The Unwanted Conti Bride (The Legendary Conti Brothers) by Tara Pammi Read Free Book Online Page A

forging for himself.
    Ten years ago, with Sophia. She’d been the first real thing in his life and he had let himself be carried away.
    Sophia was the only one who’d ever made him forget himself, who had shredded his control so effortlessly.
    For all his reputation as a self-indulgent playboy, control was tantamount to his peace of mind. It was something Leandro and he had rigorously worked on in those initial months after their mother had left. He’d spent hours on the mat mastering several martial arts disciplines.
    He had an example from his father’s life. He knew that like everything else he’d inherited from him, he could carry a speck of that madness—that devious, manipulative, cruel streak, too.
    Control was everything to him.
    Stepping out of the shower, Luca walked to the mirror and rubbed it to clear the steam. Hands on the marble sink, he stared at himself.
    He looked past the compelling perfection of his features—a face he’d hated for so long—past the now bone-deep mask he showed the world. He had never lied to himself. Self-delusion would have been a welcome friend in all those miserable years.
    He was doing this because of Sophia.
    He was doing this because he wanted these three months with her.
    He wanted to be near her, inside her. He wanted to unravel all the fiery passion she kept locked away.
    He wanted to free her from the cage she put herself in; a cage, he was sure, he’d driven her into building.
    But this time Sophia knew the score, knew what he was incapable of. She wasn’t an innocent who mistook attraction, pure lust for anything else. This was not a marriage like his parents’.
    Sophia wasn’t some innocent, painfully naive young girl Antonio had handpicked like some sacrificial offering to his father’s madness, to further the Conti legacy like his mother had been.
    Sophia would never let herself be intimidated or drowned in Luca’s personality.
    The panic in him calming, Luca breathed out. Excitement filled his veins now.
    For the first and only time in his life, the self-indulgent, profligate playboy he’d made himself to be was going to take what he truly wanted. And revel in it.
    That he would set Sophia up for the rest of her life and do his part to protect Tina’s marriage, that was the bonus.
    * * *
    Meet me @ Palazzo Reale Monday 10AM.
    Don’t wear black. J
    The texts came on Saturday night at seven, a whole week after Luca had cornered Sophia at CLG offices. They also sent her soup down the wrong pipe at the dinner table.
    Heart pounding, half choking, Sophia had escaped her family’s curiosity.
    She’d spent the week on tenterhooks. Wondered if she’d imagined the whole episode, if she’d somehow deluded herself into believing that the Conti Devil had proposed marriage.
    When she saw Antonio come up toward Rossi’s offices, she’d mumbled something to her team and skipped out like a thief.
    Her reply— Why? —had gone unanswered. Which meant she’d spent half the night pacing her bedroom, and the rest of it thrashing in her bed.
    Monday morning she stood on the steps of the centuries-old building, trying to ignore the curious looks from people coming and going.
    She ran a nervous hand over her dress, her only nonblack slightly dressy dress. It was a sort of muddy light brown made of the softest linen. Over it, she wore a cream cashmere cardigan to ward off the slightly chilly November air.
    With cap sleeves, the dress had been an impulse purchase months ago. It boasted a false buttoned-up short bodice, then flared out into a wide skirt from high above her waist.
    The saleswoman had assured Sophia it made her look tall and graceful.
    A quick glance in her mirror this morning told Sophia she looked neither tall nor graceful. Nothing could create the illusion when she was two inches over five.
    But the thing that had made her groan was that the dress, which had fitted neatly, now sort of hung on her. Like a tent. She’d slipped her feet into five-inch purple