Her sighing whispers had been too soft for Katie to decipher from that distance. But she’d heard the wickedness in the tone of his low, murmured reply and the breathless, rapid response of the woman he was bestowing carnal pleasure upon. He’d literally been devouring her.
Katie had frozen—not even hiding—fascinated and appalled at the sight of such complete intimacy—at his raw masculinity. She’d been an extremely sheltered young teen, still figuring things out and not really understanding what she was seeing.
To be honest, she still didn’t understand it. She’d never met a man who’d made her want to act so wantonly despite the threat of exposure. To be that hedonistic, that caught up in a moment that she wouldn’t care who was around to watch...
After only seconds she’d fled, with the sounds of that woman’s delight echoing in her ears.
She’d told herself it wasn’t her fault. If he was going to pleasure his girlfriend in the orchard—where anyone could have seen them—well, that was his problem. But she’d flushed almost purple that night, when he’d finally graced them with his presence at dinner that evening, almost half an hour late.
‘Got held up,’ he’d offered—not an apology, just a careless fact.
She’d seen him again in the village a few days later—with a different girl hungrily kissing him in an alleyway. His apparent infidelity to that first girl had shocked her. There’d been another girl only a couple of days later.
It had taken the young and naive Katie a while to realise he wasn’t actually in a relationship with any of them. No commitment, no mess—only fun. Alessandro had been incredibly popular and he hadn’t been afraid to make the most of it.
And it seemed every woman who’d crossed his path since was as eager to slide her legs apart and let him do whatever he liked between them... He hadn’t slowed down any in the decade since that last summer he’d come to the estate.
Katie’s quick Internet search on the train this morning had thrown up a billion pictures of him with a billion different women. All beautiful. All as enthusiastic as anything, judging by the look in their eyes. Alessandro Zetticci was an insatiable, arrogant playboy. Which actually made him perfect.
But he wasn’t having her. She wasn’t interested in any of that.
Only now he’d rounded his desk again. He gripped the armrests of her chair, bending so that his nose was only inches from her own. Dawning brilliance lit his eyes.
‘Would you watch, Katie?’ he asked.
Did he somehow know about that awful, embarrassing secret of her past?
‘You’re trying to intimidate me,’ she squeaked. ‘It’s not going to work. I’m not afraid of you.’
He laughed. ‘Perhaps you should be. But perhaps I’m not trying to intimidate you. Perhaps I’m testing you.’
‘For what?’
He lifted a hand, lightly exploring her jawline with the lightest touch. ‘To see if I can seduce you.’
His touch ought to have been easily escapable, but she couldn’t seem to move.
Desperately she quelled the flare of heat deep and low in her belly and deliberately rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry. I’m immune. That’s why we’d be perfect together.’
‘I agree,’ he answered urbanely, but his eyes danced with devilish laughter. ‘Perfect together. In bed.’
‘I’m not going to sleep with you.’
‘So determined...’ His lips curled. ‘Afraid you might catch something?’
It was a low, teasing drawl, but there was a sharp warning underlying his tone that made her wary. She’d been offensively rude in her outright rejection of any kind of intimacy with him. But as if it was even a consideration! He was the one being rude now.
You did just ask him to marry you.
And she had implied that he was a complete man whore.
‘No.’ She flushed uncomfortably, because he kept switching from serious to teasing. ‘I’m just—’
‘Scared you might like it?’ he interpolated with a low chuckle.
Yes, this was the Alessandro Zetticci she’d read about—the irrepressible tease who worked hard but played harder.
‘You really can’t help yourself, can you?’ She glared at him in exasperation. ‘You think you can seduce every woman you meet!’
‘Most don’t need to be seduced.’ He shrugged, then muttered with outrageous insouciance, ‘Most are willing to let me do whatever I want before I even know their name.’
He was so close his words whispered over her lips...so close he seemed to see all her secrets. She closed her eyes—only to regret it instantly. Because now she was even more attuned to his nearness. His heat. His strength. His will. But she knew his words were designed to shock her, to repulse her. Because beneath the seductive slide of his whisper she still heard that steely anger.
She opened her eyes and glared at him. ‘I’m not most women. And I’m not challenging you. This isn’t about that and never will be.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘If we marry I’ll have no expectations, put no restrictions on you. And I’d expect the same for you.’
He straightened, and from his towering height shot her a censorious look as if he’d suddenly become the epitome of virtue.
‘I may be many things, but a breaker of promises I am not. Even in a civil ceremony I’d promise fidelity, and I’d never break that promise. If you want me to marry you, you’d better agree to the same.’ He was very curt and very clear.
She slammed her hands on the arms of the chair to stop herself slithering down to the floor. Was he going to say yes?
‘You’d—?’
‘Honour our vows for the duration of our marriage. Of course.’
‘But—’
‘Does it really come as that much of a shock?’ He pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘It’s just that you—’
‘I’ve never got married before? No. Never had the desire nor reason to.’
Her jaw hung open. ‘Are you saying you’re going to—?’
‘I’m just ascertaining the rules in play before I decide,’ he pre-empted her coolly. ‘How many lovers do you take in a month?’ he asked. He immediately followed up with another question purely designed to shock. ‘I enjoy sex and generally have it regularly. I assume you’re the same?’
Katie shut her mouth and swallowed. How could he possibly think that she’d have anywhere near the interest he had?
‘The past doesn’t matter,’ she said briskly, fighting down the all-consuming heat this conversation was creating within her. ‘There’s only the future. Best not to dwell on what’s gone before. I’ll not be unfaithful, if that’s what you’d prefer. I have no problem with celibacy.’
‘Well, see...here’s the thing,’ he drawled with an impossibly wicked glint in his eyes. ‘I don’t like celibacy.’
‘We don’t need to be married long,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m sure six months will be long enough to...to...’
‘Ensure you’re left utterly undesirable?’ he finished for her tartly.
‘Get our business affairs straightened out.’ She threw him another exasperated look.
‘Six months of celibacy?’ He clutched his chest and gasped theatrically, apparently appalled at the suggestion.
‘Please yourself,’ she retorted through gritted teeth, goaded to the extreme.
He cocked his head and that devilish smile spread over his too-perfect face. ‘Is that what you do?’
CHAPTER TWO
ALESSANDRO KNEW HE was being outrageous, but he figured she’d asked for it by waltzing into his office and demanding not just money but his damned hand in marriage, whilst casting him as an insatiable libertine at the same time. She seemed to think he was some satyr, unable to control his voracious sexual needs.