Page 6 of His Innocent's Passionate Awakening

Her safety.

How dared Luca Ferrantelli dangle it before her like a plump, juicy carrot in front of a dumb donkey?

She was not going to be a pawn in his game. If he thought she was so desperate for a husband she would say yes to the first man who asked her, then he had better think again.

Rosa came back into the salon to collect the coffee cups. ‘Your guest left, then. What did he want?’ Her eyes went to the ring box on the coffee table. ‘Ooh, what’s this?’

Artie got up from the sofa and speared her fingers through her hair. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Grr. I don’t know how I stopped myself from slapping him. He’s the most detestable man I’ve ever met.’

Rosa’s look was wry. ‘Like you’ve met heaps of men. Just saying...’ She prised open the lid of the ring box and whistled through her teeth. ‘Mamma mia. That is what I call an engagement ring.’

Artie snatched the box off her and snapped it shut and clutched it tightly in her hand. ‘If he’s representative of the men outside the castello walls, then I’m glad I haven’t met heaps of them. Do you know what he said? He wants to marry me. For six months. A paper marriage or some such nonsense. And do you know what’s worse? Papa put the idea in his head. Luca Ferrantelli will only give me back the castello, debt-free, if I marry him.’

‘And you said?’

Artie frowned. ‘What do you think I said? I said an emphatic, don’t-ask-me-again no.’

Rosa loaded the coffee percolator onto the tray with implacable calm. ‘Would you say yes if the marriage wasn’t on paper?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Then what’s the problem? Don’t you trust him to keep his word?’

Artie put her hands on her hips. She could feel the ring box digging into the soft skin of her palm but did her best to ignore it. She would not look at it again. She would not look at those sparkling diamonds and that impossibly blue sapphire and imagine a life free of financial stress.

She would not think of being Luca Ferrantelli’s bride.

She. Would. Not.

‘Are you seriously telling me I should accept his crazy proposal? Are you out of your mind?’ Artie narrowed her gaze and added, ‘Wait—do you know something about this? Did Papa talk to you about his scheme to marry me off to a stranger to settle his debts?’

Rosa picked up the coffee tray and held it in front of her body, her expression set in her customary pragmatic lines. ‘Your father was worried about you in the weeks before he died—about what would happen to you once he was gone. You gave up your life for him these last few years. He shouldn’t have asked it of you and nor should he have run the estate the way he did, but he was never the same after the accident. But you have a chance now to turn things around. To reclaim your life and your inheritance. And Luca Ferrantelli can’t be much of a stranger to your father, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to him for help. Why would he have asked Luca if he didn’t trust him to do the right thing by you? Six months isn’t long. And as long as everything is legally sound, you’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

Artie tossed the ring box on the sofa. ‘I can’t believe you think I should marry that odious man.’

‘You can’t stay locked away here for ever, Artie. It’s not healthy. Your father desperately wanted you to move on with your—’

Artie blew out a breath of exasperation. ‘I can’t leave. I thought you of all people understood. You’ve seen me at my worst. I feel paralysed with anxiety as soon as I get to the front gates. It’s not as if I want to be like this. I can’t help it.’

Nothing had helped. Medication. Home visits by a psychologist. Meditation and mindfulness. Nothing had freed her from the curse of her phobia. She had resigned herself to a lifetime of living in isolation.

What else could she do but accept her lot in life?

Rosa shifted her lips from side to side, her dark brown eyes serious. ‘You’ll have no choice but to leave if the castello is sold out from under you.’

The thought of leaving her home, having it taken it away from her by force, made her skin pepper with goosebumps and her heart pound with dread. She had tried so many times to imagine a life outside of Castello Mireille. But it was like a pipedream that never could be realised. It was completely and utterly out of her reach.

Artie glanced at the ring box on the sofa, her heart giving a funny little hopscotch. ‘Luca Ferrantelli is an international playboy. He changes lovers every week. What sort of husband is he going to be?’

‘You’ll never know if you don’t marry him, sì?’ Rosa said. ‘Convince him to marry you here at the castello—you won’t have to leave at all. It’s a marriage in name only so there won’t be a honeymoon. In six months, you’ll have full ownership again. Plus, a gorgeous ring to keep. Problem solved.’

Eek! She hadn’t even thought about a honeymoon. Luca wanted a bride but not that sort of bride...or did he? Her lower body tingled at the thought of his hands touching her. His mouth pressing against hers. His body doing things to hers she had only fantasised about and never experienced.

Artie pressed her fingers against her temples once Rosa had left the room. What crazy parallel universe had she stumbled into that even the housekeeper thought she should marry Luca Ferrantelli? She let out a ragged breath and looked around the salon. The black velvet ring box on the white sofa seemed to signify the either/or choice she had to make. The sofa cushions still contained the impression of Luca’s tall athletic body. The air still smelt faintly of his citrus and spice aftershave. Her heartrate was still not quite back to normal.

Would it ever be again?

Meeting Luca Ferrantelli had jolted her into an intense awareness of her femininity. Her body felt alive—tinglingly alive in a way it never had before. Her mind might have decided Luca was the most obnoxious man she’d ever met but her body hadn’t got the memo. It was operating off script, responding to him in ways she had never thought possible. Every appraising look he cast her way, every smouldering twinkle in his hazel eyes, every lazy smile, had heated her blood and upped her pulse and fried her brain until even she was thinking about accepting his proposal.

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