Lonzo: Book 1 (Tycoon Series Book 1) (22 page)

Lonzo looked sideways at her but she avoided any eye-contact. She stared at the carpark, completely ignoring him. When the vehicle began to move, he had enough.

“Have you taken a vow of silence when we boarded the plane,
cara
?”

She didn’t even turn to look at him. “I pose for a living. Now, thanks to you, I’m embarking on a new career.”

“Pretending to be mute won’t get you anywhere,” he remarked.

“I don’t get paid from talking, remember? You got the wrong supermodel. My last name isn’t Banks.”

“Being taciturn doesn’t suit you,” he baited.

“I don’t feel like talking. Talking brought me nothing but trouble,” she murmured.

He leaned back into the opulent leather seat. “Ah, less words…more of an action-type of girl?” he goaded.

She finally shot him a sideways glare. “Where is this leading to? I’ve agreed to be your sex-toy for a month. Exchanging friendly banter isn’t included in the equation. Besides, the secret to being boring is to say everything.”

He almost laughed out loud at her cheekiness. “Favorite quote of yours?” he asked, brows raised.

“Not mine. Voltaire’s. Maybe I’m doing this wrong.”

He gave her a lingering look. Silence was a virtue he welcomed in his female hookups in the past.Then why was he so pissed when she was being uncommunicative?

She took another sharp intake of breath.

“Can you please quit staring? Maybe I should try being a blabbermouth so you’d get bored sooner.”

He continued to study her, noting with growing fascination when her nipples grew rigid beneath the thin white t-shirt that she wore. He regarded her lush lips and reddened cheeks before meeting her eyes again.

He smiled as she frowned.

“Do you really believe that? Don’t tempt me to prove it otherwise,” he said lazily.

Her eyes widened. She wasn’t as unaffected as she would like him to believe. The rapid pulse at her neck beat in time with the rapid rise and fall of her breasts as she drew more air into her lungs.

“I hate you!”

“Careful. Hate is too strong an emotion to feel.”

“I wish to God I never, ever laid eyes on you.”

“Likewise,” he drawled.

“You use people and then discard them like trash. You just don’t care, don’t you? All you care about is money, money, money.”

“Stop pretending you don’t. Besides, why shouldn’t I? It makes the world go round.”

“It can’t buy happiness.”

“You’re probably aren't spending it right if it doesn't make you happy."

“I rest my case. You’re going straight to hell,” she mouthed.

“Hell is existential. It’s present where there is torment.”

“Then I must be stuck in one with the biggest tormentor of all.”

“Hmmm, must be hell for you to want your tormentor. Don’t worry,
bella
…you’re going to like my kind of torment.”

“Wow, your ego needs a zip code.”

He smirked.

“Confidence,
cara
. Not ego. I say it as it is. No frills. Only the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That you want me. Even if you dance around in circles convincing yourself this pull between us doesn’t exist .”

“That’s not true!” she vehemently denied.

“Your body can’t lie,
cara
. Not to me.”

“It’s just sex. I’m sure I can feel the same way with Chris—”

He continued to be impassive even if hearing Falcone’s name made him want to smash the football star’s face.

“You liked my touch. More than Falcone’s or any of those horndogs who vied for your attention. You want to be taken by me—hard and slow, for hours and hours. Proof? You gave yourself to me twice already.”

“You seduced me.”

“You like my kind of seduction.”

“Keep flattering yourself. Go on.”

Women fawned all over him, batting their eyelashes to catch his attention. This wasn’t the case with Jordana. She openly defied him. Which was contrary from what was written about her. The media hailed her as the ‘sweetheart’ supermodel—no airs, very professional and always a joy to work with, according to fashion insiders.

They must be talking about a different Jordana. Or her publicist must be really good.

The woman who sat beside him was one hundred percent vixen.

Instead of dousing his interest with her bitchiness, it turned him on big time.

“Why don’t you just accept that you’re as attracted to me as I am to you. Let’s enjoy the fire until it burns out.”

He silently groaned when he saw her tongue slip to wet her lips. Her amazing eyes sparkled with both outrage and desire.

Damn, that was hot!

“Don’t get too cocky, Vitale. This is nothing but a business deal. One month and I’m out.” She lifted her chin insolently, but the huskiness in her voice gave her away.

She unknowingly threw the gauntlet. He was always up for a challenge but he decided not to push too much tonight. There was always time to disprove her later. He had an entire month to do that.

The car stopped when they reached the villa, where his uncle was eagerly waiting for their arrival.

“We’re here,” he said as he climbed out of the limo first. He extended his hand toward her. “Time to earn your upkeep.”

If her eyes can throw poisoned
shurikens
, he’d be a dead man by now.

Challenge accepted.

He was the most arrogant, conceited man she had ever met!
She had met a lot of asshats over the years but compared to the billionaire, they were like harmless puppies.

She thought she knew how to handle men, having worked with some of the most beautiful male species on the planet and the most egoistic photographers in the business. She knew when to befriend them, when to stroke their egos, when to put her foot down and when to keep them at arm’s length. Several who were too forward or couldn’t take no for an answer were dealt with by Leandro with efficiency. Sometimes she simply took the classic female route—run away.

Until a Neanderthal named Lonzo Vitale came along and threw away all her carefully-built defenses, turning her into this wanton woman she could no longer identify with.

She eyed the strong, graceful hand that he’d extended toward her. She wanted to slap it away but she knew he’d make her pay one way or another. She was too tired and drained to fight him tonight. She took another deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment.

She was about to begin her month-long role as his…concubine. What an old-fashioned word for a kept woman, a mistress, a sexual vessel. It left a bitter taste in her mouth.

It doesn’t matter
, she told herself sternly.
It’s all over in thirty days.

She would let him have his way with her as he’d diabolically planned. She’d endure his hands on her, would let him kiss her into submission; allow him to possess her again and again with his sinuous, hard body.

A month of sex with him was but a small price to pay to save Leandro from financial ruin.

Only, she would be lying about the “enduring” part of the arrangement. Her body would continue to betray her. Damn her weak flesh.

Then I’ll hate him with my heart and mind
, she told herself.

His sardonic voice sliced through her musings. “Praying to the gods,
amore
?”

She opened her eyes and stared back at him angrily.

“I need all the divine help I can get. I’m about to embark on an month-long ordeal with the devil,” she retorted as she swung her long, graceful legs to let herself out of the vehicle.

The woman is
una strega
,
Lonzo thought as he watched his normally cantankerous uncle fall under her spell.

As soon as she stepped out of the limo earlier, all she did was flash that perfect smile that bagged her millions in endorsements to his poor uncle and by God, how his poor uncle never stood a chance. The woman had his Thio Fredo eating out of her hand.

The old man was charmed when upon introduction, she tried to say good evening in stilted Italian, kissing both his lined cheeks in Roman fashion. His notoriously aloof uncle fell for it, insisting that she call him “Thio” as he led her inside the villa.

Clearly, he underestimated her . She was able to keep up with the pretense as his charming ‘girlfriend’, even exuding what looked like lack of guile and warmth, fooling even his Thio.

He had to give it to her. The woman can take up acting after her modeling days were over. She might even win an Oscar or two.

“So, Lonzo tells me that the two of you met before the wedding,” he heard his uncle say over a late dinner of mostly Tuscan fare.

She gave him the briefest glance before switching her thickly-lashed amber eyes back to the old man. “Uhm. Yes. We were introduced.”

“He must have engineered the way for the two of you to meet again at Rocco’s wedding—” his uncle finished for her.

Thio Fredo was so wrong on that count.

Lonzo cleared his throat. “Actually, we can all thank Mel for that.”

Thio Alfredo’s dancing eyes met his across the dining table. “I knew it! You must have felt it when you saw her, didn’t you? That jot of electricity from
Cupido
.”

Lonzo frowned.
He said what?!
The dinner conversation was becoming bizarre.

She giggled before she openly laughed at Thio Fredo’s remark.

That was the first time he heard her laugh, and he too was enchanted.

“I’m sorry, Thio. Seriously? Cupid?” she smiled, really amused.

His uncle’s eyes turned soft as he looked at the two of them. “My father used to call it
colpo di fulmine
. Cupid’s strike.”

“I really don’t think Jordana would want to hear this—” he interrupted.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Do continue, Thio…” she insisted, paying him no heed.

“It’s what you will feel when you meet the special person which fate intended for you. It will feel like you’ve been hit by a big, fat bolt of thunder,” he said softly, like he was remembering something. A tender memory. “My father said that it doesn’t hit often. Just a lucky handful…”

“And when one gets hit, what will happen to the fool?” he can’t help but voice out a dig at his uncle’s theory on thunderbolts.

Jordana glared at him before urging the old man again, “Don’t mind him. He’s hopeless. So what will happen?”

His uncle, the old dog winked at her. “Then it’s the end of the search. They will be soul mates. The till-death-do-us-part kind.”

The look on her face was priceless. Her stunning eyes gleamed with wonder. Like a little kid who just heard her first fairy tale.

Really, she believed all that shit?

“So all it takes is one look and it’s game over? There’s your answer, Jordana. Lightning struck us according to Thio. Better get used to the idea of you and me,” he said sarcastically.

She whipped her head to him and in an instant, the wonderment was gone. Like it was never there in the first place. She just…shut off and this polite, ‘supermodel’ face was back on. Giving away nothing.

For a minute, he wanted to kick himself for being an ass.

Then she turned her attention back to his uncle and swiftly changed topics.

Then it dawned on him.

Delaying tactics. Extending dinner time would shorten his private time with her.

Figlio di puttana!
He almost got hoodwinked again!

He studied her intently as she continued to engage his relative into exposing his gullible innards to this beautiful, deceitful woman.

He smiled engagingly. Let the vixen think she was in control. He would pull the rug under her the moment she least expected it.

She plied Thio Fredo with more questions without totally ignoring the man
seated opposite her. Jesus. Who would have thought that acting as his besotted girlfriend would take this much work? Forcing herself not to glare at him was so taxing, it required more concentration than working on a huge fashion shoot in the middle of the Gobi desert.

“So all it takes is one look and it’s game over? There’s your answer, Jordana. Lightning struck us according to Thio. Better get used to the idea of you and me.”

For a while, she fantasized something like that could happen to…

Stop. Right. There.

He said that for his uncle’s benefit. Don’t fool yourself.

Besides, she didn’t miss the mockery in his voice.

What is wrong with you, girl? You’re too old to believe in kiddy tales and myths.

Maybe the notion of a Cupid Strike appealed to the romantic girl that she kept hidden for so long. Outwardly, if she didn’t know what he really was, he looked like a dashing hero. Albeit a dark, brooding one.