Far From Perfect (4 page)

But when a veil of soft pink blush gathered across her porcelain cheekbones and developed across her throat and her cleavage, his own composure began to fracture. Her beautifully rounded breasts rose and fell beneath the thin fabric of her delicate
eau de nil
silk and lace dress, pure provocation as she clearly fought for equilibrium.

On his feet without conscious thought, he resumed his pacing. He didn’t want her to look at him too closely and see his erection. It was much easier for women, if they were aroused it wasn’t as obvious, and that gave them an advantage. How could he work through the justification of his plan, especially when it was so vaguely thought out in his own mind, if he was sporting a raging hard-on and she was looking at it?

I should have known this would happen. I got stiff looking at her picture, how in God’s name could I avoid it seeing her for real, touching her skin, smelling her scent?

At the window, Nick stared out into the damp garden and composed himself. They’d have to get past that night at villa. Their elephant in the room. It was no good thinking they could go on ignoring what had happened. Perhaps they’d been fools to blank it from their lives for so long?

Especially as it was the most defining event of his life.

Could that be true? No, it couldn’t. It mustn’t.

The illumination, sudden and sharp, swept through him, bringing confusion in its wake that was so unlike his usual hard-focused clarity. Aware she might think he was crazy, he shook his head to clear it, but couldn’t do away with the sense of sand shifting beneath his feet.

Concentrate. Stay on message. Remember the plan. Remember the way you conduct your life.

Whirling around, marshalling the steel and purpose that usually served him so well in business, he said, “We have to talk about that night, Anna. We’ve danced around it since it happened and it’ll only fester if we leave it any longer.”

“What’s to discuss?” Anna held his gaze, and the lack of fear in her eyes was awesome, almost warrior. He wasn’t the only one who’d pulled himself together. “I made a mistake…and you informed me of it in no uncertain terms. There’s nothing more to be said.” Her voice was steady, but huskier than before. And the blush in her cheeks was pinker, hotter.

Oh hell, he wanted her more than ever.

“It was a lot more than that. And we need to talk about it.” He moved to push his hands in his pockets, then thought better of it and crossed his arms in front of him.

Suddenly, Anna was on her feet, fists clenched at her sides. “Yes, there was a bit in the middle that you seemed to enjoy—quite a lot as I recall! But after that, all I remember is you suddenly turning into the Reverend Father of Good Sense and Moral Rectitude and preaching me a sermon along the lines of ‘You young idiot!’ and ‘How could you be so stupid?’ and ‘
Per Dio
, what on earth were you thinking?’”

Per Dio
indeed! That night he’d lost his cool completely, just as he was in serious danger of losing it now.

There had been a delicious, drowsy awakening, then shocked realization, then an almost fatalistic slide into the most soul-drenching pleasure. And afterwards, another rollercoaster plunge, but this time into another realization. The fact that he’d just had sex with exactly the type of woman, exactly
the
woman whom he shouldn’t have allowed himself anywhere near.

Remorse had shocked him in its agonizing intensity. Anna hadn’t been one of his no-strings sophisticates who knew the score. Not then, and maybe not now. His plan was stupid…stupid, but he couldn’t forget the way his father’s weary eyes burned with hope at the mention of her name.

And yet, there was the other thing too. The need to get past that night, exorcise their demons and move on properly. Surely she wanted the same? Or was he just fooling himself so he had an excuse to bed her again? His thoughts whirled, round and round, and his temples ached from the urge to shake his head again.

“I was harsh. I shouldn’t have been. I admit that.” It seemed a hollow concession at best, and he hated the memory of her lovely face crumpling in distress.

“And presumptuous,” she flung back at him, “and arrogant.”

“Okay, yes, it was arrogant of me to presume that because you wanted to fuck me you’d expect me to get into a serious relationship with you afterwards.” Odd voices, yearnings, muttered in his head. “And it was a shock realizing you were a virgin…it was…was a responsibility.”

“Which you don’t like. I know that. I only wanted to get rid of my virginity with a man I knew was likely to be pretty damn good in bed.” Anna’s delicate chin came up as she spoke. Her expression was determined and brittle and he didn’t like it at all. “I picked you because I knew you were a player and you could get the job done.”

Sudden outrage barreled through him, but at her or himself, he wasn’t quite sure. Nevertheless it swept aside all better judgment and pragmatism. It was one thing to have a reputation as a seasoned stud—deserved, admittedly—but to be told he’d been chosen purely as a stallion hurt like a punch in the gut. Especially as he still wasn’t sure she was telling the truth.

He wanted a drink. He wanted to clear his head, which was suddenly aching. He wanted release, and whether it was emotional or just pure sex, he didn’t care.

“Well, in view of the fact that I never asked you for specifics at the time…was I satisfactory?” he demanded, “Did I ‘get the job done’, as you so delicately put it?”

To his surprise, Anna laughed. A light, sexy laugh that should have broken the tension, but didn’t. “Nick! You are kidding, aren’t you? If you couldn’t tell from all the—” her eyes skittered away just a second, and she swallowed furiously, “—all the fuss I made, then you obviously aren’t the all-conquering sexual love-rat everyone believes you to be.”

“Reports of my sexual prowess have been greatly exaggerated,” he murmured dryly, but inside he found a smile, stupidly pleased at the idea of “getting the job done” and well.

Because she’d pleased him.
Per Dio
, how she’d pleased him. He’d never had quite the same sublime experience since, and he’d had lovers who were world-class beauties, sexually voracious and practiced seductresses to boot.

Looking down at Anna’s face, he saw courage and fire in every perfect contour. Her mouth was luscious yet determined and her eyes held his, not quailing, not hiding anything.

She
did
want him, but she was wary. Her slender body had an almost feline quality of readiness, as if she were gathering herself to dart away from him if he made the slightest wrong move. Either that or she was poised to attack him. Even ravish him.

But everything about her made him want to launch his own counterattack. To haul her against him and kiss her until the last sub-atomic particle of hostility in her had melted and she was eager and aroused in his arms. As eager and aroused as he was.

Instead, he dropped onto the sofa again, taking care to observe her personal space while every fiber of his being howled at him to invade it. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m a love-rat?” He patted the seat beside him, and felt a ridiculous, almost boyish happiness when she sat too.

He recognized his peril when close proximity surrounded him with the delicate drift of her perfume. It was very light, yet as rich as a basket of summer flowers, and it was exactly the same fragrance she’d worn in bed at Villa Rosa. It had been the only thing she’d been wearing that night and it had filled his head with madness.

As it did now.

“It’s a pretty crude way of putting it, but essentially…yes.” She glanced down at his thigh, and hers, almost touching, and he could tell she wanted to move, but he wasn’t quite sure whether away or closer. “According to those—” she nodded to a pile of shiny magazines lying on the nearby coffee table, “—and what everybody says, you do seem to work your way through a lot of women.”

“So you believe the made-up tales of trashy magazines and evil-minded gossips?” he murmured, irrationally wounded, but knowing he shouldn’t blame her. He as good as promoted that image of himself, so his lovers wouldn’t be cruelly disappointed when forever wasn’t on offer. “I’ve always credited you with more intelligence than that, Anna.”

Nick felt an intense desire to defend himself. Take her by the shoulders, look deep into her intelligent green eyes and convince her by sheer force of personality that he wasn’t the unprincipled womanizer the sensationalist press and his self-created persona portrayed him to be. But what would be the point of that? She was safer thinking he
was
a womanizer. At least that way she knew where she stood.

“I enjoy women,” he conceded, “And I enjoy variety. But I don’t set out to misrepresent myself. Every woman I sleep with knows the score. No strings. No commitment. No wedding bells. Long-term relationships and me aren’t a viable mixture, Anna. Haven’t I always told you that?”

Anna’s eyes narrowed again, and her brow pleated beneath her feathery blonde fringe. “And yet you’re asking me to marry you.”

He’d almost forgotten what he was here for. Her intimate proximity, her scent, the reality of her unique beauty… It was difficult to stay on message this close to her.

“No.” Starkly, he dragged himself back to his purpose. “What I’m asking you is that you become
engaged
to me. Just that, and for a strictly limited period. If Carlo thinks he’s got his wish, it will give him just the boost he needs to start fighting back to health.”

Momentarily, he saw the dull exhaustion in his father’s eyes. And then, the older man’s entire face aglow on hearing that all his hints and urgings with respect to the girl he most wanted as a daughter-in-law were finally set to be fulfilled. For the first time in days, there’d been real strength and vigor when Carlo had embraced him.

“So it’d all be an empty façade?”

She was frowning again. Always frowning. He wanted to kiss the porcelain-pale skin of her forehead and smooth away her suspicion.

“A fiction. For a good cause.”

There was a long silence. The scheme had made perfect sense when he’d formulated it in a flash of inspiration at his father’s bedside. But confronted with Anna, on whom it all hinged, it sounded as if he’d lost his mind, not to mention all sense of the judgment and savvy he prided himself on.

The moments stretched on, and finally, Nick lost patience, with himself as much as with Anna.

“Well? Will you do it?” he demanded, “Aren’t you going to answer?”

What could she answer? The whirl of a million conflicting feelings contrasted starkly with the slow, steady tick of the antique grandfather clock in the corner of the room.

Focus, woman! Think. Breathe. Don’t let him see that you’re in a flat spin and don’t know what to think or do.

But it was a tough task, especially with Nick so close and looking and smelling and sounding so good. He’d always been as handsome as a fallen angel and he just seemed to get more attractive and sexually irresistible with every year that passed. She should have distance and self-control and a resistance to him after all this time, but it just seemed more impossible than ever. Especially as she sensed there was even more to his preposterous suggestion than the dramatic performance of the fake engagement.

“You don’t expect me to answer right now, do you?” She met those blue, blue eyes as coolly as she could. “It needs at least a bit of mulling over. You must at least allow me that.”

“Carlo isn’t getting any better, Anna.”

Oh, so cold all of a sudden. It was like a rabbit punch, but he was right, of course. She saw Carlo’s craggy face for a moment—always smiling, always kind and always generous. She’d been planning to fly to Italy as soon as he came off the critical list and could see visitors.

“Yes, I know that. Do you think I don’t care?” she flung out, “I’m certainly a lot more concerned about his welfare than I am about yours.”

Idiot. Don’t antagonize him. Things are sticky enough already.

“Then say yes for him, not me.” There was no getting around him. He was determined. And when Nick set his mind on something he’d always got his way. His will was as steely and unyielding as his superbly muscled body.

No, don’t think about his body!

“I need a little time, Nick. I won’t be coerced.” In an attempt to distract him, she shot to her feet again. “But I won’t keep you waiting long.” She fixed her eyes on the door and her path of escape, back to the party.

In what seemed only the blink of an eye, he was on his feet too, blocking that path.

“Very well, Anna,” he murmured. He was average tall, but not massive, and yet he seemed to loom over her in a way that was completely and unequivocally male. “But not too long, eh?” He tilted his head, and the light from the chandelier above seemed to turn his blond hair to some fabulous mystical metal. One long-fingered hand reached out and touched her cheek, and it felt like a brand. His mark. On her.

“Thank you,
cara mia
.” His voice was soft, almost sweet, but the addition of the Italian endearment was a subtle taunt. “But there’s one little complication you need to attend to, I think.”

“What’s that?” She watched his mouth, and the insolent curve of his full lower lip, as she waited for enlightenment. Or something.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend, Anna?”

Oh hell, Martin.

Nick’s smile broadened. He was hugely amused by the fact she obviously hadn’t given Martin a single thought since she’d opened the door. Admittedly, she and Martin were only casual, and she’d decided not to keep stringing him along because it wasn’t fair to him…but still. How could she forget him completely? That was awful.

“My real relationships are no business whatsoever of yours, Nick.” She looked at him boldly, chin up. It would have been easier if he wasn’t still touching her, but she couldn’t seem to move her head and shake him off. “You’d better concern yourself only with this false one.
If
I decide to go through with it.”

Irked by his grin, she held his gaze and was rewarded by a faint flash of irritation in Nick’s eyes. “And anyway, how do you know whether I’m seeing anyone or not? Have you been spying on me?”