Page 35 of Expecting His Billion-Dollar Scandal
He had appealed to her longing to see the world. It had been, first and foremost, a deliberately well-considered plan to open her eyes to what richness lay in store for her and for their child, and the funny thing was that he had begun to see his own country in a slightly different light.
Had begun to view his own possessions through different spectacles and was appreciating what he had spent a lifetime taking for granted.
He couldn’t offer her love, but he could offer her a lot more besides and he could tell that all those bonus extras were weaving their magic.
‘This is just the tip of the iceberg,’ he murmured, moving to perch next to her at the side of the king-sized bed. ‘You have yet to see the splendour of Rome and Florence, although we will try and visit those two cities when there are fewer tourists. Then there is the Riviera...’ He couldn’t help himself. He drew down the duvet exposing her breasts, bountiful orbs tipped with ripe pink, pouting nipples that begged to be suckled.
‘Don’t,’ Cordelia sighed weakly, relaxing back against the pillow and instinctively arching her naked breast to his mouth. ‘We have a lot to do today. Sailing...oh, Luca...oh, yes...’ She clasped her hand behind his head as he took her nipple into his mouth and sucked and licked until she was panting and writhing helplessly on the bed.
‘The things you do to me,’ Luca groaned, vaulting up to strip off the shirt with unsteady hands while his eyes burned into her.
He had work to do. At least a couple of hours before the day could be theirs and yet...he couldn’t resist her.
Nor did he intend on shortening the time he had with her, which meant that work would have to take a back seat, which was a first for him and would have been hugely disconcerting if his mind had actually been able to focus on anything other than the woman looking back at him with a helpless yearning that mirrored his.
Their lovemaking was fast and hard and he came with such intensity that the breath left his body for a few wild moments.
It took him a while to come down from the high. Goodbye any work at all, he thought. Emails would have to be handled later. At some point.
He lay back and flung one arm over his eyes and Cordelia wriggled against him. Warmth spread through her at the feel of his arm heavy across her back and shoulders.
His body was slick with perspiration and she flattened the palm of her hand on his chest.
She loved him. It was as simple as that and the realisation barely shook her because it was something that had crept up slowly but surely, sinking into her consciousness until it was just a fact of life.
She was in love with this guy and that was why she had agreed to marry him. Or at least, it had been a very strong motive, underneath all the very logical reasons she had told herself.
If she had truly felt nothing for Luca but bone-deep indifference, then she would have walked away. Yes, she would have made sure contact was maintained for the sake of their child, but she could never have borne living with someone she didn’t care about.
Curiosity and recklessness had propelled her into doing something she would never have dreamt possible given all the principles she had always lived by and, bit by bit over those three weeks, she had fallen for him and fallen hard.
The past week and a half had only made that love deeper, because she had seen him for the good guy that he was underneath the power and the wealth.
All this time he’d taken to show her around, to introduce her to his beautiful country. There was no need for him to have done that!
Surely that meant something?
He was no longer the flint-eyed stranger who had made her want to disappear into the ground when she had first shown up in his office.
She had caught him on the hop, crashed slap bang straight through all the plans he had made for himself, and of course he had been knocked for six, but he had recovered and she wondered whether he wasn’t now finding himself at the mercy of feelings he couldn’t really express. He gave every semblance of enjoying her company. He was tender and considerate with her, making sure she ate all the right stuff at all the right times. He was the guy she had rescued from the stormy ocean...the guy with no background, no past and certainly no vast fortune to his name.
And they were lovers once again.
Passion was a powerful force and, accompanied by genuine affection...well, how far were those things from love? Not very. There was no point to viewing the future with anything but optimism and, right now, Cordelia was happy to put on rose-tinted spectacles that made the world look so much better.
She snuggled and closed her eyes and enjoyed his nakedness against her.
‘Sailing,’ Luca murmured drowsily into her hair. ‘It awaits us.’
‘I thought you were going to try and get through some work before we left...’ She ran her fingers along his chest and felt him shudder in instant response, before he absently covered her hand with his. ‘You wanted to nail your guy about that project with the refined olive oil...you said he seemed to be digging his heels in on the quality-check front and you were going to push him where you wanted him to be...’
Luca frowned. He must have told her about Giuseppe without even thinking about it.
Disturbed for some reason, he edged off the bed and headed for the shower.
He was gone for a handful of minutes and when he re-entered the bedroom, he was all brisk business as he got dressed.
‘You shouldn’t have reminded me,amore.’ He was concentrating on his mobile, only looking up to glance quickly in her direction with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Now I’ll have to deal with him or my guilty conscience will get the better of me. The great outdoors might have to be put on hold until tomorrow.’ He watched her disappointment with a veiled expression.
