Billionaire Brides: An Anthology

by Connelly, Clare

  Emily spun around, positioning the tray between them. “The colours. They’re so beautiful. So harmonious. The most beautiful gradient in the world; wouldn’t you agree?”

  Sabato ignored the food. His eyes lifted to the view beyond them. “How fortunate to enjoy something you get to see every day.”

  “Twice a day sometimes,” she agreed with a small smile. “Dawn is just as stunning.”

  Sabato raised his brows. “Do you make a habit of being up early enough to appreciate it?”

  Her eyes lifted to his and she felt as though she’d taken a step off the edge of the balcony. She was free falling. “Not a habit. An effort.”

  He looked at her enquiringly, waiting for her to expand.

  “I always see the day start. Mind you, that’s easier in winter.”

  Fascinating. “Why?”

  Emily expelled a slow breath. “The sun rises later.” She swallowed. “I should go back in.”

  He couldn’t help it. The hunt, so pleasurable, so captivating… He ran his finger down her cheek, pausing just at the edge of her delectable pink lips. “Should you?”

  Emily’s body was quivering. His touch was both innocent and incendiary. She stepped a little to the side, just far enough to break the contact. “What are you doing?” She asked quietly, unable to meet his eyes.

  “I should have thought that would be quite obvious. Am I not being clear?” His eyes raked her face, devouring her with concentration. “I want you.”

  Is that what this was? The way her whole body felt ready to burst into flames and her breath was burning in her chest. “No, you don’t.” Her denial was soft and unconvincing.

  Sabato laughed, and this time it was a low, quiet rumble, that came from deep in his chest. “Do you think not?”

  “No.” Her tongue darted out and traced the outline of her lips. “I don’t know why you’re saying it, but it can’t be true.”

  Sabato lifted his hands and took the platter from her. She was so confused by the things he was saying, and the way her body was responding, that she let him. “Tell me, cara, why would I lie to you?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice just a throaty husk. “But I know that someone like you doesn’t look at someone like me.”

  “Someone like you?” He murmured, placing the tray on a nearby table without moving away from her. “Someone beautiful and sweet and interesting and enigmatic? You do not think that is a lethal combination?”

  “No.” she couldn’t let his words sink in. They didn’t make any sense. “Look at you. And look at the women in there!” She shook her head slowly. “I’m nothing like them.”

  “Precisely.” His smile was slow and darkly dangerous. “I have been watching you all night.”

  “You haven’t,” she denied on instinct, but her stomach was in knots and her body was leaning closer to his, driven by an ancient instinct she was powerless to deny.

  “Yes. All night. I have seen the way your lips,” and he lifted a finger and traced their fullness now, “curl with disdain as you listen to the vapid mutterings of these women. I have seen the way men stare at you, and you seem not to notice. The way you glide across the floor as though you are a ballerina and this is your stage. I have seen, and I have watched, and I have waited and I have wanted.”

  Emily’s heart turned over in her chest. He smelled so good; strong and masculine, clean and edible. “I’m at work.” Her voice was thick. “I have to get back inside.” She didn’t want to go anywhere. Her feet were digging roots into the ground.

  Sabato’s eyes narrowed. “Will you meet me later?”

  His meaning was unmistakable and it was enough to pierce the fog of sensual confusion that was wrapping around her. She shook her head, nervousness and coyness making her drop her gaze from his. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Don’t you?” His tone was mocking. Teasing. He understood her desire and he wasn’t letting her ignore it.

  “I’m not … what you seem to think.”

  “And what do I think you are?” Sabato prompted, pressing his body forward, so that they were separated by only a hint of the balmy evening air.

  Emily swallowed; her throat was lined with sandpaper and her blood was gushing through her veins so loudly she could hear it drumming in her ears. Honesty was Emily’s first instinct in any situation; she employed it now. “That I’m someone who could handle you.” She bit down on her lower lip and her teeth gleaned in the moonlight. “That I’m someone who maybe makes a habit of doing what you’re, um, suggesting.”

  He laughed, her innocence sweetly endearing and terrifyingly sexy. “Believe me, if I thought that, you have done an excellent job of showing me otherwise.”

  “Meaning what, exactly? That I’m unsophisticated?”

  “Yes.” His eyes flared. “Precisely. And it only makes me want you more.”

  “You must stop saying that,” Emily groaned, lifting her hands to his chest to put some space between them. But his heart was beating beneath her palms now, and his skin was warm through the fabric of his shirt. “Please.”

  “Please?” He teased in his deep voice. “Music to my ears.” And wilfully misunderstanding her, he lowered his head, intending only to brush his lips against hers. But the moment his mouth connected, she parted her lips and moaned, her fingers curled into his shirt and she pressed her hips forward, so that she was intimately connected with his arousal.

  He deepened the kiss, lost to the magic of the moment they were creating; self control be damned, he wanted her in a way that was hauntingly unique. His tongue invaded her soft warmth, and his hands curved around her back. His legs were powerful on either side of her.

  Emily couldn’t think. She was in new territory and she liked it. A kiss like this was completely outside her experience. She groaned, and lifted her head higher, surrendering herself completely to the experience.

  Her hands ran across his shirt, across his muscular chest, and then lower, down his sides. She pulled at the fabric desperately, needing to touch him. To feel him. Emily wanted… something she didn’t understand. Her legs were so weak she felt like they might give way beneath her.

  “Someone will see us,” she whispered frantically, but her hands finally broke through and her fingers teased the bunching muscles of his chest.

  “Good,” he breathed against her, moving his mouth to the sensitive flesh at the base of her neck.

  Her laugh was a trembling noise in the night air. “I can’t get fired.”

  “Ah,” he grinned, and through the fabric of her apron and blouse, he padded his thumb across one of her taut nipples. “But then I would have you to myself for the night, no?”

  Desire swirled inside of her; a galaxy she couldn’t escape. How nice it would be to say ‘yes’. To forget about the burdensome responsibilities she carried with her; the boy who depended on her not just for food and accommodation, but life and time. How nice it would be to pretend, for just one night, that she was free to make decisions such as this without thinking them through to the final degree. But his words were the beginning of an antidote. “No.” She pushed at his chest a little, her eyes finding his. Her pupils were dilated, her lips were swollen. Sabato was aching with a need to have her. “I have to go back inside.”

  His world was tipping in a way he found impossible to understand. “Why?”

  “Because I’m at work.” And for so many other reasons. Her breath was heaving from her body in ragged desperation. Her knees still shivered with weakness and her nipples were straining at the fabric of her shirt.

  Still, she knew what she had to do; it was up to her to put an end to this. She’d been an adult for longer than her time, and sometimes being mature meant ignoring your own wishes for the sake of someone else. She thought of Andrew and plucked strength and courage from somewhere. “I don’t know if you were born with the proverbial silver spoon, or if you actually have a job. But this is my work. It’s important to me.”

  “
Agnes, wait.”

  Emily’s heart was racing. She felt ashamed, and devastated, and desperately lustful all at the same time. “No,” she groaned, her cheeks flushed. Her fingers were still curled into the fabric of his shirt. “I have to go back inside.”

  “I understand.” He spoke as he might have to a horse that was on the verge of bolting. He reached down and laced his fingers through hers. He was gentle now; reassuring. “When do you finish work?”

  “Five o’clock.”

  Sabato frowned. “Tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes narrowed with disapproval, and though he didn’t speak, Emily understood what he was objecting to. Defensively, she added, “It’s just a double shift.”

  He didn’t like it. This waif of a girl shouldn’t be working twelve-hour days. “Come to my room when you finish.”

  Emily shook her head but her mind was screaming yes, yes, yes! His words were sending need and want through her blood. Her cheeks were flushing in anticipation and her eyes were wide. “I really shouldn’t.”

  Sabato had never before experienced rejection. Certainly not from a woman. And certainly not from a woman he’d wanted with this magnitude. “Give me one reason. One reason why you shouldn’t come and finish what we just started.”

  Emily’s smile was wistful and her voice soft. “I can give you several. Firstly, I’m not interested in a … relationship with anyone. I have enough going on in my life to make it impossible. Secondly, we literally just met. I don’t know if I’ve taken the staff elevator all the way to the twilight zone, but I don’t go in for the kind of thing you’re suggesting. I don’t even know your name, so there’s no way I’d consider going to your room. You could be a bloody axe murderer for all I know.”

  Sabato’s laugh sent waves of pleasure rippling through her. “I assure you, I’m not.”

  “And third,” Emily continued as though he hadn’t spoken, lifting a finger to his lips to silence him; and her voice trembled with the magnitude of what she was about to reveal. “I’ve never been with anyone before. I’m a virgin. So I’m pretty sure that you don’t really want the complication of being with me. Am I right?”

  Chapter 2

  She was wrong. So, so wrong. Sabato watched her go with a sense of complete surrealism.

  A virgin. In this day and age, at her age, was impossible to understand. She was certainly younger than him; he would have guessed her to be in her early twenties. But still, what had happened in her life to curtail any of the normal teenage experimentation?

  His eyes sought her out across the room. She was collecting glasses, her cheeks pink, her lips still a little swollen from their kiss.

  He felt himself harden with need. She was a virgin and all he could think about was bringing her to his bed.

  The blonde woman, Pia something or other, he’d been speaking to earlier came into view. He regarded her analytically now. She looked so plastic. So false. So utterly unappealing. Her body would be all skin and bone, her skin soft but cold. She wouldn’t come alive for him in the same way the waitress had.

  Hell, he was running on libido alone.

  The Master of Ceremonies performed a perfunctory introduction, calling Sabato’s attention back to the stage. “Not many hospitals can boast a benefactor as dedicated nor generous as Sabato Montepulciano. For the last five years he has been our principle fundraiser, solely responsible for the construction of the new research institute. In addition to this, his generosity has enabled us to employ ten nurses who are able to visit paediatric patients in regional areas. Please, join me in welcoming to the stage the man who has made this evening possible, Sabato Montepulciano.”

  Emily, curious, risked meeting the eyes of the handsome stranger she’d been with earlier. He must be somewhere in the crowd, but she’d been pointedly focussing only on a foot or two in front of her. Now though, interested to see the man who owned the hotel, she looked straight at the stage. And straight into Sabato’s mocking gaze.

  Now you know my name, his eyes were taunting her.

  She fumbled a glass, catching it right before it hit the ground. She swore under her breath and replaced it on the table. Yes, she knew his name. And she also knew that he was Mister Moneybags himself. Owner of the hotel. Owner of just about the whole damn world.

  “Good evening. I hope you are all enjoying yourselves. I know it’s already been a very special night for me.” Emily’s cheeks burned. He was looking straight at her. “But the night is young, there is still time to make it a night to truly remember.” His smile was dripping with sex-appeal. Emily’s insides slicked with red-hot desire. She couldn’t take it any more. She almost ran back into the kitchen and pressed her back against the wall.

  Her breath was being pulled from her as if by force. “You are okay?” The French chef.

  “Oh. I’m fine, thanks.” She straightened off the wall, her heart thumping heavily.

  “Did you enjoy your dinner?”

  Emily thought guiltily of the platter of nibbles she’d eaten earlier. She’d been so confused that she’d barely tasted them. “Delicious,” she responded with a smile.

  Rhonda appeared from the main area. “Auction’s happening now. Agnes, you’re fine to finish up. Thanks for helping us out of a jam tonight.”

  Emily had never been more grateful. She was pretty sure she’d spend the whole night thinking about Sabato Montepulciano and the effect he had on her, but at least she could now put some physical distance between them.

  And if she hadn’t?

  Would she have been at risk of falling under his spell and into his bed?

  She lifted her hands distractedly to her lips, touching her tingling mouth with awe. His kiss had been unlike anything she’d ever known.

  She took her apron off distractedly and hooked it against the wall, then she pressed the button to hail the lift.

  The elevator descended and with it, Emily’s feet came back to earth. Within minutes, she was behind her housekeeping cart, going through her regular duties. And even though nights weren’t as busy as the mornings, when all the rooms had to be cleaned and freshened, she had enough to keep her distracted. Enough to keep her mind from wandering to thoughts of Sabato Montepulciano.

  At least, she should have.

  “How’d you go up there?” Ewan found her somewhere just before five in the morning. Emily was rounding out her shift, and though she was exhausted, she was also still reverberating with a new frequency of pleasure. Her body had been made to feel things she’d never known possible. A door had been opened, and her body was slowly unfurling through it.

  “Heck, what are you still doing here?” She jumped, unplugging one of her earpieces. She was putting away linen in the enormous store room. It was a job she usually loved, for the order she could create. But not that night.

  “We’re short staffed across the board.”

  “Just as well Andrew’s got musical camp, then,” Emily smiled, switching the music off on her iPhone and slipping it back in her pocket.

  “Yes, talk about flukey timing.” He reclined against one of the benches, close to her. “So?”

  “So?” She prompted, reaching for the last bale of towels.

  “Did you like it? Waitressing?”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks flushed. Sabato’s dark eyes loomed into view. “Yeah. It was nice to do something different.”

  “See. I told you you’d be fine.”

  She nodded. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Mostly they were too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice me.”

  I see the way you look at these vapid women. Her heart turned over. She forced a smile to her lips.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Ewan said, his manner teasing. They’d been friends for years. The flirtation was harmless.

  “Anyway, now that I’ve done it once, I’m happy to help out if you’re in a bind again.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind. What are you up to for the rest of the day?”

 
; Her cheeks flushed as she thought of what she could have been doing, if she’d listened to her instincts and desires instead of her common sense.

  “Home to rest, then I’ll try to get some painting done.”

  “How’s it coming along?”

  Ewan was the only person she’d confided in. Her dreams of being exhibited in an actual gallery were closer to coming true than ever before. “Good. I like it.”

  “When do I get to see it?”

  She reached out and playfully punched his arm. “Not until it’s finished. You know my rule. I can’t have someone see it and jinx it. Not before I’m ready.”

  “How do you know I’m not your good luck charm?”

  “Because.” She slid the last clutch of towels into a shelf and put her hands on her hips.

  “Because?”

  “Well, maybe you are,” she conceded with a laugh. “But I don’t need luck.”

  He laughed, and put an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure you don’t. Thanks for everything tonight, Emme.”

  “You get some rest,” she called over her shoulder, as she slipped out of the storage room and back to the staff locker area. She collected her handbag, slung it over her shoulder then dipped her head low.

  Sabato’s eyes haunted her as she stepped out of the staff entrance. His mouth, and memories of the way it had moved over hers, made her breath catch. She almost lost her footing, and might have fallen, had a strong arm not clamped under her elbow.

  Emily looked up, preparing to mutter a word of thanks.

  And then, the world began to quiver. Her eyes clashed with his. Sabato’s. The eyes that he been haunting her all night.

  “It’s you,” she breathed slowly, her chest heaving.

  His throat worked overtime as he swallowed down deep emotions. “Come with me.”

  Despite the way her heart pulse was thrilling, Emily kept her wits about her. “Last time I ‘came with you’ everything got a bit out of hand.”

  He nodded gravely. “Not out of hand enough, believe me.”

  “Sir,” she said, stepping away from him and pulling on the cheap vinyl strap of her handbag as though it would tether her back to reality.