Chapter Three #2
A frisson ran the length of her spine as she gave herself one last opportunity to back out of this.
Not to deliver the counter-proposal that had been running on a loop through her mind since he’d suggested marriage.
It wasn’t just her inexperience at play, though.
There was something about this man, the hum she felt in her body when he looked at her, the way the air seemed to crackle as though an electrical storm were stirring to life, that somehow convinced her sex with him would be both eye-opening and satisfying.
She dragged in a deep breath and forced herself to be brave.
‘I’m a twenty-three-year-old virgin, and if I’m going to get married, I want to have sex with my husband, on our wedding night. ’
His jaw was set, his face all angles and darkly assessing eyes. ‘You should not barter away your virginity, Amelia.’
‘Why not?’
If anything, his response only strengthened her resolve. ‘Because your first time should mean something.’
‘It will mean something,’ she said. ‘It will mean I’m doing something for myself. Isn’t that enough?’
A muscle flexed low in his jaw. ‘Sex will not be part of the bargain.’
‘It won’t be, after our wedding night. You can go back to whatever it is you do, with whomever you want, and I won’t care. This is a one-time proposition.’
‘No.’
Her heart flipped. She hadn’t expected an instant rejection. It was possible—no, entirely probable—that the way the air crackled between them was one-sided, yet she couldn’t give up so easily. She was a fighter, through and through. ‘This is a requirement, for me.’
‘You’re saying if I don’t agree to sleep with you, you’ll go back to waiting tables, drowning in debt, knowing your grandparents will lose everything they have left that they value?’
She felt the blood drain from her face at his crude summation of her situation.
She had no real bargaining strength here.
And yet, she did. For all her circumstances were weakened, he wanted something from her.
Something that was important enough to him to fly to England and proposition her with a deal worth millions.
‘And you’ll have to find another woman with the right pedigree who’s willing to marry you for the sake of your family’s honour, or whatever.
A woman who will keep to herself, and have no expectations of you, whatsoever.
Or…’ she let him digest that a moment ‘…you can marry me, get everything you want.’
The air between them sparked with her ultimatum.
‘This is madness,’ he said, with a curt shake of his head. But the words lacked conviction, and she sensed he was on the brink of agreeing.
‘Madness is being twenty-three and having no idea what it’s like to be touched as a woman.’
A muscle ticced in his jaw as his eyes roamed her face with a different expression now, one of genuine curiosity. ‘And you understand that sex is not a precursor to anything more? That sleeping together does not mean anything?’
‘Of course,’ she almost laughed. ‘I’m a virgin, not totally clueless. I get that sex is different from love. And I’ve already told you, I’m not looking for you to love me. I know exactly what this marriage is, and if you agree to my terms, then I’m all in.’
Her terms were not exactly onerous. He’d expected her to come with a renewed dollar amount in mind.
He’d presumed she’d have googled him, and would know exactly how much he was worth.
It would not have surprised him if she’d shown up and asked for a billion dollars in exchange for her hand in marriage. Hell, he’d have paid it.
Coming home with Amelia as his fiancée, the lost daughter of the prestigious Rossis, the sole descendant now of one of Italy’s oldest families, would ensure the Moretti name was once more seen to hold value.
For his grandfather, he would do anything—even this.
It was the final pathway to erase the memory of his father’s sins, and the stain it had left on their family’s legacy.
But as she stood there, so slim and youthful, with those huge eyes looking at him beseechingly and her fingers fidgeting, he felt a lump of dread forming.
This marriage was a business transaction, and he’d have preferred to keep sex out of it altogether.
While his would-be wife was beautiful, he could appreciate that academically without needing to take her to bed.
There were myriad other women he could seek pleasure with.
Being married to Amelia meant they would be stuck together, in a way he never allowed himself to be with a woman. He couldn’t simply walk away when it suited him. Which made it even more important to delineate these boundaries.
He stepped out from behind the counter and moved to her, ignoring the stirring of desire in his gut, the way his body seemed to understand what she was demanding, and was already willing to oblige.
‘It would be one night, Amelia. Purely for the sake of meeting your request. It would change nothing about our original deal. I will continue to discreetly date, and I will have no issue with you doing the same.’
Her skin paled ever so slightly but she nodded, her blue eyes sparkling with determination as they met his.
‘I told you, I’m not clueless. That’s fine by me.’
He held out his hand, to seal the deal as he would any other. But when she put her small, delicate hand in his, his whole body seemed to ignite, so suddenly, their wedding night was almost all he could think of.
Amelia had lived in England her whole life.
The only reason she even had a passport was because her father had insisted upon it.
You never know when you might want to grow wings, petal.
Amelia hadn’t wanted wings, even when she’d known it had been her father’s most deeply held wish.
Not when she’d seen what wings could do, the damage they could cause.
Her mother had flown away from them without a backwards glance, and from then onwards, Amelia had taken a dim view of the idea of impermanence.
Having lived in England, she had plenty of experience of rain and drizzle but very little of tornados.
However, having spent the better part of four hours in the presence of Massimiliano Moretti, she was starting to feel as though she understood what it was like to be caught up in the centre of that kind of phenomenon.
From the minute she’d shaken his hand and agreed to their deal, the wheels had been set in motion.
Lawyers were called, a hasty meeting formed to go over the details.
All but their wedding night was included in the official documentation, and she understood why he’d omitted that particular component.
She didn’t need it in the contracts, anyway. Not when she had his word. Somehow, she just knew he wasn’t the kind of man to go back on a deal.
After the lawyers had left, she was sent to the department store down the road to meet with a professional shopper, who spent an hour selecting a complete wardrobe for Amelia as befitted Contessina Amelia Rossi.
Everything, from underwear to jeans, suits, dresses, handbags and shoes, was selected and packed away for her.
Amelia Redgrave was buried beneath a sea of silk and linen, exquisite tailoring and a colour-matched palette.
Make-up was added—everything she could ever need, and from the sorts of brands Amelia always shied away from because a single lip gloss was a week’s grocery spend for her.
Amelia stared at the accumulating parcels with a sense of dread.
She couldn’t have hoped to pay for even one of the couture items, let alone the dozens and dozens that were standing in the corner of the personal shopper’s office.
‘I’ll have them sent to the airport, as Signor Moretti requested,’ the shopper said with a smile as Amelia walked from the store wearing one of the dresses she’d tried on, in a state of shock, to a waiting car.
The luxurious limousine whisked her to the King’s Road, where a stunning hair salon welcomed her as though she were the most important client they’d ever seen.
Which was saying something, given that there were two very famous actresses in the process of having their tresses seen to.
Amelia, who was naturally blonde, was given a few extra foils around the front, ‘for freshness’, the hair stylist had said with a wink, as well as a very skilful cut.
While the length was maintained, layers were cut to frame her face and give the hair more wave and bounce.
It was blow-dried to take advantage of that, so several voluminous curls formed.
While her hair was being done, a manicurist added colour to her fingers and toes.
By the time the manicurist and hairdresser were finished, and the shiny black cape removed, Amelia hardly recognised herself.
She reached into her brand-new handbag and removed one of the lipsticks she’d had thrust into her hands by the shopper, and swiped it across her lips.
The colour was, as the shopper had promised, the perfect complement to her complexion.
But the face of the woman in the reflection was so polished and expensive. She looked… Her heart sank on the realisation.
She looked like her mother.
Her eyes closed for a moment on a fluttering wave of feelings.
Nerves, anxiety and the sense that she wanted to run, as fast and as hard as she could, away from that.
Ever since her mother had abandoned them, Amelia had been turning her back on any shared similarities.
As a child, she’d been fluent, to an A grade in school level, in both Italian and English, but as soon as Aria had left, Amelia had ceased to speak the language at all, though her father had encouraged her to continue. I like the way it sounds, pet.
But to Amelia’s ears, it was her mother’s language, their shared communication method that had been special and unique, for them.