by Tara Pammi
Failure had haunted her throughout her entire life. She’d lived through being a disappointment, first to her parents, and then to herself, again and again, but she wouldn’t be one when it came to Izzie.
She deserved security, and she, Alexis, needed the peace of mind to live her life normally again. She needed to know Izzie would be taken care of if something happened to her.
The very thought of facing Leandro Conti again made her skin prickle alarmingly. But she’d do anything for her daughter.
* * *
“One of you will marry the Rossi girl.”
Impossibile!
Leandro Conti’s answer reverberated inside him to his grandfather’s ultimatum but walking deeper into the study, he stayed silent.
“Sophia Rossi?” his brother, Luca asked, shock etched into his face.
“Si.”
Leandro studied with interest the frail form of his grandfather, Antonio, behind the gleaming dark mahogany desk, still determined to intimidate his grandsons, while, next to him, leaning casually against the bookshelf, Luca adopted his usual devil-may-care attitude that infuriated Antonio so well.
Leandro sent his brother a warning glance. Antonio had not recovered completely from his heart attack a month ago.
Luca and his grandfather would have killed each other a long time ago, if it wasn’t for him. And he was tiring of playing the referee among his family members.
He had begun when he was fourteen and at thirty-five, he was still doing it.
“We’re too old for you to be arranging alliances for us, Nonno,” Leandro finally said into the cutting silence. “I will not marry again. And—”
“Ordering me to,” Luca interjected, “marry any woman is cursing the poor woman. Even one with steel balls like Sophia Rossi.”
Something glinted in Antonio’s eyes. “The only choice is which one of you will do it.”
“Or what, Nonno?” Luca spat the words. “You will cut Leandro and me out of this...venerable Conti empire?”
Luca’s tone made it clear it was anything but.
Because Luca’s creative genius and Leandro’s cutting-edge business practices over the past decade was what made Conti Luxury Goods a coveted designer label in Italy, and worldwide over the past three years.
That Antonio threatened them like this...it didn’t bode well.
“I will inform,” Antonio continued, “your sister that she’s not a Conti, that she...is the product of your mother’s shameful affair with her driver. I will disown Valentina publicly.”
A filthy curse erupted from Luca’s mouth, a fitting one while ice-cold fury filled Leandro’s veins.
He had learned all through his life that Antonio would do anything for their family’s business and knowing the kind of reckless, irresponsible, brutally selfish man his father had been, Leandro had even understood it.
But this was low, for a man Leandro respected, even liked sometimes.
Neither he nor Luca would let anything touch Valentina.
He swallowed the fury rising through him, and adopted an almost amenable expression. “Your heart attack has made you irascible, Nonno.”
“You cannot persuade me away from my course, Leandro. I let you bring Valentina here...your mother’s shame,” he spat the words, “I even accepted her as my own, but do not think—”
“You love Valentina, I’m sure,” Luca roared. “I thought you a better man than our father.”
Antonio flinched. Apparently, even he couldn’t stomach being compared to his son Enzo. “I accepted Valentina because that was Leandro’s price to let me mold him for the Conti empire.”
Luca turned to Leandro, disbelief in his eyes. “This is why you always let him rule your life?”
Leandro shrugged. “It was not a sacrifice, Luca. Snatching away the helm of the company from our father’s hands, ousting him from the board of directors, marrying Rosa, they were all things I did because I wanted to. That I could protect Valentina’s innocence was extra.” He turned to Antonio, letting him see his anger for the first time. “Luca and I have put Conti on the global map, something even you hadn’t dreamed about. What more could you want?”
“I want an heir to my dynasty.” Understanding glinted in his eyes but Leandro refused it. “Enzo was an utter failure as a son, as a husband, as a father, but even he gave me heirs.” Even the growl that fell from Luca’s lips didn’t detract Antonio. “This marriage to his daughter will silence that backstabbing Salvatore. Two birds with one rock.”
Leandro shook his head. “This is not the way—”
“What choice do I have?” Antonio’s voice loomed loud in the room. “You refuse to consider marriage and you...” Distaste robbed the old man of his words as he turned to Luca. “You change women like you change clothes.
“Death is not far for me, Leandro. I will not leave this world on the risk that Luca and you might be the last of the Contis.”
His desk phone rang and Antonio picked it up.
Frustration raging in his veins, Leandro turned to Luca.
Both Luca and he had learned early enough in life that Antonio had a will of steel. He had built Leandro both into a weapon against his own son, their father, even as it broke his own heart. Whether he loved Valentina or not, he wouldn’t back down from carrying out his threat.
“Luca—”
“Leandro, haven’t you done—”
The loud click of the phone hitting its cradle punctured the silence and both of them turned to Antonio.
“It seems there is no choice.”
Luca was the first to react. “What do you mean?”
“Salvatore Rossi’s daughter has decided only one of you will do for marriage.”
Thunder whooshed in Leandro’s ears.
“She wants you, Leandro.” His look toward Luca was withering. “Apparently, she is smart enough to reject the Conti devil.”
Luca’s glittering black gaze, so much like their father’s, turned to Leandro. A half smile played on his lips, and yet, Leandro had the sinking feeling that something else, something other than relief, hounded his brother. “Once again, the burden of this family falls to you, Leandro.”
With that, he left the study.
In the ensuing silence, they could hear the noise from the veranda. Valentina’s rapid words, along with laughter in between.
Valentina, who was all they had left of their mother...
“I begin to see the wisdom in the mode of life Luca has chosen. And the delirious freedom of hating you and this name and this...dynastic ego of yours...” With each word, his voice rose, fury pummeling him.
With shaking hands, he picked up the bottle of wine, the first that had been bottled at their Tuscan vineyard almost two decades ago, and thought of smashing it against the wall.
“Leandro...” Antonio’s low entreaty only spiked his temper. Because of course, Antonio loved him. It hadn’t been unconditional, true, but Antonio had been everything to the little boy who’d been shattered by his father’s volatility.
But Leandro didn’t throw it, didn’t give in to the baser urge.
Leandro didn’t believe in giving in to indulgent fits of temper, into foolish hopes that things were different, into thinking of his wants and needs before his duty or his family’s well-being.
He didn’t believe in being weak.
Only once in his life had he done that. Only once in his life had he lost control to the emotional turmoil that his father, and even Luca sometimes, seemed to feed on. In that moment, he had betrayed everything he stood for.
Even now, it wasn’t Rosa’s features he saw when he took himself in hand, when he had to appease his body’s needs without seeking out dirty satisfaction in some strange woman’s arms. He saw dark brown eyes, unflinchingly honest and hotl
y aroused, trembling pink lips, eager hands...
Shaking at the hold the memory had on him, and his body, Leandro put the bottle down.
“Another wife, Antonio? You have turned me into cattle.”
Antonio looked tired. “To make the Conti name respectable again at all costs, to do everything that Enzo ruined, this was your choice, Leandro.”
Leandro nodded. “Tell Salvatore that I will marry Sophia as soon as he pleases.”
He had been alone far too long anyway. A marriage for the sake of children—he had nothing against that.
* * *
Memories of that long-ago summer crashed through Alexis as she stared at the majestic Villa de Conti, glittering against the night sky. The magnificent towering gates that they had just passed, the scent of jasmine that grew on the columns of the terrace porch, the breeze coming off Lake Como, and the glitterati of the Italian society dressed in designer wear and elegant diamonds, it was a sensory assault.
Fiercely intimidating, too.
Alex ran a hand over her white silk button-down blouse nervously, not that she could ever compete with this crowd. Dark blue jeans and white pumps finished her simple attire.
She was glad she had called Valentina. The lie had fallen so easily off her lips—that she was touring Italy again and would love to see her. Valentina had sounded delighted, pretending as if they had remained friends after that summer instead of Alex calling her out of the blue. Had even sent Alex a car to pick her up.
But she hadn’t mentioned that Alex would be arriving at the villa the night of, what seemed like, a big party.
Thanking the driver, Alex exited from the car and looked up. Now that she stood there, anxiety made her empty stomach heave. Her mouth felt dry.
How was she supposed to locate him amid this crowd, much less tell him about Izzie?
Alex swayed, some primal instinct urging her to turn around and flee. But Izzie’s welfare and her own peace of mind depended on this.
Shaking at the warring logic and instinct, she froze.
“Alex? Alexis Sharpe?”
Luca Conti stood at the top of the steps, looking dashing in a black tuxedo. The usual, ornamental blonde on his arm was such a familiar sight that Alex felt a burst of affection. She had a feeling he’d been on his way out.
While she tried to get her vocal chords to work, Luca dismissed the blonde and came down the steps.
Vitality radiated from him, an easy smile on his lips. As he came closer, the cast of those similar features left her reeling afresh.
Before she could blink, she was enfolded in a tight hug. Alex returned it slowly, her throat thick, her limbs shaking.
Why hadn’t she tangled with this easy man, the desperate and shameful thought popped up.
Luca pulled back, studied her at leisure with those deceptively mocking black eyes. His grip around her waist tightened, in comfort, she realized as her shaking refused to cease.
“You’ve become stunning, bella. I knew I shouldn’t have let you go that summer.”
Alex smiled, grateful for his tease. “Thank you, Luca. Valentina knew I was coming. I...”
“But, of course, you are welcome, Alex.” She could see the curiosity in his eyes, but he didn’t press. Instead he offered her his arm. “Come, let us find something for you to drink and then we find Valentina, si?”
Alex shook her head. She had almost lost her nerve earlier, but not anymore. “I will see Valentina later, maybe. Luca...will you take me...can you please arrange for me to see your brother?”
“Leandro...” Shock reflected in his gaze as it met hers. “You came to see Leandro.” It was not a question.
“Yes.”
“It is not anything I could help with, bella?” he sounded sympathetic.
“No.”
Something flickered in his gaze before he looked up at the villa, and then back at her but this time, his look was different, the playfulness gone. Alex was sure he’d deny her.
“Then let us go find my esteemed brother.” Relief made her shiver. “I have to warn you, though, cara, that he is quite in demand, especially tonight. It will take us some time to reach him. Have patience, si?”
“Yes.”
Her legs barely holding her up, Alex half leaned on Luca’s arm. Her thudding pulse was a violent cacophony in her ears as they walked into the marble floored foyer and searched for that tall, lean frame that had haunted her dreams for seven years.
* * *
Alexis...
He’d thought he’d seen her an hour ago, her face paler than the simple, white silk blouse that clung to her curves.
Leandro had never been quite so shocked in his entire life as he’d been the moment he spied that lithe figure on Luca’s arm.
For a few minutes, he had stood there, stock-still, wondering if he was hallucinating. Wondering if the eve of his engagement to Sophia had unlocked the one face he had tried to bury in the deepest recesses of his mind.
Wondering if his one sin was finally catching up to him.
Until Sophia had put a hand on his shoulder slightly and called his name.
He’d turned to her, offered a quick smile and then slowly, his very sanity up for question, searched that same spot again.
There had been no Luca or her.
The long evening dragged on and on until Salvatore Rossi had paraded him in front of all the guests, boasting quite shamelessly that his daughter had snared a dynastic connection like Conti.
And Leandro Conti of all.
Even Sophia had cringed at some point. Who, Leandro admitted, he liked.
There was something self-sufficient and intelligent and very contained about her. At least, he would have a comfortable marriage, he realized halfway through the evening, free of all the marital drama he’d seen between his own parents.
Valentina’s innocence or not, he couldn’t take a marriage like that.
Within minutes of meeting her, Sophia had put his mind at ease.
He’d danced with her as the band played a slow jazz, then with his sister, who had chatted on and on about some old friend.
It was past ten and Leandro found himself in the private sitting lounge on the first floor, away from the still celebrating guests.
Salvatore Rossi and Sophia, Valentina, his grandfather, two of his aunts and two of his dissolute cousins were present. Luca had acted strangely, even for him, ever since Antonio had announced this merger.
Leandro was about to go looking for him when he appeared at the entrance and behind him, walked in the one woman Leandro never ever wanted to see again in his entire life.
The woman who’d known his one moment of weakness, the loss of his control...
Valentina’s cheerful greeting reverberated loud in the silence of the room, the clatter of her heels on the parquet floor as she went to the woman deafening.
It was Alexis he had seen earlier.
A neatly cut black jacket delineated slender shoulders. A silk blouse clung to a lush figure that he didn’t quite remember like that. She had been lithe, almost gaunt, breakable in his large hands...and yet so violently passionate...as if only Leandro could give her what she needed most.
Maledizione!
He was mad to be wondering about her body and yet his gaze continued its perusal of her with a mind of its own.
Dark blue jeans hugged her long legs, legs she had wrapped around him as he...his blood drifted south slowly, a heady thrill filled his veins, a feeling he had never known except that night...
Leandro gritted his teeth, willing his body under his command. One look at her and he was ready to react like an uncouth youth.
He lifted his gaze to her face, and stared in shock.
A jagged scar began somewhere beneath her hairline and went
through her left brow, the skin puckered. Yet didn’t minimize her appeal. If anything, it added even more character to the strong lines of her face.
She was no dazzling beauty, then or now.
Hers was more insidious, seeping under one’s skin before you realized, the kind that enthralled the more you looked.
It lay in that high forehead, the intelligence that shone in those tilted, light brown eyes, the irresistible combination of innocence and confidence in the way she greeted the world, the too-bold nose and the lush, wide, implausibly gorgeous mouth. In how sinuously she trapped one’s attention, drawing in like a spider with her silky web.
She had been a roughly stunning sketch in black-and-white then. Now, now she was a hauntingly beautiful painting that had grown into its promise, that would bestow pleasure for years to come.
Her brown eyes, bold and direct, searched the room and settled on him.
A pure bolt of energy flew between them, locking them together as if they were the only people in the room, in the world.
Something inside him, something only she had known leaped and growled at the sight of her again.
Her skin paled under the brilliance of the crystal chandelier even as she held his gaze stubbornly. She held her left hand awkwardly against her body.
Cutting his gaze away from her, which took far too much effort, Leandro stifled the life out of that strange fever in his veins.
Why was she here now, after seven years? On the eve of my engagement of all nights?
Before he could voice a question, Antonio’s stringent words shattered the choking quiet. “It is family here tonight, Luca. Your dirty playthings are not welcome.”
Alexis flinched. When Luca would have interrupted, she stilled him with a hand on his arm. His usually volatile brother relented with a shrug.
Something ugly erupted in Leandro’s gut. Dio, she would make me jealous of his own brother?
Leandro saw her falter, pull a deep breath and then face Antonio. “I’m not Luca’s...plaything, Mr. Conti, nor will I leave before I say what I intend.” Then she leveled that resolute gaze at him. “I need to speak to you alone.”
