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‘Hate is a useless emotion, one I don’t waste my time practising. Self-respect on the other hand, especially when it reflects on my reputation, is of paramount importance to me.’
She frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You may have the public fooled, chiquita, but we both know you have no shame. Throwing yourself at a man who doesn’t want you is one thing. Throwing yourself at a man who is engaged to another woman is a different matter entirely. I didn’t delegate this trip because you need to be made aware of the consequences of a scandal should you choose to be so unwise as to keep pursuing Angelis.’
Carla flinched. ‘Draco? I’m not pursuing him. I haven’t done anything wrong...’ She trailed off, the look on Javier’s face inviting her to not bother.
‘Are you implying that the pictures of you on social media actively throwing yourself at him at your father’s charity event six weeks ago were fake?’
Flames of guilt lit her insides. ‘It wasn’t what it looked like...it didn’t mean anything.’ Draco Angelis was the brother of her best friend, Maria Angelis, and the big brother she’d never had. Sure, at one very brief point during her teenage years she’d fancied herself infatuated with him, and had even used him to protect herself against unwanted male advances a few times. Six weeks ago, with her budding resolve to take a more active role in her life and career still shaky, she’d leant on him more than perhaps had been wise.
Luckily he’d understood and hadn’t held her less than stellar behaviour against her, and neither had his fiancée, Rebel Daniels. Watching Javier’s expression, she knew he wouldn’t be as accommodating of her explanations.
‘Things are never as they seem with you, are they?’ he confirmed.
Suddenly weary, she sagged against the pillow, her head begi
Silence greeted her response. She didn’t need to look at him to know his gaze would be heavy with anger and condemnation. ‘Agree to return to New York with me and I will.’
‘You make it sound as if I have a choice. Isn’t this part of your grand revenge scheme?’
‘Perhaps it is. But I’m happy to delay what comes next. As long as I get what I want.’
Carla sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Sì. 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 fa
His jaw clenched as he recalled that her i
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 e
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.