Sweet Seduction Read Free

course, unless you can convince them that you’re not the hedonistic philanderer they think you are.’
    Antonio banged his open palm against a pillar. Damn them. His relatives lived in the dark ages. Hotels weren’t run as little family businesses any more. Success lay in economies of scale across multimarkets. He’d built the best boutique hotel business in the world, one that attracted the rich and famous, but his so-called fast lifestyle wiped any of his achievements from his relatives’ minds. He’d made the Moretti name famous, not brought it into disrepute.
    ‘Use that huge brain of yours and come up with a plan,’ Antonio pushed. ‘There has to be a way to convince them.’
    ‘Unless you can find a nice Italian girl who happens to know everything there is to know about running a family hotel and marry her, then you’ll have to forget it.’
    Antonio smiled as an idea took shape in his mind. He turned slowly and looked back towards Sienna’s office. Italian heritage. Hotelier. Single?
    ‘Brad, you’re a genius,’ he said, striding across the floor.
    ‘What are you talking about?’
    Antonio laughed at the concern in Brad’s voice. ‘I’ll talk to you later.’
    ‘Wait.’ Brad’s voice ratcheted up a notch. ‘Don’t do anything —’
    Antonio snapped the phone shut. He halted and stared at Sienna, who still had her head down, engrossed. She pulled repeatedly on a strand of her hair. Even stressed, she radiated classic Italian beauty. Nothing about her looked flashy or showy. His aunt and uncle would love her.
This might work.
    He strode back into her office, not bothering to knock. She leapt from her chair, clearly ready to let him have it.
    ‘Sienna,’ he said, cutting her off before she could speak. ‘I have a proposition for you.’
    A proposition?
    The words of fury died on Sienna’s lips.
What did he want now?
    ‘You have everything,’ she said, grabbing the legal papers from her desk and brandishing them in his direction. ‘What else do you want? The clothes off my back?’
    As soon as she’d uttered the words, she regretted them.
    Antonio’s eyes travelled down her body. A warm tingle engulfed her. She swallowed hard. If this were a tactic designed to unsettle her, it was working.
    ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’ He sat and leant back in the chair, waiting.
    Antonio held a reputation as a notorious seducer. She needed to keep her head. Stay in control. She sat on the edge of her chair.
    ‘What’s your marital status?’ he asked.
    Sienna felt her face flush and her mouth drop open. So much for control. Did this man know no bounds?
    ‘The terms of this document might be watertight,’ she said grimly, ‘but I don’t remember my personal life being part of it.’
    A smile played about his lips.
    That’s it. Meeting adjourned.
She stood up and folded her arms across her chest. ‘It’s time you left.’ She bristled at her own words. It felt awful to be so rude, but this man asked for it.
    Antonio sat quite still for a moment. ‘Sit down, Sienna.’ All traces of amusement had vanished. ‘If you want an extension on that loan, I suggest you hear me out.’
    Her heart rate kicked up a notch. An extension? A tiny sliver of hope touched her heart. She sat.
    ‘So?’ she said, trying to disguise the desperation in her voice.
    ‘Are you married?’ He leant forward, his black eyes intense. ‘In a relationship?’
    She frowned. Could these questions be more inappropriate? Perhaps if she answered he’d get to the point. ‘No.’
    No boyfriends. Not even a sniff of romance in her life since her mother’s death. Sure, friends had been kind. Even her male friends stayed around and provided a shoulder to cry on. But over time, everyone drifted away. What did she expect? Friendship was a two-way street. Who wanted to be friends, let alone be romantic, with a workaholic, grief-ravaged girl – in bed by nine and up again for the morning shift at four. If she didn’t save the