Scandals Of The Powerful: Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) / An Invitation to Sin (Sicily's Corretti Dynasty) (Mills & Boon M&B)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘You are infuriating!’ So why did she want to laugh? ‘This was such a bad idea. You’ll blow it and this will be the shortest engagement on record.’

  ‘I am not going to blow it. I love my Ferrari. I love my Ferrari.’ He muttered the words under his breath and shot her a glance. ‘Perhaps I’d better dress you in red, just so that there’s a similarity.’

  Taylor shook her head in despair. ‘And on that note, I have to go back to my hotel. I can’t go out to dinner in the same clothes I’ve been wearing all day, and anyway, if we’re going to stay here I need to pack up my things and move them here.’

  ‘One of the advantages of being engaged to the head of a fashion house is that clothes aren’t a problem.’ He sent a quick message on his phone. ‘If we’re going to be seen together, you might as well showcase something from Corretti.’

  ‘So now you’re using me for free publicity?’

  ‘Of course I’m using you. That’s what this is all about. I’m using you. You’re using me.’

  Of course I’m using you.

  Taylor ignored the uneasy feeling in her stomach. She told herself this was different. Yes, she’d been used before but Luca was right—this time she was using him too.

  And that made this different from all the times people had used her before.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LUCA DREW UP in a no-parking zone in front of the pretty waterside restaurant.

  ‘You can’t park here.’ Taylor turned her head, the sun glinting on her sleek, shiny hair. She’d twisted it skilfully into an elaborate confection on the back of her head and fastened it with a jewelled pin that made her look very much the movie star. ‘It says no parking.’

  ‘Do you always obey rules?’ The artist in Luca admired the perfect lines of her jaw and cheekbones, those beautiful cat-like eyes and the hint of a pout on that kissable mouth. ‘That dress looks good on you.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I picked it.’ Her cool, confident response threw him.

  Raised by a woman who had needed constant reassurance and working in an industry defined by its dedication to narcissism, he was conditioned to offer praise and reassurance. These days it fell from his lips unprompted, but Taylor appeared to have no need for his approval. Presented with a choice of dresses, she’d selected one instantly, without hesitation or consultation. The only help she’d needed from him was fastening the zip.

  ‘Of course you’d look better out of that dress.’

  ‘I try not to trigger horrible headlines.’

  ‘Really? I try and trigger horrible headlines on a daily basis. If I don’t read at least one bad thing about myself every day I take a long look at my behaviour and try harder to be shocking.’

  Her response to that was to roll her eyes but he could see she was holding back laughter and he hid his own smile because he didn’t want her to know she made him laugh.

  She held everything back, he thought, remembering the way she’d tried to resist the explosive chemistry in the maze. Always up for a challenge, he wondered how hard he’d have to push before that control cracked.

  She glanced towards the restaurant. ‘Isn’t this place a bit obvious? I would have chosen somewhere more discreet. That would have been my normal behaviour.’

  ‘But not mine, dolcezza.’ He flipped her chin gently with the tip of his finger. ‘You’re with me and I refuse to slink around like a criminal. You’re living by my list now and your idea of forbidden is my idea of compulsory. Get used to it.’

  ‘If we’re a couple then my list is as important and valid as yours.’

  ‘Not if it contains things like “don’t speed” and “never park in a no-parking zone.” The idea of marriage isn’t to die of boredom.’ Reaching across, he unfastened her seat belt, the backs of his fingers brushing against the softness of her breasts as he released the strap. The punch of desire was so powerful he sucked in a breath at the exact moment Taylor flattened herself to the seat.

  ‘Hey, don’t push your luck.’

  ‘We’re engaged. That means my luck ran out a long time ago. And what is the point of an engagement if you can’t touch? Or is it simply to leave an enormous hole in a guy’s bank account and set one lucky jeweller up for early retirement?’ Gripped by a flash of instantaneous lust, Luca found himself looking at her mouth and that mouth was so smooth, so feminine, it seemed like a terrible waste not to just go ahead and kiss it. Never one to deny himself, he did just that.

  Fire and flame licked around the edges of his nerve endings. Within seconds he was rock hard. What had started as exploration shifted to something so primal and basic that he forgot everything except the urge to strip her naked and get his hands on her glorious body. He wanted to drive into her and watch all those restrictions she placed on herself unravel.

  His tongue was in her mouth, tangling with hers, when she shoved at his chest.

  ‘This is an engagement, not a one-night stand. You don’t have to cram the entire relationship into six hours.’ She was out of the car so quickly she almost stumbled and Luca stared after her for a moment, his mind temporarily wiped. She was as jumpy as a kangaroo on a trampoline and yet she was the one who had lectured him on playing his part properly. How the hell was he expected to play his part when she was running away from him? He didn’t claim to be an expert on being engaged but was willing to bet sprinting in the opposite direction during a kiss counted as less than convincing behaviour.

  He chose to ignore the tiny part of his brain that was telling him the kiss had nothing to do with role play.

  Infuriated that she wasn’t putting more effort into it, he sprang from the car. ‘Taylor!’ Aware someone might be listening, he clenched his jaw and forced himself back into fiancé mode. It was as ill-fitting as a second-hand suit. ‘Mi amore—’ He’d never said those words to anyone before and even knowing that they weren’t genuine didn’t make it any easier. ‘Where are you going?’

  There was a brief pause and then she spun on her heel and gave him an easy smile that probably seemed genuine to all but him. ‘I was leaving you to park the car.’

  He sensed her tension but didn’t understand it. Hell, he was breaking his neck here to act like the devoted fiancé. ‘It’s parked.’

  ‘You call that parked?’ One eyebrow raised, she looked at the Ferrari. ‘You can’t seriously intend to leave it there.’

  ‘They’re lucky I choose to park my car outside their restaurant. People will pause, admire it and then want to dine in their restaurant to catch a glimpse of the man who owns such a cool car.’

  ‘Or the woman.’

  ‘This is a man’s car, tesoro.’

  ‘So defined by the idiot driving it?’ Those beautiful green eyes narrowed in challenge and he was pleased to have broken through that seemingly impenetrable wall of control.

  He decided to push a little harder. ‘There is no way you’d be able to drive it. This baby has a six-point-three-litre V-12 engine with four valves per cylinder—’ he glanced lovingly at the car ‘—and it hovers on the borders of legal. It can shift from car to beast in less than four seconds.’

  ‘A bit like its owner.’ Without waiting for him she strolled into the restaurant, those long bare legs drawing more admiring glances than the Ferrari.

  She looked good and she knew it. He was fast discovering there was no greater aphrodisiac than a woman aware of her own appeal.

  His own gaze fixed on those legs, Luca tried to cool the heat burning inside him and decided she and the car had more in common than she ever would have admitted. Both were high maintenance and both were eye-catching.

  As he caught up with her he took her hand in his.

  Her eyes widened. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Playing the part of your devoted lover,’ he drawled softly, ‘only my leading lady appears to have forgotten her lines. If I have to be engaged, then at least let it be to the woman who yesterday had her legs wrapped round me in the maze. Don’t give me this bland, vanilla version.�
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  She blinked. Frowned slightly. ‘This is who I am.’

  ‘If I thought that for a moment this engagement would be off. I’d die of boredom before we hit our first anniversary and you’d burst from suppressing all that emotion.’

  ‘Signor Corretti!’ A man approached them and Luca felt Taylor tug at her hand, trying to free herself.

  He tightened his grip and greeted the owner in Italian. ‘I need a table.’

  ‘Somewhere private?’

  Distracted by Taylor’s glossy lips, Luca lost concentration. ‘Of course.’

  ‘No, not private.’ Taylor flashed her eyes, trying to transmit a message, but he was too busy deciding if those eyes were green or blue to translate the unspoken communication.

  ‘I don’t want an audience.’

  ‘But I do.’ She slid her arms around his neck and gave him a feline smile. ‘Don’t you want to show off our love to the world, honey?’

  Luca, who had never been called ‘honey’ in his life, remembered belatedly that the purpose of being here was to be seen. ‘You’re an exhibitionist, angelo mia.’

  ‘Says the man who just parked a red Ferrari in a no-parking zone.’ Laughing, she trailed a purple fingernail across his cheek and he turned his head and caught her finger gently in his teeth.

  Clearing his throat subtly, the owner of the restaurant beamed at them. ‘I have a table by the water. So romantic and, on that topic, may I offer our congratulations. We are all delighted by your news.’

  Determined to demonstrate that he could play his part as well as her and remembering what she’d said about conjuring up the emotions from deep inside her, Luca tried to imagine how it would feel to be engaged. Deciding that ‘freaked out’ wasn’t going to help his performance, he swiftly ditched that advice and instead thought about the article he’d read. ‘I am happy, excited and can’t bear to be parted from her even for a moment.’

  Smiling at an astonished Giovanni, Taylor urged Luca towards a prime table situated at the edge of the water. ‘Your performance was terrible,’ she hissed in an undertone. ‘You should have let me give you acting lessons.’

  ‘I don’t need acting lessons.’

  ‘You sounded as if you were reading from an autocue.’

  ‘An autocue might be a good idea. I’m definitely not fluent in the language of love.’ Luca sat down at the table and ordered champagne.

  ‘Yes, about that.’ She paused as the waiter fussed around them, waiting until they were on their own to finish her sentence. ‘From now on, I don’t want you to touch me.’

  ‘Scusi? Are we or are we not supposed to be engaged?’

  ‘We are, but I’m not into public displays of affection.’ She kept her eyes down, adjusting her cutlery while Luca stared at her in disbelief.

  ‘I’m Sicilian. We’re an emotional, physical race.’

  ‘Then hold it in.’ Her eyes lifted to his and he saw something there he didn’t expect to see.

  Panic?

  For a moment he was baffled by it, then he remembered the way she’d responded to him in the maze. ‘Ah—now I understand. Enjoying sex is on your forbidden list too, and you are finding it hard to resist me, no?’

  ‘No.’ She answered just a little too quickly and then covered her glass to stop the waiter pouring champagne. ‘Just water, please.’

  Luca rolled his eyes and removed her glass, handing it to the waiter. ‘Fill it up. She needs help to relax.’

  ‘I do not need help to relax. I’m already relaxed.’

  He waited for the waiter to leave them alone. ‘I’ve seen steel cables more relaxed than you. You’re such a sexual woman, and you hate that about yourself, don’t you? You’re trying to lock that part of yourself away and pretend to be something you’re not.’

  ‘I do eat. I drink if I want to, and our relationship is not about sex so that’s irrelevant.’

  ‘Let’s hope no one was lip-reading when you said that.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Trust me, if we’re engaged, there’s going to be food and champagne and, most of all, sex. Lots of hot, steamy, very dirty sex so if you want this to appear genuine you’d better stop suppressing that side of yourself.’

  Her cheeks turned pink as the waiter approached with her water.

  ‘Thank you so much.’ She gave a smile that turned the poor man into a gibbering wreck and Luca gave an amused smile.

  ‘You’re all promise and no follow-through.’

  ‘I can follow through when it suits me.’

  ‘And when is that? When you explode from holding it all in?’

  Her fingers tightened on her glass. ‘I’m not holding anything in.’

  ‘You are suppressing so much, dolcezza, that when you finally blow the aftershocks are going to be felt back in your homeland. Don’t worry. I’ll be there to drag you from the rubble.’

  She smiled. ‘Do you think about anything but sex?’

  ‘You’re upset that I understand you so well.’

  ‘You don’t understand me at all.’

  ‘No? Let’s do a Taylor Carmichael 101.’ He put his glass down and leaned forward in his chair. ‘You long to let yourself go. I saw the way you reacted to my car in the first few minutes before you remembered you weren’t supposed to enjoy fast cars. You long to drink champagne, but you daren’t in case you drink a bit too much and lose control.’

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  ‘I haven’t finished. You can’t go anywhere without first looking to see where the photographers are hidden. You know they’re part of the job but for some reason they make you nervous.’

  She reached out slender fingers and took an olive. ‘Are you done?’

  ‘Not yet.’ It was only because he was looking that he saw her fingers shake slightly. ‘You don’t trust anyone any more. You’ve locked yourself away. You won’t tell me why so I’m guessing it’s something you’re ashamed of. Something you regret.’ He watched as the colour drained from her cheeks.

  Her breathing grew shallow and she looked away quickly. ‘You talk nonsense.’

  ‘I scored a direct hit,’ Luca said softly. ‘Now drink some champagne or the headlines tomorrow will be that you’re already pregnant and that’s the reason we’re marrying. Neither of us wants that.’

  After a moment’s hesitation she picked up the slender champagne glass. ‘To our future.’

  ‘To lots of legal sex.’ He glanced up as the waiter approached. ‘Don’t bother giving my beloved a menu, Pietro, I’ll order for both of us. It will be a good test of how well I know her.’

  To give her credit, Taylor kept her smile in place. ‘But, sweetheart, you know I like to order for myself.’

  ‘I know you do, my little cabbage, but I’m a macho Sicilian male and apart from that inherent trait that drives me to protect you from all things including menus written only in Italian, I’m suspicious of your ordering skills. You’ll order the wrong thing.’

  ‘I order what I want to eat, light of my life.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘How can that be wrong?’

  ‘You order what you think you’re supposed to eat, kitten paws. That’s not the same thing at all. A romantic meal out is about feeding the senses.’ Enjoying himself, he watched her across the flickering flame of the candle, wishing they were alone so that they could laugh properly and enjoy their food without the audience. ‘I refuse to order you a lettuce leaf. It would be criminal.’ He proceeded to order in Italian while Taylor drummed long, manicured fingernails on the tablecloth.

  Only once the waiter had left, did she speak. ‘I can’t believe you ordered for me. Dare I ask which unusual part of the anatomy I’m likely to find myself eating this time?’

  Sending her a wicked look that brought colour to her cheeks, Luca raised his glass. ‘To us! I’m much better at this than you are, by the way. If you like, I can arrange for you to have acting lessons.’

  There was a brief pause and then she put her napkin down slowly. ‘There’s something I have to say to you, Luca,
and perhaps this isn’t the place but I need to say it so badly....’ It was a voice he hadn’t heard her use before. Soft, sultry and so richly feminine that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. She reached across the table and took his hands in hers. ‘I’ve never felt like this before. I’d given up on love. And then I met you and—and I didn’t expect...’ Her voice faltered and she looked puzzled, almost humbled.

  The vulnerability on her face shocked him.

  He knew she was acting, but the emotion in her eyes was so genuine he felt an involuntary flicker of panic. She was giving him ‘The Look’ and The Look was something he’d avoided all his life. He made a point of ending relationships before The Look was even a tiny germ in a woman’s brain.

  He tried to respond but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  Her face was soft, transformed by love. ‘I never thought this would happen. I never thought it was possible to feel love like this and then I met you and—’ her breathing was fractured ‘—and you’re everything to me. That’s what I wanted to say. I love you. I’ve never said those words to a man before but I’m saying them now. I’m trusting you with my heart.’ The look in her eyes was so adoring his muscles clenched in terror. She was so convincing he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that crept up his spine.

  ‘Cristo, Taylor, you’re giving me chills.’

  As the waiter murmured something incoherent and melted away, the soft look in her eyes morphed into something harder and more brittle. ‘Don’t ever call me “kitten paws” again and don’t tell me I need acting lessons or the next thing you’ll be eating between two slices of bread will be a certain supersensitive part of your anatomy.’ As Luca shuddered, another waiter placed food in front of them and Taylor gave an appreciative sniff. ‘Mmm. I can see wedded bliss is going to do nothing for my waistline.’

  ‘Eat, tesoro. You can go back on your stupid starvation diet tomorrow.’

  ‘I might not need to if the director can’t be replaced.’

  To another man her insecurity might not have been visible beneath the layers of polish and poise, but Luca had been raised by a woman whose insecurities had been welded into her skin.