The Surprise Conti Child (10 page)

“How do you know? Damn it, how does Antonio know?”

Luca shrugged. “Doesn't matter. What matters is that you've declared war on my brother by flirting with me. By buying those tickets.”

“He started it. I just armed myself.”

“No one's ever called me a weapon before.” He preened and pouted. “I'm not sure whether to be amused or insulted.”

His mock hurt expression sent her to giggles just as it did Izzie.

“Your laughter is music,
bella
, your spirit so pure,” he said a wistful note to it. The jet-black of his gaze warmed for an infinitesimal moment, showing a glimpse of desperation that caught Alex's breath. “Maybe you'll prefer me instead of Leandro?”

A stinging retort rose to her lips but Alex held it back. She didn't mistake that he was attracted to her.

No, what Luca liked was the idea of what she represented to Leandro.

Shock widened her eyes as she caught a facet of the playboy that no one probably ever saw. She smiled and kissed his cheek, immensely glad to call him a friend. “Now, I know why they call you the Conti Devil.”

He offered his arm and Alex linked hers around it. They started a slow walk around the exquisitely manicured lawn. Lush greenery dotted with Japanese trees and bouquets of bougainvillea. But through every step, and every breath, Alex was aware of the presence of Leandro behind her.

She couldn't help but notice Luca carefully kept them in view of the terrace.

“That I can make you laugh is going to drive him crazy the most.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, we used to compete to try to make Valentina laugh. But Leandro, you see, never had a chance to be a carefree child, to play pranks. It drove him nuts that I always won with Tina. She was this tiny, skinny thing and took ages to trust us, to get used to us. Although, it's him she goes to when she's upset, she comes to me for laughs.”

Alex frowned. “Used to you?”

Luca's carefree mouth tightened and it changed the entire vista of his face. “Valentina lived with our mother until she died. When we heard of her death, Leandro brought her to live with us. It was the first time we met each other. Until then, we did not know that we had a sister.”

“Leandro brought her here, not Antonio?”

“No. Antonio had his reservations about Tina. But from the moment we learned about her, Leandro wouldn't rest.”

Family means everything to me
, he'd said on the flight.

“How old was he?”

“Fifteen.”

With every word Luca uttered, Alex's panic mounted. It felt as though something was rushing at her at breakneck speed and she was stuck in its way. Just like the truck that had crashed into her sedan. Except this time, it was her heart that could get crushed into tiny little pieces.

One kiss...she'd shared one kiss with the man and somehow her heart had already taken a beating? How had she left herself so vulnerable to his manipulations? How did she extricate herself without harming Izzie?

“Only fifteen?” she mumbled, hoping Luca would keep talking. Even as she knew that he was manipulating her in his own way.

“
Si.
Even then Leandro was set in his ways. He argued with Antonio for days, relentless in his belief that Tina belonged with us, that she have a home with us.” His jet-black gaze held hers. He took Alex's hands in his and squeezed. The comfort he offered made her spine tingle with warning. “My brother will do anything to protect those he considers his, Alex. Whatever he has done or will do, he wants the best for Izzie. And you.”

“But I'm not his,” she whispered back. “He can't have me because he's decided it should be so.”

Suddenly, Alexis understood everything she hadn't seen until now. Chills broke out on her bare skin even as the sun warmed her.

Leandro had never intended to be a stranger to Izzie. Even before they had left, he'd known that. He had accompanied her to New York knowing that he was going to bring them back here.

He'd told her nothing, let her believe that it was a burden she'd brought on him. Let her wrangle around in her own confusion and fears.

The fury in his eyes when Justin had asked Izzie when she would return, the stony gaze when Alex had mentioned bringing another man into her and Izzie's life, everything made sense now.

Chest tight, throat raw, Alex wanted to hit something.

Fingers cold on her skin, Luca stroked her shoulders, as if to calm her. As if he understood how close to the surface her temper was. “Should I tell you what else I think he's saying to Antonio, Alex?”

Forehead resting on his shoulder, for Alex felt as weak with emotion as a leaf that could be swayed by the wind, she nodded.

“I'm sure he warned Antonio to never disrespect you again. That he will banish him from his life if he ever hears him say so.”

Tears knocked at her eyelids and Alex held them at bay with her last thread of will. “You've no idea what you're asking me to overlook just because he means well.”

Her insecurity with her parents.

Her weakness after the accident.

Her fear that she might fail Izzie too...as she'd failed at everything else.

Leandro had learned all her fears and insecurities, while she had thought him genuinely caring, and he'd taken each one and used it all against her.

He'd caged her with good intentions and her own need to do the right thing by everyone around her.

“I know what my brother could do in his drive to do his duty. Just give him a chance, Alex. See if he's worthy of you. Do not let pride stand in your way. If you find not, I'll personally help you in your fight against him.”

“And will there be a fight, Luca?”

“If you take Izzie and walk away from him? If you deprive Izzie of her own father because Leandro has his own way of doing things, because he's the most arrogant, domineering brute in the whole world?” Luca's laugh was harsh, filled with his own complaints against his brother. “Yes,
bella
.” He sounded full of regret at the very prospect. “It would be a sad day if two of the most deserving people I know start tearing into each other with a child in between.”

With Luca's dire-sounding prospect still ringing in her ears, Alex returned to her suite. Mind churning, she helped Izzie bathe and then picked at some fruit and olives and sipped her cold white wine. Restless to her very bones, she weaved a path through the lakefront sitting room that her suite afforded.

The vista stole her breath as it did every morning.

Luminous and blue with boats drifting lazily up and down, tiny villages glinting in the sunlight, it was a far cry from her life in Brooklyn.

But with Leandro manipulating and directing their relationship whichever way he wanted, using her own weakness against her, Alex knew the same vista, the same idyllic villa could become a gilded cage. Could choke her spirit even worse than her parents' blueprint for a perfect child had done all these years.

Finally, she called Emma.

Within minutes, she was spewing the whole sorry story into the handset, angry and outraged. And more than anything, she realized, hurt.

Had his desire for her been a pretense, too? A convenient lie to bind herself to his side? She had already betrayed how much that night seven years ago had meant to her, hadn't she? She had told him all about how curtailed her life had been after having Izzie.

The sense of betrayal was deepest in this, as if he'd taken the very thing she had handed him and carved into her.

Forget Leandro's manipulations, do you want him, Alex? Do you think he's worth taking a chance on?

Forget your house, your store, your parents and even Izzie. Think of yourself before you make a decision because this is your life.

Emma's brutally incisive questions were still racking her brain when a maid knocked at her door.

Shell-shocked and confused still, Alex mutely took the two expensive bags with designer labels.

Only when Izzie excitedly opened the bag and a beautiful, silky pink dress slipped out did she remember the party tonight.

An informal get-together of their extended family and closest friends so that they could meet Izzie, Tina had informed her last night. With shaking hands, Alex opened the velvet case.

The clipped sound of the tiny latch unhooking on the case moved through her like lightning blazed through the sky.

A delicately spun choker of diamonds set in white gold and matching earrings nestled on the navy blue velvet bed, glittering brightly in the sunlight that shafted through the windows.

Diamonds for the strongest woman I know
, the curly script read.

A tingling began in her chest as she read it over and over again. Even the glittering diamonds paled in contrast to the words that moved through her like thunder and lightning.

If he'd said beautiful or smart, she would have wrote it off as another manipulation.

But calling her strong, the one thing she prided herself on, the one thing she had forced herself to be through Adrian's death and her parents' disappointment and having Izzie and her accident, it was as if he had shot an arrow direct to her heart.

As if he truly understood her.

As if he truly saw her and cherished her.

She'd been an open book to him. There was still every chance that he was manipulating her.

With his handwritten note fluttering in her hand, Alex sat on the cool tiled floor and closed her eyes.

Emma was right. With the accident and the store and Izzie and her parents' continual disappointment in her, she had forgotten something important. With or without Leandro's help, she would never do wrong by Izzie.

She loved her little girl more than anything in life.

The simple acknowledgement freed her to breathe, made her heart lighter.

For the first time in years, Alex focused on herself. On her wants and desires. That her mind instantly fluttered to Leandro's kiss only made her smile. Her fingers rose to her lips. She could still feel his mouth on her, the insistent demand in it, the growl that had escaped him when she had tangled her tongue with his.

The way his powerful body had shuddered in supplication when she bit his lower lip, the way he had buried his mouth in her neck and whispered in Italian...

There had been no manipulation in the languid strokes of his mouth, in his desperate caresses, in those urgent whispers.

He could dress it up as duty or the right thing for Izzie or a hundred other things, but the fact was that Leandro wanted her desperately. For a man who prided himself on living by his rules and not emotions, by his duty and not desire, it was huge.

And she wanted him, she wanted to explore the heat between them, she wanted to tell him her secrets and learn his.

Was it enough to begin a relationship with?

Attraction to her and unconditional love for Izzie—could she even ask for more as a start?

Decision made, Alexis unwrapped the paper tissue around the pink dress, the whisper of its silky folds a song to her ears. Held it against herself and looked in the full-length mirror.

She would do this. She would have a relationship with Leandro, see where it took them, but it would be on her terms.

She would own her desire for him, and she would make him own that he wanted her in his life. And not for Izzie's sake or duty's sake or honor's sake.

But because he wanted her. She would have what he owed her this time, even if she had to seduce the truth out of him.

Funny that he'd armed her himself with that dress and those diamonds. He'd given her time, security and the belief that she owed it to herself to enjoy her life, even if he'd done to manipulate her.

Plugging her iPod into the speaker system, Alex turned up the volume on a Lady Gaga song and danced around with Izzie, excitement pulsing through her.

Leandro needed to learn that Alex could wrench away his control as surely as he did hers.

That this time around, Alex wouldn't settle for anything less than what she wanted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

L
EANDRO
MOVED
THROUGH
the perfectly manicured gardens and among his family and friends like a pale imitation of himself. No, an agitated, less-than-together version of himself.

The same scent of hydrangeas and jasmine that had calmed him so many times, the stone and marble villa that he had somehow wrested into a home for him, Luca and Valentina now mocked him and his very image of himself.

The disgusting and disconcerting fact was that he had rushed to her bedroom two seconds after Antonio's self-satisfied whisper about her plans. Anger and disbelief and a rope of unease had held him in its grip as he raised his hand and clutched the gleaming chrome door handle.

In a flicker of a moment, from one breath to the next, he had realized what he had been about to do.

Izzie's laughter from within the suite mocked him, scraped him.

He'd been exactly like Enzo had been so many times in one of his violent tempers.

He wouldn't have hit Alex like Enzo had done with his
mamma
that one time or spewed vitriol or called her horrible names. He knew that much. Yet that he had become so angry, so unknowing of where he was going or what he was about to do...so afraid of losing something he hadn't realized he needed.

But Leandro had never needed anything or anyone. His success with the company and being a responsible guardian to his brother and sister, they had all been driven by the needs of others.

The reminder of his father had been like a naked dip in the freezing lake that Luca had challenged him to in one of those rare moments of childhood they had enjoyed.

How had Alexis gotten under his skin? What was it about her that made him react with such violence of emotion? Why this hunger to claim her as his?

Until now, he had avoided the crowd, needing to cool his temper before he saw her. Or his brother who'd worn a smirking grin all evening as they met several of their cousins and aunts.

It was only years of meticulous habit that he now noticed the uniformed waiters and flowing champagne and Conti family members that came crawling out to see Isabella. And Alexis, of course, just like she had expected.

Because they all wanted to see the woman that had made him fall from his pedestal. They expected a stunning woman armed to the teeth with wiles and cunning. They would form a line to see his weakness, his...

But something inside him balked at calling her a weakness anymore.

With her simplicity and straightforwardness, Alexis would be a shock to all of them. She'd probably dress in a garish tank top and shorts just to insult him and his family.

He had no doubt that she would shred that dress into pieces, throw that diamond choker he'd selected himself in the rubbish bin.

“Papà
...
you're back.” He heard Isabella's squeal behind him.

His mouth instantly curving, he turned and saw her on the marble steps. Reaching her, he picked her up while she vined those chubby arms around his neck and held him tight. Kissed him soundly on his cheek. He stayed there, suddenly realizing how much he had missed Isabella's incessant chatter in the past week. The sweet scent of her made his throat close up as it always did.

Dio,
he had come so close to not knowing her...

“Did you miss me,
piccola
?”

She considered the question and he laughed again. “I had so much fun with Uncle Luca and
Zia
so not a lot, Papà.” As if to mollify him, she bent closer and whispered, “You wanna know a secret?”

“
Si.
Your uncle and aunt always hide the best ones from me.”

“I peeked at Mamma's special folder yesterday when she was showering.”

“Mamma's special folder?” he repeated, some sleek black diary with lots of phone numbers of men she knew instantly coming to mind.

W
hen had he become so inventively distrustful? When had every small facet of Alexis's life become this important to him?

All their lives, Antonio had in turn hated and loved Luca because he was the image of their father.

Right down to his creative pursuits and genius thinking and his looks.

Because he, like Enzo had done at a horrible price to all of them, lived so recklessly and without a direction. That he partied and drank and chased women indiscriminately.

But Luca, as far as Leandro knew, never lost it like he had this afternoon.

Luca, for all he slept with every willing woman, would never touch one in anger or distress.

Suddenly, it felt as if Leandro was the one who had inherited all of his father's disgusting traits—distrust, this sudden temper, this unease as if he was losing control of himself.

The very thought made him cold to his bones. Made him want to ship Alexis back to New York on the next flight before she revealed sides of him he didn't want to face.

“She has a big shelf full of those binders but she brang only—”

“Brought,” he corrected as he had seen Alexis do.

“Brought only a few here. She used to draw and write a lot in them before the accident. Now she just opens them and looks at them.” Sadness tinged those gray eyes of hers that were so much like his own. “Last week she thought I was sleeping. But I wasn't and I think...she cried when she opened them.”

Alexis had been crying?

The image twisted his gut.

Izzie hugged him tighter and he knew the thought of Alexis's tears scared her. “Papà will take care of Mamma, Izzie. She'll never cry again,
si
?”

“
Si
,” she replied, her smile wide, her eyes full of pride.

“These folders, what do they have in them,
piccola
?” he asked, refusing to feel even a little guilt for using his daughter as his cohort.

If there was something he could do to take away that sadness from Alexis, he had to know.

“Lots of pictures and stories, Papà. Sometimes, she reads them to me. But not much since her car crashed.”

“Why not?”

With the attention of a gnat, Izzie tuned out his question. “Did you see these?” she added, raising her legs upward.

“New frock,
bambina
?” he inquired with the utmost affected interest while his gaze moved upward toward Alexis's bedroom.

Anxiety and something else thrummed through his veins.

Isabella sighed that world-weary sigh of hers that made his heart squeeze every time. That made his chest feel too small for the laughter that roared through him. He did so now while she watched him with a bemused glance.

For his precious six-year-old, it seemed he was not only ancient but also completely out of touch with the modern world she lived in. Like how he was supposed to be buying gadgets and not stick-thin dolls for her. She was forever telling him off for not being savvy enough like Luca. Or for not installing some candy jewel game on his mobile phone.

Apparently, Leandro wasn't hip enough for his daughter. Did Alexis think so, too?

Did she wish he could flirt and charm and do all these fun things like Luca did? Did she truly prefer someone fun-loving and adventurous like Luca to him?

Her husky laughter from this afternoon with Luca played along his nerves like some jarring symphony.

Dio mio
, what was she reducing him to?

“Of course I had to wear a new frock to meet all my new family,” Isabella said with exaggerated patience. “It's my new pumps.” She wiggled her toes again. “
Zio
Luca...
designed
Conti pumps, just for me.” Pride rang through her voice, as if she understood the centuries-old legacy.

She barely let him glance at the shiny black leather before she started off again. “Although Mamma says I shouldn't expect new toys and games all the time just because you're stinking rich. Does Italian money stink, Papà?” she then asked innocently.

Laughter barreled out of his chest. His entire body shook with the impact of it and he sank to the steps with Izzie in his arms while his extended family and his closest friends stared at him as if he had grown horns.

Luca and Valentina strolled close and stood stunned, their hearts in their eyes, as if they'd never seen him laughing like that.

Had he ever? Had they been deprived of so much despite his best efforts?

While his little girl went on in that incessant way of hers. “She says it'll make me...” She scrunched her face again and by this time, Leandro was choking with laughter and tears. “... Arrogant and domi...dominairing like some people she knows.”

Even Luca and Tina had joined his laughter now.

“I asked what that meant and she said I should ask you. She said you'd know best.”

Leandro didn't have a memory of ever laughing like this. Of ever feeling this carefree, of this rightness in his world.

Magpie-like, Izzie went on while a sudden hush fell around the crowd that had moved toward the steps.

Leandro pushed to his feet. He put Izzie down when she wiggled.

Alexis stood at the top of the steps, a vision in the dark pink silk.

Whispers buzzed around him while his family took stock of her but she had eyes for only him.

Leandro felt like a charge of electricity had hit him straight from the sky and held him rooted to the ground.

As if he had waited all his life for this moment where he could feast on Alexis.

There was shock and disbelief and, above all, that sense of wonder, as if he'd been given a gift.

What did it mean that she had worn the dress and jewelry he had sent her? Would she ever act as he expected?

But suddenly he realized there was such profound pleasure in the unexpected with Alexis.

Her strawberry blond hair fell in lustrous waves around her shoulders, framing her distinctive features. And the scar she wore so bravely only made her even more beautiful for him.

The diamond choker he had specially commissioned for her glittered around her swan-like neck.

Slinky straps exposed tanned shoulders while the ruched neckline hinted barely at her cleavage. The silky fabric fell to her ankles molding her long legs.

Shoulders squared, hair gleaming bright, she came down the steps. Only then did he see the thigh-length slit. One toned thigh and a shapely calf winked at him.

Like an engulfing wave, want came at him, drenching him from head to toe. Blood pounded. Instinct roared. Muscles thrummed.

Challenge oozed out of every pore on that sensual body of hers. His mouth dried. And he was hard like stone.

If she meant to prance around all evening in the dress and diamonds that he had bought for her, if this was her idea of Look But Don't Touch, her idea of Privileges Revoked, then Leandro had to hand it to her.

She had devised the perfect form of revenge for his sins against her. She had also somehow taken the sails out of his anger, shaken loose the dread in his gut that she would flee one night with Izzie in hand, just because he had manipulated the truth for his purposes.

That he would wake up one day and not find her there, like he hadn't seen his mother one summer morning. That he would lose this thing, too, one of the most joyous things that had come into his life, like everything had gone before.

Because to be a father to Izzie without Alexis as his wife was just not enough anymore. And not just for Izzie's sake.

For all she bought those tickets, Alexis wouldn't flee in the night. She wouldn't leave without a fight, at least. She was not weak or cowardly.

He was no more Enzo than Alexis was his mother.

History would not repeat in his marriage, in this villa again, he told himself.

It was her way of wresting control of the situation, her way of coping when he had all but taken everything familiar away from her.

He understood her. And
Dio
, he really hoped she would understand, soon, why he had done what he had done. Or else, relief for his ever-present erection was never going to come.

Finally, she halted on the last step right in front of him. It brought her face-to-face with him. The subtle scent of her body teased him, the warmth from her body taunted.

Words came and floated away from his lips, inadequate and much too revealing of emotions he didn't understand himself. “Arrogant and domineering,
bella
? If we're going to coach her to take sides, then the war is truly on, Alexis.”

She raised a brow while her eyes glittered like precious stones. “Just teaching our daughter some important facts of life, Leandro. You wouldn't want either of us to get used to this lifestyle and expect diamonds and tiaras for every little occasion now, would you? Even you couldn't buy your way out of everything. Not with the number of things I'm going to have to forgive you for.”

Our daughter
, she had said.

Was she going to accept what he planned for them? Or was she still going to challenge him at every turn?

He touched her then, as inevitable as his next breath. He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her wrist. Felt her tremble beneath his lips. Imagined trailing them over every inch of her.

Slowly, with excruciating reluctance, he returned her hand to her side.

“I would say we were even after that display at the pool this afternoon, no?”

He settled his arm around her waist and nudged her forward. She noted his possessive gesture with a raised brow but didn't say anything. “Not even close. And are you so sure it was a display?”

“Yes.” He clasped her arm and pulled her to him. “A cheap ploy, too.”

A hint of tease turned her voice molten. “This from the master manipulator? The control freak? The man who let me believe his daughter was a burden, a hurdle in the way of his new happiness?”

While each and every one of his guests watched with a kind of twisted fascination, she cradled his jaw and looked up at him.