Italian Mavericks: A Deal With The Italian: The Italian's Deal for I Do / A Pawn in the Playboy's Game / A Clash with Cannavaro. Elizabeth Power
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it any more than he could. An animal sense of satisfaction rumbled through him as he imprinted her with the need that had been consuming him for weeks. The soft contours of her body melted into his, invited him closer. He closed his fingers tighter around a mass of satiny hair and arched her head back to deepen the kiss. To stake complete ownership.
Her lips parted beneath his, an invitation he couldn’t ignore. He dipped his tongue into the heat of her. Her taste mingled with his, the absolute perfection of what they created together rocking him to his toes.
That night in Navigli hadn’t been an aberration. It had been a foregone conclusion.
He ran his hands down her back, sought out any remaining tension with the sweep of his fingers, kneaded a knot free with a press of his thumbs.
A discreet cough came from behind them. They whirled around in unison to find Alessandra had joined them on the terrace, an amused look plastered across her face. “Sorry, you two, but we need to get started.”
Olivia nodded jerkily, wiping her palm across her mouth. Alessandra went back inside.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” Olivia said, staring at the lipstick on her palm. “Which point were you trying to prove this time, Rocco? That you are irresistible now that the spoiled-goods sign has been lifted from me?”
Anger at himself, at her, welled up inside of him. “Actually, Liv,” he muttered, “I was trying to comfort you. To be there for you. Like it or not, we are in this together.”
Color bled into her cheeks. “A team? I seem to remember you proclaiming me a purchased asset.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I might have been a bit overbearing. We are marrying now. It would be nice if we can be there for each other. Call a truce to this war of ours.”
She shook her head. “Forgive me if it’s not so easy for me to process your one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns.”
The bustling movements of the crew moving around inside captured his attention. “They need you in there,” he advised roughly. “Go channel how much you hate me. You’ll do just fine.”
She studied him warily for a moment, then walked back inside. He stayed at the railing. What was wrong with him? He had to stay away from her. But something about Olivia, something about who she was inside, how vulnerable she was, seemed to waltz right past his defenses every time.
And wasn’t that insane? He felt like finding a mirror and double-checking this was still him. Because wasn’t it enough to know Tatum Fitzgerald had torn his steadfast, larger-than-life grandfather in two? Did he even have to question what allowing himself to feel emotion for Olivia would do to him?
He had told himself not to cross the line. Not to let himself feel. Yet he had just crossed so far over the line he couldn’t pretend not to be emotionally involved anymore.
He swore and pushed away from the railing. That absolutely, positively could not happen. Not when Renzo Rialto and the board wanted to eat him alive, and that was the only place his focus should be.
He strode back inside, avoiding the controlled chaos on the set as he headed toward the elevators. He was shutting this thing with Olivia down. Finding another strategy, because this one obviously wasn’t working.
* * *
Olivia watched Rocco disappear into the elevator, her equilibrium smashed to pieces. She had no idea what had just happened. Was Rocco just as confused about his feelings for her as she was of hers for him, or was he just using her again? She was tempted to think he really did care, that what she’d sensed that night in New York was real. But that was dangerous thinking for a woman about to marry him for show. For a woman he was clearly using to regain control of his company.
As for him suddenly asserting they were a team in this? She shook her head as she sank down in the makeup chair. That would be a foolish, foolish thing to believe.
But as she walked back onto the set after her makeup had been repaired, she couldn’t help but remember what Rocco had said. She had once been phenomenal at this. At creating an illusion. It was all in her head. She just had to bear down and do it.
She would never have admitted it, but when Alessandra tried again with that pose of her leaning against a fence with her baby finger in her mouth, the heat from Rocco’s kiss filled her head. And she wondered what would happen if she were ever stupid enough to let him take her to bed.
Complete and total annihilation.
When Alessandra finally put her camera down and announced them finished, Olivia gave her an apprehensive look. “Did you get everything you needed?”
Alessandra quirked a finger at her. “These five shots are worth the day.”
They were, of course, the photos of her leaning against the fence, her finger dangling innocently from her mouth, Rocco’s stamp written all over her. The look on her face stole the breath from her throat.
“Exactly,” Alessandra said with satisfaction. “You look utterly, delectably, madly in love.”
OLIVIA TRIED TO maintain an air of enforced Zen as she and Rocco winged their way toward Manhattan in the Mondelli jet the following Sunday night, but with each mile the speedy little plane ate up toward the past she’d vowed to leave behind, her self-imposed calm faded further.
Her huge, square-cut, white-diamond engagement ring sat on her finger with an almost oppressive weight. It had already been pictured in tabloids and newspapers around the globe after she and Rocco had been spotted leaving an exclusive Via della Spiga boutique earlier that week. The taste of the media circus their engagement was about to become had already gone a long way toward ridding her of the ten pounds she needed to shed.
Technically, she was ready to face it. Her new wardrobe, courtesy of Mario Masini, was expertly packed in her suitcase stowed at the back of the jet. Her hair had been trimmed of its split ends, a shine added, her thoughts equally whipped into line by the Mondelli PR people, who’d key messaged her to within an inch of her life.
Outwardly she was perfect. Internally she was a mess.
She glanced over at her complex, stunning fiancé for a smidge of reassurance, but he had his head down working. Had been since they’d taken off seven hours ago.
She took advantage of the moment to study him. He may not be attracted to her, but she was to him, and he knew it. The way his tall, lithe body was too big for the streamlined airplane seat, the hard olive-skinned muscle visible where his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the serious, intensely male lines of his face that always seemed to be furrowed in concentration, made her feel distinctly weak at the knees.
Pathetic, really, when he hadn’t exercised any of those attributes on her since that kiss against her door, except for a few possessive touches during the dinner with Alessandra. She’d been sadly responsive to him, while he’d remained unaffected.
He also hated her. Let’s not forget that. Reason number one to ignore him. He was an arrogant son of a bitch who thought she was a sycophant who’d bedded his seventy-year-old grandfather. She needed to get over him. Now.
She sighed and tapped her fingers on the glossy pages of the magazine lying on her lap. At least the massive amount of media coverage had negated the need to inform her parents of her engagement. Her mother had called her within minutes of reading the first tabloid piece, salivating over Rocco’s money. Olivia had wanted to tell her she’d never see a penny of it, but Rocco had forbade her from revealing the truth to anyone. Which left her with exactly no one to confide in.
And God forbid she confide her feelings to her fiancé. Alessandra Mondelli, who’d been clearly fascinated with her brother’s sudden engagement, clearly shocked to find Olivia hiding out in Milan and clearly determined to know all