Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
S ERENA WAS A bundle of nerves on the inside. On the outside, she was a fortress of sophistication. But taking Luciano’s arm was like one final step into a madness she did not want, but had no choice about.
So she wasn’t eager to start this farce.
She did not care for the dress. It left her feeling exposed, when usually her wardrobe, hair and makeup felt like armor. Today, it was simply a costume. A role she was playing.
A woman foolish enough to be caught up in the charming smile of Luciano Ascione. Because this was the element she was nervous about. How did one pretend to be in love with a man they hated?
And yet hate wasn’t quite accurate as she put her arm in his. Something else was happening inside her body. It wasn’t disdain. It wasn’t revulsion. She had been in a male-dominated business enough to know what disinterest felt like.
This wasn’t that, and she could not make sense of it since she did not like Luciano Ascione and never would.
Never.
He led her outside, and the cool air felt good against her overwarm skin. The act of walking helped take her out of her tumble of thoughts and focus. Because everything in business was focus. One step and then another.
And any inner feelings—good or bad—did not matter.
He led her to his car and opened the door for her, and she did not make eye contact. She had been haunted for too many nights about what it felt like in that restaurant to meet his gaze.
She wanted nothing to do with it.
Once seated in the back of his car, she closed her eyes for a moment. Just to center herself. Just to remind herself what this was for.
“Nervous?”
“Of course not,” she said, reacting too quickly, too forcefully. She knew it the minute she nearly jumped a foot out of her seat when Luciano put his large hand over her clasped ones in her lap.
She wanted to scoot farther away from him, but he was hardly crowding her. Even his hand came off hers quickly. There was absolutely no reason to find the spacious backseat too small. Too enclosed. And smelling far too much of his expensive cologne, something woodsy and enticing. Subtle, when the man was anything but.
“I suppose I am nervous,” she said to him, because claiming the emotion she felt was the first step in defeating it. In maybe eradicating this winded feeling. “You are the experienced actor in this little play.”
“Then let me do the talking.”
“Talking, I am good at. I am not good at…” She trailed off, because she didn’t know how to articulate it. She was always playing a role, so it wasn’t that. It was simply that she usually played a role she chose, or maybe it was less of a role, less of a fiction, and more of a mask over her real self. One that suited her. Businesswoman. Whether it required a little flirting and ridiculous compliments, or shrewd no-nonsense facts. She could do it all.
But she did not know how to attend an event and pretend that it was simply to enjoy the company of her date. The goal was not business—it was gossip and drumming up interest in her .
She had always preferred to be in the background, to let the business do the speaking. No one needed to know about her cats or what she liked to read or the name she had planned for the miniature dachshund she was this close to adopting.
Now, she was pretending to let everyone know something. Something she didn’t actually want anyone to know, because being fake in love with Luciano was embarrassing. He was a notorious playboy, flirted with anything that moved. Everyone would look at her and feel pity for thinking she of all people would have won his loyalty.
“I’m waiting for you to confess something you don’t think you’re good at, Serena. Frankly, I did not think hubris one of your main qualities.”
She scowled at him. “One does not need hubris when one is self-aware,” she returned with a primness that steadied her. Because she was prim , and organized, and controlling and therefore in control . She knew her flaws. Understood them and tried to keep them under that same control.
But she hated to hand her own shortcomings to him on a silver platter. Even if they were partners, short term, they were long-term adversaries. And she knew, from having to deal with her parents her entire life, that letting adversaries into your inner thoughts, inner worlds, only lead to hurt.
She would not let this man hurt her. And maybe that was why his smile, his touch, upended her, the strange sensations they elicited. These were not the actions of adversaries. There was some warmth under it all, and she only knew how to fight her parents’ frigidness.
“It is not so much that I think I am not good at something, but I do have some concerns that, even with this wardrobe choice, some people will question the likelihood of…an us . We do not have anything in common, except hating one another.”
“I suppose you have not heard the concept of opposites attracting .”
She sighed. Heavily. “Except a woman as smart as I am would not be foolish enough to be attracted to the opposite of everything she valued—truth, intelligence, loyalty. And so on.”
“You would be surprised at the amount of intelligent women I have had in my bed, cara .”
She hated that her cheeks heated, because she had no doubt he had said it for that very reason. So that she would have to fight any imagining of such a thing from happening in her head.
But it was far too easy to imagine. Perhaps she had never been in anyone’s bed , but she enjoyed love stories. Reading them, watching them. She liked believing that for some, that kind of companionship, dedication, romance and, yes, enjoyable sex, was possible.
Even if she wasn’t made for it. There had been no physicality in her life to make her believe she was. Even her grandfather, for all his kind points, had not been a hugger. Her parents somehow less so. She had grown up with such a lack of physical touch, she did not know how to be comfortable with the idea of it in her romantic life.
So the fact he was mentioning it, the fact she was even… thinking about it, jumbled up all her certainties and plans, and that could not be born.
“I would never be surprised by the amount of people in your bed, Luciano,” she managed to say, hoping she sounded sophisticated and casual about the whole matter. “But I feel it imperative to remind you that for our purposes, in public you must refrain from behaving your usual way. Flirting with anyone in a skirt. Touching other women. The crowd must believe that you care for me , and that will require the great lothario of Italy to keep his eyes and hands to himself.”
There was a beat of silence where she thought maybe she’d shocked him, or offended him or scored some kind of point. She would have felt triumphant and celebrated that, but he seemed to purr out his response.
“Ah, but not to himself . I will have to keep my eyes and hands on you. No?”
He asked this like a kind of dare, so she kept her placid smile in place and refused to blush as his dark eyes held hers. It felt like his hands were on her all the same.
Her heartbeat seemed to tremble there in her chest and, for a breathless moment, she could almost imagine just that. His hands on her. Skin to skin. Warmth to warmth. A physicality that only existed in her imagination.
But, good lord, not with him . That was ridiculous. They would only ever have to pretend physical intimacy in public, like a hand hold. Perhaps a dance.
A brushing of bodies, of lips.
But no more. No more . Because this was a ruse, and she could not allow him to think he had some upper hand, like he no doubt wanted. Maybe he thought he was charming. Maybe he wanted her off balance and thought this was the way to do it—no doubt, he used his charm and innuendo as a weapon as easily as breathing. So that was it.
So she did not wilt. She would not look away. She would not allow him the upper hand, no matter how her heart seemed to riot there in her chest. So she didn’t just act unaffected, she made sure to put him promptly in his place.
“I suppose you are right. Me . I know it will be a great challenge, testing your wherewithal deeply—something you are not accustomed to. But I will endeavor to have faith in you, Luciano. Sometimes the most challenging people only need someone to believe they are capable of them being better than they behave.”
She kept his gaze the entire time. Watched as a chill moved through his expression, a sharp-edged anger he did not unleash. She had insulted him.
Good .
* * *
Luciano had agreed to this party assuming that Serena might be annoying , insulting and her usual bland self, but he had not expected her to challenge him in quite such a way.
He wasn’t certain how to combat it just yet. He knew what he wanted to do. Seduce every woman in the room simply out of spite. She seemed to expect it of him anyway, and he had no doubts he could do it, more or less.
As if he needed her belief in his ability to be better .
Oh, he’d be better. His usual approach to any problem was to live down to whatever low expectations he could muster, then dig even lower. It suited him well. People underestimated him, and he succeeded around that. Then, if they had to come face to face with his successes, they’d easily brush it off as a consequence of his name.
But Serena’s expectations were so low, he found himself challenged to rise above them. Because as much as they couldn’t stand each other, they had the same goal. So why not beat her at her own game? Why not, for once, be the victor in plain sight?
He liked that idea quite a bit.
He had never had reason to play the besotted lover. In fact, he tended to discourage such…connection. He made certain the women he dated understood that he was not looking for a Mrs. Ascione. That there would be no future . That he was interested in fun and fun alone.
The women who agreed enjoyed his brand of fun. The women who did not agree were shut out. It was a simple approach that had not caused him any trouble yet.
This was far more complicated. But if Serena wanted a besotted fool, dedicated to her and her alone, for the press and the stories and the good of their companies, why not deliver?
Why not show her just how good he was? So all her barbs no longer had any heft. So she had to adjust her plans that no doubt included being completely in charge, because he was too dim, or too busy seducing women, to handle what needed to be handled.
No, he would be the fifty-fifty partner she did not want, and he would make everyone in this silly room believe he was in love with her, so this plan went off without a hitch. And any hitches would be her fault.
They walked into the charming villa, brimming with flowers and people, all important and rich. Some clients. Some enemies. He smiled, greeted, a hand lightly placed on Serena’s back to make it clear they had arrived together.
She was right about one thing. He was an experienced actor. He’d been playing a role all his life, he liked to think. At first, he’d stepped into roles to garner his parents’ attention—so they’d stop gearing their slings and arrows at each other.
He’d worked to be the perfect student to show his father he was an intelligent and worthy heir. He’d worried over his mother and done everything to show her he could be the protector his father had not been for her.
Both had rejected him and his earnest tries, so then he’d done the opposite. It had suited him much better when it came to his father, to see disappointment and regret in the old man’s eyes. To live down to low expectations.
It had been more…complicated with his mother. She had shut him out, rejected him. So that there could be no living down . He could only stop trying, and with that came a guilt he had never fully been able to untangle.
Something he did not wish to nor need to contend with when it came to business, so he shoved that thought aside and focused on Serena. There would be no living down, no guilt, because she meant nothing to him, no matter how interesting she’d turned out to be.
It didn’t matter. Only playing his role mattered.
His hand slid lower, and it was strange to have to even pretend to see Serena in the light of a woman . Because she was indeed. In fact, if there weren’t any history between them, and she weren’t so stuffy, he might have been tempted. She did make a pretty sparkling package.
When his hand drifted lower, pulling her closer, she went still and stiff. He had to bite back a grin. But then he just aimed it down at her. “Relax, cara ,” he murmured cheerfully. “All eyes are on us.”
Her mouth curved in a pretty approximation of a smile, even if he could tell she’d like to shoot daggers from her eyes at him. “Then we are getting exactly what we wanted,” she replied, nodding at someone who called out a greeting.
They moved through the room, greeting people they knew, getting sucked into conversations where avid eyes watched Luciano’s hand on her back, her shoulder or clasping her own. Serena didn’t relax into it exactly, but it was clear she was playing it up as best she could. He thought she was good enough to fool just about everyone else.
Eventually, they got hailed in different directions and were separated for a bit. Luciano talked to a very disapproving member of his father’s staff at Ascione, who didn’t want to come out and ask what Luciano was doing holding hands with the devil’s daughter but came close enough.
Luciano had just laughed it off, irritating the man and entertaining himself.
When a pretty woman he’d usually flirt with sidled up to him, he was polite. He smiled. But he did not lay on his usual charm. In fact, he should pretend to look for Serena. Pretend to be distracted by her. That would get this group talking.
But when he found Serena with his gaze, he did not have to pretend. She stood with Tomasso Bonetti—who had once been a very important customer at Valli but had lately taken up with the American conglomerate—their heads bowed together.
They laughed and Luciano frowned.
She was the one who’d come up with this ridiculous plan. She was the one who’d warned him off flirting with other women. And now she stood laughing with another man. Tomasso was a good decade older than Serena, but Luciano did not trust that sly smile of his.
He didn’t even bother to excuse himself from his current conversation companion, because he’d forgotten about her entirely. He strode across the room and approached Serena, sliding his arm around her waist in an easy movement that had her stiffening.
“I shall have to steal Serena away,” he said to Tomasso, a feral smile in place. “They’re playing our song.”
Serena didn’t frown. Not with her expression. But it was fascinating to be able to read the frown underneath the pleasant smile. Especially when no one else seemed to. She made her excuses to the man she’d all but been drooling over and then allowed Luciano to pull her onto the dance floor, and no one even looked twice at her. No one acted concerned that clearly the little dent between her eyebrows meant she was a little frustrated.
Did anyone ever watch her face like this, see it smooth out, and know that she’d thought through the issue, decided to make it a positive?
Something threaded through him at the idea that he did, only he did. A kind of weight. He was a man who liked to avoid weights and complications, but he found himself wanting to hoard this one. To have it only ever be his.
“Very clever,” she said to him as the music began and he pulled her into his arms. She sounded surprised and vaguely indulgent, like a nursery schoolteacher, and that poked his frustration with her flirting with that stronzo even higher. “Make it look as if there is jealousy. Excellent touch.”
He made a noncommittal noise. “Perhaps, but I feel I must remind you of the little warning you gave me earlier this evening. It is a two-way street, you know. You can’t be draping yourself all over another man.”
Serena laughed, and the sound was surprisingly light, frothy . A sparkle that had a few heads turning. The women immediately turned to whoever they were with and whispered behind hands adorned with jewels.
The men lingered too much on the length of Serena’s legs as they moved to the slow, string notes that filled the air.
Luciano had to remind himself not to scowl.
“Draping? That’s rich.” She shook her head, the earrings at her ears winking in the light. “No one expects me to flirt, and even if they suspected that’s what I was doing, which I can assure you no one did, they would consider it harmless. I do not have an endless array of famous, public lovers, Luciano.”
“No, indeed you do not.” And since he was feeling inexplicably frustrated, something he might call jealousy if he didn’t know better, he leaned into a scathing reaction. Into her and figuring her out so he stopped feeling this…unsettled thing. “In fact, you don’t seem to have a whisper of any .”
She stiffened in his arms, and he knew he’d made a direct and interesting hit. She didn’t like that pointed out to her.
“I am discreet,” she said, with a little sniff and that prim, pompous tone she trotted out like a weapon.
“Discreet or a virgin?” he asked casually.
She tripped over his foot, but before he could maneuver them back into the simple dance, the sharp heel of her shoe found the top of his. She put her full weight on it, causing a shock of pain to erupt in his foot.
“Oops,” she offered with mock contrition. “I do apologize. Would you like to end our dance early? Perhaps you want to put some ice on it?” She asked all of this with a sweetness that was fake as the day was long. “I am just so terribly clumsy sometimes.”
He gritted his teeth as he glared at her. “I will somehow survive your clumsiness, cara .” Survive it. Survive her. Use this farce as the start of a new direction for himself. He would win this battle of the wills, rather than withdraw, rather than obscure, rather than hide . He had uncovered little hints at something softer under the icy demeanor, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d found them all.
So he smiled down at her and brought a hand up to tuck a curling strand of hair behind her ear, making sure his finger grazed her cheekbone.
He kept moving her on the dance floor even as her posture went rigid, her cheeks a fascinating shade of pink, and she could not hold his gaze.
Oh, she’d like to be immune to him, and there was something about that realization, that determination , that she wasn’t that gave him a thrill. A sense of purpose and satisfaction that he hadn’t allowed himself in some time.
A challenge, because while he would no doubt win her over, charm her, get under that cold demeanor, it would not be easy . Serena was brilliant, and different. He did not know anyone like her, and there would likely be surprises in store.
There was a strange little alarm bell in the back of his mind, a warning about getting in too deep, too involved, too interested .
But this was Serena Valli he was contending with. No matter the challenge, he would win.
He had no doubt.