Hired:The Italian's Bride

She stared at his back, trying to puzzle it out but not getting very far. Perhaps she was just raw from everything that had happened. What if these feelings were just a byproduct of a process she should have gone through years ago? It would be foolish to make this into more than it was, and Mari was smart enough to know her perspective was skewed.

“You’re categorizing.”

Luca’s voice reached her. He hadn’t turned back around, but stared out into the growing darkness.

“I can practically hear your mind working, Mari. Please don’t. Just let things be.”

Mari rose and went to the window, standing behind him. She wasn’t sure anything would be the right move, so she simply did what she felt like: she put her arms around his body and pressed her cheek into the warmth of his back.

Luca swallowed against the lump that had formed in his throat. Anything he’d gone through as a child was nothing, nothing compared to the hell that Mari had experienced. He tried to picture her on a floor, battered and bruised, and couldn’t. It seemed too wrong, too horrific. What sort of man did that to another human being? To a woman he was supposed to love?

And yet, here she was, somehow comforting him.

“It’s snowing,” he murmured. Soft flakes fluttered past the balcony railing, settling on the ground in intricate patterns. He was reminded of his grandmother’s lace and wondered what she’d think of this mess he’d got himself into.

Why was it that people hurt the ones they were supposed to love? He knew he couldn’t let Mari do this alone, yet it brought back memories he hated, ones of comforting Gina when their mother had abandoned the family. Nonna had always been there to help. What would she say now, if she could be here?

He knew exactly what she’d say and he didn’t like the answer. She’d tell him to stop holding a grudge and forgive.

Mari sighed against his back and he closed his eyes. What a day they’d had. He was glad now that he had handled Reilly the way he had. If this was what Mari was carrying deep inside, a physical response would have only frightened her more.

Today he’d thought only of Mari. And that wasn’t good.

Mari did not need a man like him. She needed someone she could rely on. Someone who could give her stability and security and make a home with her. She’d even mentioned it, the longing for a home and children. That wasn’t his life, it never had been. He’d always been the Fiori heir, the one everyone assumed would step into his father’s shoes one day. And he kept fighting against it.

He looked at the reflection of the suite in the glass doors. There was nothing personal here, no pictures, no trinkets, nothing to make it a home and that was how he lived his life. It was what it was. It was the world he inhabited.

He’d forget about her, eventually.

But with her arms around him, the only thing he wanted to do was lift her in his arms and hold on.

And he’d come as close to admitting his feelings as he ever would.

“Stay tonight, Mari.”

Her head lifted from his back and it felt cold where it had been warm a second ago.

“Luca, I…”

“Not in my bed.” For once in his life this had nothing to do with sex. He turned, wanting her to understand how he couldn’t say the words. “Just…stay. I’d only worry about you if you went home. You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“What you did for me today, Luca, no one’s ever done anything like that for me before. I can’t impose on you further.”

“You’re not imposing.”

For a long moment their gazes clung. Words hung unspoken.

“Wait here.”

He disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a T-shirt. “I don’t have pyjamas to lend you.”

She took the T-shirt. “Thank you.”

She disappeared into his room, and he heard the bathroom door shut behind her. When he didn’t hear anything after several minutes, he decided he should check on her.

She was in his bed, the duvet pulled up to her chin. Her blotchy cheeks were relaxed and her eyelashes were smudges against her cheeks. She’d fallen asleep before he could even ask if she was hungry.

He’d let her sleep. And when she woke he’d make sure she was all right.

And then, somehow, he’d find a way out of this mess.

Mari woke to sunlight filtering through the bedroom window. Pushing her hair out of her face, she realized she was in Luca’s bed, the smell of his cosmetics faint in the sheets and sounds of him tinkering in the suite filtering through.

She’d spent the night. And she hadn’t given a thought to going home or to Tommy…she could only hope he’d used the dog door on the porch.