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Cristiano would gladly have sacrificed the sensational headlines Jensen had been generating in lieu of a more stable brand image, but he couldn’t deny the synergy between the plotline of the commercial they’d developed and the real-life drama of the face of his brand. The concept for the spot a house party being thrown by Jensen at her parents’ luxurious villa while they were out of town for the weekend. The Vitale villa, with its sumptuous, elegant interior and massive chandeliers, had been, much to Filomena’s dismay, used to film the spot.
As the sun slipped in a fiery ball behind the mountains, the director rolled the spot, which began with the aftereffects of the party filmed from outside the villa, with Jensen’s come-hither red dress strewn across one of the manicured hedges that lined the front walkway. As the camera panned inside the villa, partygoers were sprawled asleep on every available surface—chaise longues, reading chairs, the gleamingseminato alla venezianamarble floors—streamers and confetti covering everything, a partygoer even asleep in the historic fountain in the backyard.
As the camera panned through the elegant splendor of the villa, various guests began to wake up in a stupor. Then came a scene of Jensen passed out in a king-size bed in the master bedroom, her currentamantebeside her, a dream she was having playing in her head—her father advising her that they would be back on Sunday afternoon.No parties allowed.
At that moment, Jensen’s big dog, asleep beside them on the bed, nosed her awake, and she awoke in terror. Down the stairs she ran, clad in a flimsy piece of coffee-colored FV lingerie, over the gleaming marble, waking all of the partygoers in a frantic attempt to put the house back in order before her parents returned. Confetti and streamers were plucked from every available surface and tossed into bags, bottles swept into the trash and furniture shifted back to its customary position, just in time for her parents return in a sleek black helicopter.
It seemed as if she had actually managed to pull it off when her parents stepped through the Venetian glass front doors, her mother resplendent in a Pascal Ferrari suit. Until her eagle-eyed father spied a piece of confetti streaming from the massive chandelier in the entranceway, his eyes going black, and Jensen’s partygoing ways were revealed.
Laughter filled the crowd at the spot’s understated brilliance, a series of cheers going up for the director. Claudio took a bow, a beaming smile on his face. “Your idea to bring Jensen here was brilliant,” Antonio murmured, as the crowd held up a glass for Claudio. “She is focused. At her best. Everything I imagined she could be.Grazie mille, Cristiano.”
He wished he could say he felt the same. That he thought bringing Jensen here had been a good idea. Instead, he seemed to be more distracted with his wayward charge with every moment that passed. Watching her this past couple of weeks, he could see the consummate professional she was, completely at odds with her reckless behavior of late. The brilliant business brain she possessed. The dedication for the brand she exuded. Which had, apparently, been sideswiped by her insane schedule he’d taken charge of.
And perhaps that was all it had been. Perhaps she had simply been overwhelmed with everything on her plate, just as she’d said, and fallen back into old habits. Made some bad decisions. And perhaps, he conceded, that was simply what he wanted to believe, because he was starting to feel something for her. Something he didn’t want to admit. Something he’d wanted to pursue ever since that night in the kitchen.
He spotted her at the center of a group of models, dressed in Pascal’s outrageous, reckless glittering red dress. Halter-neck in style, it hugged her sensational body like a second skin, ending a few inches above the knee to show off her incredible legs. Done in a gauzy, semitransparent material, it did not take much of his imagination to envision her without it. Those decadent curves he’d explored in the kitchen.
They haunted him in his dreams. Visited him in his waking moments, too. He had the fatalistic realization they weren’t going anywhere. That whatever attraction had sparked between them that night in London, whatever he had told himself about ignoring it, fighting it wasn’t working. It was only making it worse. Because as unwise as it was, as irrational as he knew it to be, he wanted to know more of her. He wantedher.
His gaze met hers across the crowded garden, her hair a dark velvet curtain in the muted lighting, her eyes exotic ebony orbs framed by decadently long lashes, her honey-hued skin vibrant, as if lit from within. She was every bit the sparkling party girl depicted in the commercial. Every bit the wild card he’d pegged her. But she had far greater depth than anyone gave her credit for, complex, vulnerable depths that went way beneath the dazzling packaging to the intelligent, whip-sharp woman beneath. It intrigued him in a way that was approaching irresistible.
A moment passed between them, shocking in its intensity, a transfer of energy that rocked him back on his heels, it was so much bigger than both of them. He watched her almond-shaped eyes widen, before she swallowed hard, her slim throat constricting. And then her attention was claimed by someone in the crowd, and she turned and severed the connection, the regret that lanced through him tangible.
Jensen swallowed hard, attempting to absorb the energy that had passed between her and Cristiano, that had literally frozen her to the spot where she’d been standing, but the constriction in her throat was so seemingly immovable, she took a sip of her drink instead, the sparkling soda water infused with a splash of lime moistening her parched throat so that she could actually swallow.
She was exhausted from a sixteen-hour day on her feet. Back-to-back days of the same. It had taken them three hours to nail that final shot on the terrace, working against the clock as the light had faded, everything that could go wrong having gone wrong, blowing the schedule completely. Her feet were hurting in the killer five-inch heels and all she wanted to do was get out of the close-fitting dress and into her bikini, then head straight for the pool for a refreshing swim, which would make everything feel better.
Despite her mythical reputation, she was not in the business of stealing anyone’s future husband, of breaking up Italian dynasties or challenging Cristiano’s honor, not when the world already believed the worst of her. That she had been the catalyst behind Alexandre and Juliana’s royal breakup and the resulting calamity which had ensued. Destroying one national fantasy was enough for the calendar year. This one she would leave alone.
Making the requisite rounds of the party, thanking everyone who’d done their part to make the commercial a success, she slipped quietly out of the crowd as the party was beginning to break up and down to the pool house, where she changed into an orchid-pink bikini. Securing her hair in a high ponytail, she scoured her face clean of her camera makeup before padding outside to the spotlit pool, glittering a deep cerulean blue on a perfect Italian night, the only sound on the still evening air the peaceful trickle of the waterfall at the far end of the butterfly-shaped pool.
Dipping a toe into the cool, refreshing water, she tested the temperature before wading in, allowing the water to carry away the grime and hard work of the day and ease her sore muscles. Floating silently on her back, soaking up the paradise she was in, the scent of jasmine and peony filled her head, the sky a blanket of sparkling gold stars overhead. She was in a dreamlike, half-awake, half-asleep state when the sound of clinking crystal broke the silence.
Flipping over, she tread water, her gaze widening at the figure standing on the pool deck. Cristiano, clad in navy-blue-and-green-striped swim trunks, set a bottle of champagne and two glasses he was carrying down on the tiled surface of the pool deck. Her throat, already dry from the blazing heat, went to desert dust.
She’d worked all day with a famous male model who’d been sashaying around half-naked during the out-of-control house party they’d thrown, and not once had she looked twice at his lean, well-built body. Cristiano, however, was a whole different story. All hard-packed muscle, underscored by the perfectly cut walls of his abs, a delicious vee forged a descent to his lean, powerful hips. Which were accented by muscular, trim legs that had clearly logged a great deal of miles on the cross-estate run he did every morning. The ideal combination of brawn and stealth, innate grace, which allowed him to wear his beautifully cut clothes so perfectly.
Except he didn’t have many clothes on right now, she registered, her throat going even drier as she took in the low-slung dark swim trunks, which rode his lean, graceful hips. He wasinsane.Spectacular. Millie would be having a coronary right about now.
“You don’t usually swim at this time of night,” she managed, the words coming out as half sentence, half croak.
“You are supposed to alert someone when you are using the pool,” he stated in that low, husky, accent-affecting tone that sent goose bumps to every inch of her skin.
“Yes, well,” she prevaricated, “everyone was busy cleaning up from the party. I was just taking a quick dip.”
“It doesn’t change the rules.” She could see from the stern look on his face that he wasn’t kidding. And, given the rumors she’d heard about his parents’ untimely death on the famous lake a few hundred feet below them, she could understand the reasoning behind the autocratic set of rules he’d thrown at her upon their arrival.
Which left only his supreme arrogance as her source of antagonism between them, and that wasn’t holding up very well as the days had passed and she’d watched how hard he’d been working to make his dream for FV a reality. To systematically bring the vision he’d promised the world to life, all of the responsibility he bore to his family sitting squarely on his broad shoulders.
“Your parents died in a boating accident,” she observed quietly, as he uncorked the champagne and poured it into two glasses, the froth reaching up to the rims.
“When I was fourteen,si.” He carried the glasses to the edge of the pool, set them on the edge, then stepped down into the water, rivulets of moisture rolling off his hard-packed abs. What might have been a humiliating form of drool moistened her mouth.Good God. She swallowed it back. Lifted her gaze to his sapphire-blue one as he lounged back against the side of the pool opposite her. Which didn’t necessarily help, as she read the banked heat gleaming there, mirroring what was bubbling up inside of her at an alarming rate.
“That must have been very traumatic,” she murmured, determined to ignore it.Desperateto ignore it. To focus on more sobering things, such as the loss of his parents at such a young age, which must have had such an impact on him.
“It was...difficult.” A dark light flickered in his blue gaze. “But you weather it and move on. My grandparents needed me. My sister needed me. You do what you need to do.”
Which had been to protect his vulnerable young sister and eventually, to save the company his grandfather had founded. His legacy. Which once more underscored the impenetrable stuff this man was made of. Explained the rigid control with which he exerted that authority. The loyalty and duty that drove him.
