The Surprise Conti Child (9 page)

“You think I would welcome advances from you two minutes after your engagement is broken? You think I'm so eager to fall back into that pattern again?”

It was every shameful thought she'd indulged in herself, and yet, she drew strength from the fact that she called him on it.

But he didn't even budge an inch. Instead, he took over the space between them. Until their legs tangled. Until her breasts grazed his chest. Until even the thought of Izzie softly snoring on the bed in the front was driven from her head.

Only he and his stroking hands and strangely intense gaze remained. Only her awareness of him remained. Only this strange intimacy that she had denied him and yet he claimed remained.

How many times had she dreamed of a moment like this over the past seven years?

One hand under her chin, he tilted it up to face him. “In seven years, I have tried,
so hard
, to forget that night. To pretend like it never happened,
si
. But I never thought such a cheap thing of you.” His sigh rattled loudly in the cabin.

The reluctance in his tone made his statement all the more powerful. Made her insides into a pool of molten craving.

“I want you,
cara
. Just as I did all those years ago,” he muttered it as if it was a curse. As if he had accepted defeat. “Since the moment you walked into that lounge, guns blazing.”

Feral satisfaction filled every nerve, every cell.

To hear him admit that he wanted her, despite his discipline and control, a wildness, a raw sense of power filled her. She gave in to the sheer freedom of it. Just a stolen second, she told herself, before she became a mother and a daughter and a hundred other roles again.

Tremors took hold of her entire body as he continued trailing that mouth all over her face. Nose, brow, jaw, chin—it was as if he opened little portals of pleasure.

It was as if his touch could say things he couldn't. And in sensually overwhelming contrast, his big body shuddered as he took her mouth again.

Alex felt her pulse vibrate everywhere—in her neck, her heavy breasts, her shaking knees and in the wet place between her thighs.

With his hot mouth devouring hers, Leandro slammed her against himself.

Alex climbed over him like a vine, the jut of his erection a hot press against her belly. She arched against him, looped her leg around his until she was riding his thigh.

Leandro egged her on, his fingers crawling under her silk blouse. The slap of his abrasive palm against her heated flesh, the slow exploration up her skin, her nipples distended against her cotton bra, desperate for his touch.

Alex moaned, and moved over him, mindless in her pursuit of pleasure. It was when his fingers reached the seam of her bra and pushed inside that Alex realized what she was allowing.

God, she had acted just as she said she wouldn't.

A frustrated cry fell from her lips but he didn't release her.

His forehead touched hers, his breath feathered her. Lips stinging from the raw assault of his, shame permeating her, she closed her eyes.

“Do you not see the inevitability of this, Alexis? Of how right everything is this time between us? How easily you melt in my hands, how I could make you scream with the slightest of touches? All the intimacies you'll give, all your desires, all your needs, your every breath will be mine again.

“You will be mine.”

Such arrogance reverberated in his voice should have made her furious. And yet...at the core of her, she trembled at the want in it, at the intensity in it.

No one had ever wanted her like that. No one had ever put it into words like that.

With that reply, he left without glancing at her again.

Knees shaking, her sex aching for a release that wasn't coming, Alex slid to the bed. He had everything so perfectly mapped out without even telling her.

Had he truly just switched the candidate for his wife from one woman to her? Was he that heartless? Did Leandro want a future with her, just for Izzie's sake?

And if he did,
Dear God
, what was she going to do?

CHAPTER SEVEN

I
N
THE
PROCESS
of undoing his cuffs, Leandro stilled. Sounds of splashing waves accompanied by Izzie's giggles, Luca's deep laughter, Valentina's broken English and Alexis's husky warnings...it was pure cacophony at the villa. Like he'd never heard.

The afternoon sun beating down on him, he took the steps to the veranda like an eager schoolboy.

It seemed as if the entire villa was awash in a burst of sound and activity, unlike it had ever seen.

A small bicycle with training wheels and pink streamers lay against the marble pillar. An English paperback and a pink iPod lay on the bench in the garden.

Something in him flinched at the alien sounds and sights. At the sudden absence of that dark, deep silence that he'd become used to for so long.

Only now did he realize how much the silence of the past two decades had become a part of the tall pillars, the marble floors and even their very psyches. He'd thought he had made the villa a home for all three of them. But suddenly he wasn't so sure for he had never heard such joy in the air.

The scent of jasmine felt richer, the sky felt bluer, the entire world felt as if it had transitioned from a gray, bleary morning to spring sunshine.

He closed his eyes and let his hearing amplify, let the sounds wash over him. He didn't feel peaceful as he had during his marriage with Rosa, but then he didn't expect life with Izzie to be peaceful.

He'd already accepted that life with Alexis wasn't going to be peaceful.

And yet, strangely the thought excited him more than it made him uneasy.

It had taken him a week to wrap up the most urgent of his business obligations and return to their villa. He had spoken to Izzie a few times since then but every time, Alex refused to say anything except that they were doing okay.

Had he pushed her too far too soon?

He hadn't meant to confront her like that on the flight, he hadn't meant to touch her so intimately while their daughter lay asleep so close, but again, Alexis had fragmented his careful planning.

Running a hand through his hair, he strolled out into the veranda and looked at the pool. With the background of the gleaming blue of the pool, his gaze instantly found her.

Clad in a modestly cut, pink bikini, her blond hair framing her face in damp waves, Alexis sat above with her pink toes skimming the water. A serene smile touched her features as she closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun. Luca and Tina were playing with Izzie in the pool.

Two seconds, that's all he could manage before his gaze turned back to her again.

Lush and lithe, her scantily clad body was a siren's lure. He felt as if he'd been handed a treasure and didn't know where to start or what to look at.

He devoured the dips and valleys of her breasts and waist and hips, the honeyed sheen to her skin, the thick swathes of her hair like a starving man. Or a youth who was looking at a woman's body for the first time.

His hands itched to hold those lush breasts, trace that concave plane of her stomach. He would kiss and lick and taste every inch of that silky flesh. Those long legs would wrap around him as he pushed into her...

Would she scream his name like she had done seven years ago? Would that sheer, abandoned pleasure of it send him careening toward his own release?

Dio
, he hadn't gotten hard like this at the mere sight of a woman even in puberty.

As if she could sense his lustful thoughts, her elegant neck turned this way and that. And then she looked up.

Their gazes held and clashed over the distance, a pink flush suddenly seeping up her neck and cheeks. He saw the stiffness that descended in her shoulders, the vulnerability in her mouth that in turn made her spine straighten as she realized the intentions he didn't hide in his eyes.

She read him as clearly as if he had told her what he intended to do to her and with her.

Her brown gaze widened, her palm moved over her neck in a betraying gesture and then her mouth pursed. That same gaze now flashed fire at him.

With his heart pounding, he watched as she stood up in a smooth movement, like a gazelle rising from a pond. Challenge simmered in every line of her body as she walked to the lounger, picked up a tube of sun lotion and went back the pool.

Tension a live beast roaring inside him, he waited. Instantly, he realized what she was going to do. He knew she was only doing it to provoke him, to challenge him. To drive him mad. To tell him she wasn't going to fall in line so easily.

But it didn't help quiet the acrid burn in his gut.

The husky tone of her voice reached him, a mild thread outside the roaring in his ears. On cue, Luca climbed out of the pool, said something that made her laugh and put his hands on her shoulders.

Covering her breasts with her crossed hands, Alexis turned and gave Luca her back. Hands full of sunscreen, Luca undid the thin string of her bikini top, pushed it out of his way and slathered it all over her skin.

A burst of violent emotion claimed him as he looked at them transfixed.

Those elegant, artistic hands of his brother's roamed freely over the woman that belonged to him.

Skin and sinew that Leandro wanted to touch, curves that Leandro wanted to claim, laughter that he wanted to evoke...all in Luca's hands.

Sweat beaded his brow, his entire body a taut mass of frustrated desire and rampaging fury.

He had warned Luca to stay away. Of course, his brother wouldn't listen. He knew in a rational part of his mind that Luca didn't even want her. That he would not take what was Leandro's. But he would cross any line just to rile Leandro, just to push him out of his comfort zone.

Lines that neither of them could come back from...

“She pits your brother against you.” Antonio's fractured English broke the grip of his anger. “I did not like that woman seven years ago and I do not trust her now. Keep your child and get rid of her.”

Leandro cringed at the reckless order. “I couldn't have asked for a better mother for Isabella.” Even as he committed another betrayal toward Rosa, Leandro knew it was the truth.

Rosa had been brought up traditionally, had leaned on him for strength, had been obedient, caring. If they had had children, he knew she would have bowed to Antonio's will in their upbringing.

It would have been Leandro's battle to fight.

But Alexis was like a fierce lioness.

Even as she fought her own insecurities, Alexis didn't back down, not once when it came to Isabella. “I will not separate them and fracture my family as Enzo did. She belongs with me, just as Izzie does.”

“I did not think I would see the day when you would let a woman weaken you.”

Dio
, the last thing he wanted was to discuss Alexis with his grandfather. “You have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Are you so blinded by lust that you can't see that she's manipulating you? You think she doesn't know that you stand here like a lust-crazed fool watching your shameless brother flirt with her, put his hands on her?”

A grim smile broke Leandro's mouth. Lust-crazed he might be but he was no fool. He had been right.

Alexis wasn't one to meekly fall into his plans. That he had brought her this far was only due to her insecurities and because he was ruthless when he set his mind to something. Despite her grief about her brother, despite thinking of herself as second-rate with her parents, she'd done everything for them.

The challenge of conquering her, of bending her to his will, of making her his own sizzled in his blood now. “I do not like what she just did any more than you do, but I know why she did it.”

When he was through with her, she was going to wish she hadn't started it. No, scratch that.

She was going to like everything he was going to do to her. He was going to indulge himself and her, until the thought of even challenging him and his rights with her was driven from her mind.

A derisive glint entered Antonio's eyes. “I've never seen you look at a woman like that. Not even poor Rosa. This woman is not good for you. It is obvious she's after our name.”

Masking the anger that filled him so easily,
so uncharacteristically
, for his grandfather had always been a man of crude words, Leandro filled his tone with cutting ice. “Rosa and Alexis are different kinds of women. Once Alexis realizes this is for the best, once she understands what I want from this marriage, it will work just fine.

“But do not speak of her in that tone, Nonno. I will not tolerate it again.”

“You would go against me for a woman who slept with you after—”

Raising his hand, Leandro cut Antonio off. Let the old man see his ire. “She will be my wife. She is the mother of my child. She is your best chance at a future Conti male heir that you're so desperate for. I suggest you afford her the respect she deserves.

“Enzo let you browbeat Mamma, but I will not allow it. Whatever our private arguments, Alexis is not to hear even one of your complaints. Not if you want to see your great-grandchildren.”

Chin lifting in mutiny, his grandfather glared at him. “What about the trouble Salvatore will cause with the board? He will not take kindly to you breaking your engagement to Sophia.”

“Kairos Constantinou.”

“That reckless Greek magnate? That's your answer?” The combined awe and horror in Antonio's voice only confirmed Leandro's decision. The Conti board needed new blood. He was tired of being the only one who had to steer it in new directions since Luca even refused to be on the board. “You thought his investment strategies were too bold in this financial climate,” Antonio continued.

“Yes but Kairos proved me wrong. An alliance between us will work well.” He waited for Antonio to digest it.

Kairos had grown up on the streets of Athens, built a powerful export empire, was hungry for alliances in the Old World that still looked at him and shunned him because of his background. Leandro had exactly what Kairos wanted—the Conti name that went back hundreds of years—and Kairos had what he wanted.

For all his reckless investments and hunger for power, there was an integrity to Kairos that Leandro liked, a strength that he needed.

Already Kairos had arrived in Italy and started working on his piece of their alliance.

The threat from Salvatore was taken care of. Valentina's future was set. If only he could settle Luca's future, too. Once his alliance with Kairos was solidified, he'd have to think of it.

All that was left was for him to marry Alexis. His world would be back on its track.

“You trained me well, Nonno. Now, trust me to handle the company and the family.”

After several more minutes, finally, Antonio relented. “I do trust you, Leandro. Neither will I stop protecting you and even Luca.” That he left out Valentina scraped Leandro raw but that was a battle he'd learned long ago to not fight.

No matter, because soon Valentina wouldn't care that she didn't have Conti blood in her veins.

But his grandfather was nowhere near done. “Did you know this woman you trust so implicitly has been speaking with a travel agent? That she purchased two tickets back to New York in a couple of weeks? Exactly the week during which you are scheduled to travel to the Middle East on business?”

* * *

“You're playing a treacherous game,
bella
,” Luca whispered in her ear as he tied back the strings of her bikini top with an efficiency that spoke volumes. “I didn't think you were the manipulative kind, playing my brother against me.”

Alex cringed. Shame made her voice thin. “I'll be sad to lose you as a friend but I did what I had to do, Luca. I have to somehow fight your brother's arrogant assumptions.”

“And is it so important to fight Leandro, Alex?”

“Someone has to make him learn he can't control everything.” Even now, she couldn't believe the arrogance of his words, her own weakness that she hadn't even mustered a reply. “Someone needs to cut him down to size.”

His laughter instantly soothed Alex's shame. She turned and as always, the words on her mouth faltered at the masculine perfection of Luca's features.

No man should have such beauty, such perfection that everything was handed over to him on a platter. That the whole world crumbled to its knees for that smile. That no woman would look past it to the man beneath, she suddenly realized.

Yet, she had always preferred Leandro's austere, almost stark beauty to Luca's overwhelming perfection.

Unlike the forbidding man whose face had become hauntingly tight at what she had done, Luca was always touching her. He did so now, framing her face with his hand.

Wicked humor shone in his jet-black eyes. “Are they still standing there?”

Alex peeked out of the corner of her vision. The dark specter of Leandro and Antonio standing over them turned her tummy into jelly. “Yes, but Luca, I'm not interested in you,” she added hurriedly.

“You wound me, Alex.” Pure laughter filled his words and she exhaled roughly. “What is it that my brother possesses that I don't?”

“Less cockiness in his own beauty, like a peacock, for starters,” she said, raising a brow. Laughter carved dimples in his cheeks. “Not that I'm interested in Leandro either.”

A sober light filled his gaze. “Resistance is futile if he's decided that he's interested,
cara
. And having seen the fury in his eyes just now, I don't think it is in question anymore.”

Alarm made her question sharp. “Is that a threat to fall in line with his wishes?”

“No,
bella
.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Just a warning from a friend. I'm sure Antonio has already informed him that you bought tickets for you and Izzie to New York. I can't let him have all the odds.”

Alex stepped back from him, aghast that he knew. She had made herself crazed with anxiety, cleaved herself in two before she'd decided to buy them. But just like earlier, she needed something to calm her agitation, she needed an exit strategy whether she used them or not.