His dark eyes narrowed speculatively.
‘Absolutely not,’ she rushed to reassure him, suppressing a shudder of sheer panic. It wasn’t him, but the idea of submitting herself to any man, as her mother had her father, that sent arrows of terror down her spine. She wanted independence—true independence—and this she wouldn’t find by falling in love.
‘I’m not kidding. I will not run the risk of you fantasising about a relationship with me. It is something I never risk when I sleep with a woman.’
‘But we won’t be sleeping together.’
‘No, we’ll be married. That has the potential to be far more dangerous. You might start to think—’
‘Believe me, I won’t. If it weren’t for this damned will, I’d never, ever say those vows. And the happiest day of my life will be when the ink dries on our divorce. Okay?’
‘I’m curious,’ he said slowly, so close the words breathed across her temple and she caught a hint of his masculine cologne. Goosebumps lifted on her skin.
‘You are a beautiful, young woman. What happened to make you so opposed to marriage?’
‘You don’t hold the monopoly on disastrous marriages.’
‘You’ve been married before?’
‘No—I—didn’t mean mine. My parents—’ She shook her head, cleared her thoughts, and focused a steady, steel-like gaze on him. ‘I was born with a brain,’ she said after a beat. ‘I don’t see any reason to tie myself to a man. At least, not for real.’
‘And do you promise me you will not change your mind? At no point in our marriage will you want more than I am willing to offer today?’
She tilted her face to his. ‘Are you accepting my proposal?’
‘Can you assure me that we can keep this businesslike?’ he said thoughtfully.
‘Absolutely.’
He considered that for several moments, and Olivia’s pulse went into overdrive. So much hung in the balance for her. There was so much this marriage would achieve—not least, providing for her mother, securing their family home, and protecting Sienna. And yet it would come at a great personal cost for Olivia. To give into her father’s misogynistic, sexist demands from beyond the grave rushed her skin like a rash, and anger speared her, despite the fact she’d made her peace with the necessity of this long ago.
‘Fine.’ He nodded once. ‘Then we will marry.’
A shiver ran down her spine, even when he was giving her everything she’d wanted. Even when his acceptance was the first step on her pathway towards liberation. She forced her mouth into a smile, made her eyes hold his even when sparks of electricity seemed to be flying from Luca towards her, superheating her veins.
‘Excellent,’ she murmured, even when she had the strangest sense, for no reason she could grasp, that she was stepping right off the deep end with no idea how to swim.
After his divorce, Luca Giovanardi had destroyed almost every single piece of evidence that he had ever been married. There had been catharsis in that. He was only young—a boy, in many ways—and so the act of throwing his wedding back into the ruins of the Coliseum had felt immeasurably important, as though he were reclaiming a piece of himself. He had destroyed every photograph they’d had printed, and wiped almost all of them from his digital storage. He hadn’t wanted to remember Jayne. He hadn’t ever wanted to think of her again. Not of how much he’d loved her, nor how happy he’d thought they were. He didn’t want to think about the way his world had come storming down around his ears and then she’d turned her back on him, leaving him for one of his most despised business rivals, a man who had swept in and triumphed as Luca’s father’s empire had come crumbling down around them.
Luca had learned two lessons that day—never to believe in the fantasy of love, and never to trust a woman.
So what the hell had he just agreed to?
He gripped his glass of whisky, eyes focused straight ahead, without seeing the view. Olivia Thornton-Rose filled his mind. ‘I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t completely desperate.’
Besides, there was no danger here. No risk. This was nothing like the emotional suicide he’d committed the day he’d agreed to share his life with Jayne. This was sensible. Safe. And short-term.
More importantly, it met both their needs. For months, he’d been wishing he could do something to calm his grandmother, to ease her as she approached the end of her life. Her repeated entreaties for him to find that ‘one someone special’, to ‘give love another chance’, were offered kindly from her vantage point of having had a long and very happy marriage, but marriage was not even remotely on Luca’s to-do list.
Until now.
He reached for his phone and dialled his grandmother’s number before he could change his mind. ‘Nonna?’ He took a drink of Macallan. ‘There’s something I want to tell you.’