The rules of engagement...

When Cristiano Marchetti proposes to former mistress Alice Piper, the deal has an expiry date. He has six months to fulfil the conditions of his grandmother’s will. But the hotelier has another agenda—exacting revenge on Alice for daring to walk away seven years before!

Alice needs the financial security her enemy is providing, but soon their every clash is a shockingly tempting encounter. Yet as she uncovers the man beneath the hard-hearted exterior, the future Mrs. Marchetti wonders if she could break the rules of their engagement...and walk down the aisle as more than Cristiano’s temporary bride!

Alice brought her gaze back up to Cristiano’s glittering one. ‘You’re surely not going to go through with this…are you?’

A smile that wasn’t quite a smile courted the edges of his mouth. ‘But of course. It is what Nonna wanted. Who am I to disregard her last wishes?’

Alice frowned so hard she might have frightened off twenty ampoules of Botox. ‘What happens if I don’t agree?’

‘To me?’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘Nothing—other than losing a few shares in the company, which will pass to a relative if I don’t comply with the terms of the will.’

Alice wondered how important those shares were to him. Was his easy-come-easy-go shrug disguising deeper, far more urgent motivations? Enough to marry someone he now hated?

She sent her tongue out over lips so dry it felt as if she was licking talcum powder. ‘So…why would you want to marry someone who clearly doesn’t want to marry you?’

His dark-as-night gaze gleamed, making the floor of Alice’s belly shudder.

‘You know why.’

Alice arched one of her brows, trying to ignore the pulsing heat his words evoked deep in her feminine core. ‘Revenge, Cristiano? I thought you were a civilised man.’

MELANIE MILBURNE read her first Mills & Boon at the age of seventeen, in between studying for her final exams. After completing a Master’s Degree in Education she decided to write a novel, and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and a keen dog lover and trainer. She enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion—a prestigious award honouring outstanding literary talent.

Books by Melanie Milburne

Mills & Boon Modern Romance

Unwrapping His Convenient Fiancée

His Mistress for a Week

At No Man’s Command

His Final Bargain

Uncovering the Silveri Secret

The Ravensdale Scandals

Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive

Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress

Engaged to Her Ravensdale Enemy

The Most Scandalous Ravensdale

The Playboys of Argentina

The Valquez Bride

The Valquez Seduction

Those Scandalous Caffarellis

Never Say No to a Caffarelli

Never Underestimate a Caffarelli

Never Gamble with a Caffarelli

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

The Temporary Mrs Marchetti

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Sarah Lewer.

Thanks for the inspiration for this novel and thanks also for being such a wonderful beauty therapist and gorgeous person.

XXXX

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

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

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE FIRST THING Alice noticed when she came to work that morning was the letter on her desk. Something about the officious-looking envelope with its gold embossed insignia made her skin shrink against her skeleton. Letters from lawyers always made her feel a little uneasy. But then she looked closer at the name of the firm. Why would a firm of Italian lawyers be contacting her?

She picked the letter up and her breath came to a juddering halt when she saw it was postmarked Milan.

Cristiano Marchetti lived in Milan.

Alice’s fingers shook as if she had some sort of movement disorder. Surely he hadn’t...died? A sharp pain sliced through her, her breath coming in short, erratic bursts, making not just her fingers tremble but her whole body.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

How had she missed that in the press? Surely there would have been an announcement for someone with Cristiano’s public profile? They reported every other thing he did. The glamorous women he dated. The fading hotels he bought and rebuilt into stunning boutique accommodation all over the Mediterranean. The charity events he attended. The parties. The nightclubs. Cristiano couldn’t change his shirt or shoes or socks without someone reporting it in the press.

Alice peeled open the envelope, her eyes scanning the brief cover letter, but she couldn’t make any sense of it...or maybe that was because her brain was scrambled with a host of unbidden memories. Memories she had locked away for the last seven years. Memories she refused to acknowledge—even in a weak moment—because that was the pathway to regret and that was one journey she was determined never to travel. Her legs were so unsteady she reached blindly for her chair and sat down, holding the document in front of her blurry gaze.

But wait...

It wasn’t Cristiano who had died. It was his grandmother, Volante Marchetti, the woman who, along with his late grandfather Enzo, had raised him since he was orphaned at the age of eleven when his parents and older brother had been killed in an accident.

Alice frowned and cast her gaze over the thick document that had come with the cover letter that named her as a beneficiary of the old woman’s will. But why had his grandmother mentioned her in her will? Why on earth would the old lady do that? Alice had only met Cristiano’s grandmother a handful of times. Volante Marchetti had been a feisty old bird with black raisins for eyes and a sharp intellect and an even sharper sense of humour. She had instantly warmed to the old lady, thinking at the time of how lucky Cristiano was to have a grandmother so spritely and fun, and had often thought of her since.

Maybe his grandmother had left her a trinket or two—a keepsake to mark their brief friendship. A piece of jewellery or one of the small watercolour paintings Alice remembered admiring at the old lady’s villa in Stresa. She began to read through the legalese with her heart doing funny little skips. So many words... Why did lawyers have to sound as if they’d swallowed a dictionary?

‘Someone here to see you, Alice,’ Meghan, her junior beauty therapist, said from the door.

Alice glanced at the time on her computer screen next to her appointment diary and frowned. ‘But my first client isn’t until ten. Clara Overton cancelled her facial. One of her kids is sick.’

Meghan waggled her eyebrows meaningfully and, lowering her voice to a stage whisper, said, ‘It’s a man.’

Alice had several male clients who came to her for waxing and other treatments but something told her the man waiting to see her wasn’t one of them. She could feel it in her body. In her bones. In her blood. In her heartbeat. The awareness of imminent danger making a prickling sensation pass all over her flesh, as if her nerves were radar picking up a faint but unmistakable signal. A signal she had forced herself to forget. To wipe from her memory in case it caused her to regret the decision she had made back then. She pushed back her chair and stood but then decided it was better to remain seated. She didn’t trust her legs. Not if she was going to come face to face with Cristiano Marchetti after all this time. ‘Tell him I’ll be ten minutes.’

‘You can tell me yourself.’

Alice looked up to see Cristiano framed in the door, his chocolate-brown eyes as hard as two black bolts. All she could think of was how different it was seeing him in the flesh instead of a photograph in a gossip magazine or newspaper. Shockingly different. Heart-stoppingly different. I’m-not-sure-I-can-handle-this different.

For a moment she couldn’t locate her voice. With him standing there, with his towering frame and commanding air, her office seemed to shrink to the size of a tissue box. Shoulders so broad he looked as if he’d been bench-pressing bulldozers—two at a time. An abdomen so hard and toned you could tap dance on it wearing stilettos and not leave a dent. Jet-black hair, thick and currently brushed back from his forehead in loose finger-groomed waves.

‘Hello, Cristiano, what brings you to Alice’s Wonderland of Beauty? An eyebrow-shape? Back and leg wax? Personality makeover?’

Alice knew it was crazy of her to goad him but she did it anyway. It was her defence mechanism. Sarcasm instead of emotion. Better to be cutting and mocking than to show how much his brooding presence disturbed her. It more than disturbed her. It unbalanced her. Her neatly controlled world felt as if it had been picked up and rattled like a maraca held by a maniac. The walls of her office were closing in on her. The floor was shifting beneath her feet like a sailboat pitching in a wild squall. The air was pulsing with crackling electricity that made her aware of every inch of her skin and every hit-and-miss beat of her heart.

His bottomless eyes roved her face as if he was looking for something he had lost and never thought to find again. His brow was etched in a deep frown that gave him a much more intimidating air than the way he had looked at her in the past. Back then he had looked at her with tenderness, with gentleness. With love.

A love she had thrown back in his face.

‘Did you put her up to it?’ he asked with a searing look that made the backs of her knees fizz as if sand were being trickled through her veins.

Alice placed her hands on the tops of her thighs below her desk so he wouldn’t see their traitorous shaking. ‘I presume you’re referring to your grandmother?’

Something flashed in his gaze. Bitterness. Anger. Something else she wasn’t ready to acknowledge, but she felt it all the same. It breathed scorching hot fire all over her body, stirring up memories. Erotic memories that made the blood in her veins pick up speed. ‘Have you been in contact with her over the last seven years?’ he asked in that same terse don’t-mess-with-me tone.

‘No. Why would I?’ Alice gave him a pointed look. ‘I rejected your proposal, remember?’

His jaw tensed so hard she could see the white tips of his clenched muscles showing through his olive tan. ‘Then why has she mentioned you in her will?’

So he hadn’t known about the terms of his grandmother’s will until recently? Had the old lady not told him of her plans? Interesting. ‘No idea,’ Alice said. ‘I only met her a couple of times when we were...back then. I’ve had zero contact since.’

He glanced at the will lying in front of her on her desk. ‘Have you read it?’

Alice gave him another speaking look. ‘I was getting to that when you rudely barged into my office.’

His eyes nailed hers. Hard eyes. Eyes that could melt a month’s supply of salon wax with a single glare. ‘Let me summarise it for you. You stand to inherit a half share of my grandmother’s villa in Stresa in Italy if you agree to be my wife and live with me for a minimum of six months. You will also receive a lump sum on the announcement of our engagement, which is to last no longer than one month.’

Shock hit Alice like a blow to the chest. His...wife?

She fumbled for the document, the sound of the pages rustling overly loud in the silence.

Engaged to him for a month? Married for six?

She cast her gaze over the words again, her breath coming in such short spark bursts it felt as if she were having an asthma attack. Her heart was beating so heavily it felt as if someone were punching it from behind. She hadn’t seen any mention of marriage in her quick appraisal earlier. She’d barely had time to read any of it before he had gatecrashed into her day. Why hadn’t she put on her make-up before work? Why hadn’t she worn her brand-new uniform instead of this one with the eyebrow-tint stain on the right breast? Why hadn’t she done her own eyebrows, for God’s sake?

But there it was in black and white.

Alice was to co-inherit Volante Marchetti’s summer retreat on the shores of Lake Maggiore if, and only if, she married and stayed married to Cristiano for six months. Six months? Six seconds would be too long. And there was the other clause. They must be engaged for no more than a month before the wedding. What sort of weird time frame was that? It shamed her that Cristiano saw the pages of the document shaking before she put it back down on the desk. But at least he couldn’t see the tumult going on inside her stomach.

His wife?

Live with him?

She had been to his grandmother’s villa one memorable weekend with Cristiano. Memorable because it was the first time he’d told her he loved her. Apart from her mother, no one had ever said that to her before. She hadn’t said the words back because she hadn’t trusted her feelings. But then, she had always been a step behind him in their relationship. She’d thought they were having a fling while she was on a brief working holiday in Europe. He’d decided it was a relationship. She’d thought it was temporary because she’d planned to go back to England and set up her own beauty spa, but he had wanted it to be permanent.

Permanent as in marriage and kids.

For as long as she could remember Alice had been against marriage—or at least for herself. After witnessing her mother go through three of them with exactly the same result: misery, subjugation, humiliation and financial ruin. She had told Cristiano a little about her background, not much, but more than she had told anyone, which made her all the more annoyed he had still gone ahead and asked her to marry him. In a crowded public place to boot, which had added a whole other layer of pressure she resented him for.

His arrogance made her furiously angry. Had he really thought she would fall upon him with a grateful squeal of Yes! just because he was super-rich and said he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? How long would that love have lasted? They’d had a passionate if a little volatile relationship. How could she be sure his desire/love for her wouldn’t burn out as fast as it had been ignited?

If he had truly loved her he would have accepted her no as final and settled for a less formal arrangement. People lived together for years and years without needing the formality of marriage. Why be so damn nineteen-fifties about it? A marriage certificate didn’t make a relationship any more secure. In fact, it could do the very opposite, forcing women into a subservient role once kids came along from which they could never escape.

But Cristiano at heart was a traditionalist. For all of his modern male sophistication, deep down he wanted a wife and family to come home to while he built his empire. So he had given her an ultimatum. Tried to control her. Tried to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.

Marriage or nothing.

Alice had called his bluff and ended their relationship then and there, and flown back to England, never expecting to hear from him again. Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true. She had expected to hear from him with a big apology and ‘let’s try again’ but it hadn’t happened. Showed how much he’d ‘loved’ her. Not enough to fight for her. Not enough to compromise.

Not that she had offered to compromise, but still.

Alice brought her gaze back up to his glittering one. ‘You’re surely not going to go through with this...are you?’

A smile that wasn’t quite a smile courted with the edges of his mouth. ‘But of course. It is what Nonna wanted. Who am I to disregard her last wishes?’

Alice frowned so hard she could have frightened off fifty units of Botox. ‘What happens if I don’t agree?’

‘To me?’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘Nothing other than a few shares in the company which will pass to a relative if I don’t comply with the terms of the will.’

Alice wondered how important those shares were to him. Was his easy-come, easy-go shrug disguising deeper, far more urgent motivations? Enough to marry someone he now hated? What about the villa? It was his grandmother’s home, the place where he had spent much of his childhood being raised by his grandparents. Wouldn’t he want to contest such an outrageous will? Surely he wouldn’t want to share it with anyone, much less her? Why would he agree to such unusual conditions? She sent her tongue out over lips so dry it felt as if she were licking talcum powder. ‘So...why would you want to marry someone who clearly doesn’t want to marry you?’

His dark as night gaze gleamed, making the floor of Alice’s belly shudder. ‘You know why.’

Alice arched one of her brows, trying to ignore the pulsing heat his words evoked deep in her feminine core. ‘Revenge, Cristiano? I thought you were a civilised man.’

‘I am prepared to be reasonable.’

Alice affected a laugh. That was not a word she readily associated with him. He saw the world in black and white. He didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise. What he wanted he got and woe betide anyone who got in his way. Not that she could talk. Compromise wasn’t her favourite word in the dictionary, either. ‘Reasonable in what way?’

He held her look with one she couldn’t read. ‘The marriage won’t be consummated.’

Not...? Alice hoped she wasn’t showing any sign of the numb shock she was feeling. Not just shock. Hurt. Humiliation. Their affair had been so wildly passionate. She had never had a lover before or since who made her feel the things he had made her feel. She had all but given up dating because of it. His touch was indelibly branded on her body. No one else’s touch made her flesh sing—the opposite, in fact. Her flesh crawled when someone else touched her. The last time she slept with a date, well over a year ago, she came home and showered for an hour.

‘You speak as if this...this preposterous marriage is a fait accompli,’ she said. ‘I said it seven years ago and I’ll say it again now. I am not going to marry you.’

‘Six months is not a long time. At the end of it you get joint ownership of a luxury villa to do with as you please. You can sell your half or keep it. The choice is yours.’

The choice wasn’t hers. How could it be? She was being forced into a marriage with a man who no longer loved her—if he ever had. What he had wanted to do back then was control her. It was what he wanted to do now. What better way to punish her for having the gall to say no to him than to chain her to him in a loveless union?

Alice wouldn’t do it. No. No. No.

She wouldn’t subject herself to the humiliation of being his trophy wife while he continued to sleep with whomever he liked. He knew...he knew how much she’d hated seeing her mother cheated on by each of her husbands. It had been one of the things that had impressed her about him. He believed in monogamy—or so he’d said.

But what about your business plan?

Alice had somehow become the go-to girl for wedding make-up. The girl who had sworn against marriage was preparing brides all over London for theirs. Go figure. Her appointment diary was booked out for months ahead for the wedding season. It was becoming the biggest source of her income, especially high-profile weddings. She had plans to buy another salon—a larger place so she could extend her business because her Chelsea salon was getting too small to handle the burgeoning wedding market.

It had been a dream of hers for months. Years, actually. The only thing holding her back was the thought of taking on a load of property debt. Debt was something that terrified her. The mere thought of it kept her awake at night. She remembered too well how it had felt as a child to have not enough money for food, for clothes, for electricity when her mother had been between relationships.

She knew she could always rent another property like this one in Chelsea, but that left her at the mercy of landlords, something she had seen too many times during her childhood. Rents could be put up and buildings suddenly sold. The business she had worked so hard to establish would be jeopardised if she didn’t own the property herself.

You could sell the villa after six months and be debt-free for the rest of your life.

Alice allowed the thought a little traction. The business she had sacrificed so much for was her baby, her mission, her purpose in life. Seeing it grow and develop over the last few years had been enormously satisfying. She had built it up from just a handful of clients to now one of the busiest salons in the area. She had celebrities and minor royalty on her books. People came to her because of the standards of excellence she maintained. To achieve her dream of setting up a luxury wedding spa would finally prove she had made it.

Failing wasn’t an option.

Not after using her career as the excuse for not wanting to marry Cristiano. The career she put before everything else. Relationships. Holidays. Fun. Even friendships. All of it had been sacrificed for work.

But she couldn’t marry Cristiano to solve that problem for it would throw her in the middle of an even bigger one.

Alice rose from her chair with her spine steeled with resolve. ‘I’ve made my choice. Now, if you’ve finished catching up on old times, I have a business to run.’

His eyes continued to tether hers as if he were waiting for her cool composure to crack. ‘Are you involved with someone? Is that why you’re saying no?’

Was he still so arrogant? Yes. Arrogance was hardwired into his DNA. A man in his privileged position had no concept of why a woman wouldn’t want to thrust her hand out for him to put a ring on it. He had it all: the money, the looks, the luxury lifestyle, the fast cars and exotic holiday destinations. Alice wished she had a lover to fling in his face. She considered inventing one but knew it wouldn’t take him long to call her out on her lie. He wouldn’t have to hunt around too far to find her social life was practically non-existent. Her work was her social life.

‘I know you find it hard to believe you’re irresistible because of your wealth and other...erm...assets, but I am not going to prostitute myself for the sake of an inheritance I neither asked for nor need.’

His expression gave nothing away. ‘I meant what I said, Alice. It will be a marriage in name only.’

No one said her name quite the way he did. His Italian accent gave it a completely different emphasis. Aleece. The sound of it was like an erotic caress. It made the base of her spine shiver as if he had touched her with a brush of his warm male hand. Thinking of his hands made her want to look at them.

Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

But in spite of her rational brain’s pleas, she looked. Those broad-spanned hands had travelled over every inch of her flesh. Those long tanned fingers had coaxed her into her first proper orgasm. They had discovered all of her erogenous zones, tortured them with such intense pleasure it had shaken her to the core of her being. She could feel the echo of it even now, as if just being in the same room as him, breathing the same air as him, made her body recognise him as her only pleasure giver.

Alice dragged her gaze upwards and collided with his. He knew. Damn it, he knew how much sensual power he had over her. She could see it in the knowing glint in his pitch-black eyes. She felt it when he sent his gaze over her body as if he too were remembering what it had felt like to hold her in his arms as she splintered into a thousand pieces of shivering, quivering ecstasy.

He lifted a hand to his jacket pocket and took out a business card and placed it on the desk next to the copy of his grandmother’s will. ‘My contact details should you change your mind. I’ll be in London for the next week while I sort out some business affairs.’

Alice wilfully ignored the card. ‘I’m not going to change my mind, Cristiano.’

I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.

A cynical smile lifted one side of his mouth. ‘We’ll see.’

We’ll see?

What did he mean, ‘We’ll see’? Alice didn’t get the chance to ask him for he turned and left her office, leaving her with the lingering fragrance of his aftershave, the lemon and lime with a base note of leather that made her nostrils tingle...not to mention the rest of her body.

Meghan was bug-eyed when she came back. ‘Oh, my God! You didn’t tell me you knew Cristiano Marchetti. I didn’t recognise him at first. He’s much more gorgeous in the flesh than he is in photographs in the press. I nearly fainted when he walked past me just then and smiled at me. What did he want? Is he going to come here for treatments? Please let me do him. Can I do him? Please, please, please?’

Alice wasn’t going to explain her past relationship with her employee even if Meghan was turning out to be one of the best she’d ever had. And as for Meghan ‘doing him’, if anyone was going to ‘do him’ it was going to be her. She would like nothing better than to get a pot of hot wax and strip that supercilious smile off his too-handsome face. ‘He’s not a client. I met him a few years ago. He just dropped in to say hi.’

‘Met him as in met him and dated him?’

Alice didn’t respond other than to purse her mouth. Meghan blushed and bit her lower lip. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I know you insist on absolute confidentiality with celebrity clients. It’s just he’s so handsome and you never seem to date anyone and I wondered if it was because—’

‘Can you get my treatment room ready for my next client?’ Alice said. ‘I have some urgent paperwork to see to.’

Alice blew out a breath once Meghan scuttled away. For seven years she had told herself she’d made the right decision. She had chosen her career over commitment. Freedom over having a family. She had stood firm on her decision, not once wavering on it. Now, within her grasp was a way to finally achieve the success and financial security she had thus far only dreamt about.

Six months of marriage.

In name only.

She glanced at his business card. It seemed to taunt her with its presence.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Alice snatched it up and tore it into as many pieces as she could and tossed them in the bin. It was kind of weird how they floated down just like a handful of confetti.

She hoped to God it wasn’t an omen.

* * *

Cristiano would have had a stiff drink if he’d been a drinking man, but the death of his parents and his older brother to a drunk driver when he was eleven made him wary of using alcohol other than in strict moderation. Seeing Alice Piper again was like having his guts slashed wide open. And stomped on. The mere sight of her reopened the wound of his bitterness until he wondered how he had stood there without showing it.

He’d felt it, though. God in heaven, how he’d felt it. The blood rush. The pulse race. The adrenalin surge. The kick and punch of lust.

He had stood there and drunk in her features like a dehydrated man standing in front of a long cool glass of water. Her indifferent poise, her cornflower-blue gaze that could freeze mercury, the way she looked down her aristocratic nose at him as if he had crept in from a primeval swamp with his knuckles dragging. Her body was as lissom and gorgeous as ever—perhaps even more so. Her unusual silver-blonde hair with her naturally dark eyebrows and the creamy, ageless perfection of her skin gave her a striking appearance that never failed to snatch his breath.

Her rejection of him stung and burned and churned even after all this time. He had thought what they’d had was for ever. A once in a lifetime love. Their passionate affair had been unlike anything he’d experienced before. He’d wanted to build a future with her. A family. He’d believed it to be like the love his parents had had for each other. Like the love his grandparents had before his grandfather died. The death of his grandfather a couple of months before he met Alice had made him acutely aware of how important family was. It had been all he had thought about—having a family to replace the one he had lost so young. He’d felt ready. More than ready. He’d been twenty-seven and well established in the hotel business he had inherited from his parents. He was ready for the next phase of his life.

But Alice hadn’t loved him. She had never said the words but he’d fooled himself into thinking she’d been showing it instead. How gullible he had been. How stupid to be so naively romantic when all she’d wanted was a quick fling with a foreigner to boast about with her friends.

What had his nonna been thinking? She had only met Alice a couple of times. Why bequeath her a share in a property worth millions and with such odd conditions attached? Six months of marriage? What sort of nonsense was this?

He hoped to God it wasn’t some sneaky matchmaking ploy from the grave. His grandmother knew he had changed his mind about settling down. He had laughed off the suggestion every time she asked him when he was going to provide her with a great-grandchild. Nonna had expressed her disapproval of his playboy lifestyle on numerous occasions but he had always dismissed her concerns because no one was going to tell him how to run his life.

No one.

His grandmother had been disappointed when his relationship with Alice broke down. Terribly disappointed. But he had refused to talk about it. He’d had enough trouble managing his own disappointment without having to handle his grandmother’s. Over the years she had stopped mentioning Alice’s name knowing it would get zero response from him. Why then had she done this? Forced him back into Alice’s life when it was the last thing he wanted?

The way the will was written meant if he didn’t convince Alice to marry him then he would lose valuable shares in the family company to a cousin he had no time for. He wasn’t going to hand over those shares only to have his cousin Rocco sell them to another party when he ran a little low on cash after playing the tables in a casino. Cristiano would rather marry his worst enemy before seeing that day dawn. He blamed himself for not telling his grandmother of Rocco’s disturbing spending habits of late. But he hadn’t wanted to burden her in the last months of her terminal illness.

Now it was too late.

The will had been written and now he had to convince Alice Piper to marry him.

Not that Alice was an enemy in the true sense of the word. She was a mistake he had made. A failure he wasn’t particularly fond of being reminded about. He had wiped her from his memory. Every time a thought of her would enter his mind he would ruthlessly erase it like someone cleaning a whiteboard. He had lived his life since as if she had never been a part of it. As if he had never had such amazing sex with her it had made his body tingle for hours afterwards. As if he had never kissed that sensually supple mouth. As if he had never felt that mouth around him while she blew the top of his head off.

Cristiano wasn’t going to let Alice think he was anything but delighted with the way his grandmother had orchestrated things. It suited him to let Alice think he was eager to put that ring on her finger and tie her to him for six months. Besides, maybe avoidance wasn’t the way to handle the lingering sting of her rejection. Maybe some immersion therapy would finally end his torment.

Alice might have given him that haughty look and said no as if it were her last word on it, but this time he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

CHAPTER TWO

ALICE NEITHER HEARD nor saw anything of Cristiano for the next couple of days. She had been expecting him to show up at work again, knowing him to be implacably determined when he set his mind to something. She had received a call from the lawyer handling the execution of the will, who explained some of the finer points. There was a time limit on accepting the terms. If she didn’t marry Cristiano by the end of a month-long engagement the villa would be sold outside the Marchetti family. Alice wondered what Cristiano would think about that—his childhood home sold to strangers. Was that why he was pushing for this marriage? Or was it purely revenge?

On the third day without sight or sound of Cristiano, Alice got a call from her salon building’s landlord, Ray Gormley. ‘I know this will come as a bit of a surprise, Alice, but I’ve sold the building,’ he said. ‘The new owner is taking possession immediately. You have a few months left on your current three-year lease so it shouldn’t disrupt—’

‘Sold?’ Alice gasped. ‘I didn’t even realise you had it on the market.’

‘I didn’t, but I got an offer I’d be a fool to refuse,’ he said. ‘I’m consolidating some of my interests. This guy’s bought the building next door as well. Says he’s going to make them both into a luxury hotel.’

Suspicion made every hair on the back of Alice’s neck stand up and fizz at the roots. ‘A...a hotel?’

‘Yes,’ Ray said. ‘You ever heard of Cristiano Marchetti? He has boutique hotels all over Europe.’

Alice’s jaw was so tight she felt the tension in her neck as if someone had a noose around it—which they did. Damn it.

‘So...let me get this straight... Marchetti approached you completely out of the blue?’

‘Yes,’ Ray said. ‘He’s been looking for suitable property in London. The UK is the only place he doesn’t have a hotel. This is stage one of his British expansion.’

Alice was still trying to get her heart out of her mouth and back in her chest where it belonged. Cristiano was her new landlord? What did he plan to do? Hike up her rent so she had no choice but to marry him? She had three months left on her three-year lease. It had always worried her having such a short-term lease, which was one of the reasons she wanted to buy her own property. But Ray had always assured her he wasn’t selling any time soon. His wife and three daughters were clients of hers. She had thought—stupidly thought—she was safe.

But what would happen once Cristiano took possession?

Alice ended the call and started pacing her office so hard she thought she’d go right through the floorboards to the subway below. This was absolutely outrageous. Cristiano was going to such devious lengths to bend her to his will. She wished now she hadn’t torn up his card. Not that she had forgotten his number—no matter how hard she tried to erase it, for some reason, it remained fixed in her brain. But he might well have changed it. After all, she had changed hers.

She sat back at her desk and dialled his number. She listened to it ringing and ringing, her courage just about deserting her when finally it was answered by a husky female voice. ‘Hello?’

Alice’s stomach dropped. ‘Erm... I’m not sure if I have the right number—’

‘Are you looking for Cristiano?’ the young woman said.

‘Erm...yes, but if he’s busy I can—’

‘He’s right here beside me,’ the woman said. ‘Who will I say is calling?’

Right here beside her doing what?

Alice clenched her teeth so hard she could have bitten through a pair of tweezers. It was the middle of the day, for pity’s sake. Why wasn’t he at work instead of in bed with some gorgeous nymphet?

‘It’s Alice Piper.’

She heard the sound of the phone being handed over and couldn’t stop an image forming of him lying amongst the rumpled bed linen of a hotel with a naked woman’s body draped over his. ‘I’ve been expecting you to call,’ Cristiano said. ‘Changed your mind yet?’

Alice gripped her phone so hard she thought her knuckles were going to burst through her skin. ‘No, I have not.’

‘That’s a pity.’ There was a note of casual amusement in his tone. ‘I didn’t want to have to play dirty but needs must.’

Alice’s spine tightened as if someone were turning a wrench on each and every vertebra. ‘I know what you’re trying to do but—’

‘Come to my hotel and we’ll discuss this over a drink.’

Alice wasn’t going anywhere near his hotel. A hotel room was way too intimate. If she and Cristiano were alone together with a bed nearby, who knew what might happen? It wasn’t him she didn’t trust. It was her. Her body remembered him like a language she thought she’d long forgotten. Even now it was responding to the deep gravelly cadence of his voice, making her senses reel as if she had ingested some sort of mind-altering drug. ‘I’d rather meet somewhere less...’

‘Dangerous?’

The silky tone of his voice loosened the bolts on her vertebrae.

Alice pressed her lips together, trying to garner her defences. He wasn’t the same man as seven years ago. He had changed. He was harder. More ruthless. More calculating and brutally tactical. She was going to have to be careful dealing with him. He wasn’t in love with her now. He hated her. He wanted revenge. ‘I’m not scared of you, Cristiano.’

‘Perhaps not, but you’re scared of how I make you feel. It’s always been that way between us, has it not?’

‘I felt lust for you back then. Nothing else.’

‘You still feel it, don’t you, cara mia?’ His voice was a teasing feather stroking over the nerve-sensitive base of her spine.

‘You’re mistaken,’ she said, injecting her voice with icy hauteur. ‘I feel nothing for you but contempt.’

‘That’s a strong word for someone who once shared their body with me.’

‘You know something? I didn’t break your heart,’ Alice said. ‘I bruised your ego. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You hadn’t had a woman say no to you before. You weren’t in love with me. If you were you would have accepted and respected my decision not to get married.’

‘That is an argument for another time,’ he said with a thread of steel entering his tone. ‘I want to see you tonight to discuss the rent on your salon going forward.’

Alice stiffened. It was all right for him with the millions he’d inherited when his parents were killed. She didn’t have any rich relatives to hand her an empire or to give her a financial leg up when things turned ugly. Everything she had worked for had been out of her own blood, sweat and tears—and occasional tantrum. If he turned the financial screws on her now, everything she’d worked for could be compromised. Or—God forbid—even lost. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you speak so fluently with all those silver spoons hanging out of your mouth.’

A pulsing silence passed.

Alice wondered if this was going to turn into one of their massive arguments. With hindsight she could see a large part of their relationship had been a power struggle. They had constantly bickered over things without anything being resolved other than in bed. Neither of them had wanted to compromise or back down from a stance. Making love had diffused the battle temporarily, but it hadn’t solved the underlying issue.

He had wanted control of her and she wouldn’t give it.

Cristiano released a long breath. ‘I would give each and every one of those silver spoons back if I could have my parents and brother back for a day, let alone for the last twenty-three years.’

Alice suddenly felt ashamed of herself. He couldn’t help his background any more than she could help hers. It was a cheap shot, similar to the ones she’d tossed at him in the past. Their verbal sparring had been a sort of foreplay. The battle of two strong wills, combined with a fierce lust for each other, had created some combustible arguments on occasion. Too many occasions. When had they ever sat down and had a discussion without one or both of them flying off in a temper? Had either of them actually listened to what the other said? Or were they too busy trying to think of a cutting comeback? ‘I’m sorry. That was...unfair of me.’

‘I have to go. Natalia is waiting for me.’

A dagger went to Alice’s belly. She’d forgotten all about his gorgeous little bed buddy lying right beside him while he spoke to her on the phone. Jealousy rose in her like a beast that had been woken too abruptly. Giant paws of jealousy clawing at her insides, making her feel strangely hollow. Why was she feeling like this? She had no right to feel this way. She had ended their affair. She’d been the one to walk away, not him. She didn’t have any rights over him now. He was a free agent to sleep with whomever he pleased. There should be no reason why the thought of him talking to her on the phone while a woman was in bed beside him should...hurt her so much.

‘I’m sorry to force you to talk business in the middle of pleasure,’ she said. ‘Maybe next time turn your phone to silent so you don’t get interrupted during one of your marathon sex sessions.’

There was another little silence.

Alice wished she hadn’t spoken with such crisp venom. Every word she had spoken sounded as if it were painted bright green. What was wrong with her? It was crazy to give him ammunition he could use against her. If he thought for a picosecond she was jealous he would exploit it every opportunity he could.

‘I’ll pick you up for dinner at seven,’ Cristiano said as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘What’s your address?’

‘I’m not having dinner with—’

‘You will have dinner with me or I’ll cancel your lease as of now.’

Alice’s heart banged against her breastbone. ‘You can’t do that!’

‘Can’t I?’

She swallowed a rush of panic. She had to get control of her tongue. It wouldn’t help her cause to challenge him all the time. It would only make him all the harder to manage. She could handle dinner. Sure she could. It would be a test for her. It would be proof she could spend an hour or two in his company without wanting to tear his clothes off his hot body.

Yikes. Do not even think about that body.

It was probably still naked and sweaty from bed-wrecking sex. ‘Won’t Natalia mind you taking out another woman for dinner?’

‘No.’

Alice was frustrated by his one-word answer so went digging for more. ‘She must have a very laid-back attitude to relationships to allow you to entertain other women while she’s involved with you.’

‘Natalia knows her place.’

‘Are you going to marry her?’

‘She’s already married.’

Shock rendered Alice speechless for a moment. What had happened to Cristiano’s conservative old-fashioned values? The Cristiano of the past would never have slept with a married woman. He’d had no time for men and women who betrayed their marital vows. He’d spoken at length about the commitment his parents had made and how he admired and respected them for staying true to it until their untimely deaths. Until death do us part had been something he had believed in to the letter.

What had changed him?

You changed him.

The thought was an uncomfortable weight in the pit of her stomach. Had she been the one to destroy his faith in relationships? But she hadn’t been ready to settle down back then. Rejecting a proposal wasn’t a crime, was it? Surely she’d had the right to decide whether she wanted to be married or not. It wasn’t the Dark Ages, for God’s sake. But the thought continued to niggle at her. Had she turned him into a casual-living playboy who had no time for commitment? These days he used women to suit his needs. He was in and out of relationships faster than a racing driver changed gears. Was he really no longer a man who longed for a wife and family of his own? And why should that make her feel so...so sad? ‘Well then, I’d better get off the phone so you can get back to your grubby little affair, hadn’t I?’

‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said and before she could think of a comeback, or tell him she wasn’t going, he ended the call.

* * *

Alice dressed for dinner as if she were dressing for combat. Each layer of clothing was like putting on a suit of armour. The armour of sophistication she had been so sadly lacking seven years ago.

She sometimes wondered what Cristiano had seen in her back then. She had been twenty-one years old and newly qualified as a beauty therapist. It had been her first trip abroad without friends accompanying her. She had been on a shoestring budget while she backpacked around Europe but she’d only got as far as Italy when she’d met him in a crowded street in Milan when a sharp catch on her backpack had become caught on his clothing, as she’d brushed past.

They’d stood in the middle of the street, comically locked together by their clothes. He’d made a comment about it bringing a whole new meaning to ‘hooking up with someone’ and she’d laughed. Once he had untangled himself he’d insisted on buying her a coffee.

One coffee had turned into two coffees and then dinner. Instead of going back to the backpackers’ centre she’d found herself accepting his offer of accommodation for the night or two she’d planned to spend in his home city. At no time had she felt any pressure to sleep with him. She was not unaware of his interest in her and she hadn’t been all that good at hiding hers in him. But his respectful handling of her had impressed her. Not many healthy and virile young men of twenty-seven, as he was at that time, would have asked a woman back to his place and not expected something in return.

In the end it had been Alice who made the first move. She still remembered their first kiss. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could still feel those firm lips moving with such urgency against hers, making every cell in her body vibrate. One kiss hadn’t been enough. Next minute she was tearing his clothes off him and all but throwing herself at him.

Her mind drifted... The drugging kisses. The phenomenal foreplay. The earth-rocking sex. The mind-bending orgasms. The electric tingling of her flesh for hours afterwards.

How had she gone so long without it?

Alice sighed and picked up her lipstick. She had never found anyone else who made her feel desire quite like that, as if she would literally die if she didn’t have him. Which meant she would have to be super careful around him now. She didn’t want to betray herself, to give him any hint she hadn’t managed to move on with her life. Of course she had moved on with her life. She was a successful businesswoman with money in the bank...most of it borrowed, but still.

What else did she need?

The doorbell sounded and she put her lipstick in her purse and picked up her evening wrap and went to the door. Even though she was in four-inch heels Cristiano towered over her. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I thought you said seven. It’s half-past.’

He gave a shrug of one broad shoulder as if punctuality and common politeness were no longer of any interest to him. ‘I knew you’d wait for me.’

The way he said it made it sound as if she had spent the last seven years doing exactly that. She raised her chin and sent him a look that would have soured long-life milk. ‘How did you find out where I lived?’

‘Your very helpful previous landlord.’

The slight emphasis on the word ‘previous’ made Alice’s nerves jangle.

She wound her wrap around her shoulders, wishing she could wind it around Cristiano’s neck instead. ‘Where are we going to dinner?’

‘Aren’t you going to show me around your house first?’

Alice pinched her lips together. ‘My home is hardly on a league with yours.’

He glanced around her foyer with an appraising eye. ‘Nice. How long have you lived here?’

‘Two years.’

‘Alone?’

Alice forced herself to hold that piercing gaze even though it made every atom in her body protest. ‘At the moment.’

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

‘Four.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I’m not one bit lonely.’

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

Why the hell hadn’t she stepped back?

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

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

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

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

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

Get control. Get control. Get control.

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

Another good reason to hate him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘I wasn’t in love with you.’

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, how she had missed this!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next month? Eek!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘When was your last relationship?’

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

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

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

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

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

Why did his driving always remind her of sex?

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

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

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

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

But...

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

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

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

Married for six months to her mortal enemy?

Game on.

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