The women who agreed enjoyed his brand of fun. The women who did not agree were shut out. It was a simple approach that had not caused him any trouble yet.
This was far more complicated. But if Serena wanted a besotted fool, dedicated to her and her alone, for the press and the stories and the good of their companies, why not deliver?
Why not show her just howgoodhe was? So all her barbs no longer had any heft. Soshehad to adjustherplans that no doubt included being completely in charge, because he was too dim, or too busy seducing women, to handle what needed to be handled.
No, he would be the fifty-fifty partner she did not want, and he would make everyone in this silly room believe he was in love with her, so this plan went off without a hitch. And any hitches would beherfault.
They walked into the charming villa, brimming with flowers and people, all important and rich. Some clients. Some enemies. He smiled, greeted, a hand lightly placed on Serena’s back to make it clear they had arrived together.
She was right about one thing. He was an experienced actor. He’d been playing a role all his life, he liked to think. At first, he’d stepped into roles to garner his parents’ attention—so they’d stop gearing their slings and arrows at each other.
He’d worked to be the perfect student to show his father he was an intelligent and worthy heir. He’d worried over his mother and done everything to show her he could be the protector his father had not been for her.
Both had rejected him and his earnest tries, so then he’d done the opposite. It had suited him much better when it came to his father, to see disappointment and regret in the old man’s eyes. To live down to low expectations.
It had been more…complicated with his mother. She had shut him out, rejected him. So that there could be noliving down. He could only stop trying, and with that came a guilt he had never fully been able to untangle.
Something he did not wish to nor need to contend with when it came to business, so he shoved that thought aside and focused on Serena. There would be no living down, no guilt, because she meant nothing to him, no matter how interesting she’d turned out to be.
It didn’t matter. Only playing his role mattered.
His hand slid lower, and it was strange to have to even pretend to see Serena in the light of awoman. Because she was indeed. In fact, if there weren’t any history between them, and she weren’t so stuffy, he might have been tempted. She did make a pretty sparkling package.
When his hand drifted lower, pulling her closer, she went still and stiff. He had to bite back a grin. But then he just aimed it down at her. “Relax,cara,” he murmured cheerfully. “All eyes are on us.”
Her mouth curved in a pretty approximation of a smile, even if he could tell she’d like to shoot daggers from her eyes at him. “Then we are getting exactly what we wanted,” she replied, nodding at someone who called out a greeting.
They moved through the room, greeting people they knew, getting sucked into conversations where avid eyes watched Luciano’s hand on her back, her shoulder or clasping her own. Serena didn’trelaxinto it exactly, but it was clear she was playing it up as best she could. He thought she was good enough to fool just about everyone else.
Eventually, they got hailed in different directions and were separated for a bit. Luciano talked to a very disapproving member of his father’s staff at Ascione, who didn’t want to come out andaskwhat Luciano was doing holding hands with the devil’s daughter but came close enough.
Luciano had just laughed it off, irritating the man and entertaining himself.
When a pretty woman he’d usually flirt with sidled up to him, he was polite. He smiled. But he did not lay on his usual charm. In fact, he should pretend to look for Serena. Pretend to be distracted by her.Thatwould get this group talking.
But when he found Serena with his gaze, he did not have to pretend. She stood with Tomasso Bonetti—who had once been a very important customer at Valli but had lately taken up with the American conglomerate—their heads bowed together.
They laughed and Luciano frowned.
She was the one who’d come up with this ridiculous plan. She was the one who’d warned him off flirting with other women. And now she stoodlaughingwith another man. Tomasso was a good decade older than Serena, but Luciano did not trust that sly smile of his.
He didn’t even bother to excuse himself from his current conversation companion, because he’d forgotten about her entirely. He strode across the room and approached Serena, sliding his arm around her waist in an easy movement that had her stiffening.
“I shall have to steal Serena away,” he said to Tomasso, a feral smile in place. “They’re playing our song.”
Serena didn’t frown. Not with her expression. But it was fascinating to be able to read the frown underneath the pleasant smile. Especially when no one else seemed to. She made her excuses to the man she’d all but been drooling over and then allowed Luciano to pull her onto the dance floor, and no one even looked twice at her. No one acted concerned thatclearlythe little dent between her eyebrows meant she was a little frustrated.
Did anyone ever watch her face like this, see it smooth out, and know that she’d thought through the issue, decided to make it a positive?
Something threaded through him at the idea that he did,onlyhe did. A kind of weight. He was a man who liked to avoid weights and complications, but he found himself wanting to hoard this one. To have it only ever be his.
“Very clever,” she said to him as the music began and he pulled her into his arms. She sounded surprised and vaguely indulgent, like a nursery schoolteacher, and that poked his frustration with her flirting with thatstronzoeven higher. “Make it look as if there is jealousy. Excellent touch.”
He made a noncommittal noise. “Perhaps, but I feel I must remind you of the little warning you gave me earlier this evening. It is a two-way street, you know. You can’t be draping yourself all over another man.”
Serena laughed, and the sound was surprisingly light,frothy. A sparkle that had a few heads turning. The women immediately turned to whoever they were with and whispered behind hands adorned with jewels.
The men lingered too much on the length of Serena’s legs as they moved to the slow, string notes that filled the air.
