‘I’M FLATTERED,’ MARCO said drily. ‘Have you fallen in love with me? Is that why you are so eager to be my wife?’
‘Of course I’m not in love with you.’ Leah had been aiming for the same mocking tone Marco had used but her voice emerged annoyingly husky.
His brows rose. ‘Then I assume your urgency to get me to the altar is so that you can claim your inheritance?’
She stared at him. ‘Does the whole world know about my inheritance?’
‘When you left my room last night you set off a movement sensor linked to the burglar alarm system. I followed you so that I could reset the sensor and I overheard you talking to James.’
‘So you are aware of the stipulation in my grandmother’s will that I must be married before I can access the money she bequeathed to me?’
Leah couldn’t believe what she had done. She must have lost her mind to demand that Marco marry her in return for her helping his little boy. But she was desperate to keep her mum out of prison.
He had offered to pay her well if she went to Capri to work as Nicky’s teacher, and she had briefly considered accepting the job and asking him for an advance on her salary. But she needed thirty thousand pounds immediately, so that Tori could return the money she had stolen.
It was unlikely Marco would be sympathetic if she revealed that her mother was a thief and had a drink problem. Leah remembered the shame she had felt as a teenager, when a teacher at school had asked if her mum was an alcoholic and gently suggested involving social services. Out of loyalty she had refused to betray Tori, and she would not do so to Marco now.
She forced herself to meet his enigmatic gaze. He was her only hope of claiming her inheritance. She did not have prospective husbands queuing outside her front door, she thought wryly. Besides, she had become fond of his son. She felt sorry for Nicky and wanted to help him.
‘What I am suggesting is a temporary marriage while I work with Nicky to try and build his confidence.’
Her heart missed a beat as Marco strode towards her. He dominated the small bedroom, but it was not just his size and impressive physique that made Leah feel that the walls were closing in around her.
His charcoal-grey suit was undoubtedly bespoke. The elegant jacket was undone to reveal a navy blue silk shirt stretched across his broad chest. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and the top few buttons of his shirt were open so that she could see a vee of olive-tanned skin and a sprinkling of black chest hair.
He halted in front of her—too close for her peace of mind. The exotic scent of his aftershave sent a coil of heat through her and she despaired of herself when she felt her nipples tingle. She crossed her arms tighter over her chest, to hide the betraying signs of her awareness of him.
‘You admit the reason you want to marry me is money?’
He spoke in a lazy drawl, but his eyes were coldly contemptuous and Leah realised that he was furious.
‘My money, not yours,’ she said quickly. ‘I know you are wealthy but I’m not a gold-digger. And it wouldn’t be a real marriage.’
‘In what way would it not be real?’
‘Well, we wouldn’t...sleep together.’ Her voice faltered when his dark brows drew together.
‘Perhaps you would like me to be neutered?’
There was no humour in his wolf-like smile. And his low, dark laugh sent a quiver through Leah. She realised then how much danger she was in. Not from Marco, but from her body’s instinctive response to his potency.
‘What makes you think I would agree to a sterile marriage with a virgin bride?’
She bit her lip. ‘I’ve explained that it wouldn’t be a proper marriage and I realise you will want to take a mistress.’ Leah could not understand why she so disliked the idea of him sleeping with another woman.
‘How very understanding of you, cara.’
The bite in his voice made her flinch.
‘But if I decide to accept your proposition it will be on my terms, not yours, and I will have certain expectations. Number one being that you will share my bed.’
Leah hated the way her body responded to Marco’s silky voice, but she could not control the spike of heat that centred deep in her pelvis as shockingly erotic images filled her mind of his naked limbs entwined with hers.
She swallowed. ‘Are you saying you would force me to have sex with you?’
His jaw hardened, and there was no mistaking the furious glitter in his eyes. ‘I have never forced a woman to do anything against her will. I find the idea abhorrent and frankly I’m insulted by your suggestion. I know you want me, bella. You proved it when you came to my room last night and crawled all over me.’
‘You know I made a mistake when I came to your room,’ she said hotly.
‘I know you are a liar—to yourself as well as to me.’
He drew back his cuff and glanced at his watch. Leah couldn’t help noticing the black hair on his wrist, that curled around the gold watchstrap. She imagined those darkly tanned hands touching her body, those long fingers dipping between her thighs and moving higher, seeking her feminine warmth...
‘I gather from your silence that marriage to me has lost its appeal now you know what it will entail?’ Marco said drily. His eyes narrowed on her flushed face before he swung round and walked back across the room. ‘The train to London leaves in fifteen minutes. I’ll give you a lift to the station.’
‘What about Nicky?’ Leah said sharply. ‘I’m sure I can help him.’
Her heart softened when she thought of the little boy who reminded her so much of Sammy. Thankfully Nicky did not suffer from a rare degenerative disease, as her brother had, but there was a vulnerability about Marco’s motherless son that tugged on Leah’s emotions. All children needed a mother’s love.
She sighed when she thought of her own mother. Tori hadn’t been a conventional parent, but Leah had never doubted that her mum loved her.
Marco shrugged. ‘I’ll find another teacher for him.’
He had reached the door and started to open it.
‘Wait.’ She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, drowning out the voice of caution. ‘I’ll be a proper wife to you.’
He turned around slowly and pinned her with his searing gaze. Leah did not understand the reason for the simmering fury in his eyes.
‘Clarify that statement,’ he bit out.
Common sense told her that she should retract her damning words before the hole she was digging for herself got even deeper. But something stronger than reason and the sensible rules she had lived by all her life compelled her to lift her chin and meet his gaze.
‘I’ll have sex with you...if I have to.’
Marco closed the door and leaned back against it, crossing his arms over his formidable chest. ‘How enticing,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You make it sound as if you will be doing me a favour, but the reverse is true. Initiating a virgin is tedious, or so I’ve heard. Especially if that virgin is metaphorically clutching at her pearls and feigning distaste of carnal pleasures.’
‘Why, you arrogant...’ Words failed Leah.
Humiliation scorched her cheeks. So Marco thought that having sex with her would be tedious? Never had she wished more fervently that she was as sexually confident and experienced as most of her friends. She was sorely tempted to tell him to go to hell. But if he walked away now she would never see him again.
It was that thought above any other that made her lift her chin and meet his hard stare. ‘What do you want from me?’ She felt near to tears and painfully out of her depth, but she refused to show any sign of weakness in front of him.
‘Not to be a sacrificial lamb, that’s for sure,’ he drawled. ‘You will have to try harder to persuade me that it would be a good idea to marry you.’
So he hadn’t ruled out marriage. Hope flickered inside her. ‘How?’ she asked.
‘I suggest you think of something fast. I’m growing bored.’
Once again Leah sensed that he was angry, although she still did not understand why. When he had kissed her last night, before he’d left her at the pub, she had felt sure he desired her. And now she had agreed to make their marriage real. But maybe he needed to be convinced that she would keep her word and sleep with him.
The reality of what she had done caused her nerve to falter. Was she really prepared to lose her virginity to a man who held all the aces up his sleeve?
Then Leah thought of her mum crying on the phone and knew that she had no choice. If Tori was charged with theft from her employer there was every chance she would be given a custodial sentence. She was already emotionally fragile, and prison would destroy her.
‘Goddamn you...’
Anger surged as hot as molten lava through Leah’s veins. She’d always prided herself on being calm and level-headed, but she was furious at the situation she was in. She would rather walk over hot coals than marry Marco. He was everything she disliked in a man—arrogant and cocksure, certain that he was irresistible to women. She seethed at the memory of how he had called her uninteresting. It would give her great pleasure to make him eat his words.
Casting aside caution, she gripped the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled it over her head. ‘There. Does that persuade you?’
‘Not particularly.’
His facial muscles did not even move when he lowered his gaze to her plain white bra. To her chagrin, he yawned.
Leah had to admit that her underwear was functional, rather than decorative. But Marco’s lack of even a flicker of excitement acted like a red rag to a bull, goading her to elicit a response from him.
Reaching behind her back, she unclipped her bra and tugged the straps down her arms. The bra slipped to the floor leaving her breasts bare. Her skin felt cool after the warmth of her sweatshirt. It was for that reason that her nipples had hardened, she told herself.
The old, sensible Leah was appalled by what she had done, but this new, fiery Leah, who she did not recognise as herself, rested her hands on her hips and tilted her chin belligerently.
Marco did not look bored now.
Leah’s heart clattered against her ribcage as he stared at her naked breasts with an intentness in his gaze that sent a shiver over her skin.
‘Sei squisito.’
His voice was deeper than Leah had ever heard it. Something moved within her—heat and flame and an ache that was so strong it hurt. She knew that squisito meant exquisite, and the hungry gleam in his eyes evoked a fierce need inside her.
‘Untie your hair,’ he growled.
His husky demand rolled through her and, although the sensible Leah despaired at her inability to disobey him, she quickly unravelled her long plait and tugged her fingers through her curls. The feel of her silky hair on her naked shoulders was deliciously sensuous. She was aware of her feminine strength and her weakness for him—only for him.
Her pulse accelerated when Marco covered the space between them in two strides. ‘Are you satisfied now?’ she asked him sweetly, with a bravado she hadn’t known she possessed.
‘If you think I will be satisfied by an incomplete striptease you have a lot to learn, cara.’
To her surprise, he bent down and picked up her bra and sweatshirt from the floor.
‘Get dressed,’ he said curtly. ‘Dio, you must want your inheritance very badly if you are willing to give away your virginity so inconsequentially. Do you want to tell me why you need the money?’
Leah shook her head. Something in Marco’s rough tone made tears prick her eyes, and for a second she was tempted to confide in him. But why should she trust him? If she told him about the money her mum had taken he might decide that he did not want the daughter of a thief to teach his son—and he might refuse to marry her.
‘You can relax,’ he said drily, perhaps guessing that she was so tense she might snap. ‘For now, all I want from you is your professional expertise and your commitment to help my son. I assume you have your passport with you?’
When she nodded, he continued.
‘I had planned to take Nicky to New York in a couple of weeks, to visit my cousin and her children, but I’ll bring the trip forward and we’ll fly to America immediately. We can marry twenty-four hours after obtaining a marriage licence there. My lawyer will draw up a pre-nuptial agreement, which you will sign, stating that you will not be entitled to receive any financial provision from me when we divorce.’
Elation swept through Leah. He was handing her a lifeline which would save her mum from prison. But could she really marry a man who was almost a stranger and who aroused feelings in her that she did not understand?
‘I’ve told you that I don’t want your money,’ she said huskily. ‘Once I have a marriage certificate I will be able to claim my inheritance.’
Marco gave her a cynical look. ‘The contract will also set out all the additional terms of our marriage—specifically that you will live in Capri for a year and work to the best of your ability to help my son overcome his trauma.’
‘A year?’ Leah could not hide her dismay. ‘I was thinking of a couple of months... I really do want to help Nicky,’ she said quickly, when Marco frowned, ‘but I can’t put my life on hold for a year.’
He captured her chin in his lean fingers and brought her gaze up to meet his. ‘Nicky has formed an attachment to you and he needs stability. My son’s welfare and happiness are all I care about. Not the games we play and not you. I strongly advise you never to forget those facts.’
Leah held his gaze before shifting away from him and touching her jaw where Marco’s fingers had been. Marco looked so grim and forbidding that her heart sank.
‘My God, I’ve made a deal with the devil,’ she whispered as the enormity of what she had done sank in.
His eyes gleamed as cold and hard as polished steel. ‘I told you what I am, Beauty. You should have heeded my warning. It’s too late to back out now.’
He must be out of his mind! Marco tightened his hands on the steering wheel as he drove away from the pub. He could not believe that Leah had demanded he marry her before she would help Nicky—and that he had agreed! He was incensed that she had in essence blackmailed him and then told him that she did not want a real marriage.
But he had called her bluff when he’d insisted that he would want her to be his wife in every sense. He’d expected her to back down from her marriage demand then. And when she’d primly agreed to sleep with him, making her reluctance obvious, and even worse suggested that he might force her to have sex, his temper had skyrocketed.
He’d wanted to teach her a lesson, but what had happened next had tested his self-control to the limit.
Marco swore as he remembered how Leah had taken off her bra to reveal pale breasts tipped with rosy nipples. She was beautiful, and he had been fiercely tempted to kiss the sweet curves of her body before tumbling her down onto the bed.
But he had reminded himself that she was out of bounds. He hoped only that Leah would bring Nicky out of his shell and help him come to terms with the loss of his mother.
Marco frowned as he thought of Karin. When the car she had been driving had crashed and burst into flames he’d had to choose between pulling his son or his ex-wife out of the wreckage first. Nicky had been his priority and Karin had died.
He could not give Nicky back his mother, but he had promised the little boy that Leah would come to Capri with them. And if accepting her marriage deal was the only way he could make his son happy he would go through with it, Marco vowed grimly.
In Central Park, two days later, Marco stood a little away from Leah and watched her rub sun lotion onto Nicky’s arms. New York was in the grip of a heatwave, and the bright sunshine had encouraged the turtles in the park out of the water to bask on the rocks—much to the little boy’s evident delight. He hadn’t stopped smiling since they had arrived at the pond.
‘Look, Nicky, there’s another one.’ Leah pointed to the water. ‘Do you think your papà would like to see the turtles too?’ She looked over her shoulder and beckoned to Marco.
He stiffened when he saw Nicky’s smile disappear. The wary expression on the little boy’s face made his heart clench. It was clear that his son preferred to be with Leah—he had hardly left her side since they had boarded the plane for their flight to America.
At least she genuinely seemed to care about Nicky, and for that reason Marco had organised the necessary paperwork and booked a wedding officiant to marry them tomorrow.
His phone rang and he answered it when he saw his PA’s name on the screen. Thinking about work stopped him thinking about his failure as a father.
During his conversation he was aware of Leah glaring at him before she turned away and knelt beside Nicky. Minutes later Marco finished the call. He wished he could just stroll over to the pond and crouch down beside his son, so they could watch the turtles together. It would be the most natural thing for a father to do. But he did not know how to connect with Nicky. He envied Leah’s natural affinity with the child—the way she ruffled his hair and slipped her arm around his shoulders to gently draw him away from the water’s edge.
It was obvious that she was good with children—which must be important in her job as a special needs teacher. But Marco was curious. He had sensed a sadness in her sometimes when she was with Nicky. Perhaps she had hoped to have children of her own when she’d planned to marry James. He frowned as he remembered his half-brother’s accusation that Leah had only wanted to marry him so that she could claim her inheritance.
Clearly the money was important to her. Why else would she have issued her outrageous marriage demand to him? Marco brooded. But he had spent a good deal of time with her since they had arrived in New York and she did not strike him as someone who was obsessed with money or impressed by it.
Her motives were of no interest to him, he reminded himself. All he cared about was the connection she had formed with his son.
Against his will, his gaze was drawn again to Leah. Her outfit today was a shapeless dress in an unbecoming beige colour. The previous day she’d worn a navy blue skirt with a hemline way below her knees and, as always, had had her hair scraped back from her face and tied in a schoolgirlish braid.
But her unexciting clothes did not disguise her natural beauty. She would look stunning in a dress that made the most of her gorgeous figure, and breathtaking without any clothes on at all.
Marco expelled a ragged breath. Usually when he was interested in a woman he slept with her, and then his fascination tended to fade quickly. Perhaps the fact that Leah was off-limits served to increase his interest. He’d never had to deny himself before, he acknowledged wryly. Money and power were aphrodisiacs to many women and the truth was that he’d become jaded.
Leah looked over at him again. ‘Nicky would like to go in a rowboat. Is there somewhere to hire one?’
Marco pointed to a building across the park and the three of them walked along the path to a restaurant which offered boats for hire. Leah put a lifejacket on Nicky, and helped him into the boat, but she shook her head when Marco climbed in and held out his hand to help her aboard.
‘I’ll stay here and keep in the shade, under the trees. I forgot to bring a hat, and I feel as though I’ve had too much sun,’ she said.
It was true that her nose and cheeks were pink. Marco guessed that Leah’s fair skin would burn easily, but he couldn’t help thinking that she had made the excuse so that he would be able to take Nicky in the boat without her.
He looked at his son. ‘Okay, are you ready?’
He half expected that Nicky would refuse to go without Leah, but after hesitating for a moment he nodded.
As Marco rowed across the lake he looked around at the other families who were having fun on the water and felt an ache in his heart. Nicky had never had the support of both his parents because Karin had disappeared with him when he was only a few months old. Now his mother was dead.
An inquest had confirmed that Karin had died from the impact of the crash, before the car had caught fire. There was nothing he could have done to save her, Marco knew.
He studied Nicky’s grave little face and sighed. If Leah had come in the boat Nicky would be enjoying himself. Marco was annoyed that she had forced him into a situation where he was alone with his son. He had no problem chairing a meeting of the company’s directors, or negotiating a deal in a boardroom, but he was struggling to think of something to say to a five-year-old.
‘Look, Nicky, there’s a heron.’ He pointed to the tall grey bird standing on the bank. The bird spread its wings and took off, soaring gracefully into the sky.
‘Herons are big,’ Nicky said in his soft voice. There was a rapt expression on his face as he watched the bird fly to the opposite side of the lake. ‘How can they fly, Papà?’
Marco searched his mind for facts about the heron’s biology. ‘Well, you can see that they have very wide wings, and they use the strong muscles in their bodies to flap those wings. And their long beaks allow them to catch fish to eat.’
‘There’s another heron!’ Nicky pointed to a white bird in the reeds.
‘I think that one is an egret.’
‘You know lots of things, Papà.’
Nicky fixed his big brown eyes on Marco and for once he did not look wary.
‘We could buy a book and learn some more about herons and other birds if you like.’
His heart contracted when his son gave a tentative smile. It was the most response he’d ever had from the little boy, and it gave him hope that he would be able to start rebuilding a relationship with Nicky, with Leah’s help.
But he still resented her marriage demand, and he resented even more the inconvenient desire she aroused in him. Marco was determined not to forget that marrying Leah was a business deal.