She remembered the hall with its red velvet curtains and the murmur of the crowd over the hum of the string quartet. And she remembered Massimo, at the center of it all. At least, he’d seemed to be the center to her at the time. Massimo Carandini didn’t notice her, of course. At sixteen, she had been a shy, wide-eyed girl in a demure gown, all but hiding in the shadow of her mother’s glowing presence.
But she’d noticed him. How could anyone not be drawn to this tall man with captivating brown eyes, a bespoke suit and silky black hair that she’d inexplicably wanted to touch. In a room full of men in elegant suits just like his, Massimo Carandini shouldn’t have stood out, but he did. There was a hardness about him, something distant and forbidding that made her sixteen-year-old self feel things she hadn’t recognized at the time.What made someone hard like that?she had wondered. Why was she struck by the strange desire to run her hand over the hard line of his jaw, the stark planes of his cheeks, searching for hints of softness?
But that was years ago, back when her life had been a series of questions, girlish and ultimately inconsequential. Would she rather attend an all-girls boarding school in England or in the Alps, closer to home? Would she rather spend the fall in Taipei learning Mandarin, or did she want to work for her mother? Back then, gaining freedom from her father’s controlling hand hadn’t crossed her mind, and her mother was still around to temper his tendency to turn concerns into rigid rules. So each time, she had chosen to stay closer to home. She had chosen with her heart, and now, in the devastating aftermath of her mother’s death, she was grateful that she had. At sixteen, Catarina had known that the choices she had been given were privileges and that life was unfair that way, but her life simplywas. She hadn’t questioned it, much less considered how she would feel if her life were to upend, suddenly and irrevocably.
Now, every day, she lived with the bone-deep understanding of what the loss of her mother meant for her. Catarina was alone. At first, she hadn’t quite noticed the narrowing of her independence, or if she did, she attributed it to her loss, her solitude. It had taken a long time before she was aware of the way her father’s worries had turned into restrictions.
Still, when her father came to her with a proposal for marriage, she hadn’t contemplated any deeper questions, such as: Should her father even be involved in her plans for marriage? Catarina had focused instead on the freedom she would gain when she escaped her father’s watchful gaze. When he’d floated the name Massimo Carandini specifically, she’d asked herself a second question: How had this man made her feel back in that ballroom when she was sixteen? He had made her shiver with what she now understood was desire. From across the room, no less. That feeling had been private, unattached from her famous mother. And it had felt like the opposite of being alone.
Then there was the fact that, despite his oppressive impulses, she trusted her father implicitly, so why wouldn’t she comply with his wishes? Why wouldn’t she do her best to make her father happy? She’d promised that much to her mother in her final days, that she would look after her father’s happiness.
Now, in her favorite room of the house, surrounded by books that had buoyed her through darker times, Catarina stared at the stranger in front of her, reminding herself of all the rationales for this arrangement that had floated through her mind.
She thought she had prepared herself for the moment she’d face the object of her teenage crush, for the inevitable conclusion of her mother’s last wish and her father’s relentless determination to fulfil it. It was a decision that would bring to rest the uncertainty of the past few years since her mother’s death. But nothing inside her was at ease. Instead, it was as if the hum of an electric current ran through her, unexpected and shockingly intimate.
As she gazed at the man in front of her, she could see she had made a grave miscalculation. Her father had always treated her as if he was a little baffled by her, like she was another species, a favorite dog, perhaps, content with pats on the head and endless treats. So although her best interests were always at the forefront of her father’s mind, why had she assumed that Giuseppe d’Avalos would know who would make a good marriage partner for her? How could her father possibly know what she needed in a husband, what she could handle? Because the man in front of her was far too much to handle. Just the sensation of being close to Massimo threatened to overwhelm her.
Up close, it was clear that her memories didn’t do justice to this man. His lean, muscular frame was starker than she remembered, more imposing, moreeverything. She could see the outline of the well-defined muscles of his shoulders under the crisp white of his shirt. The top button was undone, showing a hint of dusky hair against bare skin, so shockingly intimate, so sexual and not at all in line with the inscrutable expression on his face. That perfectly fitted shirt followed his broad chest, his tapered waist and disappeared into charcoal-gray wool pants.
Was she really focusing on this man’s pants? Her gaze flicked back to his face as her cheeks flushed. She was not ready to identify all the feelings that were running through her. Instead, she met his eyes. But none of her memories captured the piercing intensity of his dark brown eyes as he watched her. They drew her in, pulling her toward him. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to test the softness of his inky hair between her fingers, the smooth line of his jaw. She inhaled, and his scent filled her, spicy, masculine with a hint of pine that sent her thoughts to her house deep in a remote Norwegian fjord. This was the scent of freedom, and she wanted more.
Catarina couldn’t help herself. She lifted up onto her tiptoes and brought her lips to one cheek, pressing them against his soft skin. Just a greeting, she told herself as she took another breath of his scent. Nothing more. But her heart slammed in her chest, beating out its message,liar, liar, liar. Still, she moved to the other cheek, greedy for more. When her lips met his skin again, she heard the quietest of groans from somewhere deep inside him. It was electric.Magical. The word resonated inside her, as part of her battered heart opened up in what felt very much like hope.
Catarina was scared to move. She was scared to breathe. If she did, she might disturb this feeling inside her, the feeling that there was hope, that maybe she didn’t have to spend the rest of her life alone. Maybe her mother wasn’t the only person she would ever grow close to, who would understand her. Maybe this marriage wouldn’t simply be a compromise she was forced to make, her father’s satisfaction for fulfilling her mother’s dying wish in exchange for the freedom of a life out from under her father’s scrutiny, not dictated by his misguided maneuvers. Maybe this marriage could be more than a business arrangement. No one would ever replace her mother, and that was the last thing she wanted, but maybe there was a chance that Catarina had found another connection.
Then something shifted. Massimo’s expression seemed to shutter, leaving only a distant stillness. She stared at the man in front of her, so remote, searching for the connection she had felt just moments before. It had to be there, somewhere inside him, because it was still bubbling inside her. It had been there before, and she would find it again.
Catarina could feel her determination grow. She had spent too much of her life buffeted by her mother’s awful twist of fate, by her father’s autocratic decisions. This man in front of her was an opening in her future. Clinging to that electric pull she’d felt, that groan of pleasure she swore she’d heard, she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders at this imposing man.Just a man, she reminded herself.
“Massimo?”
Just his name, nothing else, as she tried to capture into words the questions that reverberated inside her.What is this overwhelming pull between us? Don’t you feel what I feel right now?
Massimo closed his eyes, his long, dark lashes resting on his cheeks, and she thought she detected a faint shudder or a grimace or some reaction that she couldn’t read. Then, when he opened his eyes again, her blood ran cold as that last spark of hope, the one she was clinging to, drained from her body. In front of her was the man she had seen in photos, a self-contained, arrogant man with a coldness that was unmistakable. It was as if he had just turned off every emotion, so methodically and thoroughly, leaving absolutely no trace of the man whose cheeks she had brushed her lips against, the man whose eyes had flashed with desire and something else.
Or maybe he hadn’t turned off his emotions. Maybe this was who Massimo Carandini really was, and what she had mistaken for a connection had been just a facade for her father’s benefit that he’d let linger. Maybe this was the true face of the man underneath it. The man she would marry. Catarina swallowed.
“Miss d’Avalos.” Her name rolled off his tongue, velvet-soft, both a caress and a warning.
“We are to be engaged,” she said, pulling her thoughts in order. “Surely first names are appropriate.”
He frowned, disapproval radiating from him.
“What I require of a wife is someone who will maintain an impeccable reputation,” he said, his gaze fixed on her, impenetrable as the silky tone washed over her.
How could his voice leave her so aware of the way her shirt brushed over her breasts each time she breathed? Catarina tried to focus on the fact that he didn’t seem to find her comment worthy of a response.
“I will require you to attend dinners where we will entertain business clients,” he continued in a cool, imperious tone. “We will make regular public appearances to ensure that the world understands the stability of our partnership. Our priority is to portray the image of stability.”
He enunciated that last word slowly, as if she might have missed all the implications of the values he was laying out. Catarina resisted a frown. She tried to read his face for some hint of emotion, but she found it impenetrable, a wall of stone. If this was the kind of interaction he wanted, she had a lifetime full of practice with it. Growing up with her mother in the spotlight, she had learned early never to show her emotions. Hopes, dreams and disappointments were saved for the privacy of her own home, for her family. That was the nature of having the Nordic Siren for a mother. Any hint of discontent would be picked apart by the paparazzi, each observation fueling a spiral of further interest and speculation. Catarina would never subject her family to that. But at home, away from crowds and prying eyes, she could finally exit the stage, and she had found relief in that freedom. How foolish she had been to so quickly slot Massimo into the role of family. The loss of the warmth of her family had been a gaping hole inside her since her mother’s death, and she could not expect marriage to Massimo to fill it. Still, she needed to clarify the terms of this engagement.
Catarina kept her face serene, tilting her head to the side. “This proposal sounds an awful lot like a business negotiation.”
His eyes grew even darker, more distant. “I was given to understand that you were clear about the nature of our agreement.”
“I am,” she said lightly, as if she wasn’t negotiating her entire future. “I suppose I just wondered if there would be any ceremony to this, perhaps a ring or a proposal on one knee, just for tradition’s sake.”
She gave a little laugh, the kind that had amused and enchanted the crowds that her mother drew.
