The Innocent's Emergency Wedding

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 (#uc187f517-af20-5f2f-a0f9-78c7b94503e8)

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.

Her ‘research’ had flicked his pride, and he’d been unable to resist retaliating by playing it up and making Her Total Primness here blush again. And then again.

Frankly, he’d only agreed to see her out of mild boredom. While he’d remembered her name, he hadn’t remembered much else—he’d always refused to spend any time dwelling on that painful period of his past. But his commonplace curiosity had grown acute when she’d determinedly waited almost two hours to see him, and he’d turned his mind to what few memories he had of her.

She’d been a shy little thing, always hiding in the orchard and the gardens of that massive estate. Pale and too quiet. But she wasn’t that quiet now Brian was trying to make her marry Carl Westin. And not now he’d provoked her.

She was much more interesting when provoked. In fact she’d invigorated what had been lining up to be a tedious day facing a trillion clamouring employees, all of whom wanted a piece of him because he’d spent the last couple of weeks crisscrossing the globe as he shed a stake in one company while acquiring two others. Frankly, he’d wanted a bit of a break.

He’d figured Katie was after money and he’d been right. But her marriage proposal alongside that request had come as a complete shock.

Alessandro had crossed paths with Carl Westin a couple of years ago and the guy was a total jerk. Alessandro might party hard, but he was upfront and honest about it. He didn’t cheat. Carl Westin did—in both his business and his personal life. No way was Katie Collins going to marry him.

But, as snappy as she might be with Alessandro, she was vulnerable to Brian’s bullying.

Brian Fielding, together with his sister Naomi, had forced Alessandro out of his home. They’d taken the company that should have been his. But, most appallingly, they’d all but killed his father.

He picked up his phone, but didn’t take his gaze off Katie.

‘Cancel my next appointment, please, Dominique,’ he instructed his assistant. ‘I’m not to be disturbed.’

His interest was rooted in her absurd request, right? Nothing else. Certainly not physical attraction. From what he could see, given the boring ponytail, she had nondescript brown hair. Her eyes were a mix of green and brown and gold—he supposed they were hazel. And hidden beneath those ill-fitting ugly clothes he suspected there were some tidy curves, but not exactly generous ones.

Alessandro had been with too many women to have a particular ‘type’ but, even so, if he’d passed her on the street he wouldn’t have given Katie Collins a second glance…