with her employee even if Meghan was turning out to be one of the best she’d ever had. And as for Meghan ‘doing him’, if anyone was going to ‘do him’ it was going to be her. She would like nothing better than to get a pot of hot wax and strip that supercilious smile off his too-handsome face. ‘He’s not a client. I met him a few years ago. He just dropped in to say hi.’
‘Met him as in met him and dated him?’
Alice didn’t respond other than to purse her mouth. Meghan blushed and bit her lower lip. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. I know you insist on absolute confidentiality with celebrity clients. It’s just he’s so handsome and you never seem to date anyone and I wondered if it was because—’
‘Can you get my treatment room ready for my next client?’ Alice said. ‘I have some urgent paperwork to see to.’
Alice blew out a breath once Meghan scuttled away. For seven years she had told herself she’d made the right decision. She had chosen her career over commitment. Freedom over having a family. She had stood firm on her decision, not once wavering on it. Now, within her grasp was a way to finally achieve the success and financial security she had thus far only dreamt about.
Six months of marriage.
In name only.
She glanced at his business card. It seemed to taunt her with its presence.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
Alice snatched it up and tore it into as many pieces as she could and tossed them in the bin. It was kind of weird how they floated down just like a handful of confetti.
She hoped to God it wasn’t an omen.
* * *
Cristiano would have had a stiff drink if he’d been a drinking man, but the death of his parents and his older brother to a drunk driver when he was eleven made him wary of using alcohol other than in strict moderation. Seeing Alice Piper again was like having his guts slashed wide open. And stomped on. The mere sight of her reopened the wound of his bitterness until he wondered how he had stood there without showing it.
He’d felt it, though. God in heaven, how he’d felt it. The blood rush. The pulse race. The adrenalin surge. The kick and punch of lust.
He had stood there and drunk in her features like a dehydrated man standing in front of a long cool glass of water. Her indifferent poise, her cornflower-blue gaze that could freeze mercury, the way she looked down her aristocratic nose at him as if he had crept in from a primeval swamp with his knuckles dragging. Her body was as lissom and gorgeous as ever—perhaps even more so. Her unusual silver-blonde hair with her naturally dark eyebrows and the creamy, ageless perfection of her skin gave her a striking appearance that never failed to snatch his breath.
Her rejection of him stung and burned and churned even after all this time. He had thought what they’d had was for ever. A once in a lifetime love. Their passionate affair had been unlike anything he’d experienced before. He’d wanted to build a future with her. A family. He’d believed it to be like the love his parents had had for each other. Like the love his grandparents had before his grandfather died. The death of his grandfather a couple of months before he met Alice had made him acutely aware of how important family was. It had been all he had thought about—having a family to replace the one he had lost so young. He’d felt ready. More than ready. He’d been twenty-seven and well established in the hotel business he had inherited from his parents. He was ready for the next phase of his life.
But Alice hadn’t loved him. She had never said the words but he’d fooled himself into thinking she’d been showing it instead. How gullible he had been. How stupid to be so naively romantic when all she’d wanted was a quick fling with a foreigner to boast about with her friends.
What had his nonna been thinking? She had only met Alice a couple of times. Why bequeath her a share in a property worth millions and with such odd conditions attached? Six months of marriage? What sort of nonsense was this?
He hoped to God it wasn’t some sneaky matchmaking ploy from the grave. His grandmother knew he had changed his mind about settling down. He had laughed off the suggestion every time she asked him when he was going to provide her with a great-grandchild. Nonna had expressed her disapproval of his playboy lifestyle on numerous occasions but he had always dismissed her concerns because no one was going to tell him how to run his life.
No one.
His grandmother had been disappointed when his relationship with Alice broke down. Terribly disappointed. But he had refused to talk about it. He’d had enough trouble managing his own disappointment without having to handle his grandmother’s. Over the years she had stopped mentioning Alice’s name knowing it would get zero response from him. Why then had she done this? Forced him back into Alice’s life when it was the last thing he wanted?
The way the will was written meant if he didn’t convince Alice to marry him then he would lose valuable shares in the family company to a cousin he had no time for. He wasn’t going to hand over those shares only to have his cousin Rocco sell them to another party when he ran a little low on cash after playing the tables in a casino. Cristiano would rather marry his worst enemy before seeing that day dawn. He blamed himself for not telling his grandmother of Rocco’s disturbing spending habits of late. But he hadn’t wanted to burden her in the last months of her terminal illness.
Now it was too late.
The will had been written and now he had to convince Alice Piper to marry him.
Not that Alice was an enemy in the true sense of the word. She was a mistake he had made. A failure he wasn’t particularly fond of being reminded about. He had wiped her from his memory. Every time a thought of her would enter his mind he would ruthlessly erase it like someone cleaning a whiteboard. He had lived his life since as if she had never been a part of it. As if he had never had such amazing sex with her it had made his body tingle for hours afterwards. As if he had never kissed that sensually supple mouth. As if he had never felt that mouth around him while she blew the top of his head off.
Cristiano wasn’t going to let Alice think he was anything but delighted with the way his grandmother had orchestrated things. It suited him to let Alice think he was eager to put that ring on her finger and tie her to him for six months. Besides, maybe avoidance wasn’t the way to handle the lingering sting of her rejection. Maybe some immersion therapy would finally end his torment.
Alice might have given him that haughty look and said no as if it were her last word on it, but this time he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
ALICE NEITHER HEARD nor saw anything of Cristiano for the next couple of days. She had been expecting him to show up at work again, knowing him to be implacably determined when he set his mind to something. She had received a call from the lawyer handling the execution of the will, who explained some of the finer points. There was a time limit on accepting the terms. If she didn’t marry Cristiano by the end of a month-long engagement the villa would be sold outside the Marchetti family. Alice wondered what Cristiano would think about that—his childhood home sold to strangers. Was that why he was pushing for this marriage? Or was it purely revenge?
On the third day without sight or sound of Cristiano, Alice got a call from her salon building’s landlord, Ray Gormley. ‘I know this will come as a bit of a surprise, Alice, but I’ve sold the building,’
