He unfolded his arms and spread his hands. ‘The money will be yours. You can give as much or as little of it to your sister.’
‘Won’t your girlfriend mind?’
As soon as the words left her mouth, Aislin wanted to kick herself.
His beautifully thick brown eyebrows rose in perfect timing with the flame of colour she could feel rising over her face. ‘Did you research me?’
‘I saw a picture of you together when I was thinking up ways to get your attention,’ she muttered, dropping her eyes to examine her fingernails, desperately trying to affect nonchalance.
She hadn’t been researching him, more trying to get a handle on the man in the days before she’d set off for Sicily, trying to decide the best way to cut through the minders and hangers-on to grab his attention for long enough to have the conversation they were now having... A conversation that had taken a most bizarre turn that she was struggling to get her head around.
What she had learned was that Dante Moncada was a man any right-thinking woman would steer a million miles away from. His father had been a Lothario who had seduced Aislin’s mother when she’d still been a teenager, and all the evidence pointed to Dante being of the same ‘love them and leave them’ mould. Dante did not need to pay someone to attend a wedding with him. She would hazard a guess that, if he asked a roomful of women if any wanted to go with him, ninety-nine per cent of them would bob their heads up to agree like over-caffeinated meerkats.
Aislin was part of the one per cent who would duck under a table rather than accept. She’d been there, done that, stupidly having fallen for the biggest playboy on campus, believing his declarations of love and respect; believing they’d had a future that involved marriage and babies, only to find him in bed with one of her housemates mere weeks after her sister’s accident.
If she was ever stupid enough to get involved with a man again, her preference would be for a boring, gaming-obsessed hermit with zero libido who had an abhorrence of the outside world and would thus never be in a position or have the mind-space to cheat.
Not a man like Dante. Not this man, who was sexier and more handsome than should be legal.
She could practically smell the testosterone and pheromones wafting from him. They soaked into her pores in the same way his amazing deep voice did, sensitising her skin and settling deep inside her in a way that was, quite frankly, terrifying.
But a million euros...?
‘I ended it with Lola a month ago.’ He leaned forward, a sudden, unexpected gleam appearing in his eyes.
Her heart thumped, the beat ricocheting through her like a tsunami.
It took a huge amount of effort to keep her voice steady. ‘But you must have a heap of women you could take and not have to pay them for it.’
‘None of them are suitable.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I need to make an impression on someone and having you on my arm will assist in that.’
‘A million dollars for one afternoon...?’
‘I never said it would be for an afternoon. The celebrations will take place over the coming weekend.’
She tugged at her ponytail. ‘Weekend?’
‘Aislin, the groom is one of Sicily’s richest men. It is a necessity that his wedding be the biggest and flashiest it can be.’
She almost laughed at the deadpan way he explained it.
She didn’t need to ask who the richest man in Sicily was.
‘If I’m going to accept your offer, what else do I need to know?’
‘Nothing... Apart from that I will be introducing you as my fiancée.’
‘What?’ Aislin winced at the squeakiness of her tone.
‘I require you to play the role of my fiancée.’ His grin was wide with just a touch of ruefulness. The deadened, shocked look that had rung from his eyes only a few minutes before had gone. Now they sparkled with life and the effect was almost hypnotising.
She blinked the effect away.
‘Why do you need a fiancée?’
‘Because the father of the bride thinks going into business with me will damage his reputation.’
‘How?’
‘I will go through the reasons once I have your agreement on the matter. I appreciate it is a lot to take in so I’m going to leave you to sleep on it. You can give me your answer in the morning. If you’re in agreement then I shall take you home with me and give you more details. We will have a few days to get to know each other and work on putting on a convincing act.’
‘And if I say no?’
He shrugged. ‘If you say no, then no million euros.’
‘What about the hundred thousand you said you would give Orla?’
‘That is a separate matter and dependent on the DNA test. Your decision will not affect that.’
‘Do you promise?’ She knew it was a childish way of asking but she didn’t care. A hundred thousand euros was too great a sum to play games with.
But a million euros... That was a figure she could scarcely comprehend. That was life-changing.
His handsome features fell into seriousness. He inclined his head before rising to his feet. ‘Whatever you decide, and whatever the outcome, that money for Orla will remain separate from it. You have my word.’
She didn’t have the faintest idea why but she believed him.
Dante greeted the housekeeper, who made an almost convincing job of not acting surprised to see him and at such a late hour, and strolled through his old family home as he had done a thousand times before.
This was the sprawling seafront villa he’d grown up in, just as his father had. A decade ago, to prevent the villa being used as collateral against his son’s gambling debts, his grandfather had signed it over to Dante.
Although the villa had been technically his for all these years, as far as he’d been concerned it had remained his father’s to do with as he pleased...apart from sell it.
With his father dead, he still didn’t know what to do with it. Unspoken had been his grandfather’s wish that one day Dante would settle down, marry, start a family and raise them in this home.
Dante liked city life. He liked being single. What good was marriage for? All he had ever seen of it was bitterness, greed and spite. His grandparents had been married for forty-eight years until his grandmother’s death. If they were a template for the longevity of marriage, they could forget it. His grandfather had spent the three years from her death until his own celebrating being rid of her. Dante had been quite sure his grandfather’s shaking shoulders at her funeral had been through laughter rather than tears.
At
