The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

‘And we tell the truth about Orla?’

The reminder of his father’s lies and deception acted like a bucket of iced water being thrown over his head.

Breathing heavily, he stepped back, cleared his throat and said gruffly, ‘Lies only unravel into a mess. Where possible, we stick to the truth. The only real deception will be in our intention to marry. Now, I have some business to wrap up before I can give you my undivided attention.

‘Your room is the last on the left.’ He pointed to the end of the wide corridor. ‘Get settled, explore, make yourself at home and in an hour or so we can have lunch.’

An hour would be ample time to shake off the heat flowing through his veins and get his concentration back to where it should be.

He would be spending all his time with Aislin over the next five days and could not afford to let this attraction take over his rationality.

Taking Aislin as his lover would be a complication too far, even if the heavy weight in his loins begged to differ.

Dio, he’d never reacted so strongly to a woman before. This was off all the scales.

He disappeared into his office.

Stunned at his abrupt departure, Aislin stared at the door Dante had closed sharply behind him, her heart beating so hard it felt as if it could burst through her ribs.

For a moment she’d thought he was going to kiss her.

Worse, her lips had tingled with anticipation of that kiss. More than her lips had tingled. Her entire body thrummed with an electricity that heated her core and had her fighting the urge to kick the door open.

Furious with herself, Aislin bit hard into her bottom lip.

She must stop imagining things. Just because she found him so attractive did not mean the feeling was mutual. And nor should she want it to be mutual.

This was Dante Moncada, Mr Love Them and Leave Them, the son of the man who had seduced her nineteen-year-old mother.

She would not be a bobbing meerkat for him. She would get control of this damnable attraction if it took her the entire time they were together.

CHAPTER FIVE

AISLIN’S TORTURED THOUGHTS were momentarily shoved aside when she opened the door to the room Dante had said was hers.

This was a guest room?

This must once have been an entire apartment. Inside it lay a four-poster king-sized bed, a walk-in wardrobe twice the size of her bedroom in Ireland, a huge flat-screen television and other electrical gizmos she didn’t recognise. Fresh flowers had been placed on all four windowsills and the leather sofa was a caramel colour, rather than the chocolate of his living rooms, making it marginally less masculine than what she had seen of the rest of his home.

She took a look in the private bathroom and found a humongous shower and a roll-top bath.

Aislin stood at the huge, gold-framed mirror and stared critically at her reflection.

Fingering a lock of her hair, she grimaced at the ends badly in need of snipping. When had she last had it cut? It had to be coming up to a year. She was lucky she’d been blessed with eyebrows that didn’t require upkeep otherwise she would likely resemble a werewolf.

When had she last worn make-up? Not since Orla’s accident. Vanity, like everything else in her life, had been forgotten about. She’d restarted her degree last autumn but, not wanting to study away from home this time round, had opted to finish it through distance learning. This allowed her to stay with her sister and nephew and be there to help them with whatever they needed.

What she would do with that degree when she was done she no longer knew. The life plan she’d mapped out for herself all those years ago belonged to a different Aislin.

She wrinkled her nose.

Three years of neglecting her appearance showed. No wonder she did nothing for Dante.

Presumably, her lack of glamour and ordinary looks would give weight to her being nothing like his usual lovers, she thought moodily. It had been nothing but a roundabout way of saying that he found her plain and unsexy.

She didn’t want him to find her sexy!

Dante was paying her a million euros to act as his fiancée. There was no point griping that it was being offered due to her ordinariness.