Latin Lovers: Italian Playboys: Bought for the Marriage Bed / The Italian GP's Bride / The Italian's Defiant Mistress

He activated the central locking and alarm system on his car before responding. ‘You will be more than adequately compensated for your efforts.’

‘Isn’t the fact that I’m coming here to sign a pre-nuptial agreement going to make him suspicious?’ she asked.

‘Pre-nuptial agreements are commonplace these days. Besides, I have shareholders and investors I need to protect, not to mention my father, who started the business from scratch. I will not stand by and watch a money-hungry little whore take half of all we have both worked so hard for if the marriage were to end.’

Although Nina knew everything he said was reasonable under the circumstances, she still felt hurt by his assessment of her motives. She wished he could see through her thin guise to the person she really was, not an opportunistic money-grabbing bed-hopping pleasure seeker, but a young woman who cared deeply for her tiny niece, so deeply, in fact, that she was prepared to marry a complete stranger.

She closed her mouth on her response and followed him into the lift he’d summoned. She stared fixedly at the numbers on the panel rather than look at him, but she was acutely aware of him standing beside her, his broad shoulder not quite touching hers, although she could feel the warmth of his body all the same.

The lift felt too small. Her chest felt too tight. Her legs felt like wet wool instead of toned muscle and bone. Her mind was a mess of disordered thoughts—thoughts of escape, thoughts of telling the truth, thoughts of what would happen if she went along with the lies she’d told, spending the rest of her life waiting for the axe to fall when the truth finally came out, as she knew it most certainly would.

So far she’d been lucky. He hadn’t asked for Georgia’s birth certificate, but it wouldn’t be long before he did, particularly if he intended to formally adopt her. She knew he intended for his father to see his only grandchild, which would mean a trip to Italy. Would it even be legal for her to take Georgia out of the country? What if somebody asked to see the birth certificate and found out she wasn’t in fact Georgia’s mother? What then?

Suddenly conscious of Marc’s probing gaze, she quickly covered her inner disquiet by plastering a vacant smile on her face. ‘What are you smirking at?’ Marc looked down at her derisively. ‘How quickly you are going to work your way through your allowance?’

‘That depends on how generous it is,’ she tossed back.

Marc rolled his eyes and stabbed at the lift button once more as if to hurry its pace.

‘We are not married yet so I would advise against counting your pennies until they have been dispatched,’ he growled.

The lift doors sprang open and Nina followed the rigid line of his back as he made his way to his suite of offices.

It gave her a much needed sense of power to see how much she rattled him.

As far as she knew she had never got underneath anyone’s skin before; that had always been Nadia’s role, and yet the thought of Marc Marcello fighting an unwilling attraction to her was both strangely tantalizing and terrifying. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her when he’d thought she wasn’t looking, his dark eyes lingering on her body as if he just couldn’t help himself. It made her skin prickle all over in awareness to even think about him seeing her in such a light, let alone ever acting on it.

Her reaction to him totally confused her. She was supposed to hate him for what he was doing but somehow it wasn’t quite working. Every time his eyes moved over her she felt as if he was transmitting heat from his body to hers. That brief accidental brush of his hand over her breast had felt like an electric shock, sending her pulse racing and her heart kicking in reaction.

She had to take better control, she mentally chided herself. To fall in love with Marc Marcello was asking for the sort of trouble she could well do without, considering the mess she was already in.

The reception area of Marc’s banking empire could leave no one in any doubt of the company’s considerable profits, Nina thought a short time later. From the sweeping computer console in the reception area fitted out in shining galaxy black marble, complete with a catwalk perfect receptionist, to the plush ankle-deep carpet on the floor, and the stunning views over the city from every window, it all left one with the impression that the Marcello merchant bank knew how to do business and do it extremely well.

Nina glanced towards a painting hung over the waiting room area, her eyes widening when she realized it wasn’t a print but an actual Renoir.

‘Mr Marcello,’ the receptionist purred at her boss. ‘Mr Highgate is waiting for you in the guest lounge adjoining your office.’

Nina’s eyebrows rose. Even his lawyer thought the common waiting room beneath him, did he?

‘Follow me,’ Marc addressed Nina over one shoulder.

Something in her decided right there and then that she wasn’t going to be ordered around in front of his staff, and in particular in front of his gorgeous receptionist, who had done nothing but stare at her the whole time she’d been there.

‘Hello.’ Nina held out her hand across the reception desk. ‘I’m Nina, Marc’s fiancée. And this is Georgia. She’s Marc’s niece, you know. Andre’s child.’

The receptionist reared away from Nina’s outstretched hand as if by touching it she might be fired on the spot.

‘I … I thought your name was Nadia,’ the young woman finally managed to get out. ‘And don’t you remember?’ She eye-balled Nina accusingly. ‘We’ve met before.’

Nina hadn’t even considered the possibility that her sister might have called at the Marcello office tower at some stage in the past.

Her colour came and went as she tried to think of an excuse for not recognising the young woman but her brain felt as if someone had pulled the plug and she was left floundering.

‘It was when Marc was in Italy last September,’ the receptionist went on, her mouth tight with reproach. ‘Andre was in a meeting but you insisted on seeing him.’

Nina was very aware of Marc listening to every word of this exchange and had to think on her feet to find a way out of it without blowing her cover.

Mentally counting back the months she realised Nadia must have come to see Andre well into the pregnancy, possibly as a last attempt to try to force his hand. She lowered her head in a gesture of contrition, her hand idly stroking the back of baby Georgia’s head where she was snuggled up against her in the pouch.

‘Yes … well, I wasn’t really myself back then … hormones, you know …’

The receptionist peered over the console at the sleeping baby, her stern expression instantly softening. ‘She’s very like Andre, isn’t she?’

Nina nodded, deciding it was probably wiser not to respond verbally even if she could have located her voice.

‘Hold all my calls please, Katrina,’ Marc’s deep voice commanded, interrupting the tight little exchange. ‘Come on, cara, we have some business to see to.’

Cara? Nina disguised her frown just in time. She wasn’t sure she could handle him addressing her with Italian endearments. It made her feel as if their relationship was shifting to another level, a level she had no experience in dealing with.

She followed him down the spacious hall where even more priceless artworks were hung in stately array, each one reminding her of the amount of money Marc Marcello had at his fingertips if ever he decided to run her out of town—without Georgia.

‘In here.’ Marc held the door open for her. ‘Take a seat and I will summon Robert Highgate to join us.’

Nina took one of the plush chairs facing the huge desk and, positioning Georgia into a more comfortable position against her, began to look around.

It was a huge office by anyone’s standards. It was lined with bookshelves along two walls, the thick volumes rich with both a wealth of knowledge and variety of taste. Unless they were there simply for show, which somehow she seriously doubted, they indicated Marc was a man who read widely, for apart from the obvious financial and legal tomes she could see some recent bestsellers as well as some of the classics she’d read and loved herself.

It gave her a funny feeling to have read the same books as him. It gave her a connection with him she wasn’t all that sure she wanted to have.

The door opened behind her and she turned in her seat to see a man of about fifty-five or so enter the room carrying a document folder under one arm. Marc was close behind with one of his impossible-to-read looks on his handsome face.

‘Cara, this is Robert Highgate. Robert, this is my fiancée, Nina Selbourne.’

Nina began to rise but Robert hurriedly gestured for her to stay where she was on account of the baby nestled against her.

He shook her hand instead and looked down at the sleeping infant, his warm light brown eyes visibly softening.

‘What a little treasure. I have two daughters of my own. They are both my life and my daily torture.’ He grinned at her meaningfully.

Nina gave him a tentative smile. ‘It’s not easy being a parent.’

‘No, but worth the struggle, I can assure you. My eldest is getting married in a few months; it seems only yesterday she was in ankle socks arguing with her mother over the length of her school uniform.’

Nina gave a somewhat forced little laugh. She had very clear memories of similar scenarios between Nadia and their mother but none of them were particularly amusing. She saw Marc stiffen at the sound of her chuckle, his dark eyes so piercing she had to look away in case he saw more than she wanted him to see.

‘Now,’ Robert said as he opened the folder on the desk and glanced across at Marc. ‘I’ve drawn up the document the way you suggested but perhaps I should explain it to Nina first?’

‘Explain away.’ Marc’s tone bordered on uninterested.