The Unwanted Conti Bride (The Legendary Conti Brothers) (6 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

A WWF
SMACKDOWN
would have had less dramatic effect than when Luca, arm in arm with Sophia, rushed past an aggrieved and bamboozled set of assistants and personal secretaries, and into the conference room on the tenth floor of the Conti offices.

“I thought we should share the good news with everyone in here first.”

His grandfather Antonio rose to the bait instantly. His gaze moved from Luca’s face to Sophia and then to the way their bodies were flushed together at their sides. A nerve began vibrating in his temple. “What have you done now?”

“Sophia and I got married an hour ago.”

“If this is one of your shameless jokes—”

Luca cut off Antonio’s building tirade by throwing their license on the table.

Ten pairs of eyes went to the license, scanned it and then returned to him and Sophia.

All ten faces, two assistants and eight board members, including Antonio and Kairos, looked at him as if he had crossed that final line into insanity.

Only his brother, Leandro, didn’t exhibit any signs of the panic Luca saw in the rest. But it didn’t mean Luca’s announcement didn’t rattle Leandro. With his autocratic control of his emotions, Leandro wouldn’t betray anything until he’d decided on the best course.

Luca decided it was time to make the second, thoroughly satisfactory announcement. “Since my dutiful brother has decided to abandon me and his duties toward the board, I have decided that it is time I claimed my seat on the board and directed its decisions. After all, as someone very cleverly pointed out, it is my fortune, too. And where would my lifestyle be if I didn’t have the Conti legacy to live off? I have to protect my assets, push the company in the direction I want it to go.” He looked pointedly at Kairos, leaving no doubt as to his intentions.

Also, thwarting all board members who’d done nothing to stop his father’s escalating antics felt good. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? Luca could see the fear and the shock in their faces. They were terrified that he wasn’t joking, that he would repeat history. That he would be another Enzo, and that he would be left to run wild, unchecked.

Luca tapped his knuckles on the glass tabletop, letting the silence thicken with the horror of their thoughts.

Sophia next to him became stiff, as if a pole had been driven into her spine. With the pretense of pushing away at a nonexistent speck on his collar, she reached close and glared at him. “What’s going on? They all—”

He stole the words from her in a quick kiss, unable to resist the temptation. He teased and taunted her honeyed mouth with soft strokes, waiting for her to let him in. She was his wife, and damn his romantic soul, he liked it.

He’d never realized what a beautiful, intimate thing that bond could be until he’d seen Leandro and Alex. That it was another thing he could never have—that connection that went beyond anything else. He’d acknowledged that a long time ago, still, his heart raced when he looked at the plain band on his finger.

Fingers on his shirt, Sophia stiffened and then slowly melted into the kiss. He licked her lower lip, an incessant clawing in his gut to own her.

She stilled, blushed and then glared at him again. Her breath was a warm caress against his lips. “You couldn’t have done this anywhere else?”

He grinned. “
Non
. I want them all to see I worship at your feet.”

She rolled her eyes and he tucked her close against his side.

Leandro sighed. It was that same half indulgent, half disciplinary sound his brother had made countless times when Luca had been up to something new. Leandro hated pretending about Luca. But he had proven countless times that only Luca’s well-being mattered.

Amusement flickered in his brother’s gaze instead of the fury Luca had expected. Luca grinned, his heart feeling light for the first time in months.

Falling in love with Alex had changed his brother.

“You barely know anything about the business or CLG. And you hate dealing with...
people
, remember?” Next to him, Luca felt Sophia tense, her gaze swinging between him and his brother.

“I said I wanted to take an active role. Not that I would actually do any of the work.”

A sort of a cross between relief and fear settled on the members’ faces. One of them recovered enough to say, “What do you suggest?”

“My wife, Sophia Conti, from this day will have complete authority to make decisions on my behalf. The lawyers are preparing paperwork even as we speak. Come on,
cara mia
.”

When Sophia, wooden and unmoving, only stared at him, he winked at her. Hand on the curve of her waist, he pushed her to the end of the table toward an empty chair. The members of the board watched like it was a movie.

Luca pulled the chair back, seated Sophia and then stood behind her. “Sophia has seven years of experience working at Rossi Leather. She has an MBA and specializes in risk management and forecasting business trends and marketing. For all legal purposes, she now owns fifteen percent of the Conti stock.”

A ripple of shock spread across the room and for once in his life, Luca felt a sense of rightness.

* * *

He had known her area of expertise.

He hadn’t told her he was giving her complete authority over his stock.

That hadn’t been part of their deal. She’d never even imagined...

Eight men—the most powerful in Milanese society—looked at her as if to figure out how she had persuaded/manipulated the Conti Devil into this.

Damn it, did he really not care what happened to the company?
Or did he trust her judgment and her that much?

That thought sent her heart thumping against her rib cage.

Sophia somehow managed to smile and nod and accept the congratulations that came her way. Kairos, without looking at her, walked out the minute the meeting was concluded.

She’d understood one thing in the show her new husband had put on.

Luca hated,
no
, despised, his grandfather. The depth of that emotion from Luca, who seemed to fairly breeze through life with no concern and with nothing but surface involvement with everyone, had rattled her.

While Luca’s small exchange with Leandro had been civil, too, the bond between them was anything but. There was love between them.

After the depth of emotions she’d seen play out on his face in the conference room, Sophia wasn’t sure she really knew the Conti Devil.

Her gut said one thing while her history with him, quite the opposite.

She had just started looking for him when Luca appeared in the carpeted corridor and pulled her into a small, private lounge that was the size of her bedroom at home.

Cream leather and cream walls greeted her, the quiet luxury of the room markedly different from the business-oriented layout of the rest of the building. Afternoon light poured through the high windows, touching the space with a golden intimacy.

The most surprising thing about the room, though, was a piano that stood in the corner.

And in the middle of all that light, stood Luca, looking like a dark angel in his black jeans and white shirt with buttons undone to his chest. Dark olive skin gleamed like burnished metal, beckoning her touch. The leather jacket was gone.

The devil had intentions. And not good ones, for her mental health. Her body, however, had very different ideas for it was thrumming like an engine ready to take off.

Sophia rubbed her hands on her hips, had to swallow the butterflies in her throat before she could speak. “What is this place?”

“My brother’s private lounge.”

“It is soundproofed, isn’t it?”

“Si.”
He raised a finger and shook it. “Don’t ask me why.”

Sophia stole a glance at the door as he closed it behind him. “You have key card access?”

“
Si.
Why is that so surprising?”

“I thought maybe this was the first time you came into the building.”

He shook his head from side to side, making a thick lock of hair fall on his forehead. “No, I’ve been known to crash here, once in a while. My brother used to be a very hard taskmaster years ago. He’s worked for the company since he was sixteen or seventeen. He refused to leave me alone at home.”

“Where were your parents?” She’d vaguely heard of a scandal involving their father, Enzo Conti.

“Absent.” The shrug that accompanied it seemed far too practiced to be real.

“So, wait, Leandro had this...room built for you?”

“Si.”

She looked around the room again, noting the dark, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. At first glance, the subjects were varied from art to space to the leather industry in Italy. “Wow, all this to just keep you out of trouble?”

“My brother takes his responsibilities very seriously.”

“Why do you hate them all so much?”

A shadow flitted over his face and Sophia knew she’d hit the nail on the head. “Will you not move from the door?”

Evasion. If it didn’t work, he’d smile at her. Or touch her. Or kiss her. She was beginning to see the pattern. She pushed off the door and casually strolled toward the bookshelves. None of the books were for amateur readers and looked quite worn.
Who did all these books belong to?

“I thought it was all a joke to you. I still think a part of it is. You’re like Puck in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.”

“A good-looking Puck?”

She ignored his little quip. “You do your little thing and stand back to watch the explosion. But what happened in that boardroom was more than that.” She turned around to see him standing close. Instantly, she felt the zing in her blood. The hungry clamor to touch him. The simple need to look at him, study him, to her heart’s content. “You let them think you were going to join the board and for all of three minutes, that pack of gray wolves looked terrified. It was kind of funny.”

He raised a brow. “Gray wolves?”

She shrugged.

“Why gray wolves?”

“They whiff out their prey’s weakness from a considerable distance. They stalk and hunt it until it gives up out of sheer exhaustion. I have seen them all turn on Salvatore these last few months, from the minute things began to get worse, ready to tear
Rossi’s
out and keep the good parts. Except Leandro, and Kairos, for his own reasons. Your grandfather leads that pack.”

“So the wolves scared you, then?”

Sophia shivered. “Yes. But then I reminded myself that they need me just as much as I need them at this point.”

A sense of coiled tightness emanated from him. And Sophia knew instinctually that he was shocked that she’d figured him out. “Why do they need you?”

“To corral you. To keep you amused and away from them.” Her fingers shook as she rubbed her temple. Nothing, she was beginning to realize, was simple with Luca. And she’d hitched her already limp pony to his ride.

He touched her then. A mere brush of his fingers over her jaw. Sophia let the bookcase dig into her back, anything to keep her grounded in reality. “Have I ever told you how much I love that clever brain of yours
, cara mia
?”

Warmth fluttered through her stomach. “No. And you are probably the only one.”

“I do.” Something like pride glittered in his eyes. “And to show my appreciation for it, I’m going to kiss that lush mouth of yours.”

She raised a brow. “First, tell me what that was about.”

“Is it only me that finds this bossiness of yours hot?”

Another flicker of warmth. Another pocket of heat. “Luca...”

“They had the particular pleasure of seeing my father go off the rails. Now they look at me and wonder if I will do the same.”

“Why you?”

“Because I’m the mirror image of him, a carbon copy. The man embezzled from his own company, used his power to prey on women and generally blazed a destructive path through every life he touched. He almost brought CLG to its knees and only then Antonio interfered. He brought Leandro into the company, and together, they ousted him in two years.” There was no intonation to that statement. Yet the very bald way he said it sent a shiver through Sophia.

“What happened to him? Your father?”

“He died in jail.” A vicious gleam, a dark fire in his eyes that transformed his face. To that of a disconcertingly cruel stranger. “So Antonio waits and watches, as he’s been doing for years, to see if I will self-destruct like that, too. He tries to do a course adjust every few years.”

Which was why he’d stalked and cornered Sophia. After Luca’s latest debacle with a minister’s wife, Antonio had been desperate.

But how could anyone think Luca would turn out like his father?

She couldn’t imagine Luca ever preying on anyone’s weakness. Couldn’t imagine Luca destroying anyone’s life with such malicious...

What do you call what he did to you ten years ago?
the rational part of her whispered.
What he does every day with his life? How much do you really know him?
“You—”

“I think we have had enough talk about bloodthirsty wolves.”

Trying to calm her ratcheting heartbeat, Sophia focused her gaze everywhere else but him. “Why are we here?”

“To have a celebratory drink, why else?” He made a show of glancing at his watch, as if he hadn’t timed all this with precision. “We have been successfully married for a whole morning.”

That was when Sophia noticed the ice bucket with a champagne bottle and next to the bucket, in a cardboard box with a little bow that looked very familiar and dear to her heart, chocolate truffles.

He was seducing her
;
another warning from that increasingly annoying voice.

She groaned, her mouth already watering as she imagined the dark, rich taste on her mouth. Other disturbing sensations floated beneath. She had told him once that she would sell her soul for truffles.

Countless women he’d seduced and countless little nothings they would have whispered in his ears, flushed from the good sex he gave...did he remember all those details
?
she wanted to ask
.
“Keep those away from me, Luca. They are the very devil for my diet.”