The Italian's Marriage Bargain. Carol Marinelli

nightmare.

      But there had been nothing childlike about the response it had triggered, nothing innocent in the way her body had responded to the mastery of his touch. And, sitting there, dejected, embarrassed and utterly, utterly humiliated, Felicity knew there was one final question that really needed to be asked—one awful answer to complete her despair, one more nail to bang into the coffin before she made her way back to her own room and attempted to salvage something from the wreck that last night had turned out to be.

      ‘Did we…?’ Felicity swallowed, cleared her throat, looked him in the eye and squared her shoulders, ready to face the world—or, more importantly, her conscience. ‘Did we do anything?’

      ‘We talked,’ Luca clipped. ‘Or rather you talked and I listened.’

      ‘I’m sorry if I bored you.’ He didn’t reciprocate her tight smile, made no attempt to elaborate further, and it was left to Felicity to pursue this most shameful line of conversation. ‘So, if all we did was talk, how did I end up minus a dress?’

      ‘When we first came back to the room I ordered some strong coffee. I was hoping it would sober you up. It might have worked had you not spilled it. Your dress is down with Housekeeping.’ He put her out of her misery then, and if Felicity had looked up she’d have seen a surprisingly gentle smile soften his stern features. ‘We didn’t make love, if that’s what is concerning you; though since you choose to bring up the subject…’

      ‘I didn’t,’ Felicity argued, but of course Luca ignored her.

      ‘Since you bring up the subject,’ he repeated, his husky, deep voice halting her protests, ‘had we made love, you most certainly wouldn’t need to be reminded of the fact. When I make love to a woman I can assure you she has no trouble remembering the occasion!’

      Shooting a glimpse from under her eyelashes, Felicity knew, as arrogant and presumptuous as his statement sounded, he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. There was nothing unforgettable about him—not a sliver of him could be labelled dispensable—and, however reluctantly, there and then Felicity had to admit that a night being made love to by a man as effortlessly sensual as Luca Santanno would be a night no woman could even pretend to forget.

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘For what?’

      Felicity swallowed hard. Still she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘For not taking advantage.’

      ‘Believe me, it wasn’t difficult.’

      Ouch!

      ‘So we definitely didn’t?’ Felicity checked unnecessarily, her cheeks positively flaming now.

      ‘We definitely didn’t. I happen to prefer my women conscious.’

      Felicity chose to ignore that particular little gem and, blinking a couple of times, felt what was suspiciously like relief start to flood her veins.

      Things were still salvageable!

      Okay, staying out all night wasn’t going to go down particularly well with Matthew, and undoubtedly she’d have to omit to mention exactly whose bed she’d awoken in—after all, Luca was effectively Matthew’s business partner—but the fact she hadn’t slept with Luca offered at least a temporary reprieve. She would get her things and get the hell out, with hopefully no damage done.

      Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her hair away from her eyes and flicked it back, forcing a tiny smile as she caught Luca still staring at her, even attempting to inject a flash of humour into this rather unusual situation.

      ‘Whoops!’

      He didn’t smile back, just rolled over sideways, propping himself on his elbow, and resumed his blatant stare. ‘Whoops?’ he said in a very low, very sardonic drawl.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Felicity ventured again, the watery voice now replaced by her more confident tones. ‘You see, I don’t normally drink—well, not spirits. The occasional glass of wine I enjoy…but as for spirits, well I don’t even like the taste. I just had a couple for courage, you know.’

      He shook his head and Felicity gave a small shrug. ‘I’m sure someone like you doesn’t need any help in the courage department.’

      ‘I wasn’t aware you had been drinking.’ His words confused her, and she frowned as he continued, wondering if somewhere along the line she had misinterpreted him, if his English was really less fluent than it first appeared. ‘Just how much did you have last night?’

      ‘Two vodka and oranges.’ Felicity pulled a face. ‘And if this is what it does to me I’m glad that I don’t normally drink. How could people do this for pleasure?’ She was starting to ramble, the words spilling out from her mouth like a runaway train. She wished Luca would smile, look away, shrug, even—anything rather than stare at her with that slightly quizzical superior look.

      ‘You really think that two vodka and oranges could have that effect?’ he asked finally, but when Felicity opened her mouth to speak Luca got there first, his eyes never leaving her face, watching every flicker of reaction as his words reached her. ‘Do you still not realise that your drinks were being spiked?’

      ‘You spiked my drinks?’ Startled, she went to stand, but Luca let out a hiss of indignation, flicking one hand in a derisive Latin gesture and muttering something in Italian that Felicity assumed wasn’t particularly complimentary, as realisation with the help of a few extremely hazy recollections, finally dawned. ‘Matthew spiked them.’

      The surge of anger that welled inside her didn’t bode very well for the pounding drums in her head, and Felicity screwed her eyes closed as she grappled with this latest vile flaw in Matthew’s personality.

      Confirmation, if ever she needed it, of just how low Matthew would stoop to get what he wanted. The clanging gates of the prison door banged ever more loudly as she further realised the murky depths of his personality. Proof that the extreme lengths she was taking to curtail him were necessary.

      Very necessary.

      ‘My staff alerted me to what was going on,’ Luca went on, but Felicity was only half listening—too busy concentrating on her awful predicament to concern herself with small details. ‘You will remember I was actually sitting at the next table to you?’

      ‘Mmm.’ She gave a small shrug, a vague shake of her head, but as her blush came back for an encore Felicity knew she wasn’t fooling him. The earlier part of the evening was still fairly fresh in her mind, and six-foot-four of Latin good looks at the next table certainly hadn’t gone unnoticed—even with a rather over-attentive Matthew at her side. The white-hot look that had passed between them when their eyes had met last night was scorched with aching clarity onto her mind, but she certainly wasn’t about to inflate Luca’s ego by admitting it.

      ‘You ordered the non-alcoholic summer berry beverage that was on the menu; in fact you ordered three of them.’

      ‘Yes, but like I said I had those wretched vodkas, and then there was wine with dinner…’

      ‘Well, what you actually got was a questionable version of a strawberry daiquiri—and, more pointedly, three of them. Your partner made his way to the bar each time you ordered and told the bar staff you’d changed your mind. He also made very sure that he got a different member of staff each time, and it wasn’t until he tried to change your order for the fourth time that one of the other staff overheard him.’

      Felicity ran a hand through her hair, furious with Matthew, but more importantly furious with herself for not realising what was going on, for being so naive as to think that the illicit two drinks she’d partaken of earlier could have had such a huge effect. But her fury was starting to take a new direction now. It was all very well for Luca to take the high moral ground, all very well for him to dictate how his guests behaved, to dash in uninvited and play the proverbial knight in shining armour, but he didn’t know the circumstances—Luca didn’t realise just how significant last night had been for her and, more importantly, her father. She wished Luca