EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

“Let’s get married, Princess.”

Vincenzo Cavalli adopted his usual stoic expression but it didn’t come easily this time. Shock made it hard to pretend as if he’d been planning to say those words all along. As if they hadn’t erupted out of some place inside him he didn’t know existed.

Alessandra Giovanni – top supermodel and the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, froze in the act of pushing her hair back from her face, her expression arrested.

It was as if a circuit in his brain had shorted, bypassing years of unwritten rules he’d lived by. Every step in his life for the last twenty years had been planned meticulously, building towards a future he’d pictured for himself as a young boy denied everything – love, and basic security.

Every step dictated by his final goal - to take over Brunetti Finance International and nothing else. Every hour of every day - he’d poured sweat and blood into pulling himself up from poverty to claim his birthright one day.

Pursuing and tangling with Alessandra Giovanni had been part of that carefully crafted plan, as Alessandra was attached to all the Brunettis, especially the matriarch who had thrown his mother and him out to starve.

Asking her to marry him - no.

But now that the words had been out, he found he meant them. And not because he was an honorable man who kept his word at all costs.

Honor had been a luxury he couldn’t afford - like shoes or three meals when he’d been growing up on the streets of Milan.

Honor had no place in his life.

No, this was purely selfish. Maybe the first selfish, non-strategic thing he’d done in a long time. In forever, actually.

It was irrational and illogical, but the arrested look in Alessandra’s eyes, the quick flare of excitement she buried the next second, the flush of color dusting her cheeks as her chest rose and fell, the fast rush of blood in his own veins as he imagined facing the famed Brunettis with Alessandra at his side as his wife… this was right.

More than anything, he wanted Alex in his life.

The chemistry of their connection had taken him aback when he’d hunted her down to this perfect corner of Bali. Their instant attraction a useful tool he hadn’t counted on. But now that he had her, he wasn’t going to give her up.

As to the small fact of her being attached to the very family he’d been planning to destroy for close to a decade…he would persuade her to his side. Once he explained his reasons, Alessandra would take his side. She would understand his need to topple them all. Her sense of right and wrong, her championing for causes around the world, it was an innate part of her nature, a quality that added a dimension to his attraction to her.

He raised the glass of champagne in his hand while never breaking eye contact with her.

Clad in a sky blue bikini that hugged her up-thrust breasts like a lover’s caressing hands, she looked voluptuously beautiful. As a supermodel who had walked for most design houses across the world, her punishing fitness routine he’d expected. But the natural energy of the woman as she geared up to take on the world and its myriad injustices…it still amazed him.

The blue of the infinity pool they were standing in, the backdrop of Bali’s lush beautiful hills and valleys surrounding it couldn’t equal the breathtaking quality of Alessandra’s beauty. Hers was not simply the beauty of flawless skin, or perfectly symmetrical features or curves women would die for, though she possessed all that.

It was the imperfections, the quirks that made Alessandra Giovannis one of the most beautiful women in the world.

The gap between her front teeth, that fresh-faced, girl next door quality, the awkward, self-deprecating sense of humor, her mad obsession with the world of boxing, her incredible verve for life, the audacious drive to fix all the injustices of the world…

On paper, she’d been too good to be true, stoking Vincenzo’s curiosity into a wild fire.

In real life, she was magnificent, a force to reckon with and he’d stood no chance against her.

And then there was that wary vulnerability that innumerable magazines and countless photo shoots about her never captured.

It stared back at him now out of those bright eyes. That quality that had kept him awake the past few nights. Even with her warmth wrapped around him like a vine.

She’s innocent, the small part of his conscience that he hadn’t been able to silence, kept piping up. She might be hurt.

Not when he was making her a part of his life, he told himself. Not by offering her something he’d never even considered in his entire life. Not if he explained his reasons, not with her sense of right and wrong.

“Married?” she repeated, her tongue swiping over that plump lower lip that millions of women over the world tried to emulate with collagen. Her eyes widened in her gamine face. “Don’t mess around with me, V,” she said with a little laugh at the end. A rough, rasping sound that never failed to arouse him.

 A brave little effort to hide her emotions while the pulse at her neck fluttering madly betrayed her. Using that moniker she’d used that first day when they’d met like a shield against him. Against her own feelings.

This was what he liked about being with Alessandra - she was an open book, somehow having retained a genuine quality in a cutthroat world.

He finished his drink and dived headlong into the pool, his heart thundering loudly in his chest. When he reached her, he pulled himself out of the water, until her body was flush with his. Until her warm breath feathered over his cheekbones in perfect little strokes.

He pushed a wet clump of hair away from her temple, his fingers, as always, itching to touch her. Hold her. Possess her. “You should know by now that I don’t say things I don’t mean, Princess,” he said, pressing his mouth to her temple. He filled his hands with the dips and valleys of her waist, the hitch of her breath pinging over his nerves.

“Yeah?”

“Si, cara mia. The last few weeks have been…” he frowned, trying to locate the elusive word. He’d never lost himself in the sensuality of a woman as he’d done with her. He’d never lost his mind over a woman like this, period.

“Wonderful. Fantastic. Amazing,” she added in a breathless tone, a stark honesty in her voice that he was coming to count on more and more.

He laughed, the sound of it strange to his own ears. “All that. And I find,” he pulled her closer until their breaths melded. Until her arms locked around his neck. Until she sunk her long fingers into his hair and pulled his head down. Until their hearts beat against each other in a tandem harmony of need and want. “I’m not ready to let you go, cara. I don’t think I’d ever want to. So why not make it official?”

She let out a gasp. He could feel her trembling against him. “It’s crazy. These entire last few weeks have been crazy.”

“Crazy bad?” he added, a ball of something lodged in his chest. He’d never waited on an answer with such…gut twisting anticipation. All his adulthood, he’d manipulated things into working his way. He’d taken, instead of asking. Because he’d learnt early on that it was the only way he could have things. Now he disliked the feeling vehemently. Once he had her, he would never subject himself to it ever again, he promised himself.

“No,” she answered promptly. “Crazy good. Crazy fairytale-esque, almost. When I’m with you, I quite feel like the princess you call me. I…”

He waited. On a knife’s edge.

“But then I’ve never been bowled over quite like I was by you. I was just about ready to give up on men, in fact. And the world, even. When I was young, my mom would tell me this story of a girl rescued by a prince. And you…”

“I’m no Prince, Alessandra.”

She sighed and sank into his body, her face burrowing into his neck. Her teeth sank into his skin at the juncture of his neck. And his body reacted instantly, pressing against her soft belly. “It’s been magical. And no, I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to go back to real life.” Big eyes held his, penetrating in their intensity. “We don’t know everything about each other.”

“Is it enough to know that until I met you I’d never ever considered sharing my life with a woman, ever? Is it enough to know that the last few weeks have truly taken my life in a new direction? Is it enough to know that the future you confided in me you want is the one I want too?”

She looked up and all the hopes and dreams of the world seemed to be shining from her eyes. For a infinitesimal second, the intensity of that scared Vincenzo. Just for a second.

A wide smile turned her face into breathtaking beauty. “It is enough. Yes, V. Let’s do this. Let’s get hitched.”

Any lingering doubts Vincenzo had about whether it was right or wrong got swallowed up by Alessandra’s kiss. By the sweet taste of her lips, by the honesty urgency of her desire as she pressed up against him, as she whispered she wanted him right then and there.

Vincenzo devoured her mouth, his hands reaching for her hips and buttocks. Within seconds, he was inside of her, and that feeling of belonging filled every inch of his limbs. That feeling of peace that he had never known enveloped him as she took his mouth in a sweet kiss.

And for a man who’d never shared his life with anyone, who’d spent close to two decades on a strategic path, it felt like a benediction.

An invitation to a future he didn’t know he could have.

******