Her Sicilian Arrangement by Hannah-Lee Hitchman Read Free Book Online Page B

chosen to stay away for so
long; to avoid dishonouring him and shaming the morals and
principles of the Mussolini family.
    But
how could he show up there with a stranger? A journalist at that…he
had never been the type of person to bring females home, not even
when he had been a teenager. And his family had always been too
easy to jump to conclusions. There was something about Meagan
Summers that unmanned him and he felt as if he had to have her.
Therefore, ending his experience with her before it even started
was not a valid option. He had to come up with something whether
she was going to rip his head off or not. Marco moved into the hall
and then opened the door to the room that he had previously
appointed as hers. He stood in front of the door and welcomed
shocked eyes as she scrambled off the bed and grabbed up her blouse
to cover her bra-cladded breasts.
    She
stuttered a while before she managed to get out a few words. “Oh my
god! I—I know that it’s your yacht…but you could have—oh, I don’t
know— knocked !!”
    Marco spread his legs slightly apart and only looked at her.
“I apologize,” he then said. “Are you always like this?”
    “ Like what?” She pulled the blouse further around her
mid-section.
    “ Like a—like a…mad woman!”
    Meagan’s mouth opened in shock as his words punched her in the
face. “A mad woman? Wow…now, that’s a first. Thank you for your
opinion; tell me more,” she spat out sarcastically.
    “ Hush!” he said in a strong tone that frightened
her.
    She
bit her bottom lip and cocked her head. “What do you
want?”
    “ We
are going to my parents’ house first thing in the
morning.”
    She
smiled happily and then whistled joyfully. “Good. Then you can just
drop me off at the dock so that I can get back to my
hotel.”
    “You
are not listening, mia tesora . I
said ‘we’ and by that I mean, ‘you and I’.”
    “Ohh, no!” she began to argue. “I am not going to your
family’s house. Not if you chain me to one of your precious limos
and pull me behind it!”
    Marco could not help but laugh. What a stubborn woman! “I believe that you will. You see, I have
something that you want—undoubtedly, you have something that
interests me as well—so you have no other choice.”
    She
huffed at him and then sucked in her bottom lip in fury. “Am I
missing something here?” she argued, turning her back to him and
then pulled on her blouse and buttoned it quickly. “Because if I
am, please explain it to me.” She pointed a finger at him
accusingly. “ You promised
me a story.”
    “ And
I will keep that promise. You should keep yours as
well.”
    “ I
didn’t promise you anything!”
    “I
am a businessman, Meagan. A very successful one. I bargain boats
and prices almost every day… My end of the deal must be as sweet as
my customers’.”
    “ So
now I am one of your customers?” she added, comically.
    He
approached her dubiously and then stopped only a foot away. From
that breadth, she could feel the heat radiating from his body to
hers and his eyes were so very penetrating. Meagan swallowed
deeply, trying to control her breathing. Why was he so…perfect?
This man did not belong in reality. He was the picture-perfect
model of a ‘Prince Charming’ from those Mills and Boons and
Harlequin novels she had loved to read so much as a teenager. The
only thing was that she had never anticipated meeting a real life
hot-blooded Sicilian man who would be standing before her, as in
the moment, and staring at her as if she was like some fresh piece
of meat. It was simply not pragmatic in her dull sort of life.
Maybe if she was a beauty queen that would have been somewhat
rational. If she pinched herself, would she awake from this dream?
But did she want to wake up? No chance!
    “ Now…you are my sweetheart…as well as my future ‘significant
other’.”
    “ You
can’t be serious.”
    “ I
am. Marriage is a very important ceremony in my family. And