The Playboy's Fugitive Bride (23 page)

He brushed his knuckles along her cheeks.  “Well, Miss Sylk, I feel very honored that you allowed me to cop a feel.  A few of them,” he added on a smile.

She may not have done it with anyone before, but Massimo was certain Nia was used to pleasuring herself.  She was perfectly aware of the pot of climatic gold waiting at the end of her ride down his rainbow.  It was not her first orgasm, but it was her first brought on by a man.  He couldn’t wait to teach her how to achieve deeper depths and higher heights of passion.

Massimo was suddenly into virgins.  And he’d be
in
one soon.

“Well,” she said, as if reading his mind, “you… you should go back to your meeting.”

Sure, just use me then kick me out
.  He wanted to say to hell with the meeting and go home with her, finish this thing she’d started.  But he knew making love to her wouldn’t be enough to convince her to marry him.  He still had to back her into a corner.  “You’ll probably be asleep by the time I get home.  Do you still want me to stay out of your bed,
cara
?  Or should I wake you so we can pick up from here?”

Her lips parted, but she said nothing.

Massimo knew she would not answer, could not, since she wasn’t planning on being there when he did get home.  All doubts about her not feeling well were gone.  And if she were on her period, his shirttail would have been stained.

In a few hours, they would be sharing a bed.  He would be buried deep inside her while she was having her second orgasm, or her third or fourth—depending on the limit of his control.

She glanced out the window as the church bell began to chime out the hour.  “I so like that,” she said, grinning.  “I don’t hear that in New York City.”

“Yes, it is a quaint custom, but it gives you a homey feeling… which reminds me, how do you feel about church?”

She narrowed her eyes in confusion.  “Why?”

“Bryce and Kaya’s twins are being christened on Sunday and they asked me to be godfather.  I’d like you to accompany me to church.  Then we’re going to their home for lunch.”

“Do you attend church regularly?”

He shrugged.  “Not as often as I should, but if you have something against God and all things religious, I understand.”

“I don’t have anything against God.  I like Him, actually.”   She gave him a half smile.  “I used to attend church with my parents when I was little.”

“So, is that a ‘Yes’?”

“Yes, I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll let them know you’ll be accompanying me.” 
As my wife
.   That much he was certain of.  “Good night, Nia.”  Placing a quick kiss on her forehead, Massimo stepped out of the limo and sucked the cold night air into his lungs in an effort to bring his senses back to normal.

He signaled for John who’d sought refuge from the cold inside the center.  “Take her home and return pronto,” he said, very much aware of the uncomfortable look on his driver’s face.  John had been a trusted chauffeur for the Andretti family for several years.  Between him and his father, the poor man had been subjected to more embarrassing situations than he could count.  But thanks to one very sexy, exceptionally beautiful young woman, all that was about to change.  His playboy days were really over.  If he wasn’t certain of it before, Massimo was absolutely certain now.

As the limo disappeared from view, Massimo walked back into the center and made his way back to the conference room.  He knew that for Nia, that passionate encounter was ‘Goodbye’.  She’d wanted to make love so she would have something to remember him by.

He’d offered her the world, not as his lover, but as his wife, and she had turned him down.  He didn’t think there was a woman alive who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be an Andretti wife.

And now the one woman in the world whom he needed to marry within the week and bear his heir within a year was running away from him, claiming that it was because of his infamous reputation with women.  Massimo knew it was much more than that, especially after what had just transpired between them.  There was a war going on inside her—her head saying one thing and her body saying another.

She was acting as if they had a history.  If they did, it was lost with the others prior to the time the rhino attacked him.  He couldn’t even remember the actual attack, just the moments before it, and then the sensation of being dragged along the ground.  It wasn’t until weeks later when he’d awakened from a coma that he learned Jabari had dragged his bleeding body back to the Masai village.  Neither therapy nor a series of neurological treatment had helped in restoring all his memories.  His doctors had told him some might return if his mind was jogged by something or someone associated with them.

Could it be that he’d met Nia just before he left for Africa?  Had he done something to hurt her?  If that was the case, she would have been a teenager, still in high school, and far too young for the kind of female relationships he sought back then.  There was only one answer: he must have hurt someone close to her, perhaps a relative.  Perhaps money was involved and she’d tracked him down to seek revenge, steal back what he’d stolen.

How?  How had he hurt Nia?  Where had he seen her before?

Massimo halted in his tracks as an image began to form in his mind.  He closed his eyes, and tried to will the memories back to life. 
A silver-plated picture frame, a navy blue khimar, soft brown eyes gazing out at him through the tiny slits…
 
Darkness surrounded him and those eyes, those eyes were his light, his guide…

“Hey, Andretti.”

Massimo swore as the image dissolved into mist.  He opened his eyes and hastily pulled his scattered thoughts into order.

“Where the hell have you been, man?” Bryce asked, walking towards him.  “You got a text and disappeared.  They’re eating me alive in there.”

“Nia isn’t feeling well.”

“Sorry to hear that.  Is she gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”  He flared his hand in the air.  “Just a little stomachache.  She’ll be fine.  I just needed to see her to the car.”

Bryce looked him over suspiciously.  “And it took you half an hour to do that?”

“Have you seen my fiancée?   You don’t just place a woman like that into a limo and close the door.  You go in with her and say goodnight properly.”

Bryce chuckled.  “I hear you, man.  I’ve been married for a year now and every night I still give my wife a proper goodnight.”

“I hope I can say that in a year,” Massimo stated, as they began walking.

Bryce’s forehead crinkled.  “Look, Mass.  I probably shouldn’t butt into your business since I married Kaya within a couple weeks of meeting her, and none of you were here to at least try to talk me out of it.”

“You probably wouldn’t have listened to us, anyway.”

Bryce shrugged.  “Probably not.  However, as your friends, we have the right to be heard.”

Massimo spread his hands in compliance.

“The boys and I are a bit concerned about your rash decision to marry a woman you don’t know.  At least I knew of Kaya’s existence before I met her.  She was practically family.”

“Your concerns are valid, Bryce, but unnecessary, nonetheless.  I have it under control.” Massimo hoped his friend would drop it, but knew he won’t.  Like he said, they were friends, and that’s what friends did—butted into each other’s business whether you wanted them to or not.

“I’m sure you do, but I’m just saying, you met this girl, took her to the Andretti mansion—the one place you’ve never taken any other woman, then the next day you announce your engagement.  Don’t get me wrong, I mean she seems nice and she’s gorgeous, and you’d have to be a fool, blind, or dead from the waist down to not want to have a relationship with her.  But marrying a stranger?  How do you know your brother didn’t send her to spy on you?  And you know we don’t believe that story she told us about the way you met,” he added with a skeptical edge to this voice.  “So what’s the real story?”

Massimo smiled as he recalled the ridiculous story Nia had told when he’d introduced her to his friends.  She thought fast on her feet.  That was good.  “I had the same suspicions when Nia approached me, Bryce.  She has no ties to Galen.  However, I couldn’t pass up her proposition—”

“She approached you with a proposition?  What does she want from you?”

“I can’t tell you that, but I can say that I’m happy we met, and just in the nick of time.”

“So it’s really all about your inheritance?  You swore a long time ago that you’d never get married because of—you know, the Andretti curse.  You built your own empire, free of Andretti money so you wouldn’t have to bend to your father’s demands.”

Massimo grimaced.

“You obviously changed your mind when you asked Gabrielle to marry you, but when that fell through, we thought you’d finally given up on trying to keep Andretti Industries.  But now I can’t help wondering, like everyone else, if you called off your wedding to Gabby because you’d met Nia.  She isn’t really pregnant, is she?”

Massimo shook his head.  “No.  One has nothing to do with the other, and no, Nia isn’t pregnant.” 
Yet
.  “But yes, marrying her has everything to do with my inheritance.  I never told you, but Dafne offered to marry me after Gabby and I broke up.”

“You’ve known Dafne all your life, and she’s an attractive woman.  A good friend with-benefits-kind of thing.  Why didn’t you accept
her
proposition?”

Massimo chuckled cynically.  “Oh, I did, but she wanted my Italian balls on a platinum platter, literally.  She had stipulations of her own,” he added, as they turned a corner.  “My heir was to be conceived by artificial insemination.  And three years with no sex wasn’t appealing to me.”

“Ouch!”

“My sentiments exactly.  I would have gone along with it just to hold on to the mansion. But then Nia showed up and provided me with an alternative.  And I know you pointed out that she’s a stranger, but I had her thoroughly investigated, just as I’m certain you had Kaya investigated before you married her.”

Bryce gave him a sheepish grin.  “All right.  We’re not stupid men.  We don’t jump into situations with our eyes closed.  Point taken.”

Massimo nodded.  “Nia came highly recommended.  Her colleagues only have good things to say about her.  She’s never even had a traffic violation, but,” he added rushing his fingers through his hair, “there are things about her that concern me.”

Bryce quirked an eyebrow.  “Like what?”

“I feel that we’ve met before, and that the memory is lost with the others I have trouble recalling.  But she swore we hadn’t met.”

“And you’re still going through with the marriage?”

Massimo shrugged.  “I’m a desperate man, Bryce.  What can I say?  I need her.  I don’t think she’s dangerous.  I feel that she’s in danger, though.  I feel I need to protect her.”

As they came to a stop outside the conference room, Bryce placed his hand on Massimo’s shoulder.  “You know you don’t have to marry her to protect her, right?  But the heart wants what the heart wants, I suppose.”

“I’m not in love with her.  I just thought that if I have to marry for money, why not marry for sex?  She’s a means to an end.  That’s all.”  His heart kicked him in the ribs.

Bryce laughed out loud.  “That’s the same bull crap I told myself when I married Kaya.  Take my advice—just go with your heart.  It’ll save you a whole lot of pain down the road.”

I’m already in pain
, Massimo thought to himself as he opened the door to the conference room and stepped inside.

* * *

As the limo took off, Nia drew her legs up under her and let the tears she’d been holding back fall.  She would never forget the feel of his firm lips on hers, his strong arms wrapped about her, the taste of his warm breath in her mouth, or the restless tingling of her skin from the magical touch of his fingertips.  She’d felt excitement and anxiety all in the same breath as she abandoned herself to the spurts of awakening desire.

Her craving for him had superseded everything else: her senses, her dignity, her morals.  She didn’t know that passion could drive her so insane that she cared about nothing else, not even that they were in a limousine in a public place with the driver and strangers standing around outside.  She’d wanted one thing, and one thing only: for Massimo to put out the fire burning her up from the inside.  Just once, she wanted to know what it would be like to be taken by the man she loved.

Nia wrapped her arms about her body.  She felt like a traitor for succumbing to Massimo’s sex appeal.  Her father must be turning over in his grave.  She pressed her hands into her stomach as a sharp familiar pain ripped through her midsection, signaling the onset of her ovulation.  Another reminded that she should be grateful Massimo hadn’t granted her request to make love to her.  She was sure he didn’t have any condoms on him and the last thing she needed was an Andretti in her belly.

Her father would not appreciate her mixing her bloodline with the Andrettis since it was an Andretti who had brought him to financial ruin and who was responsible, albeit indirectly, for his death.   If it was one thing the Norwoods were it was loyal to each other.

“Family must always come first
,
”
her father used to tell her. 
“Family takes care of family, no matter what.”

It was loyalty that had given her the courage to snatch Aaron from his foster home and run.  It was loyalty that had given her the strength to look after him, raise him from a boy to a man.  It was loyalty that had driven her to Granite Falls to save his life.

She’d saved him five years ago, and she would save him again tonight as soon as she got out of Granite Falls.

Massimo had made it so easy, she thought as the limo climbed up Andretti Drive.  She’d been at her wits end in the bathroom, trying to figure out how to convince John to take her back to the estate without alerting Massimo.  She’d hoped that when she told him she wasn’t feeling well, he’d just comply with her wishes.  And just in case Massimo was summoned, she knew he would not have argued with her in front of his driver or anyone else who might have been present.  She’d been prepared to make a scene if she had to.