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“That is too ruthless even for him. Not forgetting the obvious flaw in the plan that I, of all women, could have your ba—” She gasped; it was like there was her own personal furnace inside her, and the rogue grinned as she cleared her throat. “Could have you under my control, in any manner.”
“I could never marry a woman who lacks in feminine wiles.”
She gritted her teeth. He had to pick the most uncomfortable aspect of that. “Another fantastic reason for why it’s a crazy idea.”
He gave her a considering look. “If you have such faith in that bastard Kairos, then why not accept his help?”
“Luca, what is your problem with Kairos?”
“He’s too hungry for power. Which means he’ll do anything in his hunt for it.”
“Yes, how infinitely atrocious that Kairos is so ambitious when he could be chasing woman after woman in eternal pursuit of pleasure.”
“Why isn’t he helping you with Rossi’s?”
“He offered but I don’t like his solution. Everyone, including Kairos, has an agenda for Rossi Leather without considering what’s actually best for the company or my family. And the problems we have aren’t going to be solved by a simple influx of cash. Salvatore will bring us back here into this same situation in a year again. No one can help us.”
Not even Antonio.
The minute she didn’t toe the line—which would probably include some impossible task like domesticating the devil in front of her—Antonio would tighten the screws on her. Threaten their company or withdraw his support.
“The only way to ensure we don’t fall into this hole again,” she said, with a mounting sense of defeat, “is if I take the reins myself.”
“You think Leandro would have recognized how smart and efficient you are and given you the reins. That’s why you were so eager to marry him.”
“He always struck me as a fair, principled man.”
Her unshakeable trust, the admiration in Leandro’s implacable nature, rubbed Luca raw.
He had never bemoaned the fact that only he, and not Leandro, had inherited every despicable thing from their father—his good looks, his brilliance and maybe his madness. But in that moment he envied his brother the freedom to be his own man, the right to his own mind that made Sophia admire him so much.
“You would have married him, shared his bed?” Fury threaded his tone, which shocked her as much as him. “After the history we have?”
Color mounted her cheeks. “Rossi’s needs a complete rehaul, five years to build it to a stable position again. Leandro would have given me that chance.”
Her stepfather’s damned company... It always came back to that. “I’ve no doubt that you will do it in three. You’ll make Rossi’s better than it has ever been.”
Shock rooted Sophia to the floor, a faint whooshing in her ears making her dizzy. She ran a shaking hand over her brow. “What?”
“Dio, you sang this same song even a decade ago. You went into raptures, non, you almost climaxed with anticipation every time you talked about your plans for your Rossi Leather. Extension, branching away from leather production completely, focusing on accessory design... Just do it already, Sophia.”
He stared at her, brows raised in question while Sophia processed those words slowly. Dear God, he remembered all of her naive, hopeful, detailed plans for Rossi’s.
Heat pricked her eyes. Her head hurt as if under some great liquid weight; even her nose felt thick. Or rough. Or something very close to tears.
Did he know what a gift he gave her?
He didn’t give the compliment grudgingly like Kairos, who recognized talent and hunted it with a ruthless will. He didn’t give the compliment insidiously, as if her intellect and smart business sense were odd, distorting it into some sort of stain on her femininity. As if somehow they minimized her as a woman.
He didn’t give it to placate her, like her mother. Even her mother, she knew, wished Sophia was different. Wished Sophia made it easy on herself; wished Sophia didn’t feel like she had to prove herself in a man’s world.
Wished Sophia wasn’t still fighting, even after all these years.
No, Luca stated it as a matter of fact. With the same tone as if to say: people need oxygen to live.
Given the chance, Sophia Rossi could make Rossi’s better than it has ever been before.
Simply that.
Just that.
Joy bloomed from her chest, spreading like warm honey through every cell, stretching her mouth into a wide smile.
He came to stand before her, and for once, Sophia couldn’t step back. It seemed as if he had thoroughly bypassed all her defense mechanisms. “Sophia?”
“Hmmm?”
“You have a blank look in your eyes, and I’m not sure you’ve breathed in the last ten seconds. Also...you’re smiling at me like I’m your favorite person in the world. Dio, you’re not dying, are you?” He tilted her chin up, raked her face over with that searing gaze. “Now that I think about it, you look like you’ve lost weight and there are dark shadows under your eyes.”
Her hands drifted to her hips and his gaze followed it eagerly. She pulled them up as if burned. The scent of him stroked over her senses. Just a little dip at her waist and her breasts would graze his chest. Her legs would tangle with his. And then she could—
“This is not some pathetic, last-minute attempt to have some good sex before you die, is it?” Something glittered in his gaze as he gently ran a finger over her cheek. “Because, cara mia, we don’t have to marry for that. All you have to do is ask and I will gladly show you how fun it is on this side.”
When was the last time she’d had fun? “I’m not dying.”
“As much as that would solve a lot of problems for me, that is good to know. Now, I will give you three months of marriage.”
Sophia couldn’t believe he was agreeing to a proposal she’d made in sheer desperation. He seemed to decide as easily as he’d decide which party to go to. Or which woman to take home on a given night. Worse, she couldn’t believe the way every cell in her leaped at the chance to be near him. Three months as his wife... Lord, it was both her salvation and utter ruin. “Why are you helping?”
“One, I want to throw a small hitch in my brother-in-law’s plans. Two, I hate working, as you neatly pointed out.”
Her heart sank to the floor. “You’re doing this to drive a wedge between Kairos and me? I told you I’m not sleeping with him.”
“A little distance wouldn’t hurt, then. Especially if it is provided by me. Leandro has washed his hands of me. I’ll have to claim my seat on the board. And like you said, who better than my own wife to watch out for my interests and work in my stead? We both get what we want.”
“What is it that you’re promising exactly?”
“You can’t turn Rossi’s around in three months but it’s a start in digging it out of that hole, si?” He tucked an errant curl behind her cheek, a wicked smile on his mouth. “I want to give you what you want, Sophia. And a couple of things you are too stubborn to ask for.”
Her cheeks heated up. If it beat any faster, her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Her gaze lowered to his mouth, cinders lighting up her blood. Don’t. Ask. Don’t—“Your arrogance in yourself is breathtaking.”
“Arrogance, bella mia? I state fact. You know where you’re going to end up.”
Memories and sensations rushed through her—rough breaths, the slide of hot, damp skin like velvet over hers, pain giving way to incredible pleasure...every other sense amplified in the darkness that she’d insisted on...
Heat poured through her, like lava spewing out. Her skin felt tight, parched, her pulse ringing through her. “No... I don’t want to sleep with you ever again.”
“Who mentioned anything about sleep? Just don’t fall in love with me,” he added with a grin.
“I’m not a naive idiot anymore,” Sophia replied, confident that she’d avoid that trap.
Luca was irresistible but she was walking into this with her eyes wide open.
Love wasn’t for her; he’d helped her see that firsthand. She’d hated the loss of control over her own happiness, over her mood, over her sense of self-worth. In a moment Luca had stripped her of everything.
She despised the hollow feeling it had left in her gut. The haunting ache that she lacked something. She never wanted to be that vulnerable ever again.
He reached the door, turned the handle and looked back at her. “Do you have protection?”
He couldn’t mean what she thought he did. No way. “Like a bodyguard?”
He grinned and Sophia wanted to wipe that grin off his pretty face with her bare hands. “No, like a contraceptive.”
“That’s none of your...” He moved so fast and so smoothly that Sophia blinked. The heat from his body was a tantalizing caress on her skin, beckoning her closer. She answered only to stop him from coming closer. “Yes, fine. I’m on the pill. Not that it’s relevant to you.”
He pushed a tendril of hair away from her temple. That stubborn lock that never stayed back. “Good.” His warm breath raised the little hairs on her neck.
Knowing that he was saying it to shock her didn’t stop a pulse of throbbing need between her legs. It took every ounce of her energy not to press her thighs close. She needed something distasteful, something to snap herself out of that sensual web he weaved... “You... I... You’ve had numerous lovers. I won’t just—”
The glittering hunger in his eyes told her she’d already betrayed herself by talking as though she was considering it. Damn! “I’m clean.”
Like a dream, feverish and hot and full of some elusive subtext, he left.
Sophia stared at the door for a long time, her knees shaking. Covering her face with her hands, she sank back against the desk.
Luca Conti was going to marry her. Of all the men in the world, that unpredictable, recklessly indulgent playboy was giving her the chance no one else would. It was going to tangle up everything with everyone horribly. Three months of her life would change the course of the rest of her life. Even after his reckless cruelty ten years ago, she was still affected by him.
But Sophia could only obsess over one thing.
That, for three months, she could kiss him all she wanted.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_1dd496cc-681c-510f-ab8e-e420002fb39f)
LUCA HAD KNOWN rejection from his mother when he’d been seven. He’d suffered debilitating headaches, insomnia and worse before he hit puberty.
The first time he’d had sex, he had been seventeen, with a woman a decade older. He hadn’t really wanted the sex; he’d wanted to be held by the woman, to be less lonely for one night. Messed up as he’d been, he’d still realized what he’d done.
He’d whored himself—his looks, his charm, his body, for a bit of affection.
One didn’t need a degree in psychiatry to realize that.
When Leandro had finally discovered him—his brother had always come after him no matter the time of the day, no matter how devious Luca tried to be—sitting on the floor of the hotel room with his head in his hands, and looked at him with nothing but understanding and patience and that all-consuming love that his brother used to justify arranging his siblings’ lives, Luca had thrown up all over the floor. And promised himself never again.
Never again would he sink that low.
Never again would he succumb to that cavernous craving within.
Never again would he be without control.
For the most part, he was sure he’d succeeded.
Instead of fighting the sudden bouts of insomnia and crazy energy, he poured himself into everything and anything he could get his hands on. He studied like a madman, inhaling and conquering every subject he touched. He’d become a human sponge.
Leandro would sigh and smile when Luca said he wanted to try something new.
Arts and history. Mathematics and astronomy. He’d dabbled in all of them, but moved on, nothing calming the restlessness within. Only music—the relentless, endless chords churning in his head released onto paper, played until he achieved every single note—could soothe it.
It was both his release and his curse. He’d fashioned a wooden doll for Tina after she’d come to live with them, and realized he loved creating things, designing things, too. So he’d started working with Lin Huang, the creative head of Conti Luxury Goods’ design department.
Through the years he’d achieved a kind of balance, a normal—for him. He wrote music for hours on end when in that grip, worked at CLG and other projects of his own, surviving on an hour or more of sleep for days. Then he had those carefree days where he got drunk, partied, took endless women to his bed. And had uproarious fun at the expense of others.
Fortunately for him, he’d discovered he liked sex, just for itself. That he could enjoy it without whoring himself for something else. He’d slipped up only once from the happy path he was forging for himself.
Ten years ago, with Sophia. She’d been the first real thing in his life and he had let himself be carried away.
Sophia was the only one who’d ever made him forget himself, who had shredded his control so effortlessly.
For all his reputation as a self-indulgent playboy, control was tantamount to his peace of mind. It was something Leandro and he had rigorously worked on in those initial months after their mother had left. He’d spent hours on the mat mastering several martial arts disciplines.
He had an example from his father’s life. He knew that like everything else he’d inherited from him, he could carry a speck of that madness—that devious, manipulative, cruel streak, too.
Control was everything to him.
Stepping out of the shower, Luca walked to the mirror and rubbed it to clear the steam. Hands on the marble sink, he stared at himself.
He looked past the compelling perfection of his features—a face he’d hated for so long—past the now bone-deep mask he showed the world. He had never lied to himself. Self-delusion would have been a welcome friend in all those miserable years.
He was doing this because of Sophia.
He was doing this because he wanted these three months with her.
He wanted to be near her, inside her. He wanted to unravel all the fiery passion she kept locked away.
He wanted to free her from the cage she put herself in; a cage, he was sure, he’d driven her into building.
But this time Sophia knew the score, knew what he was incapable of. She wasn’t an innocent who mistook attraction, pure lust for anything else. This was not a marriage like his parents’.
Sophia wasn’t some innocent, painfully naive young girl Antonio had handpicked like some sacrificial offering to his father’s madness, to further the Conti legacy like his mother had been.
Sophia would never let herself be intimidated or drowned in Luca’s personality.
The panic in him calming, Luca breathed out. Excitement filled his veins now.
For the first and only time in his life, the self-indulgent, profligate playboy he’d made himself to be was going to take what he truly wanted. And revel in it.
That he would set Sophia up for the rest of her life and do his part to protect Tina’s marriage, that was the bonus.
* * *
