Читать книгу An Invitation to Sin - Sarah Morgan - Страница 8

‘I’VE BEEN CALLED before the board, no doubt to answer for my sins. This promises to be a gripping meeting, Jeannie, the general tone of which will be that I’m a very bad boy who can’t possibly be trusted with the company even though my brother has just very inconveniently gone AWOL and another of my disgruntled cousins is trying to take over our flagship hotel.’ Hiding his bitterness beneath layers of boredom, Luca leaned back and put his feet on his desk, earning himself a reproving look from his long-suffering PA.

‘You could try not to be so shocking all the time.’

‘Where would be the fun in that?’

‘I’m just saying it might help if you were more…’ She hesitated and he lifted an eyebrow to prompt her.

‘More?’

‘More conventional.’

‘Conventional?’ Just saying the word made Luca shudder. ‘In the fashion business that word is death. And talking of death, whose idea was it to put lilies in my office? Get rid of them. They remind me of funerals.’

She put a strong cup of coffee in front of him and glanced at the extravagant display of fresh flowers that dominated the centre of the table he used for internal meetings. ‘I’ll have them changed. Gianni is having a meltdown. He wants to know if you’ve approved the location for the fashion shoot? The agency is driving him mad. He wanted me to remind you the theme is nautical, using unexpected twists on classic elements.’

Luca rolled his eyes. ‘Roughly translated from designer-speak to normal language, that means the sea, yes?’

‘The agency wants to use your yacht but Gianni wants something more edgy.’

‘I don’t want them on my yacht. It’s my bolt hole from press madness.’

‘Talking of press madness, they’ve been calling all morning about your latest—’ she cleared her throat ‘—indiscretion. Is there anything you want me to say to them?’

‘Yes. You can tell them to mind their own business.’ Irritated, Luca swung his legs off the desk. ‘Don’t look so shocked about it. You’ve worked for me for ten years. I know nothing shocks you.’

‘I just get upset when I read bad things about you.’ Jeannie’s voice was fierce and Luca frowned slightly.

‘Don’t let it bother you. I don’t.’

‘That’s why I let it bother me. One of us has to care, and it doesn’t seem to be you. I could strangle that Portia woman with my bare hands. How dare she tell those terrible lies.’

‘Ah, yes, Portia. I underestimated her.’ He wondered how Taylor was coping with the publicity and then shrugged it off. If anyone was capable of dealing with a media feeding frenzy, it was Taylor Carmichael. Her past was almost as messy as his. ‘The lawyers are dealing with it. I’m not worried.’

‘I’m worried enough for both of us. Between you and your brother, you keep the media going—’

‘Talking of my brother, I don’t suppose anyone has heard from him since he ran off with the bride?’ Shaking with laughter, Luca checked his phone for messages while Jeannie gave a despairing shake of her head.

‘It isn’t funny! What about poor Alessandro?’

‘“Poor” Alessandro had a narrow escape. He’s been saved from a miserable marriage followed by an expensive divorce. He should be celebrating his good fortune.’

‘You don’t really think that.’

‘I try to think about marriage as little as possible.’

‘Your parents were married for years.’

Luca stilled. If there was one thing worse than thinking of marriage in general then it was thinking of his parents’ marriage. ‘Did I miss the memo about introducing boring topics into office conversation?’

‘Sorry.’ Jeannie flushed. ‘But where do you think Matteo is?’

Luca shrugged. ‘Holed up somewhere enjoying wild honeymoon sex with his cousin’s almost-bride, I suppose, which makes it all the more galling that the board are proving so intransigent. They need a Corretti to run the company in his absence to stop that snake Angelo getting his claws on the company. They should be embracing me.’

‘Judging from the pictures of you and Taylor Carmichael, they probably think there’s been more than enough embracing.’

Taylor Carmichael.

He could still feel the silk of her hair against his fingers and the soft slide of her tongue against his mouth. In those few moments before she’d pushed him away, they’d created enough heat and energy to power a small country. The blaze of sexual chemistry had shocked him as much as her, the only difference was that he hadn’t wanted to fight it.

Before he could respond to Jeannie, the phone on his desk rang and she leaned across to answer it.

‘Signor Corretti’s office—no, he is currently out of the office….Which rumour?’ She paused, her calm professionalism visibly disintegrating as she listened to the person on the other end of the phone. She lifted shocked eyes to Luca. ‘No, I don’t have any comment to make….Yes, I’ll tell him you rang.’ Her hand shook as she replaced the phone and it immediately rang again. Luca clamped his hand over hers as she reached for it.

‘Leave it—it’s just the press wanting more details on that kiss. Don’t feed the frenzy.’

‘They didn’t want details of the kiss.’ Jeannie looked at him nervously. ‘You’re not the sort of guy who would shoot the messenger, are you?’

His radar for trouble on full alert, Luca released her hand and leaned back in his chair. ‘That,’ he drawled slowly, ‘depends on the message.’

She swallowed hard. ‘They want to know when you’ll release a statement on your engagement.’

‘I’m sure when he said that no one was to disturb him, he didn’t mean me.’ Taylor shot a dazzling smile at the security guard who was left blinded.

‘Well, er, he hasn’t mentioned you as such, Miss Carmichael—’

‘Of course he hasn’t. We agreed not to speak about each other.’ She stepped closer and lowered her eyelashes just enough to ensure he wouldn’t be able to think about anything but her all day. ‘If he talked about me, our relationship wouldn’t be a secret, would it?’

‘I suppose not.’ Sweating, he slid a finger around his collar. ‘Knowing Mr Corretti, I’m sure he’ll be only too pleased to see a beautiful woman walking into his office.’

‘Good.’ Striding into the express elevator before he could change his mind, Taylor hit a button and closed the doors. Safely inside, she switched off her megawatt smile and checked her reflection in the mirror.

She was going to kill the bastard.

First she was going to rip his elegant suit from his perfect body and then she was going to injure him in places that would ensure he’d remember her for ever.

It had proved difficult to persuade Santo to give her a few hours off from filming, but in the end he’d decided that they’d be more productive if they dealt with the media first.

Taylor hadn’t revealed that the only person she was going to be ‘dealing with’ was Luca.

The doors opened and Taylor stepped out into a contemporary office space like no other she’d seen. The walls were lined with photographs. Famous models in various poses pouted at her, their razor-sharp cheekbones accentuated by the powerful beam of sunlight pouring from an atrium above. It was a shrine to beauty and elegance.

The wide glass reception desk was unoccupied and she looked through the open door beyond and saw Luca Corretti at the same moment he saw her.

Their eyes locked.

Just for a moment she was back in the maze with his hand pressed to her bare thigh but then she remembered that was the reason she was here and her temper spurted.

‘Well, well—’ his sarcastic drawl carried across the open space between them ‘—it’s my fiancée. What an unexpected pleasure, angelo mia.’

‘In the circumstances, how could I stay away?’ Head held high, in full battle mode, Taylor stalked across the marble floor and into his office wondering how on earth they were going to unpick this mess.

She was going to kill him and how was she going to explain that to the press?

‘Leave us, Jeannie,’ Luca ordered in a silky tone. ‘It’s not every day a man gets engaged. I need to savour the moment. I might even indulge in desk sex so better not come in without knocking.’

The woman sent him a troubled look and then retreated from the office and closed the door behind her.

Taylor went straight into attack mode. ‘How dare you? How dare you play with my life just because you don’t care about yours! You should have paid that woman.’

‘If I paid every woman who threatened to take stories of me to the press I’d be broke.’

‘Maybe you should stop seducing women and then the problem would go away!’ She paced the length of his office, her attention caught by yet more black-and-white photographs on the walls. ‘You have photographs of women everywhere. You just can’t help yourself, can you?’

‘I run a fashion house. What do you expect?’ He looked effortlessly sophisticated in a suit designed to accentuate his physique and dark good looks. ‘Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t care less whose picture you have on your wall or who you kiss.’

‘Really? Isn’t that rather a liberal attitude for someone who only recently decided I was the only man in the world for her?’

Livid by his flippant response, she glared at him. ‘Right now the only thing standing between you and death is the fact that I don’t want more negative headlines.’

Dark brows rose above eyes that glinted with mockery. ‘So much passion so early in our relationship. Not that I’m complaining. I love a woman who isn’t afraid to show emotion.’

‘Damn you, Luca, are you ever serious? Do you know how hard I’ve worked over the past few years to get people to take me seriously? This was a fresh start and then you—you…’ Her hands curled into fists and she turned away from him, hating the loss of control. Hating the attraction she felt towards him. Hating him.

‘And then I—what?’

‘You know what! You—you kissed me. You had your hand on my—’ Just thinking of the photograph made her close her eyes in horror. ‘It looked as if we’d—’

‘Do you ever finish your sentences? You’re like a walking crossword and I’m too lazy to fill in the blanks.’

‘I’m—I’m just so mad with you.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it will be good for you to express honest emotion once in a while.’

‘Don’t mess with me, Luca.’ Furious, she stabbed her finger into his chest and then wished she hadn’t because all she felt was muscle. ‘Be careful. I haven’t eaten carbs for three months and I’m always dangerous when I’m hungry.’

‘For what it’s worth, I’m mad with you too, and my diet is fine. My taste has never run to women who suppress their real selves. And now let’s get to the point.’ The snap of his voice raised the tension in the room several more notches. ‘Why the hell did you announce that we’re engaged?’

‘Because, thanks to you, I was about to be fired from the job I haven’t even started yet!’

That drew a frown from him. ‘Why would you be fired?’

‘Because the director refused to work with someone with my reputation.’

He looked bemused. ‘That’s crazy. So you like sex and you’re not afraid to show it. What’s wrong with that?’

Her cheeks burned. ‘What’s wrong is that I want the focus to be on my skills as an actress, not on my ability to make a fool of myself with a man.’

She’d done that before and she’d lived with the mistake ever since.

He’d left another message on her phone but this time she hadn’t even opened it.

It was a relief to be in Sicily, far from California.

Far from him.

Luca was watching her curiously. ‘So you are afraid to show it. You really need to get over that. Who you choose to kiss in your own time is no one’s business but your own.’

She felt like telling him it wasn’t that simple. That a kiss could be used and used again. ‘I didn’t choose to kiss you. You grabbed me.’

‘I don’t remember you struggling.’ He was maddeningly cool. ‘It takes two people to make a kiss look like that, tesoro.’

‘I never would have started it.’

‘But you finished it.’ His voice was low and threaded through with a sensuality she found off-the-scale disturbing. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. It was an understandable slip.’

‘You’re so full of—’

‘Now, now, Miss Carmichael—’ he placed his fingers over her lips ‘—you don’t want to give the press another quote, do you? I’m sure they have a lens trained at this office even as you shriek.’

‘You’re finding this funny. I don’t even know why you did it—why did You do it? Why the hell did you kiss me?’

He gave a careless shrug. ‘You were there.’

‘That’s all it takes for you to kiss a woman? She just has to be there?’

‘Unlike you, I don’t try and deny my true nature.’

‘Nice to know you’re discriminating.’

‘Have you played Katerina?’ One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Taming of the Shrew? Because you’d be a natural. Do I need to remind you that you kissed me back?’

‘I was stressed out. I hadn’t eaten for two days.’

He smiled. ‘So that was why you were so hungry for me.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

‘Why not? A moment ago you were telling the world you intend to spend the rest of your life with me.’

‘I didn’t know what else to say.’ Taylor paced over to the window of his office, her heels tapping on the floor. ‘I don’t need all the adverse publicity right now. It was a spur of the moment thing. I didn’t even think people would believe me, but they did. Apparently people are captivated by the thought of us together.’

‘Of course they are. I’m the man who has publicly said on numerous occasions that he never intends to settle down and you’re the wild child with a bad attitude. It’s a match made in hell. How can the public not be fascinated? If you’d kept quiet the story would have died by tomorrow. As it is, you’ve ensured it’s kept alive.’