The Unwanted Conti Bride (The Legendary Conti Brothers) Read Free

visible in the silvery light. They fell on her, widened for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, searched her face and then assumed that laid-back, casual, infuriatingly annoying expression that she hated.
    “Sophia Rossi, of steel balls and tough skin and icy heart.” Whatever alcohol he’d imbibed, his speech didn’t slur. Mocking and precise, it arrowed past her defenses. “Did you lose your way, cara ?”
    His sultry voice thickened the air around them so much that Sophia wondered if she could breathe through it. “Stop calling me...” No, that was way too personal. If she was going to do this, Sophia had to enclose herself in steel, lock away even the slightest vulnerability she had, not that she had any. She’d do this for her family, but she wasn’t going to be the Conti Devil’s amusement. Not this time.
    He pushed himself from the wall while she formed and disposed words. When she looked up again, he’d moved close enough for her to smell the crisply masculine scent of him. The light from the hall caressed his features.
    Breath was lost. Nerves fluttered. A sigh built and ballooned inside her chest. That small scar under his chin. The sweeping arch of his eyebrows. The razor-sharp lines of his cheekbones. Darkly angelic features that masked a cruel devil.
    Jet-black eyes glinted with sardonic amusement at her mute appraisal. He propped a bent hand on the wall she was leaning against, sticking his other hip out. A pose full of grace and languor. Of feigned interest and wretched playfulness. “Tell me, how did you end up in the farthest reaches of the house, away from all the wheelings and dealings of your business friends? Did Little Bo Peep lose track of her sheep and wander into big bad wolf’s way?”
    Sophia tried to command every cell in her body to keep it together, wrenched herself into a tight ball so that all that touched her was the man’s whispery breath. “You’re getting your fairy tales mixed up.”
    “But my point got through to you, si ?” He ran the heel of his hand over his tired-looking eyes while Sophia stared hungrily, cataloging every gesture, every shift. “What do you want, Sophia?”
    “Your... situation looked like it needed rescuing.”
    The slight tug of his mouth transformed into that full-blown grin that always seemed to be waiting for an invite. Evenly set teeth gleamed in an altogether wicked face. “Ahh...and so Sophia Rossi, the righteous and the pure, decided to come to my aid.”
    “Where is your lover? I can have one of our chauffeurs drive her home.”
    His gaze held hers, a thousand whispers in it. “She’s in my bed, thoroughly lost to the world.” It dipped to her mouth. Snaky tendrils of heat erupted over her skin. “I believe I wore her out.”
    Nausea hit Sophia with the force of a gardening hose, the images of a sweaty and ravished Mariana burning her retinas as if she could see the leggy blonde amidst a cloud of soft, white sheets.
    Luca’s bedroom—pure white sheets, gleaming black marble, black-and-white portraits all around... It was like being transported into your worst nightmare and your darkest fantasy, all rolled into one. While being naked and blindfolded and without any defense.
    She let all the disgust she felt seep to the surface and stepped back.
    “Don’t you think this is too far even for you? They are not even divorced yet. And you’re advertising it for all and sundry to see.”
    “But that’s the fun, si ? Tangling with the dangerous? Riling up her husband into one of his awful tempers?”
    “And then you walk away?” Like you did from me. “Her life will be in ruins in terms of the society, while you latch on to the next willing v—”
    His mouth curved into a snarl and his hand covered her mouth. Opal fire burned in his eyes. “Is that what you tell yourself, cara ? That you were a victim all those years ago? Have you convinced yourself that I forced you?”
    She pushed away his hand and glared at him, all the