CHAPTER SIX
LAYLAWASTHRILLINGLY aware of his hardness pressing into her lower back, the fluttering pulses in her pelvis becoming molten liquid. Close to swaying, she felt her breasts tingle wildly in anticipation of Sebastiano’s hands sliding from her arms to cover them, the compulsion to lean her head back onto his shoulder and into the crook of his neck...
It took a major burst of impetus to pull herself away and step into the safety of the bedroom.
Striding to a window, she fixed her gaze over the rear of the villa and what was possibly the most stunning vista she’d ever seen, and snatched as much air as she could into lungs that had lost the ability to breathe. ‘Shut the door.’
The breathlessness of Layla’s order tightened Sebastiano’s arousal to a point.
Dio, it felt like he’d been aroused from the moment he’d opened his eyes. The knowledge he would end his day with Layla Sansom lying beside him had crowded his mind before the dreams of sleep had cleared.
And now she was here. The opportunistic hustler was going to pay her debt to him by distracting the world from the foolishness of his actions—or, to be technical, his inactions—with a marriage that would be short but in no way sweet.
She couldn’t know it but she’d already repaid some of her debt. Bringing her here, all the planning that had gone into it, all the anticipation of it, had all served as the distraction he’d needed to the potential destruction of his reputation and the potential destruction of the business that had belonged to his family for half a millennia. It had stopped him thinking about it in any depth at all.
She spun around before he reached her. ‘You said the bedroom would be a safe space from your wandering hands so back off.’
He held his hands up and murmured, ‘I didn’t put it in quite those words.’
‘The intention was the same, so keep your distance.’
‘What are you afraid of, cara? That you won’t be able to restrain yourself?’ The fire that blazed in those fabulous forget-me-not eyes at this... ‘Has anyone told you that you’re beautiful when you’re angry?’
‘Has anyone told you that you need to come up with some new lines because that one’s so old it’s beyond stale?’
‘As enjoyable as it is to feel your passion for me—’
‘My what?’
‘Your passion, currently displaying itself as anger—I need you to put it on ice. Time is moving. Your design team will arrive soon and you will display all the signs of a woman excited about her new life with the love of her life. Is that clear?’
The Medusa effect of her stare didn’t diminish an inch. ‘You have already made that clear. Outside the walls of this bedroom, complete adoration.’ She folded her arms over her breasts and spun back around to gaze out of the window.
There was something in Layla’s rigid, stubborn stance, a hint of vulnerability that, just for a moment, made Sebastiano’s heart catch and throat close.
It took a longer moment to shake the unsettling reactions off.
‘Who do you want to invite to the wedding?’ he asked, standing beside her at the window.
Thrown at the change of subject, Layla couldn’t stop herself turning her stare back to him.
‘We have four full days to make the arrangements. It will look odd if you don’t have anyone from your side,’ he reasoned.
‘We can’t have that,’ she muttered, knowing he was right but in no mood to let go of her anger even though Sebastiano had already called it out for what it was.
How could one man make a woman feel so much?
She needed to get a grip on herself and her emotions quickly because this was only the beginning.
Fixing her gaze on the deep blue sea just beyond the thick trees that served as the perimeter to his estate, she took a deep breath. ‘What do we tell people about how we came to be together?’
‘Exactly what I told Laurence—the truth. I met you at the Diamond Club, we were secret lovers and only once you left did I realise I had fallen in love with you.’
Well, that made her heart wrench. ‘I thought you just said we’d be telling the truth.’
‘Sticking to the truth as much as we can so we don’t get caught out in a lie.’
‘I can’t lie to my mum.’ She looked again at him. ‘She already knows about you.’
His eyebrows drew together. ‘What does she know?’
‘That you’re the father of my baby. That you ghosted and blocked me.’ She shrugged with deliberate nonchalance.
She would never tell him of her utter desolation when she’d realised that he’d blocked her number, when her numerous calls to him had failed to connect and her desperate text message of, I’m pregnant and frightened, please call me, didn’t even make it to delivered status. She’d found her mum curled up on the sofa watching one of her soap operas, crocheting. Her mum had looked up at her and simply said, ‘Are you ready to tell me what’s going on with you?’
And so she had.
‘Does she know about the money you blackmailed from me?’
‘Yes. I can’t lie to her, Seb.’
She knew from the movement in his green eyes that he was thinking hard. ‘Can she be trusted?’
‘Yes, so you don’t need to make any more threats—I will play my part and she will play hers. I know what’s at stake if we don’t make this convincing. She won’t breathe a word to anyone.’
His eyes continued to bore into hers.
‘You can trust her,’ she reiterated into the silence.
He gave a sharp nod and looked at his watch. ‘Then I shall take you at your word. Now come, let me show you your dressing room and where everything is. I have much to do.’
With Layla firmly ensconced in his home and the design team creating a wardrobe that befitted her as his wife, Sebastiano focused his attention on everything else. The press release was ready to go, all the preparations for the wedding were discreetly underway, the members of his core team working on damage limitation were readying to firefight if necessary, senior members of the bank prepared for a potentially damaging news story and spoon-fed the official line to take...everything was in hand. Everything had been considered from every angle. Everyone knew the part they had to play.
As far as his family, his directors and core team were concerned, he was sticking with the truth as he’d explained it to Layla. He would not have any of them think he’d had to threaten her and her law firm with destruction to obtain her agreement. If it turned out she really was pregnant...
Well, that would serve a purpose of its own, but he would not think about that, not with the tugging doubt in his stomach growing stronger now she was finally here with him.
It was being with her. Watching her graceful movements. Gazing into forget-me-not eyes that ranged in expression from naked desire to open loathing and fury, often within a blink.
The expression on her face when the household butler escorted her into the smaller dining room was the complete adoration he demanded of her.
He rose to greet her.
His chameleon had changed, the sexy but plain tight trousers and top replaced by a colourful halter-neck dress that fell to mid-thigh and showcased the fabulous legs he’d admired for so long. Her long hair had been scooped into a loose bun, tendrils framing her face, large, hooped gold earrings and a thick Egyptian-style bracelet adorning her skin, and he felt a stab of satisfaction that the vast range of jewellery he’d had couriered over for her use contained items that suited her so well.
She closed in on him, enveloping his senses in a cloud of sultry perfume. He’d had thirty scents brought in for her, figuring she would like at least one of them. The one she’d chosen made him hungry to breathe it directly off her skin.
It wasn’t until she put a hand to his shoulder that he saw the challenge in her eyes. ‘Good evening, darling,’ she said breathily, before rising onto her toes and kissing him. Not a brief greeting of a kiss, but a deep, sensuous locking of mouths that caught him unprepared. When she broke it, she pouted another kiss, winked, and then slid into the chair set beside his that the butler had pulled out for her. The serenity in both her stance and her actions would have made him laugh if he weren’t fighting to stop his arousal from showing.
‘I think I prefer this dining room to the one you showed me earlier,’ she commented brightly. ‘Much more intimate.’
He cleared his throat and retook his seat. ‘This one is for personal use. The other is for entertaining.’
A member of staff leaned between them to pour her wine but she covered the glass with her hand. ‘Just water for me, please.’
Their food was served and then Sebastiano dismissed the staff so it was just the two of them.
Damn but he was still aroused.
Taking a drink of his wine, he passed a large envelope to her. ‘Our prenuptial agreement,’ he told her.
She sighed dreamily as she took it from him. ‘You have romance in your soul.’
‘I’m Sicilian. Romance is in my blood.’
The dreamy expression didn’t drop. ‘And there was me thinking it was vengeance you bled.’
‘We are a people of passion in all its forms.’ Just as Layla was a woman of passion, a thought that didn’t help with the throbbing between his legs. He handed her a pen. ‘There will be no negotiating any of the contents. All I require is your signature.’
‘I’m sure the agreement is a testament to your generosity,’ she riposted, peeling the envelope open and removing the document. ‘However, I would be a terrible lawyer to put my signature to a document I didn’t read first, plus I’m keen to learn how much of my vast fortune I need to pay you when we go our separate ways.’
Her witty irreverence made him laugh, and as he watched her read it while they dined on pollo ai funchi, he wondered again what it had taken to hide this side of herself when she’d worked at the club.
As she read, her serenity slowly leeched out until she put her cutlery down to look at him. ‘I can’t sign this. It’s—’
‘It is not open to negotiation,’ he cut in.
‘It says that if our marriage ends within a year then you’ll pay me fifty million euros. Sebastiano, you’re forcing me to marry you as a punishment, so why would you—?’
‘I cannot be seen to give you anything less than I would in a real marriage.’
Her shoulders made a slight slump before she lifted her chin again. ‘The clauses about children...’
‘Again, nothing less than would be expected in a real marriage and again, nothing that is open to negotiation—none of it is. Sign it or the deal is off.’
Her eyes held his, something thoughtful flickering in the forget-me-nots before she picked up the pen and signed.
He nodded his approval and dabbed the sides of his mouth with a napkin. ‘Who knew blackmail would prove so lucrative? Now you will have to excuse me—I have a video conference with Zurich. I will see you later in bed.’
Until Layla’s night with Sebastiano, she’d been the soundest of sleepers. Since that night though, sleep had been erratic, morphing into full-blown insomnia after she’d blackmailed the money from him. The last thing she’d expected as she rummaged in her dressing room for something to sleep in that wouldn’t make the staff suspicious and which wouldn’t send ‘come and get me’ signals to Sebastiano was to fall asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow.
So soundly did she sleep that when she opened her eyes she was disoriented to find the room filled with dusky light and Sebastiano standing on the other side of the bed scrolling through his phone, dressed in smart navy trousers and a pale blue shirt, different clothing than what he’d worn for dinner.
Her heart ballooned and caught in her throat.
He noticed her looking and a wry smile spread across his handsome face. ‘Ah, the Sleeping Beauty awakens.’
‘It’s morning?’ she whispered.
‘Eight o’clock.’
She could hardly believe it. When she’d checked her phone after the long video call with her mother in which she’d filled her in on everything and in which her mother had been love and understanding itself, it had been ten-thirty p.m. She’d snuggled under the covers straight after saying goodnight to her.
She was almost frightened to see if the other side of the bed had been slept in.
‘I assumed you’d be waiting for me with a taser in your hand when I came up but you were dead to the world,’ he said, as if he’d read her mind. ‘Did you know you talk in your sleep?’
If her hands weren’t holding the bedsheets so tightly, she’d have clutched her burning cheeks.
‘It was mostly mumbles,’ he said with a wink before strolling over and perching his backside on the bed close to her.
Immediately her senses were assailed by the scent of freshly clean Sebastiano and, as their eyes clashed, for one wild moment she was overtaken by a longing for him to rip the bedsheets off her.
She tightened her grip on the sheets and cocooned herself deeper into them.
The smile that played on his lips told her he knew exactly what she was thinking, and when he opened his mouth, she braced herself, certain he would say something sexy and suggestive.
‘I need you to get up and dressed.’
Well, that threw her. Sebastiano was telling her to put clothes on when she’d been anticipating him suggesting she remove what little she was wearing.
‘Today is going to be a roller coaster, for all of us,’ he reminded her. Reminding her of the reason he’d chosen the marriage route as his vengeance. Revenge and reputation management in one fell swoop. Not for the little life they’d created together.
‘Has the article about you gone live yet?’
He shook his head. ‘I have it on good authority that it will be posted before eleven. We will give it ten minutes for people to notice and share it, and then we release the news of our engagement.’
‘Why wait those ten minutes?’
‘So the journalist isn’t tempted to retract and release it at a later date. We’re burying bad news, not delaying it, so get yourself ready and, while we wait, prepare the list of guests you wish to invite with contact details for them. Your new assistant will make the arrangements to bring them here while you work with the design team on your wedding dress.’
‘You’ve employed an assistant for me?’
‘You will find it necessary. As my wife your diary will overflow with invitations which need to be managed with our individual work commitments. Your assistant will work in tandem with mine.’ His phone pinged in his hand. He got up from the bed, reading it. ‘My team’s arrived. When you’re ready, come and join us.’
The moment Sebastiano disappeared through the bedroom door, the tight control Layla had been clinging to released in a rush. Her heart and lungs exploded, blood zooming to the roots of her hair and the tips of her toes.
Hot tears prickled her eyes and she frantically blinked them away, swallowing hard while breathing equally hard through her nose. Her physical responses to Sebastiano were completely beyond her control, she already knew that. But waking from a deep sleep in the intimacy of his bedroom and him being the first thing she saw... His scent the first thing she inhaled...
It was a long while before she felt enough in control of her limbs to safely climb off the bed and pad across the room to her bathroom that adjoined her dressing room, which itself adjoined Sebastiano’s dressing room, which in turn adjoined his own bathroom. No his-and-hers sinks in the master bedroom of Sebastiano’s villa. Here there were his-and-hers bathrooms, and hers was the prettiest she’d ever had the pleasure of using, a retreat with a strong Japanese influence that she could lock herself away from the world in.
Lock herself away from Sebastiano and the sexual magnetism she responded so viscerally to.
She still felt shaky under the powerful spray of the shower, and as she lathered silky shampoo into her hair, her thoughts drifted to the clauses in the prenuptial agreement. What had been behind them? She hadn’t misread them. They’d been translated into English as masterfully as Sebastiano spoke it.
Had they come from him or his legal team?
Custody of any child born within the marriage will be shared on an equal basis...
It was the born within the marriage part she couldn’t wrap her head around. Why wouldn’t he make the clause state any child conceived within the marriage? She’d sensed him doubting his own stance on the pregnancy but sensed too an entrenchment in the belief that if she was pregnant, the child could not be his. So why add that clause? Why make provisions for a child you didn’t believe to be your own?
Was it a case of hedging his bets? Saving face? Or something else, something deeper?
She was still pondering it all as she went through the clothes she’d selected from the racks of clothing the design team had brought for her to choose from the day before and which had fitted her perfectly. Her mind still firmly on Sebastiano, she selected a pair of white three-quarter-length slim-fitting jeans and an elegant white silk blouse embroidered with red orchids. Dressed, pastries eaten and orange juice drunk, she was about to set off and find the man she was only four days away from marrying when she felt something she could only describe as a flutter in her belly.
Stilling, she didn’t even dare to breathe, not until she felt it a second time and, with excitement coursing through her veins, she scrambled to undo her jeans and palm the still-flat surface of her belly.
The fluttering had stopped but...did her stomach feel thicker beneath her hand?
She turned on her side in front of the full-length mirror, lifted her blouse, and then slumped in dejection. Not even the semblance of a bump.
It didn’t matter, she told herself, lifting her shoulders back up. She’d experienced the first real physical sign of the pregnancy since an order of barbecued ribs had made her nauseous a few weeks back.
She’d felt her baby.
Her and Sebastiano’s baby.
Sebastiano sat at the desk of his home office surrounded by his core team. Everyone had crammed themselves onto the various forms of hard and soft seating, all scrolling through phones and refreshing laptops. Instead of following suit, he found his attention kept being drawn to the open door of the adjoining office, appointed to his soon-to-be wife. Layla was in there, going through her guest list and other aspects of the wedding and her working life with her new assistant.
Since she’d strolled into his office with a bright, ‘This must be the war room,’ before giving him a kiss that was just the right side of passionate in a working environment, the frayed edges of his nerves had soothed somewhat. Introducing her to his team and her new assistant, showing her to her office, had all helped distract from the gnawing knowledge that this could be the day he destroyed one of the world’s oldest banks. And because he couldn’t let that happen, he would have no choice but to resign his position. His reputation would be dust. There was no one in the Russo family lined up to take over. No one suitable. His parents had both retired from the board and as they’d been the ones to groom him into the role, they would be tainted by association. Sebastiano was an only child. With the exception of Paolo, his Russo cousins had all forged diverging careers. Sebastiano enjoyed Paolo’s company immensely, trusted him to run the European branch, but that was with Sebastiano’s hawk-eyed oversight. If Paolo weren’t a Russo, he wouldn’t have made it past customer complaints.
If Sebastiano fell, Russo Banca Internazionale would be forced to appoint a non-Russo to lead it for the first time in its long, distinguished history.
‘It’s live,’ someone suddenly said into the silence. ‘Linking it now.’
Sebastiano held his breath as he waited for the link to ping.
He’d hardly read the main headline when he felt a pair of eyes on him. Looking up from the screen, he saw Layla standing in the doorway, taking it all in.
Their eyes met.
After the longest time passed her chest rose and her neck extended, and then as she exhaled she gave a smile so soft his thumping heart flipped over.
A burst of fire zinged through his veins. Filling his lungs, Sebastiano slammed his palm on the table and said, ‘Five more minutes and then we bury this.’
For the second night in a row, Layla was fast asleep before Sebastiano came to bed. This time though, she’d lain awake for an age, palming her belly, hoping with all her heart for another fluttering. Her brain had been too wired to simply switch straight off.
Sebastiano’s plan seemed to be working exactly as envisaged. Once the press release about their marriage had gone out, the phones of all the people in his war room had gone berserk. Nine out of ten of the calls had been about the wedding, only ten per cent about the billion-euro loss. Social media was ablaze, digital newspapers all leading with the wedding. Layla’s phone had come close to conking out in protest at the hundreds of messages received, many from people she’d had no contact with since secondary school.
While Sebastiano and his team dealt with the media scrum, Layla had been kept busy with the wedding. Everything was already in hand but, to her surprise, she was given the final choice on canapés and the courses that would be served for their wedding banquet, and asked to approve the final colour scheme. It hadn’t occurred to her that her input would be wanted. She had imagined all that would be required of her was to turn up at the appointed time and look suitably adoring.
There had been no time to wonder why this should be though, as Sebastiano had brought her a top-of-the-range laptop and liaised with Laurence about connecting it to Clayton Community Law’s intranet.
She found it strangely touching that he understood how important her work was. Whether it was for show or not—he’d preordained that their respective workaholic tendencies would destroy their marriage—he’d gone out of his way to ensure she had everything needed to make working in the villa comfortable and efficient until her designated date of return to the office. As that designated date was four weeks away, Layla had spent the rest of the day liaising with colleagues—all of whom bombarded her with questions about Sebastiano—about how to manage her clients in the interim, also squeezing in the time to offer the full asking price for the suburban house. The offer was accepted in minutes. When her fake marriage to Sebastiano was over, she could move straight into it. In the meantime she would continue working on her mother to move into it from the second it was legally hers.
By the time she’d finished eating dinner with Sebastiano and his team, who’d continued discussing and strategising throughout the meal, her eyes had been gritty with exhaustion.
It had been Sebastiano who’d looked at her wan face and gently suggested she get some sleep.
Whether that gentleness was for show or not, she didn’t know, but she’d lain in his huge bed for an age before drifting off, his face firmly in her mind, holding her belly in the hope of feeling his baby move again, all with the lingering taste of his light goodnight kiss on her mouth and a lingering tingle on the exact spot his stubbly cheek had brushed hers.