that had been presented to him, he had very quickly reached the perfectly correct conclusion that marrying his daughter off was only one benefit for Carlo Caldini in helping his father.
The other was glaringly obvious.
Carlo Caldini ran a juggernaut of a family business but there was no male family member to whom he could leave his legacy—and, like many traditional Italians, he wanted his business to remain in the family. By marrying his daughter to Theo he netted one of the most wildly respected and formidable businessmen on the globe.
And for Theo, Alexa Caldini came with a considerable dowry.
‘So no doubt we should be discussing the mechanics,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that to the outside world we must be a loved-up pair about to embark on the greatest adventure of our lives. I will not have a whiff of scandal surrounding this, because under no circumstances is my father to be subjected to any manner of rumour about a convenient match concocted to save his company.’ His green eyes had cooled. ‘Are we one hundred per cent clear on this?’
‘Or else what?’
‘That’s a road I would seriously advise you not to go down.’
His voice was icy cold, with deadly intent, and Alexa shivered. Theo De Angelis had not reached the dizzy heights by being kind and avuncular. He’d probably never helped a little old lady cross a road in his entire life. She wondered how he would react to her world when they were man and wife...
‘When we’re in public,’ he purred silkily, ‘you will withdraw your claws. You can keep them for when we’re alone together.’
‘You might find that you don’t like being scratched.’ Alexa tilted her chin mutinously and he smiled—a slow, curling smile that did all sorts of weird and unexpected things to her body.
‘And you might discover that I’m very good when it comes to subduing wild cats.’
Suddenly confused, and feeling horribly out of her depth, Alexa blinked and gulped down the remainder of her champagne.
She might talk the talk, but how good would she be at walking the walk?
She had virtually no experience when it came to the opposite sex. She had been sent off to England to an all girls’ boarding school and from there to university, where she had buried herself in books, determined to get her law degree.
Of course there had been a couple of boyfriends, but neither had excited her and she had always been determined to hold out for the Right One—never to sell herself short. They had both cleared off as soon as they’d realised that she wasn’t going to hop into bed with them.
Now, as her bright blue eyes tangled with his cool, unreadable green ones, she knew that this was a predator, born to lead and accustomed to obedience.
Obedience she would give him—but only within the parameters that suited them both. If he didn’t want anyone getting wind of the real reason for their union she, in turn, did not want to embarrass her parents, whom she dearly loved.
He wanted her to put up a public front and she would—but the second they closed the door behind them there would be no more game-playing.
And suddenly a thought rippled through her that made her breathing quicken.
When the front door closed...what happened next?
It was something that she would have to broach, and she licked her lips nervously because the mere thought of this big, domineering man touching her sent her whole nervous system into instant meltdown.
He surely wouldn’t expect them to sleep together! Not when this was a farce—a marriage of convenience...a union in which there would be no love lost!
Her breathing steadied.
Panic over.
He might be arrogant and ruthless, but he wasn’t an idiot—and besides, she knew the sort of women he dated because she had seen pictures in some of the trashy magazines she had flicked through while she was getting her hair done.
Tall, blonde women who wore the minimum of clothing and whose full-time occupation appeared to be personal grooming.
‘You said that we need to discuss the mechanics of this...this arrangement...?’
‘Shall we do that over dinner—?’
‘Why? We might as well hash it out now.’
He stood up, blatantly ignoring her interruption. ‘I wouldn’t like to kick off our joyous life together on the wrong note,’ he drawled, strolling towards the door, which her parents had tactfully shut behind him on their way out.
‘What do you mean?’ Alexa followed him, disgruntled.
‘I mean your mother has had a doubtless delicious meal prepared for us. What kind of guest would I be if I disregarded her invitation?’
‘The kind that’s marrying me thanks to parental pressure?’ Alexa muttered sourly.
He shot her a brief look of appreciation.
‘Besides,’ she continued, skin tingling from that momentary look, ‘you don’t strike me as the sort of man who gives a hoot what other people think of him.’
She swept past him, breathing in his clean, woody scent and determinedly ignoring its impact on her senses.
‘I find that I’m willing to make an exception for my in-laws-to-be...’
‘Why are you taking this so calmly?’
It was the first thing Alexa said as they sat down at the table in the informal dining room. The blue room was still big enough to fit a ten-seater table, but places had been set for them opposite each another at one end. As always, it was a full arrangement, with dinner plates, side plates and separate silver cutlery for every course to be served—in this case salad, soup, main course and dessert.
Alexa could not have felt less hungry, and she looked with uninterest as salads were brought in and placed in front of them.
He, she noted, had no problem with his appetite.
‘How else do you imagine I should react?’ Theo looked at her, and across the width of the table she felt his overwhelming presence all the more acutely.
There was something intimate about eating together, and she could barely concentrate on her salad as the flutter of nerves threatened to overpower her common sense.
She put that down to her healthy dislike of the man.
‘Do you imagine that this is a situation I enjoy being in?’ he enquired coolly. ‘My father dropped this bombshell and I find I’ve had next to no option but to take the hit.’
‘I never thought I’d end up in a marriage with someone who would walk up the aisle only thanks to having to take a hit from a bombshell he couldn’t dodge,’ Alexa said bitterly—and that was the stark truth.
She
