Marrying Her Enemy & Stolen by the Desert King

by Clare Connelly

  Rosie released her grip. “I hate that, you know.”

  Luca stopped walking. “Hate what?”

  “The way you compartmentalise your life. The way you decide what I should and shouldn’t want to know.”

  He frowned. “Do I?”

  “You know you do. And it makes me feel… temporary. Expendable. Like you don’t care enough to let me see the real you.”

  Luca’s tongue was heavy in his dry mouth. He had shown so much more of himself to Rosie than anyone else, ever. “I do not mean to push you out,” he said honestly. “My childhood was more or less without event. Why discuss it?”

  She rolled her expressive sea green eyes in her face. “Because it made you who you are today. And I love you, okay? I know we just met, but I love you, Luca, and I want to know everything about you.”

  She bit down on her lip, incredibly embarrassed at the words that had just fallen over themselves to trip out of her mouth. He was silent for so long, and Rosie was certain she would die from the humiliation. When he spoke, his voice had a strange, faraway quality to it.

  Rosie tried not to react to the obvious fact that he hadn’t reciprocated her declaration.

  “My first memory is of an orphanage. Lots of children. Harried carers. Stress, all the time. No real attention. We had a huge orange orchard out the back, and that was the highlight of my day. I would go and pick oranges, and sit beneath a tree and read.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Three. Perhaps four.”

  “And you were reading already? Books?”

  “Si.”

  Rosie lifted her brows in surprise. “It’s very young.”

  “Perhaps. I was bored silly, though. Books were available, and I took to them.”

  “And then?”

  He thought back to those years. The time in his life tried to forget. “After a couple of years, around the time I turned five, I was taken in by a couple. I stayed with them for over a year.”

  “Why not longer?”

  “They were foster carers. They were in a position to offer temporary accommodation. Not to adopt, even if they’d wanted to.”

  Rosie felt her heart turn over. Nausea rose in her chest. “And after that?”

  “Another couple. And then another. You do not need me to enumerate on my various foster homes, believe me, Rosie. It would do you no good to hear of the homes I lived in. It was all the same. Until I turned twelve, and I went to reside with a most formidable man, and his wife.”

  Rosie forced her sadness down, deep inside of her, knowing that he would not welcome it. “Why were they different?”

  “He was an ex-school teacher. Professore Chara was his name.”

  “And?” Suspense was killing her. For, at some point in his thirty six years, Luca Abramo had undergone a circumstance that had significantly changed his life’s outcome.

  Luca hadn’t thought about that day in years. “He took me, by train, to Switzerland one day. He told me I was meeting with some of his friends, and dressed me in my best clothes.” Luca felt as though he was slipping back through time. He could almost smell the metal of the wheels on the ice-cold train tracks. “They asked me to do puzzles and recite poetry, to attempt a piece on piano and work out some mathematical problems. It was immense fun, for a boy like me, who had never adequately been challenged.”

  Rosie nodded, fascinated. A car passed them by at speed, and Luca put a protective arm around her shoulders, holding her close to his body. She felt her heart accelerate, but it was so familiar to her now, the way her body reacted to his, that she barely noticed it.

  “The place he had taken me to was a school. The most prestigious academy in Europe. The men I had met were not friends of his; they were teachers. And, at the end of the day, they offered me a position there. Free of tuition.”

  “A scholarship?”

  He shook his head firmly. “The school had no formal scholarship program. It is known as ‘the Kingmaker’, for the number of royal children who attend it. It was not an institution for beggars like me.” He grimaced, forcing himself to meet her eyes proudly. “It was the day I realised that my mind carried a currency all of its own. That money was not the only thing of value in life.”

  Rosie put her arm around his waist. “I’m glad you met him. Professore Chara.”

  “As am I,” he agreed with a nod. His manner was once again business like. Rosie took the hint.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We are almost there,” he promised, inhaling her gentle scent with relief. It pulled him back to the present, to the life he now lived.

  They turned a corner and the narrow street gave way to one that was even narrower. A steep downward hill was before them. “Come, Rosie. Trust me.”

  And she did. Completely. Though it made no sense, she knew that he was worthy of all of her faith. “I do,” she promised. With her heart? That much was not certain. Though she had pledged her love to him, he had said nothing back. She did not know if he was even capable of the emotion.

  Regret frayed at the edges of her consciousness but she would not admit it to her mind. She did love him. She had probably loved him from the instant they’d met. Their connection had easily bowled through every single one of her objections and concerns. Love was as love did, and the idea of a life without Luca made her break out in a cold sweat. So what was the harm in letting him know how she felt?

  At the very bottom of the steep hill, and beneath a stone bridge, there was a shiny, dark green door. Curious, she stepped through the opening that Luca was holding wide for her.

  She paused, just over the thresh hold, so that she could pivot on the spot and take in the glorious sight. Flowers of all different colors, shapes and sizes were stacked on brass shelving. More were hanging from enormous brass hooks from the ceiling. And in the middle was an antique looking timber island bench. A solitary woman stood, in a green apron that crossed at the back, gently plucking leaves from the bottom of the stem of a particularly grand Hydrangea.

  She looked up as they entered, and smiled warmly. She was thin, with dark brown hair piled into a big, loose bun on top of her head. Her glasses sat low down on her nose, and her lips were painted a bright red. Rosie liked her instantly.

  Luca spoke in Italian, addressing her formally and abruptly. Rosie might not speak the language, but she spoke body language beautifully, and Luca’s brand of arrogance was the same in any language.

  He turned to Rosie, and his expression softened. “I have to go to a meeting. I thought you would spend some time with Elena while I am busy.”

  Rosie ignored the way her stomach contracted at the thought of him leaving. She hated that she was becoming so hooked on him, and so she made every endeavour to appear nonchalant. “Thank you for organising this.”

  “It is my pleasure.” He frowned. “I will only be a couple of hours. A driver will wait outside and convey you back to my home whenever you are ready.”

  “You’re not coming back here?”

  He frowned. “No, cara. I will meet you when I can.” He kissed her on the lips, uncaring that they had Elena watching them. He mightn’t have said that he loved her, but his kiss was so full of passion that Rosie didn’t mind. Much.

  Chapter 7

  “I would prefer to be taking you to dinner alone,” he said for the third time since they’d left his villa that evening. Rosie had been so caught up with Elena that she’d arrived with hardly a moment to prepare for their evening. She was kicking herself now, as she took in Luca’s strained profile. She should have been there for him, helping him relax, soothing him, making love to him. Not experimenting with different flowers under such a masterful florist as Elena.

  “I want to be here for you,” she insisted honestly. “You are about to be in a room with your birth mother for the first time. I can’t imagine how you must feel.”

  He turned to face her, his eyes dark opal in his handsome face. It would have been impossible for his hair to have grown in
the short time they’d known one another, and yet it seemed longer that night. Perhaps she had just become used to seeing him in casual clothes, and now he was, once again, wearing a suit; maybe that made it more obvious? She reached over and took his hand in hers. His expression didn’t change, so she had no way of knowing just how much the touch meant to him. How her grip soothed his nerves. “Thank you.”

  Rosie had, in the end, pulled on a black cocktail dress that never creased or required much attention, and a rather ostentatious necklace made up of several solitaire diamonds encircled by platinum, hanging in a low slung circlet about her swan-like neck. Luca’s eyes dropped to the baubles and he frowned. “Who gave you this?” He asked, nodding toward the jewellery.

  Rosie lifted a hand and fingered it, in automatic response. “It was my mother’s.”

  His relief was obvious. “For a moment I thought it might have been a former lover.” His smile was tense. “I did not like the idea.”

  “No.” She shook her head slowly.

  Luca stretched an arm along the back of the car seat in a casual gesture. “But there have been other lovers, of course?”

  Rosie’s eyes flared wide. She looked beyond his enquiring gaze to the scenery that was zipping past them. She had no idea where they were going to, nor when they would get there, but she wasn’t sure it was the best time to talk about their relationship histories.

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “Who? When?”

  Rosie forced herself to smile. “You do not really want to talk about this now, do you?”

  “I do not ask questions unless I want the answers.”

  Rosie’s mouth went dry. Another note in his file. That confidence bordering on arrogance. She wasn’t sure if she would ever get used to it completely. At the same time, it was somehow incredibly sexy.

  “I have had one other, um, lover,” she said, adjusting herself in the seat so that she could look at his face properly.

  Luca’s hands formed fists, and she could see his knuckles were white. “Who was he?”

  Rosie frowned. “His name was Ben Thompson. Why? Do you know him?”

  He pushed aside her question. “Was it serious?”

  “I thought it was,” she said with a small, wistful smile. “I thought I loved him.”

  “What happened?”

  “He fell in love with Maggie.”

  “Maggie, your business partner?”

  “Yes.” She licked her lips. “And you?”

  Luca couldn’t imagine anyone falling in love with another woman above Rosie. There was no woman more beautiful, nor more fascinating. Certainly no woman who had ever been such a match for him in bed, either. He shook his head to clear away the confusion. “When did it end?”

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “I asked you a question.”

  “I am not finished,” he said with a wave of his hand. “When did it end?”

  Rosie compressed her lips. “You know, you can be very bossy sometimes,” she said with a hint of complaint in her voice.

  “Yes. When did it end?”

  Rosie’s temper, difficult to rise, was heating up now. “This is not a conversation; it’s an interrogation.”

  Luca closed his eyes to blank out his emotions. How could he possibly explain to Rosie how needy she made him? That worse than not being loved by anyone was being loved by someone special, and living in fear of the moment that love would be taken away?

  “I have begun to think of you as mine, and mine alone, Rosie. I can accept that you have been with another man, but I need to know it is in the distant past.”

  “Oh my God!” She stared at him, completely stupefied. “Talk about hypocritical. How many women have you dated?”

  “Dated?” He responded with a cynical smile. “Not many.”

  “Slept with, then,” she hissed, lowering her voice to avoid the ears of their driver.

  “No one who makes me feel as you do,” he promised earnestly.

  “Not what I asked,” Rosie insisted moodily.

  “I could not say,” he said honestly. “I do not have notches on my bed post; no way to keep count.”

  Rosie’s breath was coming in shallow rasps. “And yet you dare interrogate me over the one man I’ve ever slept with?”

  Luca’s voice was thick with emotion. “Don’t you see? Your one man means more than the women I have been with. If you had been with several men, I would understand that you were simply having some fun. That you had not been with anyone special. But you waited, and then gave your virginity to one man. A man you thought you loved. What if you still love him?”

  Rosie shook her head impatiently. “Impossible, Luca. I don’t feel that way about him now. It was ages ago that we broke up. You have nothing to worry about, believe me.”

  Luca’s expression was guarded. “I am an information man. I like to have all the facts. Then I know where I stand.”

  Rosie lifted a hand to his cheek and cupped it gently. She understood his vulnerability. But she also knew no amount of words could soothe that doubt he felt. “Relationships aren’t quantifiable in the same way businesses are. Sometimes there is no black and white guarantee. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and hope for the best.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he murmured honestly. He thought about her father and the damage he had unknowingly done the man. And he thought about how Rosie would react if she knew that she was, to all intents and purposes, sleeping with the enemy. “I have realised that I can’t lose you.”

  Rosie’s heart turned over in her chest, at the intensity of his statement. “You’re not going to,” she promised, trying to smile to lighten the mood. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re just going to have to take my word on that.”

  The car was slowing down now, turning into a more residential looking neighbourhood. Luca lowered his head, so that his face was just an inch or so from hers. “I want more than your word,” he muttered, kissing her gently, tasting, probing, reading her mind and her mouth. A frisson of excitement ran down her spine, and she arched her back away from the deep leather seat. Instantly, as though he’d flicked a switch, her body flared in response. She groaned as he cupped her breasts with his hands. He lowered his mouth to her neck and Rosie stared out of the window, as her mind became gradually less and less coherent.

  “What do you want?” She whispered on a sigh, as he lowered a hand to her thigh and ran it under the length of her dress. He found the elastic edge of her underwear and pulled at them, lowering them from her body easily. He ran a finger along the edge of her entrance, temptingly close to moving inside her. Only he didn’t. He padded his thumb across her sensitive entrance, while his mouth moved over her neck. Rosie gasped as she felt the waves of orgasm building inside her. She didn’t care that, at the front of the limousine, there was a man driving them. She didn’t care about anything but that moment. “God, Luca.” It was an impassioned statement, muttered into the dark confines of the car.

  He cursed and lifted his head. “What do I want?” His smile was laced with certainty. So much about their relationship filled him with doubts, but in that moment, he knew the words he needed to speak. The elaborate way he’d intended to voice them suddenly seemed irrelevant. All that mattered was that he asked the question, and made Rosie his for life. Come what may, he couldn’t foresee a future that did not have Rosie in it. “I want you to marry me, Rosie Darling.”

  It should have been enough to make her freeze. The question should have doused her with proverbial cold water. But it didn’t even come close. Again, the image of them as two broken pieces that together made a whole perfect object came to her. She had felt that the first night they’d met, and that conviction had never weakened. His hand was still moving, driving her inexorably towards the release her traitorous body craved above all else. When she spoke, her words were breathy, pushed out between gritted teeth. “But… we hardly know each other.”

  His eyes were hard as they regarded her. Only the slashes of
dark color in his chiselled cheeks revealed that he was as moved by passion as she. “And yet you love me,” he said firmly, grating his teeth over her collarbone and dragging his mouth down to her breast. How had her dress come down? She realised with surprise that she was completely exposed to her waist.

  “That… doesn’t mean… we should…” she lost her train of thought as the final wave of sensation built to its zenith and crashed down on her shaking nerves. She gripped him as the feeling of release overpowered her completely.

  It took barely a moment for the realisation of what they’d just done to hit home. She pushed away from him, her eyes glittering with barely concealed rage. Her fingers shook as she lifted her dress back into place and neatened her hair. He had her underpants, but she was too proud to ask for them. She stared resolutely ahead, while her mind was going haywire, trying to make sense of what he’d said, and what they’d done.

  “You will marry me, Rosie,” he said, in an almost conversational tone, when it became obvious she was not going to speak first.

  “Like hell,” she muttered. “And if you’re half as smart as you think you are, you won’t ask me when I feel like this.”

  “What do you feel like?” He wondered, fascinated at this very rare glimpse into an angry Rosie.

  She glared at him mutinously. “I’m furious!” She spat with venom. Her eyes flicked back to the driver and she lowered her voice. “You just… we just… he could have been watching.”

  Comprehension dawned, and it was such a relief to realise that Rosie was simply worried about modesty, that Luca smiled. Foolishly, he smiled, for he could see immediately that it only served to anger her further. “Raul is used to turning a blind eye, cara.”

  Rosie’s temper spiked. “You just said you don’t keep notches on your bed post, but it appears you keep lovers in your cars.”

  Luca laughed, and reached out to take her hand in his. Rosie pulled it away. “Don’t.” Her expression was ice-cold. “You can’t always take what you want, when you want it.”

  Luca’s expression was still amused. “I believe I took nothing just now, Rosie, but rather gave.”