The Unwanted Conti Bride (The Legendary Conti Brothers) Read online

  No words came to her as Sophia stared at Antonio.

  The idea of blackmailing the Conti Devil didn’t bother her so much as using Valentina’s secret. Dear God, she didn’t want to hurt anyone.

  An acidic taste lingered in her mouth. “There are too many innocent people involved in this. I won’t hurt one of them just because—”

  “Just because Salvatore might lose the company? Just because your mother and brothers might have to leave their estate, give up their cars, their place in this society? And what will you do, Sophia? Take up the project manager job your Greek friend offers you to support them? Quietly stand by as Salvatore watches chunks of his company broken down and auctioned off?”

  “Why me? Why can’t you find a willing woman and force him to marry her? Why—”

  “Because you’re tough and you do what needs to be done. You don’t have silly ideas of love in your head. Only you will do for the Conti Devil.”

  * * *

  Only you...

  Antonio Conti’s words reverberated through Sophia.

  Oh, how she wished she’d not come tonight... Now she had a possible way to dig their finances out of the ruin but it would only be achieved by selling her soul to the devil...

  She wasn’t considering it, Sophia told herself, as she walked through the unending corridor of Villa de Conti. The black-and-white-checkered floor gave the mounting nausea within a physical bent.

  Surely Antonio deluded himself that his devil-may-care, womanizing grandson could care about his sister. But she had to try. She had to see if there was a chance of salvaging their finances, if there was even a small sliver of hope that her mother, Salvatore and the twins wouldn’t be driven to the road.

  She reached a wide, circular veranda at the back of the villa.

  Jacket discarded, shirt open to reveal a dark olive chest, cuffs folded back, Luca stood leaning against the wall. A foot propped up against it, eyes closed, face turned to the sky. The curving shadows his long eyelashes cast on his cheekbones were like scythes.

  Scythes and blades. Her usually nonviolent thoughts revolved around weapons when it came to Luca.

  Moonlight caressed the planes of his face, shadows diluting the magnificent symmetry of his features. Rendering him a little less gorgeous.

  A little less captivating.

  A little less devilish.

  Almost vulnerable and...strangely lonely.

  Slowly, Sophia became aware of her own reaction. Damp palms. Skittering heartbeat. Pit in her stomach. Even after a decade, her body went into some kind of meltdown mode near him.

  She must have made a sound because his eyes opened slowly. Only his eyes were visible in the silvery light. They fell on her, widened for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, searched her face and then assumed that laid-back, casual, infuriatingly annoying expression that she hated.

  “Sophia Rossi, of steel balls and tough skin and icy heart.” Whatever alcohol he’d imbibed, his speech didn’t slur. Mocking and precise, it arrowed past her defenses. “Did you lose your way, cara?”

  His sultry voice thickened the air around them so much that Sophia wondered if she could breathe through it. “Stop calling me...” No, that was way too personal. If she was going to do this, Sophia had to enclose herself in steel, lock away even the slightest vulnerability she had, not that she had any. She’d do this for her family, but she wasn’t going to be the Conti Devil’s amusement. Not this time.

  He pushed himself from the wall while she formed and disposed words. When she looked up again, he’d moved close enough for her to smell the crisply masculine scent of him. The light from the hall caressed his features.

  Breath was lost. Nerves fluttered. A sigh built and ballooned inside her chest. That small scar under his chin. The sweeping arch of his eyebrows. The razor-sharp lines of his cheekbones. Darkly angelic features that masked a cruel devil.

  Jet-black eyes glinted with sardonic amusement at her mute appraisal. He propped a bent hand on the wall she was leaning against, sticking his other hip out. A pose full of grace and languor. Of feigned interest and wretched playfulness. “Tell me, how did you end up in the farthest reaches of the house, away from all the wheelings and dealings of your business friends? Did Little Bo Peep lose track of her sheep and wander into big bad wolf’s way?”

  Sophia tried to command every cell in her body to keep it together, wrenched herself into a tight ball so that all that touched her was the man’s whispery breath. “You’re getting your fairy tales mixed up.”

  “But my point got through to you, si?” He ran the heel of his hand over his tired-looking eyes while Sophia stared hungrily, cataloging every gesture, every shift. “What do you want, Sophia?”

  “Your...situation looked like it needed rescuing.”

  The slight tug of his mouth transformed into that full-blown grin that always seemed to be waiting for an invite. Evenly set teeth gleamed in an altogether wicked face. “Ahh...and so Sophia Rossi, the righteous and the pure, decided to come to my aid.”

  “Where is your lover? I can have one of our chauffeurs drive her home.”

  His gaze held hers, a thousand whispers in it. “She’s in my bed, thoroughly lost to the world.” It dipped to her mouth. Snaky tendrils of heat erupted over her skin. “I believe I wore her out.”

  Nausea hit Sophia with the force of a gardening hose, the images of a sweaty and ravished Mariana burning her retinas as if she could see the leggy blonde amidst a cloud of soft, white sheets.

  Luca’s bedroom—pure white sheets, gleaming black marble, black-and-white portraits all around... It was like being transported into your worst nightmare and your darkest fantasy, all rolled into one. While being naked and blindfolded and without any defense.

  She let all the disgust she felt seep to the surface and stepped back.

  “Don’t you think this is too far even for you? They are not even divorced yet. And you’re advertising it for all and sundry to see.”

  “But that’s the fun, si? Tangling with the dangerous? Riling up her husband into one of his awful tempers?”

  “And then you walk away?” Like you did from me. “Her life will be in ruins in terms of the society, while you latch on to the next willing v—”

  His mouth curved into a snarl and his hand covered her mouth. Opal fire burned in his eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself, cara? That you were a victim all those years ago? Have you convinced yourself that I forced you?”

  She pushed away his hand and glared at him, all the while pretending that her lips still didn’t tingle from the heat of his touch. That she didn’t burn at the memory... “I didn’t mean that you take them without their... Damn it, Luca, you and I both know he will ruin her over this.”

  “Maybe ruin is exactly what Mariana wants. Maybe to be utterly debauched by me is her only salvation.” The words were silky, casual, and yet...for the first time in her life, Sophia saw more than the hauntingly beautiful face, the wicked grin, even the seductive charm. “You would not understand her, Sophia.”

  “I just don’t think—”

  Sophia watched that lazy face swallow away that fury, saw the emotion blank out of his eyes as easily as if someone had taken an eraser and wiped it away. “I don’t give a damn about your opinions, so, per carita, stop expressing them.” He bent toward her, diminutive as she was to his own lean six-two. “What is it that suddenly interests you about me, Sophia? Have you finally decided you need another orgasm to sustain you for the next decade?”

  Flames scorched her skin; that was how hot she felt. Yes floated to her lips, as if every cell in her had conspired to form that word without her permission.

  This was easy for him, too easy—riling her up, sinking under her skin. Even knowing what he was, still she reacted like a moth venturing to a flame. “Not everything has to have a sexual connotation in life.”

  “Says the woman who needs to be utterly and thoroughly—”

  This time her hand clamped his mouth.
Sophia glared at him. His breath kissed her sensitive palm.

  Long, elegant fingers traced the tender skin of her wrists, leaving brands on her sensitive flesh. Slowly, as if savoring every second of touching her, he pulled her hand. “What did you think I was going to say, Sophia?”

  She pursed her mouth and took a deep breath. “I have a proposal I’d like to make to you, one that is mutually beneficial.”

  “There is nothing that you can offer me—” his gaze flicked over her, dismissal and insult in that look “—that I won’t get from another woman, Sophia.”

  “You haven’t even heard it.”

  “Not interested—”

  “I want to marry you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  NOT “WILL YOU marry me, Luca?”

  Not “I think it makes sense for me to marry you now even though I’ve hated you for a decade and chose your brother over you just a few months ago.”

  Not “I need you to save my stepfather from sure financial ruin, so, please, oh, please, won’t you make me your wife?”

  No, Sophia Rossi proposed marriage as she did everything else.

  Like a charging bull and with the confidence that she could bend, twist or generally command him into doing her bidding. Probably with an adoring smile on his face, and the marble digging into his knees if she could manage it.

  Dio, where did the woman’s strength come from?

  Luca Conti swallowed his astonishment. Her loyalty in considering this for her family’s sake, when he knew how much she hated him—and with good reason—was admirable. He ignored the thudding slam of his heart against his rib cage—she was a weakness and a regret he’d never quite forgotten—and gave free rein to the riding emotion.

  Amusement. Sheer hilarity.

  It burst out of him like an engulfing wave of the ocean, like a rising crescendo of music, punching the air out of his throat with its force. There was a knot in his gut. Hand shaking, he wiped his wet cheeks.

  What merciful God had granted him this wonderful moment?

  For reasons all too Freudian, Luca hated his birthday. Loathed, despised with the hatred of a thousand exploding supernovas. But his self-loathing, as brightly as it flared from time to time, to his brother Leandro’s eternal gratitude, had never overtaken his respect for life.

  Over the years he had become better at handling his birthday. There was even a memorable threesome sprinkled through a couple of them. But not one of those miserable thirty birthdays had presented him with a gift like this one.

  Just months ago Sophia had chosen Leandro over him to marry.

  To see the one woman he had given up years ago—granted, after thoroughly breaking her heart—as his brother’s wife every day would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In other words, destination Hell on a direct flight.

  He would have had to let the engagement go forward. The wedding itself, probably not.

  He’d have seduced her, for sure. He’d have had to do it before the wedding, he remembered telling himself in a drunken haze. Luckily, his—now—sister-in-law Alex had shown up, turned Leandro’s life inside out and spun Luca away from that necessary but destructive course.

  And here Sophia was now...proposing marriage to him this time. The woman had balls. He loved her for that if nothing else. “I believe this is the best birthday present I’ve ever received, bella. How the mighty fall. Wait till I—”

  He heard the outraged snarl before a filthy word fell from her stiff-lined mouth, and it was like a violin had joined the piano in his head. “If you tell anyone, I’ll cut off—”

  He burst out laughing again.

  “Go to hell,” she whispered, her petite frame radiating fury. Most of it self-directed, he knew, for Sophia hated betraying any emotion that made her weak.

  He caught her wrist and pulled her inside the large, and thankfully empty, lounge behind them. Backing her into the wall, he pulled her arms above her.

  The disdain in her eyes, the arrogant jut of her chin... It was like pouring petrol over a spark. Jerked at every primal instinct he had carefully banished from his life. Her breasts heaved as she fought him, as if they too fought against being confined.

  “You thought you would propose marriage and walk away? You did not think I would find it entertaining?”

  “You’re a remorseless bastard.” It was the first time she’d hinted at their past.

  Regret was a faint pang in Luca’s chest. Only faint.

  Did he regret that he had hurt her ten years ago? Si.

  So much that if given the chance he wouldn’t do it again? Non.

  He was far too selfish to willingly deny himself the true joy he’d found with her in those few weeks. “And you love playing the uptight shrew far too much.”

  Outrage, and most improbably, hurt, transformed her muddy brown eyes into a thousand hues of golds and bronzes.

  Her stubborn, too-prominent nose flared. Incongruously wide mouth in a small face flushed a deep pink. The hourglass figure swathed in the most horrific black dress rubbed against him, bringing him to painful arousal.

  In front of his eyes, she became something else.

  She became the Sophia he’d known once and hadn’t been able to resist, the Sophia he’d kissed with wonder, the Sophia she’d been before he had beat all the softness out of her.

  She grunted and gave herself away, seconds before she raised her knee to his groin.

  “How would this marriage of ours...prosper and proliferate if you turn me into a castrato, Sophia?”

  Dancing his lower body away from her kick, he used the momentum to slam her harder into his hip. Her soft belly pressed and flushed into the lines of his body, his hip bone digging into it, as if it meant to make a groove for itself against her.

  A softer gasp escaped her this time, throaty and wrenched away from the part of her she hid so well. So well that he had often wondered if he had known her so intimately once. That short huff for breath stroked Luca’s nerves. Like strings of a violin...

  Thick, wavy locks of hair fell from the ugly knot at the back of her head, touching the strong planes of her face with softness. The floral scent of her shampoo, something so incongruous with the woman she was, or pretended to be, fluttered under his nose. Luca pressed his nose into the thick, wavy mass. Kneaded the tense planes of her upper back as if he could calm himself by calming her.

  He had never forgotten his amazement at the fire that had flared between them, how easily his plan had gone utterly wrong ten years ago. How, even for his jaded palate, Sophia had proved to be too much of a temptation.

  Dio, suggesting marriage to him, of all men... Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Why was she tempting the devil in him?

  He was tempted. What man wouldn’t want to muss up those ugly dresses and that shrewish facade and want to find the soft woman beneath? What man wouldn’t want a claim on that kind of loyalty, on that steely core of her?

  He set her away from him, none too gently. Lust riding him hard, he drew one rattling breath after another.

  He controlled the pursuit of pleasure and the pleasure itself. Without shame or scruples, he used his charm, his looks, to draw women to him, amused himself for a time and then walked away.

  He’d carefully built his life to be that and nothing more. He’d trampled her innocence even when he’d intended to do the right thing once. But in the end, he’d left. He would walk away again.

  After having a small taste. She really expected it of him—to behave abominably, to torture her with his lascivious words and deeds. He couldn’t disappoint her.

  His humor restored, he eased his grip on her. Instantly she shoved at him. He didn’t budge. “I can think of an infinitely more pleasurable and mature way to vent your frustration.”

  “It’s hard to be mature when you laugh in my face like this.”

  “Your dignity is that fragile? The Sophia I keep hearing about in boardrooms and business mergers is apparently nothing short of Goddess Diana.”


  He curved his mouth into his trademark smile. Her glare didn’t dim one bit. If anything, she stiffened even more.

  Dio, when was the last time he had had such fun? And they hadn’t even shed their clothes yet. “I was right, it is I that gets under your skin.”

  Her eyelids fell slowly. A second to restore her quaking defenses. Right on cue, she looked up, her fiery glare renewed. “I forgot that it’s all a big joke to you.”

  “Being a debauched playboy who cares for nothing is hard work.”

  “I was stupid to think we could have a mature conversation. All you—”

  “Then persuade me.”

  “What?”

  Surprise in her gaze filled him with a strange satisfaction. Shocking, needling, generally startling Sophia out of that hard shell could become addictive. “Persuade me. Indulge me. Make me an irresistible offer.”

  * * *

  Make herself irresistible to the most beautiful man on the face of the planet? A man who held nothing sacred?

  “I have a better chance of finding treasure in my backyard,” she said softly. Wistfulness snuck into her voice and she cringed.

  “Kiss me, then.”

  “What?” She rubbed her temples, dismayed at how he reduced her to a mumbling idiot.

  “Put your lips on mine and pucker them up. Your hands can go on my shoulders or my hips or if you’re feeling bold, you can grab my ass—”

  “What? Why?” Years of oratory at debate club evaporated, her brain only offering whats and whys.

  “That should be the first step for a couple considering marriage, si? I could never marry a woman who didn’t know how to kiss.”

  Don’t. Look. At. His. Mouth. “It’s obvious you’re only torturing me and will never really consider it and you...” She looked and the contoured lushness of it made her lick her own lips, which made him grin and prompted her to raise her gaze. “Your lover is lying in your bed and you’re—”

  “If you’d been paying attention and not mooning over me—” Sophia fisted her hands, just fighting the urge to wipe that satisfied smile off his face, for he was right, damned devil “—then you would know that Mariana and I are over.”