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A mouth that invited sin with one word... A mouth he knew how to use every which way...
Sharp cheekbones created planes and grooves, in concert with the high forehead, as if every inch of it had been painstakingly designed and carved to render him breathtaking.
Those features should have been effeminate, too beautiful, yet something in his gaze, in his will, immediately imposed his fierce masculinity on the onlooker, as if the space around him had to become an extension of him.
And the devil was aware of his exquisite beauty, and the effect it had on the female sex, whether they were seventeen or seventy.
It was clear, from even up there, that Luca was sloshed if not drunk and so was the disreputable beauty, who also happened to be the Italian Finance minister’s almost ex-wife, Mariana.
Had she thrown away her powerful husband for Luca? Did she know that Luca would dispose of her like a toddler did last week’s toys?
Sophia could almost, only almost, feel pity for the woman.
The hiss of a curse falling from Antonio’s mouth by her side punctured her obsessively greedy perusal.
Luca, as usual, was creating a ruckus. Heads turned toward him, including Kairos and Valentina. A stiff-lipped Leandro cast a hand on Luca to stop him but his younger brother pushed it away.
Whispers abounded, like the drone of insects.
As indulgent as his family and friends were of his usual escapades, it seemed an open lovers’ spat—for Luca and the lady’s argument was becoming clear now—with another man’s wife was too scandalous for them to overlook.
“This is the man you want me to wed? The man who shamelessly shows off his affair with another man’s wife with no thought to his family or hers? The man who thinks every woman is a challenge to be conquered, a bet to win?” The memory of her own humiliation at his hands was like acid in her throat. “One who tramples hearts like they were little pieces of glass? I wouldn’t touch Luca if he were the last man on earth.”
Antonio turned toward her slowly, as if that small movement cost him a great effort. One look into his eyes and Sophia knew he was going in for the kill. Now she was the deer caught in the wolf’s sights.
“Are you aware, Sophia, that the bank is ready to call Salvatore’s loan in? Or that he has no way to meet the next production per schedule?”
Her heart sank to her toes. “That’s not true. He applied for an extension—”
“And was denied.”
Sunken eyes peered at her with a cunning that sent chills down her spine. He’d done this, she knew.
Oh, Salvatore had paved the way to their financial ruin with his own faulty decisions but this latest setback—the bank’s refusal for an extension—was Antonio’s doing.
Apparently, Antonio was just as desperate as she was. “Even if I were to agree to your outrageous proposal—” her entire life tied to that reckless playboy who had made her so weak once “—how do you think I can accomplish this? Even I, desperate that I am, can’t drag a man to the altar. And definitely not the Conti Devil, who cares for nothing except his own pursuits.”
Drunk as he was, Luca had somehow managed to steer the clinging woman away from the crowd. But her husky laughter and frantic begging in Italian could be heard from where they were standing, behind and beneath the balcony.
Heat tightened Sophia’s cheeks as she understood the gist of the woman’s phrases in Italian. Instead of distaste and fury, she felt pity.
The woman was in love with Luca.
Antonio dragged his gaze away from Luca, his mouth a tight line. His frail body seemed to vibrate with distaste, rage and, Sophia sensed with mounting shock, grief. Antonio Conti was grief-stricken over his grandson Luca. Why?
The image of the manipulative old man shifted in her mind, even as he took a deep breath, as if to push away the emotion. “No, my grandson cares for nothing in this world. His parents are long dead and Leandro, too, has washed his hands of Luca now.
“But to protect Valentina and her happiness, Luca will do anything. He will make a bargain with anyone to keep her birth a secret from the world.”
Sophia gasped, unable to believe what she was hearing. “Her birth? This is not right. I want no part of it—”
“Valentina is not my son’s daughter. She is the product of an affair their mother had with her driver. And if this comes out, it will ruin Valentina’s standing in society and even her marriage to your friend Kairos.
“So use it to bind Luca to you. He will bend for Valentina’s happiness.”
No words came to her as Sophia stared at Antonio.
The idea of blackmailing the Conti Devil didn’t bother her so much as using Valentina’s secret. Dear God, she didn’t want to hurt anyone.
An acidic taste lingered in her mouth. “There are too many innocent people involved in this. I won’t hurt one of them just because—”
“Just because Salvatore might lose the company? Just because your mother and brothers might have to leave their estate, give up their cars, their place in this society? And what will you do, Sophia? Take up the project manager job your Greek friend offers you to support them? Quietly stand by as Salvatore watches chunks of his company broken down and auctioned off?”
“Why me? Why can’t you find a willing woman and force him to marry her? Why—”
“Because you’re tough and you do what needs to be done. You don’t have silly ideas of love in your head. Only you will do for the Conti Devil.”
* * *
Only you...
Antonio Conti’s words reverberated through Sophia.
Oh, how she wished she’d not come tonight... Now she had a possible way to dig their finances out of the ruin but it would only be achieved by selling her soul to the devil...
She wasn’t considering it, Sophia told herself, as she walked through the unending corridor of Villa de Conti. The black-and-white-checkered floor gave the mounting nausea within a physical bent.
Surely Antonio deluded himself that his devil-may-care, womanizing grandson could care about his sister. But she had to try. She had to see if there was a chance of salvaging their finances, if there was even a small sliver of hope that her mother, Salvatore and the twins wouldn’t be driven to the road.
She reached a wide, circular veranda at the back of the villa.
Jacket discarded, shirt open to reveal a dark olive chest, cuffs folded back, Luca stood leaning against the wall. A foot propped up against it, eyes closed, face turned to the sky. The curving shadows his long eyelashes cast on his cheekbones were like scythes.
Scythes and blades. Her usually nonviolent thoughts revolved around weapons when it came to Luca.
Moonlight caressed the planes of his face, shadows diluting the magnificent symmetry of his features. Rendering him a little less gorgeous.
A little less captivating.
A little less devilish.
Almost vulnerable and...strangely lonely.
Slowly, Sophia became aware of her own reaction. Damp palms. Skittering heartbeat. Pit in her stomach. Even after a decade, her body went into some kind of meltdown mode near him.
She must have made a sound because his eyes opened slowly. Only his eyes were visible in the silvery light. They fell on her, widened for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, searched her face and then assumed that laid-back, casual, infuriatingly annoying expression that she hated.
“Sophia Rossi, of steel balls and tough skin and icy heart.” Whatever alcohol he’d imbibed, his speech didn’t slur. Mocking and precise, it arrowed past her defenses. “Did you lose your way, cara?”
His sultry voice thickened the air around them so much that Sophia wondered if she could breathe through it. “Stop calling me...” No, that was way too personal. If she was going to do this, Sophia had to enclose herself in steel, lock away even the slightest vulnerability she had, not that she had any. She’d do this for her family, but she wasn’t going to be the Conti Devil’s amusement. Not this time.
He pushed himself from the wall while she formed and disposed words. When she looked up again, he’d moved close enough for her to smell the crisply masculine scent of him. The light from the hall caressed his features.
Breath was lost. Nerves fluttered. A sigh built and ballooned inside her chest. That small scar under his chin. The sweeping arch of his eyebrows. The razor-sharp lines of his cheekbones. Darkly angelic features that masked a cruel devil.
Jet-black eyes glinted with sardonic amusement at her mute appraisal. He propped a bent hand on the wall she was leaning against, sticking his other hip out. A pose full of grace and languor. Of feigned interest and wretched playfulness. “Tell me, how did you end up in the farthest reaches of the house, away from all the wheelings and dealings of your business friends? Did Little Bo Peep lose track of her sheep and wander into big bad wolf’s way?”
Sophia tried to command every cell in her body to keep it together, wrenched herself into a tight ball so that all that touched her was the man’s whispery breath. “You’re getting your fairy tales mixed up.”
“But my point got through to you, si?” He ran the heel of his hand over his tired-looking eyes while Sophia stared hungrily, cataloging every gesture, every shift. “What do you want, Sophia?”
“Your...situation looked like it needed rescuing.”
The slight tug of his mouth transformed into that full-blown grin that always seemed to be waiting for an invite. Evenly set teeth gleamed in an altogether wicked face. “Ahh...and so Sophia Rossi, the righteous and the pure, decided to come to my aid.”
“Where is your lover? I can have one of our chauffeurs drive her home.”
His gaze held hers, a thousand whispers in it. “She’s in my bed, thoroughly lost to the world.” It dipped to her mouth. Snaky tendrils of heat erupted over her skin. “I believe I wore her out.”
Nausea hit Sophia with the force of a gardening hose, the images of a sweaty and ravished Mariana burning her retinas as if she could see the leggy blonde amidst a cloud of soft, white sheets.
Luca’s bedroom—pure white sheets, gleaming black marble, black-and-white portraits all around... It was like being transported into your worst nightmare and your darkest fantasy, all rolled into one. While being naked and blindfolded and without any defense.
She let all the disgust she felt seep to the surface and stepped back.
“Don’t you think this is too far even for you? They are not even divorced yet. And you’re advertising it for all and sundry to see.”
“But that’s the fun, si? Tangling with the dangerous? Riling up her husband into one of his awful tempers?”
“And then you walk away?” Like you did from me. “Her life will be in ruins in terms of the society, while you latch on to the next willing v—”
His mouth curved into a snarl and his hand covered her mouth. Opal fire burned in his eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself, cara? That you were a victim all those years ago? Have you convinced yourself that I forced you?”
She pushed away his hand and glared at him, all the while pretending that her lips still didn’t tingle from the heat of his touch. That she didn’t burn at the memory... “I didn’t mean that you take them without their... Damn it, Luca, you and I both know he will ruin her over this.”
“Maybe ruin is exactly what Mariana wants. Maybe to be utterly debauched by me is her only salvation.” The words were silky, casual, and yet...for the first time in her life, Sophia saw more than the hauntingly beautiful face, the wicked grin, even the seductive charm. “You would not understand her, Sophia.”
“I just don’t think—”
Sophia watched that lazy face swallow away that fury, saw the emotion blank out of his eyes as easily as if someone had taken an eraser and wiped it away. “I don’t give a damn about your opinions, so, per carita, stop expressing them.” He bent toward her, diminutive as she was to his own lean six-two. “What is it that suddenly interests you about me, Sophia? Have you finally decided you need another orgasm to sustain you for the next decade?”
Flames scorched her skin; that was how hot she felt. Yes floated to her lips, as if every cell in her had conspired to form that word without her permission.
This was easy for him, too easy—riling her up, sinking under her skin. Even knowing what he was, still she reacted like a moth venturing to a flame. “Not everything has to have a sexual connotation in life.”
“Says the woman who needs to be utterly and thoroughly—”
This time her hand clamped his mouth. Sophia glared at him. His breath kissed her sensitive palm.
Long, elegant fingers traced the tender skin of her wrists, leaving brands on her sensitive flesh. Slowly, as if savoring every second of touching her, he pulled her hand. “What did you think I was going to say, Sophia?”
She pursed her mouth and took a deep breath. “I have a proposal I’d like to make to you, one that is mutually beneficial.”
“There is nothing that you can offer me—” his gaze flicked over her, dismissal and insult in that look “—that I won’t get from another woman, Sophia.”
“You haven’t even heard it.”
“Not interested—”
“I want to marry you.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e76b1e57-0645-5282-9cfb-0d9a558c6833)
NOT “WILL YOU marry me, Luca?”
Not “I think it makes sense for me to marry you now even though I’ve hated you for a decade and chose your brother over you just a few months ago.”
Not “I need you to save my stepfather from sure financial ruin, so, please, oh, please, won’t you make me your wife?”
No, Sophia Rossi proposed marriage as she did everything else.
Like a charging bull and with the confidence that she could bend, twist or generally command him into doing her bidding. Probably with an adoring smile on his face, and the marble digging into his knees if she could manage it.
Dio, where did the woman’s strength come from?
Luca Conti swallowed his astonishment. Her loyalty in considering this for her family’s sake, when he knew how much she hated him—and with good reason—was admirable. He ignored the thudding slam of his heart against his rib cage—she was a weakness and a regret he’d never quite forgotten—and gave free rein to the riding emotion.
Amusement. Sheer hilarity.
It burst out of him like an engulfing wave of the ocean, like a rising crescendo of music, punching the air out of his throat with its force. There was a knot in his gut. Hand shaking, he wiped his wet cheeks.
What merciful God had granted him this wonderful moment?
For reasons all too Freudian, Luca hated his birthday. Loathed, despised with the hatred of a thousand exploding supernovas. But his self-loathing, as brightly as it flared from time to time, to his brother Leandro’s eternal gratitude, had never overtaken his respect for life.
Over the years he had become better at handling his birthday. There was even a memorable threesome sprinkled through a couple of them. But not one of those miserable thirty birthdays had presented him with a gift like this one.
Just months ago Sophia had chosen Leandro over him to marry.
To see the one woman he had given up years ago—granted, after thoroughly breaking her heart—as his brother’s wife every day would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In other words, destination Hell on a direct flight.
He would have had to let the engagement go forward. The wedding itself, probably not.
He’d have seduced her, for sure. He’d have had to do it before the wedding, he remembered telling himself in a drunken haze. Luckily, his—now—sister-in-law Alex had shown up, turned Leandro’s life inside out and spun Luca away from that necessary but destructive course.
And here Sophia was now...proposing marriage to him this time. The woman had balls. He loved her for that if nothing else. “I believe this is the best birthday present I’ve ever received, bella. How the mighty fall. Wait till I—”
He heard the outraged snarl before a filthy word fell from her stiff-lined mouth, and it was like a violin had joined the piano in his head. “If you tell anyone, I’ll cut off—”
