Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynne Graham

  “I’ve thrown my lot in with you. At least for the near future.”

  He held her gaze in the flickering light for a long while and finally nodded. “Then it has to have been your lovely stepmother, Greta.”

  “That’s an unfair jump. You’re determined to see them all as your enemies.”

  “Who else benefits by it?” he pointed out. “I’ll admit that it was a clever move on her part, that it set me back quite a bit.”

  “What? How?”

  “I lost the support of two members of the BFI board who’d been ready to throw their vote behind me instead of Leo. Stock prices for Cavalli Enterprises have been plummeting ever since the news hit the papers.

  “The Brunetti Bastard has quite the ring to it, si? A clever little moniker.”

  “Of course it’s not,” Alex replied, the latent bitterness in his words shaking her up. That his plans had been set back gave her no satisfaction in the face of his hurt. But… “Has it made any difference, V?” she couldn’t help asking.

  His head jerked up. “Difference to what?”

  “To see yourself from a different perspective.

  “Face what you’ve done, what you’re doing publicly, going against ethical businessmen like Leo and Massimo, against a revered institution like BFI that they’ve rebuilt into something of value.

  “Shouldn’t it at least make you pause and reconsider what you—”

  “You think I care what the world’s perception of me is? Or that I’ve been only half-awake for the past two decades while I planned and plotted against them using every weakness I could find to further my cause? You think I can stop now, after all these years?”

  She blinked, feeling as if she’d been dropped onto the concrete floor of reality with a bruising thud. But she refused to look away. Refused to back down. “If I can stop running from my life, then you can—”

  “Enough, Alessandra! Let it be.”

  He looked away from her into the crowd. “You didn’t last long before you broke our agreement, did you?”

  She frowned. “Our agreement, which you just dictated by the way, was that I don’t make impulsive, life-altering decisions in the next three months. Standing mutely by your side while you take down people I care about is… Well, let’s just say that will never be me. Honestly, it’s not like I have any ammunition against you. All I have are words.”

  “I’m glad you think that,” he said, with a self-deprecation that had her jerking her head up. “You were…brilliant, glowing on the stage today. I can see why the fashion world is bemoaning you leaving the industry.”

  “My modeling career grounded me when I was directionless, true. But I’m done with it.” She cleared her throat when he looked up. “It was an impulsive decision initially, I admit. I was disgusted by the working conditions that the cosmetic company was using. But it was just the catalyst I needed.

  “I was tired of the constant grind, the relentless probing into my private life…the loneliness behind the bright lights was consuming me.”

  “What about that one?” He tilted his head toward the dance floor.

  Alex didn’t have to look down to see who he meant. For a minute, she dallied with the idea of embellishing her relationship with Javi just to save her pride. Just to make Vincenzo feel a little unsure of where he stood with her. Wanted to see the flash of jealousy she’d seen that day when he’d asked if he was a rebound for her.

  She discarded the idea in the next. Lies and deception had never been her thing.

  “Things hadn’t been right between us for a long time. When I told him that I was considering walking away from it all, he revealed his true colors. His use for me was going to be considerably reduced once I stepped out of the limelight.”

  She shrugged, even though a part of her still hurt. It had been a long time since she’d indulged in the fantasy that Javi and she shared some big, romantic love, but to learn that for him all her value lay in her modeling career was still a bitter pill to swallow. Just like discovering that she’d only been a duty to her mother—a necessary punishment for the sin she’d committed in having an extramarital fling with Alex’s father.

  “He’s still sniffing around you.”

  “I was spectacular today, like you said. So Javi’s wondering if he let me go too soon.”

  “After that fight, you dumped him instantly and hightailed it to Bali, si?”

  “Something like that, yes. But on that occasion my impulse was absolutely right. Realizing that I’m at the tail end of this career now, that retirement is truly what I want at this point in my life…that gave me that extra sparkle on the stage tonight.

  “I’m going to finish at the top. No regrets. No looking back as I start the next chapter of my life.”

  “You sound determined,” he said quietly.

  “Enough to convince you that I mean this?”

  “Si.” He straightened from the lazy pose and every cell in her stood up to attention. “Maybe I can suggest the first paragraph in the new chapter? It’s time to reveal the little secret of our marital status to the world, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.”

  “What better venue than now? Tonight?”

  “Okay, yeah,” she said, casting a look around the huge, packed nightclub.

  It hadn’t gone unnoticed that he’d summoned her and she’d answered the arrogant summons. One look at their body language would be more than enough for anyone to see that their interest in each other was anything but platonic. “Most big media outlets have someone down there. What were you thinking? A statement as we walk out?”

  After what felt like an eternity, he covered the short distance between them, his arrogant stare taking on an edge of something else. Another step and their thighs grazed just a little.

  Alex shivered, every inch of her body, desperate for contact, bowing toward him. His fingers landed on her temple, pushing the mass of her hair from her face. And then he cupped the back of her neck gently. Giving her a chance to step away. “I was thinking a kiss, right here. Stir up some interest before we announce the pertinent facts.”

  Music hammered around them. The intimate contact, after the drought of so many months, felt like a spark of fire in her body. She was going to say yes. She knew it. He knew it. The hungry denizens of the press were just a reason they were both using. Except she didn’t want to be the one who gave in too easily. Who blinked first.

  She ran her fingers through her hair and fluttered her lashes at him. “You’re doing this to punish me for walking out on you.” She pouted, knowing that the particular red she was wearing tonight made her mouth look like a tart strawberry.

  “I didn’t realize kissing me was such a punishment, bella.”

  She bent her mouth closer to his ear. “It isn’t. In fact, there’s very few things in life I enjoy more. And you know that. That’s the punishment. To be reminded of how helpless I am to this…thing between us even when I don’t trust you.”

  A vein pulsed in his temple. “All I want is to kiss my wife after months of going to bed alone, wishing she was there to welcome me. Of waking up alone in the middle of the night fully aroused, but knowing that no relief is forthcoming except by my hand. While wondering if I had imagined how bloody good it had been when you came to me that first time in Bali and I took you under the stars in the night sky.”

  “It was that good,” she added simply. Wishing she was the type that could play games. Wishing she could somehow use his attraction to her, that desperate huskiness of his tone, to her advantage.

  But she couldn’t. “Okay. Let’s get it over with.”

  “That sounds like you’re bracing yourself for battle.”

  “You don’t think the battle’s already begun?”

  “I guess you will claim I started it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And must I
finish the battle too?”

  “No. I will. You should know, though, that I intend to win. At any cost.”

  “All I wanted was a peaceful marriage with a biddable woman,” he said, with a put-upon sigh.

  Laughter roared out of her, melting away the stress and grief of the past few months, at least for a moment. This was the man she’d fallen for in that lush island paradise. This man who’d laughed with her, who’d teased her. Who’d listened to her talking about her dreams.

  He didn’t quite laugh with her but his eyes gleamed in the darkness. In the flickering light and shadows of the club, the lines of his face looked astonishingly beautiful. “And the prize for winning?”

  “There’s a prize?”

  “There’s always a prize in these things. Shall I tell you what it is, Princess?” he whispered, his breath hot against her lips, his arrogant nose flaring.

  Alex placed her open palms against his chest. His heart thundered under her fingers, the beat steadily rising as she leaned her thighs against the rock-hard cradle of his. Heat. Hardness. Hunger. His maleness was an ocean she wanted to drown in. “What?” she croaked.

  “Surrender.”

  “Never,” she declared just as arrogantly, his very words imbuing her blood with challenge.

  She pushed her palm up, up until she reached his neck. Sneaking her fingers into the thick hair at the nape of his neck, she tilted her head. His breath drew a hot path down her cheek, the scent of him a trigger her body instantly associated with long, lazy nights and indescribable pleasure.

  Her other hand she kept on his abdomen, loving the tight clench and release of those powerful muscles every time she touched him.

  “Not unless…”

  “Not unless what?”

  Slowly, she pressed her lips to his, pressing his head down with her fingers. As if he’d been made for the express purpose of pleasuring her. “Unless I take you down with me.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes. I want to make you drown. In me. Until you can’t tell what’s right and wrong anymore. Until…”

  Soft lips met hers in a rush of warmth and rollicking hunger. Alex drew a sizzling trail along the seam of that sensuous mouth with her tongue, her breath a labored hiss against his bristly jaw. The remembered taste of him was like a detonation going off inside her body.

  She nipped and kissed, licked and played with his mouth, but it wasn’t enough.

  Nowhere near enough.

  She sneaked her tongue into his mouth on the next swipe. Pleasure exploded in sweet rivulets down her body as the taste of him filled her. Whiskey and want—he was all solid and real. And after the roller coaster of the last few months, here was the thing that had anchored her. She devoured him as if the taste of him on her tongue, the solid breadth of him in her hands, the labored rush of his breaths on her skin could fill the emptiness inside of her. As if he was all she needed.

  Pressing herself into him, she took his mouth with a feral hunger. She licked and nipped, bit and laved at the pillowy lushness of his lips. Thrust in and out of his mouth in a rhythm she desperately needed to be feeling somewhere else.

  His other hand landed on flesh where the slinky black number bared the curve of her hips. Those long fingers she knew so well fluttered over her skin, tender like butterfly wings, and yet leaving a wake of heat in their trail. “Slow down, cara. I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered against her skin.

  The dry humor in those words was a cold slap to her senses. Alex pulled away from him, her breaths choppy, the lack of solid warmth in her hands painfully real.

  But for all the silky control of his words, she could see the stamp of desire on his tight features, the sharp hiss of his breath as he wrestled himself back under control, the curse he bit out when he moved.

  “I think that’s enough of a PDA to announce our marriage, si?” she whispered.

  He grunted his assent and she laughed. But as they made their way downstairs, the caged passion of his body sliding deliciously against her own, answering the questions thrown their way, Alex wondered how a win could feel so much like a loss.

  CHAPTER SIX

  AN UNCOMMONLY BRISK September breeze plastered her silk blouse and long skirt against her body as Alex stood waiting on the steps outside the Brunetti villa.

  Her temper matched the wind’s bite. God, she was surrounded by the most infuriatingly stubborn people on the face of the planet.

  The roar of the Lamborghini Aventador had cut short her rapid-fire argument with Greta, who’d refused to even contemplate the idea of apologizing to Vincenzo. As much as it galled Alex to acknowledge it of the woman who had welcomed her with open arms, Greta’s actions toward Vincenzo and his mother all those years ago had been thoughtless at best and cruel at worst. Even Massimo had blasted Greta for it.

  It didn’t matter that at that time, Greta had been doing her best to corral her son, Silvio—an egotistical monster bent on destroying the revered institution that was BFI as well as Massimo and Leo’s lives. Neither was Greta willing to understand that Alex’s marriage to Vincenzo wasn’t a momentary madness that she could simply walk away from right now.

  On the other side was Vincenzo, using their intimate, spine-melting kiss at the nightclub, using every detail of their relationship to enable him to continue his siege on BFI. Whatever setback the article in the press had initially caused him, he was using their “fairy-tale-esque romance” to clean up his image.

  It was bad enough that Leo’s own reputation as BFI’s CEO had taken a hit after Vincenzo’s sustained attacks for over a year now. And now the news of his marriage to her… Alex could almost see the neat twist.

  If Alessandra Giovanni—the adopted daughter of the Brunettis—had fallen head over heels for Vincenzo Cavalli, he couldn’t be all that bad, could he?

  The press had turned the untamable wolf that was Vincenzo Cavalli into the most romantic man on the planet.

  Alex pursed her mouth as the purring engine of the Aventador came to a smooth halt in front of her. Her pulse spiked as Vincenzo stepped out and walked around to her side.

  In a V-necked sweater and denim that sinfully molded to those hard thighs, he looked like every sinful temptation she’d ever had. His jet-black hair had a wet sheen from the shower, his freshly shaven jaw all sharp angles. Looking composed was hard when all she wanted to do was press her face against the exposed skin at his throat and absorb some much-needed warmth.

  The media had exploded after their kiss and the subsequent reveal of their wedding, but they still hadn’t worked out all the logistics of where they would live. She was still finishing up her last contracts, talking to Charlie every day and playing out the social circuit in Milan with Vincenzo by her side.

  Not that she didn’t welcome the reprieve it gave her. Resisting him was a much easier concept when they parted ways at the end of the night.

  Leaning against the Aventador, he looked effortlessly urbane, sophisticated in a raw, powerful way. Not even the most gorgeous male models she’d known could achieve that confidence, that wicked arrogance without a lot of practice.

  Here was a man who did not need his ego to be stroked. Or pandered to, in any way. Who had earned everything he possessed the hard way.

  His gaze took her in with such thoroughly possessive leisure that all her animosity for him misted away.

  “I thought a chauffeur was picking me up.”

  He unfolded his hands and stepped forward, a smile tugging at his lips. “Ah…but I wanted a few private minutes with you. I caught your speech at the Women CEOs Summit. It was refreshing and bold.”

  The genuine admiration in his voice… He took the fight out of her far too easily. She licked her lips and said, “Thanks,” in an uptight, frosty voice.

  Grinning, he neared her. Not quite caging her against the car. But close enough for the fresh,
soapy scent of him to assault her every sense. “I never thought about the perils of marrying a woman who’s a powerhouse in her own right. Charity galas, and runway shows and photoshoots… I feel quite the poor neglected husband.”

  A thick, damp lock of hair fell on his forehead and she pushed at it instinctively. The tips of her breasts grazed his bicep and she felt the soft hiss of his breath. “You’re not the poor anything, V,” she added. Not in the throaty way she’d intended but more like a whisper.

  He stepped back, removing that easy intimacy. And his gaze swept over her in an approving survey that spawned warmth.

  For all the years she’d spent with makeup artists, Alex preferred simple, easy looks.

  The white sleeveless silk blouse draped around her torso was not loose, not figure hugging, but bared a strip of her belly. The inner layer of the skirt ended several inches above her knees, while the outer sheer silky hem fell all the way to her toes, caressing her legs every time she moved.

  She’d added diamond studs at her ears and a thin gold chain with a tiny pendant for her jewelry. Her unruly hair, she’d subdued into a French braid while it was still wet.

  “You look…different,” he added finally.

  “Bad different?” she asked, over the loud thudding of her heart.

  “Enchanting different,” came his quick reply, accompanied by a grin that threatened to take her out at the knees. “You look striking on the runway but I like this version of you more.”

  “The not strutting in only three triangles of clothing version?” she said, cocking her eyebrow.

  His laughter dug deep grooves at the sides of his mouth. His gray gaze shone like liquid metal. “That too. But it’s not just that. You look real. Like the woman I met in Bali that first night.”

  Warmth crawled up her neck and she stared, tongue-tied.

  Seducing her like this was a game to him. Surrender, his prize.

  His thumb traced the dark smudges under her eyes that she hadn’t been able to cover up as well as her makeup artist. “However, you look tired.” Low and tender, his voice snaked itself around her. “Anna told me your calendar looks impossible.”