Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
S ERENA WAS EXHAUSTED . Pretending was a chore and she did not care for it at all, but it was necessary. She wasn’t convinced all his touching was necessary, but she supposed it put forth the appearances she wanted, so she couldn’t complain.
But her muscles would be sore tomorrow from all the tensing against the strange reactions his touch elicited inside of her.
She had been on a few dates, because it was expected of her to carry on some social life—and to prove to her father that she was not “defective,” as he liked to say, and that she might potentially marry. But the men she’d chosen had been just like her. Contained. Careful. Obsessed with work, usually.
And her work had been everything, just like proving herself in school had been everything before that. Her father required perfection, and she met it. Over and over again. She liked clear goals, and she liked keeping people relegated to business because it made it easy.
So the dates never became relationships , and there hadn’t been any since her father’s death.
Still, even without much experience, she had been confident she could pretend to be in a romantic relationship because she read novels and watched movies.
But the reality of pretending was…exhausting. She hadn’t expected that.
She wanted to lean into the seat, close her eyes, and sleep the whole way home, but Luciano was still right next to her, and she didn’t dare sleep in the presence of a scorpion.
Once home, she would take the longest, hottest bath imaginable. She would sleep in tomorrow—something she only allowed herself once a week anyway. She had earned her lazy day tomorrow.
Thankfully, Luciano did not speak the entire drive back to her house. Nor did he put his hand over hers again. He sat in the other seat, and his quiet and stillness made her nervous. Like he was plotting something.
But she wasn’t about to ask what . Maybe she’d think about it tomorrow, try to suss out what he thought he was up to. But not tonight.
The car pulled to a stop and Serena made a move to get out herself, but Luciano tsk ed. “Come, Serena. You know better.”
“We do not need to pretend in my front drive in the dark.”
“Doesn’t your staff need to believe our little farce?”
She opened her mouth to argue with that, but she had decided before this that of course they did. She wasn’t sure she could pull one over on Pierro. He’d been the caretaker of this castle and its inhabitant since her father had been a child. He knew her too well.
But if everyone else fell for it, he would pretend he did not know it was fake. He would go along with it.
But she hadn’t thought about how that would… look . In her private life. She’d been focused on how to make the public believe they were a couple.
He was opening her car door for her now, offering his hand to help her out. She didn’t want to take it, pretend or no, but she had to. Just another curse to lay on her father’s memory, she supposed.
Luciano kept her hand in his as he closed the car door behind her. Then he walked with her. Toward the castle. His large hand enveloping hers. Warm and strangely rough, when she would have expected his hands to be as smooth as the rest of him.
They walked up the stairs to the main doorway. Her heart tripped over itself in something like nerves. She wasn’t nervous . She was just…uncomfortable. He was only walking her to her door. Like a good date would. She would turn, offer her cheek perhaps? She didn’t want to feel his mouth on her, her hand, her cheek, her…
No, she didn’t want to know what that felt like. Just the thought made her jittery and sick to her stomach. Maybe that jittery feeling was more like a free fall on a roller coaster than any kind of revulsion, but she was certain it came from not wanting to do it. Excitement wouldn’t feel like this, so untenable and shaky. Besides, any excitement , would be a betrayal of her own self.
So it couldn’t be that.
But some sort of physical good-bye was necessary , she told herself firmly as they reached her door. She turned to him, pulled her hand away, almost having to resort to tugging for it to be free. Once it was, she knew she had to give a little more. Pretend for the staff, as he’d said. She tilted her head, offering her cheek. A chaste kiss on the cheek was something she was going to have to get used to. So why not start now with only the audience of his driver and possibly someone looking on from inside?
But as he leaned forward, closer and closer, those dark eyes intense and on hers so that it felt like a touch in itself, her breath seemed to catch there in her throat. She couldn’t inhale or exhale as his mouth brushed against her cheek.
Lightly, almost friendly. Certainly not romantic . But his breath on her skin was an intimacy she hadn’t considered, and she didn’t like the way it shivered through her. How it elicited wants that clearly had not originated in her brain .
She needed this to be over. She needed to be alone. To regroup. To… To… Something away from him.
“Good night, Luciano,” she said, sounding polite and warm, she hoped, but it was hard to tell with the buzzing in her ears.
That intensified when she opened the door and he did not turn around and walk back to his car. He followed her into the warmly lit entryway.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, rounding on him as if she could protect her space from him physically.
“Coming inside,” Luciano replied breezily.
“I did not invite you inside.” She knew she sounded shrill. She could hear it, but she couldn’t stop it.
“Quite the failure on your part. You should invite me in for a drink. And then we should retire to your room.”
She could only gape at him. He wasn’t actually suggesting…
“We are to make a splash, are we not?”
A splash?
He was mad. “I don’t see what that has to do with you following me inside against my wishes. With you…” She couldn’t say the rest. A drink was one thing. Her room ?
“What better splash than a tabloid photo of my car leaving your home early in the morning? The speculation will run rampant.”
The thought of him in her home overnight was…horrible. Absolutely terrifying. Maybe the fear she’d felt before had been heavy with claws, and this was light and fizzy. Maybe this felt more like a drink of champagne than any threat. The idea of him in her room, the idea of him…
She could not let her mind traverse down that road. It felt imperative to shut the door on any imagination there, before it…changed something.
A smart woman did not walk roads or have sleepovers—no matter how fake—with creatures who could sting. “You cannot spend the night here.”
“Admittedly your crumbling castle is not my first choice in accommodations. Perhaps next time you can spend the night at my estate. With running water.”
“I have running water. I have every amenity—” She stopped herself from continuing to defend her home , particularly in that horrible screech that made her want to wince. He was no doubt just trying to get a rise out of her. She inhaled, put all her armor back in place and smiled sweetly at him. “And I wouldn’t stay at your estate if held at gunpoint, carissimo .”
“Then I guess you are not as serious about this endeavor as I’d thought you were.” He tsked lightly.
She finally understood the meaning behind the saying “seeing red.” “I am more serious than you can imagine , Luciano.”
“Perhaps you are. Perhaps you are just that out of touch with reality. You do realize a modern couple shares a bed before the wedding? Or does your choice of accommodations allow you to believe it is the year 1500?”
She hated that he could make her blush. That he should keep talking about beds and that whole thing about her being a virgin.
How could he tell ?
It didn’t matter.
“ We will not be sharing a bed. Ever.”
“No,” he agreed so easily it made her want to stomp her foot like a child. “But people must think we are.”
“So you intend to spend the night in my room?”
He shrugged. “Unfortunately, I do not see any way around it.”
“You’re mad ,” she shot at him as her heart rattled around in her chest, and a heat she couldn’t seem to control crept into her cheeks. Because it was embarrassing to even consider. Embarrassing that people would think they were…
Embarrassment was the only explanation for this heat, for this skittering pulse inside of her. She didn’t know what else it could be. Refused to consider anything but humiliation.
Everything about this was a disaster.
“I seem to recall this being your idea,” Luciano said blandly. “In fact, I seem to recall you coming to my office and proposing to me.”
“Yes, but—”
“Then, take me to your bedroom, cara .”
* * *
Luciano hadn’t really planned on enjoying himself. But it took no effort at all to have her spluttering and red-faced. When for as long as he’d known her, she’d been an icy, impenetrable wall. He’d gotten a little peek behind it that first night he’d come here, but only the polish. Now, he was seeing an actual unraveling, not just a pair of glasses.
Who knew all it would take was a fake relationship, a kiss on the cheek and some suggestion of beds to break through her perfect mask?
But she would not be Serena Valli if she did not know how to rein herself in and carefully put that mask back in place. Her chin lifted, her eyes flashed, but other than that her expression was perfectly bland.
He found himself completely fascinated by this change. By the way she could wield such strength of character. It made him want to unwind it, again and again, perhaps even in unwise ways.
“Follow me,” she said briskly, then stalked out of the entry and deeper into her strange house. There were narrow, dark hallways, tiny windows that hinted at little light, and only when they reached the third floor did he realize she must have taken him through the back of the castle that was no doubt originally built for an array of medieval servants. Because the part he had been shown through the other night had been bright, opulent and cozy.
He wondered if it was a purposeful attempt at a slight—no doubt, really, when it was Serena doing the slighting. It amused him, in spite of himself. The little swipes she could take at him that she would no doubt deny.
Like stomping on his foot during their dance.
It did not fully make sense to him that he was enjoying her sparks of defiance. Perhaps because he’d once thought her blandly above such emotion.
Once at the top of the staircase, she led him down what would be a brighter hallway in the light of day since one wall was dotted with windows. The hallway was short, and only led to one door.
With the slightest of hesitations no one would have noticed if not looking for it, Serena pushed the door open. She flipped on a light, and he followed her into the room.
It was big and bright. One wall seemed to be made entirely of glass, and he could not make out the entire view it gave since it was dark outside, but there was water below. Right now, all he could see was a brightly shining moon and pretty starlight.
There was a truly spectacular ornate bed against one wall. Four posters, an array of comfortable looking and colorful blankets and pillows. He found himself transfixed by the idea of cold, uptight Serena cozying into that warm, cuddly bed.
But Serena did not look at the bed. She marched over to a door, jerked it open and stepped inside what appeared to be a very large closet. She reappeared, a little stack of folded clothes in one hand, before she crossed over to yet another door. The bathroom, he imagined.
She said nothing, just disappeared behind this door and firmly shut it behind her. He heard the snick of the lock being engaged and laughed.
He took in the rest of the room. It was an interesting combination of softly romantic art, brightly colored and patterned textiles, a bold view of the world outside her castle and…animal paraphernalia. There was a row of portraits—cat and dog faces, all painted up to look like kings and queens and military generals of a sort.
What on earth…?
He recalled the little fluff of a cat that had been in her sitting room the other night as something streaked out from underneath the bed and took a swipe at his shoelaces, then disappeared again. For a moment, he could only stare at the space where a cat’s paw had just been. Before it crept out once more.
Luciano took a step away and then another. He could not quite get a read on Serena’s private, interior life. Cats. Books. A homey kind of…grandmotherliness when the woman wasn’t a day over twenty-eight, perhaps even younger, if he remembered correctly. A direct contrast to the sharp, modern businesswoman she presented herself as.
And he wondered what caused such a dichotomy. Perhaps he pretended to be less determined and hardheaded than he was, but he did not hide key elements of his personality away.
What would make a person do such a thing? What did it mean? Why did it all come together like a story he was desperate to know the ending to?
The door reopened and Serena stepped out. She was dressed casually now, but he didn’t think there was anything casual about the way she was covered from head to toe. A soft sweatshirt that had a mock turtleneck. Pants that were utterly shapeless and looked equally soft. And thick socks. The only skin he could see was her face and her hands.
“There is a cat under your bed,” he told her.
“There are likely two cats under my bed,” she replied. “It’s one of their favorite places.” She looked up at him then. “I don’t suppose you’re allergic?” she asked.
Hopefully.
“Not to my knowledge.”
For the first time since he’d stepped inside her house, she smiled at him. “You could rub your face in one and find out.”
“I shall abstain, I think.”
She shrugged, but the smile stayed in place. “Let me know if you change your mind.” She said nothing else and didn’t move from her spot all the way across the room from him. She just stood there, offering nothing into the silence.
Except what he could only define as a nervous energy. She held herself perfectly still, her expression placid. But there was a tension wafting off of her, and Luciano could not lie. He enjoyed having that effect on her.
Any affect, really, that chipped through what he’d once thought was impenetrable ice.
So he took a few steps in her direction, grinning when she took the same amount of steps in the opposite one.
He stopped, regarded her across the room with a raised eyebrow. “What exactly are you afraid of, Serena?”
The look of outrage chased across her face. “I am not afraid .”
“You locked the bathroom door like I’m the big bad wolf. You stand across the room like I might bite.”
“I locked the bathroom door because that’s what you do when you go into a private area that you wish to remain private.”
“Do you think I’m going to burst in and pounce upon you?”
“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” But her face was getting redder and redder, like now that he’d introduced the words bite and pounce she could picture it all too well.
Which had him considering what that picture would look like. What it might be like to cross the room and—
Before he remembered himself. Who he was. Who she was. What this was. A farce.
But that did not mean he could not enjoy a farce. As long as he remembered himself. Which had never been a problem before.
Why should it be a problem now?
“This is a large bed. I suppose it shall do for our purposes.” He moved over to it now, eyed the bed skirt for any evidence of paws, then decided to leave his shoes on. He settled himself on the bed in a sitting position, crossing his ankles over a bright purple coverlet of some kind and lacing his fingers behind his head against the padded headboard decorated with images of tiny…pigs?
For a moment, he wondered if he’d given her a kind of stroke. She stood utterly still, her mouth hanging open ever so slightly, no noise coming from it.
Eventually, she blinked, as if coming back into herself. “I am hungry,” she declared, reaching for the door.
“As am I. Have a tray brought up. I’m not picky about food. If you have any good liquor, I wouldn’t mind a drink as well.”
“You are not… We are not…” She spluttered on some more without actually articulating a word. It was fascinating. He had never seen her struggle to undercut a man—any man, including himself—with an icy smile and perfectly sharp words.
She didn’t stutter. She didn’t falter. She was the kind of woman who showed up at a man’s club and suggested they marry to save businesses and legacies.
But slowly, she brought it all back. She took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment. There was a whole process of resetting herself, and he watched it happen in front of him.
Fascinating. What must it be like to have that inside a person?
“I have considered your point,” she said, in that prim, controlled voice of hers. “You are somewhat correct that any engaged couple should be considered to be…cohabitating at times. If we arrange someone to photograph and leak said photograph of you leaving here early in the morning, we’ll get a lot of traction from that.”
“That might even be why I suggested it,” he returned dryly, still lounging on her bed that smelled crisp and reminded him of spring.
She ignored his sarcasm. “That being said, we must consider our own comfort while we engage in this little facade.”
“I am quite comfortable.”
She inhaled through her nose this time.
“I am not. I am used to having my space to myself. I am used to a certain level of…” She paused, searching for a word, though she was back to her normal self, not faltering. Just being careful. Precise. “Solitude. It is my preferred state of being. So, perhaps we should use this time together to fully iron out an agreement.”
“An agreement?”
“Yes. We don’t want to go the route of full legal contract just yet, as that could be leaked. But an agreement between the two of us. How we will proceed, behave. Lay out expectations.”
“Expectations.”
“Are you struggling with the meaning of the words themselves or something else?” she asked, smiling sweetly. But no amount of masks could hide the annoyed snap in her tone.
“I find myself baffled by the way you speak.”
“I will try to dumb down my vocabulary to meet you where you are.”
She said this almost kindly. Luciano smiled mildly at her. He did not defend himself to anyone. He’d learned from a young age there was no point, and it usually worked in his favor to be underestimated.
But her comments grated all the same, and he had to remind himself that there was a larger game at play then this inconsequential conversation in her bedroom.
“Well, by all means. Let us iron out an agreement. But have some food and drink sent up first. God knows I’ll need one to get through this.”