The Surprise Conti Child Read online

  The man in front of her however...he made her feel naked and languid and achy all over, with just one look from those gray depths. For all his grating politeness, he made her feel as if he saw her, the Alexis that wanted to pack a lifetime of adventure into one short summer.

  Why, she’d no idea.

  “Have you already slept with him then?”

  If she’d been a violent person, if the amused glint in his eyes hadn’t lulled her, Alex would’ve slapped him then. Instead, she slowly but firmly pushed his hand away and threw him a disgusted look. “Is this your job then? Follow around the women Luca tangles with and silence them with a dirty payoff—”

  “I didn’t intend to offend you,” he offered roughly, and Alexis almost believed that he hadn’t meant to. That it was curiosity rather than judgment in his tone.

  She had it bad, if she was justifying his cheap remarks...

  “Could there be a different intention?”

  “You don’t know Luca like I do. And you are...”

  “I’m what, Mr. Conti? The stereotypical American slut? Easy? Weak enough for you to insult without knowing the first thing about me?”

  Something almost like regret pinched his mouth. When his gaze flipped open again, a storm danced within it. As if some small part of him was uncoiling and awake. “Luca is a...sucker, as you call it, for your type.”

  She raised an eyebrow then. Maybe not so imperious like him but she was proud of herself. “And what type is that?”

  He sighed. Satisfaction pounded in Alex’s blood, the little sound of his capitulation a roaring defeat.

  “You want your pound of flesh?”

  “From the moment I arrived, you’ve looked at me like I was dirt beneath your handmade Italian shoes. I want every drop of blood that you owe me.”

  A hint of a smile caressed his lips, tilting one corner of his mouth up. The impact of it was like molten honey through her veins, turning her languorous and sluggish. “You’re young and vivacious, a striking contrast of strength when compared to someone like Valentina. But your eyes, they betray your innocence and your vulnerability. You possess a distinct lack of artifice that is dangerously attractive. For a man like Luca with such jaded taste, you’re like a fresh drink of water that might just sate his unquenchable thirst. It’s enough to rouse a man’s instincts, enough to make him assume, foolishly, that you need to be protected.”

  Heartbeat skittering all over the place, Alex stared, stunned. She had thought herself beneath his notice, inadequate to even catch his attention. “Why foolish?” she croaked.

  “Because, as I’m realizing slowly, you might look innocent and vulnerable, but you’re not weak.”

  “If that’s an apology,” she countered weakly, battling the fluttering feeling in her chest, “then it’s the most convoluted one I’ve ever heard.”

  A couple of women, one dressed in black leather and the other a white cocktail dress, both so tight as if they were painted over their voluptuous bodies, passed them huddling Alexis toward him.

  Their hushed whispers and awed mutterings were obvious enough for Alex.

  Leandro Conti didn’t usually hang around nightclubs. Or parade in public, she realized, in complete contrast to Luca who seemed to go out of his way to engage the media’s attention.

  Nor had he found her by accident. Valentina had already left.

  Which meant he had come here looking... “Why are you here tonight?” When he frowned, she elaborated. “You barely seem to tolerate the normal pursuits and company like the rest of us.”

  “Have you studied me so thoroughly then?”

  Alex blushed. How neatly he had trapped her into admitting that she’d been obsessed with him. But she’d never met anyone like him, didn’t know how to hide her fascination.

  His hand stayed on her elbow, separating her from the crowd. “My grandfather is convinced you’re a gold digger out to get her claws into Luca. I’ve been ordered to make sure you don’t succeed.”

  Her jaw fell open. Disbelief slowly cycled to righteous fury. And here she’d thought he’d come for her. “Go to hell,” she whispered and took off.

  Hot tears prickled behind her eyes and she resolutely locked them away. The arrogant jerk wasn’t worth a single tear.

  Somehow, she managed to only delve deeper into the mazelike nightclub, the sexy, almost hip-hop-like music chasing her. One minute, she was pushing through the throng, and next, she was looking at a lushly carpeted, quiet corridor with three unmarked doors.

  Cursing, Alex turned around and banged into the one man she never wanted to see again.

  Why was he following her?

  “I told you to go—”

  His fingers on her wrist viselike, he slid a card at the door and tugged her inside. “You’re making a scene.”

  The door closed behind them with a finality that made Alex jump. But the stinging response that rose to her mouth died.

  It was a VIP suite. Eyes wide, Alex studied it, a furious flush rising up through her neck.

  Floor-to-ceiling glass paneling made up the far wall of the plush suite, giving a perfect view into the dance floor and bar on the two levels.

  Two lush couches stood against the far wall, adjacent to a small refrigerator. And on the other wall was a giant plasma screen that was currently turned off.

  Gut swooping, she turned. “I don’t think we should be here. This area...”

  “I own this club, Ms. Sharpe.”

  Laughter, more sarcastic than warm, gurgled out of her. A villa in Lake Como, a nightclub in Milan, and a growing luxury goods collection that celebrities were crazy about—the Contis might as well be from a different planet. “Of course you do. Have you had men watching me all this time?”

  The thick swath of his eyelashes shadowed his expression. “Valentina always has protection.”

  “And you told them to keep an eye on the American gold digger/slut, too.”

  “It was for your protection.”

  “And who protects me from you?”

  The dim, somehow still classy purple lighting in the room didn’t quite hide his flinch. But she was far too furious to wonder why.

  “What do you intend? To lock me up here? To have me neatly packed away in one of your jets and have me dumped on the other side of Atlantic? To send me off silently into the night?” No, he wasn’t allowed to dismiss her like this. Not when she felt so weak-kneed and aware of him. “You know your brother is a fast worker. What if I already have him in my clutches? Maybe Luca and I’ve already, thoroughly, f—”

  “Basta!” he muttered, before his hand descended on her mouth while the other one locked her against the wall.

  The rough, almost possessive grip he had on her hip branded her. But it was his gaze that held her rooted.

  A flash of temper? A spark of emotion? Whatever it was, it lit his usually droll gaze.

  He wasn’t impervious to her.

  Hot, reckless energy pounded through her, making her thrum with excitement. “You can think it, but I can’t say it, Leandro?” She drawled her words, adding a lazy taunt. “At least, with Luca, I know I’ll have a good time without insults.”

  Gray irises widened, bleeding into the dark black around.

  The quiet room shrank around the two of them, an explosive current springing into life. The masculine scent of him was a whiplash against her senses, his fingertips pressing into her flesh.

  Yet all Alex felt was charged up.

  “Do you know what you so dangerously provoke? Are you prepared for it?”

  A wealth of meaning reverberated in his statement and it lay between them, a grenade ticking away.

  Drunk on the challenge in his molten gaze, Alex couldn’t back down. “I don’t care how wealthy you—”

  His tapered
fingers squeezed her palm gently. “I don’t agree with my grandfather, bella.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you come tonight?”

  Tension filled the infinitesimal silence before he answered, “Luca told me he picked up a drunk Tina and couldn’t locate you. I don’t like the idea of you being out at night in Milan alone.”

  “You could’ve asked anyone else to do that. Your security team...you didn’t have to come yourself. You could—”

  “What you’re hoping for, it will never happen, Alexis.”

  “You called me Alexis,” she said simply, letting the warmth of his body float her away.

  His head cocked to the side, and he rubbed her jaw.

  Shock...he was shocked that he had said her name. The fingers that had been brushing her cheek pulled away. “Come, it is time for you to leave.”

  It was as if he’d slammed a door in her face.

  He wasn’t talking just about the nightclub or Milan, but Italy. He was telling her it was time for her to leave. Panic flared through her, but beneath it was a realization that sent her heart slamming against her rib cage. All these days...

  “You want me,” she accused. “You made me feel like I was the only one who felt it, as if I was gauche enough to read it all wrong—”

  In a near-violent movement that sent her breath bursting through her, Leandro captured her wrists. Stilling her body from leaning into him. “This is a mistake.”

  Yanking her hands away from his grip, Alexis pressed her body against his.

  A jagged sound wrenched out from his lips, throaty and low. Moving her hands up his chest, Alex tilted her head back. Every inch of his face was frozen in some kind of torturous agony. And she didn’t intend to let him win.

  She buried her mouth in the opening of his dress shirt. Velvet-smooth and hot, his skin burned against her lips. “Kiss me, just once. Show me what you feel, just once.”

  One hand snuck into her hair. Her scalp prickled as he tugged her up. Dark need pinched his features and Alex shivered, suddenly, finally, understanding the depth of the need he hid under that infuriatingly indifferent mask.

  Anticipation roped with tension set her nerves on fire.

  “You do not know who you’re playing with.”

  She jerked back. “Am I so beneath you then?”

  He shook his head. But the shadows didn’t leave his eyes. “You’re too young.”

  “I’m old enough to know what I want.”

  Flicking her tongue out, she tasted him. His hands vined tight around her, flattening her nonexistent breasts against his chest, knocking the breath out of her. “You think I’ll stop at one meager kiss?” Pure need punctured every word. “You think to play with my desire and walk away after a chaste embrace, to taunt me like you do these boys with your innocence?”

  His warning only incensed her desire even more. “I’m not the one afraid, Leandro.”

  A volley of Italian fell from his mouth as she pressed her lower body to his. The ridge of his erection against her belly made her quiver.

  His fingers descended on her hips, hurting her with their grip to keep her unmoving. “I will not touch my brother’s seconds.”

  “We shared one kiss before I walked away. I’m not interested in Luca.”

  “You are the first woman in the world to claim that.” Something flashed in his gaze even as his long fingers drew maddening circles over her wrists. “Which is why he likes you so much.”

  If her heart beat any faster, it would rip out of her chest. But still, she risked. And in this spine-tingling risk she took with Leandro, Alex felt more secure, more wanted than she’d ever felt in her life. “And you?”

  It was as if all the walls he kept up fell down in dust and a primitive hunger filled his gaze. “I feel need, Alexis. When I look at you...all I feel is desire.”

  Even then, it was she that lifted her head, reached up and pressed her mouth to his. She, who had no experience with men, that wrapped her hands around his nape and refused to let go.

  She that touched her mouth to his.

  Soft and hot and hard at the same time, his mouth was a gateway to heaven and hell. Every nerve ending quivering, every instinct driving her forth, she ran the tip of her tongue tentatively, slowly, over that cruelly sculpted lower lip.

  With a growl that made her belly tighten, finally he relented. Finally, he touched that hard, harsh mouth to hers.

  Lights exploded behind Alex’s eyes as if the world was a kaleidoscope of sensations and textures.

  Masculine and demanding, he parted her lips and pushed in.

  With his tongue and teeth, and with an expertise that made her sex shockingly wet, Leandro devoured her.

  There was no playfulness, no seduction to his kiss, just as his words. It was a full-on sensual assault that left no doubt about where it was leading.

  His hands skimmed everywhere—her breasts and the boldly taut nipples, her hips, the curves of her buttocks—before they crept under her dress and pulled it up.

  Long fingers hitched her thigh around his hips until the heat of her was intimately pressed against the rigid length of him.

  Every inch of her vibrated with excitement, desire, need, every inch of her thrummed at the sensation of power.

  When he pushed her against the wall and covered her breasts with his hands, Alex whimpered.

  When his fingers reached her wet core—alien and intrusive, her gaze flew to his, shocked and aroused and oh-so-willing. Her mouth dried at the stark need in those gray eyes.

  Groaning, she came off the wall like a bow when he curled a finger inside her just so, driving a fork of heat through her pelvis.

  When he flicked the rim of her ear with his tongue, and told her what he was going to do to her, Alex buried her mouth in his neck and gave herself over.

  To the man, to the moment, to the incredible sensation of being wanted.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Seven years later

  “DOES YOUR ARM still hurt, Mamma?”

  Alex tucked the quilt around Isabella and kissed her forehead. “A little, baby,” she said, opting for the truth.

  She was only six but Izzie somehow always knew if Alex lied to her. Or maybe it was that penetrating, deep gray gaze that Alex had never learned to handle. “But the cast should be gone in a couple more weeks and Auntie Jessie said I was healing well.”

  Little chubby fingers traced the yet unhealed, inch-wide scar that ran from her left temple to her eye, bisecting her brow where a shard of glass had pierced the skin. This bruise, unlike the fracture to her ribs and arm, was only skin-deep yet looked much worse.

  “It scares me, Mamma,” Izzie whispered in a low voice.

  Tears coated Alex’s throat but she resolutely swallowed them back. “But you’re such a brave little girl always, baby.”

  Her little chin wobbled. “I am but all the days you were in hospital and me here, alone. Grandmama didn’t tell me when you’d come home.”

  Pushing herself completely onto the little bed, Alex gathered her bundle of joy closer. “It looks scarier than it hurts. See, I’m perfectly fine, okay?”

  When Izzie nodded, Alex hugged her tight. Felt the tension unwind in her little girl’s body.

  But fear lingered, a bitter taste at the back of her throat, leeching warmth from her very veins.

  The sixteen-wheeler that had crashed into her compact sedan from the side had wrecked it into a pulp of metal. It was a miracle she’d survived, the doctor had said, and without permanent damage, too.

  But all Alex could think of was the alternate scenario...

  She could’ve lost her life.

  And Izzie would be...

  Like a black cloud waiting to swallow he
r, she felt the loss of breath, the violent impact of the air bag, of the crunch of bone and the shaft of nightmarish pain in her left arm all the way to her fingers...

  The acidic taste of fear in her mouth...

  Her hands shook, her skin clammy with sweat.

  She buried her face in Izzie’s hair and took a deep breath.

  As always, the sweet smell of her little girl’s skin anchored her in the now. Pushed back the nightmarish fingers of that panic to the edges...but she knew it wasn’t gone for long.

  Anything could trigger it, she realized, remembering the almost episode at the store that very morning when the door had banged too hard.

  She couldn’t go on like this, debilitated by fear.

  Control, she needed control of this fear for Izzie. She needed to do something that wouldn’t paralyze her like this, something that would take care of her baby whatever the future brought...

  And instantly her mind went to him.

  The man with blue-black hair. The man who had given Izzie her shockingly clear gray eyes and her thick, straight black hair, unlike Alex’s strawberry blond curls. The man who had refused to see her again. Or speak to her. Or answer a single phone call seven years ago.

  Even in that second before she’d lost consciousness, she’d thought of him. Of the desperate yet muted violence of his passion as he’d kissed her that night, of the way he’d moved inside her, of the way he had driven her to the edge of such intense pleasure that she’d thought she’d fragment into a million pieces...

  One memory brought another now...

  The disgusted look in his eyes after when she’d hung on to him like a limp vine, as his lust-heavy gaze slowly focused on her, followed by utter shock and disgust, of the jagged, agonized howl that had fallen from his mouth...the way he’d withdrawn immediately, righted her clothes so coldly and clinically, the way he wouldn’t meet her gaze as he drove them to the hotel Valentina and she’d been staying at in Milan...

  The way he’d told her that he never wanted to see her again...

  But now, now that she had faced almost certain death, Alex wasn’t willing to slink away in silence anymore. Even if that meant facing his rejection and failing.