Page 46 of The Sicilian’s Deal For 'I Do'

‘How can you say that? He’s your alternative, isn’t he? You want to marry him and just hope for the best?’ He couldn’t help himself now. He stalked towards her, his hands wrapping around her arms, drawing her to his chest. ‘To go to bed with him and pray you conceive a baby, so that he’s less likely to prosecute your father? Is that really what you want with your life, Mia?’

‘Damn you,’ she shouted, lifting her palm and slapping it to his chest. ‘Goddamn it, none of this is what I wanted. None of it. To feel this way about you, to have let myself get involved with you, it’s all wrong. Everything is wrong.’

‘No, it’s not,’ he responded quickly, moving his body, trapping her between his large, strong frame and the flat, white wall. ‘You know that staying is right. You want to hate me for suggesting it, you want to hate me for the offer, but, deep down, you know it’s the answer. At least I’m being honest with you. I’m telling you how I feel, what I want, so you don’t expect more from me.’

He let his explanation sink in, then pushed another point. ‘You don’t really want to marry him, and you don’t want to stop seeing me. So stay. I’m giving you the perfect solution. You just have to say yes, and I will do everything else,cara.’

She was silent and he fervently hoped that was a good sign.

She simply stared up at him, her expression unreadable, save for the grief in her eyes.

‘You are mine, Mia. All mine. Do you understand?’ And he kissed her, with the furious, passionate possession that was exploding inside his veins.

CHAPTER TEN

INTHEORY,ONEPERSONcouldn’t belong to another. Mia knew that to be the case. And yet, on the other hand, hadn’t she been Luca’s from almost the first moment they’d met?

His demanding, hotly asked question rang through her ears and she ached, yearned to agree, to submit to him, but rational thought was like a tentacle wrapped around her brain, pulsing and refusing to quit, so she knew she couldn’t subjugate herself to him like this. For money.

And if he’d cared about her at all, if he’d felt even a brief shadow of anything remotely like love for her, he wouldn’t have dared suggest it.

Luca didn’t do love, though.

He did business and power plays and acquisitions and, ultimately, fierce self-preservation, which meant refusing to love with his dying breath, because love equalled vulnerability. Mia had become just another commodity to acquire, for as long as it suited him to possess her, at which point he’d let her leave, like some stock he no longer had any use for.

And Mia would be damaged.

Beyond repair.

Because every day with Luca, every day of his holding her and saying things like ‘you’re mine’, would make her heart more and more in lockstep with his, would make her forget the temporary nature of what they were doing, would make her want so much more than he could give.

And what of children?

Even if there were the slightest possibility Luca might one day care for her enough to ask her to be his not for a small window of time but for ever, it was impossible to imagine him changing his mind about children.

He’d been adamant, irrefutably absolute.

‘I can’t,’ she whispered, groaning, because just standing like this was drugging her, making her forget all the sensible reasons she’d mentally enumerated.

‘Yes, you can. I will fix this, Mia. I will fix this.’

If you stay.

She heard the condition, even though he didn’t say it again.

It was her fault. She’d told him, just last night, that he’d fixed her, had suggested he could fix anything, and it had gone to his head, but in all the wrong ways. This wasn’t what she’d meant.

She tried to find ways to articulate that, but then he was kissing her, his mouth parting hers, his tongue slipping inside, tangling with her tongue, his dominance never in doubt, her submission sadly also afait accompli, because when he touched her she ignited and flame could not be brought to order easily. Not by Mia. She was raging out of control, all heat and explosive need, all fiery, desperate hunger, and a deep, desperate desire to believe that hecouldmake everything okay.

But what if the biggest problem she faced was Luca?

Everything he was suggesting was terrifying, because Mia knew she wouldn’t be able to agree to this without losing herself to him.

And knowing that he’d bought her? For a ridiculously large sum of money? She’d love him, but she’d hate him too, and she’d hate herself.

Many things in life were nuanced. She no longer believed in black and white, good and bad. In most instances, there were shades of grey. Except for this. There was clearly a right and a wrong and she had to do what was right, or she’d never be able to live with herself.

With a final, wrenching sob, she jerked herself away, glaring at him as though he’d just stabbed her, chest moving with fast, rapid movements as she breathed in and out and her lungs burned with the effort.

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