The Temporary Mrs Marchetti

He gave a slight nod as if her answer satisfied him on some level. ‘Big place for a single girl. How many bedrooms?’

‘Four.’

His ink-black brows lifted in an arc. ‘Are you renting?’

Alice threw him a black look. ‘Why? Are you thinking of buying it too, and jacking up the rent? Sorry to spoil your fun but I own it.’ Or at least the bank does.

His mouth curved at one corner in a half-smile that should not have caused her heart to stumble. ‘You could pay this mortgage off and have money to spare if you agree to the terms of my grandmother’s will. You could expand your business as well.’

Alice’s brows snapped together in a frown. How did he know she wanted to expand her business? Who on earth had he been talking to? He had an unnerving ability to gain information about her. And read her mind. Not to mention her body.

Oh, dear God, why wasn’t her body ignoring him? Damn it.

Her body was a traitor. It remembered him too well. It only had to be within touching distance and it went haywire. It was as if the last seven years hadn’t happened. All her nerves were screaming out for his touch like starstruck teenage fans at a boy-band concert. ‘My business plans are absolutely no concern of yours. Nor indeed are my private ones.’

His eyes moved over her body in an assessing sweep that made her insides coil with lust. She knew that look. The look that said, I want you and I know you want me. And I can prove it.

‘It must get a bit lonely at times, living in this big old house by yourself, sì?’

‘I’m not one bit lonely.’

He released a small puff of air that had cynicism riding on its backdraft. ‘Sure you’re not.’ He was suddenly standing closer than she’d realised. Had she been so mesmerised by his gaze she hadn’t detected him closing the distance between them? He reached out and picked up a tendril of her hair and wound it around the length of his index finger. It was too late to step back.

Why the hell hadn’t she stepped back?

Every nerve root on her scalp was tingling from the tether of his touch.

‘Have you missed me, cara?’ His voice was a deep, seductive burr of sound that sucker-punched her self-control.

Alice had to swallow three times to locate her voice. Three times! As it was she only just stopped herself from giving a betraying whimper. ‘If you don’t let go of me this instant I’ll file my nails on your cheek. Got it?’

His mouth curved in an indolent smile and he wound her hair a little tighter. ‘I’d much rather you’d rake them down my back.’

His incendiary words sent a shockwave of lust through her body. She swore she could feel the echo of where he had been in the past—the thickened length of him driving into her until they both lost control. Her blood simmered in her veins, rushing through her system as if it were on fire.

Get control. Get control. Get control.

The words were sounding an alarm in her brain but her body was blatantly ignoring it. Her body swayed towards his...or maybe his moved closer. His muscle-packed thighs brushed hers, reminding her of all the times they had trapped hers beneath their sensual power and superior strength. Sex with Cristiano had always had an element of danger to it. The dark unknowable power of it. The uncontrollable force of it had thrilled and frightened her in equal measure. Her body felt things with him it had never felt before or since. Not even close. She was spoilt now for anyone else.

Another good reason to hate him.

Alice pushed back against his chest even though it tugged cruelly on her hair. ‘In your dreams, buddy.’

Cristiano’s gaze had a mocking glint to it. ‘I could have you in a heartbeat and you damn well know it.’

‘Ah, but you don’t want me, remember?’ Alice said with an arch look. ‘A marriage in name only, wasn’t it?’

A whip-quick flicker of tension moved across his mouth. He stepped back and held open the door. ‘We’ll lose the booking if we don’t make a move. I had to pull strings to secure it.’

‘You’re good at that, aren’t you, Cristiano? Pulling strings to get people to do what you want?’ Alice gave him a sugar-sweet smile on her way past him in the doorway. ‘What a pity you can’t get me to toe the line.’

He captured her forearm in the steel bracelet of his long, strong fingers, tugging her around so his gaze clashed with hers. His eyes were onyx-dark and brooding with indomitable purpose. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet. But once I am, I swear to God you’ll be on your knees begging me to marry you.’

Alice flashed him a look of pure defiance and wrenched out of his hold, rubbing her arm as if it had been scorched. Which it had. Why, oh, why was it so damn exciting sparring with him? She hadn’t felt like this in years. Alive. Switched on after a long time on pause. Running at breathtaking speed instead of idling. It was nothing short of exhilarating. ‘You think you can bully me into doing what you want? Try it and see what happens.’

His eyes dipped to her mouth, setting off a feverish chain of reaction in her body. Only he could do that. Make her hot for him by looking at her. ‘You’d be a fool to throw away this chance to build your asset base,’ he said. ‘Don’t let emotion get in the way of a good business deal.’

‘Who are you to lecture me about emotion?’ Alice said. ‘You’re the one who was in love with me, not me with you, and now you’re punishing me because I’m about the only person on this planet who has the backbone to stand up to you and—’

‘I wasn’t in love with you.’

The words stung like a hail of rubber bullets. Alice blinked. Swallowed. Blinked again. Not in love with her? Not even a little bit? Why that should bother her she didn’t want to examine too closely. ‘Right, well then, that’s good to know. At least I did you a favour then in rejecting your proposal. We would’ve been divorced by now otherwise and think how much that would’ve cost you.’

He opened the passenger door for her, jerking his head towards the vacant seat like a police officer taking in a suspect for interrogation. ‘Get in.’

Alice straightened her shoulders, throwing him a glare that could have stripped ten years of graffiti off a council estate wall. ‘Ask nicely.’

A muscle flicked in his jaw and his eyes smouldered like black coals. ‘You know what will happen if you push me too far.’ His tone was silk wrapped around a will of steel.

Alice did know and it was perverse of her to keep doing it. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. It was an urge she couldn’t control. She wanted to push him. She wanted to bait him. To break him. To reduce him to his most primal. A spurt of excitement lit like a wick inside her, sending a radiant heat coursing through her body. Her breasts tingled as if they were preparing themselves for the possessive cup of his hands. Her thighs trembled with the memory of his intimate invasion, her blood stirring into a frenzied whirlpool that made her aware of every feminine muscle contracting and releasing in her groin.

Oh, how she had missed this!

No one made her feel so...so energised. So vital. So...aroused.

She kept her gaze locked on his. The air was so charged with static she could hear it like a fizzing roar in her ears. ‘What are you going to do, Cristiano? Lug me over your shoulder and carry me off like the caveman you really are underneath that smart Armani suit?’

Another ripple of tension passed over his rigidly set mouth, his eyes blazing as they tussled with hers. His hand left the top of his car door and snared one of hers before she could do anything to counter it—if she had wanted to, that was—ruthlessly tugging her towards him so there was barely a breath of air between their bodies. Alice could feel the slight protrusion of his belt buckle digging her in the stomach, a shockingly erotic reminder of the latent male power stirring just below it.

‘Been a long time between drinks, has it, cara?’ he asked in that dangerously smooth tone.

Alice huffed out a laugh but it didn’t come out quite as convincing as she would have liked. It sounded breathless. Uncertain. Out of its depth. ‘You don’t get to hear about my love-life. It’s none of your business.’

His fingers subtly tightened around her wrist, his touch a band of fire that sent lightning-fast currents of hot electricity straight to her core. ‘It will become my business once we’re married next month.’

Next month? Eek!

Alice elevated her chin, sending him a look of undiluted disdain. ‘You seem to have a big problem understanding the concept of the word no. I’m. Not. Marrying. You.’

His top lip lifted in a sardonic curl. ‘You want me so bad I can smell it.’

Alice disguised a quick swallow. She could smell it too. The musk and salt of arousal coming off both of them like a black magic potion. A swirling wicked spell. Its dangerous tentacles were wrapping around her body, coiling like a serpent, strangling her resolve until it was gasping for air.

Only he could do this to her. Make her so wild with need she forgot everything but the greedy hunger in her body clamouring for satiation.

His thighs were flush against hers, the swell of his erection so powerfully male—so blatantly, unashamedly male—it made every feminine cell in her body roll over and beg. Somehow—miraculously—she managed to conjure up a mocking smile. ‘That ego of yours is so big it deserves its own postcode. Or its own government.’

A spark of amusement lit his gaze and his fingers around her wrist loosened slightly, his thumb stroking in a fainéant movement over the hummingbird leap of her pulse. ‘Did you miss what we had together?’

Alice schooled her features into a mask of cool indifference. ‘Not a bit.’

His probing gaze kept hers captive. ‘So why haven’t you had a serious relationship since?’

How on God’s sweet earth did he know that?

Alice arched a brow. ‘None that you know about. Unlike you, I don’t live my life followed by paparazzi documenting every time I sneeze.’

‘When was your last relationship?’

She flicked her eyelids upwards. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what is this? Twenty questions?’

His gaze didn’t waver. ‘A long time, then.’

Alice pursed her lips and then released them with a rush of air. ‘Are we having dinner or are we going to stand here and swap dating histories? I can get you a list of name and numbers if you’d like? I could even do a printout of some of their messages and emails if that gives you a hard-on.’

Cristiano put his hand back on top of the rim of the car door. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

Alice brushed past him to get in the car, shooting him a glare through the windscreen when he strode in front of the car to take his place behind the wheel. He started the engine with a powerful roar and entered the traffic with a quick glance over his shoulder, the G-force sending her back against the butter-soft leather seat.

Why did his driving always remind her of sex?

The thunderous growl of his engine, the thrusting of the gears, the press on the brakes and the push down on the throttle made her think of all the times he had taken her to bed—or other places—and driven them both to paradise.

Alice’s gaze went to his hands holding the steering wheel with such indolent confidence, the long, tanned fingers with their dusting of dark hair doing all sorts of strange things to her insides. What was it about those hands that made her squirm with need? How was she to get through an evening with him? Sitting across the table with him at a restaurant, for God’s sake?

How the hell had he got her to agree to dinner?

That was one of the scariest things about Cristiano Marchetti. He had an unnerving ability to get her to do things she had no intention of doing.

But...

That tricky little ‘but’ kept gnawing at the wainscoting of her mind. But what if she did agree to it? Six months was nothing. It would flash past. And at the end of it she would be set up financially. For life. She could build her wedding spa with money to spare. She could buy the best equipment, lavishly decorate the place without the limitations of a budget. She could take a holiday—something she hadn’t done in years.

Alice chewed it over... He was expecting her to say no. But wait a minute... What if he didn’t want her to say yes? What if he was only making all this fuss to make her think he was keen to get that ring on her finger?

She smiled a secret smile. She would string him along for a while longer and then she would call his bluff and expose his true motivations.

Married for six months to her mortal enemy?

Game on.

CHAPTER THREE

CRISTIANO OPENED AND closed the fingers of his right hand where they were gripping the steering wheel. He could still feel the hot tingle of Alice’s skin against his fingertips. His lust for her was pounding like a jungle drum deep in his body. He ached with it. Burned with it. Vibrated with it. No one but her could reduce him to this. To stir in him such primitive, out of control longings. Longings he had never felt for anyone else. Longings that made a mockery of the sex he’d had before her and since.

Not that he hadn’t had great sex over the years. He had. Many times. He’d made a point of it—using every sexual encounter to drive home the point to himself he could live without her.

It was just that in comparison to what he’d shared with Alice...well, it wasn’t in the same league. Her body, her touch, her wildcat-on-heat response to him triggered something in him. Something indefinable. Something that made his flesh shudder in reaction when she came near. Something that, even now, with her sitting less than a half a metre away, he could feel moving through his body like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

He had to get her out of his system.

He had to.

He could no longer tolerate the rush of adrenalin every time he saw a silver-blonde head in the crowd and the savage drop of his gut afterwards when he realised it wasn’t her. He had to prove to himself he was over her.

Was this why his nonna had set her will up this way? To help him move past the five-foot-six blonde roadblock in his life? To force him to confront the failure he would give anything to forget?

Cristiano had made a promise to himself not to sleep with Alice. Look, but don’t touch. But how long was that going to last? He was barely keeping his hands off her now. All he had to do was reach over and stroke his hand down the slim flank of her thigh peeping out from above the knee-high hem of her little black dress.

His fingers twitched against the steering wheel. His groin growled when she crossed one long leg over the other, her racehorse-slim ankle moving up and down as if she were feeling the same restless agitation he was feeling.

Of course she was.

Cristiano allowed himself an internal smile. His ego had nothing to do with it. He could see the struggle she was having controlling her desire for him. He had felt it from the moment he’d stepped into her office and seen her sitting like a starchy schoolmistress behind that desk. She’d used the desk as a barrier. She hadn’t trusted herself to get too close to him. She knew her body would betray her as his was doing to him. It was the way they were together. Match and tinder. Spark and flame. Trigger and explosion.

It was only a matter of time before he had her where he wanted her. Begging him. Clawing at him with those little wildcat claws. Gasping his name between panting breaths as he showed her what she’d been missing. What he’d been missing. Dear God, how he’d missed it! Missed her. The feistiness of her. The razor-sharp wit of her tongue. The flashpoint temper and the come-and-get-me teasing that had made him feel as if he were living on the edge of a vertiginous cliff.

The way her body felt around him when he drove in to the hilt.

Getting her to marry him was his goal, not sleeping with her...although if what he had seen from her so far was any indication, sleeping with her might happen sooner rather than later. A little financial blackmail was not his usual modus operandi, but he had to get her married to him otherwise his shares would be lost.

Not to mention the villa.

He couldn’t lose that. It was the place where his father had grown up. It was where Cristiano had spent numerous happy family holidays before his parents’ and brother’s death. It was his home for the rest of his childhood and adolescence, the place where overnight he had grown from boy to man. Losing the villa would be like losing even more of his family than he had lost already.

Why had his grandmother done such an outrageous thing as to force him to share it with Alice?

He didn’t need a conscience right now. Six months would pass before he knew it. He would insist on Alice living with him because he wasn’t going to let the press get wind of there being anything amiss with his ‘marriage’. No way was Alice Piper going to make a laughing stock out of him in the daily tabloids. He would enjoy making her act the role of devoted wife. It would be amusing to see her push against the boundaries he laid down.

‘So, we’ll have a nice dinner and discuss this situation we find ourselves in,’ Cristiano said after a time.

‘Discuss?’ Alice’s voice held a generous note of scorn. ‘You don’t discuss. You command.’

He sent her a smiling glance. ‘And as my wife you will obey.’

Even from the other side of the car he could feel the heat coming off her livid blue glare. ‘They have rewritten the marriage ceremony since the nineteen-fifties, you know. Women no longer have to obey their husbands. Not that you’re going to be my hus—’

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