The Italian's Innocent Bride

by Clare Connelly

  He felt her body tense, and then relax against his, and he wanted to kiss her mouth. To take her into his arms and see if the promise he felt was truly real.

  “Luca,” she repeated, tasting the word in her mouth. “It suits you.”

  “Thank you. And you are? Besides intriguing?”

  She shook her head, but she was smiling. “I’m Rosemary. Though everyone calls me Rosie.”

  “Rosie.” He grinned, and it completely transformed his handsome face. She bit down on her lip to stop herself from exclaiming. Rosie had only been with one man in her life, and then, she’d believed herself deeply in love.

  But looking up into the face of this gorgeous, mysterious man, she knew she’d go just about anywhere with him. To the ends of the earth, if he asked it of her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As if he’d read her mind, he said, “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “Get out of here?” She parroted, looking over her shoulder towards the gallery inside.

  “I think we’ve done our duty, don’t you?”

  And although she’d just been thinking she would walk over hot coals if he suggested it, she hesitated. “I… I don’t make a habit of going anywhere with people I don’t know.”

  He nodded, suppressing his natural impatience. “But how can I get to know you here?”

  She flashed him a bright smile. “You seem like a smart man. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

  He felt a rumble of appreciation for both her character and her strength of will, despite his frustration at being turned down. “If that’s what you want.”

  It wasn’t. She wanted to take her objections back and force them down her throat. But she nodded. A flash of light caught her attention and she turned her body towards the inky sky. “Look!” She pointed over the city’s sparkling blanket. “A thunderstorm.”

  Another spike of lightning jarred through the air, and behind it, a loud groan of thunder. “It is in the distance,” he said, wondering how long they had before it reached them.

  “Oh, isn’t it beautiful?”

  Luca wasn’t watching the thunderstorm. His eyes were fixed on Rosie’s face. The night sky gave her a luminescence, the lightning simply seemed to make her face glow.

  “Very,” he agreed quietly. To hell with patience. He moved to stand behind her and pulled her back against his chest. His arms he wrapped loosely around her waist. She hesitated for a microsecond, and then relaxed against him. He was pleased. He had needed a more intimate contact from the moment he’d seen her. Up close, her hair smelled like coconut.

  Rosie fought the temptation to angle her head and kiss him. They’d just met! But being in his arms was making her body sing in a wholly different key. The rational part of her brain was screaming at her that she was behaving stupidly, but she ignored it. So what if she let a man she’d just met put his arms around her? Most of the women her age were running around in nightclubs doing far worse, far quicker. At least she knew his name.

  She was twenty four, not fourteen. If she thought a man was attractive, she had every right to act on it. Didn’t she?

  Luca lowered his head and pressed his lips against her neck. It felt good. So good that Rosie moaned softly into the night air. “Luca,” she whispered, but she pressed her body back further, into the hard planes of his. “This is crazy.”

  “What is crazy?” His accent was thicker now. More noticeable.

  Uncertainty plagued her. “This.” She spun around in the circle of his arms so that she could see his face. It was a mistake. Looking at him made all her doubts fizz into nothingness.

  “Is it really crazy?” He wondered, moving his hand so that he could cup her face. “Doesn’t it just feel right?”

  It did. Completely. “Yes.”

  His eyes flared wide as he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. A kiss of acceptance, nothing more. Her mouth was just as soft beneath his as he’d known it would be. He moved his mouth, probing hers so that her lips parted, and he was able to flick her tongue with his own. She moaned again, that sweet little sound that set his body on fire. She was perfect.

  Even in his thick fog of desire, he was mindful of the fact that there were hundreds of people milling about on the other side of a glass wall. He wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist and lifted her feet from the ground, without breaking their kiss.

  She did that, pulling her head away in surprise. “What are you doing?” She asked breathlessly, as he carried her across the balcony to a corner that was met by concrete walls rather than glass.

  “Privacy,” he muttered, placing her feet on the ground and reclaiming her lips. “Better?”

  “Yes, better.”

  His stubble was rough on her face, and she didn’t care. If anything, it set her whole body on fire. Her nerves were over sensitised, her nipples taut against the yellow fabric of her dress. And he understood. He lifted his hands to cup her breasts, running his thumbs over the sensitive flesh, while his mouth moved to her neck, tasting and flicking the skin of her décolletage.

  Rosie ran her fingers through his hair, as she’d been longing to do all night. It was coarse and thick. She tilted her head back on a sigh, arching her body forwards. He ran his hands from her breasts, down the flat plane of her stomach, and then moved to cup her bottom.

  “This dress,” he said with frustration. It was too fitted to easily lift, and he wanted to see her. He wanted to feel her.

  At last, common sense penetrated his brain. He pulled away from her, straightening his tuxedo and trying to calm his breathing. “Rosie, if we don’t stop now, I am going to make love to you right here.”

  Rosie was not naturally careless, but in that instant, she’d had a personality transplant. “Would that be so bad?”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “No. It would be very, very good. Except that anyone might come out and see us.” That, and the fact that she deserved better. He reached behind her and found the top of her zip. He eased it down, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “Let me show you what I mean.” He lowered the dress, just low enough so that her breasts spilled over the top.

  He couldn’t resist cupping them in their naked splendour. He took each in the palm of his hands, feeling them, relishing their weight and shape. Then, he took one nipple into his mouth. She bucked against him in surprise and pleasure, but he didn’t stop. He rolled the aureole in his mouth until she was finding breathing difficult. His fingers toyed with the other, circling it, squeezing, teasing.

  “Luca,” she cried out, as waves of pleasure began to tear through her. “Luca!”

  He nodded. “I understand.” He transferred his mouth to her other nipple. Rosie gripped his lapels in her fists, moaning as she felt her pleasure build and build.

  Finally, Luca lifted his head, pressing his forehead to hers. “I want to take all night to pleasure your body, Rosie. Not a hurried session on a public balcony, while you have a date inside nursing your drink.”

  “Oh.” His words were simply honest, but Rosie sensed there was a cruel edge to them. She blinked, confusion swamping her. “I… Oh.”

  Luca cursed. “I do not mean to sound abrupt. The problem is, I’m fighting my own nature too. I want you. Very much. But I suspect you’ll never forgive yourself, or me, if I don’t take control of the situation. If we do what we both want, you’ll blame me.”

  She nodded. He was right. Completely right. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “I’ll go back inside to my date and that drink.”

  He swore again. “Don’t. Don’t be angry.” Gently, he pulled her dress, lifting it back into position. She was shivering, but he suspected it wasn’t from the cold.

  “I don’t know what came over me.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’m not myself at the moment.”

  “Why not?” He reached behind her and eased the zipper back up, then placed his jacket back around her shoulders.

  The truth was, she’d felt more like herself in the last
half hour than she had in a month. “My dad just died,” she blurted, feeling guilty at using her father’s death as an excuse now. “I’m behaving strangely.”

  Luca had no real point of reference. His own parents had abandoned him as a child. He’d gone from foster home to foster home, until he’d been accepted on a scholarship to the prestigious Swiss school he’d attended. The same school where he’d met Davies, and cast the dye for the rest of his life. “Were you close?”

  She nodded, not bothering to hide the tears. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, then.”

  She frowned. “That’s a funny thing to say. Would it be less sad if we weren’t close?”

  When Luca had made his fortune, many years earlier, he’d decided to discover the truth of his parentage. Far from being the destitute unfortunates he’d always imagined, he discovered that his parents were extremely wealthy. His father owned a large construction company that had been his father’s before him. It was a legacy business. One that Luca had instantly set his sights on purchasing. It was a move that was almost finalised. And, when he had the company in his portfolio, he would know he had truly avenged his parents for deserting him. He would buy his own legacy, and throw the truth back in his father’s face, when the time was right.

  “Of course. Or at least, I imagine so. Losing a parent is the natural order of life, bella. It is something you must have been prepared for.”

  She shook her head. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say. The inevitability of something makes it no less traumatic to endure.”

  “I’m not so certain. Parents losing children is a greater tragedy, no?”

  “I’m not going to debate the sliding scale of grief with you!” She said crossly.

  “I did not mean to offend you. I was saying that it is possible to lose a parent and not feel completely grief-stricken, that is all.”

  She shook her head. “Are you actually saying that I shouldn’t be feeling sad that my father has just died?”

  “No, of course not. Because you were close to him. As though you were friends, too. That is difficult.”

  Rosie ran a hand through her tousled hair. “I assume you’re not close to your parents, then.”

  “Your assumption is correct. I never knew them.”

  “Oh!” All thoughts of her own grief evaporated. “I’m so sorry, Luca. What happened?”

  He rarely spoke of his birth parents. But then again, Rosie seemed like a woman he would enjoy many firsts with. “They did not want me.”

  It had taken him many years to condense the story of his childhood into one concise, emotionally barren statement. They hadn’t wanted him. Nobody had. Only now, with billions of pounds in the bank, did he find that he was suddenly irresistible to all he met.

  Rosie’s face almost broke his heart. It was so sympathetic. So apologetic. “I’m very sorry.”

  “Di niente.” He murmured. “Their desertion helped turn me into who I am today. And I am happy with that.”

  “I see.” She nodded, but an odd emptiness was gaping inside of her. She felt sadness for herself, and an even greater sadness for him. The bond she felt with this man was strengthening every second. “Luca?”

  He looked down at her, and felt an odd twist in his gut. “Si, bella?”

  “I think… maybe we should go somewhere after all.”

  Surprise and relief flashed in him. He was no fool. She was offering herself to him, and he was not going to refuse.

  “Yes. Let’s.”

  He held a hand out to her and she slid hers into it. Briefly, she wondered if she’d become a completely different person. But then, she looked at his face, locked her eyes with his, and smiled.

  “I just have to let Connor know.”

  Luca nodded swiftly. “My car will be waiting downstairs.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a chaste kiss against the soft flesh of her inner wrist. “Hurry, bella Rosie.”

  She nodded, her throat too constricted with emotion to speak. Rosie walked along the balcony and slipped inside just as the rain reached them. It began to fall, hard and fast, slanting in to the undercover space. Luca slowly prowled towards the edge. He tilted his head upwards, staring straight into the storm. Rain pelted down on his face, but he revelled in the sensation. He was a man of the elements. A creature of passion. And he was about to indulge his favourite passion of all, with a woman he imagined would be his perfect sensual match.

  “Connor.” Rosie felt her cheeks suffuse with color even though Connor could have no possible way of knowing what she’d just been doing. “I’m sorry, something’s come up. I have to go.”

  He paused, mid way through passing her drink to her. “Where the heck have you been, Rosie? I hate coming to these things alone. I might as well have done, though, for all that I’ve seen you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said with a small smile. “The truth is, Con, I shouldn’t have accepted your invitation. I think of you as a friend, and I wouldn’t want to lead you on.”

  “Lead me on? Come on, Rosie! You and I are both just having fun. Don’t act like you’re breaking my heart or anything. I’m just peeved that I’ve been walking around like a loner for the last half hour.”

  “I know. Like I said, I’m sorry.” She smiled at him kindly. “I have to go now.”

  She walked off without a backwards glance. All she could think of was Luca, and the way he made her feel…

  To read more of Luca and Rosie’s story, go here.

  You can find all things Clare Connelly on her website.