Claiming My Bride of Convenience

The first time she’d seen him smile for real her insides had melted as if she’d been injected with liquid sunshine. She had brought that smile out in him. She couldn’t even remember what she’d said, only that after hours of sidelong glances at each other throughout the wedding ceremony and the official photographs, she’d gone to the bar of the hotel the reception was being held in and suddenly the air around her had become electrified. She’d known before even turning her head that he’d come to stand beside her. Her tongue, usually so razor sharp, had tied itself in knots. Whatever she’d said in those first awkward moments had evoked that smile and in that instant all the awkwardness disappeared and it was as if they had known each other for ever.

And now he couldn’t even bring himself to look at her.

She had no idea how they were going to get through a weekend with his family, celebrating his grandfather’s ninetieth birthday, pretending to still be together.

* * *

Massimo watched an illuminated Rome disappear beneath the clouds and tried to clear the hot cloud that was the mess in his head.

When he’d agreed to speak at the engineering conference in London, it had made sense to fly to Rome afterwards and collect Livia en route. It had been logical.

He’d assumed that after four months apart, being with her again would be no big deal. He hadn’t missed her in the slightest. Not that there had been time to miss her with all the hours he’d been putting in. Without the burden of a hot-tempered wife demanding his attention, he’d been able to devote himself to his multiple businesses just as he had before she’d collided into his life and torn it inside out. The day she’d left, he’d bought himself the bed for his office which the mere suggestion of had so angered her. He’d slept in it most nights since. It was far more comfortable than the blanket on the sofa he’d used the nights he’d worked late and decided it wasn’t worth driving home.

He hadn’t anticipated that his blood would become hot and sticky and his hands clammy just to land in his home city and be under the same sky as her again.

And now that she was here, in the cabin of his plane, every cell in his body, dormant all this time apart, had awoken.

He could curse his logical mind. Why hadn’t he insisted she fly to Los Angeles, where he was scheduled to refuel, and board his plane there? He couldn’t have her fly all the way to Fiji separately from him—that would defeat the whole purpose of her being there—but he could have engineered things so they only had to spend a minimal amount of time on his plane together, not the full twenty-six hours it would take to travel to the other side of the world.

For the return journey he would fly with her to Australia and charter a plane to fly her back to Italy.

He’d listed all the excuses he could have made to avoid bringing her with him but it had all boiled down to one thing. This was for his grandfather, Jimmy Seibua. His terminally ill grandfather, who’d taken a cruise from Rome to Fiji with his family and an army of medical personnel in attendance and had arrived on the island three days ago. This weekend was all that had been keeping his grandfather alive, this one last visit to the homeland he’d left as a twenty-two-year-old the spark giving him the fight needed to beat the odds. Jimmy would celebrate his ninetieth birthday on the Fijian island of his birth, now owned by Massimo, with the family he loved. His grandfather thought of Livia as part of his family. He loved her as a granddaughter. His only regret at Massimo marrying her was that it meant he lost the private nurse who had tended to him with such care during his first battle with cancer.

And, whatever his own feelings towards his estranged wife, Massimo knew Livia loved Jimmy too.

‘Are you going to spend the entire flight ignoring me?’

Massimo clenched his jaw as Livia’s direct husky tones penetrated his senses, speaking their native Italian.

That was the thing with his wife. She was always direct. If she wasn’t happy about something she made damned sure you knew about it. For a long time the object of her unhappiness had been Massimo. Her declaration that she was leaving him had come as no surprise, only relief. Marriage to Livia had gone from being passionate and invigorating to being like a war zone. And she wondered why he’d spent so much time at work? The nights they had spent together those last few months had been with her cold back firmly turned to him. She’d even started wearing nightshirts.

He swallowed back the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat and finally allowed his gaze to fall on her properly.

The lump he’d tried to shift grew but he opened his mouth and dragged the words through it. ‘You’ve had your hair cut.’

Her beautiful thick, dark chestnut hair, which had fallen like a sheet down to her lower back, now fell in layers to rest on her shoulders in loose curls. It was lighter too, streaks of honey blonde carefully blending with her natural colour. Livia was not the most beautiful woman in the world but to his eyes she was stunning. It wa

s the whole package. A sexy firecracker with a dirty laugh. He’d heard that laugh echo through the walls of the church while they’d waited for his sister, the bride, to arrive and when he’d spotted the woman behind it he’d felt the fabric of his existence shift. He’d grabbed the first available opportunity to speak to her and had been blown away to discover she had a thirsty, inquisitive mind. He’d been smitten. In Livia he’d found the woman he’d never known he’d been searching for. Or so he’d thought.

Her dark brown eyes, always so expressive, widened before a choked laugh flew from her mouth. ‘That’s all you can think to say?’

She didn’t wait for a response; unbuckling her seat belt and springing to her feet.

She’d lost weight, he noted hazily.

Her kissable plump lips were tight as she stalked past him, the bathroom door closing sharply a moment later.

Massimo rubbed his jaw and struggled to get air into his closed lungs.

He hadn’t expected this to be easy but it was a thousand times harder than he’d envisaged.

Livia sat on the closed toilet seat and hugged her arms across her chest, willing the threatening tears back. She hadn’t expected this tumult of emotions to engulf her or for the ache in her chest to hurt so much.

She had shed enough tears for this man, so many she’d thought herself all cried out.

Massimo had never loved her. That was the truth she needed to keep reminding herself of.

But she had loved him. Truly, madly, deeply.