CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU CAN’T MAKE me marry him. You can’t make me marry anyone...’
Katie Collins perched nervously on the plush chair in the vast reception room of Zed Enterprises, gripping her bag and reminding herself to breathe often enough to remain conscious. If she’d had more pride—or any other option—she’d have walked out over an hour ago, but the threats relentlessly circling in her head had forced her to remain. He was the one person who had the power to help.
‘If you won’t marry him you can leave right now, and you know that would kill her—’
Katie blinked the horror away and focused on her surroundings. Alessandro Zetticci’s offices showcased a sleek, minimalist style—steel and chrome screamed masculine sophistication and the wealth he’d accumulated in an astoundingly short time. It didn’t surprise her. He’d always had the knack of knowing what people wanted.
It had been a decade since she’d seen him and, while certain aspects of that particular visit were branded in her brain, she was acutely aware that he mightn’t even remember who she was. She’d have to remind him before begging for his benevolence.
‘You’ll be homeless. So will the woman who’s spent years caring for you, you ungrateful little b—’
Katie again blocked the echo of the viciousness her foster father had spat at her. Seeking distraction, she glanced at the receptionist. Dressed in a sleek navy skirt and smooth white blouse, the tall blonde looked like a chic French movie star, ageing with impossible grace. Katie was also wearing a navy skirt with a white blouse, but where the receptionist’s was silk, Katie’s was synthetic, and right now it was sticking to her. Outclassed, out of place...she was never quite good enough—
Katie stiffened, snapping out of the self-pity. She didn’t need fancy clothes, given she worked in the orchards and the kitchen most of the time.
‘You can’t refuse after all I’ve done for you—’
A trickle of sweat slithered down her back, even though the building was beautifully climate-controlled. Her body was literally leaking her nerves. She uncurled her grip on her bag for the twentieth time. Only to immediately clutch the strap again as if it were her lifeline.
She’d not made an appointment, and it was sheer luck that Alessandro was in the office at all today. Too late she realised she had no idea what she’d have done if he hadn’t been. She still had no idea what she was going to do if he said no.
‘Don’t you want to be a real member of the family?’
That attempt at manipulation had stabbed deep. So after all this time Katie was still an outsider? She’d always felt Brian hadn’t wanted her, but for him to state it so explicitly, for him to try to force her into doing something insane... She was still an outsider. Still just someone who owed...
‘Do you want to watch her devastation?’
And that was the problem. She did owe Susan, he
r foster mother. She more than owed her—she loved her, and she had to protect her.
‘Ms Collins?’ The elegant receptionist finally interrupted her anxious reverie. ‘Alessandro is ready to see you now.’
Katie’s heart skidded. She was seized with the urge to bolt in the other direction. Instead she followed the older woman, drawing in a deep breath as she went.
It was a good thing she did, because the second she walked into his office her lungs, like the rest of her, were rendered immobile. She’d looked at recent pictures on the train ride here, so she’d thought she’d be immune. She’d been wrong. Alessandro Zetticci in the flesh was overwhelming.
Katie couldn’t smile as the receptionist left—couldn’t even see what the room was like, because she couldn’t peel her gaze from where he stood behind his desk. Flashes of rogue memory burned. Alessandro in the orchard. His smile. His low laugh. His broad shoulders...
She blinked, desperately focusing on him here and now and clothed.
His jet-black hair was straight and long enough to flop in his eyes. His sculpted cheekbones were emphasised by the razor-sharp edge of a perfectly symmetrical, masculine jaw. Lightly stubbled rather than clean-shaven, he looked as if it wasn’t long since he’d left his bed. Long black lashes and dark eyebrows framed his arresting eyes. Powder blue, they were brightly backlit by fierce burning intensity.
If she hadn’t known better she’d have thought he wore coloured contact lenses, but Katie had seen him sullen and silent over the breakfast table and at Christmas dinners long gone by, and even then, when he’d been moody and resentful, his eyes had glowed with that brilliance.
His mouth had a natural sinful curve, a permanent wicked half-smile—as if he were thinking something slightly inappropriate. It was a mouth made to kiss. Katie remembered that.
The top button of his white shirt was undone, exposing a deeply tanned neck. That tan was an all-over one. Katie remembered that too.
The man was appallingly handsome. The kind of gorgeous rarely seen in the streets, that made ordinary people turn for a second, third, fourth look.
But it wasn’t only his smouldering looks that drew people’s attention. It was the energy that crackled from him. He had vitality—a kind of fire that drew everyone around him in. It was what had made his empire so massive, so quickly. Because of that smile and that aura of amusement, everyone wanted to lean closer, seduced by the self-assurance that glowed in his eyes.
More than self-assurance he had arrogance—a pure don’t-give-a-damn attitude that made him impossibly popular and his investments an unparalleled triumph. He looked ready for something far more enjoyable and intimate than business. He looked like a man with a wicked ability to have a good time. And he followed through on that appearance. He was irresistible—catnip to pretty much every woman in the world. And he was happy to be played with. But never caught.
Katie definitely remembered that.
Yet Alessandro Zetticci had faced hardship too. Katie was counting on that fact to make him human. Make him understand. Make him want to help.
Now she blinked again, breaking the mortifying immobility his appearance had engendered and stepped deeper into his domain. He didn’t greet her—didn’t say anything. His swift glance seemed to take her in and dismiss her all in one second.
‘I’m Katie Collins,’ she began, her embarrassment blooming in the face of his uncharacteristic frigidity. ‘I live at White Oaks Hall with Brian Fielding—’
He still didn’t smile. ‘I don’t need you to remind me who you are, Katie.’
‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember—’
‘How could I possibly forget?’ Displeasure and disapproval flashed in his eyes.
Faltering at his unfriendly demeanour, Katie licked her dry lips. She’d done nothing to him. Certainly she’d meant nothing to him.
Alessandro Zetticci had stalked into Katie’s life when he was a sullen fifteen and she a very shy ten. His father, famed Italian chef Aldo Zetticci, had just married Brian’s sister Naomi. Brian and Naomi were close, so Aldo and Alessandro had joined the extended Fielding family for holidays at White Oaks—much to Alessandro’s obvious resentment.
Only a couple of years later Aldo had died. Alessandro and Naomi had then clashed on the future of his father’s food empire. Brian had backed Naomi. Petulant and fiery, Alessandro had fought hard, flaring up at Brian’s interference.
‘If you go now, you’ll never be welcome back here.’
Brian’s banishment of Alessandro had terrified her at the time.
‘Don’t mention him again.’
Brian had whirled on her when she’d fearfully asked where Alessandro had gone. She’d been too young to understand everything, but had known that in no way had it all been Alessandro’s fault. In any case, Alessandro’s ideas for his father’s company couldn’t have been that bad, given he’d gone on to build his own business with such success.
He’d always been determined and strong. But from the look in his eyes now he was also unforgiving.
Katie cleared her throat and forced herself to speak anyway. ‘I have a proposition for you.’
One jet-black eyebrow arched. ‘How intriguing.’
His tone couldn’t have sounded less intrigued or any more dismissive.
Irritation stiffened her. She was too desperate to cope with casual dismissal. ‘I work at White Oaks,’ she carried on. ‘I’ve developed some sauces made from our produce. They sell very well.’
She paused, because so far he was bored-looking. Her desperation swiftly blew up to all-out pain.
‘Cut to the chase, Katie,’ he drawled. ‘What do you want from me?’
She was so thrown by the reality of Alessandro in the flesh, so intimidated by that look in his eyes, that she forgot the little speech she’d carefully prepared to try to convince him. It just tumbled out with no further preamble.
‘I want you to marry me.’
His eyes widened, the black heart of his pupils all but swallowed the fiery brilliant blue. The rest of him didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to be breathing.
‘Not for real of course,’ she hastened to add awkwardly. ‘In name only. And not for long.’
‘You want me to marry you?’ he repeated slowly. ‘That was not what I expected you to say.’
Katie tensed, unable to read his expression, but then he threw back his unfairly handsome head and laughed. It seemed he’d not heard anything as entertaining in eons. And it was utterly insulting.
Scalding emotion curdled the raw acid in Katie’s stomach. All her life she’d strived to meet everyone else’s requests and demands as she’d desperately tried to fit in and stay safe. But in this instance she was sick of staying silent and being good. Because almost no one ever asked what she wanted.
Fury filled her, fuelled by total humiliation. ‘I’m so glad I could give you a joke for the day,’ she spat sarcastically. ‘Forget I ever said anything.’
‘I’m unlikely to ever forget that.’
He strolled around his desk with deceptively casual strides, swiftly moving to where she stood, only three feet into his office.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice veered up in an embarrassing squawk as he stepped deep into her personal space.
He didn’t reply. Instead he surveyed her dispassionately, rather as if she was a curiosity in a natural history museum. Then he leaned closer still.
‘Are you sniffing me?’ Outraged, she flinched away from him.
‘Yes. Have you been drinking?’ He reached out and grasped her chin.
Katie stilled, attempting to fix him with a furious gaze.
Unconcerned, he turned her face to one side then the other, intently studying her features. ‘On drugs?’
‘What? No.’ She jerked free of his hold. ‘Look, I’m perfectly sane.’ The truth slipped out, and so did all t
he hurt and hopelessness. ‘I’m just in trouble, and you’re the only person I could think of who might be able to help me. Obviously you can’t, so I’ll leave now.’
She turned sharply as emotions whacked her with a one-two punch. She’d never been as embarrassed or as violently angry. She suddenly spun back, slamming her fury into his face.
‘I don’t know why I thought you’d understand the desire to protect the person you love most—to prevent her losing the thing she loves more than anything,’ she yelled at him. ‘I don’t know why I thought you’d ever understand that!’
He stared at her for a long second, his mouth compressed. Sudden emotion flared in his eyes and he stepped forward. ‘Katie—’
She shoved past him, rage giving her strength, but just as she reached the door he slammed his hand high above hers to hold it shut, stopping her from storming out. She tugged, but couldn’t beat his weight or strength and the door remained sealed. She tugged harder.
‘Katie, stop,’ he said eventually.
Belatedly she stilled, realising too late what an exhibition she was making of herself. She breathed hard, trying to block the sensations caused by his invasion of her personal space. He was right behind her, leaning so close she could feel his heat. Something insidious shifted inside her. Something deep...something tempting. Something she intuitively knew she needed to ignore.
She closed her eyes in embarrassment.
‘You can’t just storm in, demand something so outrageous and then flounce off without an explanation. You need to speak,’ he added firmly. ‘Sit down and start from the beginning.’
She remained locked in place for another mortified moment. He was right. And she’d been so wrong. She should never have come—what had she been thinking?
But he wasn’t going to let her leave without a proper explanation. And didn’t she owe him that at least? Hell, she was every bit the useless idiot Brian had called her...
Slowly she released the door handle and pivoted awkwardly on the spot. Because Alessandro didn’t stand back to give her room to move. He still had his palm pressed on the door, as if he didn’t trust her not to try to escape again. He was still so close she almost felt giddy.