IT SEEMED TO Dante that the universe or some karmic superpower was conspiring against him.
What he’d done with Ali, to Ali, in her bedroom, of all places… The memory of her flushed face, the image of her lush breasts in his hand, the sensation of those brown tips so hard on his tongue, the wildness of her body as she rocked into him and found her pleasure… Dios mio, it haunted him in the fortnight he’d spent in Tokyo on business.
Even in his dreams, Ali was there, taunting him, teasing him, the trusting smile on her lips, the raw desire in those eyes just as arousing as the invitation of her naked limbs.
Until he’d driven her to his flat that night, and bid her good-night at her bedroom door, he’d been terrified that she would refuse him. That he had crossed a line he never should have, that she wouldn’t forgive him for his seesawing behavior.
No trip had ever felt so long. Because he’d never had anything to come home to before.
When he’d returned late at midnight, she’d already been in her bedroom. Somehow, he’d buried the urge to knock, to check that she was really in there. Even though his security team had assured him that she was.
This morning, he had another important meeting with the shareholders. He canceled it.
There was a ruckus involving the Japanese firm and some miscommunication about production schedule and delivery dates between his team and their team. A ten-billion-dollar contract and thousands of new jobs hinged on the deal he had negotiated.
Instead of the usual urgency to smooth out the knots, all he felt was a strange tiredness for his job. Cristo, he’d been working nonstop for almost twenty years and this morning he wanted to damn it all to hell.
It had taken Izzy a few tries—at the end of which she’d remarked on his distracted mood—to tell him that all of his management team was sitting on tenterhooks, waiting for his wrath for such a major communications blunder. They were right, he didn’t tolerate sloppiness or inefficiency in himself, or his teams. They went through rigorous training and usually his employee base, especially the upper management team, were people who’d been with him for years. And if a mistake of this proportion had been made, the person responsible would have informed him of it immediately and taken corrective steps.
In the end, Dante had figured it out.
It was all Nitin’s doing. His petty little revenge was causing havoc. He had been attending meetings he hadn’t been invited to behind Dante’s back, promising to take the lead on communications and then dropping the ball, leaving some unsuspecting newcomer to take the fire all the while their Japanese client waited for an important communication. It was exactly the kind of games that had made Neel distrust his brother wholly, that had made him try to keep Nitin’s corporate decision-making ability severely limited.
That Dante had unequivocally taken a controlling stake in Matta Steel after acquiring Ali’s voting shares was a bitter pill for Nitin to swallow.
It had taken Dante longer than it would normally have taken him to figure it out, and to come up with a strategy for how to react appropriately. That morning he’d skipped his usual run, poured himself coffee—coffee he’d automatically made to Ali’s liking—and sat at the breakfast bar waiting for her to show up.
Izzy’s shock had been palpable on the video call when he’d informed her he intended to work from home that day. Especially with the situation being what it was at work.
But for the first time in his life, he couldn’t focus on work. He couldn’t think of anything other than facing Ali this morning. Of how to make her stay. He didn’t want her at the big, empty mansion with all the sad memories dragging her down. He wouldn’t have a moment’s rest thinking of her there alone. The loneliness in her eyes—it was the same thing he’d spied in his own eyes before he’d come to live with Neel. But where he had channeled all the powerlessness and the rage he’d felt back then into ambition, into freezing his emotions, Ali was the opposite.
She lived bravely. Everywhere she went, she spread her love and generosity around.
The protectiveness he felt toward her was so new and so intense that he felt a restless urgency in his veins. The idea of her leaving this flat, of leaving London while he’d been gone had consumed him.
The sound of her bedroom door opening jerked his head up. Instead of the shorts and sleeveless T-shirts he’d come to expect from her, she was dressed formally in a fitted dress shirt that hugged her high breasts, a lovely contrast against her brown skin, and black trousers that showcased her long legs. Pink stilettos added a pop of color—that signature Alisha layer to her serious outfit. Her hair fell like a silky curtain to the middle of her back, light gold tints in it catching the weak sun filtering through the high bay window.
Those strands had felt like pure raw silk in his hands that night and he had to fist his hands to fight that urge now.
He watched silently as she placed her jacket and a portfolio bag on the sofa in the living room. There wasn’t even a token protest in his mind that he was obsessed with her. Then she checked her cell phone and slid it back into her bag.
She pulled out her left hand and stared at her fingers. She fiddled with the two rings, the princess-cut diamond glittering at him even across the distance. Every muscle in his body knotted as he forced himself to stay quiet.
She pressed a hand to her nape, giving him the lovely lines of her profile. With a soft sigh, she took both the rings off her finger, stared at them a little longer and then slipped them into her handbag.
A roar of denial built through him. He wanted to demand she put those rings back on, he wanted to sink his fingers into her hair and hold her for his kiss, he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and claim his right over her mind, body and soul…
The force of those urges left him stunned.
In just a matter of seconds, he saw his whole life—the life he’d methodically created for himself, the future he’d always envisioned—fall apart like a stack of cards.
He wanted Alisha with a depth of desire he couldn’t understand.
He wanted his rings on her finger.
He was already obsessed with the way she leveled those beautiful eyes at him—sometimes in fury, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with such naked, honest desire that it felled him at the knees.
He didn’t want her running away again from the charity, from London.
He didn’t want her alone in some corner of the world.
He didn’t want her running away from him.
And the only way he could have her, was if she was truly his wife.
* * *
Ali walked into the kitchen and stilled at the sight of Dante sitting at the gleaming quartz breakfast bar. Usually he left for work at the alarmingly inhumane hour of six thirty having finished his run, his breakfast and his shower.
She devoured him openly, like soil deprived of water, unable to tear her gaze away since he’d been gone for a fortnight. Dark shadows hung under his slate-gray eyes. He’d obviously showered because his hair gleamed with raven-black wetness but strangely, he hadn’t shaved yet. She knew he shaved twice a day and judging by the thick bristle covering his jaw, he’d missed more than once.
His lovely mouth was hidden and yet Ali liked him like this. He looked gruff and approachable and sexy. She could go on a discovery path, trailing her mouth over that bristle looking for the mouth that kissed so well. That tasted like heaven and heat.
His pale gray shirt was untucked and a couple of buttons were undone. When he stood up, she saw that he was wearing dark jeans and the denim molded enticingly to his hard thighs. Her mouth dried, and every promise she’d made to herself that she wouldn’t moon over him like a lovesick teenager died an instant death.
“Buongiorno, Alisha.”
Deep and husky, the sound of his voice was so good to hear. She’d desperately missed it and him. But seeing him when she couldn’t touch him was just as bad an ache.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a close shave,” she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper. “Although the lumbersexual look works too.”
Only when his brows raised and his eyes came alive with a fiery glint did she realize what she said. Heat filled her cheeks. “You surprised me. Izzy said you wouldn’t be back until Sunday.”
“I cut the trip short. I tried not to wake you last night.”
“I heard you though, so—”
“So it’s not really a surprise to see me this morning then, is it?” He had her there. “You look tired. Lovely but tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well. Been working a lot. How was Tokyo?”
“Same old stuff. Lots of meetings from dawn to dusk, then dinner, then more work. And few hours later, this morning, the same old fires again.”
She’d never heard him sound so…dismissive of work before. Never seen him looking anything but perfectly put together in his Armani three-piece suits. Almost as if the power was a cloak he wore to hide the complex man beneath.
She frowned, even as she greedily swept her gaze over the way the tight denim clung to his thighs. She knew the power in those thighs, remembered how they’d clenched rock hard when she dug her nails in. “You’re wearing jeans. And you didn’t shave. It’s nine thirty and you’re still here. Your laptop is not even open.” She rattled off one thing after the other, trying to arrest the pure longing coursing through her. “I know because I checked the time before I came out. I’ve been awake since five thirty and I took extra long in the shower because I know you don’t leave until six thirty and I made sure that…”
“Made sure that you didn’t come out until I left?”
His gaze held hers and all the air left her lungs. She licked her lips and a fierce fire awakened in his eyes. The memory of what had happened between them that night charged the air. Her breasts ached for his hands, and wetness pooled between her thighs.
“Yes. I have a big day.”
His elegantly long fingers stilled in the process of pouring coffee from the French press in his hands. The slosh of the liquid made him look down. He shook his fingers and pushed them under the tap. Ali didn’t move even as she wanted to go to him. She would beg again, and she’d promised herself she wouldn’t.
“There’s burn cream under the sink,” she offered.
He turned the tap off and looked sideways at her, his mouth twitching. “Are you not going to move from that spot?”
“I have to leave.”
“Without your coffee first?” The teasing tone of his words, the way he was looking at her, Ali was terrified and ready to run. This was pure torment on so many levels.
“Where are you off to?”
She checked the platinum wristwatch—her mother’s old watch that he’d found in her father’s things and had had fixed for her. So many small things he had done for her. The camera, the studio, this watch…and yet he denied her with his words. “I’m meeting with that agent this afternoon.”
He smiled and it lit up the entire room. “Good. That’s good. Give me fifteen minutes to deal with something and I’ll drive you.”
Alarm bells went off in her head. And her body. The last thing she needed was continued exposure to him. He was her kryptonite, he always would be. And wasn’t that just pathetic?
“Why?”
“For moral support.”
She glared at him. “Because you think my work is so bad that he’ll automatically reject me?”
He raised his hands, palms up in an “I surrender” gesture. “Are you always going to twist my words and fight me for the rest of our lives?”
The rest of their lives…it was like a punch to her midriff. There was no rest of their lives, not if she wanted to be sane. Once she saw this agent, she would know what to focus on next. Her career at least would always provide an escape from London. And from him.
“You think you’re not good enough—for your papa, for the charity, for the agent. For the world. Not me. You made that decision all by yourself.”
“That’s not true,” she offered as a token protest, the depth of his perception stealing her breath.
He was right. Despite her mama’s best efforts, she’d always wondered why her papa had given her up. Why Vikram had simply abandoned her.
Why her papa had never loved her like he did Vicky and Dante.
Why, why, why, why had she so easily assumed it was she that lacked something?
Not good enough for Dante either.
That was what she had thought that night at the mansion.
Why assume that Dante didn’t want to be with her because she was not good enough?
Was that why she was ready to run away again instead of standing and fighting for the most real relationship she’d ever had in her life?
The questions came at her like missiles while he simply watched.
“Why do you want to come with me?” she said, going on the defensive. It was her one remaining coping mechanism. “When just a few weeks ago, you called it my fun hobby?”
“Mia dispiace, Ali. I was wrong about you on a lot of levels. I’ve seen you slog in the darkroom for hours on end. And I’m assuming at least some of it wasn’t just to avoid me. Si?”
“Si. I’ve been working on this collection for a long time now and it’s finally coming together. I develop my own prints and it’s time-consuming.”
Tenderness she’d never thought him capable of shone in his face. “Will you forgive me for mocking your passion? For—?”
“For being an arrogant jackass for as long as I’ve known you?” she added with a smile of her own.
His chin hit his chest in a mockery of remorse, his palm went to his breastbone and he glanced up at her through those long lashes that should have made him look feminine and instead made him stunningly gorgeous. She laughed out loud.
Who knew the man could be just as dramatic as her?
“Si, I forgive you. I… We were both wrong on many things. I didn’t realize how many things we even have in common.”
Like their ambition to prove themselves to the world, their loyalty and their love for her father and…
“Yeah? Like what?”
She blinked at the sudden intensity of his question. “Like our love of cheese. I mean, come on, that’s a solid basis for a lifelong relationship.” Her words drifted away onto a whisper as she realized what she was saying.
He didn’t want a relationship with her.
Only her voting shares—no one could blame Dante for mind games at least. “It’s not necessary. I’ve been doing things alone for a long time.”
“I don’t want that to be the case anymore. I want to come with you because I remember how nervous I was the first time Neel asked me to handle a client all on my own. I was—” he scrunched his brow and she wanted to kiss the line he got between his eyebrows when he did that “—twenty-three, twenty-four…and I was so determined to make a good impression that I almost sent out contracts with the wrong dates on them. I’d like to be there for you, Alisha.”
“Because you owe it to Papa?” She folded her hands, hurt splintering through her. “This sympathy thing is getting old fast.”
She got out nothing else for he covered the distance between them. The scent of him had her swaying toward him. She wanted to bury her face in his neck, she wanted to breathe him in until he was the only one in her world. “No. I’m not doing this for Neel. Or for the company. Or anyone or anything. I want to do it for you.”
“Don’t you have to work?” she said, his words weaving magic into her soul.
“I thought I’d take the day off. After your meeting, we can go out for lunch.”
“Lunch? Dante, I told you, I don’t want to—”
He bent and kissed her cheek and every molecule in Ali’s body stilled. The contact was soft, tender, his beard a rough rasp in contrast. Her knees shook beneath her and she had no choice but to anchor her hands over his shoulders.
She felt the tremble that went through him as he wrapped his fingers around the nape of her neck. “I promise you, bella mia. Tonight we’ll talk and if you still want to leave the flat, we’ll discuss our options. But you can’t just leave London.” The emotion in his eyes was a hot burn against her skin, stealing away her protest. “I would never hurt you, Ali, you know that, si?”
Ali hid her face in his chest and nodded. Even knowing that, it wasn’t in his hands. For all his good intentions, he would hurt her. Because he was becoming more and more important to her, no, essential to her and she had no way to stop that.
She was just about to pull away from him when the front door to the penthouse opened. They turned like that together, surprised, since security hadn’t even called to announce the arrival of any visitors.
An older woman and a younger woman—the former clearly Dante’s mother from the strong resemblance between them—walked in. The security guard placed a collection of designer luggage discreetly behind them and left with a nod at Dante.
Both women stared at the way she was half leaning into Dante, her body pressed into his side with his fingers around the nape of her neck. As if walking in on a married couple in an intimate embrace was a shocking sight.
For all they knew, she and Dante could have been having sex on the living room sofa or at the breakfast bar, or standing up against the back wall, or…
Coloring at how quickly her thoughts had gone in that direction, Ali tried to move away from Dante but his arm held her rigidly, his fingers digging into her hips. He relented a little when she gasped, but his arm stayed around her waist, pressing their sides together. He seemed oblivious to her discomfort as he stared at the woman standing behind his mother.
“Buongiorno, Dante,” the striking beauty said, tilting her chin up in a silent challenge. A torrent of rapid-fire Italian fell from her mouth.
There was a thread of something, a possessiveness, an intimacy, that brought Ali’s spine straight. She glanced between the woman who had to be Dante’s age and Dante, who still looked at her as if he was seeing a ghost.
The woman had exquisite features, was dressed in the height of haute couture in a beige-colored pantsuit that clung to her voluptuous curves and looked as if she had just walked off the pages of a fashion magazine instead of a long flight.
A surge of something unpleasant rose in Ali’s chest. Without thought, she covered Dante’s fingers with her own. To pull him back to the present, she told herself.
The words rang hollow, even inside her own head. Good Lord, the last thing she was going to do was fight over him when he’d been clear about what he didn’t want from her.
And it didn’t look like he was even going to introduce her to his guests. Neither of the women so much as looked in her direction.
She went on her toes and said, “I’m going to leave while you…deal with them. Enjoy your day off.” And since her mama had taught her manners, she smiled at the two women. “I’ll see you later.”
His fingers fanned around over her hip as he pulled her even closer. The press of his chest against hers made her breathless. “I told you I’d drive you to the meeting.” He bent and rubbed his nose against hers. “Don’t run away, Alisha.”
Her heart beat double time, a whisper of hope and joy threading through her.
The other woman spoke again, in Italian, something to the effect of she’d been looking forward to seeing Dante or spending time with Dante. Ali frowned. “Are you doing this for…her sake?”
He scowled. “What?”
“Did you take the day off for them?”
“I had no idea my mother was on a flight to London.” When that melodious voice piped up again, he cut her short with one look. “Ali doesn’t understand Italian. Please speak in English, Francesca.”
Francesca’s smile dimmed at the edges as she nodded at Ali, as if she were the bloody queen of England granting a peasant a great honor. “Hello, Alisha.”
“Hi, Francesca.”
“Aren’t you going to welcome us, Dante?” Sylvia Ferramo asked.
Ali knew very little about his mother, even for all the sensational coverage of his father’s crime all those years ago. Sylvia looked no older than forty-five at the most. There was a delicacy to her expression, a fragility to the bones of her face as if she would break at the lightest whiff of air.
Finally, Dante addressed his mother. “Since you decided to take the trip without informing me, Mama,” he stressed and the woman colored, and the tight grip on Ali’s heart released, “I’m sure you do not require me to invite you in. You can breakfast with us and shower if you’d like. I’ll ask my assistant to book you a suite at Four Seasons.”
“No,” Sylvia said, walking in and reaching for his hands. “I’m seeing my son after a long time, si?” One arm still around Ali’s waist, Dante bent only after she tugged at him so that she could kiss his cheeks. He offered no embrace and even worse, he radiated a brooding tension that clearly discouraged her from coming closer. “Francesca and I will not mind sharing a room here. Our visit is short and I, especially, want to see more of you than I would at some luxury hotel.”
He still said nothing. Ali had never seen him so shocked, or so intentionally rude. Hoping to cover up the protracted silence, she offered her hand to Sylvia. “Hello, Mrs. Ferramo. Please, stay for as long as you like. I’m gone for most of the day anyway and in fact, if it gets too tight here, I can just bunk out on the sofa in my studio on the forty-eighth floor.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dante commanded, just as Sylvia shook her hand.
Though there was no warmth in her eyes, her smile was polite and open. She examined Ali as if she were a foreign insect. As if she could weigh just from one look whether Ali was good enough for her son. “I was quite surprised to read about your wedding in the news. I have no idea why my son chose to hide his bride from me. Or why it all happened so quickly.”
This time, there was no mistaking the implied innuendo in her words. “Mama, if you want to spend time with my wife and me, without being invited in the first place, then you will at least be civil. You’ll keep your numerous innuendos and suggestions and caustic remarks to yourself. Alisha is mine to protect and I will not tolerate the kind of poison you’re so good at spreading here, capisce?”
Mine to protect. Her heart crawled into her throat.
Her cheeks paling, Sylvia nodded.
“Now let me show you to your rooms.”
Feeling like a fourth wheel who didn’t understand the undercurrents, Ali picked up her handbag and portfolio from the sitting lounge. The coffee would be cold now anyway. She didn’t miss the longing, doe-eyed look Francesca cast Dante either. The woman had come with the express purpose of renewing a friendship, even knowing that Dante had a wife of barely a month.
Maybe because Dante had told her how it was between them?
She came out into the foyer and pressed the button to call the elevator. This was good. Francesca and his mother were exactly what she needed until she figured out her next step.
“Where are you going?” Dante said right behind her, and before she could respond, he took her portfolio from her. “I told you I’d take you to the meeting. And before you ask again, for God’s sake, I didn’t invite my mother, or Francesca.”
“So, is she the blast from your past?”
“What?”
Very much not the question she needed to ask. “Never mind. It’s not my business.”
Holding her gaze, he put her portfolio down with the utmost care and then advanced on her. Like a frightened rabbit, Ali stepped back until her bottom hit the back wall. Leaning forward, he caged her on all sides. He was all over her and yet he wasn’t touching her at all. “Ask me, Ali. Anything.”
She wanted to ask him why he was so cold toward his mother, or why he never mentioned her. Or why she’d not been a part of his life for all these years. Why a man who’d been so devoted to her father, who’d grieved Vikram and who cared about Ali, didn’t care about his own family.
Instead, she asked the question she knew would devour her for the rest of the day. “Who is she?”
“The girl I wanted to marry a long time ago. She broke it off and, with hindsight, I’m glad she did. And she’s firmly in the past.”
“So that…thing between me and you back there was petty revenge?”
“Nessuno.” The foyer rang with his denial. “I would never, never use you like that.”
“Then what was it?” She closed her eyes. Their relationship was like a minefield—so many unexploded and untouchable subjects. But one touch and the passion between them ignited. One step and their bodies would connect and it would be heaven and she was shaking for the effort it took to hold herself back. “Don’t play games with me, Dante. I’m not as strong as you think.”
“I think you’re the strongest, bravest, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” His breath caressed her cheek, sending sparks swooping down her skin. “Ali?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t you want to wait until tonight to know?”
She opened her eyes and as she saw her reflection in his gray eyes, Ali knew. It was too late for her. “Know what?”
With each word, he moved closer, until his nose was buried in her neck. Until she felt the tension swathing his powerful frame. Until he was everything, her entire world. “I want this…us to be real.” He lifted her left hand and stared at her bare finger. “I…want you never to take off your rings again. I want to take you to bed and stay there for a month. I want your loyalty and your fidelity. I want you to be my true wife.”
“And what do I get?” she whispered automatically, mesmerized by the intensity of his expression, unable to kill the hope fluttering in her chest.
To belong to Dante, to be his in every way…
He smiled then and it was a thing of wicked beauty. “I never intended to marry, you know. After the thing between Francesca and me. Never. But you… I don’t think I can go another day without making you mine. You will have everything I have to give. My fortune at your feet, my body and my fidelity. It’ll be my privilege to call you my wife, my privilege to take care of you, my privilege to give you all the pleasure you could ever want.”
Not love. Everything but love.
She knew him well and she knew that he hadn’t left the word out on purpose. For a man who’d never meant to marry, for a man who had a long-standing mistress in Matta Steel, of course, love wasn’t a priority.
Love wasn’t even in his thoughts.
He hadn’t said he wouldn’t love her either. God, was she clutching at straws?
He touched his forehead to hers and let out a long exhale. “Say yes, Alisha, and you’ll never be alone again. You’ll never want for anything.”
Before those words could sink in, before her world could tilt back to its right axis, he pulled away. His gorgeous eyes shimmered with desire, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets pulled at the front, calling her gaze to his arousal.
A soft sound fell from her mouth as desire hit her hard and fast. She fisted her hands, fighting the urge to trace the shape of him, the urge to beg him to take her here, in the foyer, while his mother was in the next room.
“No. Don’t take another step. Be my wife and I’m all yours.”
Ali cursed as even now he denied himself and her.
“This is the only way this is going to happen.” He ran his palm over his jaw, devouring her with his gaze, his shoulders tight. “In fact, I’m shocked at how long it took me to realize how perfect you and I will be. I’d like to think even Neel would have approved. I want you and I like you and I want to protect you. We know each other. The fire we have…is no common thing. Together, we can build a good marriage based on respect and a bond that will never break. Together, we’ll be his legacy.”
She spoke through panic, from the same desire running fierce in her veins. “If you say marrying me is paying his debt to you, I’ll never look at you again.”
“No, cara mia. It’s not a debt. But I’m a man with principles and as much as I want to be inside you right now, it won’t happen. You are not any woman. You’ll never be just any woman to me. Be my wife, Alisha, give me your vows truly. Promise me your commitment. There will be no cheap, dirty affair so that you can scratch an itch and run away when it suits you. Or when it gets hard. Or when it gets old.
“For once in your life, have the courage to stay.
“It has to be all the way between us, tesoro. All or nothing.”