Buch lesen: «The Italian's Marriage Bargain»

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS beautiful.

Opening her eyes, trying to orientate herself to her surroundings, Felicity knew there should have been a million and one questions buzzing in her mind. Her hazel eyes slowly worked the room, searching for a landmark, a clue as to what exactly she was doing in this elegantly furnished room, in this vast bed and—perhaps more pointedly, as one heavy arm draped more tightly around her—the question should be begged, what on earth was she doing lying in Luca Santanno’s arms?

Santanno.

Just thinking that name sent an icy shiver down her spine, a fierce surge of hatred for a man she’d never even met, a man who with one stroke of his expensive pen had changed her family’s lives for ever.

But for an indulgent moment before sanity prevailed, before questions demanded answers and the inevitable world rushed in, Felicity gazed across the pillow at her bedfellow, allowing herself a stolen moment of appreciation, a decadent glimpse of a man so exquisitely featured, so picture-perfect it was hard to believe that someone so beautiful could cause so much pain.

Beautiful.

From the jet hair that fanned his chiselled face, the long lashes on full, heavy-lidded eyes, to the wide, sensual mouth, a splash of colour amidst the dark shadow of early-morning growth that dusted his strong, angular jaw, every part of him was exquisite.

An involuntary sigh so small it was barely there escaped Felicity’s lips as her eyes worked the length of him. He was tall. His olive-skinned feet, that should be encased in smart Italian shoes to match the dark suit trousers he wore, hung precariously close to the bottom of the bed, and his legs seemed to go on for ever. Felicity’s gaze avoided the bit in the middle and moved straight to the white cotton shirt he was wearing.

The dark mascara smudge marring the crisp cotton spoke for itself—she’d been crying.

Worse than that, she’d been crying in Luca’s arms.

The realisation truly appalled her. She never cried—never! Never lowered her guard like that. Raking her mind she tried to think of one exception, but none was forthcoming. Even when Joseph had died she’d kept a lid on her grief, refusing to go down that awful path, refusing to let out her pain. Her mind reeled in horror and she mentally fought to slam the window closed, to stop the images not only of last night but of the last few years from flying in, to return to the safe haven she had found, lying in the semi darkness with only beauty on her mind.

But images were starting to flood in—snapshots she didn’t want to see, pictures she would rather forget—and the pleasant awakening she had relished for such a brief moment was starting to disperse as cruel reality broke through.

‘Good morning.’ Even before he spoke Felicity knew his voice—heavily accented, the slow measured cadence making those two simple words strangely erotic. Dragging her attention upwards, she found herself staring directly into the bluest eyes she had ever seen, and she felt the heat of a blush spreading from her chest, up over her neck to her cheeks. She wished she had used those hazy moments earlier to fashion a response to the inevitable questions that would follow.

‘Good morning.’ Not the wittiest of answers, Felicity realised, and nowhere near as sexy with her mild Australian accent, but it was all the fog where her brain had once been could come up with. He was pulling his arm free from under her, stretching out lazily on the bed, not even bothering to smother a yawn that showed a long pink tongue and very white teeth, as relaxed and at ease with himself as if he woke up with strange women in his bed each and every morning.

He probably did, Felicity thought as those blue eyes landed on her again. With looks like that and… She glanced around the room again, just in case her eyes had been playing tricks, but they hadn’t; the heavy mahogany furnishings, the crystalware, the vast golden drapes all reeked of wealth and confirmed the fact that the man who lay beside her could have any woman he wanted—any woman at all.

And for a shameful, terrifying moment Felicity realised she didn’t even know if she’d already been added to what was undoubtedly a long list.

‘I expect you would like some coffee?’ He didn’t wait for her response, just picked up the telephone, reciting in Italian what seemed an inordinately complicated order for a simple coffee. Only then did it dawn on Felicity that they were actually in a hotel.

And not just any hotel, if she remembered rightly. She was staying at one of Luca Santanno’s luxury hotels.

The question was though, which one?

‘We are still in Australia, I assume?’ she asked as he hung up the telephone. ‘This isn’t the nightmare of the century and I’ve woken up in Italy?’

He laughed, actually laughed, and to Felicity’s surprise she found herself actually smiling back at him, strangely pleased at the response to her vague attempt at humour. ‘Yes, Felice, we are still in Australia. Your mystery tour stops here. I spoke in Italian then because Rico, who I was just talking to, is from my home town in Moserallo. There are a lot of Italians on my staff.’

‘To remind you of home?’

He laughed again. ‘No, my family has a lot of friends and a lot of…’ She waited as he paused, and the words that came out made Felicity smile even more. ‘…a lot of wild cats and dogs backpacking around the world, who all decide to look up Luca for a job.’

At least she was in the right country, but the room she and Matthew had was small—not that it had seemed so at the time, but compared to this…

Matthew!

With a whimper of horror Felicity pulled the counterpane tighter around her, waves of panic threatening to drown her as she began to realise the true horror of her situation.

‘I asked for some iced water also,’ Luca said, apparently oblivious to her sudden distress. ‘I expect you are thirsty.’

That was the understatement of the millennium. Her mouth felt as if someone had emptied a vacuum bag inside it, but even that was small fry compared to the heavy throbbing in her head the small movement had caused.

‘Thank you.’ Felicity sat up gingerly, pulling the heavy counterpane up and around her, acutely aware that all she was dressed in was some very small panties and a rather sheer bra. ‘Thank you,’ Felicity said again, clearing her throat with a small cough and wishing her mind would work, throw her some clue, some tiny snippet as to what on earth she was doing here.

‘Are you all right?’ He sounded concerned, his forehead furrowing as he looked at her closely. The colour drained away from her flushed round face as she sat up, blonde hair starting to escape from the French coil that had held it last night, petite hands moving up to her temples, which she massaged slowly, screwing her eyelids closed tightly.

‘Actually, no,’ Felicity said, taking a very deep breath and then exhaling out through her full lips, wishing the wretched room would stop moving for a moment so she could gather her thoughts. ‘In fact I don’t feel very well at all.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’ The concern had gone from his voice, the sliver of sympathy she could have sworn she’d heard retracted so sharply Felicity opened her eyes abruptly.

‘Look, I’m so sorry—’ Felicity started, her mind racing, words spilling out of her mouth. ‘I really don’t know what’s happened. I’m staying here with…’ she hesitated, unsure what title to give Matthew ‘…my boyfriend; we were at the award ceremony…’

He was staring at her, one quizzical eyebrow raised, as she struggled to make an excuse and work out how the hell she could get out of here with even a shred of dignity, how she could get back to her and Matthew’s room and, more importantly, what possible excuse she could come up with to stop Matthew finding out where she had been…

‘I think I must have food poisoning, or the flu or something. I must have made a mistake and wandered into the wrong room…’ Her voice trailed off as his other eyebrow joined its partner in his hairline, and somewhere at about that point Felicity admitted defeat.

‘I’ve got a hangover, haven’t I?’ she mumbled, completely unable to meet his eyes, pleating the counterpane with her fingers.

‘I would suggest so.’ He gave a very small nod and she was positive, as his lip twitched slightly, that he was laughing at her, enjoying her utter humiliation. Felicity decided she had had enough. Coiling the counterpane tightly around her, ignoring the million hammers pounding in her head, she stood up. There was no point wasting her time with excuses. Whatever had happened, whatever awful mess she had got into last night, sitting here watching him enjoying her utter misery wasn’t going to solve anything.

‘I have to go.’ How Felicity wished she was one of those sophisticated women she had seen in the movies. How she wished she could manage a mystical smile and sashay off as she blew a kiss. But waking up in a strange man’s bedroom—in any man’s bedroom, come to that—was uncharted territory for her, and her usually confident demeanour, the slight air of aloofness she generally portrayed, didn’t seem to be surfacing this morning.

Tears were threatening now, but Felicity blinked them away. Whatever had possessed her to weep in Luca’s arms last night certainly wasn’t about to be repeated—and, sniffing none too graciously, she cast her eyes around the room in an attempt to find her clothes.

Skimming the room, she located her shoes and bag and hobbled over. The counterpane—wrapped way too tightly to merit a graceful manoeuvre but Felicity was past caring. She had to get back to Matthew, had to hope to that he was somehow as hungover as her and miraculously would not notice her creeping in at the crack of dawn.

‘If you’re looking for your dress, Housekeeping will bring it up shortly.’

It was all too much. With a small sob of frustration Felicity lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, resting her head in her hands. Her carefully pinned hair finally collapsed under the strain and unravelled in a blonde curtain around her shoulders tumbling across her face, and for a moment she took refuge under the golden curtain. For a second or two she welcomed its temporary veil as she tried to fathom how she, Felicity Conlon, meticulously organised, completely in control, could have made such an utter mess of things.

Last night had been planned down to the minutest detail. She had attacked it in the same careful way she tackled any job that needed to be done—determinedly pushing emotion aside, looking at every angle, checking and rechecking details until she was sure she had every possible scenario covered.

Last night had been business.

‘I didn’t just wander in here, did I?’ Felicity mumbled, undignified memories not just trickling now, but gushing in with horrible precision. ‘You carried me.’

‘I did.’

‘You were going to sleep on the sofa,’ Felicity ventured. ‘I didn’t want to go downstairs—’

‘To be with your boyfriend,’ Luca broke in, his lips curling somewhat around the word. ‘Right again. So I agreed you could stay here, in my bed, and said that I would sleep on the sofa.’

That much made sense. She’d got the four corners of last night’s jigsaw now, and was working on the bottom line, but the rest of it still lay in a higgledy piggledy pile in her cluttered mind.

‘So why did I…?’ He registered her nervous swallow, the dusting of pink on her far too pale cheeks and fought back a smile. ‘Why did I wake up in your arms? Why weren’t you on the sofa?’

‘You asked me to share the bed.’ Luca’s voice was slow and measured, every word a scorching indignity as she screwed her eyes more tightly closed. ‘I refused at first. Naturally I was concerned, given your…’ a small cough, another sting of shame ‘…given your inebriated state and your lack of attire.’

‘But you came over anyway.’ Her attempt to discredit him, to exert some control over this hopeless situation, was quickly and skilfully rebuffed.

‘You were insistent,’ he countered. ‘Most insistent.’

‘Oh.’

‘In fact you became quite hysterical. Rather than slapping you on the cheek, I lay down with you.’

‘Oh.’ He was speaking the truth. Ever if she’d doubted him for a moment, his words had set off a fresh cascade of memories. Luca begging her to be quiet; Luca pouring her water, standing like a protective parent and insisting she drank it; Luca pulling tissues out of a box, wiping away black mascara-laced tears… But through the murky depths of her despair a rather more disturbing image was taking shape. Luca taking her in his arms, holding her not gently, not tenderly, but firmly, clamping his arms around her, that beautiful methodical voice talking over her tears, on and on until…

Felicity took a shaky breath. She could almost feel the hand that had soothed her last night there on the back of her neck, working in small, ever-decreasing circles, massaging away the tension, the pain, working its way along her shoulders, soothing her as one might a child coming out of a nightmare.

But there had been nothing childlike about the response it had triggered, nothing innocent in the way her body had responded to the mastery of his touch. And, sitting there, dejected, embarrassed and utterly, utterly humiliated, Felicity knew there was one final question that really needed to be asked—one awful answer to complete her despair, one more nail to bang into the coffin before she made her way back to her own room and attempted to salvage something from the wreck that last night had turned out to be.

‘Did we…?’ Felicity swallowed, cleared her throat, looked him in the eye and squared her shoulders, ready to face the world—or, more importantly, her conscience. ‘Did we do anything?’

‘We talked,’ Luca clipped. ‘Or rather you talked and I listened.’

‘I’m sorry if I bored you.’ He didn’t reciprocate her tight smile, made no attempt to elaborate further, and it was left to Felicity to pursue this most shameful line of conversation. ‘So, if all we did was talk, how did I end up minus a dress?’

‘When we first came back to the room I ordered some strong coffee. I was hoping it would sober you up. It might have worked had you not spilled it. Your dress is down with Housekeeping.’ He put her out of her misery then, and if Felicity had looked up she’d have seen a surprisingly gentle smile soften his stern features. ‘We didn’t make love, if that’s what is concerning you; though since you choose to bring up the subject…’

‘I didn’t,’ Felicity argued, but of course Luca ignored her.

‘Since you bring up the subject,’ he repeated, his husky, deep voice halting her protests, ‘had we made love, you most certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded of the fact. When I make love to a woman I can assure you she has no trouble remembering the occasion!’

Shooting a glimpse from under her eyelashes, Felicity knew, as arrogant and presumptuous as his statement sounded, he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. There was nothing unforgettable about him—not a sliver of him could be labelled dispensable—and, however reluctantly, there and then Felicity had to admit that a night being made love to by a man as effortlessly sensual as Luca Santanno would be a night no woman could even pretend to forget.

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

Felicity swallowed hard. Still she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘For not taking advantage.’

‘Believe me, it wasn’t difficult.’

Ouch!

‘So we definitely didn’t?’ Felicity checked unnecessarily, her cheeks positively flaming now.

‘We definitely didn’t. I happen to prefer my women conscious.’

Felicity chose to ignore that particular little gem and, blinking a couple of times, felt what was suspiciously like relief start to flood her veins.

Things were still salvageable!

Okay, staying out all night wasn’t going to go down particularly well with Matthew, and undoubtedly she’d have to omit to mention exactly whose bed she’d awoken in—after all, Luca was effectively Matthew’s business partner—but the fact she hadn’t slept with Luca offered at least a temporary reprieve. She would get her things and get the hell out, with hopefully no damage done.

Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her hair away from her eyes and flicked it back, forcing a tiny smile as she caught Luca still staring at her, even attempting to inject a flash of humour into this rather unusual situation.

‘Whoops!’

He didn’t smile back, just rolled over sideways, propping himself on his elbow, and resumed his blatant stare. ‘Whoops?’ he said in a very low, very sardonic drawl.

‘I’m sorry,’ Felicity ventured again, the watery voice now replaced by her more confident tones. ‘You see, I don’t normally drink—well, not spirits. The occasional glass of wine I enjoy…but as for spirits, well I don’t even like the taste. I just had a couple for courage, you know.’

He shook his head and Felicity gave a small shrug. ‘I’m sure someone like you doesn’t need any help in the courage department.’

‘I wasn’t aware you had been drinking.’ His words confused her, and she frowned as he continued, wondering if somewhere along the line she had misinterpreted him, if his English was really less fluent than it first appeared. ‘Just how much did you have last night?’

‘Two vodka and oranges.’ Felicity pulled a face. ‘And if this is what it does to me I’m glad that I don’t normally drink. How could people do this for pleasure?’ She was starting to ramble, the words spilling out from her mouth like a runaway train. She wished Luca would smile, look away, shrug, even—anything rather than stare at her with that slightly quizzical superior look.

‘You really think that two vodka and oranges could have that effect?’ he asked finally, but when Felicity opened her mouth to speak Luca got there first, his eyes never leaving her face, watching every flicker of reaction as his words reached her. ‘Do you still not realise that your drinks were being spiked?’

‘You spiked my drinks?’ Startled, she went to stand, but Luca let out a hiss of indignation, flicking one hand in a derisive Latin gesture and muttering something in Italian that Felicity assumed wasn’t particularly complimentary, as realisation with the help of a few extremely hazy recollections, finally dawned. ‘Matthew spiked them.’

The surge of anger that welled inside her didn’t bode very well for the pounding drums in her head, and Felicity screwed her eyes closed as she grappled with this latest vile flaw in Matthew’s personality.

Confirmation, if ever she needed it, of just how low Matthew would stoop to get what he wanted. The clanging gates of the prison door banged ever more loudly as she further realised the murky depths of his personality. Proof that the extreme lengths she was taking to curtail him were necessary.

Very necessary.

‘My staff alerted me to what was going on,’ Luca went on, but Felicity was only half listening—too busy concentrating on her awful predicament to concern herself with small details. ‘You will remember I was actually sitting at the next table to you?’

‘Mmm.’ She gave a small shrug, a vague shake of her head, but as her blush came back for an encore Felicity knew she wasn’t fooling him. The earlier part of the evening was still fairly fresh in her mind, and six-foot-four of Latin good looks at the next table certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed—even with a rather over-attentive Matthew at her side. The white-hot look that had passed between them when their eyes had met last night was scorched with aching clarity onto her mind, but she certainly wasn’t about to inflate Luca’s ego by admitting it.

‘You ordered the non-alcoholic summer berry beverage that was on the menu; in fact you ordered three of them.’

‘Yes, but like I said I had those wretched vodkas, and then there was wine with dinner…’

‘Well, what you actually got was a questionable version of a strawberry daiquiri—and, more pointedly, three of them. Your partner made his way to the bar each time you ordered and told the bar staff you’d changed your mind. He also made very sure that he got a different member of staff each time, and it wasn’t until he tried to change your order for the fourth time that one of the other staff overheard him.’

Felicity ran a hand through her hair, furious with Matthew, but more importantly furious with herself for not realising what was going on, for being so naive as to think that the illicit two drinks she’d partaken of earlier could have had such a huge effect. But her fury was starting to take a new direction now. It was all very well for Luca to take the high moral ground, all very well for him to dictate how his guests behaved, to dash in uninvited and play the proverbial knight in shining armour, but he didn’t know the circumstances—Luca didn’t realise just how significant last night had been for her and, more importantly, her father. She wished Luca had damned well stayed out of it and just let the night run its awful, inevitable course.

At least it would have been over and done with.

‘I will be having a few stern words with Matthew this morning. If this is the type of behaviour he indulges in then perhaps he should look for other employment!’

A small groan escaped her lips. ‘Please don’t,’ Felicity begged. It was essential Luca stayed out of it, imperative she persuaded him to leave well alone. ‘He really didn’t mean it. You know what Matthew can be like.’

‘I have no idea what Matthew is like. How can I when I have met him two, maybe three times?’ Luca shrugged dismissively but his features sharpened as he saw the question in Felicity’s eyes. ‘Has Matthew been saying any different?’

Oh, Matthew had been telling another story, all right. According to Matthew, he had a hotline to Luca—a hotline he was more than prepared to use if Felicity didn’t toe the line. But that wasn’t the issue here, Felicity realised. The issue here was damage control. She simply couldn’t risk upsetting Matthew, couldn’t risk her parents’ stab at, if not eternal happiness, at least some semblance of peace.

Luca just had to believe her.

‘Matthew and I—’ Felicity started, her blush deepening with each awkward word. ‘Well, we were going to…’ Her eyes shot up, pleading for Luca to put a halt to this, to raise his hand and say that he didn’t need details, that he’d got the message.

But Luca didn’t. Instead he stood there haughtily, his lips firmly closed, looking right at her, her obvious discomfort at the subject not bothering him in the least. Sinking her eyes to the ground, she settled for the less daunting sight of his feet as she mumbled what she hoped would be the conclusion to this embarrassing subject.

‘We were going to get engaged…’ Her voice was barely audible now, trailing off into a low whisper as she hopefully began to conclude this most difficult conversation. Casting a nervous glance up she saw the confusion in his eyes, listened as he took in a breath, opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind midway and closed it again. ‘That’s why I needed a drink. I was nervous,’ Felicity explained patiently.

But Luca, it would appear, was having trouble with his own jigsaw. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth again. Only this time the words that came out had none of his usual assured tones; instead he sounded utterly perplexed. ‘Why would you be nervous? Why would you be so daunted by something so nice?’

‘I just was.’ Felicity shrugged. She certainly wasn’t about to tell Luca the more personal details, tell him that Matthew had made his intentions very clear. There would be no more reluctant kisses on her doorstep, no more hiding behind her never ending excuses. Matthew was going to claim what he assumed was rightly his.

And there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.

Deciding she’d already said way too much, she stood up and attempted a haughty flick of her hair. ‘Let’s just leave it there, shall we? Could you please ring Housekeeping and have my dress sent up? I’d really like to get dressed.’ She stood for what felt like a full minute, and when Luca made no attempt to reach for the telephone gave a shrug. ‘Fine, it that’s the way you want to play it then I’ll do it myself.’ Picking up the receiver, she ran a finger down the numbers before her, ignoring the holes being burnt into her bare shoulder as Luca blatantly stared. She didn’t have to justify herself to him. If he wanted to go around playing the hero, he’d better just look for another damsel in distress.

‘Okay, I can understand you might have been a little uptight,’ Lucas conceded, resuming their discussion as if the most recent part of their conversation hadn’t even taken place. Felicity hesitated momentarily, her hand poised over the number nine digit on the telephone. ‘But why would Matthew want to get you drunk? What sort of a man would want to propose to a woman when she wouldn’t even be able to remember it the next morning?’

She let out a low, hollow laugh, and Luca watched as her cream shoulders stiffened momentarily, her slender hand shaking slightly as it hovered over the telephone. He had to strain to catch the resigned and weary words, imaging those full lips pulled into a taut strained line. ‘A determined one.’

The defeat in her voice, the utter exhaustion, stirred something within him. Suddenly his feelings towards Matthew, the so-called man who had annoyed him last night, shifted from distaste to disgust, from scorn to a black churning fury. But not a trace of it was betrayed in his voice. He realised that one misplaced word would have her back on the defensive, would have her marching out of his room and out of his life.

He didn’t want her to go.

The realisation astounded him. Last night he had been concerned, as worried as he would have been at seeing any guest, any woman, being taken advantage of, being beguiled in such a way. But it was over now. He had done his moral duty, averted the problem. She was sober now, able to make her own calls. If she wanted her dress, wanted to go back to that snake’s room, then why shouldn’t she? What could it possibly matter to him what this woman did with her life?

But it did.

‘You’re not seriously considering going back to Matthew after what he did to you last night?’

‘Look,’ Felicity snapped, forcing a very standoffish smile as she turned briefly to face him. ‘Thank you for your concern. As misguided as it was, I’m sure you meant well, but the truth is I knew what I was doing last night and I certainly didn’t need your so-called help.’

‘I beg to differ.’

Felicity’s eyes widened, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise as his delicious Italian accent was replaced by a rather upper crust English accent.

‘That is my London manager’s favourite saying,’ Luca responded, noting her surprise, but the momentary lapse in proceedings didn’t last long. The onslaught continued in thick heavily accented tones that had Felicity scorching with shame right down to her toenails which she stared at in preference to the overbearing ogre that stood over her. ‘The only sensible thing you did last night was to beg me for help. Me!’ he shouted, cupping her chin with his fingers and forcing her eyes up to him. ‘Perhaps you would like me to refresh your memory?’

‘Perhaps not.’ Felicity cringed, but her humour was entirely wasted on him.

‘A colleague diverted Matthew’s attention while I took you to one side and told you that your drinks were being spiked. You, Miss Conlon, promptly burst into tears and begged me to get rid of him, begged me for help, left me with no choice but to bring you up here.’

‘You didn’t have to do it, though!’ Felicity interjected, brushing his hand away from her and facing him unaided now, but Luca hadn’t finished yet.

‘Believe me, I wish I hadn’t bothered! Had there been a spare room in the hotel it would have been yours. Do you not think I had better things to do last night than play babysitter to you? Not only did I have a ballroom of guests to take care of, I had the press about to run a story—Damn!’

Without pausing for breath, without further explanation, he marched across the room, flinging open the door, and with her face paling Felicity realised she had pushed him too far, that he was going to throw her out—and what was more, Felicity acknowledged, she completely deserved it. Luca Santanno had behaved like a complete gentleman last night and she in turn had been an utter bitch. If she’d had a tail it would have been between her legs as she attempted to walk wrapped in the counterpane.