An Invitation to Sin(9)
‘You pulled my leg round you—we shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t want to be doing this.’
‘Tell that to your pulse rate. It’s revving like the engine of my Ferrari.’
‘I thought you were trying to prove to the board you’re responsible?’
‘I’ll use a condom. Does that count?’
Appalled by how much she wanted to laugh, Taylor locked her hand in the front of his shirt, feeling hard male muscle against the backs of her fingers. ‘I don’t think that’s what they have in mind. You don’t want to take this risk and neither do I. We have to get back to the wedding before the bride comes.’
‘If I have my way you’ll come before the bride.’ Laughing wickedly, he delivered a slow, sensual kiss to the corner of her mouth. ‘Some things are worth taking a risk for and you, Taylor Carmichael, are definitely one of those. You are sexy enough to make me forget all about being good—’ his hand was buried in her hair and his mouth was on her neck ‘—and it really turns me on to know that underneath your icy, composed exterior you are still a bad, bad girl.’
Taylor closed her eyes but that simply intensified the crazy swirl of feelings so she opened them again. ‘You’re wrong. That isn’t who I am.’ It couldn’t be. ‘I don’t want this.’
‘You’re crushing me, dolcezza.’ He was kissing her jaw and she could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Think of my poor, delicate ego.’
Nothing about him was delicate. Not the powerful shoulders, nor the rock-hard biceps. He was all muscle and masculinity and Taylor was so desperate for him her whole body ached. ‘I don’t want you.’
‘Yes, you do. You want me as much as I want you but you’re determined to deny your true self.’
‘I’m not denying anything.’ Panicking, she shoved at his chest. ‘Enough! Damn it, Luca—get away from me.’ In the past two years she hadn’t even looked at a man and suddenly here she was, pressed against the hardness of him, her body melting against the heat of his. The chemistry was off the scale and it terrified her. Of all the men she could have found herself with, he was the most dangerous of his species. ‘I’m not that person any more. I’ve changed.’
‘That person? What person? You mean the woman who embraced her life without apology?’
‘The woman who screwed up her life by trusting men like you,’ Taylor snapped, ‘and I’m not doing it again so stay away. I mean it, Luca. If you want to live up to your reputation then go ahead, but I’m not going to let you take me down with you.’
‘Why are you so ashamed of yourself?’
‘I’m not ashamed—’ she spoke so quickly she stumbled over the words ‘—but I’ve grown up.’
‘Grown-ups accept their mistakes instead of running from them.’
Hers haunted her.
The threatening messages never ended.
Her heart was pumping as she backed away from him. ‘Good luck with your future. I hope you manage to convince the board to trust you before you give in to the worst part of yourself and blow it completely.’
‘Ah, but that’s the difference between us, angelo mia.’ Reaching for the bottle of champagne again, he leaned his hips against the fountain, effortlessly sophisticated and insanely sexy. ‘I consider it to be the best part of myself. The fact that no one else appreciates it is their problem, not mine.’
For a brief moment she felt a flash of envy that he was so indifferent to what people thought and then the urgency of her situation propelled her into action and she jammed her feet into her shoes, the movement parting the seam of her dress as far as the waist. Gripping it with her hand, she held the two sides together and hurried through the shadowed corridors of the maze, grateful for the high hedges that concealed her from prying eyes.
If a photographer had been hiding in the maze, or even another guest—one of Luca’s disgruntled women—it would have looked awful and no amount of explaining would have worked.
She would have ruined everything before she’d even started filming.
The thought of how close she’d come to doing just that made her feel sick.
Weak with relief that her reputation was still intact, she pulled her phone out of her bag and texted the designer one-handed.
Ready to be sewn back into my dress. Meet me by the maze.
Luca let her go, that exercise in self-restraint costing him dearly in terms of physical discomfort. He shifted slightly and decided he didn’t dare leave the maze until his hormones had settled down.