And for that they need the billionaire matchmaker Elizabeth Young.
This is the opportunity of a lifetime for Elizabeth, so she won’t turn down the challenge of finding just the right match for these formidable tycoons. But Elizabeth has a secret that could complicate things for one of the bachelors...
Find out what happens in:
Married for the Tycoon’s Empire by Abby Green
Married for the Italian’s Heir by Rachael Thomas
Married for the Sheikh’s Duty by Tara Pammi
Married for the Greek’s Convenience by Michelle Smart
Married for the Italian’s Heir
Rachael Thomas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
RACHAEL THOMAS has always loved reading romance, and is thrilled to be a Mills & Boon author. She lives and works on a farm in Wales—a far cry from the glamour of a Modern Romance story—but that makes slipping into her characters’ worlds all the more appealing. When she’s not writing or working on the farm she enjoys photography and visiting historical castles and grand houses. Visit her at rachaelthomas.co.uk (http://rachaelthomas.co.uk/).
Books by Rachael Thomas
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Sheikh’s Last Mistress
New Year at the Boss’s Bidding
From One Night to Wife
Craving Her Enemy’s Touch
Claimed by the Sheikh
A Deal Before the Altar
The Billionaire’s Legacy
To Blackmail a Di Sione
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk/) for more titles.
For Mum
Contents
Cover (#u64777f46-8fd0-586c-821d-320fc326e1b4)
Back Cover Text (#uccfc4c9b-3304-5de7-87d8-32ed86b048a5)
Introduction (#u3417d7d6-19e3-5d62-bb36-be22c165f07b)
Brides for Billionaires (#ulink_72ee8ba4-e893-5982-b830-a18d4c8312cf)
Title Page (#u5b6eb96b-14f8-51f7-a4e8-88343d7581d9)
About the Author (#ubff5fcf1-150d-55af-bf90-13b47088f721)
Dedication (#u9c95c9a0-a214-57b3-80c4-3769dc6b7145)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_87d292cd-45a0-520f-b738-1aa06bd83fd5)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_5b473805-f269-5133-98e3-47f913a9d6c3)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_55e6ce9c-1edb-55e1-8f69-a61cbd606aea)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_714f73ae-144f-5558-a8ef-491fdf76c30c)
Two months ago
PIPER LOST ALL sense of reason as his kiss seared her skin and his accomplished touch brought her body to life in a way she’d never known. The pain and grief that this day held for her were blotted out as he whispered words of Italian that sounded romantic, but she had no hope of understanding them.
She gloried in his embrace, for the first time in many months feeling treasured, wanted and needed. What would come after this moment she couldn’t think about now. She didn’t want to face the emptiness. All she wanted was to abandon herself to this man and his passion, to yield to his kisses and give herself utterly and completely to the moment—and to him.
She gasped in frustration as he stopped kissing her. He pulled away and looked down at her, his sinfully dark caramel eyes full of desire—for her. Empowered by this, she smiled at him, unable to hide the longing that was tearing through her faster than lightning. She’d never been desired by any man, and had certainly never been kissed the way he had just kissed her. But, more than that, it was the way she wanted him to kiss her again and again.
This man was a skilled lover, and the way he was looking at her now, with raw lust that vibrated through the semi-darkness of the hotel room, she knew there was no turning back—not that she wanted to. The attraction between them had been too fierce, too strong, even before he’d suggested they leave the party.
Tonight she would give herself to this man. But she was well aware there wouldn’t be a tomorrow. She might be an innocent woman discovering the pleasure of a man’s touch, but she knew not to expect more. She’d worked as a waitress at many society parties in Sydney and in London and she had recognised him as a playboy—a man who wanted one uncommitted night of passion, who loved and left women. Tonight she didn’t care about her dream to settle down with the right man. Tonight she wanted the wrong man.
She wanted to drown her sorrow in the passion even she couldn’t deny, which had ignited between them from the very first moment their eyes had met as he’d arrived at the party. It had arced between them as if they were meant to be here together, caught up in a moment of passion which would surely change her...change her life. How, she didn’t know. She just knew that this moment was one she had to explore.
He touched her face, tracing the pad of his thumb down her cheek, and she closed her eyes as her knees threatened to give way. He pulled her closer, holding her tightly with one arm, keeping her body pressed against the hardness of his, making her virginal body pulse so wildly with unquenched desire it was as if the conclusion of the kiss was already sealed. As was her fate.
‘Before we go any further, do we need protection?’
His husky and heavily accented voice shimmered over her, and her senses were so confused by the desire which burned through her Piper couldn’t think straight.
‘Protection?’ The whispered word sounded so seductive she could hardly believe it was her voice. How had the sensible and shy woman she usually was become such a seductress?
‘I intend to make love to you, cara.’
He slipped off his suit jacket in a purposeful way which made her heart race as much as his words did. All sensible thought vanished from her as she watched him turn and toss it onto a nearby chair. His white shirt was bright in the partial darkness of the room.
She quivered with anticipation as he stepped back to her, excited and terrified about what would happen next. With deliberate slowness he took her in his arms again and kissed her. Then his hand moved down her neck and along her shoulder, slipping under the strap of her dress, sliding it away. As his lips followed the blazing trail of his hand she let her head fall back and gave herself up to the abandonment of the moment.
‘Sorted...’ She gasped the word as his kisses moved down her neck, hardly able to think straight because of the fire each kiss ignited within her.
‘Then there is nothing to stop us.’
With unnerving ease he pulled the zip at the side of her dress and the black silk slithered down her body. The heat of embarrassment rushed over her, and she watched his face as he touched her breast, his fingers concentrating on the hardened peak of her nipple, making her gasp with pleasure. Then he lowered his head and teased the other nipple with his tongue until she thought she might explode with pleasure.
‘That is so...’ She closed her eyes as heat seared within her, unable to say anything else.
‘Do you want me, cara?’
His warm breath increased the sensation of delirium as his tongue teased her nipple.
‘I want you...’ She struggled to say the words as he continued to work his magic. She entwined her fingers in his thick hair, not wanting him ever to stop. ‘To make love to me.’
He laughed softly against her breast, the sensation making her writhe against him.
‘I can think of nothing better, you little tease.’
His accent thrilled her as much as his words, intensifying this new and exciting need inside her, pushing the real Piper further away.
‘Now.’ She pulled him close against her, wanting to feel his body, to taste his skin. ‘I want you now.’
A soft, sexy laugh escaped him and he let go of her briefly, putting her at arm’s length. The black silk of her dress slithered to the floor in a pool around her feet, leaving her in skimpy black panties and strappy sandals.
His dark gaze roved over her near nakedness and the air between them sparked with desire. A flash of her usual shyness threatened, but she pushed it back, refusing to allow it into this moment, and reached for him. Her need to see more of him and touch him made her pull so hard at his shirt buttons they popped off.
His feral growl of pleasure pushed her on, making her want him, want this even more. She couldn’t stop now—couldn’t be her usual cautious self and spend the rest of her life wondering What if? Tonight she would experience ‘What if?’ She couldn’t let this moment go by without responding to it.
In a movement so swift, so decisive, he pushed her back onto the bed, pulling off his white shirt and exposing his muscled torso, dusted in dark hair. Then, with a wicked gleam in those devil-may-care eyes, he removed every last scrap of clothing from his glorious body.
She watched, entranced and excited, as he stepped towards her, towering over her. She trembled in anticipation as she lay there, his gaze never leaving hers. Her heart pounded so hard she was sure the whole of London could hear it, and a sigh of pleasure escaped her as he lowered himself over her, the hardness of his arousal almost too much.
He spoke again in Italian as he kissed down her throat and she ran her hands over his strong back, pressing her nails into his skin. But still it wasn’t enough. Still she wanted more.
Driven by a powerful need she no longer had any control over, she slipped her hands between their bodies and he lifted himself slightly, allowing her to touch him. She wanted to feel him, to torment him as he’d done her. But still it wasn’t enough. She wanted to remove the last barriers of clothing and feel him touch her intimately before possessing her completely.
Urgency took over and she clung to him, raising her hips, her body begging his for release and the oblivion of passion. She wanted him so much. It was as if she’d been waiting for this moment—for him.
‘Dio mio. You are a goddess sent to torment me.’
His guttural voice together with his insistent kisses up her neck was almost too much, and she knew that it had to be now—that they had to come together, that there was no turning back.
He moved, clasping his hands around her wrists and pinning her arms either side of her head. The wild look in his eyes was as terrifying as it was exciting. His breath was coming hard and fast as he fixed her with those dark, sexy eyes. She lifted her hips, clasping her legs around him as her need to be one with him increased.
Another curse left his lips and he let one of her arms go as he raised his hips and ripped her black panties from her. Her shocked gasp only encouraged him further, and he barely paused as she pressed her nakedness against him, feeling the heat of his erection intimately.
‘Per Dio.’
The words rushed from him as she moved, bringing them together. He thrust into her, her startled cry making him stop. She glanced up to see a furious frown on his handsome face, but she couldn’t let it end there. She wanted total possession. She wanted him to take her, make her his. Even if it was only for tonight.
‘Don’t stop.’ She lifted her hips, taking him deeper inside her as she raised her head and pressed kisses against his chest, tasting the salty tang of desire on his skin.
‘You’re a...’ he whispered hoarsely.
But she pressed her lips against his, hiding the truth as she used the unrelenting need in her body and lifted herself up to him, making his possession deep and powerful, forcing him to surrender to the moment too.
Another feral curse left him as he joined her in the frenzied dance of sex. It was so exquisite, so much more than she’d ever dared to hope it could be, that as she hovered on the brink of oblivion she cried out, holding him tight against her as several tears escaped, sliding down her face. She buried her face against his chest, inhaling the sexy scent of him, knowing it would be etched in her memory for ever.
As would the moment she’d lost her virginity, becoming a real woman with a man whose name she didn’t even know.
As her heart rate slowed and his body relaxed she moved, but he caught an arm around her, pulling her close against him. ‘You are not going anywhere yet, cara.’
Those sultry words made her mind spin—as did the reality of what she’d done. Through the fog of desire rational thought was finally becoming clear. She’d lost her virginity and jeopardised her new job—all for a man who hadn’t even bothered with the pleasantries of an introduction. His kisses and soft words had seduced her on a day when she was at her most vulnerable, a day when she needed to know she was alive, prove she could be a woman in charge of her life.
His breathing deepened as he slept, and even though her body was held tightly against his Piper knew she had no option but to leave. She might have experienced the most wonderful night, but this wasn’t who she was.
She slipped carefully from the bed and quietly gathered her clothes, dressing in the near darkness. He stirred and she looked at him—at his handsome face, his lean body partially covered by the white sheet—committing it all to her memory, because this was a man who didn’t want anything other than casual affairs. Despite her naivety, she knew this.
Quietly she left the room of the man whose name she didn’t even know—the man she would never see again as she returned to being the shy woman who’d arrived in London from Australia only a year before.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3aab3a4b-2c72-5952-b002-1c287f80ccbd)
FURIOUS AT THE way his life had begun to unravel over the last two weeks, Dante Mancini pushed back the effects of too much whisky at last night’s impromptu meeting. He tried not to think of the outrageous solution Benjamin Carter had proposed to counteract the damning article Celebrity Spy! had run.
The scandalous piece—naming himself, Ben Carter, Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas as the world’s most debauched bachelors—had done untold damage to their favourite charity, The Hope Foundation. Now those who ran it had demanded they clean up their acts or step aside as patrons. To make matters worse, a business deal he’d been working on was in danger of collapsing because of the damage to his reputation—he was a bachelor who played the field and now everyone knew it.
Could Ben’s idea work? Would taking such drastic action as marriage divert unwanted attention from the charity and secure his most lucrative business deal yet? Possibly. But was he prepared to take the gamble...?
Dante pushed open the door to his office building, not bothering to remove his sunglasses and definitely not ready to admit that the copious amount of whisky he’d drunk whilst being told he needed to find himself a wife was the reason for his fierce headache and foul mood.
He stabbed at the button to call the elevator and inhaled deeply as he waited, still fuming that Bettino D’Antonio was pulling out of the deal because he, Dante Mancini, and his company didn’t uphold family values.
As the doors to the elevator swished open he walked in, desperate for a moment of solitude before he entered the suite of offices which served as the headquarters for his self-built global business empire dealing in renewable energies. In a bid to bring back some control and chase away the threatening headache he inhaled deeply once again.
The doors closed and instantly his senses were on alert. His memory rushed back to an illicit night of hot sex in a London hotel with an unknown redhead who’d haunted his dreams and stalked his thoughts each day ever since.
She had been wild and passionate, and yet as he’d made her his he’d realised she was a virgin. A fluid curse left him as the elevator doors closed, trapping him inside with a memory which only added to his unaccustomed bad mood. It irritated the hell out of him that those gorgeous green eyes continued to haunt him and that, despite the alcohol still in his system from last night, his blood heated at the memory and a shot of lust hurtled round him.
‘Maledizione.’ He never thought of a woman once their affair was over, and the redhead encounter had been two months ago. Well and truly over.
He clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. Now was not the time to become embroiled in memories of one meaningless night. He had to remain in control—focus on the matter in hand. He couldn’t allow that piece of gossip in Celebrity Spy! to jeopardise one of the biggest deals he’d ever gone after, or to tarnish the work of the charity he helped to fund. But neither was he about to be dictated to by Benjamin Carter. He had absolutely no desire to settle down in that very elusive state of marital bliss just to salvage his reputation. There had to be another way and he’d find it—of that he was sure.
Not a moment too soon the elevator doors opened and he left the memory-evoking scent of perfume and marched into his office. His head thumped mercilessly from last night’s excess of whisky and his temper was frayed from the latest developments on the deal.
His secretary jumped up eagerly as he stormed in but he refused to indulge in his usual morning pleasantries. He didn’t have the stamina for niceties right now. All he wanted was total silence and coffee—strong and black.
‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ He snapped the instruction at her as he strode past her desk, desperate for the solitude of his office with its sought-after views over the old quarter of Rome.
‘Signor Mancini...’ she began, overriding his instruction, and he stopped and looked at her, about to open his office door, glad of the sunglasses he still wore.
The last thing he wanted his secretary to know was that he was suffering from an uncharacteristic over-indulgence of alcohol. After his meeting with Ben and the others he’d managed to catch an hour or two of sleep during the overnight flight back to Rome on his private jet, but that hadn’t helped dull the effects of the whisky. All he needed was to be left alone.
‘No calls. No meetings. Nothing.’ He threw the words at her and as she took a breath to protest turned from her and burst into his office. He slammed the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The world had gone mad. Everything he’d worked so hard to achieve seemed in danger of falling to pieces around him.
He muttered a curse and strode across his large office, pressed the button on his coffee machine, then stood at the windows looking out over the city that had at first been a hard and demanding mistress but was now one of only two places in the world where he felt completely at ease.
As the welcome aroma of coffee filled his office he heard movement behind him and tensed. He turned slowly to see just who it was in his office, aware now that his secretary’s unusual insistence on speaking to him must have been to warn him that he had someone waiting for him.
What he didn’t expect to see was the flame-haired siren who’d haunted him since that night two months ago, when she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, long before he’d woken. Not something he was accustomed to.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I waited in here for you...’ The redhead’s soft voice wavered with uncertainty and, dressed in jeans and a navy knitted poncho, she certainly didn’t resemble the glamorous self-assured beauty he’d bedded that night. But then she hadn’t been all she’d pretended to be that night, had she? She hadn’t been an experienced seductress. She’d been a virgin. A fact she’d kept from him until it had been too late.
He pulled off his sunglasses and looked at her. How had she found him? How did she know who he was? Those few hours in his hotel room had been so passionate, so filled with lustful need that they hadn’t even exchanged names, let alone phone numbers.
Icy-cold fingers of dread clutched at him. Was she here to use that story in Celebrity Spy! for some kind of blackmail? Did she want to sell a kiss-and-tell story? Was that why she’d come to Rome unannounced? To demand money from him for her silence?
‘As a matter of fact I do.’ The angry bitterness in his voice barely concealed his disappointment at this realisation. He’d placed her on some kind of pedestal since that night, his thoughts constantly returning to her like a lovesick teenager. She’d got to him in a way no other woman had come close to doing. Even now his blood heated at the knowledge that she was so close, just as it had when he’d smelt the lingering trace of what he now knew to be her perfume in the elevator moments ago.
She stood up and he let his gaze travel quickly down her jean-clad legs, remembering how they’d felt as she’d wrapped them around him. Savagely he dragged his mind back to the present. Dwelling on one night of sex was not in his nature.
‘What do you want?’ He fired the question at her.
‘I just have one thing I need to say and then I will go.’
Her voice still held uncertainty and her face looked pale. Was that just because she wore hardly any make-up?
She looked totally different from the seductress who’d tempted him from the party that night, and she stood before him now looking every bit the innocent and inexperienced virgin she had been when he’d taken her to his hotel room. But she wasn’t a virgin any longer. He had been her first lover and he wanted to know why she had kept that from him. The question wouldn’t come. As she looked at him he sensed something much bigger, much more threatening.
‘How much?’ he demanded, narrowing his eyes as he tried to gauge her reaction, angry that he’d put himself in this position, that he hadn’t exercised his usual caution where women were concerned.
Her delicate brows flew together. ‘How much what?’
He stepped closer and the scent of her perfume teased at his memory again. He closed his mind to the images which threatened to engulf him. The woman who stood before him now was very different from the woman who’d teased him until he’d all but lost his mind as well as his control.
He sighed and walked towards his desk, tossing his sunglasses down before leaning on its solid wood, fixing her with a hard glare. ‘How much do you want? For your silence?’
‘I’m not about to tell the world,’ she snapped back at him, her voice full of injustice.
He only just managed to stifle a smile. The fiery redhead had briefly surfaced from behind the façade of unassuming inexperience she had adopted.
‘Then why are you here, cara? And, more to the point, how did you find me?’ Already he was bored with this conversation. His head thumped cruelly and he wanted nothing more than to sit down in silence. He had a deal to salvage and he didn’t need Little Miss Shy adding to the mix of hurdles he had to power over.
‘There was an article...’ she said softly as he walked back towards the windows.
He turned to face her and noticed how she followed his every move, turning herself slightly to maintain eye contact with him. It made him suspicious.
‘I’m more than aware that there was an article,’ he growled back at her, the tension in his head reaching almost breaking point. This tedious conversation should have ended when she’d named her price—right before he threw her out. So why hadn’t she? More to the point, why hadn’t he thrown her out?
‘That is how I got your name.’ He raised his brows as she blushed before continuing. ‘We didn’t exactly have time to exchange details.’
Exchanging details had been the last thing on his mind. All he’d wanted was her naked and beneath him. He’d been rash and uncontrolled. Hell, he’d even taken her word that she was on the pill. Something he’d never succumbed to, no matter how deliciously tempting the woman.
‘True, but we had much more fun that way, did we not, cara?’ He smiled at her, allowing himself to remember her eagerness, her insistence which had so turned him on, testing his control beyond its usual limits.
‘Piper.’ Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him, the green depths of them sparking wildly.
‘Piper?’ he repeated, his mind still not able to function as it should. Hell, he hadn’t even had an espresso yet to banish the remnants of whisky, even though the welcome aroma now filled the office.
‘My name is Piper. Piper Riley.’
He nodded. ‘And now that we are both in possession of each other’s names, perhaps you’d tell me exactly why you are here.’ Once again he moved across his office and glanced at the woman who’d been just the redhead in his mind until today. As before, she moved to face him. Now she had a name would she continue to linger in his mind so temptingly? He hoped not.
‘I needed to see you because...’ She faltered and he folded his arms across his chest, becoming increasingly irritated by the conversation.
‘Dio mio. Just say what you have to say and leave. I don’t have time for games.’
‘Very well.’ She stood taller, lifted her chin a fraction and looked directly at him. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Dante had thought the previous twenty-four hours had been filled with nothing but trouble, swallowing up his usual cavalier attitude. He had never expected—or wanted—those words to be said to him. He couldn’t be a father—not when he’d already proved his inability to look after anyone.
‘How?’
The word shot from him before he had time to think, time to compose himself, but she stood resolutely before him. Even the heated redness which rushed over her pale face for a second time didn’t alter the fact that she had suddenly become bolder and more confident—much more like the woman he’d made love to that night.
* * *
Piper held her ground, remaining rigidly still, focusing her full attention on the man whose baby she was carrying. A man whose reputation had been plastered all over the tabloids in recent weeks, one of the world’s most eligible and debauched bachelors. He was far from ideal father material, but she couldn’t deny him the knowledge that he was going to be a father—much less deny her child the right to a father.
She watched him as he prowled around his office, oblivious to the fact that the coffee he evidently needed was ready. He looked as immaculately stylish as he had the night of the party. The only difference was the hint of stubbly shadow at his jaw and the lines of tension on his face, which stirred her sympathy. But she couldn’t let sentiment get in the way. Not now she knew exactly who she was dealing with.
‘I think we both know how.’
She couldn’t believe the seductive purr which wrapped around those words as she looked at him, wondering just what kind of effect this man still had on her. Her heart raced wildly and her stomach somersaulted. She wasn’t at all convinced it was just her nerves at the situation. It was the darkly passionate man she’d lost her virginity to—Dante Mancini. A playboy and exceedingly proud of it, if the article she’d stumbled across in Celebrity Spy! was to be believed.
‘What I mean is how, when you allowed me to believe that the protection I wanted to use wasn’t necessary?’ His words were slow and his accent heavy, as if he couldn’t take in what she’d told him—or the implications.
Yes, that was the question she’d asked herself as she’d done the first pregnancy test—and the second. It had changed to the question of how she could have been so stupid as she’d done a third, and by the time she’d torn the packaging from the fourth and final test it had changed to words she never usually used, followed by panic at what she was going to do.
Being a single mother was not what she wanted. She’d grown up with a doting father and had always wanted that for her children. And now she was pregnant with this man’s baby.
‘In case you weren’t aware, I had never been in such a situation with a man before. I assumed when you mentioned protection that it had been dealt with.’ She hurled the words at him, furious at herself but even angrier that he’d balked at taking such responsibility.
He walked towards her, suspicion in his dark eyes, and she fought hard against the memory of them being full of desire for her, full of need for her and overflowing with passion. It had been a moment out of time that she’d wanted to remember for ever. Now, thanks to the legacy of that night, she had no choice.
‘And how do I know you didn’t go straight from my bed to that of another man? How do I know the baby you claim to carry is mine?’
She gasped in shock at his fiercely cold words. She’d played out many scenarios in her head over recent weeks, but none had been as brutally attacking as this. In a spur-of-the-moment decision she’d booked a ticket to Rome, because all she’d wanted to do was tell him, face to face, that he was going to be a father. She’d never anticipated anything more. The close bond she’d had with her father had made it impossible for her to do anything else but tell Dante Mancini personally. She’d foolishly believed that he’d want to know that those wonderfully passionate few hours together had created a new life. His child.
How wrong she’d been.
Defeat washed over her, followed by tiredness. She hadn’t even booked a hotel. Once she’d made up her mind all she’d wanted was to get to Rome as soon as possible and to do what she considered the right thing before her confidence deserted her.
‘There are tests that can determine such things.’ She ploughed her fingers into her hair, pulling it off her face, holding it before letting it fall back. She was too tired to deal with this now. She’d felt sick for the duration of the flight, going over and over how to tell him. Trying to second-guess his reaction.
‘Then there will be a test carried out as soon as it is safe to do so.’
The harsh words focused her mind acutely.
‘I have no intention of taking your word for such a claim.’
‘In that case you may be interested to know it can be done in a few weeks’ time.’ She couldn’t help the rush of triumph as he glared at her. Had he expected her to flounder, to back away and leave without fighting her corner—her child’s corner? As the battle of what to do had waged in her mind she’d done her research on the internet, and she knew that, within two weeks if he demanded it, she could confirm that he was the father.
He moved towards her—so close that she could see the flecks of black in the caramel-brown of his eyes, almost obliterating their colour. She could also detect the faint hint of alcohol and wondered if he had left another woman’s bed that morning, after a night of sex and champagne like the one they’d shared. The thought sickened her and nausea rushed over her again. Her knees threatened to buckle as the reality of her shattered and foolish dreams sank in.
‘You sound very convinced that the child is mine.’
He sounded indifferent to her distress, his accent intensified, and being so close to him brought back memories of their night together, increasing the almost overwhelming nausea. She gathered herself quickly. She couldn’t break down now. Not here. Not in front of him.
‘You are the only man I have ever slept with. That night we spent together was totally out of character for me.’ She pushed down her reasons for acting on the undeniable attraction which had sparked so outrageously to life between them. She’d tried to continue working, but with his hot gaze all but stripping her naked right there in the middle of the party it had been almost impossible.
‘So why did you do it?’
He walked slowly round her and she turned, needing to keep him firmly in her line of vision, and inwardly she cursed the lack of sight in her left eye that she’d been born with. She wanted to tell him to stand still, but she hated people knowing, and thanks to the operation she’d had as a child and the contact lenses she wore there wasn’t any need to explain endlessly any more.
She took a deep breath. Honesty was the best way, and if he wanted to know why she’d gone hand in hand with him to his hotel room she would tell him. ‘It was the first anniversary of my father’s death, and I guess I wasn’t my normal self.’
His penetrating gaze slid down her body and she swallowed down the nerves that were threatening to get the better of her. ‘And is this your normal self?’
‘Yes,’ she snapped, hurt by his scathing tone.
She knew she looked nothing like the woman he’d taken to his hotel room. Not only that, she knew she was far from the self-assured woman who’d carried out her job dressed up to the nines in borrowed clothes and fresh out of the beauty salon. That woman had been so far removed from who she really was it was almost laughable—except Dante Mancini didn’t look the least bit amused.
‘Va bene. That can easily be sorted.’ He reached towards her and pushed her hair back from her face so gently it might almost have been an intimate and loving gesture—almost.
Shocked by the heat of his fingers as they grazed her face, she stepped back. ‘What do you mean, that can easily be sorted?’
‘The woman I met in London exists. She was very real as she smiled at me, enticing me with her beautiful green eyes. She was also very real as I undressed her, kissed her and made love to her.’
She bit down on the urge to tell him that woman had never really existed. That night she’d been someone else, driven by the need for physical contact and the spark of sexual attraction which had exploded as they’d first made eye contact. Since that night she’d lost her job because of her dalliance with a client and discovered that she was pregnant. The woman he remembered would never be able to exist again. Already she’d changed.
‘That may be so, but I have no intention of being that woman again. All I came here to achieve was making you aware of the fact that you are to be a father.’ Inwardly she cursed her impulsiveness at coming to Rome. What had she been thinking? That love and happiness would follow?
‘And now that I am aware we will do things my way.’
He strode back to the windows and stood looking out over Rome as the early winter sunshine danced on the rooftops of a city she’d always longed to visit.
‘We will do no such thing.’ Again she questioned her motives for being here. ‘I want nothing. You can go back to your wild lover-boy existence. Goodbye, Dante.’
She took a deep breath as he squared his shoulders against her verbal attack, then walked briskly to the door of his office. All she wanted was to escape. To run away and hide so she could nurse her wounds and rebuild her damaged dreams of a happy-ever-after. How stupid she’d been to harbour any hope that he would stand by her, take on the role of father. What she’d read in Celebrity Spy! should have been enough to extinguish those hopes long before she’d boarded the plane.
She heard his curse before she saw him as he put himself between her and the door, and she wondered if he’d guessed she couldn’t see him from her left side—or anything else, for that matter. Was he exploiting the weakness she took such great pains to conceal?
‘Let me pass,’ she demanded as anger and disappointment collided inside her, making her voice sharp and fierce.
‘You are not going anywhere. We have things to discuss, things to settle.’
‘Such as?’ She folded her arms beneath the knitted poncho she’d opted for early this morning as she’d left her small flat in London.
* * *
Dante looked at Piper and fought the urge to step back and let her go. He knew she was capable of walking away with something he’d never wanted—a child. But his business mind had worked overtime as she’d spat fury and fire at him. Piper carried his child—the one thing that might now be the answer to all the problems which had erupted since that damn article.
‘My child.’
He couldn’t and wouldn’t think any further about the plan that had formulated in his mind.
‘The one you tried hard to deny could even be yours until I mentioned the paternity test?’
The accusation in her voice cut deep, touching a part of him he hadn’t known existed.
‘You are carrying my child, my heir, and no matter how that has come about I will support you. Of that there is no question.’ Outwardly he was in control...inwardly his past mistakes rushed at him. But he couldn’t turn his back on his flesh and blood. He might have got it wrong in the past, but this was his child. ‘But naturally there will be conditions attached.’
‘I don’t want your grudging support, Dante. I want more than that from you for my child—or nothing at all.’
The indignation in her voice reverberated around the office and her green eyes looked so fierce he actually wanted to kiss her. To feel her lips against his once more and kiss away all that fury, replacing it with the passion he knew only too well existed within her.
‘I don’t care what you say you want. You wouldn’t have come all this way to tell me you are carrying my child if you didn’t want something, Piper.’ He liked the feel of her name on his tongue, but still suspicion niggled at him. ‘Perhaps I was right the first time. Is it money that will buy your silence?’
Her green eyes blazed with fury and anger emanated from her in palpable waves. ‘I want no such thing, and I can see I have made a very big mistake in thinking you would be even remotely interested in our baby.’
She turned and grabbed the door handle, pulling the door open, but his reactions were quick and he pressed his palm against the door, slamming it shut before she’d even opened it wide enough to walk through.
‘You are not going anywhere until this is sorted, mia cara.’ He leant close to her left ear and whispered his warning, surprised when she jumped away, turning to glare once more at him. The threat in his voice had made her look vulnerable, and his proximity made her as nervous as a kitten, but still she pulled herself together and prepared to fight.
‘I am not your mia cara.’ She all but spat the words at him, like a wild cat which had been cornered. ‘And I want nothing from you. Forget you ever saw me.’
How could he forget her when ever since that night in London she’d been in his thoughts? An unnamed lover who’d given him her virginity and a night he would never forget.
Benjamin Carter’s suggestion floated once again on the periphery of his thoughts. Piper’s arrival at his office couldn’t have been more perfectly timed. Her news—unwelcome at any other time—fitted perfectly into his rapidly forming plan. He needed a wife and she carried his child.
‘That will not happen—not when you are carrying my child.’ He held her arms gently, preventing any further attempts to flee. ‘Marriage is the only option.’
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_90b54c6a-22e0-5ad1-9996-5be578d63cfb)
‘MARRIAGE?’ THE WORD spluttered from Piper and she blinked at Dante, acutely aware of his hands holding her and scorching her skin through the layers she wore, setting free memories she’d rather not deal with right at this moment.
‘If you didn’t come here for money then it must be for a ring on your finger.’
The callous tones of his accented voice were splintered with bitterness, shattering any faint and futile hopes that what they’d shared in London might have been the start of something. That his rash proposal was for real.
Who was she trying to fool? She had been nothing more than an amusing diversion from a dull dinner party. And wasn’t that precisely why she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, stealing a last lingering glance at him as he’d slept? She’d hoped to save her job and her reputation by leaving before the hotel had come to life, but even that attempt had been in vain.
‘Have you any idea how arrogant you sound?’
Where had the considerate and charming man she’d left that dinner party with gone? Was this the real Dante, or was he just shocked at the news she’d brought?
The idea of being pregnant after a one-night stand with a man she’d known she’d never see again had been a complete shock to her. So much so that she’d bought all four pregnancy tests in stock at the small pharmacy near her flat in an attempt to convince herself that she’d got it wrong, that their one night of non-committal but passionate sex hadn’t resulted in pregnancy. Each time she’d used a test she’d become more panic-stricken.
‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous it was for you to come here, tell me such news and expect me to stand aside while you leave?’ Anger laced his accented words. ‘You might have left me once, but it will not happen again, mia cara.’
‘But marriage?’ she protested, desperate to make him see how impossible such an idea was. All she’d wanted was for him to know, to be told to his face that he was going to be a father. It would have been what her father would have wanted her to do. ‘We don’t know anything about each other.’
‘I know where you like to be kissed and how very sexy you look when you are naked. I think that is a good enough start, no?’
He smiled a slow, seductive smile and her heart almost stopped beating as she remembered how he had kissed her, how she’d all but begged for more, not wanting him to stop, wanting only to lose herself in the oblivion of the passion he’d showed her.
‘Exactly the kind of answer I’d expect from a man like you.’ Her temper fired and she drew in a deep breath, challenging the charm he seemed so incredibly capable of even in such a situation.
His eyes darkened and his brows furrowed together. ‘A man like me?’ His accented words were filled with suspicion.
‘There must be some truth in that article in Celebrity Spy!’ She faltered as his eyes narrowed and she knew she’d touched a raw nerve. But hadn’t he charmed her, seduced her, all without them even exchanging names?
‘Do you normally believe everything inside such magazines?’
He moved fractionally closer and she resisted the urge to step back, to keep him from invading her space with the power of his masculinity.
‘No, of course not.’ She snapped the words out quickly, and judging from the smile which lingered on his lips he knew he too had hit the target.
‘I would also suggest you change your reading material to something more...how shall I say it?...salubrious.’
Thankfully he stepped away, and she let out a breath she had no idea she’d been holding, but the urge to justify herself was too great. ‘I don’t normally read it. I was flicking through it whilst waiting at an employment agency.’
‘Employment agency?’ He turned his attention back to her instantly, those incredibly sexy eyes full of mistrust.
She bit down hard, inwardly cursing her wayward tongue. The last thing she wanted him to know was that she was no longer employed because of their night together, but she’d walked into a trap of her own making.
‘I no longer have a permanent contract. The dinner party in London was a one-off.’
‘So,’ he said, and there was a hint of triumph in that one word. ‘You are without a job and pregnant?’
She looked at him warily and corrected him quickly. ‘Between jobs.’
‘And will you easily find another job as your pregnancy progresses? I think not, cara.’
The undeniable self-assurance in his voice irritated her more than she cared to admit—because he was right. Hadn’t that been her worry as she’d tossed and turned every night since discovering she was pregnant? Maybe if she was still living in Sydney, where she’d grown up, she’d be able to find a job. But she wasn’t in Sydney. She’d come to her mother’s city of birth, London, and she knew nobody. And, as much as she wanted to return to Australia, she needed to stay with her mother.
‘That is for me to worry about.’ And worrying was just what she would still be doing when she left here. She’d had such a strong bond with her dad that she couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into the world and it not knowing its father. It was her experience of a father-daughter relationship which had convinced her that seeing Dante was the right thing.
She hadn’t told her mother about the baby yet, afraid to disappoint her, afraid she’d use her father’s memory to make her feel guilty. Would he have been disappointed? No, she silently answered herself, but he would have wanted her to do the right thing.
The need to clear her conscience, to tell Dante personally, had fuelled hopes that he would at least acknowledge the child and hopefully want to be part of its life. But marriage? That was something she hadn’t considered. And even if she had that article in Celebrity Spy! would have smothered that dream completely. Dante Mancini was a charmer—a playboy with a ruthless disregard for any kind of commitment.
‘You will not have to worry about work now you are to be my wife. I will provide you with everything you and my child can possibly want—and more.’
He stood with his back to the amazing view of Rome, with the winter sunshine sliding in around him, making reading his expression difficult. But she had no doubt how fierce the darkness of his eyes was.
‘I do not want to marry you.’ She injected attitude into each word, desperate to push home her point.
‘It’s not negotiable, cara. I am in need of a wife and you are carrying my child—which makes you the perfect choice.’
He walked towards her, away from the sunshine which had temporarily concealed his expression, and the determination she saw on his handsome face made her heart sink. She had very little energy left to fight with.
‘In need of a wife?’ She stumbled over the word ‘wife’, hardly able to believe he wanted her to become his wife. How could a self-professed playboy—a man who had the wealth, power and looks to have any woman he wanted—want to marry her?
‘I am in negotiations for a business deal which I can only pull off if I am seen to be a man with family values. I need a wife—a woman I can be seen publicly with, and one who can be discreet. Because that untimely piece in Celebrity Spy! has made those negotiations somewhat difficult. What better way to prove I am a man of family honour than to stand by the woman who is carrying my child?’
‘You make it all sound like a business deal.’
‘That, cara, is precisely what it will be. You came for money and support and you will now get both—providing we are seen out in public as the perfect couple. The world must believe we are madly in love. In return you will have the honour of being the woman who tamed Dante Mancini.’
* * *
Dante looked at her, saw her face pale and watched her eyes close, provoking images of her beneath him as passion had driven her wild and he’d unwittingly claimed her as his. Now she would pay the price of acting the part of a seductress when she’d been nothing more than an innocent virgin. She’d pay the price with two words. I do.
When her eyes opened, seconds later, the spark of annoyance was back within their sea-green depths. With her shy blushes and understated clothes she certainly didn’t look or act like the kind of woman he would date, let alone fall for, but she had on that night in London. He might have scoffed at Benjamin Carter’s suggestion last night of using the discreet agency run by the American matchmaker Elizabeth Young to find him a suitable wife, but now he would definitely call upon the agency’s services. He needed to transform the Australian redhead who carried his child back into the woman he’d met in London.
‘Honour? You overrate yourself, signor. If it is to be a business deal and not a true marriage I will accept—with one condition.’
‘You do not make the conditions.’ This was not something he was used to. Women dictating to him. It was unheard of. He was always in control, always laying down the rules.
‘I will make all the conditions I want.’
Her flippant tone almost pushed him too far, reminding him just how much his head throbbed with alcohol-induced pain.
‘It is obvious that your need of a wife is far greater than my need to tell you that you are going to be a father.’
‘Molto bene. Name your terms.’ Angrily he crossed the room and sat behind his desk, leaning his arms on its clutter-free surface and fixing her with a warning glare.
‘The marriage will be in name only and it will be ended after an agreed time. Once you have duped the world into thinking you are a reformed character and have secured your business deal, I assume.’
She stood in the centre of his office, her long legs snagging his attention, making him think things he had no right to be thinking—especially as he was negotiating a deal with her. A deal that would save his reputation and enrich his business—and claim her as his.
‘Va bene.’ He nodded his agreement. So far she spoke sense. He didn’t want to be married and had never contemplated it. All he needed right now was to change the way the gossips thought of him, prove he could be a family man if he chose to be and ultimately finalise the deal that would put his company at the top of the renewable energies industry. He also needed to calm the fears of their charity and fix any other negative impact of that damning article.
‘And you will play an active part in the child’s life.’
Her words fell into the suddenly large gap which separated them, highlighting how very different they were.
His brows rose. How could he play an active part in the child’s life when he’d been solely responsible for his younger brother’s untimely death? He wasn’t fit to be a brother, let alone a father. He couldn’t commit to giving his son or daughter anything other than material things. His emotions had frozen and shut down the day his father had walked out on them. Alessio’s death was proof of that.
She must have sensed his reluctance because she stepped closer. ‘I want nothing more than that. If you cannot agree then we do not have a deal and I will leave right now.’
He took a deep breath, forcing back the guilt and regret from the past. He had to think of this as just another deal. One like the many he made each year. He couldn’t open the wounds of his past. But as he looked at Piper he suspected it was already too late. She was the key that had turned in the door he’d long ago slammed shut.
He’d never longed for a woman once his desire had been quenched, but Piper had changed that and it was a change he wasn’t happy about. Reluctantly he admitted he would have to accept her terms. If he didn’t marry her and took another wife she’d have an even bigger story to sell and more damage to do. Worse than that, he would be guilty of turning his back on his child, and he’d pay any price not to do that.
‘We have a deal. I will have it drawn up into a contract by tomorrow.’
For a moment she looked lost, as if she’d expected a big battle. Little did she know that was just what it was for him—but it was his battle and he would fight it alone. He didn’t need anyone—least of all a woman who threatened everything he’d turned his back on after the revelations exposed by Alessio’s death.
‘Then, as we have concluded our business, I will go to my hotel.’ She picked up a bag from beside the chair she’d been sitting in when he arrived. If that was all her luggage she really hadn’t intended on staying in Rome long. Long enough to turn my world on its head. If she thought she could just walk away now, she’d got it all wrong.
He sprang from the seat. ‘You are not going anywhere except to my apartment—with me.’
‘That is totally unnecessary,’ she said, and pulled the somewhat battered bag, which bore no resemblance to the designer bags his women usually had, onto her shoulder. She moved towards the door and once again he found himself needing to stop this woman from leaving.
‘We are lovers, are we not?’ He lowered his voice, smiling to see the blush which crept over her face at the way he spoke. ‘And if we are to be believed as such you will not stay in a budget hotel.’
‘How do you know it’s a budget hotel?’
Indignation flared to life in her voice and her eyes and he knew he’d scored a point in this particular battle.
‘I merely assumed.’ He shrugged and looked at her, liking the way her lips pressed together tightly as she fought to hold back her retort. A fight she soon lost.
‘Well, don’t,’ she snapped at him, then lowered her gaze briefly before meeting his once more.
‘This is a business deal—one which will legitimise my child. A child that will be the heir to all I own. You will have every luxury, Piper, and my word that nothing else will happen between us.’
* * *
Piper gulped back the disappointment. Nothing else would happen between them. She should be pleased. It was exactly what she’d asked for, what she’d wanted, but a part of her ached with the pain of it. She wasn’t his type. The article in Celebrity Spy! had left her in no doubt of that. But the passion which had ravaged them that night in London must have meant something.
‘That is all I want,’ she lied, desperate that he wouldn’t detect even a hint of her dismay. She had to remain strong and firm. He couldn’t know she’d often thought of those few hours which had changed her life even before she’d known she was pregnant.
‘Va bene. It is settled. I will escort you to my apartment now—you look tired and in need of rest.’
As he looked at her she could almost believe he was genuinely concerned, but to fall for such an idea would be her undoing and she had to remain strong.
‘I think it would be better if I booked into a hotel.’ Her words faded to a whisper at the black look on his handsome face, which appeared more severe due to the shadow of stubble he was sporting.
‘How can we be seen as lovers, about to become engaged, if you are not living in my apartment and, as far as the world is concerned, sleeping in my bed?’ He shrugged in that nonchalant way which had attracted her the first night she’d seen him. ‘It would not be very convincing, mia cara.’
Piper pushed her fingers through her hair, trying to control the emotions which were running riot inside her. Emotions she knew full well were intensified by her pregnancy. Why did she feel so let down, so disillusioned? He’d offered to stand by her, support her financially, and most importantly to be a part of their child’s life even if he wasn’t a part of hers. So why was she fighting the urge to cry? She had what she’d come for—and more.
She dragged in a sharp breath and looked up at him as he approached from her left side—her blind side—startling her when he touched her gently on her arm, as he had done several times already.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said softly.
Too softly. Her urge to give in to tiredness and tears intensified.
‘Come. You need to rest. You must have left London at an early hour this morning.’
She allowed herself to be guided to the office door, and with his arm lingering around her waist he walked to his secretary’s desk, issuing a flurry of Italian instructions which were met with curious gazes directed at her from the shocked older woman, unsettling her further. Was she so far below the kind of woman he usually dated that even his secretary was shocked?
Everything seemed to take on a glow of unreality as he escorted her out of the offices and to a waiting car. Moments later they were ensconced in the car, moving quickly through the streets of Rome as car horns sounded insistently around them. She wanted to see the sights, but the ride in the car was making her feel unsteady, and all she could do was sit back in the soft leather seats.
On her right, she felt Dante watching her. She could feel the scrutiny of his gaze and almost hear his unspoken questions. Everything about being with Dante again was unlocking all those emotions she’d hidden away as she’d left that hotel in the early hours.
As she got out of the car the tall buildings of the old town towered over her and blocked out the winter sun. She looked up at an impressive building which must have seen many things through history, unable to believe what she’d agreed to.
He took her bag from her. ‘This way. My apartment is on the top floor and offers stunning views of the city from the roof terrace. Have you been in Rome before?’
The light and easy way he spoke was in complete contrast to the way her heart was thumping. What had she done to herself? What had she agreed to? Marriage, be it in name only or not, to a man she barely knew?
‘No. Europe always seemed too far from Australia to think of.’
It had been a trip her mother had wanted to do. She’d tried to convince her father, but he’d never wanted to leave Australia, saying he didn’t need to go so far when he had all he needed at home. As he’d said those words he’d looked at her, and now Piper questioned if her mother’s need to return to England had been the start of their marriage problems.
Dante held the front door open for her and she walked into the cool shade of the old building, trying to leave the memories and questions she’d never have answered outside.
‘Yet you were in London when we met?’
‘I’d only been there for a year. My mother wanted to return to her native country after...’ She floundered for a moment, thinking of the day her father had suddenly died. Exactly one year to the day when she’d met Dante. ‘My father was Australian, my mother British, and after he died she wanted to be with her elderly mother so we left Sydney. Sadly, Grandma passed away a few months ago.’
Dante scrutinised her as he waited for the elevator and she wondered if her true feelings were showing clearly on her face, despite the calm and matter-of-fact way she’d imparted the story of her beloved father’s death.
‘And you were brought up in Sydney?’
She was glad when the elevator doors opened, diverting his attention. She’d never known anything but Sydney. It was not only where she’d grown up, but where she’d been happiest. But all that had changed when her father had been killed in a car accident. The senseless accident had happened not even a year after he’d been told he was in remission from cancer. The injustice of it made her gulp back the tears which threatened.
‘Can’t you tell from the accent?’ She laughed off the pain of those memories, wanting to move the conversation away from her. This wasn’t about her any more. It was about what was best for the baby. Her father had stood by her mother when she’d fallen pregnant and they’d been happy together. But obviously it hadn’t been enough for her mother, because she’d started to make plans to return to London soon after the accident.
‘It’s a nice accent.’ He smiled at her and she wondered if he’d sensed her unease, but his next words obliterated that thought. ‘And very sexy too, when you are consumed by desire.’
‘You should keep such comments for the women you date.’
The words left her before she could stop them, let alone think about what they meant to her. The thought of him dating other women made her heart heavy, but she had to push that aside. Their marriage was to be nothing more than a business deal.
He walked from the elevator, pulling out a key, and turned to look at her as he stopped outside his apartment door. ‘Exclusivity is something I will demand from you if this deal is going to work for us.’
That wouldn’t be a problem as far as she was concerned. Her one spontaneous and totally out of character affair had already caused her more trouble than she’d ever bargained on.
‘I should impose the same on you, but I doubt a man like you can be exclusive to any woman.’
* * *
Dante didn’t miss the crisp tartness in her voice. The subject was something he’d already given thought to on the drive to his apartment. He would have to be faithful to his new fiancée and, given that his body still heated at the memory of hers, it wouldn’t be a challenge. The biggest problem would be to ensure he didn’t repeat what had happened in London. She had made it clear this was to be only a business deal.
If he portrayed himself to the world as a caring and faithful man, in love with the woman who was to be his wife, he would not only clinch the deal he’d almost lost but wipe out the reputation that for years he hadn’t cared about. If he didn’t, the future of The Hope Foundation, the charity he wholeheartedly supported, would hang in the balance.
The three other businessmen who supported the charity were about to do the same. Zayn and Xander had agreed that Benjamin’s suggestion that they settle down was the only way. He’d watched on, uncharacteristically drowning his misgivings in a bottle of whisky, as the ghosts of his past had taunted him that he’d never be able to be responsible for another person without hurting them, forcing them to leave him.
Now he was responsible for a woman who should have been his for just a few hours of mind-blowing sex. Not only that, he was responsible for the child she carried—his child. Could he put himself through that? Could he engage the emotions he’d switched off and risk losing everything again?
‘You will have my full and undivided attention at all times. We are in love, no?’ As he looked down at her that spark of lust, a sexual chemistry too strong to deny, arced between them. He saw her eyes darken, watched her lips part, and his body responded in the only way possible to such a blatant invitation.
‘Nothing can ever happen between us again, Dante.’
Her whisper cracked with desire, and in normal circumstances he would have laughed softly, pulled her against him and kissed her into submission. But these were not normal circumstances. This wasn’t just a meaningless affair that would end as soon as the sun rose the next morning.
‘I have agreed to our terms.’ He unlocked his door and stood back for her to enter, smiling down at her in an attempt to hide the conflicting emotions warring within him. ‘A marriage in name only that will give us both what we want.’
‘More than that, Dante.’
She stood outside, as if crossing the threshold to his home was the last thing she wanted to do. To have her permanently in his life was not what he wanted, but he had his reasons for making this deal. Just as she had hers.
‘It will give our child what it deserves.’
The mention of the baby shocked any response from him and he turned and walked into his apartment—a place he’d never taken a woman before, preferring the anonymity of hotel rooms which he could leave when he was ready.
‘Tomorrow you will sign a contact.’ His irritation at the situation he found himself in sounded in his words—even he could hear that.
Not only was he inviting a woman into his home and his life—permanently—he was giving himself the biggest challenge of all. One he wasn’t sure he could master. He would have to invest himself, his emotions, in a child. How could he do that when the pain of Alessio’s loss, the guilt of his inability to be what someone else needed, still festered in his dormant heart?
‘Until then you will have to trust me when I say that I will be the perfect gentleman, and that you may sleep soundly in my bed.’
‘In your bed?’ The few hesitant steps she’d taken into his domain faltered to a stop.
‘Alone,’ he added.
She really was adamant that they would not be repeating those hot, sultry hours in London. So be it. He didn’t want the added complication of lust becoming more than that.
‘We’ve settled this. As my lover you need to be seen here, at all times of the day and night. What the outside world will never know is that I will sleep there.’
He gestured to the second bedroom, which served as his office. Last night, if one of the other three men had suggested he’d be taking a woman into his life and sleeping in his spare room in order to salvage his reputation and that of his supported charity, he would have laughed.
‘I’m not sure... I’ll find a hotel.’
‘That is not an option any longer, mia cara. You should not have come all this way, imparted such news and then expected me not to put my terms on any arrangement made.’
The late night and early start were finally catching up with him, and all he wanted was to shut the door on the world and relax. But first he had to contact Elizabeth Young and ascertain if her agency offered the services he required. He needed to transform the plain and ordinary woman before him into a fiancée that would bring the gossips to a tongue-tied halt.
‘I can’t take your bed.’
‘Va bene, then I will share it with you if it makes you feel better.’ He stifled a smile at her shock.
‘No,’ she said, and she all but flounced past him into the apartment, her attitude hinting that the woman he’d met in London was still lingering inside her, waiting to be drawn out. If he dared to find her.
‘Then at last we understand one another. I suggest you make yourself at home. I have work to continue with.’
Never had he ever thought he would be inviting a woman into his home, into his life, and telling her to make herself comfortable. The idea was unnerving, but reluctantly he knew it was necessary.
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