Signed Over To Santino

Carla sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘S?. You win. New York. Rome. I don’t really care. Just leave me in peace for now, if you can bring yourself to.’

* * *

Javier stood looking down at her. The soft, delicate arch of her lashes fanned against her cheek as she kept her eyes closed. Her complexion was alarmingly pale, and he experienced a twinge of guilt for wearing her out when she needed to rest. A second later, he pushed the feeling away. He of all people knew just how Carla Nardozzi’s outwardly delicate frame hid a core of icy steel. She hadn’t risen to number one in her chosen profession by being a wilting flower, no matter how much she outwardly projected an air of shy, innocent fragility.

His jaw clenched as he recalled that her innocence had been real once upon a time. But it had been ruthlessly sacrificed on the altar of what she’d wanted more—the attention of Draco Angelis.

Some men collected virginities as trophies. He’d never been one of them. But his preference for a more experienced bed partner had abandoned him the moment he’d met Carla Nardozzi three years ago.

He gave a grim smile. A lot of things had abandoned him during those insane few weeks, including his common sense.

High from closing the deal of a lifetime that had seen him propelled into the echelons of world richest the week before his thirtieth birthday, he’d thrown a series of lavish parties in his homes across the world, the wildest and most decadent of which had culminated in Miami, the place he called his true home.

The place he’d experienced Carla.

Javier jerked himself from the memories. The reminder of the gullible idiot he’d been in the days following raked rough and jagged over his senses.

Never again.

It took several minutes to realise she wasn’t deliberately ignoring him and feigning sleep. Carla had truly fallen asleep, her breathing soft but deep, the lines of exhaustion he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge now smoothing out on her face.

He stepped back from the bed before another guilty twinge lanced him. He’d come to reiterate the message he’d delivered to her in his office a month ago. Standing there watching her sleep—her perfect face relaxed and enthralling—was an inane exercise.

About to turn away, he paused as a niggling thought impinged. It was the same sensation he’d experienced when she’d turned up in his New York office to sign the contract.

Despite her spirited words just now, an air of apathy surrounded her that seemed at variance with the woman whose ambition had made her competitors cow before her on the ice rink. Magnificence like that didn’t happen overnight, and Carla Nardozzi was known for her indefatigable dedication to her discipline. And yet, she’d seemed a shadow of herself during their meeting in New York. It was that inkling of ennui he’d sensed that had propelled him to get a rise out of her...by kissing her.

It was what was stopping him leaving the room right now.

Having never experienced such an emotion, Javier wasn’t sure how to deal with it. And not knowing how to deal with a problem wasn’t a scenario he readily accepted.

He told himself it was the reason he was sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room, watching Carla sleep two hours later. After all, he was a firm believer in confronting an issue before it grew out of hand.

He’d confronted the man he’d been told was his father when he was seventeen. And again when his mother had died. Both times the results had been traumatic enough to fell a lesser man. He’d chosen to absorb the experiences as the hard lessons he’d needed to forge his path in life. So what if being termed a bastard by the man whose blood ran through his veins had left an imagined hole in Javier’s life for a long time? He’d learned with time that he could live without the soft trappings of family and endless entanglements of relationships that were, more often than not, fraught and tedious. The ideal family life he’d envied from afar as a child had proved to be nothing more than a cluster of blood relations fighting over what remained of a once prestigious aristocratic name.

He’d achieved more in his lifetime than his so-called ancestors had managed in several generations.

But the rejection still hurt...

Javier shrugged tense shoulders, ferociously denying the voice in his head, and looked up as Carla murmured in her sleep.

Clinically, he examined her, forcing himself to assess what had drawn him so inexorably to her. She certainly wasn’t his type. Slim and far too delicate where he preferred his women curvy and vivacious.

Yet, from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d been captivated by the combination of ethereal beauty that comprised silky caramel-streaked chocolate hair, vivid green eyes and a figure that begged for masculine hands, his hands, to mould and possess.

And despite everything that had happened—her deliberate, callous insults and her flaying rejection the morning after their passionate night together—he couldn’t help the rush of heat to his groin as he lingered on her full mouth and the steady rise and fall of her breasts.

He surged to his feet, disgusted with himself for ogling a sick, bedridden woman.

But Carla Nardozzi wasn’t just any woman. She epitomised the very thing that Javier had struggled all his life to effectively deny.

She’d rejected him because he hadn’t been good enough. Not once, but twice, she’d looked upon him as if he hadn’t been worthy to address her.

The family he didn’t want or need had been allowed to get away with treating him like that.

She would not.

And before their association was over, he would make sure she took back every dismissive word, every scathing look and gesture she’d spurned him with.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_4edaaeca-2892-5686-a2df-8f23c086dc81)

EVEN BEFORE CARLA came fully awake, she knew he was still there. His presence was too oppressive, too hyper-intense, to dismiss.

Thankfully, her headache had lessened, and, even though her broken wrist throbbed, Carla felt much better and in control of herself than she’d been a few hours ago.

So she opened her eyes, and glanced at the occupant of the armchair.

Javier was asleep.

That in itself was shocking enough to observe—the man was larger than life, a demigod who surely didn’t require the rejuvenating needs of mere mortals. But it was the transformation that had overcome his face that made her eyes widen. That made her stare shamelessly.

His arms were flung over the sides of the chair, his long legs splayed in front of him. The position offered an unfettered view of the stunning landscape of his body. Powerful taut thighs tapered to lean hips and a trim waist before veering up to display a torso that would’ve made any athlete proud. His deep chest and broad shoulders rose and fell and his slightly relaxed jawline drew attention to the stubble that had grown in the hours he’d been here. Almost reluctantly, her gaze traced his face.

Sinfully gorgeous, Javier’s features had always been a subject of acute fascination for her and this time was no exception, despite his less than formidable demeanour in repose.

Heat dragged low in her belly as she recalled what that mouth had done to her, what she’d begged him to do to her during that mad, reckless night in Miami.

He’d fulfilled her every wish, and more, with an intensity that had sent her running for cover in a blind panic the next morning. Carla had known that Javier was bad news for her. His healthy sex life and reputation for strictly temporary liaisons with women hadn’t been a secret. She’d known even before she woke up in his bed that it was only a matter of time before he notched her name on his bedpost and moved on. Dio mio, she’d barely kept up with him during their night of passion, her inexperience blazing through every fumbled kiss and caress that had made his sensual lips twitch with tender humour. But it was the risk to her own emotions that had finally sent her scurrying.

That had made her strike out before he’d got round to rejecting her first.

‘You stare at me with such fascination, it’s almost enough to make me forgot the horror on your face when you looked upon me once upon a time.’

She jumped, her mind dragging itself to the present and to the ragged contempt in his voice. She forced herself to meet Javier’s gaze. ‘It wasn’t horror. At least not at you.’

One sleek eyebrow lifted. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better, peque?a? That you were horrified with yourself for choosing me to be the man you lost your innocence to?’

‘Is there anything I can say that will make you stop condemning me for what I said the next morning?’

The gleam in his eyes slowly hardened to merciless chips. Still splayed out in indolent abandon, he linked his fingers over his washboard stomach. ‘You told me sleeping with me was the worst mistake of your life. Of course with the benefit of hindsight I see that I was being used all along. But even if I hadn’t believed you then or found a way to excuse that insult, your behaviour since has proven your words to be true. Why should I believe that anything you say now isn’t just to save face?’

‘Save face?’ she said, confused.

‘Angelis is engaged to another woman, is he not? He’s made his choice and it wasn’t you. It’s natural you wouldn’t want the world to know how you truly feel about him.’

‘I’m not in love with him. I’m really not,’ she stressed when mocking disbelief draped his face.

‘Then why were you seen kissing him at your charity event in Tuscany last month?’