She’ll be his wife...

But at what cost?

Billionaire Dante Vittori spent years building his impeccable reputation—no easy feat following his father’s incarceration. To counter a business threat, ruthless Dante must do the unthinkable—get married! Free-spirited heiress Alisha will do anything to save her mother’s charity—even marry the man she hates. But neither expects the intense heat between them! Suddenly the price of their marriage is more than they bargained for...

Get swept away by this intense and emotional marriage of convenience!

TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!

Also by Tara Pammi

Bought with the Italian’s Ring

Blackmailed by the Greek’s Vows

The Legendary Conti Brothers miniseries

The Surprise Conti Child

The Unwanted Conti Bride

The Drakon Royals miniseries

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

The Drakon Baby Bargain

His Drakon Runaway Bride

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Sicilian’s Bride for a Price

Tara Pammi

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07273-1

SICILIAN’S BRIDE FOR A PRICE

© 2018 Tara Pammi

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my very own hero, my husband Raghu.

Twenty is nothing—

I could write a hundred heroes inspired by you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

DANTE VITTORI STARED at the legal document that had been delivered an hour ago. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows that made up three whole sides of his office on the forty-sixth floor of Matta Towers in Central London cast the luxurious space in an orange glow, thanks to the setting sun behind him.

Vikram Matta—his mentor Neel Matta’s son and Dante’s best friend—was now legally dead.

He felt a twinge in his chest for exactly one minute.

He’d learned that grief, like regret, was a useless emotion. He’d learned this at the age of thirteen when his father had killed himself instead of facing lifelong incarceration for his Ponzi scheme that had fleeced hundreds of people. He’d learned this when his mother had simply changed her name back to her Sicilian father’s and married a man he approved of within a year of his father’s death.

Giving in to his emotions would have crushed Dante back then. Vikram was gone; he’d made his peace with it a long time ago.

Quickly, he rifled through the documents, to ensure he hadn’t missed anything.

He was almost to the last couple of pages when he stilled.

Voting Shares of the Deceased

The hairs at the back of his neck prickled. His mind instantly rewound back to the conversation he and Vikram had had with Neel when Neel had found he hadn’t much time to live.

Neel Matta had started Matta Steel, a small steel manufacturing business, almost forty years ago, but it was Dante who had grown it into the billion-dollar conglomerate it was now. Against his own brother, Nitin’s wishes, for the first time in the history of the company, Neel had granted his own voting shares to Dante, an outsider.

He had made Dante a part of his family. And now Matta Steel was the blood in his veins, his mistress, his everything.

Instead of wasting time grieving after Neel’s death and Vikram’s horrific plane crash, Dante had taken the company from strength to strength, cementing his position as the CEO.

But with Vikram’s voting shares being up for grabs now...

His secretary, Izzy, came into the office without knocking. Being another alum of Neel Matta’s generosity, Izzy took for granted a certain personal privilege with Dante that he didn’t allow anyone else. Neither did he doubt that she’d interrupted him for a good reason.

The redhead’s gaze flew to the papers in front of him, clear distress in those green eyes for a moment. But when she met his gaze, she was the consummate professional.

Of course Vikram’s death had touched her too, but like him, Izzy was nothing if not practical.

Pushing his chair back, he laced his fingers at the back of his neck and said, “Spill it.”

“I heard from Nitin’s secretary, Norma, that he’s thinking of calling an emergency board meeting with special counsel present.”

Neel’s brother was so predictable in his greed and deception. “I was expecting that.”

“I wasn’t sure if you had realized it has to do with Vicky’s voting shares being up for grabs now.”

“I did.” Izzy was both competent and brilliant. And utterly loyal to him. The one quality he knew he couldn’t buy even with his billions. “Tell me your thoughts.”

She took a seat and opened her notebook. “I pressed a little on Norma and learned that he means to go over the bylaws in front of the board and direct the conclusion that Vikram’s shares—” an infinitesimal catch in her throat again “—should go to him, since the bylaws state that the voting shares are to be kept in the family.”

“Except when Neel modified them to grant me his shares.” They had been a gift when Dante had made a big business win. Neel had been paving his way into retirement, wanting to slow down and let Dante take over. Instead his heart disease had killed him in a matter of months.

“He means to censure that as an aberration on Neel’s part due to his ailing health.”

Dante smiled. “It’s an allegation he’s continued to make for nigh on ten years now, even though I have held the controlling stake in the company.”

“Also, he’s conveniently forgotten Ali.”

For the first time in years, Dante found his thoughts in sudden disarray.

His mentor’s rebel daughter had always been the one thorn in his rise to success. The one piece of trouble in Neel’s life that Dante hadn’t solved for the man he’d worshipped. The one element he’d never quite figured out properly.

“No, he hasn’t.” Alisha’s scorn for her father’s company wasn’t a secret.

He stood up from his seat. London’s night was glittering into life all around them. “Nitin’s counting on Ali simply refusing to have anything to do with the company, as always. Which means he can inherit all of Vikram’s shares.”

“Can’t you contest that?”

“I can, but if he gets the board on his side and they rule that the shares go to him, there’s not a lot I can do. He’d own the majority. Unless I got...” He trailed off, an idea occurring to him. “Nitin needs to be taught the lesson that I own Matta Steel. Irrevocably.”

“I’m assuming you’ve already come up with a plan for that.”

He had. A brilliant one. He hadn’t put his heart and blood and soul into Matta Steel just so he’d have to defend it every other year.

Again, that twinge of doubt pulled at his chest. He flicked it away. There was no room for emotions in his decision. The only thing he would never violate was Neel’s trust in him—and that meant keeping control of Matta Steel.

Alisha had never wanted to be a part of her papa’s legacy. She had turned her back on everything to do with the company and Neel and even Vikram when he’d been alive.

She’d had nothing but resentment for Dante for as long as he could remember. And he would feel no compunction in taking the things he wanted—the things that she scorned anyway—off her hands, forever.

All he needed was leverage.

Everyone had a price and he just needed to find Ali’s. “Find out where she’s holed up now. She could be anywhere.”

Izzy jerked her head up, shock dancing in her green eyes. “Ali?”

There was reluctance, maybe even unwillingness in her stare.

“Yes. Find Alisha,” he said, simply dismissing the unasked question in Izzy’s eyes. He pulled his jacket on and checked his phone. No reason for him to miss out on his date with the latest Broadway actress touring London.

He reached the door and then turned. “Oh, also, call that PI for me, won’t you? I want to have a little chat with him.”

“Which one?”

“The one I have on my payroll to keep track of Alisha’s movements.”

“But you never look at his reports.” Izzy’s accusation was clear. He’d never given a damn about Alisha except to have someone keep an eye on her, for the purpose of extricating her if she got herself into trouble.

For Neel’s sake.

“I didn’t need to, until now. She’s been safe, mostly, si?” It was a miracle in itself, since she traveled through all the hellholes of the world in the name of her little hobby. Izzy didn’t need to know he read every single one of those reports. On any given day, he knew how and where Alisha was. “Now, however, I need a little bit more info on her.”

“Dante—”

“None of your business, Isabel.” He cut her off smoothly and closed the door behind him.

Izzy had been the one constant person in his life for so long, from the moment he had come to live with Neel all those years ago, yes. But it didn’t mean he invited her into his private thoughts or that he considered her a personal friend.

Dante Vittori didn’t do relationships, of any kind.

* * *

“There’s someone here to see you, Ali.”

Alisha Matta looked up from her crouch on the floor of the Grand Empire Palace restaurant. Her shoulders were tight from supporting the weight of the camera and her thighs burned at her continued position. Ignoring her friend Mak’s voice, she kept clicking.

She’d been waiting all morning in the small kitchen of the crowded restaurant, waiting for Kiki to come home.

The pop of the flash of her Nikon sang through her nerves, the few moments of clarity and purpose making the wait of the last three months utterly worth it. “To your right, look into the camera. No, jut your left hip out, you’re gorgeous, Kiki,” she continued the words of encouragement. She’d managed to learn a little Thai in the last year but her stuttering accent had only made Kiki laugh.

The neon lights and the cheap pink linoleum floors became the perfect background as Kiki shed her jeans and shirt in a move that was both efficient and sensual as hell. Her lithe dancer’s body sang for the camera.

But even the perfection of the shot couldn’t stop the distraction of Mak hovering.

“If it’s John, tell him we’re done,” she whispered.

“It’s an Italian gentleman. In a three-piece Tom Ford suit that I’m pretty sure is custom designed and black handmade Italian loafers. Gucci, I think.”

Ali fell back onto her haunches with a soft thud, hanging on to her expensive camera for dear life. Mak was crazy about designer duds. There was only one Italian gentleman she knew. Except, if it was who she thought it was, he shouldn’t be called a gentleman. More a ruthless soul in the garb of one.

“Said his name was...”

Ali’s heart thudded in tune with the loud blare of the boom box. “What, Mak?”

Mak scrunched his brow. “You know, the guy who wrote about all those circles of hell, that one.”

“Dante,” Ali whispered the word softly. How appropriate that Mak would mention Dante and hell in the same sentence.

Because that was what her papa’s protégé represented to her.

The very devil from hell.

Princesses in glass castles shouldn’t throw stones, bella.

Okay, yes, devil was a bit overboard because he hadn’t actually ever harmed Ali, but still, Ali hated him.

So what was the devil, whose usual playground was the London social circuit, doing on the other side of the world in Bangkok?

The last time they had laid eyes on each other had been when she’d learned of Vikram’s plane crash. She closed her eyes, fighting the memory of the disastrous night, but it came anyway.

She’d been so full of rage, so vulnerable and so vicious toward Dante. For no reason except that he was alive while her brother was gone. Gone before she could reconnect with him.

“He doesn’t look like he’s happy to be kept waiting,” Mak interrupted her trip down a nightmarish memory lane.

Ali pulled herself up.

No, super busy billionaire Dante Vittori wouldn’t like waiting in the ramshackle hotel. How impatient he must be to get back to his empire. To his billions.

How dare Ali keep him waiting while each minute of his time could mean another deal he could broker, another billion he could add to his pile, another company he... She smiled wide.

She’d make him wait.

Because Dante being here meant only one thing: he needed something from her.

And she would jump through those nine circles of hell before she did anything that made his life easier. Or calmer. Or richer.

Slowly, with shaking fingers, she packed up her camera. She pulled the strap of the bag over her shoulder, picked up her other paraphernalia, kissed Kiki’s cheek and pushed the back door open.

The late September evening was balmy, noisy and full of delicious smells emanating from all the restaurants that lined up the street.

Her stomach growled. She promised herself some authentic pad thai and a cold can of Coke as soon as she got to her flat. Thwarting Dante and a well-earned dinner suddenly seemed like a highly pleasurable way to spend her day.

Just as she took another step into the busy street, a black chauffeur-driven Mercedes pulled up, blocking her. Ali blinked at her reflection in the polished glass of the window when the door opened. Out stepped Dante.

In his crisp white shirt, which did wonders for his olive complexion, and tailored black pants, he looked like he’d stepped out of a GQ magazine cover and casually strolled into the colorful street.

His Patek Philippe watch—a gift from her father when he’d welcomed Dante onto the board of Matta Steel, yet one more thing Papa had given Dante and not her—gleamed on his wrist as he stood leaning carelessly against the door, a silky smile curving that sculpted mouth. “Running away again, Alisha?”

He was the only one who insisted on calling her Alisha. Somehow he managed to fill it with reprimand and contempt.

All thoughts of pad thai were replaced with the cold burn of resentment as that penetrating gaze took in her white spaghetti strap top and forest green shorts and traveled from her feet in flip-flops to her hair bunched into a messy bun on top of her head. It was dismissive and yet so thorough that her skin prickled.

Chin tilted, Ali stared right back. She coated it in defiance but after so long, she was greedy for the sight of him. Shouts from street vendors and the evening bustle faded out.

A careless heat filled her veins as she noted the aristocratic nose—broken in his adolescence and fixed—the dark, stubble-coated line of his jaw and deep-set eyes that always mocked her, the broad reach of his shoulders, the careless arrogance that filled every pore. He exuded that kind of masculine confidence that announced him as the top of the food chain both in the boardroom and out of it.

And his mouth... The upper lip was thin and carved and the lower was fuller and lush, the only hint of softness in that face and body. It was a soft whisper about the sensuality he buried under that ruthlessness.

Her heart was now thundering in her chest, not unlike Mak’s boom box. Heat flushed her from within. She jerked her gaze to meet his, saw the slight flare of his nostrils.

Christ, what was she doing? What was she imagining?

Ali moved her tongue around in her dry mouth, and somehow managed to say, “I have nothing to say and I want nothing to do with you.”

To do with you...

The words mocked her, mocked the adolescent infatuation she’d nursed for him that she now hated, morphing into something much worse. Everything she despised about him also attracted her to him. If that weren’t a red flag...

He halted her dignified exit with his fingers on her wrist, the calloused pads of his fingers playing on her oversensitized skin.

She jerked her arm out of his grip like a scalded cat. His mouth tightened, but whatever emotion she had incited disappeared behind his controlled mask. “I have a proposal that I’m sure you would like to hear.”

God, how she wanted to do or say something that made that mask shatter completely. How she wished she could be the one who brought the arrogant man to his knees. Her sudden bloodthirstiness shocked even her.

She’d always liked coloring outside the lines, yes, but not to the point of self-destruction. And that was what Dante made her do. Always.

At some point, hating him had become more important than trying to build a bridge to her father, than reconnecting with Vikram.

No more.

No playing to his point by doing something he would hate; no trying to stir up that smooth facade and burn her bridges.

You’re a necessary nuisance, Alisha. I put up with your mind games for his sake. Only for his.

A calm filled her at her resolution. “What do you want from me?”

A brow rose in the too angular face. There was that tightness to his mouth again. In a parallel universe, Ali would have concluded that that assumption pricked him. In this one where she knew Dante Vittori had no emotions, she didn’t.

“Why are you so sure that I want something from you?”

“You’re thousands of miles away from your empire. From everything I know, there’s no steel plant in this area, nor a lot of demand for it. Unless you’re scouting the area to build a new plant with cheap labor, then you’re not to check up on me.”

“I’ve always known where you are, Alisha.”

She swallowed.

“However much you like to pretend that there are no ties between us, however far you run in pursuit of your little hobby, you are, at the end of the day, his daughter.”

His statement put paid to any emotional extrapolation she was still stupid enough to make from his previous one. As if he worried she might read too much—or anything at all—into him keeping tabs on her.

He had always been loyal to her father; would always be loyal to him. Keeping track of her fell somewhere under that umbrella. Nothing at all to do with the woman she was.

Nothing.

“I’m not interested in trading insults with you,” she said, unable to stop her voice from cracking. “I’m not... I’m not that impulsive, destructive Ali anymore.”

“That would be a nice change of pace for us, si? So we’ll have dinner and not trade insults tonight.”

“I said no insults. That doesn’t mean I want to be anywhere near you for more than five minutes.” It was her own confused emotions and this...blasted attraction that made her want to avoid him even now.

“Ah...” With a graceful flick of his wrist, he made a big show of checking his watch. “That lasted about thirty seconds.” His gaze caught hers. “I’m not and have never been your enemy, Alisha.”

And just like that, her attraction to him became a near tangible thing in the air. Her hating him became the only weapon in her armor. “Eating out is a pleasure for me and somehow I don’t see that being the primary emotion if we’re forced together for too long.”

A calculating glint appeared in his eyes. “There’s something you want in my grasp. When will you learn to act guided by your goals and not by your emotions?”

She could feel herself shaking. “Not everyone is an ambitious, heartless bastard like you are.” There went her resolution to be polite. “Just tell me what your proposal is. Now.”

“It has to do with your mother’s charity. That’s all you’ll get now. My chauffeur will pick you up at six for dinner. And, Alisha, dress appropriately. We won’t be eating hunched over some street vendor’s stall in the market. Neither will I appreciate the half-naked, wrapped-around-a-has-been-rock-star look you sported the last time around for my benefit.”

How she wished she could say it hadn’t been for his benefit, but they both knew it had been. Her eighteenth and his twenty-eighth birthday party would be etched on her memory forever.

“Arrogant, ruthless, manipulative, controlling, yes, but I never thought you were a snob,” she threw back at him.

“Because I want to have a civilized dinner at a place where you won’t throw things at me?”

Another bad night. Another bad memory.

No, it was time to rewrite how Dante saw her. Time to stop expecting things from him from some unwritten script in her own head. “One dinner. No more.”

She’d almost walked away.

“Why does it bother you so much to be around me?”

Her face burned and it had nothing to do with the last of the day’s heat. “It doesn’t.”

“No? Isn’t that why you avoid your family home, why you never come to London? You avoid your extended family, your old friends, you move from place to place like a nomad.”

You took everything that should have been mine, she wanted to say, like she’d done once. But it wouldn’t be the truth.

Dante hadn’t taken anything her father hadn’t been more than happy and willing to give him. Dante hadn’t shattered her family. Her father had.

But when it came to him...she was still that morass of anger and attraction and something more that she was terrified to discover. “That mansion, even London, they haven’t been home to me in a long time.”

That silky, slick smile tugged up the corners of his mouth again. “It’s a relief to know then that your life’s not revolved around avoiding me then, si. See you tonight, Alisha.”

He was gone before she could blink, before she could counter the arrogant assumption. As she went home, Ali couldn’t shake off the sense of dread that settled in her gut.

She and Dante couldn’t stand each other. So why the hell was he insisting on an intimate dinner? And how would she get through it without compromising her dignity?

CHAPTER TWO

OF COURSE THE infuriating man couldn’t simply text her the name of the hotel when he’d ordered her to dress appropriately, Ali thought, as the black Mercedes weaved through the heavy traffic, leaving the bustle of the city behind.

But having known Dante since the age of twelve, Ali had made a guess.

Dante was a man who expected, no, demanded the best of everything in life. He had a reputation for being a perfectionist with his employees but then no one complained because he rewarded hard work and ambition. God, she’d really gone looking for reasons to hate him back then.

The luxury Mercedes pulled smoothly into the courtyard of the latest on-trend, five-star resort that had been renovated last year to look like it could proudly belong in any posh European city, with the boat-filled canals of the Chao Phraya river offering a lovely view. The seafood at the restaurant was to die for, Mak had informed her, and he’d heard it from one of his many connections in high places.

Okay, so the worst thing that could come of this meeting was that she could walk away having had a delicious dinner at a lovely restaurant. And to prove to Dante that she could fake class and poise with the best of them.

She smoothed her hand over her stomach as she stepped out of the car and was pleased with the light pink sheath dress that she’d chosen to calm the butterflies. In the guise of studying the hotel’s striking exterior, she took a moment to study herself in the reflection of the glass facade.

Her long hair, freshly washed and blow-dried to within an inch of its life, fell to her waist like a dark silky curtain, her only jewelry a thin gold chain with a tiny diamond disappearing into the low V-neck of her dress. The linen dress was a cheap knockoff of a designer brand she couldn’t afford on her erratic income. But she looked like a million bucks, the fabric clinging to every dip and rise of her toned body as if it were custom designed for her.

The light pink was set off perfectly against her dusky skin and she’d let Kiki do her makeup—smoky eyes, gold bronzer and pale pink lip gloss. Tonight, she would be the sophisticated, poised Ali her mother had raised her to be, even if it killed her.

Another glance at the financial papers of her mother’s charity hadn’t changed reality. Other than a huge influx of cash, there was nothing anyone could do to save it. So, if Dante had something that could help, Ali would listen. She would treat this as a meeting with a professional.

Her beige pumps click-clacked on the gleaming cream marble floor as she walked up to the entrance to the restaurant. Soft yellow light fell from contemporary chrome fixtures. Beige walls and cream leather chairs gave the restaurant an utterly decadent, romantic atmosphere. Her belly swooped as Ali caught sight of Dante’s bent head, the thick jet-black hair glittering in the lights.

Gripping her clutch tighter, Ali looked around. Every other table was empty. She checked her knockoff watch and saw it was only seven in the evening, nowhere near closing time.

The setting was far too intimate, far too private. Just far too much a scene plucked right out of her adolescent fantasies. But before she could turn tail and run out of the restaurant, that jet-black gaze caught her.

The mockery in those eyes made Ali straighten her shoulders and put one foot in front of the other.

He stood up when she reached their booth—a cocoon of privacy in an already silent restaurant. He’d exchanged the white shirt for a slate-gray one that made his eyes pop. With his jaw freshly shaved, thick dark hair slicked back half-wet, he was so...no, handsome was a lukewarm word for Dante’s fierce masculinity.

The scent of his aftershave, with an aqua note to it, was subtle, but combined with the warmth of his skin, it sank into Ali’s pores. Every cell in her body came alive.

“Where is everybody?”

“Everybody?” he said, standing far too close for her sanity.

Ali sat down with a plop, hand smoothing over her stomach. “Yes, people. Other Homo sapiens. Who might want to partake of the delicious food I’ve heard they serve here.”

There was no mockery now when he looked down at her.

Heat swarming her cheeks, Ali ran her fingers through her hair. “What?”

His gaze swept over her face, her hair, the low V-neckline, but went no farther down. A shiver clamped her spine. “You clean up nice.”

“Oh.” The one syllable hung in the air, and she looked away, pretending to smooth her dress, putting her clutch down.

He took his sweet time sitting down, not opposite her, but on the side of the table, to her left. Ali shifted her knees away to the far right.

“If you scoot any farther down, you’ll fall off the seat. Why are you so jumpy?”

Ali stilled, clasped her restless fingers in her lap. “I’m not.”

“No? Really?”

His accent got thicker any time he got a little emotional. It was one of the tells Ali had picked up a long time ago. Pulling herself together, she met his gaze. Did he really have no idea what being near him did to her equilibrium? Did he really not feel the charge in the air around them, the pulse of undercurrents in every word, every look...? God, how was it that she was the only one who felt so much?

Not that she wanted Dante to be attracted to her. Her shoulders shook as a shiver of another kind traveled down her spine.

“If you’re jumpy around me, it means you’ve arranged a little something for me. A surprise.”

Ah...that was what he attributed it to. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She couldn’t even blame him because back then she’d been a little devil all right.

She’d lit sparklers in his room one Diwali night that had put holes in the new suit her papa had bought him. And that had almost lit the entire house on fire.

She’d taken a hammer to his new cuff links—Vikram’s present—and minced them to so much dust.

Oh, and let’s not forget the documents for an important merger she’d taken from his room and shredded.

When he’d brought his girlfriend to meet her papa... Ali groaned at the memory. And those weren’t the half of all the destructive things she’d done to show how much she hated him.

She cleared her throat. “I told you. I’ve changed.” When he raised a brow, she sighed. “I didn’t know where we were dining. How could I arrange anything? I was just surprised to see no other patrons, that’s all.”

“I had my secretary book the entire restaurant for us.” When her mouth fell open, he shrugged. “If you were going to cause a public scene—which given my knowledge of your character seemed like a high probability—I wanted to minimize the public part.”

“Fair enough,” she replied back with all the sass she could manage. Other people would have been a buffer, other people would have distracted her from this...whatever made her skin prickle with awareness.

Luckily, before her sudden awkwardness could betray her, the maître d’ arrived.

“A bottle of your best white wine and the shrimp salad for both of us.”

Ali lifted her chin. “I don’t want shrimp.”

“No?”

His fingers touched her wrist, and again, Ali pulled back as if he were a live current.

His jaw tightened, a flare of heat in his eyes. “Even though it’s what this restaurant is famous for and you made that soft moan when your eyes came to that item on the menu?”

Her cheeks aflame, her heart pounding, Ali stared down at the menu. The words blurred, the tension between them winding round and round.

“Madam?” His expression set into a pleasing smile, the maître d’ spoke up. “If you don’t want the seafood that Mr. Vittori has ordered,” he said, “might I suggest something else?”

“No.” Ali took a deep breath. It wasn’t the poor man’s fault that Dante was playing with her. And she had played into his hands like she was still that irrational, impulsive hothead who wanted to hurt him for everything that was wrong in her world. “I’ll have the shrimp, thanks.”

“Don’t,” she simply said, once the man left.

Don’t manipulate me. Don’t rub me the wrong way. Just don’t...be in my life.

Dante leaned back, his stare intense. “Don’t make it so easy.”

Before Ali could launch into another argument, he placed a rectangular velvet case on the table. Ten minutes into the dinner and she felt like she was already emotionally wound up. She fell back against her seat. Of course, he was the master manipulator, playing on weaknesses, while he had remained untouchable.

“What now?”

“Open it.”

Just get it over with. Just get it over with. And walk away.

Ali opened the clasp. She caught sight of the tiny, exquisitely cut diamonds set into flowers with such delicate white gold that it always took her breath away, as it glittered under the soft lights. She rubbed the necklace back and forth with the pads of her fingers, compulsively, a balloon of ache in her chest. As if the gentle love of the woman who had worn them might have rubbed off on the stones.

It had taken everything she’d had in her to sell her mother’s precious piece.

She pulled the box to her and clasped it so tightly that her knuckles showed white.

First, he had dropped the word about her mother’s charity, now the necklace. Dante never did anything without some kind of payoff. He hated her just as much as she did him, and still he had sought her out. The hair on the nape of her neck prickled while her belly went on a swan dive.

“Why do you have this? What do you want, Dante?”

* * *

What do you want, Dante?

Dante stared at the tears shimmering in Alisha’s large brown eyes, his breath punching into his throat.

It was the equivalent of a punch to his gut. He had borne enough of those in Sicily in his teenage years. Boys he’d known all his life had turned against Dante overnight; calling him names, roughing him up.

All thanks to his father’s crime.

Those boys’ punches had lit a fire in him back then, fueling his ambition to build a name for himself, separate from his father’s. They had turned his young heart into a stone that never felt hurt again.

He had craved a fortune and a name all of his own. He had decided never to be weak like that again; never to be at anyone’s mercy, least of all be controlled by a woman’s love. And he had turned it into reality.

But the candid emotion in Alisha’s face as she touched her mother’s necklace, the havoc it wreaked on him, was a thousand times worse than any harm that had been inflicted on his teenage self.

When he’d delved into those reports on Alisha, he’d been shocked to find that Alisha had visited London several times over the last five years.

She’d had to go to London to deal with problems concerning her mother’s charity. She had even spearheaded a charity gala to raise money. He’d been looking for leverage and he had found it.

He wasn’t cheating Alisha out of anything she wanted. He was, in fact, proposing he give her what she wanted out of it, the one thing she held precious in return for what he wanted.

No, what threw him into the kind of emotional turmoil that he’d always avoided like the plague was that he was involving her in this play.

Alisha, who was a mass of contradictions, who he’d never quite figured out, who’d been the kind of flighty, selfish, uncaring kind of woman he loathed, was an unknown.

From the moment she’d come to live with her father, Neel, she’d hated Dante with an intensity that he’d first found amusing and then dangerous. Even worse, she’d always incited a reaction in him that no one else provoked.

But all this was before the changes in her the last six years had wrought.

Cristo, the sight of her walking into the back alley a few hours ago—the white spaghetti top plastered to her breasts, her shorts showing off miles and miles of toned legs, the utter sensuality of her movements as she pushed away tendrils of hair falling on her face, the sparkle of the fading sun on her brown skin...

The shock in her face, the greedy, hungry way she’d let those big brown eyes run all over him...even that hadn’t made a dent in the need that had pulsed through him.

Dios mio, this was Neel’s daughter.

She was forbidden to him. And not just because he was determined to take the last bit of her father’s legacy from her. But because, with everything he planned to put into motion, Alisha would be the variable. His attraction to her was a weakness he couldn’t indulge, much less act on. There were only two positions for women in his life: colleagues like Izzy and a couple of his business associates, women whose judgment he respected, women he genuinely liked; and then there were women he slept with who knew the score, and didn’t want more from him.

Alisha didn’t fall into either of those camps.

“Dante? What the hell are you doing with my mother’s necklace?”

“I bought it back from the guy you sold it to.” He made a vague motion to her tears, more shocked than discomfited by them. He’d never seen her as anything but poised to fight her father, him, Vikram, with all guns blazing. Never in this...fragile light. “Looks like I made the right call in thinking you would like it back. Why did you sell it?”

She took another longing look at the box before pushing it back toward him. “For a pair of Jimmy Choos.”

“Don’t be flippant, Alisha. I never understood why you were always so determined to be your own worst enemy.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And really, did you invite me to dinner just to point out my flaws?”

He forced himself to pull his gaze from the way she chewed on her lower lip. Suddenly, everything about her—her mind, her body, Dio...everything—felt fascinating. Everything was distracting. “I know your mother’s charity is failing. Why didn’t you come to me for help?”

“Why didn’t I come to you for help?” Some of that natural fight in her crawled back into her shoulders. He liked her better like that. He didn’t want a vulnerable Alisha on his hands for the next few months. She laughed. White teeth flashed in that gamine face. “Have you met me? And you?”

Despite himself, Dante smiled.

He’d forgotten how witty Alisha could be, how she’d always laughed in any situation, how even with all her tantrums and drama she’d made the house lively when she’d come to live with Neel after her mother’s death. Even with grief painting her eyes sad, she’d been so full of life, so full of character, even at the age of twelve.

He’d never gravitated to her, true, but when she’d blossomed into a teenager, it had seemed as if her hatred for him had grown too. The more he had tried to fix things between her and her father, the more she had resented him.

Her gaze slipped to his mouth for a fraction of a second. Every muscle in him tightened. “I’d starve before I take anything from the company. Or you.”

He was far too familiar with that spiel to question it now. “What did you need the money for?”

“If you know I sold it, and to whom, then you know why. Come on, Dante, enough beating around the bush.”

The waiter brought their food and she thanked him.

She dug into the food with the same intensity with which she seemed to attack everything in life.

Dante, mostly because of the jet lag, pushed his food around. He watched her as she sipped her wine, her tongue flicking out to lick a drop from her lower lip.

He wanted to lick it with his own.

The thought came out of nowhere, hard and fast. He pushed a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath.

Maledizione! In all the scenarios he had foreseen for this, he hadn’t counted how strikingly gorgeous Alisha had become. Or the intensity of the pull he felt toward her.

Whatever tension had been filling up the air, it now filled his veins. And he realized it was because she wasn’t focused on him anymore.

Not so with him. Not even the constant reminder, the ironclad self-discipline that made him a revered name in his business circles, the one that told him this was nothing but a quid pro quo, could distract his gaze from the expanse of smooth brown skin her dress exposed. He took the wine flute in his hands, turned it around and around, watching his fingers leaving marks against the condensation.

He wanted to trace his finger against the slope of her shoulders to see if her skin was as silky as it looked. He wanted to touch the pulse at her throat, to sink his fingers into her silky hair and pull her to him, hold her against his body as he plundered her mouth...

She put her fork and spoon down, and took another sip of her wine. Then she leaned back all the way into her seat, her head thrown back over the top. The deep breath she took sent her chest rising and falling.

Basta! He needed to direct this conversation back to his plan.

“Tell me what you’ve been up to in the last few years.” The words slipped out of his mouth. She looked just as shocked as he felt. “You know, other than living like a hobo and moving around every few months.”

She shrugged, and the simple gold chain she wore glimmered against her throat, the pendant dangling between her breasts playing peekaboo with him. “You don’t have to pretend an interest, Dante. Not now.”

“You’re his daughter. I’ve always been interested in what you do with your life. Until I realized my interest only spurred you toward destruction.”

“Water under the bridge.” She put her napkin on the table, her expression cycling from wariness to fake cheer. “Thank you for the dinner. That was a treat, even with your company. And on second thought, thanks for buying my mother’s necklace back.” She took the velvet box from him and put it underneath her clutch on the table. Waggling her brows, she leveled a saccharine smile at him. “You must know me well to give me a present I would so appreciate.”

Being on the receiving end of that smile was just so...jarring. “You mean to sell it again, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

“That will only take care of the payroll for another month. I’ve seen the financials, Alisha. The charity will be bankrupt in a month.”

Her mouth tightened. “I’ll find a way. I always do.”

“Or you could just ask me for help.”

“I told you, I don’t want your money. Or the company’s or Papa’s. I need to do this on my own.”

“Does the charity home really mean that much to you?”

“It does. It’s where Mama grew up. I spent so much time there with her. Some of the happiest moments of my childhood were there.”

“If you really want to save the home, put aside your irrational resentment of me and I will funnel some much needed money into it.”

“And what do I have to do in return?”

“Marry me.”

CHAPTER THREE

MARRY ME...

Marry Dante...

Ali’s mind went into a loop over that one phrase, like one of those gramophone records her mama had had.

Marry Dante, marry Dante...

Dante, who thought she was selfish and spoiled.

Dante, with whom she reverted back to that lonely girl come to live with a distant father, distracted brother and a resented changeling, after her mama’s sudden death.

With Dante she would always be her worst self.

Panic skittled over her skin like a line of fire ants crawling up her legs. She needed to marry Dante like she needed a hole in her head. It would be like all the bad decisions she’d ever made steamrolled into one giant boulder that would chase her for the rest of her life.

A hysterical sound released from her mouth.

“Alisha?”

She brought her gaze to his, stood up from the booth, picked up her clutch and turned. “You’ve gone mad.”

“Alisha, wait.”

Nope.

She didn’t want to hear more. If she did, he would rope her into it.

As a master strategist, he wouldn’t have sought her out across the world, wouldn’t have approached her if he hadn’t already figured out a way to make her agree. And she needed to flee before that happened. Before their lives were even more tangled. Before she betrayed herself in the worst way possible.

Dear God, when it came to him, all she had left was her pride.

“Alisha, stop!” His arm shot out just as Ali got ready to sprint across the restaurant if necessary.

Long fingers roped around her wrist and because of her desperate forward momentum, her foot jerked to the side. Pain shot up through her ankle and she fell back against him.

The breath punched out of her as he anchored her by throwing his arm around her midriff.

Unstoppable force meets immovable object...

“What happens when they crash, Alisha? Who gets destroyed?”

The world stopped tilting at that silky whisper as she realized she’d spoken out loud. And yet, the explosion his touch evoked continued to rock through her body.

The scent of him was all over her skin, filling each pore, drowning her in masculine heat. His legs were thrown wide, the tensile power of his thighs just grazing the back of hers, his chest pushed up tight against her back. Her chest expanded as she tried to stop the panic. On the exhale, the underside of her breasts fell against his steely arm. A soft hiss of warm air bathed her neck, making it a thousand times worse. Or was that pleasure skittering across her skin?

An onslaught of sensations poured through her, her skin prickling tight, and yet, a strange lethargy crawled through her limbs. She wanted to lean into him completely, until her bottom was resting against his hips. She wanted to feel him from chest to toe against her back, she wanted to rub herself against that hard body until he was as mindlessly aroused as her. Until that iron will of his snapped like a thinly stretched rubber band.

As if he could guess the direction of her thoughts, his fingers tightened around her hip, digging into her slightly to keep her still; to keep her from leaning back and learning his body’s reaction to her.

Because, really, in what universe did she imagine Dante would want her back with this same madness?

She groaned—a feral, desperate sound. Why was it that everything she did came back to taunt her a thousand times worse?

“Because you don’t think before you do,” came the voice at her ear. Ah...perfect! Of course, she’d said that out loud too. “You’re impulsive, brash and if I hadn’t caught you, you would have fallen flat on your face.”

“Kissing the floor sounds like a better alternative,” she said, her words throaty and whispery.

“Will you sit down and listen if I let you go?”

As if operating on an instinct that defied rationality, her fingers clenched over his wrist.

She opened her eyes and swallowed hard. Since he’d undone his cuffs earlier, her palm rested against a hair-roughened wrist. She rubbed the skin—the rough texture, the plump veins on the back of his hand—the startlingly sensual contrast between her and him inviting her along further and further.

It was the sharp inhale followed by another curse that pulled her out of the fog.

Her chin flopped down to her chest. “No. I don’t want to hear anything you say. I don’t want to be near...you in this moment, much less in the future.”

The vulnerability she fought every waking minute, the longing for a deeper connection in her past, with anyone related to her past, pervaded her in his presence.

This was what would happen if she agreed: every look, every touch would wind her up; lines between want and hate, reality and fantasy would blur...until she attacked him—claws and all—just to keep herself tethered, to keep herself together. Or until she gave in to this inexplicable yearning she had felt for him for so long.

The stiffness of her posture drained away and she leaned back against his chest. She let herself be weak and vulnerable for five seconds.

Both of his arms wound around her. He held her gently, tenderly and that...that was more than Ali could bear. That uncharacteristic moment between them, the mere thought that he could pity her uncontrollable attraction to him, snapped her out of it.

She wriggled in his embrace and he instantly let her go.

Pushing her hair back, she fought for composure. The glass of cold water down her throat was a much needed burst of reality. When he sat down, when she had her wits together again, she looked back at him. “Tell me why.”

“Vikram’s been declared legally dead.”

Gray gaze drinking her in, he paused. Ali looked away.

That he knew what her brother meant to her, that he had seen firsthand that night her grief, her regrets, it was something she couldn’t erase. This nebulous connection between her and Dante—despite the knotted history of it—was the only thing she had of her past. And however far she ran, it seemed she would never be free of it. “And?”

“Your uncle will contest for his voting shares and might win. I’d like to crush his little rebellion with as few resources and as little time as possible. I have a huge merger coming up with a Japanese manufacturing company that I need all my energies focused on. Thousands of jobs and thousands more livelihoods depend on that merger. He’s well-known for his ability to create PR damage.”

So that was what he’d been counting on—that Ali’s loathing of her uncle was greater than her combined loathing of her papa and Dante.

Her uncle had driven a wedge between her parents, though Ali knew it had been her father that had finally broken them apart.

Her father’s ambition. Her father’s unending hunger for success.

Just like the breathtakingly stunning man sitting across from her.

“I never realized what a true legacy you are of papa. Not Vicky, but you.”

“Vicky always blazed his own path.”

She nodded, the depth of her grief for her brother a hole in her chest. At least that was one thing she couldn’t blame Dante for. Her brother had been a technical genius with no interest in his papa’s company.

“If I marry you, I can transfer my shares to you and the eventual fate of Vicky’s shares won’t really matter. You can continue to be the master of Matta Steel.” Even she couldn’t dispute the trailblazing new heights that Dante had taken the company to since her father’s death.

“Si. Your vow not to touch a penny of your father’s fortune will not be broken since the voting shares are yours through your mother. Monetarily, they don’t have much value, since they can’t be sold off, or transferred to anyone outside marriage. So this is a good deal for you.”

He had a well-rehearsed answer for every contentious point she could raise. “What do I get in return?”

“Money to throw into the drain that is the Lonely Hearts Foundation.”

She refused to bite into that judgmental tone. “As much as I want?”

“A pre-agreed upon amount, si.”

“I want a check—from your own personal fortune,” she added, determined to wring every drop of blood from him, “for that amount. If I agree.”

There was a glint in his eye and a slick smile around his mouth, arrogant confidence dripping from every pore. “Bene.” A regal nod to her request. “From my personal fortune, si?”

And whatever she demanded would be a drop in the ocean for him.

“We can’t annul or end the marriage for three years or they will revert back to you. We’ll both sign a prenup. At the end of the three years, a substantial amount of money will be settled on you.”

“I don’t want a settlement, I don’t want a penny from you. And I won’t—”

“Don’t be foolish, Alisha. Throwing away your inheritance when you were eighteen was one thing but—”

“—under any circumstances sign a prenup,” she delivered that with all the satisfaction of a well-placed right hook.

Shock etched onto those arrogantly handsome features.

It wasn’t wise tweaking the tail of a tiger, especially when he was so royally wound up. But if she expected an outburst, a small glimpse of his infamous Sicilian temper that cowed all his employees, Ali was disappointed. Only a small tic in that granite jaw even betrayed how...thrown he was by her coup de grâce. Since he had dropped the whole thing on her with the sensitivity of a bulldozer, she’d pulled that out pretty fast based on that instinct she’d honed for years to annoy the heck out of him.

But now she realized how much she needed that illusion of control over...this. The only way she could keep the balance in this relationship of theirs was not to give him everything he wanted.

“Why not sign the prenup? All it does is give you money I know you won’t touch.”

She smiled, thoroughly enjoying herself. “Is that praise I hear for my principles?”

“If you think mucking around through life, running from your own shadow is principled, all power to you. I call it a juvenile need for petty revenge you’ve yet to outgrow. And I keep waiting for you to wake up from this...protracted dream of yours, for the thud of reality to hit you.

“I know spoiled princesses like you like the back of my hand. There will be a day when you’ll crawl back to the luxury of your old life with your tail tucked between your legs. Because, really, what have you achieved in the last six years, except to sell off your mama’s jewelry piece by priceless piece?

“Sign the prenup. When that day comes, you’ll be thankful to me for giving you that option to fall back on.”

Wow, he wasn’t pulling his punches. Somehow, Ali kept her smile from sliding off her face.

His matter-of-fact assessment of her stung more than it should. She’d seen that same lack of respect, that same exaggerated patience in her father’s eyes on the eve of her eighteenth birthday.

As if dressing like a skank and making out with a former junkie rock star in front of their esteemed guests was all he had expected of Ali. And before she could change his impression of her, before she could apologize for her share of mistakes, he’d been lost to her.

But, if it was the last thing she did, she resolved to change Dante’s opinion of her.

Not because she wanted his approval—okay, she did, in some throwback to her angsty, unwise, earlier self—but because she wanted to prove him wrong. She needed to bring that arrogance down more than a peg or two. Really, she was doing a public service on behalf of all the women of the planet.

She needed to find some kind of closure for all the painful history between them. She longed for the day when she could look him in the eye and feel nothing.

No attraction. No wistful ache. No emotional connection whatsoever.

“No. No prenup. Let’s not forget I’m doing you a favor. I know you’re used to people bending over backward for you but I—”

Dark heat flared in his gray eyes. “Do you really want to threaten me about what I can or can’t do with you, Alisha?”

Ali jerked back, the temperature cocoon soaring from arctic cold to desert hot within seconds. Red-hot images of herself doing his bidding, forbidden images of their limbs tangling...the heat between them was a near tangible thing in the air.

Did that mean he felt it too?

Walk away now, Ali. Walk away before you’re far too tempted to resist.

But the thought of being able to save the charity that meant so much to her mother, the thought of returning to London, the thoughts of being grounded for a while, the thought of proving to Dante that she wasn’t a car crash in the making won out. “I want your word that this agreement is only on paper. That you won’t use it to manage me, to manage my life in any way.”

* * *

His fingers roped over her wrists like a gnarly vine. That accent slipped in through his soft words. “Do not think to play those silly games with me that you did with your father, Alisha. I will not let you drag my name through mud like you did his. No splashing yourself all over the media with some ex-junkie. No sneaking out behind my back with another man. At least not when you’re in London.”

“If you’re not careful with your threats, you’re going to sound like a real fiancé, Dante.” Whatever his conditions, she knew she’d have no problem keeping them. Like she’d already told him, her days of doing things to wind him up were over.

But she wouldn’t let Dante have all the power in this relationship. “Let me get this straight. If I give up men for three years, will you do the same? Will you be celibate for three years?”

“I won’t be the reason my name or this agreement of ours gets dragged through the mud.”

“That’s not really answering the question.”

“My name, my reputation...they mean everything to me, Alisha. I built them brick by brick from nothing. Away from the shadow of my father’s crime.

“I created a new life from the ground up. I built my fortune, I made my reputation anew after everything I had was destroyed in a matter of days.” Ali shivered at the dark intensity of his words, the specter of his past almost a live thing between them. With his ruthless ambition coating every word, it was easy to forget what had brought Dante to her father at all. What had built him up to be this man she saw now.

“You put one toe out of line during any of this and your precious charity won’t get a penny.”

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE WAS LATE.

Of course she was. It was his own fault for assuming Alisha could ever be a headache-free zone for him. What he should have done was show up at the dingy flat she lived in, insist she pack up and drag her to the airstrip.

Instead, he’d given them both a few days to gain perspective. To make sure he could think, away from the distraction of her...presence. Of her outrageous demands. Like the demand that he forward a sum of ten thousand pounds as the first payment.

Already, his lawyer was freaking out at the massive risk Dante was leaving himself open to by marrying her without a prenup.

And that was before the man found out what a firecracker Alisha was.

But for all the threats and warnings his lawyer had screamed over the transatlantic call, Dante couldn’t see her using this marriage to fleece him, to build her own fortune. He couldn’t see her dragging him into some kind of court battle—but threatening to sully his reputation in a rage, yes.

That he was more than ready for. In fact, the idea of sparring with Alisha now, the very idea of going toe-to-toe with her sent a shiver of excitement through him. Cristo, his life was truly devoid of fun if a battle with Alisha filled him with this much anticipation.

He’d called it her protracted, rebellious phase—he had thought her a spoiled princess but he was beginning to question that. He had had his chauffeur drive him past her flat, he’d seen where she waitressed sometimes. And she’d lived like that for more than five years.

Common sense pointed out that she wasn’t going to come after his fortune. Or Matta Steel.

The realization both calmed and unnerved him. Because, for the first time in his life, he had a feeling that reassurance came mostly from a place of emotion, despite the logic of it too. But he was determined to keep control of the situation.

If she thought he was handing over that amount of money without asking questions...if she thought he’d let her play him, play fast and loose in London, if she thought being his wife in name was just the latest weapon she could use against him...

It was time to reacquaint her with her adversary and set the ground rules for this...agreement between them. He refused to call it a marriage, refused to give his suddenly overdeveloped sense of guilt any more material to chew on.

Which was why he was waiting in Bangkok to accompany her back to London in his private jet rather than have his security bring her. He was also determined to accompany her because her return to London would definitely be commented on by the press, and once they announced that they had married, even their planned civil union without pomp and fanfare would still occupy the news cycle for a couple of weeks at least.

Thanks to his father’s notoriety during his life and the spectacle of his suicide during his incarceration alongside Dante’s swift rise through the ranks of Matta Steel to the position of CEO, there was plenty for the media to chew on. They were always ready to find some chink in his personality, some weak link in his makeup to crow that he was his criminal father’s flawed son.

Sometimes they did get their hands on a juicy story from a woman he’d dumped—for the simple reason that she wanted more from the relationship and he didn’t. Dante didn’t care a hoot about a tabloid feature.

But this...agreement with Alisha would be no small step in the eyes of the media and the world. As such he needed to make her understand the importance of her behavior in the coming months.

The stubborn defiance in her eyes, the stark silence she’d subjected him to through the drive back to her flat hadn’t been lost on him.

Alisha didn’t respond well to threats.

He remembered the two-day disappearance she’d engineered when, on Neel’s instructions, Dante had tried to enroll her in a boarding school in Paris a couple of months after she’d first come to live with her father.

Fighting the near constant hum of his attraction to her had briefly made him forget that.

This was a business deal and he couldn’t antagonize Alisha any more than he would lose his temper with a new business partner. There had to be a way to get her to behave, to cooperate without letting the full force of his contempt for her to shine through.

The one thing he knew for certain was that he couldn’t punish her for his own attraction to her, for his lack of self-control. And as much as his mind and body were bent on reminding him that she had fancied him once, he refused to go down that road.

No.

After the first hour, he stepped out of his car. The unusually heavy wind roared in his ears and he pushed up his sunglasses even though the sun had yet to make an appearance on the chilly late September morning.

Patience had never been his strong point. And yet he had a feeling that it would be stretched to the limit in the near future. A few months with Alisha was bound to turn him mental in his thirties.

He continued to wait and was just about to call her when a caravan of cars—really, a who’s who of colorful vintage cars in different stages of deterioration—pulled up on the long, curving road that led to the airstrip.

Laughter bubbled out of his chest. He sensed his security team giving him sidelong, concerned looks. Well, no one ever made him laugh like Alisha did. Neither had a woman tested his control, or called forth some of his base instincts with a single smile like she did.

How fitting that the drama queen arrived in a ramshackle entourage of her own.

The caravan came to a stop with a lot of screeching noise that confirmed his suspicion that all three cars were on their last legs. But what crawled out of the cars was even more shocking. A surprising number of people clambered out of those small cars, a torrent of English and Thai flowing around. Car trunks were opened and suitcases and bags in different colors and makes pulled out.

Emerging from the third car, dressed again in short shorts that should have been banned, and a chunky sweater that fell to her thighs, almost covering the shorts, was Alisha. Loose and oversize, it fell off one shoulder almost to her bicep, leaving a hot-pink bra strap exposed.

And there was that same black camera bag—heavy from the looks of how the wide strap pulled over one shoulder and between her breasts.

Hair in that messy bun. No jewelry. Combat style boots on her feet.

No makeup that he could see. In fact, in the gray morning light, she looked freshly scrubbed, innocent and so excruciatingly lovely that he felt a tug low in his belly as surely as the sun peeking through the clouds.

Her wide smiles and husky laughter made her eyes twinkle. She stood among the loud group like sun shining on a vast field of sunflowers, every face turned toward her with genuine affection, long limbs grabbing her, hugging her, men and women kissing her cheeks. A sense of disbelief went through him as he spied a sheen of tears as she hugged the man called Mak.

And then she met his eyes.

Current arced between them even across the distance. As one, the group turned their gazes on him. Instead of surprise or curiosity, there was a certain knowledge in the looks leveled at him, knowledge about him. A certain warning in the looks, a subtle crowding around her, as if Alisha had imparted her opinion of him.

Out of the blue, for the first time in their shared history, he wondered what Alisha thought of him. What was behind all that...resentment of him? Did she still believe he’d stolen her legacy?

That hum began again under his skin as she pushed away from the crowd.

His breath suspended in his throat as the subtle scent of her skin teased him. He felt an overwhelming urge to bury his nose in her throat; to see that gorgeous, open smile leveled at him.

“Do you have the money ready?”

“All ten thousand pounds, si,” he responded, a hint of warning in his tone.

She pulled out a slip from the back pocket of her shorts, the action thrusting her breasts up. He gaped like a teenager until she said, “Please have it transferred to this bank account.”

He looked at the slip of paper with a routing number and an account number and raised his brows. “Whose account is it?”

“Kiki and Mak’s joint account.” She sighed at his silence. “You can’t place conditions on how I use the money. No micromanaging my life.”

“You’re not doing this to piss me off, are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. As much as our shared history gives you reason to believe that, I’m not.”

He took a step toward her. “Are they blackmailing you? Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it. What was it, Alisha? Drugs they hooked you into? Naked pictures?”

“What do you mean, naked pictures?”

Her shock was so genuine that it took Dante a couple of seconds to speak. “Who do you think took care of that junkie rock star before he could sell your pics to every tabloid magazine?”

A frown tied her brow, her gaze staring at him unseeingly. “Richard threatened to sell naked pictures of me? Did you see them?”

“Of course I didn’t look at your pictures,” he snapped. “He gave us enough proof to show it was you.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, the very prospect of that idiot taking advantage of a young Ali turning him inside out even now. It was the one time in his adult life that Dante had lost his temper and given in to the urge to punch the man’s pretty face.

Vikram had had to restrain him physically.

“So did you pay him?” Ali asked softly.

“I don’t respond well to threats, just like you. He gave me the flash drive with the pics on it and I smashed it with a paperweight.”

She laughed, the sound full of a caustic bitterness. “Wow, you really don’t think much of me, do you?” Her mouth trembled. “Mak and Kiki are the last people who would blackmail anyone. For the first year, when I moved here, I didn’t pay for anything. Board or food. Whatever I pay them, believe me, it’s very little in return for what they did for me.”

Would the woman never develop a sense of self-preservation? “It’s not a hardship to be kind to an heiress, Alisha. A payoff is usually expected at some point.”

Hurt painted her small smile, her eyes widening, even as she bravely tilted her chin.

He had hurt her. The realization sat tightly on his chest.

“They don’t know who I am, Dante. When you showed up at the restaurant a week ago, it was the first time I told either of them who I was.”

“Alisha, I don’t—”

“And if you say some stupid thing like I haven’t earned it to give it away, believe me I did. Mama earned each and every one of those voting shares. She lost Papa to the blasted company. And all she got were those in return. So, yes, she paid for them. And y’know what? I paid for them too because I should’ve grown up with my father and brother and Mama in the same house. I shouldn’t have had to wonder why Papa barely visited me. Vicky shouldn’t have had to wonder how Mama could have so easily given him up. I shouldn’t have had to wonder why it took Mama’s death for him to be in my life.

“I shouldn’t have to wonder what I lacked that meant he chose...” Her chest rose and fell, a haunting light in her eyes. “I paid for those shares, Dante. And I want some good to come out of what I’m signing up for with you. Something to ground me when you drive me up the wall over the next few months. That money will be a nice deposit for the business Mak and Kiki want to begin.” She swallowed and met his gaze. “They welcomed me with open arms when I desperately needed friends, when I needed to be loved.”

The vulnerability in her words struck him like a punch to his solar plexus, bringing in its wake a cold helplessness.

I’m not that impulsive, destructive Ali anymore.

Her words from a week ago haunted Dante as he watched her climb the steps to the aircraft. Maybe she wasn’t that same old Alisha anymore. But as far as he knew, people didn’t really change.

A reckless Alisha wouldn’t have visited London three times and tried to patch up her mother’s favorite charity.

A spoiled Alisha wouldn’t have lived in anonymity when she could have simply used her father’s name to live in luxury.

So maybe he hadn’t known Alisha at all.

Maybe he didn’t know the woman he was marrying after all.

CHAPTER FIVE

ALI STARED MINDLESSLY as she stepped onto the flight and elegant luxury met her eyes. Every moment she spent with Dante, the past relentlessly pulled at her. Along with all the moronic decisions she’d made in anger, in hurt, coming back to take a chunk out of her ass.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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