Luca turned slowly to face Olivia and it was as though time were standing still. Her heart began to throb; nerves made her fingers tremble.
‘Well, Signora Giovanardi,’ he said. ‘It’s done.’
She grimaced. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re not happy?’
‘I’m—’ She searched for the right words, words that wouldn’t make him sound like a heartless bastard. ‘Having met your grandmother, I feel pretty bad about lying to her.’
‘Even when you saw how happy we made her?’
‘But our divorce...’
‘It is doubtful she will live to see it.’
Tears stung the backs of Olivia’s eyelids, completely surprising her. She was a world-class expert at hiding her feelings. She looked away, shocked at the raw pain his words had evoked.
‘And in the meantime, it’s worth it to see the joy in her face.’
Olivia pushed aside her misgivings. ‘She must have been very worried about the state of your life for you to have gone to these lengths.’
‘I only took advantage of an opportunity that was offered,’ he reminded Olivia. ‘I would never have married a woman simply to fool my grandmother. But when you arrived, offering yourself to me on a silver platter, how could I say no?’
‘I wouldn’t put it that way,’ she responded tautly. But it was too late. The vivid imagery of her sprawled out on a platter just for Luca’s enjoyment filled her mind’s eye, and her cheeks flushed bright red.
Luca had no idea what had caused her to react so vividly to his words, but it was clear he’d offended her. Anger glowed in her cheeks, and she didn’t meet his eyes. It shouldn’t have bothered him but, all of a sudden, all Luca wanted was for Olivia to look at him. Not simply to look. To touch. To lift her hand to his chest, as she’d done during their service, to grab his shirt and pull him closer, to part her lips and moan softly into his mouth.
But wanting his wife wasn’t part of this deal. It couldn’t be.
‘This way.’ He spoke more gruffly than he’d intended, gesturing toward the doors of a building, pressing a button for the elevator then standing a safe distance from his wife. Maybe it was the dress? Unlike their first meeting, when her outfit had offered only vague hints as to her figure, now he could actually see her body, her tantalising curves, could see every delectable ounce courtesy of the clinging silk fabric, so that even before their incendiary kiss he’d felt a jolt of need surge through his body.
The elevator doors pinged open, and they stepped inside, without realising that the elevator was incredibly small. He hadn’t noticed when he’d travelled down, but being caged in here with a woman he was doing his damnedest to ignore on a physical level, having her so close their bodies were brushing, was the last thing he wanted.
‘I thought you said we were going to Venice,’ she enquired, but huskily, softly, and when he looked at her face, her eyes were trained on his lips, as though she couldn’t look away. Oh, hell.
‘We are.’ His own voice was gruff in reply, frustration at their situation emerging in the force of his words. They were trapped by the agreement they’d made. Neither of them wanted this to get complicated, but damn it all to hell if he wanted to push her back against the wall and make love to her here and now.
She blinked, but didn’t look away. ‘Isn’t Venice at sea level?’ She swallowed, her throat shifting, and his groin strained against his pants. Hell.
‘Sinking below it by the minute,’ he managed to quip, despite the charged atmosphere.
‘Then we’d better hurry.’
‘That’s my intention.’
‘You’re being serious?’
‘What about?’
‘A honeymoon in Venice?’ She formed air quotation marks around the word honeymoon.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Well, I mean, isn’t a honeymoon sort of redundant?’ Heat fizzed between her ears.
‘Not if we want to convince the world—and particularly your cousin—that our marriage is genuine. I don’t think anyone would believe me to be the kind of man to marry and not take my bride away for a time. We will go, take photographs as evidence. It may matter a great deal, if there is a legal challenge to your inheritance.’
Her lips formed a small ‘o’, because he was right. It was a small, but likely important, detail, in terms of making their marriage look real.