by Marian Tee
Vivian couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “But what were you doing---”
“In the photocopying room?” he finished for her when Vivian’s voice trailed off. At her nod, he explained, “It was right next to the conference room as you know, and the first day, my secretary had to suddenly leave for an emergency. Since I had time to spare and the meeting I had with your company’s board of directors had yet to start…” He shrugged. “I decided to do her bit and---” His gaze captured hers, and with his voice turning husky, he said, “That was when I met you.”
That was when I met you.
In his eyes, she could see the promise of something forbidden, something she thought was beyond her dreams---
But if he’s what he says he is, Vivian, then he’s way out of your league!
The bubble burst.
No matter what she saw – or thought she saw in those eyes of his – it didn’t matter. They were from two different worlds, and the sooner she got out of his life, the better. “I should go,” she mumbled as she came to her feet.
Even with her gaze trained on the floor, she sensed him standing up as well, and his voice was a pleasant drawl as he said, “Before you go, I was hoping you’d allow me to show you something.”
Her nails dug into her palms. “I don’t think---”
“Please don’t make me insist,” he said gently.
She quieted, his polite words working a subtle reminder that he was also her boss’ boss’ boss. Or should she add one or two more bosses to that, she wondered wildly. Meanwhile, Luca had already made his way to the desk and reached for a stapled set of receipts.
Walking back to her, he handed them to Vivian.
She took it unthinkingly, but her eyes widened when she caught sight of the header. The logo was on the same receipt she had from the loan shark she had approached.
“What does this mean?” she asked sickly. But in the back of her mind, in the deepest pit of her stomach, Vivian already knew. She just needed to hear him say the words.
He stared at her for a moment, his light blue eyes unreadable.
Vivian took a deep breath. “Gian---”
“Call me Luca,” he invited.
Ooooh.
She wanted to swoon at the way those words and his name rolled past his lips, and his Italian accent made everything a hundred times sexier. She just wanted to---
Focus, Vivian!
Lifting her chin, she blurted out, “What are you trying to tell me with this?” She raised the receipt in her hand in emphasis. When he didn’t say anything, she prodded unevenly, “L-Luca? What are you t-trying to say?”
Well played, Vivi, Luca thought. She was trying to shame him into denying what they both knew he was doing, and he hadn’t expected it of her. This certainly made things interesting, but if she thought something like this could give her the upper hand?
You’re centuries too early to beat me in this game, cara.
He reached for her face and almost smiled as uncertainty flashed in her green eyes. She looked torn between slapping his hand away and leaning towards him. In the end, she did neither and instead kept herself still.
Luca’s fingers grazed her cheek.
Heat burst inside of her.
Do not melt, Vivian!
She quickly stepped back, stammering, “I think it’s time I---” But then she caught sight of the heat that had flared in his gaze, and her voice trailed off. The sexual tension in the air made her desperately drag oxygen into her lungs, but it didn’t help.
If she didn’t leave now---
She whirled around to leave.
But it was too late.
Unlike Taylor, Luca didn’t just catch hold of her hand.
Instead, he tugged her firmly towards him, catching her by surprise and causing her to fall.
“Aaah!”
She fell against him, and she gasped at the hard heat of his chest against her back.
“Did you seriously think I would allow you to go just like that, cara?” He turned her around to face him, his hands clasping her waist. “Do you know,” he murmured musingly, “I told myself I’d be patient with you. I told myself I’d be careful and gently rein you in---”
“Rein me in?” she echoed in outrage even as she fought to ignore the way her heart was beating so fast and hard at the way their bodies were in contact. She tried to pull away from him, but his grip only tightened around her waist, Luca pulling her even closer to him.
Oh.
“I’m not a horse---” Her words came out in a choking sound. It was so hard to concentrate, with her sensitive and suddenly swollen breasts flattened against his chest.
Luca’s lips curved in a devastatingly sexy smile. “Certainly not,” he agreed solemnly. His accent thickening, he murmured, “You’re more like a mare, gentle but untamed---” His eyes suddenly cooled. “And unfortunately, some other ass also has his eyes on you.”
Her gaze narrowed. “If you’re saying I can only attract donkey-looking guys---”
He cut her off, saying offhandedly, “Taylor Bainbridge does look like a donkey---”
Her eyes widened in comprehension. “You were talking about Taylor earlier?”
“You’re on a first-name basis with him? Isn’t that against company policy?”
Fudge. It was. Only she had been too shocked to remember that. “We went to the same high school,” she mumbled defensively.
“Is that so?” His tone remained cool, but his gaze was anything but, and she could practically feel him bristling like a predator wanting to tear away from its leash. His barely contained aggression didn’t make sense. It was almost as if…as if---
“Are you jealous?” The words were out before she could stop herself.
Luca’s lip curled. “Jealous of someone inconsequential?”
“He’s not,” she denied automatically.
“He is, compared to me.”
She would have refuted that, too, but she couldn’t, not with Luca suddenly pressing his lips to hers.
Oh.
Vivian stilled.
While she would never admit it, she had, numerous times, imagined how it would be if Gian – no, Luca – would be her first kiss. Merely imagining it had been enough to have her toes curl, but now that it was truly happening?
The kiss was scorching hot, unbelievably so considering neither of them was touching the other. His lips felt warm, firm and soft at the same time. And…kissable. She mentally gulped and swooned at the thought. They were really just so…she had the craziest urge to sink her teeth into his lower lip, maybe suck on it---
Vivian, behave!
But even with the shocked words from her more sensible side ringing inside of her mind, Vivian couldn’t stop shivering, couldn’t stop her eyes from closing---
His lips started to move.
The papers fell from Vivian’s fingers.
His tongue lined her lips, and a shudder went through her.
“Tell me the truth, Vivi.” It was a velvety command that Vivian knew she wouldn’t be able to disobey. “Did that boy ever kiss you like this?” This time, the words were rougher. This time, she also knew what she had thought impossible was true.
Luca Valencia was jealous.
Before she could answer him, she felt his hands moving between their bodies, one arm going around her waist to tighten while another scooped between the gaps of her uniform to cup her breast.
A gasp tore out of her and she instinctively tried to move away, but his hold on her tightened, one hand pushing her even closer towards him, and the large, hot hand on her cotton-covered breast palming her flesh before squeezing.
This time, she whimpered against his lips.
Luca stilled, surprised at how such a simple sound could be so erotic, to the point of making his entire body harden in desire.
Apparently, he and Vivi had amazing sexual chemistry between them.
Unexpected, Luca thought, but it was certainly not unwelcome.
“Di
d he touch you like this, Vivi?” He squeezed her breast harder. “Did he?” He lifted his head so he could gaze into her eyes as he waited for her answer.
Slowly, her head moved. No.
And in those pure green eyes, Luca could see that she was telling the truth.
Even so, it wasn’t enough.
With his gaze locked to hers, he released her breast. He watched her sigh in relief only to hold her breath again when she realized that he had done so to unbutton her blouse.
“What are you doing?”
“Claiming what is mine…” Her blouse fell open, and with his gaze still holding hers captive, he tugged her bra down.
When she felt her breast spring free, Vivian didn’t know where to look or what to do first. She couldn’t believe what Luca had just done – and worse, that she had let him!
“From the very start, Vivi…”
Oh God, she should stop looking at him.
She should start running away.
But she couldn’t.
Not when he was looking at her so hungrily, like he wanted to devour her.
Not when she was feeling so helpless with need, like…she wanted just as much to be devoured.
His head lowered.
Run now, Vivian.
His hand cupped her breast.
Oh.
His head lowered.
Ooooh.
And then before she knew it, he was cupping her breast, plumping it until he could slowly draw her nipple into his mouth. The impact was astounding, the heat even more scorching than what she had experienced with his kiss, and her knees knocked against each other as she actually started to lose her balance. She might have fallen back, it was entirely possible, if not for his arm encircled around her waist tightening, and then he was sucking even harder on her nipple.
A whimper escaped her.
“Please---” She didn’t know what she was pleading him for, but it seemed like he did, and Luca moved to her other breast, paying it the same lavish attention as he tongued her nipple before starting to suck.
Her hands clenched and unclenched, and then she somehow found herself moving her hands up, running them over the muscles of his arms, his shoulders, and finally she was gripping his hair.
Her fingers tightened.
He bit her nipple.
She moaned, and even as tiny bursts of fireworks exploded behind her eyelids, she also started to panic as the enormity of what she was doing – of what she was letting him do – hit her.
Somehow, Vivian found the strength to push him away. “S-stop!”
To his credit, he didn’t use his strength against her, immediately releasing her nipple from his mouth. She stumbled back as he straightened, her hands clumsily righting her clothing, pushing her bra up to its proper position and then pulling the sides of her blouse together in an effort to cover her chest.
“I know what you want,” she stammered, “but I’m sorry. I just---” Her gaze fell to the receipt lying discarded on the carpeted floor. “I just can’t do it, even though you’re holding that against me.” She waited with bated breath for him to speak, her gaze searching, but every inch of Luca’s gorgeous face remained unreadable.
Crossing his arms against his chest, he asked in a neutral voice, “What do I want then?”
“To make me your sex slave.”
His eyebrows arched. “My…sex…slave.”
She could feel herself reddening. “Don’t tell me you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he said promptly.
And strangely enough, she believed him – which also meant she was wrong, and she had just made a fool out of herself, again.
Vivian covered her face. “I can’t believe I said that out loud.”
Even with her voice muffled by her hands, he had no problems understanding her, and he said solemnly, “You watch too many movies.”
Face still hidden, she shook her head. “Books. Read too many books and assumed---”
Luca almost laughed at the way she failed to swallow back her wail of embarrassment.
“It was a sensible conclusion to make,” he said soothingly.
Knowing she had to stop acting like a kid, she reluctantly lowered her hands but even so, she was still unable to meet his gaze, mumbling, “It wasn’t.”
“Care to make any other guesses then, Vivi?” He was smiling as he asked, but his gaze was hooded.
It was all so very mysterious and sexy, and there went her heart again, beating faster and faster, acting all excited when it should have acted terrified or alarmed. You have an idiot for a heart, Vivian, her brain told her disapprovingly.
She took a deep breath and tried to think of everything calmly and rationally. She could assume, after the first day, that he had staged their every meeting. But he had also chosen to hide his identity from her, perhaps to ensure she wasn’t a gold-digger. She could understand that, but then why the interest in someone like her? Why bother buying her debt? Why did he need to have something to hold over her head?
But then she remembered the photocopied letters of the little girl.
And Vivian heard herself say, “You want me as a mistress…because you’re married, and you have a kid, and y-you’re unhappy with your marriage.” Oh, how it hurt to say such words, even though she knew she was being stupid to feel that way, and over someone she didn’t really know at all.
She raised her gaze to him, but still she couldn’t read anything from those light blue eyes of his. “T-that’s why you need someone like me? Y-you think I can give you something your wife can’t, and you can also make sure that I won’t cause you t-trouble because you practically o-own me?”
A full minute passed, and somehow she could sense him struggling internally, almost as if he was considering walking away from her…for good.
And somehow, the prospect was…terrifying.
“L-Luca?”
“You’re only half-right, I’m afraid.”
Vivian stilled.
“I do need someone like you in my life. And I do have a kid – the most beautiful four-year-old daughter, whom I’d be pleased for you to meet. However, I am not married. Rather, I’m divorced.”
Vivian knew she should react at one point but she couldn’t, her mind still reeling with all these unknown facts being thrown at her.
He wasn’t just Gian, the supervisor she met from time to time at the photocopying room, but instead he was Gianluca Valencia, a billionaire who was also now her boss.
He wasn’t married, but he had been divorced, and he had a daughter.
A daughter he’d like her to meet because---
“I don’t understand,” she said weakly.
“You do.” He smiled, and his tone was wry and soft as he murmured, “Because you’re a smart woman, cara, smarter than you give yourself credit for.”
Her teeth sank into her lower lip.
“I can see the answer in your eyes already, Vivi. But if it’s your will that I speak of it first then…” His broad shoulders moved in a shrug. “I neither want nor need you to be my mistress. However, my daughter is in need of a mother, and it is for that reason, cara, that I would like you to consider becoming my wife.”
Chapter Four
“How much do you know about me?”
The question was asked in a small voice, and when Luca glanced at the woman sitting next to him on the backseat of his limousine, he wasn’t surprised to find her confused and anxious, gnawing on her lip as she wrung her hands on her lap.
“What do you mean?”
She said slowly, “I have a feeling, if you had really wanted me to be---” Vivian paused, unable to make herself complete the thought.
“My wife?” He smiled at her awkward nod. “I did – I do choose you to be my wife, cara. Is it that so hard to believe?”
“Umm…” Vivian had the strangest urge to laugh. “Yes?” This time, she couldn’t help it, and a slightly panicky laugh escaped her. How could he seriously ask her that?
“Well,
I did.” He paused. “Actually, my daughter and I did.”
She jerked. “What?” Vivian shook her head. “Didn’t you mention that your daughter was four years old? Did you tell her you’d buy her a mother or something?”
Luca had to grin. “Actually, she warned me not to do that.”
“She did?”
“She’s not into material things.” Unlike her birth mother, Luca couldn’t help adding silently.
Vivian said cautiously, “She seems like a nice and interesting young girl.”
“Ah, well…” Luca considered lying only for a moment, but in the end he said truthfully, “She’s nice when she wants to be, I suppose.”
Vivian gulped. “I see.” And she did. She was beginning to see that his daughter might just be as cunning and manipulative as her billionaire father. A scary thought, but it was one that she found herself confronting sooner than she was ready. The limousine had slowed down, and ahead of them she saw a pair of automated steel gates opening to a driveway.
Oh, wow. That was some driveway, she thought, taken aback. It seemed to stretch forever, long and far enough that she couldn’t see the end. When they finally reached their destination, Vivian had to do her best not to gawk at Luca’s palatial home. How could someone this beautiful, this stately, exist in Florida? She loved the Sunshine State as much as the next person, but the tycoon’s residence had the kind of majestic atmosphere that was more suitable for a historic European city.
Three stories high, the sprawling mansion boasted of an entirely white façade, impressive Palladian windows, and an elegant brick foundation. It looked like the kind of house one could tour, if that made any sense, and the fact that the man seated beside her – the man who wanted her as his wife – owned and lived in this type of property?
She pinched herself once – twice, thrice - and every instance hurt, proving that she wasn’t dreaming.
After stepping out, Luca offered his hand to her, and Vivian took it hesitantly. A part of her was still urging her to just turn her back and forget about everything that had to do with Luca Valencia, but the bigger part of her wanted to fall deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.
