D’Avalos looked in the direction of Catarina again, and Massimo sensed the man was gathering his words. He waited, observing his future father-in-law. D’Avalos was impeccably dressed in a well-tailored shirt and dark wool slacks. His hair was streaked with silver, and his brow creased with evidence of heavy sorrow and loss. The man had rarely smiled even before the untimely death of his wife, Marie Nordland, the so-called Nordic Siren, and now,rarelyhad swerved closer tonever.
When d’Avalos looked back at Massimo, his gaze was almost wistful.
“I have never claimed to understand my daughter,” he said in a low, serious voice. “However, Catarina’s future is more important to me than anything else in this world.”
D’Avalos’s steely gaze flickered with hints of emotion, but just as quickly, all traces were gone.
“My wife’s last wish was for me to make sure that Catarina is taken care of for as long as she lives,” he continued. “I have arranged this marriage for her because I am not a young man. Catarina was a surprise and a blessing to both my wife and me. I recognize I will not always be here to carry out my promise, so I would be trusting that to you.”
“Your trust would not be misplaced,” Massimo replied.
Though there were plenty of things this marriage would not be, providing for Catarina was straightforward. She would have his money, and his residences, plane, cars and boats would be at her disposal. She would be able to live the lifestyle she was accustomed to. Massimo wasn’t sure what d’Avalos saw on his face, but it seemed to satisfy him. The man stood and turned once again to his daughter.
“Catarina,” said d’Avalos in a voice that was both gruff and tender, as if, even after twenty-four years, he still was not quite sure how to talk to his daughter. “I will leave you to make your final decision.”
The older man retreated from the room, and the door closed with a quiet snick. Through the rays of light, Massimo thought he saw Catarina’s back straighten. Her shoulders rose and fell, as if she was fortifying herself with a deep breath. He felt a stab of sympathy for this woman, whose future was determined in backroom business deals. Then she lifted her chin, stood and turned to him.
Massimo couldn’t explain what came next, except that she met his gaze and something happened. Somethingmusthave happened, he would later tell himself, because he was unaware of anything else except the feeling that the entire world had suddenly stopped. All he could do was drink this woman in. Her eyes were a shade darker than her chestnut hair, and they were wide, curious, with an openness he had no idea what to do with.
Her lips parted slightly. They were full and pouty, as if they were made for pleasure. And then he was thinking about pleasure in detail. Hers. His. An electric jolt of desire ran through him, shaking him out of this strange stupor. Massimo blinked, and much to his dismay, he found that he was standing, too, though he had no memory of rising to his feet. He gritted his teeth and shoved all thoughts of pleasure to the dark recesses of his mind.
Massimo knew how to handle attraction, satisfyingly for both parties and without any lingering sentiment. That was exactly how their marriage would be conducted. He wasn’t the kind of man who had time for wants and needs, not his nor anyone else’s. Clear expectations should be set from the beginning. But first, she needed to agree to this marriage.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, giving her a charming smile. Charm was a skill like any other, something that he had mastered with ruthless efficiency and exercised when necessary. Most often it wasn’t necessary, he had found. Today was an exception, he told himself.
“The pleasure is mine.”
He hadn’t fully understood Marie Nordland’s moniker, the Nordic Siren, until this moment. Without a doubt, the famous soprano had passed her voice down to her daughter. Massimo was sure of it because Catarina’s voice floated inside him, light and beautiful and somehow pushing away all other thought. It hummed in him, filling his senses with a song that could bring a man to his knees. Here, in the quiet, subdued library, filled with dark shelves and leather-bound books, her voice rang like a bell, echoing through his well-tempered senses. Massimo steeled himself against the rush of pleasure the soft music of her words conjured. It was no wonder that Giuseppe d’Avalos kept his daughter practically locked up in this estate. How many men would be pounding on the door if they heard her voice? The thought was an ugly thing that he shoved somewhere deep inside.
“You must have been told many times that you have your mother’s voice,” he commented, keeping his own voice mild.
She gave him a hint of a smile. “But not my mother’s taste for the stage. To my parents’ eternal disappointment.”
Her tone was so light, so airy, as if ignoring family expectations could be brushed off. A sudden wave of resentment washed over him, the resentment for the position his parents had put his brother and him in, the duty the brothers were bound to. What a privileged life Catarina had lived that she could simply choose not to follow her family’s wishes because they didn’t suit her. And still, her father was looking after her, smoothing out her future. She had been protected. Coddled, even. But the usual resentment bubbling inside him was overshadowed by something else, something darker. He pushed aside this strange feeling in his gut.
These privileges were the very qualities that made her a perfect wife for him, he reminded himself. She was not hungry for attention, for money, for the temptations that a life as his wife might present. She could rise above whatever they faced. He couldn’t forget that he was closing a business deal, like any other. So Massimo quashed the last of his simmering bitterness and focused on the woman in front of him.
As Catarina walked toward him, Massimo couldn’t ignore the grace with which she moved. Her brown hair spread out in waves over her shoulder, and her azure blouse moved like the placid waters of the Mediterranean. He could see why her mother had insisted on her being cared for in her dying wish. There was something ethereal, something otherworldly, about her. She was lovely, a perfect choice, he told himself, ignoring the faint warning bells ringing deep inside him.
He watched her as she seemed to glide across the room, taking slow steps, her eyes focused on him. Her expression wasn’t deliberately seductive, the way countless women approached him when they wanted some combination of sex, power or money from him. Instead, it was as if she held a secret, one just for him. The warning bells rang louder.
“It’s a strange thing, meeting the man my father has arranged for me to marry,” she said softly. There was that openness in her gaze again, a curiosity.
Massimo gave her a smile, calculated to put her at ease, resisting the sizzle of attraction that grew hotter with each of her steps. He could do this, he told himself. He was in control of his emotions. He wasn’t his father. “I hope I meet your expectations.”
“Of course,” she said, and her lovely cheeks turned a golden red. “My father will always look out for my best interests.”
He thought he detected a hint of wryness in her voice, but her placid smile simply suggested contentment.
Catarina came to a stop in front of him, close enough that he was tempted to brush his hand against her cheek, just to test the softness of her skin. He found himself studying her dark eyes, those long lashes. The electric pull took hold of him again, and something white-hot arched between them as she rose onto her tiptoes. Her scent was everywhere, roses and the salty kiss of the sea, swirling around him. She brushed her lips against one cheek, then the other.
It was an everyday greeting, nothing more, but Massimo felt as if something echoed between them, reverberating deep inside him, something strange and new. It was as if the brush of her lips on his skin called to the deepest, most hidden part inside him. And hewanted. He wanted badly. That part of him roared to life, the part he had spent every day of his adult life burying, beating into submission.Give in, the siren’s song called. It grew, expanding inside him, then exploded to life, roaring a single word:mine.
The word clanged through him like an alarm, its screech too loud to ignore. This was the force his father had given in to, the seductive pull that had dragged down Massimo and Alessandro in its wake. Never would he succumb to it. Massimo would never be his father. So he shoved all these feelings back down, deep inside him, once and for all.
Chapter Two
CATARINA HAD SEENMassimo before. It was in a lush ballroom somewhere in Milan, lit by sparkling chandeliers. She remembered a chocolate fountain, a black Steinway piano in a corner that she’d admired and an army of waitstaff, dressed in all black and buzzing around with bottles of champagne. She remembered the silk of her gown, blue and whisper-soft against her skin. She remembered the stylist’s expert hands in her hair, testing one updo after another as her mother sat beside her, blue eyes warm and so very alive. Her mother had always been the sun of the family, lighting it up, and Catarina was content to be an outer planet, kept in close by gravity, deferring to larger planets as long as her mother’s steady warmth and energy were near.
