“He offered but I don’t like his solution. Everyone, including Kairos, has an agenda for Rossi Leather without considering what’s actually best for the company or my family. And the problems we have aren’t going to be solved by a simple influx of cash. Salvatore will bring us back here into this same situation in a year again. No one can help us.”
Not even Antonio.
The minute she didn’t toe the line—which would probably include some impossible task like domesticating the devil in front of her—Antonio would tighten the screws on her. Threaten their company or withdraw his support.
“The only way to ensure we don’t fall into this hole again,” she said, with a mounting sense of defeat, “is if I take the reins myself.”
“You think Leandro would have recognized how smart and efficient you are and given you the reins. That’s why you were so eager to marry him.”
“He always struck me as a fair, principled man.”
Her unshakeable trust, the admiration in Leandro’s implacable nature, rubbed Luca raw.
He had never bemoaned the fact that only he, and not Leandro, had inherited every despicable thing from their father—his good looks, his brilliance and maybe his madness. But in that moment he envied his brother the freedom to be his own man, the right to his own mind that made Sophia admire him so much.
“You would have married him, shared his bed?” Fury threaded his tone, which shocked her as much as him. “After the history we have?”
Color mounted her cheeks. “Rossi’s needs a complete rehaul, five years to build it to a stable position again. Leandro would have given me that chance.”
Her stepfather’s damned company... It always came back to that. “I’ve no doubt that you will do it in three. You’ll make Rossi’s better than it has ever been.”
Shock rooted Sophia to the floor, a faint whooshing in her ears making her dizzy. She ran a shaking hand over her brow. “What?”
“Dio, you sang this same song even a decade ago. You went into raptures, non, you almost climaxed with anticipation every time you talked about your plans for your Rossi Leather. Extension, branching away from leather production completely, focusing on accessory design... Just do it already, Sophia.”
He stared at her, brows raised in question while Sophia processed those words slowly. Dear God, he remembered all of her naive, hopeful, detailed plans for Rossi’s.
Heat pricked her eyes. Her head hurt as if under some great liquid weight; even her nose felt thick. Or rough. Or something very close to tears.
Did he know what a gift he gave her?
He didn’t give the compliment grudgingly like Kairos, who recognized talent and hunted it with a ruthless will. He didn’t give the compliment insidiously, as if her intellect and smart business sense were odd, distorting it into some sort of stain on her femininity. As if somehow they minimized her as a woman.
He didn’t give it to placate her, like her mother. Even her mother, she knew, wished Sophia was different. Wished Sophia made it easy on herself; wished Sophia didn’t feel like she had to prove herself in a man’s world.
Wished Sophia wasn’t still fighting, even after all these years.
No, Luca stated it as a matter of fact. With the same tone as if to say: people need oxygen to live.
Given the chance, Sophia Rossi could make Rossi’s better than it has ever been before.
Simply that.
Just that.
Joy bloomed from her chest, spreading like warm honey through every cell, stretching her mouth into a wide smile.
He came to stand before her, and for once, Sophia couldn’t step back. It seemed as if he had thoroughly bypassed all her defense mechanisms. “Sophia?”
“Hmmm?”
“You have a blank look in your eyes, and I’m not sure you’ve breathed in the last ten seconds. Also...you’re smiling at me like I’m your favorite person in the world. Dio, you’re not dying, are you?” He tilted her chin up, raked her face over with that searing gaze. “Now that I think about it, you look like you’ve lost weight and there are dark shadows under your eyes.”
Her hands drifted to her hips and his gaze followed it eagerly. She pulled them up as if burned. The scent of him stroked over her senses. Just a little dip at her waist and her breasts would graze his chest. Her legs would tangle with his. And then she could—
“This is not some pathetic, last-minute attempt to have some good sex before you die, is it?” Something glittered in his gaze as he gently ran a finger over her cheek. “Because, cara mia, we don’t have to marry for that. All you have to do is ask and I will gladly show you how fun it is on this side.”
When was the last time she’d had fun? “I’m not dying.”
“As much as that would solve a lot of problems for me, that is good to know. Now, I will give you three months of marriage.”
Sophia couldn’t believe he was agreeing to a proposal she’d made in sheer desperation. He seemed to decide as easily as he’d decide which party to go to. Or which woman to take home on a given night. Worse, she couldn’t believe the way every cell in her leaped at the chance to be near him. Three months as his wife... Lord, it was both her salvation and utter ruin. “Why are you helping?”
“One, I want to throw a small hitch in my brother-in-law’s plans. Two, I hate working, as you neatly pointed out.”
Her heart sank to the floor. “You’re doing this to drive a wedge between Kairos and me? I told you I’m not sleeping with him.”
“A little distance wouldn’t hurt, then. Especially if it is provided by me. Leandro has washed his hands of me. I’ll have to claim my seat on the board. And like you said, who better than my own wife to watch out for my interests and work in my stead? We both get what we want.”
“What is it that you’re promising exactly?”
“You can’t turn Rossi’s around in three months but it’s a start in digging it out of that hole, si?” He tucked an errant curl behind her cheek, a wicked smile on his mouth. “I want to give you what you want, Sophia. And a couple of things you are too stubborn to ask for.”
Her cheeks heated up. If it beat any faster, her heart was going to burst out of her chest. Her gaze lowered to his mouth, cinders lighting up her blood. Don’t. Ask. Don’t—“Your arrogance in yourself is breathtaking.”
“Arrogance, bella mia? I state fact. You know where you’re going to end up.”
Memories and sensations rushed through her—rough breaths, the slide of hot, damp skin like velvet over hers, pain giving way to incredible pleasure...every other sense amplified in the darkness that she’d insisted on...
Heat poured through her, like lava spewing out. Her skin felt tight, parched, her pulse ringing through her. “No... I don’t want to sleep with you ever again.”
“Who mentioned anything about sleep? Just don’t fall in love with me,” he added with a grin.
“I’m not a naive idiot anymore,” Sophia replied, confident that she’d avoid that trap.
Luca was irresistible but she was walking into this with her eyes wide open.
Love wasn’t for her; he’d helped her see that firsthand. She’d hated the loss of control over her own happiness, over her mood, over her sense of self-worth. In a moment Luca had stripped her of everything.
She despised the hollow feeling it had left in her gut. The haunting ache that she lacked something. She never wanted to be that vulnerable ever again.
He reached the door, turned the