The Unwanted Conti Bride

“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

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—”

He burst out laughing again.

“Go to hell,” she whispered, her petite frame radiating fury. Most of it self-directed, he knew, for Sophia hated betraying any emotion that made her weak.

He caught her wrist and pulled her inside the large, and thankfully empty, lounge behind them. Backing her into the wall, he pulled her arms above her.

The disdain in her eyes, the arrogant jut of her chin... It was like pouring petrol over a spark. Jerked at every primal instinct he had carefully banished from his life. Her breasts heaved as she fought him, as if they too fought against being confined.

“You thought you would propose marriage and walk away? You did not think I would find it entertaining?”

“You’re a remorseless bastard.” It was the first time she’d hinted at their past.

Regret was a faint pang in Luca’s chest. Only faint.

Did he regret that he had hurt her ten years ago? Si.

So much that if given the chance he wouldn’t do it again? Non.

He was far too selfish to willingly deny himself the true joy he’d found with her in those few weeks. “And you love playing the uptight shrew far too much.”

Outrage, and most improbably, hurt, transformed her muddy brown eyes into a thousand hues of golds and bronzes.

Her stubborn, too-prominent nose flared. Incongruously wide mouth in a small face flushed a deep pink. The hourglass figure swathed in the most horrific black dress rubbed against him, bringing him to painful arousal.

In front of his eyes, she became something else.

She became the Sophia he’d known once and hadn’t been able to resist, the Sophia he’d kissed with wonder, the Sophia she’d been before he had beat all the softness out of her.

She grunted and gave herself away, seconds before she raised her knee to his groin.

“How would this marriage of ours...prosper and proliferate if you turn me into a castrato, Sophia?”

Dancing his lower body away from her kick, he used the momentum to slam her harder into his hip. Her soft belly pressed and flushed into the lines of his body, his hip bone digging into it, as if it meant to make a groove for itself against her.

A softer gasp escaped her this time, throaty and wrenched away from the part of her she hid so well. So well that he had often wondered if he had known her so intimately once. That short huff for breath stroked Luca’s nerves. Like strings of a violin...

Thick, wavy locks of hair fell from the ugly knot at the back of her head, touching the strong planes of her face with softness. The floral scent of her shampoo, something so incongruous with the woman she was, or pretended to be, fluttered under his nose. Luca pressed his nose into the thick, wavy mass. Kneaded the tense planes of her upper back as if he could calm himself by calming her.

He had never forgotten his amazement at the fire that had flared between them, how easily his plan had gone utterly wrong ten years ago. How, even for his jaded palate, Sophia had proved to be too much of a temptation.

Dio, suggesting marriage to him, of all men... Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Why was she tempting the devil in him?

He was tempted. What man wouldn’t want to muss up those ugly dresses and that shrewish facade and want to find the soft woman beneath? What man wouldn’t want a claim on that kind of loyalty, on that steely core of her?

He set her away from him, none too gently. Lust riding him hard, he drew one rattling breath after another.

He controlled the pursuit of pleasure and the pleasure itself. Without shame or scruples, he used his charm, his looks, to draw women to him, amused himself for a time and then walked away.

He’d carefully built his life to be that and nothing more. He’d trampled her innocence even when he’d intended to do the right thing once. But in the end, he’d left. He would walk away again.

After having a small taste. She really expected it of him—to behave abominably, to torture her with his lascivious words and deeds. He couldn’t disappoint her.

His humor restored, he eased his grip on her. Instantly she shoved at him. He didn’t budge. “I can think of an infinitely more pleasurable and mature way to vent your frustration.”

“It’s hard to be mature when you laugh in my face like this.”

“Your dignity is that fragile? The Sophia I keep hearing about in boardrooms and business mergers is apparently nothing short of Goddess Diana.”

He curved his mouth into his trademark smile. Her glare didn’t dim one bit. If anything, she stiffened even more.

Dio, when was the last time he had had such fun? And they hadn’t even shed their clothes yet. “I was right, it is I that gets under your skin.”

Her eyelids fell slowly. A second to restore her quaking defenses. Right on cue, she looked up, her fiery glare renewed. “I forgot that it’s all a big joke to you.”

“Being a debauched playboy who cares for nothing is hard work.”

“I was stupid to think we could have a mature conversation. All you—”

“Then persuade me.”

“What?”

Surprise in her gaze filled him with a strange satisfaction. Shocking, needling, generally startling Sophia out of that hard shell could become addictive. “Persuade me. Indulge me. Make me an irresistible offer.”

* * *

Make herself irresistible to the most beautiful man on the face of the planet? A man who held nothing sacred?

“I have a better chance of finding treasure in my backyard,” she said softly. Wistfulness snuck into her voice and she cringed.

“Kiss me, then.”

“What?” She rubbed her temples, dismayed at how he reduced her to a mumbling idiot.

“Put your lips on mine and pucker them up. Your hands can go on my shoulders or my hips or if you’re feeling bold, you can grab my ass—”

“What? Why?” Years of oratory at debate club evaporated, her brain only offering whats and whys.

“That should be the first step for a couple considering marriage, si? I could never marry a woman who didn’t know how to kiss.”

Don’t. Look. At. His. Mouth. “It’s obvious you’re only torturing me and will never really consider it and you...” She looked and the contoured lushness of it made her lick her own lips, which made him grin and prompted her to raise her gaze. “Your lover is lying in your bed and you’re—”

“If you’d been paying attention and not mooning over me—” Sophia fisted her hands, just fighting the urge to wipe that satisfied smile off his face, for he was right, damned devil “—then you would know that Mariana and I are over.”

“You just said you wore her out!” Her brow cleared. “You said that just to rile me up, didn’t you? There was hardly any time between when you left and I found you for you to...to—” She couldn’t believe what her logic led her to say. If only she could stop blushing! “—wear her out.”

“I actually don’t need that much time to get my lover off—”

“Where is she?” Sophia cut him off.

“She’s a lightweight and I kept plying her with drinks. Her husband’s divorcing her, which is what she wanted, but she’s a little emotional about it. I couldn’t just...throw her out of the party when she was in such a state.”

“No, of course, not. They all adore you even when you’re done with them.”

* * *

Except her, Luca thought with something akin to a pang in his chest.

“You’re free to adore me, too, cara. No one will have to know.”

She snorted. That inelegant movement of that sharp, stubborn nose made him chuckle. “God, really, you don’t need any more admirers, secret or otherwise. And I’m not kissing you.”

Pink and wide, her mouth was like a long bow, the only feature in her face that was soft and vulnerable. A pillow of lushness. It betrayed that tough-as-nails, no-nonsense persona of hers.

He desperately wanted to feel it under his own, wanted to taste all that pent-up passion. One kiss wouldn’t hurt. She was the one who’d cornered him, the one throwing outrageous ideas at him, the one looking all delectably confined and uptight in that dress. “How do you expect me to believe you’re not playing a joke on me with this proposal? Maybe this is revenge? Maybe you intend to make me fall in love with you, and then leave me at the altar pining for you? Maybe...”

Brown eyes glittering, wide mouth mobile, she laughed. It was a full-throttled laugh, deep and husky. The kind that came all the way from your stomach, burned through your lungs, leaving you a little dizzy. Her body shook all over.

The sound stole into Luca, filling every hungry crevice inside him. It was one that could cut through the darkest space, filling it with light. “What is so funny?”

“You, falling in love. With me.”

He said it softly. “The whole world assumes Sophia Rossi is tough, brave, the conqueror of every challenge. Decimator of men. Only I know what a coward you are.”

It fell in the space between them like a weapon, and he waited, breath balling up in his lungs. Anger and apprehension vied in her face until she covered the distance between them. He didn’t know if she was going to slap him or kiss him or castrate him. No woman could create that mystery except Sophia. No woman had ever filled his veins with this heady anticipation.

Fingers on the lapels of his shirt, she jerked him close. “No one calls me a coward, you manipulative bastard.”

Throaty and tart, growly and yet with a deep vein of need pulsing beneath, it was Sophia to the end. Brave Sophia accepting facts and meeting them head-on. Dutiful Sophia kissing the man she hated just to hear him out.

Short and curvy, she barely came up to his chest. Hands on his shoulders, she pulled herself up, as if to elongate herself. Like a vine clinging to a cement wall.

That pressed every inch of her to him. Lush breasts, followed by such a thin waist that he wondered how it held up those glorious curves, then flaring into rounded hips, hips a man would anchor himself on while he thrust inside her. Shapely thighs that would clutch a man tight as he jerked in pleasure within her velvet heat.

Again and again, until he forgot what or who he was.

Such heat rolled over his skin that Luca’s fingers dug into her soft flesh.

With a protesting moan, she stilled her mouth on his. The tips of their noses collided and a soft sigh left her. Hot breath kissed his hungry lips. Then she moved that mouth again. Testing and trying. This way and that. Halting thoughtfully and then hurrying along urgently when she liked the fit.

Brown eyes met his. And the world stilled. Time and space narrowed to this minute, this space around them. Never breaking his gaze, she slanted her head and dragged a kiss from one corner of his mouth to the other.

She took control of the kiss like she did everything else.

And Luca let her take over. Let the scent and taste of her fill every hungry crevice. Let her imprint herself on him.

Flames of fire raced along his veins when she licked the seam of his lips and probed for entry. Desperate, Luca opened his mouth under hers. The throaty sound of her gasp shivered down his spine. Never had he been waiting like this for pleasure. Never had he been the recipient.

Suppressing every instinct to take over the reins of the kiss—he’d never waited to be pleasured—he let her seduce him. She obliged, stroking the inside of his mouth with bold flicks, teasing and incinerating. Took his mouth with a carnality that left him shaking to the very marrow.

Christo, he’d never been so aroused by just a kiss.

* * *

The sound of footsteps behind them brought Sophia back to earth with a thud.

Her mouth stung with the taste of Luca, her body thrumming with unsatisfied desire. The crisp hair on his wrists teased her palms.

But she felt anything but exultant. She wanted to cry. She wanted to ask him to take her to his bedroom, turn off the lights and—no, not his bedroom. Not the place where he’d probably made love to a horde of lovers, each more stunning and thin and wispier than the next. Maybe they could slip away into that veranda, hide under the moonlight and he could kiss her a little more.

She could pretend that he’d never broken her heart and that he wanted her just as much as she did him.

Because when Luca kissed her, Sophia was always carried off to some faraway land. A land where she could be strong enough to be weak, where she could let someone care for her, where she didn’t worry about her family, where she was not mocked for who she was.

Where a man like Luca didn’t have to be induced into seducing a woman like her...

She hid her face in his chest. His heartbeat thundered against her cheek. He was warm and male, both exciting and comforting, something she hadn’t realized until this moment she missed.

Sophia couldn’t dredge up anger for that kiss. Toward him or herself.

His fingers wandered up and down her hips, questing and caressing. “I’d rather we kissed again, but I keep my word.” Deep and hoarse, his voice pinged over her heated skin. “So tell me, why do you wish to...”

Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder pulled her from his arms, turned her around.

“Tina, non!” she heard Luca shout dimly.

Sophia didn’t see it coming. Someone slapped her. Hard.

Her head went back, pain radiating up her jaw and through her ear. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked to clear them away. Pulling in a shuddering breath, she looked up.

Valentina—Luca’s sister and Kairos’s wife, stood before her, her lithe, willowy body shaking with rage. Her entire face was mobile with emotion, turning her into a volatile beauty. “You...you tart!”

Sophia raised a brow, refusing to show her dismay. “Tart, really?”

Her composure seemed to only rile the younger woman more. “You’re determined to go through all the men in my family, aren’t you? First Kairos, and now Luca? And to think I felt sorry for you when Leandro broke your engagement.”

“Basta, Tina!” Luca again. His arm around Sophia’s shoulders, he was a wall of lean strength against her. A dark scowl framed his features, his fingers rubbing against her arm in unconscious comfort.

Against every rational warning, Sophia felt her body leaning into his.

“You know the rumors about Kairos and her?” Tina screeched, her eyes filling with tears.

“If there’s truth to them, confront your husband, Tina.”

“Fall into her clutches, then. Maybe she will leave my husband alone.” Her black gaze raked over Sophia in a sneer. “Although I do not see the appeal.”

Valentina left with the same fierceness as she had come in. Like a storm, leaving a minefield of awkward silence behind.

Sophia untangled herself from Luca’s side and ran her fingers tentatively over her cheek. She thought she might be a little sick but it could be because of how much dessert she’d eaten in her anxiety tonight after the strict diet of the last two weeks.

Luca pulled her to him; she tried to swat him away.

He won in the fight for possession of her. She swallowed hard. Fingers on her chin, he examined her cheek. “I apologize. She had no right to behave like that.” His mouth became a hard line. All the charm, the wicked laughter, was gone.

She waited for the inevitable question about her and Kairos, but it never came. But then, the one thing Luca had never been was a hypocrite.

“Marriage to Kairos is not good for her.”

She frowned but he didn’t elaborate. “Kairos can be hard to—” he raised a brow and she realized she’d jumped to her supposed lover’s defense “—understand.”

“You feel sorry for her?” he said, amazement in his eyes.

Sophia shrugged. Despite the sting in her cheek and the burn in her stomach at the comment on her looks, something inside Sophia recoiled at the vulnerability in Valentina’s eyes. A palette of emotions for Kairos, who was as hard-hearted as hell, to see. And everything was acted upon, too...

No man was worth that self-doubt, that haunting sense of inadequacy, Sophia wanted to tell Valentina.

Swift anger rose through her at Kairos; he was supposed to be her friend. Couldn’t he have reassured Valentina instead of using Sophia to keep his own wife at a distance?

“It’s obvious that what I suggested is a disastrous idea.” She chanced a glance at Luca, greedy to the last second. She’d make sure it was another decade before she saw him again. Something in her clenched tight. “Forget what I suggested.”

Without waiting for his answer, Sophia turned and walked away.

And in that moment she hated all men.

Antonio, for planting that horrible idea in her head, for using her desperation to promote his own agenda.

Kairos, for using their friendship as a barrier against his own wife.

Salvatore, for never giving her a chance in the company, even though he called her his daughter.

And the man behind her, more than anyone else, for kissing her like he meant it. Now and ten years ago. For making her want him so much, for making her weak and foolish, for making her imagine, even for a second, that she was all the things she could never be.

CHAPTER THREE

LUCA SPENT THAT Monday morning with Huang from the design team of Conti Luxury Goods, studying the prototype for new heels that would be released the coming spring.

Huang and he had worked together for almost ten years now, since Leandro had convinced Luca to take a small part in Conti Luxury Goods. Luca interacted only with Huang, and Huang worked with the rest of the design team.

He picked up a royal blue pump, tracing the aerodynamic sole with his fingers. The success of these pieces didn’t worry him. As always, anything he designed, from pumps to handbags, became instantly covetous among the fanatically fashionable.

Seeing something raw and shapeless transform into something so pleasing, that was success to him. But this particular design run had come to fruition and he felt the loss of it keenly. It had been quite a challenge—the design of the new heel. Now the production team would take over.

Familiar restlessness slithered through his veins. What to work on next? Sophia’s outrageous proposal from Friday night winked at him.

Dio, but that had challenge and fun and all kinds of things written into it. She hated him—had every right to, but she was still attracted to him. When his looks tripped Sophia into that kind of a kiss, he couldn’t quite hate them. It should have been one of a hundred kisses, she one of numerous, interchangeable faces he filled his life with and yet, the taste of her lips lingered, the passion with which she had taken him lingered, filling him with a restless craving for more.

Since he had no intention of following that up with Sophia, he needed a woman. To forget her and her kisses and that he had no place in her life. Soon.

He was at the door when Huang said, “You’re not going to wait?”

“For what?”

“You don’t even know, do you? Your brother—” Huang’s smile dimmed for the rift between Leandro and him, the first in their life, was fodder for office gossip “—is at the board meeting today. The one that’s going on now.”

“Well, he’s the CEO of CLG, Huang.” His mind ran over the next few days. He couldn’t disappear without checking on Tina first.

“There are rumors that he’s making a big announcement today.”

Luca stilled.

His brother claimed to have changed, that he regretted ruthlessly arranging Tina’s marriage to Kairos, pulling such deception over their sister, even if he intended it for her own good. But Leandro did nothing without reason. Needing to control everyone and everything around him was an itch in his brother’s blood.