‘It went well.’ She chose not to divulge just how awful the day had been but Luca’s gaze was steady on her face and she had a feeling he knew.
‘If he steps out of line, tell me.’
‘He’s my problem.’
‘You’re my fiancée.’
Her stomach curled and knotted. And that, she thought, was turning out to be more complicated than she’d ever imagined.
A week later, exhausted after days of filming with Rafaele and sleepless nights in Luca’s bedroom, Taylor slid a pair of dark glasses onto her nose, took a deep breath and left her trailer. Blinded by a storm of camera flashes she struggled to keep the smile in place and it came as a relief to see the red blaze of Luca’s Ferrari. He was leaning against the bonnet, talking into his phone.
‘No, I haven’t heard from my brother. No, I don’t have any comment on his behaviour,’ he drawled, grabbing Taylor’s hand and hauling her against him. ‘I’m the last person to comment on anyone’s behaviour…?. I don’t have a comment on my own either because frankly it’s none of your business.’ He hung up and pulled her into him. ‘Cristo, you’re sexy. How was your day?’
‘Exhausting. I filmed the scene where my husband appears from the dead and discovers I’m carrying his best friend’s baby.’ And she’d worked harder than she’d ever worked in order to make sure no criticism could be levelled at her but still the director had managed to make her feel inferior with his constant sniping. He’d made her redo each scene repeatedly even though she knew it had been perfect the first time. He’d wanted her to lose her temper and she’d been determined to hang on to control even if it killed her.
‘What you need is to chill or, better still, get hot and naked with someone and that someone is me.’
She found herself looking into sultry, sexy eyes fringed with impossibly thick, dark lashes and wishing she could do just that. And then she found herself wishing she could turn off her senses because she didn’t want to feel this way.
Spending so much time in his company was creating a level of tension she hadn’t thought possible. He was supposed to be a solution to a problem, instead of which he was becoming the problem.
Her instinctive response was to pull back but she was expected to play her part so when he flattened his hand against her back and drew her against him, she lifted her mouth to his. She’d intended it to be a brief kiss but his hands came up to her face and he kissed her slowly and hungrily. And because he was so good at this, because he somehow knew everything there was to know about exactly the right way to kiss her, she didn’t even try to fight it.
Seduced by the heat of his mouth and the skill of his kiss, Taylor felt will power drain from her like rain water down the gutter. If it had been up to her she never would have stopped. Who would choose to end something so perfect? And in the end he was the one who slowly lifted his head and broke the connection.
Dizzy with it, Taylor looked up at him, expecting to see mockery, but he wasn’t laughing.
And she wasn’t laughing either.
‘Let’s get out of here.’ It was the most serious she’d ever heard him and suddenly she was relieved she’d thought about this earlier before he’d fused her brain with the skill of his mouth.
‘I’ve already planned tonight. I have a surprise for you—tickets for the opera in Palermo.’ The idea had come to her halfway through the day when she’d been desperate to do something that allowed them to be ‘seen’ together, but still gave her privacy from the public. What better place than a dark box high above the auditorium? And it had the added benefit that she’d be saved from intimate conversation.
She had no idea if he even liked opera and no opportunity to ask him with the journalists surrounding them. One of them pushed against her in an attempt to elbow the competition out of the way and Taylor would have stumbled but a strong arm came round her waist. Holding her safe in the protective circle of his arm, Luca snapped something in Italian that Taylor didn’t understand. Whatever it was that he said turned the man several shades paler and he backed away, giving them space, hands raised in a gesture of apology.
‘Get in the car, dolcezza.’ Luca was calm and in control. ‘I’ll get you out of here.’
Grateful to him, Taylor slid into the Ferrari thinking how much easier it was to handle the press when he was with her. He wore the Corretti power as lightly and elegantly as his immaculate suits but there was strength and steel under the casual sophistication and she knew the press found him intimidating. They treated him with a degree of caution they never afforded to her.