“Mrs. Valli, so good to talk to you,” he greeted cheerfully. “Luciano Ascione here. I’m not sure we’ve ever spoken, but of course Serena has told me much about you, and I believe you were friendly with my uncle for a time.”
Serena advanced on him, trying to reach for the phone, but his free hand clasped her wrist and held her out of reach. An easy display of his height and strength.
“Serena accepted my proposal just last night. I like to believe I’ve won over her suspicious nature, but I won’t be able to believe it for sure until she introduces me to you.”
Serena considered kicking him in the shin, but she must have telegraphed the thought because he quickly dropped her hand and took two steps away. Humor danced in his eyes while she hoped murder danced in hers.
She tried to advance again, quickly this time. A quick grab out and she’d have the phone and—
Instead, she found her back plastered to his chest, one muscular arm of his banded around her midsection, holding her arms down at their sides. Effectively immobilizing her. She was so shocked that for a moment, she only stood there, fully still. Fully…something.
If anyone came upon them, it would look a bit like a lover’s embrace with his chin tucked over the top of her head. Rage warred with the unfamiliar feeling of being so close to someone, held so tight. It wasn’tthreatening. She didn’t feel the desperate need to escape.
No, she felt…held. And the foreign feeling of wanting to sink into something so…strong. So warm. A direct antithesis to the morning.
But it was annoying, she reminded herself. He should not be talking to her mother. He should not be…any of this.
She lifted one leg, trying to determine if she could bend it at the right angle to come into hard, painful contact with a vulnerable part of his body.
He chuckled and the rumble of his chest against her back reminded her, so unfortunately, of last night. Of the way it had rippled through her when she’d felt his heart thud against hers, body to body, mouth to mouth. So that security meshed with that unfamiliarpulse, and she didn’t know what to make of any of it.
“We would like to invite you to dinner,” Luciano was saying in a voice full of cheerful vivacity. “If your schedule would allow it, of course. To celebrate our most happy news.”
Oh…no, was all Serena could think and she began to squirm in earnest. She had to stop this. Luciano’s grip was tight, but she could move the lower half of her body. If she twisted back and forth…
“I’ll work out the details and send a formal invitation once it is set. Let me give you back to Serena.”
So quickly that she nearly stumbled forward, he released her. He held out the phone to her, his mouth curved into an amused smile. But there was something about the look in his eye, the way he’d angled the lower half of his body away from her that left her feeling suddenly…winded. Like they had narrowly missed…something.
But she could hear her mother’s voice coming from the receiver and had to lift the phone to her ear.
“I suppose I will come to dinner,” Mother was saying, sounding so affronted and exhausted by such a simple request. “But I can’t promise I will be able to pretend this is anything but an embarrassment.”
“Mother, you don’t have—”
But before she could finish, Mother was saying good-bye and hanging up.
Serena whirled on Luciano. She felt too many things to parse, and she knew better than to let loose with temper when she was churned up in ways she didn’t understand. But she hated him.
Hated.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” he returned in that maddeningly insouciant way of his. “She will have to be at the wedding. Besides, if we have the dinner somewhere public, there’s another opportunity to be seen. If I am not mistaken, your mother loves to be seen.”
“Yes, she does. In any way she can. She also enjoys tocausea scene, and since she thinks this is anembarrassmentand I am stupid for thinking you could want to marry me, this can only end in disaster.”
For a moment, Luciano said nothing. He studied her with a kind of seriousness she did not recall ever seeing in him before. It made her…nervous. Like he could…understand all the twisted pieces inside of her that Mother managed to work up no matter how hard Serena tried to remain unmoved.
She knew very little about his upbringing, except that Gianluca Ascione had been a hard and exacting man to everyone in his life—including his son.
This realization poked holes in her growing balloon of rage and had her deflating into something…tired. She just feltexhausted.Like no matter how hard she tried, all her perfection was an impossible wall to keep building, becausehewould always slip through the cracks.
“Then we shall have a dinner at my penthouse,” he finally said.
It would be easier. Mother hated the castle. But… “Why?”
Luciano shrugged. “If she is going to make a scene, I prefer handling scenes on my home battlefield.” His smile was sharp. “Besides, it gives us an opportunity to have people see you and your mother go into my building, without anyone seeing the scene itself. This is our goal, is it not?”
