“I am all aflutter, Serena. Do tell me your brilliant plan.”
Brilliant?She wished. She was down to desperate.
So, she didn’t pretty it up. She didn’t start with a lot of excuses or foolish words she didn’t mean. She went straight for it.
“Marry me.”
* * *
Luciano Ascione did not believe in hate. It was a wasted emotion. One that had eaten his father alive. Though he would never admit it to the woman standing before him, it had killed the great Gianluca Ascione just as much as the head on collision with a mountain had.
Luciano had always allowed himself one exception when it came to his relationship with hate. The dastardly Vallis. Most specifically the icy, perfect and damnable Serena Valli.
He hated her and enjoyed that hate almost as much as he enjoyed a salaciouswoman and an expensive whiskey.
It was a shame Serena was beautiful—that she wielded herself in a way he could not help but respect, if he was a fair man.
Luckily, he was not.
Marry me, she had said.
Chin raised, hazel eyes a sparkling challenge. Shoulders back, wearing the highest of heels thatalmostput her on equal footing with him.
Almost.
What he was really having a hard time getting over was the state of her hair. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen it…like this. A halo of dark curls around her face, untamed and… He’d be tempted to call it wild if he thought Serena Valli was capable of wild.
She was not. She was a cold, calculatedverme. Like her father before her. But worse, she seemed to have no vices. She did not gamble, as her father had. She did not seem to ever drink to excess, as his had. There were no trails of men, gossip or scandal. She was a robot.
And she was suggesting theymarry. He knew it was a trick, but he couldn’t begin to reason out what the trick might be.
“Perhaps I’ve had a stroke,” he offered, to buy himself some time. Because Luciano did not ever find himselfshockedor at a loss. Except on the news of his father’s demise.
And Serena Valli’s marriage proposal.
“You have not. Nor have I, though I can understand the confusion. Instead, it is an extreme solution to an extreme problem. I do not relish it, but do you know the kind of attention we can garner if we marry? Do you know the kind of money we could save if we merged our companies? The absolute stone wall to keep this upstart American out ofourcustomers’ accounts? I don’t expect you to, of course, but I have the spreadsheets for whoever handles actually understanding your legacy for you. I shall e-mail them and answer any questions, if you’d give me the appropriate contact information.”
“There’s just one little problem,” Luciano said, smiling at her. Or perhaps he was onlytryingto smile. Her perfume was poisoning his office with a subtle, romantic floral scent that did not suit the woman at all. Perhaps that left him scowling.
“I hate you?” she supplied brightly.
“Not as much as I hate you.”
“This, we can debate later,” she said, waving it off like an annoying fly, not the center of both their beings. “This marriage, this merger, has nothing to do with emotions, and everything to do with saving our companies.”
“Why should you care about saving Ascione? You don’t. So, you are thinking only of saving yourself.”
“Yes. Lucky for you, the only way I can save myself is to save you as well. I do not expect your thanks, though will gallantly accept it should you ever be wise enough to extend it.”
Thanks. She was always such an incredibly arrogant harridan.
“The attention certainly wouldn’t hurt your little club either,” she continued, as if he had already agreed. As if heneededto agree.
“My club needs no extra attention.”
“What billionaireneedsmore, Luciano? They simply take it as their due. Or so I thought.”
He hated that he agreed with her. Hated that she was right about Ascione—any of his own money that he infused now would simply draw out the inevitable. He needed more of a plan than just plugging holes with money.
