Page 34 of Expecting His Billion-Dollar Scandal
‘It’s a bore for you,’ she agreed, glancing down and then slipping into the passenger seat of the car. It smelled of soft leather. ‘I guess you probably thought that it was a waste of time, especially when you probably have lots of work to do.’ She turned to him with apologetic eyes because caretaking her really had to be the last thing in the world a guy like him needed or wanted. He was used to expensive women who didn’t need to be escorted to the right shops to buy appropriate clothing.
Although hadn’t he just said that he liked the thought of herau naturel...?
A rush of pleasure surged through her body.
‘It would have been a bore for me,’ Luca murmured, swivelling so that he was looking at her. He carelessly had one hand by her headrest and he lightly stroked her hair, running one lazy finger through its vibrant blonde curls, ‘because I could have thought of a million better things I would rather have been doing with my time.’ He paused and then traced her mouth with his finger, tugging on her fuller lower lip until she wanted to faint. ‘No, I tell a lie. I would have been thinking of just the one thing I would rather have been doing with my time...’
‘What’s that?’
Luca laughed, amused. ‘Will it turn you on if I spell it out?’ He looked at her with satisfaction when she nodded. ‘I won’t spell it out. I’ll show you just as soon as I get you into my bed...’
CHAPTER EIGHT
CORDELIASTRETCHEDOUTon the bed and sighed with contentment.
The past week had been a whirlwind. Much of it had been spent in bed, the rest on a voyage of discovery. The day after their visit to Siena, Luca had announced that he intended to keep to his word and show her a bit of his country before she broke the news to her father.
There was work he had to do in Milan, some deals that needed fine tuning. He would arrange for a guide to take her on a personal tour of the city and then they would drive to his house on Lake Como, so that she could see a different countryside from the one she had glimpsed in his Tuscan home.
Vineyards, of course, but also olive trees, oleanders and palm trees and, along with that, incomparable stretches of exquisite villas, their gardens dipping down to the lake shores.
‘Italian aristocracy at its very best,’ he had wryly informed her, and when she had asked him whether his house might be amongst those villas, he had laughed and returned, ‘But of course. Would you expect otherwise?’
His tone had been one of amused irony but, actually, Cordelia had thought that, no, she wouldn’t have expected otherwise.The more she glimpsed of his eye-wateringly privileged life, the more she acknowledged the gaping differences between them.
She was forever telling herself that if he could shrug off those differences, then so would she.
‘I want you to feel a little more at home in my country before your father gets here,’ he had confided as they had boarded his private jet that would take them to Milan. ‘I want you to show him that this is a country that you can love, as I love it. I would not want him to leave with any...doubts that you are doing the right thing.’
Still warm after a bout of passionate lovemaking, Cordelia had thought that that was the nicest thing Luca could have said because it showed that, beyond the baby, he was also thinking about her and her well-being. That counted for a lot.
Milan had been a wondrous place. For someone who had never been abroad, it was mesmerising. Busy but small, it had offered a variety of riches and Cordelia had paid close attention to the charming young guide who had taken her on her whirlwind tour of the city, starting with Piazza del Duomo with its towering cathedral, followed by a visit to see the paintings of the old masters, all of whom were familiar to Cordelia via the many books she had devoured over her lifetime.
This wasn’t like Siena with its feeling of medieval splendour and laid-back charm. This was hectic and busy. There were chic cafés everywhere, dotted in between the historic splendour of thepiazza. The young people all seemed ridiculously good-looking.
She had enjoyed every minute of it and now here she was, enjoying every second of a completely different environment.
From the window of Luca’s fabulous villa, she could see the placid waters of the lake in the distance. When the car had first swerved onto the long drive leading to the villa, Cordelia had been gobsmacked. She hadn’t bothered to hide her awe. The square white building with its evenly spaced rectangular windows and its formidable symmetry reeked of opulence. From the front of the villa, gardens led down to an archway that opened out onto the lake via a series of shallow stone steps. It was, put simply, breathtaking.
That, however, was a sight that had been taken in several days ago and now, lying here in bed while Luca showered in the fabulous en-suite bathroom, Cordelia could only marvel at the speed with which she was becoming accustomed to this extraordinary life.
‘Penny for them.’
Cordelia’s eyes shot to the bathroom door where Luca was lounging against the doorframe with a towel slung round his waist. They had already made love that morning and yet she could already feel herself getting turned on all over again. One look at him and stuff inside her ignited and exploded, leaving her wet and weak and at the mercy of his clever mouth and hands and fingers.
‘I was just looking out of the window and thinking how beautiful this all is,’ she confessed truthfully, watching as he moved from doorway to wardrobe to extract a white linen shirt and a pair of loose trousers, which he dumped over the back of the chair.
Slowly Luca began to dress.
She was, of course, right. It was beautiful, although in truth he rarely noticed the scenery here. In fact, he couldn’t think of the last time he had visited this particular property. For Luca, downtime wasn’t something he enjoyed very often. The last time, he now mused with some surprise, was when he’d vanished off to Cornwall to get his thoughts together, and look at where that had got him.
A baby on the way and...his eyes roved over the delectable sight of his wife-to-be, pink-faced and tousled, her white-blonde hair spread across the pillow, one long leg draped over the duvet, the other tucked away underneath.
Even when she was relaxing, even when his libido was at rest and sex wasn’t on the menu, there was something intensely appealing about her. He was finding that he couldn’t keep his hands off, which was just as well considering the situation.
And that situation, he had to admit, was doing very well. He had never, not once, having found out that she was carrying his baby, contemplated not making her his wife. Anything else would have been out of the question, and when she had turned his offer down flat with all that talk about ‘love’ and ‘finding the one’ he had momentarily been disconcerted at the notion that she might, actually, walk away from him.
That instant of panic was something he had never experienced before and certainly never in connection with a woman, but she wasn’t like anyone else. She was unique insofar as his money was immaterial.
