been there made him feel guiltier. He hadn’t even known that Serena could cook until she’d told him she’d taken lessons in Athens.
And he hadn’t known how deeply enmeshed he was becoming with her until he’d looked at her in the favela and the enormity of it all had hit him. It had taken seeing her against that dusty backdrop—Serena DePiero, ex-socialite and wild child, looking as comfortable in the incongruous surroundings as if she’d been born into them like a native. In spite of the white-blonde beauty that had set her apart. He’d certainly been aware of the men looking at her, and the same black emotion that had gripped him at the beach had caught him again.
Jealousy. For the first time.
It was in that moment that a very belated sense of exposure had come over him and made him pull back from a dangerous brink. Luca knew better than anyone how fickle people were—how you couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t just pull your world out from under your feet within seconds.
His own parents had done it to him and his brother—setting them on different paths of fate almost as idly as if they were Greek gods, playing with hapless mortals. For years he’d had nightmares about his parents pulling them limb from limb, until their body parts were so mixed up that they didn’t even know who was who any more.
Serena was getting too close—under his skin. Everything kept coming back to how badly he’d misjudged her—and never more so than now. He’d just had a conversation with his brother, who was in Rio on business.
And yet as he stood in the doorway of her bedroom now and saw the shape of her under the covers, the bright splash of white-blonde hair, he was taking off his clothes before he even realised what he was doing, sliding in behind her, wrapping himself around her and trying desperately to ignore the way his soul felt inexplicably soothed.
Even as she woke and turned towards him, her seeking sleepy mouth finding his, Luca was steeling himself inside—because this would all be over as soon as she knew what his brother had just told him. Because then everything that had bound them from the past would be gone.
But just...not yet.
* * *
When Serena woke in the dawn light, the bed was empty. But the hum in her body and the pleasurable ache between her legs told her she hadn’t dreamt that Luca had come into her bed last night. Or dreamt the mindless passion he’d driven her to, taking her over the edge again and again, until she’d been spent, exhausted, begging for mercy.
It was as if Luca had been driven by something desperate.
She blinked, slowly coming awake. And even though her body was sated and lethargic from passion, her heart was heavy. She loved Luca, and she knew with cold certainty that he didn’t love her. But he wanted her.
His love was his commitment to the environment, to making the world a better place in whatever small way he could, born from his zeal not to be like his predecessors—a zeal she could empathise with.
And Serena knew that she wouldn’t be able to continue falling deeper and deeper without recognising that the heartbreak would be so much worse when she walked away.
It was only when she sighed deeply and moved her head that she felt something, and looked to see a note on the pillow beside her.
She reached for the thick paper and opened it to read:
Please meet me in my office when you wake. L.
A definite shiver of foreboding tightened Serena’s skin. No wonder there had been something desperate in Luca’s lovemaking last night. This was it. He was going to tell her it was over. The signs had been there for the last few days, since the favela.
Anger lanced her. To think that he would just send her away so summarily after sating his desire, which was obviously on the wane, and after she’d enjoyed working in the charity office so much. But, as much as she’d come to love Rio de Janeiro, she didn’t relish the thought of being in such close proximity to him in the future—seeing him get on with his life, take another lover.
She wasn’t going to let him discard her completely, though; no matter what had happened between them personally he owed her a job. In any event, she knew now that she had to go home. So, while Luca might be preparing to let her go, Serena told herself stoutly that she was ready.
It was only when she noticed her hands trembling in the shower that she had to admit her anger was stemming from a place of deep fear that she was about to feel pain such as she’d never felt before—not even when she’d been at her lowest ebb, trapped by her addictions. Before, she’d anaesthetised herself against the pain. Now she would have nothing to cling on to, and she wasn’t sure how ready she was to cope with that.
WHEN SERENA KNOCKED on Luca’s office door about an hour later she felt composed, dressed in plain trousers and a silk shirt. Hair tied back. It had been a mere two weeks since she’d come here for the first time, but she was a different person.
Damn him.
His assistant opened the door and ushered her in, and it took a second after the girl had left for Serena to realise that there was another man in the room. He was standing on the other side of Luca’s desk, and Luca stood up now from his high-backed chair.
‘Serena—come in.’
Her heart lurched. So formal. For a crazy moment Serena wondered if the other man was a solicitor, so that Luca could get out of the contract?
When she came closer, though, she saw a resemblance between the two men, even though this man had tawny eyes and dark blond messy hair. They were almost identical in size and build. The stranger was as arrestingly gorgeous as Luca, but in a more traditional way—in spite of the scar she could see running from his temple to his jaw. He oozed danger, even though he looked as if he might have stepped from the pages of Italian Vogue in an immaculate dark suit.
She sensed a subtle tension in the air, and had just realised herself who he was when Luca said, ‘This is my brother—Max Fonseca Roselli.’
She came forward and took the hand offered to her, suffering none of the physical reaction Luca caused within her with only a look. Even so, she saw the unmistakably appreciative gleam in his unusual golden-green eyes and could well imagine that he must leave a trail of bleeding hearts wherever he went. He had that same indomitable arrogance that Luca wore so well.
‘Nice to meet you.’
His hand squeezed hers. ‘You too.’
Serena pulled away, getting hot, sensing Luca’s intense focus on them and Max’s desire to needle his brother. When she looked at Luca, though, he gave nothing away and she cursed herself. Of course he wouldn’t be proprietorial or jealous.
Luca indicated for them to sit down and said heavily, ‘Max has some news for you...and me. I thought I owed it to you to let him tell you face to face.’
Now Serena was nervous, and she looked from him to Max and back. ‘What is it?’
Luca explained. ‘I asked Max to look into what happened at the club that night—to
