When She Fell for the Billionaire
Page 1
When She Fell for the Billionaire
Suzette de Borja
Contents
About When She Fell for the Billionaire
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Also by Suzette de Borja
About the Author
About When She Fell for the Billionaire
Anxious to get answers about her past, Sabrina Connelly is desperate to attend the royal wedding. The perfect opportunity comes in a beach encounter with sexy billionaire Luca Argenti, cousin to the princess bride.
Frightened and thrilled with his pursuit, Sabrina proposes an outrageous deal – a casual, holiday hook up in exchange for a slot in the royal guest list. Believing she’s a gold digger, the Italian agrees to the exchange. He gets a vacation fling. She scores an invite.
But Luca Argenti makes it hard for Sabrina to stick to her end of the bargain. A few days in his arms and she’s already in danger of falling for the hot billionaire. Keeping things casual would protect her from heartbreak, but she fears it’s already a little too late and resistance is futile.
Copyright @ 2015 Suzette de Borja
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database retrieval system without the prior written approval of the author.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intentional.
Created with Vellum
Acknowledgments
This book would not have existed without the inspiration and support of these wonderful ladies – Mina V. Esguerra, Liliana Rhodes, and Marian Tee. A big shout out to Kat S-C for being present from that initial germ of an idea stage to wrestling with a linear, working outline stage. Thank you to Donna H., for being so generous with her time. Your feedback is of tremendous value.
For making me squee about the gorgeous cover, thank you, CT Cover Creations. A big thank you goes out to The Passionate Proofreader, for her valuable input in the editing stage.
To B, your words have power. I love you.
Chapter 1
Luca narrowed his eyes and locked in on his target. The bitch was alone.
The shoreline at the western boundary of the resort was rocky. The waves slammed against the bottom edge of the limestone cliffs with recurring ferocity. There was no one else around. The guests on holiday preferred the finer, golden sand fronting the hotel.
Damn Markos and his machinations! Involving him in his personal affairs. He sighed, running his palm over his jaw. There hadn’t been time to shave. Not even time for an espresso.
“Merda!” he swore, tripping on a protruding rock. His sleep deprivation made him unusually clumsy. He had growled at the unfortunate hotel staff that had called his room at 6 am to inform him that the signorina had been spotted heading out towards the beach. The poor man had only been following his orders after all.
He was only several feet away from her when he decided to stop. He could still back out of this crazy plan and tell Markos he hadn’t seen her. She was still oblivious to his presence. He had a lot on his plate right now with the launch and fundraising party a few days away. He didn’t need this.
But he heard Markos’ urgent voice in his head as he “requested” him to take care of something that he couldn’t attend to immediately since his arrival on the island would be delayed by a few days.
Luca had agreed, expecting it to be business. If he had only known what it involved, he wouldn’t have agreed too easily.
A woman.
Not that it had been a surprise in itself. His friend was not known as one of the most eligible bachelor playboys in Europe for nothing. What was surprising was the fact that Markos had chosen to involve him. After that juvenile incident with a village girl in their youth, they had steered clear of getting involved with the same woman.
It wasn’t that difficult. Though they moved in the same circles, their taste in women was different.
“My sources told me she came on the island a few days ago, trying to find out when I would be arriving.” Markos’ voice over the bad mobile connection had sounded troubled. Markos was arrogant, brazen, and extremely self-assured, but he rarely was troubled. And never over a woman.
“I hope to God this is not another paternity claim,” Luca drawled with some amusement.
His friend swore in Greek, calling him an asshole and several other filthy, unflattering names over the bad overseas connection. Luca took no offense. He had called him names just as colorful in Italian back in their boarding school days. As long as Markos was ranting and swearing, things couldn’t be that bad.
“I apologize.” It was indeed bad form to bring up past allegations and jump to conclusions. “What do you want me to do with this girl?”
“Just keep her the hell away from me,” his friend said adamantly. “If I could have her physically removed from the island I would have done it in a heartbeat, but she might attract unwanted media attention.”
Luca chuckled darkly. “She has it that bad, eh?”
Markos’ impatient sigh was audible over the mobile. “I know what you think, but it’s nothing like that. She believes she’s–hold on.”
There were voices in the background, the roar of an engine. A helicopter? “Look, Luca, you’ll have my undying gratitude. I don’t care how you do it. I can deal with her after the launch and Mother is off the island, but in the meantime do whatever it takes, short of murder, of course-”
“Of course,” Luca cut in dryly. “I’m glad you clarified that particular option is not open.”
“-to get her out of the way.”
The line was choppy but Luca managed to make out his friend’s disjointed sentences. “She’s tried to make contact several times. She might make a scene,” Markos warned. “Fuck! I have to go.” He was practically shouting, competing with the background noise. “My mother must be spared from any distress. She’s having one of her episodes again. The woman’s trouble. I’ll call you-” The helicopter’s rotor had drowned out the rest of Markos’ phone call.
The Konstantinos matriarch was famous for her “delicate mental health” and was zealously protected by her children from anything outside her rarefied world that might exacerbate her condition, including apparently a discarded, disgruntled lover of Markos. The Greek billionaire wasn’t known for his finesse in ending his relationships.
She’s trouble.
It was a continuing source of bafflement for Luca how someone as brilliant and sharp as Markos would continually choose lovers with more gloss than substance. Airhead socialites, wannabe models, and starlets were Markos’ go-to women. Luca had dated them before but their appeal had begun to wane after a certain point. He liked to think that his taste in women had evolved, but Markos seemed happy enough in his stagnation.
Until they gave him trouble. Which was mostly the rule rather than the exception.
Unlike him who remained friends with his exes
, Markos rarely remained in good terms with his lovers. Their partings were almost always acrimonious and landed on tabloid headlines.
Luca exhaled heavily, irritated at being caught in the zone of collateral damage. He should still be abed, catching up on sleep but here he was, about to act as babysitter to yesterday’s trophy girlfriend who still hadn’t heard the news.
The early morning sun’s warmth was gentle. By mid-noon, it would be sweltering. He’d better get the job done so he could still have time for a bath before his scheduled morning meeting.
She was bent over and scanning the shoreline, probably hunting for shells. Her long legs were bare and her pert bottom was encased in frayed denim cut-off shorts.
Something stirred in him that had not been stirred for several months. Damn again. It seemed Markos was not the only one who might be under threat by this woman.
He was wondering how to make his presence known when his target suddenly stiffened. Something on the sand caught her attention. She dropped to one knee, picked up the object, and rose hurriedly.
Luca pushed his sunglasses on top of his head to see better. Was it a shell? A coral? Tourists were not allowed to bring them home. She brushed it off with a finger. She then held it up against the sun momentarily, turning it this way and that. From his vantage point, it looked like a pebble. She brought it to her lips, kissed it, and then let out a little squeal of delight.
A small grin escaped his lips. She sounded exactly like his younger female cousins when he accompanied them to boy band concerts. Then he squashed it, remembering Markos’ warning. She’s out to make trouble. Keep her away from the family.
A strong breeze whipped her wide brimmed hat off her head. Out tumbled long, wavy golden hair that flapped like a gleaming pennant in the wind. She tried to grab the hat but it was snapped out of her reach by another strong gust, carrying it to where Luca was perched on a big rock.
He stooped down, reached for the hat, and straightened to get his first good look at the troublemaker.
And for the first time, Luca understood what the English word “breathtaking” meant. Viscerally.
In the few seconds that his lungs ceased to work, his eyes took a rapid snapshot assessment of her features. Heart-shaped face, wide set and dark almond-shaped eyes, a small upturned nose, and bow-shaped lips that had a fuller bottom. Her bikini top was composed of two scraps of triangles that barely covered her luscious breasts. All she needed was a clamshell and she would be how Luca imagined Botticelli’s Venus would look like if she came to life.
Unfortunately, his dick chose that moment to be like Frankenstein’s monster and became “alive.”
Fuck no. He refused to get a hard-on. Not with Markos’ cast-off bimbo.
Venus frowned and Luca was able get his breath back. The “monster” however refused to back down.
She jerked and stiffened. She was visibly startled to see him there. She glanced quickly at the lifeguard post and, apparently reassured that there was another human out there, she started making her way slowly to where he was.
Sabrina Connelly. American. Twenty-five years old. He rifled mentally through the information he was able to access on the Internet before he was interrupted by the general manager, who had accosted him at the lobby the minute he had arrived last night. Markos dated high-profile women with questionable reputations, and it appeared she was no exception. Sabrina Connelly’s claim to fame was her last relationship with a well-known Hollywood actor. There was another lover, a movie executive, but Luca had paid it no attention last night. No gossip on her and Markos though.
Not yet.
Luca didn’t have that much time to go through all the articles that had popped up on his browser. He didn’t need to go into detailed research to know this was another of Markos’ shallow and vain women, only a younger prototype.
Her photos didn’t do her justice, though.
It wasn’t hard to see why Markos and a big shot Hollywood actor would lose their heads over her. She was exquisitely beautiful, but it was not the unforgiving kind of perfection that was frightening. Upon closer inspection, her forehead appeared too prominent, her chin too small and pointed, her eyes so widely spaced apart. But her features came together in one arresting, interesting whole. She had probably been breaking hearts before she was out of her diapers. A face and body like hers should have graced magazine pages or the big screen. It seemed she had known how to make most of her assets by attracting high-profile lovers.
His eyes ran over her body in an open, sweeping gaze until they landed on her feet. She had thrust them into hotel flip-flops. Her toenails had chipped polish. She was also carrying a burlap eco bag with the resort logo stamped on it.
He frowned, expecting a more hard-edged, glittery, polished woman of the world. She looked barely out of university.
Luca was intrigued by the disparity.
But then perhaps this was how she operated. Appealing to men’s girl next-door fantasies.
Luca’s women were sophisticated and fashion forward. He moved in circles where women wouldn’t be caught outside without make-up, much less be seen with chipped nail polish. He sensed this woman couldn’t care less.
Suddenly Luca’s reluctance over keeping her occupied vanished. Why not take advantage of the opportunity she presented? She would be just the thing to break his dry spell after that disastrous affair with Eleni. Luca disliked casual hookups. He had thought he had outgrown them but after Eleni’s suffocating possessiveness, a fling would be just the thing to get him out of his funk.
Women like Sabrina Connelly would know the score. Markos’ ex-girlfriends had liked to wail and whine to the tabloids, but it never took them long to court drama with other high-profile lovers. Sabrina Connelly would be just as flighty, but he would make sure there would be no messy, emotional entanglements to deal with after. The fact that she lived on the other side of the world made his job sweeter.
The knowledge that she had known Markos first soured it a bit. But it was not enough to put him off.
“Ciao,” he greeted, pretending he didn’t know her nationality. He paired it with a slow, seductive smile. He didn’t relinquish the hat yet.
“Hello.” Her tone was wary, as it should be with strange men appearing out of nowhere.
“I’m Luca Argenti.” He hoped dropping his famous last name would make her lower her guard. The family brand was well-known, even a non-fashionista would have heard of it.
Her delicate tawny brows drew together. It seemed incredible that she hadn’t. Or maybe she was playing coy. She held her bag tighter to her body as if in self-defense. He increased the wattage of his smile.
She didn’t reciprocate.
“And you are?” He was playing dumb. Dumbstruck was more like it, he thought wryly. Now there was another English word she was redefining for him
“Sabrina,” she bit out when it became apparent Luca was going to blind her with his smile until she did. She said it like it had been pried out of her lips with a crowbar.
Dio, she was growing more beautiful by the second upon closer examination. And Luca had known a lot of them. As he was involved in the fashion industry, beautiful women grew on trees. Her figure was lithe but shapely in all the right places. Her skin glowed like Chiara’s favorite pearls, and she was driving Luca to spout inane metaphors.
He appreciated her effect on him but knew it wouldn’t last long. Like other men, Luca wasn’t immune to a pretty face or sexy body, but he wanted more now.
“Strega,” he said before he could stop himself.
“Strega?”
He cursed her sharp hearing and his impulsive mouth. “It means witch in Italian.” She didn’t react, but Luca saw her body grow more rigid. “There is a movie and TV show with a witch named Sabrina, si?”
“Sadly, nose-twitching is a skill I don’t possess.” She said this with no inflection, her wit catching Luca off-guard.
“I’m sure you have other more interesting skills to recommend you.�
�� His statement was so heavy with innuendo Luca was surprised he didn’t keel over by the sheer embarrassing weight of it. Or get knocked off his perch by an angry slap. Other women, most, okay, all women would be cooperating at this point, the give and take of beginning flirtation. Even grandmothers loved flirting with him. Luca wondered how he could salvage the situation. “You’re appropriately named.”
She merely quirked a pale eyebrow.
“You’re bewitching.”
Sabrina Connelly stared at him for several seconds as if he was a newly discovered animal species. It wasn’t the usual kind of flirtatious or lust-induced stares he was accustomed to receiving from women. It was instead assessing, measuring, filled with judgment. As if she could see the sham that was the real man inside. He resisted the urge to jam the sunglasses back on his eyes.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Long enough.”
“Why?”
He didn’t expect her to be so straightforward because surely she couldn’t be that naive. She had snared two Hollywood big hitters and a Greek billionaire with what, her sparkling personality? Luca thought sardonically. His gaze dropped to her lips. His voice became husky. “You’re a beautiful woman.” He lifted his shoulders to convey that the statement was self-explanatory. He raised his eyes back to hers and fixed her with an intense stare.
Her lips dropped open just a fraction. She seemed momentarily bewildered. Just when Luca thought his “smolder” was having no effect, the unexpected happened and surprised the hell out of him.
Sabrina Connelly began turning pink. It started on her slim white neck then crept upwards to her cheeks. The tips of her ears were not spared.
Luca was riveted. He had never seen a woman blush since…ever.
She clapped both hands to her face, and Luca could have sworn he heard her say, “Oh, shit.” She ran her eyes all over him, from the top of his head down to his sandals, inspecting him openly. “I was warned about men like you.”