Joss Wood - Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8

‘He is fading, he is a little confused at times.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘Isn’t that what prison does to an innocent man?’

Luka stared back and for now said nothing.

Paulo was not as innocent as Sophie made out.

‘Not that a Cavaliere would know about prison,’ she added.

‘I spent six months in prison awaiting trial, two of them in solitary,’ Luka pointed out. ‘Or were you referring to my father being found not guilty?’

‘I have no wish to discuss that man.’ She couldn’t, Luka noted, even bring herself to say his father’s name. How much worse would this conversation be if she knew the truth? he wondered. He could almost feel the heat from the necklace in his pocket. He was actually tempted to toss it across the desk to her, to end them once and for all.

‘Just what are you doing here, Sophie? I thought we ended our engagement a long time ago.’

‘Firstly, I don’t want you to think, for even a moment, that I am here for any romantic reasons.’

‘Good, because it would be an extremely wasted journey if that were the case.’

‘However,’ she continued, ‘my father believes that you upheld your promise. He thinks we got engaged and that we now live together in Rome.’

‘Why would Paulo think that?’

‘It was kinder to lie and let him think that you upheld your commitment to me. I never thought he would be let out and now that he might be I need to keep up the pretence. I told him that the terrible things you said in court about me were in an attempt to protect him.’

‘They were,’ Luka responded. ‘I said what I did in the hope of protecting him, or rather protecting you. You simply refused to see it from my side.’ He looked at her for a very long moment and found he could not stand even having her in the same room so he shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work.’

‘It has to work,’ Sophie said. ‘You owe me.’

‘I do.’ Luka did not concede with those words. He knew she spoke the truth. ‘But apart from the fact that neither of us can abide being in the same room together, I do have a life. I might be seeing someone...’

‘I don’t care if this upends your life for a while. This is going to happen, Luka. You might sit a rich man in your posh London office and live a jet-set lifestyle but you are from Bordo Del Cielo, you cannot escape from that. You might go through women like tissues but the fact remains we were promised to each other from childhood and where we come from that means something.’ Luka let out a tense breath as she asked again. ‘Will you help my father die in peace?’

‘You want me to move in with you and pretend that we live together?’

‘No, I read that you have an apartment in Rome...we will use that.’

‘Why not yours?’

‘I share with my friend Bella. You might remember her...’

Luka bit back a sarcastic response. From what he had heard, a lot of men might remember Bella!

‘She runs a business from our home.’

As she spoke, he noted that Sophie ignored his slight sardonic smile, even though she must know what it insinuated.

‘It would not be fair to disrupt Bella and it would look odd for us, as a couple, to be sharing a home with her.’

‘And would this loving couple be sharing a bed?’ He voiced the obvious question but she did not answer directly.

‘It would look strange for us to sleep apart.’

‘Would there be sex?’ he asked, wishing a blush would rise on her cheeks, for Sophie to give some indication that this hurt like hell for her also, but she stared back coolly as she delivered her response.

‘I would think not,’ she said. ‘Since that evening, given what happened, I have a phobia...’

Luka’s eyes widened. Was Sophie saying that there had been no one since him? There was a small rush of giddy relief that he quickly doused but she hadn’t finished speaking. ‘But if that is what it will take for you to agree, then, yes, there can be sex.’

‘I thought Bella was the whore.’

‘We can all be whores,’ Sophie responded with spite, and Luka looked at the beautiful yet hostile stranger whose innocence he had taken, never to return. ‘So, yes, if sex is to be part of the deal—’

‘No, thanks,’ Luka interrupted. ‘I don’t need charity sex and, anyway, martyrs don’t turn me on—it’s extremely willing participants that do.’ He watched the slight swallow in her neck and he knew, he just knew she was remembering how good they had been so he cruelly walked her down memory lane and, as he did so, he reinforced a truth. ‘Surely you know how much I like a woman who instigates things.’

He’d thought she’d blush as he pointed out how she had been the one who had practically begged him to make love to her yet, rather than blush, Sophie surprised him with a shrug and a smile.

‘Well, there will be no sex for us, then, because I won’t be instigating anything. Are you going to do this, Luka?’

‘I’d like some time to think about it.’

‘My father doesn’t have time.’

‘Leave me your business card, Sophie, I’ll call you when I’ve made up my mind.’

He watched as she went into her bag and for the first time appeared flustered. ‘I don’t have any with me.’

‘Give me your number.’

‘I will contact you.’ Sophie stood and went to leave but at the last moment changed her mind. ‘You owe me this, Luka, we were promised to each other. You took my virginity.’

He could only admire her for, unlike most women, she spoke of their time together without misty recall. In fact, she reduced it to cold fact.

Almost.

‘Took?’ he checked. ‘What an odd choice of word. You see, from my recollection...’ Now a blush spread from her neck and rose to her cheeks. He came around the desk and stood in front of her, and she backed up to the desk. ‘Are you going to jump up, Sophie...or do your prefer a kitchen bench to an office desk?’

Now she was struggling to keep her cool.

‘Why didn’t I marry you?’ He played devil’s advocate. ‘You being such a good Sicilian girl...’

‘I told my father that it was my dream for him to walk me down the aisle. I told him—’

‘Stop there,’ Luka interrupted. ‘I need to think about what I’m prepared to agree to but before we go any further there is something that you need to know.’ They were face to face as he said it. ‘I will never marry you.’

‘You’ll do whatever it takes.’ The spitfire he had known was returning and she jabbed a finger into his chest to make her point. ‘Whatever. It. Takes.’

‘No,’ he calmly interrupted. Despite the cool facade she had attempted, he knew that she was as Sicilian as the volcanic soil they were from, and as he watched her struggle to hold in her temper, he didn’t suppress his slight triumphant smile. She was just as volatile and passionate as he remembered. Those traits in Sophie were everything he both loved and loathed.

‘After what you did, after what you said about me in court...’

‘Lose the drama, Sophie,’ His voice was completely calm. ‘I accept that I have a moral debt to you, given all that happened, but, even with several years’ interest added, I do not owe you that much. I will agree to be your fake fiancé, but never your fake husband. Know that now, or get the hell out.’

He hoped for the latter. Get the hell out of my life, my head, my heart.

Just get out!

Instead, Sophie must have accepted his terms for she sat back down.

It was time to talk business.

Finally, together, they would face the mistakes of their past.

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